10-26-04 @ 9:40 am EDT

It's again time for the Obligatory Occasional Meandering Skew Entry! Yeah, I'm sure you've been sitting there waiting for it. :P

First of all I wanted to let everyone (well, anyone reading this and interested enough to click) know that I FINALLY created a thorough Manitou Island map. It's nothing but a map of Mackinac Island, with the features of Manitou Island pointed out on it instead. Of course. But it's a whole lot better than that old crappy scan I had of the guidebook map, with the locations cloned out and ugly red dots spray-painted on it on the computer. I created this map by carefully tracing the outlines of the PDF map I got online and taking note of the locations in common with both islands, then figuring out where some of the nonexistent locations are. Granted, I have no clue where X'aaru's and Khiieta's cave is, or Ocryana's old cave, nor the location of missing places like Scott's Cave etc. ad nauseam, but I put as much on there as I was certain of. (I located the Fairy Arch's original location on a 1941 map at eBay...was outbid on the book. >:/ ) I also included the bluffs, which were denoted by those odd brown slashmarks which confused me so much back in August or whenever. And I pasted in the numbers in Print Shop, so it's not so crappy looking, and I can rearrange them should I ever add anything else. Saving it in JPG format and resizing it did lose some of the quality, but it's better than before.

To summarize all the above, bla bla bla bla bla bla, Manitou Island map, bla bla bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla. You can find it here:

http://www.geocities.com/social_phobe/islandmap.html

Now should you ever scratch your head and think, "Gee willikers, I wonder where exactly the Dupries place is?" then you need look no further. It's there...on that dot. Whichever dot that is. I obviously don't have the map open in front of me, duh. Moving on.

Dad created a fake bloody dismembered arm to fake people out... ^_^ He stuck it in Coz's old house (Coz never plays or rests in it, but he guards it like the dog in the manger guarding his hay) so this bleeding arm was just sticking out of this little cat house. Ma walked past it over and over on returning home without even noticing it. Coz was a different story. He crept around it with his tail glued to his leg and tentatively sniffed at it, wondering where the hell the rest of the body was and how it could even fit in there. As soon as Dad flung it from the house, making him jump and scuttle back, and he saw it was just an arm and nothing else, he got this "I knew it was fake all along" look on his face but still insisted on peering inside his house, trying to find the rest of the body. I have to hand it to him, that cat can be smart when he wants to be.

I'm considering creating a special "Mackinac Island dreams" page for my Powow site! ^_^ I do have a tiny collection of related dreams I can edit (just in case they contain references not suitable for the site) and post there, just for the fun of it. I did a search of the dreams I have posted at DreamJournal so far and came up with these results:

"Ew, Goo!," from 5/27/92
"Brats On Mackinac Island," from 8/9/95
"Culture Houses Of Mackinac Island," from 8/6/96
"The Wild Child," from 8/10/96
The infamous "Alone In The Dark" (AKA the most depressing Mackinac Island dream ever), from 1/20/01
"We'll Never Reach Mackinac Island!," from 7/29/01
"A Fountain In The Sidewalk On Mackinac Island," from 9/6/01
"Whose Hubs?" (we don't even GO there in this one!), from 10/3/01
"Too Late To Go," from 10/18/01
"Attack On The Governor's Mansion" (not really an island dream, but close), from 12/1/01
"Save The Cave!," from 1/20/02
"How Green Was My Island," from 5/5/02
"Missing Mya" (kind of a personal one...), from 10/4/02
"Which Way Do We Go?," from 3/5/03
"Captives Of The Haunted Theater" (ditto as with "Governor's Mansion," but also close), from 6/5/03
"Skybridge To Sugar Loaf," from 8/11/03
"Beneath Mackinac Island," from 8/27/03
"Pirates Of Mackinac Island," from 1/1/04
"In Search Of The Fairy Arch," from 9/21/04
"Cosmas The Ill & The Map Of Mackinac," from 10/11/04

I also have a couple I recently typed up but have not added yet, "Walk Along The West Shore" and "A Cave By Any Other Name" (typed up 10/25/04, though "West Shore" is from several weeks ago and I never took note of it then). I want to try to pay closer attention to my Mackinac Island dreams from now on. I wish I could remember if I had any others to reference in all my transcriptions, though there are so many notebooks full that I'm hazy. There are also the little notebooks which I've again misplaced...ugh. I doubt they'd have much in them, but you never know. I want a little compendium of such dreams because I find it interesting now when I dream of this place, how distorted it appears in my dreams. "Map" featured the Coureurs De Bois Shelter in a very weird format, and the "fragments of Sugar Loaf Rock," and something called "Charbonneau"; "Fairy Arch" featured the rock ruins and quicksand and a weird little lagoon; in "Pirates" there was a canal, and in "Beneath" there was a sea cave in the harbor. Etc. I wonder what all this means and what my mind's trying to tell me about this place? I realize EVERYTHING can appear hopelessly distorted in dreams, but in dreams about a place I care about so much I really am curious what these particular distortions mean. Why would I dream of a pirate city on the island, for example, or a bridge that goes out to Sugar Loaf Rock, or something so specific as Sugar Loaf's "fragments"? Very puzzling. I hope to have more such dreams, but I've never been able to influence what I dream the next night. It was a total fluke that I dreamed up "A Cave By Any Other Name" the day after writing in TUGJOT that I wished I could have more Mackinac Island dreams...I wrote the same thing the next day, but had no more such dreams following. :/ *sigh*

