#221: Dream Big
Thanks to our (still theoretical) wealth, my mind has been scurrying away into bright paths of, “What if we could build a house, instead of buying one?” I’m fairly sure it’s insane – $11,000 (even if we were able to sell the jewellery at its full price) is not going to make us the kind of people who can have any kind of house they want – but my capacity for logic is long gone.
Yesterday I was able to make a deposit into our bank account that means we’re slightly closer to being on track for our savings goal 2010 – without even allowing for the jewellery to make a profit. The remarkable thing is that I made that deposit from my income, rather than CJ’s. Generally once we buy groceries and petrol and pay our tithe, my income is gone. The power went to my head and I drew a house. I don’t mind saying that I love it.
The house faces North (very important in the Southern hemisphere), the laundry is close to the washing line (with a door outside), and both bathrooms have separate toilets (which will be handy when we have kids – and if/when either bathroom is used for food preparation). The kitchen, dining, and living are all open plan, but there’ll be an internal floor-to-ceiling curtain if we only want to heat one section. And an arched driveway, so almost no reversing, and plenty of room for friends’ cars.
The green section is (just) liveable while the rest of the house is getting built – and in the future it could be rented out (possibly to one of our children). There’s plans for future extension – a double garage linking to the laundry (so we don’t need to go outside to get to the car – what luxury!), and ultimately a two-storey hexagonal tower (the top room will be a sunroom – still North-facing, but with Western windows for sunsets – and basic kitchen plumbing below so that we can link it to the kids’ bathrooms and make it another flat in its own right).
I think bedsitters are the best thing ever – first you get to let your kids get used to independence without risk, and then once they’re long gone, you can use it as an ever-increasing retirement fund.
I have a completely plausible plan for making this happen, which I’ll express here with a simple picture (from hapfairy.co.uk):
In other news, Scott Westerfeld is an excellent author, and it turns out he’s also the kind of person I’d love to hang out with. Check out what he wrote in response to somebody whining about how unrealistic and shallow steampunk is. (I read the article he refers to, and that was precisely my reaction.)
http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2010/11/genre-cooties/
“Leviathan” is great steampunk stuff, but very much the beginning of a series. The second book, “Behemoth” has just come out. CJ begged to buy it in hardcover, and as soon as our heads are financially above water, we will.
S#26: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
If the rain in Canberra continues much longer, we’ll all drown. The sky is bleak and the wind is cold. So much for Spring. All my instincts are telling me to get back into bed, avoid all possibility of exercise, and eat nothing but chocolate. But I won’t. The next-best option is sitting on the couch watching “Gilmore Girls” until I have to go to work, which is fundamentally what I’m doing (I already went for a swim, and am now able to VERY CAREFULLY get in and out of the pool without flashing anyone via my velcro fly) – with one exception: Awesomeness must occur.
Today’s awesomeness was to ride on a swing. Brilliant, I thought. It’s free, I can walk to a playground from here, and it’s a little bit like flying. This will be the best “play along at home” ever!
I forgot one tiny thing: I’m too big.
I shoved my bulk into the swing with considerable difficulty, and swung cautiously so I didn’t fall over backwards. The swing I chose is overlooked by a block of flats, with about a hundred windows pointing toward the overweight girl with unbrushed hair and crocs. I’m pretty sure the chains on the sides will cause bruises to flower on my legs over the next few days.
And then I walked home. If I wasn’t newly confident of my journey into the healthy weight range, that would have been horribly depressing.
But it was still worth doing. 99% of awesome activities make me feel happier, regardless of whether they’re successful or not.
If you’re a writer, you’ll know that your main character must be proactive, or the story flops. It’s something hardwired into human nature. Whatever it is that makes us need proactive heroes also makes us feel better after the simplest activities – going for a walk, buying a Christmas present early, or stealing the neighbour’s flowers. Try it, and see if it works for you.
