Ravings of a Textual Deviant

“Work stops for no zombie apocalypse.” —Ed

I recently bought a book on yoga and anatomy, and flipped through it before I went out of town for the weekend. It looks very good, but I realized that I know absolutely nothing about anatomy. That’s what I get for having a liberal arts degree, I guess. So, I said to myself, if I’m going to get any use out of this nifty book, I’m going to have to learn about anatomy.

My memory is sort of like a garbage dump. All kinds of things end up there, and you never know what’s going to surface. I was wondering what the best way to go about a self-study course in anatomy might be, when I remembered a coworker of mine at my first job out of college. Drew was studying to be a massage therapist, and as part of the certification (at the time, at least) he had to complete an anatomy coloring book. It’s still available, so I picked one up, took it home and sat down to get started.

That was when I realized that I need some colored pencils.

I’m not a yoga teacher.

That’s what I keep telling people, anyway. “I’m just a slightly more advanced student,” I explain. I’ve only been practicing for, oh, five or six years. Still, that doesn’t stop people from asking me questions (and darned if I don’t have an answer occasionally) or asking me to show them a stretch for this or that.

Fine, maybe I’m a yoga tutor.

Sure, I’ve been doing yoga long enough to know what I’m doing, and there is that subscription to Yoga Journal, and my basket full of yoga props. And the fact that I’m on a never ending quest for decent music. (I’m well aware of the Yoga Music Paradox, which is that any CD with “yoga” in the title is guaranteed to suck.) I even have an extra mat in case someone wanted to do yoga with me. Not that I would be teaching, or anything.

So, a little more time goes by, and next thing I knew, I found myself agreeing to drive to another state and show some new friends some poses and techniques, some of them for specific areas that need work, like hip flexion or shoulder stretches. Maybe do a little workshop or something. I don’t even know how that happened really, because I’m not a yoga teacher; I don’t have any teacher training or certifications. I’m not qualified to teach.

That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though, and I keep finding myself thinking that I have to show this person a way to modify viparita karani for tight hamstrings, or wiggling around, trying to see if twists will help with side extensions. So I find myself buying a book on how to modify yoga poses, and another one on yoga and anatomy. Next thing I know, I’m standing outside a work friend’s cube in 2.5″ heels, showing her how to do tree pose, and not even realizing that the look on her face is because…I’m balancing in that pose in those shoes.

I keep thinking about it, and thinking about, and finally, last night, I asked my instructor about teacher training. After all, if I am going to help my friends, I ought to at least learn enough to keep them from getting hurt. Because I’m not a yoga teacher. At least, not yet.

My dear friend Sean, who is about as handy as they get, has a very sensible definition of a successful home repair or improvement project, which is “any project completed with three or fewer trips to the hardware store.”

This means that Ed and I could still pull off a successful project at this point.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that the toilet in the hall half-bath was running. I looked in the tank and fiddled with the float for a few minutes, but that didn’t seem to help. Still, nothing was leaking, so I called one of my Plumbing Gurus and was told “all you have to do is replace the float.” Simple enough. I rigged up a duct-tape sling to keep the float high enough to stop the water from running and left the house.

Hardware store trip #1: replacement float.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple afterall.

Hardware store trip #2: Replacement fill valve.

Now, I give the manufacturer of the replacement part full credit for providing excellent instructions on the fill valve package. Ed and I have weak plumbing-fu, and we both know it, so we had towels and a bucket standing by. The first thing one does is shut off the water and flush the tank to drain it completely. Ed assured me that he did have the water shut off, and I watched anxiously as the tank drained…almost completely. There really wasn’t very much water left in the tank, so we forged ahead. The next step was to remove the old fill valve, and that was where we started having problems. Specifically, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. We were trying to remove the old plastic nut that holds the fill valve to the tank, and Ed kept muttering “lefty-loosy, righty-tighty” like a mantra as he struggled with the locking-grip pliers. Ten minutes later, we still hadn’t managed to get the nut any looser. It’s a tight fit between the toilet and the vanity, so I swapped places with Ed. Something didn’t look right; the space between the plastic nut and the tank looked smaller than it had when we started. I wasn’t able to budge the thing, so Ed and I swapped places again, this time with me holding the old fill valve steady while he tried to turn the nut…in what turned out to be the wrong direction. Another ten minutes or so later, we finally managed to loosen the plastic nut back to its original position, then beyond. As soon as the last little dribbles of water started to leak out, we knew we were finally making progress.

