Late Nights and Real Issues

     At around two o'clock in the morning, any group of men will take the time to ask the important questions in life. The things that every man thinks about, but cannot speak on in the presence of women-folk. The answers to these questions mark a man for what he is, and what he will become. It is not a time for masks of shame, or hiding who you truly are. It is a time of honesty, and saying what is really in your heart. At around two o'clock in the morning in my room with the quartet, these hard questions are asked and answered with the thoughtfulness and poise that they deserve.

     “Machete, bitches!” Spencer answered without needing to think about it. “They're bound to get close sooner or later. You want something that won't need any ammunition, that's light and maneuverable, and won't get caught in bone or something. Just plain-old slash and go.”

     “Makes sense,” Ben agreed, “Although I always thought a shotgun would probably be useful in a zombie situation.”

     “Bad idea,” I replied, “With a shotgun, you're going to be reloading way too often, and in the time it takes to actually do that, they'll be all-up-on you. Plus, ammunition in general is always assumed to be in limited supply, so you'll actually have to scrounge around for it. I'm with Spencer on this one. Machete is the way to go.”

     “Cory, what's your first choice for a Zombie Apocalypse weapon?” Spencer asked. Cory just looked up from the finger nails he was biting.

     “My fists.”

     We all looked at him, with a million reasons going through our heads as to why that was a bad idea, but then we realized that, as scrawny as Cory is, he would probably be the one to actually thrive in a zombie environment unarmed. So we all nodded in agreement.

     “Here's a question,” I began, “What would your strategy be if you were the zombie?”

     “What?” Spencer asked, as if this was blasphemy to everything he believed in.

     “It's a valid question,” I reassured, “Let's be realistic. You three would probably survive alright. Spencer would always have a strategy, Ben would have his apathy to carry him through moral situations, and Cory would probably make it so the zombies avoid him entirely. Me? I would be zombified in five seconds flat. Hell, I would more-likely-than-not be the cause of the damn outbreak. So, I need to think in another point of view, that more fits the likelihood of the potential events.”

     “So, you're saying that when you think of the Zombie Apocalypse, you plan to actually become a zombie?” Ben asked, perplexed by the very notion.

     “Is that so hard to wrap your mind around? Think about it. Any team that I group up with to fight zombies, I would only slow down, either from my lack of athleticism or my lack of survival skills in general. What am I going to do? Write anti-zombie propaganda? Write books that offend their ideals? I don't know how to run a printing press!”

     “I feel like the printing press isn't the main factor as to why those are bad ideas...” Cory pointed out.

     “No,” I continued, “My place is with the hordes of the hungry undead, where all I have to do is walk around aimlessly, and if the opportunity arises, chase after some uninfected for a while. It's basically what I do now, only with walking!”

     “So... you wouldn't even try to fight for your life?” Spencer asked, finally starting to get it.

     “Are you kidding me? The entire point of the zombie scenario is to see what man is capable of to prolong humanity itself. That could include killing recently infected loved ones, or searching endlessly for a cure.” I took this time to start looking heroic, although even now I'm not sure what that really entails. “My way is sacrifice. I have come to admit that I am probably less of a threat to the continuation of the species if I'm the abomination that's trying to destroy it. So, my plan to fight the zombies, is to become one of them, therefore weakening the threat from the inside.”

     Cory, Ben and Spencer all took a couple seconds to think about it. Spencer was the first to say what everyone else was thinking. “What if you actually end up killing someone? How would that help humanity?”

     I raised an eyebrow as if to say “Seriously?” and explained. “Anyone who is actually overtaken by me as a zombie probably deserves nothing less. Another way I can improve your odds is by weeding out the weak, and therefore making the zombie forces that much weaker in the process, as the people I take over become zombies as well.”

     “But you won't have any control over your decisions!” Cory exclaimed. “You only have instinct! How do you stick to your plan? You'll have no memory of there being a plan to begin with!”

