ok. so if I believed in some kind of master plan or in the religion of coincidences, I'd have plenty of proof in my world. Tonight a series of events with an unexpected end result:

1) a client decides to cancel our evening meeting 6 hours before it's supposed to start
2) my day-long meeting runs later than I thought and I arrive at the theater too late to conduct interviews with audience members in line
3) I decide to buy a ticket and see the movie at the last minute (Karmen Gei. Really beautiful but confusing film out of Senegal.)
4) I run into an friend there, Chris, who I frequently see at film festivals, but who is rarely alone. Tonight he's without his group and we decide to sit together.
5) As we're leaving the theater after the show to grab some food between screenings, I see someone else I know who agrees to hold a couple of seats for us.
6) I buy a ticket and run in to sit down in my seat maybe a minute before they lower the houselights
7) Having recognized her laugh during the show, I confirmed after the lights came up that the woman next to me was Joyce, who I haven't seen in about 5 years. (We did a couple of very intense and very cool theater projects together, and had several overlapping friends) We are amazed, and happy to see each other, and then truly stunned by the realization that...
8) Joyce is leaving for Mindanao (Philippines) next week and will be cruising through Davao with some other artist friends (who I have met) while I'm there.

This is odd. I used to have quite a reputation for running into people I knew everywhere I went (this extended to other countries sometimes), but I thought it had slowed down. I do know a lot of people, but still... things like this get odd.

I didn't mention that Koji, who requested this blog in the first place, is one of my unplanned-infrequent-contacts. I saw him at Chink-O-Rama, coincidentally going to the same night of a show that ran for 3 weeks. And before that, when I saw him at the SF International Film Festival, he happened to be walking by on the sidewalk as I was emerging from a shop door; I had to follow him for a bit to get his attention because he was listening to something on his headphones.

People always just reappear in my world. I guess I should be nice to people all the time because I can be pretty sure I'll see them again somewhere sometime.