Today I was going to post this video that Corey took of ourselves on some death trap at the county fair two summers ago, but figured two county fair posts in a row was enough for right now, so instead I guess I’ll tell you about Henry’s 45th birthday party.

We had a party for Henry at my mom’s house. A cook-out thing. A few people came. It was OK.

I won’t get into the fact that this is the third party I’ve had for him in the nine years we’ve been together, as opposed to the ZERO he’s had for me. Yeah. My thirtieth birthday? Doesn’t exist in the history books.

But who am I to cry over SPILLED MILK?

It was supposed to rain all day, as it had the entire day before. But MIRACULOUSLY, the rain drops ceased and the sun shone for the entire day. Only the best for fucking Henry Robbins and his big shot birthday.

Henry’s mom was there, and his sister came with four of her kids. Blake was there because there was free food, but Henry’s other son Robbie had to work. Corey and I had a mild disagreement back in April and he apparently has been making much more of it than it actually is, so he stayed in his room all day. He said he was sick, but  my mom said he was sulking. Some people were out-of-town that weekend, and others were just like, “Wait – who’s Henry?” So they didn’t come, obviously.

And then Alisha and Stacey were there too, thank god, because there was some family tension going on and it was nice to have friends with me. And I know Henry was glad that Alisha was there, because while we, and I do mean just Henry, were setting up for the cook-out, I was about .00002 seconds away from a full-blown temper tantrum because it had been a shitty weekend and there was an issue with disrespect against Henry and myself, which I won’t get into here but I will say that after nine years you’d think some people would fucking let shit go by now and grab on to some semblance of a life. And I projected all of that aggression onto the table and the fact that I didn’t like where Henry was putting it. So I sat myself with my arms crossed, wanting to go home, but then Alisha came over and talked to me in soft tones and then we went for a walk and I was OK. And that is how a person takes care of Erin R. Kelly.

Henry tries to act like, “Oh, Stacey is so annoying!” but look at his face! Behind that smirk, he’s like, “Oh hell yeah, some blond broad is totally hanging off me, what’s up NOW, Air Force roommates?” Stacey wanted to jump out of a cake but Henry said he’d rather her just be the pinata if she had to go and be anything at all.

I suggested getting some oranges so they could recreate the game we played at my baby shower, where you have to hold an orange between your chin and chest and transport it to your partner’s chin/chest cavity without using hands. Stacey and Henry were partners and he still accuses her of somehow chipping his tooth. So that suggestion wasn’t very well-received by Henry. Besides, he’s 45 now and everyone knows 45-year-olds don’t run, have fun, or have the space under their chins to hold an orange. At least those named Henry Robbins.

I didn’t see Chooch sit down for the entire three hours we were there. His faux hawk fell on one side and was held there firmly by the salt of his sweat; I couldn’t stop seeing Drop Dead Fred every time he ran past. And then Alisha was like, “That is my favorite piece of cinema!” and I always do double takes when she talks about culture and shit since she grew up wearing floral dresses and riding mules in Arkansas.

The first time I met Stacey was at a ChiChis back in 2004. This was right after the whole Weiss Meats debacle happened, so I was out of a job. She paid for my margarita! I’ll always remember that, because it was like a real life date. The second time we hung out, she came to my house. I don’t know why I made such a big deal out of it, but I had Henry put together a cheese plate.

Kind of like, “I have no friends, Henry, don’t let this one get away!!” But actually, I did kind of have friends back then. I know, can you imagine?! So anyway, here comes Stacey, walking through the door, kicking off her shoes, and curling up on the couch, like we were old college roomies. And then she immediately began antagonizing Henry, who got all ruffled, and I was like, “Oh shit, this girl KNOWS.” And then I let her to drag me to the Regatta, where I was coerced into wearing a Froggy sticker on my tit AND carry around a Froggy balloon all Goddamn day, so you KNOW I must have thought Stacey was worth it. (But more importantly, that was also the day I learned about Furries.)

Oh. Anyway. That picture just reminded me of that, that’s all.

First, Henry was riding a scooter with Chooch chasing after him, wanting it back. Then, he tried to be all cutesy and board the tricycle and I was like, “What the fuck kind of retardedly stunted mid-life crisis are you HAVING? My God, go get a fucking Mustang or gamble away your child like a normal man.”  (I’d have said Porsche instead, but come on. Henry’s lucky he could afford a Pinto.)

ARGH! Manos: Cake Hand of Fate! Val was thoughtful enough to get Henry a birthday cake. Good call! Because I totally would have dropped the ball on that. And then his sister Kelly was like, “Wait, aren’t we singing?” Meanwhile, the cake had already been cut and 75% of us were inhaling it.

A feeble attempt to make it look like we had more guests.

