Measuring what I've lost
Jul. 11th, 2006 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4My mum found the photos that I was so upset about not being able to find last Thursday (I posted about it but deleted the post in a fit of emo, so don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about). Next time I give something to somebody for safekeeping, I should probably try to remember that I've done so, preferably before I turn the house upside-down looking for it and get miserably distressed about having lost it.
Losing things, though, it's such a horrible stomach-plummeting feeling: when you look for the thing in the place where you know you saw it last, and it's not there, and it's still not there when you look again, and again, circling and eddying through little heaps of junk but always drawn back to the place where you know it ought to be, like a wasp hitting a window-pane over and over again as if just one more attempt will be enough to break through to the light.
The worst thing is how vivid the object becomes in memory and imagination: you can see it before your eyes, every dent and wrinkle as clear as broken glass; you can even feel the weight of it in your hand, you know how it would feel to find it, how it would fall just so if it was there to be shaken out of that pile of things-that-need-filing, or how its edges would rub against your fingers if it was at the bottom of the box into which you were thrusting your hand. If the magic I've read about in fantasy novels worked, the sort of magic where visualising a thing clearly enough and willing it to be there was sufficient to summon it or call it into being, I'd have been able to pluck that envelope out of the ether faster than you can say "Accio".
Despite Thursday's self-induced trauma and Friday morning's resulting emotional hangover, on Friday evening I auditioned to be on TV to talk about cake decorating. To call it an "audition" lends the event a sense of grandeur that at the time was conspicuous by its absence: a maze of dingy corridors in the back rooms of a church hall; a tiny room, overflowing with teenage cheerleaders and hazy with hairspray, where I signed some papers saying that if they filmed me they'd be allowed to use the film; and then a vast echoey hall where I sat at a tiny table in front of two cheerful people and a camera, and rambled about cakes (with photos printed from my website) for what felt like a mouth-dessicatingly long three minutes. And that was it. When I asked when I'd be likely to hear from them in the event that they did decide to use me, they seemed mildly surprised that I should care. I'm still slightly puzzled as to why they approached me in the first place, but fortunately I don't really mind either way; so far it's only cost me one trip to London (no, they don't pay expenses) and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
addedentry and I took advantage of that to spend a pleasant evening in the Rising Sun with a friend of his: good beer, good food, and a lot of putting-the-world-to-rights conversation and enthusiastic waving of hands.
Over the weekend I managed to break my glasses and lose my new debit card, but I also got some tidying done, caught up on sleep, and saw a crazy Japanese film about goblins which was actually pretty good, even if I wasn't really very sure what was going on for most of it. Then on Monday lunchtime I took the specs in for fixing ("Ah, I see you broke the other side last time, in 2003" -- they know where I live, too) and on Monday evening I found the debit card in one of my many in-tray-ish envelopes. Karma is now hopefully restored.
Losing things, though, it's such a horrible stomach-plummeting feeling: when you look for the thing in the place where you know you saw it last, and it's not there, and it's still not there when you look again, and again, circling and eddying through little heaps of junk but always drawn back to the place where you know it ought to be, like a wasp hitting a window-pane over and over again as if just one more attempt will be enough to break through to the light.
The worst thing is how vivid the object becomes in memory and imagination: you can see it before your eyes, every dent and wrinkle as clear as broken glass; you can even feel the weight of it in your hand, you know how it would feel to find it, how it would fall just so if it was there to be shaken out of that pile of things-that-need-filing, or how its edges would rub against your fingers if it was at the bottom of the box into which you were thrusting your hand. If the magic I've read about in fantasy novels worked, the sort of magic where visualising a thing clearly enough and willing it to be there was sufficient to summon it or call it into being, I'd have been able to pluck that envelope out of the ether faster than you can say "Accio".
Despite Thursday's self-induced trauma and Friday morning's resulting emotional hangover, on Friday evening I auditioned to be on TV to talk about cake decorating. To call it an "audition" lends the event a sense of grandeur that at the time was conspicuous by its absence: a maze of dingy corridors in the back rooms of a church hall; a tiny room, overflowing with teenage cheerleaders and hazy with hairspray, where I signed some papers saying that if they filmed me they'd be allowed to use the film; and then a vast echoey hall where I sat at a tiny table in front of two cheerful people and a camera, and rambled about cakes (with photos printed from my website) for what felt like a mouth-dessicatingly long three minutes. And that was it. When I asked when I'd be likely to hear from them in the event that they did decide to use me, they seemed mildly surprised that I should care. I'm still slightly puzzled as to why they approached me in the first place, but fortunately I don't really mind either way; so far it's only cost me one trip to London (no, they don't pay expenses) and
addedentry and I took advantage of that to spend a pleasant evening in the Rising Sun with a friend of his: good beer, good food, and a lot of putting-the-world-to-rights conversation and enthusiastic waving of hands.Over the weekend I managed to break my glasses and lose my new debit card, but I also got some tidying done, caught up on sleep, and saw a crazy Japanese film about goblins which was actually pretty good, even if I wasn't really very sure what was going on for most of it. Then on Monday lunchtime I took the specs in for fixing ("Ah, I see you broke the other side last time, in 2003" -- they know where I live, too) and on Monday evening I found the debit card in one of my many in-tray-ish envelopes. Karma is now hopefully restored.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 12:58 pm (UTC)Are you going to scan them all in now as promised? I'd like to see them all again!
I lost something that mattered to me a year ago, and I went through the exact same thing -- in fact I'm still upset over it now, and still keep looking in the same places just in case. But life does go on, and, as a friend pointed out, it's my own fault for making emotional attachments to small pieces of plastic that are easily lost (it was a plectrum, it lived in my pocket, it's actually a miracle it wasn't lost or washed to bits sooner). Still hope it might somehow turn up, never thought to try accio...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 09:51 pm (UTC)Glad your thing turned up.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 05:54 pm (UTC)