conversations | Oh Honestly, Erin

Chooch: Making the Neighbors Hate Me

May 302011

Henry’s mom Judy babysat Chooch for us last night while we were soul skating. As soon as we came home, Judy said in a worried, apprehensive tone, “There’s something you should know.”

Apparently, Chooch had a lovely conversation with our neighbor Toya (the Mr. Wilson to his Dennis the Menace — he is seriously all up in that woman’s grill while she’s trying to garden).

“He told that nice woman over there that you painted a picture of her,” Judy said, looking nervous.

My first thought was that Toya probably thought I was in love with her. That I had some grandiose portrait of her above the bed and made out with it every night before stirring my vat of black market love potion.

“She asked him if it was a nice picture, and he said no,” Judy continued.

“Chooch!” I yelled. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s a monster,” he reasoned.

Judy said Toya was all, “OH REALLY??” And then Chooch tore the house apart, trying to find it.

“I didn’t know what to say!” Judy cried. “I couldn’t think fast enough. So I just told her it probably was very nice and that she should come over and ask you to see it.”

Three years ago, when I was on that monster-painting kick, I had just finished one and it needed a name. So I asked Chooch to name it. He had just got done pestering Toya from the side window, so naturally he wanted to name it after her.

THREE YEARS AGO.

But Toya probably thinks I have some hideous interpretation of her, hanging on my wall, and that maybe sometimes I fling cat shit at it to relieve my deep-rooted frustrations.

So now I’m going to have to seek her out today and show her this stupid painting of a stupid monster and explain that no, I don’t think she’s a monster, or looks like a monster, or acts like a monster; that my SON is the one who named the fucking thing in the first place.

It doesn’t help that she and I started off on the wrong foot when she moved here 4 years ago.

Still, this is decidedly not as bad as the time he told our other neighbor that I hate her. (Truth.) Thanks, son.

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Girl Power For the Loss

conversations, music

May 282011

“If any guy ever WOKE ME UP to ask me what color my eyes are, I’d be like, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker! You should have every facet of me memorized because I am the best thing that will ever happen to you!’ as I detached their penis with hedge-clippers,” I spat to Henry during the 86729864389317409 listen of Dance Gavin Dance’s “Blue Dream,” which ends with a recording of a phone call asking just that.

I should have just kept my mouth shut, allowed (what’s left of) Henry’s wavering male worth to be fumigated by my strong female independence, but instead I went on to add, “Unless it was Jonny Craig. Then I’d be all, ‘Why, what color do you want them to be? Tell me AND I WILL MAKE THEM CHANGE!’” I said this in a very weak and feminine tone, with a hint of floral and batting eyelashes. Because even though he’s a veritable petri dish for new and exciting STD strands, and has rodent eyes, I would drop Henry for him like a sack of hot balls.

Henry looked at me with a certain visage that made me think he finally realized he stinks of sewage. “You’re pathetic,” he sneered.

I just single-handedly fucked Girl Power in its liberated Susan Powter vagina. I HAVE MY WEAKNESSES TOO, OK.

(I have no idea where Susan Powter came from, but go with it.)

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A Photo-Stalker After My Own Heart

chooch, conversations

May 252011

Just now, I was sitting at the dining room table, talking to Henry about amniotic fluid while he eats his dinner. Chooch came over with my phone and said, “Wait until you see this, I got to the next level. I jumped over—-”

While Chooch was droning on about what was happening on the game he was playing, I noticed that Henry was trying not to laugh, and also that my phone was aimed directly at me. A (very dim) light went off in my head, prompting me to snatch my phone from Chooch.

That little fucker’s “game” was just a ruse to take my picture. My annoyance only made him crack up harder.

“What an asshole,” I muttered to Henry after Chooch walked away.

“A smart asshole,” Henry corrected.

And I can’t even be mad because he learned this shit from me.

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Hopeful Proposal

conversations, Henrying, Obsessions

Apr 302011

“Are you ever going to ask me?”

“Yeah,” Henry said, completely immune to my nuptial nagging by now.

“Do you even know when?” I prodded, arms crossed in petulance.

His affirmative answer seemed steeped in honesty, inspiring me to probe deeper.

“Is it going to be sometime in 2011?”

Henry said yes, and I screamed, “OMG ARE YOU GOING TO PROPOSE AT WARPED TOUR?”

He gave me a “don’t be stupid” smirk.

“But that would be so perfect,” I whined.

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “For YOU.”

Um, isn’t that the point?

Then I asked him if he planned on asking my dad for my hand (lol) but Henry reminded me that after we’ve lived together for ten years and spawned a child from our mutual hatred, my dad probably couldn’t care less either way.

Maybe by the time Henry finally puts a ring on it, Jonny Craig’s career will have collapsed upon itself faster than his veins and I can snag him to sing at our reception on the cheap.

