I call this one “Praying For Patience”

Chooch, Henry and I were all sitting on the couch together tonight, watching The Walking Dead. And by “sitting on the couch together,” I mean that Chooch and I were taking turns roughly using Henry as an ottoman and a jungle gym until we eventually drove him away.

“We were just trying to have Family Time!” I cried as Henry stood up.

“No,” he shot back. “You were having Get On Henry’s Nerves Time!

”

Rude.

Livermore is a supposedly haunted cemetery in Blairsville, PA. There are so many conflicting stories on the Internet (HARD TO IMAGINE – it’s outrageous how many people think that this is the cemetery from Night of the Living Dead) but I’ll just summarize by telling you that there was a flood at some point and people died. Or they didn’t. You don’t come here for history lessons.

DON’T LIE!

I know you just come here to do shots every time I squirt out a typo.

I thought it would be fun to stop for a quick visit since we were about to drive past it yesterday on our way back from Knoebel’s; it’s been at least 10 years since we were there last. I could tell Henry wasn’t exactly down with the slight detour, but he did it anyway because I own him.

It’s not really all that scary there during the day, because the end of Livermore Rd spills out into a makeshift parking area at the entrance of a bike trail, which is right near the cemetery entrance. In other words, our parked car was wishing running distance in case something wicked happened back there.

Hopefully.

First we walked along the old train bridge because we like to live dangerously. BUT NOT TOO DANGEROUSLY! I kept yelling at Chooch for being too close to the edge, I didn’t trust that FLIMSY FENCE.

What a beautiful spot for a family portrait, I thought to myself and then made my puppets jump. This one is definitely a Christmas card contender.

I got suddenly smart and had us face the other way. I’m a good piktchur-taker.

Chooch and I were like WHY ARE THESE KEYS HANGING HERE and then Henry had to go and spoil all of our fantasies by going into a long, dull speech about how someone probably found them and hung them there in case the key-owners came back looking for them and we were like “STFU you’re stupid and boring.”

I’m actually surprised Henry didn’t take them for his gratuitous key collection that he keeps dangling in a clump from his belt like he’s ready to audition for the role of Schneider on a 2014 revamp of “One Day At a Time.”

After about ten minutes of being too close to the river, I quickly tired of all this supposed beautiful scenery and we all walked back toward the car, which was parked near the path that leads to the cemetery.

This gate literally only keeps out truck-sized people.

Henry REALLY didn’t want to do this.

Pretty sure this was written in crayon. Also surprising that “cemetery” is spelled correctly.

Henry wouldn’t come into the cemetery with us, opting instead to loaf (haha, loaf) near the handmade Livermore sign, hands in-pocket, head nervously whipping over his shoulder. He claims he was more worried about townies than ghosts. Oh ok.

As soon as Chooch and I crossed the threshold into the graveyard, I experienced a pretty strong episode of déjà vu and it occurred to me that I was wrong: we have definitely been there before with Chooch. He must have been two and I remember that it was about to storm.

SUDDENLY WE HEARD A TRAIN! IT SOUNDED LIKE IT WAS COMING STRAIGHT FOR US OMGGGGG GHOST TRAIN.

CHOOCH’S INITIALS!!

Earlier, I asked Chooch if he had anything to add and he mumbled from the couch, “No. Yeah! Tell them* about the tombstone with my name!”

“I already did,” I said.

“Oh. Then…no,” he mumbled and fell back into his stupid video game.

*(I wonder who he thinks comprises “them.” Cats, probably. My blog is the one all the cats read.)

I thought the trees were making weird noises but Chooch said they sounded like normal tree-speak to him, so maybe I was just being paranoid. But it really sounded like the one tree was trying to spoil the end of The Crying Game.

I don’t know why I thought that but it’s late and I’m writing this in bed with the lights off like I’m telling the Internet a ghost story where the ghosts forget to show up. RSVPs don’t mean shit anymore.

We rejoined Henry after awhile and headed back to the car.

“Look,” Henry quietly said. “A squirrel.”

“WHERE?!” I cried as if this was Jurassic Park and Henry hadn’t just pointed out something that we see 61818293 times a day in our backyard.

Meanwhile, Chooch was walking with such Frankenstein-esque force upon the leaves that it sounded like vertebrae were crunching and cracking beneath his feet. “WHAT? WHO?! WHERE?!” he screamed extra loud to ensure Henry, the squirrel, the squirrels cousins in Pittsburgh, and all of the restless Livermore souls could hear over the sound of his leaf-murdering.

Henry sighed. “Remind me never to take you two idiots on a stakeout.”

And I will now end this with the original post I wrote on LiveJournal after Henry and I first visited this place in October of 2004.

++++++++++++++++++

Henry and I decided to try and scope out the Livermore Cemetery yesterday, during daylight. Livermore was once a town about an hour from Pittsburgh, that was flooded in the 1800’s. So of course it’s haunted there. The road that leads to where the town once sat is scary in itself; surrounded by woods with an occasional farm house here and there. The road eventually leads to a gate and you have to walk the rest of the way.

I would have been less frightened if the sun was shining, but it was miserably overcast. We walked along a trail for thirty minutes or so, over two old railroad bridges, with water on either side of us. Supposedly, if the water level is low enough, you can see the foundations of the town. I couldn’t see jack shit, plus I was cranky because the quest to find the cemetery seemed hopeless. Also, I hadn’t fed my fat face in like, two hours! I demanded that we turn around and go back to the car immediately before I died of malnourishment. Even walking proved to be a struggle for me, and I kept falling. My legs just kept giving out on me because I was so hungry. Henry, never picking up on the emergency of these situations, laughed at me and kept walking. Then I thought I saw a skull! But it was only a soccer ball.

As we crossed over the last bridge, Henry happened to look up to the left, and he shouted, “THERE! OVER YONDER!” And there it was, the Livermore Cemetery. A few lone tombstones could be seen on the edge of the hill, between the trees. Maybe it was just the sight of the cemetery itself that heightened my senses, but if I believed in God, I would swear to him right now that the atmosphere around us changed. The wind kicked up and there was a noticeable chill in the air. This is the part that elicited the trademarked Skeptical Father look from Henry: something grabbed my leg. Would I lie to you guys? It’s true, I tried to lift my right leg to continue walking, and something held the back of my jeans onto the ground for around three seconds. When I turned around to look, there was positively nothing that my jeans could have stuck to, and there was nothing on the bottom of my shoes.

From this point on, all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears, and I grabbed Henry’s arm and power-walked him back toward the car, whipping my head over my shoulders every other second. I even made myself dizzy. I haven’t been this lethally afraid since we stayed overnight at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast last year.

My hair was slapping me in the face from the heavy wind. I reached up to swipe a strand of hair from my mouth, causing Henry to go ballistic on me.

Henry: “What did you just do!?”
Me: “Uh, I wiped the hair away from my mouth.”
Henry: “Oh, I thought you made the sign of the cross. I was going to say, if you’re crossing yourself and you don’t even believe in god, we have problems.”

There was a trail to the left of where we parked the car, and it was certain that that was the way into the cemetery. Henry pleaded with me to walk up with him, stating that “nothing was going to happen.” Now, I’ve seen enough movies in my twenty five years for this claim to make me lose control. “DON’T YOU EVER SAY THAT! YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW YOU STUPID ASSHOLE! DON’T YOU KNOW THEY WAIT AROUND FOR SOMEONE TO SAY THAT!? GET IN THE CAR!!” I adopted my ‘hissing through clenched teeth’ way of speaking for this moment; I felt it was the most fitting in my cache of tones.

And so we left. We ate at a restaurant that hosted the weirdest assortment of humanity I’ve ever witnessed. It was great fun, and it made me feel a lot better about myself. I especially felt better after I inhaled a soggy grilled cheese and fries and slurped my way through two cups of coffee. They had Presidential sundaes: Bushberry and Kerryberry (and strawberry for those who are undecided). I thought it would be so cute if Henry and I ordered our respective picks, but he didn’t want to play along. We left after I was becoming dangerously too engrossed in analyzing the differences between the two sundaes. (The Bushberry variety cost more!)

Something about the Valley Dairy restaurant made my courage surge, so I slammed my fist on the dashboard and demanded that we go back to Livermore straight away.

When we got out of the car after returning, we noticed that someone had dumped a garbage bag off the side of the path. Henry, being the curious garbage picker that he is, decided that he needed to have a closer inspection of the contents. Laying on the top was a piece of mail. Who litters a giant bag of garbage and leaves an envelope with their name and address on top? Ironically, the zip code on it was the same as ours. We thought that was rather coincidental considering we were nowhere near home. AN OMEN, perhaps. Livermore is partial to collecting souls from the 15226 area?

After a minute of silent deliberation, I finally heeded and followed Henry up the path. It was blocked off after a few feet, but this was not to deter Henry. He was eager to show off his trespassing prowess.

I’m getting antsy with this, and it also makes me feel kind of creeped out as I rehash it, so I’ll speed it up.

We came across the entrance to the cemetery

and crossed over the threshold. I thought for sure the sky was going to start hailing fireballs at this point, but everything was actually very quiet. From this point on, the time we spent in the midst of crumbling tomb stones was very leisurely and calm. I even started to zone about ice cream sandwiches, so it really couldn’t have been all that bad there, right?

