I know, I know.

All three of you that might be checking this blog for signs of a pulse or holding up a little compact mirror to my slack, blog-jaw, hunting for moisture on the glass, all three of you that have been like “did she die?” or “did she get lost in the snow, forced to eat her own fingers to survive?”, to you three, I say…

YES.

Minus anything to do with snow.

But I passed away back in early December.  It was a slice of festive and fiesty fruitcake that did me in.  One of the candied pieces of green gelatinous chemical dallied in my intestines and sucked up my vital liquids.  So much so that it became the size of a softball (not a baseball.  It identified as lesbian) and prevented my flushables and digestables from flushing and digesting and I perished on the shitter, much like Elvis Presley, whom while I was alive I held to be highly overrated and now that I’m dead I don’t really think much about either way.  So, anyway, no pulse.

Also, I ate my own fingers before dying.  Some people read on the toilet.  I ate my fingers.  Don’t fucking judge me.

So, I write this unabashedly late ECro post as a zombie.  A zombie without phalanges.  I can’t say life hasn’t been hard since my death.  My writing office smells like rotting meaty meat all the time.  Ah!  You might be wagging your finger at your computer screen (and I’d be tempted to eat it) saying, “how does a dead ECro smell?” and you would be right.  But guess what?  Zombies can smell.  It defies what we know of physics and sentience and all that bullshit, sure.  But how the fuck do you think I find brains to eat?  It ain’t cuz I can see them.  When was the last time you saw someone’s brains?  Huh, Smarty McFuckpants?  I smell those lobes.  Ah damn.  The smell of grey matter.  It’s one part violets, one part Gruyere, one part liquid smoke, one part Triscuits.  Who the hell wouldn’t want to eat the sum total of all of those scenty one parts?

But my office smells like dead shit.

And I don’t have fingers for the tippytapping on the keys.  So I use my nose.  It has yet to rot off.  Hard to believe.  I mean, with the weather we’ve been having.  Some weather, that weather.  With its freezing and thawing and snow and rain.  Should be black rot by now.  Should be dangling from the last strong vestige of cartilage between my eyes.  But it’s holding on to my face, smelling out brains to munch on and whatnot.*

*”Whatnot” is good eating as well as brains.  Tastes like curried tilapia.

Honestly, you three, I’m not really a zombie.  Not technically a zombie.  It was more like the slew of, the progressing progression of, the interminable lengthiness of the holidays turned my brain into the brain of a zombie.  Meaning the bits didn’t work much none.  Least not for the writing.

Allow me to craft you a tale of what happened:

“And so it came to pass that ECro took a break whilst the legs of hapless turkeys’ were devoured and gifts were opened and then added to other piles of fun, yet burdensome sundries.  She danced and drank away the New Year with the likes of ASup and others.  V-Day tokens of love were exchanged.  Shit, she even vaguely noted the passing of President’s Day.  Somewhere during those calendar celebrations, a varmint might or might not have seen the black shade that follows his ungainly and flea-ridden hide each time he leaves his safe burrow.  And verily, and finally, ECro sniffed at the breeze, carrying with it the smell of mud, decaying leaves giving up their earthy scent, bird shit on the Nissan, rain clouds about to drop their goods.  And she, like the tubby groundhog, decided it was time to do…something…like either go back into hibernation or write a really random blog post.  And then she fought the groundhog, battling him for the right to write, for as you might all know, there can only be one betwixt lady and hog o’ the ground doing the writing.  The other must sleep a lot.  Really, it’s a win-win.  But anyway, ECro did readily and mightily do battle with the varmint and won a victory over the critter by mocking it’s orange teeth and making loud sounds.  And it did scurry back into it’s burrow to do it’s duty of relaxing whilst ECro the Vanquisher of Varmints would take a combination of Greyhound Bus and Amtrak from Punxsutawney back to Boise and compose this blog.  The end.  Drink your warm milk and go the fuck to sleep.”

Basically, what I’m trying to say, under all this malarkey about zombies and groundhogs, is that I’m back, bitches.  You can unclench those ass-cheeks and pour yourself nine fingers of Maker’s Mark.  And then give those nine fingers of Maker’s Mark to a friend and you can drink what’s left in the bottle.  Because it’s fun time, gang.  ECro in the motherfucking url www.ecrodoeswrong.com.