Why We're All Actually Pretty Scared of Zombies

You are either one of two things: a vampire person or a zombie person.

If you are a vampire person, please get up from your computer right now, feed your three cats, go outside and get in your car, drive to the nearest bridge, and throw yourself off it.

Vampires have only ever stood for shame and sin associated with sex and sluttiness. Vampires are the AIDS of the monster world.

Also they're not real. If all you ever drank was blood, you would get scurvy and your body would die off from malnutrition, not live forever.

But zombies are real. Because all you need for zombies are lots of bodies and a virus, and those two things already exist. It's only a matter of time before something like human rabies or human mad cow appears. I mean, I'm not entirely convinced we're not already eating things containing people. I don't *really* think so, but *if* that story broke, I wouldn't be, like, *shocked*. And geez, we can't even CURE viruses yet, so we're just like helpless against that. It's a magical, inevitable combination, and those of us not too busy jacking off to True Blood trailers have already figured that out.

Let's look at the conditions needed to be present for a zombie apocalypse:
1) overcrowding - done
2) high transient population that can spread quickly without notice- homeless, mentally ill, etc - done
3) low access to immediate healthcare and therefore early warnings or at least early tracking - done
4) low international regulation on genetic alteration of foods and medicines - done
5) corporations with the ability to keep the regulations that way through buy-offs and elections - done

AND THEN my friend Louis made THIS point: it's even more likely that the government will at some point just use the Zombie Infection as an excuse to cull thousands of people to decrease the economic pressure of overpopulation. Like, we know you crazies won't approve any sane population control measures, so we'll just fake outbreaks on TV, and then kill lots of people and claim they were zombies.

So that could totally happen.

The point is, zombies are the sane monster, if sanity means seeing the perversion of reality around you and understanding that we are completely and totally fucked, and just hoping it doesn't get too bad in your own lifetime so you can keep enjoying cable and iced mochas until someone shoots you in the head with a rifle and you're off screen.  We're not scared of the ocean, or volcanoes, or ghosts. Aliens maybe a little, but aliens aren't really monsters, they're a different kind of inevitability. We're not scared of sex, or at least we shouldn't be, unless we're deliberately keeping our understanding of science in the dark ages because someone promises us acceptance if we do, *ahem*. But zombies make sense to be afraid of. They represent what's really left in the unknown - the future of ourselves as a species.

Zombies as an idea were created by cultures that had been invaded and enslaved - South Africa, Haiti. Places where society had been replaced with Society - the corporate empire - the railroad, the coffee plantation, the tobacco farms, the mines. The very basis of the fear is that you can somehow be made not in control of yourself. It used to be through death and sorcery, now we've adapted it to the much more modern idea of disease and law. Look! These people can do this thing to you and you will be out of your mind! You will do anything they tell you! You will buy that detergent and attack and kill your loved ones! Not even death will be able to save you! The brainwashing will follow you beyond death! Heaven is a Starbucks serving brains, where you don't have to even make the decision of what you want, it's just all brains.

I mean, it's not a coincidence that the soul-less victims of Society are hungering for the mental capacities of the uninfected. Romero did that on purpose. That man was a genius. Why did none of us ever start a weird Scientology-like religion off of him? Dibs.

So we joke, a lot, about being prepared for the zombie apocalypse. But we're not really joking. When I say I'm hightailing it back to the Great Lakes and holing up in a salt mine, because a) fresh water b)food preservation and trade-friendly natural mineral, and c) easily defensible one point of entry....I am not joking. I'm sorta joking. But I'm not joking. This is what we're doing, you're either with me or against me, and that's why so many people have their Survive the Zombie Apocalypse plans posted on their OK Cupid profiles. Do I think it's likely that having a mate who knows how to hunt and owns several firearms is going to really be integral to my survival? I mean, probably not? But...I mean, that sort of thing is always useful right? I'm just being prepared.

We're joking, but really what we're doing is mentally preparing ourselves. That's what a population does when they realize they are trapped, cornered, and there's no way out except chewing our way out of the shackles and getting to the nearest cave with a weapon. One that doesn't require ammunition because that shit will run out eventually. (Arrows are good.) We are bristling our hackles, and laughing it nervously off.

So...you know...pretty TENSE time to have an election huh? When we're all just starting to go fucking insane with the realization we are no longer in control of our lives? That should put us just a little bit back on the track to unity as a nation, united in our fear, only seriously? Fuck unity as a nation, that's how the fucking zombie apocalypse happens. Also wars. Where people develop biochemical agents? Right?