Naturally, we couldn’t leave until we argued over the camera settings, which is customary for us. It certainly lightened the mood a bit. Until, as we began to walk back to the entrance, Henry pointed out that while it was windy everywhere else, it was absolutely still in the cemetery. Shut up, right? His observation made my heart threaten cardiac arrest for the second time in two hours, and I said, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that it’s haunted, right?” Henry shrugged and kept walking. Shrugging is not a good enough answer for me and I began to tug on his arm, begging him to tell me why it wasn’t windy. The phenomenon didn’t seem to be plaguing him as it was me, and he mumbled some half assed Discovery Channel explanation. I paused, letting it sink in, and said, “No. It’s because it’s haunted. OH MY GOD IT’S HAUNTED!! OH MY GOD THERE’S NO WIND!!! EVERYTHING IS DEAD IN HERE AND WE’RE GOING TO DIE TOO!!!!”

And then we got in the car and left. The end.

And the pièce de résistance:

Ha ha.

I mean, what? You don’t think that’s real?

Shit. Before we even finished breakfast (that’s a word with which the Econo Lodge takes great liberties), I was already feeling that panicky “today is the last day” sensation percolating in my gut.

(I’m sure Henry was experiencing very different feelings. His was probably more of a giddy countdown.)

We accidentally found a fly-by-night event parking lot on our way to Humboldt Park the day before, so Henry decided THE HELL WITH UBER, we’re going to entrust our car with these people that are wearing neon construction vests so they must be legit.

It took us three days to figure out there was an actual area where we were supposed to be waiting for our stupid Uber rides. 

The sketchy parking lot cost the same as a one-way trip with Uber, and it wasn’t my money Henry was using anyway, so what did I care. All I knew was that we were only two blocks away from my homeland and I couldn’t wait to get there.

And stand in line for an hour. Because even by the third day, the gatekeepers hadn’t gotten their shit together.

All three days, we were lucky to not get stuck by any assholes, at least. The guy in front of us, whom I dubbed Dwight Hader, because he reminded me of Dwight Schrute and Bill Hader, was there by himself. “I’m just here for Patti Smith and The Cure,” he said nervously. “Basically, I’m going to get all the way to the front of the stage for The Cure,” he told us of his Riot Fest plans.

“Were you here the other days, too? What was it like? What’s the food like? Is it expensive?”

“Do you think I’ll be able to take in my water?” he asked anyone who was listening.

He was very concerned with his unopened water bottle.

Would it be confiscated? Did he have to drink it all now? Because he wasn’t thirsty yet. He wanted that water for later, when he was raging to Patti Smith. BECAUSE THE NIGHT BELONGS TO WATER.

The girl behind me pointed out that empty water bottles were allowed in, because there were refilling stations. But she and I both said that probably an unopened bottle wasn’t a good idea. The girl’s boyfriend was like, “Eh, just do it. Smuggling in water is so punk rock, man.” And Henry was like “IDGAF what this kid does.”

Meanwhile, the couple behind me were talking about all of the ska bands that they had seen so far at Riot Fest and I was so thankful that I wasn’t there with them because ska is pretty much the only music genre that I flat-out dislike. There isn’t one ska band that’s redeemable to me. I’m sorry if you’re a ska fan. I promise we can still be friends. Just get those fucking trumpets out of my face. I DON’T EVEN LIKE THE JAMAICA SKA SCENE IN BACK TO THE BEACH AND THAT IS LIKE MY FAVORITE MOVIE.

1. Whispering, “It’ll be alright, Water Bottle. We’ll figure something out.” 2. Googling “will I be detained for bringing an unopened water bottle into Riot Fest?” // “ways to make a water bottle in your pants look like a medical condition that security guards won’t ask about.” // “smuggling contraband into a music festival- WWJD?”

MENZINGERS

• TheMenzingers were due to start playing a few minutes after the gates finally opened. (DwightHader and his unopened bottle of water made it through unscathed!) But we had enough time to hit up one oftheRiotFestmerch booths soIcouldfinallybuy the hoodie I wanted,whichofcoursewas sold out so I got all shitty about and ended up buying a t-shirt that I didn’t even want and then I proceeded to bitch about it on the way to the Roots Stage so Henry was like OMG I WILL FIND YOU A FUCKING HOODIE but apparently he said this to himself because I had no idea where he had gone off to, leaving me to stand alone with strangers by the stage. Then he returnedrightbeforetheMenzingers came out, and he had the hoodie I wanted, but then I was still mad because now I had a t-shirt and hoodie in the same design and that seemed so unnecessary so I threw another tantrum and then Henry was like I AM GOING TO COLD COCK  YOU but instead of doing that, he grabbed the t-shirt from me and stormed off and then the show started so I hadtowatchtheMenzingers by myself.
  • This was surprisingly the only time we fought all weekend.
  • I hated not knowing where he went/what he was doing/if he was coming back.
    • Every time I glanced behind me, I thought I saw him, but it was always one of the other 8700 guys wearing a blue flannel that day.
• Even though I was quietly stewing over this hoodie/t-shirt emergency, I still found some room in my head and heart to enjoy the Menzingers. I only have a very base knowledge of them, thanks to my friend Terri, and since I know how much she loves them, I made a point to check them out. It was a good way to start the last day, because they got everyone pumped right out of the gates.
• I texted Terri the lyrics to the one song they played that I really liked, and she was like, “That’s from their new album. That song is so emo!” Which totally explains why I liked it!
• After their set ended,Ipanic-strickenly made my way through a moving wall of people, desperately looking for Henry, near tears (I HATE FEELING LOST), but then he grabbed my arm and I suddenly forgot that I was in the middle of hating him because YAY I’M NOT LOST ANYMORE!
  • “You were never lost,” he sighed. “I knewwhereyouwerethe whole time.”
    • In case you were wondering, Henry apparently exchanged the t-shirt for an XS for Chooch, which made me mad all over again because why the fuck would Chooch want a t-shirt from a festival he didn’t go to?! And to back this up, when we gave it to him, he was like, “Ok….?” and then right away noticed that one of the bands on the back of the shirt was Pity Sex, so then he was like, “REALLY, MOMMY?! REALLY?!” all annoyed and exasperated.

LAURA STEVENSON

• There was nothing on Sunday’s line-up that was OMG URGENT for me to see until Billy Bragg played around 2.
  • To Henry this meant: YAY LET’S GO FIND A TREE TO SIT UNDER FOR A FEW HOURS AND CLOSE OUR EYES AND HOPEFULLY DIE.
  • To me this meant: Let’s wander around and check out the other stages! We might find our new favorite band!
• Of course, my plan won out and that is how we wound up at the Rise Stage in time for Laura Stevenson, who has an accordion player and is just the most adorable thing I saw on stage all weekend. I’m notoriously picky when it comes to girl singers, but her style was kind of old Tegan andSarameetsSherriDuPreefromEisley, in a way. I immediately adored her.
  • Especially when she pretty much announced every song as, “OK, this is a sad one.”
    • I love sad music.
    • Her music was the deceiving kind of sad though, where it sounds happy and upbeat but, no.
• Laura’s between-song-banter was painfully awkward at times, which endeared her to me even more.
• Fuck it, go listen to her on Spotify and then buy her albums!

Henry’s mad because we were kind of matching. Also, I think this was right before La Dispute and he hates La Dispute.

THE FRONT BOTTOMS

• Right after Laura was done playing, The Front Bottoms came on the adjacent Revolt Stage. This is another band that I have read and heard a lot about but just never bothered checking out. Since we still had a little bit of time to kill and the stage they were playing on was conveniently located near the one Billy Bragg would later be playing on, I dragged Henry through droves of lost locust-people and claimed a prime spot near the side of the stage.
• And then they came on and proceeded to captivate us for their entire 30 minute set.
  • If you can win me over with your stage presence alone, then you’re doing it right.
  • If your music is good enough to back up your stage presence, then you’re golden.
• I thought Henry hated them, but he admitted later that they were a high point for him.
  • Last week, I came home from meeting my friend Katrina for coffee, and Henry was flat out listening to them on xbox music. “SO WHAT?!” he cried in defense, like his mom just busted him watching tranny bukakke.
• They reminded me a little bit of Never Shout Never for grown-ups, so I wondered if Chooch would like them too. Spoiler: he does.
• My favorite part was when Tiny Moving Parts stormed the stage and started fucking with them. I LOVE IT WHEN BANDS ARE FRIENDS WITH EACH OTHER.

BILLY BRAGG

• WhenIsawBillywas listed on the line-up, I died a little of excitement. This guy is a living legend and I made Henry get right up front for him.
  • We were surrounded by a lot of Older People so I thought Henry would feel safe.
• In high school, I dated this real piece of shit. Pretty much everyone called him Psycho Mike, because well, that’s what you call a guy who intentionally sets his best friend’s house on fire (thankfully,whilethe whole family was on vacation, but still) all over a video game.
  • Yes, I knew this going in to things, but warning labels don’t ever deter me.
  • Anyway, Psycho Mike and I didn’t have much in common, musically. I would cringe when he would play Anal Cunt in his car and even though I bought him the Misfits boxed set for Valentine’s Day one year, I made it clear that I didn’t want to listen to it. We would meet in the middle with classic rock mostly, but occasionally he would play things for me that I actually liked. Some of those things were: Neutral Milk Hotel, Hayden, and Billy Bragg.
• Billy Bragg is a British folk/punk singer-songwriter who sings a lot about politics, which usually isn’t my cup of tea, but there is just something about him that has always appealed to me. I thought Henry would be all about him too, since Billy is known to sing in favor of all those blue-collared blokes like Henry. But Henry was just like “eh” when I asked him if he enjoyed it, which basically means Henry is clearly a fascist.

 Henry not understanding why everyone was all FUCK YES during Billy Bragg.

