Some things happened over the last week, and I took photos of some of those things, so let’s look at the photos and talk about the things, bullet-point style.

• Something terrible almost happened yesterday! Henry made me take the stupid trolley to work and while I was waiting on the platform, an announcement rang out about how, due to an accident, we could expect to experience a 20-minute delay! THAT MEANT I WAS GOING TO BE LATE. But right after that, my trolley came and I was like “Oh OK, maybe that announcement was meant for the trolleys going the other direction.” But as soon as I sat down, Mean Amber texted me and Lauren to tell us that an accident happened right in front of the trolley she was on and that they hadn’t moved in awhile. She must have been two or three trolleys ahead of us. She said she called Glenn and told him that we were all going to be late and I don’t trust so I emailed my supervisor too and told her what was going on. Anyway, the delay was a lot less time than anticipated, but I still had to RUN super fast and elbow my way past people because Pittsburghers walk SO SLOW, and then I got stuck talking to one of the travel department ladies in the elevator and literally ran away from her as soon as the doors slid open, while she was still talking, and burst through the doors of the department at EXACTLY 9:00AM. I punched the air above me and cried, “I’M NOT LATE! MY STREAK CONTINUES!” And absolutely no one cared.
  • In other trolley news: I was sitting behind a broad who was feeding her baby a few weeks ago and it was fine until the baby was done eating because that’s when I found out that the mom was the most obnoxiously affectionate hag of all time and basically was the grand marshall of the PDA Parade all the way into town. And it wasn’t just me! Other people were gawking at her too, probably sharing my same wonderment of, “IS THIS BITCH GOING TO ACTUALLY EAT HER BABY?!” Because that’s what it seemed like. Ugh, it was nauseating. And then I sat behind her again the other day, but this time she was alone. Don’t worry, she spent the entire ride looking at pictures of her dumb baby on her phone. GAG. (It’s hard to believe I was once the mom of a baby, isn’t it?)
• In Marcy news: she continues to be adorable and I OMGLOVEHER.

• Right before I fell asleep Sunday night, I started thinking of Halloween and how, maybe now that I’m not stowed away in the Forgotten Hallway, I don’t have to be on strike again when it comes to decorating for Halloween at work. And then the theme of this year’s haunted desk wafted down from the rafters of my cobwebbed brain and I shook Henry awake to tell him what I was going to do. He didn’t care, obviously. I posted something about it the next morning on Facebook, without giving away what I’m doing. Mean Amber was like, “Great. I can’t wait to have to look at that every day.” BECAUSE I SIT RIGHT BEHIND HER NOW, HAHAHA. I hope that this year’s idea will be as successful as 2011’s Murder Desk and 2012’s Conflict Carnival. My favorite part is that there are so many people here now who weren’t here for the previous decorations, so they have no idea.
• Motherfucking polo shirts.
• Went to Mad Mex last night with my pals Gina and Elissa, where I almost expired by choking on a black cherry margarita, which I totally deserve for all of the times I’ve openly mocked my co-workers when they choke. Anyway, Gina reminded me of the time a few years when the three of us went to Mad Mex and had a waitress who apparently was confused and thought she was actually a guardian angel. WELL WHERE WAS SHE WHEN I ALMOST DROWNED ON TEQUILA!?

• A few days ago at work, Chris mentioned that she inadvertently found out that Glenn usedto be A BEE KEEPER ARE YOU KIDDING ME. And then of course, I completely forgot to hound him about it until earlier today, when he mentioned honey (we were having a strained conversation about vegans) and I said SPEAKING OF HONEY…I wish you guys could have seen his face when I asked him if it was true, likeall of these fond memories of wearing one of those weird masks came flooding back and he was so happy about it but also trying to act like he wasn’t experiencing Feelings at the same time. Kind of like when anyone asks Henry about THE SERVICE or TEDNUGENT. So I said, “Let’s talk about this” and Glenn said “OK” and then we just sat there and looked at each other in silence, until I went first and said, “Oh…am I supposed to ask you questions?” So I asked him if he was ever attacked (this is how I asked him:WEREYOUEVERATTACKED!??!?!?!?! while gagging on laughter. And he said, “No! It’s not like aSciFi movie!” And then I said, “Why did you stop?” and he said, “Because they all died” and then I felt sad about that, but he ruined it by telling me some boring story about how honey bees are dying and pesticide andblah blah blah so then I said, “OK, well I guess I don’t have any other questions” and then turned my back on him. A few seconds later, he mumbled, “That was some damn good honey, though.”
  • Obviously, I’ll be making a Beekeeper Glenn for the collection.
    • Oh snap:

  

  • Also, right after I got here today, he said “Cool story, bro” to me and I was like “Wow, you’re so hip. Do you have a shirt that says that, too?”
  • I grew a beard since we last talked.

  

   

  • We met our friends Chris and Monica for ice cream the other night, because Chris is always going on about how Bruester’s makes really good sea salt caramel ice cream and that was the flavor of the day so of course I was like, “What? Ice cream date, you say?” even though she totally didn’t say that but that’s what I turned it into. While we were eating our ice cream, Henry said something to Chooch about me and referred to me as “your mother” and I made the mistake of announcing to everyone how much I hate that because it makes me feel like I should be wearing a bonnet, so of course MONICA took that and ran with it and referred to me as “Chooch’s mother” for the rest of the night! Anyway, here are some pictures from Getting Ice Cream:

  

   

  Chooch, pre-gaming with mini Rolos. Like you do.

  

   

  It was perfectly salty and sea-y and caramel-y! Good call, Chris.

  

   

  Here’s where we all got our ice cream and then left Henry alone.

  

  Almost smiling a little bit over his manly ice cream.

  • I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that The Killing is over.
  • The other night, Henry had left to take his mom home and Chooch got super demanding. It was all, “I WANT I WANT I WANT!” Apparently he was hungry? So I made him noodles which is one of the few things I’m able to do adequately (mostly) and it was just so exhausting because hello, I was hungry too! Henry finally came home and I was like, “OMG Chooch is being so annoying and demanding! It’s like, ‘Do all of these things for me!’ Ugh!” and Henry just stood there and stared at me and then finally I realized it was because:
    • Chooch : Erin as Erin : Henry

  

   

  • Chooch and I were hiding from Henry outside of CVS last week and I was acutely aware of everyone in the parking lot observing us. “We look like creeps,” I whispered as we stood flush against a brick pillar. “No,” Chooch corrected. “We look like SNIPERS.” Yeah, snipers!
  • Remember last week when I almost was blown up by a bomber? I SAW HIM AGAIN YESTERDAY! ON THE SAME STREET! This time, he was holding a cigarette in one hand and the other hand was pointing at a garbage can. Of course, I immediately took his picture and then proceeded to call Henry 15 times, while Henry proceeded to ignore my calls 15 times. I can’t believe he didn’t care. Actually, scratch that–I can.

  

   

  • I woke up this morning inspired to paint and write like I used to back in 2008. That feels pretty good.
  • Pat Sajak is definitely not sorry when the wheel lands on “bankrupt” and I wish he would stop lying about it.
  • Before I went to bed on my birthday last week, I received an unexpected, albeit furiously wished-for, phone call. The next day, Emarosa released a new song. This is not a coincidence.
  • That fucking awful Wendy’s spokesginger and the Progressive cow can kindly go fall off a cliff, seriously. Shouldn’t Flo be retiring by now? Hasn’t she been the Progressive cow for like 20 years at this point? I WILL NEVER GET PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE. HENRY! DON’T EVER GET US PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE. And I was ‘meh’ about the Wendy’s spokesginger until these new ads started to run which feature her singing burgerfied renditions of “All By Myself” and MR. BIG ARE YOU KIDDING?! That pushed me over the fucking edge. Fuck you, Wendy’s.

  Um, I think that’s all. K, bye!

Another exhausting week in the books. Time to unwind with BULLET POINT TIME!

• The other day at work, I was reminded of my old co-worker Eleanor and her husband, Pete. The story of Pete—or “Pee Pop,” as Eleanor called him—is that many years ago when he was in THE SERVICE, he got in a bar fight and was hit on the head so hard with a cue ball that he died. Except that when he was in the body bag, the coroner noticed that he was MOVING. So, not actually dead after all. However, he sustained massive brain injuries from the fight and was never able to function properly again. This means that Pee Pop was unable to figure out the TV so he would call Eleanor at work EVERY NIGHT and she would have to walk him through the steps of turning the TV on and then she would have to go online and bring up the program schedule and read to him what was playing on every channel until he found something he wanted to watch and then she would have to slowly tell him how to get to that channel. She would do all of these things very lovingly, but the moment she slammed the phone down, she would hiss, “GodDAMMIT.”
• Last week, Chooch bought my nemesis a popsicle and I’m still shaking with anger over it. I keep seeing Nemesis on my front porch, deep-throating that fucking popsicle, and smugly saying, “Riley bought it for me.” FFFFUUUUCCCKKK.
• Henry surprised me the other night with a date! Like, a “going out” date, not one of the most popular fruits of Arabian Peninsula. Although I would have accepted that, too. Anyway, I will spare you the saccharine details, but my whole point is that Henry reached over and took a piece of my pizza and then asked, “Is that a beet?” I shook my head and said that it was just a funny tasting potato. “No, that’s a beet. Didn’t you read the menu?” I admitted that I only scan menu descriptions to make sure there isn’t bacon or other meats hidden under cheese, and Henry just sighed. Apparently, my pizza had potatoes AND beets on it and that’s how I found out after nearly 35 years that I like beets, apparently. It was a good fucking pizza.
• United Nations is playing here in a few weeks and I might cry. It’s been too long since I saw real, authentic screamo live:

• Chooch has some keyboard app on his phone that reminds me so much of those little plastic keyboards that were prevalent in the 80s and literally every drug store sold them. I was especially reminded of them when Chooch was reading out loud the list of songs included and one was WE ARE THE WORLD! I got really excited (???) because that song was the plastic keyboard staple—it came with EVERY one of those damn things I ever bought. So I made Chooch watch the video for We are the World and I was giddily shouting the names of every single singer and Chooch, totally annoyed, said, “You think I actually know who these people are?” WELL, YOU’RE GONNA LEARN.
• Henry had to take the trolley this morning and texted me to complain that the trolley driver yelled at him for paying before asking for a transfer and I was just like “OK n00b.
• Oh boy, my brother just texted me from New Jersey to tell me he made a drunken impulse purchase on the boardwalk last night and would Chooch like to have a hermit crab. My hermit crab success rate is not very good (here’s to you, Tabasco and Dijon) but hey, why not.
• I bought some jewelry from Never Take It Off last week and I am especially in love with this ring that was designed by Jess Bowen of The Summer Set. I like how simple bands look over top of my finger tattoo but I lost the one I usually wear on it.
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  And since Henry is likely never going to give me a proper ring to put on that finger, I bought this one for myself and it’s perfect. I also bought the Warped Tour feather bracelet. If you’re into jewelry with meaning, I highly recommend Never Take It Off! (This bracelet benefits Big Cat Rescue, for example!)

• The other night, Henry and I sat together and perused the line-up again for Riot Fest and he actually mentioned some bands that he “wouldn’t mind” seeing, MY HENRY IS GROWING UP! I seriously stare at that line-up at least twice a day and keep seeing more bands that I somehow glossed over the first 82349837489 times I looked at it and I am actually sick to my stomach with anticipation, you have no idea.
• We’re having some baseball-themed food fest at work next month so I signed Henry up to make a pie.
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  One of my most favoritest things in the world is dreaming up new pies for Henry to make and I have a pretty sweet idea for this one.

• About three times a year, I get really serious about my serial killer card shop on Etsy and start churning out new designs like there’s no tomorrow. (What does that even mean.) So my focus on the blog has been pretty spotty because I never learned how to divide my attention. (Which is why I could never have more than one child.) Henry wants to start making his own envelopes to go along with our greeting cards which is hilarious to me because of how much of a faux-emphasis I put on envelopes in my card descriptions. But then when he pointed out I could incorporate my beloved and ubiquitous stripes into the envelopes, shit got REAL.
  • These cards are, hilariously, the only thing that I do in life that I can sincerely say I’m proud of.
• My mom used to make me go with her to “the fat doctor” when I was a kid and I would have to sit in the dark, wood-paneled waiting room with a water fountain that tasted like vitamins. I had this weird flashback of those days recently, and it’s been driving me crazy because I have no idea what part of town that doctor’s office was, but I know there was a Paper Mart (or some other kind of paper store) nearby that my mom would take me afterward so I could buy stationery because I was really into pen-palling back then. I had over 100 pen pals at one time, and that’s no exaggeration. Whenever I would come back from vacation in the summer, I had so much mail waiting for me that the mail man probably thought I was some child celebrity. I wish I had the motivation to write letters still, but as it is, I’ve promised my friend Stacy a letter for the last 6 months and still haven’t written it because I lost her letter and even though I could just ask her for her address on Facebook, I’m using that as my flimsy excuse. Thank you for following my thoughts on that one.
  • Meanwhile, my mom wasn’t even “fat.” So now you know where I get my body dysmorphic tendencies.
• UGH, NEMESIS JUST CAME TO THE DOOR AND HENRY LET CHOOCH RUN OFF WITH HIM, I AM SO ANGRY.

