#171: Explore the attic
My parents, presiding as they are over an empty nest, came up with the wacky notion that my sister and I should get our long-forgotten randomnesses out of the spider-infested boxes in their attic (specifically, the area between the ceiling and the roof).
It’s a mysterious land of leaves and dust and fluffy, itchy insulation, where the adventurer must tread carefully on the supporting beams or plummet to an itchy demise.
After a certain amount of procrastination, we brought down all our sh– all our stuff and began the long process of oohing, ahing, and throwing away. Yesterday was the big day.
My sister is pictured here, with her husband giving moral support.
Some of the boxes disintegrated underneath when picked up. Several plastic bags dissolved when touched. It was exciting stuff. I found boxes stuffed with my old diaries – millions of words of pre-emo angst – and threw them in the bin. I am pleased to report that I did not then cease to exist (the concern which caused me to store them all in the first place).
It’s very, very sad to sort through your old loves and dreams and throw them away. I was reminded of several lives I almost had. My sister and I both slept uneasily last night, although we feel better today.
I also found: several porcelain dolls my grandmother made for me; a Bible from the 1870s; a silver purse; a string bag I made when I was ten and living in Papua New Guinea; a red silk bag with a bell-fastener; and. . . a cat skin.
I kept all of those, except the cat skin, which my grandmother (the other one) gave me long ago after assuring me it was secondhand when she found it. How. . . reassuring?
I did not find an enormous flower made of books. Perhaps next time. This is from bookshelfporn.com:
“When Good Libraries Go Bad” story so far
1
A tentacle circled my neck, squeezing the life out of me with agonizing skill. “Steve!” came Terry’s voice. “Steve! Wake up!”
*
I opened my eyes to Terry, leaning over me. He looked scruffy without his mind-mage robes on. “Your cthulhu nightmares suck.”
“Sorry.”
*
We got up for breakfast. As the mind-mage, Terry got cereal. Phil the muscle-mage got steak. As air-mage, I got zip. And MY robe is puce.
2
“Oi, Steve, stop being nervous,” said Terry.
I said, “Shut up or I’ll CO2 you.”
Phil cracked a smile, exercising at least twenty muscles.
*
We hiked across the desert toward the Forbidden Library. Terry cleared his throat when we were still twenty miles away: “I sense something.”
*
Phil tensed, ready to attack. Terry shook his head: “It’s dead – but still radiating.”
“So. . . ?” I prompted.
Terry said: “It’s a cthulhu.”
3
Five miles away, and I tasted dead cthulhu on the air. Phil was sure he could make the corpse slither away, though, so that was reassuring.
*
At last we reached the three storey iron- and bone-bound doors of the outer library. I sensed breathable air inside. “After you, Phil.”
*
Phil focused, and the great doors cracked open, spraying chunks of blood-stained iron bigger than my house. “And now we wait,” said Terry.
4
We barely slept. I had nightmares, but Terry had his own to distract him. At dawn, we heard the rustling of pages. We waited back to back.
*
A pack of graphic novels emerged and sniffed at my feet. They smelled what I wanted them to smell – a friend. And so they imprinted on me.
*
When I judged my literature army to be big enough, we walked inside. A single giant tentacle lay across the threshold. I removed the stench.
5
More books joined me every hour – everything from gardening to war. I was dizzy with the smell of leather bindings and dust.
*
Phil wanted to move the tentacle, but Terry insisted we climb it. Some mountaineering books made steps for us, and it only took a few hours.
*
“There’s a problem,” Terry whispered.
I said, “What?”
“The cthulhu – it’s either a mother or a daughter. And I can’t tell which is alive.”
6
We ducked into a cobweb-strewn chamber and were attacked by a squad of how-to books. They pounded my head and I wasn’t able to focus.
*
Phil pushed me aside and tore apart the books with his mind. Terry was taken over by empathic rage and he punched me in the gut. I folded.
*
Ten books rushed Phil at once and I reached out with my mind and made him smell of oil just in time. They calmed down, and Terry did too.
7
“It’s Nix,” Terry told us at last.
I said, “The monster mage! No wonder WE were sent. We need to find his spell book – and destroy it.”
*
Phil coughed: “How will we do it?”