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A Random Memory

conversations, Henrying, nostalgia

Apr 092011

After I broke up with my boyfriend for Henry in 2001, one of the last things he said to me was, “Have fun drinking IC Light and listening to country music.”

I’m assuming he was trying to insinuate that Henry is white trash, his only basis being that Henry is fourteen years older than me.

In these last ten years, I have not once brought an IC Light up to my lips (I’m a wino), and last I checked, there are no country bands playing at Warped Tour.

Nice try.

[It is not the opinion of this blog's writer that the enjoyment of either of these things, separate or in tandem, makes the person partaking in such "white trash."]

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George Benson & The Beginnings of Erin & Henry

conversations, Henrying, nostalgia, Shit about me

Apr 012011

We were talking about George Benson the other day, Henry and I. Well, mostly just I was. I think I was making a painfully stretched comparison between a Dance Gavin Dance song and George Benson, and I’m sure it only made sense to my ear drums, as evidenced by the aghast look on Henry’s scruffy face.

“Seriously, this song could have been in Short Circuit 2,” I cried, pleading my case. And then, “George Benson always make me think of Joe (our ex-boss from the early 00′s).”

Henry snorted. Joe is a sore subject ’round these parts.

“I remember when he found out about us,” I said. “He came into my office, shut the door and said, ‘Let’s have a little talk.’ I was sure I was getting fired.”

Henry and I did pretty good for awhile in the beginning, keeping our relationship as clandestine at work as a bi-racial love affair in the ’50s. Of course, I’d toe the line by making out with him in the break room. He’d always get so nervous and try unsuccessfully to push me away, but I’m too much of a harlot to get shooed away like some dung-caked horsefly.

I will never forget this one fateful night in October of 2001, Henry and I were on our way to a haunted house. At a red light, I sat in the passenger seat, holding Henry’s hand across the console, when I casually looked out the window. I made eye contact with the driver of the car next to us, and of course it would happen to be a co-worker, Jim.

Motherfucking Jim Landis.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and I flung Henry’s hand far away from me like it was the heroin-packed rectum of a corpse and a wagonful of DEA had sidled up next to me. The light turned green and we sped away.

That Monday, I had to pull Jim aside and beg him not to tell. And especially since he was one of Joe’s Golden Boys, I was panicked and paranoid.

Joe eventually found out, albeit months later, which was where the absurd, but kind of cute I guess, Concerned Father chat stemmed from. It was the whole, “This man is much older than you and I don’t want to see you get hurt” spiel, which I guess I should have considered more seriously, on second thought. BECAUSE LOOK AT ME NOW.

“You know, our old landlord gave me the same talk, sat me right down in his office when I went up there and told him you were moving in with me,” I told Henry, remembering it with a certain fondness because that guy is dead now and he was such a great land lord. “I guess he wanted to make sure I had thought it through.”

“I wish someone would have had that talk with me,” Henry mumbled.

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When parenting backfires

chooch, conversations

Mar 312011

One thing that drives me nuts about my kid is that he has this wanton need to monopolize everything in the house.

Spongebob is on TV, yet he wants to play games on my phone. So I turn the channel, which flips his internal asshole switch and makes him scream, “I WAS WATCHING THAT!”

“You can’t do both!” I’ll yell, snatching my phone from him.

A few minutes ago, he attempted to pickpocket my phone. When I started to protest, he pointed from the hockey game on the TV back to my phone and said, “You can’t do both. One or the other!”

Well played, kid.

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A Conversation About Medicine

conversations

Mar 202011

“You can take more medicine now,” Henry said, joining me in bed where I am currently melting into the mattress with Extreme Sickness.

“Oh good. Go get me some,” I mumbled, Kleenex plugging up both nostrils.

“What are your symptoms now?”

“Watery eyes. Major facial wetness. Like if you peel the flesh from my skull, duck sauce will come flooding out,” I answered matter-of-factly.

Henry’s head exploded into a brilliant puff of gyrating question marks. “The only way I could ever find medicine for you is if you were the person who wrote the symptoms on the box.”

I guess I’m not getting new medicine.

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Ratings Meter Update!

conversations, ratings meter funnery

Mar 162011

Today, we received two checks in the mail from the ratings company that has us wearing their stupid personal meters. My check was for $60. Henry’s was only for $10. Of course, I took a moment to fold in half with laughter, and then I promptly called him at work to gloat.

“WHAT THE?!” he stammered upon receiving the news.

“[Obnoxious throaty laughter that alarmed the neighbors],” I contributed to the phone conversation.

“This is bullshit!” Henry shouted. “You don’t even WEAR yours half the time!” Truth. More often that not, one can overhear me outbursting that, “Fuck! I left my fucking pager-thing at home again.” Or it’s been banished to my purse after a co-worker spots it on my waistband and exclaims, “Oh my god, is that a PAGER?” I learned very quickly that hiding it in my purse under my desk doesn’t constitute as “keeping it on my person,” so I accumulate no points for that.

