SuperForest

(indoor garden pic via photobucket user nukidog)

Good Morning SuperForest!

Happy Friday, February 13th to All.

In my apartment building here in New York, I am perplexed by the buildings fear of its own thirteenth floor. The building definitely has a thirteenth floor, it’s just marked “14.”

That means that everyone here who says they live on 14 actually live on thirteen, everyone on fifteen is actually on 14, and our building is one floor shy of its stated height. As in, I live in a sixteen story building that says it’s a 17 story one. I live in a fibbing building.

Why?

I’m not entirely sure…

I hereby humbly request that all thirteenth floors be set aside for community space. Every thirteenth floor should be open layout, free for all occupants of the building to use. With kitchens and recycling centers, indoor gardens and composting, daycare centers and classrooms thirteenth floors around the world could become bastions of sanity and usefulness.

Every time someone thinks of a 13th floor, they should fondly recall a yoga class they took on 13, or a delicious tomato they ate right off of the vine from the indoor community garden on 13, or the amazing conversation they had with a neighbor while that neighbor was baking “13th Floor banana bread”.

Right now we’re hiding our 13’s like we’re afraid of them. But 13 is nothing to be afraid of… it’s a grand ol’ number… Why, 13 is nothing but six times 2 plus one! Or, it’s fourteen divided by itself plus twelve.

If 13 is bad, is 26 twice as bad? What about 52? (eeeeeeek!)

Why do we let arbitrary numbers have such power over us, even to the point of lying about how many floors our buildings have in order to deny that 13’s exist?

Oh wait, I get it now… It is all to make SuperForesters laugh!

Thank you planet Earth! You set aside a special day every year to remind SuperForesters that life is capricious, random, and delightful. Friday the 13th is a day to celebrate how many times we’ve overcome irrational fear!

So, if we remove the fear of the 13th, what shall we put in its place instead?

New Superstitions!

Love to All.

Laugh and sing and be in love. For today is our day to smile.
And every time you get into a building whose 13th floor is marked “14″ know that it was done that way just for you. Solely to make you laugh.

Yours,

Jackson

(cat image by shelteredsanity.com)

Hot Afternoon All!

Jackson here.
SuperForester Niki and I were just having a discussion and the number thirteen came up.
We were talking about building design and how most buildings do not acknowledge their thirteenth floors. They all have them, they just call them other things. Like 14.

This is for a multitude of reasons, none of which have anything to do with helping us live our daily lives.
(see wikipedia: friday the 13th)

Friday the 13th is no more deadly or unlucky than Friday the 16th.

So we were thinking: We need some new superstitions!
Ones that actually affect our daily lives and can help us remember useful things!

Like:

“Put a can in the paper recycling bin, break your mother’s back.”

“Carpool or your face will stick that way.”

“To ward off the Evil Eye: Toss your kitchen scraps over your left shoulder into the compost bin.”

Now those are some superstitions we can use!
Anyone got any more? Write them in the comments.

Best New Superstition suggested gets a prize!

Let the Naming of the New Superstitions commence!

Yay!

-jackson