Henry and I waited until 9pm last night to get shit for the Easter basket. I mean! To tell the Easter Bunny what Chooch wanted.

Not that it mattered, because the first thing he went for was the one thing I actually had bought well in advance – a pull-apart zombie doll from Think Geek. He hasn’t put it down since, except for the 2 seconds it takes it him to pillage a package of chocolate dinosaur eggs.

“How did the Easter Bunny know?

” Chooch exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting so long for this!” Meanwhile, the box it was shipped in had been sitting on the coffee table for like, three weeks.

We sat next to Jesus at an ECHL hockey game last night, so I’m especially feeling it today.

I think Marcy’s a little dejected because ever since Chooch was born, the frequency of me shoving a camera in her face waned a bit. Or maybe she’s happy about that, but I DOUBT it.

She went to Pampered Pet for a little groom-session on Saturday morning, so she’s been looking real luxurious and I couldn’t resist shoving her inside a photoshoot oven last night. Unfortunately for Marcy’s son Don, the battery died during Marcy’s sesh. I had big plans of wrapping his head in a babushka but I guess I’ll do that tonight since I have no job again.

I know it’s horrible to play favorites, but of my four cats, Marcy’s IT. She’s the equivalent of poking a hornets nest. I feel like my reflexes are outstanding because of her.

Anyone who meets her usually leaves with a strong feeling of either love or hate. You know who really loves Marcy? My friends Bill and Jessi, who were actually just here last week for a quick visit on their way back to Michigan. Bill can never resist dangling his hand in front of her, which inevitably gets him maimed, and then you have Jessi crying and screaming, “Billy! Why do you have to touch her?! You know she’s going to attack! I hate that cat so much!”

When they were visiting in October, Jessi was trying to use our computer to finalize some wedding stuff;  Marcy jumped onboard and sat near the keyboard, daring Jessi to extend her fingers. Marcy was glaring and growling, and Jessi was yelling for me to come stop the madness, but I just sat on the couch and watched. It was exciting!

Remarkably, she hasn’t attacked Chooch yet. She has just recently got to the point where if he approaches her daintily (which is a feat for him), she will allow him to give her a small goodnight peck on her head. But she’s not happy about it. I think she knows that if she ever hurt Chooch, Henry would punt her out the front door (and then I would leave Henry). So when Chooch screeches, “Marcy!!!!111 Watch me play cars!!!!” she disgruntedly obliges. Mostly she sits stalk-still, hoping he’ll mistake her for a furry statue.

She draws blood from 8 out of 10 people who enter this house. Maybe you’ll be one of them.

I just love her so much!

My grandma was finally released from the nursing home yesterday. There’re both pros and cons to that, I guess, as nursing homes can be negligent and have proved that several times during her stay. However, being back home with my aunt Sharon isn’t really such a hot idea either, as she will likely fall right back into a routine of little movement and no outside interaction.

In any case, Sharon sought Henry’s shoveling skills so that the paramedics would be able to get my grandma safely into the house. Chooch and I went with him, because I had wanted to get some new pictures of Chooch anyway. It was sort of a bad idea. And I don’t even mean the fact that Chooch was being completely uncooperative and dickish with me. It was just sad being at that house. I grew up there, and to be outside of it, with the sunlight highlighting all the mossy overgrowth, broken lanterns, rusted railings and caved in gates? It was a bit much for me.  Especially when I followed Chooch into the backyard and saw how decrepit and forlorn the back patio looks, the pool nothing more than a gaping leaf-filled hole in the ground and the accompanying  shanny overtaken by weeds and God only knows what kind of wildlife.  That used to be the summer hot spot, right there, but since my Pappap died it has quite literally been consumed by nature. It breaks my heart to know that my kid will never get to have pool parties there like I did.

Maybe they should rent out their backyard to be used as a horror movie set. Because I honestly had the shivers being back there. And the back of the property is hugged by an expanse of woods, so God only knows how many bodies are buried there.  I used to walk out there daily when I was in high school and there were times when the hair on my arms would stand erect in ninety degree weather and my heels would instinctively fling me into a pirouette and send me running back home.

