Another long week is coming to an end and I’m ready to slam the motherfucking door on it. BUHBYE, STRANGE WEEK FULL OF MURDER AND MAYHEM. Can we call this a…circle point post? Dot point? I don’t want to use the b-word anymore. Fuck the b-word and the g-words too.

• We had a low-key surprise birthday cake for Corey last Saturday at The House. The garbage truck is an inside joke relevant to what our lives have become since March 30th. In light of recent events, it was a relatively somber cake-eating session, but I was pretty high off the fact that I saved the whole entire day when my mom announced she forgot to get candles and a lighter. I’ve been rummaging through enough drawers in that house lately to immediately summon up visions of a box of birthday candles from the 1970s in a drawer behind the game room bar, and an entire canister of matchbooks in my aunt Susie’s room (I chose a book from Tambellini’s in Bridgeville and it got shit done).

• Chooch was in a foul mood during the cake-eating session.
  buy zydena online buy zydena generic

  I think he partially hangry but mostly just being spoiled because he wanted to go to the craft store and get that loom shit that he’s all into now and we were like WE WILL GO AFTER THIS JUST SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH but he’s Chooch and also my spawn, and people like me are unable to keep their mouths shut, so he just kept needling away at our sanity and then started to CRY because who needs drama classes? Not this son of a bitch. His scowl immediately made me think of this picture that Henry took of me years and years ago at Buttermilk Falls. He learns from the best. Scowls all day.

  • He did end up getting his loom shit, but only because he used his own money. I wasn’t rewarding his behavior with free gifts! Bitch, please. He didn’t care. He even asked a Pat Catan’s worker to help him find what he needed because he is way more independent than me. (I guess maybe he gets that from Henry.)

• I purposely switched my late shifts with Amber2 so that I wouldn’t be a zombie at work on Monday since I knew I would be getting home really late from Cleveland. I was looking forward to sleeping in a little, but then I heard Chooch yell something about a succulent, and then I heard the spine-tingling sound of GLASS BEING SWEPT UP. Those little fuckers. Apparently the fireplace mantel is no longer safe, either. THERE IS NOWHERE FOR ME TO PUT MY PLANTS NOW. (Until Henry finally makes me some macrame hanging plant holders. Kara sent me some DIYs to help him get started!) Of course, Chooch only half-cleaned up after his dumb cat (I KNOW IT WAS DREW) so instead of sleeping in, my plant-induced anxiety had me out of bed at normal time and downstairs cleaning up the carnage. Then I tried to relax with a nice glass of cold brew and fucking Penelope was trying to get all up in it. CAN’T A BITCH DRINK HER ICED COFFEE IN PEACE AFTER CLEANING UP DIRT!? Fuck.
  • Speaking of cold brew: guys, get yo’selves a person who learns how to make bad-ass motherfuckin’ cold brew even when they hate coffee. Because that’s what my person does. And he is the goddamn best.
    • YES I’M TALKING ABOUT HENRY. JESUS.
      • I mean, just Henry. Not Jesus.
    • That first time he made me cold brew, though….

• And then there’s the leader of Plantpocalypse: fucking Drew.
• Did I tell you about the time a few weeks ago when I almost got HIT BY A CAR? Well, I almost got HIT BY A CAR, you guys. I was walking to the trolley shuttle (Henry’s fault already, as you can see) and I was crossing the street IN A CROSSWALK when this woman came careening around the bend. I saw her coming and thought, “Oh surely this dumb cooze is going to slow her roll.” FALSE. She just kept coming and then she saw me at the last second, when I WAS LEAPING TO SAFETY. I have never come that close to getting hit by a car, but she was literal centimeters away from clipping me. We made eye contact and I screamed, “HEY!!!!” at the same time she mouthed the words, “OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY” and then drove off, leaving guilty fumes in her wake. I hope she stewed over that all day, because I know I sure did. I wanted to press charges at one point, but Henry was all, “Yeah but….did she even hit you?” OK, WHITE KNIGHT.
  • The perils of taking the trolley! Henry is trying to have me killed!

• Remember when banana clips were the shit? Chooch doesn’t. He was like, “But why would someone want to wear this in their hair?” Indeed, son.
  • I never wore banana clips because they didn’t look right on me. I did wear those big floppy bows that came attached to french barrettes. Oh man, I had so many of them. I think I’ll wear one to work on Monday and make Ethan jealous.
    • Because he doesn’t have hair.
      • Although, Amber1 did offer to let him borrow hers.
    • He does have a beard, though.

• My excitement for the week, aside from the PENGUINS VICTORY PARADE, which I will post about separately, was watching the first episode of the new season of MTV’s Are You the One and recognizing that one of the guys is from SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE.
  • My life is so full.
• Speaking of a full life, I watched this on YouTube last night because my aunt has me all stoked for Gino Vannelli:

• Today is Thank God It’s Emarosa Friday, so I shared the new Emarosa video with my WORK HOSTAGES and now both Ambers have agreed, upon their own volition, that they will go with me to see Emarosa next time they’re in town.
  • Which is next month at Warped Tour, but I don’t foresee that happening, so we’ll just wait for the next tour, I guess.
  • And then I heard Amber2 admit that she “sometimes has a soft spot for emo music” so now I’m probably going to start making her playlists.
    • EMAROSA ISN’T EMO but that will be a lesson for another Friday. Emo is a tricky subject.
      • WHAT IF I WAS A MUSIC TEACHER IN REAL LIFE?!?!

• Chooch found a Rick Astley tape at my Pappap’s house and went nuts over it. OH THE THINGS WE FIND.
• Speaking of Chooch (but not Rick Astley), he took a page out of my manual and recorded his nemesis LARRY bitching about being under-appreciated. Sometimes I really love my kid.
  • I mean, always! I always love my kid.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

• I accidentally stood up my friend Stacey for dinner last Tuesday. I can’t even believe it and I feel like such a royal asshole. And it wasn’t even like I had blown her off for better plans! It was just another evening at The House, taking out garbage and having Why So Formal pizza.
  buy avana online buy avana generic

  But everything going on has turned my brain into mush and most of the time, I don’t even know what day it is. So basically, what Henry said was going to happen to me is finally starting to happen. “You need to pull back,” he said. “You’re getting too invested,” he said.

  • But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
  • Anyway, my point is that I’m now officially That Person who is too self-involved to remember a goddamn dinner date. Ugh, I hate myself.
    • SEE?! SELF-INVOLVED.
• Anyway, back to me and my life. Today on my lunch break I went to Nicholas Coffee to buy a new bag of coffee for work because I used the last of my Cafe Orange blend and I can’t be expected to work an entire day on only one cup of coffee. I had every hope and intention of buying Maple Cinnamon but they didn’t have it. Right as the voices in my head had agreed with each other that Vanilla Buttercream was the way to go, a young girl breezed up to me at the counter and asked in the most bored and apathetic tone ever if she could help me. I DON’T KNOW, CAN YOU?! I nervously ordered my bag of coffee and then stuttered when she asked, “Whole bean?
  buy flagyl online buy flagyl generic

  ” because she had me so flustered with her brash 70-year truck stop diner waitress attitude. I managed to tell her I wanted it ground and then also slid one of those random Ice Cube chocolates onto the counter next to my credit card. When she came back with my total, I asked her if she also rang up the chocolate, and she waved it off with an eye roll. I started to thank her for hooking it up and she angrily spat, “IT’S JUST 50 CENTS.” I ate that Ice Cube on my way through Market Square and though it was delicious, it was marred by the bitter notes of confusion and humility.

  • But my coffee tastes fucking amazing, so I’ll keep going there and enduring the emotionally jarring customer service I consistently receive. It’s all part of the experience, really.

And that’s all for now.

Forgive me Father, it has been x-number of days since my last bullet point post. I was going to just make up a number because I don’t feel like counting, but that would be LYING, and I can’t LIE while I’m blog confession.

Everyone knows that.

• Lady on the trolley behind me this morning made some annoyed exclamation when a lady came on and said something too loudly, but now this same lady is on the PHONE right behind my head and she is so fucking abrasive and I’m like “Hey remember when you thought that other lady was being loud? Well….” DONT TALK ON THE PHONE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. No one wants to hear about your relaxing vacation and how you think you have a bug now.
  • From what I gathered though, some baby had been born and then there were no pictures of Laura and Ricky holding the baby and Trolley Lady kept muttering, “NO, THAT’S WEIRD. THAT SOUNDS WEIRD TO ME. THERE’S SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT THAT.”
• So last week, Henry’s Work Bromance told him that if the Pens/Sharks series went past 4 games, then he’s take Henry to Game 5 with him, since his wife gets tickets from work or something. I fucking threw a fit so hard that I almost had another baby, that’s how hard my body was contracting. The sheer incredulity of this proposal had literal foam seeping past my lips. Why should HENRY get to go to game 5 when he can’t even stay awake for an entire game? When he doesn’t care about watching the regular season games with me? WHEN HE CALLS IT OFFSIDES WHEN ANY REAL HOCKEY FAC KNOWS IT’S OFFSIDE?!  Ugh!! “And so I told him that if he goes, I will never talk to him again!” I huffed at work. “Sounds like a win/win to me,” Glenn said in his typical lifeless cadence.

• Penelope is super needy in the morning. The rest of the day, forget about it—she wants nothing to do with the humans. But man, in the mornings when I’m trying to get ready for work, she is all over me, like, “Hey lady, you don’t have enough cat fur on your wardrobe. I can help you with that.” I almost missed the stupid trolley shuttle the other morning because I had to run back into the house to fashion an impromptu fur-removal apparatus out of packing tape when I realized, after walking out into the bright light of day, how much fur was on my dumb pants.

• Hockey. I can’t stand it. Ugh, that’s a lie. I love it. But my fucking heart, man. The Penguins had a chance to clinch last night, to win the fucking Stanley Cup here at home, but things did not go as planned, because you can’t make plans when there are HOCKEY GODS watching diligently from above with steepled fingers. So you know what’s going to happen? I’ll tell you what is going to happen: the Penguins are win it in game 6 in San Jose. And do you know where I will be? At the House of Blues in Cleveland, trying to divide my attention between Pens alerts on my phone and Pierce the Veil performing their new album in its entirety right in front of me. Yep. The girl who watches every fucking regular season game (except for when she’s at a show, but even then she’s constantly checking her phone) is going to miss game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals.
  • DON’T GET IT TWISTED: I’m not saying I want them to lose so that I can be home to watch a game 7! No way. Get it done in San Jose, please. OMG.
  • Guess who didn’t go to game 5, by the way? HAHAHAHA. Not Henry, and not his work bromance either! Apparently work bromance’s wife was angry at him for not getting his hair cut so she ended up using the tickets anyway and guess who went to bed before the second period was over? HINT: Not me, not Chooch, not the dumb cats.

• NERD ALERT: On the way to Michigan a few weeks ago, Chooch practiced his Latin roots. Henry was all, “Have your mom help you, she took Latin.” Taking Latin and actually knowing Latin are not the same! I’m actually trying to find someone to translate “One Sixteen” for me because I don’t know if “One” should be Unum or Unus. And I mean, that’s pretty basic Latin 101 bullshit right there.
• The other night, Chooch pulled a Ziplock bag out of his backpack and I cried, “IS THAT WEED!?” “Yeah, it’s weed. Shaped like bread,” he said with an eye-roll. SORRY. MY EYES ARE BAD, REMEMBER.

• That time Chooch had a fan at some family restaurant in Howell, MI. The dad kept trying to get the baby to turn around and apologized to us. I was like, “Pfft, it’s fine; this one used to do that too.” And Henry mumbled, “He still does.”
  • I was only being nice and personable because this was The Breakfast before Bled Fest.
    • Ugh, I miss you Bled Fest. </3

•  I “published” issue #3 of the department ‘zine a few weeks ago and it turned into a Big Thing. Glenn recently got chickens and I thought that would be a fun activity for the ‘zine — find how many chickens are hidden in there. I had all sorts of chickens: ones that I drew, real chickens photoshopped in places where dogs and wedding bouquets should have been, a bucket of KFC, etc. So Lou came over and proudly announced that he had the correct answer and that I should add his name to the drawing I was having. Except that he was way off, because he was only counting the actual pictures and not the words (there were numerous chicken shout-outs!), so Lou threw a fit and said that the instructions were unclear and Glenn piped up that my contest was flawed and I was like, “MAYBE WE SHOULDN’T HAVE ANY MORE CONTESTS AT ALL THEN.” Ugh, this is what I get for telling lawyers to count chickens.
  • The moral of the story is: make shit as easy as possible or be prepared for the ensuing uproar.
    • Because of Lou, I had to start including ALL ANSWERS in the drawing, whether they were correct or not. I call it the Lou Clause.
      • Is that what clause means? I’m not a lawyer, lul.
• Speaking of lawyers, Todd said that he’s going to represent Glenn when Glenn sues me and for some reason this made me laugh to the point of tears.
• The other day, I went for a lunchtime stroll with my old work friend Debbie! She only just works right across the bridge from our building but I don’t see her nearly enough. We went to Market Square and there were all these giant games set up, so we decided to play giant Kerplunk. Look, I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I was so much better than the two little girls I was playing against.

• Henry said he doesn’t want to add anything to this bulletpoint extravaganza.

• Succulent serial killer. ^^^^

• Chooch took a stupid poll on Facebook to see which cat everyone thought was the cutest and of course almost everyone voted for DREW either because they know Chooch well enough to know that Drew is HIS cat and Penelope is MY cat, and also he used the worst, most blurry photo of Penelope. We had a legit fight over this and he was so smug and I cried.
  • But if this is a real contest, then come on, Marcy all day, err’day.
    • RIP, Marcy :(

• The above excerpt is from a blog post 2 years ago when I was just as bad at parenting as I am today. THIS IS LIKE A BLOG WITHIN A BLOG, WHOA.
• I was telling Lauren here at work that even before the hockey game started last night, I sat down on the couch and began weeping. Like, straight sobbing, you guys. Nerves, stress. Unwavering and unabashed love for the Penguins. It all just got to me and the emotions bubbled over. “You know what’s funny?” Todd piped up from two desks back. “The same thing happened to me.” SUCH A JERK.

• This was Drew’s reaction to the SHOPVAC Henry had to bring up from the basement in order to clean up all of the DIRT AND PLANT CARNAGE she created in the living room. I texted this picture to Wendy and she was like, “the fuck is a shot vac?” because auto-correct changed it, and she thought I was literally torturing my cat by shooting things at her. Then I realized it was spelled like that on Instagram too, so…great.
• I just got home from dinner with Barb, Jeannie, and Wendy. We were originally supposed to go to DeBlasio’s but then Wendy changed everything up at the last minute because a tunnel was going to be closed or something so we ended up going to Olive Garden instead and Jeannie was a big crybaby about chain restaurants but then was thoroughly impressed that the tables there are equipped with electronic thingies that you can order/pay/call your server/play games on, and Wendy was all, “Oh yeah, Red Robin has those too.” And Jeannie was all, “Oh wow, another chain restaurant.” And then I accidentally called our server and we all panicked but when she got there (like 10 minutes later, we clearly weren’t a priority), I blamed it on Barb. Barb just looks like the type of person who would accidentally push a call button. And then Wendy went to the rest room and we all stole Summer’s snacks because I was raving about how I used to eat them all the time when Chooch was a baby so then everyone had to try them. Puffs are the bomb, man. Summer was not thrilled with us.

• A few days ago, I had arrived to work just in time to see a large truck too long to make the turn next to my building. Henry would have had an erection if he had been there to help him.
• Henry and I wanted a Genesis documentary last Sunday night and it really put me in a lingering zone. I’ve seen Phil Collins solo, but never Genesis, and maybe that’s a good thing because I might actually drown on my tears and die. It could happen. You probably have never seen me cry over music.
• I went to lunch today with one of the groups in our department and the Muhammed Ali funeral procession was on all of the TVs the entire time and that was pretty morbid but we still couldn’t stop looking.
• Chooch just went outside to “think about life.” That lasted literally 2 seconds before he came bounding back in and screamed, “DADDY LET’S PLAY A GAME.” Monday is his last day of school. 4th grade was fucking terrible (not academically, at least) and I’m so ready for it to be over.

