11-16-05 @ 9:25 am EST

If you are a relative of mine come here about the "Chippewa" entry, I wish to ask you to PLEASE NOT READ anything more in this journal. This entry has NOTHING to do with you, and I would appreciate what little privacy I may have left being left intact. This is just a boring entry about my writing. So please move on, and thank you.


I want to do something kind of stupid and make a request of the people who read this thing. I know it sounds stupid, but bear with me.

I got the idea in my head several days ago to go through all of my old junk stored upstairs, pull out all of the old writing I could find, and post it to a new LiveJournal so anyone who's interested (which I know is barely anybody, but still) could see just how much I've...evolved...or whatever...since then. I haven't gotten around to posting any yet but I've been typing some up and...it is just terribly horribly ATROCIOUS. Even my writing from as late as 1991 is just...BLAGH. I finished typing up the "original" (at least, existing original) text of The Trench Rats and...holy God this thing is BAD. I found all the missing pages of the original D Is For Damien as well and that should be included...ugh...

The thing is...the ONE story which is eluding me...is a set of stories I wrote, I believe, around 1990-91, entitled The Legends Of Manitou Island. You see, aside from the unfinished story "A Nightmare On Manitou Island," which I co-authored with Mya, this is the VERY FIRST time I wrote indepth about the Island and about its characters. I posted the table of contents, which I'd found, here in Skew long ago, as well as the text of one story which I'd found, "White Deer Takes A Husband." Remember how BAD that thing was? Well, all the stories in that collection were that bad. But still...they were the very first stories I wrote on my own about that place, and they heavily influenced what I write about it now. They're "historic" to me, as a writer. And now I can't find them.

I looked upstairs first of all, where I stored away a lot of my stuff years ago in bags and then in boxes. I found lots of stuff, but not that. I looked again. The upstairs is VERY messy and parts are practically impossible to get to due to the boxes and stuff but I moved them around and tore them all apart...no Manitou Island.

I next looked in my bedroom, where I have a lot of older writing stashed in my file cabinets. I went through every folder. Then I tore my room apart, throwing away a huge bag of trash, moving everything out of its careful placement...no Manitou Island.

I looked in the dining room, and in places where I'm just about POSITIVE that story would not be, since they were cleaned out recently and I lost track of that notebook years ago. I even looked in some of Ma's stuff. No Manitou Island.

My last resort was the one I feared the most and I'm still upset. It was the basement. About fifteen or so years ago, Dad got it in his mind to clean my room by...putting all of my stuff in big plastic bags and stashing them in the basement. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Well...our basement FLOODS. And for ages, our SEWER leaked into it. And those plastic bags were NOT waterproof. And so now...a lot of the stuff that was stashed down there has been reduced to nothing more than black mulch. I know...because I went down there last of all to look. -_- The bottom of one bag, I could not dig through it, it was just black icky stuff. I even dug in an old rotting toychest of mine...I've had NIGHTMARES about looking in that thing! I rescued a few ancient poems and stories from elementary school but that was it. No Manitou Island, from what little I could dig through before I had to give up. I had worn a mask and gloves, but I ended up sneezing and miserable for the rest of the day like I'd caught a cold. Probably from mold and sawdust; I don't see how Dad can stand it down there.

I resumed digging upstairs. Looked even in the wall drawers. Nothing but magazines upon magazines--I would NOT have stashed my writing along with those!, but I poked through them as best as I could anyway--and rodent nests, a plethora of rodent nests--and junk. No Manitou Island. Frustratingly, during the earlier searches, I lost both a green book of poetry I had found in the closet and set aside (it is just NOWHERE now!), as well as my Maglite (sic?), which Ma had to replace...where did that thing go?? I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out. Where is that notebook! I've even gotten paranoid thoughts that, if I find the missing book of poetry, perhaps I will find my missing stories along with it...even though that makes no sense, because surely I put the book in a place where I already looked. And I've already looked EVERYWHERE.

Nonetheless, I started looking AGAIN, in the stairwell and other closet too this time, just in case. I'm leaving little Post-It notes on each box to notify myself that they are CHECKED: - --with a minus sign--meaning that nothing was found. I've found just about EVERYTHING I ever remember writing (with three minor exceptions), and a lot of stuff I DON'T remember writing (I tried writing a play about driver's ed??--I wrote a poem about spiders??)--but no Manitou Island.

I even found the sequel I started to write to this, The Further Legends Of Manitou Island or some such (cover's missing so I'm hazy on the title). I found several pages of it in my room. My hope buoyed, I tore apart my room with no success, then went upstairs again. I found the rest of those stories, and the table of contents and a COPY of the first two stories from the original notebook (I don't even remember making a copy!...though it was probably only of those two stories -_- ), on the opposite side of the room...I tore that side apart...but no notebook. No Manitou Island. I have the TOC, the copies of the first two stories...in addition I have "White Deer Takes A Husband," and somewhere on audiocassette I remember I did a reading of "Ocryx & The Maiden"--which makes four stories that have been salvaged--though I'm saying three, since I don't know where that cassette is. There are about twenty more still missing. I read the TOC, but I don't even remember what HAPPENS in most of these stories! I also located a character listing and I don't even remember these people! And Mani/Manny's name was switched to Manik at one point?? And X/X'aaru the Rainbowbringer was once known as the Rainbow-Maker?? My mind is totally BLANK.

