This was supposed to be an ongoing series, but it’s taken me a whole year to make the second one. Sounds about right.
Hey, in other news, those of you who requested a People of Brookline postcard might actually get one soon! Henry is off all week so he can do fatherly things with the kid during the day and maybe I might actually get a chance to do something, anything.
Where’s Henry? Oh, just standing alone.
Ever wonder what it’s like to be Old and Joyless at the county fair? Me too, so I decided to interview* Henry to get the geriatric scoop.
*I tried to accomplish this unbeknownst to him, but as soon as he answered the phone, it went something like this:
Henry: What.
Me: [throaty giggles]
Henry, with apprehension: What did you do?
Me, in a robotic cadence: [more giggles, staccato with giddiness] Can I ask you a few questions?
Henry, senses heightened: What? Why?
Me, still giggling & speaking like a robot with a dick in its throat: What is your favorite food at the fair?
Henry, sighing: I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.
Me: WAIT! THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Henry: [Dial tone.]
The rest of the interview was conducted both over text and in person when he came home from work, only because he kept hanging up on me every time I called him.
Henry slides his glasses down, grandpa-style, and Googles “fastest way to kill yourself at the county fair.”
Me: Is it true that you don’t ride anything because you’re worried the wind will rape your perfectly feathered hair?
Henry: No, because it makes my stomach upset. What the fuck?
Henry engaged in his favorite activity at the fair: eating. This typically occurs only after he takes care of feeding his son and girlfriend.
Me, via text message this time so as not to chase the subject away with my giggles: Seriously, what is your favorite part about the fair, and don’t say “Leaving.”
Henry: The food.
Me: Can you be more specific and maybe answer in complete sentences using lots of descriptive words?
Henry: No. I don’t trust yoi [sic].
I feel like it must be hot sausage, his favorite food I mean, because that’s what he got on Saturday and also in 2009 at the Westmoreland County Fair. Clearly I’ve been collecting evidence. He also got french fries molested with a sublime bourbon glaze, most of which I ate though.
Henry is never in on the joke.
Me: I understand that you ran into an “old friend from work” at the fair. Were you surprised that your so-so personality made enough of an impression that he remembered you?
Henry, walking away in a huff after reading the above and below questions: No, and you’re an asshole.
Me: Did you ever covet his wife? I mean, you seemed so excited to tell me that she’s a traveling horse vet and I know how much you’re into pony play. So…?
Henry: [see above response.]
It’s true! Henry has a friend who considers him a friend back! They’re even friends on FACEBOOK so you know it’s real. They talked about really boring Old People things and all I kept thinking was, “I could have ridden the Caterpillar three times by now.” So now I hate that guy. Whatever his name is.
Henry will bitch about how much of his Faygo paycheck is spent at the fair, yet he sees no problem with throwing away next month’s rent on carnival games. Yay, $45 for two goldfish! There goes dinner for next week.
Me: About how much, approximately, of our son’s college tuition did you give to the carnies? And I’m talking about just the games, not the reacharounds:
Henry: Um, about fifteen bucks. OK, maybe about twenty.
Great. I could have bought a CD with that.
Me: What is your favorite carnival game that you like to pretend you’re good at?
Henry, sounding extremely annoyed to the max: I don’t know. I don’t want to do this, you know that.
This means he knows deep down he’s not good at anything.
Henry poses pretty and only smiles when he thinks no one is looking. His smiles usually occur when I am far, far away.
(This is also a widely unknown yoga pose for truckers.)
Me: Would you rather, and this going to hurt your heart so be prepared, give up Mountain Dew for life or trade your collection of non-descript t-shirts for ones with….logos and designs?
Henry, after making me repeat the question because I was laughing too hard and we’re now doing this from separate rooms: Give up Mountain Dew for life.
I do not know what this has to do with the fair.
Henry, in the middle of saying: “No.” “Stop it.” “Grow up.” “You’re an idiot.” “Get that pine cone out of my ass.” Pick one.
