Today, a weird, unsettling odor crept over parts of New York City. Dozens of birds dropped dead in downtown Austin. Despite the season, eight homes burned in Malibu. The U.S. bombed Al Qaeda in Somalia.

And at my client’s office, where I worked all day today, a seagull peered at us curiously through the third story window. Was he thinking it was time to get out of the cold? Was he suffering an identity crisis? Was he trying to tell us something?