For my birthday last month, all I wanted was a glorious day at Kennywood – Pittsburgh’s amusement park.  I wanted ice cream and cheesy fries and to later choke on the ice cream and cheesy fries l when it rose violently up into my esophagus while on the spinny rides.  But then Blake bailed on us so my only riding partner was Janna, who will barely ride anything more daring than the scenic train.  And I hate riding with Henry because he never talks to me in the lines. Like he’s embarrassed or something.

This asshole totally lied and said it was SO SCARY and REALLY AWESOME. The only scary part was when Janna tried to kiss me!

Luckily, I got to have a birthday do-over yesterday at the Westmoreland County Fair. Sure, the rides there are more painful than fun, but both my brother Corey AND Blake AND Janna came with us, so it was like a party for me. And Hell for Henry.

YOYO

I knew we had arrived at the fair as soon as my ears were slammed with the cacophony of blaring Taylor Dane, the desperate carny-call of “EVERYONE’S A WINNER!” and the dinging bell of Henry’s blood pressure rocketing skyward.

My new favorite picture of Blake. I love how those kids are like, “Hello, Dateline? Predator alert. Weird lady taking our pictures for the Internet.”

Westmoreland County must not be too bad because the only people I found to be fun-making worthy was some old man in overalls, a family of matching mullets, and a wanna-be MILF who looked like she was rode hard and put away wet (Henry’s favorite saying, probably because it reminds him of his ex-wife).

This girl fled after she realized I was taking her picture. Apparently it’s weird to just walk up to a stranger and snap.

Bunny Ear Bingo. Had to shout MOVE IT and shove Janna out of the way so she wouldn’t gay up the Bingo throwdown.

This carny was the cleanest and most jovial of them all. Which is good, because he was manning one of the kiddie rides.

It always seems like a good idea to encapsulate yourself in steel death traps at the fair, until the carnies come by to slam the cage down on your head and you realize you just put your life in the hands of someone who can’t even take care of their own teeth. They call them carnies because of the CARNAGE.

Blake kept trying to get me to bum a cigarette off one of them so we could share it. While it sounded tempting, I was fairly certain that would be a good way to destroy my relationship. “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT CIGARETTE???” “Uh, your GIRLFRIEND?” I was joking about that today with Henry (he wasn’t laughing) and he said, “You forgot the part where I backhand it out of his mouth first.” Yikes.

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.

Today, I’m walking with a slight limp.

Corey, still recovering and threatening to puke on Chooch, who unfortunately spent most of the time with Henry. How booor-oooor-ing.

Old people, oldin’ it up.

Obligatory Scene Kid shot. I <333 scene kids!~! 

‘Sup Willie.

 Observing my mounting interest in winning treasures made in Taiwan, Henry was wise enough to hide in the shadows to give his wallet a rape-reprieve.  So Blake and I begged, nay – HOUNDED – Janna for money to play the balloon popping game. She looked like a virgin in headlights, wanting to say no, but not wanting to look like an asshole. Finally, she sighed heavily and mumbled, “Let me open my Mommy Purse and see what I have.” Blake and I got our way, but quickly lost interest and pawned off our cheap prizes on Chooch.

Janna was too much of a pussy to ride this & opted instead to stay on terra firm and fiddle with her pleasure vegetables. Blake got yelled at for jumping before the ride started and I mocked him like the child I am.

Overall, MUCH better than my birthday and I didn’t get any pizza on my shirt this time.The whole set can be seen here.

Some of my earliest memories center around the stereo room in my grandparent’s house, a.k.a my grandma’s clown room. Listening to a plucky rendition of Dr.

Zhivago’s Theme play from a music box, rifling through my mom’s and her sister’s old record collection (and always pulling out Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl”), carefully dusting around the clowns with a feather duster for money and thinking I was such a big help.

I’d like to use my (hopefully brief) employment hiatus to do some kind of project in this room, but my damn aunt is fucking possessive about the house now that I’m not sure if I can find a way around her.

It would be fun to have people dressed as clowns, chilling out around the fake ones. Hiding in corners, rolling blunts on the chessboard.

I need to send my aunt to a fucking day spa and get this done.