So there you go. You could have had an AWESOME VIDEO of ME on a RIDE, but instead you get shit about Henry.

(I have no idea who I’m referring to every time I say “you.” You, I guess.)

Today is Henry’s FORTY-FIFTH birthday! GOOD FUCKING LORD. We’re attempting to have a cook-out for him later today at my mom’s (or, if the rain refuses to cease, a cook-IN. OMG the sun came out as I typed that!

) but other than that, I didn’t get him SHIT for his birthday. I would have made him something awesome, but since he made me GET A JOB, I don’t have time for that romantic homemade bullshit anymore.

So, in his honor, I’m posting the pictures from the calendar I made out of pure unadulterated love back in 2007. I don’t have a copy of the calendar in front of me, but there were awesome Henry-tastic holidays strewn throughout, like “Give Your Boss a Reach-Around Day.” Maybe one of the three people who own a copy can help me out here!

(We all endearingly called him Hoover back in the LiveJournal days, because he sucks the fun out of everything. So now you know.)

12 Months of Hoover

(I don’t know what I was thinking with this font choice.)

(Henry smiled a lot more back then, it seems.)

(My personal fave.)

(May is a good time for a romantic picnic with Hot Naybor Chris!)

(June is Gay Pride Month!)

(Henry is a good griller! You should hire him for all your COOKOUTS.)

(So, this was his old boss Ted who may or may not have found out that I created a faux love story between him and Henry in my fake Henry LiveJournal.)

(No wait! Maybe this one is my favorite because Henry looks so bitchin’.)

(Henry’s wearing his fruity Playstation headset in the witch picture. He went through a long phase where those were ALWAYS on his head. Fucking Socom.)

(OMG all of Henry’s favorite people!)

I taught myself Photoshop just so I could make this calendar for him. It was even a prize at my baby shower! (Kara won it for giving me the best present ever – a baby-sized Cure t-shirt!

)

Happy birthday, Henry. We’ll all watch porn in your honor.

19 comments

In my “serious research” for The Christina Chronicles, I’ve made it to the journal containing a good portion of 2005. Jesus Christ, I was a mess! Even messier than I am now, which is really saying something and I admit that I took a moment out of my day to feel utterly sorry for 2005 Erin.

It’s interesting to look back on the state of my relationship with Henry and wonder how the hell we’ve made it to the point where we have a four-year-old son when it was apparently such a big deal if we got along that I would preface journal entries with all-capped ovations of WE DIDN’T FIGHT TODAY!!!!

Anyway, the point of this is that I wrote one night in February, Henry was thoroughly engrossed in a game of Ghost Recon (I AM SO GLAD HE DOESN’T PLAY THOSE STUPID GAMES ANYMORE!), when my cat Don approached him and cried.

Without taking his eyes from the TV, Henry replied, “Oh yeah?

And did that happen yesterday or today?”

Then he realized I was in the room and tried to deny it, because Henry big man! Henry no speak to animals!

Interestingly, I was always flat-out ignored if I had the audacity to speak to the Gaming Master.

Ever since I got pregnant, I knew I would have the baby baptized, for the obvious reasons:

1. Babies dressed in uncomfortable garb while squirming under a deluge of water should be a spectator sport
2. The party afterward = food
3. Finally, a legitimate excuse to have Riley dunked (provided the church I choose goes that route)!

And also maybe I have some personal reasons as well, but getting into that would be bo-oooo-ring.

Henry, on the other hand, is quite opposed to this and has voiced several times that he doesn’t care what I decide to do, but not to expect him to support me. As a non-practicing Catholic, he said he’d feel like a hypocrite. Why? I don’t.

Surprisingly, this hasn’t sparked many blow-outs with us. If it were political, I’d have undoubtedly broken his glasses (again) with my right hook.

After discussing the situation with the priest across the street, he signed me up for the baptism class and recommended that I bring one of the godparents, since the class was going to be full of couples and I’d likely feel uncomfortable.

Wait, what? I had to go to a class? You mean I couldn’t just march the kid into a church and have a priest plop him into a fountain?

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. I didn’t even want to go! Because really, church and me? Seriously? I would rather be pooped on by Henry’s gross ex-wife. But getting the baby baptized is surprisingly important to me, and I knew that by attending this class, I was proving that I was serious.

After spending two weeks moping around the house with a heavy bottom lip, I scored myself a side-kick for the class in the form of our very own Hoover. He was quick to reiterate that he was still not on board with the baptism, though.

At noon on Sunday, we slid into the second pew from the front of the baptism classroom and watched as the teacher–Cindy–began rustling through papers, making her last minute preparations. I immediately felt an urgent desire to laugh.

