Continuing the current theme of chance encounters… Mike and I went to a party once. A woman was moving out of her apartment and decided that since there wasn't any furniture in the way, she'd invite some artists to have an art show. Each room featured an artist or two and it was a lot of fun. The year was 2001, when the dot com bust was in full effect and everyone was newly jobless. "Pink Slip" parties were the norm and we were very lucky in that we hadn't lost our jobs…yet. This was before the horrible terrorist attacks that sealed the economy's fate for the entire nation. In the San Francisco bubble, it was a matter of what goes up for no reason, must come down.
We were talking with a lot of people, looking at the artwork and moving slowly from room to room. We met most of the artists and they talked about their work. We got to the last room and through buzz of alcohol, we see a picture that freaks us out. It was of a nondescript Hospital. There wasn't anything significant about it. It was a plain white boxy hospital that was small for a hospital. The odd thing was that we had lived in it - in Denver, Colorado!
The building was bought by a development company that was converting the building into apartments. We lived in it on the apartment side while they were still working on it. Only half of it had been turned into aprtments at the time. We were in art school and worked nights, so a good way to get a chill would be to peek into the part that still was 100% hospital. There's probably nothing creepier than an abandoned hospital.
We tracked down the guy who took the photo and asked him about it. It turned out that he went to art school in Denver, the same time we lived there. He lived near the hospital/apartment building and thought it was creepy, so he snapped a shot of it one day. His girlfriend had gotten a job in SF at a dot com, so they moved to the Bay Area, sight unseen, in 1998. They had just moved into the city proper from an apartment complex in San Bruno and had a lot of trouble finding a place because they had a chihuahua.
Okay that's their story, this is ours: we went to art school in Denver and moved to the Bay Area, sight unseen, in 1998 because I had gotten a job at a dot com. We were excited because we were just moving into the city from an apartment complex in San Bruno and had a lot of trouble finding a place that would accept a chihuahua. YEAH - I KNOW! Turns out that they lived in the apartment complex NEXT to us. To top it off, when we started comparing dates - all these things happened within a month of each other!!
It freaked us all out so much, that instead of being tight, I think we were too afraid to ever speak to each other again. They were like a mirror - what a totally insane coincidence. It was truly like finishing each other's sentences. I bet they have a baby now too : )