It was at that point I noticed that the water level in the tank hadn’t changed. “Are you sure the water is turned off,” I asked Ed. He was sure. OK then…next step. We removed the water feed line, slipped the old plastic nuts off, figured out how to put the new ones on, and swapped out the fill valves…more water pouring out as we went. I was sure I could still hear water running from somewhere, and the towels we’d put down were getting awfully wet. So was the carpet.

It was at that point that we stripped down to our skivvies to keep our clothes from getting wet. Then, we finally got the water shut off completely.

The next step was to reconnect the fill line. Ed connected it all back up, and we could tell that there was water leaking from somewhere, but not which end of the tube. Fine. Turns out that it was leaking from both the tank end and the water valve end. We wrapped a lot of teflon tape around everything with threads, and reinstalled. Then it only leaked from the tank end. I retrieved the old rubber washer and after some prodding with a screwdriver and impressive bad language, Ed got the entire thing put back together. I attached the lever and the float, and all we had left to do was turn the water back on. Which would’ve been easy, except that the handle turned but nothing happened. That was when we discovered (by disassembling the shutoff valve handle) that the reason the water hadn’t been turned off properly in the first place is because the threads on the handle of the water shutoff valve were stripped.

Hardware store trip #3 will be for a new valve handle, as our attempts with the locking-grip pliers were singularly unsuccessful. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode…

Ed: I’m full of crap.
Me: It’s not that you’re full of crap so much as you have vast, offsite reserves of crap to draw on.

Supervisor: Hi Li.
Me: Hi.
Supervisor: You busy?
Me: Not at the moment.
Supervisor: Can you do me a favor?
Me: Does it involve someone ending up in a garbage bag in the woods?
Supervisor: Hhhmmm - don’t get your hopes up this time. It isn’t that exciting.
Me: One of these days we’ll have to go out and have some real fun.
Supervisor: I’ll keep you in mind the next time I have an assignment involving trash bags and the woods.

Last year, for my birthday, Ed got me a lovely little blank book. I’d had a series of scenes knocking around in my head for some time, and wanted to see if I could manage to get something between an outline and a first draft of a novel-length story onto paper—mostly to free up some brain space. I got about thirty handwritten pages down and found myself at a point where I didn’t know what happened next. I put the book aside last June, and what with one thing and another, didn’t pick it up again until earlier this week. Recently, I realized that I do know what happens next, and I’ve written another ten pages in the last two days. I’ve had to skip two scenes because some research is required, but I’ve got placeholders and it hasn’t interrupted the flow of the plot yet. Whether or not I actually do anything with the story after it’s written doesn’t even seem relevant right now. The point is simply to get it down, polish it up, and see what it looks like.

I finished Robert J, Sawyer’s Mindscan over the weekend (highly recommended!), and it had some of the worst physics jokes I’ve ever heard or read. Naturally, I must share my favorite.

Werner Heisenberg gets pulled over for speeding. The cop asks him “Do you know how fast you were going?” Heseinberg says, “No, but I know exactly where I am.”

A few years ago, I ran into one of my few local high school friends. I hadn’t seen him in years, and therefore we absolutely, positively had to go out and get caught up over a good meal. One of the things that I got caught up on was that he’d accidentally become a vegetarian.

I had no idea how that happens, either.

It turns out that he hadn’t known his roommate—who did all the cooking—was a vegetarian. Both of them were eating all their meals at home (or bringing lunches to work) to save money, and my friend somehow didn’t notice that he wasn’t eating meat. Three months later, he went home to see his parents at Thanksgiving, ate a lot of turkey, and had a very bad night of it. At the time, I wondered how you fail to notice what you’re eating.

Now I know.

