Live-blogging Doomsday

Keep checking in!

9:55: It's rather cold outside. Winter has been temperate until this day. I think the sudden onset of bad weather may be a sign of the end.

Also, I found a pair of high-quality Italian brown dress shoes in a thrift store for the strange and unnatural price of two dollars. I may go back there to buy the black monk strap shoes for the same price. But there doesn't seem to be much point to doing so, what with the world ending and all.

12:45 pm: Strangely, the world still exists. Could the ancient Mayans have been wrong? Impossible. They were ancient, and everyone knows that ancient people possessed mysterious wisdom.

3:30: I had a troubling dream in which my dog got lost in an office building. Then I found her. Such a vision must surely presage the Apocalypse.

4:45: My ladyfriend called, wondering what to buy for her twelve year old niece (who, due to some freakish substance being put into our food supply, looks about 23 years old). I told her her choice of Christmas gift matters not since the world is ending. My ladyfriend, unconvinced by this reasoning, thought that maybe she should buy a t-shirt for her niece, something with kind of a punky 80s edge to it. Perhaps she can find one that says: "It's the end of the world as we know it"?

5:00: Still unsure about the monk strap shoes. I've never owned shoes with buckles before -- too flashy; not my style. On the other hand, they are Italian and cost only two dollars. If this is the end of the world, perhaps I should meet it wearing Italian leather with fancy buckles.

5:20: My ladyfriend is still out there, prowling the stores, still unsure as to what to get her niece. I suggested an oversized book about art with lots of pictures in it, purchased at the discount book place. Such a volume will seem like a really expensive present even though it won't cost very much.

And yet -- that choice would be folly. The niece will never get a chance to read said book. Why? Because the world will end today. I know it will. The Mayans said it, I believe it, and that settles it.

5:23: What if we did die, and this is what the afterlife looks like?

6:30: Had some leftover Pizza Hut. Good Doomsday food. Maybe I'll head over to Mickey D's to grab some coffee. If that thrift store is still open, I'll take it as a sign. Omens...omens are everywhere...

7:00: My ladyfriend tells me that she met someone working in a Wal-Mart who knows French. Unreal! Not only that: Earlier today, I crossed a street in Baltimore -- and a driver actually slowed down when he saw a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Repeat: In Baltimore. Can there be any doubt that we have entered upon a time of high paranormality?

7:30: That store was closed, so it looks like I'll be journeying to the hereafter wearing brown shoes and a black belt. If Saint Bernadette sees me like this, I'll be mortified.

10:05: Y'know, I'm starting to think that maybe there won't even be an apocalypse today. Maybe it'll be one of those localized apocalypses, or a symbolic apocalypse, like the ones in Alan Moore comic books.

There have been at least three world-ends in the Moore ouvre -- in Watchmen, Miracleman, and Promethea. Promethea is his masterpiece in the medium (especially the qabala sequence), but it all ends with an apocalypse so lame that it barely even counts as an apocalypse. It's a Grand Anticlimax.

The way I'm feeling right now is similar to the way I felt when I read the end of that series. Look, I don't want to hear any crap about a "new way of thinking" or "a new course for humanity" or any of that other New Agey horse manure. What I want is very simple -- volcanoes and comets and earthquakes and tidal waves and zombies and mass violence and exploding suns, all ending in the TOTAL FUCKING ANNIHILATION OF ALL EXISTENCE EVERYWHERE. Is that too much to ask for?

Goddamn Mayans. They let me down.

12:52 AM: As a reader kindly pointed out, I live on the East Coast and the Mayans lived out west. So, technically, it is still December 21 in Maya-Land. There's still a chance.

I note that Demi Moore has left that big goon from TV. I've always liked her. She's free, and that's the good news. The bad news is that she'd probably never sleep with me -- except, maybe, perhaps, if I were the last man on earth.

Come on, Mayans! Help me out here! I'm beggin' ya!

4:12 AM: Y'know, if this sort of thing keeps up, I'm never going to trust an ancient Mayan again.