Sick of Being Sick

I have a cold.  Or a flu.  Either way, feels like crap.

However, it does bring up a point that has always bothered me.  Did you ever notice how utterly mundane sounding the word 'cold' actually is?  "I caught a cold" is not a phrase that elicits the same awed murmurs that "I fought off  a school of sharks armed only with a spork and a packet of mustard" does.  And is it any wonder?  Sporks are awe inspiring; it's a fact of nature. 

Colds, on the other hand, are not, through no fault of their own.  They've simply been misnamed.  The word 'cold' does not, in any way, adequately describe these diseases' actual presence in our lives.  Think about it.  You call in sick to work with a 'cold,' and half your c0-workers are simply irritated you're not there.  You call in sick to work with the 'hacking, sneezing, death-by-mucus disease,' and not only are they suddenly impressed, they don't want you coming in to work for the next two weeks.

I have had, sadly, more than my fair share of 'death-by-mucus' diseases this last year.  I feel like I should become a gold 'cold' card-carrying member - like typhoid Mary, but rather than a harbinger of death, I'm just a harbinger of nasal irritation and annoying coughs.  

I don't blame my body; it's trying its best, really.  

Really.  I caught a rather odd illness a couple years back, had a rare complication, and it'll take my body a few years to be back in fighting form.  Until then, I get all the annoying, pitiful, wannabe illnesses that float around town.  Another one seems to have taken up residence in my rather chubby excuse for a body this week.  Urg.

Ahem. Considering my last post, I suppose I should say that my current feverish bundle of bleh is not zombie related. 

Although if it was, would I really tell you?  Of course not. I'd let my legion of zombie minions do that for me.  And speaking of that, it just makes you wonder just how long it would take to convert a zombie legion of minions, doesn't it?  A week?  A month?

And how would you do it?  Bite 'em?  Wonder how many zombies get TMJ that way.  Their dentists have to tell them: hold off on the legion building for a while, okay?  Just let your jaw rest a little.  We'll all be here for you to zombify later.  A week or two won't kill you...more. Aheh...well, you know what I mean.  Uh, wait, I was just...aaaaaagh! 

And there you'd have another member of the legion.  Probably why there's not a lot of zombie dentists: it's a dying profession.

You just know this is gonna eventually lead to my brain coming up with a zombie story.  Terrifying: a Twisted Zombie.  I am actually a little scared at what my mind would come up with.  I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

Yaoi Jamboree and Zombies

Yaoi and Zombies.   Not two terms one expects to see together, unless you happen to be reading a gay zombie romance.  Which I have, and it was surprisingly a little hot.  And that probably says something about my psyche that I'm not going to delve too deeply into.  I'll just let it lie.

Even though that's terribly hard to do, really.  How do you stop thinking about that? Zombies in love.  An undead love story - how does that even work?  Can the nerves still feel?  Can you get it up, or is it just rigormortis?  Is that what being undead is like: one constant erection?  Is the climax going to be figuring out how to do the deed without breaking off important bits? Eeeuuuuuw.

So, yeah. Yaoi and zombies, on the brain.  

Or more precisely, Yaoi Jamboree and Zombies.  

Yaoi Jamboree, for those who haven't heard of it, was a brand new Yaoi convention held in Phoenix, Arizona this year at the end of June.  It was new, it had some problems and some great stuff, and I plan to go next year to see how it improves and changes, as I'm assuming it will do both.    At the very least, I met a butt-load of great and interesting people. 

But back to the zombies...

Have you ever seen a zombie movie?  It's dark, but moonlit (because otherwise you can't see them coming and have that delicious shiver of horror).  Fog crawls over the ground in writhing tendrils of skull-white.  Nothing moves until the shambling undead slowly take form and come close to feast on your blood.  Or eyeballs.  Or that new gucci bag that you love and now wish you'd left at home so your sister could at least enjoy it after your possessions have been divvied up.

Well...that's the scene I was met with as I drove with my friend to Yaoi jamboree.  Minus the zombies.   We left late, well past sunset.  Driving in the middle of nowhere, on backroads, we got a bit turned around.  There was the mist, there was the moon, there was the complete lack of people, and the land around us looked like abandoned fields with stunted, mutant vegetation to complete the picture.  No lights on the roads, and no way to tell where the nearest people might be. 

Any movie maker worth his salt would have added the zombies.  It almost felt like a crime not to have them shuffling along side the road.

And I said as much, to which my friend replied that I had enough trouble with not killing us when I tried to dodge the rabbits and mice that might run in front of me.  It's an instinctive sort of thing.  Run over the zombies, dodge the cute and furry forest critters - run off the road either way.

And of course the moment she says this, a rabbit runs in front of the car and I almost kill us swerving out of the way.  And then another rabbit, and then a couple of mice.    As far as I'm concerned, that was a little message from the deep beyond.  

Which brings us to the moral of this story. If you're in a place that needs zombies and lacks them, be very, very careful.  Because the zombies that the world decides to add to the picture may just be you. XD