08-28-04 @ 9:32 am EDT

I actually typed this up and tried to post it around 3 AM, but the site chose just then to crash and not come up for at least another half hour. Go figure, I was even in a good mood while I was typing it. Anyway, here it is, thanks to the wonder of copy and paste.


I think I already know the answer to this one, but do you ever wonder what becomes of all those things you've lost over the years? By things, I mean concrete, real things--not feelings, or virtues, or habits or beliefs or anything like that--I'm not going to be getting THAT deep just right now, thank you very much. Everything lost has to go SOMEWHERE, so have you any idea where those things go?

I ask because just last night we lost THREE things in a row...first I could not find my brush (I had set it on the freezer for some stupid-ass reason)...then I could not find my pencil (it was just sitting behind something on the footstool)...then Ma could not find the grocery receipt (still don't know if she found it or not). Some things, obviously, just get misplaced or lost along the way...to theorize if things would have turned out differently, that receipt could have fallen out of the bag and ended up in the parking lot, then gotten stuck to the tire of a car, then carried off to some distant city or fallen off in a mud puddle where it would slowly biodegrade. My brush, which had been in my jacket pocket--or my pencil, which had been in my shorts pocket--could have fallen out in the parking lot too, or in the car; and the car could have carried them elsewhere, where they could have fallen out; etc.

Somewhere, in Texas, lies my blue mechanical pencil from high school. I remember I lost it there. I never got it back and had to buy a new one in Texas. Seeing as it was easy enough to get a new pencil so quickly (I otherwise get VERY pissed off when I lose something as fundamental as my pencil), this did not bother me so much. And I like to think that somewhere in Texas, that really great big state, lies part of a girl from way up north. Maybe somebody else found my pencil and used it. Maybe it was crushed by the tires of a car. Maybe a packrat saw it and carried off the shattered pieces to decorate its nest. All sorts of things could have happened to that pencil. Almost like setting loose a balloon with a message attached, except my message contained nothing but lead. (Which wouldn't quite work in a balloon, I realize, but obviously that has nothing whatsoever to do with this entry.)

After the triple loss tonight I got to thinking about the things we lose which we KNOW are still likely nearby, practically on hand, yet still somehow inaccessible, unfindable to us. For me this would be primarily my little toy animals. When I was young I played with little plastic animal figurines and I had quite a collection of them. If you are venturous or venturesome or whatever the hell the word is, you might look up my old entry...I think it's called "The Animals," but I'm not sure. I had names for my various toy animals and I created entire stories using them alone. Turtle and Kitten were the two primary characters, a little pink turtle with all the paint missing, and a little pink kitten with all the paint missing. For a period of time Turtle went missing and Kitten had to find a new friend. Then Turtle triumphantly returned (that is, I found him) and they were again best friends. But then sadly enough Turtle again went missing. I can't remember the exact order of things but as of last I knew, Turtle was still MIA. He was not there when I at last packed away my little toy animals for good, somewhere upstairs. For all I know Kitten is lost by now too.

I have no reason to believe I ever took these toys anywhere out of my house--so the only way they could have escaped outside, never to be seen again, is if some small animal made off with them, like...a packrat. Or a squirrel or chipmunk, more likely. I can't think of why one would want to carry off a plastic animal, but it could happen. In which case my toys could be anywhere upon the globe at this moment, or even destroyed. BUT...I wanted to think about what becomes of those things that are lost yet still within our reach...and are still in existence. Let's just say Turtle is still in both categories. Where, in this entire house, could he be?

Lost somehow under a corner of my carpet?

Stuck in one of those hideous plastic bags my parents used to dump all the beloved contents of my room when they cleaned it and shoved all my stuff into the basement? (I was fortunate enough to dig out my cassette tapes and earliest written stories--at least most of them--before everything rotted! I hate to think what I still lost, though. How could they put all my important things down there like trash? :( )

Wedged in a drawer somewhere?

Accidentally scooped into a bin with all my OTHER toy animals, perhaps because he had been there all along and I had simply overlooked him?

Nestled in some nook in the attic where said potential rodent carried him off to before realizing he was not a nut and then losing interest?

Buried under a rock in the garden or yard by another rodent in a similar situation?

Lost in some far corner of the basement where he somehow fell through?

Up on a shelf somewhere, somehow?

