Somebody Kidnapped Nelly-Belle

I've been writing a novel for the past two months, unmolested in my favorite library room. Here.



Returning home and after transporting hay to the stable, I forgot Nelly, my laptop, was in the backseat of my car. And late last night, somebody smashed in the window and took her. And when they took an old wheezing laptop, they took everything, everything.

I had written the best I had in me, the best I could squeeze out of my little mind, and someone is going to sell the shell, only the shell, according to the cops, for about $50.

And I told the cops, "Please, if you bust into some house and they're storing stolen computers, mine looks like she has a Bounty Paper Towel for a cover. Green squiggles and things. She's huge, and ugly, and if you see her, I want her back."

I'll never get her back, I know that. I just don't know how I can write again what I lost. It was better than me, much better than me. I know you wouldn't expect the words "dry" and "erotic" to add up. But they did.

I was just so proud of it, of what I had written. And it's gone.

And this all reminds me of what I told my friend Oscar, when Apple was $25 a share, "We should buy, we really should. Now." And for some reason or another, we forgot to do so.