is name is Eric Allbright. "White male, medium build, messy hair (but short), kind of funny nose." That`s what I wrote in the police report, which I filled out in the back of the cop car as sweaty frat boys walked by and stared. "The witnesses told me his name is Eric Allbright." I wrote it twice. Like arrows and little squiggly lines. We have his name, people. Now I want my laptop back.

How It Went Down
I was walking back to the hostel, an afternoon spent hiding from the hot Ottawa sun in an air conditioned coffee shop, when I saw the guy rifling through my front seat. "Hey. Hey! Get out of my car!"
He ran, and I chased him into a parking lot where he hid poorly behind a white van.
He panted. So did I.
"Hey look." I could see him across the white van, the messy hair and the funny nose. He looked as scared as I was. "Look, I don`t care who you are. I just want my stuff."
He dropped two backpacks -- one mine, one not mine, both full of my things -- and ran.
Later, this is the part that will haunt me. That he was right there. That I was staring at him across a white van. That I was trying, of all things, to be nice.

What I Learned
Afterward, the homeless men hanging around the corners stand around me and explain why they didn`t help. I can`t hear any of it. I am staring at the blank space in my back seat where my laptop used to be.
"Miss, this ain`t no place to park your car," one of them says, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "This here's a homeless shelter."
"Miss, that man's name was Eric Allbright. He lived here."
"We're sorry, miss."
"We hope they catch him."
"They'll catch him."
Of all the fucking things. Of course he took my fucking laptop.

The Worst Question
"Was your door locked?" the first policeman asks.
I want to say yes. It would be the noble lie. It would be the impression of the truth. Yes means this was an injustice. Yes means let's get the fucker who did this to you. No is like an invitation. No is like a see-through top and a table dance.
"Sometimes when I lock my doors, this one side catches, and it doesn't lock, and I guess that happened this time. I don't know." The policemen aren't listening to me. They are staring at the orgy of equipment in my back seat. Not one camera but two. A walkman. A cell phone. 30 CDs, maybe more. And one laptop computer, missing. My car is like the G-spot for kleptomaniacs.
"You moving somewhere?"
"I've been driving around the country. The other country. America."
"By yourself?"
I nod. They give each other a look. I think it means their wives better not try anything so dumb.

A Brief Episode of Public Self-Pity, Followed by a Long Episode of Private Self-Pity
I don't need to explain why my laptop is one of the worst things Eric Allbright could have taken. I probably don't need to tell you that I will forever suspect that the unfinished stories on that computer were the best I ever wrote. I don't have to tell you that I'm a little heartbroken, or explain why my updates here will be shorter, or at least less frequent, or at least poorly capitalized.
These things happen. Worse things happen.
And so I check pawnshops, and find nothing, and so the police call, and they have found nothing, and so I leave Ottawa, knowing I will not get my laptop back, sometimes blaming myself and then sometimes just feeling really sad and so crying and thinking that surely there's something I'm not doing. I mean, we have his fucking name.
These things happen. Worse things happen.
"You know, everything happens for a reason," says a guy in the hostel when I return.
Okay, wise guy. Prove it.

written in Quebec City, Canada