Identity

I can count on one hand the number of times I've screamed the F-word at the top of my lungs.

Three of these incidents took place in the last year. 

F #3 echoed down Church Street when I crushed my finger in the front door. 

F #4 earned a stern look from my mother, who'd just beaten me at Scrabble by one point.

F #5 was tonight when someone left a little virus on my flash drive, destroying every essay, every MP3, every photo to my name.

For an hour, there was no record anywhere of my twenties. I went totally ghost. 

And my first impulse was to throw up.

My mind went to my birth certificate -- was I still on the grid? What is it about property that makes you feel you exist because of it? I am not my flash drive. I have memory, too. I didn't suddenly not go to India because I lost the photos. Elliott Smith is waiting for me on iTunes. And I write essays in my sleep. Yet I felt as though I'd actually float away.

My evil-genius ex somehow restored everything. (I basically owe him a child now.) Still, I think I'd like to spend less time behind cameras and keyboards and ear buds and more time actually being part of the world.

And anyone who asks to borrow my flash drive can go F himself.