“1. Look, and 2. Live,” said Terry.
I said, “You know what a cthulhu’s weakness is? They’re too big.”
*
“How is size a disadvantage?” Phil asked.
I said, “Because hopefully they won’t notice us.”
“Right,” he whispered.
8
Terry shook me awake. “They took Phil!” I stood at once, but all my books were asleep and there were no others to be seen. Terry whimpered.
*
“Is that your fear or his?” I said.
Terry said, “His. Which means he’s still alive.”
“Good.” I sent a shelf of James Bonds to find Phil.
*
I asked, “Do you think it was Nix or the live cthulhu that took Phil?”
“Nix. I can feel him laughing. And he knows I can hear him.”
9
The Bond books returned with an illustrated series on the Moulin Rouge. I altered the air so they fled in disgrace.
*
I said, “We need a library book.”
“Err. . .” said Terry.
I said, “A book ABOUT libraries. One about this library could tell us everything.”
*
“Good! Can you make the other books find it?”
“The thing is,” I said, “books find by smell. And that book smells exactly like this library.”
10
I said, “Okay. Library smell minus stone smell should work.” As I altered the air, my horde of books shivered. Then they moved as one.
*
Terry and I followed my books in a spiral toward the library’s heart. I was beginning to relax when Terry screamed. He was on fire!
*
I threw firefighting books at the sudden inferno and they smothered the flames. Terry brushed ash from his clothes: “BBQ manuals. Huh.”
11
Keeping away from any unfamiliar books, we crept onward, following the library book’s trail. The air was heavy with rotting cthulhu.
*
Terry wept in his sleep, and I woke him, hoping to make it stop.
“It’s Phil,” he said, “and believe me, I’d rather channel Phil than C.S.”
*
“Who’s C.S.?” I asked.
Terry said, “The other cthulhu. The live one. It’s the baby, and it’s so hungry. It longs for fresh meat.”
12
Terry stopped dead. I did too. My books clamoured at the door before us. The one stained with human blood and torn pages. “Huh,” said Terry.
*
“I guess we’d better open it,” said Terry.
I said, “Yep.”
“Phil could have done it.”
“Yep.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Good question.”
13.
First I made the books hide. Then Terry. Then I lay down alongside the crack beneath the door, and I used my magic to smell like food.
*
A tentacle smashed through the iron door, sending bloody fragments flying. Then another tentacle, questing blindly along the floor. To me.
*
I rolled, frantically trying to smell of dust and stone. Terry reached down his hand and hauled me up, and we hid as C.S. squelched through.
14
C.S. finally floundered away and Terry and I climbed shakily through the smashed door into the library’s heart.
*
We gaped at soaring shelves and a stained glass roof. I saw the library book suspended over a pit, shimmering behind magical defenses.
15
We prepared all night, and Terry went first. He copied Nix’s mind in his, and the first barrier vanished. I smelled of Nix for the second.
*
Together we physically moved a third invisible boundary, and together stretched our hands out toward the prize. We touched it, and screamed.
*
We were hurtled through darkness, and the book was ripped from our burning hands. The burning filled my arms and chest, and I passed out.
16
I woke up in a cage. Terry lay beside me, still unconscious. Phil sat cross-legged. He said, “Let me guess. You’ve come to rescue me?”
*
Terry woke up. “Oh,” he said.
Phil said, “Yep. It’s a magic box. No magic in or out. And the bars are as strong as they look.”
*
“So. . .” I said, “how’ve you been?”
17
Nix appeared as if by – well, by magic – with a tentacle draped over his shoulder. “Good morning, ladies. I see you found my guest room.”
*
Terry leapt to his feet. “Remove these bars and see how smug you are without your mind!”
Nix fondled his spell book and smiled.
*
“I’ll return tomorrow,” he said, “and CS will eat one of you. Choose wisely, girls.”
18
One good thing: to feed us to CS, Nix had to open the box. Phil stood as our volunteer, and I prepared my mind to take Nix’s breath.
*
The door opened and CS’s tentacle snaked inside and caught Phil around the waist, pinning his arms. I stole Nix’s breath and he passed out.
*
CS thrashed, knocking over the cage and hurling books everywhere. I leapt onto CS and tried to climb up to Phil. CS fled, throwing me off.
