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.

I’m not really too much of a neat freak. Anyone who’s been to my house can testify that there is clutter on top of clutter on the coffee table, painting shit & packing supplies all over the dining room table, and toys emerging from every furniture orifice. But the one thing that really gets under my skin is a messy-mess. Play-Doh, the way it leaves trails of little colored turds all over the house. Pudding, the way it never makes it into my son’s mouth and falls into wet puddles on his clothes and the floor. I know that I can clean him off when he’s done, but it’s excruciating for me to have to watch the mess unfold right before my obsessive-complusive eyes.

Yet for some stupid ass reason, I decided (OF MY ACCORD) to squirt some of my paint on a pallette, slide some canvas under Chooch’s nose, and let him go to town. It was funny, because he gingerly dunked his fingers in the yellow and then he kind of just stood there, watching me suspiciously, as if he was waiting for me to freak out that he had sullied himself with the Devil’s art supplies.

But I breathed in real good (Blue’s Clues taught us to stop, breathe and think. It works well for Chooch, but mostly I still want to slaughter a hamlet, collect the eyelids of the citizens for pinata stuffers, and steal their crops for one last kick in the nuts) and reassured him that it was not a trick, that I really wanted him to paint.

And paint he did, for a good hour. And while I feverishly ripped off great lengths of paper towels and stopped him every ten minutes to wipe him down, I was pretty proud of myself for letting him go at it without getting too tightly wound. (And I’m pretty tightly wound to begin with.) And I wasn’t even too stage-mom about it!

Doesn’t he look exhausted here? Like he’s my little Etsy sweatshop worker. MORE PURPLE, YOU LITTLE SHIT! MAMA WANTS AT LEAST $100 FOR THIS SO YOU BETTER MAKE THIS LOOK BETTER THAN A POLLACK!

As he would smear the paint into patterns, he’d walk me through his process.

“This is a road. And this is Kara, and she’s standing with Janna’s parents.” I would like to make a note that my friend Kara hasn’t lived in Pittsburgh for about a year and a half, and though Chooch barely sees her he still includes her in his stories and art. Even after she broke his heart by getting married last summer!  I’m not sure if she should be touched or terrified, to be honest. He’s also obsessed with peeing in Kara’s potty, so now I’m worried that he’s going to grow up to be a serial killer with a penchant for leaving his mark in the toilets of his victims.

“I can’t believe she’s not bitching at me for making a mess.”

He seemed to really consider where he wanted to place each color, which impressed me. He’s much more methodical about it than I am. I’m just kind of spastic. He’s going to be so much better than me at everything. (I hope, anyway. Mama wants a beach house.)

I was bored on Sunday so I did what any other bored person would do: called up a friend, stuffed a Ketchup-smeared box over her head and stuck her in creepy area plethoric with bad vibes, foreboding “no trespassing” signs slapped all over a boarded up church, homicidal rustling in the woods, and mysterious intonations of a drum circle wafting over train tracks.

Coulterville is my favorite place to go to take pictures because it has it all: train tracks, fields overgrown with weeds, desolate churches, haunted cemeteries, winding backroads, and menacing bikers watching from a doorway to a secret bar. And who doesn’t like the sensation of being watched from the woods while they’re crouched down, taking photos, expecting a one-eyed survivor of a chemical spill wielding a machete and a surgical kit to lunge out of a slipshod outhouse.

Alisha was all, “OK, hurry please ” because not only was she too afraid of getting disemboweled and strung up in a tree, but because ketchup apparently attracts bugs.

She just wants a hug, ya’ll.

She wasn’t just posing here. This was a real life cower-in-the-corner moment. It’s creepy there! There are signs everywhere reminding us that we’re being caught on tape.

There weren’t security cameras there last time,  and I’ll tell you why they put cameras in there now: because someone finally believes me that there is Satanic activity taking place inside that church. I swear to god I was there one night a long time ago and my friend Justin and I saw a whole pack of Satanists and we knew they were Satanists because they were BALD and SCARY. Just like the Bible says! (Right? No?) We left that night really, really, really quick and remember shouting at him, “I came here to see ghosts, not a fucking sacrifice, what the fuck Justin??” and he was trying to rationalize it by saying, “Maybe they’re just here to play Release?” But you know, it was 10 years ago so maybe I could have made up that dialogue.

