Who steals my purse steals my ID, and that is a real nuisance. I seem always to need a new VISA card just before a trip so that I must push to get a new one/number before I go away. I have learned over the years, and perhaps these are tips that will help you, not to put all my IDs in one basket... CENSORED ON ADVICE FROM A FRIEND ...... Thus, even when I am without tangible means of payment, I am not bereft. Still, as I say, it's a nuisance.

One thing I noted, with satisfaction: The fear factor seems to be gone. I am no longer panic-stricken when something like this happens. My serenity has something to do with my age. I've lived through so many crises by now, that ones like this seem minor by comparison.

"þæs ofereode, þises swa mæg"

Now, if the automatic spell-chek will allow that to be there, this translates as "That passed, so may this." It's from Deor's Lament, an Old English poem that carries me through the hard times.

I won't go into detail. Everyone has his/her own anxiety level. The mind, of course, can play the worst tricks on your equilibrium. Some people seek mental anguish in horror shows and violent movies. I avoid it and them, but I get agitated, and the soles of my feet tingle, when I board an escalator that goes too high or too low. I think of those deep, deep escalators in the subways of London that people used as bomb shelters during WWII. I think the closest, though far from it, in Toronto, is the escalator in the Scotia Bank Building on John Street. I can't look up or down or sideways on that one; I just tense up and clutch the handrail during the ascent. The descent is worse.

Ah well, into every life a little angst must fall. To thine own self be true.

That's what I call my half hour swim every morning - wet meditation. In season, that is, when classes are running, I go over my Icelandic numbers; other times I plan menus and grocery lists, going over the contents of my fridge, checking out leftovers I must use. Sometimes, as this morning, I begin with the next section of an essay I'm working on, the introduction to my book. But then I lose focus and move around. I surprised myself this morning with the range of my thinking, not that it was inspiring or profound, but that it covered so much geographical territory, all within the limits of an outdoor pool, I mean, not even a lake.

This is a nice, non-theatening use of inner dialogue, semi-directed but wide-ranging. The late writer and my friend, W.O (Bill) Mitchell (1914-1998), used to assign writing students an exercise he called "free-fall". The purpose was to unleash hidden thoughts and unexpressed ideas and give them free rein, see what's lurking there in the sub-conscious. Some people found seeds of a story, or maybe a character in a story, or maybe fewer inhibitions. That's a positive negative, isn't it? The idea is not to think, just to write. That's not quite what I do when I write my daily blog though it must read like it at times. The trouble with the inner dialogue is that it's so layered, so tangential. Inchoate.

I think so. Cogito ergo sum.