Chooch ate chicken nuggets while Henry teetered on the edge of Heart Attack Mountain in an attempt to break through blocks of ice on the front porch. Apparently, after the big fucking snowstorm that left Pittsburgh looking like Antarctica gave birth in its background, my aunt was trying to solve the problem by throwing salt on three feet of snow, which only resulted in layers of it melting and then freezing into sheets of ice. Which in turn became Henry’s problem. He should be used to cleaning up after me and my family by now, though. Like the time I tried to vacuum liquid from the bottom of the fridge and didn’t realize that it was pouring out of the hose and onto the kitchen floor behind me. Immediately became Henry’s problem.

While Henry was shoveling, Sharon called me from inside the house to inform me that Henry is an angel and that I better never let him go. This schmooze fest went on for a few minutes while I’m struggling to not blurt out, “He better never let ME go! I’m the awesome one in this arrangement!” but secretly I knew she was right. Goddammit. At one point she said he was god sent and I was like, “OK, I have to go.”

There’s a large shed that’s also in the back of the house. Chooch was like, “What the hell is this, a farm?” and I almost blurted out, “No, this is where I hid my boyfriend Mike when he ran away from home.” It was unlocked, but I was hesitant to open the door.

It just feels like everything is going to break if I touch it and I guess I would just rather remember it the way it used to be. And not some rotting cavity filled with broken down mowers, lawnchairs  and ATVs. And probably dead animals. Actually, after my Pappap died, a “family friend” broke into that shed and stole most of his stuff, anyway (and later fell from a ladder, broke his neck, and died). So it’s likely filled with nothing but stale air and shitty fucking karma.

He later bitched the whole way home because for some reason HIS PANTS WERE ALL WET, WAH.

I used to roller skate up and down this lane. There were speed bumps on it back then though, which my Pappap was responsible for. The story was that there was a family who lived at the end of the lane and their teenaged son used to get a little overzealous behind the wheel. Apparently he almost ran over my aunt Susie when she was a kid, so in went the speed bumps. Every one hated them, especially once my friends started driving, because no one ever thought to SLOW DOWN for the SPEED BUMPS and perhaps save the undercarriage of their cars, and I don’t know, a LIFE?

After my Pappap died, some of the neighbors got together and had the speed bumps taken out. Even though I had already moved off that street and into my own apartment by then, it really upset me. Like a piece of him had literally been ground into dust. Ew, I couldn’t stand it. I hate the fuckers who live on that street.

I shudder to think what will become of my grandparent’s house once my grandma is gone. Being there yesterday was kind of terrible.

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Because Henry was being a little angel by cleaning for game night (more on game night horrors later), I decided to do the grocery shopping. But really it was so I could use the shopping list tab in my Awesome Note app, which is so far my favorite app, aside from Words With Friends, which is apparently good for meeting future husbands on top of learning new two-letter words.

What you should know about me, and probably could have guessed, is that I am no grocery shopper. Basically, I’m a fat red “F” upon an essay on the topic of housewives. I mean, there was a time a year ago when I wanted Henry to make sugar cookies and he was all, “If you want cookies then get your jigglin’ ass to the store and buy the ingredients.” Even after writing it down, Janna and Blake still had to come with me to make sure I didn’t fuck it up. For Christ’s sake, this is what my fridge used to look like pre-Henry:

(Lol @ Zima. That was probably for Janna.)

So yesterday I made Alisha go with me. I didn’t need a lot of stuff. In fact, I had given myself a budget, which I never actually put a number to, but just kept chanting ‘budget budget budget” in my mind as I roamed sadly through aisles of shit you can make food with. Alisha is pretty no-nonsense when it comes to shopping, so I sort of felt safe. I was even really impressed when I called Henry to see if he wanted me to get stuff for spinach dip and Alisha already knew how to make it!

And even where to get the ingredients! (Although I still felt it necessary to send Henry a photo of the packet of Knorr’s vegetable powder shit to make sure it was right.)

I was going to get salsa, but the kind I like is nearly $5 and I was like, “Oh, not from my checking account.” I’ll save that for Henry’s next trip. In another aisle, I found myself wondering how I got to the point where $3 for a bag of candy inspired me to clutch my heart. Jesus christ, I can’t tell  you how much I hate to spend money when it’s my own and not my mommy’s.

