C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 136

Well, we've hit page 67 of 87…but still more has to be erased.

It's shaping up fast. I've hit the really thorny bit, where there's good stuff and not-for-this-book stuff about equally mixed in every line. This is the hard sort of thing to sort out.

First you copy the entire 'old' file, and rename it, to save a 'fair copy' as it used to stand.

Then you rename the file you're going to turn into the Revised book.

Ultimately, you create a second 'old' file, and rename it Second REvised BOok, and erase from it everything you kept from the Revised book.

So One Book becomes book A and book B, with a lot of A and only scraps of B. It's not that I was totally wrong, it's that B was getting into A and totally diverting it off course.

My brain hurts. But it's working. I'm actually enjoying this a lot more than I have enjoyed producing 97 pages that weren't working.

Jane's got the office looking splendid.

I found out what was going on with the tax return: it's good. I was reading a copy of the Federal report that goes into the Nonresident report, and they owe me money, not the way around, because there was a withholding on stuff that shouldn't have been sent to Oklahoma in the first place. It has to do with income from part of the farmland I inherited, and that's all good: I now know what's going on.

This has been a year…on the writing front, too.

Writers have lives, loved ones, and all that goes with them. And this is the year things got worse before they got better.

Our kitteh household was grievously upset. Jane had a long period of getting sick before she got so sick she nearly fell over in the garden. I was supposed to be through with this book in June. That didn't happen. I struggled during all this emotional upheaval just to remember where I was, plan where I was going with the story, and just do it. When Jane got better, she wasn't ready to do creative work: that had really spiralled badly, because when you're functioning on low oxygen, you just can't, and she had been, for maybe six months before we caught it. So she was having karmic issues over how behind she was, yet still wasn't ready to start a creative push—just still didn't quite have that kind of energy. So she took after the round-tu-its, and started doing physical work to get stronger, and I was to just keep at it and get this book finished.

Jane did a brilliant job on the repairs, working tremendously long hours. I didn't do so great on the book. And I knew it. I was losing it. And knew I was losing it. The karma from that was piling up and I was trying harder just to get it going—but the thing was shedding pieces by the hour. Since March—97 pages, won 3 to 20 lines at a time—and showing it. I ripped out 20 pages and revised. It got worse.

I finally decided there was nothing for it but to go back and rewrite. Jane had planned for weeks to go skating yesterday—and I had to hit her with the truth of where I am, and how it's not going, after all she's done around the house to keep me writing. Well, she agreed we weren't going skating yesterday; and that we're going to get some things done—she and I will be doing some Closed Circle stuff I was stuck on, too, and most of all—I went all the way back to the beginning of the story and started over in a massive rewrite.

Now, I'm the person who wrote Cuckoo's Egg in two weeks. Granted, I'd been bitten by a spider and given a steroid dose that would have an elephant in the treetops. Sleep? I didn't, much; but the uninterrupted concentration was something else. It was roughed in 2 weeks and edited on a plane flight and an airport delay. That's what I can do.

Yesterday I got 41 good pages. I'm going to have to toss about 50 pages…[the 40 pages include some new material]…but I am now head-together, focussed, and no longer having to weld a zebra, a lion, and a wildebeast into one creature. This is a book. It's working. Anyone who believes the writing life involves a mountain cabin, a tweed jacket, and an Irish Setter, with long walks in the woods—has not a clue.

So great sigh of relief around here. And a much better go of it.

Jane's finally posting again…

More news tomorrow, but we're trying to get our scrambled lives back in order.

hiked to Pancakes R Us…and am improving my walking…

…both posture (a big one) and speed. I can keep Joan and Jane in sight on the way back, the uphill. Downhill I can keep up.

And let me tell you, if you have muscle pain or weakness, get a combo of Gloucosamine, Chondroitin, and Hyaluronic Acid, and take it with Magnesium, Potassium, and Vitamin D. If you're taking prescription meds, clear it with your doc and get advice from your doc about when in the day/how far from the other dose to take these, or if you should have them—(eg, with levothyroxine it's 4 hours away from the thyroid dose for Magnesium, or in Jane's case, Iron.) Here's what hyaluronic acid does: http://www.livestrong.com/article/373... I got off it for a while and really felt it; got back on, and I'm in far better shape.

The fish tank job is finished!

We changed out the white, hard to keep countertop in our kitchen; and, waste-not, want-not, two children of children of the Great Depression are we. Rather than pay an extra 50 to have the guy haul off the old countertop we had removed ourselves, thus saving 100.00 or thereabouts, we saved it in the basement, and on the Great Fishtank Revision, in which we finally did plumbing the way we should have when we moved in—we hauled out that countertop. So our old kitchen counter is now a) the short part, serving to top an old cabinet next the washing machine: viola! Laundry center, with drawers and a cabinet below (the old office cabinet.) and b) and yet more spectacular, the stand for the fishtank sump, pump, and equipment is now a broad counter with, of course, the old fish stand with doors and all. It looks incredibly civilized down there, and since what spills there is mostly salt water, the white counter is not going to meet many stains. Nice dark granite-look formica in the kitchen, and a major cabinet re-do in the basement, no nails, no fuss: that big counter is on a solid piece of cabinet and weighted down with about 75 lbs of fish tank sump, so it's not budging. And has counter left over so we can run water tests, etc, in good lighting.

