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

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

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

 Future Patrick

 Present Day Patrick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcy and her idol, Hannibal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANTHONY FUCKING GREEN <3

OMG, it’s Friday and I have some shit to get off my chest. TGFB (thank God for blogging?).

FIVE:

My friend Alex is hosting another Pittsburgh Guest Blogging thingie on April 1st and I stupidly signed up for it and now I’m all stressed out because I have no idea what to write, as usual. What should I write about!? My hopes and dreams? Places in Brookline where you MIGHT not find a discarded hypodermic needle? That time I robbed graves? Who even knows. I looked at the list of participants and naturally I only know 1% of the list because I’m a blogging recluse, and that gives me this weird Internet stage fright. Part of me is saying, “Try to be a normal person, Erin. Write something without swearing, Erin. MAKE SENSE FOR ONCE, ERIN.”

So, I’m going to leave it up to you: what should I ramble on about for my guest post on some poor man’s blog? Please, someone tell me before I ask Craigslist or call a party line.

FOUR:

ANDREA had to go and get me all worked up the other night by instigating my hatred for Alaska. She might be the worst BFF I’ve ever had! Now I’m all stressed out again. I feel like the climax of my life is going to be where Henry drugs me and when I wake up, he finally proposes to me then and in the same breath he’s all like, “SURPRISE YOU’RE IN ALASKA!” and then I fall off some disgusting Alaskan cliff into a sea of sickening glaciers because, why wouldn’t I?  That’s my life.

THREE:

Something happened to Chooch’s finger at some point yesterday. I know this because as soon as I got in the car last night after work, Chooch was basically passed out on the backseat from loss of imaginary blood, whining, “OW MY FINGER” every time the car hit a pot hole. (Which is a lot. This is Pittsburgh.) I didn’t bother to ask what happened because HI I HAVE MY OWN PROBLEMS.

He came downstairs at 11:00PM while Henry and I were watching The Returned (which is a FRENCH TV show so there could be nudity at any given moment) and started whining about needing another Bandaid and I ignored him because Henry was there so…get the fuck up and bandage your son, motherfucker.

This morning, it was apparently still an issue? WTF happened to my kid’s finger?! Apparently not all that much. According to Henry, it’s only a hangnail wound. But you would have thought the entire thing had been blown off by a grenade the way he was carrying on every time his finger touched the water this morning! And then the whole way to school, he was making this anguished face and dry-crying, which is so annoying to me because obviously I’m the only person who can pull that off, and I kept begging him to stop looking like that in case god forbid someone sitting in traffic mistook it as abuse. So I kept trying to put my arm around him to comfort him (OVER A FUCKING HANG NAIL) and he was all, “OW! GET OFF ME! OW!” So I snapped and said, “For Christ’s sake, there is no way that hurts that bad! I get paper cuts almost everyday and I don’t run around acting like that….oh. Never mind.”

I gave him an extra maternal hug when we got to the school, making sure the principal saw, too, because I didn’t maim my kid’s fingertip, OK?!

A short reprieve from incessant bitching. Thank god for teeth to brush.

TWO:

My friend Wendy is a Stella & Dot…consultant? Stylist? She sells jewelry. It’s a pretty fun line—if not severely lacking in rings with teeth and Jonny Craig’s face beneath resin—and I’ve been promising her that I would host a party, so I’m finally doing that in two weeks. Today at work, we sat down in her office to create the Facebook event thing, which she wrote and I kept saying, “Please don’t write that…everyone is going to know I didn’t write this….”‘redefine her style sessions’? What does that even mean!?” At least the event name is “Henry’s Stella and Dot Trunk Show” and she listened to me when, after she typed the line “my friend Wendy,” I told her to put quotes around the word “friend.”

It was really hard for me to sit there and watch Wendy create this event on my behalf because I’m such a control freak (only over weird things though; nothing important). My style is just a little more biting and derisive than hers; the way she wrote it made it sound like I was actually being nice to my friends and excited to see them, like “come on by and share some laughs!” WTF. I don’t want to share my laughs. Those are mine. Get your own. I kept thinking, “OK, here’s where I would have said something terrible about Janna. And right here is where I would have used some outdated LOLspeak and an obscure pop culture reference. OK, she emasculated Henry at least.”

I kind of wanted to write the party info as a free-style gangsta rap about how there are 99 ways to wear a scarf and around a dead man’s dick might be one.

I’m afraid this could be the gateway into harder hostess parties, like I might wake up one day and crave crudités and Tupperware towers. And you know what comes next. Reading cookbooks. Gross.

ONE:

CARROT CAKE M&M’S. Big ups to my friends Monica and Chris for the hook-up. Henry and I couldn’t find them anywhere but then Monica was all, “They’re on my dining room table, duh.” She bought an extra bag and gave it to Chris to bring to work for me and I ate almost half the bag right away. IT TASTES JUST LIKE CARROT CAKE. The M&Ms. Not the bag. So now I’m desperate to buy all of the bags before they go away since they’re just an Easter novelty, waiting to go back to heaven with Jesus. :(

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when they’re gone, that’s how empty my life is right now.

Apologies for the capslock abuse, my people. I’m losing my mind. You know how I know for sure? I ALMOST TYPED “LOOSING.”

Every damn day.

