To break up the monotony of being essentially housebound all week, Janna and I took Chooch to McDonald’s last Friday night. I love Playland because, unlike Chuck E Cheese, I can actually sit and relax and have adult conversations while Chooch acts a fool up in the tubes.

Chooch has a routine at McDonald’s: he’ll crawl the course of the tubes, come down the slide, push a bitch or two, then run back to where I’m sitting in order to plug a nugget in his loud mouth like a rag in a Molotov cocktail. Janna sat there and talked while I eye-flirted with the single dad sitting across from me, which made Janna roll her eyes.

A few minutes into Chooch’s reign of terror, a young boy stamped over to me and shouted, “Your kid keeps calling me a baby and I am FIVE YEARS OLD.” Chooch stood there and grinned proudly and I was like, “Oh. OK.” Then to Chooch, I mumbled with little to no conviction, “Quit calling him a baby.” Dealing with kids is not my forte. Later, that kid stole Chooch’s Spiderman, and after his grandma forced him to return it and apologize, Chooch laughed and slapped the thief’s arm which aroused chuckles in the other parents sitting nearby. The kid tried to tattle, but his grandma laughed at him, so one point scored for Team Chooch.

My pretend boyfriend and I, after making friendly eye contact and laughing at Chooch’s antics together, graduated into innocent small talk. I made sure I tweeted about it so Henry would know that I had an opportunity to upgrade.

A few minutes passed and I said to Janna, “I haven’t seen Chooch in awhile, have you?” and she realized that she hadn’t either. I knew I definitely hadn’t seen him come down the slide, so I assumed he was still up there in the tubes, but it made me nervous to see that all the other kids seemed to be running in a pack that didn’t include him. I didn’t even hear his obnoxious taunts and devilish laughs.

So I approached my pretend boyfriend’s son and I ask him if he’s seen my kid. He climbed up into the bowels of Playland, returned almost immediately and says, in a horror-stricken tone, “He’s up there and he doesn’t have no clothes on!”

My first thought was, “FUCK, Henry’s not here so now I have to actually be a fucking parent, are you goddamn kidding me.” As I began climbing up (and fuck you, McDonald’s! I kept my fucking shoes on), the little boy loudly added, “I saw your baby’s penis!” As my heart banged away in my ears, I vaguely recall hearing a small uproar of parental murmurings as they overheard this, and at that point, it might as well have been me who was naked.

I got to the top of the tower and turned around to see my son, completely fucking nude, lounging in a yellow tunnel. A group of children surrounded him on two sides, taking in impromptu Anatomy 101 with wide eyes and mouths agape. Chooch, he was just grinning away.

I’d have preferred a smaller audience for the night my son chose to announce his new lifestyle.

“Get your ass over here,” I hissed in a low whisper, and when he scrambled close enough I grabbed his arm–not so hard as to appear abusive!– and yanked him the rest of the way. Scanning the area, my heart sank as I discovered his clothes weren’t anywhere near him. A girl who appeared to be around seven or eight fetched them for me. Then she goes, “Oh, and here’s his diaper. Ew.” However, I was relieved to see there was no poop in it.

Or smeared across the tubes in Satanic shapes.

I gathered all his clothes and perched him on a ledge, angrily stuffing his head through his sweater. It was hot as hell in there and stank of dirty feet, prepubescent B.O. and stale fries, but I refused to drag him back down in his present full-frontal state. Some of the kids expressed their annoyance at my presence, and dramatically asked me to please move. I snapped on one kid and growled, “You have plenty of room to get past me, are you kidding?” Fucking children.

My favorite part, I think, was when I could hear one of the McDonald’s employees talking about the super exciting action with some of the adults. “And the mother’s up there now?” she asked. “Oh, that is just so cute! How funny!” YES, HOW FUCKING CUTE. AND FUNNY, INDEED.

As I stuffed clothing back on his nude body, I asked Chooch why he took his clothes off, anyway.

“I wanted my socks off,” he replied nonchalantly, like it was as sensible as a salad with low-fat dressing for dinner.

Once he was decent, I made him go back down with me. Janna and my pretend boyfriend were standing there smiling, and I just lost it, totally fucking cracked up. Janna and I talked about it for a few minutes when I realized again that Chooch’s absence was lingering a little bit too long for my liking. Pretend boyfriend sent his son back in, and he came back to report, “Well, he took his shirt off. But then he put it back on.”

To his father, I laughed, “This is a new thing, apparently.” And then I defeatedly mumbled a sardonic, “Awesome.”

Right then, Chooch came shooting out of the slide with his sweater completely inside out, and you better believe I grabbed his little exhibitionist ass. I plopped him down at our table and began stuffing his little asshole feet into his shoes while he took a swig of his drink.

“I can’t like lemonade,” he announced with disgust, setting the cup back on the table.

“Oh, so now that you’re a nudist, you don’t like lemonade?” Then I tried to explain to him the virtues of  the “no shirt, no service” rule.

On our way out, some kid sitting with his parents pointed to Chooch and shouted, “That’s the kid right there! The one who took his clothes off!”

Here. Enjoy an old LiveJournal entry while I continue digging my grave. Thanks.

Where Erin Finally Gets Her Breakdown

Originally posted August 6, 2007

For my birthday, I made the four-and-a-half hour trek to Cincinnati, where I got out some of my teenage angst at Warped Tour with my best friend Christina. I left Ohio the next morning with plenty of time to get home, chill for an hour or so, and then go to work. With the Pennsylvania border nearly in sight, my asshole car decided to curiously stop accelerating, no matter how loud I childishly shrieked while stomping on the pedal. A few more rounds of that, and I’d have been Flinstone’in it.

