Where are my movies? Where are my memories?

Anyone who truly knows me, and I am realizing there really aren't that many people who do know me, knows that old black-and-white movies are one of my true passions.

Humphrey Bogart... Ingrid Bergman... Lauren Bacall... Bette Davis... Fred Astaire... Ginger Rogers... Deborah Kerr... Cary Grant... Clark Gable... Audrey Hepburn...

These performers have brightened many a dark evening for me, not to mentioned help turn good evenings into great ones.

I moved into my current apartment in mid-June of last year. While in the process of moving, I kept my DVD player and a handful of my favorite DVDs — among them "Casablanca," "All About Eve," "Swing Time," "Top Hat," "An Affair to Remember," "Roman Holiday" and a handful of others, like "Little Miss Sunshine" — behind at my old place to tide me over until the move was complete.

It was a pretty hectic time, but I never would have imagined misplacing that box. But sure as fuck, I can't find any of those movies. It's almost 1:45 a.m., and I just went through ever box in our basement — again — and can't find the goddamn movies.

Aside from the significant financial investment involved, I am having a hard time reconciling the emotional investment that has been lost. My heart is weeping.

Still, they are just DVDs... Bits of plastic with some digital coding. I can replace the movies in time.

"Casablanca" will be the same movie, if not the same case that caught my tears while I sat alone in my house and cried the first night my ex-wife and kids left. "An Affair to Remember" will be the same movie, even if it's not the same disc that played my first night in St. Louis, wondering if I was ready to start all over with new friends. "Swing Time" will be the same, even if it's not the same copy of the film I bought at the same time I bought my friend Greg a copy of the same movie last summer for his birthday.

Where are my movies? I'll be damned if I know. Where are my memories? Alive and well in my heart.