OK, if I don’t end this now, I’ll just be sitting at the computer all day because you know how I can go ON AND ON AND ON AND…

3 comments

Summer is great because we do so much shit, but then I get all stressed out because doing more shit means having more shit to blog about. And don’t get me wrong: I LOVE BLOGGING. (OK, maybe love/hate is more like it.) But I also like when things are calmer and more slow-paced at home so that I can do stupid things on here. Like post videos of songs that I want you all to like. AND BULLET POINTS! So I’m going to put my Warped Tour post on hold and just go hog-wild on some nonsensical bulleted bullshit.

• My new job-thing is going well! All of the processors have been very helpful (even Mean Amber, but I think she might save the eye-rolling for when I’m not looking). Glenn and I haven’t killed each other yet, surprisingly. One day he was choking and I asked him if I could NOT get him some water, so that was fun. I have to ask him legit work questions every day now though so I have to make sure I’m not too mean else he gives me the wrong information.
• Hey speaking of Warped Tour: I have the post-show sadness, you guys, in a big way. My body still aches a little bit and my throat still feels scratchy, and I know it sounds sick but I’m hanging on to those ailments because they’re souvenirs, practically.
• I was on a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony kick a few weeks ago after we went to Cleveland (because, duh), and it reminded me of how mad I was back in the day when Bone released a different, more easily digested version of The Crossroads and then MTV was playing the video all of the time and it made all of these dumb white people like Bone, and I think that might have been my first taste of music elitism. Ugh, I can still picture all of the suburban crackers in my high school acting so cool because they had the Crossroads cassingle.
  • Like I wasn’t a suburban cracker.
• Can I just take a moment to say that all of a sudden, Henry has turned into the best boyfriend ever and is taking me to Riot Fest in Chicago this September? I cried real tears. And not the saline ones that Duncan Sheik tastes. Also, thank god for layaway ticket plans. WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT LINEUP. It’s like a marriage between Warped Tour and all of the bands I would actually give a shit to see at Coachella. (I went to Coachella once in 2004 and once was enough.)
  • “all of a sudden, Henry has turned into the best boyfriend ever” <—LOL. Proposal or not, I know I have it good.
• I can safely say that all of this hullabaloo with Malaysian Airlines has pretty much shelved any future plans to travel anywhere outside of the country. I am so scared of what’s happening in the world. :(
• The cold press coffee stuff that Henry made worked out and I was able to enjoy a fine glass of iced coffee this morning, you guys! I know those of you read yesterday’s post were really concerned. “Will she get a good cup of iced coffee or won’t she!? THE SUSPENSE!”
• I still have to work one late shift a week in my new position and tonight is my first one working late shift with Glenn, haha! I keep calling it Glenn’s Big Night but I don’t think he feels the same. I just made him talk about Warped Tour a few minutes ago and I learned that his kids like Of Mice and Men so I got really excited and shot my fist into the air…?
• Did I tell you guys about the man who was standing across the street from our house a few weeks ago? Our car was parked in the lot across from our house so we were crossing over to take Henry’s mom home, when this older man, carrying several bags from Payless Shoes and looking generally disheveled, started aggressively pointing at our house and saying that his mom’s cousin used to live there. So Henry’s mom stopped and engaged him while Henry was hissing, “MOM. NO. LET’S GO.” But Judy was all, “Wait, I might know his mom’s cousin” because she literally thinks she knows everyone. We finally got her to walk away just as another guy was walking down the sidewalk. So Payless grabbed him and started telling him the whole story about his mom’s cousin. Just then, our neighbor’s kid Josh came out of his house and was shouting across the street at Chooch, which angered Payless, so Payless screamed, “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” So Josh’s mom came flying out of the house and yelled, “DID YOU JUST TELL MY KID TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!?” and he was like, “YEAH I TOLD YOUR KID TO SHUT THE FUCK!” I wanted to stay and watch it play out, but the neighbors told us later that the cops came and apparently he had “escaped” from the halfway house thing he lives in so they fined him and told the caretaker that if it happens again, the caretaker will get fined. If you ask me, that kid deserved to be told to STFU. But…you know me and kids.
• I’m about to turn 35 in two weeks, but I’m OK with it because I have more of a life now than I did ten years ago, so bring it. Besides, my pals Terri and Christian are coming to visit from Philly! And they’re vegetarians too so I get to take them to all of the places that Henry never wants to eat at! And we can talk about bands foreverrrrrrrrr. I’m also excited for them to meet Chooch and Marcy for the first time!
• Henry texted me last week and it said “I’m downtown, I’m down for you” and I was like, “WTF, Danity Kane?” But it turns out he was using voice-to-text which was making him come off like an R&B singer.
• Chooch is secretly in love with Minnie Driver because he likes that show “About a Boy” so now when he sees a woman with black curly hair, he’ll casually say, “She looks like Minnie Driver. WELL, SHE DOES.”

CIAO FOR NOW.

P.S. After work, I was checking out the videos on OnDemand to see if anything was added and goddamn “The Crossroads” is on there. So of course I had to be a basic white bitch and watch.

Doing this thing again. As usual, keep checking back for updates if you’re bedridden and have nothing else to do but watch 700 Club reruns.

1:13pm: Just said our sad goodbyes to Bill & Jessi and are headed back home to Pittsburgh. Right before we left their house, I noted that this was the first time we hung out with them without Bill maiming Chooch in some way. Three minutes later, Bill was like “I’ll give you ONE PUSH on the swing but then you have to go, buddy” and then just like that, Chooch fell off the swing. It was perfect timing.

1:50pm: Chooch is already sleeping. We are breakfast with Bill & Jessi this morning at Rocky’s Diner and had an awesome waitress also named Jessi who told us she once went to Pittsburgh for a baseball game. Then there was this old white man at the table next to us, ranting to his female breakfast companions about how it’s ridiculous that women can have their own women-only clubs but god forbid men should try to do that and how unfair it is that if a woman wants in a boys-only club, the boys have to let her in or else it turns into a Thing and it’s just BULLSHIT how much the world has changed to accommodate WOMEN, you guys. Secretly, Henry was probably strongly identifying with this d-bag’s plight.

1:56pm: Chex Mix.

2:33pm: We just drove over a bridge near what Chooch calls “Toll-do.” (Aka Toledo.) I am desperately bored. Chooch is sleeping, Henry and I quit talking to each on Day One, and I have nothing going on my Simpsons: Tapped Out. Help.

3:46pm: Henry is trying to be affectionate and keeps trying to touch me like we’re old flames or something and I’m like “Bro you ignored me for three days! I’ve moved on!” In other news, Soul 4 Real’s “Candy Rain” was on the radio a few minutes ago so that was a nice flashback to when I identified as an urban black girl in high school.

4:07pm: Wow. Daddy Henbucks just treated Chooch and me to Hershey’s ice cream & Starbucks at some crappy rest stop outside of Cleveland. WHAT DID WE DO TO GET SO LUCKY. We walked in and exited behind the same family. I don’t know, that’s all I got. This drive is really mind-numbing and lacks the anticipation and excitement of YAY ROAD TRIP! like we (I) had on Wednesday. The only upside is getting to see Marcy in a few hours! And getting to edit my photos!

5:04pm: Chooch is taking the “What Kind of Cat Are You?” quiz on Buzzfeed for the fifth time.

5:20pm: “It doesn’t matter how much you bitch, it’s still going to take an hour and 13 minutes to get home” – Henry.

5:55pm: Just remembered the rest area we stopped at Friday in Michigan that had so many bugs adhered to the sides of it that they had to post a sign inside with “facts” on what they are. Fish flies, apparently. I’m dry-heaving at the memory of them, holy fuck.

6:18pm: Chooch just caught a glimpse of the Pittsburgh skyline and began to weep.

6:22pm: HOME!! Chooch just said, “Haha, you and Daddy have to work tomorrow.” Ugh, home. :(

So, in conclusion: the ride home is waaaaay less exciting and this post was pretty pointless.

• Today is my first day in my new position at work! Henry said his mom called him this morning to make sure that I didn’t have a stroke on the trolley, since Morning Commute trolley is waaaay scarier/more crowded than the Leisurely Afternoon trolley which I have grown accustomed to over the last few years. But I did it! I made it! I was really nervous about it all weekend but now I know it’s fine, I’m fine, we’re all fine, so I’m officially in relaxed mode. LOOK AT ME, NOT BEING AS MUCH OF A SPAZ AS USUAL!
• Last weekend, we were out and about when Chooch realized he didn’t know where we were. “Yes you do,” Henry said. “We’re by that park where Mommy threw a fit.” Chooch made an exasperated sigh and said, “There are LOTS of places where Mommy has thrown a fit.” That kid.
• Henry made me a lovely fruit salad full of persimmon, kumquats, apples, blackberries, red bananas and some miniature pineapple thing. Remember when I didn’t like fruit?! God, I was so dumb back then.
• I got to sit with Amber1 this morning for some training! Glenn was supposed to be my main buddy but he’s conveniently on vacation this week. HOW NICE.
  • Speaking of Glenn, I tried to decorate my new desk with all of my best things so that he will have lots to look at. When I first moved over there last Thursday, I started hanging up all of my favorite pictures and magnets, but first I would hold them up to show Glenn. “Don’t care,” he kept mumbling, but he clearly was paying attention because when I showed him this picture, it sparked a conversation about Warped Tour and how his kids are going this year and I was like, “OMG ME TOO!” and he was like, “Don’t care.” Full circle.

• Saturday was pretty weird/upsetting. Remember how my cat Willie died last January? Well, because the humane society closed their shelter in Elizabeth, our pet cemetery plots were kind of in limbo. We were luckily able to get a shelter volunteer to meet us there to take Willie, but since it was a terrible winter, they were unable to bury her until the spring. Someone finally got in touch with us last week and scheduled a burial for Saturday. I forgot that I had asked for an open casket and it was so disturbing to go into the bereavement room and see Willie laying there with sunken eyes and ugh, just ugh. I don’t know what I’m going to do when Marcy joins the rest of them. She’s been acting pretty lethargic these last few weeks and I just keep trying to pretend that she’s OK but she’s clearly dying and I just can’t stand it.
  • After Chooch made a series of disturbing comments in front of the grave digger about how he wants to be buried alive, Henry took us to Yough Twist for ice cream. I had carrot cake ice cream, which could have easily been terribly disgusting, but no. It was fabulous. (I’ve been hanging around with Chooch too much so everything is fabulous to me now.)
• This is what I looked like on Friday, before leaving for my last day in my old tech support position:

• I don’t think my old team at work cares very much that they lost me, LOL. The feeling is mutual.
• I’m kind of disappointed that today was my first day working the day shift and Henry didn’t want to do anything after work! I was like, “LET’S GO TO THE ARTS FESTIVAL!” and he just glared at me. Maybe tomorrow.
• BRB going to cut an apple.
• Oh shit, I recently flashbacked to this time I volunteered as a gas mask-tester for the Bureau of Mines. This was maybe in 2002? I had to wear a gas mask and stand in a chamber while they pumped some kind of banana fumes into it. It’s a wonder that never made it into any of my bios or resumé.
  • I also vaguely remember the guy running the experiment asked me out afterward because I probably showed up wearing something slutty since that was back when I was always showing up wearing something slutty.
  • How do you think I snagged Henry?
• WARPED TOUR IS A LITTLE OVER A MONTH AWAY!!!! So many bands, ahhhh!
• I wonder how many people my mom is Catfishing at this very moment.
• Had a brief but pleasant correspondence with an old friend over the last few days. Something terrible happened to her recently, which explains why suddenly so many things were reminding me of her all at once. It freaks me out when shit like that happens, like when all these things kept resurfacing that reminded me of Psycho Mike and then I found out days later that he was in town because his mom died. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN. Alyson says it’s radar love, but I always seem to have it with the people I shouldn’t love.
• I kicked Chooch softly just to be a dick and then he kicked me back REALLY HARD so I wailed, “WHY DID YOU KICK ME SO HARD I DIDN’T KICK YOU THAT HARD!” and then Henry was like, “HOW ABOUT NO ONE KICK EACH OTHER AT ALL!?” Then we had a huge fight because he wanted to play Xbox and I wanted to watch hockey, and here I am writing in my blog so I guess we all know who won that round. Me being home in the evenings is already going swimmingly.
• Last Thursday night at work, one of the ladies from another department on our floor was leaving and asked me if I wanted a jelly donut because the next day was National Donut Day and their department was celebrating early in order to beat the rush (OK). I did not want a jelly donut because I don’t like jelly donuts but I was so happy that someone was talking to me after basically enduring a whole week at work where no one in my group was talking to me and also because I’m too much of a foodslut to just say no, so I took one and then I ate it and got sick because I don’t like jelly donuts.
  • Then I went home and exercised because I hated myself. #foodshaming4L
  • It totalllllly wasn’t worth it. Jelly donuts are gross. What a fucking waste.

