"Engage panic mode. Panic mode engaged. Aargh!"

The panic ensued in Bartell's, when I looked down and realized that, while I entered the store with a book and my journal, I now had only the book. The journal, with, oh, parts of 10-15 poems was AWOL. That terrible sinking feeling .... but I retraced my steps to it fairly quickly, so all is well. Portability is good, but the loss potential is frightening. Better the hard drive you know. I tend to start poems with these chicken-scratchings -- some phrases or key words, a couple of lines, a title -- in my journal or on scrap paper (backs of junk mail envelopes, often). But when I sit down to produce a serious draft, it's almost always on the computer. How about you?

Strange observation ... I had picked up a large orange leaf, and was examining the back when I realized that the pattern of the veins looked EXACTLY like the plan for a huge subdivision, bird's eye view. All the main streets and culdesacs, all the individual building lots neatly divided off. I say "realized", but really it was a sort of weird pattern-recognition brain slip ... like I wasn't sure what I was seeing, for a moment, as my mind tried to map two totally dissimilar environments together. Spooky.

"That gives you some idea of how truly exciting some days can be around here."

25 Geek Credits for anyone who can correctly source the above quote (you have been given a clue.)