Two words: hanta virus

I’ve scheduled my reading for 10/27, 10:30pm at the Indian Road Café.  I’ll read for half an hour.  Afterward they’re screening Night of the Living Dead.  That’s crazy because I had no idea they’d be showing this movie and it’s one of my favorites – I know the whole script.  Two great lines from it:

“They’re coming to get you Bar-ba-ra.”

“Yeah they’re dead…they’re…all messed up”

I’d like to write a treatise on this movie.  It’s been done.  They make it a metaphor for the times in 1968.  The zombies are the encroaching threat to the establishment.  They represent black people too, I think I’ve heard.  George Romero used a black protagonist which was progressive, but then again, he doesn’t survive, AND his plan for keeping everyone safe — as the alpha male in the bunch — failed.  Womp womp oh well.

Since I’m on zombies – anybody ever see Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things? One of the reasons I love Fright Night is because the kid in the movie watches it on TV, the part where Orville is reanimated and goes after the leader of the theater group. This movie has a cult following so I feel cool because I knew it when.

My horror story in my book, Mean-Spirited Tales doesn’t have zombies.  I may have a friend read one of the stories. I’m going to miss Bob being at the reading.  I’ve been to the Indian Road Café a few times to eat and Bob would be there.  He was retired so I think he went everyday for lunch.  “There goes that Sword-Chinned Bitch,” he’d snarl. I was thrilled the first time he said it because I fantasize about walking down the street with people whispering “Hey, there’s the Sword-Chinned Bitch” — hehe.  So Bob helped me realize my fantasy.  After I got my hair butchered by the salon, Bob sees me and says, “So the flat-headed Sword Chinned Bee-itch is here.”  He made bitch two syllables.

When I went to the café to speak with the owner about my reading, I hear behind me, “I know I’ll be there to see the Sword-Chinned Bitch.”  It was Bob.  He bought my book and read my blog.  I wrote about my love affair with a mouse in my apartment on my blog.  He commented:  “Two words:  hanta virus.”  Ahahaha!

If no one else comes to my reading Bob will be there and perhaps with his lover, I used to say.  Bob passed away of a heart attack a week after I saw him at the café.  He was both wicked and very kind.  When I spoke to him last, he talked about having a good life and being fortunate.  I was fortunate to know Bob.  He was one of those blessings that we get in the minute of the day.

France

Sometimes when I’m anxious about the future, I think about what I have right now, plenty of food, an apartment, a job, clothes, friends, family.  I believe then that I’m completely taken care of.  All I have is now.  Read some zen.  They say that. Tomorrow doesn’t exist, nor does yesterday.  But it’s hard to live in the moment sometimes when there’s so much emphasis on planning the future.  There’s much to do to prepare for the future that would suit you best.  Right?  I also have to deprogram myself from notions in this culture that cause me to have anxiety about my status.

Fuck your gd status.  I have a cousin who broke the mold to do some wild things, after having owned a successful business for years.  Oh why oh why couldn’t I do something like that? — Because you, you’re me, that’s why – oh don’t be confused audience, see, I’m me talking to me, that’s all – I’m also talking to you, just having a conversation with me in front of you.

But like I say, I have food.  The café at the botanical garden where I work gives employees food they haven’t sold.  Everything they make has cheese in it which sucks. However the seductive qualities of cheese helps customers believe that the sandwiches are worth twenty-four dollars and ninety-nine cents.  At times my refrigerator is filled with cheese laden cuisine — quinoa with cheese, couscous with cheese, feta dates and herb salad, tuna and cheese, cheese snack bowls, mozzarella and tomato sandwiches.

I hate not taking free food.  If you eat cheese everyday will you die?  No silly heads – I know we’ll die die.  But I mean like, will I die sooner?  Is eating cheese everyday bad?  Don’t the French eat cheese everyday with wine and cigarettes?  Will I survive the next anxiety attack about my future?  Do you think I should move to France?