OK, I’m going to paint something now. GOOD EVENING.

Before I bury you in a landslide of bullet points, I just want to thank every single person who reached out to me about my post the other day, whether it was on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, to my face at work, text—however you did it, thanks! I always enjoy feedback, especially when it’s positive. (Haha, I mean, duh.) I’m really glad that I was able to write something that resonated with so many people; I half-expected people to think I was just being silly (maybe that’s because one of my friends actually made me feel that way when I was telling her the story). It sucked to write it, but that’s life. Disappointments around every corner! Anyway, onward.

• I think I’ve worn stained clothing every day this week because I’ve been too sick to notice and also because I guess hanging dirty clothes in my closet is my new thing, I don’t know. At least today I got to cover my stain with a sticker proving that I donated $5 to wear jeans to work. I’m not a rebel like Jeannie, who wore jeans without boasting her sticker. (This is only a bullet point because Barb wanted it to be.)
• Hey speaking of wearing jeans to work, it’s a good thing I wore them because I’ve been spending the evening cleaning out my office because I GOT A NEW POSITION! Woo! It’s a lateral move, but IDGAF because it means that finally after 4 years, I get to work a normal daylight shift and not be a mole person anymore! I’m a little apprehensive because I will have a new boss and I have to learn an entirely new process, but holy shit now I can go to all of the concerts without having to request off work and NOW I CAN EAT DINNER WITH MY FAMILY AGAIN! What a fucking novelty. I’m excited to rejoin society and maybe get to go to a fucking happy hour once in awhile, Christ. I think this is going to be a good thing. Bye-bye tech support. I never fit in on over there, anyway.
  • Mean Amber was practically salivating last night at the prospect of training me for my new job, so now I’m kind of scared, ha-ha!
  • I almost started having a panic attack after I said yes to the new position and it’s almost like Jeannie can sense my fear/increased perspiration, because she came over and was like, “Let’s talk about how this is a good thing” and then I no longer felt like I was crouching on the Chicago Skydeck with the glass spidering beneath me.
  • Within 30 seconds of Sue sending out the “monthly news” email, which included a mention of my new position, Glenn emailed me and asked if there was an appeal process. HA HA HA.

• What you are seeing above is my contribution to a coloring contest going on here. I don’t understand why someone put a question mark on it. I think it’s self-explanatory that it was colored by someone in the middle of a rage blackout?
• Last weekend, I learned that those little Brit bitches, Sophia Grace & Rosie, have their own MOVIE, so I made puking noises. “I know, right!?” Chooch cried. He’s the best, you guys. (Except when he’s not.)
• This whole week has been fucking weird and disorienting. I kind of feel emotionally jostled.
• We watched “Pompeii” last night and it was not very good and I can’t remember anyone’s names but the whole time I was screaming, “THAT BLACK GUY BETTER NOT FUCKING DIE! HE’S GOING TO DIE, ISN’T HE!?” He was way better than that one white guy. It was OK but somehow I still cried at the end because that’s all I do now is cry.
  • Meanwhile, Chooch got all worked up when he found out I’ve been to Pompeii. He is OBSESSED with Italy and the more he finds out about my childhood, the more resentful he gets. It’s a super fun game we play, you guys! Team Erin, amirite?! AMIRITE?!!??!!? Also, his response to “Hey, the Senator is David from Lost Boys” was “No.”

• “So then I asked daddy if I could drink vodka and he was like ‘NO!’ And I was like SORRY, I didn’t know!” – Chooch, recounting his day to me.
• Hey, speaking of Chooch, he’s been watching YouTube cooking videos. Last weekend, he came bursting into our bedroom (scared the hell out of me) and said, “OMG look you guys! It’s a delicious DIY Superbowl snack!” and thrust his phone into my face. So after they picked me up from work last night, we had to go to the grocery store to get ingredients for lemon bars that Chooch wants to make. What is he, a goddamn Henry wannabe now? Then we came home and he settled in for more cooking shows:

• King Shit’s (Jonny Craig’s) ex-fiancée is following me on twitter now and we’ve had some interaction over the past week. I have to say, I am really sorry that I never bothered to give her a chance until all of this shit went down, because she is fucking great. And so much better off without him. I’m not going to lie, I kind of wish she was my best friend. She’s like the prettier, funnier, smarter, more talented and awesome version of me. So basically, not like me at all. But this whole situation has made me think about how different and more terrible break-ups are these day. When I went through my last break-up, which admittedly was actually not messy and a pretty clean break, that was in 2001. There was no Facebook or Twitter to put your ex on blast. I hadn’t even started my LiveJournal yet, so any hateful things I had to say would have been to the pages of my real life diary or to my cats. Can you imagine if Henry and I split? I would fucking break the Internet, you guys. Henry would have to go completely off the grid so I wouldn’t be able to harass him via social media. But let’s be honest, I would wait at least a year or two before Catfishing him.
  • #Teammandaface4l
  • In other King Shit news, Trenton from Hands Like Houses tweeted the other day: “Referring to women as bitches, sluts & sexual objects – meant seriously or not – is what creates a cultural attitude that this is ok.” I thought that was wonderful! But then I was like, “Wait….” So I replied and thanked him for that sentiment but asked if he was aware that he’s currently on tour with someone who makes awful comments about rape and domestic violence. I don’t even care if I get attacked by close-minded fangirls at this point. I’m not keeping my mouth shut on this one.

• Not gonna lie, this Artifex Pereo album that was just released this week just might be the album of the year. Please, please, please do yourself a solid and purchase the shit out of this. Especially if you like non-screamy, classic post-hardcore in the vein of Circa Survive. They also remind of me a tiny bit of The Receiving End of Sirens, if you’re into that. And if not, you should be because that was a great fucking band. I’m trying to get Henry to agree to go to Cleveland to see them on July 5th with Icarus the Owl, because these guys are going to fucking explode, I just know it, and I would like to see them while they’re still playing a small show in a bowling alley. So tell Henry to take me. It’s a Saturday, for Christ’s sake!

• One of our old co-workers, Missy, came back yesterday! Not just for a visit, but to actually take back her old position, so that’s been exciting because too many people were leaving there for awhile. Sandy decided that we should make a welcome back sign for her and assigned several of us letters to decorate. Can you guess which one is mine? I want to say it’s totally fancy, but I feel like that’s basically complimenting Glenn and ew. no. Anyway, I also got the “K” but I was running out of time to color it so my last minute inspiration was to model it off a blouse I imagine one of our co-workers could possibly wear.
• Tonight, I’m meeting up with some local bloggers to discuss the possibility of putting together a ‘zine! I can’t tell you how stoked I am for this. When Jeannie asked me what I was doing this weekend, I was like, “Ugh, I’m sure you’re going to mock me, but…” and then I told her but she was like, “No, for once, I actually think that’s cool.” BABY STEPS, you guys! One day, Jeannie will admit that she thinks I’m totally cool.
• Fuck the Rangers. Fuck the Blackhawks.
• Chooch has a birthday party to go to at the roller rink after his piano lesson and I’m actually excited to go with him because my undiagnosed illness has prevented me from exercising ALL WEEK (seriously, I haven’t exercised since last Sunday morning before we left for Allentown and I feel such fat) so I’m looking forward to skating off some of the chub.
• SPEAKING OF ALLENTOWN (ugh that trip is going down in infamy), some of you guys seemed to really like the whole live blogging thing! (Barb was excited to tell me that on Tuesday because sometimes she likes to prove that she still reads this sinking ship.) So, maybe that format will happen from time to time. Let’s not get too carried away though. Although, we do have a small road trip coming up in June, so maybe then? I have to say, it was nice to knock those posts out in real time as opposed to coming home and trying to put together something from memory. And also, if I’m putting all that shit in a blog post as it happens, then I’m not tweeting and Facebooking every single backhanded thing Henry says to me in the car, so there’s less Erin in your feed. Win/win. I love writing (or blogging, since some people might argue that what I do these days is a far cry from writing) and as excited as I get to document things, I also put this weird fucking pressure on myself to GETITDONE!!! and you know what that really makes me want to do? Watch music videos on YouTube instead. I’m so defiant that I even defy myself. THIS IS WHY I DON’T GET ANYWHERE IN LIFE.
• Real Talk: I’m glad that blogging is one of the few things in life I haven’t given up on.

OK, go! Enjoy your weekend, fools!

Last week was a whirlwind. Never got a chance to go bullet-crazy up on here, so I JUST made Chooch give me the computer so I can do some kind of half-assed life summary thing. I’m sure Chooch has some sort of secret timer on the computer so if this post just ends abruptly, it’s probably because I’ve been electrocuted.

• In the last two weeks, I’ve been told “You’re my favorite mommy blogger!” and “I like you because you’re not a mommy blogger.” I don’t necessarily think of myself as a mommy blogger, but I guess I don’t care how you have me pigeon-holed, as long as you’re reading this. I will sit in a hole with your pigeons! Just read this fucking shit!
• The look on Henry’s face when I wrapped up a 60-minute workout with a 25-minute one was priceless. Fitness disgusts him.
• Racism came up a lot last week:
  • When Bill, Jessi and Tammy first got here last Friday, I was telling them about Marcy’s tumor and how we have to constantly spray it with this wound stuff from the vet. “Sometimes it starts to stink really bad, like the Oriental Market,” I explained. Realizing how terrible that sounded, I quickly tacked on, “That’s actually the name of the Asian market we go to all the time, I swear I’m not being racist!” Everyone was like, “Suuuuuuure” and then we all laughed uncomfortably.
  • Later that weekend, Chooch hilariously mispronounced some word that I forget now, and I said, “You guys should have heard how he pronounced Nigeria a little while ago.” Everyone laughed, and Bill joked, “Oh my god, what kind of racist household is this!?”
  • Some PSA commercial came on last Sunday night, wherein a little white girl gets invited to play with some black girls on the playground, but her mom stops her and nervously says, “Um…why don’t you go play over there instead?” and points to a group of white kids. I was like, “OMG WHAT A DUMB BITCH!” and Chooch said, in this totally patronizing tone that makes me want to punch him in the head (CYS, I’m joking!), “It’s called segregation, sweetie.” Ugh, that kid!!!
• The Pens shit the bed. Nothing to see here, you guys. Next news story, please.

• Henry has been playing with some annoying remote control helicopter that makes Marcy hate her life.
• I made a Spotify playlist yesterday for all of my mixed CD staples,. You know, the songs that you could hear every day for the rest of your life and not be mad about it? Anyway, if you want some new shit to listen to, go check it out! It has everything from El Debarge to the Refused.
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•  Ugh, VIP day at Chooch’s school, you guys. It was terrible. Basically, it’s where the kid gets to bring someone special to school with them. Henry went last year for some reason, and this year was my turn no matter how many excuses I threw out. I had to choose between three activities to do with Chooch that morning: gardening (fuck you, no), painting a bird house, or shadowing Chooch’s class. The latter is what I really wanted to do, but Chooch wanted to paint a stupid bird house, so that’s what I selected, because I guess being a VIP doesn’t mean getting to choose your own shit. Henry swore that it was just going to be the parents in Chooch’s grade, but as soon as I got there Friday morning, I quickly learned it was the WHOLE SCHOOL, K-8. FML.
  • Chooch ditched me as soon we walked into the school, so I had to stand in line ALONE. But then my neighbor was standing next to me and told me that we were allowed to take our kids with us to the cafeteria (where donuts and coffee were to be had) as long as our kids were eating breakfast. The school provides free breakfast every  morning but Chooch declines this 99% of the time, so after I signed myself in, I tried to summon him to come with me but that little bastard pointedly ignored me because he was being a big shot and sitting outside of his classroom with all his homies. So I had to walk over there and force him to come with me, despite his cries, “BUT I DON’T WANT BREAKFAST.” Too bad, fucker. You got me into this mess, you’re going to suffer with me.
  • The cafeteria: PARENTAL ARMEGEDDON. Motherfuck. It was so unorganized and crowded with kids who were eating breakfast and parents who were not selecting their donuts quick enough so the line was getting longer and slower. Chooch managed to grab his free breakfast  before me, and made finding a table seem effortless. “SAVE ME A SEAT!” I cried to him, and he was like, “Jesus Christ, I will, calm the fuck down.
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    ” I’m assuming that’s what was implied with his shitty eye roll, anyway.

