“Zeppelin Jack and the Deadly Dueller” story so far
NB: If you’re here looking for baby photos, you’re nearly there – just scroll down past this entry (or click on the “Daily Awesomeness” button on the left to make this entry disappear).
“Zeppelin Jack and the Deadly Dueller” so far:
1
Marm grabbed both of us boys by the collars, but Nip wriggled away. I trudged after her to the Foundlings’ Aid Office for my lecture.
“You are too easily distracted,” she said.
I wondered where my Gizmo had got to.
She said, “You’re demoted to fifth assistant cogmonkey.”
She’d demoted me to sixth last week, so I grinned. I wiped grease off my nose and found the offending cigarette behind my ear. Perfect day.
2
Gizmo whirred quietly on my knee as Nip retold the details of yesterday’s flight. Outside the theatre gondola, engine fumes stained the sky.
“Bored?” I said.
Nip said, “The play hasn’t begun.”
“Let’s sneak backstage and join in.”
Giz rolled under a chair, and we crawled after it.
*
“Parp!” said Gizmo.
We looked up into the pulley ropes, and saw a man with an eyepatch and a crooked neck. A dead, dangling pirate!
3
We snuck back into the empty theatre when the coast was clear. The body was gone, but Nip and Gizmo and I were determined to Find A Clue.
“Bing!” said Gizmo, dancing on one of its six radiating legs. I hurried over and saw an eye. It was some kind of metal, like my arm.
“It’s awful heavy,” I told Nip.
He stared, and said, “Jack! It’s heavy because it’s an auto-eye made of gold.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
4
Nip dodged a gear twice his size and flicked grease at it as it crunched onward. Zeppelin School for Boys minded an engine older than Marm.
“Was the pirate killed for his eye?” I mused.
Nip said, “More importantly, should we sell it?”
I pondered until Giz shrieked, “Parp!”
Metal teeth grasped my leg. I yelped and leapt into the air. The teeth kept turning.
Nip said, “You’re too easily distracted.”
“So I hear.”
5
Nip came running with the day’s paper: “Deadly Dueller Strikes Again!”
“It was him! The infamous Saturday killer killed our pirate.”
“He wanted the eye!” I said.
Nip’s eyes boggled: “I don’t want to duel him!”
“Me neither,” I said, “since I’d hoped he’d duel Marm one day.”
6
“I know where he kills them,” I told Nip.
He looked pale to me, but it’s hard to tell with Chinese kids.
“The roof,” I said, “so let’s go.”
*
Nip was quiet as we climbed the metal access ladders to the zeppelin roof. The wind whipped our hair, and Giz parped insistently.
Nip searched East, and I put Giz into my metal left arm and searched West. But when I returned to our meeting place, Nip was gone.
7
I put an ad in the paper: “I have your eye. You have my friend. Let’s meet at the same place at noon.” Hopefully Nip was still alive.
I stood on the vast canvas roof and heard the click-thump of a man with one metal leg. Nip shouted to close my eyes. I did. Giz didn’t.
The dueller said, “Stop messing about, kids. This is a vital clue.” He took the eye.
I asked Nip if he was hurt. “Nah. He gave me pork pie.”
8
Nip filed down a lump in a new cog. “Who are the alchemists?” he asked.
I said, “Dunno. Why?”
“The dueller kept telling me to stay away.”
We went immediately into unfamiliar territory: the library. All the books on alchemy were gone. The librarian said Marm took them.
9
We snuck off work and into Marm’s gondola. Her drawers were full of icky unguents and powders, and – for some reason – loaded mouse traps.
After binding Nip’s broken finger (luckily Nip didn’t have any metal parts, because those are expensive to fix), we found the books.
“Victory!” said Nip.
Giz said, “Bing!”
I said, “Now we read them.”
Giz said, “Parp!” and Nip fainted dead away.
10
I found diagrams of cool experiments. We stole giant canisters of helium and nitrogen. Something made me laugh maniacally for no reason.