She is so happy we reunited last February.

I wanted her to jump in the creek and pretend like she was washed away by the strong current. Seriously, that was no bubbling brook. It had been raining all day and the water was rushing over the rocks; it was loud and frightening. Which was why I wanted her in it. In the name of art, you know?

SOME MORE HERE.

Anyway, I’m looking for volunteers to create some tableux vivants. Just for fun, you know? Keeps me off the drugs. But for some reason, every time I ask for volunteers, people get all apprehensive? Start saying they’re busy that day? When I haven’t even mentioned a date!

(Seriously, if you’re local and interested, hit me up. In photos, not sex. Clothed photos, not sexy photos. I”m not quite there yet.)

[Ed.Note: I’m going to continue posting photos that are too wide for my blog until Henry finally, after promising for a year, fixes the narrowness. I would do it myself, but last time I tried to do anything more hardcore than uploading a picture or adding to my blogroll, I deleted the entire thing.]

I woke up Saturday feeling all sorts of socially anxious and testy. Nothing in particular happened, but I had a long week of potty-training and I think that combined with my usual stressors set off some sort of synaptical brush fire which desperately begged to be doused with wine. So I canceled all of my weekend plans and tried to shut off my brain.

Sunday morning, Henry suggested that I spend some time alone, since my biggest gripe is, “I NEVER GET ANY TIME ALONE, MOTHERFUCKER.” He whisked Chooch off and I did some shit on the computer, watched some embarrassing reality TV (seeing Hulk Hogan cry is even a little awkward for ME), and I modeled some clothes for the cats. Their stares were blank and peppered with undulating question marks.

I lasted three hours. No, two and a half. And then I was fidgeting and sick of being in the house and absolutely itching for something, anything, to do. Stewing in a mindless muck on the couch does not become me. Henry and Chooch were summoned home, and we went for a little Sunday drive thing.

We ended up in some country-ghetto park out near Ambridge, PA. All the roads had clumbs of weeds ripping through the cracked asphalt and I’m fairly certain it is THE PERFECT place to don a letterman jacket and rape a bitch and I kept getting little chills molesting my spine, up and down and all around.

We found an isolated pavilion that had a rusty, rainbow-painted swing set and a SEESAW which I swear to God I haven’t seen a see saw in fucking ten years. I begged Henry to ‘saw with me and as soon as he had me in the air, I mean THE VERY SECOND my feet lost their position on the earth, I was in hysterics and screamed loudly, “PUT ME DOWN PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN I’M GONNA DIE PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN I JUST PEED.”

There were several chained off, overgrown roads that were surrounded on both sides by dark woods nd practically calling out to us to uncover the murders that have happened out there. I kept voicing scenarios out loud, forcing Henry to constantly remind me that our three-year-old was with us but really it was because I was unnerving him.

I totally can’t remember the name of this sad park, but I would like to be having my birthday party there. My Simulated Murder Birthday Party. I guess that will be next year’s big fete. Oh boy.

I like the outdoors, but only for a few minutes because then wildlife things start making my nose itch and I thought I kept hearing a chainsaw firing up in the near distance. I mean, I let out a blood-curdling cry that would rival that of any Scream Queen’s because a chipmunk poked his nose out from the bottom of a collection of wildflowers we were walking next to. A CHIPMUNK, not Leatherface.

But Chooch, he would live among milkweed (Henry just taught me that!!#@!) and jagger bushes if we let him. He’s probably going to want to go camping at some point. I hate camping (I’ve never been camping, but I just know that I will hate it). So then Henry will be all, “Here son, I’ll take you camping and we can leave Mommy at home to bake bread and darn our socks” and I’ll be damned if they’re going to go someplace alone where the possibility that they’ll talk about me is VERY REAL. I will start thinking now of ways to sabotage their camping trips. Those fuckers.

