Well, the day I'm going to pull an over-nighter and will need entertainment to keep me awake is still off in the future, but I stole some time from the usual Sunday housekeeping chores, and spent a little time with my collection.
The Wang/Regardie deck has disappeared.
Damndamndamndamndamn.
Every single deck got opened, shuffled, and re-wrapped.
The GD deck in question is in fact one of that minority of decks I'm quite attached to that hasn't yet scored itself a silk wrap or a bag to live in, but stays in its original packaging, sans LWB. I can see that packaging in my mind's eye.
I had it *here* (ie, at my computer table) a few weeks ago, when I was commenting on it in another thread, in fact, from memory defending it on trumped-up charges of being badly-illustrated. It's not here now, which of course means that I put it back in its box and put that back in the huge basket where they all live (what can I say - I'm an Earth sign).
Every single deck got opened, shuffled and re-wrapped. I couldn't see its packaging as I took them all out and that gave me a bad feeling, but what the hey, I *might* have given it a wrap or bag in the meantime and forgotten about it. But no. Not there.
This deck is not only Worth It as one of my Important Historical Decks, but it's personally crucial for me. I only take it out occasionally, but it is one of the two last tangible links to a friend of mine that I met in 1977, who became one of my Very Important People. His boyfriend, who died early in our friendship of that horrible disease that was just gaining a reputation in the early eighties, had studied under Israel Regardie when he was a younger man, and had all of his books, inscribed and with personal annotations from the Master in the text, amongst his things which Trevor inherited lock, stock and barrel. Trevor wasn't all that mystically inclined, but he respected G. and his choices enough to honour them, and once or twice during the eighties and early nineties lent me a book or two from the Regardie Collection, which put me in a very honoured position.
I only bought the deck very recently, possibly in the last twelvemonth, as a conscious tribute to the memory not only of G., but mostly my thirty-year friendship with Trevor. I only used it occasionally, but I looked at it more often. Along with an inscribed copy of Inez Baranay's book "Pagan" which Trevor bought to replace the copy he borrowed and then entirely ruined, this deck was my last "thing to sit with" when I'm missing him. Now I only have the book.
<sadness>
I don't lose decks when I'm away from home. It's not by the computer, in my work-bag or where the collection is, so it's gone from the house. There have only been four non-residents in the house, and three of them are entirely uninterested in Tarot (don't even have enough interest to dislike it), the fourth is a Tarotista, but not one who would steal, and not one who knows where the bulk of the collection sleeps when it's off-duty.
Oh well, one more non-scenic deck that I don't have to defend using against those who "need" pictures "to give depth to the reading".
<sadness>
Can't recollect just yet who it was asked me what I do to cheer myself up and I said I so rarely need cheering up? You watching? - You won't see this often.
Well, I Officially Need Cheering Up, these last ten minutes or so. And I know *exactly* what would be the most perfect way to cheer me up: if when I get up from the computer, our House Goblin led me straight to the GD deck, wherever it was. Sitting with that deck would cheer me up. Mind you, I'll be pretty cheerful in a few minutes - I usually am.
<sadness>
Such a strange feeling. People *live* like this?
<sadness>