• My favorite Billy Bragg songs are “Must I Paint You a Picture,” “St. Swithin’s Day,” “She’s Got a New Spell,” “The Man in the Iron Mask” and “A New England,” none of which he played, but he did play my ALL TIME FAVORITE which is “The Milkman of Human Kindness” and the 17-year-old slut-who-was-fucking-around-with-a-psychopath-in-1996 in me was so stoked.
• Billy also made me super stoked about Scotland, which I had otherwise not really thought about at all because it’s basically me and my music under a rock. But on this day, I was like, “YAYSCOTLAND! GO GET ‘EM!” And then suddenly I understoodwhysomemenhad been walking around Humboldt Park all weekend in kilts and carrying Scottish flags.
  • I catch on quick.

• Might sound extreme, but getting to see Billy Bragg live was a milestone for me. I have literally waited half my life! This man is a living legend. Familiarize yourself with him.

TINY MOVING PARTS

• On our way to the Rock Stage, immediately after Billy Bragg, we got to catch a little bit of Tiny Moving Parts.
• Henry said he doesn’t remember this happening at all. I think he might have been buying more cheese-on-sticks and beer?
• TMP iskindoflikeneo-emo I guess? It’s definitely a sound that I really adore. And they are really energetic and passionate on stage, which is what made me stop mid-trek to the Rock Stage and say to Henry, “They are calling to me.”
  • I like them way more live than listening to them, say, while driving to the dentist or writing in my blog.

LA DISPUTE

A rare moment where Henry got to sit for a few minutes until the girl next to him annoyed him to such extreme levels that he suddenly didn’t care about resting his weary joints anymore and actually stood up and moved. And no, surprisingly, that girl wasn’t me. 

• I let Henry stand far away for La Dispute because he can’t stand them. But I was like, “See ya, sucker” and elbowed my way through the crowd along the side of the stage until I was nearly to the front. I stopped right before I hit prime crowd-surfing / circle pit real estate. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that deep down, I have some fragments of the “Sensible Mom” gene and I remember to keep myself safe.
  • Otherwise, I just feel like I would be such a great candidate for Idiot Who Broke Her Neck At a Show.
• Have you ever listened to La Dispute? They are a part of a music genre that I am in love with. Like, if I could mold it into a penis, I would fuck it. It’s technically post-hardcore, and Jordan Dreyer shouts and barks the lyrics with so much emotion, that it’s, for me, the equivalent of listening to some kind of passionate Sunday sermon. Their songs tell stories that make the hair grow erect on my arms and I spent most of the time standing there with my eyes closed and, at times, wishing I had a wall in front of me to punch. There’s an urgency to the music and the way the vocals are delivered that make me feel uncontrollably aggressive. And then….sad.
• When they played “King Park,” we all went fucking nuts.  This song is about a shooting and all of the elements and emotions surrounding it, and it is raw, devastating, angry, sad, honest—this song is REAL LIFE. The way they build up to the crescendo of this song, OMFG—it’s like climaxing for real.  Jordan started hoarsely shouting “Can I still get into Heaven if I kill myself?” and that’s when I realized that I had been crying through the whole fucking thing.

• “Wasn’t that fucking amazing!?” I cried afterward, reunited with Henry. “Not really,” he mumbled.
• I walked away feeling like I could start a revolution. Or at the very least, make a REALLY GOOD POSTER about MAYBE starting a revolution.

TEGAN AND SARA

• I first saw Tegan and Sara in the year 2000 at now-defunct club in Pittsburgh called Rosebud. I didn’t know anything about them but my friend Wonka was like, “I heard one of their songs on WYEP. PLEASE GO WITH ME!” Wonka was my prime concert-buddy back then, and we went to tons of shows where we barely knew who we were seeing, plus I was buying my ticket with my AmEx that my mom paid for, so why not? It was us and maybe 40 other people and I think Tegan and Sara walked away with all of our hearts that night. They were VERY different than they are now, way more stripped down, way less pop. But their stage banter was just as on point. We got to meet them that night and I still look at that picture, of these twins who look so different now, and I laugh because I remember saying to Wonka, “Holy shit, these girls are going to explode!”
• They were playing on the main stage at Riot Fest to some tens of thousands of people, so I’d say that they definitely exploded.
• I didn’t want to get too close because I knew we were going to have to split before they were done, and I didn’t want to make our exit any more difficult than it needed to be, so we stood pretty far away. The problem with that is that the further away you stand, the more likely you are to surround yourself with people who couldn’t give a fuck what band is playing, they’re just going to stand there and brag about what college their daughter is going to. Sometimes old people are WAY WORSE at shows than young people.
• The first time Henry saw Tegan and Sara was with me in 2002/2003 at the Hard Rock Cafe. He didn’t know anything about them but it didn’t take him long to realize that he was a man in a roomful of lesbians. At one point, he tried to go to the bathroom, but a girl with a shaved, rainbow-tattooed head was blocking his way (not even menacingly! she didn’t know she was in his way!), so he turned around and came back. I think about this EVERY TIME I hear a Tegan and Sara song. GOOD TIMES.
• And before you’re like “Tegan and Sara are so Top 40,” please watch this video:

• Sure, they’re mainstream now but I will always believe that they still have a little bit of that quaint singer-songwriter ethic that they did when they were teenagers. I just love them.

Never had time to play Riot Putt. :( Or go through the Zombie Contamination Unit. Or ride any rides. Or see the sideshows. TOO MANY BANDS. 

 MINERAL

• We cut out of Tegan and Sara in order to run back to the Rock Stage just in time to see Mineral, who have recently gone on tour for the first time in 17 years. I’m so happy Riot Fest was on the super-shortlist of shows they were doing, because god knows Pittsburgh was nowhere on that list.
• MineralisstraightupEMO.
  • I fucking love emo.
• Mineral broke up in 1997, before I ever had a chance to see them. The singer went on to form The Gloria Record, another band that I fucking loved so hard but never got to see live. Henry claims he has no absolutely no recollection of a band called The Gloria Record and I was like “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID, I LISTENED TO ONE OF THEIR ALBUMS COMPULSIVELY IN 2005!” Then I even played him my favorite song (“Good Morning, Providence” — if you look at my Spotify sidebar, it’s actually the second song listed in my “Perennial Favorites” playlist, COME ON HENRY) and he was like, “Nope. Don’t know it.” That man is a master of tuning things out.
• However, Henry admitted that Mineral was “pretty good.” The whole time I was just standing there in awe, thinking of how grateful I was to get to see them after all this time. So grateful that I almost wrote an emo poem about it.

PATTI SMITH

• After Mineral, we decided that we should probably make our way back to the Riot Stage because if we waited too close to The Cure’s start time, we would never be able to get close enough. Patti Smith was playing at the time, so we pushed our way through the outskirts of a crowd of aging hippies screaming along to “Because the Night.”
• If it wasn’t for the sake of the Cure, I never have would have stopped to watch her. I’m sure that makes me something of a heathen to a lot of people. I can definitely respect her! I understand the mark she’s left on not only the music industry but also the political landscape. She’s a living, breathing legacy. I get it. And while it’s not particularly my thing, I am definitely glad that I can say “I saw Patti Smith.”
• She is old as shit but fuck if she wasn’t rocking the shit out of that stage.
• There were men older than Henry standing around us who were screaming “PATTI!!!” so fiercely, I feared that they were going to hemorrhage.
• In between every song, Patti would stand on her soapbox and promise us that we can change the world. “PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER!” she kept shouting and everyone screamed so loudly that they turned into South Park Canadians.
• By the time her set was over, I definitely didn’t feel like I could change the world, but I would have liked to have changed into a pair of more comfortable shoes.

I’m going to end this here because I’ve been writing it for four days and I want The Cure to have their own post. Because they’re the motherfucking Cure.

If you’ve read any of these word-dumps, I am eternally grateful (and extremely shocked)!

• If you have never been to Chicago, make sure you research the area your staying in. So when you come back the first night someones not jacked up against a police car outside your hotel room window.

• Make sure you take the proper clothing, ie: Boots, jacket so you don’t have to run out and buy them in a hurry.
• Find a way to and from the festival that doesn’t put your life in danger by seedy so called “Uber” drivers, only to find out on the last day you could have drove and parked 100 yards from where you needed to go.
• Learn to dodge and weave between people with minimal damage to you and others.
• Bring lots of cash, for the girlfriend that wants everything.
• Bring an appetite, the food is awesome.
• Do not be so quick to say “yes we can go” before you actually look in to what riot fest is.

BANDS I DISLIKED (hate is a pretty strong word)

Pianos Become the Teeth – not my style. Like I have a style.
La Dispute – they go along with the other one.

I didn’t dislike as much as Erin thought I did. Maybe it’s just more that I didn’t want to be there.

FAVORITE PARTS:
Seeing the Cure.

IF MY MOM ASKED WHAT IT WAS LIKE, I WOULD TELL HER:
Nothing. She wouldn’t understand.

WOULD I GO AGAIN NEXT YEAR:
I don’t know yet.

THOUGHTS ON ANTHONY GREEN:
I don’t have any.

WARPED TOUR VS RIOT FEST:
Neither.

BANDS I WANTED TO SEE BUT DIDN’T GET TO:
Cheap Trick.

To summarize, all and all it wasn’t a bad three days, the rain, mud and cold didn’t help me like Riot fest. Though knowing that Erin was the happiest shes been in awhile was well worth it. Will i do it again, too soon to say. I’m sure by January or whenever presale starts ill start getting hounded.

