Last night, right as I was falling asleep, “Jackie Blue” came on the radio. Do you know this song? It’s old, like from the SEVENTIES OMG, and it’s by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I have been obsessed with this song since high school so as soon as it started playing, I cried, “JACKIE BLUE FUCK YEAH!” and started dancing in bed which is something that Henry totally LOVES when he’s already sleeping, but who cares.

“This song makes me think of when I was 17 and went through a phase where I wore shoelaces as headbands!” I laughed, but Henry just mumbled some sleep-stifled sentiment into his pillow, so since he didn’t care to listen to my stories, I am ready to shoot them from my fingertips like smoking words from a phalanges-cannon. His loss is your gain, Blog a/k/a My One True Friend.

• Back when I was 17 and wearing shoelaces in my hair, Lisa and I used to frequent a pool hall called Cue and Cushion. I’m really not sure how this all began, and for as much time as we spent there, we never really got good. Every time I would ever get a ball in the pocket, I would make an obnoxious gesture toward the pocket and say, “Skilllllllls” while every one else would groan, “Shit shot.” There was this one guy we befriended and I can’t remember his name but I can see him very clearly in my mind, especially how his face went from friendly to “You are dead to me” when he expressed interest and I was like, “I am dating a psychopathic fire-starter whom I love very much and will never betray!” Which was actually true. I never cheated on Mike once, yet he would constantly accuse me of. Also, I remember him being in his 20s and I was saving my cradle for Henry to rob at a later date, obviously. BUT I DIGRESS. I would ask Lisa if she remembers his name, but I’m lucky that she even remembers being friends with me back then, let alone some random pool shark’s name.
  • I have a photo of myself with this guy and I’m wearing a striped velour shirt that I bought from Contempo after it changed from Contempo Casuals but before it became Wet Seal. I’m wearing that shirt under overalls because that’s how I did it back in 1997, holla.
    • Speaking of photos, Lisa and I hung out at Cue and Cushion so often (and were probably the youngest people there on most nights), that we became friends with the proprietor, Lou, who hung our senior pictures up on her bulletin board.
• Thinking of Lou got me remembering all of the other mom-types that loved me and Lisa back in the day, like Maryann from Denny’s, who kept a picture of me on her key chain (Henry rolled his eyes at this) and then there was a broad who worked at a diner that we called Home Cookin’ because that’s the generic name that was on the outside of it (it was in a shopping center) but really it was called Russitano’s. We NEVER called it that but then when I met Henry, it turned out his mom knew a bunch of the waitresses there and he would correct me every time I called it Home Cookin’. Probably because he couldn’t stand that he wasn’t included in my antics back then and hearing me calling it Home Cookin’ forced him to think about me having a life that GOD FORBID didn’t include him. Anyway, I can’t remember that lady’s name, but she used to let us go behind the counter and get our own drink refills. God, I miss that. I think it eventually changed to the Plaza Cafe, back when I was 19 and getting grilled blueberry muffins and coleslaw with the aforementioned Psycho Mike and then it moved down the street and now it’s something else but it seems to rarely be open so why bother.
  • And then all of this made me think of the disgusting amount of time my friends and I spent at various diners but mostly Denny’s and how the hell did they never kick us out when all we were ordering was coffee and essentially loitering.
    • One of my favorite Denny’s memories was going there for dinner with Brian, Chooch’s godfather, when we were…20? 21? He saw someone he knew sitting at a booth across the restaurant, so he told our waitress to send that table the sampler platter and to put it on Brian’s check. Because that’s the Denny’s equivalent of sending over a bottle of champagne at a classy restaurant, I guess. Brian spent the rest of our time there waiting and waiting for some acknowledgement from his friend, but then later, some kid that we knew from high school stopped by on his way out and thanked Brian for the nice gesture. The waitress had delivered it to the wrong table and Brian was SO PISSED but I was dying. Then, when we were walking through the parking lot of my apartment complex afterward, Brian tripped over a speed bump and I cried, “THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT OF ALL TIME!” Probably we went inside and sent Janna fake emails from a fictional man named Tyree, because that’s what we did for funtimes back then. I mean, I would never anything like that now.
    • Speaking of coffee, it’s funny to think about how we would go to actual diners and restaurants (like Denny’s and Eat n Park) when we wanted to hang out and have coffee with friends. There were no Starbucks or really any other coffee houses in the suburbs where I grew up that I can think of, aside from Gloria Jean’s in the mall. Which leads me to my next topic…
• Ever since I had Dark Matter coffee at Riot Fest, I have been straight feenin’ for it. I finally buckled and bought a bag of the Mastodon-collaborated coffee, Black Blood. It’s a limited release and aged in Basil Hayden’s Bourbon Whiskey barrels. I’ve been in a Keurig rut for YEARS so this inspired me (Henry) to get off my (his) ass and buy a french press. My first cup of that steaming Black Blood reminded me that Keurig’s K-Cups are essentially the mp3s of the coffee scene, and I’ve gone back to vinyl, you guys. I’m just sorry that I was led astray for so long. Convenience, etc.
• Long-time readers might remember Eleanore, an older broad I used to work with at another job. I found her on Facebook about a year ago, but then I forget all about it until over the weekend, when I fell down the Old Job rabbit hole on Facebook. You know what I’m talking about: you find one person on FB that you used to work and then suddenly you’re scouring their friend list for other co-workers and then you accidentally send friend requests and it’s a whole big thing. Anyhow, I was reminded of Eleanore’s Facebook presence so I was scrolling through her shit and hearing her voice in my head reading all of her status updates out loud and then DYING at the amount of times TINA (OMG TINA HAHAHAHAHA) has posted to her wall saying “Hello dear friend, I miss” but in Tina-type, it’s more like “Hekjllo Dar friend i mis u.” Anyway…it turns out, and this is not funny at all, that Eleanore had a stroke two years and is no longer working. She seems to have bounced back, but that is still really sad and scary. I ended up having a dream last night that I went to visit her under the pretense of caring about her but in reality, I knew that she had three wheelchairs in her house and I wanted to buy one from her. OK, fine, I’ll tell you the truth: at first in my dream, my intent was to STEAL ONE. I have only stolen something once in my life and it was magnet made out of peanut shells that I took from Lechter’s, a home goods store that used to be in the mall. I was around 4 or 5 and I fucking swear to god, I was so racked with guilt after that, that I don’t even take pennies from Take a Penny trays at gas stations, even if I need one. OK, back to my dream. So I was going to steal one of these beautiful wheelchairs similar to the blue one I already have, but then I woke up in real life and forced myself to go back to sleep so that I could finish the dream by offering to buy one. I don’t know if I was successful, because then I was eating an ice cream cone that I didn’t like so my friend Jeannie let me have her ice cream cone, which was PEACH MELBA, so when I woke up this morning, my first thought was, “Wow, I forgot how much I used to love peach melba ice cream when I was a kid.”