In some room I would never even think of placing him (well, see what became of my brush)? Like the utility room, the back bathroom, the "other room" upstairs?

Down in the cabinets in the living room? How he would have gotten there, I have no clue, but stranger things have happened...I DO remember there is a little hole in the top for power cords to fit through, so who knows...?

Stuck in some forgotten abandoned item of clothing? Maybe even in the far bottom of my dad's closet, or maybe even under his bed?

Practically right next to me as I sleep during the day? I do not see how I could have missed him over all these years, but who knows...

In a drain pipe?

Under the sink?

Buried with one of my hamsters? (Okay, that's kind of sick and really farfetched, but like I keep saying, you really never know...)

I really am of the mind that if Turtle is anywhere, it's under this roof, or in the near vicinity if some rodent carried him off. I cannot be so certain he is still INTACT or even in existence, but if he was, I think the last time he was still in one piece was in this area. And that just makes me wonder. How something can be so close and yet so far away. A house seems huge when you're looking for something you've lost and you can't seem to find it anywhere, even if you KNOW it's under that roof. But try imagining losing that same thing ANYWHERE in the state--the country--the entire globe. On the one hand it's a bit of a comfort to think that something you've lost is still SOMEWHERE on this same planet (well, unless they've been abducted by aliens, and who knows whether you believe that or not--I plead the Fifth, but I do not believe Turtle was abducted by aliens)--no matter how large this planet is, nor how inaccessible or hostile many places are, you are still both essentially on the same grain of dirt, floating in space. Should you both touch the ground, you are both setting foot (so to speak) on the same chunk of land. On the other hand, the world is so very huge, that it's not much of a comfort when you've actually lost something, especially something you really care about...like a person.

So when the missing thing you're talking about is a little toy turtle, and its missing ground is most likely your own two-story-with-a-basement house, that brings it in a big more perspective and you have to realize you're not searching the world, you're searching a house, and the search can't possibly be endless. With a house like this it COULD very well take ages--all the nooks and crannies and junk and who knows what else--but it wouldn't be like Anthony LaPaglia on Without A Trace or anything. (A show I have tried very hard to like, and have failed. I mean--Anthony LaPaglia! Cripes!) If we called in the FBI, and they were for some bizarre reason willing to search the entire house top to bottom for Turtle, chances are they would find him, if he's still around.

I'm not currently looking for Turtle--I gave that search up years and years ago--but it's eternally frustrating to know that something can be so nearby yet still unreachable. How many of us search our entire households and still never find something that we KNOW must be there? (With me, it usually shows up only AFTER I've gotten upset, and then in a place I have already LOOKED in several times, just to make me look stupid!) HOW can something located in such a small area remain missing for so very long? How do we so easily overlook the very things right around us? If I had paid better attention to where I was and what I was doing, would Turtle still be here (or rather upstairs in "storage") today?

What other things that I have given up as forever lost are right within this same house with me, still in existence, if only I could see them? That strange necklace from that hazy childhood memory of mine (don't even know for sure if it IS a real memory or not). Other toy animals I must have lost. Tapes and stories that went missing. My "Going Home" school story and my own addition to it. Various other toys. The wings of that blue ice dragon of mine. All the crayons I never used. Baby toys and baby clothes that were never gotten rid of. Pins and stickers that I wore in school. The paper animals I made in elementary school, that always ended up crushed. The paper house I made for my hamster that ended up in the same way. While we're at it, the paper cutout characters I made for my "Thunderbirds" series when I was a kid--much fun those were. All my letters from Mya--and all the drawings we made together. My damn Manitou Island stories! All the other mechanical pencils that I've lost. Like a hundred boxes of sinus pills that I keep buying and then which are never there when I need them so I buy more. While we're on the topic, all those frigging BATTERIES that I buy and that also go missing right when something dies. I am the Queen of Misplaced AA Batteries!

And a zillion other things I can't think of right now. (Lest you start to wonder, no, I am not going to mention socks. I don't even wear socks. So nyehh.)

Well, it's past logoff time and I think I've lost the point of this entry. I was just wondering. It's comforting to know that Turtle is likely still right within this same house with me, and has been all along, but also frustrating and maddening to just never be able to SEE him anywhere. It's just unbelievable that the things which are so near can be so easily overlooked, or so well hidden...or maybe both.

I suppose that's all for now. Not proofed...tar.