1-10-11 I forgot my laptop bag in the jeep. How I managed to do that is beyond me, but it must have had something to do with the snow. I guess I was so preoccupied with dusting the snow off my car that I forgot to put my bag in there when I swapped vehicles.
That means not only have I left my laptop, but also my keys to the lab, flash drive, journal and reading materials (not that I ever have spare time to read, but I carry them just in case I am held up in traffic or something unexpected like that).
So it’s leaving the flash drive and journal that bothers me most of all. I’ve resorted to writing this entry on plain unlined printer paper. It’s not nearly as gratifying as writing in my journal, but at least I can write. To have no outlet at all would truly drive me insane. Leaving the flash drive bothers me just because it contains all my writing and photographic efforts for the past couple years. I forget it every once in a while and always feel uncomfortable until it is once again in my possession.
I guess the need to physically write things down is an obsession, or a compulsion. Once I was able to write this entry, even on the plain paper, I felt able to get on with the day. Even though 90 percent of the time, nothing I write in my journal is *important*, I still feel better after doing it.
Not all writers feel this urge to keep journals. But I think most do write things down as they think of them, whether on scraps of paper or in a notebook. With me, it doesn’t seem to matter whether what I’m thinking is useful to a story or just thoughts in my head, I need to write it to get it out of there.