Eushu helped, of course.

So Jane's sanding down her window—-it's a toxic zone in her bedroom…

But it's going to look good. We're each putting a couple of wooden shelf supports by the side of the sill, and adding an oak plank, which does not bend, and which will serve as a cat perch, as well as a workspace shelf for cups and such.

Found a way to improve action on my window: Barkeepers Friend and steel wool on the aluminum track.

We're supposed to have revised the marine sump today (yum~!) but we're going to do that one tomorrow.

We're having American style stir-fry for supper, over Thai jasmine brown rice. That's in order, one diced chicken breast, a little olive oil, salt, pepper, ear of corn cut in two; half a yam sliced in chips, with skin; baby carrots; quarter head of cabbage, sliced; frozen brussel sprouts (cheaper than fresh); tablespoon Thai soy sauce [any will do]; half a cup of Swanson low-sodium chicken broth; cook lidded, turning corn and chips as needed, about 5 minutes; unlid, add chopped head of broccoli, cup of sugar snap peas; re-lid, cook 10 minutes. Serve with the rice. Yoghurt for dessert, an hour later. Gets you through the evening without the hungries, and isn't high cal.

The world sparkles again—

I'd just gotten these bifocal contacts when Jane got sick—and my eyes have gone further 'off' by the month since, until today—well, first we decided to hike a mile down to Pancakes R Us, in the rain—and then I thought I'd have trouble with the hill on the way back, so Jane blazed ahead to get the car and pick me up.

Well, I walked it, and I could generally keep Jane in sight. But I lost her when she crested the Hill and I was still climbing it. I kept looking for the car, but no joy, until I got within a short block of home, and there she was. We waved at each other, she told me 'good show' for nearly catching her, and we went off to Walmart for notions needed on the fishtank, like Contact paper for the bottom—when I thought heck, I'll do it, I'll walk up to the Walmart vision center where my doc is, and ask for another appointment.

Being rainy, it was a slow day for them, and they walked me right in, ran a test while Jane shopped, and then Jane got to admitting her eyes are 'off' too, so she's gone back now to get checked. And Wednesdays are 20% off for seniors. So…well, my right eye was at .75 and now is 1.75. That was the big change. The left went from 1.25 to 1.50. And I can see! The distance no longer fuzzes!

All my life I lucked out with really good vision near and far, but if I have to choose—and as you age, ultimately you do, I'll go for correcting the distance with contacts, because the distance is the world you mostly live in; and using reading glasses to correct the astigmatism close up, as for reading, is just fine—because you can always manage glasses at your chair, but not so easily while you're working outdoors and active. I hadn't realized how much eye strain I was having…but life is good and rain sparkles again on the branches outside. Love it! Don't sell the big-box-store docs short: the two optometrists we have at Walmart are the best I've had in years and years.

We got the 'down' line fixed…

…and in its way it was more trouble than the bulkhead on the 'up' line. This one was full of calcium carbonate from the time we had a calcium or alkalinity test go bad (can't remember which, but either will do it)—so we over-added, in our first year in this house, and it calcified the hoses.

Our big plan to replace the spaflex we use for a drain hose came a cropper when Lowes sold us 30.00 worth of hose that even THEY don't have a coupling to fit. Crap does not begin to describe our language as we tried to find, cobble, or coerce that hose into service. We are taking it back and describing it to them in loving detail.

We used white vinegar to clear calcium carbonate out of the one pipe we couldn't replace—If you don't know that trick, take any white 'lime' encrusted piece of pipe or glass or fixture and put it in white vinegar for a few hours—overnight if it's bad, but remember a fish tank can't be shut down indefinitely.

We got the main drain hose pretty clear, then mated it to the spa-flex: the answer turned out to be using the old spa-flex, and using a 'quick-connect' joint from Ace; then a piece of PVC where it passes through the floor, then another quick-connect joint to attach it to the drain hose. This piece of pipe goes through the floor, connects to the spaflex, which runs over to the unfinished side of the basement and into the sump…

where the return pump cycles it back up (after cleaning in moss and by skimmer action (a piece of equipment that makes water froth, collects the froth—like that stuff on the beach, it's amino acids from fish poo) and disposes of it, thus purifying the water—and up it goes, to cycle round again. Corals (of which I have grown a tankful) are living filters, so they nosh down on the fish poo first, plus making part of their living (and color) due to embedded algaes which live on sunlight and produce sugars as a waste product. It's a nice little system when it functions well.

