What happened the past three months is this:

I lost a bunch of things at once, I lost my home by choice, I lost love for so many people, I lost a sense of feeling. When I walked and spoke and did anything, it was through this filmy layer. Food tasted bland. I dumped hot sauce on everything, but it made my eyes water. Then I went to a party and lost my new white gloves on the bed where all the coats were laid out. I spread on the bed, making an angel out of forgotten garments, my gloves somewhere in there too. When I got up, I gained several things, clinging to me as if I was made of Velcro. Hey, I said. Get lost, things. I was happy with those new white gloves – I don’t want anything else. I’d thought those gloves were the best thing coming, bought them at a Zellers where a large portion of the lights burnt out and a man followed me through the lingerie section. I had thought I’d find something there, but instead I got lost where the bath sale items were jumbled in a lonely pile. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always cold here, especially my hands. I went through a lot of gloves until I found this pair – on sale, two sizes too large – it was still perfect. I made them even better with a woolen mitt taken from another set of gloves.

I definitely put them in my bicycle helmet. I definitely put my helmet in my tote bag. I made two return visits to the place I parked my bicycle, the doorway I went through and the corridor I walked quickly down to be on-time for my lecture.

So somebody picked up my glove and mitt and didn’t turn it in to the lost and found – I did see this girl cycle away with just one right glove, and I thought that was a little strange.

-Joanne Leow

Last I saw the 5 ¼-inch installation disk, it was in a dresser drawer not far from the Tandy. (Remember Tandy? We had clipboard and corkboard.) Anyway, “Simulator” was my first ever computer game. The game was terrible. No apparent missions and few discernible objects on screen. A red figure in a red boat used to monotonously row to and fro on a small lake—a blue gash surrounded by endless green landscape. Occasionally I fired at it or into the wind. Okay, maybe there were missions with enemies but I was clueless about the instrument panel and saw little. Eventually it all became a bore, and I returned to the vague city and flew my plane into one of the tall buildings.

-Tyler Gabrysh

Last weekend I lost my cell phone. What makes it worse is that I knew I would lose my cell phone. There was a feeling deep down in my gut, all week, that it would be gone when I needed it. It was a busy weekend: A baby shower, a wedding shower, two retirement parties, and constant driving. It was a weekend where a phone would come in handy. So, having this inkling of self doubt in the back of my mind, I kept my phone close. I put it in my pocket, checked incessantly when it was in my purse, and became generally paranoid. I worried. Still, as I left my first of many destinations I slipped. I smiled and said good-bye and thanked them for a wonderful time and ignored that moment when my brain said “check for your phone.” I swatted it away like an annoying fly. I’d been so careful. There was no way I didn’t have it. I drove the two hours home without thinking about it and unpacked my stuff, all set for gathering number two. I reach into my purse to check the time. Gone. I dump out my purse. Still Gone. I check both cars, my suitcase, my purse again, and ever place I’ve stepped since I’ve entered the house. Gone. Gone. Gone. I got frustrated. I got angry. I got very, very drunk. Someone else drove to location three.

-Jill Nagel

I was on a school trip to Europe in the twelfth grade, touring the streets of London, when an old woman stopped me to ask for a donation. She was offering a single flower in exchange for money for her charity. (To this day I can’t remember what the charity was, only her insistent pleas of “Feed the children, save the children, Jesus loves you!” as she stuck a flower in my coat.) Flustered and anxious that my class would leave me behind, I told the old woman I only had two pence in change, but would gladly give it.

The old woman frowned and said that most people were giving her paper money, at least one pound. By now most of my class was vanishing in the distance. I told her I had a five-pound note ($12.50 CDN at the time) and wanted to know if she could give me change. She told me she would. Just as she took the money, someone’s voice distracted me, and somehow she got across the street before I could stop her.

The best part? I realized after that the flower was cheap foil and tissue paper. The women handing out real flowers for their real charity were further down the street.

-Brandon Crilly

Around the age of 9, I fell off a swing and landed on my ass. A friend asked if I’d injured my tailbone, and I discovered, much to my surprise, that I didn’t have one. Either it had fallen out, or it never developed in the womb. Apparently falling on your tailbone hurts like a bitch, so I don’t really miss it. Found: Double-row of eyelashes, apparently a genetic mutation also shared by Elizabeth Taylor? Conclusion: genetic anomalies can be fucking wicked.

-Andy Vatiliotou

I forgot how the train moved, pulling me further from the Bavarian city towards Paris. I forgot the time he took me for my departure to the train station: a February morning, resplendent with sunlight and mechanical breathing. Freund one of the words I recognized as he lay his arm across the ticket counter, explaining the ticket dilemma I can’t remember either. Even with the intricacies of the German language, an innate straightforwardness exists. The names of things are usually just a string of nouns describing the object. For example, their word for “squirrel” can more or less be translated into ‘an animal living in the tree.’

Freund, interestingly, can be what it looks like in English: friend. Or it can be used to mean boyfriend. In the case at the train station, die Freundin can either mean a female friend or a girlfriend. As my ear snatched this little tidbit, I thought about how it would be without him—how it would be to not see the hair on his ears, his lips pursing when he tried not to smile too much, the way he fingered his sleeves when he was nervous and searching for English words.

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It is not so unusual a thing for a child with a guilty conscience to think irrational thoughts. Who can say that they never suspected a sharp-eyed mother of being able to read minds? This is perfectly normal, nothing more than the momentary delusions of the bored and mischievous. However, when a child persists in believing that every thought is open to be perused by a watchful parent or curious passerby, this is distinctly abnormal. I was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia at the age of nine, during a time when not much was known about the disease. I was administered a heavy dose of Lithium and sent to bi-monthly therapy sessions where a man with an irritatingly sparse goatee tried to disabuse me of my irrational notions. Between the medication, the degradation at the hands of strangers in lab coats, and my continued fear that my mind was an open book, I lost something of great importance. I lost my childhood. I grew up in a climate of suspicion, fear, and persecution both real and imagined, effectively eliminating any chances of developing normally. While other children laughed and played in the street I hid in the crawl space of my small Southern home, out of sight, trying to quiet my thoughts and avoid detection. Now, many years later, my Schizophrenia is under control. I no longer suffer from paranoid delusions, but I will never get my childhood back. I will never know what it is to be innocent and carefree.

-William C. Newsom

At the age of ten, I lost my manners. I decided that I had had enough of being a respectful docile prim and proper daughter.I decided to rebel, to break the rules and make a statement. No more being on the straight and narrow.

I don’t remember what the argument I had with my parents was about, but I’m sure that it involved the usual: don’t be a brat in school, don’t hit your brother, take your muddy shoes off before entering the house, stop feeding the stray cats, no more digging up worms or playing with frogs, or something else that involved being nicer to humans and less nice to other life-forms. (Okay, so maybe I was never a prim and proper daughter. Maybe what I really lost was my patience.)

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TAoL