We’re at Home Depot and Henry is trying to teach me about light bulbs.

I’m not listening so essentially he’s talking to himself because trust me, Chooch could give a shit.

This place is boring and the sawdust fumes are giving me a headache.

• We had some time to kill before the first band came on, so I was telling Henry about this guy Chuck who answered my ad for the photo shoot, and how he has his own project that he invited me to work on with him because he needs a photographer. His project revolves around people doing every day activities like taking groceries from the car, except that they’re nude. How could I say no to a project involving nakedness? One of sets he wanted to use is a seedy motel. Henry looked horrified and asked, "You didn’t say yes, did you?" My hesitation was his answer. He looked out into the crowd and murmured, "Well, that’s one way to get rid of you."
• My Blackberry never left my side the whole night. In between bands, I even posted to my blog. I mused that one of the merits was that it enabled me to fit in better with the kids because I can stand around lifelessly and text all the livelong night. After briefly scanning the crowd, Henry said, "No. You’re the only one doing that."
• I was relieved to discover that I didn’t know anyone there. Henry miserably grumbled, "The only way I’d know anyone here would be if they were friends with my kids." I laughed.
• The first band was International Giant or International Drive or Internationoonegivesa Fuck. I found myself creating a wish list during their set:
  • I wished the singer would stop doing that thing with his voice.
    • I think that thing is called "singing" in some parts.
  • I wished the singer’s t-shirt would stop v-necking all the way past his nipples.
  • I wished the drummer had not been wearing a head band and a 1970s inspired spandex wrestling tank in aquamarine stripes.
  • I wished they weren’t singing so many songs.
  • I wished I was there with someone cooler.
  • I wished the singer would stop wagging his tongue and thrusting his balls at us.
  • I wished I had a pony. With wings. A unicorn pony with a skull and crossbones tattoo on its ass that would gallop across the stage and spear the singer’s nads with its serrated horn made of steak knives bound together with barbed wire.
• At one point, two really fucking annoying teenage girls stood in front of me and the one with teased black hair leaned over and shouted, "I made out with a girl last weekend!" into the other girl’s ear and I really wanted to punch her.
•  I’m glad that my contacts arrived yesterday afternoon, else I wouldn’t have been able to see that the singer of Automatic Loveletter looked just like Kira from the Dark Crystal.
• Automatic Loveletter was better than I thought they would be, because I usually find affliction with female-fronted bands.
• During their set, Henry nudged me and very seriously whisper-yelled into my ear that the singer from Armor For Sleep (Ben) was standing next to him. He acted like it was no big thang, but I know that his inner fan girl was squealing and wetting herself. I noticed Henry stood up a little straighter after seeing him, crossing his arm menacingly, probably hoping all the little girls would think Henry was Ben’s bodyguard. I bet he was kicking himself for not wearing his bandannas anymore.
• When Automatic Loveletter was over, all the guys in the audience rushed the merch table to have their pictures taken with the singer, Juliet. Henry scoffed at that, but I could tell he was longing to have a memento of his own.
• The third band was A Cursive Memory and I was very bored during their set. The one singer had the most obnoxious front teeth, like he had just stepped out of a comic strip. About beavers. I couldn’t bear to look at him because they made me feel so nervous. I just wanted him to close his mouth.
• Right before their last song, Teeth shouted, "This song is about bread in spheres!" and I was like, "Wow, that’s pretty cool" but then Henry was all, "They said Britney Spears, you dumb ass."
• I pretty much wanted to kill myself all throughout Armor For Sleep’s set. Which is to say: They were really fucking fantastic.
• Henry and I got along THE ENTIRE NIGHT. He wouldn’t put his arm around me when I requested it, though.

I’m in the car with Henry and as usual he’s flapping his lips into his cell phone. He always talks extra loud when he’s on a "business" call and it angers my ears. The nature of this particular call is for him to give directions to a truck driver (this is what he lives for).

"I’ll get into the warehouse at 1:00AM, get you off and then get you out," Henry said, unaware that he turned something as innocent as unloading a truck into an indecent proposal.

Right now he’s inside Dave’s Music Mine buying tickets to Friday’s Armor For Sleep show. I wonder how long it takes him to inadvertently offer to jack off the cashier.

When he asks me to be more specific about the obvious.

"Henry, where are my keys?" I have two keys: house and car. They’re bound together in holy matrimony by the power of one keychain.

"The keys to….?"

"The titanium vault where we keep all the Nazi bodies and velvet satchels of rubies. The car, you fucking asshole."

When he’s vague when the question warrants specifics.

"What are you making?"

"Dinner."

"But what is it?"

"Food."

Since the year 2001, my sole purpose in life has been to ridicule Henry as much as possible, and in ways he never could have fathomed, on the Internet and off.