And now I leave you with #SexyCarWash:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

I feel like I need to bullet-blog through the hockey game tonight because I can’t stand these games and I need something to keep me busy or else I will straight have a coronary right here in my stupid living room. So let’s pretend like we care about all the daily minutia that occurs in the life of this basic bitch.

• Terry ordered puppies last Thursday at work! It was a super exciting ordeal because who doesn’t want to abandon work for a few minutes to be kissed by some fucking adorable puppies? Goodamn serial killers and Donald Trump, that’s who. Uber was doing some charity thing with the Humane Society where you could literally call up an Uber and they’d bring you puppies to play with, and then the money you pay for the Uber went straight to the Humane Society. What a fucking genius idea! We all enjoyed it immensely, but no one more than Michele, who ended up being so smitten and puppy-drunk that she went out and adopted one a few days later! God, I love a happy ending. (All versions.)
  • I get really emotional around animals, so even though I was happy to pet some puppies, I still cried because crying is just what I do. It’s fine. I own it. I really miss having dogs, though!
  • guess who didn’t go outside to see the puppies? Glenn. But we already know he’s a serial killer.

• Here I am with my very first dog, WALLY.
  buy tadacip online buy tadacip generic

  WALLY WAS SO WONDERFUL! RIP IN WALLY! :(

• Emarosa’s new single “Helpless” has been getting some actual radio play on some Detroit radio station! Tonight, they were up against Brand New for some battle of the band thingie and Bradley was all, “Hey Twitter, call and vote” and when a band I like tells me to do something, I’m probably going to do it, even if that means using my phone as an actual phone which is like my least favorite thing to use my phone for. Ugh, what the hell, Emarosa. The first time I called, I HUNG UP WITH THE DJ ANSWERED BECAUSE OMG PANIC, ANXIETY, WILL I START STUTTERING, WHO CAN EVEN GUESS?! So then I called back and of course the dude couldn’t just take my vote and hang up, he had to start asking me questions like “what is your name” and “where are you from?” and I got a super fan-girl lilt to my voice and PLEASE I HOPE THEY DIDN’T PUT ME ON AIR UGH.
  • It’s hard to believe that I used to do this shit for sport! I can’t tell you how many mix tapes I’ve collected where each song is preceded by “This is SUSIE, from CLAIRTON.” That was my go-to name and location.
• Chooch has been really into Music.ally for a while now and I guess this is basically admitting that I’m out of touch, but I think it’s dumb as fuckkkkkk. Especially when he wants me to help him film shit. But then when we were at my grandparents house over the weekend, he roped Corey into assisting him and I have to admit, it was pretty funny.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

And here is another one that I like:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

• 10 more minutes until this stupid hockey game starts. I just can’t with Stanley Cup playoffs. Henry never stays awake for the end so I’m always alone, freaking out, and having no one to console me. Thanks, fuck boy.
• Speaking of Henry, he broke his phone so he’s been using some spare phone from work and it’s a FLIP PHONE with NO INTERNET ACCESS lol forever. I downloaded a new emoji keyboard just so I could send him a “cuz” emoji  because I always try to get him to say “Sup cuz” to his “friends” and he gets so mad because “I DON’T TALK LIKE THAT!” Anyway, he was so angry because he had to actually download the emoji to see it and it took him so long and then he was like, “REALLY, ERIN? ALL THAT FOR THIS?!”
  • Looks like Erin wins again!

• I had breakfast at Pamela’s with Jeannie, Wendy and Summer on Saturday. Wendy made us go to a different Pamela’s, one that was more convenient for her, god forbid, and I was so mad because there was construction and I had to go some weird way IN THE RAIN and I got all stressed out! And then on top of that, Wendy made fun of me because I apparently made a really excited face as I was showing Jeannie the picture of me with Carly Rae Jepsen! UGH! But I had a good banana walnut pancake and Summer is always nice to look at (but not hold, because I haven’t completely lost my mind).
  • I was going to pay for Wendy’s breakfast as a belated birthday thing but then she got the wrong order and the waitress took it off the bill so happy birthday, Wendy! I did that for you!  You’re welcome.

MEOWSEUM.

• GAME HAS STARTED. I FEEL SICK.CHOOCH WON’T STOP TALKING AND I’M LIKE “SON I MOSTLY LOVE YOU BUT GOOD GODDAMN SHUT YOUR FACE FOR A MINUTE.”
• Has anyone nicknamed Tampa’s goalie “Vagisilevski” yet?  This series has made me feel very disoriented. Nothing feels familiar. And Henry has already gone to bed?!?! It’s not even 8:30!
• WE ARE LOSING. I HONESTLY RIPPED OUT A CHUNK OF HAIR.
• We had cake at work and I didn’t eat any because diet but right about now I’d like to fucking suffocate myself in it.
• NO FUCKING GOAL!!!!!!!!!! OFFSIDE!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

• Bought a bunch of new plants over the weekend and apparently the cats smoked crack yesterday and went on a fucking spree. Let’s just say it’s a good thing Henry came home before me and cleaned up the carnage because from what I could tell, there was a lot of plant guts and broken glass. For Henry to say, “It was bad, real bad” then you know it was spectacularly horrendous because homie don’t exaggerate.  So by the time I came home, I was ready to unadopt those little assholes. And you know what they did the rest of the night? SLEPT ON THE COUCH BECAUSE THEY WERE SOOOO EXHAUSTED.
  • I blame Henry for this because he hasn’t built me a myriad of shelves like I keep asking for and he also has ignored every hanging planter DIY I’ve sent him.
    buy cymbalta online buy cymbalta generic

• I’m going to have to give myself a pixie cut to even out my hair after hockey is done for the year.
• Also, I feel like I need to eat something. A stick of butter maybe.

• I found a stack of old photos in my Pappap’s desk, including several featuring y birth dad. This was a pretty big deal for me because I have very few photos of him and the ones I d have, his face is barely visible, almost like it was on purpose. LIKE MAYBE HE WAS A VAMPIRE. I can’t believe I have never considered this theory before. Anyway, I found this great photo of him and me at the circus and this image of me surrounded by so many clowns envelopes me in fuzzy wings made of joy and a slight echo of maniacal laughter. Man, I have just always loved those fucking painted-faced derelicts.
• Oh great, Geno got a fucking penalty. Time to hold my nose and dunk my head in water for 2 minutes.
• We’re leaving for Michigan after work on Friday and I am so fucking ready. (I mean, I still have to pack.) I’m beyond stoked for Bled Fest but also just as stoked for the next day when we get to hang out with our pals Bill and Jessi! We haven’t seen them since our poorly-planned road trip two summers ago so we are way past due for some quality friend-o time.
• 5-on-3 for a 1:19 — come on Pens! OMG my stomach. My bowels are going to start leaking. I can’t stand this stress.
• KESSEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• OK. 1-0 Pens. End of 1st period. This is good. I’m OK. I’m breathing.

• The original bae, Robert Smith. I GET TO SEE HIM AGAIN NEXT MONTH, LORD HELP ME. It’s hilarious to me that I drained my savings to go to Australia to see them play on what Robert claimed was their “last tour” ever. And yet I’ve seen them four, soon to be five, times since then. Still, I’m glad that happened! Easily the greatest moment of my life. I mean, um, after having Chooch. I guess.
  • Can I just say that it’s a tie?

• ^^^What I’m going to look like if the Penguins lose this goddamn game.
• Well, Chooch and I wanted to share an apple but we couldn’t find the apple corer and neither of us are allowed to use big knives so we tried to bully Henry into waking up and coming downstairs to cut the apple but then thank god I found the apple corer because it was starting to look grim for us, and I didn’t want to resort to Plan X, which was take the apple upstairs to Henry with a knife and then stab him with the knife.
  • Basically what I’m saying is that this night could have taken a much different, dark, dastardly turn instead of us sitting here eating an apple harmoniously.
    • Goddamn, this apple is a stunner. I just made Chooch go find out what brand it is and he has reported back that it’s a Gala. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.
• There were some outlander broads on our floor last Friday. I guess Glenn knew one of them from another job he had so she stopped to chat with him (I know, I was surprised too); meanwhile the other broad was like, “Wow…” in kind of a disgusted tone, and I noticed she was looking at my adorable Fiji mermaid. “Yeah, welcome to the freak show,” Glenn mumbled but I think he was secretly smug, like, “yeah, that’s right, I get to sit behind the most interesting work space in this joint.” A few seconds after they left, I stood up, turned around, and cried, “WHO WAS THAT?” because randos don’t come on our floor very often and I was intrigued that Glenn knew these ones. Todd made some comment about how he didn’t realize I was at my desk for that, since I hadn’t chimed in with any retaliations to Glenn’s snide remarks. “I had jellybeans in my mouth,” I said with a shrug. #missedopportunity
  • Amber² said that the one broad was making googly eyes at Glenn while talking to him, AH HA HA HA!!!
• OH YOU GUYS, PENS SCORED!!! 2-0!!! Not getting my hopes up. I feel dizzy AF.
• I asked Henry if he will live blog during Bled Fest and he got all incredulous and indignant so that surely means yes.
  • Real talk, though, I hope I don’t get hurt at Bled Fest.
• Things with my mom are going well, thanks for asking!!
• Today I decided that if I do less work, I’ll probably make less mistakes, right? I sucked all-around today.
• Pens are on the power play now! I need my boo Malkin to score.
• HEY HAVE YOU SEEN “THE WITCH”? We watched it over the weekend and damn was I disappointed. Really boring and not even all that visually stimulating, plus I could barely understand most of the dialogue, stupid fucking Puritans. Super glad I ended up not wasting money on it at the theater! (#tightwad) Henry and I both mumbled, “That was dumb” at the same time and he and I rarely have the same movie reviews because he generally doesn’t like anything anyway unless it was made by the Wayans brothers or has “Bourne” in the title. OR IS PORNOGRAPHY. But that’s a given. Duh. Doi.
  • Speaking of pornography, in my dream last night, we were having a threesome with Frankenstein. I told Henry about it today and he made a disgusted face at me but I think he’d be into it.
• This period is almost over and then I am going to exercise. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.
• SID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • LOL at the person who yelled “CROSBY SUCKS” as he walked down the runway. I bet that really shook him to the core.
• K I’M BACK. I woke Henry up and berated him briefly because he apparently can’t take me to work tomorrow and you know what that means – trolley time. :(
• FUCK Tampon scored. :( 3-1. IT’S OK KESSEL. NOBODY’S PERFECT. OMG stop with the Closeup of Shame, NBC.
  • Man, the momentum has shifted for sure and I do not like it. Pens need to get another goal and fast.
  • MAYBE I SHOULD TURN OFF THE TV.
• Hate me if you need to, but am I the only one who found that Chewbacca Mask bitch annoying as fuck? I didn’t even realize it was such a big deal at first and literally thought it was just one of my friend sharing a video of someone they actually knew, so I watched it before I realized there was hype around it and I was just like, “_______” Henry walked in and said, “What are you watching?” because I apparently looked irritated, and I just said, “I don’t know. Some really stupid video.” I mean, props to her for getting her 15 minutes and I swear I’m not a hater, but….man. Standards just get lower and lower.
• MY GENO BEST NOT BE HURT.

• “Call It Lust” by Dora Maar was my jammmmm back in 2005, but I lost the mp3 I had of it years ago. Then a few months ago, someone put it up on YouTube and I honestly fell to my knees and rejoiced. You can ask Henry (412-605-2143). He had to sit here and watch me freak out and scream, “ONE MORE TIME!!!!” every time it ended. I have a very obsessive personality.
  • AND I HATE YOUR BREATHING.
  • I was friends with these guys on LiveJournal but lost touch. I would give anything to hear them play this song live. Like, in my Pappap’s gameroom.
• Oh for Christ’s sake, this game is wrecking my stomach.
  • I hate all of the Lightning players’ names.
  • “Back-up goalie Marc-Andre Fleury” — still sounds so weird.
  • OH GREAT, 3-2. SHOULD I JUST GO TO BED.
  • Don’t worry, my hair is now in a bun so I can’t shred it any further. I might call Chooch downstairs so I can start pulling his hair out though. That’s what kids are for.
• Henry eats pretzels with every meal. And sometimes pretzels are his meal.
• YESSSSSS FUCKING RUST!!!!!!!!! 4-2!!!!!!!!! 2 MINUTES LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY FUCKING GOD. HEAVY FUCKING BREATHING. ALMOST LIKE FRANKENSTEIN IS HERE.
• BONINO!!! EMPTY NET!!! 5-2!!! THANK THE MOTHERFUCKING LORD CHRIST OUR HEAVENLY HOCKEY GOD!!!!!
  buy sildalis online buy sildalis generic

• Wow, how can I sleep after this. #THATSWHATFRANKENSTEINSAID
• Yay! Game over. Now I can start stressing about Game 7.

Gotta go. Frankenstein’s on the other line.

Another work week is nearly in the bag and I’m doing some serious roof-raising because I’ve had to take the TROLLEY EVERY SINGLE DAY THIS WEEK, WOE IS ME. Henry has an entire tome of FML texts from me on his phone, just from the last five days. He doesn’t react to my devastation anymore like he used to. On that note, I would like to procrastinate further from finishing my vacation recap by posting a round-up of mindless, mind-numbing, mind-boggling mind-bullets. It’s all I got right now.

• Today is Friday the 13th and Amber1 derives great pleasure from calling my SCARY, GORY Jason Voorhees hair fascinator “cute.” She texted me last night to remind me to wear it today and I forgot. You know why I forgot? BECAUSE SOME ASSHOLE IS SUPPOSEDLY TOO BUSY TO DROP EVERYTHING AND DRIVE ME TO WORK SO I SPENT ALL MORNING WORRYING ABOUT MY COMMUTE, WALKING TO MY COMMUTE, BEING INSIDE MY COMMUTE. Therefore, I did not remember to grab my Jason Voorhees hair fascinator.  I was whining about how I can’t believe I forgot the other one, and Todd was like, “Dude, just look around your desk and pick something else.” And dumb Glenn was all, “Yeah, you have enough creepy shit on your desk, I’m sure you can find something.” Thank god I keep a Jason Voorhees hair BOW on my desk as back up, so I have that clipped to my sweater in effort to appease the Friday the 13th gods.
  • Then I remembered I also have an enamel Jason pin at home that I could have worn today. One Friday the 13th in 2016 and I fucking shit the bed.
• Gayle said she loves the new Emarosa song I posted on here the other day so now she’s my current favorite co-worker. Step it up, the rest of you.
  • Also, I worked late shift last night and she came over to hound me about vlogging (THE INTERNET DOES NOT NEED TO HEAR MY VOICE OR SEE MY FUG FACE) and in doing so, she recited a laundry list of compliments, which Sandy could hear from her office, so now Sandy wants to give Gayle a framed picture of me for next year’s Secret Santa. Ho Ho Ho!
    • Glenn would have puked in his cupped hands if he had witnessed this. It was almost like listening to the greatest eulogy! AGAIN, GAYLE. AGAIN.

• I started Weight Watchers again on Monday and I am fucking MISERABLE GET AWAY FROM ME. I forgot how much “measuring” and “counting” this plan entails. I’m really bad at “measuring” and “counting.”
• The Penguins made it to the Conference Finals! They beat the Capitals on Tuesday and it was so fucking stressful and I awoke inside me the most manliest screams and the cats were like “WHO ARE YOU, DEMON!?” I ran upstairs to wake up Henry and he mumbled, “Yeah I know. I heard your big mouth.” At least we currently don’t have neighbors on the other side of our duplex. I mean, not that it’d stop me.

