All We Want To Do Is Eat Your Brains
We're Not Unreasonable; I Mean, No One's Gonna Eat Your Eyes

I think about zombies a lot.

I own two copies of Max Brooks' seminal (1) survival guide on the subject, as well as a hardcover copy of the novel set within the same canon whose dust jacket is now literally a jacket made of dust due to re-reading. I size up any structure I occupy for its defensibility in the case of an outbreak. I live in Pittsburgh, the city that spawned George Romero and his genre-defining Blank of the Dead series.

Thoughts of this sort are rarely, if ever, far from my mind, but lately I've been asking myself, why zombies? Why not vampires or werewolves or the Chupacabra or some other fictional monster? Zombie material (movies, books, video games) are generally classified as "horror", but I'm not really into any horror that doesn't involve zombies. What's so special about them?

Taking a step back, why not occupy my thoughts with the many real dangers the world presents, like flash floods or girls? For that matter, why dwell on terrible things at all? Most of my conclusions on the subject amount to "If this does happen, my life / my home / my country / my species is completely fucked". It's not like this thinking actually causes me to make any changes in my lifestyle, other than the aforementioned shovel. One of the best things that I could do to prepare for an outbreak would be to ensure that I'm in good physical condition if (when) it occurs. If I care so much about this stuff, why am I not willing to take such a simple step, which would have all sorts of other benefits for my life in addition to the zombie-preparedness factor?

These questions are not merely rhetorical. Answers will follow, in due time, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of updating this damn thing. Astute readers will note that this is an entry in the works for over six months; in the ideal world that my writings are helping to create, (3) all patience is rewarded in due time.

(1) The first definition.

(2) Empirical testing has indicated that it is less effective for this purpose than I had previously hoped.

(3) This statement is only true in the broadest sense; if everybody posted a quantity of rambling musings within the same order of magnitude as this website, the Internet would collapse, followed shortly thereafter by society.

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'cause there's so little else occupying my head