In the meantime, from concurringopinions.com, a semi-realistic pirate:
Coming soon: I’m kidnapping CJ and taking him to a secret location on Sunday. Also, hopefully selling some jewellery on ebay on Monday (but it’s not looking good). Archery (hopefully the non-fatal kind). And more.
S#21: Hydration
As per steffmetal.com’s suggestion, I changed my water consumption method from an ordinary glass to this one, which my mum painted for me several Christmases ago (the flowers were a Steampunk Earth Day gift):
It’s always a good feeling to drink from a nice glass. It’s also adds a hint of danger, since you know that if you sneeze unexpectedly, you’ll not only shatter your mum’s handmade gift, but also probably get glass shards in your eyes.
Fortunately, I eat* danger for breakfast.
Today’s picture speaks for itself.
Thus far the face of ebay has not blessed us (unless you like really elaborate, detailed scams and/or getting insulted by randoms**). Most of the items run out of time on Monday, so if anyone actually buys anything, that’ll probably be the day. In the meantime, we remain on rations.
Speaking of rations. . . I’m hungry, shaky, and shivering, so evidently the diet is going swimmingly. Feeling grumpy but mentally strong, which is about as good as can be hoped.
Go eat a chocolate for me. But don’t report back this time.
*drink
**I know I do
S#3: Send cards
Steffmetal.com recommended sending cards to all your friends telling them how much you love them – or, failing that, how much they smell.
After carefully choosing six friends, I sent the following on extremely cute kitten cards (you’ll notice a steampunk theme, excluding the last one):
Your mental clockwork wouldn’t work even if Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself came to fix it.
The perishable matter within your skull lacks proper refrigeration.
The synapses of your brain represent London’s sewerage system in 1858.
Your upstairs candles have long since drizzled away into puddles of rapidly congealing wax.
My difference machine has calculated that your intelligence quotient is an imaginary number.
Your mental icecream has a few too many pistachios.
Isn’t it nice to get something in the mail?
I bet there are plenty of you with far more original insults (steampunk, piratical, or otherwise). Please share them in the comments.
S#87: Sleepy Time
From Steffmetal.com, today’s mission of awesome was: “If you can spare the dough, buy new sheets and a duvet* for your bed. Find something completely luxurious in your favourite colour. Make over your bed, and you make over your sleep.”
CJ and I went shopping for new bedlinen, and were severely underwhelmed by the options we found. So instead I employed an old marrieds’ trick: I looked deeper into the linen cupboard.
We have a lovely white sheet set in sateen that my Mum gave me one Christmas, and I discovered the blue pillows and sheet under an excessive number of towels (among which I also found three nice items that I had thought were lost forever).
Today’s model is my 13-year old cat Indah, who doesn’t pose nearly as much as the 3-year old Ana.
*Is a duvet a doona? I assumed it was the cover, but I’m unsure. I shoulda paid attention when I was learning English.
I put an awesomeness into motion through the mail last week. If you’re someone who knows I know your address – check your snail mail. You might just be one of my victims lucky recipients. The rest of you will find out what it is tomorrow.
And, to get you feeling nautical for “The Captain’s Daughter”, here’s a little bit of Jack Sparrow.
My favourite part of this photo is the implied confusion in his expression.
I weighed myself this morning, and I’m feeling better about life. I’ve lost three of the necessary ten kilos. That meant I was able to fit into my swimmers (somewhat useful, non?). . . just. They’re very uncomfortable, and the fly on my board shorts is velcro, which means that if I bend at the waist (say, for example, while getting in or out of the public pool) it flies open.
May I never put on this much lard ever again. Amen.
#46: Stilts
Step 1: Let Ana outside to look picturesque.
2. Produce stilts.
3. Fall over (repeat as needed).
4. Gradually get the hang of it.
5. Let CJ have a go, and glare at his instant competence.
6. Sit frozen in terror as CJ loses control of a stilt and nearly brains you.
7. Photograph CJ’s, “Sorry I nearly gave you brain damage sweetie” face.
8. Smile privately as he loses one stilt in the mud.
9. Collect an even-more-paranoid-than-usual kitty on the way home.
10. Blog about it.
This is another good one to play along at home – all you need is two long bits of wood glued or nailed (or whatever) onto two short bits. And time.