“What happens if we mix them?” said Nip.
Giz said, “Parp!”
We crowded together on our bunk and unscrewed the lid of the nitrogen.
Nip giggled and fell asleep. “PARP!” said Giz.
I said, “My hands are soooo big. Look Nip! Nip?” My eyes closed.
Giz said, “PARP-PARP-PARP!”
11
When we came to, Giz was badly scratched from opening the vents.
Marm had her hands on her hips. “I TOLD you not to smoke,” she said.
I said, “We weren’t. We were studying alchemy.”
Marm blanched and left without another word.
Nip said, “She’s not angry – she’s scared.”
12
I found a note on my bunk. It said, “I know who you are and what you’re attempting. No more misguided mercy. We duel at noon this Saturday.”
Giz carefully examined the note. “Bing,” it said. I translated that as ‘Follow’.” We did – all the way to the dueller’s hideout – a home.
The dueller’s wife spotted us and invited us in for honey cookies. They were delicious. Then we left, wondering what to do.
13
We discussed our mystery at work. A gear malfunctioned, jumped its track, and came rolling to crush us both. We jumped out of the way.
Nip inspected the mess.
“Sabotage?” I said.
Nip said, “Yep – but not the dueller, since he’s already going to kill you on Saturday.”
“Parp!” said Giz.
Nip said, “Er. . . he’s going to TRY to kill you. Do you think his wife knows?”
“No-one who cooks that well could kill.”
14
Nip offered to teach me kung fu, since he was Chinese.
I said, “But you don’t remember your parents, so how could you–”
“I. Just. Know.”
Nip made me clean and wax our bunks for no apparent reason. Then he made me do it again. Why?
*
Finally Nip said I was almost ready. Then he punched me in the nose. I kicked him in the leg until he agreed to stop teaching me.
15
Nip paused in his cog-cleaning duties and made a face. “Did you just fart?” I denied the charge, and he threatened to show me more kung fu.
As I clambered onto the cog’s conjoined twin, I saw the cause of the smell. “Hey! There’s sulphur over here. It’s turning toward you, too.”
Nip said, “Mine’s got charcoal, and some kind of black stuff. It stinks like sh–”
I shouted, “Nip! RUN!” The alchemist’s trap met and BANG!
16
Despite Giz’s objections, I went to meet the dueller. “Thanks for trying to kill me yesterday. Did you get too scared to face a kid?”
The dueller paused: “Who tried to kill you? And how?”
“Alchemists, with gunpowder. Wasn’t it you?”
“No. I thought you were with them.”
He lowered his pistol: “I guess I’ll have to duel someone else. Like to meet tomorrow for home-baked pie and grandiose plans?”
Four hours old
Today and yesterday I posted at http://twittertales.wordpress.com about my sister going into labour and producing THIS:
There’s a different video over there (they don’t get this one until tomorrow).
This is her again with my hand for scale:
Babies: They make poo exciting.
#212: Visit hospital
Yesterday’s blog left you at 10:00am (after thirty hours of labour, including six hours of pushing) Monday morning.
Today’s blog is pretending to be written on Monday afternoon.
I knew something was wrong, so after trying the birthing centre I called my Mum, hoping she’d tell me I was being silly.
She really didn’t. She was frightened too. It’s never good to have your fears confirmed.
Now is as good a time as any to say that one of my best friends in Canberra had a baby last month. They’re all fine now, but she had preclampsia during labour to the extent that her organs began shutting down and she had to go into surgery.
Incidentally, if I ever want to figure out if someone has treated me badly (which is often difficult due to my messed-up brain chemicals), all I have to do is imagine the person treating my sister that way. On those occasions, imagining my sister in the same situation makes me instantly furious. NO-ONE is allowed to treat my sister badly or cause her pain. (What a shock Megan didn’t ask me to accompany her to the hospital. Apparently crying hysterically isn’t what good birth partners are known for.)
