3 a.m Chronicles

I've always enjoyed the quiet that the after midnight hours afford me.  That is when I feel my most creative.  I often paint, or write, or ponder at that time, easily slipping into a pattern of silence charged with frenetic energy.  That aside, it's when I feel the least vulnerable.  I suppose this pattern started for me when I was little, because I had an unhealthy obsession with zombies.

It wasn't an absolute love.  It was a love filled with abject terror.  It was a fascination that always led to me hiding under the stairs of my basement, clutching onto my Teddy Ruxpin doll (which I would subsequently chuck out of my hiding spot, because that thing was fucking terrifying too) and hoping that my supply of ecto cooler wouldn't run out before impending doom.  However I could not stop watching zombie movies, or thinking about zombie attacks, or in more bored times, pretending I was a zombie.  I spent many hours perfecting the Thriller dance (because my love of dance would obviously allow me to join a street gaggle of zombies who inevitably broke out into rehearsed numbers) and watching every Romero vhs I could get my hand on (procured from my brother's friend who rode a purple scooter and convinced me that he was Prince).  As I got older, the zombie fascination continued, only it took a morbid turn.

I had an apartment off-campus during college, and it was directly across the street from what seemed to be an abandoned cemetery (this would also indicate the first in a long line of homes I've lived in that is situated within a block of a cemetery).  We were far too hip to invest in curtains, so I spent every single night sitting in the front room, paralyzed with fear as I could barely make out the figures of a dragged zombie two step heading towards me.  I would come home at night (usually smelling of menthol cigarettes and bad decisions), collapse on the couch, and then inwardly panic that I would awake to see a decomposing face staring back at me.  When an upstairs apartment was finally vacated, I breathed a sigh of relief as I was able to move to an upper floor and surely zombies couldn't scale walls.

Well yeah.  Tell that to Hollywood who then began to churn out zombie movies in which the zombies were not only in shape, but outwardly aggressive and would rip your fucking face off given the chance.  Wonderful!  This brought a whole new set of horrors to my life, as I spent my nights pondering what, exactly, I'd do in the event of an inevitable invasion.  This continued on in home after home, and would have ended until I moved into the condo I bought.

You see, we have an underground heated garage.  Which is wonderful in the Chicago winter as I never have to heat up my car, or scrape the ice off the windshield, or any other things that make the winter mundane and less magical.  However, this lair has it's downfalls.  For one, running the perimeter are storage units for each of the condos, which are fenced in.  Cool, right?  Except there is a large enough gap to crawl over, so you wouldn't be totally protected.  Second of all, between the parking spots are these odd recessed minicaves, that could totally hide an emaciated zombie dripping with blood and gnawing on a spleen.  Of course because I live on the top level and have a double unit, my parking spots are the furthest from the elevator, so when I exit my car (if I'm alone) I sprint to the elevator and try to act normal in case anyone sees me.  However if I'm with someone else, I go into immediate warrior mode and play the part of the bad ass chick should something pop out to attack me.

I'm not sure when a zombie attack will happen, but I know it will. And when it does?  I'll be ready.

a typical night in khan castle