I See Dead People

So, one evening a few weeks ago as I was slumped over my iBook, moping over certain feckless persons having jilted the internets, my husband called out to me from his office.

"Who's Marmite Breath?"

"Huh?"

"In your comments section."

"Oh, I don't know. Some Australian."

"No, she's English."

"No, marmite is something foul that Aussies eat on toast. Or is that Vegemite?"

"No, I'm looking at her blog. She's English. It's pretty good."

"Oh."

Somehow I summoned the will to look at it. It was good. We had a similar ex-pat, life-at-the-carnival perspective. I found myself checking back in every few days or so, until finally adding it to my google reader subscriptions.

In the meantime, we struck up a little rapport in each other's comments sections. Turns out she had family connections in Little Rock, and was here over the holidays. That was a coincidence. Impulsively, I tried to reach her in time to invite her and the family over for our New Year's Eve Open House. And apart from the guy I live with, I am not really in the habit of inviting strangers from the internet into my home (There was the South African from our old chatroom who materialized on our doorstep, only to be removed to the nearest truckstop after a week with instructions to go find America, but he just kind of showed up). Anyway, by the time she got my message they were headed back home.

Then, last night, I got an email from her to say that her younger sister had been reading her comments and, recognizing my unique name, said, "you know who that is, don't you?"

Well, to cut to the chase, people, it turns out her sister is married to one of my husband's two nephews. I almost started screaming. It was truly like coming to the end of Sixth Sense. My mind raced backward through all the times I SHOULD HAVE SEEN. Like looking at her flickr set over Christmas and thinking her Dad reminded me of someone (like, maybe himself, at a party at his home several years ago). Like reading through her archives and realizing she hadn't come over to America as a bride, but as a child, and thinking absently, oh, that's like (nephew's wife's name). And never pursued the train of thought a second further, because WHY, out of MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of bloggers would two people who are already related through marriage just find each other? That would be INSANE. Her sister once housesat for us while we were in Newfoundland, for crying out loud. Her nephew, my grand-nephew, who swam with my kids at the pool this summer when he was home visiting his grandparents, was probably in her flickr set too, and I didn't notice.

Sometimes I think life is a really, really low-budget film, where the props and cast all get recycled over and over. You know, the taxi driver from scene one is also the pizza delivery guy in scene twelve. Sometimes I say to whoever's directing, "Could you not come up with some original material? Because that shit is totally unbelievable."

I'm just glad we didn't fall in love and want to get married. That was complicated enough last time.

I bet as soon as Nat has come out of her dead faint, she will post about it as well. You can find her at Marmite Breath Slept Here. If she denies she ever heard of me, there is some kind of conspiracy at work. YOU believe me, don't you?