West Coast Review

Dear WordPress,

I am loath to write yet another letter to you, since I typically prefer spending my time writing actual blog posts, but the thing is, I’ve been bitching to you on Twitter and in your forums to absolutely no avail, so maybe you’ll pay attention to a blog post. It’s not likely, but hey, you never know.

Please, stop. Just put down whatever you’re working on and stop with the futzing. You have been tinkering under my hood long enough and you know what? Not one of the “improvements” you’ve made is actually an improvement at all.

Below, you will find explanations as to why your improvements aren’t improvements sorted conveniently by feature.

Post Editor

First, there’s this “Beep beep boop” editor thing with less than half the functionality or the old editor, which thankfully you haven’t taken away entirely yet. I am waiting for the other shoe…

Some say life is a game. I don’t believe that is a good message for teens but sometimes, on those stupid frustrating adult days when everything seems to go wrong it seems like some stupid horrible game. You know those days when you think “I must have been a really horrible person in a past life.” Sigh.

One of the frustrations about being young (in your teens and twenties) is that Chance and Fate are unfair forces that seem bound and determined to keep us down.

Chance isn’t logical or fair. He picks favorites. He excludes those who work hard. He surprises us with delights. He breaks our hearts and smashes our delicate egos. He devastates. He rescues. He is our best friend and our worst enemy. That said, try explaining that to your teen or college aged kid. Try explaining it to anyone?

And what about Chance’s fickle girlfriend

Dear Diary,

They came tonight to do “an intervention.”

I was told I should not sleep in a coffin anymore. They said it was creepy.

They said, “Vlad, you don’t live in a cobweb filled castle anymore. Stop acting like it.”

The other Vampires treat me like a child or an old person.

~  Vlad

______________________

Dear Diary,

I went shopping for a bed. The woman in the store said I was cute. I keep hearing that word cute. Cute. My cat is cute. I am not cute, yet they say I am.

I drank her blood in the warehouse. The bed was delivered today. The cat crawled underneath it. I can’t get her to come out. She sits and purrs and stares at me with big green eyes. She will not listen to reason.

The only thing about this situation I can agree with are the black silk…

Vampire Maman 1st Annual Love Letter Contest

When the weather gets chilly we think of romance. February is just around the corner. Be bundle up on couches and cuddle more under the sheets. We look at the clear winter sky and think of loves of long ago. And we think “cold hands, warm heart.”

Anyway, I’m having a love letter contest.

Rules:

Create a love letter. It can be written. It can be drawn. It can be a photograph. It can be a video. It can be whatever you want as long as you consider it a love letter and can post it on your blog.

All love letters must contain these three words:

• Vampire
• Prism
• Portrait

It does not have to be about Vampires. You can write it about your own passion, your love, your longing, or long lost dreams or future entanglements or astronauts or bulldogs or ice…

The Hunter

A short story from Juliette Kings

“We pumped quite a bit of blood out of your stomach. We’re not sure where it came from.”

She heard the words but was the noise in her head was still loud…

“Your heart had stopped beating. You weren’t breathing. You were cold.”

A hospital bed. She was in a bed hooked up to equipment. Her throat hurt.

“We still can’t get your body temperature up to normal and your heart beat is extremely slow.”

She’d been found in a room of an abandoned house wearing nothing but a black silk cocktail dress and black high heeled sandals. The nails on her hands and feet were painted silver. Aside from that there was no jewelry, no purse, no identification. The man she’d been with had received minor injuries and would be in soon to see her. He said he was her boyfriend…

Dear VP,

This is a partial post of what I’m going to be sending to you next week. I’m just using my blog to hash out the ideas.

On Friday I picked my daughter up from school but before she found my car I received a text that said, “I’m going to choke someone.”

Since the first day of High School my daughter and her friends have been complaining about the behavior of other kids in the school.

These are smart, normal, nice kids. They don’t fit into any categories. They’re just teens. In their core group the kids are White (6), Black (1), Mixed Race (2) and Asian (1). There are 4 boys and 6 girls in the group. Eight are straight, two are gay. They don’t care what anyone looks like or their ethnic background or who they will one day fall in love with.

They tell me  tell…

I will have my usual Friday post later today after I find something to write about… Of course usual isn’t the word I usually use around here. Maybe “unusual” is more fitting.

This week has been heart breaking and mind numbing for all of us who have opinions and value freedom and have half a brain in our heads.

Then I thought of my own work.

There have been times when I’ve had second thoughts about posting something because I didn’t want to offend someone. I didn’t want to offend anyone because they might leave a nasty comment or them might stop following Vampire Maman.

Well, that was stupid.

Most of the time I’ve posted my offending posts and had a flood of support. I am not alone. You are here with me. You are not alone because I’m here. 

I’ve also had people attack me because I write this…