Even curious-er, the warning lights on the dash, each and every last one, began lighting up and blinking like an arcade game. Before my common sense had a chance to wallop my crown with a mallet, I took it upon myself to ease the car off the highway and onto the shoulder, where I then bashed in the button for the flasher with the heel of my hand.

First I laughed, because of course I would break down. Of course. Why not? The laughter was cut off by shock. I stared straight ahead, mouth agape, and reached for my phone without blinking. I dialed Henry. As soon as he answered, the tears flowed freely.

“No you did not. Nuh uh,” he stammered. I was surprised he could even hear me without having a dog translate. While waiting for him to say the magic words to make the car miraculously re-start, I became unnervingly aware that I was unable to pull off as far as I probably should have to avoid impending vehicular manslaughter. Each semi that passed sent the car rocking and swaying perilously. Even smaller trucks and cars made their presence known as they barrelled by. I considered exiting the car and stepping back to safety, but then my suicidal tendencies rose to the occasion and I screamed out loud, “Hit me! Come on, hit me! I welcome it! My flesh begs to become one with the road!”

I then sent my pal Lauren a suicide-drenched text message, to which she promptly responded via real time phone call. She suggested I try to push the car further back onto the shoulder and I started whining about not wanting to defile the white shorts I was wearing and as my luck goes, my period would probably burst through the gates, like Old Faithful looking festive for Valentine’s Day, leaving me to moon all the lewd truck drivers with a sanguine bull’s eye.

Because of course I’d be wearing white shorts that day. Better than the latex sundress with the human hair fringe, I suppose.

I sat there in the ninety-degree heat for about an hour, fluctuating between crying, kicking the tires with my flip-flopped feet, rage-dialing Henry, and happily rifling through my Warped Tour swag; it was a very Sybil roadside display.

Toward the tail end of my towtruck wait, the heat began to make me forget the value of life and I floated away on a daydream’s wings, imagining a pair of hill dwellers emerging from the woods near my car and dragging me back to their dirt mound where I would spend the rest of my life frolicking around in a frayed potato sack, guzzling moonshine with my breakfast of stranded roadside traveler’s roasted left buttock, and shootin’ at the highway patrol with a makeshift archery set.

Unfortunately, the dashing (scruffy) young (middle-aged) man (man) operating the tow truck glided to a halt in front of me, bursting my savory fantasy into shards of disappintment. Wiping away tears, I informed him that I wanted to kill myself, and, taking in my disheveled and sweat-soaked appearance, he awkwardly cleared his throat and suggested that I go sit in the truck and cool off. And that’s what I did, too; it was me, the AC, and the loud notes of Wheeling, West Virginia’s finest country music station ricocheting twangingly through the cab. The AC was on full blast and kicked around my sweaty tendrils with its icy breeze, a temporary relief until the driver entered the cab and we embarked on a ride grappled by awkward silence.

He only had to drive me about a mile or two up the highway, where he dumped me off at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center, but not before pestering me for payment that one would think Henry would have handled for his poor, stranded girlfriend (who was too busy skirting past suicide’s calcified nails), before continuing on to the Wheeling Nissan dealership. Incidently, this is where my broken carriage still sits in a heap.

I was left to maunder around the welcome center with my giant purse, bright green tote bag, and that motherfucking red Vincent Black Shadow plastic shopping bag from Warped Tour. I looked like a fucking runaway, my skin slick and oleaginous with an amalgamation of sweat, gritty dirt, and failure.  I’d have sloughed it off with a white rag, but I was too busy flying it high above my crown in surrender.

Prior to the towing, I had already called work and informed them of my plight, so they knew I would be late. Standing in the middle of a tractor trailer-dominated parking lot, I glanced at my cell for a time check, which made me choke on the fact that the possibility of being late had quickly turned into a reality, and if there’s one thing that pin pricks the ulcer, it’s being late to work.

Struggling to find a proper balance with all of my bags, I staggered inside the welcome center, where I was assaulted by a throng of happy travelers, bustling to and fro like crows during a midnight scavenge.

Hooray for Pennsylvania!

Oooh, brochures!

Coffee from a vending machine; oh the wonderment!

You know that scene in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, after he discovers his bike has been stolen? And he’s skulking down a dark alley in the rain, hissing at anyone who passes? That was me in the welcome center, trying desperately to eschew the probablity that someone would mistake me for a homeless hooker and try to read me the word of the Lord. Luckily, the fusion of the aforementioned hiss and the fact that I smelled like the entire Warped Tour was rotting under my arm pits, like bodies of punks in Ed Gein’s garage, was enough to make like Moses and part the horde of smilers.

Freshening up was futile, if you consider the fact that my deoderant had melted in the heat. So my sprucing consisted of peeing like I had downed a six-pack at the rib fest, followed by several strategic water-splashes. And by strategic I mean: in my face with cupped hands, so really — not that strategic.

I passed by Vending Alley and salivated over shiny packs of HoHos and Doritos and refreshing cans of Mountain Dew and Slice, wishing I had some money and realizing that it had been a long time since cold wet beverages coursed down my gullet. Dejected, I leaned down for a squirt from the water fountain, mis-gauging the stream and getting water up my nostrils.

On my way back outside, an elderly couple stopped dead in their tracks, blocking my route to the door. Then they turned toward each other and struck up a leisurely conversation with each other. With bags slipping down my shoulders, my own body stench fluttering up my nostrils and hypothetical service station dollar signs spinning past my eyeballs, do you really think I was in the mood to watch these fucking aging yuppies, all gussied in their Eddie Bauer Senior’s Collection golf shorts and polos and holding their vending machine coffee cups with extended fingers, pause and chat like they’re sitting in a fucking jazz club?