And I will end this with a picture of me and Lisa at Denny’s (of which I have many).

(Pictures. Not Denny’s.)

I drank too much after-hours coffee and now I’m wired so here are some things.

• Glory Days. Moonlight. Adventures of Beans Baxter.Emily Owens, MD.
  • What are: TV shows I loved that were canceled.
• Speaking of TV shows, Chooch and I are really into watching The Goldbergs (he said I’m as annoying as the mom, ugh!) and Red Band Society together, so here’s hoping those guys don’t get canceled.
• Barb and I went to the viewing of our co-worker’s mother after work today. On the way back to Barb’s car through the funeral home parking lot, we walked past a frighteningly oldlady struggling to get out of the passenger side of a car. Barb asked her if she needed any help. The oldlady said yes and then reached out for me to help her. ME! Not Barb, but me! So I had to have human contact with a stranger and I was so scared. God damn you, BARB.
  • Somehow, this was my first time in Barb’s car. I’m here to report that she narrates EVERYTHING that is happening while she’s driving. I don’t think it matters if she has a passenger or not.
• Last week at work, someone sent out an email about a free Neil Diamond CD they were giving away which made me nostalgic so I opened up and told Glenn and Mean Amber about how I bought this deluxe Neil Diamond boxed set when I was in high school and then PSYCHO MIKE took one of the CDs during one of our many Sid & Nancy episodes* and I was never able to look at the boxed set again, because knowing that one of the CDs was missing drove me nuts. It’s actually in a box in my attic. I JUST CAN’T WITH THAT DEFECTED BOXED SET, OK.
  • I don’t know why I referenced Sid and Nancy. There were never any drugs involved in our psychotic fisticuffs, unless you count Mike’s prescription drugsand also the brief period we triedto be pot dealers,LOLOLOL.
    • While we were on the subject of Neil Diamond, Amber admitted that she didn’t know who sang her favorite childhood song, but it went something like—-and after two second of her singing, I screamed, “RICHARD MARX!!!!”

• Yesterday, Glenn was listening to fucking Meghan Trainor’s “All About that Bass” so loud that I could distinctly hear it through his ear buds and if I had any respect for him prior to this, I would lost some at that moment. Ugh, that song. Just ugh ugh ugh it all the way to hell.
• I made myself popcorn tonight, which entails me over-popping the bag so that the middle becomes a charred brick with some unscathed popped kernels clinging to it. Then I spray it handsomely with Pam. Suddenly, after 13 years together, Henry has a “problem” with this. Like he has just realized now after all this time that my popcorn preference is offensive and I’m like you know what? How about stop trying to change me, man? I’ve been eating burnt, Pam-spritzed popcorn for fucking ever and I won’t let some righteous male try to control how long I cook my corn in the microwave. Fuck off. I AM WHO I AM. And that’s evidently a person who just really loves the synthetic aftertaste of cooking spray on her tongue.
  • My crazy aunt Sharon is the one who got me hooked on Pam because she would always use that on popcorn in lieu of butter when I was a kid, because she was forever on a diet. The taste of Pam reminds me of sleeping over my grandparents’ house, having my back scratched by my grandma while watching Empty Nest. THOSE WERE THE DAYS.
• I’m trying to convince Chooch that pilgrims are fictional. Shockingly, it’s not going very well. The internet makes it so hard to lie to kids these days!
• Unpopular opinion: I really dislike the current season of American Horror Story. The wholefreakshow/clown thing is something that is so dear to my heart, and AHS’s depiction just isn’t doing it for me. I’m still watching, though. If only to mock Kathy Bates’ bizarre Fargo/Pittsburgh hybrid accent. But if she throws an “n’at” in there, I’m out.
  • “N’at” is Pittsburghese/Yinzer-speak for “and that.” It was recently voted the worst American accent! Because it is! And no, I don’t speak like that.
• I’m totally watching the video for Richard Marx’s “Hazard” right now. Wasn’t that a huge deal when it debuted on MTV?
• So, I’ve been watching “The Affair” on Showtime and I love/hate it. I absolutely hate everything about the main guy, and the main broad’s voice and lips drive me nuts. And it has me convinced that Henry is having an affair (much like when Mike was killed on Desperate Housewives and I was so sure Henry was going to get shot and I didn’t want him to leave the house anymore). But I can’t stop watching. I keep making comments to Barb about Henry having an affair and she gets all mad and flustered and yells, “HE IS NOT CHEATING ON YOU! WHEN WOULD HE HAVE TIME!?” Wendy was mad because it took Henry an entire afternoon to text her back the other day. I told Barb about this and then I said, “You know why he didn’t text her back right away? BECAUSE HE WAS TOO BUSY WITH HIS AFFAIR!” And then Barb was like ^&%*&%&(^(*&*(((@@#$$.
• ENDLESS SUMMER NIGHTS! I have officially fallen down the Richard Marx rabbit hole and IDGAF.
• DON’T WORRY: I didn’t forget about that giveaway I said I was thinking about having. It will probably be the week of Thanksgiving, where blogs all over the Internet use that holiday as an excuse to triple their page views.
• My brother told me that our mom has recently brought out a painting I made for her probably 7 years ago and is now displaying it on the mantlealongside one of my old grade school photos. The last time I was at her house (god, over 4 years ago) I was looking for something in the kitchen and saw that very painting stowed away in a cupboard. And I remember when I gave it to her (it was a Xmas present), she very sarcastically said it was wonderful. So, this is interesting to me. I guess on one hand, it gives me hope that she still has some emotion and maybe she possibly misses me. But on the other, I’m not getting my hopes up because it’s a toxic cycle. I asked Henry if he thought she would ever start being a mom to me again and without hesitation, he said no. No sugar-coating when it comes to this topic.
  • I try not to whine about this topic, but sometimes the need presents itself.

