I'm still in Upper Chesapeake. I'll be in the hospital for Halloween. I could've gone home, but the doc said she'd prefer I stay a couple more days just to ensure I'm good, that my sodium levels level out. I'll defer to her med degree and stay the weekend. Covid and low sodium have kicked my ass. I've legit seen beds and rooms cleared, and you know where those bodies are going, don't you, Elton ? I do, and it's and odd feeling. It's frightening. I don't know if I've been this close to death before, in space and time - not my health. Earlier this week has been non-stop rainy. But then a beautiful golden sun came through, and it looks absolutely autumn outside. I'm staring out a huge window on the backside of the hospital to a view of just trees mostly. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to go #1 and it was pouring. I could see it pouring on the pavement under the amber parking lights. This persisted the first few days I was her...

I'm trying to find local ads for Halloween in newspapers lately. I've been trying to find October newspapers from the Baltimore Sun or Dundalk Eagle from decades ago, but it's getting harder and harder to do. A lot of these papers were simply used for fire, packing, or just recycled. I personally think that's a shame, because a lot of local history is in these papers, and I want to find local haunts like this. This old ad for Amling's Haunted House is pure work of art. And I'd love to find some local Baltimore or Dundalk ads like this. I'm checking eBay, thrift stores, flea markets, but surprisingly I haven't found any, especially not any October papers. So, if you're sitting on an old ad of Baltimore newspapers from way back, I'll take them off your hands!

It is that glorious time again, October and autumn, which we now call Halloweentober. The greatest, spooky holiday cannot and shall not be constrained to a single day. The fact that Halloween isn't a national holiday is a shame, too, but that's a story for another post... I'm all in my Michael Myers zone right now. This is a series that I think may be my favorite of the holiday. I enjoy and like each and every single film, and H2018 blew me away. The mood and angst was phenomenal, and the music works so well. So this month I'm watching every Halloween film, even the outcasts. I may even watch the Rob Zombie films, which I haven't seen yet. I don't do redneck, inbred white trash horror, and that is what Rob Z does best.  We've put out decorations a week ago, and today we are carving our first pumpkins. This year, I feel the need to do more active Halloween celebrations. I haven't been to a haunted house in a very long time. Growing up in Dundalk we had qu...

I look back on dozens of posts from years and years of thoughts, and wonder what was it all for? I've stopped writing. I've stopped reading. I suppose I've stopped living. I don't do much of anything these days. I don't ride my RC51, I stopped traveling. Where has my creativity gone? I'm glad, in a way, that I stumbled onto this blog. I used to have such faith, in my skills as a writer, in the future - but now, the world is shit. If some far-off extraterrestrial race is rewinding time and surfing the waves of time and finds this tiny, inconsequential site, perhaps they'd be curious to know how far we've fallen, the human race. President Trump (yes, my friends from Zeta Reticuli, I said President Trump) has ushered in a new world order of indecency, neo-McCarthyism at the Free Press and anointed them all Fake News. Antifa marches violently in the streets of West Coast cities and proudly spews hate speech. The President of the United States of America ...

In the several years since I've gotten off pills, but not entirely sober either, I've seemingly lost all connection to creativity. Reading, which I usually did all the time, has become harder to do, mostly with a lack of focus. I'm not sure what the hell is going on there... But with all the fiction that I still do read and envelope myself with has been prying open that shuttered part of my brain that used to design worlds and characters, and begged me to step back into that world of creativity again. It's been soo long. Too long? I don't know. I started writing another story the other day when I should have been working, and four or five pages just flowed from my fingertips. That felt good. I'm wondering if I can do this again, or is this a fleeting phase and I'll give it all up at the first chance to look at something shiny and new, or take a nap and forget all about it. All I know is that I love it when the vampires keep me up at night. It's Ha...

Tales of Halloween. I finally got to watch the movie, and it's really fun. Almost as good as Trick or Treat good. It has more stories, for sure. I love horror anthology films, and this one, being Halloween-centric, is near the top of my fave list. One of the stories is about a couple that cannot of a child of their own, and so, the woman's, er, stronger side comes out and does what needs to be done. It's horrifying, honestly. And Pollyanna McIntosh is gorgeous in this skit, if not terrifying. She's a sexy witch! There's a couple stories that I didn't care for, like the slasher killer story. It just wasn't my thing. The story with the little devil and the big devil going all anarchy on the neighborhood was incredible. And Barry Bostwick does a tremendous Satan.  But I think maybe the best story is Sweet Tooth. It was gruesome and I didn't see it coming. This guy could have his own movie. And This Means War story is just fantastic, and it kind of tells the...

  Time for a grand marathon of Universal Movie Monsters. I've got a two liter of Diet Pepsi, and bags of candy. If the trick or treaters knock, they can have the candy. If not, well, it will get eaten one way or the other. Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope it's bloody wonderful.