Ok Mr. Minsky

Let's talk about coincidence. And Irony. And the difference between the two. Mr. Angry doesn't think the irony of my last two posts was at all ironic, but in fact coincidental. What do you suppose he'd say about this one?

Approximately a week ago I received a text message that said, "Hey, it's Ingers, this is my new number for your eyes only." After a couple of back and forths, we realized "Ingers" had the wrong number, and we went about our business.

Today I was browsing Myspace, and saw a comment on one of my friend's pages from someone named Inger. On a hunch, I sent her a brief message asking her if she had dialed a wrong number last week. I described the conversation we'd had, and she replied enthusiastically, "oh my god, yes! That was me!"

Now. Tell me that isn't the most ironic thing, coincidental to the point of seeming "meant to be."  I have spent many many nights in the past driving myself crazy with questions about fate, destiny, coincidence, etc., and this is just one more point on the scoreboard for "fate".

There are of course, many different ways to look at this. First, we should think of who "could've" been on the other end of the line. Ingers very well could have accidentally text a 65-year old man, or a lawyer in Delaware for all we know. Ingers herself could have been a 65-year old man or even a 12-year-old kid for that matter. The phone number she accidentally dialed could have been one number off, up to 10 numbers off, or it could have been the number she intended to dial in the first place. But no. She happened to be the sister of the guitarist of one of my favorite bands, and I just happened to go to that persons Myspace account today. It's not like I went looking for her.

The other way to look at this is as a simple coincidence. Think of all the times my number wasn't accidentally dialed. If you compare that to the few odd times we actually come face to face with those strange happenings, it makes them seem coincidental for sure.

But that brings us to the next question: How many events in our life are fated to be, but we don't see the inner workings behind the bigger picture?

If I drive through an intersection and don't get hit by a car, it doesn't seem unusual or "destined" to be. What I may not see is that five blocks over there was an accident, which may have prevented my car from being struck. Perhaps the driver of the car that was going to hit me didn't even make it out of the house that day, because something happened in his or her life that altered our reality.  Perhaps that event triggered a chain of events that would alter their life, and those of many others, forever.  The butterfly effect.

If you look at your life, and follow the paths you took, you'd be surprised to see exactly how you came to this current place in your life. My boyfriend recently did this, and found that if his mother hadn't made him switch schools when he was in elementary school, he never would have met me. If I didn't walk out my front door and go to "the park" when I was 12 years old, I never would have met him – even though we didn't meet until 14 years later.

I guess the question is. . .would I? Regardless of all the paths we could have taken, all the options in our life, do we still come back to the people and events in our life that we are "destined" to come to?

It's something to think on.

Oh. The Irony.

Totally coincidental.  Today is the day I was supposed to get married.  May 24th 2003.  I would have been celebrating my three year anniversary.  Or, more likely, not.

My sister had to remind me. 

Marriage.

Today a friend I haven't spoken to in a long time asked me if I was married yet.  My response was, laughing, "no way, I would never do that to us!"  I had a similar conversation with my aunt the other day, and she laughed at my extremely negative attitude toward ever getting married.   As some of you may know, I got pretty damn close once (6 days away), and that's just about as close as I ever plan to get. 

The thing is, there seems to be a constant debate between people I know who are married, or who have been married – and me.  They just don't agree with me, that marriage is a trap, and that baffles me.  Even the ones who went through horrible divorces.  So there is obviously an ingredient I am missing here, some sort of magical answer that I haven't stumbled upon yet, and I'm beginning to think you can't come to the answer unless you personally live it.  

By no means am I advocating marriage for myself, or frankly anyone else I know, because I firmly believe it to be a horrible trap that will be the ruin of you emotionally and financially – but I'm beginning to see that there must be something to it, because people keep defending it.  

I will cover the basics in another post, at another time, as to why I think marriage is the worst creation since christianity, but this is just one more step to realizing that I don't know shit.

My little duck

My child is hilarious. She probably sits on the computer for a good hour a day, and I feel very safe in that because she hasn't yet found the joys of Instant Messaging. I don't think I'll let her know about that for a while yet. She does little website games and plays her Sims games, and evidently saves cute pictures to her desktop.

Today I went hunting for a picture, and found myself lost in her world. Hoards of pictures of animals, all with their cute misspelled titles, and some random pictures of scary graveyards and foreign cities that caught her interest. There was an entire file with 30 or so pictures of her school, which had burned down and was rebuilt two years ago. That was an interesting find. Kids are smarter than they let on.

Some of the pictures she chose, and the names she gave them, just cracked me up. I imagine some of her artwork hanging in a gallery someday, with these odd little titles attached to them. Like this one.

She named this one "HELP MEEE!!!!", which is rather fitting if you ask me. Looks like some brat put this hampster in a doll house and simulated an earthquake.

This one says "Pour thing". Not sure what she thought was happening to the turtle, but the "poor" spelling is pretty cute.

This is titled, "Wah". Maybe it's only something only a mother would know, but she perceives this cat to be asking a question. Looking dumb, in other words. Like, "wha?"

This one gets my vote just because it's adorable, and it reminds me of her and I. Two peas in a pod from the day she was born. And because we're a little obsessed with cats.

It was wonderful being reminded of how innocent she still is.

Let’s get right down to it.

I've decided my next life will be filled with less drama.  That may mean either causing less myself, or avoiding it at all costs – even if that means cutting some ties.

So, welcome to my new life.

That is the preface, where I have given you the option of leaving.  Kind of like Gaspar Noe did in I Stand Alone, I'm giving my audience a 30-second warning to leave if you don't think you can handle the rest of the film.

No filters.  No fears.  No more snooping people, unless they are really hell-bent on stalking, in which case they will prove their instability without any help from me.  Just a daily stream of consciousness where I'll lay it all out for you.  If you care to read it, read it.  But I'm tired of "friends lists" and "friends only".  I've never been one to filter and I don't want to start now.  I don't want anyone to feel obligated to read my stuff just because I'm on their friends list.  Especially when I'm writing erotica.  Such a huge audience.  You start to filter what you say when you know your boss, your boyfriend, his ex, your worst enemy, your best friend and your babydaddy are all reading the same thing.  Too much pressure.

Let's see how fast this thing can go.