To welcome you to “The Captain’s Daughter”, here’s a page of truly awful pirate jokes (a tad naughty in places):
http://www.piratejokes.net/jokes/top20?pg=1
Once you’ve gone through the pain of reading those, nothing in the deep can frighten you.
Speaking of unspeakable horrors, my diet is continuing. I weigh in for the end of week two tomorrow. Having untold riches helped a lot, but I’ve come down off that high now (in part because we have no actual money) and it’s difficult to get up the motivation to do anything except lie down staring at the wall. In one more week, I’ll be halfway through the absolutely-no-chocolate six weeks.
#221: Diet Coke and Mentos Rocket (PG for naughty language)
1.25L Diet Coke: $1.40
Mint Mentos: $1.70
Friends: $2 each (ie 1 chocolate bar)
Accidentally making a deadly rocket out of harmless party food:
Priceless
To this day, I don’t know exactly what happened. Here’s a shorter version of the rocket part:
We ran inside, babbling and near-hysterical – terrified our cameras had missed the whole thing. Out of the frantic hand-drawn pictures that ensued, this section was the most coherent:
The bottle was thrown down base-first from a height of 3.8m. It flew onto the roof of a 2-storey building 5.2m high. I think it rotated in the air and impacted on the lid, rupturing it and sending the bottle flying with maximum pressure.
The mentos-delivery system was that we laboriously strung four mentos together after putting pins through the middles (really not easy – and I accidentally* fed Ben the broken tip of a pin inside one of our reject mentos). CJ drilled through a spare lid so we could attach the mentos string, and then we put the loaded lid back on the bottle after pouring out some of the coke.
We attempted twice to replicate the rocket thing (from a far greater distance, I assure you!) but without success. Attempt # 3 was actually one of those – which is why it’s at a different location (one without people, cars, pets, or glass).
It takes just 7 pounds of pressure to break a bone, and 3 pounds to get a 1.25L bottle just 1cm off the ground. I don’t know how much force was generated in the moment of impact (however many pounds it takes to life a 1.25L bottle 5 metres in the air), but I’m confident it was enough to smash a human throat.
Playing along at home is perfectly safe on the ground, but if you throw mentos and coke onto a hard surface, make sure everyone and everything is a safe distance away – I recommend 4 metres (or twenty feet). It could definitely still hit you (coke and mentos can fly 14 metres along the ground), but it shouldn’t kill you.
And your last steampunk picture (since we’re about to seamlessly move into pirate territory for November’s twittertale “The Captain’s Daughter”):
That pic is from http://behlerblog.wordpress.com/ (this is a great writing-agent blog; the beagle is her secretary)
*Yes, really. Luckily Ben is paranoid, and his natural suspicion saved him.
#220: Wear $12,000 worth of jewellery
Yep. I wore it.
This is me thinking, “I wonder where that $1000 bill went? Perhaps I was using it as a bookmark again.”
So. . . drum roll please. . . . how much is the amber necklace worth? What was the most expensive piece (take a look at this picture and hazard a guess).
There was no way I could put on the gold bracelet, so I made up the difference (and then some) with my engagement and wedding ring.
From least to most valuable, with a fantastically sellable spread of value, here they all are:
$195 sterling silver
$250 amber
$295 9ct gold plating
$350 citrine and gold
$390 flourite and rose gold
$450 amethyst and gold
$500 jadeite and rose gold
$500 garnet and gold
$590 Emerald and diamond, white and yellow gold
$600 amethyst, peridot, citrine, blue topaz, and garnet in gold
$600 amethyst and gold
$600 Citrine and gold
$800 sapphire, diamond and gold
$850 Citrine and gold
$895 Opal, marcasite, and sterling silver
$1000 diamond and gold
And the winner is. . . . .
