iZombie and Santa Clarita Diet are so comforting to me. The idea that zombies can be totally normal undead human beings if they eat brains gets me through the day in terms of grief… because who wouldn’t want to think that there’s a solution to death, even if it is totally, completely fictional and inane. SCD has a few more murders for fresh brains than iZ, because the main character in iZ gives up her surgical career to work in a morgue so that she doesn’t have to kill people to eat. The thing about that show is that by eating those brains, she gains the person’s memories, and becomes a badass detective by pretending to be clairvoyant because she can see either clues to what happened or the crime itself as it is happening. It is endlessly fascinating, because it is kind of like Bones rather than The Walking Dead.
Though there are a few zombies in iZ that resemble geeks, it’s because they’ve deteriorated because they didn’t get enough to eat when they first got the virus.
Why wouldn’t I want to believe that in a fictional world, my mother could come back? Perhaps one day I’ll write that book, because I miss her so much and know so much about her that I could create a submersive world in which she can live forever. It would be fun to have a book (even if only I read it) that has dialogue with her own NE Texas patois. Maybe I’ll make myself her brain procurer, because my mother would roll over in her grave if I made her even a fictional murderer. 😛
Or perhaps I’ll somehow tie it to CIA and State so she’s eating world leaders. I can think of two in particular with which I’d like to start…………………….
This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I am literally dying with laughter at these ideas that are just flowing forth. Maybe I will make her a fictional murderer only because it would be like making a sweet little old lady into Walter White. Have her totally play against type, because I can’t think of anyone who would more qualify for sainthood. Working with children ensures it. The children she taught with the most innocent names were always the worst kids…. like Godly, Christ, and Precious.
Yes, my mother had a student named Christ. I always kidded her that at least once, she ought to say, Christ would ya siddown? But no, she’d laugh about it with me privately and call him by his last name at school, because she wanted to avoid that scenario entirely.
There’s a really funny story from her teaching days that I’m going to tell on her, but first, you need to know the setup. Over the years, my mother had kids named Shampain, Vernon (but on his birth certificate, swear to God, his name was spelled VERMIN), the aforementioned Christ, Godly, and a whole host of other weirdnesses that she used to joke that one of these days, she was going to have a kid named “XYZ,” but his name would be pronounced “Bill.”
So, one day she gets a new kindergarten student who’s too shy to say anything, so she asks the other kids in the class what his name is. They say, “Wedgie.” So, after having all these kids with weird names, she doesn’t blink an eye… and it’s like, three or four weeks before she gets the new official roll and calls this kid “Wedgie” the whole time. On the official roll, she learns that his name is “Reggie,” and falls over with laughter and embarrassment.
My other favorite story is that she had a holy terror named Dexter, and every time she corrected him, he’d tell her he didn’t speak English. Now, my mom was smart enough not to buy it, and on one of my days off from classes, asked me to come in and watch him. Though I have never been fluent in Spanish, I know enough. So, I get there and Dexter is running around the room, and when my mom tells him in English to politely calm the fuck down, he throws up his arms and continues, not knowing that I’m there to be the “ringer.” He takes off toward the percussion instruments and I say with my best stern teacher voice, Dexter! Sientete, por favor! He froze, because he knew his days of bullshit were numbered. For the rest of the class, he was the perfect student, and I never had to come back.
For those who don’t speak Spanish, all I had to was look at him with the evil eye and say, sit down, please. My days of reading Clifford Va de Viaje (Clifford Goes Traveling) paid off.
While I had good Spanish teachers in school, I learned far more by immersion on mission trips, so every time I’ve gone to Mexico, I have willed myself not to speak English. Mexicans are GREAT about forgiving grammar errors, you talking AROUND what you need and figuring it out, etc. They’re just happy you’re willing to learn the language at all. I also will myself not to speak English at taquerias/panaderias in Houston, because it’s the only time I ever get to practice in order not to lose it. I’ve even used Spanish in Maryland, but only once. I asked a janitor where the bathroom was at the mall in English, and she just looked at me like I had three heads. So I flip into Spanish and her eyes get even wider, as if I’d grown another head in the process, and gave me directions. My guess at why she looked at me so strangely was that she didn’t meet gringos who spoke Spanish in MD all that often…….. and given the way I was dressed and my haircut that I was asking for the women’s room.
Maybe I should have started the conversation with this is going to sound weird, but……………
Stories That Are All True 