     “I imagine I won't,” I explained, “But you said it yourself. I'm only going to have instinct. And my instinct has always been to avoid challenge. So as Zombie-Josiah, I won't start running up to the guy with a mini gun fashioned into the bed of his pickup truck, I'll be going after people like me! Based on my instincts alone!”

     “I think you've thought way too much into this.” Ben finally said.

     “Probably. But my plan might just be the plan that saves the human race. A world after a zombie outbreak is no world for me. I decide to leave my legacy behind, to weaken the zombies from the inside out, and to make it that much easier for the likes of you to live on and continue as a proud species that can overcome anything.”

     For a few moments there was nothing but silence. Then, Spencer stood up, lifted me off my chair, and embraced me as a man would embrace a hero. When he finally loosened his grip, he put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Thank you, Josiah. Thank you for your sacrifice.” He took a moment to wipe away a tear. “But you realize that if you come near me as a zombie, I will do everything in my power to blow your freaking head off, right?”

     “Oh, undoubtedly.”   

Mornings and Monsters

     Headache. A sharp pain to the back of my eyes was the first thing I felt when I opened them for the first time since 5:00 in the morning when I closed them for the next four hours. Coffee was a thought not so far behind, so I started to swing my legs off my bed to make a fresh pot. I caught myself from stepping on Cory, who was sleeping on the floor next to my bed in a way that can only be comfortable for a contortionist. Or Cory. I looked around my room to find Ben lying on the floor near the closet, on a makeshift mattress made from extra pillows. Spencer was already up, with a look of death on his face.

     “'Morning, Sunshine,” I mumbled, already sarcastic with less than thirty seconds into the new day. I've done better.

     “Mm,” Spencer replied with his eyes fixed on his laptop. He probably didn't even go to bed, and he's the one who has to work in a couple of hours. I saw this as more justification for caffeine.

     “Want some coffee?”

     “Mm.” Such a chatterbox. He was putting the finishing touches on a castle that we spent three hours building last night in Minecraft. But knowing us, the finishing touches involved covering the project with TNT. I made sure to step over Cory, made my way upstairs to the kitchen, and started getting the coffee ready. My mom was sitting in her recliner in the living room reading some book.

     “How was the slumber party?” I glared at her. She knows I hate it when she calls it that. “You guys sleep at all?”

     “A couple hours. Try not to talk so loud.” My head was in serious need of coffee. A pin dropping would probably make me wince. It would probably take about five to ten minutes to brew, so I went downstairs. The sound of Mom's gut laughter trailed down the stairway. Must have been something funny in the book. It's a good thing I walked away, as Mom's laughter is known to shake foundations of houses. My head would have exploded.

     Cory was still asleep on the floor. Wonderful. Ben and Spencer looked at me with a look of worry. Rule #3 of Cory: You don't wake him up. Ever. And everyone has a first time. That moment when you don't think about it. You don't think there's anything to think about. You just reach out, and give him a little nudge.

     The next minute will be a terrifying tornado of screaming, flailing, scratching and more screaming. You don't know what was going on in his dreams. You don't want to know. This is a man who was institutionalized. Twice. As a child. So, giving the man some time to wake up on his own is a good idea.

     My room was a mess of half-empty Mountain Dew cans and bags of terrible store brand chips. It smelled of toxic gasses that only four men in a small room can replicate, and there was a spirit of exhaustion looming in the very air we breathed, along with a dense fog of humidity that made it hard to breathe. The night before was packed-full of movie watching, random video game playing, and charging into a chasm in Minecraft while Queen's “Don't Stop Me Now” blasted in the background. In short: We were warriors. Ben looked up at me from his pillow mattress. “Is there coffee?” Okay, maybe not warriors.

     “Good morning to you too, Ben. And yeah, I'm making a new pot. How'd you sleep?”

     “Wonderfully. These thin cotton sacks feel like clouds. Especially on hardwood floors.” Apparently we all wake up with sarcasm in mind. “Is there coffee?”

     “You already asked that. Yes, I'm making it now.”

     “That's not coffee. That's potential coffee. I need now coffee.”

