Cheers, gang, hope your week’s been good to yas. Been exceptionally busy in the office on our way toward the three-day weekend upcoming, so the blog production has been sluggish. However, lots of things were happening, so here’s what’s been on my mind…

First: We had a blue supermoon on Wednesday. Life was moving at such a crazy pace this week we forgot all about it, smh. It was the closest orbit of the full moon we’ve had this year at 222,043 miles away. Saturn happened to joining in the party, creating a cast so impactful the entire world was enthralled. Blessed be Isis, Khonsu and Anubis.

I saw many stunning photos from friends and the national press. This one taken at an equestrian statue of Damdin Sukhbaatar on Sukhbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia just blew me away. Truly magickal. Speaking of magickal, the day TJ and I tie the knot, the universe will bless us with an annular solar eclipse.

Two: I had the pleasure of meeting horror author and mastermind behind the legendary Cemetery Dance press, Richard Chizmar, at the Shock-o-Con in Havre de Grace, Maryland. As a fellow Marylander horror-homie, I’ve enjoyed some fun, distant chats with Richard over the past year and meeting him in person, the dude is a righteous cat with a very nice family. His son, W.H. Chizmar, is also a sharp scribe in his own right as I found out by reading his novella, Mr. Purple this week.

Richard is author of the New York Times bestselling Chasing the Boogeyman and collaborator with Stephen King on their “Gwendy” trilogy. Chizmar is set to drop his highly anticipated sequel, Becoming the Boogeyman, in October. As the first one had so many locations I related to and tramped around myself, I can’t wait for Becoming.

Three: You might’ve read a recent post of mine about a horror comic book miniseries, Metalheads, which I began with my artist buddy from Kiel, Germany, Dominic Valecillo. Welp, fate has taken a kind turn, as I received a call from Dom last weekend, who has wrapped up on his current projects. The band will be getting back together for a reboot of Metalheads with fresh art, revised sections to the opening issue and a brand-new direction for the story overall as we will begin pitching it around to comic imprints. Fingers crossed on one hand, horns-up from the other!

Four: Ahsoka is thus far up to the hype. Rosario Dawson is everything we want from a grown-up Jedi on the lam and after some in-your-face action sequences tying threads to the end of the animated series, Star Wars: Rebels, the story is now getting real. One of the few survivors of the nefarious Jedi-cide that was Order 66, Ahsoka Tano is knee-deep investigating a new threat to a brief period of peace following the fall of the Empire.

You can’t keep a nasty Sith vein wholly severed, though. We have fellow Order 66 survivor Baylan Skoll, who has turned to the dark side with his apprentice, Shin Hati. We have Rebels renegades Sabine Wren and Hera Syndulla woven into the plot. For deep Star Wars nerds who revel in Timothy Zahn’s “Heir to the Empire” novel trilogy, there’s that Thrawn guy who keeps getting mentioned. Squeeeee!

Five: With our wedding coming up in a month-and-a-half, I always smile at this picture, our more than humbling beginnings, nearly 2.5 years ago. It was March, two months having moved into my place and we had just started dating. Because of COVID and 90-to-120-day shipping delays, I was still waiting on my sofa, living room chair and bedroom furniture and sleeping upon my mattress on the floor. I was grateful to get my kid’s furniture and a coffeetable within a few weeks.

Even more grateful for this, the first weekend TJ crashed at my place all weekend, trooping through the lawn chair living room days. We ate terrible, oversalted chicken and okra but compensated with peanut M&Ms and lots of wine from a vineyard outing, plus binging and laughing like idiots at Metalocalypse. She purposefully left behind an extra toothbrush and a pair of cuddle duds, scratching and spraying her territory that fast. THAT, my friends, is what you call true love.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.