I've been thinking about parallel universes--the idea, that is, that all possible worlds exist.   In this world I am an ungainly, graceless, graying male poet.  Perhaps in another world I am a lithesome, desirable courtesan.  And in another world I might be a sentient shadow.  Or a rock.  Or a musical instrument.  Or a hunk of cheese.  A rose.  A scurrying mouse.  A laundered sheet flapping on a clothes line.

OK, you object: All possible worlds, Tom.  To which I say: If something's conceivable, is it possible or not? I like the idea of being as a sort of kaleidoscope of multidimensional possibility.  That we are all at once pond scum, quasars, dumpy old man, sexy woman, avatar and angel.

*

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.' The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady.'But it's turtles all the way down!"'

--Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

*

I just found a treasured pocket notebook which I'd thought I'd lost.  Whew.

*

"That which, for itself, depends on nothing, is an absolute.  That which nothing completes in itself is a fragment.  Being or existence is an absolute fragment.  To exist: the happenstance of an absolute fragment."

--Jean-Luc Nancy, The Sense of the World

*

In another world my first  name is Jean-Luc.

In another world my first name is Maria.

*

From the newly recovered notebook:

crime scene--
skein rhyme.

*