It makes no sense to me that the notebook would have ended up in the basement. I don't think I came across ANYTHING that I could date after 1989 down there. Long ago I salvaged most of my important writing (which would have INCLUDED anything about Manitou Island) from the basement anyway--I have it in my room--Horus is there, and Osiris and Akhenaton & Nefertiti etc., though a few pages are missing from the first. The pages are moldy and hard to read but they're (mostly) there. Those stories date from 1989 and before, if I actually wrote before then (I might have started in 1988). Meanwhile, already upstairs I have the text of such stories as D Is For Damien, "A Nightmare On Manitou Island," etc.--stories from late 1989 or 1990 and up--and these stories do not look like they were EVER in the basement in the first place. No mold. I didn't salvage them, that I recall. They were always upstairs, from the looks of it. Meaning--the big purge of my room took place around 1989. Seeing as I believe I started Legends AFTER Mya and I had started "A Nightmare On Manitou Island"--the text of which is clean and unmoldy--then it seems like that story never would have ENDED UP in the basement, as it was written AFTER that! BUT...I'm afraid this is all guesswork. I can only go on what I've observed, and since I HAVE no exact starting date for Legends, and don't KNOW the exact year of the purge, I can't say with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that it would not have ended up in the basement.

Points in its favor of still being somewhere upstairs: The copies I made of those two stories. They're on clean fresh paper. I couldn't have MADE those copies if the text was in the basement all this time. The very first Manitou Island story I wrote, the collab with Mya, I don't think that was ever in the basement and that predates this story. I found the copies of the two chapters with the existing text of the sequel, which makes it seem like the ORIGINAL would be upstairs somewhere too.

Points not in the story's favor: I can't FIND it anywhere. It wasn't WITH the sequel. And perhaps the stories that date from around the same time didn't end up in the basement because...Dad didn't take them down there! He didn't put ALL my stuff in the basement. Maybe "Nightmare" and D4D survived the purge because they just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

It's really looking like that notebook is either still lying among a lot of moldy junk I didn't have the courage or stomach to dig through yet...or perhaps it's helping (de)compose that mass of black mulch in the bags downstairs. -_-

I've been upset about this for days. I keep looking, more so than I've ever looked for ANYTHING in this house, but my hope is rapidly fading. I have bruises all over my arms from moving boxes around! Every time I get up my hope, it's dashed. I rack my brain thinking of even the stupidest places where that notebook could have ended up yet nothing holds. I even looked through my collection of used notebooks, thinking that maybe my memory of the notebook's appearance was faulty--I'm pretty sure it's a spiralbound notebook, coverless, perhaps with a drawing of Ocryx and Stick-In-The-Dirt on the front because I KNOW it had an illustration of them somewhere in it. But perhaps I was only remembering its inner contents? No...none of my used notebooks contained it.

Aside from the COPIES of the first two stories and the TOC there is just no trace of it anywhere. Not even a rodent-nibbled trace! (They nibbled a substantial part of some random writing I did, but they didn't eat the whole things!)

I've bruised myself up, I've skanked up my hair from sweating, I've moved boxes back and forth and back and forth, I've dug around in old stuff I would rather have left unfound, I've cleaned a pile of junk out of my room and dug through everything, I've inhaled noxious substances and handled mold and spores and crap, I've lost my book and my Maglite, and...I just don't have ANYTHING to show for it other than the rest of my writing, which for some reason at the moment doesn't feel nearly as important, oh, and a $10 bill I had lost behind my bed. (I even looked behind my bed in case the notebook had somehow fallen back there. No.)

I've even resorted to praying to God, praying to Manabozho, praying to the trees, asking my cat for good luck, asking St. Anthony to find it...nothing's working. -_- Instead of listening to my music at night I just end up either going upstairs and tearing it apart for the umpteenth time, or sitting in my room crying and driving myself crazy trying to remember WHERE THAT DAMN NOTEBOOK WENT!

So my stupid request is...I have TRIED everything else...I don't even know if I believe in prayer, obviously, since it hasn't been working! If any of you out there have any belief in it and feel that this matter is important enough (I wouldn't want you praying for something you consider stupid), would you put in a word or a thought for me? I realize it's not earthshattering--I'm not dying, more important things in the world are happening--I don't even LIKE prayer requests, I have always hated them. But that's how desperate I am to find this notebook, INTACT. I can't stand the thought that it might be mulch by now. :( But knowing my luck and my stupidity, that's exactly what happened. I mean, I'm not FINDING it anywhere.