Me: It has been proven that the Caterpillar is the Best Ride In the Whole Fucking World. So why wouldn’t you ride it?
Henry: Because it’s a KIDS RIDE and I’m NOT A KID.
You got that right.
Me: Please tell us, best to your memory, what you were saying in the above picture.
Henry, in a tone becoming increasingly high-pitched with irritation: I don’t know! I don’t even know where that was taken! [I then remind him it was when we were making a mess with waffle ice cream sandwiches] I don’t know! Probably something like, “Wipe [Chooch’s] face off!”
Henry is the official beverage-holder at the fair. This prevents him from honking Tazmanian Devil-tattooed biker breasts, tugging his mouth into a frown.
Me: If you had to fight someone for the last piece of whatever your favorite carnival food is that you’re being so secretive about, would you rather it be one of the octogenarian ticket booth workers or one of the goody-goody 4H brats? Do you need me to tell you what “octogenarian” means?
Henry, rubbing his eyes tiredly: I don’t know. The octo—-[unable to pronounce it]. The ticket booth workers!
Henry tries to reflect on a time when he could still ride carnival rides, but comes up short. He’s just too old.
Me: Why don’t you ever smile at the fair? Is it because your moustache is too heavy?
Henry, from upstairs: I’m busy.
I then asked Henry to summarize his day at the fair. This is what the Man of Many Words had to say:
It was a good day. Today sucks because you just ruined everything.
Presumably because I had the audacity to make him talk to me. This took 4 hours to extract answers from him, but if there’s anything you want to ask Henry about his big day at the fair, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do!
Henry is sick now. And when Henry is sick, it’s all, “Just leave me alone! I need to rest!” and then he barricades himself in the bedroom and leaves the rest of us incompetent beings to stumble repeatedly into the wall like dying wind-up toys.
He came home from work early yesterday with preconceived notions of “resting,” but too bad I was having major blog issues (it was basically BROKEN-DOWN).
“Get down here and fix this!” I yelled up to him. “You can rest when you’re done.” And I said it in such a way that sent ice-cold claws grating down his back, so even though he acted all haughty when he stomped down the stairs, it was obvious that his manhood was cowering underneath his feverish flesh.
It’s sort of better now, back to its original jacked-up state, at least. My blog, not Henry. Last I bothered to check, he was still a suffering mess of chills and aches.
He better get stoked though, because tonight is the Dance Gavin Dance show, which I had scheduled off work for two months in advance. He was nasally complaining about this yesterday, because not only is he sick, but he absolutely abhors Dance Gavin Dance.
“This is so unfair how you do this to me,” he bitched in a way that immediately lopped two inches off his dick measurement.
“I’m going to wait until you’re sick and then make you go see someone you hate.”
“Go ahead,” I taunted, knowing this threat will never come to fruition because it involves spending money which Henry doesn’t enjoy doing unless it’s on bottles of Mountain Dew, computer parts and socks.
“Katy Perry!” he yelled, practically clapping his hands in delight. “I’m making you go see Katy Perry.
Front row seats.”
I couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculousness of this. Erin Rachelle Kelly at a Katy Perry “concert.”
“That’s fine,” I played along. “I’ll start a fight and get kicked out.”
“Ooh, Katy Perry and PINK!” Henry went on, dreaming up some stupid scenario in his stupid head. “A night of positivity.” (I’m constantly ranting about how I hate Pink because she’s so fucking positive. Just what women need, more anthems.)
My luck, they’ll probably be on tour together this summer and Henry will win tickets from whatever pathetic radio station he guiltily listens to when I’m not in the car with him.
On the night of Christmas Eve, we went to Henry’s sister’s house for some holiday hootenannies. We passed out gifts to all the kids and then Henry’s mom Judy asked, “Where are the spinach pies?”