I’m one of those Inappropriate Laughers. I’ll erupt at a moment’s notice in the most solemn of places: churches, funeral homes, abortion clinics. I know I’m not alone in this, either. Henry gave me a toothpick to jab into my thigh to quell the giggles, although he first offered to do it himself.

The silence was stifling. I didn’t know where to lay my eyes. I kept staring at the pattern on Cindy’s dress, but she caught me a few times and I have a feeling she thought I was a lesbian and Henry was my skirt. Better than thinking, “Ew, that doofus sired her son? Poor baby.”

I wondered what the class would be like. I imagined there would be some Holy water flicking and maybe one of the couples would be a dear and come bearing homemade cookies. Simulated baby dunking, if we were lucky. But I would quickly find out that baptism class was really just a facade for Cindy to spend an hour beating into our heads just how fantastically in tune with Christianity her daughter is and how her son has a remarkably high IQ.

I picked at my cuticles for the next five minutes, and still no one else had arrived. Cindy decided to start without the others and passed over a sign-in sheet, which Henry refused to sign.

Cindy then asked her 10-year-old daughter Sophie to stand at the podium and start off the class by reading the Parent’s Prayer. Relieved that we weren’t going to be strong-armed into reading out loud with her, I got comfortable in the hard wooden pew as Sophie started reading. And stuttering. And fumbling over words. And completely rearranging the order of words. I wanted to slap her in the back of the head and yell, “SPIT IT OUT, KID!” Henry, sensing my annoyance and growing anger, hissed, “She’s only 10!” I didn’t care! I could read better than that when I was ten!

When she finally finished butchering the eight paragraphs (is that what you would call the individual clusters of Christlike adulation?), Cindy beamed and praised her for a job well done. I choked back the bile.

“I want to talk specifically for a minute about the one line of this prayer,” Cindy announced, still wearing her church-appointed fake smile. It was a line talking about teaching our children not to lie and cheat. Cindy pulled out the big guns in the form of an anecdote. Ooh, I was shivering with anticipation. “Just recently, we came back from Disney World. Now, while we were there, we could have lied and said that Sophie was only nine so she could get in at a cheaper admittance price, but we didn’t want to set an example of lying to get something we want. Right Sophie?” Sophie cocked her head and smiled tightly at us.

Oh my god, I really hated her.

Cindy went on to gush about Sophie’s work in the church.

“She’s filling in for an altar boy on vacation, so she’s really been able to see how mass works from behind the scenes, right Sophie?” Big deal. Sophie remained in the front of the classroom with her hands on her hips as her mom continued to stroke her ego.

What a smug bitch.

I wondered how much longer we’d have to sit here and watch their Happy Valley dog and pony show when a haggard-looking woman padded into the room. Henry gave me a squinted side-long glance as he noticed that she was alone.

Next, Cindy asked us why we wanted to have our children baptized. “We’ll start over here,” she decided as she looked at me.

What?! No one told me there was going to be a Q&A session.

“Uh…because I was baptized. And it’s like, the right thing to do?” I suddenly became aware that my answer would only have sounded worse if recited by Butthead himself.

I white-knuckled the edge of my seat, waiting for Cindy to shake her head sadly and say, “No, I’m sorry. Wrong answer; you fail. Now get the hell out of my class. Oh–and may the Lord be with you.” Instead, Cindy looked at me with the pity generally reserved for three-legged dogs.

“Yes, OK. So, because of tradition, right? That’s certainly not a wrong answer.” Then why was she making me feel like it was wrong? She turned her attention to Henry, who irritably mumbled, “I’m with her!” His reply was barely audible over all the hostility radiating from it. She skipped over him for all the other questions.

I rolled my eyes when she asked the single woman at the end of our row what her reason was and we had to sit through a veritable dissertation. I felt so out of place.

Soon, another single woman rolled on in. And another. And another. Henry’s scowl was deep-set and animosity was rolling in waves off his skin. Once again, I couldn’t stop laughing.

After getting the newcomers up to speed, Cindy decided to hurl another pop quiz our way. Something about what could we do as parents to instill faith into our children. She looked at me expectantly. I mumbled that I would take the kid to church.

Cindy gave me that look again and reiterated my answer in case those in the back didn’t quite hear just how lame it really was. Then she steepled her fingers and said that yes, going to church was certainly an obvious route to take. She was clearly digging for some profound spiritual example and I was unsure that she was going to find it within the motley crew gathered together that day.

I was wrong.

There was a woman sitting in the pew behind us, and when it was her turn to answer Cindy’s stupid question, she closed her eyes and said, “You know, I learn more about faith from my children than I could ever teach them myself. Every time my daughter hears a bell, she says a prayer.”

Don’t Erin. Oh god, don’t laugh.

