Petition to make “smorg” the new cool slang to mean BUFFET OF ANY GENERALIZED THING.

Anyway, here are some bulleted things that have been happening or whatever.

• I had a memory last week of this kid that I met in a Sunoco parking lot back in….1999 probably. It must have been shortly after I moved into my place here in Brookline, I’m guessing. I think that also, and this is bad, he was still in high school and I was 20?! NOTHING HAPPENED, IT WAS NOT THAT KIND OF “MEETING” but still, even if he was 17 or 18, I should not have befriended him. But that’s neither here nor there because as you can probably guess, we became friends after this chance meeting in a gas station parking lot, especially after realizing that we both lived in Brookline. We exchanged numbers and he came over several times to hang out – JUST TO HANG OUT AND ALWAYS WITH OTHER PEOPLE HERE, OMG. I already regret starting this story but now I have typed all of these words and don’t want them to go to waste and also perhaps Janna will read this and it will bring back loving memories for her. OK OK OK, back to my story. So this kid’s name was Carl and he was Goth, so of course I called him Gothic Carl. Most notably, he came over one time with his cousin who was a big derelict and of course immediately got a crush on Janna (JANNA: 1. Do you remember his name and was it JUSTIN; 2. didn’t he invite you to the movies??). While here, Gothic Carl SENSED an ominous, paranormal presence in my basement and gave me a ROCK OF PROTECTION which actually sat on my fireplace mantel for quite a few years.
  • One of Gothic Carl’s hobbies was slowly ambling about Brookline. He’d sometimes stop at my house so often that I would have to hide and my neighbors at the time would be like SHE DIED just to get him to stop coming over because it was getting W E I R D if you know what I mean. Several years later, when I became friends with Christina and she came to visit me from Cincinatti for a long weekend but I wasn’t able to take any time off work so she had to stay at my house and entertain herself. I had just recently told her the tale of Gothic Carl and how he would sloth around the neighborhood, so that day she went for a walk to kill time and then wrote in her LiveJournal that she had walked around “a la Gothic Carl.” Meanwhile, she was dating this broad who was O B S E S S E D with her and also laughably jealous, so she reads this and freaks out thinking that Christina was loafing around town with some goth man. Because she thought “a la” meant “with” like “apple pie a la mode” means YOU’RE GETTIN’ YOUR PIE WITH ICE CREAM, FRENCHIE. OK this seemed funnier at the time, and also when I texted Christina, she said “Gothic Carl” sounded familiar but turns out she didn’t remember this at all and I had to put every single puzzle piece into her fucking swiss-cheesed brain.

I got this from the Post Gazette website, DO NOT SUE ME. 

• The owner of Pitaland recently died and I just found this out the other day. I wasn’t bros with him or anything but during my early morning walks, he was often sitting at a table outside of the store, smoking his hookah, and we would always exchange pleasantries. Plus, Pitaland is just a really great local Brookline store that we frequently buy from and it’s sad. WE ARE ALL GETTING OLD. I FUCKING HATE IT.

• Remember when I told you, Internet Secret Chest, that my Coaster Crew friend Pam has bought a house in Brookline, courtesy of realtor extraordinaire My Brother Corey? Well, it’s true. That happened. She asked me, Henry, and Chooch to swing by on Sunday to check out her new digs so that was exciting in and of itself, BUT! While we were there, Henry goes, “Pam, there is some lady standing at your front door.” And it was true – some older broad was straight peering in, not even making any moves to knock or ring the doorbell. Pam goes to answer the door while the rest of stay in another room. Last time I checked, it only takes one person to answer the door, right? The lady doesn’t even say hello, she just goes, “I live across the street and saw that you were painting your door red and came over to stop you.” 

Like, her tone was immediately harsh and combative.

Is it a crime to paint your door red?!

Pam is like, “Well, I did go back and forth on colors, but I really do love this red” and this byotch continued to be such an asshole about it that I couldn’t stand behind a wall anymore and had to go over to        mediate. (When I told group chat this story, Glenn was like “Erin standing by with a can of gasoline” lololol.) Broad was like, “WELL, I THINK YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET IT. IT DOESN’T EVEN MATCH YOUR HOUSE NUMBERS.” (Pam made a little mosaic sign with her house numbers on it) So Pam is like, “…………..” 

And the broad is like “…………..”

          And I’m like “…………..”

The broad, btw, is CHRISTINE FROM ACROSS THE STREET, in case you care. Christine says, “I’m actually about to repaint my whole house so PLEASE before you start painting anything else, come talk to me and my mom. My mom is AN EXPERT WITH COLORS. PAINT HAS TO FLOW. IT. HAS. TO. FLOW.” And I’m just over there like, “Jesus, this broad would literally die just from my living room alone….”

So then Pam goes, “Well, as you can see, I have some paint swatches taped to the wall over there, because I’m trying to plan it out…” and the lady was like “MMMMMMMMMMM” and started criticizing the door again!! Pam told her the name of the paint color (I forget what it was now) and then said, “That’s French” and the lady snaps, “YEAH I KNOW I SPEAK FRENCH!!!!” so Pam, who is still staying super friendly and calm thru this while I’m wanting to fling myself out a window, goes, “Oh really me too! *says something in French*” and now the neighbor has steam coming out of her nostrils, she’s so pissed, like she’s about to HOLD MY BEER every Viral Video Karen of the last 5 years, because I DON’T THINK SHE COULD ACTUALLY SPEAK FRENCH. 

Anyway, this weird paint push-and-pull went on for a solid 10 minutes, culminating with Pam’s stroll down interior design memory lane as she recalled the yellow and green walls of one of her old houses  – you could see Christine gnawing away at the inside of her cheeks and hiccuping with tangible distaste – and sort of ended OK I guess because Christine HUGGED HER AWKWARDLY, said she was GLAD to have her as a neighbor (suddenly? on what grounds??) and then said to me, “And Erin, you rock.” Me, who had said nothing up to this point, but the mention of my name inspired Pam to tell Christine that I also live in Brookline, so now we can add “I live on the other end of Pioneer Ave” to the only words I said to Christine. It was so bizarre. I hope Pam keeps the door red. I hope she also lines it with red neon. That’s what I would do, to the surprise of no one.

The weirdest part to me,  though, was how Pam seemed completely unbothered by this. Christine left and Pam goes, “OK where did we leave off? Oh, yeah! The upstairs!” as if she hadn’t just had her design choices dragged to Heinz Field (or whatever it’s called) and back. So, we go upstairs and find Henry and Chooch up there hiding like little bitch boys. Chooch was like, “Yeah, I didn’t want any part of that.”

• We went for a walk in the cemetery over the weekend and Henry was dressed like a middle schooler and then I had another body dysmorphia meltdown so we left and I came home to cry about. What is my fucking problem!? I am so blah lately. Nothing amuses me. Nothing excites me. Books are boring me. Boo hoo.

The end.