This Is Halloween

Only 5 Trick Or Treaters tonight.

That's five as in 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.

I could count em on one hand.

Honestly.

Well, actually that's how many times the door bell rang. There were 2 or 3 at the door each time so I suppose we're safely into double figures.

But still... my jack-o-lantern frowns as its candle sadly burns out and the goodie bowl remains more than half-filled.

Don't know whether to blame the damp weather from earlier in the day (although the evening turned out to be a magical autumn delight) or all those bossy puritans and their sway over public sentiment. Maybe it was just the luck of the draw.

One thing for certain. There remains way too much candy for this poor satanist!

So that was Halloween.

The Lost Child

Looks like I'm gonna go with The Lost Child after all. I've had that one in the back of my mind for a long time and besides, CH seems more like one of those sordidTCB short stories.

So it all begins at midnight November 1st. The Lost Child. Here goes nothing.

Real Monsters

2005 has been the Year Of The Hurricane. Unprecedented quantity, unprecedented quality. Life changing (and ending) events for so many. Tragedies that will resonate for years.

And please consider the stigma forever attached to the names:

Katrina
Rita
Ophelia

My poor brother Andrew... can a south Floridian ever meet him without some preconceived association? They want nothing to do with the poor chap.

So maybe the time has come to lift this unnessecary burden off the unlucky few and name these natural storms after the monsters that they truly are. Like Frankenstein 2005 or maybe The Eternal Swirling Fog. Or the Cycloptic Piledriver. It Came From Barbados. The Were - is my - wolf, my car, my house? Or my personal favorite, That Great Big Asshole In The Sky.

Cerebral Hemorrhoid

I'm signed up for the National Novel Writing Month deal beginning November 1st. You're supposed to write 170 pages or about 50,000 words in thirty days. So that breaks down to just over 1500 words a day. I ought to be able to handle that.

It's all about quantity over quality. Don't worry about how good your novel is... just write! Not a bad idea at all, especially in order to help create a better writing work ethic.

I had planned on writing a story called The Lost Child. A story of one inter-generational family dealing with both Vietnam and Iraq. I've got some good ideas about it.

But then just the other day as I was picking up my laundry the title Cerebral Hemorrhoid popped into my head... my brain must be skewed by the TC Boyle collection I'm currently reading.

So I'm not sure which way I'll go just yet. CH might be easier, just spew whatever comes out with no predetermined direction. Yeah... that's the ticket!