My aunt seriously hounded me all weekend about coming to visit, but then as soon as she caught me taking pictures in the clown room, she got all flustered and pushed us out of the house. She must have fucking Hoffa hidden under the floor boards or something.

After we left Greenman’s Tunnel on Sunday, Henry decided he needed to drive a half an hour out of the way to get soft serve with sprinkles and crunchies. He’s infatuated with crunchies.

A poster for Dole low-fat soft serve, complete with a cascading waterfall of plump-looking fruit, was pasted on the window. In a moment of insanity, I decided that a cone stuffed with this low-fat shit would be a tasty choice. I wanted raspberry, but they only had pineapple, which irritated me but I ordered it anyway. Not without a tinge of uncertainty, though.

As soon as I tasted it, I was racked with buyer’s remorse. I gave it a maximum of three sad licks, before whispering, “This is disgusting; I want yours” to Henry.

So while he dejectedly devoured a low-fat twist of melting hideousness, I got to enjoy this:

And Chooch ate his kid cone, my pawned-off pineapple puke on a cone, and my hijacked Henry cone. God,  to still be a kid, getting everything I want. OH WAIT.

That shitty cone seriously had the potential to ruin my day. Luckily, I walked away from it with little more than a puckered face. I don’t even think Chooch liked it, but Henry insisted that it “wasn’t that bad” and that I was over-reacting.

Blake wanted to get a bucket of golfballs to hit, but Henry deliberately ignored him. I don’t think he was in the mood to explain that since I quit my job, I’d have to turn some tricks at a truck stop in order for Blake to drive a bucket of balls. But we all know I’d do that for free, so whatev.

Afterward, we went to PIzza Hut, where I dunked an egg morsel (WITH SALAD DRESSING) into Henry’s iced tea while he was filling up his THIRD plate at the salad bar. He looked really nervous and apprehensive when he caught Blake and me laughing evilly, but shrugged it off. It wasn’t until the egg clogged up his straw mid-sip that he realized what was going on and completely flipped his shit, making us laugh even harder. Then Blake sold me out and I was like, “Sleep in a box under a pier, buddy!”

The first time I met Blake, he was an eight-year-old flesh-and-bone Bart Simpson and I was a twenty-two-year-old jealous brat, confused and not so willing to share his father. Henry brought both Blake and his other son Robbie (10 at the time) over my house one afternoon for some pizza.

Arbitrary Posturing

As we sat at the table, Henry commanded Blake to retrieve his Mountain Dew which Henry had left in the living room. Blake rose to fetch it, but I said, Henry, get it yourself! He’s not a DOG.” I remember Henry shooting me an angry glance, but getting his own drink after that; I remember as Blake smiled his gratitude at me, I thought to myself, “This might actually work out.”

Unfortunately, Blake was still very impressionable and let his mother cloud his perception of me. For years, things were awkward and tense at best, and Henry and I were fighting nearly every time he had his kids for the weekend.

I was sure Blake hated and resented me, but instead of being a responsible adult, I would stoop to his level.

I did and said a lot of assholey things that still haunt me to this day.

Seven years later, Blake is this really fucking awesome kid who thinks independently of his mother, adores Chooch, confides in Henry, listens to really great music,and for some bizarre reason — doesn’t hate me. I’m really excited that he’s moving in with us, and hopefully we can do lots more photo shoots like this one yesterday at Green Man’s Tunnel. And hopefully he shares his band tees with me.

There’s gotta be something better than this out there. Like cotton candy and illegal arms rings.

Please don’t get cattail jizz on my future Emarosa shirt, thanks guys.

Picking a bouquet for Chooch.

After we exhausted all ability to give a shit about nature and the fucking elusive Green Man, I proposed we hit up a strip club, but Henry took us to get ice cream instead.

Fuck you, Green Man.

We went for a rainy walk yesterday in the ‘hood where Henry works. It’s one of those areas that’s half-abandoned and dilapidated but you just know the leftover residents have lived there their entire lives. A few people watched me suspiciously, not taking kindly to someone snooping around their hometown rubble; but there was a tall beanpole of a hooker strutting around down one of the back roads with an oversized umbrella, and she flashed her widely-gapped teeth at us when she passed and called Chooch  a handsome man. Chooch was like, “Whassat?” when she passed, and I was like, “Someone Daddy pays when he wants to have filthy sex, Chooch.”

