zombiedanceparty

Life: Friends

I just got off the phone with Tripp. We hadn’t talked in … months. Not for any particular reason, either. Just, life gets in the way sometimes. Half a continent in between will do that. After I hung up and the house was quiet again, I had this weird mix of feelings. Joy from having talked to a friend; sadness that I wouldn’t be seeing him in the near future; happiness from the jokes shared; and regret that here’s a person I don’t see in the near-daily fashion I once did.

I think it happens to all of us at some time. Often, people move in and out of our lives with varying frequencies, important or critical or valued for that time but then are lost–often with little consequence–in the ever bending shuffle of our short and hurried times on this hurtling space rock. It happens more often than we realize. But every once in a while, when you’ve been a good little boy or girl and eaten all your vegetables, you meet those people who just … fit. You get each other’s sensibilities and appreciate their humor, even if it isn’t the same as your own. Especially if it isn’t the same as your own. There’s an easy exchange of thoughts and ideas and you just feel somehow better for knowing this person.

And these are the people that we remember, long after they’ve left our daily lives. Maybe you recall the first thing they ever said to you (“I’m not gay.”), or the last thing, or the thing that was so funny you nearly pissed yourself (“Her boyfriend is playing horrible defense.”). They’re the select few people that you place in the quiver of Friends, those that you know you could call at anytime if you needed to, those that you’d to pick to ride out the zombie apocalypse with on some deserted island.

But life’s a bitch sometimes. Jobs change. People move. Time’s drumbeat relents not. Sometimes, though, if you’re lucky, you get the chance to tell them that you think they’re great human beings, that they’re special to you, and that you’re grateful for having gotten the chance to know them.

2 Comments

Life: Setting zombies atwitter.

I really, REALLY need to stop watching zombie movies right before bed. Mind you, it’s not that the movies themselves are grippingly scary, but they do tend to set the mind awander. Inevitably after watching John Q. Public become John Q. NomNom, I can’t help but lie awake for far too long planning my zombie apocalypse “survival” strategy. How to survive the first assault. Siege tactics. Resource acquisition. It is as if the long-dormant engineering degree is, much like a zombie, not completely dead and buried in my brain and longs to claw to the surface of the conscious mind and start …. planning. Dun dun DUNNN!

Sadly, though I’d like to admit this hasn’t ever happened before, it does occur with some frequency. (No, not, y’know, zombie apocalypses, but rather staying up a little too late and then getting ‘pulled in’ to a cinematic fright fest of the fearfully undead.) To wit, what to do? Just ignore it on the 99.98% probability there won’t be a World War Z in my lifetime? Well, that just sounds too logical. So the engineering mind staggers to the fore, thinking of home integrity, ways to board windows, sawing the steps off the deck, avenues of retreat and where to place ladders and weighing wether or not my wife would leave me were I to pack an emergency “Go!” bag, you know, just in case. I could always pass it off as disaster preparedness. Hmm…

So, as you can see, it sets the brain aflutter with possibilities and potential. Yes, I said potential. As in, what a perfect opportunity to loot a Walmart. I mean, I think if anyone looks deep enough within, we’ll all find that we secretly would like to ransack that place, right? And it’s the perfect one-stop shop for all your end-of-world needs, too. Food? Check. Guns? Check. Ammo? Check. Camo? Check. Fertilizer for blowing shit up? Check. Seeds for all the optimists? Check. And Twinkies, too (for all you “Zombieland”/Woody Harrelson fans).

But, terribly, what this all leaves me with is something perhaps more terrifying than undead moans in the night. And that is this: Once upon a time a few millennia ago we humans used our brains and ability to plan to rise up. We made plans to run game into traps, to kick the bear’s ass from afar with stones and spears, to cultivate our own food rather than roam about searching for it. The ability of the mind to plan is simply stunning. That we now use our minds for little more than trivia, video games or, for the truly “leading” minds, thinking of nothing more than the next fiscal quarter numbers or the turn of the next election cycle … well that is simply stunningly sad.

So, maybe we could use a zombie apocalypse? I sure hope not. But even that might not get those that remain to really start thinking–like we used to do. For a moment there, I thought, or hoped, that after 9/11 we’d take a chance on change, on bettering humanity. But we’re still in that same shit show, sliding down a tightening spiral. Years ago people actually wrote. They wrote letters pages long during wars, books of beauty while travelling the road, and sonnets, sweet sonnets that made me love the words of the English language.

And years from now, our ancestors will only be able to learn of us from 140 character tweets.

Well, if they’re not caught by zombies, that is.

Comments Off

Life: Lawn & Zombie Section

Saturday I was standing in the lawn and garden section at Sears, waiting for tires to be put on my car. As I waited, I contemplated which yard tool would serve me best in the unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse. The axe is simply too poorly weighted. I mean, it has great initial power, but would be hard to pull back quickly for a second strike. Though the garden weasel held promise (!), the hatchet is light and emerged as my eventual winner, in spite of it’s short handle. There were no machetes, sadly. I briefly pondered whether it was too early out on the west coast to call Tripp on the matter before considering that there may in fact be something severely wrong with me.

2 Comments

‘once you go black’

clipping coupons, like the old lady i am wont to imitate, i was rather startled yesterdaty.  it seems the ad section of my local staunton paper had printing problems, and the black ink did not come through in the glossies, as evidenced in the coupon below:

a little weird but no big deal, right?  then, i turned the page, only to gasp when i saw this:

seriously, how terrifying is this weird orange zombie girl?

Comments Off

Link: Thou Shalt

We’ve had a little Scroobius Pip love here before. I wanted to pop you over to an interview that was on the radio this evening. Interesting to finally learn the meaning behind “Thou Shalt Always Kill,” as well as confirmation that Simon Cowell is an idiot.

Comments Off

how did i miss drew carey’s first day on the price is right?

worth noting, perhaps, that his first day was also a ‘perfect’ show — every game won. and by the look of the highlights, both wheel spinners won 1,000. as best week ever said, bob barker is going to have carey killed. really. rigging the game on the first day.

also, at first i thought this was a joke. but it seems to be real — cbs almost picked up a show called ‘babylon fields’ this fall. which was about zombies. a zombie-type csi, if you will. no really.

Comments Off

slashes, dashes & dots

or: how i learned to stop worrying and love the white  space.

my mind is going. i can feel it. i can feel it. my mind is going. there is no question about it.

it’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.

fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him, and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless.

all work and no play makes kurt a dull boy.

(i’m keeping it together by listening to this song on repeat)

Comments Off