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518. alistairConnor - 4/13/2006 11:08:30 PM The first hole, dug on Sunday, was unsuccessful. I got down about a metre and knew I must have missed it. On careful reflection, I can see that where it comes out under the wall, it's at an angle, so I should be looking closer in, nearer to the wall of the house.
So here I am, scratching around in the garden at 8 on a Thursday evening. After a while, my pick strikes something hollow. This must be it.
I enlarge the hole, clean up a bit, and lift the big stone. This is what I'm looking for. I've struck... well not exactly gold. It flows fast and, well, not clear at all. Bits of toilet paper, half-disintegrated turds.
According to my plan, I need to excavate enough to insert several two-metre lengths of 100mm PVC tubing, into this ancient stone drain.
It occurs to me : I'm going to be inserting a long, rigid tube into this deep, secret, moist, explicitly cloacal hole in the ground. An unbiased observer would concede that it has to be done. It's the new law : individual houses not connected to a sewer must have normalized sanitation. But still...
What was my last major project? Inserting six metres of flexible stainless steel tubing into the chimney, to line the brick tubing. Again, a legal requirement. Straightforward enough, except that I first had to drop a T-junction down there, to link it up to the stove, and it got stuck halfway. So here am I, up on the roof, poking vigorously with a four metre pole down a sooty hole...
There is no particular reason to tie any of this to the current state of my sex life or psyche. But, gentle reader, if these two episodes were dreams rather than actual real life, how would you interpret them? 519. prolph - 4/14/2006 1:02:32 AM White haired and wrinkeld Old Patsy sits by the smeaared and dirty window of the atic to try and find out what is going on the street below,The nights have been cold and her blanket is thin. She hopes that soon someone will rember her. She is hungty and hopes someone will remember her and bring her her meals on horesback, 520. uzmakk - 4/14/2006 1:04:21 PM Connor, I found that post to be very easy reading. Language flowed, no strain, no obvious contrivance, authentic. Stainless pipe and bits of turds. Of course one can be authentic without turds, but not in this case. Can you possibly go anywhere with it? I have not yet read your Gisele stories. Read an installment quite a while ago.
Prolph, can you give us another installment? 521. uzmakk - 4/14/2006 1:10:58 PM I'm not sure whether you recall that I'm breeding ponies for the U.S. Armed Services. Want your meals delivered on horseback? Horses abound in the current effort don't they? 522. alistairconnor - 4/14/2006 2:10:18 PM I shudder to think what the Armed Services do with the ponies. 523. uzmakk - 4/14/2006 2:26:57 PM It has to do with the fact that the Afgans -- the entire nation, Taliban and Western sympathizers alike -- found our incompetence with animals astounding. Perhaps, reprehensible. 524. uzmakk - 4/14/2006 2:27:46 PM It has to do with the fact that the Afgans -- the entire nation, Taliban and Western sympathizers alike -- found our incompetence with animals astounding. Perhaps, reprehensible. 525. alistairconnor - 4/14/2006 2:56:30 PM Oh, so you're in the animal sensitivity training business!
Ah, what would Mr Rumsfeld say! Replace those ponies with robots! 526. webfeet - 4/15/2006 5:50:38 PM Jen
Publish or perish is first and foremost on my mind right now. It's made me rather testy. I am editiing and revising a few chapters to submit to book agents with the hope that the fish will bite. The question of marketability is always in the back of my mind. I've had some success marketing my writing for conferences and finance, but not in fiction. This will be my first try.
If that fails...well screw my tongue, as Lady Macbeth once said. Too bad Macbeth didn't have a plan b. Mine is to try to freelance on topics ranging from travel in France to offbeat, lively pieces for women's magazines.
I was encouraged recently when I read Cathy Horyn, a sensational fashion writer at the Times, talk about how she, a little nobody with a kid, freshly divorced, worked her way to front row fashion critic.
But thanks for thinking of me. OF course I will let you know! I've always appreciated yours and everyone else's feedback. 527. alistairConnor - 4/16/2006 10:17:29 AM Screw my tongue! Did she really say that?
Plan B... I need a plan B for that drain. I only got it in about 1 metre, and it stuck fast. 528. PelleNilsson - 4/16/2006 3:37:30 PM Any plan B worth its name involves dynamite. 529. Jenerator - 4/17/2006 4:21:55 AM webfeet,
I bet even your financial manuals are a fun read as long as you're authoring them. And I am not flattering for the sake of being nice. I really think you have a talent - it's wit combined with succinct imagery that makes you so different than the rest.
As for your book, I will kill you if you are writing about a Shopaholic who goes to/comes from London and meets Mr. Right (who's wearing Prada) allthewhile fighting off feelings of insecurity and selfish ambition and partying all night with blonde friends in someone else's mansion who turns out to be your potential mother in law or boss.
Silliness aside, have you noticed how many books out now have something to do with: London, shopping, Prada, heels, promiscuity, promiscuous friends, and (again) London?
It's like the publishers found something that worked in a book and now all of them follow the same format.
530. Jenerator - 4/17/2006 4:23:47 AM But now I feel bad for saying that. What if you *are* following that format to be published and you're writing about your trips to Paris to shop with your promiscuous friends and you meet your boyfriend (based on Frenchcat) who wears Prada and you live in a Chateaux owned by your boss at Vogue?
Only you could make it original. 531. uzmakk - 4/18/2006 5:10:59 PM I wish Webbie the absolute best, Jenerator. Why shouldn't I? Heartily and sincerely. But, Jenerator, what was the purpose of that fauning? 532. PelleNilsson - 4/18/2006 6:46:11 PM A faun:
 533. uzmakk - 4/18/2006 7:37:51 PM Got lots of time to play around these days, Pelle? 534. PelleNilsson - 4/18/2006 8:15:08 PM Enough. You have a project in mind? 535. arkymalarky - 4/18/2006 8:32:15 PM Why did I immediately get an image in my mind of two boys and a box of matches? 536. PelleNilsson - 4/18/2006 8:36:04 PM Hahaha! 537. uzmakk - 4/18/2006 8:49:05 PM Yes, a big one. Wheels turning on wheels.
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