But she was in real pain – and real danger – and there was nothing anyone could do. So I sat at home and cried.
I called the birthing centre again, and begged them to tell me what was wrong.
Mum called me back saying there’d been a minor complication, and that NOW the baby would come any moment. Everything was okay!
The minor complication was that birthing centres are perhaps a little too focused on the mums’ peace and privacy, and had advised Megan to push “when you feel like it.” This resulted in Megan pushing too early (beginning at 4:00am, when she was close but not close enough), which slowed everything down (probably by several hours).
I walked to Helen’s house to get her number in case I needed a lift.
I returned home and cleaned some more, moving as if I was wading through honey, and keeping my phone within sight at all times.
At 11:30am, I received an SMS from my mum. It was a girl, and everyone was fine.
About half an hour later, I received an SMS from Jim saying the same thing. Old news, bro! You snooze, you lose.
A few hours passed, and then yet another Perth friend called to take me for an official visit by invitation. I was still dazed and shaking, and ended up causing her multiple trips, but she was very sweet. She was so respectful that she came to the hospital for me twice (each a round trip of over an hour), and didn’t go in herself.
I held my first niece on my lap and took this video. She’s four hours old here.
Most of the time I held her, she was sleeping deeply, barely stirring. Her head was as squashy as an over-ripe avocado and she flinched away from the slightest light (even with her eyes closed). I was stunned at how perfectly her nose and mouth and eyelashes and hands were formed.
The hair on her head is real, and will stay. It’s a family trait.
Jim told me she also had hair on her back – but that’s the kind a lot of babies have, that just goes away. (Or is it???)
As I write (we’re back in real-time now), the whole family is home and doing fine. Here’s them in hospital:
And this gorgeous photo was taken within the last twenty-four hours:
She was 3.55 kilos (that’s 7.8 pounds), 50cm long, and the circumference of her head was 35cm.
She does have a name, but I won’t be saying it publicly, so if you’re a real-life friend you can SMS me or CJ or my Mum or Dad for that.
Megan went through the entire experience without painkillers of any kind – not even gas. (She had stitches, too.)
She was kind enough to give me these two golden nuggest of advice:
1. Don’t eat corn just before going into labour unless you really want to see it again.
2. Use pain relief.
She also said that she got to a certain point and thought, “That wasn’t so bad” – and then had another eight hours of labour.
Unsurprisingly, it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But also the most rewarding. To which I say, “Duh! Just look at that gorgeous girl!”
What’s that you say? You want another photo? Okay. This is her on my lap at four hours of age (with my hand for scale).
And now, after a day of travel and two days of hectic catch-up at work, I’m going to go and have a nice lie-down.
#211: Be a labour buddy
This blog is a sham! I’ve been lying to you all week! My sister went into labour on Sunday – while I was still staying in her house.
Since it’s the official due date, and I’ve been given permission to tell the world, here’s how it all went down. I’ll pretend I’m writing this on Monday morning*.
I’ll be calling my sister Megan (since she’s roughly as attractive as Megan Gale) and my brother-in-law Jim (why not?)
It’s Monday morning (*see how smooth and realistic that was?) and my little sister is in labour. Yesterday (Sunday) we washed some second-hand soft toys and hung them out on the line, all damp and multicoloured. Then Megan and Jim and I played a game of Settlers. I was way ahead the entire game, and then Megan drew ahead and won. (I’ve played exactly three games of Settlers since arriving here – a game I’m so good at that some people refuse to play with me – and Megan has won all three. I think her baby-to-be is sneaking under the table and looking at my cards and/or brain.)
She went for a walk to a nearby friend’s house (who I’ll call Helen) and I continued reading a Cadfael book. When she came back she didn’t come into my room, so I just kept reading. Then, at about 12:30pm, she called me.
I went into her room and she and Jim were lying on the bed.