Anyway, Happy Halloween, and you should still vote for Obama cause I want school loans and birth control.

What Your Sexy Animal Halloween Costume Says About You

Sexy Raccoon: You are most likely to be killed in a hunting or traffic accident. You are not able to run or jump great distances because of your short legs. At a party, you can probably be found in the bathroom, washing saltines in the sink. Most likely, you have rabies, or at the very least, worms.

Sexy Skunk: Otherwise known as a "Polecat" (you have to get your communications degree somehow), you love to scavenge for garbage, or dig for fat juicy grubs. You are pretty much blind. There are two glands located by your anus which spray out a thick musk of sulphur to protect you from predators. Oftentimes, people smell you and assume there is weed nearby.

Sexy Red Fox: You love to use urine to mark your territory, which is everywhere since you are an invasive and unwelcome species. You are seemingly capable of complicated communication, but it is all barking. People are constantly trying to kill you and cut off your hair for souvenirs, or at least thinking about it. Sometimes, even though you aren't hungry, you kill as much prey as you can, just for fun. Other predators find you extremely annoying, especially in packs. You get mange, a lot. At the party, you will most likely be outside the bathroom, stopping other foxes from using it.


Sexy Bumblebee: Lots of people like to use you for cross pollination, and you are easily confused by radio and cell phone signals. You will most likely die from bacterial infection or ingestion of industrial grade pesticides. People use you as a sign of oncoming environmental apocalypse. When you finally die, the party's over. You throw up in your mouth a lot.


Sexy Clownfish: You love to live in hostile environments, and are a hermaphrodite. At the party, you will most likely be found in the bedroom, trying to coat various surfaces with your sticky eggs. You are a very common pet, thanks to your very popular "children's" movie, in which you are a cripple.


Sexy Turtle: You are an ancient reptile, descended from the Late Triassic period. You were most likely sold off at a young age to an aging raver kid, and are capable of biting off a man's entire thumb from the joint. Lots of people think you would make a very good soup. You are able to retract your head entirely into your bone-like shell. At the party, you will be crawling around on the floor, searching for warmth and trying not to get stepped on.

Edit: Per one of the site's request: here's a link where you can buy the Sexy Sea turtle, which besides the raccoon, is easily the best one.

Top Ten Alternative Halloween Treats

RBCA requested I do this, but I'm not feeling the Cleveland witticisms tonight. I spent most of the day not moving my head, an unfortunate and entirely predictable result of last night's fun stuff romp through Cuyahoga Falls. At one point I was standing in a basement full of people playing the Flip Game, and Jere was having me yell repeatedly "I love coke and salesman!", and that was the relatively sober part of the night. I refuse to comment on the veracity of that statement or others I may have made throughout the night. I will point out that I may have finally found a drinking game I can do without embarrassing myself.

So anyway, here's my Top Ten. And RBCA, I will email you that story tomorrow morning. I have to somehow move my head enough to go out again tonight. And I have to remember in the future that pickles, triscuits, and Always Sunny are not a good combination for a hangover.

Top Ten Alternative Halloween Treats to Pass Out

1. Twilight themed condoms.

2. vicodin

3. Michelle Bachmann temporary tattoos

4. pictures of your neighbor in his underwear

5. Cupcakes that are shaped like dog biscuits, and also made of dog biscuits

6. Commemorative poker chips with scenes of Charleston, WV on them.

7. jello shots

8. balls of foil

9. free fingerprinting for children

10. kisses. With tongue.

The longest word in the english language you can make out of my name is "blathering"

Some random things...

1)We went to St. Luke's again Sunday. No, really, we woke up at like 7 and got batteries for the flashlights, and we were all super charged and stuff. It was mega cool. It was super mega cool. We found the scariest rape room in all of Cleveland. And you will see those pictures someday. After Flickr stops taking it's sweet ass time loading those pictures. I've been trying to load them for 48 hours now. 48 hours for 155 pictures is redonkalous. Oh, and I'm bringing that back.