19
Terry woke me, white-faced: “Phil’s gone. I felt his mind stop.”
I said, “We need to get out of here before we’re cthulhu food too.”
*
I send squads of my book minions ahead to check we were safe. Many of them were missing or covered in slime from CS’s explosive rage.
20
We passed another shattered door and Terry sensed CS was close. I saw the Library Book lying open and ripped on the floor.
*
“It’s a trap,” said Terry.
I said, “I have to try anyway. You get out – tell the other mages all you know. Tomorrow I’ll touch the book.”
*
I hoped Terry got out safely. In the next room, I heard slithering, and Nix’s gravelly voice. I curled up for my last night of freedom.
21
I touched the library book, smelling as friendly as I could. Nothing happened. One page curled around my hand. I picked it up.
*
The door opened as I stared, enthralled by the sorcery I held.
“Like it?” said Nix. “I wrote it. CS – dinnertime!” A tentacle snapped out—
*
–and a bookshelf crashed to the floor, crushing it. CS howled in rage. My new book fell open on a page with just one word: RUN. I ran.
22
I ran and hid and ran all night. My body ached but I was encouraged by thousands of rustling pages. The library wanted me to live.
*
A book on waterfalls dripped fresh (though slightly inky) water into my mouth, and a cookbook fed me something suspiciously like calamari.
*
A bookshelf hollowed itself out and filled itself in after me with books on history, war, revenge, and how to write a fairy tale ending.
23
I awoke refreshed, cushioned by home furnishing books. Judging by a distant explosion, Nix was far away. I began reading the Library Book.
*
The Library Book opened with a picture Nix had clearly painted of himself – except for the moustache of cthulhu slime scrawled across it.
*
I wished Terry was with me.
“But I am,” he said in my ear.
I jumped: “Is it really you? How did you find–”
He said, “Mind mage, remember?”
Digestive Health Report
As some of you know, I spent four weeks eating and exercising as well as I knew how to do. Here’s the rules, and my conclusions:
1. Begin each day with a tall glass of tepid water (with a squeeze of lemon), then fifteen minutes’ exercise – all before breakfast.
Love the water, hate the exercise. I’ll stick with the water and do pre-breakfast exercise. . . sometimes.
2. Continue exercising six days a week, except when I’m sick.
Yeah, it’s clearly a good plan and worth the hassle. I’ll continue.
3. Drink over a litre of water each day, in addition to other liquids.
I suspect it’s keeping me bloated, but I’ll talk to a doctor before I stop.
4. Eat every meal and snack at a table (not the couch), and remain upright for half an hour after every meal. Take small mouthfuls and chew them properly before swallowing.
I definitely need to eat more slowly. But I think sitting on the coach is okay (especially for snacks) as long as I stay still and upright for that half hour (which is really difficult, but worthwhile most of the time).
5. Never go four waking hours without eating something (and eat small meals).
I can do that.
6. Eat five vegetables (at least one green) and two fruits each day (tomatoes, pumpkin and avocado can fall into either group – my resolution, my rules – and chickpeas are a vegetable).
I can keep aiming for that, but I don’t think I’ll make it every day (I will today, though, so that’s cool).
7. Eat 50 grams or less of chocolate/lollies each day (a giant or deep-fried meal counts as 30 grams, and savoury snacks count as 20g). I’ll have nothing unhealthy for at least the first seven days, beginning today.
Definitely worth sticking with, but not gonna happen. 50 grams or less of junk food is a worthy goal that I’ll try to stick to – starting from Tuesday next week 🙂
8. No soft drink and no artificial sweeteners.
I don’t think I eat enough of those for it to have any negative effect. Although I think I’m allergic to preservative 202, so I’ll be careful on that front.
9. I’ll attempt to go without iron tablets – instead I’ll have a vitamin C at breakfast and dinner (dinner is when I tend to eat meat, which is the most absorbable source of iron followed by chicken or fish). I am anaemic, so it’s likely I’ll have to take the tablets, but we’ll see.
This worked brilliantly. Definitely sticking to it.
10. At least one high-fibre food each day, and at least one does-something-cool-for-your-gut food each day.
If I’m eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegies, this will probably happen by itself.