NO. Mama was tired and angry and her fucking TOES hurt from repeatedly bending her car tires like Beckham, so get the fuck out of Mama’s way.

I utilized the universal Move IT DICKSHITTER hand motion and growled, “Come on!” which inspired them to smarten up by sidestepping and I bowled past them, muttering heart warming names like bitchcunt and AIDS-eater. Have fun at your condo on the lake, assholes.

I selected a picnic table further down from the welcome center’s hotbed of activity, and slammed all of my belongings down around me.  My friend Merry had the good fortune to call me at that exact moment, as I swiped away sweat beads from my brow and snarled at a fanny-packed lady walking her dog. It was not one of my finer telephone moments.

Thankfully, I only had to dodge eye contact for thirty minutes or so before Neighbor Chris pulled into the lot, with Henry and Chooch in tow. Chris ran into the welcome center without even waving hello to me; I assumed he had to pee really bad. Since it took them about an hour to get there (Ed. Note: it would never take me that long), Henry let Chooch out of the car seat so he could stretch his legs, and I don’t know, reunite with his mother whom he hadn’t seen in two days. When Henry pulled him out of the backseat, I was delighted to see that he looked like he had just rolled down the hills of West Virginia: his face was a collage of his meals and activities, his clothes were stained, and he was barefoot. A telltale sign of what goes on when Mommy’s out playin’.

We stood around and talked about the car, Henry being all optimistic while I was saying things like, “It’s a goner. It’s one dead motherfucker, Henry. Fuck that piece of shit, you know? Fuck it all the way in its asshole while its sucking Satan’s dong.”

I realized Chris had been gone a long time. “What, is there a spa in there that I don’t know about?” I asked disgustedly. I wanted to go home, take a cold shower, and go to work. Yes, I wanted to go to work! I welcomed the subarctic temperatures and the muted pallet of the cubicles. It’s like an eight hour massage for my brain. No bright lights, no loud noises, no Henry to fight with about the unknown state of the car.

“Oh, he’s looking for fishing maps,” Henry said, matter-of-factly.

“I’m out here half-dead, probably in need of a blood transfusion and shock therapy, and Chris is looking for fishing maps?” I yelled. We went inside to fetch him. He was really sad that he couldn’t find what he was looking for. Then Henry asked me if I had any change so he could get a drink and my inner Pazuzu nearly erupted from my mouth and skull-fucked him.

Last night was relatively calm for the most part.

I was able to get Chooch interested in “Annie,” but I don’t think he was listening to my story about how I tried to orchestrate a reproduction of it in eighth grade and Jason Jones was going to play Punjab, but then my ex-friend Keri couldn’t take it anymore and kept deep six-ing my cast list. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that every time she would sleep over, I’d put the soundtrack on repeat.

My love for Annie runs deep, like a stream of piss in Hell’s urinal.

I had him in bed by 10:30 (early for him, believe me) but then Henry had to come in the house like a fucking bumbling burglar and Chooch was all, “Huh? Daddy’s home?” and then it was stomp-stomp-stomp down the stairs, at which point his mild mood completely mutated into whirling dervish mode and he started throwing toys and spilling apple juice. And I took no part in it. I stared emotionlessly at the TV and mumbled, “He was fine all night.

You  make him turn into an asshole. He’s all yours, have a ball, Daddy.”

I had scheduled a phone call with my new friend Jessi. When you’re raising a hellion, phone calls can no longer be fielded at whimsy. And it’s always fantastic when you have to tell people, “Don’t call me until after 11pm” because you know it’s going to sound like Oakland rioting in the house up until then. Fortunately, when Jessi called, Chooch and Henry had at least taken their screaming show upstairs, but the ruckus was still jarring enough that I had to strain  to concentrate on parts of the conversation. I could hear Henry shouting, “Get back in bed!” and Chooch answering from across the hall, “No way!” and then devilishy laughing and chucking what sounded like boulders out of his crib. Finally, it quieted down (apparently Chooch ended up falling asleep in our bed while I was still on the phone and Henry had no idea. We make a great parenting team) and I was able to enjoy a grown-up conversation with a really cool girl.

Today, I woke up and remembered, “Fuck, I promised I’d make French toast for breakfast.” I can’t remember why exactly I promised, what horrendous activity I was trying to bribe the child to quit, but I do know that he reacted well to the bribe and was, for the most part, a decent human being last night. And when I promise him things, I make sure to follow through because the last thing I want is to be like my own mother. (That song “Promises, Promises” by Naked Eyes? ALWAYS makes me think of her.)

So I google “easy french toast” and only 68798097 results turn up, oh lucky day. Quickly, I become confused. Every recipe is different. One says one egg and two slices of bread, another says 2 eggs and 6 slices of bread. I’m not even in the  kitchen yet and I’m in tears.

But I did it. Sort of. I mixed all the shit together and became mildly frustrated at the way the cinnamon melded into a curdled skin with the milk. I didn’t know exactly what “grease the pan” meant, because that was so vague.

So I wiped it with canola oil. That didn’t seem greasy enough, so I sprayed it with Pam. Finally, I caved and plopped some fucking butter up in that shit and marveled at the sizzle.

The first piece, thank God I tried it before serving it to Chooch, because it was wack. Totally raw. The pieces that followed were not much better, but I felt confident that the eggs were no longer raw. One piece actually had a little scrambled egg hanging off it like a breakfast dingleberry. It was cute, but tasted absolutely disgusting.

I let Chooch and myself ingest several bites. But I noticed that there was something terribly off with them, so I said, “Er, maybe we should not eat anymore, Chooch.”