It took us hours of trying to connect those pipes in the ceiling. IF we had had more useable spa-flex, we could have just connected it all directly through the floor up to the drain hose; but no: we had to use the OLD spa-flex, which was a little short, which cost us 10.00 worth of connectors. Then the plumbers glue overset onto the carpet. Fortunately that's behind the tank, and we choose not to notice that happened. I put Polyfilter into the water to get any chemical that might land on the water surface from the fumes. That was minor, compared to what we've been through with the tank plumbing, and I hate the carpet that came with this house anyway. [I want bare floors, but the carpet's too good to take up.]

I hate it when they change a product very subtly, like that hose. But Lowes, to sell a plumbing hose even THEY don't have a connector that fits? Gimme a break!

Kipling, one of my favorite poems: regarding the recent thread

The Sack of the Gods

STRANGERS drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed were we;

I was Lord of the Inca race, and she was Queen of the Sea.

Under the stars beyond our stars where the new-forged meteors glow,

Hotly we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!

Ever 'neath high Valhalla Hall the well-tuned horns begin,

When the swords are out in the underworld, and the weary Gods come in.

Ever through high Valhalla Gate the Patient Angel goes

He opens the eyes that are blind with hate—he joins the hands of foes.

Dust of the stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above—

Wrecks of our wrath dropped reeling down as we fought and we spurned and we strove.

Worlds upon worlds we tossed aside, and scattered them to and fro,

The night that we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!

They are forgiven as they forgive all those dark wounds and deep,

Their beds are made on the Lap of Time and they lie down and sleep.

They are forgiven as they forgive all those old wounds that bleed.

They shut their eyes from their worshippers; they sleep till the world has need.

She with the star I had marked for my own—I with my set desire—

Lost in the loom of the Night of Nights—lighted by worlds afire—

Met in a war against the Gods where the headlong meteors glow,

Hewing our way to Valhalla, a million years ago!

They will come back—come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.

He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls ?

The 'up' line on our marine tank developed a leak—

at the bulkhead, which is a hole drilled through the bottom glass, inside a 'caisson-like' containment called the 'downflow box': there is an open hole on the watery side, and a screw-on tap that goes to a hose on the 'air' side of the arrangement. Salt water was dripping from the ceiling of the basement, and soaking the craft room carpet in a small area. And a bulkhead with a little leak, as with a dam, can become a big catastrophic leak without too much warning. Why would a bulkhead leak? Either the surrounding glass cracked, or … the gasket that sits atop the bottom washer and under the top washer of the thing, in the water, has got a grain of sand under it. Picture, a downflow box that hasn't been really cleaned since 2004. Sand. Live things. Grain of sand? Yeah, that could happen.

Now, pulling a bulkhead means draining the downflow box. Jane has pix. But shall we say she had an episode of acid reflux while at the worst of this, and both of us, after working 4 hours on it, re-starting it once sealed at least 6 times, and tinkering to stop a further micro-leak—are so sore we can't even stand upright. I am at that age I can no longer kneel down and spring lightly to my feet. Well, there was a lot of that requirement in this operation. Jane is sore. I am sore.

And where would you get a bulkhead replacement? Well, at your marine fish store—if it weren't Monday, when every marine store in the US shuts to regroup. At a plumbing supply? I called the best one in the county and they had no idea what I was talking about. Fortunately I remembered the House of Hose in Spokane Valley, where I got the hose for the tank, and they instantly knew what I was talking about: they deal in tanks and fluids. So I drove after it, and Jane kept cleaning.

Meanwhile—of course—our tank circulation is shut off. And a marine tank starts to go bad 8 hours after a shutdown. Oxygenation. Collection of waste. All stopped.

Fortunately because of the caisson-like arrangement of the box, our corals and fish would only pick up thumps and bangs as we worked and cursed. Shu had to get into it. And we have pix. Jane will put them up when she recovers.

But we are very proud to say we stopped the leak in the 'up' line. Now we have to deal with why the 'down' line is running more slowly than we'd like—as in—dangerously close to the top of the box, not draining fast enough to empty the box 6″ down—only 2″. So guess what? We now have to search the plumbing of the 'down' line for a clog—dating from the time we had an expired calcium test, and didn't 'get' it until we'd overloaded the system with calcium, causing deposit in the pipes. Well, we knew we'd pay for that someday. It may have been what got the 'up' bulkhead. But we're going to have to re-plumb the 'down' line next.

At least we have 2″ of leeway left. If that starts shrinking, we are going to have to move faster. But it sure won't happen before tomorrow. And we are pooped.

That's sailor-talk for when a wave comes over your stern and you say hello to Davy Jones. Lotta water today.