Catastrophe!

Ok, so perhaps catastrophe is a bit melodramatic, it's not like I have malaria (knock on wood) or that the borders to Singapore have shut down. But I am not happy about several turns of events in the last couple days.

This last weekend was awesome in many ways, but will be forever marred by the death of my camera. Ok, death is not technically correct. It didn't die. It was kidnapped. ...Actually, it may not have been kidnapped. In truth, I do not know what happened to it. Saturday at 4:30pm, I took 4 pictures of the outside of that National Museum of Singapore. Then, four hours later, I reached for my bag to take some exquisite photos of the night city scape of Singapore from the City Space bar on the 70th floor---photographs that would surely win me a Pulitzer prize in my near future...only to come to the startling realization that my camera was not in my bag. Actually, the realization came about 20 minutes later. The first 20 minutes I was ferociously in denial. Sorting through my bag over and over, emptying the contents, and marveling to myself how my bag was deceptively large to have hidden my camera so thoroughly, and how jealous Miss Poppins would be if she were to ever find out. Even after my bag was turned inside out, I was not convinced. I walked all the way back to the National Museum, talked them into letting me in, even though it was closed. Spoke with the front desk. With security. Checked the corners and the bathrooms.

I still don't know what happened. However, my camera is no longer with me. I blame it on the lack of sleep. And the stress. I *always* lose things when I am sleep deprived and stressed. And I was up until 6am the night before, and am stressed out of my head with research. I am partly mourning, and partly still in denial. The stages of grief take a while to cycle through. That camera was probably the most expensive thing I own. And easily my favorite. Traveling without a camera to document my experiences seems tragically hollow. Traveling solo does not intimate me. But traveling cameraless feels like traveling naked. Or traveling in a dream. With no one else to hold my hand and validate my experiences, I feel so much more alone. Cameras make great company. When I'm all alone I need a camera to witness my life. How else am I supposed to know it's real? How else am I supposed to hold my head up and PROVE that I have seen the world. Without silly, materialistic, tangible pictures, tales of adventure fall from the pedestal of reality into the throngs of mere claims. How different things would have been if Columbus or Ponce de Leon had cameras.

....Ugh. I need to snap out of melodrama mode. But in my defense, it has been much more than just the camera. My laptop hasn't been working, which is frustrating because I can't update the blog, or Skype home, or make travel plans, and I've had to put in LONG hours at the office to make up for not being able to take work home. My phone has been out for the last few days, largely because my pocket dialed some random number and drained my prepaid card. Research has been the biggest clusterf**k I've ever experienced. Set backs, miscommunications, lack of communication, invalid data, lack of funding and every nightmare I could imagine.

Oh, and because my latop hasn't been working, I hadn't downloaded my pictures in weeks, which means that along with, and so much more important than my wonderful camera, I have lost hundreds of memories of the last few weeks.

Ugh.

But today is Monday, and a new week, and to take the advice of Emerson: I have done what I could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. I will forget them as soon as I can. Today is a new day, and I will *try* to begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with my old nonsense.