I hope I know the reason now that particular joke came up. I hope it's not the other way around. That would imply that the hallway and living room chat topic of the day blossomed out of the everyday chaos because that particular joke came up.

This is my hope, even though the second causal arrow would also point out why that particular reggae song was playing on the lobby muzak at my office as I walked in today. (Which was so natural I almost didn't notice - how many times, after all, has it played as I walked into my other office...)

Don't get me wrong, it would be mystic-tastic if causality was working that way today, but it would mean that many things I know to be true really aren't. I figure that last one has to be coincidence - the first song on her playlist has to be somewhere on the muzak people's playlist, too. Nonetheless... while the precise statistical threshold separating coincidence, and omen, and just plain magic isn't clear to me yet, I seem to be living closer to the border every day.

I hope I know what I'm doing soon. For now, though, I'm just living with my eyes open and looking for clues...