     “Whatever. Spencer, you still want coffee too, right?”

     “Mm.” Spencer answered, ever-so eloquently.

     “Cool. And Cor-” I stopped myself before I woke up the sleeping homicidal giant. I don't need another thrashing. Especially with this headache. I'll make him a cup and he can have it if he wants it. It's good to play it safe in these situations.

     I went upstairs again to check on the status of the coffee. Still brewing. And this headache isn't getting any better. I stayed upstairs to look for ibuprofen in the mess of cabinets we had in our new house. Much better than the old house. I believe I've mentioned the old house. Roof collapsed? In my room? Yeah, that one. This one is much nicer. It even came with a roof.

     The next sound I heard was a mix of fear and ferocity. Crap. Somebody must have nudged him. I ran downstairs even though my head was beating itself into submission, and found Cory wildly spinning fists around the room and screaming his head off.

     “Somebody do something!” I yelled over the sounds of nightmarish terror. Ben was huddled in the closet, safe from Cory's reach, and Spencer was standing on my bed in the far corner of the room, keeping his distance. Seeing that I wasn't going to get any help from them, I did what the rest of them couldn't do.

     I went upstairs.

     After hearing the cries and yells die down, I slowly made my way back to my room to see chips and soda cans scattered all across the floor. Ben and Spencer were still in there respective corners of the room, Spencer was actually whimpering a little, and Cory was standing in the middle, heaving in and out like Bruce Banner after de-hulkifying, complete with ripped shirt. He looked at me with wild crazy eyes, twitched his head like some horror movie villain, and sniffed. I braced myself for the worst. This is it. This is the day he finally kills one of us. Dammit, we all thought it was going to be Spencer!

     “Ooh! Do I smell coffee?” Cory asked, unexpectedly. He pushed me aside and ran upstairs to make himself a cup. The rest of us had a simultaneous sigh of relief.
     "Well, that was close. I thought he was going to kill you." Ben said, feigning worry. He was just glad Cory didn't go after him.
     "Yeah, I always thought he would go after ME, if anyone." Spencer added. We all nodded in agreement. After that, we all went upstairs, made ourselves some coffee, and let Cory have his space. After all, he could be sleepwalking. Although, that only happened once. 

Mother and Father

     I had said before that I hate blogs where it's nothing but how unsatisfactory the writer's parents are, and the hardships endured while being raised in an upper middle class suburban home. I also said, in my last post, that I was going to be writing about my parents. Some of you may be wondering if I'm going to take the hypocritical dive into complaining about them, and to those people, you don't have to worry. Because in all honesty, I don't have much to complain about.

     That might be surprising to a lot of you. A teenager who doesn't have anything but disdain for his parents? What kind of blog is this? But it's true. I have two of the most supportive and loving parents I could have been given. And while I'm praising them in a way that makes me feel like I should be asking for money any minute now, I am truly grateful for all that they've done for me, one of the major ones being existence.

     When asked about my parents, one of the first words that pop into my head is, oddly enough, “anomaly”. My father was born in Massachusetts, much to his chagrin, and was raised in Northern New Hampshire. My mother, on the other hand, was born and raised in the Southern part of Southern California. If we stay in the Continental US, they really can't get too much farther apart. However, this distance between each other was soon solved by something called the Navy, in which my father was apart of.

     So, there he was, in California, going through a bit of a rough time in his life. The kind of rough time that makes you go on a drinking binge. A friend of my father finally had enough and took him to church on one fate-filled Sunday morning. The morning he met my mom. There she was, a blonde bombshell (yes, it is awkward writing that about your own mother, thanks for asking), in her Sunday Best, who also happened to be a friend of my dad's friend. So, like any good friend, we'll call him Gary, Gary asked if his friend (my father) and himself could come by for dinner. As a good responsible person, my mother had to ask her own mother. The conversation basically went like this:

     “Hey Mom?” My mother asked, finally getting her mom's attention. “Gary has this gross looking guy who smells terrible with him, and wants the both of them to come over for dinner. You don't want that, do you?”

