I haven’t written because my mom used to say, “Don’t let anger speak for you.” Sorry, Mom. After six weeks, the mad just isn’t going away. I have a laundry list of grievances.

• August 27: My brother dies from liver cancer. George was exposed to Agent Orange in Viet Nam. I’m angry, and I miss him.
• September 20: I take my laptop to be serviced. The battery bulges, the magnetic power cord is hinky, and after five years, the machine needs memory. I backup the data on an eight gig zip.
• September 22: My lucky day. The repair shop is burglarized. A criminal steals my computer, but the store owner will replace it with a new one.
• September 24: I slip the eight gig zip into the USB port of a silvery MacBook Pro. I see nothing but empty folders. The memory stick is corrupt.

Someone crawled through an air conditioner vent and stole five years of my life. The photos of my daughters with their precious Uncle George–gone. The copy edited version of my novel–gone. The first six chapters of my new manuscript–gone. Email addresses for everyone I know–gone.

My digital house has burned to the ground. My brother was in it.