Henry looked at me like I was going to tug them out of my g-string, but unfortunately I forgot to stuff them in there. It’s tough when my pimp doesn’t remind me to stow sundry down my pants like a human pantry. Besides, spinach pies were Henry’s duty, and he evidently failed. Judy seemed very sad about this.
Toward the end of the night, Henry was in the living room watching the kids play video games, while I sat in the kitchen drinking wine with Judy and Henry’s sister Kelly.
Henry walked through the kitchen at one point to grab some food and I made an off-hand remark about how I’ve been trying to get him to dress a little better, and they both said they had noticed and thought he looked nice. Once he left the room though, the atmosphere got very heavy and Judy leaned in and, with her face drawn into a grave expression, murmured, “You know the reason why my son doesn’t dress nice, right?”
Because he got the domestic piece of the gay gene and not the sense of style slice?, I wanted to say. Instead, I shook my head and said, “No, why?”
“Oh, that girl he dated after the Service!” Judy exclaimed, hand on her chest.
I gave her a blank look.
“You don’t know about that girl he was going with?” she asked, clearly astonished that Henry left that chapter out when divulging his life story to me after a night of cheap drinks and bad karaoke at McCoy’s.
I looked over to Kelly for some help, expecting for her to chime in and say that their mom was losing her mind—which typically is Kelly’s role in these conversations, to say that Mom is batshit crazy—but she too had gone all somber.
“No, I guess I don’t know about her,” I said, wondering what the story was since Henry has told me some Pretty Big Secrets in our time together.
“She was awful!” Kelly spat, looking completely repulsed. “I don’t know what he ever saw in her!”
“He met her at Jack’s, right when he got out of the Service,” Judy regaled. “They were always together, going out drinking. Oh, when he found out she was gay, he didn’t come out of his room for three months.”
RECORD SCRATCH. My ears were practically fluttering off my head, this unbelievably moist wad of gossip sending them into overdrive.
HENRY HAD A GAY GIRLFRIEND? Oh, how rich.
At this point, I was pretty sure Judy was trying not to cry. But the more I let it sink in, the less it seemed like a verified Henry Story to me, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I kept trying to imagine him, fetus-curved on a twin bed in a mostly non-descript bedroom that maybe had one lone Dukes of Hazard poster on a wall, hugging a pillow into his chest and sobbing because some broad left him for the vag, while the whole family convened out in the hall on suicide watch, fruity tones of Air Supply wafting out from under his door like so many homosexual farts. These images didn’t come as easily as maybe you’d like to think. But I really, truly wanted this story to be legit. More than anything, that would have been the best Christmas present ever.
“What are you talking about?” Blake asked, who was sitting with us at the table messing around with his new camera. 
I didn’t even think he had been listening.
“Nothing!” Judy snapped, waving him off. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“I hated her,” Kelly continued in hushed tones, after making certain that Blake wasn’t listening. “Chrissy, I think that was her name.” Henry’s mom nodded in recognition. “Yeah, she was always telling him what to do. What to wear. Where to go. She was so controlling. I was like, ‘Why are you letting this girl control you?’ I couldn’t ever understand it.”
Just as I was thinking this broad sounded an awful lot like me, Henry walked into the kitchen. Judy made lip-zipping gestures and acted all awkward and suspicious. I locked eyes with Henry, smirked, and shook my head.
“What?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.
“Nothing!” his mom shouted. We waited for him to grab another handful of chips and leave.
“Don’t tell him I’m telling you this!” Judy pleaded. “He was so upset when this happened. If he hasn’t told you, it’s probably because it’s too painful for him to talk about.”
Henry texted me just then: “What is my mom telling you?”
I replied: “Oh, we’ll be talking later. I can’t believe you’ve been withholding from me.”
Judy wasn’t done.
