*CORRECTED*The Blessed Bulletin, Ep. 007: How to Launder Clothes (and Time) Like a Seasoned Pro
Published 26 days ago • 10 min read
*CORRECTED* Episode 007: How to Launder Clothes (and Time) Like a Seasoned Pro
November 2024
Laundry Mishaps (a.k.a.*CORRECTIONS* Explained)
It came to my attention following the release of Episode 007 two weeks ago that there was some inaccurate info in the "Lost in Metaverse Translation" bit.
I must apologize! Apparently, in my rush to get done so I could go help my family in Council Bluffs, I decided to blindly trust my episode-fetching mechanoids (ChatGPT and CoPilot) -- and they were lost in an alternate dimension... (Only about half of the references were correct!)
There were no nearby temporal anomalies for me to hop into, and my mechanoids continued to spit out creative balderdash when used to try to correct their errors...so I've been stuck "wearing my underwear inside out" for the last couple weeks. However, thanks to a mere 40 hours of fact-correcting work via IMDB, Google, YouTube, fan wikis, and repeatedly scrubbing through about 100 actual episodes of various sci-fi shows, I can now present you with my newly-cleaned laundry list (below).
AND...there is now a special Black Friday *bonus* added to reward you for your patience and bribe you for your forgiveness!
Lost in Multiversal Translation
How to Launder Clothes (and Time) Like a Seasoned Sci-Fi Pro
Laundromat: Ostensibly from the Latin lavare (to wash) and the Greek matos (pertaining to), the term "laundromat" originally referred to any space designed for washing.
Its true roots are misunderstood; they're clearly tied to the discovery of dimensional rifts. The rifts, which first appeared in the 22nd century, were areas in space used for washing away the “dirt” of time itself, as seen in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Parallels" (S7: E11), where a series of quantum anomalies led Worf to experience multiple versions of reality.
If once isn't enough, rinse and repeat, as Worf and others have demonstrated time...and time again. For instance, as we also see in Doctor Who (e.g., "The Girl in the Fireplace") and Stargate SG-1 ("Window of Opportunity"): if the messes don't disappear with one cycle, simply hop back into a dimensional rift or temporal anomaly until the correct amount of character development and timeline cleanliness is achieved. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try again," as Col. O'Neill says.
Notably, this seems to often come with the added advantage of refreshing their laundry:
John Crichton in Farscape - "Through the Looking Glass" (S1, E17). In this episode, Moya gets trapped in a dimensional rift, splitting the ship into three different realities. John Crichton ends up entering the void between space and time dimensions to talk to a creature from the other dimension. He goes in with a sweat-soaked tee shirt from running all over the ship, and comes back to Moya with a clean, dry one, which remains dry until he has run around half the ship again.
Quinn, Rembrandt, Wade, and Professor Arturo in Sliders - "Eggheads" and "The Weaker Sex" (S1, E6-7). Quinn sweats up a storm playing the basketball-like 'Mindgame' at the end of E6. He steps off the court, his hair and uniform drenched, and he, Wade, and Rembrandt are immediately chased to the roof up several flights of stairs to meet an also-sweaty Professor Arturo with the remote. After hopping into the waiting wormhole, they pop out the other side -- all wearing clean new outfits, with freshly coiffed hair.
The Crew in Star Trek: Voyager - “Year of Hell” (S4, E8-9). Throughout this two-parter, Voyager is bombarded and damaged repeatedly, leading to disheveled and soiled uniforms (and ships). However, when time is reset by Janeway crashing Voyager into the Krenim ship (and ordering the remaining ships to turn off their temporal shields), everything is restored to its pristine state, including the crew’s attire. Dirt, tears, and scorch marks vanish with the bedraggled timeline.
The Doctor in Doctor Who - "The Big Bang" (S5, E13). The Eleventh Doctor gets zapped by a Dalek, and his tweed jacket gets singed and frayed. However, after restarting the universe by flying the Pandorica into the Tardis (which is exploding across all time and space), his tweed jacket is immediately restored to normal (along with everyone else's timelines).
Lister in Red Dwarf - "Backwards" (S3, E1). In this episode, the crew enter a "time hole" and end up in a dimension where everything happens backward. Lister jumps in a lake, 'un-drinks' his beer (messily), and later gets drug through a bar and 'un-punched' several times in a reverse brawl; when they return to their own dimension, there's no sign of spill or injury on any of them.
So from now on, when your clothes get dirty, torn, shrink too much, or what have you -- do your laundry like the seasoned sci-fi pros! Simply hop into a dimensional laundromat, enjoy the adventure, et voila!
There you go.
NOTE: If you're not a sci-fi pro, your regular resident mechanoid's too busy, or Google simply can't find any dimensional laundromats near you...you may be stuck turning your undies inside out every other week or repetitively washing your socks (and time, destiny, and character) the old-fashioned way, like Lister usually does in Red Dwarf.
Get The Refuge, The Frozen, and the audiobook of The Frozen for FREE! Also included here is a link to preview the audiobook-in-progress for The Refuge!
It's been a crazy month...but I have done SOME stuff on the book!
Personal Life: I spent some time helping my parents and my brother Dan prep his house in Council Bluffs to sell. Mainly I went to muck out and prep the pool for winter since it had not been taken care of while he was in the hospital for over a year.
The pool water -- after we went through two days of de-mucking and two pool pumps (among many other issues) -- and AFTER being 'cleaned and winterized' by a five-star professional I hired after I got home. 🙄😱🤢
In summary, this is how much that weekend of pool cleaning helped my parents
Now that I've had a week to recover from that, I'm really looking forward to spending a few more days helping them again this weekend...it's "moving day" for my brother (and I'm going to finish that darn pool if it killsme)!