• Something on that shelf does not belong.
• Remember when FRANCIS asked me for my number and I was equally repulsed and delighted? The other day, I was on my break and some guy stopped me while I was waiting to cross the street. Of course, he was asking for money, specifically a quarter. I said I didn’t have one and he started to walk away in disappointment but then he stopped and said, “You’re really beautiful, is it OK that I said that?” and I was like, “HELLO, I FEEL FAT AND UGLY LIKE EVERY DAY SO YES, THIS IS NICE. CONTINUE.” Sorry, feminists. I know as A Woman I’m supposed to be all offended and scrambling to set my torch a’flame, but sometimes shit like this is nice to hear. I mean, as long as it’s not sleazy and aggressive, and this guy was neither. Then he asked if I have a man and I was like, “I mean, I guess that’s what he is” so he was like, “Do you want a broke friend?” and we both started laughing and then he told me to have a nice day and went on with his hunt for a quarter. WHAT A NICE FELLOW. Usually, when people make eye contact with me, I feel like my utter Sloth-iness makes them blanch and recoil. But wow, two nice things less than a week a part. SO BLESSED.

• That time my cats saw a bug.
• Glenn just called me Shallow Hal, hahaha.

• After losing four cats in such quick succession, I am absolutely panicked about the two we have now. I’m still glad we decided to get cats again, but I am so paranoid and bracing myself for the worst every single day. Last night, Drew was sitting on my shelf, kind of hidden in a nook, and I freaked out. “SHE HAS BEEN ACTING WEIRD AND SHE FEELS WEIRD WARM.” Henry and Chooch were like, “….she’s fine, calm the hell down.” And then today, she did seem fine. Ugh. I hate this!
• Henry asked me to marry him Sunday night.
  • I was like, “That’s great but next time try it with a ring.”
• On Sunday, we were driving to my Pappap’s house and out of nowhere I asked Henry, “If I’m ever in the hospital, like, in a coma, will you make sure I have makeup on so I don’t look ugly?” He looked at me in mild disbelief and said that was the dumbest question I’ve ever asked.
  • CAN YOU SENSE A THEME HERE? I’m clearly feeling some type of way.

• Mother’s Day turned out pretty nice. Henry and I had some time earlier in the day to go cruisin’ for succulents. The first two places we went let me down BIG TIME and I did that thing I do when I’m disgusted and want the store to know it, where I loudly profess my disdain to Henry while we’re within earshot of store employees. He gets so embarrassed but I DON’T CARE. I was like, “THIS PLACE IS FUCKING PATHETIC!” and felt like kicking shit over on the way out of Dupree’s, which is a nursery I thought I had never been  to before but then had vivid flashbacks of spending hours there against my will while my mom bought slats of flowers she would never get around to planting. So yeah, I guess I’ve been there before but the memories got lost in rage black outs.
  • Then I wanted to visit the cats’ graves at the pet cemetery and on the way there, we came across a roadside greenhouse and I hit the succulent jackpot. Now the planters Octavia gave me have hair!

• I bought my mom flowers for Mother’s Day and gave them to her when we went to my Pappap’s house that afternoon for another installment of #MakeGillcrestGreatAgain. They seemed well-received! Baby steps.
  • Then she gave me some cheesy lima bean she made and I was like, “Man this is fucking delici—-wait, is there meat in this?!” Yup. There was meat it. She said she thought she picked it all out, BUT DID SHE REALLY? #vegetarianvictim
• Gayle asked me to email her a list of my top 20 favoritest songs and she started cracking up because Foreigner made the list and she called out from her Dark Corridor, “I like Foreigner too!” So Glenn mumbled to me, “Which song did you put on the list” and I was like, “‘Waiting For a Girl Like You’, duh” because DUH. Lauren started laughing and said that didn’t sound right and I guess if anyone had missed the first part of the conversation, it would have sounded even more wrong, like how low could I ever sink to be waiting for a girl like Glenn.
  • It came on the radio the other night when we were in the car and I turned that shit up so loud. “Now we’re totally the coolest car at this red light,” I said smugly. Henry just frowned and Chooch yelled from the backseat, “God, how long is this song!?”
  • You know who else I super fucking love so much? England Dan and John Ford Coley. “Love is the Answer” came on as Henry was pulling into Sheetz to put air in the tires and I said, “I FEEL SO DEPRESSED” and then started to cry. He was like, “Oh boy.” Then the other day at work, I was walking past some restaurant on my break and “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” was playing!! I WAS SO HAPPY AND SAD ALL AT ONCE. I put them on Spotify the other day and it turns out, I actually only like 4 of their songs. The rest are in the NOPE column.
    • FUN FACT: Both Foreigner and England Dan & John Ford Coley are featured in my favorite aerobics workout of all time, some Jacki Sorenson 1970s shit-show that my mom had on VHS and I became completely infatuated with when I was a kid.
    • FUN FACT 2: ED&JFC once reviewed my blog!

• Remember my blog cards? LOL forever.
• Speaking of blogging things! My blog-friend Kate posted a really nice thing about me on her blog the other day and you should go read it and then keep reading because she lives in Saskatchewan and posts cool nature-y pictures! It was nice to know that this old blog makes her laugh. <3
  • It makes me laugh too, in the crazy “I’m going to fucking slit this blog’s throat” sense. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING NOT WORKING WITH IT! Currently, I’m having issues with it not communicating with the WordPress app and it’s stressing me out because I blog primarily from my phone because that’s how great of a Writer I am.

• We took Henry’s mom to dinner on Mother’s Day. She has a pretty restricted diet so we just stuck to Eat n Park. WE HAD A NICE TIME. I’ve had some pretty miserable Mother’s Days over the last 10 years, but the last several have been good. I think Henry has finally learned his lesson.

• The new Pierce the Veil album came out today! I gleefully announced this to everyone and Glenn said he knew so I screamed, “REALLY?” and he said, “No not really! Why would I know that?!” I DON’T KNOW. Maybe he saw it in passing while he trolls the comment section of news websites at work!?

ALWAYS TIME FOR BULLET POINTS, BUSTER.

• I mentioned once before half of my brain caved in that Chooch had been invited to participate in this city school chorus collaboration hoedown. He is like, REALLY into it, too, which is awesome but also something that I just understand because I was always so afraid to sing in front of people. (Except for karaoke nights at McCoys—-I owned Old MacDonald’s Farm, you guys.) Henry wanted to just drop Chooch off at his chorus rehearsal last Saturday because he’s a shitty parent who doesn’t care to observe his spawn flourishing in his element. But I said “Nah bitch, we stayin'” and thank god we did because I got to have an intense stare down with Chooch’s current nemesis (some Mean Girl from his school). “I just stared at her so hard,” I proudly bragged to Henry, clasping my hands behind my back. “Wow. You showed her,” Henry mumbled. Sometimes I wonder how words are even able to crawl past his dumb mustache. And then the main chorus instructor guy played them the original recording of We Are the World, which they’ll be singing with the middle school and high school choruses on the big night. Dude was all, “You’ve probably never heard this song before, but I guarantee there are parents and grandparents crying back there right now” and every last ding-dongin’ head turned out and there I was, VULNERABLE AND EXPOSED, with real life tears streaming down my cheeks. I have zero control of my emotions anymore. A WOMAN ON EDGE. I had to stuff my hair into my face because I was embarrassed, OK? Sue me.
  • I haaaaaated music class in middle school. I have PTSD from all the singing of Sound of Silence and From a Distance, and then it reminds me of Desert Storm and those were just weird times and I hated sixth grade so bad. I had a perm, braces, and I WAS FAT. So you can guess how well I was able to integrate.
    • Speaking of PTSD, I think I might have it once this current sitch I’m embroiled in is over.

• Halfway through Chooch’s rehearsal, I wanted to walk around and explore the school and Henry was all, “WE CAN’T DO THAT. WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO JUST WALK AROUND!??!” and I was like, “Live a little, pops” but then he wouldn’t follow me so I did most of the exploring on my own and it gave me a huge rush because I love poking around in places where I don’t belong. Whenever I would go on vacation with my grandparents and we’d end up in a hotel with an involved floor plan (you know, more than just a square) I would fucking FREAK OUT and start exploring. This particular school is like that! All sorts of random stairwells and nooks.  100% cooler than Chooch’s school. Henry just stood there with his arms crossed, repeatedly reminding me that I’m “so dumb.”
• One week until we go on vacation and I could just die of anticipation. I need this vacation more than ever.
• Finally sold this bad boy and I was really happy about that but then I started crying because I loved it, especially when it fell on peoples’ heads:

• One day last week, Chooch got in the car and said, “Put on Saosin or, I don’t know, Phil Collins” and my heart nearly burst with joy. Keep having an open mind when it comes to music, boy-eeeeeee.
• Stanley Cup Playoff time!!! The Pens won their first game against the Rangers, and our kittens got a strong taste of my Stanley Cup Playoff scream. I think it’s safe to say they’re not fans.
• Postcard game is still strong AF, y’all. Look, I even made it on the Welcome Pittsburgh Instagram, which I had to sign a makeshift consent form and really didn’t want to have my picture taken, but luckily, my Jay Leno chin is in remission or something (lol, j/k: strategically-placed post cards)
  • Don’t forget to give me your address if you want one!:

• Something that usually generates a gasp from people is when I say I don’t like Guns and Roses. When I worked at the meat place, my office mate and I always listened to the classic rock radio station, but any time GnR of AC/DC came on, I’d have to get up and walk out. Maybe I have some repression? But most likely it’s just that the scholars inside my ears disagree that it’s good music.
• I get to see Octavia in a few weeks and I’m basically doing a pee dance about it!
• “…and then the weed farm caught on fire,” Chooch finished recapping some cartoon he’s been watching. File under: Things I Didn’t Hear and Eh, He’ll Probably Be OK.
• Henry was getting BULLIED AT WORK! Hoo boy, you better bet I was rearin’ to go when he told me this. I looked him up on Facebook and found that we have a mutual friend so then I was going to PLANT A CONFRONTATIONAL SEED but Henry was all, “OMG please don’t. Just stay out of it.” I couldn’t stand how guido-ish this guy looked and knew that I could win a fight with him. DON’T FUCK WITH HENRY. Everyone knows that the only people allowed to bully him would be me and Chooch. Fucking duh.

• Corey and me AF right now ^^^^^^.
• I had my “wellness” screening today at work. Basically, if you sign up to have your dignity snatched by someone in a lab coat, you get better….insurance? I never read the emails all the way through. This is my fourth time signing up even though I hate the finger-pricking part. Glenn tried to tell me that this year, they changed it and now they take it from your neck, like I’m THAT GULLIBLE. OK Glenn, nice try. At least now I don’t have to have someone go with me. Second year doing it on my own, woo! Anyway, as soon as got to the ROOM, one of the lab people called me over and grabbed my hand. “Wow, your hand is COLD,” she exclaimed, and I gulped. “Are we doing the finger part first?” I asked, as she fucking wound up and swung that damn thing right into the tip of my finger and I gave out a strangulated yelp. “Yep,” she laughed, already  molesting my finger for blood drops. SO FUCKING FUNNY. And then my favorite part happened, which is when she cried, “Really? You’re afraid of THAT LITTLE PRICK when you have TATTOOS ON YOUR FINGERS?! Oh honestly, Erin.” I came back down to my desk afterward and excitedly relayed this encounter with Glenn, who said, “You know she probably doesn’t read your blog, right?” Killjoy.
  • I showed Henry my bandaid (which I swapped out with one of the cute Ikea ones that Gayle gave me last month for my unbirthday gift) after work and he asked, “What did you do?” WHAT DID I DO!? I HAD MY FUCKING FINGER PRICKED TODAY. Try to keep up with my life, asshole.

• We had lunch at the Modern Café on t he Northside last Saturday and Chooch was like floored that not only did the jukebox have The Summer Set, but it also had EMAROSA. He didn’t know that until after he spent a whole whopping $1 to request “Chelsea,” which we could barely hear once it started playing. Chooch was pissed because all of the other songs came on at normal volume. About 10 minutes later, the waitress (who was completely fooled by his faux-charm, btw) came back to give us refills and Chooch brashly blurted, “How come when I played a song on the jukebox, I could barely hear it?” And she was all, “Oh no, that sucks. Let’s go check it out” so he took her over and showed her which song it was and she went to the cash register to get another dollar for him. And then right as the song started playing, she went behind the bar, grabbed a remote and cranked that shit. She gave him a thumbs up from across the room and he was like FUCK YES I’VE GOT IT MADE BITCHES. He honestly makes me sick sometimes. He’s like a little fucking Charles Manson!!

 

• Got some new succulent boos last Sunday as a desperate attempt to try and reintroduce some normalcy into my disoriented, slightly deranged life. Thinking about naming this babe Stonick. NOW STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM, CATS. UGH.
• I’ve been having a field day going through all the photos I’ve been finding at my Pappap’s house. That was really one of the only things I was insistent on wanting to have, because I’m a phreak for phamily photos. This one made me laugh so hard, because someone was clearly super stoked to beat video game Uninvited.
  • There were actually several more that I found after I took this picture. Like, nearly an entire roll wasted on this:

• PAGING MR. HERMAN.
• Chooch and I were fighting and Henry had to go and butt in as usual. Chooch cried, “So what, are you on HER side?” and Henry was all, “No, I’m on MY side.” Whatever Henry. Must be lonely over there on that side.
• So…the terrible trolley change happened.  Construction started the day after Easter, so I took that day off a few weeks in advance, so that I could do a Trial Run. People made fun of me, but look: I needed to know what I was in for without the added stress of “WILL I MAKE IT TO WORK ON TIME.” And wouldn’t you know, I woke up that morning sick as fuck. OK, not that sick. But it was definitely the courting stages of a cold. My throat hurt and I just felt exhausted and shitty. Also, IT WAS RAINING AND ABOUT 40 DEGREES. However, I knew that if I didn’t get up and follow-through with this trial run, I would never hear the end of it. So I got up, waited for Chooch to go to school, and then I dealt with that shit.

The shuttle part was a breeze! I had plans to meet Kara once I got downtown, so I was sending back-patting text messages about how brave I was being.

And it was kind of fun being on the shuttle! It’s not a very long ride, just long enough to bypass all of the trolley track construction and deposit us at the next working platform in Beechview. The trolley came and it was kind of a dream because it was EMPTY so I didn’t have that heart-clutching fear of NOT GETTING A SEAT (honestly this has only happened to me three times, ever and once was because it was OPENING DAY for the Pirates so I was smashed up against Yinzer baseball fans and it was just no good).

Anyway, the trolley driver had to switch ends, since now the trolley would be going back into town, and I was like, “Why does he keep slamming things? Oh, because the trolley isn’t starting.” So then we just sat there for around 30 minutes without him having the consideration to give us a single update, and while everyone was tugging at their collars and calling into work to advise of their impending tardiness (lol, tardiness),  I smugly thought to myself, “THIS IS WHY I TOOK THE DAY OFF FOR THIS SHIT.”

Got into town and expertly crossed over the bridge to the Northside where Kara and Theo met me (after we missed each other twice because nothing can ever go smoothly!) and we walked to some tea place that I can’t remember the name of now and I had a PB&J for breakfast and a chai latte because that’s how I do.

Meanwhile, Henry was like, “I can’t believe you’re dragging Kara down into this with you.” KARA DIDN’T CARE, HENRY. Because she is a GOOD FRIEND. God.

Then Kara and Theo walked me down to another trolley station that I’ve never used before and Kara was all, “OK, here it is, good luck!” and I pretended to be OK but as soon as she left, I was like, “WHERE AM IIIIIIIIIII!?!?!!?!” Don’t worry. I made it home. I actually walked home from the Beechview trolley station instead of fucking with the shuttle again though.

All that walking did wonders for my cold-ravaged body. I got home sometime after noon, slipped off my TOMS and crawled back into bed, thinking I would try to do what normal adults do when they’re coming down with a cold, and like, rest or whatever. Honest to god, I wasn’t laying there for more than 3 minutes before my phone rang and it was the MOTHERFUCKING SCHOOL NURSE so then I had to slip back into my TOMS and walk to Chooch’s fucking school to retrieve him because HOW CONVENIENT.

Fucking trolley construction :(

I’ve had to deal with the shuttle situation several more times since then and honestly, I’ve learned that it’s so much easier to put up with when you’re dead inside.

