tend to lose things. Pens. Phone numbers. Every six months, I buy a giant collection of rubber bands for my hair but they wind up underneath furniture and crammed between couch cushions so that I’m left with only a pitiful handful, the ones threatening to break and knotted with hair.

One day, I received an email. “Where did your website go?”

At the time, I read it as a criticism of neglect—for months, I’d treated updates on my website like a trip to the gym. That’s a good idea, I’d think. But then I’d flick on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and become very preoccupied with The Reveal. (I mean: How do they do that?!?) Within days, however, I discovered the awful truth--www.sarahhepola.com had gone missing.

I panicked. What was going on? Why did this happen? Was www.sarahhepola.com protesting? The site had always been good to me, and how had I treated it? Neglected it, took it for granted. Never even linked the damn thing properly. Perhaps, like a scorned lover, www.sarahhepola.com was exacting its revenge. Either that, or I hadn’t paid my fee again. I placed the odds at an even 50-50.

In the days that followed, I overflowed with entry ideas to post. Most of them were fleeting things: “Oooh-oooh!” I’d think. “I never wrote about my favorite movies from last year!” The Golden Globes came and went, and I remained eerily silent on the topic of Terri Hatcher’s dress. Suddenly, I felt the full impact of losing my website. If I had opinions, jokes, theories about rappers, I had to actually tell them to people. This was hard, seeing as how I suffer a seasonal aversion to socialization. I tried a few routines on my mother, but it just wasn’t the same. “That’s good, honey,” she always said. “But who’s Dr. Dre? Is he on ER?”

I penned desperate missives to the Cedant Web Team, but they went cruelly unanswered. I typed in my familiar address again and again like a fool--hoping for a different outcome. My hopes were dashed every time. Joni Mitchell told us you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. And as Janet Jackson once pointed out, “Joni Mitchell never lies.”

By the end of last week, I had lost hope. I started thinking about a new website, a spunky little number with pink trim and sparklies. I missed my old stoic website, but this one would be a new start, something different--maybe better even.

That’s when I received another email, this time from my boyfriend.

“Your website is back up. Not sure what happened, but it’s there now.”

I typed in the address to find my smiley face staring back at me. “Thank God,” I thought, with relief. And then, “Geez, I really need to change that picture.” But for now, I’m just glad to have www.sarahhepola.com safely returned to me.

I’ve learned my lesson. This time, I promise to take care of it.