lost

a list of items lost?
As well as the usual non-material suspects, boynton has most recently (within the last 14 years) lost a few items while walking Doug with a bad back-pack. The back pack has either been gaping from age or carelessness, and items have probably floated away into the traffic like those plastic bags of spring, or rotted anonymously in the golf-course undergrowth.
This includes aforementioned beloved tam-o-shanter.
boynton sometimes looked at this with that defeatist anxiety - this is such a wonderful item, it can't last, and one day it will fall out of my unzipped backpack somewhere on the boulevard. It used to smell of wool and shampoo. And me? An item of headwear is such a personal item that boynton can't imagine a finder of road kill clothing easily adopting it.
And this includes a few scarves.
the funny thing about one of these tartan scarves is that both boynton and a friend and fellow dog walker lost and found a tartan scarf once around the same time. boynton had the uneasy sense that we had been unknowingly exchanging scarves. You would often see lost items like leads, collars, sunglasses and sometimes keys tied to a prominent branch along the way. Like the shoe trees, the dog walker's pound. Perhaps it would have been possible within that tartan era to set out dressed like this and return like this.
however one of the lost scarves was non-tartan and was one of boynton's old favourites and had been with her through various life stages, institutions and spin cycles. boynton had just said goodbye to a man heading overseas when she took doug out, trying to run off the emotion. But the scarf ran away instead. She retraced her steps the next day but could not find it - nor could she see it hanging magically on one of the 'found' trees.
She has lost doug's collar twice (recovered)
One stranger rang up intrigued by his name. What sort of dog is Doug?! he asked, and sounded almost disappointed with the answer Labrador
And once doug's entire ensemble his lead and chain. Gone.
It was a nice navy one with a knot in it if you see it.
A frisbee or two ( not to metion one expensive type thrown almost wantonly into the Yarra. It didn't float)
Years before she was with one of her nephews in this park who suddenly lost a ring he was wearing. My Wing..my Wing he said distressed. But somehow magically his wing reappeared.
Sometimes the universe is kind.

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Comments: lost

The non-material suspects are the ones I fear most.

Fisherman: What will I do if I ever rediscover my lonliness?

Poet: Share your catch and lose it again.

Fisherman: [aside] Goody goody.

Speaking of lost minds, I read a play called Inside the Island the other night (Louis Nowra). A group of soldiers goes feral after eating ergot-poisoned wheat. Murder, rape, snakes in the belly, fire, wanton acts of paranoid violence. A strange little read after fitting "onus" with "responsibility" and "consternation" with "alarm" in the Age quick crossword.

One thing I routinely lose is phone numbers. Barely-legible sequences of numbers scrawled on tiny bits of paper - tightly folded and wedged into a huge, overflowing draw stuffed full with thousands of other tiny bits of paper.

Perhaps I should have an ergot and peanut butter sandwich then burn the whole lot!


Posted by Jim at September 29, 2003 02:28 PM

I like that first scene, Jim - a new play?
Haven't read/seen Inside The Island. Much consternation to admit this, and onus now on me to secure a copy.
And finally - as a mathematician you would be able to memorise these strange sequences of numbers and even analyse their patterns?
Sometimes phone numbers and other formulae need a song I say.
Posted by boynton at September 29, 2003 03:10 PM

How about this for a first verse:

I know there's a nine

In it
In it

I know there's a three

In it
In it

But the order and other six
Numbers I need

Are gone

Bin it
Bin it

Gone

In it
In it

The next verse could feature frogs: a background croaking developing into a doo wop chorus.
Posted by Jim at September 29, 2003 04:46 PM

Ribbit
Ribbit

Love it
Love it
Posted by boynton at September 29, 2003 04:51 PM