• Oh hello again, bullet points. Sorry, I got lost somewhere up there.
• Last week, not one, not two, BUT THREE of Chooch’s teachers called Henry because of his “behavior” but don’t you worry because by the end of the day, a fourth teacher called too. (The GYM TEACHER. But not the hot one.) This has been a really great year. Fourth grade rules. I’m not losing any sleep (or hair) over life right now AT ALL.
  • Surprisingly, when I had my blood pressure checked at my wellness thing this morning, it was “perfectly normal.” I just laughed and said “No really” and my finger pricker was all, “No I’m serious. Your blood pressure and all your other numbers are great.” So now I’m like DID I SNATCH SOMEBODY’S BODY IN THE NIGHT because I feel like I’m on the precipice of a heart attack every day and can’t believe that all of my readings were “great.” BUT HEY, I’LL TAKE IT. My body apparently is like “IDGAF about this stress.”

• I haven’t been painting, indefinite hiatus. But here is the last custom I made for my friend Mallory. It’s some dude from Firefly.
  • The TV show, not the band.
    • THAT MADE ME LOOK REALLY OLD.
      • YOU ARE THE WOMAN THAT I’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF, I KNEW IT FROM THE START. *FLUTE NOISE*

• Um, here’s a picture of me in case you forgot what my turtle face looked like. This might have been back when I wasn’t ugly crying every day though. Last Friday my boss said to me, “Honey, I don’t know how to say this, but you look very tired” and then said something about me wearing my heart on my sleeve and I was like THAT’S BECAUSE I’M AN ORIGINAL EMO, SUE.

Chooch gave me back my blog for a second so here’s a quick post before he takes over again with his STORY THAT HAS NO END IN SIGHT. Just kidding, Chooch. Keep writing, bro. I mean, son.

• HENRY’S SALAD DRESSING: Don’t be gross, this isn’t a euphemism for Henry’s sperm bank donation. Literally, he makes the best dressing for my basic white girl kale that I have ever had. It’s probably best that I don’t know all of the details, but he definitely uses balsamic vinegar, stone ground mustard (the BEST kind of ground, in my opinion), and I think a tiny bit of PURE MAPLE SYRUP which gives it the most subtle sweetness and oh my god, why am I at work right now when I could be at home licking that salad semen off my fingertips, ugh.
• PEOPLE GIVING ME CHEEZITS: I helped Todd with a support-type question today and he gave me the rest of his box of Cheezits as a thank you and my response was a very Shirley Temple-ish, “REALLY? For ME?” I can’t believe I used to hate Cheezits when I was a kid. Maybe they weren’t made with “100% Real Cheese” back then.
  • And then Glenn dropped a pack of fruit snacks on my desk as he was leaving – I FEEL SO RICH.
• PEOPLE BEING NICE TO ME: I went to The Exchange on my lunch break yesterday and all the neo-hipster kids working there were very nice to me, so for a few minutes, I was able to coexist peacefully with those whom I do not understand.
  • Probably only nice to me because aw, look at this old broad coming in here to probably look for Carpenters 8-tracks.
    • Actually, I was there to finally buy the latest CHVRCHES record.
      • On vinyl, not 8-track.
  • Then I went to the Pittsburgh Welcome Center to get postcards and the lady there was nice to me too, and the lucky recipient of my very first GREETINGS FROM ERIN’S LUNCH BREAK post card will get to read all about that.
• A BAND FINALLY ISSUING AN ACCEPTABLE AND APPLAUDABLE STATEMENT REGARDING SEXUAL ASSAULT: Ricky from Foxing came forward and cleared the air regarding an incident that occurred several years ago when he was 17 and nowhere in his statement did he make excuses for himself or victim blame, and the band is donating part of their tour earnings to RAINN and expressed an interest in opening up a healthy and respectful discussion about these issues. This came right on the heels of the singer of Better Off doing the complete opposite and completely letting down the scene and likely ruining his career on top of that.
  • Bled Fest has removed Better Off from the lineup. They were one of the bands I was most looking forward to see but certainly not anymore.
• REALIZING MY PURPOSE IN LIFE: So for years I thought this was either manure packaging or starting my own record label but it is now clear to me that I need to start a DIY venue for the small, real small, small-small bands that book their shows basically in the basements of college rape sheds. So I suggested to Henry that we find a small building to soundproof, just has to be in a not-too-horrible area, and then we can be all, “Hey little sad boy emo bands, fuck that basement noise, come play at our venue, it’ll be ready once we evict the squatters” and then Kaitlin can set up a table of her immaculate desserts and all the kids will be like “OMG AND A BAKE SALE TOO?? THIS IS SO DIY!” Henry actually considered this and said, “We just need money to buy a building” which is basically his way of saying “This will never work because we never have money” BUT he didn’t exactly dismiss my passionate idea either. Then Chooch came downstairs and was all “this sounds dumb.” I tried to get him excited by including him. “You can pass out flyers at school and be all come to this show at my mom’s venue, yo” and Chooch said, “No. It’s my venue.”
• NEW SAOSIN SONG!: For the first time in seven years, Saosin has recorded a new song, and not only that, but Anthony Green is back as their singer! Christina and I loved this band back in the day, and they were my gateway into many years of loving and obsessing over Circa Survive. (Anthony was the original singer of Saosin and left to start Circa Survive in…2004 I think; too lazy to fact check.) This is great because when they reunited in 2014, Anthony mentioned at Riot Fest that they were going to work on new songs, but then it seemed to kind of fizzle out. BUT WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT WRITING SONGS.

And here’s a quick Law Firm news recap:

–GAYLE moved into a dark hallway so then MEAN AMBER took GAYLE’S old desk which means she’s like really far away from me now so I’ve been pouting about that all week. Now she sits behind Amber¹ so this is super confusing. TWO AMBERS IN A ROW. Currently, they’re back there chatting about BLAKE SHELTON and I’m just like, “Whatever, AMBER² THE BETRAYER. One day you’ll miss our chats about DANCE GAVIN DANCE and JONNY CRAIG.”

–Amber¹ made me tell the infamous Henry at the Ted Nugent Show story on Tuesday, and Todd was like, “Who the hell is Ted Nugent?” so then he started to listen to Cat Scratch Fever and we all had a good laugh. I came home and told Henry and he was just like, “Oh, you told that fake story again? That’s great, Erin.”

–The second issue of the ‘zine was dead in the water for a few weeks (more like OVER A MONTH) but I finally rounded up most of the key pieces I was waiting on so hopefully that will be printed and distributed sometime before the end of the month. This is hard work! And I’ve had some real pressure put on me about it too. Jeez. And then Gayle was giving me all of these suggestions and it was like, you know what Gayle? START YOUR OWN ‘ZINE!

–I sent Todd a video of Citizen playing at Bled Fest and then he started watching other videos and accidentally became obsessed with some hardcore band. Every day, he’s like, “What was the name of that band again?” and I’m like, “I don’t know…” and he’ll say, “Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to watch that video again so I can see their name.” Like, what a flimsy excuse!

–Just now, Glenn got all embarrassed and/or furious that I told Michele he likes Meghan Trainor. “Oh yeah, I just love her” he said sarcastically, and I was like, “Then why did you always listen to ‘All About That Bass’?!” and he was like, “ALWAYS. Oh, OK! I ALWAYS listened to it” and I was like, “OMG yes you did, like every day at the same time, Amber2 and I could always hear it! It was like your Getting Ready to Go Home anthem” and he was muttered something about me being crazy and then left for lunch. It’s 100% true though. And now I can’t stop laughing and I just started choking on a Cheezit.

–Lauren sits in front of me now, in Amber the Abandoner’s old desk, and I wonder how annoyed she is having to hear all of my dumb stories being recited sporadically throughout the day.

Oh boy and here’s a bonus photo of me wearing a Bailey’s hat one time way too long ago, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, even though I don’t CELEBRATE ST. PATRICK’S DAY.

UPDATE!!! Glenn just came back from lunch and I asked him how the weather is on a scale from 1 to Meghan Trainor. His answer was that I’m smoking crack. And then a few minutes later he called me a psycho.  God, today rules!

Seriously. Pull some Matrix moves and avoid this post.

• Cat update: they’re either sleeping or destroying my personal effects. So in other words, they’re doing GREAT!
• Monday night’s bedtime story involved me dramatically explaining to Henry the extent of my fatness. “The shape of my body is like if a barrel burst open and sludge started spilling out.” Henry, still taken aback at my comparisons after all these years, said, “…..no. You’re not a barrel of sludge…?” And you know what that “…..” signifies? HESITATION. Because in the span of those dot-dot-dots, Henry was visualizing my naked body side-by-side with a busted barrel of sludgey blubber and he had to THINK about whether or not the dancing twin girls emoji could be applied. “I don’t think that’s what I was doing,” he mumbled, knowing he was a dead man no matter what he said at that point. Unable to let it go, I went on. “I’m like one of those cans of Pillsbury biscuits, after it cracks open and dough floods out. Don’t touch my stomach. That’s where most of the spillage is,” I warned as I swatted his hand away. “Oh my god,” he Bob’s Burgered.

• February’s Unbirthday Gift from GAYLE made up for the fact that she’s trying to steal my desk. Obviously the crown stickers are on point but those band-aids, though! I am ALWAYS in need of band-aids. In fact, I was wearing one on my middle finger the day Gayle gave me this stuff because I injured myself in the kitchen before leaving the house that morning. And I used my last Candyland bandaid so basically it was to the point where if I cut myself at work, I’d just have to bleed out I guess. Not anymore! My only beef is that the Dr. Care bandaids have hockey players on the front of the box but THERE ARE NO HOCKEY BANDAIDS INSIDE. False advertisement! I’m going to give all the football ones to Todd because I rather WOULD just bleed out than wrap my wound in any sort of FOOTBALL print. Ugh. Ew. No.

• We had lunch with BARB on Saturday, and I didn’t really notice it until after but Chooch actually LET US TALK. I think it was probably because he was insanely hungry (he ordered breakfast and made sure the waitress knew that it was because HIS PARENTS HADN’T FED HIM BREAKFAST THAT DAY) and really focused on feeding his face, completing the kids activities on the place mat, and fashioning this giant straw with which to siphon my water after he ran out of his own beverage.
  • However, I can tell that Chooch really likes Barb because he’s such a little dick to her. Barb kept asking the waitress to bring her check separately, and then Henry would say, “Nope, just bring one” and this went on and on until Barb finally quit caring and thanked Henry for lunch. “I don’t know what you’re thanking him for,” Chooch deadpanned. “You’re paying for everyone.”
    • And then she gave him tickets to the Pens game because his sarcastic behavior is endearing to some.

• This Facebook post & comment from Chooch cracks me up. Now I want Henry to make a Service Playlist on Spotify. I know for sure CHEAP TRICK will be on it because he saw them in a BAR in TEXAS while IN THE SERVICE. #JudistPriest
  • Speaking of Henry and music, I asked him to name five bands I like that he likes too and he actually started doing it, but then said it would be easier to name the bands I like that he hates, and without hesitation he said La Dispute. So sad. But on a happier note, this just means that he must actually LIKE most of the bands I like?!

• Above, you will see the only succulent stash that those asshole cats haven’t sniffed out yet. KNOCKONWOOD. This morning, I realized some of my succulents are MISSING from the windowsill. THEN I noticed FRAGMENTS of the POTS on the floor, hidden behind the beverage buffet. SOMEONE is covering for the CATS.
  • And it’s not Henry. I called him on my way to the trolley and screamed my face off at him and he was like, “what the fuck are you talking about??”
    • Those cats are so fucking cute but SO ARE MY SUCCULENTS.

• This morning at work we were talking about The Walking Dead. Amber2 was like, “They’re all going to die anyway. They should just give up” and Glenn snapped, “You have to have hope!” Who knew he felt so strongly about the zombie apocalypse? Anyway, I considered Amber’s statement and couldn’t help but agree with her. “Yeah, what would I really have to live for?” I asked myself out loud. “There wouldn’t be any concerts to go to.” Glenn piped up, “And no Henry to serve you.” Excitedly, I asked, “OMG do you guys think I would really outlive Henry in the zombie apocalypse?” That was met with a collective and resounding NO.
  • For the record, I don’t disagree.

• Thanks to everyone who has been reading Chooch’s story that he started writing as a punishment for duping us into purchasing designer jelly beans but is now so thoroughly immersed in the process of story crafting that he’s on the SIXTH “chapter”! He sits down all on his own and starts typing away, pausing occasionally to ask for spelling help or for synonym suggestions. (“I don’t want to use ‘said’ like every time!” he said, and I clutched my heart as it nearly exploded with pride. Sigh. Hopefully his love for writing doesn’t turn into a dead-end like mine did.)
  • Speaking of, I allowed myself to be That Person who commits to something and then quits. I had to bow out of the annual Pittsburgh blog swap thing because I’m just not feeling it and I don’t want to contribute some half-assed piece of uninspired garbage which is essentially what this dump of a blog has turned into and I’m really sorry for that. My attention span is not great these days/months/years.
• In happier news, my knuckles have been providing some SATISFYING cracks all day today. Those and deep sighs are the secrets to my success, whatever you consider my “success” to be.

• Out of the blue last night, I asked Henry if he remembered the moment he told his mom that I was pregnant (with Chooch; I’m not presently incubating anything other than a loaf of strong self-loathing), and then I took it upon myself to guess how he said it. “‘Great. My fat gf is having a baby, mom’,” I mimicked him in my best “choking on a dick” tone that I reserve for all of my Henry Impressions. And he said, “Yeah that’s exactly how I said it. ‘Mom, my Pillsbury Doughgirl is pregnant.” And then I cried myself to sleep.
• Henry “went to the store” to “buy screws” last week and was gone for over an hour. Totally cheating on me. Insert “long screw” jokes here.
  • I didn’t even ask to see said “screws” when he finally “came home.” I AM SO DEAD INSIDE.
    • But then I look at THIS and I’m alive again:

Ciao forever? Or ciao for now. *DEEP SIGH/KNUCKLECRACK*

It’s almost March, which means we have almost successfully made it through another depressing winter! And there are lots of things that are happening in March, such as both Bled Fest and Warped Tour announcing their full lineups (Bled Fest has been announcing bands here and there, and there are at least 8 bands that have me feeling like an excited 18-year-old pop punk boy), Citizen, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Emarosa shows, and Easter which I started to really like a few years ago after spending most of my life not giving a fuck about it at all.

So while I’m mostly in love with the idea of March in general (totally underrated month if you ask me), there are also some other things latching on to my heart AND HERE THEY ARE.

THINGS I LOVE:

• Chooch’s new hair. Chooch finally got a hair cut and I am so relieved. I have this thing where I associate certain hair length with shitty attitudes, and I SWEAR TO GOD, once Chooch’s hair reaches a certain shag, he turns into SUCH A DICK. The same goes for ponytails: anytime my aunt Sharon would tie her up into a p-tail on vacation, I knew I was in for it. Anyway, I convinced Henry to take Chooch to an actual barber for once, and not some rough broad with nicotine-stained fingers at Cost Cutters or wherever the fuck he goes. Chooch is also super pleased with the result, and I want to say that’s all that matters, but come on now. It’s all about pleasing me.  Now he wants to dye his hair opal (like a pale, muted pastel rainbow) but I’m not attempting that at home so we have to find a professional I guess.
• ARTIFEX PEREO BEING ANNOUNCED FOR BLED FEST. I was so excited when this happened last night that I couldn’t breathe and Henry was like, “WHAT. WHAT. Oh.”
• The grilled cheese I had for lunch at Poros. The bread alone was #litAF. I didn’t take a picture because it was a goodbye lunch for one of our peeps who is jumping ship and I already felt weird enough being there without throwing Instagram food selfies into the mix. So just believe me on this one.
• Usually though, I have Cream of Wheat for lunch everyday. I know, it’s kind of blah-sounding, but I really like hot cereal and I always add things to it, like various berries or bananas, chia seeds, walnuts…you know, basic crap. But I recently started adding SPRINKLES to it as well, and wow—total game changer. I do have a picture of this one:

• That #wonderful is used at work now when anyone refers to me. I DON’T CARE IF IT’S FACETIOUS. I love it.
• Having multiple personalities: Today, Catherine was telling people that I’m mean. “Look at her! She acts all sweet and whatever, but she’s really mean!” Which was Todd’s cue to chime in with, “Oh I know, she’s a bully.”And then they were closing in on me, dissecting all of the things on my desk. “I mean, look! She’s basically surrounded by death. If anything ever happens here, we can just be like, ‘Just look at her desk. The signs are all there.'” And I was so proud of this.
• Just Jillian, the Jillian Michaels reality show. I unabashedly LOVE Jillian Michaels and this show, as much as I try not get sucked into reality TV, makes me love her even more. If I ever met her, I would cry for sure. I made Henry watch two episodes last night and I kept catching him laughing; hahaha Henry, busted.