  • A MILLION INTERACTIONS WITH MR. FINGERS. Humiliating and exhilarating, all at once.
  • Tons of donuts to choose from, and I took one with pink glaze even though my brain was like, “DO NOT TAKE THAT ONE.” Naturally, I didn’t like it very much, but my nerves prevented me from taking more than one bite anyway, so even I picked the perfect donut, that thing was still going to see limited mouth-time.
  • Got to sit next to Chooch for all of 5 minutes before he had to go back to class (the students had to be in their classrooms for morning announcements and things), leaving me to sit alone in a too-small, low-to-the-ground stool attached to a child-sized cafeteria table. I had to fill out some stupid survey for a raffle ticket with parents on both sides of me, trying to keep my elbows pinned to my sides while forgetting over and over again that the stirrer in my coffee cup WAS NOT A STRAW.
    • Hate when that happens.
  • Suffered through a few songs by the school band. Jesus, did I sound that bad back then? Of course I did.
  • All the parents who were gardening were escorted out a side door, but that only opened up a few seats because who the fuck chooses to garden? That just sounds awful. I was getting anxious for the principal to dismiss the shadowers next, so the cafeteria would be even more cleared out, but instead he was like, “All the bird house painters, start making your way up to the front here and find a table with paint.” Just as I was feeling relieved that I had a table, I realized I wasn’t at one of the ones set up for the activity.
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     Motherfucker.  Thought I found table on the stage, but no: Candy Cane and her fashion cane had claimed the entire table, and her stupid chainsmoking side kick was taking up the one next to hers, so then I was stuck on the stage with nowhere to sit because no one would fucking move so I could get back to the steps and I was honest to god considering walking backstage and finding a fire escape. I just can’t with people.  But just then, all the kids were coming back into the cafeteria with their blank bird houses and I could see Chooch waving to be excitedly from the back and I just sighed and pushed my way back down to the floor. You guys: People. SOS. Uncle.

    • Here is the comical scene where I kept telling Chooch to stay were he was, but we still ended up passing each other like ships in the night, constantly finding ourselves on opposite ends of the cafeteria. Finally I screamed, “STAY THERE OMG!!!” and was able to elbow my way through the sea of confused, displaced parents and children until I was close enough to grab him by the shirt and pull him to me. BEING.A.PARENT.BLOWS.SOMETIMES.
    • And then we couldn’t find a table. “Hi, is anyone sitting here?” over and over while parents purposely averted their eyes. It was like being in school again, for real.
    • Finally found the best table ever: WITH ALL DADS. DADS ARE NICER THAN MOMS. Particularly the one who was sitting across from me. He got us better paint and looked at me and smiled every time he made jokes and I would just giggle sweetly BECAUSE HE WAS KIND OF MY TYPE, OK? Not particularly bright-seeming and very blue-collared. Plus: NECK TATTOO. Later, I was telling Henry about him (because Henry is my BFF and I tell him about all my crushes, SO BUTT OUT) and I said, “I hope he thought I was Chooch’s sister. Like, I was considering calling Chooch ‘Baby Brother’ at one point.” Chooch actually SCOFFED and said, “There is no way anyone would think you were my sister.” STFU, boy.
    • Eventually, my 90 minute prison sentence was up and I got to take that fucking bird house home with me. Oh, and also Chooch. He got to come home too.

•  Yesterday, Corey and I revisited Gaby et Jules and made the excruciating difficult task of deciding what to order (we’re not made of money, y’all) and then took our foo-foo French  treats to the Homewood Cemetery, where we strolled leisurely while inhaling macarons. It was kind of The Life, to be honest. The macarons I picked* were poppy, lavender (because lavender), and the flavor of the month which was strawberry peppercorn. STRAWBERY PEPPERCORN IS AMAZING, IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW. Because I didn’t know until yesterday. But now it’s strawberry peppercorn everything. First up: toothpaste.
  • *Picked. Like they grow on trees. I WISH THEY GREW ON TREES.
    • Not in noses, though.

•  That Slaves (Jonny Craig’s new band) show I desperately want to go to is officially one week away and Henry still hasn’t committed one way or the other. Last week, I was so desperate, that I posted his phone number on Facebook and asked everyone to simply text the word “Allentown.” His response was, “Nice to see you got your little friends to do your bidding.” And then as more texts came in later in the day: “Your posse doesn’t scare me.” I’m pretty much on my knees at this point.
  • Literally.
  • I WILL DO ANYTHING, UGHHHHHH.
• Got to paint a custom name thingie for my friend Carey last week. I love painting these so much! COME GET ONE!

• TOMORROW: CLEVELAND FOR CHIODOS AND EMAROSA! MY HEART IS EXPLODING!!!!

Special? Not really. But I thought it would be fun to do a Dance Gavin Dance show edition of the bullet point posts which have somehow turned into a weekly thing. My apologies, Internet colleagues. But yes, it really does make more sense to write about the show in bullet points because my mind and emotions were all over the map Wednesday night. But I woke up the next day feeling more refreshed than I would have after a day at the spa, sorry I’m not sorry but I actually am sorry that I typed out “sorry I’m not sorry.” OK, onward, fat girl. (Points if you know that.)

Henry being unhappy standing in line to get in.

• This show was May 7th at Mr. Small’s, which is my favorite venue in Pittsburgh and I haven’t seen DGD play there since 2009 when Kurt Travis was their singer (I’ve seen them numerous times since then, but just in different places), so I was really excited. Henry? Not so much. See above picture again if you need a visual.

• I remembered my ID this time so once we got inside, we went right for the 21+ area. The bartender informed us that the balcony was open for the night and Henry was like YES and I was like NO. Old people sit in the balcony. :(
• Henry whined a lot about being up since 3AM while I giggled and smiled at all of my DGD brethren.

Frowns for DGD.

• I was trying to remind Henry of the time we saw DGD last year because these shows all blend together for him. “Were they with these same bands?” he asked. “No, they were with A Lot Like Birds, remember? You hated them.” “There’s a lot of bands I hate,” Henry said dryly. “And I have to go see all of them.”
• I randomly got angry at Henry for not being a sound guy.
• Something came over me and I decided we could sit in the dumb balcony since Henry was tired and there was a lot of shit I needed him to do over the next few days for Chooch’s upcoming birthday party. It was kind of cool though because we essentially had the whole balcony to ourselves and there were no moms up there writing out shopping lists or reading Better Homes & Garden. Plus, I could actually see now, yay!

SOME LOCAL BAND

• Some local band that wasn’t on the bill ended up coming out first and I’m not going to say that they sucked because, you know, kudos to them for getting up there and doing their thing, but my god the singer NEVER STOPPED TALKING. They might as well just be a spoken word band. I got the impression that this was the first time they played somewhere other than Aunt Jackie’s garage, because during sound check, they were taking pictures and filming the crowd, and their enthusiasm was kind of embarrassing. But then the mom in me came out and I remembered that these are someone’s kids so then I felt bad.
  • “It sounds like they’re all playing all different songs. Why did they come out like they’re the headlining band?” Henry asked with concern.
  • One of their choruses sounded like “Make a crump mess.”
  • During one of the singer’s many monologues, he asked the crowd if any of us have parents who (indecipherable hoo-haa), to clap. I did not clap because I had a feeling  that the indecipherable hoo-haa had something to do with parents being supportive, and…no.
  • UGH TALKSOMUCH!
  • I started clapping and cheering REALLY LOUD at one point, but it was only because I was following along with the Pens/Rangers game on my phone and MALKIN SCORED, MOTHERFUCKERS. (Got to see the replay later and holy shit, Geno.)
  • They dedicated the last song to the Pens so I love them now.

Here is a picture of Henry sleeping during the local band, something Project.

• Henry realized that he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. NOT MY PROBLEM.
• The crowd would sporadically bust out into “Let’s Go Pens!” cheers between bands and it made my heart swell. I don’t often love that community feeling, but when I do it usually has something to do with hockey. (NEVER THE STEELERS THOUGH.)
• Even after I let Henry sit in the balcony, he had the audacity to complain that the seats were uncomfortable. I posted this on Facebook, because I wanted the 25/450 people who haven’t hidden me yet from their newsfeed to see that Henry is an ungrateful cockface. Sandy commented and said that she has a portable seat cushion he could borrow for next time. “There won’t be a next time,” Henry muttered.
• Bleach Blonde was the next band. They were good. The singer reminded me of Adam Lazarra. Henry fell asleep again.
• But then Palisades came on and WOKE HENRY THE FUCK UP. I got really excited because I started putting two and two together and I realized that I watched one of their videos a few months ago and loved them immediately but then forgot about them, probably because I got distracted by Jonny Craig again. Anyway, I’m in love.
  • By the second song, I had totally lost my fucking mind and kept beating on Henry’s arm and screaming.
  • “I FEEL LIKE TAKING MY SHIRT OFF!” I screamed in Henry’s face, which turned into the perfect expression of horror, disgust and “Grow the fuck up.”
  • OMG DID I INGEST MOLLY?! THIS BAND IS SO FUCKING GOOD I WANT TO SCREAM!
  • Made a note to add 30 minutes of Palisades-inspired cardio to my fitness challenge total for the day.
  • AND THE SUTTER GOT A SHORTY SO I THOUGHT I THREW MY ARM OUT SOCKET WHEN I SHOT IT UP WITH ALL OF THE FORCE.
  • The singer Lou (WHO I AM NOW IN LOVE WITH OK) yelled, “Have you ever been judged for the clothes you wear (etc etc)? Then put your motherfucking hands up!” I kept trying to get Henry to put his hands up but he wouldn’t budge. “Put your fucking hands up, Henry, I fucking judge you all the time!” I screamed.
  • I posted a video of them on Instagram and THE SINGER LIKED IT OMGGGGGG SOCIAL MEDIA MAKING ME FEEL IMPORTANT AGAIN.
  • Yesterday at work, Barb said she watched my Instagram video of Palisades and it made her feel stressed out, LOLOLOL.

• Capture the Crown was next and Henry was like “Y SO MANY BANDS UGH” and then immediately hated his life once the singer started screaming. And it was my favorite kind of screaming too! Th ekind that gets real high like a screaming eagle and then super low and guttural like SATAN. So, I loved the screaming parts of this band, but I was otherwise bored and besides, it was the third period by then so I was pretty much 100% invested in my phone.
• PENS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Henry went to the bathroom so I decided to hide from him under a table. I waited until I saw him down below, getting ready to come back up to the balcony, before taking my place. As soon as I saw legs enter our empty section of the balcony, I jumped out only to see that it was some broad instead. OF COURSE someone would pick that moment to come to our area after it had been empty all night. Henry was right behind her and was like, “Good. Good for you.”
• Motherfucking DANCE GAVIN DANCE YOU GUYS UGHHHHH!!!! Henry was like “PLEASE STOP!” because I was losing my shit and doing these weird screams that I have no idea where they were coming from and I was just going completely spastic while he sat very calm and still next to me.
  • They opened with The Jiggler which was perfect. I love this song so much because it reminds me of a circus:
  • Obsessed with Jon Mess. (If anyone wants to buy me one of his paintings for absolutely no reason at all, I wouldn’t be mad about it.)
  • Several other people came up the balcony at this point and some drunk hippie dropped his beer bottle on Henry which I totally missed and didn’t find out about until later.
  • TILIAN WAS ON POINT. He was even singing the Jonny Craig-era DGD songs so much better than the last time, but he totally killed it on the songs from the new album.
  • LEMON MERINGUE TIE!!!!!!!! UNEASY HEARTS!!!! CARVE!!!!
  • Honey Revenge is a song from the perspective of a stalker and Tilian made it even creepier live by making these precious faces when he would sing the lines “Oh, can’t wait to get you all alone.” He can stalk me any fucking day, dear god.
  • Crying right now. This band is so entangled with memories and emotions from 2008 that sometimes it feels like my heart is on fire when I listen to them.
  • I have stuck with DGD through three singers, the departure and return of Jon Mess, and various other line-up changes. But after that night, I have decided that this current DGD is my new favorite DGD. They just sound so cohesive and smooth together now. They will always be in my Top 5. I’m just sorry that more people don’t get how talented they are. Matt Mingus and Will Swan are extraordinarily underrated musicians.
  • On the way home that night, Henry said the next best thing to a marriage proposal: THAT HE LIKES DANCE GAVIN DANCE AND HAD A GOOD TIME. What world am I living in!? After 9 years, he has finally accepted that he has to share my heart with a bunch of dudes from Sacramento, I guess.
  • HASHTAG BLESSED ALL THE WAY HOME.

