Non Compos Mentis

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Proof that I have problems: Whenever I leave my apartment I press on the door three times, after having locked it, so to confirm it secure. I may even be out of the building and half way down the block when I’ll stop and turn and go back to check the door once more. (In my defense, I succumb to this last compulsion infrequently.) I have multiple copies on various media of everything I’ve ever typed into the computer. I take a floppy disk copy of said writings—secured within two Ziploc baggies—wherever I go.* Of the writings that are not recorded into the computer (id est, upon/within various notepads and notebooks), I keep most of them, along with an autographed copy of Mamet’s The Old Religion, in the freezer. (Said freezer is of the non-ice accumulating variety.) The rationale: fire protection. All of my valuables (which carry little value beyond the bounds of mine own heart) are hidden in odd places. I shall not detail such “odd places” upon these pages, dear reader, lest you be a burglar. To give the illusion of being home, I leave the lights and the radio on (thanks to a tip from Malcom X, via his autobiography). I also leave a pair of old shoes outside of my door. I am not concerned about losing these shoes. My feet are smaller than most, and said shoes are in truly lousy condition. 
15 January 2001 

*[Before Lewy body dementia turned StepDude into a vegetable, he’d never leave the house without a briefcase full of his writings. The rationale: Should he fall victim to a heart attack or to a car crash, the paramedics would, he presumed, treat him, a published writer, with extra special care. But then why, in an emergency situation, would a first responder bother to open anybody’s briefcase—if not to steal something?]

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