Um…on that bitter note. I think maybe I should quit while I’m ahead! Tomorrow, I should hopefully have PART 2 of Heini’s Cheese Chalet for you to gloss over with bored eyes. It’s been pretty hard to put Corey’s and my giddiness into words!

And here are some pumpkin spice bullet points!

• Hey, speaking of pumpkin spice, I’ve divorced that shit for maple. I mean, I still love savory pumpkin things (Henry just made an amazing pumpkin soup last week), but I’m kind of like, “Get the fuck over yourself, pumpkin spice.” Especially latte-wise. It’s maple or nothing for me these days. I see that Starbucks has jumped on the maple latte train, but they can GTFO because their maple latte is an embarrassment to the hot tree-nectar I had in New Hampshire last year.
  • I’m still trying to find a pumpkin beer that I can drink without cringing though.
• I cut my hair the other night. Not drastically, but about a good inch. (Just my longer layers.) I was just sitting there alone, the only one still awake in the house, and I started to feel an anxiety attack coming on and when that happens, there are a few things that help: ripping up papers, breaking glass, or cutting hair. I opted for the hair, because I didn’t have any papers on hand that weren’t Chooch’s and I didn’t feel like cleaning up glass.
  • God, there is something so cathartic about hearing scissors crunch and slice a chunk of dry hair.
  • The next day, I texted Henry and told him I cut my hair. “I know,” he replied. “I unclogged the sink.”
    • Nothing toes the line between bohemian bourgeois and mental patient quite like cutting your own hair.
  • The only people who have noticed have been all boys.

• It was picture day for Chooch yesterday and he was mad that I made him wear his cat bowtie, which he’s worn before but I guess picture day is a different story. I’ll know for certain when we get the pictures back if that little jerk kept it on or not!
  • Speaking of Chooch, he joined chorus. The first song they’re learning is America the Beautiful, but when he sang it to us, it was to the tune of O, Christmas Tree. Because that is his default tune, apparently. (Honestly, he uses that tune anytime he doesn’t know what else to do.)
• Sometimes in the morning when I take the trolley to work, there is this guy on there who is DISGUSTINGLY SICK. I mean, this has been going on for weeks now, like maybe he should be in an infirmary somewhere, I don’t know. He’s just a regular-looking thirty-something businessman who just happens to be drowning and choking on his snot every single day of his life, I guess. The days that we’re on the same trolley together, I usually spend the whole trip texting Henry in all capital letters because I am so repulsed and this is ALL HENRY’S FAULT and this is also totally why I ended up getting sick last week too! Anyway, this guy does the same thing in a cycle, for the whole trip: really moist, mucous-y cough followed by what sounds identical to snorting wet gravel and then noisily SWALLOWING IT. Oh you guys, it makes me so angry and yes, I have shot him dirty looks because MAYBE STAY HOME IF YOU’RE THAT SICK. Or learn how to blow your disgusting nose, you fucking cockpig.
• On Monday, I had to pee really bad but when I got to the bathroom, my zipper was stuck so I had to go into Wendy’s office and have her unzip me. And then I was like “DON’T LOOK!” and she was like, “I’m not looking, you idiot!”

• Kara met me downtown after work on Tuesday and we went to Butcher and the Rye for dinner and drinks but really just drinks. I am suddenly really into beets and they have a beet salad there so Kara got stoked about that too and we both ordered it but were pretty disappointed at the ironic lack of beets. I mean, there were SOME but definitely not $10 worth. The drinks made up for it, even though my first one had scotch in it and Kara said, “I have never been able to like scotch” and then I said out loud, “You know, I have no idea if I like scotch either.” Turns out, no. No, I don’t really like it. “This tastes like meat,” I said. And then Kara, who has known me for quite some time now, understood that to mean that my drink tasted smoky.
  • My second drink was a ramos gin fizz and basically this is all I want to drink now. Maple latte, who?
  • Kara had a crush on the bartender and was sad that he didn’t talk to us more. Not even when she was half-slung across the bar, staring at him with googly eyes. :(
• I cried so much while watching Gracepoint and the Red Band Society that I actually wondered if I was pregnant.
  • (I’m not.)
• This morning while getting ready for work, I heard on the radio that Mike + the Mechanics are doing a 30th anniversary tour and I got abnormally excited about this. I called Henry 8934897263 times to tell him but he ignored my call 8934897263 times so then I texted him in all capital letters and then he FINALLY called me back and when I told him, he calmly asked, “When is it?” and I yelled, “MARCH 13TH CAN WE GO!?!??” He was like, “I don’t know! It’s only Oct—-” and then I hung up.
  • My Pappap had the Living Years cassette in his car and several times, he mentioned to me that that song reminded him of his father. After my Pappap died in ’96, I would sometimes listen to “The Living Years” just to make myself feel even more pain. I still can’t hear that song without getting a burning lump in my throat and doing an ugly-cry.
  • “Silent Running,” tho.