Every single person in that store I hated. Every last one of them. Were you at Giant Eagle in Brentwood, PA yesterday? Hated you. Handicapped? Still hated you. A baby? You were ugly and I hated you. I was sick of the squeaking wheels on my cart; sick of the ugly babies; sick of the women who camped out in the aisles with their carts, chatting to other uppity soccer moms they know from their swinger parties; sick of the $14.99 price tag on the Penguins coffee mug I was eyeing up (Alisha considered getting it for me for Christmas, saw the price, and then picked up a shot glass and said, “Uh, can you just drink your coffee out of this?

” and I thought, “Well, it’s better than the arsenic-laced thimble Henry pours my coffee in.” TIMES, THEY ARE TOUGH!).

Alisha even asked me if I was crying at one point.

But then I saw it. It was in the aisle with all the baking bullshit. We were there so Alisha could get marshmallows for rice krispie treats. It’s all because of Alisha that I found a bag of gigantic regular and strawberry marshmallows, made in some unknown, off-brand factory, probably in Arkansas, and ready for me to buy them for only .

99.

“What the fuck are you going to do with those?” Alisha asked hesitantly as I tossed them in the cart.

“Make something awesome,” I said. I mean, duh.

Then we had to go down a bunch of other aisles before checking out. “I love grocery shopping,” Alisha said, which you know warranted a look of incredulity from me. “It’s fun because you can find cool stuff.”

“That’s what European travel is for!” I sighed, moments before Alisha chose the WORST POSSIBLE LINE TO STAND IN and I started getting hot flashes and our cashier was some slow-as-shit young kid who I think might have been exisiting solely on canned cheese. I texted Henry and thanked him for not making me grocery shop on the regular. Can you imagine?? No wonder people say I don’t look my age yet – it’s because I’m not forced to supermarket sweep.

But it was all worth it, newly cultivated gray hairs and all, because I got to come home to a clean (semi-clean) house and make these beautiful marshmallow monsters that were supposed to serve as game night referrees but instead just sat on the coffee table, frosting-hair congealing into poison and candied eyeballs slowly sliding down their sugared faces. To tell the truth, I am quite smitten with them and plan on preserving them so that their friendly facades can be enjoyed by all for years to come. Amen.

Henry and Alisha kept giving me annoyed looks as I tediously labored over them in a very Dr. Frankenstein fashion. I like to pretend they’re my army. With their help, I’ll be mayor of this town. Or at the very least, the person who gets to ring the bell in the clock tower. After Henry builds me a clock tower.)

Because I’m obsessed, I tweeted another photo of them  today. Henry was sitting next to me and when the tweet came through to his phone (yes, he gets  my tweets to his phone; that’s TRU LUV), he glanced at it quickly then put his phone down.

“You didn’t look at the picture,” I whined, insulted.

“Um, I know what it is. It’s those stupid marshmallows. And they’re right there on the table.” OK it’s true, they were right in front of him. But my photo was from a different angle. No excuses.

The one on my right is my favorite. He’s my little edible scene kid! (Although, I wouldn’t actually eat these. Chooch helped with some and well, he touches his butt as often as a dog LICKS his butt. Also, I saw him lick a toothpick-arm before spearing it into the side of a monster.)

I might make more, turn them into ornaments and sell them on ETSY. LOOK OUT WORLD (and Regretsy).

Henry and I used to letterbox back in 2004. The definition of  “used to letterbox” can be loosely translated to mean: we did it 2 or 3 times in the span of a month before it made us hate each other even more.

Letterboxing is like the primordial version of geocaching, where you follow clues and natural landmarks to reach a treasure consisting of a tupperware box with a booklet and rubber stamp inside. Letterbox purists make their own rubber stamp to use as their signature inside each letterbox they find. You then scribble the date next to your marking and take the rubberstamp supplied inside the letterbox to stamp your own booklet. It’s kind of like getting a Passport stamped and using it to remember where you’ve been.

Maybe I’m making this up.

But the way Henry and I do it is this: pick a letterbox within Western Pennsylvania, print out the directions, argue the entire time about who’s right and who’s wrong and who should just get pushed into a ravine, find the letterbox and then remember how pointless it is when we:

• a. don’t have our own stamp because I justcan’t find enough time to carve that intricate design of Satan with a vagina
• b. always forget to bring a pen to write inside the booklet
• c. remember that it’s not actual treasure we’re scavenging for

And then it’s always awesome when we’re looking for a box that was planted in 2004 and almost none of the natural landmarks are still there. “Look for the gray bunny standing next to the bubbling brook.” Yeah, sorry, that bunny’s long been filleted and skinned by a serial killer in-training.