“I’m going to have to do something about this,” Henry threatened, mostly to himself.

I was still rolling around on the floor in a puddle of merriment when he hung up on me.

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Sick & Stupid Conversations

chooch, conversations

Mar 152011

When Chooch woke me up yesterday morning at 4:00am, wanting to talk about his desire to be an octopus standing in a crowd, I wondered if maybe if he was getting sick. When he expressed concern that his entire body felt like it was covered in tattoos, I was like, “OK, he’s sick.” I mean, saying weird shit isn’t at all unusual for him, but the sad, droopy eyes accompanying his random statements weren’t generally a part of his delivery.

“Do you want some medicine?” I asked him, fumbling for my big green glasses.

“Yeah, if it tastes good,” he said with attitude.

Later in the afternoon, he established an “Are You OK?” protest. I guess constantly asking him if he was OK every time he even half-coughed had gotten under his achy skin.

“What do you think?” he snarled after I felt his forehead for the 87th time (Sidney Crosby, holla). “No, I’m not OK! I’m sick.”

He’s still pretty delirious (and bitchy) today. We were sitting together on the couch when he said, in a very disgusted tone, “I haven’t watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid in years because daddy will never get off his ass and find it.” And then when I continued to just sit there–god forbid–he yelled, “Well? Go find it!”

Oh, I found it. It’s at that orphanage outside of the city. Here, allow me to DROP YOU OFF THERE.

Fucker.

After watching his stupid movie, down to the very last second of credits, Chooch turned his drowsy attention to “Suite Life,” which he has seen a million times. He asked in a sick drawl, “What, are they supposed to be twins or something?”

“Uh, they’re not supposed to be twins. They are twins,” I answered, slightly alarmed that whatever illness he has had begun eating his brain.

“Oh. And do they know this?”

Oh my god, my kid is turning stupid.

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A Conversation Before a School Which Has an Unwritten Weapons Policy

chooch, conversations

Mar 092011

I was trying to put Chooch’s coat on him this morning before school, when he quite earnestly asked, “What makes me have dreams?”

Great. Anything more than, “What is your name?” and “Name the cast of the Jersey Shore” is too hard of a question to dump on me pre-8:00am. “I don’t know. Your brain, I guess,” I mumbled, struggling with the zipper.

Chooch made a very agitated noise, and then spat, “Well, I hate my brain.” He paused, (waiting for me to ask why, I’m sure, which never happened because I was too busy being gagged by a yawn) before explaining, “Because it made me dream about Dora.”

Poor child. I would hate that brain, too.

***

Today’s Show n Tell is for the letter S. I gave him my Sid & Marty Kroft Sigmund the Sea Monster plushie to take. I originally was going to let him take his play sword, but Henry was like, “Um, no. They’re not allowed to take swords.”

“What? Why? Where does it say that?” I asked, wondering if there was some bulletin I missed (which would pretty much be all of the bulletins).

“Um, they’re not allowed to take anything that resembles a weapon. It pretty much says that everywhere, in every school.” He said this using his “I’m talking to my 8-year-old daughter” voice, then he gave me that patronizing once-over with his eyes while shaking his head sadly.

Well, sorry that I clearly did not know that. When I was in kindergarten, I wore a charm belt to school and one of the charms was A REVOLVER. Twenty-five years later, and I haven’t shot anyone. Yet.

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A Conversation with one of Those People

conversations, where i try to act social

Mar 042011

“I forgot to tell you, I got stuck talking to that travel office lady last night,” I complained to Henry yesterday. “We were in the bathroom together before I left work, and she started talking to me about my hair while we were washing our hands.” Here is where I would make a disgusted sound for effect. “It was so awkward.”

Henry didn’t say anything, just kept driving.

“Then we had to walk down the hall together! I mean, there was no way around it. We were both headed the same direction.” I shuddered a little in the passenger seat, reliving the horrors of it all, how she penetrates my soul with her intense eye contact that makes me instinctively take two steps back. “And of course, we left at the same time so I had to ride the elevator with her.”

I had a quick flashback of frantically thumping the “close door” button to no avail; she was too quick in her approach and managed to slip in between the doors before they closed completely.

“And then, the whole way to the lobby, all TEN FLOORS down to the lobby, she asked me questions!” I added incredulously.

“Like what?” Henry asked.

“Like, ‘What’s your name? What do you do here? Why do you work part time? Are you in school?’” I rolled my eyes and made more disgruntled throat scrapings. “It was so awkward,” I reiterated.