• When Pittsburgh looks all spring-like and sunny! It’s almost here. Spring is almost here. We can make it.
• Balance & Composure. I’ve liked them for a long time, but recently something shifted and now I’m just like, more please. I can’t wait to see them again. I am going to share with you today “Tiny Raindrop” because it makes me feel some things. (Barb, you can listen to this. There is no screaming. It’s not heavy at all. WOULD I LIE TO YOU!?)

• These fucking adorable cats!!!
• Having a dealer again. Let me explain! God! Back in the late 90s, I used to go to Eide’s nearly every weekend. Eide’s a record/comic book store and it used to be so great back then. This one guy who worked there got to know me because I would always go straight for the Cs to see what new Cure b-sides and rarities they had gotten in. Lots of bootlegged European shows. So he would start waving me over when he saw me, like Mario to Pee Wee in the magic shop, excited to show me the new shit he ordered. Now it’s not so great as far as new music goes (thanks for ruining the magic of record stores, Internet) but sometimes I find myself walking there on my lunch break when I’m feeling like lamenting over the loss of their beautiful industrial and synthpop section. (I bought allllll of my synthpop CDs there and from A Different Drum, which doesn’t exist anymore.) Anyway, every so often I’ll find a new must-have record, like the Touche Amore one I picked up last week. While the guy was ringing me up, he said, “We sell a lot of this one” to which I replied, “Oh I bet, they’re a great band.” And then, as an after thought, I asked, “You guys don’t ever get any La Dispute in, do you?” He said no, but that he could order it for me, and I was like “JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS!?!??!” So today I got to walk over and collect it, and there is just something way more fun and satisfying about going into a record store to pick up a record rather than clicking on “buy now” on some website. So then I came back to work with it and Todd and Glenn decided to listen to La Dispute and let’s just say the band did not accrue new fans from The Law Firm today. Todd was perplexed and Glenn was just straight up unimpressed. Sorry La Dispute, I tried.
• Law Firm Memories: Today was Jennifer’s last day, so I made her Goodbye Glenn because I couldn’t let her leave without some type of memento. This inspired me, Amber2, and Todd to look at all of the Easter Glenns and reminisce which was fun until AMBER2 opened old wounds by bringing up when my low-key, grassroots Easter egg hunt was eclipsed by the Big Time Departmental “There Might Be Money In Your Egg!!!” Easter Egg Hunt and then no one gave a fuck about mine anymore so I threw a tantrum and shut myself away in my fake-office in my verboten hallway and cried about it. “I still have a picture of the Golden Bunny I got!” Amber2 mused dreamily, and I was like “UGH WHATEVER!!” But then Todd agreed that my version of the Easter egg hunt is the one that provided lasting memories, so that is why this bullet gets to reside in  the “love” section of this blog post.

And now on to the part that everyone cares about because schadenfreude:

THINGS I HATE:

• When nice people leave The Law Firm. (See above.) :(
• Meghan Trainor. Still. I honestly hate everything about her: her voice, her face, the way she moves when she “sings.” She is a pimple begging to be popped. After hearing about the Lionel Richie tribute at the Grammy’s, I YouTubed it and my ears are still sobbing. She didn’t belong up there on that stage with those other performers! Even that country guy was passable as a singer! BUT NOT HER. I was seething about this and it was until I started making physical threats to her that Henry butted in and told me I was being unreasonable and that he didn’t “understand” why I “think” she is so “terrible.” So then I started making physical threats to him while rage-texting Wendy because she is the only one who share my pain when it comes to that dumb bitch Meghan Trainor.
• Getting to pick winners for some fitness incentive thing (after TODD was solicited before me but I whined until Michele was like, “Ok…or Erin can help with the drawing…” and then Todd had a new opportunity to call me a bully) and I wound up picking MY NEMESIS Lou. UGH.

• Vanilla yogurt. I eat greek yogurt every day at work as a mid-morning snack. Every single day. It’s just another one of those INTERESTING things about me, OK? But a few days ago, the only option available in our fridge was vanilla. Two greek vanillas and one regular vanilla. Ew. But when choice did I have? So I grabbed a Chobani and then proceeded to gag and make puking sounds two hours later when I attempted to eat it at work. So awful! Like sour paste! I couldn’t even make it a quarter of the way through that fermented slop. I’m not the type of person who can quietly dislike something, so I threw a basic fit about it at work before hurling it into the trash. The general consensus around here was that Henry is a fucking prick for buying vanilla yogurt. I texted him and was like WHY and all he said was that supposedly our SON requested vanilla but then changed his mind (sure he did, once he realized that not even Little Orphan Annie would eat that shit), so now we had enough of that sickening vanilla glue for a whole preschool art class to smear on construction paper. The next morning, I reached into the fridge to pluck out my daily yogurt and STILL ALL VANILLA!? I was fuming mad by the time I rolled into work that my salutation to everyone was, “I’M ON YOGURT STRIKE.” Glenn was like, “If I was Henry, you know what I would say? Go to the damn store yourself!” And then Todd piped up and was like, “Yeah, you know!? I’d even show you how to GET THERE.” UGH!!! Anyway, my strike only had to last one day because Henry dutifully went to the store and bought quality flavors so today I was able to enjoy a nice tub of key lime. Henry taunted me last night by eating one of the remaining vanilla puke pots in front of me while I made dry-heaving motions.  “You don’t like mainstream music, you don’t like mainstream yogurt — where does it end with you?” Glenn mumbled today.
• One-sidedness. Isn’t it an awesome feeling when someone who you used to be BFFs with calls you out of the blue and they’re sobbing uncontrollably and you still have no idea why you even answered because they’re such a piece of shit, but you saw their number and felt worried and you’re a human being who doesn’t want someone to be hurting so you answered, but then a few weeks later when you needed someone to talk to because you were feeling super low and helpless, you call that same person, thinking that they will return the favor by lending an ear but instead they decline your call and haven’t said a word to you since and then you realize it’s just because they’re trying to repeat the cycle of abuse? FUCKING AWESOME. I’m sorry that happened to you and I hope that person fucking burns in hell.
• Wardrobe malfunctions. Today was Jeans Day at work. I only have one pair that is work-appropriate, i.e. without designer slits and rips. This pair though is pretty old and worn, so when I sat down at my desk immediately upon arriving at work this morning and heard a rippppp, I can’t say I was too surprised. The rip was small, horizontal, and in the middle of my inner left thigh. I discreetly shimmied to the bathroom to assess the sitch, and it wasn’t noticeable, because I don’t walk with my legs turned out. (If you do, that’s totally OK.) So I went about my day like it was no big thing, and planned to go jeans shopping this weekend. Then on my lunch break, I was right outside of Eide’s when I crouched down to tie my shoe, and this time it was more like RIPPPPPPPPP. Immediately, I felt the frosty tongue of February licking my BARE THIGH. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I ran inside Eide’s. My shoe was still untied, so I tried to gracefully achieve bunny-eared status in the stairwell, only to heard a series of truncated, staccato rip rip rips.  Sweating at this point, I made sure my coat covered my partial nudity and continued up to the record section of Eide’s where the beauty and pleasure of holding my La Dispute record in my hands was marred and sullied by the fact that I was one quick squat away from returning to work in cut-offs. Outside of Eide’s, I texted Henry my latest trauma and he completely did not find this to be an emergency situation at all. So I knew I was going to have to solve this problem on my own. Because I was still in ear-ringing, brain-clogged, panic mode, it appeared that my only two options were to either bypass work and go straight home and never leave the house again, or jump into the river. I cried a little bit. I felt anger toward Henry because this was his fault somehow for not noticing that my jeans were in peril the last time he washed them. He could have added some type of reinforcement to them or built me a new pair altogether. But then the fogs of frustration and fluster slowly drifted away and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light belonged to BURLINGTON. I still enough time left on my break and one slight change in direction would put it on my path back to work! And then my FUCKING shoe untied again. I thought to myself, “Two more blocks. Fuck the shoelace. Just keep walking. Two more blocks.” Just then, a man TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER and said, “Miss, your shoe is untied. Be careful.” WHO EVEN DOES THAT IN 2016?!?!? People aren’t supposed to care about each other! JUST LEAVE ME AND MY FUCKING SHOELACES OUT OF YOUR LIFE, OK?! So I cried, “I KNOW THANKS OK!!!!!” and then I ran across the street. Like, RAN and never looked back. Waiting to cross another street, I tried to lift my foot up high enough to at least be able to tuck the laces in because I was afraid that if I didn’t acknowledge this man’s shoelace policing, I might trip over it and fall into an oncoming bus. THESE ARE THE THINGS YOU HEAR ABOUT ON THE NEWS!!! Finally, I made it to Burlington and grabbed the first pair of jeans I saw in my size, tried them on while sweating and hiccuping on anxiety, and then bought those motherfuckers for $16 because Burlington. When the cashier asked if I wanted to donate $1 to whatever charity, I said yes before she could even finish because saying no to charity after all of that was bound to have me struck down by lightning. Plus, I felt thankful that I was fortunate enough to be able to go to a store and buy new jeans without thinking twice—PERSPECTIVE. Went back to work and threw on the new jeans in the restroom. I texted Henry to let him know that further crisis was averted and I was sitting at my desk, legs swathed in a pair of snug jeans that I think might actually be jeggings. “There’s rhinestones on the back pockets,” I told him (found out later that they’re actually studs, this is how you know I was in such a hurry that I really didn’t even look at what I was buying). “They’re totally urban. I think the butt might actually be padded.” And he asked, “Are they Applebottoms?” Fuck you, Henry.
• Henry. Because after he picked me up from work, we sat for a few seconds in silence before he started cracking up. “Fuck you, I had a really traumatic day!” I cried. “No, traumatic would have been if your jeans and LEG ripped all the way off,” he laughed. And then he made me show him my other jeans, to which he knowingly said, “Yeah, that’s exactly how I thought they were going to look. That rip is NOT that big.” I started screaming about how it was so big, and he put on that chastising tone to say, “Erin. ERIN. Erin! You probably have people thinking your whole vagina was hanging out. That rip is not that big.” Fuck you, Henry! It’s like at least 7 inch-things long!!!

Stop. Bullet-time.

• One of my lithops (Barbara, to be exact) is hatching! I’m so happy that I have kept these alive long enough to witness this glorious and erotic act of nature. I have some other lithops that are definitely not thriving like these living stones, I’ll tell you that much. I’m sorry, but succulents actually aren’t that easy to maintain, so a big FUCK YOU to whoever started that myth. It’s been a constant struggle for me ever since getting into the whole seedy underbelly of sleazy-sounding plants, but the payoff is rewarding. I fuss over them constantly, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I have my favorites. Like PANNE, who fucking DREW has set her sights on and I feel like all I do is scream at both cats to lay the FUCK OFF my succulents.
• Chooch thought he had lead poisoning the other day, and we were like YOU DO NOT HAVE LEAD POISONING but then he started reading off the symptoms and I was like “OMG I THINK I HAVE LEAD POISONING?!”

• A few weeks ago, we attempted to make the first installment of Chooch Chats, which is when I was quickly reminded of the fact that Chooch and I DO NOT WORK WELL TOGETHER and that there is a reason my outlet of choice has always been the written word and not film. So fucking frustrating! Some of my friends are still holding out hope that we will try again, and we almost did this past Sunday, but SURPRISE I was in a horrible mood so that didn’t happen.
  • Also, I asked on Facebook for my friends to submit questions and only one person did so it’s hard to have Chooch answer questions when there aren’t any, lol. (Octavia, he had an answer for yours though!)
  • Notice Drew in the background, sniffing around for succulents. Fuck off, Drew.
    • J/K I LOVE YOU, DREW.
      • But seriously, you’ll be living in he basement if you don’t lay the fuck off my plant-babes.
• GAYLE gets migraines and has determined that the light around and above her desk exacerbates said migraines, so now she has her sights on MY DESK. She even bought this lumen measuring thing to see how much more depressing it is at my desk than hers. First, she placed it on Amber2’s desk, and it was like 800 lumens, whatever that means. Then she put it on my desk and the count was more than halved. Everyone’s desk measured the same, around 800, but mine! Todd and I even stole the meter from her desk on Friday and re-measured, and sure enough, you’d expect that I work inside a cave in relation to everyone else. “It’s because of your dark aura,” Gayle said. UGH SHUT UP GAYLE.
  • Sike. I know a compliment when I hear it.
    • If I lose my desk, Glenn is going to party.

• Remember when Henry asked me to marry him and we had the greatest wedding of the entire 80s decade?
• The only thing getting me through this goddamn winter is all the rad shows peppering my concert calendar. At work today, we had to pass around a calendar to pick our late shifts and I got excited all over again when I saw all the nights I have blocked off because of shows.  Thank god for music, year-round.
  • THE CITIZEN SHOW IS NEXT WEEK AND I’M SO ANTSY WITH ANTICIPATION. I don’t even care that I’m going by myself.
    • I mean, I do care. It sucks to be a loner. BUT IT’S CITIZEN AND TURNOVER FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

• A few weeks ago, we had dinner at Drew’s (no relation to our cat, probably) and by a happy coincidence, it was Greek Night. We only eat at Drew’s once every 8 years, so we did not know that this is apparently a HUGE event for the Forest Hills peeps. That place was rockin’ with old people getting their spanakopita on. Sadly, there were no vegetarian options on the special Greek menu except for a salad and FLAMING CHEESE which I fucking love, so we all ordered regular old American food like racists, and then also ordered the cheese. “Ah, getting a little bit of the Greek in there, I can dig it,” our waiter laughed after we basically snubbed the rest of the Greek menu. I LOVE HIM. For a myriad of reasons. The main being that he wasn’t Henry. We sat there listening to some old man (presumably Drew) travel to every table that ordered the flaming cheese, and then making a HUGE production of setting it aflame and bellowing OPA! So when he finally came to our table, we were ready for a show. Except that there was no entertaining lead-in. Just *fire* and a lackadaisical “Opa” and then a “Don’t touch this part of the plate, it’s hot.” Wow. Who’s the racist now. And then I was super looking forward to the baklava sundae BUT THEY RAN OUT OF BAKLAVA!? Ugh. So Chooch ordered red velvet cake, which all three of us shared because it was gigantic, and this was after we told Chooch he wasn’t allowed dessert because he ate like zero bites of his burger, and then he pouted and decided to punish himself, which is my favorite thing ever, Chooch the Martyr. So Henry wrote Crybaby on his place mat with an arrow pointing to Chooch, and as the evening went on, he added “spoiled” and “big, big” in front of it.

• Henry saw an ad for a housekeeping position at a private gay club as a second job and I was like OMG PLEASE APPLY. What a great second job that could be for Henry! You know, since LYFT only lasted ONE WEEKEND. Henry’s all talk, you guys. He couldn’t hang.
• Things I was told last week at work: I’m a wasted talent; I have a dangerous mind; I’m basically a bully.
• We were listening to a New Jack Swing playlist the other night and I accidentally told Henry that I have the Soul 4 Real CD, twice, in the span of 10 seconds. My memory is a candy-coated raindrop.

• Oh would you look? It’s Drew and Penelopiss hulking around SUZY BANYON before I moved her someplace higher. I’m sorry, but you don’t fuck with SUZY BANYON.
  • Henry calls Penelope “Penopoly.” LIKE MONOPOLY. So dumb.