• Today, I feel alive. I can’t think of a better way to describe it; but the sun was out and it was balmy AND FRIDAY ON TOP OF ALL THAT. Plus everyone at work was in a super good mood because basically everyone had Really Exciting Plans after work. You know, everyone except us late shift people. But whatever, at least I got a free lunch today.
• I got a free lunch today! Some of us went to Penn Ave Fish Company with the two Australians and the department boss ended up coming along too and she generously picked up the tab. It was exciting for me because I ordered a salmon sandwich, and when the waitress asked me how I wanted it done, I knew to say “medium” because that’s how Henry answers that question on my behalf. Then my co-worker Cheryl was asked the same question and was like, “What do you mean? I want it cooked” and then proceeded to talk for another 5 minutes about how she’s never been asked that and I was internally gloating because duh.
• I watched the first episode of season 2 of Hannibal today and realized that I somehow missed the last episode of season 1 because I was pretty fucking lost. <–I’M SO INTERESTING!
  • You know what else I watched this week? (OMG TV TALK!) I watched “Those Who Kill” which apparently has received abysmal reviews but I actually really liked it and not just because it was filmed in Pittsburgh, which I hadn’t even heard about until recently when I saw an article where Chloe Sevigny was raving about Pittsburgh. “I had no idea she was here!” I cried to Henry. “Yeah, I can’t believe she didn’t call you,” he mumbled. And then I asked him if he knew she was an intern for Sassy back in the day and he was like, “Why the fuck would I know that?” And I can’t believe I just typed so many sentences about her because honestly, I don’t really care about her either way. But I thought that show was good, so if you want to see what my dumb city looks like, you should watch it. It’s on A&E Monday nights after Bates Motel, word.

Every damn night.

•  For some reason, a lot of people at work this week asked me what I’m doing for St. Patrick’s Day. Because of my dumb name, I guess. (I’m not even Irish!) I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because of the time my step-dad threw a fork at me on St. Patrick’s Day. But instead of getting into some awkward yarn about abuse, I just told everyone that I was scarred from all the years of being made fun of for Erin Go “Bra.” (Except for Barb; she got the real story. It happened so long ago that I actually laugh when I tell it now but Barb had this horrified expression on her face. For some reason, that made me laugh harder.)

My Stern Profile (& Eyebrow Piercing Scar)

•  Every morning, I check the weather before Chooch and I step out into the shitty winter world. Yesterday’s weather didn’t seem too bone-chilling, so I told Chooch he could ditch the hat and gloves for once. And then we started walking and OMGCOLD. Our cheeks were red by the time we made it to school and I said, “I swear when I checked the weather, it said it was like 29 degrees!” “THAT WAS PROBABLY THE HIGH!” Chooch yelled at me. God, then check the weather yourself next time!!!
• Speaking of Chooch, I got him to agree to do a bi-monthly “Consulting Chooch” guest post, where he will answer questions and give life advice.
•   Last night, Henry and I were watching the hockey game when I shouted, “I KNOW WHAT I’M PAINTING NEXT! A sundae.” Henry mumbled, “Ok.” I went on to say, “But instead of a cherry, there’s going to be A NIPPLE on top!” Henry groaned. “No! It’s going to be black person’s nipple, with some of the skin still around it so it looks like chocolate syrup,” I added, actually crying at this point. “You’re disgusting,” Henry spat.
  • After painting an ice cream cone with teeth in it to add to the eyeball-laden cherry pie and my upcoming Fudge Nipple Sundae, I decided that this particular series of paintings should be called “From the Kitchen of Jeffrey Dahmer.” I’m pretty stoked on it.

Chooch finally got to bring home the “Self-Portrait” he did at school last fall and that motherfucker went right into a frame. I MEAN, LOOK AT IT. It’s so weird, so Chooch.

• The other night, my eyes accidentally looked at a headline that said Kim Kardashian is the Marilyn Monroe of our time. Am I dead?
• Sunday afternoon, Chooch came over to the couch and casually asked, “So…you watching the Oscars tonight? I heard Ellen is hosting again.” Um…no, and also, who are you? I guess people were chatting about it on Minecraft? I didn’t have to watch the Oscars anyway, because 3/4 of my Facebook feed and also my CNN notifications (WTF?) alerted me to everything I “missed.”
  • Like all that Idina Whatsherfuck bullshit. I started to wonder if the reason I just don’t get that whole Frozen/”Let It Go” fad is because I don’t have a kid, but then I remembered I have a kid. So…
• I was excited today at lunch to finally get a chance to ask the Boy Australian about being in a band (he was very vague about it though) and then I asked him if he knows Hands Like Houses BECAUSE THEY ARE FROM CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA SO HE MUST, RIGHT? No, he hasn’t heard of them. The scene kid in me says we can’t be friends, but the quasi-grown-up in me says to maybe give him another chance. He seems nice enough. I like the Girl One too! She is really cute and laughs a lot. I wonder if she goes into the bathroom and blogs about all the dumb things she hears Barb say all day long, though.
• Henry cleaned out my closet the other night (literally, I mean. I still have tons of metaphorical skeletons in my psychic closet, don’t worry) and kept texting me pictures of all the embarrassing shit he was finding, because my closet is essentially my childhood bedroom stuffed into a bunch of boxes. Like a petition I started in 8th grades when Jason Jones wouldn’t go out with me because “skaters don’t date wiggers” and I was like “OMG I am not a wigger” even though I totally was, I just used different names for it because that word is so fucking offensive. Meanwhile, Jason was really just trying to find a nice way of saying, “I don’t want to date you because you’re fat and have braces, but worst of all, YOU ARE REALLY FUCKING OBNOXIOUS.” Because I really was. Not anymore, though, right guys?
  • One night, Jason came up in conversation and I was telling Henry about how he left my school to go to [Insert Pittsburgh All Boys School] but I couldn’t find him on Facebook, and Henry was all, “Uh, did you try searching for “Jason Jones/[Insert Pittsburgh All Boys School]” AND BINGO, I FOUND HIM. Henry is the best stalker-partner. Anyway, BULLET DODGED for real. He’s weird-looking now. I think he probably was back then, too, honestly.