2) The Saturday before, Alli and I were going to try and see Capitalism: A Love Story. But I was late, and we missed it. Oh capitalism, guess I don't love you that much. So instead we went to Collinwood to look at some artsy stuff. I bought a picture, and Alli made Sasha over at Waterloo Cafe try and steam some Baileys for her espresso. I wanted to try and get a copy of the new Pink Eye Magazine, so I could look at my shit in there, but we got drunk too fast and couldn't wait out its arrival. So we headed back to Prosperity and had dinner, drank some more. Two mandolin players showed up, and a couple of drunk guys jigged. A pitfall to getting drunk with Alli (no, there are no pitfalls, not really) is that her mom and my mom hang out and get drunk too. Also, both of us laugh like our mothers. So here we are, 30, drinking alcoholic coffee drinks in a woodlined bar with a bunch of older people in nice coats, laughing like our mothers and tapping our feet to fucking mandolins, and it just all kind of hits you at once. But it hits you, kisses you on the forehead, and then runs away giggling. You get old, after all. I mean, you do. I don't.

Afterwards, we met up with some people at Tina's, which is a place I'm pretty sure doesn't exist except when you're looking for it. And even that is sketchy. I saw some guys I hadn't seen in a while, and Nikki from the Exchange sang a great version of Journey, which means of course that the entire bar sang a great version of Journey, and we stayed out way later than we had meant to, given our 7 am appointment (see above). There was a guy named Bob, who had a beer holder made of a bobcat head. Simultaneously really cool and really reprehensible. On the way home, I put on that Calvin Harris album I was so unimpressed by the first time I listened to it. And it turns out that Calvin Harris is specifically for driving home at 2 am from the karoake bar, otherwise it totally sucks. How come no one told me this?

3)It happened today. The flu season's first analysis of the word "pandemic". Pandemic and I have hated each other ever since I watched the dvd special features interviews of 28 Days Later. PANDEMIC PANDEMIC PANDEMIC. Until you are all dying of smallpox, I don't want to hear that word ever again. My mother talked me into signing up for a flu shot this year. Last year, I was sick all winter from that shot. I told my mother if it happens again, she's paying my sick leave. She doesn't care, she's a nurse. Nurses have no pity.

4)If you haven't seen it already, go watch the Daily Show segment from last night where John Oliver calls CNN a bunch of...well go watch it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

5) I really have to sit and write these Halloween stories. I'll do it this weekend, I promise. I mean, I'm all out of Angel episodes on my DVR, so I have time now. I don't know what I will write them about, but I'm sure enough alcohol can fix that. I don't believe in ghosts, or supernatural stuff, or anything that makes up a good ghost story. I don't even really believe in good ghost stories. Making up stuff about dead people wandering around lost between worlds seems to be overly sentimental and trite, unless you are talking about zombies which is okay, or god-killing metaphors for Adam and Eve, which is also okay. But ghosts are always sad, or angry and sad, or confused and sad. Be careful what you're projecting about yourself, ghosthunters. I think it would be amusing to make a film about a group of donkey ghosthunters. I imagine it would play pretty much normal. Oh no, the flashlight moved! Bray Bray Bray!

6) They Might Be Giants - this Thursday. Haunted House friday. Pumpkin carving Saturday? Apple picking Sunday. No, not really. Fuck apple picking this year. It's going to be Christmas before I get to make a decent apple pie. I would like to pretend I'll be doing lots of cooking in the next few weeks, but quite frankly, I haven't done my dishes in a month. If, by some miracle, I do actually get them done, I don't think I need to be creating anymore. Ever again. I think I will learn to eat with my hands and cook everything in the toaster oven on foil. Eventually I will start only wearing foil, and sleeping on foil. I will go blind from the shininess.

The thing is, you never forget the apocalypse is coming. As the election days count down, I feel the red oxide tinge around corner, sneaking into the wallpaper carpet car doors. It’s a gnawing rusting sensation, the air smells like pennies taste. My bathroom reeks of cat pee. I’ve scrubbed the litterbox, the linoleum, poured an entire jug of ammonia on the mess. Doesn’t matter, the cat is out to get me, she pisses on the floor, she misses the box on purpose. My car grumbles when it starts. It’s sluggish and old and heavy. My clothes never seem clean , and I worry that I smell like cat pee now and no one will tell me.

