C.K. Edwards's Blog, page 8

This was a fun book to write

I wanted to write a book where monsters could be real but where the Earth's population is, for the most part, unaware of this minor detail.

I know, other books do this, but you really have to suspend disbelief that all the normal humans live unaware of the body count around them or not once capture the shuffling walk of a few mummies on their iPhones.

I mean, dude, if Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman was real don't you think I would have tracked him down by now and asked for a paw print autograph?

Of course I would.

Well, here is Dream Ender , a couple days from the life of a guy named Vincent. He lives in a world, maybe ours, where anything can happen and usually does. We just don't know about it because we forget.

That dream about the motivational speaker

There was that dream about the motivational speaker and he kept telling everyone to smile until it hurts and there was a guy next to me that was doing such a good job that he was bawling like a baby and I told the guy that smiling until it hurts was just a figure of speech but he didn't believe me and after a while I noticed that everyone was crying except me and I didn't want to smile that hard but peer pressure can eat away at you and I was glad I had my portable paper mache kit with me so I made a smile that was bigger than my face but everybody started freaking out because they said that was cheating and by then the paper mache smile had hardened so I knocked everybody unconscious with my smile and as I stood over their still forms I proudly proclaimed "Now that's smiling until it . . ."

Yeah, I'm not going to finish that one.

Daily Ambivalence - movie theater popcorn isn't health food

You know those morning shows where they interview movie stars just before the movie star's movie comes out and sometimes the morning show even reports on news? Well, I just learned they can be helpful sometimes.

Like today when the tall, thin guy with short hair said that movie theater popcorn isn't health food.

Now, I'm not the kind of person who just hears something and then takes it as gospel. I'm going to do a little research to verify that guy's statement, but he seemed pretty confident when he said that movie theater popcorn isn't health food.

It's a little counterintuitive because the origin of movie theater popcorn is corn and corn is a vegetable or a grain depending on whether you get it out of a can or off a cob. And both of those are good for you. I think they're even part of the pyramid or rectangle. One of those.

Bottom line though, I'm glad I was late for work today and decided to switch on the tube. It's not every day that you learn something new.

Movie theater popcorn isn't health food . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - you get in trouble if you open the back door on a school bus

I've learned this lesson for myself.

When you pull the bar on the back door an alarm goes off and the bus driver stops the bus and comes back and yells at you.

Then he kicks you off because you're too old to be on a school bus and all the kids hang out their windows and laugh at you as the school bus drives away, especially that red-headed kid in the back.

Jerk. When he dared me to pull the bar I'll bet he knew this would happen.

You get in trouble if you open the back door on a school bus . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - you go down a ways and then take a left

Sometimes I have a hard time making a decision.

I mean, don't get me wrong, once I make a decision it is final. Unless I change my mind. But usually a decision pretty much sets my course. Barring new information crossing my desk or if the decision I made turns out to be hard or inconvenient. Or if I get distracted.

You know, maybe I actually have a hard time making decisions.

I've been driving for a while now because that old man said I should go down a ways and then take a left, but what is a ways? It's been hours now and I keep shying away from the lefts that flash by. One after another and I keep coming up with decisions that argue against going left.

I'm getting hungry so I might stop at the next McDonalds that I see.

I'll get a Big Mac. Or a Spicy Chicken.

Crap, I'm in trouble if they have McRibs on the menu.

You go down a ways and then take a left . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - my daughter saw a show where they crash a lot of cars

It was a Hollywood movie and apparently all the good guys and all the bad guys had really nice cars that they liked to crash and go fast in.

Which would make it hard to tell the difference between bad guys and good guys, I would think. I'd hate to be one of the good guys driving my car fast looking for a place to crash it and all of a sudden I kill what I think is a bad guy but later that day after I've totalled my car I find out he was a good guy the whole time.

Would that make me a bad guy?

I don't think I'm going to see that movie, even though my daughter said it was bad A.

My daughter saw a show where they crash a lot of cars . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - that girl is taking luggage to work

There's was that Joe vs the Volcano movie where having a great set of luggage kind of saved the day, but if I remember right Joe was going to an island out in the middle of nowhere to throw himself in a volcano.

That girl over there is  just going to work, but her briefcase has wheels on it.

My gut reaction to this is mostly negative, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong. I mean, I'm assuming that girl has a job where she goes to boring meetings about subrogation, but maybe she has a job where they do fun things like have sleep overs. If that's the case, bringing a piece of luggage to work that has wheels on it makes perfect sense. She probably has jammies in there and a scary movie and maybe her favorite blanket.

I feel bad that I misjudged that girl. I'm going to go over there and introduce myself, maybe apologize.

That girl is taking luggage to work . . . eh.

That dream about my neighbor's sauna

There was that dream where my neighbor Wes Craven built the sauna in his backyard but he used balsa wood instead of cedar because it was on sale at Lowe's and I still didn't think it was weird that Wes Craven was my neighbor and I can't really think of a movie where teenagers got stabbed by meat thermometers while they basted in a sauna but that could just be a shortcoming in my horror library or this post could be the germ of an idea for some up-and-coming horror director and if that is the case my one suggestion would be that a cop at the crime scene make some kind of quip like "this kid was well done."

Daily Ambivalence - I think I'm cool because I use chopsticks

People look cool using chopsticks. Kind of like some people look cool when they smoke cigarettes.

Only when you use chopsticks you use two sticks and you use them to shove food in your face instead of cancer. And you don't light chopsticks on fire. That's another difference. When you get chopsticks at a restaurant they're usually rolled in paper, so that's a similarity. I suppose if you were a smoker and you had two cigarettes you could use them as chopsticks too.

Wow, I never thought of that but that would be unbelievably cool. I mean, picture Humphrey Bogart in a fancy restaurant with Ingrid Bergman and one minute he's smoking his fag and the next he's eating dim sung. That blows my mind how cool that would be.

Maybe I'll take up smoking. Sure it'll shorten my life and make my teeth yellow, not to mention my religious prohibition, but freakin' cigarette chopsticks!? Cigarette chopsticks!!??

I think I'm cool because I use chopsticks . . . eh

Daily Ambivalence - some piano keys are stupid

There are eighty-eight keys on a regular piano and I wonder sometimes why there are so many because no song in the history of the world has ever used the top key or the bottom key. Mozzart tried to do it once but it's almost impossible to figure out how many lines you have to draw through the note to signify the correct staff position for the bottom or top note. Mozart missed the high note by two keys and he was so upset he gave up music altogether.

Not too many people know that story.

It reminds me of that other story about Beethoven and the biker gang.

Some piano keys are stupid . . . eh.