In my early days on the internet, I entered this Hallmark contest where you had to write the worst love poem ever.  I was one of ten finalists.  Back then, I knew only a handful of people with email accounts, let alone ready access to the Internet.  I did not win this contest, though to this day I contend that my poem was, by far, the worst.  All I remember of it was that one verse read, “My love is like a sweet, sweet flan, only slightly runny . . .”

Yeah, TELL ME that’s isn’t awful.  But I didn’t win.  Because I didn’t have the resources to campaign for people to vote for me.

Now, however, times have changed.  I have Facebook.  I have a vast arsenal of people whose email addresses I have stored lo’ these last ten years.  I have worked at three colleges.  I have friends at other colleges.  I have this web site.  I have the Josh Groban people.  And I have a lot of free time and an uncanny dedication to ridiculous pursuits.

So, was my “How to Be a Zombie” piece the best of the zombie-writing bunch?  Maybe.  I rather liked it.  It was the product of two days running a 102 degree fever and being unable to sleep due to a rather awful cough.  I was gray and ashen and able to channel my inner zombie like none other.  I wrote in a last ditch effort to feel productive on a day when the only other thing I could do was stare blankly at the world around me (again: zombie).

I contend that this affords me enough credibility to have produced quality zombie work.  This, and the fact that my friend Jack talked incesantly about the Evil Dead movies in high school.  I think some of it must have seeped into my brain.

When I was made a finalist, I called upon everyone I had ever met to vote for me, and they love me enough to have listened.  I physically went to my office and harassed people there until they voted; the fact that I was sick and zombie-like added to my plea.  The person who was next in the zombie-running, someone who rewrote “If you give a Moose a Muffin,” also extolled her friends and family to vote for her I think.  But I suspect she is younger and not quite as relentless as I.  And perhaps between us we split the stranger vote.

But I won.  And one day, so too shall you Give a Moose a Muffin writer.  Because you will have more people to extol to vote for you.  And who knows, maybe I was ordained to be a zombie writer.  This might be my calling.  Again, it would have been useful to know this before all of the graduate school.

One thing I didn’t understand, though.  Several people voted for the Moose piece over mine because they said mine was, “Emo.” What?  Emo?  I don’t even know what that is.  I thought it was some sort of punk rock or something.  I looked Emo up on Wikipedia and it is some sort of rock movement, but apparently, “In recent years the popular media has associated emo with a stereotype that includes being emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angsty. It is also associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide.”

Um.  Yeah.  What I wrote?  It was about zombies.  The least sensitive, shy, introverted and angsty creatures afforded to the ether, friends.  I said stuff about massacre, destruction and death, sure.  But I wrote ABOUT ZOMBIES.  I wrote the exact characterisitcs zombies have traditionally held in their various media incarnations.  Actually, I once sat through a lecture on zombies in my weird religious studies liberal arts college education. And I can safely say that my zombies were decidedly not Emo.  Vampires, however.  They have the emo market cornered for the undead. 

So that is that.  I won a free book.  Huzzah.  Many thanks to you who voted.  I think there is another vote coming up, some sort of ultimate zombie throw down.  Be on the look out for that, as I am sure to beg you to vote for me.

And finally, the reason I hadn’t been blogging?  Well, again, I’ll explain that more later.  But if you’re really curious for a hint, you can check out my new website that will be starting soon.