Anyway, last night Henry and I stayed up late watching DGD videos (he willingly did this!). “You can tell Tilian is a lot more comfortable now. He isn’t trying to sing like Jonny Craig anymore, he’s singing all of those old songs like himself,” Henry said in full seriousness and I almost died. Henry is making Dance Gavin Dance observations? I am so in love.

“I don’t like how Tilian dances, though,” he went on to say, killing the mood.

STFU, Henry.

It’s Friday, motherfingers! (Sorry. I wanted to see what it felt like to not swear constantly. It was…eh.) Anyway, who gives a shit really, but it’s BULLET TIME, WHAT. These free-flow posts have been so cleansing and therapeutic for me. Thank you for being my imaginary team of therapists.

• Here’s a little known fact about me and it will probably really take you by surprise, so prepare thyself: I am able to competently peel hard boiled eggs. Without mangling them, even. Would I prefer someone else do it for me? FUCK YES.
• I’m still going strong with my Simpsons: Tapped Out addiction and I do believe it’s the longest an iPhone game has ever held my attention rapt. The Easter update is still happening, and at first I was super sad about having to squish rabbits for eggs, but then I remembered Rudy (that motherfucker) and suddenly I was stabbing my fingertip against the phone screen.
• “Beverly Hills” by Weezer was on the radio when I walked into my bedroom this morning and I had to turn it. I can tolerate most music that’s played on our alternative station here in Pittsburgh, but I just can’t with Weezer, and that usually makes people angry with me. Because if I say “I like emo” then obviously that means I’m a huge Weezer fan, right? Wrong. When I say “I like emo” I’m thinking of Appleseed Cast, Jejune (<3!!!!), early Jimmy Eat World, Get Up Kids, etc. Not motherfucking “Buddy Holly.” I went through a phase many years ago when I thought that Weezer was an important band to have in a music collection, so I made sure to buy all their dumb albums as they released them (I stopped after that green one though), but then I finally grew up and came to terms with the fact that I don’t have to adore every band that music magazines tell me to. And that is OK, you guys. We can all still play Ring Around the Rosie together! I don’t have germs!
  • What really made me dislike Weezer even more was when Rivers (who doesn’t impress me, sorry) wrote THE WORST SONG EVER for one of my FAVORITE BANDS EVER, Cold. It’s called “Stupid Girl” and it makes me fucking sick. Cold went on tour with Weezer once and had to drop off because all of the shitty Weezer fans were throwing things at them. Assholes. (Granted, what a horrible pairing…but still. Heckling the opening band is such a douche move.)
  • Speaking of “songs I have to turn off”: A few weeks ago, I was on some music forum and someone replied to me, “Do you remember Alien Ant Farm?” I was like, “Dude, I’m from Pittsburgh. Our alternative radio station won’t let us forget Alien Ant Farm.” Seriously, every goddamn day I hear it. (I keep that station on in my bedroom though because it’s the official radio station of the Penguins and I like to hear the hockey bullshit, OK? Get off my back!
  • I have a bunch of Emo Diaries CD compilations that I am going to dust off this weekend. Thank you, Weezer.
• The Law Firm has started using this corporate media site called Yammer, which is basically like the most boring Facebook ever. A bunch of us were being all faux-enthusiastic about it the other day until we quickly realized that the whole Firm could see what we were doing (note: it wasn’t anything unlawful, but still…totally creepy) so now we’re all mute. I’m excited to see how long it takes someone to get in trouble for Yammer abuse. I have learned enough lessons over the last year and a half for that someone to not be me.
• Do you guys watch hockey? This is the best time of the year for hockey fans. I love the Stanley Cup play-offs so much, I can’t even explain it. Sure, I’m sick to my stomach almost constantly (you know, until the Penguins inevitably get knocked out), but there is just so much to see and scream at! Last night was the first game of Round 2 between the Bruins (HATE THEM) and the Canadiens and it was fucking fantastic. However, an incredible 2 OT win by the Canadiens was overshadowed by a bunch of hateful Bruins fans tweeting disgusting racist remarks about P.K. Subban, the Canadien who won the game. There was one time a few years ago when I had my own tweet about Subban, something to the effect of “Get fucked, Subban” after he scored on the Penguins and that’s how I vent: tweet meaningless shit like that or punch Henry in the head. Anyway, I was retweeted a few dozen times by Habs fans, calling me a racist, hashtagging things like #racistPittsburghfans, etc. If you didn’t know who Subban was and you saw my tweet, would you assume he was black? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Because his ethnicity and skin color were not even a PARTIAL factor of why I was ragging on him.  I think when it comes to sports, it’s inevitable that fans are going to get maniacal with their social media blithering, suggesting that perhaps Alex Ovechkin choke on a dick, but to make it a racial thing? Why? What’s the point? These Bruins fans went too far and it makes me sick. Go watch football, you fucking meatheads. Keep hockey classy.
  • I also hate it when people cheer when a player they dislike gets seriously injured. When Sidney Crosby suffered a concussion a few years ago, there were jackass-y t-shirts made to “commemorate” it. So gross. Much trash.
  • Anyway, the Penguins are miraculously still in contention and they have their first game of the second round tonight against the Rangers. God help us.
• I found this group picture of me and some of my friends at Chooch’s third birthday party and it brought back all kinds of fun memories, except that it made me remember the girl in the purple who turned out to be su-hoooooo-per annoying. And it made me miss Alisha, but while I will always care about her a ton, some friendships just don’t last. I want to say something like, “Thank god I grew up and finally accepted that!” but…wah. I have also been thinking about her a lot because she was my #1 hockey-watching pal when the Penguins won the Cup in 2009, so she’s always in the back of my mind during this time of year. God, why can’t we all just be compatible with everyone!?
  • I had to email a secretary earlier about Chrome not being compatible with one of the applications we use here and I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to spell “compatible.” I type “c” and then just stared at the screen with my tongue slightly protruded. Then I figured it out so now I just want to show off about it. COMPATIBLE.

•  If you don’t work with me, you won’t think this is funnay (or funny) at all, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. (In my head, I’m saying these things while I type.) My office-thing-mate is this guy named Patrick. I think he’s about my age, and we get along decently, but sometimes I can’t tell if it’s OK to joke with him. Like sometimes he’ll just be like, “OK *stern stare*” and I slink back to my office-thing. Anyway, I was walking to work yesterday and I thought to myself, “Why is Patrick wearing that hair piece? OMG that’s not Patrick” but you guys, it looks so much like if Patrick were 50 that I didn’t have to say anything to my co-workers about it and they KNEW EXACTLY why I took this picture. (Honestly, A-ron just walked past my office-thing and thanked me again for risking my life for something we can all pee our pants over.) Patrick stands JUST LIKE THAT and had that same face! Just, no pot-belly and no toupee. He has regular guy-in-his-30s hair. I mean, even the director of the department laughed REALLY HARD when I showed her. Finally, Nate backed me up and I showed Patrick the picture. For a few seconds, he said nothing. I squirmed. Then he said, “Ok…so this is how you see me.” I quickly argued, “No, not NOW! This is like, FUTURE YOU!” while Nate and our co-worker Cheryl also chimed in. Finally, Patrick started laughing REALLY HARD and I was able to breathe again. Dude’s been to Iraq, OK? I don’t want to anger him. Anyway, I’m posting it here because he looks like a fucking giant because of the way I took the picture, so even if you don’t know Patrick, it’s still amusing. EVEN HENRY KIND OF LAUGHED.  I want Patrick to use this as his Yammer profile picture, so whenever he’s training a secretary and she wants to follow him on Yammer, this is what she’ll see:

 Future Patrick

 Present Day Patrick

• Henry got me all these pouches of fancy apple stuff the other day and they are pretty good. This picture is sideways and I don’t feel like fixing it:

• My co-worker Barb broke a fifth of vodka all over her office floor last night, so that was exciting. I was Helpful by fetching her a roll of paper towels and then watching her mop it up.
• The Emo Diaries compilations are on Spotify!! So that is what I’m listening to now until the hockey game starts. God, I have to pee just thinking about it.
• Tomorrow night, Wendy, Evonne and me are going on a ghost tour/investigation around downtown Pittsburgh and I’m so stoked that I roped Jeannie into going with us too! I think her brand of dry sarcasm will perfectly balance Wendy’s joy, Evonne’s paranormal sensitivity and my extreme giddiness. Jeannie doesn’t seem stoked about this at all, but she lives downtown and basically just has to step out her building’s front door, so NO EXCUSES!
• You know what is really insane? The Insanity workout. Holy fuckkkkkk. I found some of them on YouTube and let’s just say my body feel likes a slinky this week, but I didn’t give up! Not even after I puked, swallowed it, puked again and spit it out the front door. The things I do for my Fitness Challenge team.
• Chooch’s birthday party is in one week! I’m really excited for this one. I love that he has grown-up friends too so we can have one big bash with them and also his actual kid friends. This weekend, Henry and I are going to be working on a cat-themed photo backdrop and cat-ear headbands for photo props. I might have to use a hot-glue gun. :(
• Here is a picture I took during my walk downtown yesterday:

• Oh shit, something really gross happened earlier today: Glenn and I had a civil conversation. I know, what the fuck. It must be all the Insanity. Anyway, later on, I was over at Barb’s desk when Glenn walked by and, simultaneously, we blurted out to Barb, “We had a normal conversation!” Barb was like, “Ew, why?” And I said, “Well, because he’s the only one here who watches “The Following” and I needed to talk about it.” So now Glenn feels used, which is good because he stole the mix tape blanket that Kendahl made me, which means he was skulking around in my office-thing, ugh! (I have the blanket back, don’t worry Kendahl!)
• Race Car Riot!
• I think that’s all I have to say. If I think of anything else, I’ll come back and add it, which is what I do with every other blog post I write. I don’t know why I bother hitting “Publish” because I am honestly NEVER DONE. I promise you that if you read something right away, there will be eight more paragraphs later on, so you’re probably better off reading immediately. I think a great summation of Oh Honestly, Erin would be ” tl;dr.”
  • Barb, tl;dr means “too long; didn’t read.”

Here is a rare bullet point post on a Sunday because Chooch is playing video games and Henry is cooking and I’m bored.

• There was a Penguins game on last night and I was so nervous that I kept trying to find dumb ways to distract myself, which is how I found a Hungry, Hungry Hippo hair fascinator on Etsy. I was going to buy it, but then the Penguins won and I forgot about it. Maybe during tomorrow night’s game…
• Last week, Chooch was bitching about me being mean, so I yelled YOU ARE THE REASON I’M MEAN! To which he responded YOU ARE THE REASON I TWERK! I just can’t with that kid anymore! He’s too quick. Also, he has been saying “literally” in almost every sentence, and I know I too am an offender (one of the worst) of using this word incorrectly (and I DGAF), but Chooch has just been so excessive about it. So I am going to make him a blog called Chooch, Literally. Janna kept trying to be the Literally vs. Figuratively Cop at dinner last night and we were all like STFU Janna.
  • At least we know that if Chooch grows up to be a stripper, it’s my fault and not Henry’s.
  • And he’ll be stripping to this song:
  • And he will probably LITERALLY have more money than Janna.
• I have vacillated between OMGLOVINGHENRY to wanting to bury his rotting body in a Pittsburgh pot hole so many times this weekend that I feel like I have whiplash. And a personality disorder.

