Space invaders

Hollywood has the first part down: You can sense right away that something is off.

The front door was unlocked, and the second I turned the handle, I felt weird. Even beyond knowing that I always lock the door. It opens into my living room, which looked perfectly normal—except for the air mattress case leaning up against the couch. Racked my brain to think of a reason why. My brother and a couple of friends have keys to the apartment. Did one of them stop by? They live in Seattle and on the East Coast, respectively.

"Hello? Anybody here?" No answer.

Looked left and saw towels and sheets from my downstairs closet strewn on the stairs. Okay. Now I know. I've been robbed. Stepped into the living room—my stereo is still there. My DVD player. All my CDs. The little photo cabinet under my plant has a drawer open, and sitting on top of it is an old camera case with a cheap plastic drugstore 35mm still inside.

Glanced in the kitchen—the cabinet above the stove is open, but nothing is missing. Random check of the other cabinets. No disturbance. The beautiful dark blue serving plate is in its usual stand next to the wine racks; the delicate glass vase D&D brought me from Malta sits untouched on the shelf.

Was there just a really strong gust of wind that knocked a few things out of place? Did somebody break in, look around, and not take anything? A bizarre moment of feeling vaguely insulted. Come on . . . I have some pretty nice stuff.

Up the stairs. Turned the corner, still carrying my dry cleaning and work bag. I don't remember dropping them on the floor, or dropping my keys behind a bookcase somehow, but I did. OH. My. God.

My bedroom is trashed. Entirely trashed. It's hard to explain how it looks. Like a tornado went through, I guess. Or a hyperactive kid with a sweet tooth and a short temper, searching for the hidden cookie you promised. My laptop is gone, of course, torn from its tangle of wires and connectors. So's the mouse, but not the keyboard or hard drive. Too bulky?

There are papers and clothes spilling off the desk and out of the closet, thickly carpeting the floor next to the bed. The bottom rows of both tall white bookcases are partially overturned, Winterson mixing with Tanizaki, and some of my cheap paperbacks have been flung off the small bookcase, newsprint pages slipping out of their covers. Les Misérables, Hocus Pocus, The Oath.

The bed is covered with empty jewelry boxes, brushes and combs, my camera case. But there's my camera! Another moment of mystification: Why leave the nice Pentax, the two extra rolls of black-and-white film? The cop tells me later that's perfectly normal. "They're just taking computers and jewelry these days," she says. "High-end electronics. If you had a flat-screen TV, they mighta taken that." Yet another reason to feel justified for not going digital yet.

Taking the mess in with your eyes is one thing, into your head another. I just keep imagining who the person was, what he was thinking. The ladder he used to climb in my upstairs window was left askew in the yard. Turns out it doesn't even belong to my landlady. The cop said the thief (or thieves) spent 10 minutes or so in the house, a long time by burglary standards.

The next day, the fingerprinting cop tells me about a guy whose life savings were stolen. $20,000 in cash. A Mexican immigrant with no bank account, so despondent about his loss that his young son was the only one who spoke with the police when they came. The father sat in the corner and wept. Then she tells me about a burglar who broke into a couple of apartments, drank a bottle of Manischewitz and a bottle of 150-proof rum, then threw up in two different rooms.

It's the first time I feel lucky; I'll feel that way many times over the next several days. The initial shock is bad, but it fades slowly overnight. I can't start cleaning up before the police take their report, so I go visit some friends. We drink a bottle of wine and joke about how their place and mine look the same now—they're in a packing frenzy, moving cross-country two days later. Another friend comes by later, waiting up with me patiently until the police finally arrive at 12:30 a.m.

I take the next day off to clean up. It's exhausting but suprisingly quick, methodical refolding and reordering, reminding me how much I still have left and how everything has its place in this comfortable me-sized nest. Looking at the empty boxes and remembering when Grandma gave me those earrings . . . which great-aunt found that ring in her antiques shop in Derbyshire . . . what year it was when I shamlessly annexed that great red necklace from Mom.

Here's what they didn't take:

1. My books
2. My albums
3. My photographs
4. My clothes
5. My journals
6. My (first ever) new set of dishes
7. My camera
8. My camping gear
9. My art
10. My optimism

I love California. I love my neighborhood. I put a new lock on the front door for peace of mind. Switched my bank account. Put a fraud alert on my credit.

As soon as I'm done filling out the insurance paperwork, I'll be getting back to business as usual.