Sleep Walking Dead

“Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Kurt Vonnegut 

I am an artist. My husband is an engineer. We are different. We like different things.


See Jane watch “The Walking Dead.”

See Dick watch “The Andy Griffith Show.”

See Spot run from a zombie Barney Fife. 


We recently invested in the Roku version of entertainment. It’s another computery machine that allows you to watch your favorite television shows in an orgy of endless viewing. Commercial free. Interruption low. 


See Jane fall asleep to re-runs of “The Walking Dead.”

See Dick in the middle of the night flip the Roku machine over to re-runs of “The Andy Griffith Show.”

See Spot scratch.


While my husband and I are different in our viewing tastes in television, we are alike in age. We are old-ish. We are becoming acquainted with not sleeping and waking up at two in the morning for nightly wanderings. We have a lifetime of stupid and embarrassing memories that torment us as we try to sleep. 

Falling asleep to episodes of “The Walking Dead” distracts our bad memory brains. So it’s nothing to fall asleep to zombies eating everyone and then wake up to Barney Fife and his one bullet. 


See Jane toss and turn.

See Dick stumble around, change the channel, and fall asleep just in time to start snoring.

See Spot twitch in her sleep. See Spot chase zombie bunnies in her dreams.


I love “The Walking Dead.” It’s about characters that the writers are constantly throwing into a pit of writhing, zombie snakes and then daring them to find a way out. It’s Kurt Vonnegut’s writing advice on steroids. I appreciate that. 

Honestly, “The Andy Griffith’ Show” isn’t all that different. How will Andy and Barney ever tell Aunt Bee that her pickles are NEVER going to win a prize at the country fair because her pickles are absolutely terrible? Same concept. “No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them.”

Hey! It’s practically the same show. Maybe my husband and I aren’t so different after all?

Linda (Dream Weaver) Zern

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Call Me Dawn

Wearing a lot of hats makes my head sweaty.

To “wear many hats” is an idiomatic expression. Idiomatic is a word that means expressions for idiots. An idiot is a person who wouldn’t be able to remember his or her head if it wasn’t attached, and to “wear a lot of hats,” on the head that is attached to you, means you have a lot of jobs and maybe you’re not an idiot. 

My head is sweaty a lot.

Consider this post a disclaimer and an explanation. Here’s a few of the hats I wear:

The YaYa Hat: It’s a big floppy hat that I bought in South Korea at the de-militarized zone. It’s the hat I wear, physically and metaphysically, when I have to listen to 101 thousand knock-knock jokes that make absolutely no sense in any reality—ever.

The Wife Hat: Hasn’t arrived yet. I just ordered it on Amazon. 

The Foreman Hat: It’s a Texas A&M ball cap that I stole from my oldest son because he had it broken in perfectly. I wear it to keep the sun from eating off the end of my nose when I’m mowing . . . everything, everywhere, all the time. 

The Author Hat: It’s imaginary and changes color every time I write a new paragraph.

The Book Marketer Hat: It’s shaped like a dunces cap because of the endless learning curve required in the shifting, evolving world of selling books.

The My-Name-Is-Dawn Hat: Worn at yoga, it has the name Dawn embroidered on it, apparently. My yoga instructor calls me Dawn. I’ve told her my name isn’t Dawn, but she . . . well . . . insists on calling me Dawn. So, that’s that. Dawn is my yoga name. Dawn it is. Sigh. When I go to Zumba my name is Conchita. 

The Primary President Hat: Primary is our Sunday School/Children’s Program at my church. I’m the president. There are about seventy children on the rolls in our program. This hat is made of puppets and stickers.

The Community Volunteer Hat: It’s a riding helmet. 

The Science Club Leader Hat: This isn’t a hat as much as it is a butterfly net and a jar with holes poked in the lid.

Blogger Hat: For years and years, I’ve worn a hat that resembles Clark Kent’s fedora. As I watch and gather information for the blogs that I participate in www.beyondthestrandline.blogspot.com (serious) and www.zippityzerns.blogspot.com (silly) I try to look like the mild mannered reporter. Once in a while, I take Clark’s hat off and I put on a cape. No hat required.

I thought when I got older there would be less hats.

Linda (Mad Hatter) Zern