“Thinking About How Bad My Day is Going to Suck” frown.

“Waiting For Uber to Take Me to Hell” frown.

“Didn’t We Just See Circa Survive in July?” frown.

“8 Minutes ’til Emarosa” frown.

“Don’t Take My Cheese Fries, It’s All I’ve Got” frown.

“Not Understanding How People Like Bands Like Pianos Become The Teeth” frown.

“I’m Cold & Wet & Standing with this Annoying Person & I Hope My Mustache Doesn’t Get Frizzy” frown.

“Still Hate of Mice & Men” frown.

“Just Started Day 2 & I’m Already Frowning Because Day 1 Taught Me How Much This Will Suck” frown.

“I Paid $7 For This Beer; The Numbing Sensation I Feel Is Priceless” half-frown.
“Waiting for Rx Bandits; They’re Going To Suck” frown.
***********
This is a collection of Henry-frowns from the first two days of Riot Fest. I’m sure many more will be inspired today!

Yesterday, I was thinking about the awful time Henry and I were in my ex-friend Keri’s wedding. This was back in 2003 and we had been together for two years at this point, but fought like we had been married for 22. Sometimes I feel like we really, actually hated each other and I wonder what made us stay together.

Anyway, I texted my brother Corey because he was at that wedding too and I figured he would have some embarrassing pictures that I could post here. As usual, above and beyond, Corey!

All I really remember of this night was getting trashed (Keri’s step-dad passed me a bottle of blackberry Schnapps under the table, in addition to whatever other liquor I was knocking back) and being forced to AWKWARDLY dance with Henry. And I mean AWKWARDLY. It was like the two of us had NEVER TOUCHED before. So uncomfortable and embarrassing and the wedding photographer ate that shit up. “Erin, over here!” he’d call out gleefully, and I’d fall for that shit every last time.

Anyway, Corey also found this picture of Henry and me hating each other, Christmas 2002. (Very similar to the other random holiday picture I posted on my birthday.)

I don’t think anyone thought we were going to last back then. I know I sure didn’t.

These pictures made me think a lot about what I like to refer to as The Dark Pit. Henry and I started out as a secret. For me, secrets are FUN. Exotic. Scandalous. OK, fine, we WERE a scandal. Let’s just call a spade a spade. But as soon as we weren’t anymore, it was like, “Fuck, now we have to get to know each other? Now we have to be a regular couple?” And there were other extenuating circumstances that really snuffed out our flame, you guys. It was kind of sucky for awhile there. But, something made us stick it out.

I remember going to Coachella with him in 2004 and fighting so much that I actually had rage blackouts. There is very little that I remember from that long Californian weekend, and if you know me and my ridiculously vault-like memory, you know that’s a big statement. It’s amazing one of us didn’t bury the other in the desert that weekend.

It’s kind of mind-boggling that Chooch was planned, when I think about it. Because our relationship was fucking rocky and schizophrenic. I was also a lot crazier then. But I actually sat down with Henry during the summer of 2005 and said, “I want to have a baby. Do it.” And even after Chooch was born, things were still…blah. I recently read something that I wrote on LiveJournal in 2006 about how I wasn’t sure if I even knew what love was. I don’t think Henry and I loved each other. Not really. And there were so many times I almost left, and he almost left, but laziness got the best of both of us and we stayed. We dealt. I got a job working nights so we barely saw each other.

It shouldn’t have gotten better. But somehow it did. I don’t remember EVER looking at him the way I do now. (Adoringly! And with way less disgust and contempt than ever before!) Maybe I needed to grow up, I don’t know. Maybe it was because I hated MYSELF so much back then. But suddenly, something changed and the last 5 or 6 years have been completely different from the first 6 or 7.

OK, fine. I can actually pinpoint it exactly: it was Game Night 2007 and we were playing Catchphrase. All Henry said was, “Um….female singer…” and I cried, “CARLY SIMON!” And it was motherfucking CARLY SIMON. You know who can pull that mind-reading shit off?! Soul mates. That’s who. We even dreamed of cabbage at the same time once.

OK, maybe that’s not exactly what made our relationship take a turn for the better, but it was definitely when I began to realize he’s my BFF. I guess I never saw him that way before. We communicate way better than we used to and we have way more fun now. Which is crazy considering how OLD Henry is.

You guys, I asked him last night how annoying he thinks I am, and he said 99% of the time, I DO NOT ANNOY HIM. You know what that means?! HE HAS FINALLY LEARNED TO LOVE MY QUIRKS AND PECCADILLOES. It takes a special person to be able to handle me, and he does it with patience and panache. I mean, anyone who could put up with the whole Erin/Christina saga is a fucking saint.

Or…maybe this is just a really sweet way of saying that he has finally earned his Masters degree in Blocking Out Erin.

This whole post could just be a super adorable way of me admitting defeat, but I guess I kind of like that motherfucker now. Enough that Chooch is always groaning, “Ugh, stop kissing!” Maybe not getting married was the trick.

(LOL J/K. I STILL WANT MY FUCKING WEDDING.)

(Now Henry is going to read this and think I cheated on him.)

*****************

Bonus! Here’s Janna, Lisa and me at the aforementioned wedding in 2003:

ETA: Henry just read this and leaned over to presumably say something nice to me so I freaked out and punched him in the crotch.

You guys. Remember on Sunday when I was like “OMG TONY STEWART MURDER NASCAR AHHHHHH!!!!!”? Well, after I posted that on here, things got worse. Because you know me and taking obsessions too far.

The problem is that I have some friends who are just as asshole-y as I am, so when I was sitting there thinking, “Who do I know who would appreciate this so we can commiserate together?” my friend Bill immediately came to mind.

Now, Bill was around back in  the day when I developed an unfounded obsession with Phil Mickelson and a poker-hot hatred was formed for Payne Stewart simply because he beat him one time when I was paying attention. Bill actually just brought this up when we were visiting him and Jessi last June. So I thought, “Bill will understand this new thing for Tony Stewart.” So I texted him and he totally fired back with a string of texts, encouraging me to paddle away in my douche canoe and making me nearly pee myself with laughter.

“He might be homicidal, so that’s a plus. Not as cool as dying in a plane crash….” Bill replied when I told him that Tony is my new Payne. Bill continued to fuel my fire and I was scream-reading his texts out loud to Henry, whose mustache was writhing in frown-formation.

“He must be hardened by the sad facts of his hero Tony Stewart being a homicidal maniac,” was Bill’s reason for Henry’s non-laughter. So then it was decided that Henry REALLY LIKES Tony Stewart and I was practically bashing my head off the wall out of pure, extreme mania.

Henry left for about an hour to go grocery shopping and I was just sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, trying not to explode with giddiness, when it occurred to me to paint a portrait of Tony for Henry as a surprise gift. And that is what I did Sunday afternoon while Henry was running bitch errands at the grocery store.

Even Chooch was like, “Mommy! Calm the fuck down, OMG. It’s not funny.”

When I texted Bill the picture of the final product, he said, “I can’t see any outcome that doesn’t involve Henry dropping to his knees and sobbing tears of pure joy and appreciation.”

I KNOW RIGHT?!

WRONG:

“Seriously?” he sighed, when I produced the painting from behind my back. This was after I called him and, around outbursts of throaty giggles, asked him to please hurry home. He sounded really scared, and then he LOOKED really scared when he was getting the groceries out of the car. Probably because I was standing at the door with my hands behind my back, smiling.

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like for the people who have to look at me when I get like this. I must look insane. BUT NOT THREATENING AT ALL, I’M SURE.

“This explains why you didn’t call and text me constantly when I was at the store,” he muttered. So really what he was saying is that he was already scared before I even called him to tell him to hurry home.

Later that night, Bill texted me a picture of race car-shaped chicken nuggets and said, “In honor of Tony Stewart, I’m eating these for dinner.” Bill is basically like the drug dealer to my extreme giddiness addiction.

****

Meanwhile, Henry totally didn’t want to take Tony to work with him, so I took it to my dumb work and now he resides on my desk, where Glenn makes excuses to look at him every day because he just can’t get over how fantastic it is. I told Glenn the whole back story and he was like, “Wait, do you like him because he killed a guy, or do you hate him because he killed a guy?”

GOOD QUESTION. Both? I don’t know. I’ve been really been confused lately. Help.

Then the other day, my boss was walking past and she stopped abruptly.

“Is that….Tony?” she asked hesitantly.

“OMG YES!” I cried, happy that someone recognized him. I quickly recapped the story of how I found out Henry is a secret NASCAR fan (which he is still denying, FYI) and Sue said, “Well, wait…did you paint this before what happened, or….”

“Oh, totally after the incident. That’s why I’m obsessed with him now.”

“OK….” she said slowly, and then shook her head and laughed because Oh Honestly, Erin.

Here’s Tony guarding the blueberry snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich I scored for signing up for community service at work. I actually saved that motherfucker all day (and I worked from 9am-8:30pm that day!) so that I could share it with Henry after work, because on the real, even though Henry was like “*frown frown frown*”, he is the only person I’ve been with who has ever let me just be me. It’s true! I have been thinking about that a lot this week, how painting Tony has made me remember how much I used to love to draw, how I was going to go to the Art Institute (I dropped out after orientation, lol), how I used to fucking write stories nearly every day. And then I stopped for a long time and I was thinking about why, what made that happen, and it’s because all the guys I dated before Henry kept me in the shadows. It was always about them: their band, their music, their writing, their art. And so I just kind of stopped doing everything. Not to get all Norman Rockwell Painting up in this piece, but Henry is kind of the best and he lets me grow instead of keeping me smashed down under his thumb.

