I’m not a thing

So John Scalzi, in addition to writing really good sci-fi novels, also writes a column for filmcritic.com. Since he’s on a book tour in Germany, instead of the usual sci-fi movie stuff he writes, his latest column was a list of writing assignments for his readers. Now this is not the sort of thing you can do to my brain, which proceeded to wake me up constantly last night with new lines for the first topic, namely convincing him (and his flamethrower) that I am not the Thing. In rhyme. Here’s what my sleepy head came up with. (Note: Spoilers for the 1982 movie, The Thing, ahead. And if you haven’t seen it, well why not?)

I’m Not a Thing (But You Are Dressed as One)

Yes, you want to test my blood, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
If I were a monster, wouldn’t I be all grotesque and hairy?
Plus I’ve never been alone with anyone that’s been infected.
Even if you did the test, I’m sure I wouldn’t be rejected.

I’m the one that you should trust, so put that old flamethrower down.
Don’t let your suspicions keep on making you act like a clown.
Look, I’ll even burn myself, since that’s all that your test is doing.
Ow, that really smarts! But there’s no metamorphosis ensuing.

C’mon, put the scalpel down, MacReady. Let’s be reasonable.
We’ll survive the night and then we’ll go somewhere more seasonable.
I can even bring the scotch, and you can grab a couple glasses.
We’ll track down some girls and spend the night attempting drunken passes.

Okay, I can see that you’re not buying anything I’m saying,
So I guess there isn’t any point for me to plan on staying.
If you’re so concerned that I’m a creature from another place,
I’ll just take off in the snow and you can all forget my face.
See you later, paranoids. Just let me grab a pack of smokes.
Even if I freeze, it’s better than appeasing crazy folks.

Endings

Steve Jobs is dead. It’s still something I’m trying to process. I don’t choke up as badly now as I did when it first happened.

It’s not because I’m an Apple fanboy. I have two Macs on my desk, but they’re for work, and I loathe turning them on because the Apple dev tools are so much worse than the ones on Windows. I don’t even like using them as computers. I’m too used to how things work on Windows. And I don’t have stories about how my first computer was an Apple or anything, because I’ve never personally owned one, and the only ones I used as a kid were Canadian clones at a friend’s house.

Milestones

Two more to go. Tomorrow I go in for my second to last chemo treatment. (The side effects have been getting progressively worse, but that’s to be expected. I don’t know if I could handle more than a couple more of them.)

We like to mark out our lives in milestones. Halfway there. Two more to go. One left. Sixteen and you can drive. Eighteen and you can vote. Twenty-one and you can drink. The big 4-0. Graduations. Weddings. Mid-life crisis. Retirement at sixty-five.

My younger daughter just celebrated a birthday last month, an annual milestone we all look forward to, whether with joy or dread. This one was another milestone, though, because now she is also a teenager. My youngest son also had his first birthday, one which he shares with my parents’ anniversary, a milestone of love and devotion for married people, or at least one of persistence.

A few months ago, we all got to see young people across the country celebrate a major milestone, graduating from high school, ready (or not) to begin their life as adults. And I realized, it’s been 25 years since I passed that particular milestone. When I walked across the stage to get my diploma, the kids who did it this year weren’t even born. And I’m sure some of the kids I graduated with have already graduated their own kids. I know it won’t be long before mine will.

I ended up giving the salutatory speech that year. I was valedictorian (not bragging, the class had only 13 kids in it, and I am not the most diligent person out there, as evidenced by my blog posting frequency), but I had only been at the school for three years, while the salutatorian had been there for ten. So while he got to wax poetic on our (or at least their) shared memories, I had to look forward, which is a trickier proposition. (A wise muppet once said, “Difficult to tell. Always in motion is the future.”) So I talked about how life is a journey that we all have to take. And like any good Presbyterian, I broke it down into three sections, all beginning with the same letter.

My indigestion-fueled brain

This is what my brain does when the indigestion is keeping it awake at three in the morning. (Sung to the tune of the old Spiderman cartoon.)

