What is the most tactful way of answering the question, 'what is it about me that drives people to drink?'
How does a retired spy make out in assisted living? Bridge, cribbage, or bingo? Would telling true stories about pre-retired life be taken as senility?
Would a gambling addict do the least damage in pharmaceutical development, money management, or the government?
If time really is money, what currency would it be? Personally, at today's rates, I hope it'd be the British pound.
I get why the old woman swallowed the spider to catch the fly, and swallowed a cat to catch the bird, but why would she swallow a cow to catch the goat, since both are herbivores?
If you're dehydrated too much water can also make you lose electrolytes, but you're supposed to drink half a gallon per day, although more than a gallon is dangerous because it washes out all the salt in your body and causes water intoxication, isn't it safer to stop drinking coffee and hard liquor altogether and just stick to beer which is approximately 92% water, so it both dehydrates you and rehydrates you at the same time?*
*Train of thought not at all influenced by the fact that today is St. Paddy's Days and I'm 1/2 Irish...
interesting questions I'm recovered from cold but swamped with work and life
ReplyDeleteHopefully you don't get the bad flu that's going around the lower mainland... most of my family has had it, thankfully I have been lucky so far.
DeleteSince I am diving back into the Ghoulish stuff this morning (well, redoing character notes etc.), I shall let a ghoul answer that :)
ReplyDelete"I ... I eat bodies. Ghouls do that, so: that? Maybe?" Wray scratches his head. "People are scared of me a little, kind of. That could drive them to drink? Someone told me that drinking and driving is a Bad Thing, so maybe I wouldn't want them to drive out to find a drink." He pauses. "That was a joke. Did it work? Maybe people drink because monsters shouldn't attempt jokes..."
"I don't like spies. I don't think real ones survive long enough to make it to be old? Maybe the really good ones are the ones no one ever knows are spies. That makes sense, doesn't it? I think they'd end up in some convent-like place just for them, like a whole town or village where nothing they say matters anymore since their secrets are old and the world moves on. It's that or they all get killed, so I prefer that."
"Uhm. I'm not sure I get the question? Anyone can do a lot of damage in anything, if they try hard enough. Or if they don't try at all. Uhm. Uhm. I've read the local paper, out of Vancouver, and everyone there thinks politicians are useless, so I guess that? Because if everyone thinks that and politics has lasted so long it must have wards and protections that stop idiots from doing real harm?"
"Love? Love is a currency, right? Like how spies have secrets? Because people love each other and time changes it and shifts it around. Because people change, and don't always tell each other they change. Because they make change in different currencies, maybe? I think I took that too far. I was trying to be clever. I'm not really good at even trying that. Okay, okay. It's bones. I'm a ghoul, so it's bones because they taste so good."
"Old woman who -- what? So it's some kind of monster? Wait, this is a riddle, isn't it? I'm not good at riddles. Is this about using animals to catch a monster? I don't know. I'm not entirely sure what a herbivore is. Can I get back to you on that?"
"I ... could you draw that in a diagram? Okay. So beer is water and other stuff. But coffee has water in it, too, right? So you could drink beer and coffee together and be okay, or just not drink too much water. I guess that's like trying not to eat too many bones and it's really hard? I'm not good at stopping eating bones. So. Uhm. I don't know. Can we stop now?"
Haha, okay, I'll draw a diagram ;) So, can ghouls get drunk if they eat someone who died of alcohol poisoning?
DeleteNah. One advantage of eating corpses is a very, very good digestive system :). And yeah: Wray is very much a visual learner. It's a predator thing in the setting, really.
DeleteSo, like how dogs and cats rarely get salmonella from raw meat because their digestive tracts are built for it? Higher acid levels or whatever?
DeleteYeah. I'll probably try and work it all out by the time I get around to the third novel, since it's about a military unit trying to weaponize monsters. And finding out someone has kidnapped you to weaponize your digestive system is, well, a nice blow to the ego :)
DeleteUhg, maybe someone weaponized my digestive system...
Delete...but something went horribly wrong...
Delete;)
I saw something today - legend has it that the nights you can't sleep is because you are in someone else's dream - or something like that -
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty interesting! Could definitely use that idea as a writing prompt ;)
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