Today’s blog

Today’s blog will be taken over by Adam the Immortal, who would like to explain what he is, and more importantly, what he is not…

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Immortal excerpt: in which Adam explains himself

A couple of things about being immortal:

First of all, I’m not a vampire.  I get that a lot, even during the day when I should be in a coffin or a crypt or something.  (Very few vampires bother to sleep in a coffin, if you must know.  Lugging one around everywhere you go is inconvenient, and it almost always attracts the wrong kind of attention.  I did know a vampire who had one, but it was mostly a kinky sex thing for her.)

I think I know this guy

I’m not invincible.  Also: no super-strength, X-ray vision, power of flight or any of that.  I eat, drink, sleep and shit just like everyone else.  I just stopped getting any older at around age thirty-two.  Why thirty-two?  No idea.  I have all my hair in all the proper places, and a relatively slight build that doesn’t seem to get any larger whether I lift weights or binge.  To put it in a way a twenty-first century person might understand, it’s like someone hit pause on my existence.

I’m pretty sure I can be killed.  I can certainly be hurt, and have on several occasions been very close to death due to one near-mortal wound or another.  If I wanted to—I think—I could take my own life, although obviously this hasn’t been tested.  Now maybe you’re not the type who ever considered suicide, but—and you’ll just have to trust me on this—when you live this long, it comes up.  I was suicidal for two solid centuries once.  That was during the early part of what they now call the Dark Ages, in medieval Europe.  Suicidal tendencies were de rigueur at the time, and I’m nothing if not trendy.

I don’t know how old I am.  My earliest memory is something along the lines of “fire good, ice bad” so I think I predate written history, but I don’t know by how much.  I like to brag that I’ve been there “from the beginning” and while this may very well be true, I generally just say it to pick up girls.  But it has been a very long time, and considering I’m not invincible or super-strong, that’s nothing short of miraculous.

Beeeeeeeeer

Oh, I do have one other thing going for me.  I can’t get sick.  Universal immunity.  That’s a fairly big plus.  Not as much a big deal now as it was back when the average life span was in the low thirties and we measured the seasons by what plague was in vogue at the time but still, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I’m currently white-skinned, but I wasn’t always.  I pretty much blend in with whatever culture I’m hanging out in, which is a very useful trait when you think about it.  Of course I never fit in anywhere for the long haul, not after people around me all start getting old while I don’t.  So I move around a lot.  You know, before locals start getting out the pitchforks and torches and what-have-you.

I try to keep up with the rapid advancement of modern culture, something I liken to sprinting in wet sand.  I owe a lot of what I understand about the world today to television and movies, which are a true godsend to a guy in my situation.  Likewise, I keep up with language pretty well, that being a survival skill I took to heart just around the time language was first invented.

I’ve been rich a couple of times.  I still am, I think; I just don’t live the life.  That whole material wealth thing got old fast.  I mean, creature comforts are nice, but immortality does funny things to the whole making-something-of-yourself imperative that people who expect to die someday go through.  I hang onto enough money to get by because it’s the easiest way to acquire alcohol, which I’m much in favor of.

Speaking of which, if you want to know what I’ve learned in my extended time on Earth it is this: beer is good.

I’ve never been much of a deep thinker.

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Immortal is scheduled to debut on 10/1/10 from Hamel Integrity Publishing.  More information, including a sample chapter, can be found here.

Follow Adam on Twitter at @Adamtheimmortal