I've been pining over the place again, just like a couple of years ago...why is it somebody can be so totally obsessed with a place, to the point of feeling depressed that they cannot go there whenever they want? It makes me feel weird, like people will be looking at me funny. (Two sites I make sure to diligently check every day, even at NIGHT, are the two Mackinac Island webcams I've located--all you can see at night from the Island House cam is...a streetlight!) I've taken no offense, but I've noticed how even the people who read this journal and offer nothing but friendly comments have noticed how obsessed I am, although they used much more polite terms. Like, "I see how much you care about this place." (Meaning, shut the hell up about that place!! o_o;;; ) This makes me wonder how people who DON'T care for me or for Skew think of me whenever they see me blithering about this over and over? I hate appearing so obsessed, but the truth is...I am. I don't really mind being obsessed since that's the way I've always been. But I hate appearing as pathetic. I know how I rolled my eyes whenever I read the journal of this one person who was always, ALWAYS, babbling about a particular item of clothing and a particular kind of toy he was in love with. I swear to God, he mentions both in just about EVERY entry. And it makes me want to gag. Anybody feeling like that every time I open my mouth and out pop the words Mackinac Island? ("Shut her UP!")

Well, at least this is Skew and I can say whatever I want (I have yet to snap at that user for his own obsessions, and I never plan to), so...anyway. I can't understand why I'm so obsessed with the place anyway. I love Egyptian mythology, but I never, ever want to set foot in Egypt. But I keep wanting to go back to this place over and over and over...waiting a year to go back...this is torture! I keep looking at the map and wondering what route I will take next year. There's so much to look at still. I have no clue where to start. -_- I want to visit Coffee and Indian Pipe Trails again. And those other little trails in that area. But that's near the West Bluff. I want to take Tranquil Bluff Trail out to try to see Eagle Point Cave. That's way over toward the far side of the island! I want to head out closer to the East Bluff and find the Soldier's Garden, which I somehow missed on the map. I wonder what that is. I want to check out some of the little trails around Fort Hill. (What I called "Holmes Hill" in Manitou Island...well, I was only one word off.) I want to take Spring Trail up or down the bluff and try to see if there is ANY remaining sign of the Fairy Arch. I want to go up atop Robinson's Folly past the real Coureurs De Bois Shelter, whether that's there or not. I want to take Manitou Trail just because of its name...phhbbbtttt. :P Oh, and I want to try to see the Cass Memorial and Anne's Tablet just because I didn't get to them this year, no matter how unimpressive they probably are. And I never even bothered trying to see if the old lime kiln is still out there...it's supposed to be. Not colonial era, but still. UGH! Where would I even start?? Look, making plans for something that shouldn't even be happening until next AUGUST at least. This is obsession.

But even more I've been really really REALLY wondering over something I've lately noticed on this map. In the area set between British Landing Road and the Battlefield, and Swamp Trail, and Scott's Road, and Leslie Avenue...there is just...this big space of NOTHING. Nothing at all! Not even trails! What's IN there...? I walked right past it on my way to the Battlefield and there were trees, so it must be woods. But...why does it have no trails, whatsoever? Just this big empty space of NOTHING. A big huge section of it right in the middle of the island! No civilization or ANYTHING! What's out there?? Why is it uncultivated? Is it meant to be wild area, like a refuge, or what? Why did nobody ever build so much as one trail way out there? There's a similar "empty" section beside it, between Swamp Trail, British Landing Nature Trail, and Porter (sic?) Hank's Trail...and a smaller slice of nothing between Porter Hank's and Swamp and Tranquil Bluff Trails...and another little empty section between Leslie Avenue, British Landing Road, Scott's Trail, and Crooked Tree Road...but that first big one is really taxing my mind. I have to wonder what might have been out there once. Was it always nothing? Did Indians live out there at any point? Were there ever any houses? Ever any trails that were simply abandoned and left to overgrow over the years? I found out recently that my grand idea of nighttime tours of the island would probably be a bust because camping is not allowed in the park (and even if you don't pitch a tent or something, I think wandering around or building a fire at night would be considered camping...fooey :/ ), but when so much of the place is seemingly endless woods...I stood right off of Annex Road and watched a tourist go by just a few yards away and he didn't even see me, and that was near a POPULATED part of the island! Can you imagine setting foot out into total woods without even trails nearby? I bet people could camp out there all the time and nobody would ever know! Like they have rangers trolling the place at all hours?? Those woods are REALLY dense and dark, even in the daytime...and that's the woods I KNOW. That big empty section...imagine wandering out in there on your own. Me, I would probably get lost! On an island with an EIGHT-MILE circumference! (Well, I got lost even on the West Bluff, so I guess that's not saying a lot. o_o; )