Starting a couple of months ago, I went about six weeks or so without eating red meat, for various reasons. I certainly didn’t miss it at the time; of course, I didn’t particularly miss food at the time, either. Some people are stress eaters; I even used to be one of them. Now, it seems that I’m a stress non-eater. (I don’t recommend it, by the way.) After the stress started to go away, it got too hot and humid to eat, and I was living mostly on fruit and cheese. Finally, I got to the point where I felt I could eat normally and ended up having a small portion of beef at lunch. My eating habits had been so badly out of whack that it took me about six hours to figure out why my stomach was doing such awful things to me.

I haven’t touched red meat of any kind since that afternoon, which was about two weeks ago. And while I find that I do kind of miss red meat, I don’t miss it that much. I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll try to get accustomed to it again; right now it seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I’m still eating chicken, fish and seafood, but there are plenty of days when animal protein just doesn’t appeal.

In which Mr. Carl encounters an old acquaintance of Mrs. Anderson’s, Team TransAmerica departs for Brasilia, a rumor proves true, and Miss Kingston observes a remarkably incompetent aquatic rescue.

When last we left Our Heroes, they had arrived at Dom Mendoza’s urban palace townhouse in the smarter end of Montevideo, less Mr. Carl, who had made his way to the docks. Mr. Carl acquired working passage aboard a freighter that was leaving for Havana that evening, and then stepped into the Rusty Nail (a convenient waterfront drinking establishment) to pass the thirteen or so hours until he could board his ship. Mr. Carl slid onto a barstool near a whiskey-sodden man wearing what would have appeared to be the tattered remains of a Wild West Show costume, had Mr. Carl been aware of his surroundings, which he was not. Instead, Mr. Carl’s attention was focused on the half-full bottle and smeared glass that the man in question passed to him before he could even order.

“Bill Carl,” the man said, pointing a remarkably steady finger.

Obviously too confused for a flight-or-fight response, Mr. Carl carefully acknowledged that he was indeed the individual in question. A few moments’ conversation served to renew his acquaintance with Nevada Jack; they had last met somewhere in the vicinity of Kansas City, before the mysterious disappearance of Nevada Jack’s Wild West Show. Mr. Carl established both quickly and clearly that he was not interested in the details of the performers’ subsequent doings, and Nevada Jack enquired after their mutual acquaintance, Mrs. Anderson. He was delighted to discover that Mrs. Anderson was not only safe but in that selfsame city. Latching onto Mr. Carl’s shoulder with surprising strength, Jack grabbed his whiskey and forced Mr. Carl to lead him to the Western Union office, from which he was able to track Mrs. Anderson to Dom Mendoza’s abode.

Meanwhile, the rest of Team TransAmerica had been ushered into their suites by a veritable army of footmen. The Dom’s townhouse was sufficiently large and opulent as to make the best New York homes and hotels look like backwoods cabins. (”Biltmore,” Mr. Laughton commented. Miss Carlyle nodded, and added “Biltmost.”) Dr. Hu’s ferret was absolutely delighted at the quantity and variety of shiny objects, and immediately began rushing about, collecting them and stashing them safely under a sofa. Mrs. Atwood’s suite was sufficiently large and full of flowers that she entirely lost track of Miss Carlyle, and contemplated organizing a formal search party. The team’s explorations of their vast suites were interrupted by a thundering herd of footmen rushing past and down the stairs to the front hall, where they discovered a disreputable-smelling individual gripping a whiskey bottle in one hand and Mr. Carl in the other. Housemaids cowered in corners as Mrs. Anderson uttered a very unladylike exclamation upon seeing her former employer. After obtaining a promise from Mr. Carl to stay put, Mrs. Anderson engaged in a brief private conversation with Nevada Jack, whilst her teammates debated the relative merits of remaining upstairs versus taking advantage of the opportunity to question Mr. Carl about his motives and mental state.

As Mrs. Anderson became acquainted with the details that Mr. Carl had declined to learn, she disclosed information about Mr. Carl’s cursed emerald. Nevada Jack, it seems, had committed certain unforgivable acts whilst trapped by a blizzard in a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains the previous winter. Looking for atonement, he volunteered to return the emerald to its original owners in Mexico, observing that he stood at least as good a chance of success as Mr. Carl; perhaps better given Mr. Carl’s tendencies toward impetuous decision-making. Then, he strolled off to take a bath, leaving a squadron of housemaids to deal with cleaning the antique sofa upon which he’d taken his ease. While Jack went to scrub off the last of the Sierra Nevadas (and less reputable points south), Mrs. Anderson managed to convince Mr. Carl to turn over his cursed stone to her old friend. In return, she promised that if Mr. Carl was claimed by the stone’s curse, she would ensure he did not return for a post-mortem attempt. Jack returned clean, jovial, and fortified by a full bottle. He accepted the emerald and strolled off into the Montevideo night, in the general direction of ol’ Mexico.

