Well that was a very disagreeable experience. Ever lose a file? I mean like a chapter of a book you’ve been writing for a long time. Well, last fall I started a chapter for my book. This particular chapter had something to do with my protagonist going to a lake and spending the night in his truck, talking to his dead grandfather about a woman he liked, who left town to live with her sister and help run the family Laundromat, and did not say goodbye. Classic literature.

That’s all I could remember about it; all else, including the likely file name, was lost to the musty winds of memory. And I could not find the file tonight, when I wanted to sit down and try to rescue it from its obvious shortcomings. … Not on the hard drive, not on the floppies or the CD backups or the FTP. Damn.

Well, it finally occurred to me to look on Old Sparky, my senior citizen laptop. There it was, with the rather mystifying working title The Cheese Stands Alone. Can’t imagine what inspired that, except maybe a line in a book on writing [Anne Lamott? — Natalie Goldberg?] “The cheese stands alone, and decides to take a few notes.” Too bad the cheese didn’t make a note about where one might find this cheesy little chapter.