But letterboxing is a good poor man’s hobby, and since we are a house of poor (wo)men I thought that maybe it would be something fun to do with Chooch, who only vaguely cared that we were searching for “treasure” and then stopped caring altogether when we passed a playground on the way to the pathetic bounty-hiding park.

I wanted to hug this tree and say, “Don’t worry, tree. I’m po’, too. So much that I had to ask to postpone my art show because I have no money to make anything to, you know, SHOW.”

The first letterbox we found (where “we” is a pronoun for HENRY who monopolized the directions as usual) was on the side of a hill. I’m sure in the summer it’s a cake walk, but autumn’s moist leaves could make an ant hill treacherous. It’s a good thing I have an itchy (camera) trigger finger, because I totally knew Chooch would fall.

I can’t remember the name of the “park” this was at, other than it was in Shaler, PA and it was less of a park, more of a great place to get yourself raped, stabbed, and then thrown over a waterfall. It had a very ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha ambiance that I loved/hated. The path was swampy from the rain we got the night before and mama didn’t like that one bit. I’m such an indoorswoman that the tiniest burr on my shoe has me shrieking “GET IT OFF!” And Chooch did just that, calmly wrenching the burr from my laces, but not without giving me an annoyed scowl full of incredulity.

There was a lot of aimless trekking, in search of a path that had two fallen trees strewn across it. We never found the fallen trees. BECAUSE A SERIAL KILLER HAD ALREADY CHOPPED THEM UP TO USE AS FIREWOOD TO FUEL HIS BODY INCINERATOR.

This is my favorite picture because it details Henry abandoning his family. Apparently Chooch and I are “annoying.” I’m sorry, but when you’re deposited within an enclave of trees, you scream as loud as you can. Everyone knows that. The Girl Scouts teach you that. So SORRY if that’s ANNOYING to you.

This was the second box we found. I had to stick my hand under a crappy wooden bridge and yank it out. It was horrifying and I kept waiting for a troll to bite my hand and give me HIV. This was about the time Chooch realized that, what the fuck, letterboxing is a fucking crock.

Henry is a rubber stamp enthusiast and likes to thumb through the booklets to admire all the handiwork. It’s something he got into when he was in THE SERVICE and all his SERVICE BUDDIES were out getting laid. However, I have no idea what that is in the picture. It’s definitely not a rubber stamp, and looks like some crude sex drawing scribbled by a passing-by serial killer.

OVER IT.

This time, I at least had the foresight to bring some of my art cards with me, so I stuffed those in the Ziplock bags. Henry didn’t think it was a good idea, but whatever. He also didn’t like the way I jammed everything back into the baggie, left it unsealed, and then attempted to punch it all back into the letterbox.

So then he would have to yank it off me, take everything out and start from scratch. I wish he were that precise and anal about HOUSECLEANING and peeing INTO the toilet.

There were a lot of little bridges there. I think maybe that’s why this particular Letterbox locale was called Little Bridge something or other. Maybe? Yeah? Chooch almost fell off this bridge while I was snapping away. Don’t worry, he probably wouldn’t have died.

On the way back to the car, I was trailing back slightly and kept tapping Chooch on the head. He’s like Henry and has a strong threshhold for ignoring me, but eventually he cracked, spun around and yelled, “Would you stop doing that??”

“It’s not me, it was the man who was walking next to me,” I shrugged, like it was natural for a strange man to fall into cadence next to me without me screaming my face off.

“Oh, Chooch, we know that’s a lie, because if there was some man walking next to mommy—”

“I’d have run off with him by now,” I finished for Henry.

There was a moment of silence as Henry considered this. “Yeah. I guess it could go that way, too.”

