Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 556

Skating on linoleum: A future Olympic sport

We are not sure where she learned about ice skating, but she clearly understands a few of the more artistic aspects of the sport, at least when it comes to skating on linoleum. 

Rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse (based upon ACTUAL EXPERIENCE)

I dreamt about a zombie apocalypse last night, not unlike the one that takes place in AMC's hit show, The Walking Dead.

It was quite realistic. 

I survived the apocalypse, at least until I awoke, and I learned a few important lessons along the way that you may find useful in the event that zombies ever take over the real world.

Here they are, in no specific order:

1. Zombies cannot climb.  They can utilize staircases and even ladders but are incapable of lifting their bodies off the ground by means of their own power. In my dream, this meant removing the staircases from homes.  Residents were required to pull themselves up to the second floor by brute physical strength, which was impossible for many, but for the able-bodied, it was an excellent way to remain in the home in relative safety from the zombie hoard.

2. In an emergency, babies can and should be tossed in order to secure their safety. Better to throw a baby underhand rather than like a football.  Underhanded accuracy is decidedly better and results in fewer tragic tosses.

3. There are always a few idiots who do not take the dangers of the zombie apocalypse seriously, assuming they can outrun the hoard or play a quick game of zombie baseball before attempting an escape.  Don't waste you time arguing with these people.  They are as good as dead.

4. If your father-in-law refuses to demonstrate a sense of urgency when fleeing from zombies, do not wait for him.  His dawdling will get you all killed.

5. There is surprising room for debate in terms of the merits of becoming zombified.  Is it better to die or allow yourself to become a zombie if you have no other means of escape?  You might think that death is preferable, but zombies seem to be quite content while chewing on a femur or chasing down an over-confident, slow-footed hipster. Who are we to judge their existence?   

6. Do not worry about food in a zombie apocalypse. The population of the planet will be decimated and zombies do not eat human food.  There will be plenty of canned goods around to last years if necessary.

7. Zombies cannot swim, but this does not mean you should jump into a pool in order to escape a zombie hoard. Zombies are also exceedingly patient and will last longer than you can tread water.

8. People who carry suitcases get eaten first.  You must be willing to abandon all worldly possessions in order to survive a zombie apocalypse.     

In regards to the debate over the merits of zombification, it should be noted that in my dream, this debate took place between myself, my wife and several other people. 

Last night I attempted to have the same debate with my wife and it went exactly as it did in my dream.  Almost word for word. 

She hemmed and hawed for about two seconds before declaring she'd rather be dead and dismissing all further discussion.

Gratitude journal: Unexpected reader response

Tonight I am grateful to the readers who take the time to write to me after reading my books.   I received three emails today from readers who recently finished one or both of my books, which is a lot of responses for a single day but not uncommon at all.  I probably hear from about half a dozen readers a week via email and Twitter, but today was an unexpected bounty of generosity and kindness. 

Before publishing my first book, I could have never imagined how often a reader will sit down and write an email to an author after reading his or her book. It was shocking.  It both humbles me as an author and shames me as a reader, for I had never even thought of doing this until I began receiving reader responses myself.

Best of all, these emails always seem to arrive at just the right time:

The manuscript I am working on has hit a snag. 

The revision process for a book is grinding on forever. 

My plans for spending the entire day writing have been quashed by the unexpected events of life.

Fear of failure has begun to creep into my soul. 

These are the moments that I often need a pick-me-up, and yesterday was one of those days. 

These three emails came at just the right moment.

I am so grateful to these readers for their outpouring of support.

Rage against the dying of the light, damn it.

Yeats once asked, "Why should not old men be mad?"

In his final broadcast for A Point of View Clive James offers his answer.  With his granddaughter and her friends bouncing on the furniture, James looks back on his own childhood to a time when the modern world was at its worst and countless millions "died pointlessly for the fulfillment of idle political dreams".  Thinking himself lucky to be able to grow old at all, let alone to do so in peace, James reflects:

There should be pride in it, that you behaved no worse. There should be gratitude, that you were allowed to get this far. And above all there should be no bitterness. The opposite, in fact. The future is no less sweet because you won't be there. The children will be there, taking their turn on earth. In consideration of them, we should refrain from pessimism, no matter how well founded that grim feeling might seem.

This passage is reproduced in James' book A POINT OF VIEW.

I think it is nonsense.  Stupidity.  I believe this sentiment represents surrender.         

I think Yeats is absolutely correct.  Why should old men not be mad?

Death sucks.  Old age is only slightly better.   

James calls for gratitude in old age and claims that the future will be no less sweet if I am not there.  But James is wrong.  The future will be decidedly less sweet without me. 

It will be less sweet for me. 

And while I would love to feel joy for the subsequent generations and their bright and promising futures, I can't be joyous for anyone if I am dead.  There is no future for me once I am dead. 

So how can the damn thing be sweet?

Yes, I realize that this is all based upon my narrow, relatively miniscule perspective, and that the world will move on just fine once I am gone, but my perspective counts for a lot.  It's the basis for my feelings and my beliefs. If I don't exist, I don't have any perspective at all, miniscule or otherwise.

