Poem for Tasha

This is different.

You see, when I wrote and published my first posts on this blog, nobody really read them. (Granted, you could say that we're still close to telling the truth in saying that nobody reads these things.) This was before I would be occasionally found by North Americans and people of other English-speaking countries, and now what seems to be a regular readership in a few European countries and Asian countries that I'm sorry to say I had never heard of before. (Welcome, Brunei! From the little that I've learned of your country since then, I think that you're an awesome people.)

I bring this up because of one of the first posts I wrote on here and took seriously. Well, two posts - "Farewell to a Friend" and "To Tasha, in Memoriam." They were both written in relation to the final days of the life of one of my best friends on the Earth, a certain yellow Labradour retriever named Tasha. When I wrote about her passing, that was in large part for my own good. Some of the remarks I made were intended for others to read and benefit, but to be entirely honest I didn't think that many people would ever stumble across this blog of mine. I figured that my thoughts would be safe in the blanket of obscurity.

That's what makes today a little different. Today marks exactly one year since my friend Tasha left this life. And here you are, listening to me talk about it.

Et Patrium Servavit

Hi.

I know that I said I would be doing my blog posts about the Moon Children (Lunar Children, if you prefer) of Majora's Mask, and I will, but today I had to interrupt that stream.

If you haven't figured it out by now or you just happened to stumble onto this blog today, yes, I'm an unashamed Christian, a so-called "Mormon," a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (That doesn't alter your perception of me at all, does it?)

As that is, today has special significance to me. Easter is known the world over as a cute holiday that commemorates the return of spring and new life, hence things like chicks and rabbits and eggs pop up all over the place. And people will tell you how those traditions all relate to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, the goddess of, among other things, fertility.

So I actually kind of like how in Spanish, as I found out, the holiday is known as "Las Pascuas," making reference to the Passover - a Jewish holiday that was instituted millennia ago as a reference to the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. That's what I'm observing, if not celebrating today.

Right now I don't want to go into the whole Easter story of the New Testament - ok, so I would really like to teach that whole lesson of what the significance of such is, but right now I won't. I will say that today, Good Friday, marked one of the most important events in the life of Jesus the Christ and in the lives of everyone. But beyond that, I won't say more for now. Instead I would like to talk about... weird as this might seem, Super Smash Brothers.

Yes, those guys.

Majora's Mask: Moon Children in Question

"Heh, heh... Thanks. You're nice. Umm... Can I ask... a question?"

…What are you doing here?

I don’t mean that to be offensive, in the “Hey, what are you doing here?! Get off of my property before I shoot you!” kind of way. I don’t mean that in the, “I can’t believe that they would let someone like you in here,” kind of way. (And trust me, the only times that I’ve ever encountered that in my life, I am always on the receiving end.) I mean as an honest question, a question that is considered rhetorical because I want you to consider it to yourself as much as I want to know that answer: what are you doing here?

What force inspired you to open this post and be here? Just think about that for a while; there are a lot of things at play that we never acknowledge, forces that act on our emotions and thoughts, subtly influencing us to think and behave the way that we do.

I really wish I knew what kinds of things “normal” people think about during their quiet moments – apparently I’m supposed to believe that people think of nothing more significant or more profound than what they’re going to eat later, how to make money, wondering what’s on TV, worrying about paying bills, or how to get their crush to fall in love with them. But I know people a little better than that. I don’t know if my familiarity with human nature is the cause or the effect of being a writer (maybe it’s a bit of both), but I do know that there are more profound things that get into the minds and hearts of people. If left alone to their own thoughts, I know that some people think about anger for past wrongs experienced, feel pity for a world that they just don’t know how to help, suffer secret pains and sorrows, or wonder how to get rid of that persistent gnawing feeling that not all is well in life.

Ghosts vs. Zombies

If you're expecting this to be some kind of story about an epic battle, you've come to the wrong place.

If you've come here expecting to get some kind of statistics about how said epic battle would take place, you've still come to the wrong place.

I only gave that particular title to this Note because I thought it sounded a little bit better than "Why I Hate Zombie Fiction."