I’m determined to plant my own letterbox someday, probably just in my backyard so I can sit on the porch and wait for idiots to come digging. The directions will be so simple:

• Start at Robin’s Meth Lab
• Walk approx. 100 feet
• When you hear what sounds unmistakably like a murder between brick walls, turn right down the driveway
• Pass the carelessly strewn hypodermic needle
• If you stumble upon a pretentious kerchiefed hipster wearing peddle-pushers and planting carrots in her trendy Devendra Banhart-soundtracked garden, you’ve clearly gone too far. (I really hate the girl two houses up from me, FYI. She is single handedly spearheading a movement to bring back the Donna Reed mentality in women and I’m just not down with that bullshit at all. I hope she rides her fucking vintage wicker-basketed bicycle into a goddamn cyclone that’s en route to 1959 where she can cook a meatloaf for someone who cares and let me stew in my anti-domestic bliss. FUCK GODDAMN SHIT.)

No words. Just pictures.

Henry and his sister want to give their mom pictures of all the kids for Christmas, so his sister asked me to take the pictures because she knows I’m a trillion times better than Henry.

While I’m good at bossing around Chooch and Blake for photos, I don’t really know Kelly’s kids all that well so I’m kind of shy and a lot awkward around them, which sucks because I had some good ideas I wanted to try out.

Because of this, Henry attempted to help me out by yelling directions to them, and all that  resulted in was really unnatural postionings, like he was aiming for the look of a studio family portrait shot in the 70s.

I fired him after this one. I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve by pulling his niece Stephanie out to the side like that, except inducing doubts of self-worth.

I’m amazed that Chooch stood still for all the group photos. And Blake too, for that matter.

“Call me.”

This is the only one I really like; it makes me want them to start a band.  I’d like to try it again some day, when the sun isn’t blinding everyone and my nerves don’t have me in a full nelson.

Sorry to inundate this blog with photos, but I haven’t felt like writing lately OKAY SUE ME. My habits are very cyclical. I go through writing spurts (which are stressful and sometimes I need to take a break from that bullshit when it ceases to bring me joy <–haha, wtf is wrong with me), art phases (I’ve been elbow-deep in custom paintings, so nothing new has been happening with that), and finally, when I get spare time and want to do something that brings me peace, I take pictures. I’m lucky to have a kid who not only doesn’t mind and is even starting to strike poses (bizarre ones at that), but even SUGGESTS WE GO TO THE CEMETERY. Oh heart, swell away.

So as soon as Henry came home from work yesterday, we ushered him right back out the door and straight to Allegheny Cemetery, where I got snap happy with Chooch in between him giving a gaggle of geese the taste of cardiac arrest and then peeing next to a crypt. Of course, I took a picture of that too (FROM THE BACK, CHILL OUT PEDOPHILE POLICE) and on the way home, I joked that I couldn’t wait for him to get a girlfriend (or hey, boyfriend, whatever makes him happy and less likely to spear me with a harpoon while I sleep). Chooch’s response, in a mockingly sing-song tone, was, “When I get a girlfriend I’m gonna PEE ON HER.” Have fun with that, ladies.

I wish Chooch wore a different flannel every day. I love boys in flannel! Henry doesn’t wear flannel. But if he did, it would probably be stupid and baggy, not fitted and scene.

Henry sucks.

Last August, I began speaking to my ex-bff Christina again. The months we didn’t speak provided an opportunity for me to properly cool down and get over the issue that started this whole dramafest.

But the best part about it is that she is SO APOLOGETIC and willing to do whatever it takes to earn my full forgiveness.

I mean, I guess that was always the way our friendship worked, but who’s keeping track.

We haven’t seen each other since last March, but she’s here now and in a few hours we’ll be leaving for Cleveland to see Brand New as a way-belated birthday present since she wasn’t around for the actual, incredibly anti-climatic birthday in July.

But first, in an effort to punish her a little further, I had her stuff herself into an old lady dress, pour fake blood on her face, and stand barefoot in my front yard in 40 degree temperatures at midnight.

My favorite part was when my neighbor who hates me came home from work to see me squatting in the front yard with spot lights, fake blood, and an obvious-lesbian made grotesquely (and begrudgingly) effeminate with the help of a .

99 thrift store dress.

Two things about me:

• I like taking photos of people
• I’m socially anxious at times

I do this weird thing where, even though I have a bit of social anxiety, I like to put myself in situations where I’m pushed out of my comfort level. I guess it’s a mild degree of self-torture or something. So a year ago, I decided to combine this with my love of photographing people and I placed an ad on Craigslist offering free publicity photos to local musicians. I guess I thought it would be interesting to have someone other than my poor guinea pig Blake to pose for me, but at the same wasn’t really expecting anyone to answer my ad since I’m not a professional photographer and only do this for kicks.

