As You Stumble Thru The Debris

[The title is in keeping with a text message someone sent me during a break in the rain, on Friday, I think. Here comes the rain again, indeed! This kind of weather makes me feel like I'm in a Eurythmics video just walking to the grocery store.]

[As I write, I look out my window and see sunshine mocking the downed leaves still clogging the sewer grates, the downed tree limbs piled up hither and even thither across the Panhandle (even unto blocking one of the pedestrian entrances to the park from Oak Street), the downed street tree that totaled an 80s-vintage red Honda parked outside Maison le Trou. The Powers That Be came down and trimmed the branches from that tree, but the trunk is still reclining against the drivers side and smashed-in roof; I wonder if the owner even knows what's happened yet.]

[I did hunker down during these storms, as my texter asked. Hunkering included remembering to bring a dry pair of shoes to work on Friday, but not a dry pair of socks; seeking shelter and solace Friday night in a nearby friend's warm arms (and heated apartment) across said Panhandle; finally buying that space heater in anticipation of a visitor next weekend; and spending lots of quality time betwixt flannel sheets and comforter yesterday , rereading Winston Churchill and reading, of all things, comic books.]

[As it so often does, the fault lies with Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As you must know by now, the series's creator and guiding force, Joss Whedon, has continued the story with what is being called the eighth season, but in comic book form. Well, I was and continue to be not completely adult on the subject of Buffy, so for the first time since the first Reagan administration, I've been showing up at my local comics store every month and buying each new issue as it has come out. I've been enjoying them to varying degrees that have to do with Buffyverse details about which a few of my readers will already know, and which the rest couldn't care less.]

[The point is you can't use your debit card at the comics store with purchases of under ten dollars, and I never carry cash. I remember a couple of years ago when Joss Whedon starting writing his X-Men title, I thought, ooh how cool, two great tastes that go great together. As I’ve no doubt explained, the one time when I felt I was riding a cultural wave was when I was ten and eleven years old and reading the Dark Phoenix saga as it came out, month by torturous month. I read the first couple of issues of Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men while standing in bookstores, but never bought it.]

[As is the habit these days, the first run of Astonishing was put between hard covers almost before it ended, and one day I bought it. And devoured it. And loved it. I haven’t continued with reading Astonishing, but you know I was all over the web, getting caught up on my old favorites, and I came upon something published in the last couple of years called Marvel Zombies. The premise: a virus comes from outer space to an Earth in a dimension almost exactly similar to the Marvel Universe we've come to know. It infects super-heroes with a disease that turns them into flesh-eating zombies! They proceed to eat humanity, and then venture into space and start picking off worlds one-by-one.]

[The fun part that I didn’t know about until I bought the hardcover yesterday is that, unless totally consumed by hunger, our heroes retain their personalities. Spider-Man, for example, feels terrible guilt for having eaten Aunt May and Mary Jane, and all the heroes turn their intelligence, leadership, powers and stamina to their new calling: finding more food. One thing I never liked about stuff like 28 Days Later is that the zombies aren’t really human after they become zombies; I’m enough of a girl that I want to know what all the characters are feeeeeling. Gross, I know, but my mother raised me on The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, and Days of Our Lives. I need my soap opera angle or I have trouble getting on board.]

[Anyway, like a zombie myself, I devoured Marvel Zombies last night after the most current Buffy, wrapped up in my comforter, my nifty new space heater radiating away, and felt that warm feeling deep inside that the zombified, decapitated Wasp must’ve felt as she nibbled on one of Magneto’s minions. Good times.]

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