     “Oh, heavens, no!”

     “Thank you.” My mom went back to Gary to tell him the news. “Unfortunately, my Mom says we already have plans today. Bummer.”

     However, over the next few days, my smitten dad cleaned up, sobered up, and tried again. And after what Mom says took several attempts, she finally agreed to go out with him, as futile as it seemed.

     They were married within the year.

     But yes, anomaly is still what I would use to describe them. Let's look at the data.

        Father: Grew up in North North East East.

        Mother: South South West West.

        Father: First met my Mother coming out of a binge, without bathing for days, on a motorcycle.

        Mother: Attended a church that was basically the setting to Footloose.

        Father: Twenty-three years old when meeting my mother.

        Mother: Eighteen when meeting my father.

        Father: Somewhat down to Earth man, who thinks in a somewhat down to Earth fashion.

        Mother: Bat-shit crazy. In a good way, though.

     And the list indeed goes on. However, there is one thing they have in common. My parents' love for music is second only to their love for their children. And you can see it in said children. We are an extremely musical family, and even though only one of us went on to pursue it occupationally, it's still a major part of our lives, as proven by the term this blog is named for.

     They went ahead and had five kids, and raised each one rather successfully. And what I think impresses me the most about how my parents raised us, is that they wanted us all to find what makes each one of us happy, to find our own niche. They didn't raise us to be a clone of the one before, because they understood that we would be different people. And good lord, are we. We each found something radically different from anything someone else found, and somehow, Mom and Dad supported every son and daughter's passion. I'm still not entirely sure how. Rachel is a professional photographer, and Sam is a musician. Those are expensive. Twice.

     I often catch my parents saying something along the lines of “I have no clue where our kids got their brains and talents from, 'cause it sure ain’t from me!”, to which I call bullshit on, in all certainty. My dad is the only person I know who reads the encyclopedia for recreation, and my mom is to this day the most creative person and talented singer I've ever met. So, it's not that far of a stretch to think my fellow siblings and I get a lot of what makes us who we are from our parents: Creative, intelligent, and passionate people, who can think for themselves, and are capable of achieving what they want from life.

     So Mom, if there's anything that I want you to get out of this, it's that you, as a mother, succeeded with flying colors, and that you have not only raised intelligent and creative children, but children who love you immensely, and are grateful for everything you've done. Happy Mother's Day Post.

     Oh, and Dad? Father's Day is coming up. Just a warning.

Siblings and Summarizing

      I think I made Sam out to be a racist last week with the fried chicken comment. That's not good... or correct. I guess that's what happens when I write when I'm sick. Actually, that's a good idea. As a code for my readers that I'm writing the post while fighting some form of illness, which actually happens pretty often, I will randomly drop somewhere in the text a hint that Sam is a white supremacist. It'll be an inside joke! We don't have one of those, readers. It's about time we get one.

     I am however feeling dandy this week, and I'm excited to write with a zeal that only a healthy body and mind can produce. Also, a good three cups of coffee this morning helps to the point of near hindrance, and I can only assume that this post is top notch stuff, as my eyes haven't stopped jittering long enough for me to read what I've written. Ah well. Editing is an unnecessary step, and can honestly be skiped altogether.

     I brought my brother to the list of people I talk about last week, and I realize now that my family is a rather large majority of my memories, as they tended to be around a lot while creating them. So, if I didn't talk about them once in a while, it would be a major disservice to my readers, to whom I'm allowing a glimpse into my life, where my family is both half of that and half of my readers. And I'd also be doing a disservice to myself, who is in a constant need of things to write about. By bringing up my family, I just postponed the end of this project by at least a couple years.

     I would like to bring up two things before I get too carried away. One: That all the paragraphs so far start with “I”, which would usually make me think that I'm failing at sentence variation, but I'm leaving it there as both a curiosity and a warning to future paragraphs that uniformity is not for them, and that they should branch out and start the way that they should: Differently. I think I just used two colons in the same sentence... I double-coloned. Is that a thing? It is now. Wait. No. Never mind. It's not. I should really lay off on the coffee...