“I’m in labour,” she said. “I’ve been getting regular contractions since 4:00am, and now they’re growing more intense.”
I babbled. Then I flailed. Then I laughed, and babbled, and flailed some more. It was a day and a half until I flew back to Canberra. If all went well, I’d be able to meet him/her before I left.
We arranged an alternate lift to the airport, on the basis that Jim would be otherwise engaged (somewhat). My mum had already been contacted, so now that I knew, Megan called her to talk about it. I took this photo.
She is actually having a contraction at the time, but the weird face is because of the paparazzi, not labour.
Jim and I walked around in a daze, talking too fast, cleaning haphazardly, talking to Megan, fetching her drinks, timing contractions on his iphone, and saying, “Oh, this is so cool!” Megan joined in on the, “Oh, this is so cool!” parts.
I had weetbix sandwiches for lunch, and Megan had a bowl of fresh fruit and yoghurt. The wind blew some dried flowers off her wall and scattered them across the floor, so she hoovered her room.
I took another photo:
I actually took another photo of her, in which she charmingly stuck her finger up her nose, but I’ve decided not to reproduce that here.
They went for a walk, and I have absolutely no idea what I did (but I bet there was some staring into space – and also posting photos to my Mum so she could see for herself that Megan was perfectly fine).
When they came back, the contractions were stronger and closer together. Megan starting leaning on the swiss ball she’d borrowed for the purpose.
At around 5pm her contractions started to come about four minutes apart, and usually lasted around a minute. I cooked her an omelette, which she ate for dinner. She stopped talking during contractions. All our spirits were sky-high. The baby was coming! No more sleeps!
Megan and Jim started slowly heading to the car, timing actions for between contractions.
I really wanted to go and sit in the waiting room, but I knew that I’d probably just end up having panic attacks (and no way to get home) – and, more importantly, I knew Megan didn’t want me there.
The couple left, and so did Megan and Jim.
I paced, and cleaned, and watched the first few episodes of MASH on my laptop. It was the 6pm on the 10th of the 10th 2010, so my brother and I were hoping she’d have a super-short labour and get a cool birth date.
Midnight came and went. “She might still have made it,” I thought. “Because they wouldn’t SMS in the first instant after birth.”
1:00am came and went.
I gave up and went to sleep, expecting to be woken by the birth SMS sometime in the night (having forgotten that my Mum was in hospital labour for 36 hours).
At 4:00am the sharp sound of my SMS rang out again, making me gasp and sit bolt upright before remembering what was happening and grabbing for the phone.
“Any moment now” from Jim.
I didn’t bother going back to sleep, knowing that the pushing stage generally lasts less than an hour.
I ate, and watched MASH, and saw the sun rise. I cleaned the fish water and fed the fish and hens.
Hours passed. No word.
It’s been six hours since Megan began to push. I called the birthing centre but they refused to tell me anything.
It’s 10:00am, Megan’s been in labour for thirty hours, and I know something has gone wrong.
NB: If you’re a family member or friend and can’t stand the suspense, just call me or CJ or my mum or dad. Otherwise, I’ll tell all tomorrow.
#210: Come Home
The best part of leaving is the coming home part. Last night I flew back into Canberra from Perth, and I couldn’t stop exclaiming over how nice my house is. (And also CJ, but I remembered that part pretty well.)
My cats found me extra fascinating for a bit – although not as fascinating as the day I came home smelling of Melbourne, Brisbane, AND Sydney (having not had a shower for the thirty hours spent travelling from Melbourne to a Brisbane conference and then staying that night in Sydney before I could get home to Canberra – four states; one shower at the end!)
Dogs mark their territory with urine. I mark my territory with just as much single-minded devotion, but less ammonia. In consultation with CJ, I rearranged our room so it now looks like this:
I heartily recommend rearranging one’s room as a form of therapy for the mentally ill or anyone feeling out of control. It proves through action that at least you have enough power to control the most important environment of your life. That’s worth a lot. (My apologies to any readers currently in prison and/or traction.)