And then Henry came home. Scraps of evidence remained on both of our plates, and Henry asked, “Did you cook it enough?” as he held up a piece tentatively between two fingertips, like he was trying to spy the contents of his cheating wife’s mail.

“I’ll tell you right now what you did, you used too much milk.” He said it in that superior “I watch Alton Brown” tone that makes me want to castrate him sometimes, with an Alton Brown-approved cutlery set. But then, sniffing the kitchen, he added, “You caught it on fire, didn’t you?” And then, upon further inspection of my damning trail, he yelled, “Tell me you did NOT use this metal spatula on my non-stick pan!!!!??”

Later, after he was sure that Chooch and I weren’t going to need our stomachs pumped of swirling raw eggs, Henry tried to reason with me. After eight years, he still tries this sometime. It’s kind of adorable.

“You know, cooking’s not that hard. Your problem is that you rush. You want it done NOW.”

“Well, duh. Why else would there be the high setting on the stove, if not to help me cook things as fast as possible?” And Henry did this thing where he holds up to his hands in a silent prayer, like he’s telepathically asking some entity to please provide patience.

Finally, I snapped, “Look, cooking is not fun for me. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I do not get joy from rooting around the refrigerator for ingredients, I do not like the way my head feels when struggling to read a sentence that contains words AND numbers, and I absolutely do NOT enjoy standing in front of a stove wondering when this shit is going to be done.”

I don’t care if I suck at this. I do not like to cook, not here not now not then not there. And if it takes me writing it out Dr. Seuss-style to get it through his head, then I will gladly work on that shit this weekend. That is, after I bathe in a tub of vodka and have a harem cater to me. “That’s right, you drop that tab in mama’s mouth, just like that.”

A few weeks ago, we received an eviction notice in the mail. It’s not that we’re evading the landlord, choosing instead to lounge around in Steelers sweatpants while hitting the meth. We’re giving him checks, but we’re not getting caught up. Henry had been talking to him about some sort of an arrangement prior to this, so we were a little blindsided by the notice.

Henry left to go to the rental office, so he could have a conversation with the landlord face-to-face. He called me from the parking lot and goes, “Look,  the state constable is on his way to the house. Don’t answer the door.”

A simple command. Probably simple enough even for me to obey.

I decided to make it into a game for Chooch, which was, hello, a Very Stupid Move. “Chooch, some dude’s going to knock on the door, but we’re going to pretend like we’re not home, ok?”

“Huh? Where?” and he scrambled up on the chair and peered over the windowsill, his gigantic dome bobbing around like a buoy in the Atlantic. I’m on the couch, hissing for him to get down, but it was too late. The constable, unable to miss Chooch’s beach ball head, rapped on the window.

“It’s Blake!” Chooch exclaimed.

Now, here is where a normal person of average intelligence would scoff and tell the kid to STFU and get the hell away from the window. Me? I believe him. The same way I believe all the letters I get in the mail inviting me to claim my lottery winnings.

“Really?” I asked him, slightly skeptical at first. But when Chooch, face all alit with brother-love, squealed and looked back out onto the porch, I shrugged and made my way to the door. Blake has been known to sometimes show up on our doorstep, why couldn’t this particular moment be one of those impromptu visits? was what I was thinking when I pulled open the door.

And that is how I came to scream and slam my front door in the face of a state constable, who bore no resemblance to Blake AT ALL Chooch, you little asshole.

It is interesting to note that state constables do not prefer to have heavy wooden doors slammed on them. Sometimes, as in this case, it might even make them pound furiously upon said door while barking “STATE CONSTABLE” for all your neighbors to know that you are a criminal.

A criminal with no money who is only one mere paycheck ahead of drinking soup from a boot behind an abortion clinic. And then he updates his Facebook status so that all HIS neighbors will know, also.

And so, at this point, I wise up and do the rational thing: run. In circles. With my hands flapping in the air. I started to run all the way  up the stairs, planning to hide in the bathtub, but then I was worried he’d pull out a bullhorn next. So this is what I do: I stand a few feet away from the door and I shout, “I’m the babysitter and I’m not to open the door for anyone!

” I shout this, in all seriousness, at a closed wooden door. Because this is the best plan I have, aside from opening the door and groveling like a prostitute at Jesus’s feet. And my voice is fucking quaking, and my hands are fucking ice cold and sweaty all at once, because I know we’re really in some deep ass fucking corn-studded shit right about now.

But he buys it, doesn’t press me to open the door after that, and he calls out, all smoothly because now he thinks he’s talking to some young hussy babysitter, “Ok, well I’m just going to slip this paper in the door. You make sure that—” and here he pauses to read my name loud and clear off the notice, just in case there are some neighbors who haven’t heard “—gets this notice from the Magistrate.”

And then Henry comes home and is like, “What the fuck, how do you screw up ‘don’t open the door’? How was that so hard?”

This situation, this fucking little recession that maybe you heard of, this is why Henry is now coming home from his regular job and doing odd electrical jobs for the landlord’s rental properties. So that maybe we might still have a place to live because god knows my mother sure isn’t taking us in. And we thought that maybe things would work themselves out, but then, well….

It’s like this: I got laid off. Our terminal was deemed “over-staffed” by Corporate and, after dodging the first round of lay-offs in November, I was let go on Wednesday. As a courtesy, they had me finish out the week, which was awkward and a total drag.  I mean, who would want to go back after that? It’s like being dumped and then being told, “But wait! Will you still be my date to that wedding this weekend?” and you want to say no, but fuck, you already bought that shitty dress.

And so, like so many other people who are dealing with this same shit right  now, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

But I will tell you this: if this blog goes a few weeks without being updated, assume that Henry has shipped me off as a mail order bride.

