After a two-month break, I’m returning to blogging.  The work I’m doing on my novel has become…well… difficult. How would my protagonist react in this scene?  What about the one after it?  It’s constraining, especially when my writing coach asks, “Why is she reacting this way?  It doesn’t fit. Does she have a split personality?  Is she schizophrenic? Do either of these conditions apply to you?”

In a blog, the one thing I can be sure of is how my protagonist reacts since I’m the protagonist. I enjoy writing about whatever comes to mind and allowing myself to sound ridiculous.  I would have resolved to blog regularly in 2020, but I — like the eighty percent of those who make New Year’s resolutions — don’t keep resolutions. If I did, by now I would fit in a size eight and be able to run a marathon.

So let’s just say I’m back and want see if I can keep up two writing projects in 2020 and enjoy them both.

Today’s topic is losing things — most often my telephone-  as I age.

This week, while reading the hard copy paper (something only older people do now) I remembered that I’d forgotten to charge my phone so I got up and started a search. I called myself several times from the landline (also a device recognizable only by older people) but no answering sound came from the refrigerator, toilet or trunk of my car. My first thought was that I’d left it in a church pew on Sunday. Easy to do since my husband and I arrive there with arms filled with ukuleles, choir music, a music stand, and other service-related paraphernalia. And though a friend told me her daughter advised her that handbags were  passé, replaced these days by many pockets or a backpack, I still cart around a purse for my phone, reading glasses, cash (also passé) and credit cards.

But after a while my husband remembered that I had used the phone at Whole Foods later in the day and reminded me of my confusion involving searching for my store app (which allows amazon to track my buying habits even more closely). I had to point it at the computer while we were navigating the self-service checkout as the robot nattered on and on. “Put the item in the bag. Put it in the bag. Put the *!$ in the bag.”

Later that morning, I drove to Whole Foods and sure enough my phone was one of two they’d locked in a cabinet there. I was most worried about my travel photos, which I should have transferred to my computer ages ago, since I do have somewhat of a phone-losing history.  I left it on a picnic table in the town square in Haarlem, Netherlands and the finder found me and mailed it to me wrapped in a paper towel in a business envelope; and once I left it at a table in a coffee shop a mile or so from where I live.  I realized I didn’t have it after they’d closed for the day.  I got that back too.  But three times may represent the limit to my luck as in three strikes you’re out.

One reason I wasn’t so worried this week was because people who shop at Whole Foods probably have newer and better phones than mine and would scoff at the thought of using anything less.