Also, CJ sorted out some of his stuff. That always makes me happy. By “sorted out” I mean he threw away a whole box full of papers, including an invitation to a wedding for some friends of ours that have since divorced.
Ah, the life strata of a hoarder’s drawer. Luckily for me, CJ’s hoarding tendencies are under control – although he does have his own room, so the potential for chaos remains. . . waiting.
We also found a $50 voucher from our own wedding (in January 2009), that we not only haven’t spent yet, but is still valid.
Kmart, for your two-year expiration date, I love you.
One of the features of the new arrangement is that, for the first time, I have a dressing table (the picture is a mirror, and the drawers are now largely mine – hairbrush and so on in the top so it’s 100% tidy* but easily accessible).
Coming soon: Given that my sister is due to give birth tomorrow (not that such an exact date means much to the kid), there will definitely be some very tiny baby photos sometime this month. I can’t wait!!!!!!!
From brassgoggles.co.uk, here’s how a serious steampunk fan redecorates:
*CJ is a hoarder, and I’m a little OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which in my case means that if certain areas aren’t tidy and/or squared to the edge of the table, I have panic attacks). Starting our life together with two bedrooms rather than just one was A Good Plan.
What publishers do with your book
Today’s awesomeness is #209: Share your knowledge. Which I’m doing by posting this.
First, let’s make something very clear: Publishers do a lot of work. They might earn a steadier income than you or I (there’s perhaps a dozen in Australia genuinely doing well), but they work just as hard and love books just as much.
You think your novel is the best novel ever written, but so do 90% of the other 300 people sending a novel to the same publisher as you this week. So settle down, and prepare yourself for a long wait. A month is a lightning-fast response time – it often means they didn’t have to think hard about rejecting you. Don’t ever contact the publisher unless at least 3-6 months have passed since you sent your stuff. (Agents are similar – and neither group will be pleased if you resubmit a book, so make sure it really is the best it can be FIRST.)
The book process goes a little like this in Australia (In Britain and America, you pretty much need an agent – in Australia it’s optional at this stage):
1. You send the first three chapters of a finished book, plus a short cover letter and one-page synopsis – or whatever the web site says you should send (and done in standard manuscript format – usually courier new size 12, double spaced with one-inch margins on all sides and a header with the novel title, author name and page number. The very first page is a cover page with the author name, address, email and phone on the top left and the total word count on the top right, then the title and author pen-name in the middle of the page, with lots of white space all around).
2. The book waits on a slushpile for weeks or months – not because the publishers are lazy, but because they get hundreds of manuscripts every week (and pay staff hundreds of dollars each week to sort through them all). The initial read is generally given to editors and/or interns.
To have an idea of their life, go to an online critique group, pick someone at random and volunteer to read their novel. Read it and edit it that day (you need to think of good points as well as bad points). Now imagine doing that every single day of the week (including, often, your weekends and holidays).
Once you’ve read twenty or thirty unpublished novels (go on, I dare you) you’ll realise that three chapters is far more than you need to tell if someone is good at writing or not. Random House in Australia asks for just 250 words (and replies within two weeks – genuinely!) They’ve often requested my full MS (manuscript) based on that little, so it’s clearly not a ploy to get out of reading the slushpile.
Also, any reader who picked up your book in a bookshop would read perhaps two sentences before making their choice. So if you can’t grab a publisher RIGHT AWAY – how can you expect to grab a reader, who is expected to financially invest in you from their own wallet? (Side note: when’s the last time you read and/or bought a book? Hopefully less than a week. If you won’t, who will?)
3. After 3-6 months (closer to six, despite the charming optimism of publisher estimates on their web sites and/or the rare “yes we have received it; we’ll get back to you soon” responses), you will get a one-line reply saying either, “Your book does not suit our list at this time” (which is particularly true if you were stupid enough to send a cookbook to a scifi imprint) or “Please send the full manuscript.”