• A few weeks ago, I caught most of the Eagles documentary on CNN. The next day, I mentioned it to Henry, and he was all, “There’s one on Netflix too” and for whatever reason I YELLED, “Oooh, let’s watch it!” Because suddenly I’m a huge Eagles fan? I mean, I like them well enough but certainly not enough to watch two back-to-back documentaries. Anyway, it took me about 35 minutes to realize it was the same one I had watched the night before on CNN, but I still continued to watch along with Henry, because I was waiting for the part when they poached the dude from Poco. I grew up listening to all that shit, so Poco is another band that brings back fond memories of my childhood, even though I think I only know two of their songs. So we’re watching this, and I admitted to Henry that I always thought that the Eagles were always a band, you know? That they all hadn’t previously had music careers with other people, that it was always just The Eagles.
  • After it ended, I told Henry that I DGAF about all those “you might be a douche if you like Hotel California” lists and memes that circulate in Facebook from time to time, because I think that is one of the best songs ever written, and I honestly can’t NOT listen to it in its entirety when I hear it on the radio. “That and ‘Africa’ and ‘In the Air Tonight,'” I added, and Henry just grunted.
    • A few days later, Henry told me he heard that the dude from Poco who joined the Eagles also recorded Africa with Toto! MIND=BLOWN.
      • This reminded me of the time that I heard a song on the radio that reminded me of my Pappap’s kitchen and I was freaking out trying to remember who sang it (this was pre-Shazam, you guys; probably in 2002 when searching the Internet required elbow grease. So I was all stressed out, trying to remember the name of this band, and meanwhile, Henry and I had bought the most delicious cake in the world from Bethel Bakery, a raspberry ambrosia, and I had become obsessed with that cake AND song at the same time, only to find out that the band who sang the song was Ambrosia. I LOVE WHEN THESE THINGS HAPPEN.

• In the span of one school day, Chooch got detention and accepted into the gifted program. That sounds about right.
  • Apparently, he landed himself in lunch detention for “yelling out” and “being silly” in art. I think he’s at the point where he is collecting detentions as a hobby.
• Speaking of hobbies! I have been fucked by the inspiration gods these last few weeks and have all kinds of pointless paintings I’m working on!
  • Fun fact: when Kara, Corey and I visited La Hutte Royal a few weeks ago, the docen asked us (and another couple who were also there for the tour) if any of us were artists/involved with art in any way and I casually declined to answer because I do not consider myself an artist. Here is where you would find me shrugging if you peeked through my front window right now. Shrug shrug shrug. But that doesn’t stop me from slapping down paint!

• Everybody has been flipping out because some Steeler named HEATH MILLER retired and I was like, “Who? Oh.” Then I saw his picture on Facebook and I was like, “Who? Oh.” That’s definitely not who I thought it was. I thought I knew what he looked like, when in fact, I’m fairly certain I have never seen this man in my life. He wasn’t even the same race as the man I was picturing. So.

• Last week, Jeannie and I had dinner after work with BARB, who was kind enough to grace us with her presence. Barb arrived right in time to start singing along to Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” and I was like, “Man, I miss making fun of her everyday.” Can’t she see how selfish her decision to resign from The Law Firm was?! DID SHE NOT EVEN CONSIDER HOW IT WOULD AFFECT ME!? I can’t believe it’s been nearly a year since what I sadly referred to as Mournday. Basically, Jeannie and I just sat there and ate while Barb talked so quickly about everything from her favorite song (“Oh Girl” by the Chi-Lites) to all of the TV shows she watches. Seriously though — it was a really great dinner at Villa Reale and it was awesome as always to see Barb. I think she needs to get out of the house more often, say, from 8am-9am Monday through Friday when she starts driving me to work after the trolley construction begins.
  • After dinner, Barb came back to my house to meet Drew and Penelopiss, and that’s when I learned that she killed the fucking succulent I gave her for her dumb birthday!! Succulents are so fucking easy to maintain, BARB!
    • NEVER MIND MY FIRST BULLET POINT UP THERE.

OK, I think I’m sufficiently purged. CARRY ON.

1.Valentinin’

The serial killer cards have been flying off the shelves this season and I am so happy about that! If I could do this for a living, I would be ecstatic. Designing these things bring me great joy! A few orders came in this morning and I faux-bragged about it to Glenn, ending it with “No big deal.”

“You’re right,” Glenn grumbled. “It isn’t a big deal.”

“Hashtag so what,” Todd chimed in and I lost it. I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

Then a few hours later, I received some really great customer feedback.

“Hey Amber,” I called over to her desk. “Someone else thinks I’m wonderful, too.” Because Amber always tells me I’m wonderful just to ruffle Glenn’s plain, boring feathers.

“Hashtag who cares,” Todd chimed in again. “Just trying to keep you grounded so you don’t start coming in here wearing sunglasses.” And then somehow it escalated to the point where Amber2 printed out a sheet of my employee photo and gave it to Glenn! HOW QUICKLY THE TABLES HAVE TURNED! Actually, not very quickly, considering it has taken three years for someone to hand-deliver this idea into Glenn’s lap.

And this concludes the story of how Amber2 re-earned the Mean Amber moniker!

(Seriously though, go get a card or 7!)

In related news, I had all of these Valentines designed in my head, featuring the guys in our department, and they were going to be super hilarious but the rational, job-security-desperate side of me kept whispering, “You could get in trouble for this one, Erin.” I confided in Wendy and at first she was like, “No, I think these are fine. Also, I can’t believe I’m helping you with this.” But later in the day she came over and was like, “OK I’M SORRY BUT I’M PARANOID AND I DON’T WANT YOU TO LOSE YOUR JOB.” And I agree with her that there are certain scenarios where this could become an HR nightmare. So, no Valentines, work pals.

2. GUYS DID YOU KNOW I HAVE CATS AGAIN LOL
  

They’re finally succumbing to their instinctual sisterly napping behaviors and I’m so thrilled! Sometimes, Marcy used to let Speck cuddle with her even though they weren’t real sisters and Marcy hated everyone but Henry and Satan. So this is bringing back some warm fuzzies or whatever you sappy people call that shit.

Chooch has changed Penelope’s name to Penelopiss.

“Get it? Because instead of PeneloPEE, it’s PeneloPISS?”

Yes, son. I get it. I got it. Thanks for ruining my cat’s name.

Such tired.

3. HOCKEY FUCK YEAH!

Barb, my favorite person in the whole entire world, gave me her tickets to the Pens game on Tuesday. It was super last minute, and I still wasn’t feeling entirely well, but fuck it: hockey over everything. Luckily, Chooch is super down with going to to Pens games now because he understands that this is the way of life.

Plus he gets to spend my money on overpriced ice cream bars.

We loved the people in front of us! (No sarcasm.) No one ever wants to high-five me at hockey games, but this guy did! And we scored six times too so that was SIX HIGH FIVES. I used real, old-fashioned math for that one. Not Common Core. I’d still be typing out my answer, otherwise.

OK, not to be all sentimental and MommyBloggy, but when Sidney Crosby got a hat trick, Chooch went ape shit because he totally understood the greatness of it all, and I got all teary-eyed because this was a MEMORY that Chooch and I were making together, and it involved the Penguins! A team he used to hate! Ugh, my heart.

Also, here’s some pictures of Barb’s chili pepper-pants’d boy toy:

I kept texting them to her throughout the game and I can only imagined how annoyed she was.

Anyway, other shit happened but I’m going to save that for Chooch to tell. We’re hopefully going to start a new monthly thing called Chooch Chats where people ask him shit and then he gets to talk his face off. Henry and I are going to try to film the first episode this weekend provided we don’t kill each other and that I don’t lose interest, because I’m pretty whatever about YouTube. I’m sure this will fizzle out just like all of my other sad attempts at series do. (RIP: Frown of the Day; Henry Bombs; Goofus & Gallant, OhHonestlyErin-Style; Freaky Features…..sigh. I have no niche.)

4. CARLY RAE JEPSEN

Literally the only reason I watched that live Grease thing last weekend. Did you know that I have never seen the actual Grease movie? And that I have no plans on ever remedying that? I just have never given a shit about it and I remember DEFINITELY running out of shits to give back in high school when our dumb drama club people performed it one year and if I heard someone say the name “Kenickie”* one more time as I walked down the hallway, I probably would have dropped out then instead of waiting until a month before graduation.

*I had to google how to spell that dumbass’s name.

ALL OF A SUDDEN I’M REALLY ANGRY NOW!?

Anyway, CRJ was beautiful as always. I guess the rest of it was OK? I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to like it or not.

5. The People Vs. OJ Simpson

Obviously I have been chomping at the bit for this series to start. Obsessed since ’94! I’ve referenced my OJ pog story on here at least 87 times so I’ll spare you. Last year, I was inspired to make an OJ painting, and this was before I even knew that a series was being made! Literally, I was like, “What should I paint? OJ shit.” Like the cast of the OJ trial are the new happy trees.

If I still used LiveJournal, I’d be using my Kato Kaelin and OJ icons exclusively right now.

Well friends, that’s all I feel like finger-pounding out right now. Maybe another day, I’ll sing you the song of THE MAN IN THE ATTIC. But right now, my cup of cream of wheat is calling my name. Peace out, Girl Scout!

Today was way less full of mental-lava, but these are things that I hate no matter what mood I’m in.

• Getting calls from the vice-principal. I don’t even answer anymore. I wait until there’s a voicemail, listen to that, and then I text Henry in all capital letters and made him call the school back because NO don’t bother me at work. I know my kid is a fucking menace. Please put me on the do not call list, thanks.
  • This time it was actually Chooch’s buddy that did the bad thing but they both suffered the consequences and had to serve lunch detention, lol. MAYBE NEXT TIME THEY WILL WALK TO SCHOOL LIKE NORMAL HUMANS AND NOT FUCK AROUND NEAR RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC.
• Being a parent to a preteen boy. Can’t wait for it to get worse.
• That one cemetery we drive past every time we go to the craft store. It’s just plain and boring and I hate it. It makes me feel sterile every time we drive past. Fuck off, plain cemetery. Get an obelisk or GTFO.
• Eye doctor. I had to go back yesterday for a contact follow-up. I had a different doctor this time and I liked him a lot better. I told him I was really struggling with my right eye and he looked at my chart and said, “Yeah, I don’t know why a toric lens was only ordered for your left eye. You need one for the right, too.” I KNOW RIGHT!? I have no idea why the other doctor decided that I’m only a one-eyed astigmatism.
• Grilled cheese made with the wrong cheese. Henry ruined my Saturday by putting provolone on my grilled cheese and I refused to eat it all. (I mean, I ate SOME because I was hungry.)
• Wendy’s gross nail. She did something dumb to it and now the nail is all black and coming up and she kept trying to thrust it at me because she knows I hate gross body things like whoa. She even popped out from behind a cabinet door when I was trying to file away Redwells on Friday and I was so angry. Then she went back to her office and texted me a picture of it!? I found out later that GLENN gave her that idea for free.  I’d post the picture but then I’d have to see it again. As if that wasn’t enough, she sent me a video, too. :(
• Lunch lady (Debbie the Bitch) at Chooch’s school who apparently yelled at him for “getting [name withheld] in trouble” when it was actually the other way around?! (Seriously, the vice-principal told us this so I believe it; if it was coming from Chooch, I’d have doubts.) Maybe get a new hairnet, Debbie, because it sounds like yours is too tight.
• Eyelids. They are literally lids for eyes & then I can’t fall asleep because I can’t stop imagining if eyelids were removable like other lids. #lids
• When Henry gets cocky and deviates from recipes and then I’m the only one who suffers. Just follow the recipe…?
• Geocaching. Full post on that later in the week.
• Winter.
• Henry’s inability to paint walls as fast as I need him to.
• The fact that it’s January and Bled Fest and Warped Tour won’t start making announcements until March.
• Not being rich enough to buy every record I want right at this very moment.
• This blog.

Just so I’m not a total killjoy, I’ll end this dumb post with a synthpop masterpiece; every time I hear it, it boosts my mood and makes me desperately want to go roller skating, so maybe next weekend? It’s been like, a year. So add that to the Things I Hate list.

• Not rollerskating enough.

Taking a break from KpopX and Run For Cover YouTube videos to jot down some thoughts using nothing but a keyboard and my fingertips. Shit is so advanced in 2016.

• HUGE NEWS: I finally repotted that stupid spider plant that was dumped on me two years ago at work. I still don’t really like it because SUCCULENTS ONLY, but…I’m trying to be nice to it. So I bought it a stupid hanging planter thing at Ikea and then made Henry hang it for me in my “painter’s nook” and I guess it’s OK. Maybe someday it’ll get a name. Like Burden or Waste of Space.
  • But the upside to this is that now I can buy a succulent to put in Spider Plant’s old pot, which was actually a really pretty coffee cup that Gina and Elissa got me a few years ago for my birthday, but then it chipped so I’ve been using it as a pot ever since.
    • Speaking of the pink wall (wait, we weren’t?) I think I have Henry on board to paint the rest of the bedroom a deep hunter green. He doesn’t seem thrilled but when is he ever. It’s going to be dope.

• My Top 9 Instagram posts, apparently.
• Check out this great clown book my friends Kevin and Lizzy sent me! The inscription is from 1948! I just love it. I love clown stuff so much!

• Last summer when I was visiting Octavia, I had coffee at her house and commented on how much I loved her coffee cups and then for Christmas, she sent me one along with one of her succulents! I seriously cried because it meant so much and I miss her.  I asked her to name him and she chose Baron Stash. <3 #insidejokes4l
• Thinking about making a zine about my department at work. Like old school zine, yo. Glenn’s life is about to get even worse.
  • Yeah, speaking of Glenn, Todd told me last week that before he really knew me, all he knew was that I did all these fucked up things to Glenn and he actually thought I was a bully. He told me this after I giddily told him about how Corey and I constantly try to spread rumors that Janna has a Robitussin problem and he told me that I’m a bully.
    • I think I might be a bully.

• Chris and Monica brought me back the bottom mask from their honeymoon and he has become fast friends with Clown Mask.
• So today I arrived at work at 9 and quickly learned that I was supposed to work late shift today because Amber2 asked to switch with me, but I thought she meant next Monday. “Maybe you need to get a planner,” Wendy sneered, to which I snapped, “I PUT IT IN MY PHONE PLANNER, BUT THAT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER WHEN I HAVE THE DATE WRONG, WENDY.” Ugh! So everyone was like, “Hahaha, good job” and it wouldn’t benefit me to turn around and go home, because I took the stupid trolley today so by the time I got home, I would have to turn around and come right back, ugh. Instead, I sat here for a few minutes and annoyed everyone, and then I decided to try my luck out in the wilderness, i.e. snowy downtown. Chooch took my idiot gloves to school with him this morning because he “couldn’t find his” which means this was the first time this winter he needed to wear gloves and couldn’t be bothered to look for them, so I had to borrow Wendy’s gloves when I went outside. She tried to get me to borrow her scarf  too but I stubbornly said I was fine.
  • First, I went to Nicholas Coffee and bought a pound of coffee because what else am I going to do? Then I walked to the Exchange to look for records but they only have ultra deluxe hipster bullshit and like, Led Zeppelin; nothing that I was looking for, needed, or would have gladly bought on a whim. So I was like steaming mad and started to storm out because that’s what I do, and that’s also what I did on Sunday when I was at the Culture Shop and some bitch was visiting her friend who was working there, and she was blocking THE ONE CASE that I wanted to look at. “Why wouldn’t you just ask her to move?” Henry had the nerve to question after I huffed and puffed my way down Carson Street. I shot him A Look and screamed, “BECAUSE I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO! SHE SHOULD WAIT UNTIL AFTER HER FRIEND IS DONE WORKING AND THEN THEY CAN GO AND GET A FUCKING FRAPPUCINO TOGETHER UGH.” Anyway, that’s a thing that happened. But back today: as I was stomping out of the store with a scowl on my face, one of the girls said, “Have a nice day, miss” and the other girl said, “I really love your purse!” So then I calmed down. Being called “miss” was good enough, but the extra compliment about my fabulous taste in accessories really dulled my ire.