So this would be the beginning of my apocalypse, my dirty filthy apartment, an incontinent vengeful cat, a dying hunk of South Korean metal with poisonous paint flaking off the hood. I’m trying to forget this dying of days feeling by drinking, often and with friends. Last night, for instance, I crumbled as I drove home in the semi-darkness, thinking of the lies in the cute pop song while it contrasted with the bare steel frame of highway and dead trees. I tried to imagine how I wanted my life to be, a jumble of live music and bars and parties. But as I thought of these scenes, past scenes when I’ve done those things and been that girl, what I thought of mostly is how tired I was during it, how dirty everything was, the stink of my clothes when I peeled them off and the eye shadow lint collected in the bags of my face. And it all just seemed like so much effort with so little payoff, except for the actual band itself, or the actual alcohol itself. I like my friends, a lot in some cases, but we’re all so alone in this. Every person a little time/space capsule, completely unrelated to the other capsules it bumps into. There’s a commercial on TV right now advertising an internet radio/download service, and in it the girl with impossibly long legs is falling thru the sky, lands in a bubble, and floats along oblivious, until she falls into another empty bubble. And I suppose eventually she will fall into an already occupied bubble, or two bubbles will merge or something. But to look at it, with all the open sky around her, the chances of that happening seem about as likely as being in a plane crash. Which are about 1 in 11 million. The thing to do then is just keep bumping into other bubbles, maybe form a bubble tandem, bubble train.

That’s what I did last night. Dressed up my bubble all pretty and thick and went to gather with the other bubbles. Cause when you crumble, being full of blood and guts and sticky chemical bread pudding, you don’t really have the luxury of being swept off. You have to congeal yourself again, whether you like it or not. Besides, Halloween is a great night for looking at urban decay and ruined hollow houses and dirty black permanent pavement. You can pretend it’s just part of the background, and not like, the condition of the whole fucking world.

Excuse me while I finish another freaking bottle of Cranberry Pomegranate Juice. Maybe that’s another sign of this collapse, the sneaking prevalence of pomegranate in everything we eat and drink. What used to be the weird cool fruit to eat with mythical connotations is now probably most likely for sure Soylent Green. Which is why I’m addicted to it, I’m a people person.

Laura’s favorite holiday is Halloween. She and Jessica literally spent a few hundred dollars more on decorations this year because they realized their already extensive collection of blow up bats and cobweb lights weren’t enough to properly fill the big house they moved into a few months ago. So there was like, stuff everywhere. There were LED gravestones in the border garden. Lights in the trees, the windows, human heads hanging from the porch, Laura was a nurse with a nasty grin. Jessica was a “bitch”, which is a ghetto witch with a lot of bling. Buddy’s mummy costume made him look like he was trailing toilet paper behind him all night, and Doug’s Frankenstein neck bolts managed to stay on despite…well, despite. There were couples and a sleepy baby dragon, a fire pit and a very cool Halloween cake Buddy spent like a week making. It was three tiers, with purple frosting and gummy bat and coffins. The one school girl there was actually not slutty, ‘cause technically she was Trish the Dish, with Jay and Silent Bob. We talked about how glad she was she never really went to Catholic school, and I told her about how Tara feels nothing in her legs from years of winter waiting at the bus stop in her Magnificat skirt.

It was comforting to have both parties, first the sexy strangers party last week, and now this, the “aw these people are cool and they’re glad I’m here and we’re just gonna get drunk in the backyard, listen to Axl Rose, and meet some new people”. I got there at 9:30pm, finished the champagne by 11pm, had a nice guy politely feeding me jello shots, talked about lactation porn and the election and macaroni and cheese recipes. There were no political fights, mostly ‘cause the republican was the one giving me the jello shots. What’s with republicans feeding me alcohol these days?

It was insulated. I didn’t want to leave, I never do, but I had to work at 6am, so I left around 2? Maybe. I don’t quite remember. But I do remember the hard clicking of my heels on the sidewalk, and the still photographic quality of the streetlight shining on my car. I remember the inside of my car as a kind of ingrained wash of dirt and ash, the ash is growing from the car. And I was out of cigarettes, but I didn’t want to stop for them. I just drove, straight and narrow and I listened to the Mountain Goats because I think he is one of those musicians that really defines me. When people ask me who my favorite band is, I should say him. All those songs about people screwing each other over and hanging out but separating, and really being okay after someone leaves cause its just a person after all and they could have died instead of left but they would still be gone so what’s the difference? Also, if people didn’t leave, then there wouldn’t be any room for new people. Because certain roles in your life are not built for multiple casting. If you only have this boyfriend, how will you ever have another? If you only have this best friend or this circle of friends, how will you ever meet the next circle of friends?