That form reply of “Please send more” means you’re in the top 5% of unsubmitted manuscripts. Time to celebrate – a little.
The form rejection usually means your manuscript needs more work (or perhaps you need to write a new book from scratch – but I wouldn’t assume the latter from a single rejection. More than six rejections, maybe). Since it’s probably been at least a month since you last edited (if you never edited it, you’re a moron and a waste of publisher time), now is a great time to have a different look at your book, realising for real this time that it’s not an instant classic after all. You may want to eat a kilo or so of chocolate before you start, especially if this is your first rejection. But above all, don’t say a word to the publisher who rejected you – not even a dignified thank you. It’s unprofessional, and can be career suicide.
4. If your full book was requested, you may have time for an edit and then you send it off, with an extremely brief cover letter saying, “You asked for it; here it is.” Resend the synopsis, too. Send the full book, not just chapter four onward. And then wait for another 3-6 months (at least; as I write one of my full-MS books has been with a publisher 17 months). Meanwhile. . .
5. Your book is read by anywhere between one and a dozen different people. Some of them include more editors/editorial interns, publishers (who are often also editors), readers (who may belong to the publisher, or be hired as contractors), and acquisitions editors. At every stage, people are looking for reasons to either reject your book (saving the company a lot of time) or believe in it (so perhaps they might someday make money off you). If everyone along the way thinks a section of the general public will like your book, your book gets to an acquisitions meeting. Everyone present will have read at least an outline of the book (very possibly your own synopsis, so make sure the synopsis reveals your style, and what the book is like – humour if it’s humour, philosophical if it’s questioning, or whatever). There will be one or two people who are the champion of your book, and they will argue for you. Of all the books that are requested by publishers (say twenty a week), one or two will go to the fortnightly acquisitions meeting.
This is a hilarious example of roughly what that meeting looks like (horrifying, though, if you don’t already know the process):
http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/09/behind-scenes.html
6. At some point during #5, you will get a reply. It will almost certainly be a form rejection, even if they’ve taken an astonishingly long time to reply. In about 25 rejections of full novels, I’ve had personal comments twice (excluding the publishers I’d actually met, who knew I and my books were at a professional standard – and therefore gave comments).
Be professional, and don’t respond. Be wary of blogging, tweeting, or facebooking about your experiences, too. Never, ever burn a bridge with anyone. In Australia, all the major publishers are friends. Many are married to each other.
Don’t be rude to ordinary people, either, because (a) You never know who they are, and (b) They might someday be a fan of yours – maybe even the extra-special kind who buys your books, and (c) It’s rude.
7. Your book is accepted! Awesome! Deals do sometimes fall through (especially with small publishers), but that’s rare. So break out the champagne. And – brace yourself. Over the next couple of months you will be doing a lot of painful editing work. Your royalty is usually paid in three installments – one when the contract is signed, one when the book is ACTUALLY ready, and one when it’s released. The whole process takes about a year (if the book is illustrated, it’s more like a year and a half). Incidentally, if your publisher charges you money – they are a scam (ditto for agents).
This is a great time to get an agent to make sure everything is in order, and that the contract is beneficial to you. Large publishers often buy world rights – but don’t sell them (which means they’ve just prevented you from making two or three or seven times as much money by selling your book to other places for similar advances). Others don’t understand e-books (which, to be fair, is true of the entire human population, since the current e-book system is extremely clunky and user-unfriendly at present).
You don’t want a super large advance, because that can backfire. Your advance will be between $3000 and $10,000, based on predicted sales. Most of the time, the publisher doesn’t actually sell the predicted number (sad but true). You get to keep your advance, but it may be difficult to sell them your second book if they’ve just gambled on you and lost (which happens 9 times out of ten). However, with a smaller advance you may look good.
If your advance is $3000 (based on 1000 books) and you sell 2000 books, you look like a hero.