LOOK WHAT ELSE HENRY FOUND! A creepy nude painting that my death row pen pal Greg made for me in 2004! Henry was just as disgruntled about it this time around too, because “STOP GIVING PRISONERS PICTURES OF US!” I don’t know if I should be scared or 100% flattered that Greg had to imagine me naked in order to paint this. Don’t answer that.

• I feel like I should end on that note. How do you come back from that? You don’t.

 I really like doing these weekly bullet point posts, you guys. IT HELPS ME GET SOME SHIT OFF MY CHEST.

Eating a sopapilla at El Campesino. He’s obsessed with sopapillas ever since the time I randomly started shouting,”SOPAPILLA” in an Italian accent. Yes, I know sopapillas are Spanish, thanks.

• There is this lady that we see every morning on the walk to school and she is just the worst. Really miserable and rude to us, so we have ceased trying to eke a “good morning” from her. This particular lady walks with a cane, though it remains to be seen if she actually needs it (Henry thinks that she doesn’t). Chooch always wants to say something disparaging when we pass her, like the day when he overheard her talking to another parent and just about lost his mind because she won’t talk to US but she’ll talk to someone else? (Someday, he will understand it’s because we are the Brookline pariahs.) Anyway, I decided that we needed a nickname for her, because up until then we had just been calling her Cane Lady, which just isn’t nice, even though she is a Lady with a Cane. So I decided we should call her Candy, short for Candy Cane. It’s ironic because she is THE OPPOSITE OF SWEET, YOU GUYS. We had an encounter with her the other day, so Chooch said loudly, “THE LADY WITH THE CANE THAT WE CALL CANDY IS OVER THERE BY THAT CAR!” I had to smother him with my mittened hand and explain to him that HELLO that negates the whole point of a nickname. Later, I was telling Henry about this and how I chose the name “Candy” so we wouldn’t be obvious. “Yeah,” he said in a sigh steeped in sarcasm. “Because you two are NEVER obvious.”

My new favorite My Pretty Zombie eyeshadow: Celery & Bile!!

• There are two people from Australia being trained here at the Pittsburgh office for a few weeks, so that’s exciting. Whenever new people are hired in our department (which has a branch in Melbourne now), one of the managers will send an email telling us a little bit about that person. That’s how I learned a few weeks ago that the one Australian apparently was in A BAND and toured BRAZIL. Naturally, this appeals to me. When I saw the two Australians for the first time on Monday, I thought to myself, “Wow, the boy one really looks familiar” and then it occurred to me that this was because I had Googled him extensively to find out if he was in a cool band or something dumb (I didn’t find out, but I did see a picture of him drumming with long hair). I can’t wait to ask him if he likes Hands Like Houses (they are Australian!)! But that requires “talking to someone new” and I’m not sure I’m up for that.

There was a truck idling in front of our house and Marcy was trying to send it to Hell with her eyes.

• My friend Brandy is on her way to a Foreigner concert as I write this, and it inspired me to listen to them tonight at work, because I do love a good Foreigner jam. However, the volume was all the way up on my phone, so when I turned on the Spotify playlist, Foreigner came rocketing out of the speakers with no warning and I got all flustered and almost fell out of my chair as I struggled to turn it down even though it’s late shift at The Law Firm and no one is even around my office. I initially felt embarrassed for listening to Foreigner, but then I got over it because maybe I AM waiting for a girl like you.

Kendahl made me take a picture of my nails with candy. She’s going to be making her own nail polish and I can hardly wait!!

• My brother Corey and I are planning a trip together for late 2014/early 2015 and I’m beyond excited but also a little nervous because it’s me and Corey. The furthest we’ve ever gone on a trip together is Philly and we had to call Henry a thousand times for directions. I can’t believe Henry is “letting” me do this. He even found my passport for me. Wait. I think I see where this is going….
• Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to ice skate for the first time since I was 15. I sucked at it when I was 15, so this should be extremely dangerous and painful.

• A security guard just walked past my seemed pleased to hear “Jukebox Hero” playing. A live version, no less.
• The apples I’ve had this week have only been so-so.
• Today when Henry was driving me to work, he was forced to stop kind of far out at a red light. It was either stop with the front end of the car jutting out into the cross walk or run the light. Of course this happened just in time for some dumb bitch in a stupid white parka to cross the street in front of us and then make this dramatic “Now I have to walk a few inches to the right to get around your car” motion with her arms, followed by a “pushing back your car” mime. Then she SMILED AT US AND WAVED AND IT WAS TOTALLY SARCASTIC. Friends, the blood rushed to my face. I wanted to jump out of the car and charge after her, tackle her and smear mud on her shitty white parka. “LOOK AT HOW SMUGLY SHE WALKS!” I screamed at Henry, who had already moved past the incident and was trying to find Ted Nugent on the radio. It honestly ruined my afternoon. Especially because that’s totally the type of pedestrian I am, too. Ugh. I hate myself.
• Another Fitness Challenge is going to be happening here at The Law Firm in a few weeks and I am so stoked! My team this time is Debbie S., Chris and Nate and we are going to kill it. I hope.

I painted this today and Henry said when he saw it on Facebook, he thought it was a picture I got from the Internet because he has no faith in my artistic disabilities. I was offended for about 5 minutes until Andrea was all, “I WANT TO BUY THIS BEFORE SOME OTHER ASSHOLE DOES” so there, Henry. I have prints of it available on Etsy just in case anyone cares.

• Apparently my threshhold for Foreigner is 20 minutes so now I’m listening to my beloved 1980’s darkwave channel.
• Somehow soap got in my Smart Ones.
• You guys, I really have nothing else going on. This winter has been terrible as far as “doing things” goes and my mental stamina is at an all time low. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better, apparently. I have a ton of shit lined up for March, and none of those things better get fucked up by snow, that’s for sure.