Cindy stopped dead in her tracks and clutched the back of a pew. “That gave me goosebumps,” she announced, as though the woman had sung a hymn in the dulcet tones of an angel, rather than simply answering a question. Cindy rubbed her arms for effect.

This class was a piece of shit. I started to get restless and began to rifle through our handouts. There was a dated booklet about the religious aspects of being a parent and it featured pictures of real life families. There was a shot of one child with a bowl cut and thick-framed glasses who particularly tickled my funny bone. My body convulsed in amusement as I realized that the kid bore a striking resemblance to a young Hoover. Then I noticed the headline of that page said Raising Special Children.

Jesus, I’m a bad mom. No one wants to hear that their child resembles Henry.

Finally, the end was drawing near and Cindy’s husband Sam–who appeared to be running on the fumes of last night’s alcohol binge–ushered us into a classroom down the hall, where two rows of miniature chairs were set up in semi-circles. I was happy that I was able to successfully plant my ass on the chair without my cheeks dripping over the sides. Sam pressed ‘play’ on the VCR and we all sat back to watch Bishop Wuerl, circa 1988, walk us through a real life baptism. It was fifteen excruciating minutes of him narrating over top of scenes from a baptism, interspersed with shots of him in his Bishop-y costume, clasping his hands in front of a bookshelf which was no doubt filled with books about praying and swindling money from parishioners.

Quickly, I lost interest in that nonsense. Instead, I busied myself by taking inventory of the best educational toys from the ’70s, housed in ragged boxes held together by masking tape and stacked haphazardly on a shelf next to my seat. Maybe when I start attending church, my monetary offering will go toward upgrading the flashcards.

When I start attending church. I love saying that over and over in my head.

“…and then the priest anoints the godparents….”

The Bishop was on his ninth “and then.” I was waiting for the “…and then the end.” Would it ever come? That Christ-hugger Cindy said that it was a “short” video. To me, short is two minutes. Anything longer than that and I’m lost in a land of spittle and undulating hot dogs.

“…and then…”

Ooh, birdie outside the window!

“…and then…”

Jesus Christ, I couldn’t stop staring at Hoover’s head, which looked like the prize-winning gourd at the county fair.

“…and then comes the part of the ceremony where the priest performs an exorcism…”

Wait…what? Way to lasso my attention, Bishop Wuerl.

And so the video segued into the section about Original Sin and cleansing the soul. I was captivated as, over and over again, Bishop Wuerl said things like, “..expel the darknesssss.” This creepiness was certainly unexpected in a video about a fucking baptism.

“Darknesssss….”

The video ended and Sam presented us with a certificate praising us for completing baptism class. That almost made up for not attending high school graduation.

I ran for the door and as soon as my feet hit the pavement of the parking lot, my tongue tripped over itself as all the comments I had held back for the past hour came racing out past my teeth. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to distract Henry, who immediately began to berate me for dragging him to a class full of single women when he could have stayed at home and jacked off over his hair cut.

“Darknessssss.” Ooh, it still makes me shiver!

Later on that afternoon, while licking a soft-serve ice cream cone laden with crunchies, Henry said thoughtfully, “That lady—Cindy—was hiding something.” Like what? The fact that she didn’t really recite the Parent’s Prayer every night? Sophie’s on the pill because she can’t keep her legs closed?

Ever since the class, I’ve been dangling water bottles above Riley’s head so we can practice for the big day, but then Henry gets all, “OMG no!” on my ass and rips the bottle from my hand.

The baptism will be the first time I’ve entered a church since I was seventeen.

[Originally posted July 2006]

I don’t know if I ever explained this yet, but Henry drives me to work every day like the good little jitney he is. I start at 4pm, and he doesn’t leave his job until at least 3, so for me to take (OMG) public transportation, he’d have to come home even earlier, forcing his boss to have a stroke. Plus, being poor folk, we only have one car and sometimes Henry actually needs it to go out and do things for me while I’m filing my nails at my comfy job.

The first two weeks of this went well. Henry is a seasoned pro at driving around downtown because that was his delivery route when he worked at the horrible Jewish meat asylum. So every day, we’d take a different route and I’d marvel at all the new sights of a city where I lived MY WHOLE LIFE. Put me in the center of town and force me to find my way home if you ever want to see me completely give up all hope and succumb to rocking back and forth with hugged knees atop a steaming sewer grate.

Then the cop incident happened, and that was sort of the impetus that took Henry from being all, “No, this is fine; I don’t have a problem driving downtown everyday” to “FUCKING DOWNTOWN OMG ANOTHER BUS I WANT TO BOMB THE BUSES NOW WHAT DOES THIS BROAD THINK SHE’S DOING?”

Two days ago, there were two young black guys yukking it up while jaywalking. I waited for Henry to slow down.

Henry did not slow down.

