Questing

It’s a new year. I haven’t had much time to reflect, but I want to note a few things about Quixotica.

Quixotica currently has 322 entries. These entries cover the years from 1997 to the beginning, and ongoing entries of 2004. They follow me through parts of my freshman year in college, through my graduation, 4+ jobs, my wedding, the first draft of my first novel and the diagnosis of my father’s cancer.

Some of the original entries were ones I submitted to places like Olio and Afterdinner, before I had an online journal of my own. They are still much like personal journal entries (though perhaps edited a bit more), and the places the pieces had been submitted to have fallen, I have placed them here.

The earlier entries show my initial foray into online journaling. At the time I started, there were really, not all that many people journaling online. I was in awe of people like Lance Arthur, Alex Massie, Maggy Donea and Ben Brown. These were people who were really baring their feelings, and sharing their lives through the internet, and I was fascinated.

I don’t claim Questing to be that real, or that raw, but it exists, and has been, and is heading into it’s eighth year online. Most of the journaling I do, is not so much for audience, as is for myself. Life is just too big, too fast, to remember everything that goes by. I’ve tried to record events and emotions, so I can recall them later. Mental bookmarks, perhaps. There are times that too much happens and I don’t write, or there are things I don’t want to deal with. I admit there are gaps, and things I just can’t share with the Internet at large. I never promise this to be an expose, but it has value to me. It’s a roadmap of a good chunk of my coming of age. I can honestly say it’s pretty much the longest I’ve ever really stuck with any sort of project, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

For a while, I had a secret journal, titled Quixote, and a poetry journal titled Sanity, these were mostly hidden away in a directory on my University account. When I purchased Quixotica, I eventually came to title the journal Questing. Much of the poetry I haven’t republished here, but a good deal of it was created when my husband and I started dated, and it has a good deal of sentimental value.

Some of the entries have been lost in the digital landscape. Some of the ones I made when I was working on campus for the summer, got lost in transit from my university account to Quixotica. That summer the man I would eventually marry broke up with me. It was heart wrenching, but I worked through it. I was my own person, and learning how to be myself, and deal with the sadness of not being with the one I loved. All those things worked out, but I do wish I had those few entries, to fill in the gaps of narrative.

The first year has the smallest number entries, though I’ve tended to average about 51 entries a year in the full years I’ve been journaling.

Here are the basic statistics.
Year | Entries
1997 | 09
1998 | 42
1999 | 43
2000 | 46
2001 | 83
2002 | 38
2003 | 54
2004 | 06 including this entry

When I have time, I may pull some other statistics out.

Man, heading into my eighth year of online journaling. I admit, I never really thought much about how long I’d be doing this, or how much it would encompass.

Sometimes I think about collecting all these entries, and as many of my paper ones I can find, and make one big volume of the collected writings of Stacie. I know they might not be all that racy, or compelling, but the perspective you might get from a 2nd grader to a 25 year old woman, might be worth a once through.

I’ve really found journaling, even online, even self-censored, to be a relaxing and fruitful experience. I plan to continue on, writing when and what I can. There’s never a better time to start your own personal roadmap. You never know where it may lead.

(p.s. I recently added in most of December’s entries and the first few January ones, feel free to check back for the entries you may have missed)

Direct deposit has lost my paycheck.

Dad is going to see a panel of doctors and surgeons next week, apparently his case is unusual, and they want to know why.

My father’s enemy is signet ring cancer.

I had sushi last night, and it was yummy. believe it or not, sushi is a comfort food to me. I might have more comfort food tonight, either qdoba’s or noodles mac and cheese with tofu.

I am very happy that Please Save My Earth is out in translated manga. I had thought I might never seen the actual manga pages, and PSME has long been one of my favorite series.

Tonight, I believe, my husband is taking me to a movie. I’m aiming for Big Fish, or Something’s gotta give.

Most of Studio Antithesis is away, and I miss them. It will be nice to see them next week.

I finally beat the hard battle near the start of the Prince of Persia game, last night. Which made me feel good. I beat Syberia shortly after Christmas, with enough interest to play the sequel I guess. The Longest Journey was so much better though.

Frank was in town around New Years. We went to Monty’s Blue plate, and bowling with Adam. Felt like old times. We all used to work together at Sonic Foundry.

Sorry for the odd, unconnected ramblings, been missing recording all sorts of things due to these emergencies.

Went over to Mom and Dad’s the day he was discharged, to eat dinner some friends had brought by, and watch ‘Senseless’, which made my father laugh so much it hurt. He’s feeling so much better than he has these last few weeks. That’s a good thing.

The stress of this is not doing good things to my body. I need to exercise more and release those endorphins.

I spent most of the weekend in the hospital. My uncles were around, and my mom, and my husband even came to the hospital to see how my father was doing. I finished two books this weekend, and did some sketching in thevisiting room, and all the hours seemed to run together.

Dad was up a good deal of the time, joking with his nurses and doctors, and us. His color is much much better than it was Christmas day, when he could hardly sit and open gifts with us.

I did get to do a bit of gaming, finally reached Vole’s shadow dancer prestige class. It was nice to escape for a while

The doctors pushed the test on my dad.s cancer through, and they just got the results. Looks like it’s in stage 3. There are only 4 stages. Stage four is the really bad one, but stage 3 is not good at all. They are finding that the cancer came from the muscle or something. I really don’t understand the details.

But the good news is that he is getting discharged today, and will be able to meet with the new surgeon and an oncologist this week. He’s up andwalking around, and feeling loads better than he has in weeks.

He meets with a surgeon and an oncologist this week. Treatments to start soon.

I don’t have a lot of time, I’m on one of the computers in the hospital caffeteria.

My dad’s surgery last night went successful, they did a colostomy, and it took about 4 hours. He didn’t go in til about 3:30 and didn’t get out of recovery until about 10.

I stayed the night with my mom in the visitor’s lounge on the ninth floor of the tower.

My father has cancer, and they still don’t know what kind. It may be aggressive. Results may be back next week. either way, treatments, while not yet scheduled are likely to occur in the next couple weeks.

Two of my dad’s brothers flew in this morning, and just arrived.

talk later.

thanks for your love and your prayers.

Ok, Dad IS having surgery today, at 2:30. I’m taking the rest of the day off, and heading up to the hospital. I’m feeling much better, though not perfect, but I’ll just not touch anyone. I’ll wave to my Dad from the hall if I have to, and try not to get too near my Mom.

She just called, I’ve gotta pack up, and run home for a book and some stuff, and head up there to be with my family.

Last I heard it doesn’t sound like Dad is going in for surgery today. Mom’s trying to get a hold of a specialist in their hmo.

I am feeling a good deal better. Might go to the library tonight.
If I feel really good, I may sit there for a bit and read through my nano novel. If I have less energy, I’ll just pick up some books and come back and crash.

Apparently Dad had a poor night last night, mom just called me at 7:15am, and told me she’s going in to the hospital this morning and he might need to go into surgery today.

I’ve been pretty sick most of this week, and feel helpless. I should be there, but I can’t risk getting him sick. I’m really worried. They still don’t know what wrong with him, there is something, but they can’t get a good picture or ultrasound. The surgeon on hand is pretty gung ho about just getting in there, making cuts, and figuring out what’s wrong that way. But this is really major, could mean major life change for my Dad, and they still haven’t confirmed it’s cancer.

He went in on saturday, two days early, due to pain he was having friday night.

This is maddening. I’m staying home today.

Thank you all so much for your concern in the earlier post, please continue to pray for my Father, Phil. Please feel free to pass my request on to people who pray.