So thank you, Henry and your secret Tony Stewart fandom, for making another piece of me fall back into place. Maybe one day I’ll be myself again.

***

I just asked Glenn if he thinks Tony will be safe on my desk when I’m not here, and he very dryly said, “Yeah. I’m sure no one will take him.”

This is my “Going on a Date-Thing” face, I guess. Fake smile? Check. Vacant eyes? Double check. DON’T LOOK TOO EXCITED, ERIN.

When I asked Henry to go to Cleveland with me to see a show on July 5th, I figured we would do our usual routine of leaving home with just enough time to maybe grab some quick food before the show. But instead, Henry planned all on his own to leave Pittsburgh at noon so we could have a full day of “quality” time together.

Haha, quality time.

Of course, everything was fine until we parked the car downtown Cleveland and realized that every restaurant we had considered eating at was closed until 5pm. So that set off my internal hunger time bomb and I got real attitudinal with Henry, but he’s used to that, so it’s not like we broke up or anything. (Except we did. But not on Facebook this time, so it’s cool.)

Henry, searching for our wandering waiter.

We ended up at this new-ish soul food joint downtown called Stonetown. I was unimpressed with the name, but it was the colorful chalkboard sign outside alerting us to the home cookin’ desserts they were offering that drew me in. The menu on the door said FRIED GREEN TOMATOES and CANDIED YAMS so I turned to Henry and said, “This. This is the place. I can feel it in my heart.”

But Henry wanted to keep looking, which made me panic because it was already 3pm and I wanted to have time to go and look at the lake. (“For what?” Henry sighed, and I was like, “YOU KNOW HOW I LIKE TO SIT BY WATER.” I mean, do I, though? Not really. But I thought it could be romantic-like and lord knows we need some of that shit up in our lives.)

Anyway, I threw a micro fit and we turned around after a block and went back to Stonetown. Right before we walked inside, some man said to me, “Hey I saw you guys looking at the menu before and I just want you to know that I just ate there and it was really good.”

Oh OK, thanks guy.

And then his two friends were like, “THE CHICKEN WAS GOOD, YALL” and then the first guy was like, “The service is…kind of slow…but the food is worth it.”

So we went in and the hostess immediately hated us, except that I think she just hates everyone because she never smiled at anyone. I watched.

The table we were seated at was wobbly and Henry was 100% fixated on it. At one point, he got down on the ground under the table and I shit you not, I thought he was going to whip out a screwdriver, but it turned out he was just picking up his napkin.

But still, what a typical white person thing to complain about.

Anyway, my whole intention of going there in the first place was for CANDIED YAMS and SWEET POTATO PIE but they were fucking out of CANDIED YAMS and then I got too filled up on fried green tomatoes, Hoppin’ Johns (that’s black eyed peas for all you dumb white people out there), collard greens (which turns out I don’t like) and FRIED OKRA to have any room left for SWEET POTATO PIE.

Sorry, my inner soul girl is making me use all caps. We likes our food soulful, y’all.

And for fuck’s sake, service was slow as…what do they say in the south, molasses, right? Yeah, service was as slow as that shit. It took us so long to get our check that my skin was starting to twitch. Hi, we had shit to do, not go home and lay in a hammock while drinking sweet tea from another fucking mason jar.

Meanwhile, the couple behind threw a fit because the broad didn’t know how to read the menu right and her fried chicken came with grits (which Henry also got and had some alarming sexual experience with them right there at the table) and she didn’t want grits, she wanted something else, and the waitress tried to explain that there was a $1.50 upcharge for side subsitutions in that situation and the bitch lady was all, “BITCH THEN I DON’T WANT THIS” and shoved her plate back at the waitress, who was about half a second away from losing her shit, god bless her.

So the waitress sighed and said, “Fine, just pay for your drinks then,” and it was really depressing watching the waitress take these two plates of untouched food and scrape everything into a garbage can. People are such wasteful assholes sometimes and it makes me so angry. Perfectly good food, in the garbage, because some bitch ass pig wanted to argue over a dollar and fucking fifty cents.

I WAS SO ANGRY.

But at least I wasn’t HANGRY anymore. Regular angry is more tolerable for those around me.

Anway, it’s a good thing I didn’t have room for dessert because we probably would have missed the show. Fucking molasses-ass service. The food was decent enough that I would maybe go back if I had absolutely nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. But only because I want that damn SWEET POTATO PIE, ugh.

Naturally, I had room for ice cream after approximately 3 minutes of leaving Stonetown, but Henry was being a twatbucket and wouldn’t stop at any of the ice cream places in the vicinity, and then had the audacity to say we didn’t have time to walk to the lake, so instead we had to DRIVE to a different part of the lake a little ways out of the city. It was this little park area that had a snack booth offering the most basic softserve of all time, so I complained about that too. No, I wasn’t hangry again, I was just being my normal brat-self.

Things improved about 20 minutes later when we arrived at the venue in Lakewood (Mahall’s) and still had about an hour to kill.

So we walked around and discovered that we were a block away from the Museum of Divine Statues that we visited last summer! For as many times as I have been to Cleveland and its surrounding neighborhoods, I still have no directional bearings. It was a real “connect the dots” moment for me.

We ended up discovering this no-name junk store, which I had seen from the car and felt pretty confident that it was going to end up being a bust, but I still wanted to at least check it out for a minute. The proprietor and his helper were sitting on the front stoop, painting a chair.

“Are you open?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, you can go on in,” the man said, flashing one of those avuncular “You can trust me little girl, get into my car” smiles that always make me nervous. Because I’ve been kidnapped so many times.  “Maybe you can find something in that mess,” he laughed as we stepped inside. Literally, there were just piles of things and stuff and furniture and mismatched earrings. I felt claustrophobic and panicked and nothing was really catching my eye (I am terrible at thrifting—one cursory glance and I’m done) so we started to trip and stumble our way back to the door just as the owner came in and leaned in front of it.

“Did you guys get to watch any of the fireworks last night?” he asked casually.

And in my best deer-in-headlights, please-don’t-kill-us voice, I said, “NO WE’RE FROM PITTSBURGH.”

“OK,” he laughed. “Do they have fireworks in Pittsburgh?

” he asked, slightly patronizing me. And then, thanks to my big mouth telling him where we live, he proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes talking to us, starting with the fact that he was a driver for an envelope company and his route for 27 years was in Pittsburgh because no  one else wanted it since it’s so hard to drive there. (Is it? I guess I wouldn’t know since HENRY is always driving.)

“You had to tell him we’re from Pittsburgh,” Henry whispered. I was starting to feel like I was in captivity at this point, like it was some fucked up junk store version of Wolf Creek and I was about to be impaled by an antique bicycle spoke so that someday my dried out hide can reupholster a 1964 bar stool. I just got that feeling from him, that’s all.

After hearing about how Ed (he’d tell us later this was his name) is a part-time pastor and how refridgerators just aren’t built as well as they used to be, Henry interrupted him to ask about an amber swag lamp hanging in the corner.

I HADN’T EVEN SEEN IT. See what I mean? Thrifting is not my forte.

Ed told us we could have it for $40, totally an easy sale. I love midcentury things so much!

As Ed was writing up our receipt, I asked him if he ever comes across any old wheelchairs.

He snapped his head up and looked at me. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head and laughing.

WHY IS THIS SO WEIRD?!

But then he started thinking about it and decided that I should give him my number and he’ll call me if he ever comes across any. (Henry thinks he just wanted my number in general and has asked me chidingly every day since then if my new boyfriend Ed has called yet.)

(No. No, he has not.)

I thought we had escaped, but Ed followed us out of the store and continued to talk to us for another fifteen minutes and my skin started doing that twitching thing again. Maybe he should get a job at Stonetown.

And then his sidekick, this Amish-y looking man who spoke only in grunts, I’m not joking, slowly approached me, pointed at my purse and started to grunt. I looked down and realized that my purse wasn’t zipped up all of the way, so thank you, Wolf Creek Sidekick.

We finally broke free and walked super fast back to the car before any vintage weapons were flung at us. Just kidding, Ed was a gem and I’ll definitely stop back next time I’m in town. Especially now that he knows the shit I collect.

Seriously though, totally worth the 45 minutes of small talk in a dusty junk store. And so was our date day. Sometimes you need to get away from the back-talkin’ children, you know? Bonus points if a concert is included. We even held hands for maybe a second.

My criteria for planning a road trip is pretty simple:

• Are there friends along the way that I can impose upon?
• Does my Roadside America app approve of this route?
• Are there amusement parks in the vicinity?

I’ve wanted to go to Indiana Beach (fun fact: not actually a beach) for awhile now, and it seemed logical to combine this with a long overdue visit to Michigan to hang out with Bill, Jessi and Tammy and also meet up with some other ladies I have been Internet friends with for YEARS. (More on that later!)

We had to drive through actual farmlands to get to Monticello, Indiana, at which point a man of about 100 years of age collected $7 from us and told us where to park.

Which was “anywhere in the wide open, empty parking lot.”

We got there right when the park opened, and not only was it a ghost town, but none of the rides were running. We roamed around for awhile, getting turned away from the Hoosier Hurricane and wasting time at the shooting gallery. Also, the humidity was so bad that it felt like Hell with the lid on; my face took on the sebaceous sheen of a glazed Christmas ham in no time. It was disgusting. But not so disgusting that I would consider visiting the dilapidated water park portion of Indiana Beach, which was included in regular admission because the lazy river wasn’t running. God only knows why not.