Hello. It took me TWO HOURS to copy and paste that last fucking post.

Apparently, I’m not allowed to edit it, but I should just be thankful that WordPress allowed  me to publish it AT ALL considering it completely devoured my last attempt, which was actually formatted correctly, and left no evidence that it was ever posted.

So I apologize for the pisspoor, hard to read formatting, and I apologize to my subscribers for basically getting spammed by me today.

I’m really fucking over this whole blog thing, motherfuck.

I need to go jab myself with something sharp.

L8r.

EDIT: I love u Henry. Marry me.

Burning a hole in my wallet were some free zoo passes, given to me by my co-worker Lindsay at my last job. Henry came home from work early yesterday morning and we decided to take advantage of the seventy degree sun, even though it had only been a few months since I last spat ire at strangers at the zoo. And really. is it ever too soon to go on another hate-mongering rampage, am I right? I swear, every time I go to the zoo, the majority of the people there looked like they were born from a white wine-influenced one night stand between the LL Bean catalogue and Ann Taylor Loft outlet store. I bet their Cabela-bought backpacks are stcoked with Evian and organic cheese sandwiches. I bet their kids don’t swear.

Immediately, I disliked this one broad with two kids (one of which plays hockey; I know this because we parked next to her hockey league-decal’d $50,000 Mom Van). She hogged the view of a young playing tiger from the rest of us peasants while she took shot after shot with her obscenely gigantic lens through a finger-print streaked glass window, like she was some fucking safari journalist. Then just as she was about to leave, some douche in a STEELER jersey (nauseating) took her place with his equally ridiculous camera and I just stood, mouth agape, and said to Henry, “Seriously? This is the Pittsburgh Zoo, not the fucking Outback. They’re taking pictures through GLASS. Snot-smeared GLASS. Go take your John Holmes lens to the goddamn STEELER game where it belongs, Hometown Hero.”

All I wanted to do was see a fucking tiger gnaw on his rubber chew toy. OK?? 

Chooch seemed more aware of what he was spectating this time and spent less time trying to climb under fences and pick up rocks. He ooh’d and ahhh’d at the lions and tigers and at one point was so overwhelmed and amazed at what he was witnessing, that he let out a wonder-tinged “oh shit” in hushed tones.

Luckily, none of the LL Beaners were around.

In the Elepehant House, Henry attempted to play the role of Educator by saying things like, “Look at the big ears on those elephants, son! And wow, what big eyes!” which was only negated moments later when I laughed, “Holy shit, Chooch, look at their BIG POOP!” Of course, that’s what Chooch chose to repeat. “Big poop?! EW!” he screamed, wrinkling his nose. “BIG POOP, MOMMY, LOOK, BIG POOP!”

“OK, let’s move on,” Henry mumbled.

Chooch highly enjoyed the monkey house this time around. laying on his stomach at each exhibit to get a better view.

While it’s awesome that Chooch is shaping up to be so independent, it takes twice as long to walk when a two-and-a-half year old insists on pushing his own stroller. And god forbid you should tell him which way to go. We ended up side-by-side with a couple whose young daughter was trying to push her sister’s stroller, as well. Her mother pointed to Chooch and said, “See how he’s pushing the stroller all over the place and running into people? That’s what you’re doing too.” Fortunately for her, her daugher quickly dropped the reins when she saw how out-of-control she must have looked. Thanks for using my reckless son as your example, Fellow Mother. Asshole.

Chooch took this picture himself, when the camera was resting on the dirty, flu-dispensing table. His pink-painted nails are so shiny.

I have to eat every hour or else I’ll die. Unfortunately, the only food place there that served something without meat products was closed, so my only option was french fries in a Dixie Cup. Supposedly they had salads, but they must have been tossed with that new lettuce from Argentina.

You know, the invisible kind. Because I didn’t see it. So while Henry and Chooch chowed down on chicken tenders and a cheeseburger, I sulked at the sticky blue table and ranted loudly for all to hear about how absurd it is, in the year 2008, for a ZOO, a fucking piece of shit ZOO, to not have any herbivore-friendly sustenance. FRENCH FRIES ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I swear to God, the place that supposedly vends pizza has not been open once in the last six times I have gone to the zoo.

I AM WRITING A LETTER.

“I’ll buy you some Dip’n Dots,” Henry offered, trying to talk me down from the roof I was about to mount with my rifle. Fuck a Dip’n Dot, Mustache. I want LUNCH.

Henry gets nervous when I’m angry, and even more anxious when I’m hungry on top of that, so he ate without chewing and we quickly left for Denny’s, where I enjoyed a veggie burger and cottage cheese.

I might go back to the zoo in five years. MAYBE.

Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday, but I think this is the most lethargy I’ve ever displayed. My head was full of big ideas, like maybe I’d have a costume party this year and actually put some gusto into decorating the yard (as Chooch sits on the couch, watching “Goonies” and spitting out “Oh shit!

“s every two seconds – real time play-by-play). I managed (with the aid of Henry power) to erect a slipshod cemetery against the front of the house, and I scribbled generic faces onto pumpkins which Henry then spent an hour carving, only to have the crazy Indian Summer-turned-snowstorm shrivel and mottle the fucking bastards. Then I thought it would be fun to dress Chooch up as David from The Lost Boys but only felt inspired to spend 20 minutes scouring the Internet for a toddler-sized trench coat before abandoning my search in favor of downloading some metalcore. Instead, I waited until the last minute before clicking a button, and a plastic-packaged Frankenstein costume arrived on my doorstop yesterday. Maybe Henry will at least paint Chooch’s face green to pull the costume together, but I won’t know since I WILL BE WORKING.

