Forgetting my bag on the train home from the film festival in Värnamo. Describes the contents of an email to SJ’s lost and found department: a signed book with film reviews by Stig Björkman, a t-shirt that combines the logo of the goth band Bauhaus with the eye slit in Luis Buñuel’s film “The Andalusian Dog” and – annoyingly – my planning calendar.
Suddenly I have no idea what to do for the rest of the year. I have wasted all of 2023. “What do we learn from this?” asks a friend. “That you should get a digital calendar!”
Unfortunately, I am an analog person. If I don’t write down meetings, dinners and errands in my paper calendar, it doesn’t feel like they will actually happen. I have to call in, underline and mess around with colored pencils to remember everything. And apparently I’m right. Recently, a group of researchers at the Karolinska Institute sent a referral to the Minister of Education stating that students learn worse when they use digital tools.
My girlfriend shares my love for office supplies. If I say “now we take out our paper calendars and plan this” it sparkles a little extra in her eyes. She is not as fond of my ability to slip things away. I have a flaky personality. I do most things quickly and often accidentally break or lose things.
Because of that, there are a lot of nice things in my home that I’d rather not use. A pair of leather gloves from Marc Jacobs, for example, which remain in their gift box. And an expensive wine decanter. I don’t wear my Ray-Bans either because I know they would immediately dematerialize.
I don’t know how I became clumsy, but my ability to lose things is possibly a legacy of my mother who, throughout my growing up, kept losing her keys. When she started exhibiting abstract expressionist art, I told myself that we shared a kind of inner creative chaos, where there was no room for little things like where to put car keys, wallets or glasses.
I nodded in agreement when Bodil Malmsten once wrote: “Put the keys in the same place and you’ll find them,” say people who don’t know what stress is. Same place as what?” Last year I lost my apartment keys. After several days of searching, I found them – in the freezer.
Some things, the most important ones, tend to return if I get rid of them. They are like satellites in orbit around me. So that they don’t lose that quality, I never replace them. I’ve had the same wallet since the nineties—torn, dented, full of receipts—because the smaller models I’ve tried disappear instantly. I’ve had my AC/DC bottle opener keychain since 1997. It even returned after I dropped it in a street well.
And this time I’m also lucky with the calendar. A kind soul finds my bag on the train and I can pick it up at SJ’s lost property department. A month later I lecture at the gay club Stockholm Bears. On the way home by subway, I forget the same bag again. I describe the contents of an email to SL’s lost and found department: disco producer Patrick Cowley’s erotic diary “Mechanical fantasy box”, a Tom of Finland t-shirt and – annoyingly – my planning calendar.
I am ashamed and am seriously considering getting a digital calendar. But then one morning I see something sticking out of the laundry basket. The calendar! Apparently I had neglected it even before I was aware that I neglected it. But the bag (black shoulder strap model from Fred Perry) is still gone. Shout if you see it.
Read more chronicles and other texts by Fredrik Strage.