No thanks, dirty pastel water slides. God only knows what kind of fungi you’re getting ready to launch into my vagina. (I have phobias, OK?)

Chooch killed some time at the shooting gallery, while I paced around, waiting for the adjacent Frankenstein’s Castle to open their dumb doors already. I refuse to partake in the shooting galleries at amusement parks because HENRY won’t teach me how to aim. So I almost never hit anything. And then I pout, which morphs into an inevitable Hulk Rage later on.

Fuck you, Henry.

Lame Henry didn’t get the ride-all-day wristband because he’s too old to have fun at amusement parks now. But he sure does enjoy the ones with free general admission so that he can walk around and complain for nothing. I promise you, we broke up at least 87 times that day.

The main (OK, the only) reason Indiana Beach made my list is their staggering collection of THREE dark rides. Two of them, The Den of Lost Thieves and the most-anticipated House of Frankenstein were basically the last rides to open that day. But oh, were they worth the wait.

The Den of Lost Thieves is a shooting ride, which I generally do not enjoy. Kennywood took out a great dark ride, the Goldrusher, and replaced it with a modern shooter-type dark ride and the only thing remarkable about it is how incredibly boring it is. I would gladly bypass this one every time we visit Kennywood, but Chooch always drags me on it. I hate waiting in line for it too! You wait and wait and wait only to get put in this holding room, like a foyer, where they force you to watch some animated portrait on a wall telling you the story of Ghostwood Estate and then the door opens and it’s a fucking free-for-all. Everyone pushes their way through so even if you were the first one in line before entering that room, chances are you’ll take a fanny pack to the groin and wind up 17 people back.

So when I realized that the Den of Lost Thieves was also a shooting ride, I was like, “Damn, we drive 8 hours for this?” But it turned out to be FANTASTIC! Old, musty and full of old-school scares. I loved the shit out of this ride. Especially since I got more points than Chooch.

Another dark ride in the park doubled as a coaster! It was called the Lost Coaster of Something I Forget Who Knows. There was no one in line when Chooch and I walked past, so I shoved all of my belongings into Henry’s chest and bolted for it.

“Um…it’s gonna take a few minutes,” the older, orange-shirted ride operator said. “It got stuck, and I’m waiting for someone to push it back out.” Oh OK, no big deal, you guys. Rides get stuck like all of the time, right? And probably not back-to-back times, right?

He said something about the cars not being “properly weighted” and I was like, “Oh well if you’re looking for all of the weight, you’ve come to the right thunder thighs.” Four more people joined us right as a mechanic came grunting out of the fake cave, pushing the double mine cars in front of him.

The ride operator seemed confident that we had enough bodies to successfully propel the mine cars from start to finish, so we loaded up with me and Chooch and some lady and little girl in one car, and a guy and kid in the one behind us.

Awkward thing about this ride: four people fit in a car, but the seats face each other, so unless you’re with three of your homies, you get to stare at strangers for the next two minutes and I hate that you guys. Looking at people who are looking at me, it’s just…ew. Not for me.

This ride was pretty thrilling and volatile, just like a relationship with me! All of the ups and downs and whiplash and violent shoves.

Will you need a PFA? Maybe! And then…nothing. It just stopped, right in the middle of the dark cave.

“Is it supposed to do this?” I asked the people in the car with us.

“I DON’T THINK SO BUT THE STEEL HAWG GETS STUCK ALL THE TIME,” answered the little girl in an octave only little girls can manage.

****Mental note to be wary of the Steel Hawg. (Which never opened that day anyway, so moot point.)

Anyway, guess what guys? We were stuck! I think this may have been my first time ever getting stuck on a ride, too, so thanks Indiana Beach! That’s a cherry I sure needed popped.

As if it wasn’t hot enough that day, now we were stuck inside some muggy faux-cavern, in a near-enclosed car, with no rescue in sight. I had sweat rolling into my eyes and mouth, I could feel it dripping from the backs of my knees, my whole person was slick with the moist essence of PANIC.

And I had these strangers staring at me and I had nothing to say other than nervous laughter and then the kid in the car behind us started to cry and his dad was mouthing off about how this was such BULLshit and Chooch kept meowing and I was like, “WHY IS NO ONE TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH US OVER AN INTERCOM OR MORSE CODE OR CROP CIRCLE?!” And then finally, after a good FIVE MINUTES OF NOTHING, that same disgruntled mechanic came trudging up the track behind us, shouted an answer to a garbled voice over his walkie talkie, fumbled with some switches in the breaker box next to us, and then said “Enjoy your ride” just as the motor kicked in and we went STRAIGHT DOWN A HILL. Oh that’s right, we were stuck on the zenith of a hill and had no idea because it was so dark in there. So…that was definitely a thrill.

Meanwhile, Henry had been dreaming of buying a taco all day. That’s what he’s thinking about in this picture, as a matter of fact. Indiana Beach has a taco stand that was apparently featured on the Food Network for some reason. I love me a good taco, but I knew that Indiana Beach was for sure not going to have a meatless option. So Chooch and I decided to get pizza and then Henry was going to get his coveted taco afterward.

Except that Chooch only ate one slice of his personal pizza and Henry acted like a motherfucking martyr and ate the rest of it. Like, who cares? Sometimes I think he does this shit on purpose, like he’s some Leftover Scraps Hero. OK, you ate three small slices of crappy pizza, good for you.

Oh, you ate the rest of Chooch’s waffle for breakfast? Well, FUCK Henry. Thanks for taking one for the team. Shit.

I knew all of his moaning and groaning over this would eventually paint a bigger picture, and I was right: Now that he had eaten Chooch’s pizza, he was “too full” to get a taco, and that was ALL THAT HE WANTED, you guys. A fucking taco, but now Chooch and I had ruined his life by having the audacity to get pizza for our own lunches. Last time I checked, no one was forcing pizza down Henry’s enlarged hatch.

I kept coaxing him to get a taco, but he was being such a bitch about it. He was acting offended almost, like he was on a porn diet and I was trying to get him to succumb to peer pressure by showing photos of naked broads going to town on tacos.

So bizarre. Maybe he’s trying to fit back into his SERVICE costume?

Wistful thoughts over the taco stain on his shirt that could have been.

Dreaming of brushing a taco with his moustache bristles to the tune of a Selena song.

He had his chance right here! Going, going….

Gone. This was right after he said, “I DON’T WANT ONE NOW. JUST FORGET IT.” Oh wow, someone’s come down with a case of the Erins.

Imagining a lake where all the sailboats are tacos and he’s a great, venerable taco sailor.

Not buying a taco.

Yeah Henry. Don’t forget. Bitchbaby motherfucker.

(I think Mexico might find it hard to believe that the world’s best tacos are in Indiana.)

OMG one of my favorite parts of our road trip was when we got to drive through the boarded-up hole where Henry used to live while he was in the SERVICE OMG CAN YOU STAND IT.

I wondered out loud if perhaps Henry had grown children running around Bunker Hill, but he assured me that was impossible, which means that Henry didn’t have sex for like THREE YEARS from 1984-1987.

I was in elementary school then, roller skating and being awesome.

Henry is sitting next to me right now, against his will, and I’m asking him for information to include with these pictures since he has refused to write anything on his own because he hates thinking of the years of his life that didn’t include me.

Obviously.

He was an aircraft CREW CHIEF. Whatever that means.

Here is a street that Henry may have walked on! He probably at least drove on it in his GREEN GRAND PRIX. (He just corrected me and said it was blue but last night he told me it was green. Now he’s saying he had both. God, brag much?) He doesn’t recall Brown’s Game Room being there when he lived there in the EIGHTIES. I asked him if there were any whore houses there and he got really impatient and said, “Not in BUNKER HILL. Those were in KOKOMO.” Oh. Sorry.

Henry never want to Indiana Beach while he lived there because he didn’t know it existed. He did, however, go to the fair. Once. He can’t remember if he rode anything, but he knows for certain he didn’t kiss any girls there because kissing leads to SEX and he wasn’t having that in Bunker Hill. That would have ruined his reputation as the Base Eunuch.

This is the neighborhood where Henry’s trailer was but he claims the trailer isn’t there anymore, but he wouldn’t drive back to where it used to be so I couldn’t get any pictures of the empty pit that remains. He wouldn’t even get out of the car while I was taking these pictures. (Admittedly, there wasn’t much there to photograph and I didn’t want anyone to come running out of their home, spitting Skoal at me, so I was pretty quick to wrap this up.)

Also, Henry has no pictures of his trailer, because he wasn’t in the habit of taking pictures of his non-descript living quarters. He had a variety of roommates, including Les, Tim (WHO HE IS FRIENDS WITH ON FACEBOOK! I’m going to message him soon), and John. He thinks John only lived there for a little while but he doesn’t remember because it’s hard to remember things that happened in the 80s, you guys. He claims that they never brought home any local women and this is just so weird to me. They had lots of porn on VHS though. He mumbled “no” when I asked him if they all watched it together, which means that he wanted them to all watch it together but they were like, “Ew get out of here, Eunuch.”

HENRY HAS BEEN TO THIS BAR!!! Apparently, he mostly drank at the bar on BASE. What a snob. He told me that he used to drink LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS at the bar on base. You guys, Henry used to drink LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS. Now I know what I’m serving at his 50th birthday party next year, complete with cocktail parasols and fruit on swords. And obviously they will be served in mason jars with paper straws, as an homage to Henry’s Pinterest addiction.

Henry made me get in the car after this for fear of the homeowners mistaking me for someone casing their house.