     The second thing I'd like to bring up is that I apologize to the quartet fans who read this for Cory, Ben and Spencer, or Corbence, as I am now calling them while they are being acknowledged in a group. I would like to think that I'm in something of an introduction phase in my blog, and during that phase, I'm trying to bring up the people that I will be writing about while the project is young, rather than wait a couple months and say “Hey! I have a family!” and write about them for the next half-year. This approach allows for variation between stories, and makes it so that I'm not limited to the same characters week after week. Now that I'm done explaining myself to the likes of you, it's time to introduce the family.

     Over a span of time, I've given a pretty accurate title to each of my siblings, that I feel describes them in a short and easy-to-understand way. For example, we have the eldest, Jesse: the Perfect One. Every single time I've called Jesse “the Perfect One” he has denied it. And you know what? That's exactly what a perfect person would do. So if anything, he has proven my point. How is he perfect? Well, he's an intelligent and thoughtful track star with a great sense of humor, who is a terrific father, and a loving husband, who is handy with tools, handier with a computer, slow to anger, quiet (but not in a shy sort of way, more like a “I'm too cool to be loud” sort of way), and also has perfect hair. He calls it combing. I call it straight up witchcraft. Anyways, we have a smart, athletic, funny, and loving handy man, who is calm and collected, and has the wavy hair of Prince Charming. This is perfection personified. But he won't have it, so let's move on.

     Next we have Rachel: the Cool One. Sam actually helped a bit with that title, but it's true. Out of the five of us, Rachel is by far the coolest one. Say Sam and I discovered a band that's really underground (because yes, we're basically hipsters), Rachel will be like “Oh, I love that band! Although their second album was sub par.” Sam and I had yet to discover that the band even had a second album. But besides her being more hipster than Sam and I, she went to school for photography, out of state I might add, and she went to Australia for a while and survived. That's basically as cool as our family gets.

     Then we have Sarah: the Sarcastic One. I think the only actual rivalry in our immediate family was between Sarah and I, and a lot of that is because we were also the only ones who were actually somewhat alike. Now that might not make sense, even though it totally should. A sarcastic teenager is probably going to be annoyed by a sarcastic eight-year-old, who is doing his best to annoy the teenager. The annoyed teenager will complain to the tired parent, who then punishes the eight-year-old to shut up the annoy(ed)(ing) teenager. Then the eight-year-old punishes the teenager for getting him in trouble by annoying her. And the circle of life continues... But again, we outgrew that, and now Sarah is a loving wife and mother, and will soon have her turn at being the tired parent, with her unavoidably sarcastic children.

     After Sarah, there's Sam: the Favorite One. And not just by me. By everyone. If you spend five minutes with Sam, he will become your favorite person. Seriously, the whole family agrees. Sam is the favorite. And we're okay with that. My Best Man speech for Sam's wedding was basically me talking about how he was all our favorite person. And everyone there agreed too. Is he perfect? No, that's Jesse, remember? No, Sam is just a guy you immediately love to be around. Unless he's being Apple Sam. Never be around Apple Sam.

     Lastly, there's me: the New One. I have a far enough age difference from the rest of my siblings that Sam was really the only one I could hang out with regularly. Most were past college and starting a family of their own by the time I hit high school, so I never really had a chance to get to know them before I lost my “annoying younger brother” attitude. High School was really when I started hanging out with Sam the most, and I think during that time, he was almost getting me ready to meet my older siblings, but not as my older siblings, but as the people they really are.

     Jesse is no longer the mean older brother that didn't share his stash of candy with me. Rachel and Sarah are no longer the girls that didn't let me into their room. Sam is no longer the kid that sword fights with me in the back yard. They're people now. People with hopes, fears, and faults*. And even though I grew up with them, I'm just starting to get to know them. So yeah, I'm the New One. And I'm pretty excited about it.

     Oh, my parents? Please. They deserve their own post.

*Except for Jesse