The Universe, my iPod and Fort Minor conspire to mock my pain.

So today's my first full day of me and the Mrs doing the long-distance thing, her having left yesterday and now safely esconced once again in the US of A. I wake up to the still surreally quiet apt and do my morning ablutions, hop on the bike and jack in the iPod for the daily commute. Then, lo and behold, the first song to meet my ears - "Where'd You Go" by Fort Minor.

Featuring such heart punching lyrics as -

"Where'd you go? I miss you so
Seems like it's been forever
That you've been gone

...I don't understand why you have to always be gone
I get along, but the trips always feel so long, and

I find myself tryin' to stay by the phone
'Cause your voice always helps me to not feel so alone
But I feel like an idiot, workin' my day around the call
But when I pick up I don't have much to say, so

I want you to know it's a little messed up
That I'm stuck here waitin...

Where'd you go? I miss you so
Seems like it's been forever that you've been gone
Where'd you go? I miss you so
Seems like it's been forever that you've been gone
Please come back home

You know the place where you used to live?

...Yeah, I find myself just fillin' my time
With anything to keep the thought of you from my mind
I'm doin' fine, and I'm plannin' to keep it that way
You can call me if you find that you have somethin' to say

...It seems one thing has been true all along
You don't really know what you got 'til it's gone

...Please come back home"

It took a second after the music kicked in for me to think "Oh come oooon. Are you fucking kidding me? I need this first thing in the morning?" So I keep pedaling my way schoolward, shaking my head.

But thinking. Always too much with the thinking, that's me. And you know, the normal, sane response is "Why, what an intriguing coincidence that is, what with your wife leaving just yesterday!" And then rational mind would then go on to work and put $$ in the bank.

But.

It's weird, right?

It's what, praise be to Robert Anton Wilson, hallowed be his name and Praise Eris!, I know to be a synchronicity. A meaningful coincidence. A coincidence that seems meaningful, at least. But people, and I generously include myself as 'people', are pattern recognition machines. It's what we do. And in absence of an actual pattern, we're happy to supply them.

So... synchronicity. A meaningful coincidence. Or, alternatively, my slightly schizophrenic mind making meaning where there is none, out of happenstance.

Synchronicity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance..."

But, whatever, whatever does it mean? It's things like this that make you think, as others have said, that yes, the "universe wants to play." [Hakim Bey.] Because hearing that song, after kicking me in my manly tear ducts for a half second, reminded me that the world can be weird, and it doesn't always work the way the rational, western mind tells us it does.

[Shoot, ask Sandy to tell you her Hawaii/broken windshield story sometime. I still, really, have no explanation for that one.]

But even knowing that, and even after reading piles and piles of junk about the weird and the wild that says exactly that, I forget.

So what could it be? Is it the electronics in my iPod in some way unknown to western science responding to the electrochemical emotional resonance of my brain? Am I magically and telepathically changing the world through the powers of my awesome mind? Is it the universe/god/the great tao/flying spaghetti monster just fucking with me and letting me know not to take things so seriously? Or is it me just being completely full of shit?

It's funny, I've read a bunch about magic[k] - both with and without the pretentious 'k', over the years - and despite my lack of any kind of discipline to invest myself in any system - oh, and if "magic" throws you, substitute "religion" or "psychology," all pretty much the same thing - but the crux of a lot of magical workings, or prayers, if you will, is emotional energy, for lack of a better word. Not anger, or sorrow, or cheerfulness, but "emotional content" to bum a phrase of Bruce Lee's from Enter the Dragon. And the last 24 hours have easily been the most emotionally charged I've had in quite some time.

So does all that make you more, or less, apt to think the power of my mind and spirit is playing tricks with the physical universe?

Or am I just sad and slowly going insane?

I'd say even odds.

Regardless, coming up on my first weekend all alone in the land of the Rising Sun in many years. More about that on the blog sometime this weekend, maybe. But I'm going to occupy my mind/dull the pain/use my powers of denial by cleaning/rearranging the apartment [so as to not constantly remind me my wife is gone], catching up on the 400 or so bookmarked internet pages I haven't had a chance to read these last two weeks, and then getting the blog up to date. And I've put the Venture Brothers into rotation on the DVD, because that shit is awesome, and I'm not to be alone with my thoughts. That would not end well. :)