• Emarosa released their first single with their new singer Bradley Walden last week and it gave me goose bumps and then made me cry in my office-thing at work. LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL HE IS! ^^^^^^ And his voice is the perfect complement to the rest of the band. It feels so good to be an Emarosa fan right now. This single was a sweet reward for not giving up on them these last few years and I have kind wanted to run around the office making everyone listen to it, but I refrained and stuck to just listening to it on repeat by myself.
  • Not a shocker, but Jonny Craig is being a royal poor sport about this because I guess Emarosa was never supposed to move on without him, even though he’s been doing his own thing for the last two years and has a new band of his own now. But still, I LOVE SCENE DRAMA!
• I had a couple of very stressful trolley experiences last week, so when I got to work, I immediately went to the CNN website to get me a little perspective, because somehow there are things happening in the world that, while hard to believe, might actually be worse than the trolley fare machine not working.
  • One of those stressful experiences was sitting across from this guy and his Mads Mikkelson-as-Hannibal mouth. I couldn’t look away! Mostly because I was afraid he’d turn my fat ass into a 10-person banquet:

• So, the Penguins are currently embroiled in a heated 1st round playoff match-up with the Columbus Blue Jackets and the one player I hate the most, Brandon Dubinsky, is from ALASKA. Of COURSE he’s from that disgusting hell-on-earth! So every time he’s on the ice, I get to unleash some of my pent-up Alaska disgust and it feels good but also like my heart is going to implode. It’s weird to have my stressful passion for hockey and dedicated hatred for glaciers collide.
• OMG I’m having so much fun planning Chooch’s LOLCat birthday party! And my long-distance friend Bill just confirmed that he, Jessi and Tammy will be coming out from Michigan for the entire weekend and I am giddy with excitement! I haven’t seen them in two years!

• OMG this employment opportunity was in the weekly school email last week and I was so tempted to apply, except that my shift at the Law Firm starts at 1:30. But can imagine how mediocre and complacent I would be as a playground monitor?! Ugh, what a failed opportunity. Also, I’m pretty sure I would pass all of those clearances.

• It’s 2014 and I still have no idea what goes on in Autocorrect’s head. Also, be a better housewife, Henry.
• Today, Chooch asked, “If you guys aren’t married, how was I born? Wait—was I adopted?” Have fun with that talk, Henry.
• I’m pretty sure my Internet presence has ensured that I will never get a boyfriend ever again.
• HENRY JUST WALKED PAST ME AND HIT ME FOR NO REASON I HATE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• On Chooch’s birthday, I got THIRTY DONUTS in the Mystery Box on Tapped Out! I was stoked but this was like the greatest affront to Chooch of all time. I thought he was going to try and murder me in my sleep.
• We went to Toys R Us last night and I ditched Henry and Chooch for the Tween aisle, because that’s where my jam’s at, and I found this disgustingly awesome grilled cheese & tomato soup lip balm pack! It was so sickening that I had to buy it, and I’m here now to tell you that it is just as gross and vile as your imagination probably immediately told you it would be as soon as you read the words “grilled cheese & tomato soup lip balm.” Actually, the grilled cheese one wasn’t TOO bad, and if we’re being honest here, it was kind of exciting to have the stench of my favorite meal wafting around below my nose. But today, I was on the way home from lunch with Wendy, Evonne, and Evonne’s friend Barbara, when I decided to be bold and put the grilled cheese one on my top lip and the tomato soup one on my bottom lip and then basically spent the next 20 minutes trying not to throw up in the backseat of Evonne’s car. I mean, sure it tasted like tomato soup….that has just been regurgitated. Just in case you’re a mental asshole: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Let me be your example of what things should never be rubbed on the lips.
• 
• And then Chooch wanted this stupid robot dog and cried, “BUT IT’S SO COOL! YOU TELL IT WHAT TO DO AND IT DOES IT!” So I said, “That’s what Daddy is for.” BOOM, SON.
• Yesterday, I was out and about in the neighboring town of Dormont trying to rack up pedometer steps, when I stumbled across this interesting specimen strumming a guitar outside of someone’s window. He needs some more practice, I think:

• Today Henry cried actual tears because he had bleach on his hands and then touched his eyes. Instead of caring, I yelled at him for interrupting me. He is really so rude.
• Eight hours later and I’m still smelling that vile tomato soup lip balm, what have I done?
• If some of my words are missing letters, it’s less likely that I’m a spelling derelict and more so that Chooch has ruined yet another keyboard.

Hey just a heads up that it’s Good Friday and I feel like your basic upended hornet’s nest today so these are gon’ be some bruised fucking bullets. Also, the Law Firm Fitness Challenge has left me pretty depleted of, well, everything.

• Might as well just start with that then, huh? The Law Firm Fitness Challenge has me so exhausted. Since other activities can be counted in addition to walking, I’m only walking 15,000 steps this time around and then averaging around 70-90 minutes of cardio a day (most of that taking place in the morning, with shorter sets of cardio after work). The other night, Henry flipped out and said, “OMG YOU’RE NOT TRAINING FOR A TRIATHLON! SIT THE FUCK DOWN!” He only gets mad because he wants to watch TV, not me writhing in pain. (You’d think he’d love that though.) Anyway, the good thing about this is that since I’m in a competitive mindset, I’m not slacking off like I would generally do. My normal routine is only 30 minutes of cardio 5-6 days a week. But now I’m purposely seeking out hard things that make me cry. Yesterday, I thought I hurt myself but I’m OK. Although now I think I have water-on-the-knee. Whatever that is.
  • If I counted “boxing with Henry while he tries to sleep/watch TV/cook dinner” and “throwing explosive tantrums every time Henry ignores my daily phone calls” as the vigorous cardio I know it to be, I would blow my Law Firm Fitness Challenge competitors out of the water.
  • You might be surprised to know this about me, since I’m a perpetual Captain Chubs, but I’m actually pretty athletic & enjoy fitness-y things. I played tennis competitively when I was a kid/in high school. I chose tennis because I’m not a team player.

• I changed Marcy’s name  to Hugs & Kisses last weekend. Janna came over and laughed really hard when I told her, and that upset Marcy.
• I hate everything today so badly, OMG. Every single voice around me is like a serrated blade to my ear drums, help. I have a fake office-thing so shutting the door doesn’t help.
• A secretary I dislike just called right now but my office-neighbor Patrick answered it so I will be erasing his name from The List.  (For now.)
• We were at Target over the weekend and Henry was like, “YOU CAN GET TWO CDS AND THAT’S IT” (actually, he didn’t tell us we could get any, so….). Chooch got Bastille and he also wanted to get Maroon5 but I just couldn’t let him put that in the cart.  Mostly because it’s music that I just can’t get behind, but also because I wanted to get the new Used CD. Anyway, I felt like an asshole about it afterward because I don’t want to be That Guy who makes someone feel like shit for liking dumb music, and when I was his age, I was listening to a TON of mainstream music like Phil Collins and Hall & Oats (and yes, even the Cure was kind of mainstream, for awhile there anyway) and I turned out fine. So I guess he’ll get Maroon5 in his dumb Easter basket this weekend.
• The new season of MTV’s The Challenge started last week and THANK GOD CT IS ON IT AGAIN. OMG he’s the hottest. Anyway, Henry tries to be all, “*grumble* I hate the fucking Challenge *grumble*” but then he gets all cozy on the couch with his stupid jug of iced tea and says things like, “OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO LAUREL!? OH YAY CT! STFU FRANK.” (See below for a picture of Henry watching the Challenge with his jug of iced tea.)

• Hey remember when I was putting lots of time & effort into spreading Glennish Easter cheer around the office but then a mainstream Easter egg hunt usurped my renegade shenanigans and of course no one cared about my paltry eggs anymore because mine only have Glenns in them and not precious “golden bunnies,” which are redeemable for stupid gift cards.  If I see one, I’m smashing it.
  • I mean, perfect timing for the Judases to come out of the woodwork, though, amiright?
  • I AM ONLY HALF-JOKING ABOUT THIS. I spent a good bit of the last two days pouting in my office, because that is what bi-polar 34-year-old “professionals” do, along with filling 28 pages in their diary about HOW NO ONE UNDERSTANDS and considering quitting their job to become a freelance “daily specials” sign scrawler, but probably winding up working at a gas station instead.
  • See also: I’m not a team player.
• There’s some Minecraft-related online course that teaches kids Java so that they can build their own “mods,” whatever the fuck those are, so Henry bit the bullet and enrolled Chooch, figuring that it’s never too early to start learning about programming in this day and age. Anyway, he is fucking zooming through this shit! He’s teaching himself how to make a unicorn demon (???) and I guess there was some issue last night where Minecraft wasn’t working so Henry was like, “You’re going to have to email the admins; that’s what they’re there for” so Chooch did that, but this morning he hadn’t heard back from them and somehow figured it out on his own. I know this because he used my phone to text Henry, “I got Minecraft to work and I fixed the errors all I had to do was erase ‘es’ to fix the addRecipe so Minecraft is fixed by me.” I don’t know what any of that means. But maybe soon he can redo my blog since Henry has been making empty promises for the last 7 years. Fuck you, Henry.
• In the span of a week, our TV broke, our computer monitor broke, and now our car is breaking. Henry has gained a lot more wrinkles this week. We’ve been using one of our old box TVs while the real TV is getting repaired and I feel like a pioneer person. Yet I’ve been surprisingly blasé about any of these things. Oh, that’s probably because I’m dead inside.
• AUGGGGHHH OMG STFU EVERYONE.

• I got this brochure thing in the mail yesterday and it was addressed to “Mrs Erin Kelly Robbins.” What a fucking joke. JUST LIKE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE STUPID WEEK.
• Mean Amber2 gave me a package of dried persimmons because she hated them since she’s mean, but at least for once I benefitted from her meanness!
• I decided to revisit Open Hand the other day and forgot how attached I was to their album “You and Me.” I used to listen to it on the drive to visit Christina in Cinicinnati, so….basically another album that makes my heart feel like a raw, salted wound. But, if I let things like that stop me from loving certain bands, then I’d be fucked. Especially if Henry and I ever break up, OMG. So then I texted Terri to see if she likes them too and she does, and it’s these little things that make me feel grateful and less alone. I hope I never stop being able to connect with people over music, even though it’s rarer and rarer these days. HAPPY EASTER.
  • Hey since we’re talking about music over our coffees right now, you and me, I thought it would be a cute idea for Chooch to give out mixed CDs as birthday party favors, but then I remembered that we can add the CD burner to the list of broken things in the house.
  • The amount of times Christina has popped up in my memory lately makes me think that perhaps she’s died, but my general complacency prevents me from looking into that any further.
• I’m strangely excited to watch The Ten Commandments on our TV from 1998 this weekend.
• I’m also strangely excited about Easter in general, in spite of the egg fiasco, but I’m not sure why because we don’t have any plans other than “go to a Chinese restaurant.” (Last year’s Pizza Party for Jesus Christ was super fun but between hosting that Stella & Dot party and planning Chooch’s LOLCat birthday party, I’m just too tired to host another thing.) It’s supposed to be nice out so maybe we can go sit in a field or something.
• Birchbox is usually so hit or miss, but the one for April was pretty spectacular. TheBalm’s How ‘Bout Them Apples? lip cream is my new fucking jam and you should all go get some. (SEE BELOW for how it looks on my pudding face.)

• OK. I just came back from a pee-break, wherein I zoned out in the stall to the point where I started to fall asleep. You guys, it hasn’t even been a full week of the LFFC (Law Firm Fitness Challenge, come on now); how am I going to make it to the end of May? Good god.
• Today it occurred to me that I can never use the excuse “Henry had surgery and needs me to stay home and help him” to call off work, because who would ever believe that I was going to help Henry do ANYTHING?
• I like to eat popcorn and then rub Henry’s glasses. It’s how I flirt, OK?! And oh, it makes him so mad.

I’m going to end this with a compilation of Instavids from last weekend because let’s have a little bit of joy around here, why don’t we.

OMG so this week’s bullet point post is happening today because I’m going to see Eisley tomorrow which means I might (should?) have real sentences to structure on Friday. Oh who am I kidding. This blog has been like a derailed train for god knows how long. Ain’t nobody be structuring shit.