Peace out, Girl Scout.

It’s Tuesday. Here is a blog post of no importance or actual substance. So basically, the usual.

• Went to Eat n Park with these dum-dums on Saturday, after patronizing the Castle Blood Valentine’s show (more on that later this week). I was watching Chooch at the salad bar and it was cracking me up so bad. Obviously he skips the lettuce and essentially every vegetable, because he’s 7 with horrible parents, but observing his serious concentration over the other offerings was almost too much. After piling his plate full of plain pasta, croutons, and chick peas, I watched as he dumped three heaping servings of shredded cheese on top of it all. And then, when he thought no one was looking, he went back for fourths. (Henry was too busy at the other end of the salad bar, loading up on pickled shit.)

Chooch sings Katy Perry songs because he knows how much I hate her and he is just that mean. We were cracking up in unison over something that Henry deemed inappropriate (could have been anything, really); Henry was trying to silence us with his Dad Eyes (yeah, good luck), and this of course made Chooch nearly vomit, so he excused himself to run off to the bathroom. When he came back, he said, “And by the way, I laughed so hard in the bathroom, that I puked.”

“Was anyone else in there!?” I laughed.

“No,” Chooch said wistfully. “I wish.”

And so we started cracking up all over again, which made Henry sigh and my stomach ache.

• Henry’s mom, back when she was in Van Halen. I cannot stop laughing at this picture! Henry said it was from around 1983, before he went to THE SERVICE. She is probably not smiling in any photo taken of her during the time he was IN THE SERVICE. She still recounts those days as though he had gone off to Vietnam.
• It snowed again last night/this morning so Chooch’s school was closed.
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  This is how I felt earlier today thanks to More Snow:

• But then this happened:

And I died at my desk. I DIED AT MY FUCKING DESK. Those are three of my favorite bands, on tour together. Cleveland, I will be all up in you on May 21st. (Already requested off work since my proposal of working a normal shift was denied and I will apparently just have to continue to request off every time I plan on going to a show.)

2014 might suck already for a plethora of reasons, but at least there are some good goddamn shows in my future. (Dance Gavin Dance is also going on tour in May!) I’m so excited to hear the new Emarosa album, that it is almost consuming my thoughts.

Hope comes in small doses sometimes.

• And with that, I leave you with a picture of some paper Chooch filled out for school.
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  It seems that I have lost a large chunk of my memory in which Henry married me and then I gave birth in Rome. Not shown: Chooch’s desire to fix the future (“Free iPads for everyone”) and his favorite food (“almond Hershey Kisses,” which is news to me).

