As of today, I’ve hit an interesting milestone, one that I never thought I’d reach when I was in my twenties. Right now, I’ve outlived the quintessential horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Part of the reason for keeping up with this minutiae lies with joking that only writers, and science fiction/fantasy/horror writers in particular, can get away with dying in their late forties and still dying “tragically young”. Another reason is that considering the vile garbage I wrote back in my own writing days, every day I saw past my 28th birthday was more of a surprise to me than anyone else. The biggest reason, though, is that my plans for fame and world conquest involve doing something now, instead of waiting for it to come to me thirty years after my death. (Can you imagine what HPL would have done with the royalties off the movie adaptations of Re-Animator or From Beyond, much less all of the stuffed “Cuddly Cthulhu” figures out there?)
In the meantime, it’s back to the linen mines, what with setting up new arrangements for Texas Frightmare Weekend and getting a whole new load of seedlings established by then. Howard Lovecraft was a distant relation, so if I follow any of his traits, it won’t be his rampant racism or his unwillingness to take care of himself. Encouraging a sense of cosmic wonder, though: that’s a laudable tradition to continue.