But I can't shut up the niggling voice that insists it couldn't be down there. Maybe it's just denial because I hate losing my writing, and I would especially hate losing that notebook. Every time I dug up some forgotten lesser story I thought, "You let me find THIS but You won't let me find what I REALLY want!" I would gladly give that poetry book and that Maglite for that notebook! Why would God not want me finding my story?? That's what it feels like. And I can't think of why He wouldn't want me finding it. -_- So I keep looking in places where I already know it isn't because I've run out of things to do! I know it sounds dinky. But those of you who know me know how important my writing is to me, and that series in particular. If you feel you could contribute anything that might help, I would appreciate it.

-----

While I'm in here, we got hit by a monster windstorm on Sunday, which went on all day...high-profile traffic on the bridge was shut down, as they recorded hurricane-force winds of 75mph on the lake. Trees have uprooted and crashed atop cars and houses all over the area and I've heard that thousands of people, some in this county, are still without power--another windstorm came up today. It seems to have calmed down at the moment but that could change. We've escaped relatively lucky so far *KNOCK ON WOOD*--some fallen limbs of smaller size, the big middle section of the tree that snapped off in the ice storm of '97 fell down into the crotch of the tree but is still hanging there, and the cable went out for a few hours; a huge tree fell atop the lodge where my dad works and crushed part of the building, while another tree there was uprooted for no discernible (sic?) reason. Oh. And the wind today tore down my dad's POW flag, which had been nailed to another tree. (Though maybe the tree did that, for having that thing nailed to it in the first place. I thought the stick it was on was just balancing up there. I hate when things are nailed into trees unnecessarily. >_< ) I think I might have seen one of the trees in the woods beside my house leaning precariously, though. I've never seen such hard winds, nor such long-sustained ones.

I also noticed that somebody who told me repeatedly, in the past, that they cared about me, then disappeared for months, then showed up, posted in their journal and did NOT have a single word or e-mail for me, before sneaking off, has stopped by again. The last time, I read their latest entry because I had the passkey to their journal. They admitted that they hadn't thought I could read it--meaning, they fully intended to just sneak onto the site and post that and leave WITHOUT even a hello for me, the person they claimed they cared about before months of silence, and apparently hoped I wouldn't even notice. When I mentioned the entry they had the gall to ask me how I was doing because they hadn't read my journal in a long time; acted all nicey-nice despite AVOIDING ME. I didn't reply because in Skew at that time I had CLEARLY MENTIONED how depressed I was feeling, and after months this person shows up and doesn't even care enough to CHECK IN ON ME? Needless to say, they disappeared again, for months. I noticed that their account had been updated recently though, so they sneaked back yet AGAIN, and AGAIN left without a single word for me. This person had contacted me FIRST over a story of mine. Claimed that they were there if I wanted them to be. Struck up a correspondence with me when I took them up on their offer. Disappeared, but apologized when returning and I forgave them and we tried again. Said I was a good friend when I commented on that last entry. Then...THIS.

What makes me angriest is that I bet she--yes, it's a she, may as well say it since she STOPPED READING this like a year or more ago--is feeling perfectly fine. Isn't feeling angry, or betrayed, or hurt beyond imagining yet AGAIN. Doesn't care in the LEAST that she ended up just like all those other people who vowed they would be there and that they cared about me, who ALSO just disappeared without a single word why, and who are also probably not giving one damn about it. And meanwhile, here I am, feeling like utter s**t for MONTHS on end, and all those feelings come back as soon as I see that little update notice. You know? I had actually hoped her account would be deleted and I would never see proof of her being alive again. But nope, she's still out there, still comes to the site, still feels fine and dandy utterly FORGETTING everything she said to me, and feels just fine sneaking in and out and hoping I won't notice--IF she even still remembers who I am. The reason she created that journal in the first place? So *I* could keep in touch with her. At least that was what she led me to believe. She told me I was the only one who even had a passkey in the first place. I never told her how unbelievably hurt I was when she updated it in the hopes that I couldn't read it, and left without saying a word to me. She didn't even say anything about that when I spoke up. I'm not going to BOTHER speaking up this time. Not that she will notice the lack of hits to her journal, or the silence. She's the one who was hoping for it, apparently. Well, congratulations, M. You got what you wanted. You are JUST like all the rest. Why the hell did you even comment on that story and say all that crap in the FIRST place! I would say thanks for nothing, but you did give me one thing. Yet ANOTHER reason not to trust the people who say "I care!"

DAMMIT I JUST FOUND A F**KING SQUIRREL IN THE BIRDFEEDER, EATING THE SUNFLOWER SEEDS I GOT FOR THE CHICKADEES!! STUPID *&$*#&* THING!! I EVEN PUT SQUIRREL-PROOF FOOD IN THERE!! >_<

That's my entry for now. Sorry for the pissy end note but SHE'S never going to give a damn about it, so I thought I'd get it out since it's hurting me. I hope I can find my notebook, but I don't know what else to do; I thought I'd give my few readers a shot. -_-

... Is it just me or do my entries always read like stories in themselves...? o_o