C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 6

Stephen Hawking’s last paper

Stephen Hawking’s last paper

——–Jane’s Groundties books have a lot to say about that.

New round of dental work, oh, joy.

Wednesday.

This one will be another graft, and limits on eating while it ‘takes’, which is about 3 months. Talk about a way to go on a diet.

Not that I can’t stand to drop more pounds. I’m down 12 since January, on the regime we’re following: (Atkins shakes for breakfast and lunch and portion control on supper, plus splitting a meal when dining out) —but I am still sorry to afflict Jane with my limitations. She says no problem. So I’m going to be trying extra hard to find good things that will work.

How I cooked 3 complete dinners in 45 minutes.

Not servings. Dinners.

Dinner a, lovingly prepared—elaborate cheeseburgers. The ground beef was slightly ‘off’—too long in the fridge. I gathered up both plates and tossed both.

Then the fast route: taco chicken packet with a side of riced cauliflower and sweetpotato, stove for one, microwave for the other. Only THIS packet with no warning changed its recipe and was half onions. Jane and I are both allergic. Out it goes, and the side, now done, with it. What’s the use of cauliflower, when I’ve nothing to serve with it. As a meal on its own, meh.

So…last resort. Toss some jalapenos in a bowl, canned chili atop that, sharp cheddar, then microwave til melt, add sour cream.

Food. At last, food. Every skillet I own is in the sink, plus a saucepan, and it took, besides, five bowls, two plates, and a great deal of determination.

I think I need to go to the grocery store.

Passing of Stephen Hawking

At 21, given a few years to live. He made it to mid-70’s and changed the way we look at the universe.

Same deal — I’m giving new applications a few days to write me any sort of a letter (instructions abound, below this post)

Then I deny, and the bot will give you a rejection letter. Even so, it’s not too late. You can answer it and ask to be accepted and I’ll fish you out of the pile. But I need some sort of a letter proving you’re not selling real estate in Vladivostok.

We’re getting our carpenter back! [long story]

Basically a serious bout of flu and an ice storm. He’s had his hands full. But he’ll be back Thursday, and we can start the final run of this remodel!

No one has noticed.

Hmmmm.

Map woes….

The new Foreigner book which I am finishing is going to need maps—because we refer to places and we move. There’s a lot of old history raked up. And more recent troubles.

So I am trying to work with the maps. One of the problems is scale. The maps have to be to be visible/legible on the scale of a hardbound, and a paperbound book. We are dealing with a monocontinent. Gondwana. Pangaea. It’s big, it’s wide, and I have to compress the map visually or just show areas, and putting names on the map that can be read in a 5″x7″ space means printing it sort of like putting Moscow in legible size on a map of Eurasia that can fit in a 5″x7″ window. If you can read it, it’s wiped out a thousand miles of surface features, rivers, etc.

But, that’s the job I’ve got. And worse, one of the maps, the one showing part of Mospheira and Dur in our Map Room on this site, the one that has the Marid due south of Ashidama Bay, when it’s about 1500 miles to the east—is the one that gives me headaches. I sketched it, they had a professional artist re-do it, [the map above] and, well, he put in names at the expense of accuracy and moved the whole Marid to the West Coast—1500 miles. It’s actually about 500 miles east and a mountainous 700 miles south of Shejidan. At best a 5×7 map gives you kind of a childlike perspective on the continent, which I assure you, is wider than that. And we haven’t even gotten to the continental divide and the clans west of Malguri’s eastern domains.

I am going to try again. I am asking Jane to take the time to try to render these, because my skills aren’t up to it, but heaven help us if we have somebody else take her map and start compressing things. Section it up and make two maps, maybe—this book is going to need at least 2, anyway. But graphics in any modern book are a pita. Shouldn’t be, but are.

Wish us luck.

Well, I have done the deed: ‘membership denied’ letters have gone. BUT—

—if you receive one and are a real person who thought you’d applied for membership, just write to me: go to the splash page for my address up in the blue line, got it? And write to me saying “I am not a robot” and I can fish your application right out of the ‘denied folder’ and put you into the ‘approved stack’, no other action required. I get up to ten membership applications WITHOUT that daily, and most are spammers. Don’t take any grief from it: nothing at all meant personally—I just need to know you’re not selling puppies from wherever.

Applications for membership lacking the second requirement will be tossed out next week.

The second requirement? Read the righthand sidebar.

I’m going to give everybody the rest of the week to get me that letter. My addy is reachable on that blue header that has several clickables like About Me and Contact.

After that every new applicant will have a week to get me that letter.

The stack is getting too large to deal with delicately: if no letter, I have to assume you’re a spammer. I just got ten who can’t spell hotmail and another lot from Russia and an international fakeout addy. So I need to clear out some who’ve been hanging fire for a long time because they COULD be legit.

Sorry, anybody who gets caught in the clear-out.