Gone ghoti gone

Dearest Mr. Babbage,

The past couple of weeks have been rather interesting, both in the so called real world of my daily existence and in this little corner of cyberspace which is my own claim staked in the virtual world. But let me see if I might properly explain.

The last couple of weeks had been a bit of a killer as I worked a great deal of overtime on a project that had a drop dead date the middle of last week. Unfortunately, I was working with a team who is notorious for dragging their feet and never meeting any kind of deadline that has been set for them. And of course, as I knew it would, as always happens, the process got way out of control before we finished the project. However everything was submitted on time and with fewer hassles than I expected.

Through that process I was unable to keep up with much of anything else, much less my favorite hobby of IP-spotting the traffic to the biddy, biddy, blog. However, once I was able to hang up the gone ghotin’ sign and check the web stats I discovered some rather interesting hits that followed my submersion in the chaos of the day gig.

On Thursday, I got the most curious hit to the b-b-blog from a rather unusual keyword combination and an evermore usual location (at least according to the geo-location of the associated IP address). The keyword combination was “does john fire lame deer express ambivalence towards sacred power”. The associated hit was to a letter I’d written to B. in January of 2010 in regard to my frustration with being so strongly connected with the trickster archetype. What was rather spooky about the hit is that the geo-location on the IP address showed approximately a block away from my office. And the hit to the blog was at 9:23 on the morning I was wrapping up the project that I’d been working on non-stop for several days and packaging up for delivery. What’s funny about the keyword search and associate hit is that while I was feeling very ambivalent at that moment it wasn’t in relation to any sort of power (sacred or otherwise).

It was really more the opposite. What I was struggling with in the moment wasn’t the ambivalence I feel about being so strongly connected to all things sacred (including the trickster), but more having to deal with all that is profane regarding my daily existence on this earthly plane and all tedium associated with it. As I find, it’s so often the quote/unquote real world with which I have a far more difficult time coping. But alas, that is what it means to be human and it’s something we all have to deal with on a daily basis, as difficult as it may be at any moment.

The following day, the b-b-blog received a couple of evermore curious hits. The first at 15:10 with the keyword combination of “ghoti nothing” which hit the following letter I had written to D. in September of 2010. In the letter, I made reference to a Rumi poem entitled “Nothing Lasts Forever”.  Roughly approximately 64 minutes later there was another Rumi-related hit to the b-b-blog with the keyword combination of “rumi tarot 9 of cups”. This particular hit was to a letter I’d written to Harry Houdini with respect to an exchange I’d had with a gentleman on Craigslist and the fact that I’d included a card from my Rumi Tarot deck in my response to him

The oddest thing about that hit is that roughly about the time it rolled onto the blog I was thinking about that very subject. That fact that life is so incredibly transitory and we can count on nothing lasting forever—particularly our relationships with others.

If both of those hits weren’t odd enough, yesterday afternoon, there was a hit to the b-b-blog with the keyword hit “the joker’s card” which returned this letter I wrote to Virginia Gilmore back in December in regard to a few odd hits to the b-b-blog at that time. I just re-read that letter and there’s a rather odd co-incidence with that letter. In it I mentioned a letter that I’d recently sent D. which included a poem I’d written entitled “Joke”. So in other words, the letter I sent D. was pretty much as the keyword stated—the joker’s card.

The real world and the virtual world collide.

Okay, then this morning, things got even more surreal as I got a hit from the UK from the keyword search, “the joker’s joker card” which in itself is a rather odd keyword search. However, as with many things with me, I discovered the surreal nature of the hit goes even slightly deeper.

The hit originated from the city of Bristol in an area called Friary. This in itself is probably not so odd. However, what made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end was a business that is literally yards away from where the hit was queried. A company that called itself “littlefish” (they’re an IT consulting firm). What are the chances? Right?

I have to wonder what the message is the Universe sends me presently in regard to the joker. Am I to find a way to further honor my connection with the Joker/Trickster? Do I need to connect at an ever deeper level with one and the same? Or perhaps I’m taking things far too seriously and the Universe is telling me it’s time for me to lighten up and not let things bother me so much?

Any or all of these may surely be true and I need to heed the message the Universe sends me presently.

Please pass along my regards to Mr. Turing.