Okay so fun fact I've been reading Project Hail Mary for the last week and I was using some old folded piece of paper as a bookmark. Probably the receipt print out from this other book delivery from a book my partner gave me last October for my birthday. I went from reading that book to immediately reading this book and when I mentioned what I was using as a bookmark, my partner laughed and said he thought he had a proper bookmark laying around somewhere. Sometimes they come in the boxes when he orders a book from eBay. He finds it and gives it to me and I go on using it without looking at it. I've just now finished and I'm sitting here thinking about the story for a short while with the bookmark next to the book because I don't need it to mark the book anymore... I'm even wondering which book I should move on to do I can toss the bookmark into it and I'm finally *looking* at the image for the very first time. And I could swear that it's a picture straight out of the book I just read because I recognize so many little things in it. I felt like my brain wrinkled because it didn't make sense to me. I bought myself this book from Amazon and I know that I didn't get this bookmark with my purchase or even know where it really came from and how it was in our house. I turn it over and see that it's part of some cute promotion for Swift books where wish list a guess what book The bookmark is illustrating and after looking for any relevant Reddit post about it I find that sure enough it's Project Hail Mary...
So anyway here I am now laughing at myself for how many little coincidences came together and how all week I was using this bookmark *never once looking at it*. My partner doesn't even have a thriftbooks account but he did buy the last book I asked for and more recently a few others for himself off of eBay so the bookmark could have come from any of those purchases. He vaguely remembers it came in one book shipping box or another. But either way it was so silly because I was fine with using some folded print out receipt. If I hadn't made some random joke to him about what I was using as a bookmark he wouldn't have offered to find one of the ones he thought he'd thrown somewhere. I don't know why this is bringing me so much joy but I think now I need to keep this book mark with this book and find something else to use as a bookmark for my next read.