$2400 Black diamond and gold
Everything’s on ebay with a minimum of 80% of the value. We’ll see how that goes in the next couple of weeks.
There is NO BLOG tomorrow, since it’s Steampunk Earth Day and I won’t be using the computer, internet, phone, TV, or lights. (A friend will post the Zeppelin Jack tweets for me.)
On Sunday, I’ll make up for lost time with the diet coke and mentos accidental rocket video.
Here’s a fun faux news article on killer robots. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/14/robot_rampage/
How To Talk English, Like, More Gooder
If you watch TV, you’ll know that people are dumb. As a writer, you don’t want to alienate the slavering masses of humanity, so here’s ten ways to make absolutely sure you come across as a complete idiot in your writing (interspersed with steampunk gadgets).
1. Use “like”, “totally”, and “you know” as much as possible! Also exclamation marks! Exclamation marks are totally awesome and not irritating at all when used frequently!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know what else is GREAT????? CAPITALISING AND ITALICS!! They’re a fantastic blog/online habit that brilliantly and non-annoyingly translates into REAL LIFE!!!!!!!
2. Invent a wacky dialogue (or several) and make sure at least one character talks in a way that makes your readers want to strangle them. Brian Jacques is the master. Observe:
Dotti wiped her lips ruefully on an embroidered napkin. “I bally well wish we could, I’ve never tasted honeyed oatmeal like that in m’life. I say, Rogg, how the dickens d’you make it taste so jolly good, wot?”
Rogg chuckled at Dotti’s momentary lapse from molespeech. “Hurr hurr young miz, oi chops in lot of. . .” [let’s just stop it here, or I’ll bally punch meself, wot wot?”]
3. Correct apostrophes are for pompous know-it-alls. If you want to pretend you’re smarter than, say, your pet fish (and shame on you for such ludicrously high goals), then go ahead! Use apostrophes like this. . .
a) For abbreviation. Eg can’t, isn’t, I’m, they’re = cannot, is not, I am, they are.
b) For possession – but only when it’s the next word or phrase. Eg Sarah’s cat/Sarah’s alluringly plunging neckline/Sarah’s totally, like, awesome grip on the English language. And also, “The cats belong to Sarah” with no apostrophe, since the owner-ownee words aren’t in the right place to need an apostrophe.
If you’re REALLY the kind of fool who thinks editors like consistent punctuation, I bet you’ll also be able to combine plurals and possessives in a way that allegedly makes more sense than just putting apostrophes in where they look pretty. So I guess if you were a real geek you’d put the apostrophe precisely after the owner or owners. Eg The cat’s bowl (one cat) or The cats’ bowl (more than one cat). Also, The women’s club (because “women” already indicates it’s more than one woman).
And I bet you’ll cut out the one optional bit of apostrophes (whether you add an extra ‘s’ or not when the word already ends with ‘s’) by sticking to the rule that always works (leaving off the ‘s’ – because the plural of “Jesus” never has an extra ‘s’ – strange but true; you’re allowed an extra ‘s’ for almost everything else. . . if you want it). So that’d give you disgustingly consistent tripe, like “The princess’ cat” and “Jesus’ disciples”. Or maybe even “The princesses’ cat” if the princesses collectively own a cat.
You’re such a nerd I bet you even know that the only time apostrophes get left out is for the possessive “its” (so people can tell the difference from the abbreviation “it’s” for “it is”) so you’d end up with a sentence like, “It’s such a nice dog even its bark is polite.”
4. Adjectives and adverbs are for winners! More is better!!! You don’t need actual characterisation if you have a handy thesaurus. As you can clearly see below:
Boring old sentence: The Doberman took one look at my mother and growled. Mum’s blue eyes filled with tears. She didn’t even try to shield herself as the dog attacked.
Thrilling drama unfolding: The vicious cruel Doberman took one menacing look at my blue-eyed mother and growled loudly. Mum’s crinkly eyes filled with salty tears. She didn’t even try to shield herself as the mean and underfed dog attacked her quickly.