If I close my eyes, I can still the one boy’s lips beginning to hug the words OH SHIT as Henry nearly grazed his left side.

“WHAT THEY WEREN’T USING A CROSSWALK” Henry bellowed at me, and then approximately five seconds later we almost got t-boned by a bus.

Henry was flipping out. His nostrils, I’ve never seen them that flared, and come on – he’s lived with ME (Erin Rachelle!) for TEN YEARS.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS MY CAR INVISIBLE” he screamed out the window.

(Punctuation need not apply when quoting Chafed Hank.)

As he started to round the corner to drop me off, an older woman was attempting to cross the street.

“Watch—” I started to warn.

“I DON’T CARE I’LL KILL THEM ALL” he spat.

I was very happy when my feet touched my curb, because it meant I’m a survivor. Where’s my magnetic ribbon for the car?

[Side note: When I was shuttled to work yesterday, Chooch had chocolate frosting smeared like shit all over his lips, and was dangling a blown-up latex glove and one bare foot out the window. When you’re met with judgmental stares of homeless people and curb-dwelling wiggers, you can damn well be sure you just exited a Hillbilly Mobile.]

As soon as I got in the car last night, he started rambling about strippers. “They think because they’re strippers, they can just STAND IN THE STREET? I ALMOST RAN ONE OVER” He sounded so exasperated and disgusted, of course I was going to laugh at him.

A note to strippers from Henry: Just because you make him erect does not mean he won’t run you over if you walk in front of his car.

***

The UPS man brought Chooch a package yesterday. It was a Lego set. And not just any Lego set – but a SPONGEBOB lego set!

Spongebob is probably my least favorite cartoon in the world. Legos are probably my least favorite toy in the world.

OH WAIT, this is about CHOOCH. I keep forgetting!

“That’s mean,” I said to Henry, who had stopped home on his lunch break. “To get a kid Legos.”

Mean for the parents. Or, for the Erin, in this case.

But then I noticed on the invoice, it said it was purchased from his wish list. “That little asshole added it to his Toys R Us wish list!” I said to Henry.

“Yeah, because I wanted it,” Chooch butt in with his patented “no duh” tone.

Henry went back to work just in time for Chooch to start begging for someone to help him sort through 98,098 of the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen – when did Legos shrink? Is there a growing dwarf population that Lego is trying to accommodate? Just what I wanted to do, spend an entire afternoon on the floor, tugging on my hair and blowing out steaming obscenities.

And then I heard Chooch snickering as he sat elsewhere, playing with less complicated toys that came already assembled by the manufacturer.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked angrily.

“Because you’re doing that all by yourself,” he giggled. “And you’re so pissed.”

Not ten minutes after I put the final dust mite-sized piece on the Krabby Patty Hell House, Chooch picked it up and five sections broke off, shattering as it hit the ground like pieces of a glass leper.

I firmly believe that Hell is carpeted with Legos, and everyone is forced to watch Spongebob ad nauseum while seated in chairs cushioned with the up-ended swords of the PlayMobile viking set.

FUCK TOYS.

But Chooch is happy with it, and my sister was nice enough to get it for him. And that’s all that matters!  I can say that now, because I got all my anger out yesterday after I punched all those orphaned babies and took a gin bath.

Look at me, being a grown-up!

Seriously though, I kind of want to just give him a cardboard box and tell him to use his imagination.

[ETA: After skimming through this, I realize I sound like an ungrateful asshole! I’m not, I swear! This was meant in good humor. I’m glad Chooch got a present – something he wanted, no less –  from someone other than me.]

On the way home from work tonight, Henry and I talked about this nutcase who stabbed his wife to death because she was angry with him for staying up to watch the Penguins game last night, triple overtime and all.

“It would be the reverse in our house,” I laughed.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure there’s more to the story. She was probably a NAG and NAGGED him for the last time,” Henry said with great enunciation, taking his eyes off the road to glare at me.

“Oh, please,” I sneered. “If anyone is going to be doing any killing, it’s me.”

“But the difference,” Henry explained, “is that you’d never know I was coming. You, on the other hand, would probably trip and fall before you even left the kitchen with the knife.”

Upon further thought, Henry added, “No, you probably wouldn’t even be able to find the weapon you wanted to use, and would end up having to ask me.”

Oh, you just turned this into a competition, Douchebag Henry.

The plan for today is to clean the entire house. There’s a realtor  who’s been trying unsuccessfully to show our house to prospective buyers (and by unsuccessfully, I  mean that we pointedly leave the house during the hours the showing is supposed to go down) but we have no choice but to let this play out, since whoever buys the property will be our future landlord. (Supposedly, and I don’t know if I believe it, they’re going to let everyone renew the leases. WE’LL SEE.)