“I’ve never seen my son so upset!” she continued, face still pulled taut in that expression of utter seriousness. “They didn’t date for long but she really hurt him. He hasn’t bothered dressing nice since her. I guess she ruined him, I don’t know.” By this point, I was chewing on my inner cheeks, trying not to laugh. I just didn’t buy it. It didn’t seem like something he would purposely omit from his oral history, but you better believe I was thinking of all the ways I could use this to fuck with him.
***
A few minutes later, I was in Kelly’s living room, sitting alone on the couch with Henry.
“So I just heard a terribly devastating story about you,” I baited.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Henry mumbled, not taking his eyes off the Wii game he was playing.
I started to sprinkle out little hints but he honestly kept saying he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“So you mean to tell me you never dated some broad who wound up being gay, plunging you into a downward spiral that left you house-bound for three months?”
“What are you talking about?!” he asked, looking at me for the first time. I filled him in on what his mom and sister told me. They told me not to, but it was too good! I had to chide him, at least a little.
“That girl?! I never dated her! She was just my drinking buddy.” I asked him what her name was, as a test, and he said he couldn’t even remember. I could tell he wasn’t lying.
“Oh, yeah. Chrissy,” he repeated absently after I told him. “Where the hell did my mom get that story from?” he asked mostly to himself.
According to Henry, he used to “loaf” (that’s what old people say instead of “hanging out,” you know) with her and some gay guy named Kenny.
“Oh my god, so you were dating BOTH of them?” I gasped obnoxiously.
“NO! They were just my drinking bud—-SHUT UP!”
The most I could get out of Henry, who is playing the Bad Memory card, is that she was “mannish and had short hair.”
I let it go for awhile, but in the car after we left I filled Blake in and together we rode him like a down-trodden mule all the way home.
“Nothing sexual was going on!” Henry swore.
“Hahaha, Henry said ‘sexual’!” And Blake and I cracked up even harder.
I asked him what ever happened to Chrissy, and all Henry could muster was that he “thinks” she moved to Florida.
“Yeah, you know that because you creep her Facebook profile on the daily,” I needled away.
“I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER HER LAST NAME!” Henry cried, the heat of the situation making him tug at his collar.
***
Today, we were in the car when I noticed that the skin beneath Henry’s bottom lip was bulging, like he was pushing his tongue down in front of his bottom teeth.
“Did you used to dip when you were dating Chrissy?” I asked.
“What? No. Why? AND I NEVER DATED HER!” He quickly tacked on to the sentence.
“Because I’ve never seen you do that with your bottom lip before, thought maybe all this talk of Chrissy was bringing back some old tics.”
“I’m going to kill my mom and sister,” he mumbled.
Maybe they were just that mad over the spinach pies.
You guys asked Henry some hard-hitting questions, and he gave you some half-assed answers. I give you my word that I did not alter any of these answers (except for the one where he used a double negative).
Andrea asked, “Did he get those scene glasses that you picked out for him and what is the best thing about being a dad?”
Yes I did and I must say I look good, now if I could only afford them!
Being there for them when they need me.
Michelle wants to know why I don’t have one of those husbands, what’s up with that Henry?
It’s complicated but one day.
What a cop-out.
Sandy wants to know how Henry got the glitter sprinkles to stick on the marshmallows from the preschool Halloween party:
Corn syrup and glue!
I had no idea he used glue. Is that even safe? Though, I guess kids are going to ingest glue either way, so why not just serve it to them all prettified.
Misty wants to know what song Henry would use to describe me and he thinks he can say “Let me get back to you on this one” and I won’t send him to the flagellation chamber when he comes home.
However, Misty also wants to know a story from one of the most exciting days he had in THE SERVICE:
Ok my most exciting day and the one Erin says I had are way different.
Mine would be the first day there; it was a big change from the way I was used to spending my day. I’ve never regretted going in, just regretted telling Erin anything about it!
By “used to spending my day,” he means he didn’t “accidentally” kill someone’s pet duck in Panama and receive Vick’s Vapor Rub hand jobs by Taiwanese hookers before he enlisted. I thought for sure his most exciting day would have been the day he and his buddies took a photo of themselves in their underroos, and Henry appears to be holding a ball-gag.