Dog Life:
The highlights:
Shawnie continues to practice being a gargoyle
Shawnie continues to practice being a dead possum
She takes both jobs very seriously. For instance, worthy gargoyles cannot ignore the threat posed by a sinister still-attached garden hose in the pre-winter yard. Nightly stealth attacks on this dangerous snakey form are necessary until it finally retreats into its winter domain.
And it's obvious that fetching is both an iffy job for worthy gargoyles and out of the question for dead possums.
Fetching is also quite iffy for worthy Darryls; the simple virtue of being in the presence of such a fluffily well-endowed nugget should be enough for the unfluffed and unruffed. Especially in the spring and fall.
Chicken, on the other hand, not only fetches and readily shares her fluffs with the masses -- she has added hours of playing the stuffed shin bone slurp-flute to her advanced dog repertoire (to the utter dismay of my sanity).
The gargoyle
The dead possum
Writing Life:
Last month, I said: "The book for parents of picky eaters with special needs is...my next short project to finish after this newsletter."
Slightly inaccurate. "Next" I actually plotted out more of Time Jumper, wrote more of Time Jumper, and then decided to commission the cover for The Erebi with my cover designer (for The Frozen) 'real quick,' so I could use it for advance marketing.
However, after I put together my comp covers and ideas and book info and sent them to the designer with a contract request, I found out she is bowing out of all cover projects for the next year or so because she just got engaged.
🎈Yay for her!🎈...but very sad for me! I liked working with her and now I must find a new designer. 😭
But for real now, the picky eaters ebook's next after this newsletter!
And then the actual drafting of The Erebi. I spent some more time percolating ideas relating to the antagonists, theme, and plot points this month.
I also spent about five hours reorganizing the books and binders on my office and desk shelves, and paring down the shelf of printed dictionaries and thesauruses and the houseplant jungle in here.
It was important, necessary prep work for future, more efficient workflows. 🪴
Serial Fiction with Friends
In the last installment, Ainan raided Jonas's lab, stole a new time capsule backpack, copied Jonas's hard drive, and found out the new lab was built at the convergence of four time streams. She hopped into one to escape -- without knowledge of or regard for the possible consequences.
Most respondents voted that this month's segment should "follow Ainan." (You can vote for the next segment by clicking your choice at the end of this one!)
Ainan found herself in a tangle of time streams, being pulled from one to the next.
She had no idea how this would affect her destination, but she was fairly certain that meant Jonas had no idea, either.
She was a little worried that this jump might wreck her body like it had wrecked her first pursuer’s. Was this why that happened?
Well, she’d really had no choice. It was either jump or be captured by Jonas and his goonies. Might as well enjoy the ride.
And a ride it was, like riding rushing rapids in a kayak instead of being pulled smoothly down a stream on a pontoon boat.
There. To the left. You really couldn’t “swim” in a time stream, but Ainan leaned with every shred of mental power she had toward the first opening she saw.
She arrived on the bank of a very warm lime green river under a deep purple and red sky. She choked and coughed from the methane bubbling up from what looked like huge primordial pools all around her, then started breathing only through her mouth. She could still taste it. So pungent! Her lungs burned a little. Gravity also felt like it had increased, but maybe that was just the heat and humidity.
It was insanely quiet; only the occasional bubble popping disturbed the silence. She felt like she could hear the drops of sweat running down her face.
Have I jumped to the dawn of time?
She looked down and patted her body, then tested every muscle group in turn. She seemed to be ok on the outside — no weird mutations. No pains on the inside, either. Despite the humidity and the methane, she felt she could breathe for the moment.
She pulled off the new time capsule pack, which was still in training mode. As she’d suspected, Jonas had figured out how to calculate the approximate arrival date. The pack displayed it on the handy touchscreen.
She’d jumped farther into the future than she’d ever been before. What was the margin of error on this thing? Hm!
Is this Earth?
She looked to the sky for stars, but found none. In the Jonas-suggestion-box in her mind, she added the need for a visitor information file. She sat on a knee-high black rock nearby, pulling the pack onto her lap to finish going through the training mode steps she’d skipped in her haste to jump. The first thing she needed to find out was how to shut off the homing signal before Jonas could send someone after her, but she’d be ok if the device taught her how to figure out her location too.
Aha. She found it. A geolocator function! Unfortunately, hers seemed to be broken. It was not displaying coordinates. Was she…?
Small ripples broke into a tiny succession of waves in the pool next to her. A three-inch-long, crocodile-like creature with six legs crawled onto the slimy bank. She’d never seen its like — but if she was as far into the future as the pack said she was, maybe this was evolution. This could still be Earth…but where were the clouds, the stars?
She finished the training steps, turned off her signal, and set her pack to find another time stream. She did not want to jump back into the convergence until she’d had a chance to go through Jonas’s hard drive.
Following the directional prompts from her pack, she picked her way among the pools, still wishing for that visitor information file. Or maybe an atlas of time? She liked discovery, and the rush of adrenaline…but she did also want to stay alive to do it again.
There seemed to be a single knee-high rock next to each of the pools in this odd place. Nothing else. Why the pattern?
No trees. No mountains in view. Just a vast expanse of pools of varying sizes and slime levels, each with a single rock. The rocks were not all the same color. Now that Ainan was used to the green river and the striking sky colors, the stones were the standout decoration in the blah mustard-brown dressing of the rest of the landscape.
She squatted down next to one, inspecting it with her hands and eyes, seeing if the shape, composition, and texture would speak any enlightenment to her. Some kind of granite maybe?
She stood up just in time to see a large ripple pushing toward her in the pool. She was paralyzed for a millisecond — then she ran.