• A few months ago, I had a strong desire to play Clue but then I bitched about how badly I hate the new version of it. I hate board game updates! Good thing I ended up not spending $25 on one that I hate, because I found this old ass version at the flea market last weekend! For $3!! It smells like mad men!
  • Also at the flea market, in the span of about 5 seconds, Chooch asked for a cat figurine and shot gun. And we all know he’s not going to be shooting the cat figurine.
• OMGOMGOMG the freakiest thing happened to me last night! So a few months ago, my friend Kristy asked for volunteers to be a part of her costume for this year’s Zombie Fest. I said yes before I even knew what the costume was, because Kristy is awesome. Turns out, it’s the Golden Girls! I get to be Rose (the only non-zombie one, so let’s pray that this doesn’t jinx the universe and if it does, BLAME KRISTY!) and of course I waited until a week before to go out and look for a Rose Nylund-esque dress. Last night at Goodwill, I snapped a picture of one that seemed acceptable and texted it to Kristy who said, yes, it was very Rose-worthy. So right when I was taking it up to the register, this happened:

Seriously, Henry and I just stopped and stared at each other like WTFFFF and then I was fumbling for my phone because I knew there’d be at least one INSTAVID OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. I’m not kidding though, my hands were shaking. What are the odds?!!? I think this was only the second time in my life that I heard any version of this song outside of a television set.

• When Henry texts “inside the grocery store” I assumed he really means “inside the greasy whore” BECAUSE HE’S CHEATING ON ME ISN’T HE.
• Last night, I saw previews for a new MTV reality show called Slednecks about ASSHOLES WHO LIVE IN ALASKA. Et tu, MTV?! All this Alaskan shit on the TV is killing me.

• Marcy is still my BFF, in case you were wondering.
• That time I couldn’t remember the spider’s name in Charlotte’s Web.
• Glenn fans: I made Glenn laugh 4 times today. Like, really laugh and not that annoyed scoff that he typically does! Having a newborn in the house is clearly making him delirious. I mean, we even googled “urns” together today. That’s a lot of interaction for us.
  • One of the times he laughed really hard was when he asked me if I go to a certain Pat Catan’s (craft store) and I said “No, I don’t like that one” and he was like, “What, why? It’s new and so big.” “I just get bad vibes there,” I shrugged, which is actually a pretty serious thing but he LAUGHED like it was was the quirkiest thing he had ever heard.

• Started putting up some of Halloween decorations at work today! Mean Amber and Glenn are thrilled. Amber said that Champion Materia Morticia book smells really bad SO DON’T SMELL IT if you come over here.
  • I have so much more work to do.
• Tell me something about yourself!

Blog title is self-explanatory, I guess.

• The other night, HENRY made me take the trolley home from work because once he picked Chooch from school, he had to take him back to work with him because [insert boring Faygo saga that I wasn’t listening to]. By the time I came home, I was starving and couldn’t wait another minute for Henry so I decided to do that cooking thing. We had leftover vegetarian baked beans in a bowl in the fridge, so I decided to go old school and make some veggie dogs to go with it. My first obstacle was trying to pry one of the veggie dogs from the frozen lump of fake meat I pulled from the freezer. I tried a sharp knife even though I’m technically not allowed to handle knives; I tried slamming it on the counter; I tried breaking it over my knee, black belt-style; I tried loosening it with my hot, fat tears of frustrating. Finally I just ran it under hot water until the whole block was soggy enough for me to free a meatless link. UGH, COOKING IS HARD WORK! After all that struggle, I decided to take a short-cut and instead of heating the veggie dog and baked beans separately, I plopped the dog in the pool of beans and put the whole thing in the microwave together. PRO TIP: Don’t do this. I wound up with a bowl of baked beans that were freezing cold on one side, piping hot on the other, and one decidedly frozen-in-the-middle veggie dog. At this point, I was ready to eat my hair, so I just sat down and ate it, as is. It was disgusting. Two minutes after I finished it, Henry and Chooch came home and I got the “WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST WAIT!?!?” lecture. And then instead of commending me on at least trying to do something for myself, he called me an idiot. :(
• So Glenn and his wife had a girl two weeks ago! I had like 4 separate group texts going on with various work-friends because it was a Really Big Deal! The other day, Michele asked me if Glenn was talking about the new baby a lot (sadly, NOT named Erin) and I just laughed. Glenn is still Glenn: a non-talker. Last night, Bridget and I were both on late shift and she asked me if Glenn at least has pictures of the baby on his desk. I hadn’t noticed, so when I went back  to my desk, I stopped to check, and no.
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  No pictures. Yet, he still has the dead bug that Catherine left him. On a napkin. I guess that’s as personal as his effects get.

• While in Chicago last weekend, we Skyped with Chooch. (He has Skype on xbox so he can do it right on the TV.) As soon as it connected, our first image of Chooch was of him standing there, in nothing but underwear, arms spread out and stretching a blanket across his back. “WHAT ARE YOU, BUFFALO BILL?!” I cried, like he knew what I was talking about, but still—it was scary! Meanwhile, Henry’s mom Judy was sitting on the couch behind him, taking this all in, probably thinking she was in an episode of the Jetsons: “HOW IS MY SON TALKING TO ME THROUGH THE TELEVISION!? WELL, I’LL BE!”