I always start thinking about Halloween in July, but then I get side-tracked by the forty-seven OTHER things I want to work on, and then guess what – nothing gets done. Halloween becomes half-baked just like the thirty books I’ve said I was going to write, the trip to Romania I said I was going to save up for, the kickball tourny I wanted to arrange, and the scavenger hunt I said I was going to organize. Henry keeps lecturing me, telling me I need to pick ONE THING and go from there, but instead, I have to do things my way and dabble in three different mediums on any given day and then I wonder why I can’t fucking sleep at night and why I find myself missing half of whatever TV show Henry and I are watching together because I’m staring at the wall, completely zoned out.

I think I need to spend one weekend alone, in a cabin somewhere.

Preferrably one that includes in its itinerary:

• a suspicious and unsettling gas station attendant a mile down the road
• a curious phone-line disconnnect
• a bear trap meet-n-greet for my feet while fleeing a murderous rapist
• an evening in front of a crackling fire,  full of psycho semen with an axe protruding from scalp

Last night, Henry and I were supposed to go to a haunted house when I was done working, but my mom and aunt (the begrudging babysitters) were already at my house when I came home, acting like it was second only to Hell as the last place they’d want to be so I was all, “You know, I guess we just won’t go then” so they flew out of my house with an eagerness typically reserved for a copraphagist in the midst of having a giant scat loaf churned out into his salivating maw.

So instead of being chased by chainsaws, Henry, Chooch and I went to the grocery store where we saw several shoppers clad in slutty witch costumes, clearly on their way to a party. I stared after them longingly, wishing I was going to a party too. I haven’t been to a Halloween party in years. I haven’t worn a costume in years.  I don’t care if I have to sit alone in a cemetery, dressed as Raggedy Ann, I should be doing something tonight and aside from working, I’m just not.

Chooch better get A LOT of Reese’s Cups tonight. Mommy needs something to eat while drinking herself into a stupor.

All was calm Friday night, exactly how Henry likes it, until Blake arrived and suddenly Henry had two ornery kids in his presence. We decided to give Henry a scene makeover while he was busily working at the computer on something gay.

He was partially aware of what was happening, but too concerned with Photoshop to do anything more than limply swat at us.

Unfortunately, this was the best we could do because Henry’s locks are degenerate.

Possibly, we could have whipped up a real follicular wonderwall of asymmetric proportions had we had the foresight to add scissors to our hairspray-brush powerhouse, but I think that adventure might have ended with some broken wrists.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 13:37 Henry is not going to give me one last kiss when I’m in my coffin. That’s cold. #
• 20:17 Just dared Henry to make me blue. #
• 20:26 Hopefully I’m not the only scene kid at fireworks. #
• 21:09 These fucking fireworks better be good like sex. I’m sitting on a goddamn trash bag for them. #
• 21:18 Its all fun and games until the firetruck comes for Chooch. #
• 21:34 Hello fuck these are some trailer park fireworks. #
• 21:36 In between bursts it got quiet enuf to hear some guy yell DAMMIT. Lamest fireworks. #
• 21:37 Corey took a picture of one and it looked like a picture of heartworms at the Vet’s office. #
• 21:42 Its like the fireworks have polio. #
• 21:44 Or Erectile Dysfunction. #
• 21:47 I could have sex with Flava Flav and see bigger fireworks than these. #
• 21:52 @buenomexicana holy fuck they blow so hard! #
• 21:57 It was worth it after all: Janna fell in mud. #
• 22:00 Watching Janna swipe her muddied hand in grass was so much awesomer than finale. #

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Post Fireworks Notes:

Watching the handicapped old broad in front of us chug her Slurpee in her wheelchair was far more captivating than struggling to see the gimp bursts of light from behind billowing pilons of smoke.  I was also jealous that she had a nice dry seat while the only thing separating my ass from the soggy grass was a flimsy trash bag and at one point even voiced aloud my desire to be crippled.

I think Janna was actually enjoying herself. I noticed that she had a big smile on her face, like an orphaned leper getting to meet Ronald McDonald for the first time. And then when I yelled, “This sucks!” she agreed but I could tell that it was breaking her heart to hear people sling insults at her beloved fireworks. Shit, we set off better displays in my mom’s backyard, for Christ’s sake.

Chooch lost interest in the fireworks around the same time I did — after about eight seconds. He proceeded to sprinkle clumps of wet grass on Corey’s back while I played with my Blackberry.

One of the highlights was when it appeared a dud was set off, but then the crowd started cheering uproariously. “Did one of the firemen get hurt?” I asked Corey hopefully. There was a second where we actually thought we might get to see some action, until Corey realized that what we thought was grisly firework backfire actually resulted in some hokey American flag ground display.

People actually cheer for that shit?

We got up to leave, assuming that the display above us was the finale because even though it was still gimp like the other ones preceding it, it was marginally louder. Our departure ended up being a few minutes premature, but Janna falling in the mud was so much more entertaining than the finale. And we didn’t even get to see the actual fall, just the sullied aftermath. Corey begged her to re-fall so he could video tape but unlike us, she didn’t think that was the best idea EVAR.

Happy belated Fourth of July.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Morning

Today I was looking for Chooch’s juice cup and thought perhaps he left it on the window sill. When I pulled back the curtains, something small and grayish in color hit the floor with a plop. I screamed and jumped back. A few seconds later, I saw it jump underneath the TV stand. I called Henry immediately and reported to him that we had in the house what I assumed was a toad. “It’s definitely something that makes a plopping sound when it hits the ground, so whatever that is, that’s what’s in the house.” Happy birthday, Henry!

