The Copywriter Underground

About 4 pm, I become the undead – the Zombie Formerly Named TC who staggers around the house and eating the brains of the living. It’s the result of a potent cocktail of “new baby” sleep deprivation and eleven time zones worth of jet lag, and it’s every bit as unpretty as it sounds.

Unfortunately, the Undead stagger carefully around the Copywriter Underground/Soiled Diaper World Headquarters these days, what with the Still Uncompleted Construction Project turning every available space into a deadly obstacle course (if it’s one thing zombies don’t do well, it’s hurdle).

In fact, I’m designating this Day 40 of the Underground Home Hostage Crisis – an acknowledgement that an extremist contractor splinter group has apparently seized control of our house, demanding bags of money or they’ll start killing rooms.

They’ve done enough damage to convince us they really mean it.

Still, these aren’t your average Working-Class Extremists – they apparently prefer to terrorize lazily from a distance. At least that’s the conclusion you’d have to draw since we haven’t actually seen a cell member all week long.

My wife is reacting to all this with the kind of grace you’d expect from an Ivy League educated brainiac new-mom type, which is to say she’s threatening to go all Chuck Norris on the contractors for not finishing the project when they first promised – five weeks ago and “for sure” before we returned from our trip to Ethiopia.

In fact, when calling the lead contractor, she casually mentioned that “Nothing says ‘Welcome to your new home’ to a baby like the severed heads of contractors mounted above the front door.”

(Moral of Story: Don’t Mess with a New Mommie)

(Truth in Copy Disclosure: She didn’t actually say “severed” but drama demanded I add it. Sorry.)

So to summarize:

• Me = The Undead
• House = Hostage Site/Nuclear Blast Zone
• Spouse = Chuck Norris Would Be Proud
• Little M (new baby) = Burbling happily away in the corner
• Spare Time = None

The New Writing Life

I’m working feverishly on a big Web site project, and while I’m happy for the work, sizable changes lie before me.

My regular work routine – honed over two decades of mucking around in this business – is now mostly a fantasy, and the accommodations are flying thick and fast.

You write when you can, and look carefully at the things you formerly had time for, but now seem less important.

Keep writing (and avoid zombies whenever possible), Tom Chandler

See you (other zombies) on the River, Tom Chandler.