Then we left and Henry bought me Gobstoppers, even though I wanted Jawbreakers but he was all, “I haven’t seen real Jawbreakers in stores in a long time” and I said, “Bitch, then you best walk your elderly ass into a movie theater, mother fucker” but he laughed because apparently he thought I was joking.

Blake snagged himself a good girlfriend, and I got to take pictures of them. Unfortunately, my dominant eye was on his death bed (he’s since recovered, no need to send floral arrangements) and most of you know that it’s amazing I have any vision left at all what with all of my optic maladies, so I’m happy that any of these turned out at all.

Look at that form! I see gold medals in her future.

I feel like now they need to have a band. And that I need her shoes.

This was either before or after I fell into a gopher hole. Then I had to use the strength of my left eye to help me to safety.

HENRY WHY CAN’T YOU LOVE ME LIKE THAT??

[Rest of the set thissaway]

Maybe I might be attempting to compile some of my crappy stories into a book, tentatively titled “My Dumb Book of Stupid Stories (Count the Typos!)”. In order to do that, I have to recreate some of the random photos I’ve used courtesy of Google images, because I’m not trying to shit all over copyright laws.

What this means is that I will probably take a few more half-assed pictures and then get bored/exhausted/frustrated with the whole process, give up, and then find another data entry job.

HOWEVER. Janna, Alisha and Henry promised to help me and they are reliable people who will probably beat me with bamboo switches if I quit.

Right now, the project is still in the novelty stage. I needed a picture of a girl in a denim jacket and after holding a bunch of things over Alisha’s head, she agreed to pose. It’s for a story I wrote called “That Fucking Denim Jacket.

“

Blake was with us, and he’s a whore for the camera, so we got some more gas mask action in.

I could probably fill an entire book with just pictures of Blake, I have enough of them. Blake, you camera ho!

Chooch was all, “Me too, plz.” Taking pictures of Chooch requires deft back-peddling skills and a good sense of balance.

He totally couldn’t see.

It was all Alisha’s fault. She tricked us into driving out to Sharon, PA by boasting of this really fucking awesome chocolate kingdom at Daffin’s and some Coney Island restaurant that had like, the best food ever, though she wasn’t sure if there were non-meat options for me but who cares about Erin anyway. I agreed because I thought maybe it would be fun to leave her there, in Sharon.

And so, with Henry driving and Blake sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, Alisha and I squeezed in the back of our modest Ford Focus with Master Chooch, who was thrilled for the human contact. I had him on one side, pulling my hair, and Alisha on the other, jamming her elbow between my ribs. I spent a good portion of the billion-hour road trip wailing, “HEENNNRRRY! They’re hurting me!”

After pulling over in the parking lot of some run down factory where I took pictures of Alisha and Blake lounging on a run-down tetanus-laden car, we arrived at Daffin’s Chocolate. The “kingdom” was really just a wimpy display of a decrepit castle tower with a giant turtle thrown in the center to provide a weak distraction of the fact that it was less kingdom, more trailer park. And it stunk real bad in there too, and not just because Henry’s old and losing control of his faculties.

Chooch ran around the shop like a fucking crack addict, causing old women to gape in horror (some of them still had stroke-face after getting a glimpse of the very-pierced Blake, and that always makes me laugh), so I had to pull him out before I ended up owing Daffin’s my life savings. (But not before grabbing a handful of complimentary postcards; if you want one, holla.)

Alisha’s much-hyped Coney Island was closed (I thought Henry was going to kill her) but LUCKILY I saved the day when I spotted a diner. Henry and Alisha tried to ruin everything by suggesting, with no basis, that it was closed. Well guess what motherfuckers it was open and it was awesome.

So awesome, in fact, that it has two names.

A quaint brick and moss courtyard next to the diner. There was a river at the other end and I kept envisioning Chooch falling into it and promptly had Mommy Heart-Flips.

