Dr Yes: Steampunk Party
Here’s another stellar example of a steampunk birthday party. The first picture is me.
Dr Yes: Freaky Flatmates
I discovered a very new, very funny blog today, and decided reading someone’s blog is SORT OF like spying. . . so it’ll suffice for today’s spy-related blog entry. I’d rate it PG (thus far) for mention of sex. Given that it’s about unusual flatmates, that rating is likely to go up. . .
Engineering My Nightmares
Sometimes I have nightmares. Often, they’re pretty good stories (one inspired me to write a full-size young adult book – in two weeks). Other times they come with real emotions, and that’s not good. I’ve had more nightmares than usual lately – the kind where I wake up frightened and/or grieving – which is either part of my Flagyl allergy, or a more direct side effect of simply being sick for so long. That, and being a mental.
But lately I’ve developed bizarre strategies for “solving” my nightmares.
I recently dreamed I was somewhere in Africa, doing charity work, when a natural disaster destroyed the whole area and everyone had to flee for their lives. I was already emotionally close to a number of children, and had a vehicle big enough to (just) fit them all. Everything was chaos as the nearby lake flooded, and people were so desperate to survive they didn’t care for anything but themselves. Many of the children I cared for went into shock, and no-one was looking after them. I wasted a lot of time searching for a particular girl who was wearing a faded floral dress (the kind someone would have thrown into an op-shop bin in Australia twenty years earlier). She was so terrified she hid inside an abandoned (and doomed) house.
Finally I found her, loaded my vehicle with all the children (all extremely docile, and unable to even understand me yelling for them to move across the seats inside the car so they’d all fit), and was about to drive away. All around me people yelled at one another in a desperate traffic jam as everyone but me drove uphill to safety. As I grabbed the last of the children, the girl in the floral dress snapped and jumped out of the car. She ran back down the road to her swamped village. I’ve never seen someone so frightened. She was like an animal. The other children simply stared, not even understanding what was happening.
Then I woke up – filled with horror, grief, and an overwhelming sense of futility and failure. It was about 2:00am.
That’s when a brilliant thing happened. I came up with a cunning plan. The emotions were with me because I wasn’t truly awake. Rationality wouldn’t help. But I could use my non-waking state to manipulate my subjective reality.
So I physically got out of bed and walked to the door – telling myself I was chasing the girl. Then I told myself I was carrying her back to the car, getting in, and holding her on my lap – as I went back into bed. I wrapped my arm around my husband’s real-life warmth and closed my eyes, telling myself the warmth was the rescued girl. She didn’t escape to drown: she was right here, in my arms.
And I fell back into sleep and drove all the children to safety.
It worked.
A few nights later I had what I think of as an anime-style nightmare, in which a black amorphous evil mass threatened to KILL EVERYTHING. This also, in my addled 3am state, was truly frightening. So once again, I used the real world to defeat the problem.
“You’re nothing but an amorphous mass,” I said – aloud. “You’re not even written well.”
This worked just fine. It also made my husband laugh in his sleep (not that he remembered anything later).
I like to think of this skill as a new-found superpower.
Dr Yes: Story So Far
1.
I unclipped Yen’s handcuffs and went down on one knee under the tropical sun of her prison-island home. “My darling, will you marry me?”
*
“’Kay,” she said.
I stood and kissed her tenderly, then ran for the chaplain. When he was ready to go, I decided to freshen up.
* (3 hour gap)
I emerged resplendent to find the priest knocked out, my ornithopter gone, and my fiancé. . . well, she was obviously still doing her hair.
2.
The love of my life, gone! She may still be cross that I killed her power-mad mum. But surely she doesn’t STILL want to destroy the world?
*
Time to be a super-handsome super-spy again. Thank goodness for plastic surgery. Yen was born in Beijing, so I got a flight there at once.
*
I was met at the airport by a strangely attractive nun who took me deep underground before telling me the horrible truth: “Yen’s my cousin.”
3.
In laws! They’re always so tetchy. I let the nun torture me a few hours and then knocked her out with a high-kick to the face. Then I fled.
4.
I searched for Yen in the shopping district. As I tried on an especially snazzy shirt in the back, I heard the nun’s nasal tones.
*
The evil nun was apparently in league with my shopkeeper! A deadly pair! I duct-taped shut the mouths of the other patrons and listened in.
*
“Yen’s in Beijing – and so’s that British superspy,” said the nun.
The shopkeeper said, “We’ll kill them both!”
“Perfect. Hey, nice shirts!”
5.
I bought hundreds of TV and streetside ads warning Yen of her mortal danger – and asking her to pretty please return my ornithopter.
*
As I returned to my hotel after another day of searching, I found a single long-stemmed black rose on my pillow. She still loved me!
6.
I spotted Yen trying on shoes and gave chase. She was too quick, but I taped my two high-tech matchbox cars to my feet for more speed.
*
Matchbox-car skating requires the perfect balance that only MI6 training can give. Unfortunately it’s been a while and I crashed into Yen.
*
I clicked my sleeping-gas pen in her face and carried her over the threshold into my – our – hotel room until she regained consciousness.
7.
Yen awoke, but didn’t seem to appreciate the scattered rose petals or the scented candles surrounding her. Then she peeled off her mask!
