Screw it. I'm not sitting here any more. (928 words)

Best intentions and all that, but it's after one and I've been here since eight, eating too much and writing too little. But the chapter is more than half finished, I think, and I've almost finished setting the stage for meeting Candelario.

I think I have some anxiety over this next part, because it's the beginning of the heart of the book, or at least it's the scenes I started with.

So yesterday I had field training for First Flush. We tested conductivity, ph, transparency, and temperature on samples from two storm drains, and we collected samples for a lab to test for metals, nutrients, and coliform bacteria. One of them -- the one I will be doing the night of the first big rain -- is at the inland side of the culvert that runs under West Cliff Drive and opens out on to a sheer cliff lined with riprap. You can smell the ocean water right through it. The gully made by the creek that is the storm drain is lined with all the worst invasive plants, including an echium whose leaves are taller than me. There is a fine growth of beautiful water cress -- but knowing what I do, I would not eat it! The other spot is also a little creek running into a culvert under a road, but it is less visible (the first one is part of a park) and was full of trash, including a moplike thing (a duster?) and a bicycle helmet. It reeked of methane, and there were bubbles in the murky water. The stream bed leading up to the place where we collected the water was completely dry. The people I worked with were very very cool.

( nothing to see here, really )