I’d always known that I’m surrounded by so-called coincidences, but I never really kept track of them until James made a big deal out of how odd it is that “coincidences” keep happening to me. Here are some more in the past 2 weeks:

At Dwaine and Andrae’s bday party on Saturday, we got there early so Andrae gave us a tour of Dwaine’s house, which I’d told Mr. W before that he’d love because Dwaine and Mr. W have similar tastes in decor. Rich mahogany wood and leather couches, interesting global artifacts, British-looking pieces with guilded gold accents. Mr. W remarked that he did indeed admire Dwaine’s decor, wall paint, etc. and I whispered, “Actually, his mom had a lot to do with the pieces. She picked most of them out.” Suddenly the front door opened behind me and said mom walked in, carrying flowers for her sons’ shindig. “Speaking of their mom, here she is!” I said as I gave her a big hug. Half an hour or so later, Mr. W and I sat on the couch and I told him that my ex Gary may be coming with his current girlfriend, but I wasn’t sure because Gary didn’t respond on the Evite and when I’d asked him about it, he’d said he may have to help his girlfriend move that weekend. Right then I heard Andrae greet someone at the front door and I looked up and there was Gary with his girlfriend. I did the Chandler (of Friends, pilot episode) thing then, saying, “And I just want a million dollars!” and swept my arm toward the door. Nothing. Later, as we got ready to leave, I gave their mom another hug and said my regrets at having to leave early due to my race the next morning, and said, “I guess we missed your husband,” a wonderful man who was known to arrive trendily late. “Yeah, it’s too bad,” she said, and then IN walked said husband! “Oh, there he is! I guess we’re not gonna miss him after all!” I said and walked up to give Dwaine and Andrae’s dad a hello/goodbye hug.

I’ve been playing random CD Roms of various MP3s in my new car. I didn’t recall what was on the CDs, but it turned out that I had clips of Margaret Cho’s stand-up comedy. I’m a big fan of hers. Last week I heard a snippet of Margaret saying, “I know I’m not fat, but I have a fat complex. I got it as a child because of this one old lady. When I was small, there was this old black lady that lived near us, really old and wise, like Alice Walker, The Color Purple. One day she said to me, ‘Baby…I used to be able to fly, but I cain’t fly no’more, baby. But baby, you…you too fat to fly.’ ” A day or two after I heard that in my car, I was at the gym on the elliptical trainer with my gym trainee and she said, “My [9-year-old] son and I watched The Color Purple last night. I had to convince him that that’s Oprah Winfrey. He did not believe me!” I laughed and said, “Yeah, she did good in that film! Her character was exactly how Alice Walker wrote her in the book. Oprah was fat back then.” My trainee said, “Yeah, he had to sit there and read through the end credits to believe me. He kept saying, ‘Oprah don’t look like that!’ I said, ‘She did back then!’ ” I heard that Margaret Cho clip again 2 days ago in my car driving to work, and I chuckled to myself. That evening, I visited Mr. W, who knew nothing of my Alice Walker experiences, at his work and he pulled out a DVD from his desk. “Look!” he said, “I have The Color Purple! My coworker loaned it to me!” I told him how I had heard the clips in my CD in the car and how my trainee had said her son didn’t believe it was Oprah Winfrey. He’d never seen the movie nor read the book. I guess we’re watching The Color Purple this weekend.