*
I gasped, “Mrs Fu!”
“In the flesh!”
“But. . . I threw you into a volcano. I think your daughter may still be miffed.”
“Mums are made tough.”
8.
After we’d caught up on the latest in international spy goss, Mrs Fu and I tested one another with tea. I gave her just a pinch of arsenic.
*
I tasted my own tea cautiously. Cyanide, yes. But only a token amount. Mrs Fu and I understood one another perfectly: no death – for now.
*
Mrs Fu said she knew exactly where Yen was hiding. We caught a train to the Great Wall. “Um, isn’t the Great Wall rather. . . long?” I said.
9.
We searched all night and day. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by Shaolin monks. “He’s with me,” said Mrs Fu.
They said, “We’re not.”
*
I grabbed my trusty blow-up gum but the monks wore titanium robes. No fair! They whipped out pens – strangely familiar pens. Noooo!!!
*
10.
Regained consciousness briefly while having a dream about killer mushrooms. One of the monks hit me on the head, and the mushrooms returned.
11.
I awoke strapped to the Great Wall with my own duct tape. Had intense déjà vu. Mrs Fu was taped beside me, and so was a black rose.
*
“It’s all right Mrs Fu – Yen must be safe if she’s given me a rose.”
“Great. End of story then. I’m afraid Yen no longer needs our help.”
*
I said, “But. . . it can’t be the end. I haven’t done anything heroic yet.”
“Why don’t you heroically help me down, then?” said Mrs Fu.
12.
Mrs Fu and I walked back along the wall while she tried to explain something about my relationship with Yen. I’m sure it wasn’t important.
*
My shoe phone rang. I answered, “Bind. Jimmy Bind.”
“HQ here. We need you to track the fugitive Yen Fu. Naturally she’s been microchipped.”
*
Mrs Fu and I followed the beeps back to a cunningly disguised lair beneath the Great Wall. We hid ourselves outside and waited.
Blurk
I’ve seen the doctor again, and they want to retest me for Giardia (the first test was inconclusive). I don’t have to take any more Flagyl pills (since I’m allergic) but I was meant to go straight onto Imodium and anti-nausea pills (which I didn’t, because the habit of putting off any unexpected expense is too strong – I’ll get some tomorrow).
I improved overall since I stopped taking Flagyl, but I’ve now regressed to being roughly as sick as I was before going to the doctor (plus the still-fading allergic side effects). Sidebar: I also have small sores at the edges of my mouth, which usually indicates malnutrition. I remember I had them in early February, too. My diet’s not THAT bad.
Today is the 11th, which means it’s exactly a month since I was told the children’s deparment heads are discussing “Stormhunter”. I estimate they’ll reply 1-2 months from now. (Last time this happened it took two weeks, but that was a different company.)
I had another look at my records and realised that the company (a different one to the above two) that has “Farting my ABCs” once took eight months to reply to just the first three chapters of a book of mine. If they take the same amount of time on this book, they’ll reply in late April.
I think the main reasons creative types are so much more prone to mental illness are:
1. They’re alone a lot.
2. They don’t have regular pay.
3. They know their pay depends on luck more than it should.
I can combat this by seeing friends, by living off my husband’s regular-as-clockwork wage, and by giving myself as many solid and reliable things to look forward to as possible. (Instead of the airy-fairy waiting for publishers, which will probably end in tears anyway.) Tomorrow I’m going to see a movie, and on Saturday me and mine are going out to dinner for a friend’s birthday party. So yay for that.
And I’ll buy chocolate with my medicine tomorrow. A shovel-full of sugar makes the medicine go down.
Dr Yes: Spy Vs Spy
The “tea” bit of “Dr Yes” was clearly inspired by these guys (more stuff on them at www.ybcw.com/strip1.php – this is their first appearance in print):
Quitting While You’re Behind
My car is dead. D-E-D, dead.
Well, for two thousand or so I could fix it. But I’ve been through that at least once in the last twelve months (with this car), so I think not.
It’s sad to say goodbye to a car, no matter how much it costs to run (about $100 a month if I left it in the garage the whole time). I think this car was my husband’s first vehicle (other than a motorbike on the farm) so it won’t be easy to let it go. But it’s time.
Dr Yes: Spy Car from U.N.C.L.E.
I never saw the show this car is from (and it only appeared in a few episodes), but I like to think the girl comes with it.
The vehicle had many mock features, including flame throwers, machine guns, rocket lauchers, laser beams, a radar screen, parachute, and various hidden interior devices. It even had operating marine propellers, but the car was not amphibious.
Note the rocket launcher tubes in the gullwing doors.
One of the teensy problems with the car was getting in and out (like THAT’S important).
“You should have seen Stephanie try to get in and out in a skirt in those days” said George Lehr, associate producer of the series. “Trying to get up over that step and into the gullwing (door opening) in a hurry was a feat. She told us ‘You guys are crazy’.”
The car is now owned by a fan of the show.
Dr Yes: Further ninja cats
I found these over at http://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/03/07/catz/
and recognised what they were (evil ninjas) immediately.
Dr Yes: Spy Gadgets
You’ll love today’s spy gadget – and it’s made in China. I want a watch that had a video recorder, camera, and USB!
Felicity Banks 