even if
someone read it, sort of like reading your diary, they wouldn’t know that it was
me. So there was no chance that I was going to get it back. It was gone forever.
Nonetheless, my present Filofax has the same quirk.
Losing the first one was a wake-up call—had I
really turned into a person who could leave their Filofax on the roof of their
car and drive off? Was it a precursor of what was to come? I immediately bought
a new Filofax. This was before computer databases, and I re-created the
phone-book pages from my cell-phone records, not an easy task, and an old
invitation list. Carefully copying the names and addresses and phone numbers
into a new Filofax (the one that’s so old now I think I need to replace it).
I have a friend who once got so frustrated on a
phone call that he threw his cell phone out the window onto Sunset Boulevard and
had to send everyone an email asking for their number. This was before
BlackBerrys, when a cell phone was just a cell phone and there wasn’t that magic
synch feature from a phone to a computer. I also know a young woman who changes
her phone number every time she has a breakup—just to make the point to whoever
she’s breaking up with that “it really is final.” That seems like a lot of work
somehow, but it seems to work for her. There was a time when I had an entire
page in my Filofax devoted to her phone numbers but I, finally, replaced the
page.
Sometimes, I use my Filofax in meetings to take
notes, or I’ll have a thought in the car, come up with a random sentence for
something I’m working on, and pull over to jot it down. Sometimes I take it to
the beach where the sand isn’t friendly to a computer and write in it by hand.
There are a few haiku that will probably never be printed anywhere else. I can
gauge from them how sad I was on a given day. (Haiku are often sad. The more
comedic ones have found their way into my computer.) Some of them aren’t even
properly haiku, they’re just short poems. I guess I could print a couple of them
now:
When people talk about
past lives,
I realize, if it’s
true,
that my soul must have
amnesia.
Or, my personal favorite:
the best
dancers
fall down
sometimes
(Like I said, they will probably never be printed
anywhere else except this page and my Filofax.)
I like it that my Filofax has a calendar (a week on
two pages) that I sometimes remember to write things on with a name, a time, and
an address with a phone number scribbled under it. Sometimes I even remember to
look at the calendar to see if I have an appointment. I want to redo the address
pages (because of those dead people and a few others who I don’t speak to
anymore and the ones I’ve neglected to input).
However, some of the scribbled names have me
baffled. I have no idea who Josh Milbauer is or why I have his number. I’m not
at all certain who Alix is and why I have his (or her) number. I do know who
Eric Perrodin is: the mayor of Compton and a D.A. in Los Angeles and I do
remember why I have his number, something do with those loose diamonds and
losing my computer when we were burglarized. But I’m not quite sure where Mabel
Mae’s Gourmet Food Room is or why I felt compelled to write it down (no number),
or what entranced me about Frontier Soups, which apparently come in three
varieties: fisherman’s stew, corn chowder, holiday cranberry soup. Maybe it has
something to do with Mabel Mae’s Gourmet Food Room. I’m not sure. They’re not on
the same page. It’s not just the outside of my Filofax that could use some
cleaning up, the inside needs some work, too.
There are those dead people, some of whom died of
natural causes at what seemed like it might have been a natural end. But then
there are those other ones. My friend Joan who found our house for us, whose
face I still see smiling at me and who I want to call every time we have a cause
for celebration or a new disaster. My friend Lisa whose death, from a rare form
of cancer, came on so
someone read it, sort of like reading your diary, they wouldn’t know that it was
me. So there was no chance that I was going to get it back. It was gone forever.
Nonetheless, my present Filofax has the same quirk.
Losing the first one was a wake-up call—had I
really turned into a person who could leave their Filofax on the roof of their
car and drive off? Was it a precursor of what was to come? I immediately bought
a new Filofax. This was before computer databases, and I re-created the
phone-book pages from my cell-phone records, not an easy task, and an old
invitation list. Carefully copying the names and addresses and phone numbers
into a new Filofax (the one that’s so old now I think I need to replace it).
I have a friend who once got so frustrated on a
phone call that he threw his cell phone out the window onto Sunset Boulevard and
had to send everyone an email asking for their number. This was before
BlackBerrys, when a cell phone was just a cell phone and there wasn’t that magic
synch feature from a phone to a computer. I also know a young woman who changes
her phone number every time she has a breakup—just to make the point to whoever
she’s breaking up with that “it really is final.” That seems like a lot of work
somehow, but it seems to work for her. There was a time when I had an entire
page in my Filofax devoted to her phone numbers but I, finally, replaced the
page.
Sometimes, I use my Filofax in meetings to take
notes, or I’ll have a thought in the car, come up with a random sentence for
something I’m working on, and pull over to jot it down. Sometimes I take it to
the beach where the sand isn’t friendly to a computer and write in it by hand.
There are a few haiku that will probably never be printed anywhere else. I can
gauge from them how sad I was on a given day. (Haiku are often sad. The more
comedic ones have found their way into my computer.) Some of them aren’t even
properly haiku, they’re just short poems. I guess I could print a couple of them
now:
When people talk about
past lives,
I realize, if it’s
true,
that my soul must have
amnesia.
Or, my personal favorite:
the best
dancers
fall down
sometimes
(Like I said, they will probably never be printed
anywhere else except this page and my Filofax.)
I like it that my Filofax has a calendar (a week on
two pages) that I sometimes remember to write things on with a name, a time, and
an address with a phone number scribbled under it. Sometimes I even remember to
look at the calendar to see if I have an appointment. I want to redo the address
pages (because of those dead people and a few others who I don’t speak to
anymore and the ones I’ve neglected to input).
However, some of the scribbled names have me
baffled. I have no idea who Josh Milbauer is or why I have his number. I’m not
at all certain who Alix is and why I have his (or her) number. I do know who
Eric Perrodin is: the mayor of Compton and a D.A. in Los Angeles and I do
remember why I have his number, something do with those loose diamonds and
losing my computer when we were burglarized. But I’m not quite sure where Mabel
Mae’s Gourmet Food Room is or why I felt compelled to write it down (no number),
or what entranced me about Frontier Soups, which apparently come in three
varieties: fisherman’s stew, corn chowder, holiday cranberry soup. Maybe it has
something to do with Mabel Mae’s Gourmet Food Room. I’m not sure. They’re not on
the same page. It’s not just the outside of my Filofax that could use some
cleaning up, the inside needs some work, too.
There are those dead people, some of whom died of
natural causes at what seemed like it might have been a natural end. But then
there are those other ones. My friend Joan who found our house for us, whose
face I still see smiling at me and who I want to call every time we have a cause
for celebration or a new disaster. My friend Lisa whose death, from a rare form
of cancer, came on so
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