The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost some notes. I couldn't find them anywhere, and they were important notes: I'm writing a chapter about the Ukrainian construction industry, and miraculously, I'd managed to find the one guy in all of Ukraine who could talk straight with me about the construction business, down to the nitty-gritty of trends in costs of building materials. He was pressed for time, but he was very helpful. And I lost the notes.

The funny thing was, I couldn't even remember which of various notebooks and sundry scattered sheaves of scrap paper I'd used for this interview. But I looked everywhere, and the notes weren't anywhere.

After an hour - an hour badly spent, and now lost - I remembered something: The papers never existed. I'd brought my laptop to the guy's office and typed the notes, during the interview, right into a Word file.

It's all right here in front of me. Thus have I have mastered the art of losing.

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