I saw some broad idling on the curb in her Blazer two separate times, each time with a different thug-type talking to her through the passenger window. I wondered aloud what was going on and Henry said, “We’re not in Pleasant Hills anymore, remember that.

”

The block parties probably got too swingin’.

Every town needs a good cobbler.

Next time Christina and I are on the hunt for a sleazy dive…

I’m not sure if this is a barn or a house, but I bet the KGBs hiding in there. And possibly the Lost Boys.

If I lived there, I’d use a periscope as my window to the world.

Was there ever a door so seductively blue.

This bench has a weight limit.

Shortcut to meth lab.

I took this at Round Hill Park back in April, with my Holga. It makes me think of murder. The photo, not my Holga. Although now I’m thinking of taking pictures of murder with my Holga. There’s a nice thought-train to help me travel through the night.

One of these days, I’m not going to be able to come back out of my thoughts, and that will be a frightening day.

I got some of the film back from the photo shoot I did a few weeks ago with Blake and Sarah. Here’s a few:

Just think, this could have been a sixty-year-old crossdresser in stilettos and fishnets.

"I KNOW you’re fucking our pig-masked maid!"

I have no idea what I’m going to do with these, but I like them.

 I was sad that no one used my favorite mask during my dumb photo shoot, so while Christina was visiting over the weekend we went to this semi-rural area called Coulterville to take some pictures of her in rabbit-mode. Coulterville is one of those local areas ripe with urban legend, and while I’ve had some pretty intense experiences there in the past, it was pretty tame in the daylight.

We started out at this small abandoned church, but then a truck drove up and two old people started pulling out shovels and entire flats of flowers while I was standing precariously, and disrespectfully, on some stone ruin. We grabbed our stuff and bided our time on the nearby railroad tracks and woods.

 Christina was sure she was going to take ticks away as a souvenir, and I kept swearing that I heard small wildlife burrowing through the weeds toward us, so I ran and left her there to hack her way out of the vegetation.

 When I was fleeing the invisible rodents, the back fell off my Holga and one would have thought that it was a $1500 camera with the way I reacted. Meanwhile, the camera that is worth something was flopping against my chest like a candy necklace while I delicately pieced my toy camera back together. My priorities are a disaster.

"Would you like me to just dive in next?" Christina was getting irritated by this point, but luckily the old people were leaving the church and she seemed relieved to have a non-muddy, non-jagger-bushy setting in which to be bossed around. Unfortunately, we returned too soon, and the old people were idling in their truck at the top of the road. We tried to act inconspicuous, but they eventually pulled back down and the old man got out. I remained seated on the ground, camera in my hand, kind of frozen in confusion. I wasn’t sure if it was private property that we were on, and I wasn’t sure if this was the type of guy to tote around a sawed-off shot gun in the back of his pickup for just this sort of occasion.

We exchanged pleasantries and he explained that this was his family chapel and burial ground. I silently gulped a little and said, "Well, it’s very beautiful here. Is it ok that I’m taking pictures?" That seemed to placate him and he said it was fine that we were taking pictures, but then after glancing at Christina, Christina’s tattoos, and the animal mask and rail road tie in Christina’s hands, he added a few caveats about respect and vandalism. Then he gave us a brief history of the land, and I learned that the stone stump I was idiotically perched on when they first pulled in is all that remaIns of the original church that burnt down on that land a long time ago, and that the small shrine I was pretending to photograph when they pulled back the second time is his mother’s grave. He even said if he had more time, he’d have given us a tour of the chapel.

It was insanely awkward. I kept thinking "Please leave, Please leave" over and over again and this time we waited until the truck was completely obscured by trees before resuming our shoot.

 

Talking to that guy kind of killed it for me, because I had always been so certain that the chapel was haunted, or that skinheads were inside, roasting s’mores off  the flaming carcasses of babies and cats. Talk about dispelling a myth.

 

 

More here.

Or: Henry’s son Blake and my friend Sarah are good sports.

Blake wore a Chiodos shirt and I was happy.

At least I didn’t have to worry about their stilettos getting slurped into the mud.