So this is going to happen on Tuesday. Luckily, I’ll be at work. I think Henry should prepare a cheese plate and hand out snifters of brandy to maybe distract from the Sharpie wall-drawings and the hole in our bedroom wall. And the fact that we have four cats.

Anyway! I was just sitting here thinking about all the work that needs to be done, and my eyelids started to droop. Then I started to feel really stressed. So I called Henry, who ran out to get SUPPLIES for this cleaning thing we’re doing.

“Just thinking about cleaning is making me feel so exhausted,” I whined to him. Henry replied with that “I’m dating a spoiled brat” scoff that he patented back in 2002. “So here’s what I’m thinking,” I continued. “You can do all the cleaning and I’ll just stand there and talk to you, keep you company.”

This sounds like a foil-proof plan. I don’t know why anyone would turn that down.

Henry laughed, but I’m not sure it was because he thought it was funny.

No? You don’t like that idea, Henry? How about we just clean all of your shit right out of the house, you like that plan, douche bag?

Besides, there’s Stanley Cup playoff games to be watched today. Speaking of, Sidney Crosby is the best hockey player in the world.

EDIT: Henry is home from the store now. He was pulling plastic off some alien contraption.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“This is called a mop, Erin.”

Earlier, one of the ladies here was talking about her dog Henry.

“Henry has some sort of worm. We’ve been giving him medicine for it; apparently it’s because he eats mice,” Cheryl said to Barb.

My back was to her, and I laughed quietly to myself, pretending she was talking about my Henry, imagining Henry with a limp Mickey clamped between his teeth and worms writhing out his asshole.

“Does Henry eat poop, too?” Barb asked, completely serious.

Now I’m sitting there, picturing Henry ferally hunched over in the backyard, shoveling his own piping hot feces in his mouth like it’s help yourself night at the Soup Kitchen, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud while Cheryl was so obviously speaking about her dog in concerned tones.

Also, in my fantasy, Henry is wearing his SERVICE CLOTHES and rocking out bitchin’ingly to Judas Priest. A framed picture of the original Swedish Pippi Longstocking is in the background, slightly out of focus, but sharp enough to scare away bystanders with her gingerosity.

Thank you for joining me for this fun jaunt back to 5th grade.

Henry and I never go out. I think the last time was when we went to see Thrice back in November, and it was good until the end when some guy started pushing me and Henry acted like he knew nothing about it.

I had a pack of four tickets to a Wheeling Nailer’s game that I bought a few weeks ago from one of those “just pay half” sites, thinking it would be cool to double-date with my sister, since she lives in Wheeling and we both like hockey. Henry and I dropped Chooch off at his Aunt Kelly’s house (bless her!!!) on Saturday afternoon and for the first time in forever, spent time in the car without a loud-mouthed child screaming MOMMY!!!!! DADDY!!!! every two seconds and calling us bitches.

It was glorious. Except for the part where Henry donned the Professional Driver cap and began weaving and veering through back roads and I was so anxious, staring at the clock, knowing we weren’t going to be in Wheeling by the designated meeting time of 5:00pm.

He drives the SPEED LIMIT for Christ’s sake!

Other than that, I was doubled over with giddiness. It was practically a date! We were acting like a real couple! God, was it ever exciting. So exciting that I put on Of Mice and Men (the band, not the book) real loud and Henry started complaining when I kept tugging his arm up in a roof-raising motion, and then I thought it would be fun to try to kill him and he was shouting, “Hello, not while I’m DRIVING!”

Oh man, just like old times.

We were about ten minutes late, and my sister Amy and her boyfriend Dick were already waiting for us at River City, where we decided to meet for drinks because I hear that’s what grown people do. It was kind of awkward at first, mostly because of Henry’s social displacement, but once the beers (and my lame amaretto sour) arrived, everyone started loosening up and Henry began to be scared of the similarities shared by my sister and me. And I think Dick thought I was retarded, maybe?

My favorite part was when Dick asked Henry what he did for a living. Dick is a doctor so Henry, feeling inadequate,  mumbled something about working for a beverage company and I considered shouting, “HE PLAYS WITH FAYGO ALL DAY” but didn’t want to embarrass him. I mean, any more than he already is just by being my boyfriend.

Henry hated our waitress for not knowing anything about the beer on tap, and he went to the bar to look at the beer selection for himself. Then he told the bartender he hated the waitress. Then we got a new waitress! This one was trying unsuccessfully to cover a black eye with orange foundation. She made me feel uncomfortable, like I had an uncredited role in a Lifetime movie.