Henry used to cook his own food when he lived there and he just said, “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal to you, I cook my own food now, too.” Oh yeah. But for some reason, I keep imagining him in velour lounge pants and a wife-beater, stirring succotash on top of a hot plate. He just told me he cooked Thanksgiving dinner once!! For like 4 or 5 people, he doesn’t remember!

(I AM SO GIDDY AS I WRITE THIS! The notion of Henry having a life prior to me is hilarious and mythical to me all at once. I need to know all of it.)

I was excited to talk about this picture but Henry yelled, “THAT IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT THING. THAT IS NOT EVEN BUNKER HILL. THAT IS TEXAS.” He didn’t do cool things like this in Indiana. Probably because he didn’t know how.

This was when Henry first saw the thing and then realized it wasn’t the thing anymore. (You know, that base thing.) It’s a prison now! He said he doesn’t have many feelings about this since it was so long ago. There was a reunion last year that he didn’t attend. He said it was because all of the people who went were people who were there for like a million years and not an early-discharge pussy like himself. I asked him if he had one of those dishonorable discharges and he got really irritated so that means yes. Probably because he was a Eunuch. And back then, that was probably worse than being gay.

He’s laughing right now but it’s not the “I’m having a good time!” kind of laugh, but more of a “Can I please go to bed now because my sanity is starting to come out of my nose” kind of scary laugh.

It was a relatively low-key Saturday night here at the Oh Honestly Household. Chooch had already gone up to bed (which means he went upstairs to watch YouTube videos on his phone for another 2 hours) and Henry and I were watching the Stanley Cup finals (GO KINGS!). Around 11:00PM, there was a hideous crash/boom/squeal right outside of our house.

Right away, we knew it was a car accident.

The street we live on is a pretty busy one and a lot of the houses here don’t have driveways (luckily, ours does). When I moved here back in 1999, one of the first things my then-neighbor said to me was, “Never park your car in front of the house.” Shit, was she ever right. I learned that this was especially sound advice to observe on weekends. There are a ton of drunks that drive on this street. I have seen so many accidents from my living room window, it’s insane. Recently, someone hit a parked car down the street from us so hard that they pushed it all the way into our front yard. I always tell my friends to park across the street in the church parking lot, because you just never know. I mean, we had the mirror ripped off of our car two days after we bought it because we stupidly left the car parked on the street for “just a second.”

Anyway, back to Saturday night. We heard that sickening crunch of car-against-car and Henry flew out the front door, forgetting that he was in his underwear, to see what had happened. Then other neighbors (i.e. The Hot Naybor Chris Family) began to emerge from their houses as well, so Henry ran back inside to put on his pants, but don’t worry, he was back out in time to take total control of the situation.

We quickly deduced that a car had been speeding down the street and plowed into a parked Lexus (sucks to be that car owner) next door and then tried to keep driving even though the entire wheel and tire of his car had broken. So he made it an additional two houses up the street before putting on his flashers and getting out of the car. He was drunkenly staggering around his car, running his hands through his hair, in total panic-mode.

Meanwhile, Tourette’s happened to be moseying along the sidewalk, coming back from wherever it is that people like him go to (poker night with Purple Pants in a pizza parlor basement?), and he totally paused to become a spectator! I was so excited, you have no idea!!! But oddly, of all the times where it would be appropriate for him to shake his fist and cry, “You motherfucker!” he blurted out no such obscenities and instead stood calmly at the end of our sidewalk, contributing to the community powwow.

Just then, the Perp began drunkenly pacing up and down the sidewalk and at one point, it looked like he was going to run before turning around, crouching on the sidewalk for a moment, and then getting back into his car.

“He’s going to run,” I observed, but one of the neighbor girls said, “He ain’t going nowhere with his wheel broken off!”

“No,” I argued. “He’s going to literally run. I can tell.”

So then Henry got to be a HERO and call the POLICE, who are basically his favorite people in the whole entire world second to those Air Force fellas and broads. And just as Henry was hanging up with the 911 dispatch person, the perp got out of his car and started to walk/run up the sidewalk, away from all of us. So Henry got to CALL THE POLICE AGAIN!

“Yeah, I just called,” he said, quickly reiterating the pertinent details. “Well, it’s a hit and run now,” Henry said excitedly, flashing his imaginary war medallions. “YES, HE’S ON FOOT AND FLEEING THE SCENE!” So then one of the neighbor girls decided she was going to follow him, barefoot, in spite of her mom’s protests. That was stupidly exciting, too.

It was at this point that I realized Henry and Tourette’s were hanging out with a bunch of pajama-clad, braless broads. I quickly crossed my arms over my chest.

“Where are the cops!?” Tourette’s cried. “I know for a fact that there are four of them down the street at the gas station parking lot right now, drinking coffee!” And then he made a series of unhappy grunts. Finally, a cop rolled up with the lights on and Henry practically shoved everyone out of the way to lean into the window and scream, “HE WENT THATTA WAY!” and then he completely gave an inaccurate description of the Perp. So the cop sped off in the direction of Henry’s finger and we all cheered because it was exciting, OK?

Soon, we were joined by my deceased cat Don’s grandma (her cat Teddy knocked Marcy up back in 2000 and that’s where Don and Willie came from) from four houses down. We compared horror stories of all the accidents we’ve collectively witnessed on this street, and then she decided to walk up to the Perp’s abandoned car and start rooting through it.

Logical.

“You drink and you drive and you drive and you drink and you drink and you drive,” Tourette’s began rambling to no one in particular.

I took this opportunity to fetch Chooch, who of course was still wide awake and watching lame videos in his room.

“I thought that noise was just Daddy breaking something in the kitchen as usual,” Chooch mumbled, hastily stepping into a pair of jeans so that he could join the growing throng of Nebby Debbies* outside in the lawn.

*(This is Pittsburghese for nosy motherfuckers.)

“Who owns that car?” our neighbor Ruth asked.

“It’s the guy visiting the blond lady who lives in that house down there,” Henry said with his chest sticking out. “He’s from Virginia.”

“How do you know?” I asked him, furrowing my eyebrows.

“I don’t know,” he stuttered. “I saw the guy pull up when I was cutting the grass. He’s Asian. And he has Virginia plates.”

“Cutting the grass,” you guys. I’M SO SURE. And not from the binoculars in the attic window.

“It could be a rental,” Neighbor Daughter said, recently returned from her citizen’s arrest mission. But Henry argued that it wasn’t a rental and told her all of the reasons he knows this, the number one reason being we’re basically Budget Rental’s best customers because our car is a piece of a shit. This was like the best night ever for Henry because he got to brag about knowing things that no one would typically give a shit about.

(And I still don’t.)

Just then, the cops came back and they had the Perp! I cheered with an overdose of faux-enthusiasm.

“He wasn’t going nowhere,” the main cop laughed. Even his laughter had a Yinzer-accent. “He’s piss ass drunk!”

Henry told the cop that he knocked on the car owner’s front door several times to no avail and then explained again that the car belongs to her visiting friend and we’re all like, “OK we get it, just put it in next month’s Brookline ‘zine, why don’t you.” Fuck, Henry. Maybe you should just move to Wisteria Lane.

“Maybe they’re busy,” the cop said with a sleazy wink and then laughed so hard, donut crumbs shot out of his mouth. And then he took Henry’s official statement! Talk about the best belated birthday gift of all time: Henry got to be a motherfucking witness to a hit and run. HOT DAMN.

Oh, you want to know what I was doing this whole time? Just the usual: getting in the way and giddily laughing alone the whole time. I even jumped and clapped a few times because sometimes living on this street rules. LOOK AT US ALL COMING TOGETHER IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE!

And then the tow truck arrived! OH WHAT A NIGHT! Henry loves talking to men of these sorts of vocations! While the cop went back to his vehicle to write up the report—-or Instagram his Styrofoam coffee cup, who knows—Henry and the tow truck driver got to stand around and make idle conversation about the damage done to the Lexus. I kept hearing Henry “hyuk hyuk hyuk’ing” so they must have been getting along pretty well. I just asked Henry what else they were talking about and he claims the tow truck driver was telling Henry about how busy of a night he had the night before. OK HENRY, SURE, WE BELIEVE YOU. You weren’t talking about car crash porn AT ALL.

The cop thanked us all and I over-zealously said you’re welcome! because standing around outside doing nothing other than not wearing a bra deserves appreciation, but no one could hear me over Henry’s bristling moustache and rippling ego; it was clear that no more excitement was going to evolve from this particular episode, so everyone started to wander off back to their homes and Tourette’s lumbered off into the horizon with whatever mysterious bag he had been clutching the whole time.

“Yinz have a good night!” the tow truck driver called out to us. I have never been called “yinz” so much in one night. God love Pittsburgh.

“True or false,” I demanded later when we were getting ready for bed. “This is the most excitement you’ve had since THE SERVICE.”

“It wasn’t that exciting,” Henry sighed.

Oh, but his weener told a different story.

This was his “I’m scared to know what you got me” face last night.

So today is Henry’s birthday and he’s FORTY-NINE, WHAT. I’m surprised he hasn’t already been playing the age card to get out of things like Warped Tour and amusement parks, but I will say that one of my gifts to him is that I’m going to see Circa Survive alone next month.

I figure that’s something he would want, a “Sit This One Out” coupon.

I mean, I’m not always heartless. Or a dick, which is why I put on my Sweetheart cap the other day and painted him something sentimental (ugh):

He didn’t cry, but he did do that weird mouth-twist thing that he does when he’s being overwhelmed by emotional sensations and is afraid of sacrificing whatever speck of masculinity he has left by expressing how his heart FEELS SO FULL OF LOVE RIGHT NOW. So instead, he hugged me and jokingly said, “I mean, it’s no blow job, but….”

