Well it's that wonderful time of year again, my favorite holiday - Halloweentober! It really should be a month-long event, not just celebrated on the 31st, in my opinion. And as I'm in my vampire-marathon watching mode currently, I got to thinking about how many hot vampires there are in film and television. These are women I would welcome into my bed, shower, or coffin before they could even glamour me. So, my favorites list is reserved this Halloween for hottest (female) vampires. #1 Hottest Female Vampire Evan Rachel Wood, A.K.A Sophie-Anne, Vampire Queen of Louisiana Sophie-Anne is simply breathtaking. She is beautiful beyond words. Granted her character has become quite useless in the third season of True Blood , Evan Rachel remains sexy during her few scenes. Her pale-as-milk skin and red hair give her an angelic, divine quality. #2 Hottest Female Vampire Alyson Hannigan, A.K.A. Vampire Willow Willow was my teenage fantasy: quiet, unassuming and shy. Intelligent and quir...

Last night was even shittier. The O's blow a 9th inning lead to the Yankees, and their fans cheered me right out of the Yard--right out of my own ballpark. That home run hurt, Koji. Today I've learned that life is rough in the service industry. It was a lesson that I had perhaps forgotten over time. The only thing that has gotten me through the day is the fact that I will soon be walking along the old Oaks of New Orleans. Perhaps I'll visit a murky swamp stuffed with creeping cypresses. Or maybe spot a ghost in Jean Lafitte's... Well, it's back to the Yard tonight.

Last night I witnessed the grittiest football game ever. The Ravens barely won a defensive grudge match filled with tempers worthy of a Superbowl. I'm exhausted from merely watching this game. But Baltimore's purple birds won, and I feel somehow much better for it... Oh yeah, the O's knocked in a walk-off run in extra innings nearly the same moment to win, again. New Orleans looks to be a reality, though we should miss Halloween by one evening. Regardless, we will once more be staying on St Charles Ave. Perhaps my last visit to New Orleans for a while, I vowed to read the final Vampire Chronicles book, BLOOD CANTICLE once and for all. Years ago, when I learned that Anne Rice would not continue these novels, I promised not to finish the series, fearing some finality in completing them. But as I read BLACKWOOD FARM now, I remember how I fell in love with her stories in the first place. And it seems fitting that I finish the possible final book in the series in New Orleans. My...

New Orleans is calling out to me like a siren's song, tempting me with her striking, ancient beauty with promises of a glimpse of something special, something supernatural. I don't know what it is, this feeling, but I felt something like it after I left the city. Once home, I had this feeling in my gut that I had just lost a friend, abandoned a sibling. And I say this with the utmost sincerity. I truly missed walking along St Charles Ave or Bourbon Street. Sitting in Cafe Du Monde or the Garden District Book Store or sitting on the banks of the Mississippi. The food, the smells, the architecture, but there was something more. It was feeling that underneath all of that fiction there was something in New Orleans that transcends this reality. There was a child-like hope that things that go bump in the night exist, here. The very first New Orleanian we conversed with was at our hotel on St Charles Ave, and he implored us not to touch the cats, for they would steal our souls, trappi...

It's been quite a while since I've posted to you, blog. And for that I am sorry, but not really. It's been a whirlwind of summer, and I have had little time for writing. Sad, sure--but I've got a new pad, new dog, and a new job (maybe, just maybe, a career). But I miss the book. I miss the story. Every night I contemplate watching the O's (lose another game) or opening the file of my story, and I usually always choose baseball. Not because baseball means more to me than my story, no, that's not it. The story possibly means more to me than anything else. It's the lack of numbness I associate with writing that I have been missing. And dear blog, excuse me, but I've been writing here long enough for you to see right through my vagueness--you know what I mean. And without the help of this optimistic numbness it is ever harder to enjoy that world I've created, the world I continue to shape in my mind but sparingly never on paper (or on the computer). Mayb...

Things rarely change, right? So after not posting here to this dear, dear diary of a blog for a while, things are probably not a whole lot different. Well yes and no. I'm definitely in a better position, a career, than I was before. Now I spend most of my time working on getting into a new home so that maybe I can get back to work on DISPLACED . The Orioles still suck, and yet I stay with them always, always... Addiction, to whatever, is probably the most ridiculous mountain you could ever hope to climb. It reminds me of the literal mountain in Vampire Hunter D: Raiser of Gales in which curious humans begin a climb to the castle ruins above, only to remain stuck in a timeless void, climbing for eternity entrenched in a hopeless bubble never to reach the top. So to say that I've gone days without that precious synthetic optimism would be meaningless. Who cares? It could be with me for decades. Perhaps it's the journey of ridding myself of the stuff that I'm doing all wr...

I was actually free of the endless traps of pills for over two weeks... and then I slipped. Luckily, I couldn't binge or indulge further. But it's getting better. Granted I was sick for most of it, but I survived.