This involves looting through his belongings; eavesdropping on phone calls; creating fake blogs, MySpace profiles and personal ads in his name; giggling every time he talks to other men; and A LOT of help from my side kick, Photoshop.
 

But sometimes, Henry makes it too easy. Like today, when he was looking through all his shit that I made him keep in the garage and not in my house, and came back into the house cradling his Air Force year book.

"Holy fucking shit, give me that!" I cried, snatching it from his meat fists. "Please tell me you’re in here!" He watched impatiently as I flipped frantically through the pages, gagging on the fumes of 1983.

"Gimme that," he said in frustration, opening the book to the page I wanted.

Running my finger down the page, I quickly found his name. I started to laugh really hard. Really, really hard. But then I stopped and said, in shock, "Dude. You kind of weren’t too gay-looking then." He rolled his eyes. "No seriously, now I wish you still looked like that. Aw, why did I have to get the stupid-looking version of you?" I’m not used to seeing Henry without his molester-stache.

Maybe I would like him more if he wore that hat all the time. I bet meals would taste better if cooked with him underneath his service hat.  Maybe I would show him some respect if his dome was capped with this prestigious relic.

That’s funny.

Maybe I would like him more if he was monochromatic.

As I’m hysterically typing this, he walked past and asked, "Does this really require an entire entry?" Does my universe center around laughing at his expense? Does an orphan slurp porridge? Does Michael Jackson grab crotches? Does auto-asphyxiation feel good?

No, really — I’m asking.

There was a candid, too! Of all the luck.

 At least this tells me that Chooch should hopefully get a good twenty years of cuteness in before his looks are shot to Hell.

Henry made me the perfect dinner. I’d like to think he’s attempting to make up for not delivering my forgotten sandwich to me last night, but I think it’s likely just a fluke that what he whipped up turned out so wonderful. It’s basically crumbled tofu decorated with roasted red peppers and mushrooms, followed by a finishing flourish of unknown spices and a bath of Heaven’s nectar. Oh, and cheese! How can a meal be called complete without a hearty coating of cheese? It looks like slop, but it tastes amazing. I’m a sucker for tofu. And cheese. And cheesy tofu.

I choked on a mushroom, but went right back to eating without crying about it. That’s how good it is.

Henry’s going to make someone a good wife one day.

EDIT: Never mind. My molars just clamped down on something sandy, possibly metal shavings, like miniscule fragments of glass cracking under the weight of my jaw. I hate incidental crunch in my food. Mood-killer.

We just left for Columbus.(We were supposed to leave yesterday but I insisted on wasting money at that gay car show.) Technically we left at 10:30 but Henry was nervous that he didn’t lock the door, so we turned around. Then we were fifteen minutes into the trip when he stopped to get gas and I discovered I left my credit card at home.

So we turned around.

Henry locked the deadbolt and I was having a hard time unlocking it, because I’m worthless, so he huffed out of the car and stomped down the sidewalk to do it for me. I was laughing giddily which only angered him more.

But now we’re back on the road. He won’t talk to me. This is going to be the longest three hours. I’m glad I brought a book.

Jesus, this kid has an attitude problem.

Look, there’s Henry crossing the street. Shortly after he came home, he fell asleep on the couch and it marked the first time ever in history that he joined me in torturing his napping father.

"Look Chooch, a sleeping bear! Let’s abuse him." I kept pinching Henry’s nose and sticking my finger in his mouth, and without any direction from me at all, Chooch ripped up a Kleenex and stuffed it in Henry’s ear, while Marcy perched on a nearby stool and glared at us. Every so often, Henry would slightly stir and an eye lid would lazily rise.

Eventually, I pinched too hard or laughed too loud, causing Henry to jerk forward and toss around a few empty threats. Chooch appeared a bit startled, but I quickly reminded him that we laugh when Daddy is upset, not cry. Laugh at Daddy’s misfortune, Choochie — it’s the fun way to live life. It says so on page 67 of the How to Handle a Henry1965 handbook.

Chooch threw back his head and concocted a laugh so evil and devious, that I was inspired to cover my heart with my hand.

It was awesome and my eyes welled with tears of pride.

When I notice I have a missed call from you, and I text you to see wtf you wanted, do not reply with "accident" unless you’re in the back of an ambulance. Because my heart is going to start performing palpitation gymnastics when I see that word, and when I find out you meant, "I called you by accident" and not "Hello, I had an automobile accident and am currently entangled in metal carnage" I’m going to want to take you from "accident" to "funeral" with one swift kick.

Got that, Henry?

(I can’t decide if I was more worried about Henry’s well being or the possibility that he totaled my mom’s car, which he was driving.)

We’re on our way to my grandma’s right now. There’s this one stately white house with presidential pillars that I always pause to look at, even when I was a kid. It’s the kind of house that I always wanted to have as an adult.

The kind of house that allows voyeurs to catch an envious glimpse of the majestic Christmas tree sparkling through frosted living room windows. The kind of house that probably doctors and Cuban drug lords and porn starlets call home.