Nonexistence is the worst. 

I have said it before:  I don't trust anyone who isn't afraid of death. 

Give me Yeats or Dylan Thomas any day.  These accepting-of-death types annoy the hell out of me.  Life is tragically short.  How someone like James can find pride and gratitude in his shuffle off this mortal coil is beyond me.

Birthday girl!

Have you ever seen a girl love an umbrella so much?

  

Or a cupcake?

   

Gratitude journal: Recycled furniture

Someday my wife and I will spend the money to furnish our home with new furniture. This will probably happen when the children are a little older and less likely to ruin it. 

Maybe in our next home.

Until that time, I am grateful for the friends who have so generously passed on their furniture to us as they upgrade their own.  There are a few items that we actually purchased in the house, but much of our furniture is comprised of hand-me-downs, including the items brought over by our friends today.

Name game

Clara celebrated her third birthday on Wednesday with a chocolate cupcake and a handful of presents.

In my continued series of posts from Greetings Little One leading up to her birthday, another tidbit from the the birth of my daughter, originally

Icky

Clara celebrated her third birthday on Wednesday with a chocolate cupcake and a handful of presents. 

In my continued series of posts from Greetings Little One leading up to her birthday, another tidbit from the the birth of my daughter, originally written on January 28, 2009.

Today will be the last day for these reminiscent posts.

______________________________________________

Our experience at Hartford Hospital has been nearly perfect. The nurses have been extraordinary and the care that you and Mommy have received has been top notch. In fact, in the five days that we have been here, I have only one complaint.

During Mommy's caesarian section, I found myself sitting on a stool behind the surgical screen, adjacent to your mother's head. In this position, I was able to look at Mommy and comfort her while being spared the gore of major surgery.

That is, until I noticed the suction hose running to the right of her head. As I was stroking Mommy's forehead and whispering assuring words into her ear, I saw the clear tube fill with a red liquid, and occasionally, small bits of fleshy matter.

Little bits of Mommy being sucked away.

"Don't look right," I warned your mother, and she didn't. Unfortunately, the tube was in my direct line of sight and I couldn't help but catch a glimpse of it from time to time.

In fact, one of the doctors who took our photograph managed to capture an image of the tube in the background. See for yourself:

In the future, perhaps the surgical team could find a different path for the suctioned particulates of a mother's uterus.

Gratitude journal: Patience

Tonight I am grateful to the patience that I have garnered over thirteen years of teaching and a lifetime of struggle. 

It was this storehouse of patience that allowed me to give our daughter the time she needed to calm down from a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums.  This was a knock-down, drag-out, floor-pounding event of epic proportions, centered upon Clara's desire to wear her baby piggy shirt to bed even though it was covered in maple syrup.

It took her quite a while to finally calm herself, and a younger, less experienced version of myself would have tried to soothe her myself or pick her up and demand she finish getting ready for bed. 

Instead, I allowed her to sit on the floor until she was ready to move past the tantrum on her own.  As a result, our evening ended on a high note, with the reading of a book and a discussion about Clara's pie-in-the-sky plans for her coming sibling. 

Patience. 

A precious commodity that I thankfully possess in great quantities.  That is what I am most grateful for this evening.  

Its true. I have no neck.

My teeth were being X-rayed at the dentist's office yesterday by the panorama device that rotates 360 degrees around your head.

As the dental hygienist was preparing me for the x-ray, she asked that I stand up straighter. 

"I am," I told her. 

Then she asked if I could crane my neck higher. "There's not a lot of room between your head and your shoulders, so I'm not sure if the machine will be able to rotate around your body unless you stretch your neck higher."

"Are you saying I have no neck?" I asked. 

There was a distinct pause before her actual answer, a pause which said, "Actually, yes.  Now that you mention it, you barely have a neck at all.  It's as if your head is just sitting atop your shoulders.  Damn.  How the hell do you even look behind you without turning your entire body?"

Then she attempted to mitigate the pause.  "Don't be silly.  You just have… very muscular shoulders.  That's all."

"It's okay," I said.  "I've seen my shadow on a sunny day.  Add two bolts sticking out of my neck and I could be Frankenstein.  I have no neck."

Just last week, my friend asked me to look into the back of the car to confirm that he had remembered the propane for the tailgate.  Then he began laughing when he realized that in order to look behind me, I had to disable my seatbelt rotate at the hips rather than at the neck.

When I buy shirts, I have to find the exceedingly combination of an average sleeve length combined with a 19 inch neckline.  A salesman once told me that the problem with my neckline is that it's really just the median between my head (which is also large) and my shoulders.  "You're sort of missing the actual neck," he said.     

I appreciated his honesty.

The hygienist manipulated the machine until she was satisfied with it's position and them stepped behind the wall to activate it.

On her first attempt, the machine came to a stop after jamming against my shoulders.

Eventually we managed to get a suitable X-ray, but only after I did my best imitation of a giraffe.