Misty also wants to know what his dream job would be:
Stay at home dad, as soon as Erin makes it big. She better hurry I’m getting old!
Good thing I’ve been looking into some trade schools. My future in welding just might make this possible, Henry.
Carrie asks, “Who is your stylist?”
What ever girl is available at Supercuts and myself.
Alyson Hell desperately needs to know his favorite flavor of Faygo and what he actually did do in THE SERVICE when he wasn’t getting denied by street-walkers and struggling to look like Erik Estrada:
Red Pop or Moonmist.
I was a Crew Chief on a KC135 Tanker they refuel other aircraft in the air.
Kristen wants to know what name he’d use if he was a hiphop star so she’ll know to avoid it:
DJ Dung Pile cause I would sound like a pile of S__t
Yes, he actually spelled it S__t because we all know how much I fucking hate to fucking use dick-shitting cuss words on this motherfucking cocksucking shit-covered dildo blog.
Brandy can’t sleep until she knows how many M&Ms he can fit in his mouth and what his last meal would be once he offs me and lands his ass on death row (which would never happen, because that would be the time Henry actually WOULD lawyer-up, child support/divorce what now?):
Probably 1 whole bag, small bag (Now, if these were DICKS we were talking about….)
Pizza & wings.
Fine, the dick part was my addition, but only because he pissed me off this morning and I hate him right now (more than usual).
Edina wants Henry’s ego to have a moment to bloat, so she asks, “What do you love about yourself?”
That I was smooth enough to land such a wonderful girlfriend who would make me do things like this all the time.
Stephenie is like, “Fuck asking a question, I have a goddamned DEMAND.” She wants her circular bread with the dip inside that he promised to bring her for her birthday and never did because he is the proprietor of the Empty Promise Factory.
Will do it for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Finally, the last question is from Kaitlin, who wants to know, “If you were to cook Erin a romantic four-course meal, what would you serve?”, operative word being IF:
The first course would have to be a soup, without all the vegetable left out that the picky vegetarian doesn’t like. Probably a creamy turnip or sweet potato soup
Next would be some exotic tofu, weird cheese concoction then a dish with vegetables that most people have never heard of and are impossible to get. Lastly a dessert made from fresh fruit
All ingredients and Menu is subject to change at anytime and must have prior approval by Erin. So maybe you should ask her what she would like. I just cook and bring the romance…Ha HA
OMG he actually said he brings the romance? The vegetable part is true – I only like unpopular vegetables, plus I’m supremely picky on top of that. But let’s be honest Henry, your menu would be pretty simple:
Arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic
Hemlock
I guess that’s it. Pretty anti-climactic. Let’s never do that again.
Shit! I forgot about the ones he answered in the comments, like a dummy.
Kate asked, “I’d like Henry to tell us what he would most miss about you if something happened tomorrow and you were gone.”
So many to list, but as long as she doesn’t read this, I’ll say all the phone calls I get during the day most of which involve her having the “worst day ever!” or barking orders at me(like I actually listen) like a drill sargeant. Aww hell I would just miss her all together!
That’s cute. He’s actually pretending to be cocky. You’re a big shot now, Henry.
And lastly, Tracey asked, “Did he ever get hit on by another man while in the service?”
No, and I don’t know why.
Would you like a list, Henry?
(I was hoping to have a reason to recycle this photo!)
My friend Brandy is having her blog readers ask her husband questions, and I think that’s a really fun-sounding idea and I want to play too! Even though I don’t have one of those HUSBANDS. Besides, Henry owes me for never making good on his promise to guest-post. (I’m imagining Henry flicking open a scroll of my own empty promises.)
Ask him anything! What it was like to have a porn wound. How badly he wants to kill himself every year at Warped Tour. Things about being IN THE SERVICE (his favorite topic!).
