seeing New Jersey

I was deeply alarmed to see this sponge lying forlorn and abandoned on Monte Alto this morning - for it reminded me instantly of the map outline of New Jersey.   I was even deeply more alarmed by the fact that anything should bring NJ so speedily to mind - next, I'll be seeing the outline of the Virgin Mary on the splotchy coats of tabby kittens or looming out of the ice in an over-frosted refrigerator.   It is, of course, a striking piece of bright blue abstraction in its own right: nothing could be less functional, so far as sponges go, than to lie on the graveled edge of a road, outside a house that's been on the market for a while - which suggests that the sponge itself has been dropped, whether deliberately (used to mop up some unmentionable fluid) or casually by an itinerant window-cleaner.   In other words, if I can't just be content to let it work associatively as a representation of NJ, or as startling color on a grey ground, I'm clearly driven to wrap it into some narrative scenario.