It Keeps My Sole Grounded.

Before today's posting I'd like to say a few things in response to my first posting on 'meaningless events.'

My first posting was an opinion-based piece intended to kindly refute Robert McKee's statement that coincidences are nothing but 'meaningless events.' Surely his contention was grounded in research, human experiences and other findings - aiding his world-renown mastery of the structure of 'story.' My initial response was no more or less simple than my simpleton way of thinking, questioning and living my days despite the unanswerable (existential) questions everyone succeeds, mutually, in un-answering.

Having an opinion is one thing - ingesting handfuls of popcorn machine-roasted (greenbeanery) caffeine beans is, though not unrelated, another. The mainstay of my opinion was, at the time, equal parts emotion and fictitious, fun-sounding, caffeine-induced blog material. It was stuff, "most people think but don't share with strangers," a sweetheart of a girl had me know.

I would have been content to let my first blog entry simmer for a while - leave readers, though few, and myself juggle with the skinless grape; to obsequiously grovel with the meaning of coincidence. Like the time you lost your virginity on a Friday night and found yourself en-route Paris, France in an airport bus come Saturday AM sitting ass to ass with your elementary French teacher - the one who scolded you for replacing SIX with SEX in 3rd grade numbers sing-a-long. "One day you'll know how special IT is," he confounded. An event without causal connection OR full of nothing but meaning (of some kind)?

I suppose some use coincidences to define 'next-steps,' or goals for the future and some, not rightly OR wrongly, pay no mind. Either way, it'd be criminal not to mention the cause of my public hissy-fit, 36 hours after my first blog entry.

Sequence of events:

August 22nd, XX:XX PM: Post Blog "Meaningless Events."
August 22rd, 11:06 PM: Receive email from middle-school friend, we'll call H, whom I haven't seen or heard from since (conservative questimate) 9th grade. She happened upon my blog and thought to write me a quick note.
August 24th, 11:06 AM (approx.): Run in to H on College St. West in Toronto. H does not live or work in Toronto and the 24th of August was her first, of 5, day in TO for a work assignment. We saw each other and 'flipped our shit,' as they say.

I choose not to believe this event a meaningless happening. I mean, I think I am slowly beginning to understand why McKee feels the way he feels, but I won't be getting in to that now. Maybe I'll ask him when I bump in to him on College St. West in TO as he steps out of She Said Boom! following an impromptu book signing his agent was able to arrange after news of McKee's seat on AC467 being, mistakenly, overbooked and properly occupied by guitarist Andy McKee (no relation to the McKee Foods Corporation vying for the Air Canada contract).

SO...following my meaningless run-in...

I saw a tall unkempt man wearing a house coat, slippers and white, knee-high elastic-free tube socks. He didn't have a coffee in hand or newspaper in front pocket but he did rock glasses on his seekers and a cigarette in speaker. He was slip sauntering not across his living room but out the large glass doors at the Telus store on Queen St West in Toronto. Nearly the most gangster-ass, robe-wearing hipster I ever saw it was ruined for me when his chubby-cheeked smile coaxed his oversized sunnies to a resting place above his eyebrow(s) - a pair or uni I could tell not.

Later that night - alone - feeling the need to impress the Bloor Cinema box-office ticket taker I decided to give the tongue of my runners a rest and allow my own house slippers a taste of my bike pedals, Bloor West and the inside of Bloor Cinema; ABC chewed-gum isle and pee sprinkled bathroom - floors. Though paper thin my in-house slippers have possibly the highest weight-to-comfort ratio known to the shoe, slipper, boot or sandal bearing foot. Fun was definitely had by my 1st thru 10th toe, those gawking at me and the rest at the show. At the end of the night I was certain of one thing: My feet were comfortable and it was no coincidence. I wore comfy shoes and my feet (and those whom watching a man in slippers, unimpressed or otherwise, SMILED for at least half a second) were happy.

That was the night I vowed never to leave home with the assumption Bloor Cinema exclusively employs female box-office attendants or without my Staybridge Suites, Complimentary Edition slippers.