Well, this is rather embarrassing to divulge.

I'm not terribly superstitious. But I do confess resistance to the number nine.

Something of a bummer for someone born on the nineteenth day of the ninth month of the fifty-ninth year of the nineteen hundreds.

And ironic for a man so passionate for baseball--which is so fiercely loyal to the number nine and its square root of three.

But among creatives, I'm not alone in my concern around the number nine.

Many renown composers of classical music were, like baseball's Chicago Cubs, allegedly haunted by "The Curse of the Ninth." The belief is that a composer's ninth symphony is destined to be his final composition. Therefore, should he attempt a tenth symphony, he's fated to breathe his last before its completion. Proponents proffer the life and death of Beethoven as prima facie evidence in support of The Curse of the Ninth. Others--Schubert, Dvorak, and Mahler among several--are advanced as corroborating evidence; however, it requires imaginative arithmetic and creative cataloging to justify the inclusion of a number of the composers on the list. The truth is, numerous composers didn't so much as develop a cough when they completed their ninth, tenth, or any number of subsequent works. Among them, Mozart with 59 symphonies and Haydn at 106. Just tempting fate, those two.

Really, our superstitions are, for the most part, our attempt to rationalize and romanticize our primordial fears. Compulsions, really. It might prove helpful to call them out for what they are.

But, enough. I've spent all too much time on this little post. You may not believe it, but this is the ninth draft of--uh oh, that's not gonna work. Then again, in hindsight, I think I had a pretty clear idea in mind of how this piece would read before I ever put pen to paper. I'm gonna count that initial version in my head as the first draft. 

Which makes this the tenth draft.

Okay, I'm good with that.