If your advance is $10,000 (based on selling 3000 books) and you sell 2000 books, you look like a failure.
Publishers make a loss on MOST of the books they produce, so (a) Be kind to them when they reject you, and (b) Promote yourself like crazy if you’re published (but remain polite – eg no spamming).
You probably won’t get much input into the cover design, unless you’ve already sold several books successfully to the general public. Publishers know more about the public than you do, so let them do their thing.
8. Books are usually given to booksellers on a “sale or return” basis, which means that even if the bookshop lets your publisher send them twenty copies, they can all be sent back after a few months if they don’t sell. Publishers have a LOT of warehouses full of unsold books. “Firm sale” means smaller profits, but the bookshop has to keep them (you know those bargain bin $1 books? They’re firm sales that the shop just wants to burn for the shelf space.)
9. Promotion happens for about two months before and after the release date. You can expect to travel a lot. Get used to being a commodity, and dealing with people insulting you. (As soon as you publish, you’re public property, and people will feel free to mention how much they hated your most precious characters – often to your face.) You will also have a web site made, and possibly start (or continue) a blog. The average attendance for a book signing in the USA is four people, so call in every favor you’re owed to rent a series of crowds. Personally, I recommend getting a whole lot of helium balloons with faces drawn on.
10. Your promotion period soon ends (for better or worse). You’ve probably already written and edited another book, so hopefully you’re already accepted and gearing up to next promotion season. Most writers produce a book a year working full-time (probably financially supported by someone else), and publishers rarely want more than that.
There are a lot of gaps in my knowledge, but that’s the general gist of things as far as I’m aware.
Remember: Be patient, be polite, and work hard (before, during, and after publication). As always, my most important piece of advice is – if you don’t enjoy writing for writing’s sake, don’t do it. Why punish yourself?
Click on this for a mildly-naughty comic series (language, and otherwise fine as far as my extremely limited knowledge goes) – the first refers to Isambard Kingdom Brunel*, a heroic engineer of a time when engineers were. . . well, heroic.
My friend Will says, “Some Hark! A Vagrant does have sexual references. I give it PG to M, depending on the person. But it’s soooooo worth reading.”
For some reason, you need to scroll down quite a bit. Do it; it’s worth it.
http://beatonna.livejournal.com/135788.html
*Real name. Yep, I know. Awesome.
#208: Fish Doctor
I believe I have successfully diagnosed a mortally dangerous flaw in my bro-in-law and sister’s fish tank (the water isn’t changed often enough – they’re already fish serial killers, and have been wondering why).
The tank is, in itself, awesome. My bro-in-law set it up so the off button turns off the light.
I’m pretty confident in my diagnosis, since I researched it online, ran tests with different-coloured water (really; real tests, too) and pronounced my judgement before realising as bro-in-law changed the water that the pic at the back is actually white – not yellow, as it appeared to me. Water shouldn’t be yellow, kids.
Also, the fish that was acting especially sick yesterday is already acting less sick.
So what did you do today? I SAVED A FREAKIN’ LIFE.
Long-term readers will know that my first foray into fish-keeping (which was actually my second, but my first this decade – and by “this” decade I mean since the year 2000) ended horribly.
http://shootingthrough.net/2010/04/01/s78-adopt-a-pet/
http://shootingthrough.net/2010/05/06/132-try-try-again/
It’s been almost six months, and all my new batch of fish are fine (well, except for the one Sherlock killed and ate, but that’s arguably natural causes. Sherlock has a new mummy now, since I decided not to risk the rest).
So this is one of those neat times where life comes out of death. Aww.
Hey look! A steampunk dalek!
This image was taken from nerdcore.de
S#60: Rise and Shine
Today’s awesomeness is all about changing one’s morning routine.
My normal routine is as follows:
1. Turn off alarm clock. Greet consciousness with a moan of existential despair.
2. Remember the existence of chocolate, and get up. Pat 1-2 cats, kiss 1 husband.
3. Have a glass of water while checking email just in case a publisher got up REALLY early to email me with a three-book deal.
