Things don’t always go according to plan.

Not even the good plans.

Not even the plans with color-coding and optimism and a little internal gold star.

It’s nothing personal. It’s just a fact of life.

Though sometimes the thing not going according to plan is the spark that nudges your entire life onto a different track. And sometimes it’s just a minor inconvenience… even if I experience it as a direct and targeted attack.

I’ve lost my current plain light pink leather journal.

I cannot find it anywhere.

This is plain light pink leather journal number 007. I only started it a month or so ago. I am fairly certain it’s still in the house. That I put it somewhere I thought was terribly obvious and quite clever, tucked safely out of the way while we were celebrating Christmas. But in retrospect I might as well have buried it in the backyard and poured a slab of cement over it.

Since Christmas Eve… actually probably Christmas Eve Eve… I have been without my journal.

I have also had a truly miserable cold for the past ten days. That cold forcing me to rest is the only reason I haven’t already torn the entire house apart like a raccoon possessed by a grudge.

Plain light pink leather journals 001 through 006 are exactly where they belong. On the special finished journal shelf in the basement. Calm. Accounted for. In formation.

But 007?

Nowhere to be seen.

I’ve checked all the obvious places where I lounge and scribble. The bed. The sofa. The sectional. The pile of cushions in the corner. The leather daybed sofa that I still think is really fucking cool and remain delighted by, even if everyone else finds it… challenging.

I mean, I get it. Rick has to live with it, so I value his opinion, which is that it’s fine. I don’t expect my vegans to sit on it. I think James may be the only person who has ever actually joined me here. Which honestly may have less to do with the couch and more to do with the fact that we basically never let people into our house. My parents, however, are very clear. They hate that couch. Or at least the idea of sitting on it.

Oh.

I never checked the swing on the porch… Just a sec. Okay. I checked. It’s not there either.

As I was saying… I’ve lost the journal I was actively writing in. The seventh in the line of plain light pink leather journals that have been my constant companion since I had… You know… the Looney Tunes burnout, fall apart, breakdown time. The journal. It’s the thing that holds everything together. And it’s been missing for more than a week.

The timing of this is not lost on me.

It’s the new year. There’s also a truly exhausting amount of witchy astrological energy happening, especially for Pisces. I am, delightfully, a double Pisces with a Libra something-or-other tossed in for narrative tension. Which means I have apparently been under intense cosmic renovation for three straight years. Ugh.

But. We’re coming out of that now. Allegedly.

This journal model was chosen very intentionally. A plain light pink leather journal from a major brand that would reliably continue to exist. Something I could replace again and again and again, building a pleasing wall of my own unhinged daily history. Consistent. Uniform. Reassuring.

And suddenly… I cannot procure the exact one with dot paper.

So I had to choose.

Do I spiral into a sticky tar-and-feathers meltdown, or do I accept lined, grid, or plain pages as good enough?

I chose plain. I cannot handle fucking lines.

But even imperfect, it wouldn’t arrive for days. And I was actively coughing and broadcasting my germs to anyone within range. Not an issue in my own home, but still not something I felt like inflicting on the world. Also when I’m sick I barely have the energy to go into the next room, let alone venture out into public commerce.

So I clicked the buttons. I ordered the thing. I noticed there is now a larger softback version of the same journal that I like to use for dream doodling. Obviously I ordered that too.

Now we wait.

I’ve continued to look for the lost journal during this strange holiday time warp, and I very much hope that soon the journal that already holds a little piece of my life will resurface.

But if it doesn’t…

007 can start again tomorrow.

If Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan can share a role with George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig, then I suppose I can accept a blank-paged plain light pink leather journal as 007 v2.

That said.

I am fully expecting the original 007 to skydive out of its hiding place and land back on my side table the moment I sit down with its replacement. Like it was never gone. Like I imagined the whole thing.

Who knows. Maybe this was a dream.