Introduction

My name's John.

I play in a rock band about zombies called The Resistance House Band.  I'm not much of a blogger, but when I do post things, usually they're posts about what it's like to write music for such an unusual band. When you write music about zombies, there are a lot of challenges that most songwriters never have to deal with.  For people who are as into music as I am, those challenges can be kind of interesting to write and read about.

This blog has nothing to do with that.

A few months ago, I posted a really long status.  It went like this:

So as I was walking back from the munchie mart after getting food to treat a low blood sugar, I noticed that the door to the stairwell was inexplicably closed. For those that don't live on campus and are unfamiliar with our residence halls, this is something that never happens, to the point that I hadn't even realized the stairwell entryway even had a door until then. My initial thought was that a serial killer had trapped me in the basement. I'd try the door, realize it's locked, turn around to see the Commodore Killer standing in the hallway, and my remains would be found the next day in the washers and dryers of Lewis. But I figured I'd try the door anyway, simply as a formality before my imminent death, when I noticed something through the window. There was a couple passionately making out in the stairwell. This didn't necessarily discredit my serial killer theory, but if anyone was getting killed, the rules dictate that the couple making out would go down before I did. I turned around to go to the elevators in order to avoid any awkwardness, when suddenly I realized something. Why should I inconvenience myself by waiting forever for an elevator when I only live on the third floor, while that couple has shown complete disregard for any and all Lewis residents who might have wanted to use those stairs at some point? With that in mind, I abruptly turned around, walked briskly towards the stairwell, and violently whipped open the door. I passed by the couple pretty quickly, but I did have the satisfaction of seeing the look of pure terror and subsequent mood-killing embarrassment on their faces as I headed up the stairs. This might be somewhat sociopathic, but ruining that couple's makeout session and heroically reclaiming that stairwell was probably one of my finest moments at Vanderbilt.


I expected three reactions: (1) People would see how long it was and wouldn't bother to read it. (2) People would find the status somewhat amusing. (3) People would consider my behavior somewhat mean-spirited or inappropriate. Instead, everyone told me I should write more. It turns out that writing is actually kind of time-consuming, so I didn't manage to slam out that 400 page story of the Makeout Murderer I'd been planning on, but I did manage to write a couple of short stories. Some of them are still in the revision stage (I go through a pretty long stage of self-loathing when I write), but I now have at least one that I feel is ready to show people. Hopefully people will like it. Unlike songwriting, which I've been doing for a long time, this is kind of new territory for me, so any comments are appreciated, and I would be especially grateful if people would give me titles for my stories.


- John