Thank god we were the only people there because Chooch was acting like a poster child for Ritalin. Blake eventually had to take him outside and then I remembered the river and had Mommy Heart-Flips again. I will not feel calm until I get that kid hooked up to a leash.

Chooch likes to spoon jelly into his loud mouth. It could be worse. It could be shit.

This retro pattern made me feel dizzy, and then I started thinking about my kidneys.  And then boomerangs. And then clown porn. What?

Blake ordered every breakfast item on the menu and proceeded to stare longingly at the syrup carafe. For a long time. And Alisha spent the whole time looking like she was trying not to puke and maybe it’s just me, but I’m starting to develop a sickening paranoia about that. Do I really make her that nauseated? Probably it’s from all the LAUGHTER I provoke in her.

The women’s room was labeled “Dolls” which I thought was very charming. But then I became worried! Where would ALISHA pee??

Henry ordered wings and ate them like it was his last meal before succumbing to H1N1. The sauce-smear across his moustacioed lips was very attractive, like he had just went down on a barbequed street walker.

And then we left and spent another fifty billion hours driving aimlessly through Amish turf, where I started to write a script for a brand new television drama starring Henry’s eyebrows*, and became arrested by strong desires to relinquish the hold all these material things have upon me and join Team Amish, where I can don a bonnet, write with a quill and ink,  and have sex through a hole in a sheet. And sell my bathroom plaques to tourists from the Big City.

[*A few minutes later, we passed some weird building consisting of two side-by-side domes and Henry goes, “It’s a breast-stop, get it? A breast-stop” because it looked like boobs sort of (but not really) and it was really lame and no one laughed, but then I said, “That will be the first joke your eyebrows tell in their new show” and Alisha was trying so hard not to laugh that her face was all red and Blake was doing that high-pitched snort thing which means he thought it was REALLY FUNNY so fuck you, Henry.]

Edit: Srsly, I have 14 of these lame-o postcards and maybe you’re into collecting lame-o post cards, then you should tell me and I’ll send you one.

Christina and I had been going through a rough patch. I was ready to never talk to her again but then Henry morphed into Meddling Mother Hen mode and reasoned with me. Christina is lucky; I had big vengeful plans in store for her.

So she came to visit last weekend. It was the first time we hung out since November and what better way to torture her than by strapping clown shoes on her feet and forcing her to hike all over a cemetery.

At one point, I had her laying supine in front of a verdigris’d crypt, surrounded by piles of dead leaves, when an elderly woman idled by in her Oldladymobile and the look she shot at us was priceless. Her wrinkled lips were all a-twist in horror and disapproval. And then I almost careened head-first over the top of the crypt so we called it a day. I have more pictures, but my master doesn’t give me enough time to actually go through them.

Even though I hate Christina, it was one of the best weekends ever. Especially because Henry actually hung out with us. Usually he deems us “too gay” and juvenile and heads to bed with Chooch, but this time he came back down, got drunk, dropped his “I’m too mature for this” facade, and proceeded to put on what I can only describe as a public access sketch show. He was hilarious and animated, telling us stories from his drinking heyday and other inappropriate yarns.

In other news, Chooch has been playing one of those Jumpstart games on the computer so I’m allotted even less time on this thing. Stay-At-Home-Hell hasn’t killed me yet, but it hasn’t got much easier. There are some nights where Chooch is just a fucking asshole, like Tuesday night when Dyanna was here and all I wanted to do was hang out and watch the hockey game, but Chooch had other ideas in mind. Like repeatedly punching me in the head and doing a somersault off the couch and landing head first against the coffee table. I deducted some points for the sloppy landing.

But last night, he was like a dream. He even sat in my lap, threw his arms around my neck and said, with sincerity I swear to god, “I wub you, Mommy.” AND THEN HE STAYED LIKE THAT. For like, two minutes, he stayed in my lap, hugging me.

I almost felt bad for Googling adoption agencies the night before.

EDIT: Hours later, I glanced at this entry and noticed at least three words where it quite literally looked like I gave up on typing them out in their entirety. I’m fucking tired.