The air was warm and smelled like rain and leaves last night. I drove around by the train tracks, wishing I had some really cute cartoon to draw on the underpass supports, a whole bag of paint and stencils and time. Sometimes its good to be the girl in black tights and eyelashes, by herself on a warm November night, thinking about graffiti and also how much you love this underpass in particular because you drive by it every day and it comes after a really sharp downhill curve that makes you feel like a racer. There was a guy at the party who looked exactly like Peter, Buddy thought so too. We talked about it in front of him, and then Holly his girlfriend told me about her best friend dying while she was fighting with her and I told her about Peter dying and that feeling that’s left when you could have said “yes I’ll go to the show” instead of “no, I’m too depressed” and then your best friend dies at that show and everyone else was there to watch it but you weren’t. And even though it’s sick that you wanted to be there when he died, you did and no you don’t think its sick, because you don’t have that chance to say goodbye to someone very often and it was right there for you but you lost it. So it’s important to always see someone the minute you want to see them, and as often as you want to, and it’s important to do things with them and talk to them every night and be available for death scenes.

Halloween Part 1

Went to a Halloween party last Saturday.
Well, first, I went with my friends to a Capitol Steps concert.
As I was running through the red carpet veranda of the Allen Theater to get to the bathroom before the show started, in my Halloweeny garb of course, an usher stopped me and he said,"hey, what is this show anyway?"
I replied, "well it's musical political satire."
And he nodded his head sagely.
"It explains the audience, doesn't it?" I asked.
"Yes" he replied.

So let's explain this audience. There were a few requisite gay couples, like my friends. Doug was the one who took us, cause Doug is the sort of person to text you after the Obama infomercial with how awesome he thought it was. And I'm the type to text him back excitedly, so it works.
Then there were a lot of old people. I love my parents, but I think they can admit that they fall squarely in old people camp now. And there were a lot of guys that my dad probably thought were too dorky for words, and a lot of wives who laughed INSANELY LOUD like my mother does when she watches sex comedies. There were maybe three people under thirty in the whole crowd and Buddy and I were two of them.
The Capitol Steps are old people political humor. They're kinda funny, but not if you're the type who obsessively reads every left wing blog you can get your hands on, every morning while you drink your cranberry juice (did I mention my recent addiction to cranberry juice?) The sad fact is that they are just not current enough or extreme enough to be that funny to me. I think my favorite song was Putin singing "Midnight Raid to Georgia". Other than that, it's like "really, you just made a joke about Cheney shooting a guy? And yes, we know Palin shoots moose too." But it was entertaining enough to make you glad enough your friend bought you a ticket.

So then we went back to get my car, and we drove seperately to this party. The girl who invited me told me it was on West Blvd, but it wasn't her house, so she didn't know exactly where. And it turned out to be on the one spot of West Blvd where none of us wanted to park our cars. We drove past it three times thinking it couldn't be there. Finally Girl and I coordinated enough on the celly to find it. I didn't know anyone there except Girl&Husband. So the Boys and I walked bravely in, straight into Devo Man in the kitchen who I totally didn't recognize but then ended up talking to for most of the night. We wandered self-consciously downstairs, and I inadvertantly made my entrance on the raised basement dance floor with pole. Yes this guy had a pole and a bar and DJs and kegs in the basement, and the floor was filled with every possible rendition of school girl, girl scout, cheerleader, naughty witch you could think of. Found Girl, who was talking to Girlscout, who I instantly fell in love with. Girl introduced me to Butcher, owner of said den of inequity and also some blue Tequila I proceeded to drink without heed for the rest of the night.

On the attic floor, Butcher had made a haunted house. Kitchen filled with body parts, dead bodies on the floor, dayglo and bloody handprints on the walls, strobe light. That room stank of weed the whole night. Next door to Kitchen was Dead Body Bag Room, which was AWESOME. Just a dark room, smoke machine, incredibly realistic filled body bags hanging from butcher racks. As several people pointed out to me that night, they wanted to have sex in that room. I wanted to have sex in that room.

Highlights of the night include Girlscout making out with my boobs, me spilling a full glass of punch all over Buddy, me trading my Obama pin to a Republican referee for an entire new glass of tequila, me spilling more of that on my shirt than in my mouth. Me falling over the woodpile in the backyard. Me demanding Obama pin back from referee when I found out he was a Republican. And lots of girls on the stripper pole. Then Buddy and Doug left, so Devo and I talked the rest of the night, mostly to keep ourselves occupied until I was sober (enough) to drive home. And like most of my nights these days, the talk was about guns and anime.

Halloween Part Two tomorrow at Lo and Jessica's house. I've been literally promised to star in fights with at least two republicans. So if you wanna go, gimme a call.