However, one-third of a local Pittsburgh hip hop group replied and said they were game. There were lots of texts exchanged, and even one meeting with one of the members, Mose, but no dates and times for a shoot were ever cemented. Nearly a year later, Mose contacted me and was all, “Hey let’s try this again,” and even though he still couldn’t get the rest of the group to commit, I finally met up with him yesterday at Arsenal Park and helped him out with some publicity shots for his solo work.

Mose made the experience very pleasant because he’s extremely easy to talk with and I wasn’t all, “OMG I’m going to have a panic attack.”

I’m a secret smoker, and Mose shared his cigarettes with me. Seriously, I refuse to smoke in front of Henry even though I was a smoker for the entire first half of our relationship. I quit when I got pregnant. I didn’t become a “recreational” smoker until I started working full time 6 months after Chooch was born, and then became embroiled in the suicidal underbelly of a creative non-fiction class at Pitt. It seriously pissed Henry off, but it kept my fingers from finding the handle of a hatchet. Blake will blatantly smoke right in front of Henry, but I always try and hide it behind my back. It’s pathetic, really. Like he’s my fucking father.

There’s more to come! He was a great sport, and his music is fantastic so you should all check it out!

AudibleSilence
RaKanMusik

And Henry pretends that he might actually have the will to kick a ball.

I asked Chooch to stop throwing dirt around, because he kept getting it in his eye, but mostly because I didn’t want it getting all over me.

Of course he’s going to say no. So when I ask him why, he very matter-of-factly mumbled, “I have to.

” I guess it’s kind of like when Henry asks me to stop punching him in the nads and I just can’t stop because there’s just something instilled in me saying that I have to do it.

Maybe I might die if I stop, who knows, but I do know that it feels good when my fist connects with that doughy sack of balls.

Taking your kid to the park is less about letting him embrace the great outdoors and more about letting him burn off energy so that maybe he might go to bed early and let mommy and daddy remember what it was like back before their home was infiltrated by Noggin and loud screams. Well, the Noggin part, anyway.

Smiling for the camera has taken on new meanings.

Little boy hands are so fucking cute! I want to eat them between slices of whole wheat! Ok, they’re practically an incubator for swine flu and e.coli, so maybe I’ll just admire from afar.

It was basically a reunion from last year’s trip to the fair, except Deanna joined our caravan and I was happy about that until she yelled at me for not wearing my gimp boot. She can be mean for such a little girl!

Shortly after having our hands kissed with the official “You’re at the Fair Now, Bitch” hand stamp (which was gooey and had the consistency of Pepto-Bismol commingling with ejaculate, and smelled like a vat of burnt rubber and a chemical explosion, thank you Deanna for making me smell it), we adopted our signature “We’re at the fair/amusement park/zoo/anywhere outside of the house” lost locust shuffle. Seriously, at one point I even said, “I feel like we spend 75% of the time just standing around awkwardly in every one’s way” to which Corey attached the very true addendum  “and judging everyone.”

Blake and Deanna quickly went off on their own, those lucky kids. Henry and I might have done that too, if we weren’t saddled with Chooch and a good eight years of burgeoning resentment for each other. So instead, Corey and I ran around riding rides that we knew would give us a hurtin’, while Janna and Henry played good parents and cheered for Chooch, who actually smiles on rides now and doesn’t look like he’s riding public transportation to work.

Meanwhile, I spied the nameless yellow ride of doom that left Corey and me with black and blue Rorsach patterns all over our bodies last year. This ride is so deceptive that I swear they purposely didn’t name it so as not to deter innocent riders. You might remember me crying about this ride last year, but here’s an excerpt of what I wrote:

Corey, Blake and I rode this one ride that looked really tame from the ground, but as soon as it started, centrifugal force (I was good at all the sciences but physics) slammed my fat ass into Corey and from there, we enjoyed the most painful, car-wreck-like ride of the fair. Janna, who was watching from the safety of the comfortable land, said it honestly looked like Corey was going to fall out. It was so painful that I was crying/laughing and then, and I’m not going to lie, a pee drop came out, so not only did I have to fight to stay alive, but I had to also spend the duration of that fucking piece of shit ride trying not to urinate on the entire fair below, like I was spraying the fall harvest or some shit. He got me back on another ride later, as my flesh was practically ribboned on the door of the rattling cage in which we were imprisoned.