• Henry said something kind of sweet to me today! I had just finished the most recent episode of Warped Roadies (it’s about Warped Tour roadies, you guys, in case you couldn’t tell) and it was heartbreaking. They do this thing called Living the Dream where they bring a terminally ill kid to Warped Tour and give them the VIP treatment. Kind of like an alternative Make a Wish, I guess. Anyway, this 29-year-old girl with some type of Stage 5 cancer just wanted to go to one last Warped Tour, so it was arranged that she and her husband were going to go and get to hang out with her favorite band The Summer Set (Chooch’s #2 band!), but then she FUCKING DIED a few days before it came to her town, UGH WTF IS THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN, I HATE YOU. Her husband decided that he would still go, just to honor her wish, and Henry said he would have done the same thing! As long as a Jonny Craig meet n’ greet wasn’t included, which I think is reasonable. Can you imagine, Henry going to Warped Tour even if I was dead? That would be the ultimate symbol of his unwavering devotion. So today, I like Henry.
• I also just finished reading “The Fault In Our Stars” so I’m really on a FUCK CANCER kick lately.
• You know how that man got shot and killed at the movie theater the other day all because he was texting his kid? That scares the fucking shit out of me. That is why when there is a disgusting asshole who is sitting behind me on the trolley, performing a snot symphony with his nose, I choose to clench my teeth and stare out the window, looking for Jonny Craig’s face in a cloud to grant me serenity. And then when people gasp and say, “That’s unacceptable, I would have punched him in the face, why didn’t you punch him in the face?” I just laugh. Because my luck, he would go from expelling snot at my head to expelling a bullet at my head. And even though I complain about my face a lot, I think I would hate it even more if it was completely blown off.  I think about all of the times in the past I’ve run my mouth in public, like the time I got in a heated verbal altercation with some drunk asshole at the House of Blues in Cleveland;  I think about the time in the high school when Janna pleaded with me to stop shouting at people from the car because I was going to get my head shot off (it’s on video, these exact words), and how fucking lucky I am that nothing ever escalated to the point of a weapon being drawn.  So I will continue to sit quietly and be submissive in this fucked up world of guns and knee-jerk violence.
• Chooch and I have gotten stuck walking to school with a neighbor-kid, and it’s not that I don’t like neighbor-kid except that I don’t like neighbor-kid. Mostly because he’s a kid. Anyway, it’s just annoying because I know that his parents couldn’t be arsed to walk MY kid to school if I needed them to, but whatever.  Instead of talking to them about it—because again: this is how people get their faces shot off—Chooch and I decided that we would just do the mature thing and attempt to dodge him. Some mornings it works. Some, not so much. I think he watches us from his window with binoculars. The other day, we avoided him, but on my way back, I happened to see him walking with his dad; they were still a few blocks away, so I once again did the mature thing and turned down another road so I wouldn’t have to walk past them. I figured I would just loop around and get back on the main road again after they had already passed, except what I didn’t account for was the fact that the roads get all weird and intersect-y back there so it took me kind of a long time to make my way back around, running in the rain under a heavy umbrella while panting a play-by-play to Henry over the phone to his canned responses of, “You’re an asshole. You’re retarded. You’re an idiot. Good for you.” Anyway, by the time I made it back around to the main road, I thought for sure that the dad would be on his way back from the school so I skidded to a halt at the corner of the sidewalk and peered to my right to see if he was coming. I was in the clear! But exactly as I went to turn left onto the main street, I noticed that HE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! I didn’t want to walk the rest of the way home behind him, because his house comes before mine so he would see me when he turned down his sidewalk, so I turned back onto the street I came off on and walked a ridiculously long way home along the street behind our houses just so I wouldn’t have to run into him. It was completely stupid. Yet extremely satisfying. Because, VICTORY.
  • Yesterday, we got busted and had to walk with neighbor-kid, who started a pissing match with me over who has seen more horror movies and I was like, “ARE WE REALLY DOING THIS RIGHT NOW OK FINE!” Chooch just kept sighing sadly by my side, but I couldn’t stop until I got in the last dig, you guys. You know me. I just couldn’t stop. Finally, n-k was like, “Well, have you seen Hex on Syfy?” and I said YES EVEN THOUGH I HAVEN’T WHAT HAS MY LIFE COME TO. I don’t even know what Hex is. Is it even a real thing?  I was so stressed out after this. Oh and now suddenly he watches The Walking Dead but last time Chooch asked him he said no and this time he was like, “I’ve been watching it since it started” and I bet he doesn’t even understand it. UGH KIDS.
  • Today, I was going to pretend like I broke my pelvis just to see if his dad would walk them both for once, like I was going to roll myself down the porch steps and see if the parents would even notice, but Chooch was like, “Let’s just go, please, this is bullshit who cares.” Anyway, n-k’s dad was outside letting his dog pee, and I thought we were in the clear because n-k was nowhere around, like maybe his mom had actually walked him or something or he had fallen ill with Lyingabouthorrormoviesitis. But then the dad turned his head up the street and screamed, “HEY [KID’S NAME]! COME BACK! THEY’RE RIGHT HERE!” and that is how I found out that he was going to walk to school alone so now I have mom-guilt. And then the dad thanked me profusely and was all, “He just loves walking with you guys!” Obviously because I’m awesome and kids fucking love me. So I was sort of nice to him this morning, because like my Voice of Reason (aka Henry) said: You don’t know what his home life is like. You wouldn’t want someone to ditch YOUR kid.
    • Ugh, Henry is totally right.
    • This is the shit no one warns you about before you become a parent.
    • Just be nice, Erin.
      • And I was nice today, I swear. I even helped him tie his dumb shoe.
    • What a fantastic example I’m setting for my kid. (“We are not taking applicants for our hifalutin’ Walking 2 Skool Club!” God, I’m such a fuckhead.)
      • Besides, we’re all walking to the same place, anyway right? Sigh.
• Another totally fucked up local murder/suicide happened, which inspired a dialogue between Henry and me, which is crazy because usually we only communicate via Post-It Notes and lines in the dirt. I was saying that I couldn’t imagine doing something like that so permanent, knowing I was leaving kids behind. “Chooch is the only reason I would never murder you,” I told Henry and he was all, “Oh wow. Thanks Chooch, I guess. Nice to know that’s the only reason.” And then I got scared because what if Henry gets some gnarly brain tumor, the kind that makes a docile person do things that leaves neighbors saying to the newspaper, “But he was such a nice, quiet man.” And then this tumor makes Henry snap and kill me?! I mean come on: it would have to be a tumor, and not the fact that I pushed him over the motherfucking edge with my Chinese water torture-like brand of emasculation and staunch refusal to let the man sleep.

Let’s end this depressing post on a good note with a picture of some dino ring holders I made last night while watching the Penguins beat the Crapitals:

(I mean, I feel like these are pretty self-explanatory, but there are tutorials all over the DIY blogosphere if anyone is inclined to make their own. If I can do them 100% on my own, so can your blind cat.)

• This isn’t really a resolution, but I decided that I want to try and fulfill some sort of book-reading quota this year like some of my more literate friends do, although I’m striving for a less-lofty number. Like, 30. Which would be a big increase from 2013’s whopping THREE BOOKS. And believe me, it’s not that I don’t like to read. I used to read tons. But I’ve fallen into that “I don’t have time” mindset which is bullshit because that’s what I used to say about exercising too, and now I make sure I carve out time every day for that. My other problem is that I have a hard time staying focused. It took me three weeks to read The Night Circus last month because I kept finding myself reading the same page like five times. Luminosity, here I come! (Or, Adderall if anyone has the hookup.)
  • I’m going to make an honest effort to update my Goodreads thingie diligently and not like, once every two years like I have been. I was scrolling through it the other night, looking for books that appealed to me, when I remembered that one of my friends is always insisting that we should read things that DON’T interest us as well, but you know what? I don’t fully agree with that. My time is valuable and I hate spending it on things I don’t give a shit about. The beauty of not being in school anymore is that we DON’T have to read shit we don’t want to read. Sure, sometimes it can turn out to be a happy accident; for example, I had to read “The Things They Carried” in an English Comp class at Pitt and I hated it for the entire first quarter of it, but then it ended up being pretty good and I didn’t hate it anymore. But where I am now in life, I just don’t have the patience to stick with a book if it doesn’t grab me at LEAST by page 50. Why sit down and force yourself to push through a book that is boring and just not your thing? No thanks, I want to read things that I can get lost in. So on that note, if you want to recommend some books that you think I might like and doesn’t read like a dildo manual and isn’t some dry piece of Brit Lit (because let’s face it, I’m no scholar), then please do!
• My friend Tammy got me this ring for Christmas and I love it so much:

