Zombies Getting Married?

I often have a little chuckle to myself when ever I pass a funeral chapel, because I recall that when I was younger, the term "funeral chapel" was confusing. A chapel in my vocabulary was a place where two people wed. While at the same time, I knew that a funeral was aplace to honor someones death. Therefore as the imaginative child that I was I put the two together.
So as the family car would drive past and there would be a line of cars I would think to myself "Aw, two dead people are getting married. I'm glad they could find love after death." Yes, I suppose that is a little macabre for an adolescent to think but as my family can attest to, that's me.
My thoughts of two dead people getting married didn't end there. As the car continued onwards to our destination my mind was still at the funeral chapel, it answered all sorts of questions for me. The hearse for example, it finally made sense, it was the limo for the deceased couple! It also became obvious as to why beauticians were needed; of course old aunt Gertrude would want to look her best on her wedding day. The cemetery was of course the reception where as a family we would send our loved ones off into postmortem marital bliss.
I suppose the strangest part of all this is that I had already attended a few funerals, I knew there were no weddings, just the putting to rest our dearly departed and yet, when I thought back to those funerals, not one of them took place at a funeral chapel. So it was, to me, still a separate event. Not every person found love after death and so not every dead person used funeral chapels.
The little ditty would spring to mind, "ding dong, the wedding bells are going to chime!" It all became so practical and real. Something old, well that would be the bride and groom. Something new, their caskets would be new. Something blue? A lot of old women have blueish looking hair. In my mind the deceased couple didn't resemble the rotten corpses from say Thriller, but more like the heavily perfumed, caked on makeup that still resembled a living person, they walked much stiffer and there eyes were closed but other than that the wedding proceeded as normal. Friends and family would sit in attendance and the couple would mumble their vows...
Exhausting this fantasy, my mind would come back to the real world and my attention would be caught by something equally interesting or confusing. But I never forgot the oddities that are funeral chapels.
So the next time you drive by a funeral chapel, you will have to ask yourself, "Did I just hear wedding bells?"

Nature's Alarm Clock

Cat vomit: nature's alarm clock.

Some time in the night I awoke with a start. Bleary eyed I attempted to take survey of my room but all I could see were hazy shapes. That fuzzy square surrounded by two larger fuzzy squares were my record player and speakers, that pear shaped humanoid leering in the corner being my dusty cello, and that pile of lumps in the corner, well, those were my dirty clothes. It was as if someone had pulled the wool right over my eyes. It was dark and I was thoroughly confused, uncertain as to why I had bolted awake. Then the horrible realization sunk in. My cat was about to vomit.

My cat was heaving right next to me and before I could react; SPLAT! COUGH! The best sounds in the word erupted in the darkness of my room. I grappled for the light switch and there right next to me was the largest hair ball I have ever witnessed. My cat blinked her eyes, annoyed by the sudden harsh light. She licked her face, and as if reading my expression knew it was time to leave. She stumbled out of bed, tripping over my legs and leaning precariously from side to side as she made her way down acting as nonchalant as possible. I just stared in bewilderment and utter disgust at this soggy bundle of cat hair no more than a few inches away from my body. There was also another lingering emotion; pure amazement.

The size of it! I was slightly impressed.

Forcing myself to take my eyes away from what looked like a regurgitated clone of my cat I squinted to take in the time, just a few minutes after 3, I had not been asleep for more than an hour so begrudgingly I got out of bed to take care of this delightful present. I should now mention that this is not the first episode this month. Oh no, a few days ago I was thwarted a quite enjoyable dream, being thrown back into reality by the sweet sweet sounds of my cat heaving the contents of her stomach onto my bed. So last night, I felt like a pro, in an organized fashion I was able to clean up the hairball, take off the comforter that had absorbed my cats gastrointestinal juices and flung it in the hall to be dealt with at a later, brighter hour of the day.

I then returned to my room, made a general inspection of my bed and deemed it sleepable. But how does one fall back to sleep after such an exciting event? I turned off my light and stared blankly at my popcorn ceiling reliving my day's events. Over all it had been a good day, work went by quickly, nobody commented on my intelligence or apparently lack there of, pretty much in and out with absolutely no bruises to my ego. I suspect this is when things got weird. Having so much time on my hands before a highly anticipated night I started to act like a down right spaz which would not cease for the rest of the evening.

It can honestly be said that I am not normal. I am best classified as quirky, my oddities are my own and either you love them or you hate them, or you have a sick twisted love/hate relationship with me and that's just confusing. Often I do and say things with out thinking, probably my brothers biggest annoyance with me because he feels it is his brotherly duty to keep me alive after I act like a complete spaz. I walk past a biker and say "Hey Leather Daddy!" and Nathan rushes me away, I see a political sign and announce "Rachel for President! Abortions for all!" and he starts walking faster, or simply out of boredom I invent Sally Baxter, wife to author Stephen Baxter, she works as an athletic instructor at Washington Elementary and is quite the firecracker with a prominent lisp and Nathan laughs but is still red in the face from embarrassment.