After we disembarked, Corey and I adopted a zombied gait (I was essentially using both hands to coax my right leg forward); Blake was all, “WTF is wrong with you guys? That ride was fucking great, I enjoyed myself to the fullest.” BECAUSE HE SAT ALONE AND DID NOT HAVE THE OUTSTANDING OPPORTUNITY TO FEEL THE SENSATION OF MELDING WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.

Since it was just Corey and me riding it this time, we came up with the brilliant solution of sitting separately so no one would have to get squashed. Each car seats four: two in the front, two in the back. I climbed into the back and yanked the safety bar down across my lap. That’s when I realized that there’s a little metal nub which juts down from the middle of the bar, and I presume its function is to keep the riders separated (which in essence only makes for a more punishing cruise through the air). The nub in question came down right between my legs because I didn’t have the foresight to choose a side; I just plopped down right in the middle of the car. Corey, because we share  genes, did the same thing. I panicked, which is what I do on rides, and decided it would behoove me to ask the carny if I was going to die because of this.

As the carny approached to doublecheck the secureness of the safety bars, I thrusted my denim’d pelt toward him and asked, “Is it ok that this nub is between my legs?” while pointing at my crotch with one finger on each hand. And even while I was mid-vag lurch, I was already thinking to myself, “Why the fuck are you simulating porn for this lewd carny?

” If only I had worn my scrolling neon-lighted “INSERT DIRTY PEEN HERE XXX” booty shorts for the occasion.

Now, you can ask me over and over, “Why did you do that?” but my answer will always be, “I am unsure what possessed me to air-hump the carny and his faux Ray-Bans.” However, after taking in my spread thighs, he laughed and said, “It ain’t gonna hurt you, miss.”

AT LEAST HE DIDN’T CALL ME MA’AM.

Why I felt reassured at all is beyond me because hello, he’s a fucking carny and I’m pretty sure they’re required to fail a lie detector test before getting hired. Because as soon, and I mean AS SOON as that fucking piece of shit ride took flight, I was whipped to the right but the nub was preventing my left leg from following. I started screaming, “I’M BEING WISHBONED! STOP THE RIDE! YOU LIED, THIS HURTS!” but his answer to me was to pull a lever and let the oscillating begin.

The only way for my position on that ride to look natural was to stick my feet in some stirrups and shove a speculum up my vagina.

The comfort level probably would have been about the same. Except a pelvic exam is over way sooner than that cunty no-named yellow death trap, which I am now dubbing Aerial Pelvic Prod.

 When the ride came to a stop, the lecherous carny came around to release us from the yellow jaws. To me he asks (with a scandalous smile), “See, it didn’t hurt you, did it?

” I was about to argue that it did, but instead I laughed nervously and said, “No, you were right” because I really wasn’t trying to get dragged back to his shanty so he could perform some mystical vaginal massage on me, by which I mean rape. And everyone knows that carny rape only leads to triplets who heirs to the knife throwing booth and stink naturally of grease, Skoal and fried onions.

 Like this hottie!

Apparently, Bingo is why we were ditched by Blake and Deanna. Their expressions speak a thousand words.

Stuff that hot sausage in your hot sausage hole, Henry you dumb douchebarrel. I will say that Henry was not as pissy as he was last year. His ovarian cysts must not have been bursting that day. Maybe also because my aunt Sharon financed our fair field trip and he didn’t have to pick food scraps out of the clown-faced garbage cans.

Corey was so excited to win at this game. We’ll pretend like he was playing against seasoned veterans of the fairground water gun sport, and not, you know, my three-year-old son. Corey’s favorite part was totally when he tried to take his stuffed animal (which I hope is displayed proudly in his dorm room) off the bleached headed game master, who proceeded to tease Corey by raising it out of his reach. He only did that TEN TIMES so it didn’t get old or anything.

[There’s one more part to come. I’m trying not to inundate the Internet with a thousand pictures all at once. Also, I’m too lazy to write it all at once.]

Before I regale you with the story of our (not so) debaucherous trip to the Westmoreland County Fair last Wednesday, I feel that it’s prudent to backpedal and preface that yarn with another tale that is absolutely wrought with horror and gore.