Blake was atop a train for this and I was so nervous that a) he was going to fall; b) someone was going to see and call the cops. But then I was like, well, if he falls, maybe he’ll be knocked out long enough for me  to steal his Chiodos shirt.

"Sarah, I only see you once a year, but I’d love to take your picture." And she didn’t think it was weird at all, which is why we’re friends in the first place.

More Photos Here.

Kara was in town over the weekend and invited me to lunch at Zenith. It was really her friend Valerie’s idea, whom I was excited to finally get to meet after knowing her on LiveJournal for a few years. However, Kara made the mistake of telling me that her fiancé Chris commented that Valerie and I have really different personalities and he wondered how well we would get along. This of course turned into the Telephone Game and by the time I told Henry what Chris had said, it went something like, "Chris said Valerie is a crazy asshole and she’s secretly hated me for twenty years and is going to be waiting for me in an alley with barbed wire, a chainsaw and a turkey baster and OHMYGOD!"

Turns out, Valerie was really nice and I didn’t hate her and she didn’t seem to hate me either. People usually like me for the first three months, so we’ll check back with her over the summer.

Zenith is half vegetarian restaurant with an amazing tea menu and half antique shop with a mother lode of religious icons and musty racks of polyester muumuus; I saw at least eight dresses that I desperately want to purchase for the animal mask photo shoot, Kara found a new wedding dress, and Valerie found a very Blanche Deveroux bathing suit. It’s a good thing she didn’t buy it, because she totally wouldn’t have looked right in it unless she built a lanai off the back of her house and furnished it with white wicker, which she should actually do and then invite me over every weekend so I can lay out and read some Danielle Steele. Maybe also she can brew up some mint tea and serve me some of that shit.

And even though Zenith has quite possibly the best collection of wall-mounted owl tsotchkes to ogle while taking a piss, my favorite part was our server, Keith. (I’m pretty sure he was Kara and Valerie’s favorite part, too, but I could be wrong. No, wait, I’m always right.) Even in his sleepy state, he was personable and helpful and super cute; he would make lazy laps around the empty restaurant, butting into our conversation now and then. When I asked to take his picture, he initially declined, maybe in fear that I would Photoshop it and he’d find himself on some raunchy, nude waitstaff website — I have that shady, no-good look to me, I guess.  I eventually talked him into it and for someone who, minutes earlier, was so opposed to the prospect of being photographed, he began busting out an arsonal of GQ poses with no hesitation.

This picture does no justice to his awesomeness! I keep wanting to call him Ben, though. He really looks like a Ben to me.

Keith brought us out our side salads, the largest salads I’ve ever seen stuffed into really small bowls; it was like the vegetation version of clown cars. As soon as he set the bowls down in front of us, leaves of lettuce the size of elephant ears began unfolding and springing forth. It was the most difficult, not to mention aggressive, salad my fork tines have ever speared.

After feeling like I had just slashed my way through a jungle in ‘Nam, Keith delivered my black bean burger which was capped with another lettuce leaf the size of a yarmulke. "Oh good, more lettuce," I said before casting it to the side.

Meanwhile, Valerie and Kara talked about cheese and condom-wrapped plunger sticks, but I was too busy trying to keep my mind from detonating over all the photographical ideas that place was feeding me. I want to go back there every day until I exhaust every vision I have, or drink every tea on their menu, whichever comes first.

(More photos here.)

Like anyone else, Christina enjoys lingering underneath a welding mask before going to see a show.

(View set here.)

My brother Corey is about as weird as me, so when I’m like, "Hey, put this giraffe mask on and sit in the tub with a worn copy of Sleeping with the Enemy,"  he asks no questions.

We were having a lot of fun with this at my grandma’s house until my aunt Sharon got all agitated and kicked us out. I think she thinks I’m stealing heirlooms to support my heroin addiction and all the bastards I’ve birthed that I keep locked in a closet in the basement. She kept slamming doors and pacing around, jabbing the imaginary watch on her wrist. Later, she called to apologize, saying that she just wanted us to leave so my grandma would eat her lunch, that my grandma didn’t want to be rude and eat in front of us. My grandma always eats her lunch in front of us, so that was the dumbest excuse ever. She’s so  so bizarre, she should be made into a movie. Oh wait, I think that idea was already used.