Sighed effects

I can feel my teeth.

Old man’s war

I remember the first time my father looked old.

I mean, he’s always looked older to me, mainly because he is older than me. But from when I was a kid, he’s always looked pretty much the same to me. There might be grayer hairs, or a few more wrinkles, but he was still always the same old dad.

And then we went to visit him and Mom after he had had his heart attack, and he wasn’t the same old dad. He was tired. He shuffled his feet as he walked. He was still quick with a snappy comeback, but there wasn’t as much snap in his voice. He was old.

Pray for me?

A few months ago, a cell divided. It happens constantly, a biochemical dance of enzymes unzipping and copying and stitching chromosomes, dividing the cellular contents up in a million miniature divorces a minute, you making you out of you, right under (and in) your nose.

Except this time there was a mistake.

Enjoy the dance

The doctor broke Nancy’s water at about a quarter to noon after she’d been on oxytocin for a few hours, just like he had with Sean. I knew that things would start to progress and went outside to get a cell signal and let family know that we’d have a new baby in a few hours. Except it wasn’t a few hours. By the time I came back in, Nancy was almost ready to start pushing. They barely got the epidural done, and a few contractions later, Scott came slithering out, slimy and upset and perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

Clash of the geeks

Cover of the most awesome chapbook ever written about unicorn pegasus kittens

Back at the end of May, the picture at the right was unveiled to the world by John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton at Phoenix Comicon. And while the picture itself is incredibly awesome, it was made even more awesome by the revelation that there would be a fanfic contest to come up with the best story describing the events in the picture. And then, just to prove that whatever we might be able to come up with for possible awesome things would pale in comparison to this new awesomeness, John and Wil revealed that the culmination of the contest would be an e-book of stories, the proceeds of which would go to benefit lupus research. Not just the profits. The proceeds. All the money.

That culmination is finally here. So if you want to help find a cure for lupus while getting a collection of awesome and funny and silly (and occasionally a little blue) stories about two of the nicest guys on the Intertubes and their epic battle, head on over to unicornpegasuskitten.com and download and donate. (If the occasional cussword puts you off, you don’t have to download the book to donate.)

Below the fold, my attempt to be immortalized in fanfic history. (So you know all the stories in this e-book must be better than this.)

I’ve grown accustomed to your hair

Since I can’t seem to manage to update this blog with anything new, here’s a post from one of the old blogs from a few years ago…

My father, like many men, began losing his hair in his 40s, and, like many men, covered his expanding bald spot with a toupée for many years. His father lost his hair at a much earlier age, and chose to remain coverless. Each year, large groups of men have to deal with the loss of what many consider to be an essential part of their appearance.

They deal with it in a variety of ways. Some choose the combover. Others shave off what remains of their hair, to make the loss seem intentional. Still others, like my father, invest in a professionally crafted hairpiece, custom fitted and colored to blend naturally with their remaining hair. Indeed, many people never realized my father was balding at all.

I mention this because I had to take my car to the mechanic so they could tighten the belt they had replaced the other day, which was slipping. While in the waiting area, I noticed another patron who was waiting for his car as well. He appeared to be in his early 50s, and was wearing a wig.

Note that I did not call it a toupée, or a hairpiece, because these terms imply that the article is crafted to resemble the wearer’s actual hair. This was more of a helmet, a fur hat crafted from a pelt of the finest plastic $2.50 can buy. I’m sure the color was a reasonable facsimile of a color the gentleman’s hair was at one time, but it clearly bore no resemblance to the tufts sticking out around the edges. The real shocker came when he got up to move around, and I noticed that there was, where the crown should be, a bald spot.

A bald spot. On a wig.

Now, I can understand that this may be all he can afford, but please. Can he honestly think that this is somehow improving his appearance? Is he longing to recapture the days when he was merely balding? All I could think was, if I ever get to the stage where my scalp is exposed to the wind, and I attempt to cover it with a mangy polyester piece of roadkill, I can only hope someone puts me out of my misery.