By the time we left to walk across the street to the arena, it seemed like everyone liked each other (except for Henry and me, but, well….duh) and I would have been more happy about that if I wasn’t busy panicking about redeeming our tickets. I get nervous about things like this! I’m tightly wound. When I slid the email confirmation printout under the glass at the will call booth, the man began asking me a torrent of questions, like: “Did you call the box office?” and “Did the box office call you?”

I was a nervous wreck. “No!” I answered to both questions. Was he going to tell us to leave? Would we have to work for the tickets? Because I might, MIGHT, give some oral for a ticket but no way am I mopping a floor.

Then he typed some stuff on his computer and handed me 4 tickets.

JUST LIKE THAT.

No one else seemed impressed or surprised. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to happen, the gestapo to swarm from all sides, handcuff me and put me away for being violating some serious Wheeling ticket embargo by just paying half on some seedy illegitimate website created by scamming Nigerians.

Once we found our seats, Henry and Dick went off to do Men Things, like buy beer and clap each other on the back a lot. Meanwhile, I explained to Amy that the Nailers had to win that night, since they were playing my least favorite in the entire world, Cincinnati.

“That’s where Christina’s from,” I reminded her. “So there’s A LOT on the line for me.” I think she’s beginning to realize that every little thing in my life is OMG so DIRE, because she just let out a little laugh and said, “Oh, yeah that’s right.”

While Henry and Dick were getting beer, the game started. Literally twenty seconds into it, the Nailers scored. I gloated when Henry came back. (With beer in kids cups, no less.)

I hated the people in front of me. They kissed with open mouths. They were there with their kids! They probably all sleep in the same bed, too. Naked. It was awful to spectate.

Henry spent most of the game obsessing over the fact that the family in front of him belonged to Spike the Mascot. I’m surprised he didn’t send out numerous tweets about it. “You know how Spike came over and kissed that baby?” he asked in an excited hush. “That’s because it’s his DAUGHTER.” He looked so pleased with himself. I asked him how he found out and it was because he overheard the conversation the baby’s mom was having with the Jesus impersonator sitting next to us.

You’d have thought he called up Shane Donovan of the ISA (whaddup Days of Our Lives fans) and had a DNA test ran.

Throughout the game, I kept trying to be affectionate with Henry. In normal ways, like flicking his face and pounding his knee with my fist in lieu of clapping along to the “Let’s Go Nailers” chants. He kept pushing me away! Can you believe that.

In the second period, Crapinnati got a lucky goal and Jesus rose in jubilation. Figures Jesus would be rooting for a team that hails from Judas’s town.

And then I noticed there was an entire section full of Ohioans, hollering for their dumb team.

“What are they called, the FLAPPERS??” I asked Henry incredulously.

“No, retard. The Cyclones. How do you get Flappers from Cyclones?” Because people from Ohio don’t know how to cheer properly.

Anyway, the Nailers came back to score three unanswered goals, and Jesus wept. Happy Easter, asshole!

Apparently, the Nailers didn’t have a very good season (they didn’t even clinch a playoff berth) but you’d never be able to tell by the way they played during their last game of the season. Every three minutes, I had a new favorite player.  It was a great game and awesome to hang out with my sister again!

By the time we left though, I was starving, which meant it was time to fight with Henry. “You’re a fucking bitch when you’re hungry,” he yelled, and then we remembered we have a kid and had to go retrieve him.

Hi, it’s me. I have been trying fruitlessly since Sunday to get Henry to post in here. He witnessed quite a spectacle at the grocery store and I said, “Henry my love, it seems to me that this would be an ideal entry for you to guest-blog over on that namsy-pamsy Internet diary I maintain.

”

But he’s too busy tugging on himself under a Cars blanket while watching previews for Mary Poppins.

Internet, I’ve failed you. Or perhaps this is considered collectively as a triumph, in which case I shall take a bow.

As soon as my muscles stop aching from the extra workouts I’ve been stuffing into my days as a pathetic way to fill the bottomless pit of unemployment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to invade Farmer McDonnells farm on Zombie Farm. My life is enviable.

Axes in hoes,
Erin Rachelle

I was updating Henry’s fake LiveJournal today and starting read some of the old stuff, for the LOLs. I came across this one and I don’t know why, but it made me laugh so hard and shit goddamn did that feel good. Maybe you might need a little pick-me-up today, too, so I am sharing. (Remember, “Hoover” calls me “Ruby.”)

Wed, Apr. 2nd, 2008, 01:03 pm
OMG i gots email!!

guyz some broad sent me a messige to my LIVejournal inbox!! HOw did she no the address i wonder?!?!

newayz this is what its sayin:

sharon.4001@yahoo.com
from sharongreatsharon.4001@yahoo.com
Hello Dear new friend
my name is sharon i saw your profile at www.livejournal.com and i found pleasure to write you as my my friend so that we can
communicate to
each othere,please mail me through my email address
(sharon.4001@yahoo.com)so that i will send you my pic for you to
know
who i am for the love and pleasure i have develpoed in your lovely
profile i awaits your lovely reply as soon as you get this mail.
sharon
please please please contact this email directly
sharon.4001@yahoo.com

i think what she is tryin to say is this?

