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If you're like me (and really, god help you if you are) you may have been wondering where the hell I've been lately. Well, let me tell you something. I don't know.

I do know that my Buffy The Vampire Slayer obsession has taken firm hold of my head and heart. I listen to the soundtrack to the musical episode daily. I know the lyrics. I learned the choreography. Dude. It's crazy. If you asked me if I ever thought... the answer would so be NO. Buffy? Fuck that noise!

But I think it was Drew Barrymore who invented the word "magical" and that is how I would describe this whole Buffy thing. Maybe "magickal" with a K. For example, since I started watching the entire series just a few months ago I've seen Joel Grey on the street twice. He played a key role at the end of the fifth season. And just the other day I was walking down a city avenue that I walk by pretty regularly. On this avenue there's one of those comic-booky-superhero-sci-fi-nerd-world type stores. I never pay any attention to it. But the other day, for some reason, I looked in the storefront as I passed. There in the middle of the store in perfect view of the front door (which was propped open because it was a billion degrees outside) was a larger than life-size cardboard cutout of Buffy.

See? It's with me everywhere! (The praise and curse of it is I'm up to the final season. It's almost over. What will pacify me then?)

It's like a cult, this Buffy phenomenon. Clearly. When I mention my addiction to someone who then turns out to be a fan the goddamn floodgates open and there's no going back. I fear I'm like a trekkie. I can't help it. I won't help it! I'm out and I'm proud! I'm not scouring Ebay for Joss Whedon merch or buying those monthly Buffy magazines that they're still publishing three years after the show went off the air. What it is is this: watching Buffy makes me really, really happy.

So you see I'm still here. More on where I've been (besides Buffy World) later. It's 10pm, and since I've been working, working day and night now it's totally time to reward myself with a visit to the magical world that is Sunnydale.

I mean magickal.