Recurring life themes

I don't believe in the supernatural.

There is no god. No ghosts. No magic. No psychics. Nothing like that exists.

However, I do believe that there are some physical laws of our Universe that are not understood, or maybe haven't even been guessed at. Quantum mechanics, vibrations at a subatomic level, particles, vibrations on a string . . .

My life consists of shifting, often meaningless themes that crop up constantly. Sometimes it lasts for a few days, sometimes, weeks. Occassionally months. Even a lifetime.

I'm not talking about stuff that I do, or control--I've been a loner, single, girlfriend-less, most of my life, and that's not really a mystery to me. That's something within my sphere of influence. Nothing odd about it, really, or, I should say, nothing not understood.

But take, say, spiderwebs. Not cobwebs you see gathering dust in corners. Not those nasty webs woven by black widows, or the intricate creations of garden spiders. I'm talking those single threads that those tiny spiders use to rappell down from a height.

You know what I'm talking about--go walking in a wooded area one morning and you'll get caught in a few.

I can't move over the past few days without getting caught in one of those things. They are suddenly everywhere. Even in the bed of my truck. After a couple of days I realized this was the theme of the week for me.

A month or so ago it was website crashes. Every time I tried to log onto a website it crashed. This happened to me at work and at home, two completely different networks, and all I was doing to trying to load a home page. Bam. Down. Or really, really, REALLY slow . . .

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some sort of supernatural force trying to tell me something with these things. Then maybe I'm just seeing connections where there are none. Humans are bad about that sort of thing. Which is where religion and superstition come from in the first place.

So, I chalk it up to coincidence, or a vibration of a string, or emissions of a mysterious, undiscovered quark.

Superstitions?

I'm one of those people who doesn't believe in anything that I can't see or experience in some way.

It exasperates some of my religious friends, but I'm sorry--I guess I just don't have the "faith" gene. I see no evidence for any god and I don't have any faith to fill in that very large gap.

(And please note that I'm not attacking anybody's religion--your faith is your business. Like my lack thereof is mine.)

But I do have a stupid superstition that keeps hanging on.

I pick up pennies when I find them lying on the ground, if they are on heads, and I can reach them without putting myself at physical risk.

I know it's stupid. But let me tell you a true story about this particular hangup of mine.

One day I was doing laundry in the laundry-mat at my apartment complex. There were guys mowing the lawn outside the building. It was hot so the windows were open. I was sorting my whites from my colors and I remember thinking what a dumbassed idea it was, that finding and picking up a penny that was just lying on the ground with the "heads" side up would bring luck, when I heard a metallic clink.

The lawn mower outside had apparently kicked up a penny that was in the grass and the blades shot it through the window of the laundrymat, where it richocheted around and came to rest on the floor in front of me.

On heads. Damn.