So as I look back on the day, my spastic tendencies sinking in, I myself get red in the face from the absolute embarrassing acts I commit. What must people think? Cat vomit aside, there is no way I can sleep now.

Robert Pattison the New Tracy Chapman?

Like the rest of the known universe I have read and watched Twilight by Stephanie Meyers. And so now I proudly wear my "I heart boys who sparkle" pin where ever I go. But frankly I have different reasons for that. I unlike the rest of the known universe have not fallen in love with these books. I work at a bleeding library, if I didn't read them I was probably going to get a stake right through the ol' ticker. I heart boys who sparkle because I have the attention span of a goldfish and if I see something sparkly you know I am going to go after it and if that sparkly thing is a dude, well, I just won the jackpot. So after eventually reading the first book, I went with a bunch of co-workers to see the movie. Little did I know that Robbie wrote some of the music for the movie. So eventually again I found out which songs those were. Lo and behold, they were the songs I assumed were Tracy Chapman while watching the movie. I actually did think to myself while in the theater "Wow this director really likes Tracy Chapman". What a freaking mind blow. It's like seeing that kid sing Never Gonna Give You Up. Well I guess Tracy can either get worried or get smart. She could freak out and pray her career doesn't get snatched up by this tiger beat dream boat, or she could get smart and use sparkly Rob to fill in for her when she isn't feeling well. People loved Robert Downy Jr in Tropic Thunder with all that black face. Just step it up a notch and have Robert impersonate a black woman, Tracy Chapman. It's genius! But yes, I am not saying to go listen to his music to support him or anything, just listen and make the same realization I did and just freak out your brain.

Glam Rock Squid

I have a great love for the ocean and the creatures the reside within it. I have been obsessed with Watasenia scintillans: Firefly Squid, for quite some time now. Anything that glows or sparkles or has interchangeable colors automatically attracts me. Because really I am a fish just looking for a lure.Cephalopods in general fascinate me and so this is the first of many bloggities that I will write to profess my love for such glamorous animals.

I start with the firefly squid, or as I call them the Glam Rock Squid because they have been an inspiration in writing my first picture book. It is along the lines of Alice and Wonderland in the sense that a little girl wanders off from her family and meets a lil' critter who beckons her to follow and get herself into danger but all the while having the adventure of her lifetime which may be much shorter than expected.

The Glam Rock Squid make an appearance in this story as a glum defeated shoal of squid who are technically Watasenia scintillans that because of their appearance have formed a Glam Rock band called The Spotted Losses. This all came about because not only do I love glam rock squid but I also love glam rock music. So for me, instantly after seeing Watasenia scintillans in action blinking and sparkling in the deep blue I thought to myself, if there was any animal in the world that could truly appreciate glam rock it's these squid. They have got the look down pat, all they need to do is work on the sound and with having so many tentacles it would be no problem, the drummer would have a 27 piece set and would make the craziest, sickest, wackidoo sounds like nobody has ever heard, and double neck guitars are for pussies, try quadruple. Plus costuming would be a breeze because they already look fabulous, but perhaps a touch of Brian Eno feathers and some Ziggy Stardust makeup and you have the recipe for the greatest band to ever exist.
Just remember it was me who thought of it first, so if anyone gets a band together you best be giving me some credit for the brilliant idea.

Illustration by Nathan Ernst http://www.nathanernstart.com/

Sandra Day O'Connor

I have this fantasy of Sandra Day O'Connor, it's in no way dirty, but I am sure many a man has fantasized about nasty ol' Sandra Day. What a cougar! Rar! No my fantasy is like a b-rated horror film where Sandra Day is 60 feet tall and has the body of Godzilla and she comes out of the sea like a kraken from the deep awaken by modern day civilization and being waken up when you are still tired will make anyone cranky but because she is this huge beast monster she is super pissy and so she starts stomping through New York City, because lets face it, that is the only place to attack if you want to be cool and make your business known. So she is stomping around screeching at the top of her Godzilla like lungs and knocking over buildings. The whole nine yards and everyone is screaming and running for their lives, but then one of senate members who is on vacation with his family in NY see's Sandra Day tearing up the place and asserting her power on the lowly people and he rubs his chin because that's what you do when you're thinking hard about something and so he decided to get her into the Supreme Court. Liven things up, get some new blood in, it be good publicity because not only is she a woman, but she is 60 feet tall and has a lizard body. He feels they can get some real work accomplished with a woman like that and as he is thinking all this, the military is finally taking some action and getting their helicopters all equipped with serious artillery but the Senate member rushes over and reveals a plan to get the beast to stop killing massive amounts of people....And the rest as they say is history.