Just today, I had to wrap up writing a scene from The Do Over for tonight's writing class. In the scene, it's a pleasant family Christmas event, and I wanted to convey how everybody is happy and jolly and ignorant and at the same time indicate that that happiness and jolliness and ignorance are all about to be shattered.

Brian, the main character, has given his father a t-shirt. The t-shirt reads "If ignorance is bliss, this must be Eden."

We first see the t-shirt at the same time as Brian puts one of his own Christmas gifts on the record player: the Beatles album, "Help!"

("When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way...")

Anyway, we'll find out at tonight's critique whether I successfully manage to do this foreshadowing thing effectively. In the meantime, though, I was very surprised to find that one of my teammates at work had left a coaster on my desk that they had picked up at a local restaurant. There's a quote on the coaster that reads: "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?"

I know that *she* was commenting on the happiness factor at work (...well, not "the" happiness factor; *my* happiness factor... or, possibly, my *ignorance* factor...), but I thought it was funny how it also so directly related to the scene I've been writing. Thus is the synchronicity I encounter in my life on a daily basis.