• The other night in bed, Henry aggressively touched my Incision (from my C-section almost 8 years ago, and YES IT STILL EXISTS OK) and I flipped my shit. “That does NOT still hurt,” Henry patronized, because he’s a woman who has had a C-section and has obviously written e-books on it. I promised him that I can still feel pain there and he gave me this big lecture about how people were made to not remember pain and I yelled, “I REMEMBER EVERYTHING ABOUT MY PREGNANCY AND I CAN STILL FEEL IT. IT’S A GIFT!” Henry sighed and said, “You don’t have a gift.” “YOU’RE RIGHT—IT’S A CURSE!” I cried and he rolled over and went to sleep, mumbling something about how thank god I didn’t have a vaginal birth. I know, right? Sexless in the USA!
• I got in a fight on Facebook a little while ago, I forgot to mention that, probably because the rage was so blinding at the time. Some girl was all upset because a substitute teacher called her kid’s friend a dum-dum and most of the comments on her status update were from men in her family telling her to stop being so fucking sensitive, blah blah blah. But it made me think about how I would feel if a teacher called my kid a dum-dum, so I commented and said that I was just wondering what the context was, because I know that I sometimes will jokingly chide my kid if he, say, does something clumsy. Like, I’ll give him a little noogie and call him a dummy, you know? WHO DOESN’T DO THAT?! But I went on to say that kids should feel safe around their teachers, so if this teacher was saying that in a berating context, then yes, I would be pissed and upset too. So this d-bag Yinzer asshole is all, “LOOK AT WHAT YOU JUST SAID. KIDS SHOULD FEEL SAFE AROUND THEIR TEACHERS BUT YOU CALL YOUR KID NAMES? SHOULDN’T THEY FEEL SAFE AROUND THEIR PARENTS TO [SIC]?!?!” and more words jumbled together in nonsensical strands, and this was after he commented and said that she was being ridiculous for being upset with the teacher because “dum-dum” isn’t a bad word, but now that I commented, he clearly changed his mind. I replied and reiterated that when I call my kid “names,” it’s in jest and it’s pretty clear that I’m not trying to insult his intelligence in anger. We have a pretty light-hearted relationship, in case you haven’t noticed. So then Yinzer continued to fight with me, insinuating that I was a shitty parent, and essentially saying the EXACT SAME THING I SAID IN MY ORIGINAL COMMENT about how it would depend on how and why the teacher was saying it, and I was like, “Are you fucking kidding me, THAT’S WHAT I SAID” but I guess it was too hard for him to understand that since it wasn’t written in the style of a Yinzer Hick Motherfucker full of typos and double negatives. God, I hate Facebook.
• On a lighter note, here’s a picture of Henry eating a pretty donut:

• Is there a list of worst TV characters of all time? Is Michelle Tanner on it?

Ciao for now!

Just some pre-Christmas thoughts, HOPE THAT’S OK.

• I’m currently wrapped in a Domo blanket and listening to some sultry club remix of The Last Unicorn theme song. Just in case you wanted to mimic me.
• It was really nice being home from work last night and having the ability to watch a Penguins game in its entirety, except that Henry was sitting next to me, gossiping about his work people and I was just like, “Bitch, don’t you have some cookies to bake?” Not like I was missing much—we lost 0-5!!
• I hate that I think about work even when I’m not there. Like this morning, I was washing the dishes and found myself wondering if there is any disgusting pee-splash on any of the toilet seats there right now. My work friend Lauren started this thing called Project P (get it? It took me awhile, too) where we try to use process of elimination to peg the culprit. But one night last week, there was so much of it on one of the seats (always on the back part!! How is this happening?!), that I was just like, “No. This is not from a woman. There is clearly a tranny amongst us.” And you know, that’s fine, but be a sweetie…

Obligatory Almost Christmas Selfie

• Janna and I took Chooch to see Gremlins at the Hollywood Theater on Sunday. (Have you seen “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”? It’s the theater the Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes were filmed in and it’s right down the street from me because I live in Awesometown.) There was this one older lady sitting near us in the balcony and she was cracking the fuck up at parts that I never really found funny (like the whole “I hate Christmas because my dad snapped his neck in a chimney while impersonating Santa” monologue that always made me horrified and sad as a kid!) and I was just sitting there thinking, “Wow, this broad REALLY likes this movie.” Anyway, one of the puppeteers was there doing a Q&A session afterward, because she’s apparently from Pittsburgh and lives one town over from me. Janna and I were stoked to stick around and hear what she had to say (she designed Gizmo, for fuck’s sake!) but Chooch was like, “Let’s go let’s go let’s go I’m bored this sucks I hate you for doing this to me you ruined my life.” Eventually, he went and laid down on a couch in the back of the balcony because this bitch ain’t gon’ be controlled by no 7-year-old. Learn ye some patience, bitch-child. And of course the puppeteer was the laughing lady, so then it made a lot more sense. After she was done talking, we went to the lobby to see the pictures she brought with her, but I got all weird and awkward like I do because I didn’t have anything to say to her and I was afraid that if I got too close to where she was standing with the photos that I would be required to say something profound. I was whispering all of my fears to Janna right when the puppeteer (her name is Valerie, I guess I could have mentioned that) interrupted someone to say to me, “I really love your purse!” So then we talked about my purse while Chooch’s head was practically spewing brain matter. Oh, how he hates when people like my purse.
  • The first time I saw “Gremlins,” I was 4 or 5 and my Aunt Sharon took me to the theater to see it. I got scared when the gremlins hatched out of those gross cocoons and started to cry so Sharon had to take me out of the theater. A few days later, I decided I wanted to go back and try again and it quickly became one of my favorite childhood movies. That summer, I was going to Wildwood, NJ with my family and Sharon had left me a present in the backseat. It said not to open until we got to Wildwood, and every time we hit a bump in the road, the box would jostle and I would hear a tiny squeak from inside. I KNEW she had bought me a mogwai. I JUST KNEW IT! I was so fucking excited to get there and open it, but it was just a Gizmo stuffed animal that made noise when it was squeezed. :(
  • I still want a fucking mogwai. The closest I’ve come was our cat Speck/Nicotina. (RIP, babe.) And Marcy will forever remind me of Stripe.
  • Chooch obviously was not scared of Gremlins at all. We have the DVD and he was probably 3 or 4 when he first saw it, and he wasn’t scared then either. Valerie was asking everyone in the audience if they thought it was too scary for kids, but I just sat there like a deaf mute because god forbid I should ever speak up and contribute to conversations.
• We finally got a Christmas tree last Friday and decorated it when I came home from work, which of course led to arguments and tears because can’t we all just get along? Apparently, no. No, we cannot. Anyway, there is nothing notable about this year’s Christmas tree, but in keeping with tradition (The Liberatree, the Obestitree, the Mediocretree, the Obscenitree), it needed a name, so behold the Last Minutetree:

Marcy hates it all.

• We’re having a small Christmas Eve soiree here tonight so Henry is elbow-deep in party food preparations right now while I lounge around blowing on my nails. What? I did my part already: I got the Beverage Buffet all set up and decorated!
• Chooch and I were talking about what we’re going to eat at our annual Christmas Picnic in the cemetery tomorrow and we were trying to remember what we ate last year. “Well, I know what I had,” Chooch said. “Tantrum-on-a-stick.” AND IT’S TRUE, TOO. He was such a little jerk-off last year during our picnic, at least he’s now acknowledging it. Hope we get Peaceful Chooch tomorrow, and not Mr. Miserable:

• You would think today was Christmas Eve by the complete lack of interest everyone has in their work. (I mean, even moreso than usual.) Earlier, I listened to my office-neighbor Patrick watch vintage Japanese video game commercials on YouTube and then spend fifteen minutes obsessing over the name Fronia, which means “gentle” in case you were considering using that on your next goldfish. Both of these tangents were somehow perpetuated by Nate, so thank you for today’s entertainment. All of this was after Nate and Patrick had a heated dispute over the office heating system.
  • While I was writing this, I couldn’t remember the name “Fronia” but thank god Nate is still here so I went over and made him stop doing actual work. “Is this for the blog?” he asked, and then after I shook my head affimatively, he said, “Well then it’s important.” Nate Knows. (Knate Knows?)
• We finally got our Christmas tree last night.
• Henry and I had lots of fights in the last week!!
  • First, we fought because I was enraged at how poorly monitored the sidewalks have been during all this hazardous weather we’ve been having. Every day last week, Chooch and I practically ice-skated to school because dumb motherfuckers don’t know how to sprinkle salt on their dumb sidewalks. EVEN ERIN RACHELLE KELLY KNOWS HOW TO DO THAT! The one day it was REALLY BAD, so bad that I nearly turned around and took Chooch home. I saw numerous kids fall! I almost fell! On my way home, some mom had to take my hand and help me step off the curb that was coated in slick, solid ice and onto the street. I came home and screamed to Henry about it and he calmly said, “Well, people have 24 hours after it storms to shovel.” I countered with the fact that it had been like this for days and he was all, “Well, that’s because it keeps snowing, melting and then freezing.” LIKE IT AIN’T NO THANG. Oh, that’s because HE doesn’t have to walk—EVER. “I hope I break my face open,” I threatened. “And then I’m going to sue Brookline. No, I’m going to sue the entire city of Pittsburgh!” And Henry was all, “Good luck, you can’t sue them. It’s the home owners.” So I said I would sue the homeowner and he was all, “Good luck, they have 24 hours to shovel.” GO FUCK YOURSELF AND YOUR LAW KNOWLEDGE! I need to look into this, I think. Maybe there’s a lawyer here at the Law Firm that specializes in sidewalk maintenance ordinances.
    • THAT IS ALL ICE IN THAT PICTURE BELOW!! This particular stretch of pedestrian property belongs to some Yinzer sloth who sits on her front porch every morning slurping coffee out of her Stillers mug, sucking on a Newport, and BARKING DRAMA INTO HER PHONE. She was sitting there when I took this picture too and she can fuck right off, hopefully on her ass while sliding down her icy sidewalk. Yinzer cunt.
• 
  • Then Saturday morning we had a fight because I said Katy Perry sings like someone with Down Syndrome, because I’m sorry, but she’s terrible. AND I DON’T HATE POP MUSIC SO DON’T GIVE ME SHIT ABOUT HOW I’M A BEING A MUSIC SNOB. I like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha just fine. I just have very strong opinions about Katy Perry and I’m, to this day, baffled at how she was able to dupe the music industry. “That’s really mean,” Henry argued, appalled that I could make such comparisons. “Yeah, I know,” I shouted. “MEAN AGAINST ALL OF THE DOWN SYNDROME PEOPLE!” And for that I am deeply sorry’ I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said Bobcat Goldthwait instead. Did you know I’ve heard Katy Perry sing live before? It’s true. She was, for some fucked up reason, at Warped Tour in 2008 and we happened to be walking past the stage she was “performing” on and she sounded like the time Henry accidentally stepped on Marcy’s tail.
  • Our last big argument was Saturday night when I put on some fucked up TV show called Buying Alaska, which follows several idiots around that disgusting state of ALASKA while they look at sickening cabins in varying degrees of repulsion with gratuitous shots of blood-curdling GLACIERS and it only took about 2 seconds before I was screaming at the TV, and then of course Henry had to defend Alaska because he can never just be on my side. Here’s a tip: try buying a house in a state that’s not hideous.
  • I had to go to Chooch’s Christmas concert on Wednesday morning (haha, I “had” to go; I’m such a fantastic mom) and it was, you know, a Christmas concert. With kids. I prayed for the gods to take me peacefully. The music teacher at that school is so self-aggrandizing, like he’s conducting down at Heinz Hall and not at some city elementary school. And then he kept reminding us that it was a LIVE SHOW, in case some of us thought it was DVRd. So when some band kid needed his violin tuned, the music teacher was all, “HAHA what did I tell you? THIS IS A LIVE SHOW!” like we’re sitting in NBC Studios watching Carrie Underwood do that Sound of Music thing and he proceeds to explain to us the art of tuning a violin and like, no one gives a shit about your anecdotal interludes. We want to see our kids sing and then go the fuck home. And thank god they don’t perform in order, else I wouldn’t have had the chance to watch 10% of the 5th graders sing “Feliz Navidad” while the rest of them stood there stewing in racism. Finally, the second graders came out and sang “Jingle Bells” and Chooch fucking cracked up the whole time. I found out later that it was because his cougar girlfriend from last year had returned and was throwing him horns from the front row.