Shortly thereafter, supper was announced. Team TransAmerica was ushered into the dining room, where they were met by Dom Mendoza and the errant Miss Carlyle, who was carrying a book written in a script that was only vaguely familiar to Dr. Hu (”one of those squiggly ones,” Miss Kingston commented.) Miss Carlyle’s bibliophilic instincts had led her directly to the deeper recesses of the Dom’s library, and as the Dom was unable to read the book in question (or even remember how he’d come to own it in the first place) he was happy to see it in the possession of someone who would get some use out of it. Displaying uncharacteristic impatience, Miss Carlyle managed to get herself excused early, and vanished into Mrs. Atwood’s suite, book in hand. Her elders lingered over dinner, although as soon as they could politely excuse themselves, each came to an individual decision to check on Mrs. Atwood’s ward as soon as possible, resulting in a comic and slightly awkward moment at Mrs. Atwood’s door. A search of the suite revealed that Miss Carlyle had fallen asleep on a chaise, book in hand. Dr. Hu gave in to his curiosity, and used one of his useful translation spells to examine the book, which turned out to be a Tibetan/Mongolian dictionary and grammar written in an obscure script. No one wished to speculate as to why Miss Carlyle was so very keen on the subject; some questions are better left unasked.

And so, it was a relieved and reunited team that boarded the river ferry to Brasilia the following morning (27 April, for those keeping score). As the steam launch slowly cruised up the Rio de la Plata, the wide bay and order of the city gave way to thick jungle and winding river. With little else to do aboard the cramped ferry, other than read disturbing news from home, Our Heroes contented themselves with seats on deck that provided a view of the lush vegetation and curious aquatic animals, including a small pod of river dolphins and some rather more toothy specimens. After a while, Mrs. Atwood noticed a large disturbance apparently pacing the ferry on the eastern bank of the river. Unfortunately, neither she nor her traveling companions were able to gather more than the impression of something exceptionally large and probably scaly. Mrs. Anderson asked a sailor about the local wildlife, and he spun her a yarn about unlikely fauna such as giant anteaters, giant armadillos, and giant lizards, all of which he dismissed as rumors and utter rubbish. Of course, he hadn’t seen such animals personally, as people who wander into the Uruguayan wilds have a tendency not to return. He then enquired as to Mrs. Anderson’s whiskey preferences and free time.

“Hold out for a tea set,” Mrs. Atwood suggested, arching an eyebrow.

And so the day passed. As evening approached, the ferry docked at a small village in a large clearing. The crew began exchanging cargo, primarily basic food supplies for coffee beans. The ferry would remain overnight, and continue upriver in the morning. Late that night, whilst everyone was sleeping soundly, swathed in mosquito netting (either belowdecks or on deck), Mrs. Atwood became aware of an exceptionally loud roaring noise. As she rolled over in her bunk, she saw Miss Carlyle scrambling up the ladder to the deck, and followed, stopping only long enough to grab the handbag with her pistol in it. They were momentarily stopped by the sight of a truly enormous, tailed, two-legged, nonhuman figure charging about the village. Poor illumination prevented anyone from ascertaining details immediately, but the large jaws full of long, curved teeth were nearly impossible to miss as they snapped up hapless villagers. Quickly waking their companions both belowdecks and above, they all assembled up on deck to gawk at the sight and/or take up defensive positions…except for Mr. Carl. In his haste to get above, he somehow managed to trip over his own feet and bang his head against the bunk, nearly rendering himself unconscious.

