When you're reconstructing skeletal remains and you see this tiny little piece that doesn't really look like anything and you don't really know what it is, and then you notice that it bears the same taphonomic signature as this other piece that, as it turns out, has a little piece missing. They fit together perfectly and the whole thing makes sense, and it's such a joyful moment that you don't even mind that it took several tedious hours of sifting through pieces that didn't fit anywhere and that you had to sit there for five minutes holding the thing together so the glue could dry, and that joy is enough to make you want to keep doing that, trying over and over again. This is what love is like.
If you can't tell, I spent much of the day alone with fragmented vertebrae, acetone-soluble adhesive, and my thoughts. I should really get some sort of music-listening device for the lab floor.
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