• Remember how I was freaking out about getting stabbed thanks to The Following? Well, there was a mass stabbing this morning at a local high school and I can’t fucking stand it. Thank god no one died, although a few people were critically injured.  I am torn between wrapping my kid in 87 kevlar* vests or just homeschooling him altogether (while wrapped in 87 kevlar vests).  Please do not mistake me for some old bitty sitting in a nursing home atrium, but I can’t believe how different the world is already just from when I was a kid. I hate it so bad. (I mean, who doesn’t?) I graduated in 1997, so a few years before Columbine happened, and I just don’t remember hearing too much back then about all this fucked up shit happening in schools. I know for a fact that I definitely wasn’t afraid of going to school and getting shot. And now that’s what kids have to worry about, as if worrying about getting good grades, “fitting in” and getting bullied wasn’t already enough.
  • * You will be shocked to know that for once I actually put forth 20 second’s worth of fact-checking/research, otherwise that was about to read “mylar vest.” Probably wouldn’t do much good.
  • This was definitely not the first time I Googled “bulletproof vest” at work.
• You know what is similar to fact-checking that anyone who writes on the Internet should be doing consistently? Proof-reading. You know who doesn’t do that? This one right here. Ugh, you guys just don’t understand! I hate reading over something I just typed. I’m always rushed to begin with, usually at work (during down time, get over yourselves!), and I just hate reading my writing. So I post it as-is which is unprofesh but I am not getting paid to blog so whatever, right? Sometimes Henry will actually catch a typo and then rub it in for hours, but usually they remain there to fester for all of eternity, unless I am revisiting an old post for nostalgia-reasons or because I want to prove something to someone and need facts (also known as “Erin-skewed fantastical memory beliefs”). Like last night, when I was re-reading something from September and found that not only did I do the whole to/too thing (FML), I also confused “recant” with “recall” AND poorly-worded an entire paragraph which came off sounding super racist and I had no idea at the time. I fucking win at blogging. So, my point is that I would like to make a promise that I will try harder at proof-reading, but we all know that I’m going to hit “publish” and forget to even do a half-assed cursory glance.
  • Whatever happened to the days when Janna had access to my blog so she could correct my embarrassments?
  • See: first line of this post where I talk about “structuring real sentences” and then feel free to LOL forever.

• Chooch’s birthday is April 25th, but we’re not having his birthday party until the second weekend of May because it’s going to be outdoors and who knows if it’s going to snow again. Anyway, I kept pressing for a creepy carnival theme but I could tell he wasn’t into it and god forbid I should be one of Those Parents who forces their kids to want the things that they want. So he picked a cat theme instead and I’m 100% on board with that. However, cat-themed party supplies are either Cat In the Hat or kittens swathed in ribbons of pinks and purples. So the natural solution was to go with LOL Cats, which means DIY city for us. I already designed his invitations (the picture above is the back of the invitation) and I have a bunch of cat-themed food in my head. (Grumpy Cat donuts!) (Taco Cat Salad!) (Cheesy Hair Balls!) (NO kitty litter cake, though. I hate those! And you know, since I hate those then Chooch has to hate those, too. #hypocrite) This is pretty much the funnest (suck it, grammar) party I’ve planned yet. OK, maybe second only to Janna’s Poopy Birthday Party back in 2003. They can’t all be that shitastic. Speaking of, Janna’s coming over this weekend to make Nyan cat puppet-things. (You didn’t know that, Janna?) I WISH ALL OF YOU COULD BE THERE! (The party, not my house making Nyan cat puppet-things.)
  • It was like I’m sponsored by Parentheses up there in that last bullet.
• Hey, you know how I’ve been with Henry since 2001? Well, I only just recently realized that he pronounces “going” the same way a normal person would say “boing.” So now EVERY TIME he says it, I interrupt him to scream GOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNG! and he gets so frustrated. “One day I’m just going to stop talking altogether!” he sometimes pouts.
  • Of course, now I’m wondering if the reason I never noticed this before is because he only just recently picked it up from HIS NEW MISTRESS. OMG Henry is a philanderer!!
    • But the bigger possibility is that I just never really listened to him that much before.
• A waiter from Dollywood found my blog and didn’t like the “unrealistic speculations” I made about his collection of women’s tongues and blow-up sex dolls. So, that was awkward. My nervous tic is making up lewd stories about 75% of the strangers I come in contact with and I honestly can’t help it. So I changed his name from Sherman to Sherbet. Hopefully that will smooth things over.
  • It’s a constant struggle between good and evil with me.
• OMG remember last year when I signed up for that health screening thing at work and then found out right before that I WAS GOING TO GET MY FINGER PRICKED? (Just pretend.) Well, I signed up again this year but I was determined to go up alone this time since I’m practically a seasoned pro by now and I knew what to expect. However, as it got closer to my scheduled screening, I started to get heart palpitations and finally I just went up early because I thought I was going to pee my pants if I had to stare at the clock any longer. Anyway, I told the finger-pricker lady that I was scared but trying to be brave. She had my hand in her hands, trying to warm up my fingertips, and she interrupted my insane panic-rambles to cock her head and said, “Seriously? You have TATTOOS ON YOUR FINGERS and you’re afraid of this?” Touché, finger-pricker. Touché. But seriously you guys, I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF! And my numbers were all healthy, even though I have no idea what any of it means. Came back to my office-thing and immediately swapped out my ugly bandaid for a Candy Land one.
• IT’S ALMOST HOCKEY PLAYOFF TIME!!! Speaking of, the other day Barb was all, “Oh and by the way, the Stanley Cup is right up the street if you care.” I guess there was some Canadian thing going on in some building that I never knew existed, so Mean Amber walked me up there and we got to have our picture taken with it. Phil, the keeper of the Cup, was also there and I was adamant upon him being in the photo too because that guy has been in commercials so he’s essentially famous. Also, he wears nice white gloves. Originally, I didn’t want to be in the picture at all because I honest-to-god cannot pose for a picture to save my life, but at the last minute, I sighed and let it happen, thinking that maybe it could be that 1/1,000,000 chance where everything aligns and I look like a person who knows the difference between smiling and having a stroke. Yeah, I didn’t hit the photo lottery. I mean it’s not the WORST picture I’ve posed uncomfortably for, but I still wound up looking deranged, like a woman with a secret, and that secret might be a box of women’s tongues in a box under her bed because she learned it by watching Sherbet. #fakesmilecity
  • That night, Henry was pressing me for more details on exactly where I was that I got to see the Stanley Cup. “I don’t know, some building that Barb claims used to be Home Depot,” I said, totally annoyed. “Home Depot? I literally have no idea where there used to be a Home Depot downtown,” Henry pondered, totally thrown off at the fact that he didn’t know about something being somewhere. A few minutes passed and I said, “Oh, I think maybe it was Office Depot. Same thing.” Henry shouted, “THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING!” STFU, Henry.
• Henry broke our TV somehow so he is officially the Enemy of the House, according to Chooch and me.
• Chooch is going to invite the helmeted boy who bit him to his birthday party and I’m so happy about that.
• Writing this is severely cutting into my Easter Glenn time, you guys. See the sacrifices I make for you?
• Today a co-worker was sitting  next to me, showing off her flaky skin (yes, that happened) and some of it floated down onto my leg and she just carried on like it was no biggie and I mean, I get that we all basically spend more time with our co-workers than anyone else, but if I won’t let Henry flake his dead skin onto my person, then you can’t do that either.
  • Nate asked me if I needed an umbrella.

•  My friend Terri inspired me to listen to the Used tonight at work, and I admittedly haven’t listened to them in quite some time because of dumb Christina. I feel like I’m wrapped in a blanket right now. I mean, I actually AM wrapped in a blanket right now because it’s always 30 degrees in my wing of the department, but you know what I mean. Metaphorically, or whatever. Like my heart is blanketed. God, just forget it. Never mind.
  • After all these years, it is still hilarious to me that Christina is the biggest liar I have ever known in my entire life, and the Used (her FAVORITE BAND) has a song called “Liar, Liar.” I wish I was God because I would make sure that fucking song played every single time she walked into a room.
• OK, I’m GOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYNG now.

• Chooch wasn’t feeling too hot on Tuesday so I kept him home from school. I wanted to watch the new episode of The Following, which is what I would NORMALLY do on Tuesday mornings CHOOCH, but that was vetoed. However, the thought of Kevin Bacon reminded me that I wanted to watch his recreation of Footloose-moves on Jimmy Fallon, so I found it on On Demand; Chooch was captivated. I pulled up a clip of Footloose on my phone and Chooch was even more enrapt. Then he said he wanted to watch the WHOLE THING, so I found it on Netflix and this was a shit-ton of words just to tell you that my son and I watched Footloose on Tuesday.

• Hey, remember my son and I watched Footloose on Tuesday? He got super heated during the scene where that dickhead Chuck started beating on Ariel and so he screamed, “WHAT A BASTARD! NEVER HIT A GIRL!” which made me feel like maybe I had parented well somewhere along the way, though it was probably a fluke. (And yes, he knows that hitting in general is a no-no. Which always leads into murky territory though because one time we were over some dumb bitch’s house and one of her feral spawns purposely hit Chooch in the face with some hard plastic toy and I didn’t even know until the less-feral  of the two spawns came out and said, “Miss Erin, Chooch is crying because [feral name withheld] hit him on purpose with a hard plastic toy.” Chooch was sitting in their bedroom, silently crying, and he said to me, “What was I supposed to do? I can’t HIT him, he’s only 4!” I always tell him to just walk away, but if it’s a matter of self-defense, GO THE FUCK FOR IT. But that’s just me. Your opinion might vary and that is OK.)

• I was a little hungover on Sunday, but I ate some weird fruit and then started working on that guest blog thingie which ended up not being that bad! Everything always seems so dire until I start it and then it’s like, “This is just blogging. Calm the fuck down.” I rewarded myself by visiting my friend Lisa afterward. Her baby Gigi was napping for a good portion of my visit, but she was awake, she was like “Who the hell is this broad in my house? And can I please chew on that Dance Gavin Dance pin that you have there on your flannel?” I, being the SMARTIE that I am, was like, “No you may not.” All of this only happened in my head because I just wanted to give myself the pleasure of writing about my DGD pin since this 1987 and we all wear band pins, right? Anyway, the greatest thing ever happened and that was when we were talking about high school and Lisa said, “I have to say, I REALLY liked high school, but that was mostly because of you.” And then she went on to string together a ton of sentences where I was the subject and having fun was the verb. Did that make sense? I don’t remember how sentences are made. But you know what? We did have a ton of fun in high school and I miss those days big time. Even though Lisa and I only hang out a few times a year, she is still one of the few people that I’m 100% me around. No walls. No filters. I feel like, aside from when I’m at home with Henry and Chooch, I am always swallowing so much of my personality back to the point where most people probably think I’m a mute. But with Lisa, I’m the real me: loud and ridiculous. Maybe someday that will be my default again, but too much shit happened in my 20s, you guys. Too much.
• I was telling Barb about how my work night was so shitty last night, that I texted Henry and told him I just wanted him to hold me when I got him. “Aw,” Barb cooed. “And did he?” I made a face and said, “Ew, no! I was over it by then.”
• Speaking of Barb, she has been super into watching a live feed of this local eagle’s nest. There were three eggs and the whole city was on “egg watch” basically, but Barb was like a maniac over it, like she’s related to them, like she’s waiting for her eagle grandchildren to be born. God, get over it, Barb. Anyway, she was all stressed out last Thursday because it was predicted that Friday would be the day that the eggs would start hatching, and she was going to be en route to Toronto that day to visit her brother. “I just know an egg is going to hatch when I’m not around to watch,” she cried. AND SURE ENOUGH, AN EGG HATCHED ON FRIDAY! I saw it on Facebook and was filled with glee that Barb missed it. I got to rub it in her face when she came back to work on Tuesday and it was DELICIOUS. (I mean, the “in-your-face”-isms, not the eagle egg.)

•  One day last week, I had just deposited Chooch at school when he decided to turn around and, in front of the principal (I still remember how to spell that because the Principal is supposedly your pal but all I remember about my grade school principal is that he was the keeper of The Paddle, and that doesn’t seem very palsy), Chooch rolled his eyes back into his head and yelled, “Your demonic child is leaving.” THANKS FOR THAT. Hilariously, one of the parental witnesses happened to be a dad from the shitty Catholic school (his kids transferred to Chooch’s current school right after he did), so at least he had something to report back to the holy bitches.
• Also last week, I read about bulletproof coffee, where people literally put pats of butter in their coffee and it’s supposed to help keep them full or something, I can’t remember now. That was LAST WEEK. So that morning, I decided I wanted to try it. I was on the phone with Henry and he was like, “That’s great, just make sure you use butter and not margarine.” “Uh, duh,” I said teenagerly, while quickly abandoning my grip on the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. Anyway, it was disgusting.

• The other night, Marcy was sitting on top of the couch, staring intently into the dining room and whipping her tail against the back of the couch with full force. She was visibly agitated, but Henry and I couldn’t figure out what she was looking at, until he realized it was the cat on the gift bag. I made fun of her SO HARD after that. God Marcy, get a clue!!
• Henry wasn’t paying attention  to me yesterday so I sprayed him with perfume and now I will be hearing about this for at least the next few years.
• I’ve been listening to Fantomas & Everyone Dies In Utah (thanks for the heads up, Kendahl!) all night at work but then THE PHONE RINGS and I get so angry because I have to turn it down. IT IS FRIDAY. Why are bitches even bothering with work tonight!? I’m going to go home and punch Henry in the face while simultaneously unraveling all of that “keep your hands to yourself” parenting I was bragging about up there.
• Chooch is going to be 8 this month. How, why, what?