As of this moment, I am psyching up for a gluten-free week, starting. . . soon.
S#85: Random Club
On Steff Metal’s list of 101 ways to cheer yourself up (which you can find if you go to steffmetal.com and click on the link on the right) she wrote:
Open your gig guide, close your eyes, and point. That’s where you’re going tonight. Dress inappropriately, and make the best of it.
Since I am not at all acquainted with Canberra’s music scene (sad but true), I choose one of those free “What’s on in Canberra” magazines for my assigned awesomeness. I ended up with a craft day at the National Museum. One tiny problem: it was a craft day for under sixes.
So I borrowed a 5-year old “beard” from a friend (who was pathetically grateful), and wore a whole lot of purple.
There were about thirty under-sixes and free fairy bread, so it was a pretty unique experience (for me as a non-mum, anyway). My beard liked the giant lego. . .
. . . and the ability to glue things to other things.
To be fair, he was annoyed there was no TV or computer. But no tantrums, so all good.
One of the coolest things about the preschool crowd (other than not needing to change nappies any more) is they are the ultimate absurd comedians. My beard said things like:
“Oh! This is the forest I came to last week. I saw kangaroos and dragons.”
“Last week, I came to this farm. There were horses, and sheep, and pigs. The pigs got killed. They were healthy pigs, very clean. And then I killed them.”
“Look! A rocket!”
“Are there dragons there? Dragons eat people.” [gales of delighted laughter]
“My aunt had a baby. It was in her stomach last week, and then it came out – of her BUM!” [gales of delighted laughter – the baby in question is now walking]
As you can tell, he’s recently discovered the existence of “last week”, and seen “How to Train Your Dragon.”
I once showed him a dead octopus, which he said was, “Yucky for eating.” I can only imagine he’d have a similar response to this pic from Flickr:
Three-Ingredient Thursday: Strawberry and Banana Milkshake
Fine. I admit it. I’m posting Thursday’s post on Wednesday. Today got away from me a bit.
Also, the title might kind of give away the ingredients. Luckily, I forgot to photograph them before blending them, so here’s one photo with the final product + two of the three main ingredients. Another FABULOUS way to get your fruit serves in.
In other news, here’s an extra special cthulhu from
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/19/neil-gaimans-cthulkh.html
PG for mention of the usual spam product
This piece of spam amused me:
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S#51: Guilty Pleasure
If there’s anything I excel at, it’s guilty pleasures. You want ’em? I gots ’em. Today was meant to be my final day of total digestive goodness – so much for that. I fell off the rails last Saturday, and haven’t yet managed to get back on (but I *did* make my weight goal, plus established along the way that I’m not lactose intolerant – but I am still sick. Next I’ll try gluten intolerance, then see if it’s IBS).
I bet you’re all thinking, “Oh, here we go. Another blog entry about how Louise went and bought three packs of junk food and ate them all in a sitting.” But no! Today I indulged myself by taking myself out to a charmingly eccentric cafe I know and ordering a toasted turkey foccacia with avocado, camembert and cranberry jam. While reading a Terry Pratchett.
One of the things I like about this cafe (apart from the fact that they generally pop next door to borrow an avocado immediately after taking my order) is the view. I like the mix of alley wall, tin church, and lamp post.
It was all very convivial and even good for my health.
And then I went and bought three packs of junk food.
Here’s a special treat for today’s awesome picture. Yep, it’s Felicia Day. You’re welcome.
#78: New job
This entry is PG for moderately bad swearing (at the end).
One of the best (and worst) things about my day job – private tutoring – is that things are constantly getting shuffled around. I’m about to take on some new students, so I get all the thrills and spills of a new job without losing my old job.
Here in Canberra we divide ourselves into the North Side and the South Side, and my relationship across that divide (with CJ) was considered exotic and strange from the beginning (despite the fact that it takes around thirty minutes to travel that distance). When we married, I said tearful goodbyes to all my Northside family and friends, and moved to CJ’s side of town. I’ve been slooooowly evolving my tutoring schedule ever since, so perhaps in some distant future I won’t have to go through the Glenloch Interchange two to four times every single work day.