• I stripped Trudy down over the weekend and I have to say, I’m not sad about it. LOOK AT THAT BODY. Henry put the new(-to-us) wig on her and looked so proud about it. I love that he was so annoyed about buying her at Macy’s but now he has totally warmed up to her. She’s an Appledale, Michael. My own Trudy, a goddamned, shit-sucking Appledale. OH YOU WAIT TIL MOM FINDS OUT BUDDY.
  • Sorry. I was having a Lost Boys moment.

• Here is a photo of a disgusting man who performs snot gymnastics every morning while waiting for the trolley, instead of just blowing his fucking nose, and I’m like “Bro, use a KLEENEX, it probably requires less effort than whatever phlegm lassoing you’re doing right now.” Sometimes, he is also known to burp with wanton abandon. I hate him so much and literally glare at him.
• I’m eating Müller greek yogurt and I can’t get over how much it tastes like paste, which alarms me because I’ve never eaten paste. And trust me, I would admit it if I did. I’ve admitted to far worse on the Internet!
  • I’m totally gagging on this but still, I keep spooning it in. Mmm, Elmers-y.

• My Cure tickets and Carly Rae Jepsen tickets came on the same day and I ran around like a child after drinking a whole case of red Squeezits! So many good shows are happening in 2016: Hail the Sun is this month, Never Shout Never is next month, Basement is coming up, Silverstein and EMAROSA in Lancaster…I’m excited to start filling up the 2016 calendar that I snagged thanks to Gayle’s mom donating to charities and getting a shit ton of calendars that no one wants so Gayle brought them all into work. I got an Easter Seals one that features crappy pictures made by children. My other option was Peaceful Solitude, which is chock full of like, pictures of churches and birds. I don’t like children, but I also don’t like churches and birds, so I grabbed the one that had more colors on it that I enjoyed. Which was the kid one. And that concludes this year’s Calendar Klatch. Stop by next year and we’ll talk again.
  • Don’t worry, I’ve repainted my nails since this picture was taken.
    • Except now they need redone again. I’m just not as into my nails anymore, guys!

• Henry finally scrubbed the tattoo off Chooch’s neck and you would have thought he was being murdered by tickles.
• Fun fact about me: ever since I was a kid, I heard the Full House theme song as “Whatever happened to addict to be a teen, the milkman, the paperboy, the evening Tv?” I mean, no, it never made sense to me– “addict to be a teen”– but I still sang it because it was either that or “a dick to Billy Tee” and that made even less sense to me…? Anyway, I finally decided to look up the words recently and wow. Just wow. “Predictability.” Who knew!? (Other than everyone.)
• In case anyone was keeping score, Henry has leveled up to “Bae Lord” and I have leveled down to “Bae.” We were having a hard time keeping track of who was who and finally Henry screamed, “JUST CALL US MOM AND DAD FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!”
  • Maybe I screamed that.
• Yeah so I hate to be That Guy, but winter, you guys. Man, fuck a winter. And it has literally only just begun.
• I went back outside when I was on my actual lunch break and not my “fuck, I’m two hours early for work” break and this time I took Wendy’s scarf, too. It was fucking brutal out there, man.
  • Actually, it wasn’t even THAT cold but we were so spoiled with a mild December and there was no gradual descent into winter digits. Just an overnight plunge.

• Henry does not approve of my mustache.
• Man, I had a really crappy weekend for no tangible reason other than I allowed a thing to get the best of me and it set the ball in motion to rack up millions of points in the psychopathic pinball game inside my brain. Emotions are the worst. I started approximately 87 fights with Henry on Saturday and Sunday and then tried to kick him out which backfired on me (it always does) and then finally he was like, “Hey, what’s the real issue here?” and then I was like “WAHHHHHHHH!!!!” and cried and he took me to Tillie’s for dinner on Sunday because I said, “I WANT TO GO TO TILLIE’S” so that’s what we did and then I was fine.

Mmm, bloody.

• One of my oldest dreams was to start my own record label. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because I feel like each day spent at a job that has zero to do with music is killing me, but I don’t know where to start. All I know is that I want Chooch to be the face of it because everyone loves Chooch and I have the personality of a frozen corpse.
• Put all this effort into quietly crawling up the steps on Friday night so that I could burst into Chooch’s room and scare him, but wound up scaring myself because I didn’t consider the effect of screaming while wearing a pig mask. My ears are still ringing. Henry didn’t even bother to ask me if I was OK!?
• And now I will leave you with a song by Mindsideout. Did you know that the beginning of my relationship with Henry revolved around synthpop? He used to burn me synthpop mix CDs because I was All Synthpop All the Time back then and even considered changing my name to my synthpop super princess alias, Saffron. Anyway, I had a synthpop compilation with this Mindsideout song on it but not even Eide’s, my official Industrial and Synthpop dealer, had the entire Mindsideout record for sale. Henry ended up finding some overpriced import CD somewhere and I just thought he was the greatest guy ever. Well, for about 30 minutes. Come on now.

Going back to my emo hole with my sadboy music and Bledfest dreams. Someone put this blog out of its misery.

Life (and an annoyingly half-broken blog) really got the best of me for a second there. Today, I’m relaxing with a chilled glass of bulletpoints.

• In 10th grade, there was one night where I managed to simultaneous piss off all of my friends in one fell swoop. They wanted me to go ice skating with them but I declined – there was a UNCF telethon on BET that night, hosted by the one and only Lou Rawls. I watched every single second of that telethon, even through performances by washed up songstresses like Patty Austin. My attention was fixated despite my step dad’s heckling and my mom’s pleas to turn it. “Why do you have to watch the whole thing?” they asked. I even shed some tears here and there. Finally, they left me alone and I was able to call in my pledge of $20 in private. I’ll never forget the day my mom received her billing statement. Ironically, that’s twenty dollars more than she contributed to my college fund.
• There is an attorney at The Law Firm whose last name is similar to one of my favorite soft rockers, Gino Vannelli. His name came up a few weeks ago and then that night, one of his songs came on some yacht rock Spotify playlist I was forcing Henry to listen to at bedtime, which is my favorite  thing to do: force Henry to listen to things and give him lengthy explanations about what each song means to me and every single childhood memory is attached to it. It’s been a while since I heard a G.Vann song and I have to tell you, I wasn’t expecting to burst into tears. But I did. Anything that reminds me of sitting at the counter in my Pappap’s kitchen is going to launch searing daggers of ouchy nostagia into my heart without warning.
  • The next evening after work, Chooch and I got in fight so I fled to my bedroom where I ate dinner alone and put Gino on Spotify to help booster my pity party to the next level. Then I tweeted something along the lines of “Those Gino Vannelli vibes, tho” and some broad retweeted it. I went to her twitter and found that her entire timeline is full of Gino Vannelli tweets, so I guess she makes it her business to troll Twitter and RT every mention of him. There’s always someone.
  • “Living Inside Myself” was one of the main reasons I begged my Pappap to order me the Time Life Body Talk CD compilations when I was a teenager. It was one of those subscriptions where they would send you a new double CD each month and it was glorious. Then my Pappap died and my grandma canceled it so I never got to complete the collection. I’M NOT GRINDING MY TEETH RIGHT NOW OR ANYTHING.

• Chooch’s piano teacher Cheryl has moved to Asheville, WhateverCarolina to take massage therapy classes, so Chooch’s piano is temporarily on hold until June. We were both super sad and I basically acted like she was dying when I picked him up from the lesson and she was like, “NO DON’T START!” because she was trying to keep a celebratory tone but here comes Emo Erin, ready to rain her salty drops of sadness all over the party. She gave Chooch some things to work on in her absence though and surprisingly, he seems to be practicing way more than he ever has. And he’s getting scarily good and figuring out how to play things by ear. Like after he heard “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” on the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, he had taught himself how to play it that same night and what a treat that was, him flipping back and forth between that song and the Halloween/Michael Myers theme. It was like a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown.
• Two weeks ago (I’m so behind on bullet-points!), Amber2 pointed out that someone in the Firm was giving away a shower seat and gray wig on our Classifieds. “I find this bizarre,” she said, while my fingers were fumbling to reply to the seller before anyone else had a chance to take the gray wig from me. Amber just laughed and said she should have known better than to say that to me. By the next day, I still didn’t have a response from the seller. Nate said, “Maybe she doesn’t want to separate them?” like when people are giving away kittens by the pair or none at all. Finally I was like, “I AM GOING TO EMAIL THIS LADY” and it’s a good thing I did because she never got notification that I responded to her ad via the Classifieds page! So then she called me and asked me if I wanted to know what the wig looked like, and I didn’t really care because a wig is a wig to me, but I was like, “Sure?” so she described it and then said she was going to include the wig shampoo and conditioner and asked me, “How do you normally wash your wigs?” and I was like “…..” but then thankfully she was like, “Blahblahblah?” and I was like, “Yes, just like that. That is exactly how I have been known to wash my wigs.” And then the next day, the wig was waiting for me!
  • Trudy has to age sometime, you know?

• Spotify told me that these were my top genres of 2015 and I’m like, duh:  
• I went to dinner last week with my Original Work Mom, Carol and it was wonderful! I haven’t seen her in a pretty long time, which is sad because we shared an office at the meat place for 4 years. She and I walked out of that place together and while it was such a shitty, traumatic day for us both, I feel like it’s something that will always keep us bonded together. Of course, we did a lot of reminiscing—some good, mostly bad—about that horrible company and it left me feeling some type of way, for sure.
  • Instead of being doom and gloom about it and crediting it for the stutter it left me with and the near-crippling fear of getting another job, which sent Henry and me into a financial pit that we have only recently begun to claw our way out from, I like to think about the good things that came from it:
    • Getting to work with Carol for four years was wonderful. She is my friend/Chooch’s godfather Brian’s mom, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that from 200-2004, she was more of a mom and support system to me than my actual mom. She was also one of the first people who I confided in about Henry, and she was definitely on board with me dating him.
    • Which leads me to: meeting Henry, obviously. Whoever would have thought that 14 years later…you know. Life is fucking weird and awesome.
      • Even though I’m mad at Henry right now because he has been ignoring my texts all day because apparently I’m not important like Faygo.
• Prettttty sure I’m food-phobic. All this holiday bullshit has me panicking about overeating, or you know, just eating in general. I skipped the Law Firm’s holiday party because I was petrified of being around all the cookies. And luckily, I wasn’t around for our department’s holiday party because I was in Cleveland, so that alleviated some forever-fat anxiety. I probably should talk to someone* about this instead of having secret heart palpitations.
  • *Like a therapist on Twitter or Instagram, maybe.
• Today, Todd was trying to guess what kind of music I liked in high school and his first guess was NO DOUBT which was actually so offensive to me that it made my stomach hurt. Then I made him listen to Chiodos and he said he was super nervous at first because he was bracing himself for a lot of screaming, but that it ended up not being too bad.
• I made Henry leave on some Carpenters special that WQED was airing during one of their telethon things, mostly as a joke because I never gave a shit about the Carpenters one way or another, but then I was suddenly really into this stupid special because they make me feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that I’m having an out-of-body, time-traveling experience* where I’m standing in my grandparents’ backyard in the 60s, wearing a purple sundress, and it’s springtime and I can’t see my face. So then I started torturing myself by listening to them all last week and I had no idea that they sang “When I Fall In Love” because I always thought it was originally by Celine Dion (thanks to the “Sleepless In Seattle” cassette in my Pappap’s Cadillac) so then on Sunday night, when Henry was trying to go to sleep, I played basically every version that Spotify has, even the Doris Day one, and when I got bored with that, I asked him what he wanted to listen to and he mumbled into his pillow, “Anything but Doris Day.” That story seemed a lot more exciting before I started typing.
  • See also: Marty Balin’s “Hearts.”
• I hope that little things like this never stop making me squeal like a teenager:
• In relation to the above bullet, I have been extremely regressing lately, and this entails fluctuating precariously between extreme giddiness and a morose listlessness that finds me doing nothing more but laying around, with my arm splayed across my forehead, listening to emocore.
• Seeing Craig Owens on Wednesday totally reignited my love for Chiodos. I haven’t been able to stop smiling!
  • Except for when I’m being emocore. Which happens at the drop of a hat.
• I bought this Skinny Dip phone case last summer, months before I finally upgraded my phone. Priorities. Even Glenn said it’s “cute.” I’m not sure if he meant it or not.
• It occurred to me recently that I’m the same age that Henry was when we started dating: he was 36 and I was 22. He seemed SO OLD to me back then, but I don’t feel like I’m old now that I’m the same age.

Ew, on that gross note, I’m going to go and, I dunno, listen to more emocore probably. Sorry, co-workers.

Internet, let’s get bullet-y! (Also, anytime I use bullet points on here, it makes word sandwiches and I don’t know why. APOLOGIES to your eyes.

• Yesterday was the last day of one of our managers who started out here in Pittsburgh and then moved to Australia to help build up our Melbourne office. I read his reply to my goodbye email out loud when I got in to work today and everyone within earshot let forth a heartygroan; here is an excerpt:
  • Erin:  your smile and just general warmth was always an amazing piece of the Pittsburgh office.  I’m so happy you’ve stayed with the firm and have taken on more within the group because you truly deserve the rewards*.
    • *My reward for lasting 5 years came yesterday in the form of a certificate, a ribbon-thing, a plate of cookies, and a mini bottle of Verdi.
  • I’m going to print it out and tape it to my monitor, next to the one Brad sent me in 2013 which reads:
    • You’re a peach, Erin Kelly. I take back all of the horrible things I say about you behind your back.
• One day last week, I came back from my break to find that I was SUSPICIOUSLY locked out of my computer. So I had to call the dreaded help desk, which is only not dreaded when my boyfriend Tim answers. But this time it was Noah. He wanted me to answer one of my security questions, and I had my mom’s maiden name on the tip of my tongue, ready to roll, when he asked instead, “What did you wantto be when you grow up?” He stunned me into silence and my brain just completely fizzled out. I literally couldn’t think and just sat there stuttering. “OK, how about this one: What was your favorite game as a child?” I was sweating at this point. Was I dreaming when I answered these questions? “……Monopoly?” I whispered with zero confidence. “No,” he sighed. “Ok…how about…what’s your zip code?” “Oh! That one I know!” and I happily answered. But then, after he granted me passage back into my computer, I asked, “Just out of curiosity, what did I put down for that first question?” Because if I know myself, it could only have been three things, depending on which Vintage Erin Era I was in when I was answering those questions in the first place. He started laughing. “Parapsychologist….so I guess you wanted to, what? Be aghostbuster?” “Yep, that soundsaccurate,” I said, and Noah continued to laugh. “That’s definitely the best answer to that question I’ve seen yet,” he said, and I was thankful that I hadn’t put “manurepackager” because that’s what I used to jokingly tell people I wantedto be when I was in high school, ugh.
  • And if we were going Early Years, it would have been “maid” because all I really knew about maids was that they wore cute dresses and worked in nice apartment buildings and hotels, and if you knew the environment in which I was raised, you can imagine how horrified my grandma was of this early career choice. And if you could see the state my house is usually in, you would wonder how I ever could have cleaned up other peoples shit when I can’t even clean up my own.
  • I wanted to be a parapsychologist after I conned my Pappap into buying me the Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown book series when I was in 5th or 6th grade and became convinced that this was the life for me.
    • By the time I got off the phone, everyone sitting around me were like, “The FUCK was that about?! Who picks those as their security questions?!” SORE-Y GUYS. At the time, I must have thought it was a good idea!
      • I don’t know why I said Monopoly. I can guarantee it was Mousetrap. Motherfuck.
• That time we let Henry treat himself:

• I’ve been putting on Gilmore Girls every night after work because the snappy banter of Lorelai and Rory in the background is inexplicably soothing to me. Chooch got sucked into it one night and asked, “Are they sisters? REALLY? Well they don’t act like they’re mom and daughter.” And then I waited for it to sink in and finally the lightbulb turned on and he exclaimed, “Oh my god, they kind of remind me of us, Mommy!” And there it is.
  • And Henry is Luke.
    • The reruns air on the UP channel so “goddamn” is edited out, lol’ing to Heaven.
• VIC LIKED MY PAINTING OF HIM ON INSTAGRAM!!!!!!!!! VIC FUCKING FUENTES! At first I thought for sure it was one of those thirsty girls who make their user name similar to a singer’s and just change, like, one letter and then they use the same user pic, like there for certain is a girl on Instagram right now whose name is Piercethavic, like what even is the point. BUT NO, it’s the real Vic and I honestly couldn’t breathe because I have loved that band for so fucking long and even Henry was like, “Nice.”