I just can't stop theorizing and wondering and speculating about that big hunk of empty over there. I visited this one site talking about ghosts of Mackinac Island and the site was incredibly doofy and stupid and unsubstantiated (to paraphrase one part: "Marquette Park was once a burial ground for natives. The whole island is haunted"--um...yeah, okay...wonderful lapse of logic there), but one of the stupidest stories I read on there is the one that sticks with me the most. According to this one person, they went out into this one site in the woods where they found a crumbled staircase leading up to a couple of caves or something, and when they took a picture there was an anomaly on the film. They returned a few years later and the staircase had deteriorated even more but the caves still remained. According to them, "This site is not located on any map." I could easily write this off, seeing as they didn't even give any specifics as to WHERE on the island this place was (east?--west?--near Point Aux Pins?--near the bluffs?), nor did they even bother to post the so-called anomalous image which had prompted their posting! Talk about lame! I really strongly believe such a site does not exist, and these people probably never even set foot onto any of the wilder parts of the island. But in a big empty swath of land like that on the map, surely there is something out there...even if just a little tiny rock, or a little tiny cave. Well, maybe not SURELY...but I still have to wonder. And the annoying part of my brain keeps thinking, what if there is a little old set of steps, and a couple of caves...?

*shakes head* Yeah, I know. But still. You can't fault me for imagining.

I just really wish I knew where to find people who know this island inside and out to chat with! I hate being so interested and yet so ignorant. I want to know so much more that isn't even available in any resources around here. -_- I bet if I could find out more, then I would no longer be so obsessed. I used to be this obsessed about things like Dragon Ball Z, until I got on the web and found out info about the show; now I don't have to blather about it all the time. Aren't you happy about that? Sigh.

*cue really REALLY stupid part of the entry* You know...I never put much stock in reincarnation in my own case, at least. The most I like to say is to half-joke that in a past life I must have been pushed off a cliff into the ocean, due to my fear of heights and water. (Hey, it could've happened.) But aside from that, I never bother speculating. I do not want to puff myself up any more than I already do. I would never even claim a past life in ancient Egypt. To me, it's hubris to claim a past life merely because of an interest in a certain area. You'll notice that most people who chatter frequently and openly about past lives always seem to have lived really impressive ones. You'll find a dozen Cleopatras or Napoleons or Pleiadians (er...sic??) in one swipe, you see. Hardly anybody ever wants to claim they were a slave or a peddler or some lower life form. Because what fun would that be to talk about? Isn't it much more fun to claim you were somebody grand, or at least archaic or unusual? ("I had a past life as a door-to-door salesman in the Fifties"...how often do you hear that?) That's why I put so little stock in most people who blather about reincarnation. I think it's possible, and could happen and could even explain many things, but a lot of the time it's just self-centered babbling.

I can't ever CLAIM it, but I really think it would have been interesting if I had lived on this island before. *gets a really cringy stupid look over how moronic this sounds* >_< Notice I did not say NOR will I say that I did! Only that it would have been interesting. Judging by my ignorance of the place, I would say I didn't. If I had lived there before, wouldn't I know a lot more than I do? It seems I would. It still would have been neat. And it would explain how the hell I apparently knew what Crack-in-the-Island looked like before I had ever even visited it!! (I was POSITIVE I had gone out there with Dad or another male relative...but they deny everything. And I never saw any pictures or depictions of it before then. So I'm really clueless about that one. o_o )

I guess it would just make the obsession make more sense, and make it easier to swallow, if I had some mystical reason to be so obsessed...though for now I'll just have to settle on me simply being an obsessive person and leave it at that. :/

Subject change! I've been having thoughts of trying to write the story explaining what happened in Detective Kristeva's childhood that made him finally "split"...I can't get into explaining what I mean by that without feeling too stupid, so if you're wondering, just ask outside of Skew. These scenarios always sound really dumb when I try to explain them in my journal. Basically it would be the story of a murdered undercover detective who through a really longwinded, nutty-sounding series of events led to Kristeva being who he is today. If I ever did/do write it it would be called "Rebirth," because that's pretty much what happens the moment he's killed...like I said...can't really explain it in here right now without feeling like a total moron. The way I go on about my writing a lot of the time makes me sound like a blithering idiot. I guess I babble about it this much because I have no life to fall back on.

If I ever wrote it it would likely fall between R and X due to the violence involved, though I don't know if I'll ever make the time. Eh. Like anyone cares but me. "Strayed" at AFF has almost 2000 hits now and...ONE review. And I thought my Writing.com averages were pathetic. :P