I’m having one of those days. One of those days where you wake up feeling like something inside you won’t stop crying, but you aren’t sure why and therefore can’t do anything about it. It’s just there, underneath, trembling, while you keep going about your day with as calm a face as you can manage, trusting that the sadness will go away.

Luckily, I don’t have these days anywhere near as often as I used to. A part of me feels guilty for admitting to these feelings at all, because I get so many lovely comments, emails, and messages from you fabulous readers stating that my blog makes you smile and laugh. I’d like to maintain that blog-happiness for you.

And so, in an effort to shoo away my inner whispering greyness, I thought I’d tell you a non-sad story.

No, no, I’m not going to talk to you about Black Forest Cupcakes. Although those are guaranteed to make you smile.

This is a story about The Six Degrees of Canberra Bacon, a game (or happenstance) that I’ve mentioned before.

In brief, we who live in Canberra know that we don’t need no Kevin Bacon to play the six degrees of separation with, because our daily lives abound in meeting strangers who turn out to be tied to our past and present in a myriad unexpected ways.

Nope, not talking about Vegan Mango Sunflower Bites either.

My current forays into The Six Degrees of Canberra Bacon relate to my place of work, which for the past few months has been comprised solely of me, Jenni, and P-Boss. (There is also V-Colleague in Sydney and, as of this month, R-Manager.)

On my first day of work, I was introduced to Jenni, a lovely lass my own age. We immediately worked out that we’d been in the same year at the same college, and knew each other by sight.

I thought that was enough Canberra Bacon for one workplace.

That’s me, second from the left in the orange!

However, last Thursday before our staff meeting officially commenced, I was chatting to P-Boss. P-Boss was talking about her past career as an Indian dancer in India, Australia, and the Netherlands, and I suddenly hopped out of my chair.

“I did a term of Indian dancing in Year Five!” I proclaimed proudly. I then crouched down with my hands posed in front of me, chanting vaguely-remembered-words, before kicking out my right leg and flinging my hands to the right. I then repeated this to the left. (Before you ask, yes. We all get along very, very well at the office, thus my ability to be a nincompoop at work.)

P-Boss stared at me in shock.

“That’s my move,” she cried, pointing. “I must have been the one teaching you!”

I was flabbergasted. Speechless. It turns out that, thirteen years ago, P-Boss and her students ran Indian dance workshops at schools across Canberra. Thirteen years ago, I participated in said Indian dance workshops.

My current entry into the Six Degrees of Canberra Bacon game is therefore this:

I work in a building that is up the road from the shops I had afternoon tea at during primary school as well as the apartment in which I now live, a building that is behind the high school I attended and five minutes’ drive from the dentist and doctor I’ve had since age six. I work in a team of now-five people, one of whom I went to college with, and one of whom facilitated the Indian dancing classes I took when I was eleven.

It’s a bizarre, circular, fabulous, and hilarious world sometimes.

Question Time: Have you experienced any coincidences that could be entered into The Six Degrees of Canberra Bacon? You don’t have to be Canberran to play along!