• I ran out of room in my haunted house journal before I was able to finish writing about this season, and I haven’t had a chance to buy a new one yet because I takes TIME and THOUGHT—I can’t just buy any old journal. It has to fit the haunted house journal criteria, for instance, two of my old haunted house journals were Goosebumps blank journals. DO YOU SEE?! I was ranting about this at work and Todd said, “Wow, you lead a stressful life. Can’t you make like, an annex for it?”
• The Affair is back for a second season of RUINING MY LIFE. I pretty much have an APB out on Henry at all times.
• Speaking of Henry and affairs! I took Veteran’s Day off because Chooch didn’t have school and I’m getting gently bullied into using more of my PTO time at work. Janna came over and we walked to Dormont to have lunch at Parker’s; on the way there, we walked by a truck from the meat place where Henry and I used to work and at first Iwas disgusted because fuck that place, seriously, but then I got close enough to see that the driver was Paul and Paul is awesome! I can’t believe that poor guy is still working there, though. Anyway, we chased (literally) the truck and as luck would have it, he parked RIGHT IN FRONT OF PARKER’S because there is a Chinese restaurant next to it that he was delivering to. I was all PAUL PAUL! OMG PAUL! and he had no idea who I was because a) I’m forgettable and b) I haven’t seen him since I quit on 4/21/04. But once I got closer and screamed IT’S ME!ERIN! he was all BRING IT IN GIRL! and gave me a hug full of nicotine and gross meat smells. I got to introduce him to Chooch, who was obsessed with Paul at this point because he’s my son and we get obsessed about things. I told him I’m still with Henry and he was genuinely stunned, which made me laugh, because really, who isn’t genuinely shocked that knew us back then.
  • Gross fact: I’m currently the same age that Henry was when he cradle-robbed me. I don’t feel old at all, but FUCK, I thought he was practically a geriatric when he was my age and I was 22.
• Sometimes when I’m out carousing the town on my lunch break, I see this man wearing a tutu and leggings, standing placidly on a corner, quietly holding up both middle fingers. No sign, no donation box, no quippy chant. Usually he is standing directly across from Dunkin’ Donuts so for a while I thought he was mad maybe about their ever-increasing line of designer coffee drinks. But then I saw him outside of Burlington so I have no idea what his agenda is. One time I saw him stretching out his fingers, though! I imagine they must get very tired from doing all of the communicating on his behalf. Here is a blurry picture of him because he scares me so I took it on the run:

• Cure tickets went on sale today at 10! I was still at home since I’m late shift today (although an adjusted late shift because I’m leaving earlier than usual so I can go see Copeland andEisley, woo!) so I sat there forever staring atTicketFly, hitting refresh, until it was 10. At one point, I screamed for no reason other than all this anxiety was building up and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to call Henry over for moral support but instead he calmly said from the couch, “Justbuy the damn tickets so I can take you to work.”
  • I came in to work and joyfully announced that I got my tickets and everyone was like, “Oh thank god, we spent all morning wondering.” I told Glenn that I almost puked when I was waiting to buy them and he said, “That’s funny because I almost puked when you read us George’s email.”
• Hey remember when I was having a conniption over Chooch and that effing school project that he was putzing around with? Well, he finished it on time and guess what he got out of it? STUDENT OF THE MOTHERFUCKING MONTH.  October’s criteria was creativity and BAM, BITCH the kids voted for Chooch because they thought that the fact he turned his animal essay into a comic strip was original and no one else had done that because the example the teacher gave was diorama so that’s what most of the kids did. Anyway, Chooch got a medal and he spent the next several hours shoving it in our faces.

(I can’t tell if my phone is broken or my eyes, but almost every picture I have taken lately has been out of focus.)

Ei

• Whenever Henry starts a sentence with HERE’S AN IDEA, I know it’s going to have something to do with me doing a thing on my own. And I don’t like it.
• Out of the blue the other day, Chooch said (MINOR WALKING DEAD SPOILER AHEAD), “Maggie is like, the new Laurie. I don’t mean because she’s a bitch now, but because she turned pregnant.”
  • Turned pregnant.
• I don’t know why I torture myself with American Horror Story (each season gets more and more lame, unless you are just completely unfamiliar with horror films); the best part of this season is definitely getting to see previews for the upcoming People vs. OJ Simpson. Holy shit, I can’t wait for that.
  • Also, a highlight was when “Siamese Dream” was playing during one scene in the third episode. #respect
• Chooch is still going strong with his extreme overuse of the word “bae” and even has me using without even realizing it—-it just rolls off the tongue so effortlessly. I’m at the point where I barely even notice him saying it anymore, but the other night, he started calling Henry and me “Bae-Lords” and after about 20 minutes, I was prepared to move out of the house. Henry flat out snapped last night and screamed, “I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO FIND A NEW WORD.”
• I know everyone has been like totally on edge, wondering whatever happened with the broken candy urn. Gayle fixed it for me! I mean, an entire piece is missing, but it’s basically as good as new.
  • (Also, I left a note for Lawrence Grant, the perp, and he took it! Well, someone did. I hope it was Lawrence though because I put candy inside of it.)

•  I think Chooch and I are going to try and co-write a post about the Emarosa show we went to on Monday, but we’re currently still in the heart-eyes -palpitations forever stage of things. But I will tell you this: Bradley prefaced our hugs by warning us that he was sick with the flu and was hoping to not get us sick but I was like BRING IT IN anyway because even though I hate hugs, it’s Bradley and he helped bring one of my favorite bands back to life, so…
  • Came to work the next day and practically screamed to Glenn, “BRADLEY HAS THE FLU AND HE HUGGED ME, THANK GOD I DIDN’T GET THE FLU SHOT!” Yesterday, I sincerely thought I was getting a fever, but then today I felt fine. :(
    • I am the fan that bands are wary of. J/K. I’m really not, I swear. I usually just stand behind Henry and cry, so you know, I’m harmless.
• Thank god Chooch knows when it’s appropriate to steal Henry’s phone and text me:

• Chooch brought home a permission slip for someidiotPittwomens basketball game but there are key words highlighted by his teacher, including “in school suspension” and “not invited.” Chooch was like, “I didn’t want to go anyway” and I suggested that we write “LOL basketball is dumb” on the permission slip and send it back but Henry intercepted and took that plan off the plate. I just kept going on andonaboutall of the things we could do with the $5 that we don’t have to spend on this now (like BUY SOME WEED*, BITCHES) until Chooch was crying from laughing so hard and Henry was like STOP ENCOURAGING HIM.
  • *This is funny because I haven’t smoked pot since like 2001 and have no idea what $5 would even get me, aside from laughed at.
    • I’m a terrible parent.

I will end this with a random picture of Chooch and two of his pals wearing my animal masks, because why not.

October’s got me like whoa. It’s my favorite month in the whole entire history of the calendar, but goddamn is it tiring. Here are some things that happened over the past week or so that I don’t want to forget, bullet-style. I’m feeling relatively uninspired, so consider these Nerf bullets. (Soft) Bang (soft) bang.

• Henry was telling me about some Snopes-style show he was watching where TOMS was featured and it talked about how the whole “one for one” thing isn’t really helping anyone in Africa, etc. The way he was telling me this, it was almost as if he expected me to fling my TOMS into a vat of acid, but instead I just shrugged and said, “So? That wasn’t ever why I started wearing TOMS.” Henry stood there with this look on his face like he knew what I was about to say was going to be full of vanity and shallowness. “I started wearing them because Craig Owens was wearing them.” And then Henry got the “there it is!” look of mild disappointment on his dumb face.
  • Although sometimes I kind of care about people! Like last week, I was wandering around on my break when I saw some older man in a wheelchair struggling to get through the door of a McDonald’s. Do you know how many people I witnessed walk right past him like he was invisible? Something like A LOT. And you know, just because this guy is in a wheelchair doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not a shitty person like the rest of us, but I couldn’t just walk by like this scene wasn’t playing out to my right. So I stopped and opened the door for him, and then when I realized that there was another set of doors inside, I followed him into the vestibule and opened those ones too. And the saddest part was that he was shocked that I did this. Especially when he realized that I had walked in there just to open the door for him. I’m not saying I love people and want to run outside and start hugging people (I work downtown; there are lots of gross people out there) but it would be nice if people would stop walking around with their noses in their phones and maybe pay attention when someone could use a hand. And that has been today’s Soapbox Story.
• Random photo of Chooch in his zombie obsession days, Lancaster PA circa 2010:

• You guys, LOLForever, Henry finally went out on his first Lyft shift on Saturday! As he was smoothing out his grizzled locks before leaving the house, I told him that he should put on Emarosa and then every time a new passenger gets in the car, he could say, “Oh that’s just Emarosa you’re hearing right now, no big deal” and then he could tell them about Bradley and Jonny. Henry snapped, “Why don’t YOU just be a Lyft driver then?” But you know what he did like? My suggestion of having a plastic trick or treat pumpkin filled with candy for his passengers! I could tell that it pained him to admit that it was a good idea.
  • He has been complaining about his one customer who he took to the airport and even HANDLED HER LUGGAGE (is that legal!? Henry shouldn’t be trusted with that), and then she didn’t even tip him.
  • On Sunday, he went out during morning prime time and wound up taking a bunch of people to the dumb stadium for the dumb FOOTBALL game, and naturally some of them were already drunk at 9am. When he came home that day, he said, “It went OK. I had a lot of cancellations, though. They were all girls, so I guess—-” and I cut in to finish “—they saw your creepy picture and got freaked?” Henry sighed and said, “Pretty much.”
    • Some of his passengers have been chatty with him so I asked him what he tells them of himself. “Nothing much, really,” he mumbled, in true Henry fashion. “Do you tell them that you have a cool girlfriend who does lots of thing and likes Emarosa?” I cried. He gave me that smirk that I hate so much, so I guess that’s a no. What a shocker. He never tells people about me! Because he’s embarrassed, that’s why.
• If you read Chooch’s guest post, you know that on Saturday we went to a haunted house about an hour away in Ohio. It was called Dark View and this was the first time we went because Henry, Mr. Haunted Houses R Dumb, brought home a flyer for it one day when he had deliver FAYGO for work. I approved of this haunt for a myriad of reasons, but my favorite part was that THE ACTORS ARE ALLOWED TO TOUCH YOU. If you know me at all, you know that I am a WHORE for creepy haunted house actors and I welcome every last spooky touch of my hair and gentle ankle grabs. The best part was when a bloody butcher singled me out (granted his only options were me and a miserable looking broad) and called me a pretty little things and then shouted mildly offensive innuendos at me as I ran away. “I love it when they me I’m pretty,” I whispered to Henry once he caught up to me. “Yeah, I know you do,” he sighed. Daddy issues all day long.
  • It was after 10 by the time we got out of there and we were all hungry but with Chooch and me, our hunger is something that needs addressed ASAP. Of course, we were unfamiliar with the area, Yelp is a piece of shit that only succeeds in causing the shackles on my temper to break, and most of the restaurants we passed were already closed. Henry and I started to fight (OK, I started to fight) and Chooch was just like, “Great, here we go again” because this is basically the only time we fight: when we’re in the car and I’m hungry. So Henry barked LET’S JUST GO TO TACO BELL AND BE DONE WITH IT. That was fine by us, even though I wanted a GRILLED CHEESE, but whatever. Taco Bell is good for me (I mean, not health-wise, of course) because it’s basically the only fast food place with a menu that’s easily modified to be vegetarian. However, I didn’t feel like having Henry try to give explicit instructions to whatever kid was working the drive thru, so I just went for the 7-layer burrito, which is naturally vegetarian. Before we left, we noticed that there was stuff missing from our order, so Henry reluctantly parked and went inside to reason with the Taco Bell idiots. While he was inside, I took a bite of my burrito and immediately recoiled. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place it. I took another bite, tentatively this time, and my heart sank: THEY GAVE ME A BEEF BURRITO. It was too late to spit it out and I never made a good bulimic, so I sat there for a second and accepted the fact that I’m a FAILURE TO PETA, MORRISSEY, AND ANIMALS WORLDWIDE. Once I calmed down (yeah right, I’m still not calm), I removed the key from the ignition, told Chooch to wait there (TERRIBLE PARENT ALERT but at least I told him to unlock the door for anyone) and stormed into Taco Bell. (I used the door, there are no Erin-shaped holes in any of the walls of this particular establishments.) Henry looked up in surprise, which then morphed to fear once he saw my face. I pushed past him to get to the counter. “I ORDERED A 7-LAYER BURRITO AND THIS IS NOT A 7-LATER BURRITO” I chirped to the girl on the other side, shaking the tainted burrito in the air. “Oh no….that’s definitely not….” the girl murmured. I let the burrito forcefully drop onto the counter. “AND I’M A VEGETARIAN!!” my chirpiness was pretty high-pitched by then. The girl started to back into the “kitchen” to hopefully FLOG WHATEVER PRICK DID THIS TO ME, and I turned to Henry and squealed hysterically, “AND I TOOK A BITE OF IT!” Henry gave me the “Calm down” look which only ever makes me less calm, and then I stormed back out to the car where I found my child in the backseat where I left him, eating his tacos and looking decidedly un-kidnapped. Henry came back and gave me my real 7-layer burrito, which I was going to hurl against the Taco Bell window and then use my finger to write DIE, VEGETARIAN HATERS into the coagulating mass of beans and rice, but fuck it. I was hungry.
  • Speaking of the haunted house, when we were in line, Chooch randomly acted out how he thinks Henry would react to being scared and maybe I was just punchy from the dumb car ride there—through INDUSTRIAL AREAS AND NEXT TO A RIVER AND OVER BRIDGES, god why not throw up some billboards for Alaska while you’re at it, Ohio—but it was making  me crack the fuck up, imagining Henry doing this idiot kawaii thing. I made Chooch reenact it tonight so I could Instavid it, but like most reenactments, a lot of the initial moxie got lost:

• The below pictures are poor quality, but I don’t care because today is school picture day for Chooch and I have been holding onto this Choonimals shirt since I bought it at Riot Fest, because this kid is known to beat the shit out of his clothes and I didn’t want him to ruin it before picture day. Because I knew the moment I bought it that this would be his picture day shirt because I feel like it’s a pretty good reflection of him. We also touched up his hair last night too because he said he wanted to. I figured he would have been over the color by now!
• 
• Man, I had a dream/nightmare last week where I was at my mom’s house and she had these two old broads weeding in her front yard and then Gayle was there and the ladies for no reason started telling Gayle all of this shit about my mom, like really nasty and mean-spirited things, and I came flying out of the laundry room door screaming at them  to shut their ugly faces and I swear I woke up feeling like I could murder a bitch. I might not have a relationship with my mom anymore, or any contact with her whatsoever, but do not talk shit on her because things will get ugly.
  • DEEP BREATH
• Purposely fell asleep with AMC’s Halloween marathon playing in the background last night and woke up feeling right as (arterial) rain.
  • Anyone who doesn’t think Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers is Paul Rudd’s best role ever can go fuck themselves because it is.
• Future Gilmore Girls, AMIRITE?!?! I could do without Melissa McCarthy though. (Don’t hate.)
• We bought a black wig for Chooch’s Halloween costume and he gushed, “It’s like a big glob of Ju-On hair!” He is forever obsessed with that movie. I bet all of his Asian horror references are so wasted at school.
• I’m off on Thursday for no reason at all and I plan on trying to paint all day, but let’s be real, I’m probably just going to watch music videos on YouTube and call Henry to bitch about the messy house all day.

OK, let’s wrap this bitch up. I’m tired and getting rambly.

LOL @ “getting.”