Chooch stood by the TV for awhile, lining up some of his cars on the shelf. Looking at his bare legs and feet, I figured it was probably not the best idea for him to standing so close to our house guest (whom I lost sight of). What if it wasn’t a toad at all? I entertained the idea of a brand new species hulking around back there in the corner, perhaps something with tentacles, venom, and red pubic hair. I pulled Chooch away from the TV and made him play somewhere safer, like near the basement steps, and continued flirting with that thought.

I kept my feet tucked underneath me on the couch for the rest of the morning.

Afternoon

Henry came home from work and pulled the TV back. “It’s a mouse, you retard.” Then he left to get sticky traps, because I was adamant about not killing it.

Evening

People at work have informed me that those sticky traps kill mice. “Sometimes a mouse will chew its own foot off to escape from those traps,” my boss said. I texted Henry: ABORT, ABORT. Henry says mouse removal is officially my responsibility.

“Tell me you’re not this worked up over a MOUSE,” Eleanore said disgustedly. I ate a good almond cookie.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Morning

Diary, it is 1:00 in the morning and the mouse is perched above the screen on the front window! He’s really cute; I’m talking to him and feeding him shredded cheese. I don’t know what his name is yet so I’m just calling him “Hey little buddy.”  It reminds me of when I was in elementary school and I taught a Praying Mantis how to count change. Henry said he’s a field mouse. “Like Secret of NIMH?” I asked. “Yeah, like Secret of NIMH,” he said, sounding a bit impatient. We’ve been watching it intently for fifteen minutes now. It just scratched himself and then stepped on the cheese I sprinkled. Every time Henry gets too close, the mouse tenses up and makes like he’s going to run — I’d get tense too if I saw a big bearded douchebag approaching me  — but when I approach, he is calm and we make casual eye contact.

I’m thinking of the cozy house I’m going to build for him, with a little chimney and fresh daisies in a tiny vase, but then Henry just tried to catch him with an empty iced tea canister, causing the mouse to attempt suicide by leaping to the floor. Look Diary, that mouse is cute and cuddly, sure, FROM AFAR. But I guarantee if that thing starts scampering around my feet, it’s going to get booted into the wall. Losing sight of it, I tug on Henry’s shirt and hug him from behind and I bet he wishes I was wearing a strap-on. Henry is mad now because he “could have had it” but he couldn’t bend down with me grabbing at him like that. He was all, “GO STAND OVER THERE,” and if he had it his way, “there” would be at the bottom of the ocean with a few cinder blocks and a chain.

The mouse ran back behind the TV.

Evening

Hey, I haven’t seen that mouse in awhile. I can only hope it’s off making hundreds of babies somewhere in my house.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Evening

A few minutes ago, I was treating my brain to some quality reality TV programming, as you do, when I heard a strangulated growl coming from the dining room. I looked up and saw Nicotina (aka Speck, Breakfast Nook, Pickles) with my little buddy IN HER MOUTH. At this point, I don’t know the mouse’s status (breathing, not breathing), but my rescue mode is activated and I start screaming bloody murder for Nicotina to release the damn mouse. Henry and Chooch are upstairs and probably think the house is on fire or there’s a hatchet lodged in my head with the way I’m flipping out. I yelled up to Henry what was going down and heard him mumble, “Jesus Christ.”

Cornering Nicotina on the back porch, I grabbed her just before Marcy came stalking through the kitchen to get a piece of the action. Marcy does NOT need to be involved in this. She scares me. Nicotina looked highly confused, her eyes said, “Is this not what I’m supposed to do?” I held my breath and snatched her, mouse and all, and keeping her at arm’s length, I ran with her to the front door. Before I had a chance to pull the door open, she spat the mouse out onto the couch and he scurried behind the pillows.

Henry and Chooch are downstairs at this point, and Chooch started crying; probably because he didn’t understand why Mommy was raving  with bugged-out eyes like a woman scorned. I ordered Henry to help and he reluctantly grabbed a diaper and held it open like a catcher’s mitt, muttering under his breath about how he should have just killed the fucker on Friday. I put aside my desire to donkey kick him and focus on making it through the night with no casualties. The mouse ran off the couch and fell into one of Chooch’s toy bins. “PICK IT UP AND TAKE IT OUTSIDE! WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE!” I screamed. Henry threw the bin on the front porch and said, “YOU go out there and YOU dump it out.”

So I did. And the mouse ran to freedom. Nicotina wouldn’t look at me for the rest of the night.

I was so amped up after that, that I couldn’t sit down. Fuck, Diary, I wish you could have seen it; it’s the most amazing feeling to save a life. I highly recommend it. I kept wanting to talk about it with Henry, but he was thoroughly unimpressed. “Normal people would have killed it, but not you. You have to turn it into a Thing.” He won’t admit that I deserve to be knighted. I called Christina and she said the whole time I was telling her about it, she kept envisioning me as Dog the Bounty Hunter.

I think I want to do this for a living, this saving mice thing. I want to be on Animal Planet.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Evening

I’ve been telling everyone about my rescue success, about how valiant I am. Kim and Collin said something about me needing therapy, but I know they’re really just trying to downplay their awe. I showed Kim the picture of Frederick (that’s the mouse) and she admitted he was really fucking cute.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 TODAY

Morning

Chooch just pointed to the floor in the living room and innocently asked, “Whassat?” A dead mouse, that’s what. Shit, isn’t this chapter closed yet? I’m trying not to panic, trying not to wonder if it’s Frederick. Maybe he came back for more shredded cheese. All I know is that he wasn’t there five minutes ago when I walked across the room to the couch. I asked Chooch who put it there and he said Speck. That bitch.

