Minding of the Meets?

I’m a big fan of people. I’m an even bigger fan of people who accept that they’re people. I think this makes for a pretty wide intersection in that giant Venn Diagram of life, and one of the reasons I have found such renewal, admiration, and hope within the community that sprang out of that beautiful maelstrom of what-the-fuckery that embodied Tension.

I remember talking about it during the very first meetup I ever attended.

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February, 2016: The Steampunk Cafe.

We were trying to figure out what the hell was happening. @monkeymuffin333 had stumbled upon this bizarre organization called the “OOA” through various networks throughout the larger haunt community, and I tagged along like an amiable and curious St. Bernard, always amazed at the bizarre adventures she managed to discover and involve me in. We had done The Alone Experience throughout the prior year or so, and it had arrived at a narrative hiatus shortly before, so we were glad to immersive ourselves in a new mystery.

I’d never met most of the people there, including Mike Gray, to whom I was speaking outside, having a smoke and staring through the window at the assemblage of people, sort of marvelling at how well we were negotiating the one caveat that had ominously been stated regarding this event: “One of you is not who they seem.” So, naturally, our discussion was always hovering around that little elephant in the room. All of a sudden, we notice that there has been someone standing nearby surreptitiously, and we start to wonder if perhaps they might be someone to whom we should be paying more attention. After a brief moment of eye-contact, however, they smile and walk away, so we both breathe a sigh of simultaneous relief and disappointment.

We chuckle, but something about the situation made me realize something – this was the upside of paranoia. Here we were, standing on a sidewalk in Valley Village, looking at every passerby and environmental detail, trying to determine the design of the situation, and listening to conversations with ears and eyes as open as they could be: we were paying attention to each other and everyone else because they mattered to us. Anyone we saw or spoke to could hold a key that would unlock some part of the mystery, and everyone had the potential to help us understand more about what was happening.

And I had to ask myself in that moment, as I continue to ask it now, and to anyone reading this: why do we ever think that’s *not* the situation we’re in? Why do we ever feel allowed to determine that someone isn’t important to us, that we can safely write them off as disconnected or irrelevant to our lives? Who gives us that permission? Why do we think we know?

You never know know when the mysterious stranger who appears out of nowhere is going to be the one to repair the pipes.

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So, with all this fanfare, here we are: and still… who *really* knows what’s going on?

Thus, @larry and I were having that familiar conversation about the fact that all that’s stopping us from figuring it all out is thinking that we’ve got it all figured out – and he proposed something that might just be exactly what we need: A meetup. For everyone. Anyone. Us. As in, “if you’re reading this, or even have knowledge thereof through some other form of communication, you’re invited.”

I know it’s been done, but it’s worth doing again. Maybe even once a week. Sort of an anchor to our ship of fools, so to speak.

Since he’s far more experienced in making scheduling calendars, and I consider it a triumph when I can correctly identify the day of the week, he’s volunteered to be the contact person for this: PM him on the boards or through some other means and let him know your availability; we can rotate locations for geographic equity and adjust as needed – but first, and as always, we’ll need the information.

And since I’ve no idea what it might be called, and if I were to name it we’d wind up with just some terrible pun, let’s just leave that as a bridge we’ll cross and/or burn when we come to it?

• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Tom Hite.