“That just sounds like a normal conversation to me,” Henry said impatiently. That’s because he lives in a world where conversation is invited, and not the impenetrable bubble of ignorance in which I’ve set up my cozy little hobo camp. My friend Alisha once pointed out that she had never known someone with as much ability to turn every situation into something as painfully awkward as I manage to do every single day of my life. I take a certain pride in that.

“I have to remember I’m talking to a twelve-year-old,” he said mostly to himself; and then, shooting up his voice with an extra dose of condescension, he patronized, “That’s how you MAKE FRIENDS.”

I laughed haughtily. “What makes you think I want to be friends with her? She’s lame. And old.”

“You’re so judgmental! What if she thinks you’re lame? What if she likes the same music as you?” And then, as if to really drive home his point, ”What if she’s going to see Dance Gavin Dance, too?”

This time absolute hilarity drove away the anger from my laughter and I was practically in tears at the absurdity of his statement. “Trust me, she does not like the same music as me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she wears this ugly leopard print hat from the Grandma Cleavage Store!”

Henry shook his head in defeat and dropped me off at work. Minutes later, the elevator door opened on my floor; as I went to step off, Travel Office Lady was waiting to step on. “Welcome to work!” she exclaimed in that friendly manner that I haven’t quite yet mastered.

For a split second, I felt guilty. But then my eyes flicked up to her stupid fucking leopard hat and I carried my sanctimonious attitude to my desk like the bloated extra appendage it’s known to be.

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Friday Night Fisticuffs.

conversations

Feb 252011

“I’M WATCHING THIS!” as the channel changed.

“WELL, I WANNA WATCH DEGRASSI!”

“TOO BAD, I’M WATCHING HOUSE OF ANUBIS!”

This volleyed back and forth a bit, like a tennis match between two short-fused siblings fighting over how best to kill Daddy for his money, before Henry entered the room to play referee.

“This is an argument I should be breaking up between a twelve-year-old and a four-year-old,” Henry yelled as brand new wrinkles gouged themselves around his eyes. “Not a THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD and a four-year-old.”

I’m sorry, but after a long day, mama wants to kick back with some Cherokee Red and a fucking Degrassi episode, OK. And I haven’t seen Cherokee Red in the store for years, so best let this bitch have her goddamn show.

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Chooch & Circa Survive, In the Car: A Conversation

chooch, conversations, music

Dec 182010

Tonight is Game Night which means Henry is grumpily cleaning the house and threatening to kill me and Chooch. Scary times. In order to build the dam against impending bloodshed, Chooch and I went to the craft store so I could get more wood blocks for my bathroom plaques and candles to mask the perpetual cat stench in our house. What really happened was that I offered to go to the grocery store to pick up stuff Henry needs for his spinach dip; when I suggested this, Henry’s face went slack and practically served as a projector screen of the montage of me fucking up that was spooling through his memory. So we mutually decided on me sticking to a store I couldn’t get lost in or accidentally purchase sardine juice.

In the car, I was playing the new Circa Survive Appendages EP.

“Who is this?” Chooch asked from the backseat, carefully forming the words around the protruding candy cane which he acquired from the cashier at the liquor store after successfully managing to not touch any daunting pyramid displays of wine bottles. (Mostly this was due to the fact that every one of his fingers was stuffed into finger puppets, preoccupying him while I calculated the ratio of how much I like my friends : how much money I wanted to spend on wine.)

“Circa Survive,” I answered. But god forbid I should stop there! “The singer is Anthony Green. You know who he is. He’s in that picture with Craig [Owens] that I have hanging on the wall behind the chair.”

“Oh,” Chooch mumbled. “Yeah, I know Anthony.”

“Daddy hates Circa Survive,” I instigated, hoping this could be something that Chooch and I could join forces on in order to make Henry’s life even more miserable.

“Yeah well, I’m going to take Daddy to see Circa Survive and then tell Anthony to punch him in the face,” he spat aggressively. I don’t know where Chooch gets his aggression, but I honestly thought he was going to cut me the other day when his person lost on Hell’s Kitchen and my person won.

Excited that Chooch was expressing interest in this, I blurted out, “Do you want to watch Circa Survive videos when we get home?”

“No,” he said haughtily, as if he couldn’t believe my audacity to suggest something so lame to him.

I’m placing an ad on Craigslist today for a friend who will sit around and watch music videos with me.

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Chooch’s Logical Reasoning

chooch, conversations

Oct 102010

Chooch was taking a bath after a long day of running amok in the park and pigging out on pie. I was trying to coax him into speeding it up because I had a headache from maybe drinking too much wine and possibly eating too much pie.

“Hurry up, I want to go lay down,” I said.

“Just go lay down then. I’m not done playing in here,” Chooch countered.

“What kind of mother would I be if I just left you in the bath tub with no supervision?”

With no hesitation, Chooch answered, “A mother without a headache.”

Touché, young one.

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