I had lost my purse, and separately, my wallet. I had put it away somewhere when we went out of town, but couldn't remember where. I was going through every cabinet and every drawer; I was living in a furnished apartment, and it didn't appear that I had ever actually moved in. There was lots of stuff there, but nothing that was really mine. The cabinets were full of old fashioned glassware, and the furniture was old, too, like the kind of scratchy sofa I had in my first apartment.

In a parallel story, I was supposed to be learning a new computer system, but I didn't know how to do it, and no one would show me. I was supposed to already know how to do it, but I didn't even know how to turn the computer on. And in the middle of this, I was still trying to find my wallet . . .