Celena Cipriaso has written for a soap opera -- the one with the chick that got nominated 19 times.  She also writes a lot about beer.  Oh, and she's Asian so she writes about that too.   Her work has been in Seal Press's P.S. What I Didn't Say, HarperCollins' Yell-Oh Girls,Word Riot, AsianAvenue.com, and The Beer Sessions.

Turning 30 and The Zombie Apocalypse (January 20, 2011. Issue 24.)

As I reach the fourth decade in my life, I have become concerned that I am ill equipped to survive a Zombie apocalypse. This obsession is my husband’s fault. As long as I can remember, he has told everyone and their mother about his Zombie plan.

“We’ll get a truck, get the people that will be most useful, drive to Maine, and eat a lot of beans and rice,” He tells me. Of course, these plans occasionally become altered with new thoughts. Currently, we’re watching The Walking Dead (a zombie apocalypse TV series) for inspiration.

My husband tells me that we have to be willing to leave useless people behind. Because he loves me, my husband is blind and insists that I’m useful somehow. But I’m not sure what I bring to the table. What if, God forbid, my husband becomes Zombified? What if my fate falls into the hands of another human being that I can’t bribe with sex?

Would that person shove me off whatever moving vehicle we’re in? What would I do then? Plus, I don’t even drive.

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Things that I can persuade said person with:

1. I can write. How well is up for debate. But I doubt that people will be lounging around with books when Zombie might bite their head off at any moment because they’ve become too enthralled with War and Peace. However, if anyone needs a lovely funeral speech, then they can look my way.

2. I’m a relatively nice person. I’m bit of a sucker when it comes to people saying, “Please don’t let me die.” But then again, if I’m a nice person, maybe I can help deflect conflicts. Be that nice woman that stands in the middle between two warring survivors and brokers a peace. I should perhaps consider getting a bulletproof vest if people get annoyed if I continually say (as they do in The Walking Dead), “We have to stay united. Work together.” Although, I might want to kill myself if I become cheerleader for humanity.

3. I’m short. This is possibly my best attribute because I don’t take up that much space. This will be useful when people tell me that they have no room. When I show them how I can curl up into a ball the size of about 2 feet, they’ll have to want to bring me along. Plus, I think the short thing will help with Zombies. I’ll be able to duck when they want to eat me.

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Things working against me:

1. I’m a pacifist. If indeed a Zombie Apocalypse does come our way, I will need to be able to kill people. And not just kill them. I’ll need to bash their brains in with bats or sledgehammers. Which brings up yet another problem – I can major back issues. Then again, when I’m drunk, I’ve been known to have a massive temper. In fact, I become so pugnacious that people call me “Ghetto Celena.” Perhaps I just need to keep a flask of vodka fill with me at all times.

2. ’m not a Girl Scout. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together. I don’t know how to build a hut with just leaves and bits of wood. I don’t know how to choose nonpoisonous mushrooms from poisonous mushrooms. I do, however, know alcohol very well. Perhaps if I can learn to make liquor, then people will want to bring me along because people will definitely want to get a little drunk after a day of bashing peoples heads in and fleeing flesh eating Zombies.

3. I have a huge appetite. I’m not a girl easily satisfied with an inch of rice and a lick of a chicken bone. I’ve been known to eat the biggest meals when my family goes out to eat at P.F. Chang’s. This will not make me popular if I steal people’s food. Perhaps there is a way for me to become holed up in a PF Chang’s.

4. I’m fast. This might seem like a positive thing, but on the whole it’s not. This is helpful in terms of escaping the Zombies. However, this fast thing might have one big setback. Survivors might want to depend on me to do the things no one else wants to do. Say someone leaves a bag of bombs behind and all the Zombies are milling around it. Then they might turn to me and say, “Hey, Celena says she’s fast, send her to get the bag of bombs in the crowd of Zombies.” Being fast is perhaps an attribute I won’t publicize.

5. I don’t like being violent to people I love. This is going to pose a big problem if my husband or someone in my family becomes a Zombie. I don’t know if I have it in me to bash their brains in. I mean, the motivating factor is that the Zombified version of my loved one will want to eat my brain, and I’ll need to keep my brain for survival. I made my husband promise to kill me if I did Zombie up. I must learn to be able to kill him as well and not thinking about crying like a baby about it. However, I do think my husband would cry like a baby as well if I tried to eat his brains.

