Of Fable and Folklore : Friday The 13th

If there is something that I love. It would be superstitions. I simply adore them. I don't live by them, I don't preach or teach them to others. I just like to know, they happen to make great conversation starters.

I thought I'd talk a little bit about something I mentioned in my other post. Friday the 13th.
Now I personally consider the fact that most people find the Friday the 13th unlucky or cursed, it has to be the luckiest day of the year. Since most are so terribly cautious it's probably a very safe day. According to The National Geographic this day actually affects 17-21 million people each year. The article was published 6 years ago but I doubt the numbers have changed. The fear of the day is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia according to my book on Phobias. Easy for me, because the entire bloody word is Greek. Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) means Friday and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) means the thirteenth and of course phobía (φοβία) means fear. (Is anyone getting a flash back to the intro of My Big Fat Greek wedding?) So we put that together as Paraskevi Dekatreis Phobia. It just rolls off of the tongue. Check out Wikipedia in startling accuracy on the pronunciation. Fear of Friday the 13th.

Now then. Friday the 13th. Why is it so feared? Why does it matter?
Surprisingly, this particular day has a lot of history. In Norse Mythology, 12 Gods reside in Valhalla one night for a dinner party. Loki, a mischeif maker was the 13th guest. True to his name of mischief making, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the goddess of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Hoder hits the beautiful goddess and she dies. The world was shrouded in darkness and the earth mourns.
Christians see a connection with the 13th apostle Judas, as he was the one who betrayed Jesus and was also the 13th guest at the Last Supper.
In ancient Roman history, witches gathered in groups of 12 to do their witchy business and the 13th person that joined was assumed to be the devil.
There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. With expectations like these, it's not hard to see why 13 isn't a very welcome number.

Now what about Friday? That's also a very biblical day. The day Jesus was crucified was documented to be on a Friday, Eve tempted Adam with forbidden fruit on a Friday, The Flood in the Bible occurred on a Friday and Abel was slain by Cain on Friday the 13th.

A really unfortunate Friday the 13th was during 1306, when King Philip of France arrested the Knights Templar and began torturing them to confess to heresy, which marked that particular day cursed by the devil himself. Not even ten years later, as the last Grand Master of the Templar, Jacques de Molay died and he cursed the name of King Philip and the reluctant Pope that was urged into the downfall of the Templar, both king and Pope died within the following year, what a surprise!

In Britain, both Friday and the number 13 were relatively close for other factors. Friday was a day for public hangings and there were 13 steps leading to the noose.

Do we see the effects even today? Definitely.
More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor.
Many airports skip the 13th gate.
Airplanes have no 13th aisle.
Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.
Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.
Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.
Many who fear simply the number 13 point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.

So our poor Friday the 13th is merely predicted to be a bad day. With so much under it's belt, so much infamy it's no wonder that people assume things will go wrong on this day. How can you avoid this bad luck? Besides thinking that Murphy's Law has something to do with it? When having a party, be sure that a 14th party guest is prepared at all costs, like in France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) were the 14th guest to keep a dinner party from an unlucky or unfortunate fate.

Don't think about the number as being bad, the easiest remedy to fore go the unease of the 13th is treat like any other number, which it is because doing that is so much simpler than going on top of a skyscraper and burning all the socks that have holes in them and doing a hand stand eating gristle which are both recommendations in folklore to avoid bad luck.

Everyday I fight this f e e l i n g

A Great Perhaps.

Maybe all I'm looking for is new scenery. A blank ticket that would allow me to go anywhere. To forget my partially wasted childhood. For those first few years of highschool, I lived, I really tried but talking to a random woman in hard times said to me "You're a baby, no offense, just twenty, you've hardly lived life."

I get frustrated at thinking how right she is. An entire year ago I had been the happiest in my life and I feel myself slowly falling into the monotony of my life AGAIN. I can't seem to hold onto my happiness. I can't seem to catch a break in that way. It upsets me that when I actually think about something and calculate possibilities, nothing wants to work for me.

What have I ever had and what have I lost?
I have a family, and I have a home. I'm already bloody spoiled just by typing those words. I have an amazing best friend, too. That is a luxury all by itself that right now, it's impossible to indulge in.

What have I lost? My inspiration. I want so badly to be back in school. I lost my friend all those years ago who slipped silently into a cold abyss, and I lost a chance to say my final farewell to someone who hasn't even died but they might as well be to me and I truly wonder if I had been different all those years ago would it change anything. Had I been more confident? Thinner? Less nationalistic? Would any of it matter where I am now.

All I know is that I feel like I'm bursting with the feeling that I'm missing something. Something is happening, passing me by and I can't grasp it. I feel very sick. I don't know why. I have a 10 hour shift tomorrow/today in 8 hours, and again on Monday and Tuesday and then on Friday, I work all week from then on. I have worked for 12 days straight. I have spent 45 hours of the last week out of the possible 168 hours on my feet and then 5 hours from the past week of work simply waiting.
168 hours. I have not slept this week. Instead I read. I read Looking for Alaska by John Green, I read The Zombie Survival Guide, I read The Nutrition Diet (and I feel like swearing off of food forever) I also spent a few hours reading the One Piece manga, because lets face it, even when reading manga you need to remember the better times.
I also find that writing blogs takes work. I've had 2 days to write a single blog entry I've done it time and again but I will post that candy bit possibly in a new blog. These are all activities I indulge in during the late hours. Between 11pm and 5am. After that I sleep. Or at least try to.

That's where all my inspiration hits. These days I'm so damn tired that it doesn't matter that I have a pair earrings on my desk that are waiting for me to paint them, or that I have a hat just sitting in incompleteness or even the poor book I began to write that's sitting as draft pages and notes and sentences. What saddens me most is the photos I haven't been able to look at and the pictures I failed to take this summer.

Why do I feel that I've lost what was left of the good times? Why do I feel that unless something happens, I won't be able to be with my friends, or play video games, or even chat on video conference online because I've lost my chance?

I need sleep. Not this nap every twenty minutes until you need to get out of bed for work.