• Hey, speaking of Buffalo Bill! I got a custom request for a serial killer wedding card the other night. The guy said it was for his singer, but when I initially read it, I thought it said “sister,” so I didn’t think anything of it. But Henry gets all of the non compos cards stuff sent to his phone, too, and he read it correctly and then called me the next morning from work and said, “Did you happen to look at that guy’s name? I think it’s GG Allin’s brother.” And by golly, I think he’s right. I posted about it on Facebook and my friend Octavia was like, “This is really cool but just the thought of GG Allin makes my belly hurt” and I was like “I know right, am I supposed to poop on the card before I mail it?” But in all seriousness, I’m always happy to be connected in any way to bands/music industry. Back when my Somnambulant shop was really thriving (2007-2009), I sold a couple paintings to a girl who worked at Dischord Records and I embarrassingly fan-girled on her.
  • On a side-note, it was weird-timing because we had just seen Billy Bragg at Riot Fest, and while he was one of the few good things that I was able to take from my relationship with Psycho Mike, it was still kind of painful to see him singing in front of me;  GG Allin was also someone that Mike was really into (I wasn’t though), so there’s been a lot of heavy, dark nostalgia hanging over me this week.
  • But yeah, I’m excited (albeit pretty pressured) to make this card for Merle!
• Nice Amber¹ brought me back this adorable candy clown yesterday on her break! No way can I ever eat it; he’s too cute! Also, props to Amber for being a super FB-sleuth and finding out that Glenn is on there! Although, he only has like 17 friends and appears to use it even less than Henry uses his. However, Amber also found that Glenn participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and I was so giddy over this that I seriously almost peed my pants at work. Good job, Amber!!

• Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about how our trashy neighbor screamed in my face but then the next day, our nice neighbor came over and made me feel so much better about life? Well, I saw her the other morning when I was coming back from taking Chooch to school and she said, “I can’t get over how much you and [Chooch] look alike. He’s always making these faces at me and I just want to pinch his cheeks because he’s so cute and now I feel like I want to do that to you, too. But…that would be weird.”This neighbor can stay on my street forever.

• How weird would it be if I bought an extra Emarosa album and had a giveaway on here for it? THAT’S HOW MUCH I BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL ALL LOVE THIS ALBUM, YOU GUYS UGHHHHH. I just want everyone to own it.
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  What if I have a giveaway with that and also other things, too? Like a painting? And I have an extra BFF brain necklace set that I bought last year and the seller forgot to engrave it so she told me to just keep that set and  then she sent me a new one because she is awesome and makes really cute things and one of you should have this because it’s honestly just sitting in a drawer in my coffee table, sad that it doesn’t have a pair of BFFs to wear it.

• Man, we were at Goodwill a few weeks ago looking for old baby dolls (for a friend) and I totally regret not buying this book. #bowlcuts4everyone

• Last spring, my friend Alex started a project with me and several other awesome Pittsburgh bloggers and it’s finally come to fruition, so I’m excited to share that on here very soon!
• Chris (yes, the same one who ABANDONED us at the Law Firm) came over the other night and within minutes, Chooch poached her. She is his friend, now. They played Minecraft together, you guys, so it’s all over. And then last night he sighed and said, “I just want Chris to come over again.” GOD, GET YOUR OWN FRIENDS!!!!!! Meanwhile, Henry was just happy that someone was here distracting me and Chooch so he was able to sneak off and go to bed at some super early, old person hour.
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• I have so much to get done this weekend and all I want to do is sit under a blanket and watch horror movies. Also, since when are post-mortem photographs so expensive!?!? Prices have gone way up since I last bought one, damn.

Have a seriously delightful weekend, my little ladylocks and mancakes.

• Today I was thinking about how I haven’t been able to read a book, or even a MAGAZINE, in months because my head feels so fuzzy. And then that made me do a search on flotation therapy, which I have been casually considering trying for a few years now because…help. I feel like Spencer Chamberlain from Underoath did this before writing an album? But maybe I’m just thinking that because he has chamber in his last name.
• We went to a potluck last Saturday at our friends Tim and Patty’s house. Henry made a lemon chess pie (god, yes) and also a mac n cheese that had expensive cheese, porcini mushrooms, and pumpkin ale in it. I wanted him to substitute the porcini mushrooms with wood ear mushrooms, as an homage to Patty’s birthday dinner last winter at Hokkaido. God, that was a fun dinner! And the potluck on Saturday was fun too! We all gorged ourselves like it was goddamn Thanksgiving, and lived to regret nothing. (Except maybe bringing Chooch, who acted like a brat.)
• Here’s a really original bullet point: where the hell did this summer go? Just once I would like to see winter breeze past us in the same speedy fashion. Fuck you, winter.
• Henry and I engaged in one of my favorite activities late Sunday night: watching horror porn and talking about old stuff. He told me about this one time when his ex-wife spit in his face and now I’m obsessed with it and have made him repeat the story at least 6 times since then. Sunday night was really nice. I want more. HEAR THAT, HENRY?
• I had some quiet time on Saturday and I spent it re-watching Twin Peaks and painting some of the characters. I’m really excited about this series of paintings! Twin Peaks was so great. I’ll post more about that later.
• Today, I made the last payment on our Riot Fest tickets! Ahhhhh! One more week! Every time I think about it, I get so emotional that I start to cry and Henry is just like, “Please kill me.”
• Henry and I have been heavily embroiled in a “To Pie Party or Not to Pie Party” debate. I think we’re, sadly, leaning toward “not to pie party.” Last year’s piestivies took so much out of me.
  • I have a theme though, in case I change my mind at the last minute.
• The day I learned that the game I played in elementary school gym class was actually called “Bombardment” and not “Bob Barker,” my whole world changed. It was almost as mind-blowing when I learned to read and realized that it was “grilled cheese” and not “girl cheese.” How stupid I felt about yelling at all those boys eating sandwiches I thought were for GIRLS ONLY. :(
  • The “Bombardment” awakening was honestly only a few years ago. I’m not embarrassed to tell you guys that.
• The other night, I told Chooch that I was pregnant and he got so excited. HAHA. I love doing that to him. But then he was like, “I knew you weren’t really pregnant because you’re way too skinny.” YOU GUYS. No one has ever, in my entire life, used the words “way too skinny” to describe me. CHOOCH, I FUCKING LOVE YOU. Even if I did have another baby, you would still be my favorite!

