We have an inconsistent carpet situation at the office. The shot above is a rare moment of monochrome pleasure, taken in the elevator. The elevator carpt is different from the elevator lobby carpet, which is different than the inner lobby, which is different than the office area.

The inner lobby carpet is new. I don't know what they were thinking.

I was halfway up the elevator ride to the office when the voices in my head fell silent. They didn’t trail off in a diminishing hiss - they just stopped. Ah, well, the phone must have jostled something in my pocket, or the friction of fabric against the sensitive glass must have hit PAUSE. I reached for the phone. The phone was not there.

Huh. Well, this pocket, then . . . no.

This pocket? That one?

No.

I have no set pocket for my phone, which is probably a mistake. You’d think: coat breast pocket. But that’s where I put my clip-on sunglasses, and over the months the little metal clips etch tiny lines in the phone. Well, get yourself a glass protector! I did. It had a big bubble I couldn’t get out. Drove me nuts. Well, get clip-ons with rubber tips around the clipping part. They all come with those. They all fall off or fade away or the ends get poked out. Well, then commit to the back pocket, and make that your habitual place. What, and lose all my money?

If you have some bills in your back pocket, and you put the phone in your back pocket, the action of pulling it out may also spill the bills. Well, put the bills in your front pocket, then. Right - but then you put the phone in the front, take it out, and the camera protuberation pulls the bills up and out. I tell you, it’s a daily logistical nightmare.

ANYWAY, point being, no phone.

Was it back in the car?

No, I’d had the phone while walking, I know that, because I’d started a podcast as I left the Normandy lot. I remembered the jaunty-and-sardonic theme starting as I crossed the street after passing through the parking lot gate. I went back down the elevator, asking my watch to find my phone, a sentence that would have seemed absurd 20 years ago, okay, maybe 25, and saw it right away on the carpeted skyway floor. Whew. I picked it up and turned it on and the hosts were laughing about something, a joke told in the interval when I’d lost contact in the elevator shaft. I rewound to get the full joke.

It was funny, but it wasn’t that funny.

Then I was suddenly flooded by a different problem: I had not locked the car. Someone could try the door and rummage about. Nothing to steal, but I didn't like the idea of rummaging.

Now to go lock the car then come back here and do . . . . something.

LATER

That was a brisk walk. Misty weather, faint drizzle. Not wet enough for an umbrella. I wonder how long you’d have to walk in the misty drizzle to get soaking wet. It doesn’t seem possible. It seems as if there’s some process by which the water never gets purchase, as if each small molecule knocks its processor off. They never join together. Rain always works as a team.

Well, let's go get a cup of coffee to warm up.

That's the first time I've seen that in ten years. To be honest, I don't understand. It's not being cleaned at the moment. They're empty. When they show up to start the process, just dump everything out, if there's anything left. Don't make this a situation where there's just no hope.

There are rumors of new pots. That would be nice. The insulating qualities of these Bunn DBS pots is nil, and everything's tepid fifteen minutes after it's made. No one wants coffee you can guzzle. You want coffee that says now hold on a minute there fella.

		Every day I make the coffee. Every other day I have to teach someone new that it's two grinds if you're brewing on the second position. This is news to many, who don't see the three pips as an indicator of anything. It's always on the middle position, so they figure, that's safe, why rock the boat.

But that means twice as much water as the single position, ergo, you simply have to do two grinds, or you get Lutheran Church Basement Coffee, which is so weak it's coffee that actually qualifies as a soporific.

I mention this only because every day I have a coffee conversion with someone and it's been two or three weeks since I knew who any of them were. Live long enough and you get FOD, or Functional Office Dementia. You don't recognize anyone.