Mrs. Anderson hastily disentangled herself from her mosquito netting, and noted that the crew were attempting to disengage from the pier. With the best of intentions, she drew her trusty Bowie knife and sliced through one of the mooring cables. This caused the boat to swing around in the current, which sent Mrs. Atwood overboard and swept nearly everyone else, including the unprepared crew, off-balance. It also attracted the attention of the very large, lizardlike thing, which strode out onto the pier in order to inspect the large moving object. Thus began an unfortunate yet comical series of events [which The Management sincerely hopes to convey accurately---Ed.]. Mrs. Atwood let go her handbag and remembered almost immediately that she was not a strong swimmer as she became entangled in her voluminous nightgown. Someone managed to land a life preserver in within a few yards of her; however, it was floating and she very definitely was not. After a few tries, she did manage to escape being trapped either against or beneath the pier, and ended up moving in the general direction of the life preserver. A desperate attempt on her part proved sufficient to bring her to the surface long enough to grab the flotation device, whereupon she discovered that her would-be rescuer had forgotten to tie a rope to the ring.

Mr. Laughton teetered on the edge of the deck, finally grabbing onto Mr. Carl and nearly sending both of them into the water as well. Upon regaining his balance, Mr. Carl, intending to go to Mrs. Atwood’s rescue, wrapped a rope around the same arm that Nevada Jack gripped so solidly earlier, and jumped overboard. Unfortunately, he hit the water badly, got tangled up a bit, and dislocated his shoulder as he slammed into the side of the boat. At least Mr. Laughton had been holding onto the rope at the time. Dr. Hu arrived on deck, and immediately tried to throw a rope to Mrs. Atwood, missing entirely. A bright, white light burst into existence, momentarily distracting the lizard from waterborne hors d’oeuvres and fully illuminating its prehistoric majesty. (Not to mention its exceptionally outsized claws and teeth.)

Chaos and confusion multiplied rapidly, as Mr. Laughton—well aware of his complete lack of skill at such things—tried to tie off Mr. Carl’s rope, jerking the unfortunate photographer around by his injured shoulder in the process. More futile attempts at rope-tossing in Mrs. Atwood’s direction ensued, as Dr. Hu cast a spell that sent sparkling, moving lights directly at the lizard’s face, distracting and irritating it most successfully. Mrs. Atwood’s floundering attempts at swimming and/or grabbing at ropes entirely failed to propel her in a useful direction, and nearly resulted in the loss of her life preserver…more than once. Finally, throwing caution and outer garments to the wind, Mrs. Anderson convinced Mr. Laughton to tie a rope around her, and jumped into the water (stopping to check the knot, which seemed to hold well enough). Mr. Laughton then tied the other end of Mrs. Anderson’s rope to a sturdy object on deck. Or rather, he thought he had, but only realized his error as he saw the other end of Mrs. Anderson’s rope slide into the water.

A few river dolphins, attracted (amused?) by the commotion, paused to observe the scene from their unique perspective, and bumped into Mrs. Atwood. Fortunately, this served to move her just close enough to Mrs. Anderson for them to clasp hands. Miss Kingston, alert to the possibility of other, toothier river denizens, drew her derringer and maintained such watch as she could on the surface of the river. Meanwhile, Mr. Carl’s shoulder was wrenched even further out of joint as the boat swung around in the current yet again, and he was caught by an undertow. Mrs. Atwood, attempting to assist in her own rescue, nearly dragged Mrs. Anderson down instead. Mrs. Anderson subsequently lost both her grip on Mrs. Atwood and her temper as she saw the end of her rope drift by.

At least everyone had managed to float well out of the lizard’s reach at this point.

Eventually, one of the crew members managed to get control of the boat, and Miss Kingston mobilized another pair of sailors to haul Mr. Carl aboard (as he had managed to get his good arm around the rope). Mrs. Anderson managed to get herself aboard without either assistance or her would-be rescue-ee. At last, Mrs. Atwood’s nightgown snagged on some submerged debris, arresting her downstream progress. After several more botched rolls unsuccessful attempts at both throwing and grabbing ropes, Mrs. Atwood was finally hauled aboard.

And so, we leave our soaked but undaunted band of adventurers with six or so more days of river travel until they reach Brasilia.

Quote of the Game: “Stop helping!!” —everyone, to Mrs. Atwood, at some point during the most incompetent rescue attempt that this GM has ever seen or heard of.