Scatterbrained

Did you miss me? Good, because I've been missing me a lot recently. I'm not really sure what I am lately. It's certainly not at the writing table. At least not blog writing. I have so many things I'd like to tell you about but I seriously do not have the energy tonight. I just spent the last two hours looking for my wallet, canceling my credit cards (after realizing it was lost), and trying to remember everything that was in there. I'm sure that I'm not even remembering half of the things that were there.

I keep losing books and keys. I habitually lose my coffee. It's actually an odd day when I don't turn to Jeff and ask, "Do you know where I left my coffee?" I always find it but I live in fear of the day I find a month old cup with some serious mold growth. Nothing grows mold quite as fast as coffee. So I've been scatterbrained. I may never know where the wallet went to. I lost it from my office to the car. That's a distance of less then 30 yards. I just hope that someone honest, decent, and wonderful finds it (the way I know most people are). We'll see what tomorrow brings. In the meantime I'm going to make myself a pot of decaf, and curl up in a ball and read. It's the only safe thing to do.

Tuneless

It's official. I've lost my iPod. I'm tuneless.

I'm actually surprised by how much this simple loss affects me. I've lost tons of things before. Ask Jeff how often I lose my keys. In fact, I've been missing my keys for two days now without worry. I'm sure they are somewhere in the house and it is just a matter of finding them. I lost them coming home from knitting on Monday.

But losing my iPod has left me in something of a lurch. I'm shocked at how much I love that little piece of metal that holds a majority of my music collection. Everything is backed up on my computer but it has suddenly become less portable. Jeff is not always a fan of my music, which tends to run towards indie folk lately, so I tend to not play a lot of music at home over the speakers. Because of this, I keep my iPod with me almost constantly. It is my only source of music in the car other than the radio (which drives me crazy).

I know this is a bit of a shallow whine. I lived for years without an iPod. I have plenty of other things to keep me entertained. But for some reason this loss bothers me more than most. Sorry all. Just a shallow little whine. I'm over it. Now if you don't mind I'll be at the Apple store, drooling over the new Nanos.

Poetry Friday

I'm always losing things. Keys, phone, scraps of paper with numbers or ideas, glasses, everything. I am constantly hunting for something. So this poem by Elizabeth Bishop rings true for me. I first heard the poem in college and the line "the art of losing isn't hard to master" stayed with me, pressing itself into my brain until years later I had to go find the poem that it fit.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.