• Also on Wednesday, I was leaving the house to walk to the trolley stop when I realized that I shut the door behind me without grabbing the housekey. Which is no big deal usually, because it’s not like I ever come home from work to an empty house. But the problem was that I was fairly certain that I didn’t have any money on my trolley card thingie and my wallet was in my other purse in the house so I had no way of either adding money to my card or taking money out from the ATM and paying the old fashioned way. I had no way of knowing for sure though until I got to the trolley stop and checked my card balance on the fare machine thingie, and it was as I suspected: $0. Henry was like an hour away so that wasn’t an option. So then I attempted to panhandle which was a terrible idea and people were actually turning their backs to pretend that I didn’t exist, as if it wasn’t already awkward enough for me to have swallow my pride and ask for change. One old man was a total asshole to me and said in a super rude and condescending tone, “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.” So I explained to him one more time, while holding up my trolley fare card thing, that my balance was ZERO and that I didn’t have my WALLET on me and he just shook his head and laughed without mirth, like this generation gap is just so confusing to him and I’m probably actually asking him for the last $2.50 I need to finally be able to buy that crack rock on my Amazon wish list. Kids these days, blah blah blah. WELL I’M SORRY IF I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CUP TO SHAKE IN YOUR FACE, YOU GERIATRIC ASSHOLE. I hope your family puts you in a fucking home for Christmas. Anyway, SUPPOSEDLY no one around had any change, so I shuffled away from the trolley platform (one guy wished me luck at least), and then literally froze on the sidewalk. Because that’s how I handle things: I panic and shut down. Instead of calmly thinking of a plan B, I go straight to Plan STAND HERE AND THEN DIE. The worst part was that I had this big bag full of all the Secret Santa stuff that I was so excited for, and now I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to get to work! I was ready to call my boss Joy and tell her that I couldn’t pay for the trolley and therefor would be roaming around Dormont until Henry was done with work. But then I remembered that I know other people! So I called Janna and she was thankfully home and able to come pick me up and take me to work, THANK YOU JANNA OMG. But still, I totally lost it and openly wept as I walked back to my house to wait for her outside of the front door I was unable to unlock. I promise you that a lot of people witnessed this, so that was terrific. Then I got to go to work and act like I hadn’t just come in off the street after weeping like a crazy lady.
• Earlier, Chris and I had our hands held by Santa. Our work friend Lauren was asking us about it and at the same time Chris said it was creepy, I was saying that it was tender. Because tender is a word that I don’t get to say very often, and I will now always equate it with the comforting caress of Santa’s softly-gloved hands.
• I hope Jeff Gutt is OK. #ThingsIWouldHaveSaidIfILiveBloggedTheXFactorFinale
• Carlito’s Eulogy. #ThingsIWouldHaveSaidIfILiveBloggedTheXFactorFinale
• STFU Mario Lopez. #ThingsIWouldHaveSaidIfILiveBloggedTheXFactorFinale
• Thank god I DVRd this so I can fast forward through Lea Michele. And Pitbull. And One Direction. And the last half of this weird Leona Lewis Christmas song. #ThingsIWouldHaveSaidIfILiveBloggedTheXFactorFinale
• Why not just rename the show The Honda X Factor? #ThingsIWouldHaveSaidIfILiveBloggedTheXFactorFinale #AggressiveProductPlacement
• Had a talk yesterday with Sue and it looks like I might get to work on a fun little project where I actually get to be creative instead of telling people they’re not pushing the right button, which seems like all I do here anymore. So, fingers crossed on that.
• Last night when I was leaving work, some man approached me and asked me if I could spare fifty cents so he could get on the bus. I knew I didn’t have any change on me, but I told him to wait there and then I ran to where Henry was parked and started digging through the console until I had a fistful of nickels and dimes. “What are you doing!?” Henry asked me in that annoying squeal he gets when I’m doing something he doesn’t like. So I told him that man needed change and then Henry was even more annoyed and I stopped dead and hissed, “I KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE, OK!?” God, fuck you, Henry. Like he would know anything about what people like us go through everyday!
• Found my wallet in my huge fucking hobo purse later on Wednesday evening, so you know…turns out that whole panhandling incident didn’t need to happen. Um, but at least it gave Janna a chance to show for the millionth time what a great friend she is?
• If there’s one thing this whole Duck Dynasty fiasco has taught me, it’s that I’m friends with A LOT of radical homophobes on Facebook. I’ve been on a “hide from timeline” frenzy.
• In approximately 30 minutes, I’m done with work until next Thursday so I guess I better start getting into Christmas mode. We still haven’t really done any shopping! And we’re having a Christmas Eve party! I AM SO UNMOTIVATED SUDDENLY.