You ask all the questions and then I will interrogate him and post his answers on Friday. And believe me, I will do whatever it takes to get The Answers.
Totally go check out Brandy’s blog, too! It’s a smorgasbord of married-life hilarity, DIY-projects and adorable photos of her dog. I’ve been having a fun time getting to know her over the last few months!
Remember that old series “Goofus and Gallant” that was in that kid’s magazine, Highlights? I was thinking about it this morning and how much Henry and I are like the Goofus and Gallant of the 21st century. So I’m reinventing the series.
Here’s the first one:
My hair is actually darker than that. But everything else is TRUTHFUL, right down to Henry’s empty box of hemorrhoid paste.
No wait, I lied! Our garbage can is blue.
[A Note: The last time I read Highlights was the summer of 2004. I had taken my grandma to her doctor appointment and as we sat in the waiting room together, I took great pleasure in reacquainting myself the aforementioned Goofus and Gallant, and also the Timbertoes, whom I loved!
Guys, they were a family made from TIMBER. After getting completely cocky from finding all the objects in the Hidden Picture thing, I began reading a page of riddles and jokes. There was one joke that I totally did NOT get (and can’t remember, so don’t even!), and had to actually ask my grandma to explain it to me.
One of the many millions of times she’s mumbled, “Oh honestly, Erin.
“]
On the way home from work tonight, Henry and I talked about this nutcase who stabbed his wife to death because she was angry with him for staying up to watch the Penguins game last night, triple overtime and all.
“It would be the reverse in our house,” I laughed.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure there’s more to the story. She was probably a NAG and NAGGED him for the last time,” Henry said with great enunciation, taking his eyes off the road to glare at me.
“Oh, please,” I sneered. “If anyone is going to be doing any killing, it’s me.”
“But the difference,” Henry explained, “is that you’d never know I was coming. You, on the other hand, would probably trip and fall before you even left the kitchen with the knife.”
Upon further thought, Henry added, “No, you probably wouldn’t even be able to find the weapon you wanted to use, and would end up having to ask me.”
Oh, you just turned this into a competition, Douchebag Henry.
Wednesday night, Chooch was over Janna’s house, making her family think he’s some kind of angel or something. Feeling inspired to listen to something other than the stack of MP3 CDs I have in the car, I backpeddled to one of my CD racks, closed my eyes, and plucked out a CD by the Pale to listen to on my way to pick up Chooch. (Yes, a CD! Remember those?) I vaguely remember liking The Pale enough to put them on mixes back in the day – I think this might have been circa 2003-4. I also vaguely remember that they changed their name to the Pale Pacific sometime after the release of this album and I never really followed them after that.
The first song didn’t really move me much, but by the time the opening notes of the second tracks filled my freezing car, I was 24 years old again, it was spring time, and Henry and I were walking in a cemetery. And then I listened to the words, really listened, and suddenly my face was wet and I was murmuring “Aw” out loud and I swear to you, the last eight years of my life flashed by and it hit me, fucking cold-cocked me in the face, and not that I didn’t already know, but I was taken over by this overwhelming realization of how lucky I am to have Henry. Yes, I said it! I have fucked up so many times that it’s almost like, why get a job? I have one! I work in the Fucking-Up Lab. And somehow Henry forgives me every time (though he keeps track).
I am the one who can solve all your problems
A savior with only you to save
That’s why I’m here
At least I tell myself that
The motivation becomes so blurred
Henry’s always picking up the pieces (sometimes quite literally, because I’m a destructive wild woman), always making sure I don’t run off with a razor blade/bottle of sleeping bills/keys to the car, always supporting me even when everyone else is placing bets for me to fail.
And you want them to see
And you want them to know
But they never find the real you
You never once complained
But now twenty years are gone
And you’re ready to explode
That’s me, Vesuvius Rachelle.