• Yesterday was one of those days when I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted. I thought that I wanted ice cream. But then we got to the ice cream place, I decided I didn’t see anything there that I wanted and Henry was like, “$#!&^@#$!” so Chooch got a hot dog and then, without saying a word, Henry drove to another ice cream place, where Chooch ordered a sundae and I decided that there still wasn’t anything that I wanted and that I felt so RUSHED to decide. Henry looked around exaggeratedly and said, “Who’s rushing there? There isn’t anybody else here!!” So we sat down at a table and watched Chooch eat his sundae and then I decided that maybe I wanted something but I wasn’t sure what, so I sent Henry back to the window to ask the ice cream lady a million questions on my behalf before finally settling on a strawberry shortcake which was pretty good but kind of not what I wanted at all! AND THEN I GOT SICK. Probably I just shouldn’t have ordered anything, if we’re being real with each other, because I was in a very Sybil-esque mood and nothing was going to make me happy.
  • While eating a sundae I didn’t want, I was watching people at the ice cream place. “I love how that lady is juggling a baby, an ice cream cone AND trying to get money out of her purse at the same time, yet her dad is over there barking at her to get more napkins. Get it yourself, motherfucker. Am I right?”Henry frowned and sadly said, “Yeah except…that’s what you guys do to me.”

• I got to see my old high school friend Stacey last week! She commissioned a painting from me for her baby’s nursery so when I brought it to her house, I got to see 3 of her 4 kids and it was wildly entertaining! (No sarcasm, seriously.) It made me kind of regret stopping at just one but now as I sit here typing this, my “One” is upstairs having a meltdown so those regrets are gone.
• Emarosa released a stream of their entire album yesterday and obviously I am smitten. I wish I knew how to say in English what they mean to me, instead of just hugging myself and making heart-eyes at everything. Because…that doesn’t translate well over the Internet. It’s interesting how some bands just hit that emotional sweet spot, and Emarosa is definitely one of those bands for me. We gots history, y’all. And it’s ironic to me that this has been the Summer of Emarosa, when I needed them the most. They sound-tracked yet another chapter to our story. You know, the one where the maids always win and the Queen loses her head. Sigh. I can tell this album is going to be my security blanket. I better buy two copies…
  • Poor Henry has been taking the brunt of this. I would be imploding if it wasn’t for him. <3
  • Except that he made my C-section incision hurt last night and then yelled at me when I said it hurt because supposedly since it’s been 8 years, it shouldn’t hurt anymore or something?! Ugh, fuck you, Henry. He was like, “Thank god it wasn’t a vaginal birth. We never would have had sex again.” He’s not wrong.
  • He just walked past me and shook his head because I’m listening to Emarosa again and making sad faces. SAD ERIN IS SAD OK.
• We were playing this game on xbox, Fibbage, on Sunday, where you make up lies to questions and then everyone has to guess which is the truth. One of the questions was something like “Who were people lobbying to get taxed because they are so annoying?” and Henry’s lie was “Erin Kelly.” :(
  • The actual answer was “hipsters.”
• Henry drove me to work today (yay!) and I freaked out because I thought I saw Knight from the Real World. Turns out it was not Knight from the Real World.
• And to cap off the day, I just came home from a coffee date/therapy session/laughathon with my friend Lisa and I gotta tell you, I feel a lot better about life right now. Everyone needs a friend like Lisa. We talked about the one time we went to the arts festival when we were 18 or 19 with two kids from her youth group and I gave them a cigarette when Lisa wasn’t looking and then pretended I didn’t know how young they were. “Yeah, and you were also flirting with one them the whole time,” Lisa sighed. TYPICAL ERIN, AMIRITE.

• OK. Thanks to the pumpkin spice horchata latte I guzzled at 8:30pm, I’m going to spend the next 3 hours painting more Twin Peaks characters. So far I have Log Lady, Agent Dale Cooper, Dead Laura Palmer and Doctor Jacoby! BUBBBYE.

• This summer has been weird. I’m still slightly disoriented because CHANGE and there also has been a void since I vowed to back off from county fairs since I almost died at one last summer. County fairs were my summertime livelihood and I have felt so empty these last few months.  And then we just haven’t had many free weekends to go toall of the small amusement parks like we usually do and Henry has been all “CONCERTS OR AMUSEMENT PARKS, PICK ONE” because he is theSTINGIEST DAD EVER. Fuck you, Henry.
  • But…at least it’s almost fall! And fall is always good. One day a few weeks ago, it was really chilly when I was outside on my break, and I swear I could smell fall in the air. It was amazing and made me smile, which probably looked annoying to all of the people around me who had Work Face on.
• Remember the Supposed Bomber? SAW HIM AGAIN TODAY! This time it was under a bridge and he looked like he was thinking about jumping into the river.
• 

