At the lunch table today, one of the guys I worked with mentioned he was on steroids for some health issues. “Just what I need,” he said. “Big biceps, small testicles.” Another person at the table said no, he would get a “Moon Face” from them.

It was a term I’d never heard before in that context and it caught my attention because it’s an obscure nickname for Buster Keaton.

A couple of hours later, I’m listening to Paul Auster reading “I Thought my Father was God” and he says this line: “Her face is big and round, a moon face because of the steroids.”

I stop for a moment to write this down. It’s odd enough to notice, one of those little events that eclipses everything else for a moment or two. The convergence of the two episodes, that strange phrase popping up in intervals so close together . . . it gets my attention.

And what makes it even more strange is this: Earlier in the day, for reasons I can’t explain, I changed the desktop icon for my computer. It had been an elegant little snow lantern for a very long time.

But for some reason this morning I changed it to a moon, round and full.