To me, the improving schedule is terribly exciting. I even have a few students that I teach from home now (something that wasn’t possible pre-marriage, since I lived in a series of underage-drug-addled/surreal/excitingly overcrowded/peeping-tom-prone share houses – when I wasn’t living in a non-bathroomed garage or a fungus-infested hovel without drinkable water).
Tutoring is where the art of scheduling reaches its most adrenalin-fueled highs. That’s right. I said it.
I have a (highly blue-tacked and thus adjustable) schedule in my room, with different regions in different colours. You’d think colourful stationary was enough – you’d be wrong. The REALLY exciting thing about the tutoring schedule is that my ideal workload is three hours a day, and the key tutoring zone is after school but before dinner – which is to say, 4-7pm. Which means that in order for things to actually work, I need to travel instantaneously. Yes, that’s right! The future is here!
Sorta.
My schedule is pretty tight at the moment, but I reckon I have room for two more students. So the game is on to find them. What will happen next? Will someone from the far end of town tempt me out of my new zone of employ with delicious afternoon tea and an angel-faced student with absolutely no grasp of maths? Will I find another young face for my cats to glare at every Thursday afternoon? Will I find a mature-age student I can actually teach during the day? Will my existing families get so annoyed at yet another schedule adjustment that they fire me?
I’ll let you know!
Coming soon:
Guilty pleasure
Write your own alphabet
Three-Ingredient Thursday: Snack
Visit a freakin’ waterfall!
Midnight Snackage (with my sister and bro-in-law, who are visiting, yay!)
. . . and more
As usual for July, here’s a pretty pretty picture tangentially related to “When Good Libraries Go Bad”. This is from http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/images/
Lactose: Report
. . . nothing.
Naught, nada, no show.
It’s probably still a bit too early to say for sure, but all the evidence seems to indicate that I’m NOT intolerant of lactose. That’s quite a surprise, since I do get sick every time I switch milk brands (the safe one, for me, is Canberra brand full-cream – and no others).
Weird and good!
Next I’ll be testing gluten, which will involve asking my Mum about how to spot it in ingredient lists (is glucose syrup also gluten? Is wheat also gluten? Are there any secret gluten-concealing ingredients I should know about?)
CAN YOU HANDLE THE SUSPENSE?!?!?!?!?!
Lactose Day
The best part about experimenting with possible food allergies is the part when you get to suddenly eat all the stuff you might be intolerant too – right after you’ve missed it for so long.
All last week I stayed off all dairy products – no milk, no sweet delicious butter, no heavenly sour cream or fetta or yoghurt or cream cheese. And no chocolate.
Today I went nuts with the experimental eating.
Breakfast: Cereal and milk, plus 10 grams of chocolate. (And – unusually for me – I not only went to church, but I stayed around talking to people afterwards. I am SO much more functional on chocolate.)
Morning tea: Strawbery and banana milkshake with added sour cream (why not, right?)
Lunch: Baked slices of potato topped with cream cheese and butter-fried zucchini pieces (also known as the Cream Cheese Lunch of Dooooooooom).
Afternoon tea: Far too much chocolate, plus chocolate milk. And a half-shot of Frangelico with milk. (I was writing, and wanted chocolate so very much. It was a GREAT writing session, as usual when I break a diet. Last time I did this I consumed 300 grams of chocolate, and this time I ate 70 grams. Which sort of makes this a good day.)
Dinner: Tuna mornay with extra cheese + a side of beans fried in butter and garlic, and with fetta added at the last moment.
Supper: Chocolate milk.
I posted an article today on http://twittertales.wordpress.com about homosexuality and the Bible. It’s a scary thing to do because I have 2000 fans/followers, and at least some are likely to have a strong negative reaction. I used a pretty shocking opening example, too (offensive shocking, not M-rated shocking). In my head, I’m constantly in deadly danger of getting in trouble (like I’m five years old, I know). It genuinely scares me. But I’m more scared of deserving to get in trouble – I’d rather be unjustly punished than punished for something I actually did – so I think I can handle any hate the article brings out. Plus the sermon in church this morning used the exact same key passage as I did, and made the same central point (not that it was a sermon about homosexuality – that’s too hot a button for most sermons). That was encouraging (while also reminding me of some really dumb stuff I’ve done lately).
This is one of those rare and special occasions where my writing actually means something.
Felicity Banks 