This lazy descriptive technique is also super great for dialogue. The word “said” is invisible, and you don’t want that!!! Write like THIS:
“Hello,” she extemporised.
“Why hello,” he growled back rapidly.
5. Words that sound the same may as well look the same. Right? Right!
Use “there” (“over there”, “There, there, don’t cry”) interchangeably with the possessive “their” (“their dog” “their lack of IQ”) and the abbreviation “They’re” (“They’re kidding about this, right?” = “They are kidding about this, right?”)
Ditto for the possessive “your” (“Your dog is getting mentioned a lot in this blog post”) and the abbreviation “you’re” (“You’re dumber than you look” = “You are dumber than you look.”)
6. It’s totally edgy to mix up past, present, and future tense. Make those verbs add zing to your story. If that’s too hard, just write in future tense or present tense. Readers LOVE that. It might be harder to read, but readers these days need a challenge anyway. (The exception is primary readers – for some reason, present tense doesn’t make them want to throw a book against the wall. For them, stick to future tense. It’s the only one that’ll really build their character.)
Boring old sentence: As I went to the store, I thought about how yesterday I’d had foccacia.
Thrilling drama unfolding: As I go to the store, I thought about how yesterday I will have foccacia.
Don’t you love how trippy that second sentence is? It just makes you want to read it again and again before moving on.
7. Corect Speling is 4 peopl with no imaginashon. Spel chekers are for peopl who r unartistic.
8. It’s totally humble to use a lower-case “i” instead of the standard capital “I”. Your editor will think, “This person will be great to work with” rather than, “This person has never written anything longer than an SMS.”
9. You don’t really need to start sentences with a capital letter. That’s old-fashioned. So are speech marks, like these old fuddy-duddies:
“Do you like my question mark?” said Mrs Jones.
“Sure!” said Mr Jones.
“I’m not sure though,” she said, “about how to break up a sentence in the middle, using commas.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just use two sentences. The main thing to remember is that punctuation belonging to the sentence goes inside the speech marks – just like that exclamation mark I used earlier – and various commas for when the speaker pauses.”
“Do you think giving each new person a fresh line makes dialogue easier to follow?”
“Yes. And it means that not every single line needs a ‘he/she said’ tag.”
Mrs Jones said, “Good point. And I suppose you’d need to capitalise the first letter of dialogue mid-sentence if the dialogue made its own mini-sentence.”
“Sure. If you’re a total know-it-all.”
10. Don’t bother inserting page numbers. If your book gets dropped and the pages are out of order, the story will probably improve. For bonus points, leave your book title out of the header, too. It might just cause your book to get mixed up with a much better book. (Of course, if you also leave your name out of the header, no-one will be able to track you down – but that just adds to the mystery.) Having a header containing your name, book title, and page number is just showing off.
This post was based on Steffmetal.com’s #38: Re-Vocabise. The pictures are from http://oddee.com/item_96830.aspx
PS: CJ has SMSed to say our jewellery evaluation is ready for him to pick up, and thus discover all the details – such as, which items are worth how much (all we know so far is that the total is $11,500). Will the hideous amber necklace be the only item of real value? Will I still be haunting ebay’s jewellery section trolling for buyers in ten years’ time? The full financial details and pictures. . . tomorrow!
S#14: Bubbles!
Ingredients: Cheap dishwashing detergent. Water. Cornflour (optional; I dunno if it helped or hindered). A bucket. Hands.
To make bubbles, you make an “OK” symbol with one hand, and blow through the “O” into your other hand (cupped to receive the bubble). I so very highly recommend you play along at home. It’s like magic.
I’ll be making more bubbles on Steampunk Earth Day (this Saturday). I heartily recommend you do the same.
Need outfit inspiration – or new clothes? A new reason to drool? http://www.steampunkemporium.com/steam.php
Sunday: Diet coke and mentos. . . and the first time awesomeness could have caused serious bodily harm. Officially my favourite video ever. . . and I haven’t put it on youtube yet.
Felicity Banks 