It all happened in the wee hours of Sunday, August 23rd, 2009. My man-steed and I had gone a record of three hours without bickering and decided to call it a night while we were ahead. Ascending the stairs in tandem, Henry did the most unthinkable, unspeakable act of betrayal: HE BROKE MY TOE. I screamed louder than Paul Sheldon.

Let me try and  recreate the “accident” for you: As I was lifting my fragile, tender right foot off the step, Henry’s big fat ogre foot came thundering down from the red-skied heavens and plowed into the step with timing so perfect he managed to clip my delicate, wonderous pinky toe. Unable to stop the momentum, my foot continued its flight to the next step, which turned my pinky into the Stretch Armstrong for podophiliacs.

I’m not sure if your Bible ever told you this, but toes for some reason are not molded from Silly Putty and are not meant to be pulled taut like taffy.

Probably you think my first reaction was to decorate the atmosphere with the gyrating notes of my blood-curling scream and bulge my eyes out a la Loony Tunes. That was secondary. What happened first was that my body petrified into solid shock (I think a crumb or two of my person even fell off) and I locked eyes with Henry for what seemed like three entire Degrassi episodes as I witnessed the worst sound ever (on par with Jessica Simpson’s country effort).

Try to remember that time you were in Milwaukee, visiting your friend Jeffrey Dahmer, that dapper cannibalistic prince. If your memory is nimble, you’ll surely remember sitting on his plaid La-Z-Boy watching the Wheel of Fortune, while he was busy in the kitchen doing prep work for the dinner party you were co-hosting later that night. And how could you forget when you heard the snap, crackle pop of what you assumed at the time was Jeffie cracking crab legs but later learned it was actually the soundtrack orchestrated only from the cleaving  of cartilage and breaking of bones that can and will occur when yanking off human toes with a nutcracker? Is it all coming back to you now? Are you fingering the zipper-like scar left on your asscheek, a treasured curio on your flesh from when Jeffrey tried to make an after dinner Andes Candy out of a sheath of your epidermis?  Well, stop that and go back to thinking of the sound of that dead body being mutilated on the cutting board.

Because that’s the sound my toe made.

I remained paralyzed on the steps for a half hour, wincing and cowering like an abused mutt each time Henry attempted to hook his arms under my pits and drag me up to bed (he taffied my toe, remember). And then I proceeded to act like a cripple for a fortnight (I’m lying; I don’t even know what a fortnight is. I’m dumbzzzz), refusing to leave the house and hopping to and fro on my left leg.

And now you are fully informed and brought to date.  Fairwell  now.

It was 4pm on Wednesday and we were getting ready to depart for the fair. Nothing aside from an air cast had even so much as grazed my right foot since The Accident, and I was still limping, but nothing was going to stop me from stuffing my feet into regular street shoes. And of course I chose my sparkly silver Converse with the narrow toe, not “sneakers” like Janna suggested right before returning her attention to her collection of vintage After School Specials.

That actually said “nipples.” Seriously, deep fried nipples are way better than you’d think, if you can get past the fact that the one you’re eating could be the leftover areola of a murdered stripper. Same texture as cheese curds.

After completing my mono-ped voyage down the steps, I collapsed into a sniveling heap at the bottom. “I can’t go!” I wailed. “It hurts too much to wallllllk!!!”

And then this scintillating exchange occurred:

Henry: “Wear the air cast.”

Me, with arm slung across forehead: “NO THAT’S SO DUMB!”

Henry: “Well, at least you’ll be able to walk.”

Me: “I would rather be in pain.”

Henry: “You worry too much about how you’re going to look! No one is going to care if you’re wearing a boot on your foot. When I’m out and I see someone in a cast or something, I don’t think it’s funny or anything like that.”

Me,considering this and then upchucking a laugh that stirred Satan from his afternoon Poker tourny with Hitler, Judas and Sarah Palin (she has a visitor’s pass):  “Oh. Well, I do.”

Henry, throwing his hands up in defeat: “WELL THEN YOU DESERVE IT.”

In the end, I wore my Converse and spent the evening hobbling around the fairgrounds in excruciating pain and perpetually chanting “Ow, ow” because god forbid some beer tee-sporting hick with a prison tattoo might think I had a club foot.

Now I’m tired of typing so ciao for now.

Fuck. I love this kid.