• My friend Bridget told me that I remind her of Lena Dunham, but quickly explained that it was because of my writing and not because I’m always naked at work. I liked that compliment a lot. I don’t get very many here at work.  Mostly just secretaries telling me that I’m their favorite, but then I remember that they don’t have much to pick from, so I’m kind of the default favorite. :(
• I hate the word “turnt” and stupid white girls who call each other the “n-word,” but basically if you’re a stupid white girl using the “n-word,” then you’re more than likely also using the word “turnt.” Coincidentally*, I always see this shit being said in comments on Jonny Craig’s Instagram. (*Just kidding, that is definitely not a coincidence.)
  • Speaking of Jonny Craig, his psycho ex-fiance (remember the one whose initials he had tattooed in a giant fashion on his stomach?) posted old videos of him doing drugs on Instagram on the other day and the Internet went into a flurry of excitement. Jonny recorded himself taking a drug test and it all came back negative so that’s good. Because no matter how badly my feelings for him ricochet, I don’t want to see the guy relapse. Especially not now that he has a new band and is about to release new music, OMG turnt for days.
  • Apparently the trashy ex-fiance lost 1,000 followers over the incident, but I’m like, “How did she have that many to lose in the first place?” She’s boring and average.
• Sometimes I like to pull an old vacation journal off the shelf and relive the golden years, but then I only end up reliving awful fights between me and my aunt Sharon. Why did we continue going on vacation together summer after summer when we clearly hated each other?! Oh my god. I think the answer is: she didn’t have any friends and I just really wanted to go to Europe. And boy, did I pay the price. I would like to start writing on here about some of those trips, because we made some cool vacation friends (I just found one of them on Facebook but when I asked Henry if sending her a friend request would be weird, he gave me the “You knew her for 2 weeks in 1995; please don’t be a creep” face), but I always get side-tracked. And that was back when I would write things like, “We went to [insert Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant] and I ate a sandwich.” So detailed, so memorable, so shit. WHAT KIND OF SANDWICH!? DID 1994 ERIN LIKE IT!? WHAT DID YOU WEAR?! FML.
• The next Law Firm Walking Challenge starts in a little over a week! I’m excited to wear a pedometer again!
• I’m done with this now.

Marcy and her idol, Hannibal

I have  come to embrace the weekly bullet-pointed posts. They really let me get it all off my chest, you know? Kind of like free-style rapping. But way worse.

So here are some pictures and bullet-points. Enjoy. Or don’t enjoy. It’s OK; I hate-read some blogs too every now and then.

•  The latest season of the Real World has had its moments (I especially like that they have stopped pretending that the camera people and producers don’t exist), but I’m not feeling it as much as I thought I would be. It started off pretty good, and now that one of the original girls is gone, there actually isn’t a single cast member that I hate, which kind of sucks, because that’s the best part. If you’re a grown-up, or just someone with better TV taste than me, this season is called Real World Explosion because halfway through the season, they surprised the roommates by moving in their exes. OMG EXPLOSION, GUYS, GET IT? But the one girl’s ex isn’t on the show because he’s too busy having a real life by touring with the band Asking Alexandria, LOL all day.  Anyway, Henry gets all curmudgeonly when I put it on but then watches the whole episode because he secretly loves it. Sometimes he gets so into it that he has to STAND UP to watch. (see: below.)

• I painted my friend Jeannie a calzone painting a few weeks ago and she then decided that she was going to take me and Nate out for a celebratory calzone lunch. (You’re welcome, Nate.) Anyway, that finally happened on Tuesday and even though Jeannie and Nate didn’t want to sit in the basement of Monte Cello’s (boooooo), it was a really nice lunch celebrating a painting that Jeannie didn’t bother to bring along with her. Anyhow, the point is, I checked in on Facebook and posted the below picture and for some reason over 20 people liked it, which seems excessive for me since it was just a check-in at some pizza place; YOU HUNGRY, FACEBOOK? But it’s not like I have my Masters in Facebook, so what do I know.
• Everyone is talking about CrossFit and Insanity and whatever else kind of extreme workout DVDs you can buy from an infomercial at 3:ooam. But you know what I’ve been doing? Throwback workouts, my friends. I found the Cindy Crawford workout from the 90s on YouTube last week and said to Henry, “I’m pretty sure this workout video is how I fucked up my back in middle school.” Then of course I started doing it and Henry was appalled. “Yeah, that’s it, Erin. Fuck up your back some more.” But you guys, Cindy’s workout videos are the shit because of the music. Primal Scream! The Smithereens! My favorite Seal song of all time (“Crazy”)! And I was sore as FUCK the next day. Yesterday, for funsies, I did Abs of Steel and today I did Tamilee Webb’s other series, I Want Those Arms. Maybe tomorrow I’ll see if YouTube has Jody Watley’s workout video too. (Sorry, Jillian Michaels—I’ll come back to you when I decide to return to this decade.) Fuck Yeah, Tamilee:
• I’ve been slacking on fun nail art lately (lately=the last 6 months). Mostly I just do solid colors and leave it at that, but then my friend Kendahl decided to start her own line of indie polish called Firecracker Lacquer (still in test-mode!) and she is so inspirational with her nail art blog posts that I might get off my ass and start putting in some effort again. The nails below don’t count. I half-assed those all the way to the market. (I don’t know what that means but I’m apparently channeling that little piggy today.)

• Henry and I were watching one of the many “how is this food made?” shows last night and one of the segments was on Rocky Road candy bars. Henry got instantly nostalgic and asked out loud, “I wonder where you can buy those now…” So I googled and the first thing that came up with this Yahoo Answers post from 2010 and I started cracking up. Like CRACKING UP to the point where Henry had to get up and leave because he didn’t think it was funny at all, but IT WAS FUNNY because I kept imagining Henry all hunched over a keyboard in his mom’s basement (because that’s where he was living in 2010?), one finger from each hand striking the keyboard like a piano mallet. “does anyone now were they sell rocky road candy bars????” YOU GUYS, HELP HIM!

• Right before I left for work today, the mailman hurled a box at my front door. My ears perk like a dog’s when I hear boxes hit the porch. “PACKAGE?! FOR ME?! WHAT DID I ORDER?!” I hadn’t ordered anything!! And I didn’t recognize the return address! Henry calmly said that it was probably a bomb and I began to freak out, but PACKAGE got the best of me and I continued to tear away at it with my bare hands. Finally, he gave me scissors and Henry was like, “YOU ALMOST JUST CUT MARCY!” because at this point, I had used context clues to help me figure out that it was a box of weird fruit from my friends Kevin and Liz in Miami!! It was all stuff that I have never seen before and I was like, “HENRY, CUT THIS IMMEDIATELY.” But apparently HENRY didn’t have time. I did get to eat one of those gray balls, though. If I’m reading the accompanying pamphlet correctly, they are sapodillas and basically, that’s all I will be putting in my mouth from now on. The description says they taste like pears and brown sugar, and by golly, they DO. Ugh, just look at this majestic grouping of weird produce. Hashtag-blessed all day long.
• In blogging news, I finally know what I’m going to write for my Pittsburgh Guest Blogging thingie that will be happening on April 1st. WHAT A RELIEF. Aren’t you relieved!? My friend Sandy is also participating so I ran to her office-thing the other day and started blabbering about how stressed I am over this and she was so calm. Why can’t I be calm, ever?  I literally almost cried about it a few days ago because I’m known for taking really small things and inflating them to the point where my whole world is consumed by nothing but that I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack from all the pressure that almost no one is putting on me. For as lazy as I am about a lot of things, I am VERY TYPE-A about others. So don’t worry, Guy Who Will Be Posting My Thing, I will have it to you by the end of the weekend. And it will at least be decent.
• One of my friends sent me a message on Facebook and said that he and his wife think Chooch is gifted, and instead of my first reaction being one of a proud mom, I naturally made it all about myself and started to dwell on the fact that I was tested for the gifted program in elementary school and spent most of my life thinking I didn’t get in until one day when I was 26, my mom laughed and said, “No, you were accepted, but I told them I didn’t want you in that program because it was all about that imagination bullshit.” ARE YOU KIDDING!? So now here I am, sitting at my non-gifted desk at my non-gifted job, sighing sadly over my non-gifted life. Please excuse me while I go make some non-gifted coffee. :(
• I was going to also write about all the things this week that have irritated me but it’s just too much.

• After terrorizing Chris and Monica with my camera on Sunday, they took me and Chooch to Tom’s Diner for dinner, where the subject of the missing Malaysian plane came up. “The only people who know where it is are Jesus and Amelia Earhart,” Chooch casually interjected. I was glad there were witnesses there because sometimes I fear that people think I’m making up his quotes. I promise I’m not.

• I’ve been in a major fruit funk. Even the apples I’ve been eating haven’t been anything spectacular and just taste like earth. But then Henry bought me a cherimoya! I was so excited to have my passion for fruit rejuvenated, but then he cut it and it tasted terrible. It was too ripe. Or not ripe enough? I don’t understand how “ripe” works. So I’m back to being in a fruit funk.
• I took the trolley to work on Thursday. It was starting to look like it was going to be a quiet, uneventful ride, until the young man standing in front of my seat received a phone call. I hadn’t paid much attention to him prior to his phone ringing, because he was just standing there quietly, being tall and skinny, relatively inoffensive. But then it was all, “DEENA!!!! I CALLED YOU LIKE 7 TIMES!!! WHAT, YOU DON’T ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE NOW!?!?!?” His tone was enraged, bombastic enough to pretty much make everyone whip their heads in his direction. And then I guess Denah hung up on him, which made him shout, “I’M GONNA FUCK YOU UP.” I actually gulped and slid down a little in my seat, tugged at my collar and stared out the window, hoping he wouldn’t use my face as Deina’s stunt double. A few minutes later, he was able to get her back on the phone. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU. I’VE CALLED YOU FIFTY TIMES. OH OK, YOUR PHONE WAS IN YOUR POCKET. SINCE WHEN DO YOU KEEP YOUR PHONE IN YOUR POCKET!?!?” And then some terrible discussion about how, OH DON’T WORRY D-NAH, he was able to get out of the house this morning without her help. I don’t know what this means, but then he went on to say, “He was downstairs, but I got out. DON’T WORRY, I GOT OUT WITHOUT YOUR HELP” so now I’m wondering if this so-called “he” is D’na’s real boyfriend who she’s cheating on with the screamer on the trolley and screamer was trapped in the house when the real boyfriend unexpectedly came home from the China Beach convention in Sheboygan? I can’t imagine how terrible this other guy must be to make Dina have an affair with Trolley Screamer. Luckily, the trolley went underground right around the time he began lambasting Deana for worrying about “dumb shit” so he lost cell service. The rest of us just sat there uncomfortably, thankful that he couldn’t call (Silent P)dina back. I mean, he was talking to her the same exact way I talk to Henry, but at least I reserve that shit for in the house! Now I’m really worried about Dena. Please leave that punk ass bitch, Deeeeeena. I bet he smells like Kools and Slim Jims. No, I know he does.

• Chooch is thankfully still enjoying piano lessons, except that every time the cat walks into the room, he immediately stops paying attention because CAT ALERT. At one point, he asked himself “What would Keyboard Cat do?” I thought Cheryl was going to lose it.

• Henry and I are leaving very soon for Philly. We haven’t spent a night away from Chooch since 2011 (except for sometimes when Chooch sleeps over his cousin’s house, but at least we’re only 15 minutes away) so I’m kind of excited about that but also sad because I’m pretty attached to Chooch. I don’t know if you noticed, but the three of us are like, almost always together. It’s pathetic. Or nice? Anyway, Henry is even more curmudgeonly than usual because I made him go to the Gary Numan show last night so he’s all tiwed wike a wittle baybay (tired like a little baby; I don’t know what’s going on in my head this morning) and now he has to drive to Philly to see another show he doesn’t want to see and hopefully hang out with our friends Terri and Christian, too. But you know what, Henry? You signed on for this in 2001 when you thought, “Wow, I would like to pursue a relationship with the weird office manager at my job.” Sorry you thought I would outgrow this, haha.
• I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A GREAT FRIDAY! Because that seems like a good way to end this!

ANTHONY FUCKING GREEN <3