We started dating when mixtapes were being phased out by mixed CDs, and he actually used to make me some of those before we lived together. They were filled with synthpop that he would download for me in an effort to show me how computer savvy he was. See? Even Henry once used music to win my heart.

Before we were dating and were just platonic co-workers, he made me a Cure screensaver, totally out of the blue, and that’s when I knew I had him by the weener.

I guess he liked it OK because he took it to work to put on his desk. (Or so he says.)

Happy birthday, Henry! I don’t care if you’re 70—you’re still going to Warped Tour.

So once again I’m being forced to “guest post” (I’m not correcting any spelling errors either). It all began months ago, I think, I tend to block out Erin anytime the word concert or johny Craig come up in a conversation. This time it was 5 hours away, which means an overnight trip, which makes it even more agonizing, having to drive 5 hours then stand in a venue I don’t want to be at seeing a band that I have no interest in. It took until almost a week before the concert for me to agree to go, even after I was promised anything if I would go, actually hoping it would sell out and I would win. No chance.

Let me make the rest of this short and sweet, Venue sucked, no beer ,no water, no anything.

What venue does that, the one in Allentown does. So that made the night off to a great start, the one chance I have to go to a concert and drink , foiled by the venue this time and not Erin. So on to the bands

Cedar Green: Not bad for a local band, set was short.

Alive Like Me: Don’t care to see them again, add them to the list.

Miss Fortune: Liked them , would see them again which means they will never be anywhere I have to go and see other bands I don’t want to see.

Slaves: Did they even play? The band was ok they just need a new singer.

Hands Like Houses: Apparently I have seen them many times before and don’t remember any of them. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like them, just don’t remember them. I can say I do like their music, there Erin now that’s 2 bands I like.

After the show we had blue cheese and pear pizza and it was weird but good.

That’s it for this episode of henry gets forced to do something he hates again for promises of things that will never be.

( I hope she has fun correcting all the grammar mistakes and spelling errors, I know how she hates that.)

It all started out innocently enough. Henry, Chooch and I walked to the Boulevard on Sunday afternoon for some ice cream. Typical.

I got birthday cake and red velvet. I spent the morning barfing (not pregnant, don’t even!) so I earned two scoops.

Usually, there are Young People scooping out ice cream with a moderate dose of disdain, but on this day, it was an old lady who used to make occasional appearances back when Scoops was known as (the beloved) Boulevard Ice Cream. She asked me if I wanted the kids size or regular, and I was like, “REGULAR. I’M A GROWING GIRL, DUH” but my regular scoops looked suspiciously on par with Chooch’s kids sized scoops so I don’t know if I should feel offended, ripped off, or both.

And then Henry ordered the octogenarian delight of Spumoni.

“We’re out of spumoni,” Elder Scooper spat with not even a fleck of remorse.

“OK, um…” Henry stalled, squinting at the chalkboard list of flavors behind her.

“Don’t look at that list!” she scolded. “Look at the cases.”

Chooch and I lost our fucking minds over this. It was the funniest thing ever, Henry being deprived of the one flavor he really wanted.

I don’t even know what he ended up getting. Chocolate almond or something, who even cares.

We sat on a bench outside, enjoying our ice cream, while Chooch openly criticized a man for delivering ice cream cones to his caravan (I’m not joking, he rolled up in minivan that was stuffed to the gills with children) as each cone was made, instead of bringing them out all at once.

“Do you even know how hard that would be to carry them all at once?” Henry yelled, probably thanking his stars that he only has two needy children to serve and not a whole van like Mr. Avuncular Abductor over here at Scoops. “Not to mention, all the ones that were first made would start melting!” But Chooch didn’t want to hear it and continued to run his mouth every time the man walked RIGHT PAST US. Not awkward at all. Finally, we had the bright idea to get up and start walking before a scene was caused.

We crossed the street and Chooch said, “Hey Mommy, I’ll race you to that ATM sign.”

I looked up ahead at the sign and considered it. “No, I don’t want to race. I don’t feel well today.” Then I waited until Chooch wasn’t paying attention and took off. That’s my M.O. and it’s not cheating! It’s being a smart competitor.

So Chooch is all, “Hey wait up!” and I can hear his dumb feet slapping the pavement behind me and then all of a sudden: extreme pain in the back of my right arm and stars in my eyes.

I’VE BEEN SHOT! I heard myself say in that slow-motion, underwater voice I’ve been hoarding explicitly for when I get shot. I knew it was just a matter of time. A list of suspects blew before my eyes: Purple Pants. Cheerleader Girl. Tourette’s. Happy Post Office Worker. Any number of Catholic School parents. And in that same instance, a bottle of Gatorade ricocheted off my arm, coating the sidewalk with a small blue tidal wave as it exploded against the pavement.

I stopped. I assessed the scene. I hadn’t been shot after all. Someone’s asshole son had hurled a bottle of blue drank at me in a vicious attempt to slow my pace. Oh wait—-MY ASSHOLE SON.

“Why would you do that!?” I cried in that scary high-pitched almost-dog-whistle tone that mom’s get when they’re torn between red levels of hostility and wanting to cry fat tears of self-pity. I hesitantly touched my searing, throbbing wound to check for blood or a protruding bone.

“Because he’s crazy,” mumbled an old man who had just happened to be walking over the scene of the crime to get to his apartment. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

Chooch shrugged. “I just wanted you to slow down.” He had that nervous trill to his voice, like he wasn’t sure if I was going to extract my witch’s broom from my asshole and start beating him with it in public.

Oh, speaking of “in public”: We were in public. There were enough people milling about that I was trying to keep it classy, but I couldn’t help it. I am sensitive! Physically and mentally! He hurt the tender part of my arm right above my elbow and more importantly: he hurt my feelings and my ego, you guys!

With the tender moment we shared when Henry was denied spumoni fading away faster by the second, I hissed, “I hate you! How could you do that to me!?” to him like he had literally stabbed me in the back. I started to storm off before he could answer, while Henry was all, “You shouldn’t say that to him” in a bored “I’m reading this from the book I wrote about all the things you do wrong as a parent” cadence.

I spun around on my heels and glared at him. “HE HURT ME ON PURPOSE!”

“No he didn’t,” Henry sighed in tandem with Chooch’s maniacally defensive squeal, “NO I DIDN’T!”

“YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY IS CANCELED!” I empty-threatened.

I started to storm off again. We walked past all of the happy people happily eating their happy tacos on the sidewalk at Las Palmas and I hated them and all of their stupid un-Gatorade-injured happy bodies. Then we approached Pitaland and Henry hesitated at the entrance.

“I thought we were going in to get dates?” he asked.

“GO FUCK YOURSELF,” I cried as more people leisurely strolled by. If I could have climbed out of my body at that moment, I think the sight of my deranged woman-on-edge self would have made me die of embarrassment. But basically, it was a good day for fitting in in Brookline!

“What did I do?” Henry asked.

“YOU JUST STOOD THERE AND DIDN’T CARE THAT YOUR SON TRIED TO MURDER ME WITH GATORADE!”

I mean, what if that big, dangerous bottle had hit my head and I got a concussion, or worse: KNOCKED OUT A TOOTH? I couldn’t believe how lightly Henry was taking this terrible situation. Who knows who will be next on Chooch’s list! Hide yo kids, hide yo Gatorade, guys.

“I told him to apologize. He didn’t mean to do it. What else do you want me to do in the middle of Brookline Boulevard!?” So then Henry did that thing that he does where he gets mad at me for being mad at him, and then I get more mad because I was mad first and now he’s trying to encroach on my bubble of madness, so then we were all mad and Chooch was like, “This is stupid, guys; let’s move on” but I hadn’t been able to fully perform my tantrum yet, so I sped up real fast and walked home a full block ahead of those motherfuckers, with my arms crossed and lips in full-fledged pout-position. I might have been crying too, but you’ll never know.

(Unless you were driving on Pioneer Avenue around 3:00 on Sunday.)

I eventually calmed down, maybe it was the sweet Mormon missionaries and their impeccable timing at handing me a prayer card on my walk home. I kept trying to keep up my mean-muggin’, but then I would start to laugh because I can’t stay made at those assholes for long, even after one of them assaults me with sports beverage. But I wouldn’t let those two forget about what they did to me.

“Oh excuse me, but why was it OK for you and Chooch to fall to the ground in laughter after he kicked me in the crotch last week?” Henry cried after my 87th reminder that he failed me as a fake-spouse/parental-partner today.

“Well, that’s different,” I shrugged. “That’s basically part of your life now and it’s not my fault you haven’t accepted it.”

And then he looked at my arm and sighed, “Oh my god, there is nothing even THERE.”

Yeah...yet.

I mean, aside from that and the aforementioned puking session, it was a great fucking day. And most importantly: I won the race. Cheaters always win, y’all.

************

“And somewhere, on someone else’s blog…” was Barb’s response when I was recounting the whole gritty story to her today.

(My arm is BRUISED and it HURTS today, in case anyone not named Henry cares.)

[ed.note: before anyone criticizes my mothering, let me just say that having objects chucked at my person by my child is not standard practice in our house. This was just one of those things, you guys, and he sincerely apologized to me numerous times before I finally accepted, ha ha. OMG bad days happen! Parenting isn’t perfect! Who knew?!]

Enjoy!!

Timeout for frosted marshmallows, y’all!