6. As I’ve mentioned above, I don’t drive. I have an extreme fear of driving. I’ve been in numerous accidents. I’ve been hit by a car (which is why I have the bad back as mentioned above). I undoubtedly will be expected to drive some vehicle at some point during apocalyptic times. Frankly, I only have a driver’s licenses because of the nice sap at the DMV I took my test with. I hit the cone during parallel parking and started crying. He sighed and just said, “Whatever. It’s a Friday. I’ll be nice. You passed.” I have a driver’s licenses. because of tears and luck. Of course, no will be driving too safely during said apocalypse so I don’t have to worry about following any rules. I just have to worry about not killing the people riding in the car with me.

7. I have a nervous stomach. I fear that when food is scarce, I won’t be inventive enough to say, “Let’s eat this rat.” Not to mention the fact that I truly dislike the idea of eating a rat. Perhaps I need to go to weird restaurants in the city and just subject myself to odd restaurants that cook up bulls’ penis and turkey testicles. I mean, if I can learn to eat animal genitals, I’ll undoubtedly learn how to eat rats.

8. I’m a self-absorbed bitch. This will be a problem because I will need to listen to people smarter than me. I will need to listen to their smart plans and how I can be a part of their smart plans. The only problem is that usually if I’m not the one talking, my attention wanders and I just wait for my turn to speak. Perhaps I need to start volunteering and hanging out with people who’s lives suck more than mine. This may teach me to listen to others, or it might just make me think about the things that suck in my life.

9. I have ADD. I am constantly on the Internet, constantly playing with my smart phone. Constantly needing a diversion from anything I need to be concentrating on. Again, this will be a problem when I need to pay attention to the Zombies that might come to eat me. Hopefully, I won’t become dumb enough to wander off into the woods or a dark alley just because I’m bored of surviving.

10. I don’t have a gun or know how to use a gun. I’ve always thought that guns are bad. They kill people. I also have this irrational fear that I will accidentally shoot someone I don’t intend to shoot because I have bad eye sight or that when I do shoot, the gun will go wild in my hands and I’ll get a black eye. Of course, in Zombie times, I’ll need to be open to shooting anything that moves and will be lucky if I just come away with a black eye.

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I don’t know what it is about turning 30 that gets me thinking about Zombies and the end of the world. I think that in general, I’m taking stock of my life, what I’ve done, who I am, whether that Dramatic Writing MFA degree was really useful at all.

Most days, I want to blast my soundtrack to Avenue Q and sing “I Want to Go Back to College.” I want to drink as much as I want to and not worry about guns, the end of the world, or my organs being ripped out at any moment.

It’s a sober moment, turning 30. People say the say about 40 or 50. But I’m keeping my eye on the end of the world. Who I can be and what I become so I’m a worthy member of the survivor’s circle.

I guess I don’t like to think that I’m a person that will become Zombie food. After the Zombies devoured that horse in the first episode of The Walking Dead, I almost cried. I thought, “It would really suck to have my insides turn out like that because some stupid human thought it was a good idea to enter an empty looking dark city, which inevitably would be crawling with the walking dead.”

The hero in The Walking Dead, he has one goal – to find his wife and kid. This one goal keeps him going, makes him do tremendous things (like wearing dead Zombie guts and then walking on a street full of Zombies to get to a truck and save a bunch of people he just met.)

At 30, I haven’t done many courageous things. It’s hard for me to speak up for myself when people raise their voice. It’s hard for me to forgive myself when I make mistakes. It’s hard for me to go after what I want in life. I look at my life, who I am and who I thought I’d be, and it doesn’t add up to the image that I had of myself at this age. I wonder if I really am the type of person that would survive a catastrophe like Zombies taking over the world.

My husband tells me that we don’t know who or what we’d become until the moment hits us. My therapist reminds me to remember when I have stood up for myself. They’re not many. But there’s one.

When I was fifteen, I entered a brand new high school and had stupidly decided to take Tech Ed class, which was a requirement for graduation. Of course, only later did I learn that Home Ec also counted as filler for Tech Ed. I could have spent that year baking pies and knitting scarves. Instead, I stuck in a class where I would have to learn how to use a hammer and the difference between a socket wrench and screwdriver. I was the only girl amid the rough and tough boys at our school. One kid that just moved from South Central LA said to me, “Hey mama, what would you do if I tear off your clothes?” Without thinking, I picked up a 2 by 4 and said, “What the fuck do you think I’d do?” The kid laughed and backed away. Later that semester, I made my own battery run. I learned the basics of an engine. I even became friends with the kid that wanted to tear my clothes off.

Maybe I can survive Zombies. But just to be safe, I’m still making plans to learn how to shoot a gun

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