4. Sort through up to twenty utterly uninteresting emails. Blink back tears of career-related despair.
5. Remember I’m not allowed chocolate until after breakfast. Get breakfast.
6. Eat breakfast (and six pills including vitamins B through to D) while posting twittertales (unless it’s something that specifically happens later in the day) and trolling through 15 or so blogs.
7. Give last skerrik of breakfast milk to older cat. Kiss husband goodbye as he goes to work.
8. Reach end of blogs. Check some again to see if they’ve posted something new since I last checked. Refresh email a few times, just in case the publisher has JUST walked into work and rushed straight to their desk to send me a contract. Facepalm with mental-illness-related despair.
9. Remember existence of chocolate. Eat chocolate.
10. Begin writing and/or housework.
Since I’m currently visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and almost-born niece/nephew in Perth, things have changed dramatically.
Which is to say, my husband and cats are not here, and I’m eating a different kind of breakfast.
Of course, when I’m away CJ makes it better by sending me photos like this (from yesterday):
Yep, life sure is different when you’re travelling.
From radioactivebodega.net, something most wonderful:
And a postscript to today’s twitter scene: Nitrogen gas is extremely stable – so much so that an American space program sealed a room and filled it with Nitrogen to protect it against fire. When two staff members went in, they experienced mental retardation (otherwise they’d have realised something was wrong and simply left the room), unconsciousness, and death.
WILL JACK AND NIP SURVIVE????????
Further steampunk data (PG: a bit creepy)
Today’s awesomeness is #118: Clean someone else’s house. I’ve planned for several months to pull (slightly) more than my weight while staying here – since, after all, my sister could pop out a child at almost any moment.
And onto today’s more thrilling tales of wonder (and, it must be mentioned by way of warning, a little horror).
Ice (mainly for preserving food, often insulated with sawdust) was a new and thrilling thing (as I’m sure you can imagine if you’ve ever seen spoiled meat or milk) in the 1840s.
Wigs were pre-Victorian, but I can’t not share this snippet:
“The combination of open flames and combustible materials brought an element of alarm and excitement to every aspect of daily life in the pre-electrical world. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary how he bent over a candle while working at his desk, and soon afterwards became aware of a horrible, pungent smell, as of burning wool; only then did he realize that his new and very expensive wig was impressively aflame.”
From portcities.org.au, Samuel Pepys:
Electricity was invented a while before it actually became useful. One of the first practical applications was used by Giovanni Aldini to make money. He “devised a stage show in which he applied electricity to animate the bodies of recently executed murderers and the heads of guillotine victims, causing their eyes to open and their mouths to make noiseless shapes.”
Sleep well tonight, kids!
God’s Love Language
Most of you have probably heard of the book “The Five Love Languages”. The theory is that everyone tends toward different ways of both expressing and understanding love. When we’re first in love, we express love in all the ways, but later on we settle into our predominant form of expression – which sometimes means absolutely nothing (or worse) to our partner.
The five love languages are:
1. Quality time.
2. Acts of service (eg doing the dishes when it’s her turn).
3. Touch.
4. Words of affirmation.
5. Gifts.
On a level beyond rationality, I feel rejected by God because I’ve offered him my life in service (as a missionary to Indonesia), and he has said, “Hmm. Nah – I don’t want that, thanks.” But even I can see that he has given me astonishing gifts – living in the Western world in safety, comfort and wealth (not compared to the average Westerner, but SO much more than the average human being). So the obvious thing for me to do is let God love me in the way he chooses – that is his right, after all.
And of course, the gift of Jesus Christ.
I think we go through a lot of pain because of our false expectations – both on other humans, and on God.
And here’s a pretty picture of some kangaroo paw, in memory of the plant (now deceased) that CJ gave me last Christmas.
Felicity Banks 