It’s nice to know that I’m 28-years-old now and still not to be trusted.

When I was in high school, I filmed every video project I was assigned in my grandparent’s basement, projects about Longfellow, Canterbury Tales, and a short film I had to make for a writing class. Nothing that involved taking sledgehammers to walls or defecating in corners, we promise Sharon. It was too hard to do it at my own house, with two younger brothers acting like rejects and flipping off the camera every chance they got. My grandparents would always be fine with this, my group and I weren’t exactly scripting "Keggers on Film" and we would always clean up after ourselves. We were teenagers, not hoodlums, after all. But Sharon, who lived there back then too, would get so nervous. She would stand at the top of the steps and yell things like, "ARE YOU ALMOST DONE???" so that we would have to rewind the tape and re-shoot the scene, not wanting to include the unsavory banshee shrill in the background.

Her possession of that house is really insane, and I always feel unwelcome there. I shouldn’t, though; it’s my grandma’s house. Even before my Pappap died, Sharon was so controlling. He would let my friends and I hang out in the game room but she would pace around upstairs, huffing and sighing throatily by the open basement door.

Maybe she’s afraid her extensive porn collection will be unearthed. If she’s worried we’ll stumble upon the mafia-esque arsenal of fire arms they have stashed around the house, already did that.

I texted my mom after Corey and I conceded to the not-so-subtle attempts to evict us and said, "Sharon ruins everything," to which my mom was all, "No shit." We’re going back another day, when it’s guaranteed she won’t be there. That’s when we’ll break out the hookers and cocaine.

A few more from yesterday can be seen here.

I visited my friend Jess today. For years, she had the distinction of being my friend’s step-daughter, but now that friend is no longer a part of either of our lives, and Jess now has the distinction of simply being my friend.

She’s nearly 21-years-old now, a far cry from the 11-year-old I drugged with Nyquil while baby-sitting. She’s also seven months pregnant, and unhappily so.

Today I told her she needed to have photos taken. "You’ll end up regretting it later if you don’t," I offered sagely. "I know I did." (But for what it’s worth, I also had about three and a half more chins than she does.) She was reluctant at first, but when she realized I probably wasn’t going to stop asking, she sighed and let me have at it.

I wish she knew how beautiful she really is!

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Two weekends ago, I was at the Quaker Cemetery. Outside of the meeting house, there was this moat made of broken glass shards. Clear glass, amber glass, green glass — it all looked so sparkly and I had an "Ooooh, pretty colorssss" moment, forgetting all about the demons camping out behind me in the decrepit stone meeting house.

For awhile, constructing my own pretty jagged glass moat around the front of my own house seemed like a really brilliant idea. But then I remembered that glass can sometimes be dangerous.

I guess this picture will have to suffice, until the day I live in a house without a small child. Then I’ll have my moat and you all can come wade in it.

One of my favorite cemeteries, the Homewood Cemetery. Henry and I used to go for walks here together regularly, but then as he continued to age, his endurance slackened and I would end up going alone. This is the only cemetery I walk in that has never, on some occasion, made my body shake with that biting sensation that someone’s behind me, something’s watching me, bodies are rising from the earth. Maybe because there’re always people at this one, groundsmen and mourners and visitors fulfilling obligations.

The mausoleum is terrifying though, I take it back. I’ve peed in the bathroom a few times and sometimes the idea of running out with urine streaming down my thighs seems like the better alternative to taking the extra step to wipe. I just get caught up with that Go! Go! Go! Run for your life! subconscious warning, like I’m watching myself in a horror movie. Never go in the mausoleum to piss,  you idiot!

This photo makes me think of spring, like I want to put on a floppy hat and lay out on one of the graves. But then I remember that when I took this photo, it was below twenty degrees and I forgot to bring gloves; within ten minutes of exiting the car, my fingers were so cold that it looked like ten hot dogs were dripping from my hands, so I guess instead of picnics and floppy hats, I was probably thinking about parkas and bonfires, as in roasting my fingers in one.

Now just envision someone crouching next to a tombstone, face all hidden behind a giraffe mask. April 12 and 13, baby.