“Hoover i seen ur picture on lj and frist i was like omg john black! but then i seen the real pictures and even though u is not srsly stud-like with catapiller eye brows like JOHN BLACK, i can see that u prolly have a decent working steve johnson* inside ur pantz. ruBY sounds like a fat dyke u should dump her better yet stab her to death and throw her in a dumpster outside Planned Parenthood and then POOP on her to, and then u and me can make babies and sell them for BOOZE.

i have big tits.
LOVE, SHAROON

i am gonna wait for ruBY to go to work and then i will be writing a nice reply. i will give her my phone number, and my social security # to, prolly.

*STEVE JOHNSON HE IS MY 2ND FAVE GUY ON DAYS OF OUR LIFES ONLY BECAUSE BO IS LIKE DYING RIGHT NOW AND LOOKS UGLY (i is three weeks behind so if he is dead now or somehow got a new pnacreas, plz do not tell me!!!!)

“…and I’ll be 65 and retired,” Henry was saying.

I laughed. “You? Retired? You’ll never get to retire. We’ll be living in a goddamned porta potty by then.”

“Oh please. Like you’ll even still be with me then. You’ll be 40 and flirting with younger guys. Whore.”

It’s funny because it’s true.

And then Chooch was talking about the ice cream shop he supposedly opened “down by Giant Eagle,” and Henry goes, “What do you say to your customers? ‘I hate you, what do you want?'”

Chooch paused in consideration and then said, “Yeah. Douchebag.”

Wednesday night,  Chooch was over Janna’s house, making her family think he’s some kind of angel or something. Feeling inspired to listen to something other than the stack of MP3 CDs I have in the car, I backpeddled to one of my CD racks, closed my eyes, and plucked out a CD by the Pale to listen to on my way to pick up Chooch. (Yes, a CD! Remember those?) I vaguely remember liking The Pale enough to put them on mixes back in the day – I think this might have been circa 2003-4. I also vaguely remember that they changed their name to the Pale Pacific sometime after the release of this album and I never really followed them after that.

The first song didn’t really move me much, but by the time the opening notes of the second tracks filled my freezing car, I was 24 years old again, it was spring time, and Henry and I were walking in a cemetery. And then I listened to the words, really listened, and suddenly my face was wet and I was murmuring “Aw” out loud and I swear to you, the last eight years of my life flashed by and it hit me, fucking cold-cocked me in the face, and not that I didn’t already know, but I was taken over by this overwhelming realization of how lucky I am to have Henry. Yes, I said it! I have fucked up so many times that it’s almost like, why get a job? I have one! I work in the Fucking-Up Lab. And somehow Henry forgives me every time (though he keeps track).

I am the one who can solve all your problems
A savior with only you to save
That’s why I’m here
At least I tell myself that
The motivation becomes so blurred

Henry’s always picking up the pieces (sometimes quite literally, because I’m a destructive wild woman), always making sure I don’t run off with a razor blade/bottle of sleeping bills/keys to the car, always supporting me even when everyone else is placing bets for me to fail.

And you want them to see
And you want them to know
But they never find the real you
You never once complained
But now twenty years are gone
And you’re ready to explode

That’s me, Vesuvius Rachelle.

In light of recent events, I’ve just been finding perspective everywhere. In music, in my little family, in my underwear. It doesn’t matter if not everyone appreciates you, as long as that one person does. So, I don’t know. I guess, thank you Henry. And don’t get too used to these PDAs.

The Pale – Gravity Gets Things Done

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

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

Maybe I’m making this up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OVER IT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We spent the afternoon at Henry’s sister Kelly’s house yesterday.

It was a nice time, for sure, but when Kelly pulled out some old photo albums, it was ON. Typically, I can go hogwild making fun of a gawky teen Henry wearing bitchin’ shades, high-waisted pants, and steepling his fingers. (Seriously, he steeples his fingers more than sinister cartoon crime lords.)

But then Kelly slipped me a strip of photobooth pics taken at Kennywood in 1974.

(For those of you who are bad at math, that is FIVE YEARS before I was born.

To spell that out: HENRY IS WAY OLDER THAN ME.

)

And aside from the idiotic gaping maw pose he’s got going in the last photo (he claims this was back when an actual person was in there taking the pictures and telling you how to pose), there wasn’t much I could say other than “OMG aw” and “SWOON.”

I also want to add that I’m thankful he doesn’t still have the pervy beer-drinkin’ molester look he had going on in his twenties.