“It seems the height of antiquated hubris to claim that the universe carried on as it did for billions of years in order to form a comfortable abode for us. Chance and historical contingency give the world of life most of its glory and fascination. I sit here happy to be alive and sure that some reason must exist for ‘why me?’ Or the earth might have been totally covered with water, and an octopus might now be telling its children why the eight-legged God of all things had made such a perfect world for cephalopods. Sure we fit. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. But the world wasn't made for us and it will endure without us.”
-Stephen Jay Gould

Two nights ago I was on my way home, sitting on the miserably slow 22, having low blood sugar and feeling morose. I was thinking about the fact that I've been here in San Francisco for ten years; about the vague choices that brought me here, and pondering what my life would be like if I'd never come. (a tip, gentle readers- never ponder these things before you've had your dinner.) I had this exact, very silly, melodramatic thought:
"what am I doing here?"
Just then the woman next to me got up to leave. I moved to another seat to make room for her to get by, and sat down next to a man reading. I glanced down and saw, at the top of the left page, the following fragment:
"because I'm there already, and there's nowhere else to go."
zoinks!
The reader turned the page to a new chapter. at the top of the new page it said, "Nature, History, and Statistics As Meaning," and on the other side, "Stephen Jay Gould." I can't find anything by that title, so it must have been a chapter title. I wish I had asked the guy for the name of the book.

Then I got home and found two emails from perfect strangers who'd discovered some of my silly photos from Paris online. One of them sent me my own photo (which at first felt a little like someone handing you your watch, and saying, "do you know where I can get one of these?" hey! but I got over it) of the sculpture of the Three Graces at the Louvre, and wondered if I could tell him who the sculptor was. (I couldn't.)
The other guy (bless 'im) sent me a photo of a section of the floor of the Sainte Chapelle, along with a picture of the tattoo he'd gotten of it on his arm. He said he saw that I had similar photos and wondered if I had any more- he's obsessed with getting something similar for the other arm. I wish I'd had something to send him.