I called Henry and yelled SOMETHING TERRIBLE JUST HAPPENED. He told me to throw it outside, then hurried up and made sure I knew not to touch it with bare hands. So I wrapped it gingerly in a paper towel and placed it on the front porch.

Afternoon

THE MOUSE IS GONE. A FUCKING BIRD TOOK IT. I called Henry and, in quick-speak, relay to him the latest development. “….and so I had it on the porch so that you could bury it when you come home—” Henry interrupted me with genuine laughter. “–and now it’s GONE.” Henry gave me a talk about nature.

Evening

Bob told me there are probably a hundred more mice in my house.

I don’t want to do this for a living anymore.

We didn’t have any milk in the house, and since cereal and oatmeal are the only things I can make marginally edible, Chooch got to eat popcorn for breakfast. What, it’s practically a vegetable.

(HENRY, DON’T EVER LEAVE US.)

Awhile back, I had the moronic idea of slapping together a photo shoot because I apparently really like torturing myself with projects that don’t amount to anything in the long run.

I placed an ad on Craigslist and several girls responded. I emailed back and forth with some of them and they seemed very cool and eager to do  this. They understood that it wasn’t for some glamour magazine spread, but perhaps they’d walk away with new pics for their MySpaces, who knew.

Then something happened. Something by the name of Chuck. He responded with great zeal and boasted that he’s been known to slip into a dress on ocassion and he’d gladly slap on some lipstick too if I wanted. I was like, sure whatever dude, just please show up.

I was one of the people who was going to work with Erin at the photo shoot this Sunday that was cancelled.  If any of you would be interested in possibly working with me in the future please send a reply to this email.  I’ve basically been into gender identification stuff.  anything weird and pulls ones focus as to how gender is socially viewed.  Sometimes it involves full crossdressing , 50% crossdressing , or maybe just 33 1/3 % crossdressing or poking fun at how gender is usually viewed. I love the 40’s fashion look so i get involved with that a little.

Erin is a great girl with a lot of talent and I wanted to work with her but being that this was just for fun she was unable to commit.  From time to time photographers contact me with an interest in doing a shoot with me and I was just contacted by a professional photographer yesterday who is interested.  If any of you are interested in doing some professional work for your portfolio and also helping me out with some of my stuff just let me know.
 

if i don’t hear back from you i promise i won’t bother you any more.

Hi Erin,
Needless to say I’m a little disappointed about the cancellation of the shoot but I understand and under the same circumstances I would have done the same thing.

I was just thinking, your photo projects seem like a lot of fun and you have not only the photographic skills and talent but you seem to be responsible and a pretty good organizer.  You should try to pull some girls together for a shoot but charge them for you time and a cd.  If you got three girls and charged them $20 for your time plus $5 for the cd that’s $25 a piece and if you got 3 girls together for the shoot that would be a total of $75.  That’s still not a lot of money but I think anyone who was looking for a free shoot can fork out $25.

The other thing is, I ran across this article a while back about this female photographer who photographs nude men. These’s nothing illegeal or immoral going on.  She’s been doing it for 25 years and she’s married.  I’m sure there is a market for that in Pittsburgh.  Men are  basically exhibitionists. Maybe it sounds sleazy but I think it’s pretty cool.  You could probably make some pretty good money doing that. Judge for yourself from the article.
 

Went to the dentist today to get my permanent crown cemented and also a filling because apparently my oral vigilance doesn’t pay off. After the hygienist removed the temporary one and finished cleaning off the old cement, she must have noticed that my face had blanched because she withdrew the suction tube from my mouth and asked, "Are you OK?"

"Oh, I’m fine," I answered curtly. "Just trying not to let my tongue touch the old tooth. The one that’s a stub now? Kind of freaks me out."

The hygienist laughed. Not just a tiny giggle, but a hearty laugh, a Santa-getting-his-taint-tickled belly laugh. It was so unnecessary.

Later, when my dentist came in to do the heavy duty labor, she replaced one of the cotton logs that was resting against the side of my tongue. "That’s always the worst part, you know? The feel of dry cotton in your mouth."

Absolutely. It’s not the syringe pinching burning hot Novocaine into the gums; it’s not having two masked faces and two sets of hands hovering over and probing every cranny of the grill; it’s not that shit they use to fill cavities, because that tastes delicious, like a cup of molten dime juice; and it’s certainly not the money coming out of the pocket afterward because dental insurance is a joke.

It’s the feel of dry cotton in your mouth.

Internet,

What’s your preferred method of stripping the shell from a hard boiled egg? Because I just lost thirty minutes of my very important life, hunched over the garbage can with two dyed Easter eggs squealing under my grip.

By the time I finished, half of each egg came off with the shell, I have cuts under my nails, and my kitchen looks like a crime scene.

Also, there were tiny specks of shell hiding in my egg salad.

RUINED.

Christina’s glasses arrived, packaged safely in an empty box of sympathy cards. Unfortunately, she must have near-perfect vision because when I put them on, it’s like looking through lens-less frames.

That bitch.

I asked Henry if we can just pass his glasses back and forth tonight at the Armor For Sleep show, maybe make all the scene kids think it’s the new drug of 2008. "What, you didn’t know we were getting high back there? It’s the new freebasing, ya’ll."

I’m a little annoyed because I’ve been trying to see this band for the past three years, but there’s always something in the way: a test, being extremely pregnant, work. I listened to their second album repeatedly for the better part of 2005. It was all about being dead, about someone who kills themself and then is like, "Oh shit," which appeals to me. I taped the singer’s face over top of Henry’s face in the family picture I have on my desk at work. Not so much because I’m all, "OMG Ben Jorgenson is so hawttttt" but just because he’s way more awesome than Henry will ever be.

At least I still have my hearing. Kind of.