“I wish you were rich,” I bitterly said to Henry.

“I wish you were dead,” he casually responded.

Our relationship keeps getting better.

I was really giddy when I came home from work last night. Henry loves that. He really, really loves that. We were in the bathroom brushing our teeth and I was so slap-happy that I was stumbling all over the place, still wearing my little red kitten heeled shoes which clacked all over the blue tile floor. Henry kept shooting me annoyed glares in the mirror, which only caused me to laugh harder. I kept throwing my body into his back, hoping he’d gag on his toothbrush, but then I did it with so much hysterical force that I ricocheted off him and nearly fell backward into the tub. This of course incited a loud guffaw from me and Henry did that thing where he grits his teeth together real hard and threatens to kill me if I wake the baby. Henry is always the only guest not laughing at the mad tea party.

Afterward, we were in the bedroom. I was gettihng undressed for bed and he was getting dressed for work ("Opposing Schedules: How Erin & Henry Make it Work"). I was salivating all over myself because I couldn’t stop laughing. Henry at that point pushed past me and called me something I haven’t been called since seventh grade: a re-re.

I laughed even harder.

"I can’t get that song out of my head!" I yelled as I hung up my shirt, not bothering to fix the sleeves that remained half inside-out. I’m obsessed with "Making the Band 4."

"What song? ‘I’m a Big Asshole, Look at Me’?" Henry grumbled.

Why did that make me laugh so hard? I don’t know, but I fell against him and laughed with my head flung back. Eventually, I got myself all tucked in. Henry turned off the lamp and I screamed frantically. I’m scared of the dark. But he opened the bedroom door real wide on his way out to let the bathroom light flood in, shaking his head as he did so.

Somehow Chooch didn’t wake up. Hopefully, tonight will be just as fun. Right, Henry? Henry?

Happy Valentine’s Day! So far, Henry hasn’t made me want to kill myself. I finally got to present him with the Vietnam Veteran belt buckle I bought him from etsy. It’s flooding with gold-plated hokeyness. When it fell out of the bag and into his palms, he kind of stared at it with that amazing brand of disbelief that you hope every gift recipient is addled with, and then he looked at me, his mustache creeping into a confused smile, and he said, "But I wasn’t in Vietnam….?"

"But you were in THE SERVICE! Same thing." I was still standing there, waiting for him to attach it to his belt.

"No, if this said Air Force, that would make sense. Then it would be the Service…" He flipped it over to look at the lavishly coated back.

"Well, just wear it. No one will know you’re not a Vietnam Vet." I was getting annoyed, and I really wanted MY present.

"Yes they will! I’m like, twenty years too young!" And then I couldn’t stop laughing, imagining Henry being "too young" for something.

"Like I said," I repeated, "no one will notice!"

And then he realized he doesn’t have the right kind of belt for a buckle, but I think he was trying to just get out of wearing it. I knew I should have bought the rainbow one that had "JESUS" emblazoned on it.

Then UPS hurled my present against the front door. Henry, further enabling my wanton lust for living in the past, gifted me with a bottle of Versace Red Jeans, one of my favorite scents as a young slut. The gift box was adorned with an elastic red ribbon, which is now being worn as a headband, so I’m pretty content right now.

And we’re going to Columbus next weekend! This sure beats the time he bought me a Fossil watch for Valentine’s Day, using a gift card my mom got me for Christmas.

Chiodos is doing an in-store appearance in Columbus, Ohio on February 24th. Perhaps if Henry goes with me, maybe stops and buys me something delicious from a truck stop vending machine on the way, I’ll let him off the hook for the next couple Valentine Days. I may have mentioned this before I left for work today and he actually seemed to give it some honest consideration.

"Are you going to act like a fucking dork when you see them?" he asked while making my macaroni (the Kraft squigles, which I do not prefer. I like a more mature shell. Or at least Scooby Doo shapes). I stood there and smiled. "That’s a yes," he grumbled.

I’m trying to make it sound really appealing for him, hinting at the possibility of turning it into a regular weekend throwdown brimming with cheap motels, hookers, gun fights at the poker game, and discarded cans of energy drinks under our feet on the car floor. Chooch will be there too. Somewhere. In the trunk maybe. Knocking back a St. Ides.

Well Henry, Y or N?

(If he says no, I’m using that as my incentive to take a lover. Where I’ll take the lover, I’m not sure. I haven’t thought that far ahead. Perhaps to see Chiodos?)

I grabbed a frozen vegetarian sausage out of the freezer to take to work.

Holding it limply in my hand, it’s a nice long tube of faux-meat with impressive girth, I asked Henry, "What else can I take with this?"

"Lubricant."

Good answer.

I just bought Henry a Valentine’s Day present, the first one since 2002.

He is going to be 1 happee man on 2-14.