• Robin Williams. Fuck,I’ve been trying to avoid this. I was with my friendElissa when I found out. It was last Monday evening and I had met her while she was out walking her dog,in order to give her Gina’s birthday present. About a minute before we parted ways, my friend Nina texted me and all it said was “Oh no, not Mrs.Doubtfire!” Somehow, I knew exactly what this meant but still thought to myself, “No.” As soon as I said goodbye toElissa, I pulled up Facebook (always the credible news source, right?) and one by one, people started posting links from ACTUAL credible news sources, confirming that it was true. It’s been a long time since I felt that up-ended over a celebrity’s death. Definitely not since Elliott Smith’s suicide/homicide in 2003 (it’s still a grisly mystery).
  • And before that, it wasTupac and Gianni Versace.
    • I was obsessed with Versace when I was in high school. My friend Lisa was actually the one who broke the news to me. She called me from the people’s house she nannied for (oh hay, awkward syntax, I still got it) and was like, “OMG I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…” I will never forget it: I was using the wall phone in the laundry room and literally slid down the wall until I was in a crumpled heap of despair on the floor. I watched a lot of Days of Our Lives back then, so I was theatrically prepared for this moment.
  • The very next morning, I was getting ready for work and Elliott Smith’s “Angeles” came on my Spotify playlist and of course the album cover is a picture of Matt Damon and Robin Williams from “Good Will Hunting” so I started crying my dumb cat eyes right off my face.
    • I have a lot to say about mental illness. How I can relate. How it doesn’t matter how many people are like, “I love you and you mean something to this world.” Sometimes, you just fucking feel really alone. Even in a roomful of people, I just feel really fucking alone. Not glorifying suicide, but I get it. I also get that there are ways to change it. And I have always opted to fight, because I’m a stubborn fucking bitch and that’s what we do. We fight and we get by. And sometimes we have to ask for help. I wear one of my To Write Love on Her Arms bracelets almost every day. It’s a good reminder. It’s Zoloft on my arm.
  • When Terri and Christian were here, we had a lengthy convo about Robin Williams movies while standing in the middle of the Exchange. I think we were trying to remember the name of Patch Adams, and Terri said that “Awakenings” is one of her favorite movies and I said that I had only seen it once, a long time ago, and that I would have to watch it again real soon. The day before that, we were in Dave’s Music Mine, and I held up the soundtrack for The Mirror Has Two Faces and admitted that I not only own it, but I still fucking love that Bryan Adams/Barbra Streisand duet from it. A little more than a week later, Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall (who was in The Mirror Has Two Faces!!!!) both died. TERRI AND I ARE KILLING PEOPLE.
  • I realized over the weekend that Chooch has never seen a Robin Williams movie, so I made him watch “Hook,” which I randomly selected on Netflix. He was pretty entranced throughthe whole thing, but at the end, at the VERY end, he stood up and cried, “Oh, some kid’s movie, MOMMY. There were stabbings and some kid died. A KID DIED. Yeah, great kids movie!” and then he stormed off.
    • Aside from that, he was convinced that the Lost Boys were shouting “bangarang” because of Skrillex.
  • No Robin Williams Glenns have been made yet. Too soon. But one day it will be time, and I will make a glorious collage of all the best Robin Williams. Because just one isn’t good enough. Not for him. :(
• Henry makes me a sandwich for lunch every day so that I won’t roam around downtown, playing tug-of-war with pigeons for bread. But yesterday, something felt off. The sandwich felt flatter yet heavier. I took it out of the Ziploc and it was soggy on one side, like practically wet. I smelled it, but my sense of smell is weird and I just couldn’t place it. I took a cautious bite and threw it to the side. Even the inside was wet! It felt heavy like a PB&J, but it wasn’t that! I texted Henry, panicked that I grabbed the wrong sandwich and I was eating some disgusting creation ofChooch’s BECAUSE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE DOES WHILEJUDY IS WATCHING HIM. Anyway, it turns out it was fig and cream cheese which is definitely something weird that I would like but I guess because I’m so used to cheese and fake meat everyday, I just wasn’tprepared. Similar to have something slipped in the wrong—-well, you get the idea. I was so angry about this sandwich, even after discussing with Chris how delicious figs and goat cheese sounds, that I totally laid into Henry when he picked me up from work and made sure he understood that he was never going to win Master Chef if he kept making me wet sandwiches with mystery ingredients. And then he was like, “YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN SANDWICHES FROM NOW ON.”
  • But guess what I’m eating right now? A cheese and fake meat sandwich that Henry made for me. Good one, Henry.
    • Today’s sandwich is fantastic, btw.
• Henry and I watched a series of Mr. Mister videos on YouTube last Friday. #foreplay And that’s how I learned that the first CD he ever bought was one of their albums! I can just hear him telling his mom about it. “Mommy, I bought this really swell compact disc by a musical group called The Mr. Misters!” And then feeling uncomfortable when “Broken Wings” comes on and he has a boner.
• All summer long, we were under the impression that Chooch goes back to school after Labor Day. Butthen Judy was talking to one of the neighbors and it came up off-handedly that school starts next Monday. So she told Henry and me and we were like, “No, that person is wrong because it’s after Labor Day” but then we decided to open the back to school packet that came in the mail and oh—it’s Monday. I guess that’s what we get for going by an 8-year-old’s word.
  • Guess who’s going back-to-school shopping tonight?
• I am unable to process everything that’s happening in Ferguson, but thank god Henry pretends to listen to me rant about it.
• On a lighter note, Mean Amber found this big bug thing on the floor so Catherine decided to leave it on Glenn’s desk, which is hilar but you KNOW that when he comes in tomorrow morning, I’m going to be the #1 suspect. And he gets here 2 and a half hours before me, which is ample time for him to retaliate. So…great guys. JUST GREAT.

• I kept stalking Wendy’s office because she told me the other day, “OH YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING IN MY FRUIT BOWL, FRIEND!” But whenever I would go over there, someone was always in there talking to her so then I’d go over and stand in front of Barb’s desk looking sad. So Barb tried to office me a plum and I snapped, “I DON’T WANT A PLUM I WANT A PLUOT!” Because those bitches are good. So finally I caught Wendy alone and said, “I don’t want to talk, I just came for some fruit!” and she was all gracious and sharing about it, but then all she had was an apple and some cuties! I took a cutie, but made sure to spit, “THANKS, BUT I WANTED A PLUOT” before storming back to my desk. UGHHHHH. TERRIBLE DAY.
• Last week, Chooch called a group of jaywalkers “a big dumb pile of bitches.” WHERE DOES HE GET IT WHO KNOWS.

