A Toast to What’s Next

Two months ago already.

The season started for us two days after Halloween when I learned my good friend and brother of another mother Steven was in the hospital, his organs failing. It’s just as well I didn’t make it to the memorial service because we all fell sick with an intestinal flu that knocked us out for most of Thanksgiving week.

I was going to write at length about this. If you’re a fan of my zombie novels, Steven was the one who forced me to lay a solid narrative foundation in terms of the pseudo-science and humanizing Derek Grace in the very first chapter by having him talk to the cab driver. (Grace still came off as prickly, but at least you knew who you were dealing with, and what motivated him.) 

The tagline to the release of the remastered Bleeding Kansas and Grace Among the Dead (“rewrites” seems too quaint for that project) along with the release to the final chapter, The Wrong Kind of Dead is “Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison walk into a bar with their portable typewriters to bang out the Ultimate Zombie Post-Apocalypse Adventure.” It’s a great tagline that reflects the approach I’ve set from the beginning, but it doesn’t precisely describe Steven and me. Steven was a huge fan of Heinlein, but wasn’t all that rational all the time. As for me, and just for starters, I wouldn’t be ordering club sodas in that bar like the famously tee-totaling Ellison. It’s close enough for a decent thumbnail image, though, and all anyone outside our rarefied circle needs to know.

My Ellison shelf. Not all I own, but the essentials are here.

The Long November of 2017 seems like 20 years ago already. The lessons have been long since taken. Christmas was enriched by the reminder that any time is plenty old enough to die, and if others aren’t here, you still are, so it behooves you to make something of it. It was a great time with all the family under our roof. So the time will come when there’s an empty chair at the table. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I think of that line from Ecclesiastes, It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. There’s no arguing this except to say I’ve done my mourning. I’ve taken all I can stand to heart. Let’s get something to eat.

So what’s ahead? What am I toasting?

Silent evening, shortly before sundown on Christmas Eve in Monte Vista, Colorado. “All anguish, pain, and sadness/Leave your heart, and may your road be clear.”

I toast the month I hope to make my first podcasts. I’ve been talking about this for years. Now it’s time to begin singing for my supper, as I’m too old and weird to work a regular job. I’m also too close to finishing The Wrong Kind of Dead. As always, I can’t predict when I’ll finish it, but at this point I’m confident I can say, “Before summer.” Well before, if I stay on track. Steven will get his dedication page, and I will be done with a series I started writing in 2011, and should have finished two and a half years ago already.

I’ll be taking things a week at a time, and I pledge to be careful not to let the days get away from me. I wish myself, and by extension, you, Dear Reader, not so much a Happy New Year, but a positive and focused one. If I can just get these few things done, the happiness will follow.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has read and enjoyed this blog. Oh, and that person you’re close to, but haven’t spoken with in so long because, well, everyone’s busy? This is the time to check in. This week. Do it.

That kid on the lower right looks like he’s rockin’ the right attitude. Happy 2018.