And I will leave you with “Angeles” by Elliott Smith. The very thought of this song in my head makes me tear up.

I know. Motivationless isn’t a word. I get it. I scored a perfect on that dumb vocabulary quiz that’s going around Facebook, so there. But for the sake alliteration, god forbid, it is now.

Ugh. Anyway, here are some pictures of shit that’s been going that doesn’t involve my mind birthing droves of emo bands. That is to say: be thankful if you’re not Henry because I have been all kinds of hyper-dramatic and whiny lately.

1. PROJECTS:

I can’t tell you how many unfinished projects we’ve got laying around the house: things that need put together, things that need hung on the wall, things that are only half-painted. But, this is the age of Pinterest so I’m willing to wager that 80% of the people reading this are probably nodding their heads right now. BECAUSE YOU KNOW. I’ve been cracking down on this shit though, and I got Henry to finally take down the dingey dining room light that came with the house and, up until last week, had four different light bulbs in it, including those spiral-y lights that are so great for the environment but ugly as fuck. Anyway, the only solution I could see to dressing this bitch up was to spraypaint it with purple glitter and buy pretty light bulbs for it. And, since this was a light fixture that we needed reinstalled sooner rather than later, Henry actually got it done super fast and it looks like gorgeous, guys. Liberace would be proud:

Next up was this old Coca-Cola crate that I bought at a flea market in 2009 and has been sitting on a windowsill behind curtains ever since I finished painting it. Henry finally hung it up and now it doubles as a shelf! (Not shown: the two empty embalming fluid bottles which now perch majestically upon the crate’s lip.) I’m so happy it finally has a place!

 2. Marcy

Because…Marcy. <3

3. Super Stoked for Sibling Sesh!

My brother Corey recently came back from a kayaking adventure in Montana, so we met up last week at Gianna Via’s to talk about it over some dinner. I had a pumpkin martini and it was great, but now I’m in an autumn mindset and want to go to haunted houses STAT. Anyway, Corey has this really loud, boisterous laugh sometimes and it came out a lot over dinner, which instantly put me in the best mood. KELLY SIBS, WHUT:

4. Weird Fruit

One of my co-workers bought a pint of ground cherries at the farmer’s market that happens downtown once a week. She told me she only bought them because there were two hipster guys buying an armful of them, like it’s the Pabst of produce. They told her that they love ground cherries because they taste like pineapples and vanilla, depending on which hipster you were asking. I was really anxious to try one and it excited me that each one came swathed in some weird paper-like wrapper that first needed to be peeled off. At first I was like FUCK YES this is great and I emailed the bearer of ground cherries to express to her my gratitude for the gift of fruit. I ended the email with #blessed but then deleted it because who knows. She told me to just take them because no one else liked them. I thought they were great, I said! But then the more I ate, the more I realized they tasted like semi-sweet tomatillas and now I don’t like them anymore.

5. Geese Police:

Apparently in Pittsburgh, this is a necessary thing.

 6. Zombie Luau!

I met Kristy at a zombie luau this past Saturday night. My work friend Patty was also there so that was nice. She even scored me a cigarette later in the night, which Kristy and I passed back and forth at the bar like we were in 7th grade, smoking in the locker room. So sad.

Kristy went as a zombie tiki cocktail. I went as a casual passer-by with a limp, because I didn’t have it in to me to throw together a costume and I had hurt my foot earlier that day in the cemetery. There was a hula hooping contest, which Kristy got suckered into but I ran away because no. It was the after party for Horror Realm, which is a horror convention here in Pittsburgh. Lew Temple was hanging out, and I was internally very excited about this but I don’t really know why?

And thank god, Frankenberry was there! (Spoiler Alert: he won the costume contest.)

7. Mike the High Waiter

Hey man, I’ve been meaning to finish recapping the time I got to spend with my pals Terri and Christian a few weeks ago, but I think I’ve been suffering some sort of withdrawals. I hate goodbyes! But anyway, the last night they were here, we all went to dinner at the Double Wide Grill which has a decent meatless offering. Henry was concerned because the few times we had gone there in the past, we had horrendous service. But I figured enough time had past that we should be in the clear.

Wrong.

Our waiter Mike stumbled over to us and began mumbling incoherently about the weather while essentially pretending to take our drink orders. I’d like to have seen what he was actually writing on his pad, I have a feeling it was akin to the clock that Will Graham draws in “Hannibal.”

After coughing on the side of Terri’s neck 4 times, he did a quick shuffle away from our table before getting everyone’s drink order, and we all just kind of  sat there stunned.

“Well….I’m glad this at least wasn’t your FIRST impression of Pittsburgh?” I threw out there hopefully.

Then we got a new waiter and figured Mike was probably puking on some homeless guy’s cardboard house by then. 

Terri and I both ordered a vegetarian TV dinner, which was novel and mostly good. I was mad because the grits in the picture on the menu had blueberries on them, not cheese. BUT WHATEVER. I think my favorite part of the dinner was watching Christian longingly eye up the puzzles on Chooch’s placemat, before finally snatching up a crayon and solving one of the word scrambles with great satisfaction and relief.

Afterward, we walked to the Milkshake Factory, because that’s where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes used to go when Tom was here filming “Jack Reacher” so that seemed like a good tourist attraction, somehow. I’m really bad at this.

Then Chooch became obsessed with karate and wanted to pose for a picture in front of some studio with some Happy Buddha statue, which he pointed out has “man boobs like Henry.”

“Dude,” Terri laughed at Henry. “You’re a saint!”

“Here’s Henry,” Christian said pointing at a spot on the wall. “And here’s the rest of the world,” he pointed to his umbrella, before beating the aforementioned “Henry” spot on the wall. And even Henry laughed at that, because it’s true!

I miss those guys!

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.