In light of recent events, I’ve just been finding perspective everywhere. In music, in my little family, in my underwear. It doesn’t matter if not everyone appreciates you, as long as that one person does. So, I don’t know. I guess, thank you Henry. And don’t get too used to these PDAs.
We spent the afternoon at Henry’s sister Kelly’s house yesterday.
It was a nice time, for sure, but when Kelly pulled out some old photo albums, it was ON. Typically, I can go hogwild making fun of a gawky teen Henry wearing bitchin’ shades, high-waisted pants, and steepling his fingers. (Seriously, he steeples his fingers more than sinister cartoon crime lords.)
But then Kelly slipped me a strip of photobooth pics taken at Kennywood in 1974.
(For those of you who are bad at math, that is FIVE YEARS before I was born.
To spell that out: HENRY IS WAY OLDER THAN ME.
)
And aside from the idiotic gaping maw pose he’s got going in the last photo (he claims this was back when an actual person was in there taking the pictures and telling you how to pose), there wasn’t much I could say other than “OMG aw” and “SWOON.”
I also want to add that I’m thankful he doesn’t still have the pervy beer-drinkin’ molester look he had going on in his twenties.
Hay guess what Henry killed our Internet connection so I’m trying post from my busted Blackberry and I’m sort of panicking right now OMFG.
And at the same time, Chooch got pissed off while hanging out with Alisha, Janna and Blake (yes, he’s still awake, which is the result of baking the recipe for AWESOME PARENTING) and I had to deal with talking him off a ledge.
Oh my god, this night is going swimmingly.
Oh dear Lord, I found this old post from Mother’s Day 2007 when I was looking for something and I haven’t publicly made a mockery of Henry in so long, like an entire month maybe, so excuse me while I indulge in a re-post.
It had quickly become my dying wish, this one thing that I wanted last week. The desire for this favor was so great, like I could die from the sheer want of it all. The extremity of it had far surpassed my dream of starting a jump rope league, and was at least on par with the Robert Smith / Lydia Lunch personal journal conquest of 2001, where my insanity had reached such high summits that I was ready to sell my car to finance the purchase. If I had to put it in terms that the rational populace might understand, I might liken the obsession to dreams of aquiring a new house or the incessant need to check yourself for venereal diseases.
This obsession overtook each of my senses: a palpable vinegar pool of yearning swirling on my tongue; the sneering visage of an undulating Satan dangling my dire longing before my eyes; a needling Siren song of excruciating taunt engulfing my ears. And Henry was the only one who could make it go away.
When I initially presented him with my proposition on a Monday, Henry seemed perplexed, probably from his deep-seeded inherent fantasies surging forth. To camouflage his interest, he instead scoffed and rather quickly became sucked back into Food Network. Broaching the sensitive topic on Tuesday resulted in an equivocal “We’ll see,” which I’m truly talented at converting to the far affirmative side of the Erin Gets Her Way spectrum.
By that Wednesday, he was putty in my hands. It could have been over and done with in a mere two minutes, the butterfly finally in my net, but I had to push my luck as usual.
“Why don’t we take this outside for a second?”
When he reluctantly agreed, I pushed further.
“Across the street and by that tree.”
And the foot came down.
We didn’t talk for nearly an hour.
Using Mothers Day as leverage, I finally got what I wanted.
Hey, if you got the legs to rock it….
Notice the stark contrast between the ones where he was pushed out of his comfort zone and this next one, where he was clearly in his Pretty Girlie Sue Sue element and patiently waiting his turn to strike a pose on the catwalk, as Robert smiles down some moxie on him from the background.
Last night was relatively calm for the most part.
I was able to get Chooch interested in “Annie,” but I don’t think he was listening to my story about how I tried to orchestrate a reproduction of it in eighth grade and Jason Jones was going to play Punjab, but then my ex-friend Keri couldn’t take it anymore and kept deep six-ing my cast list. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that every time she would sleep over, I’d put the soundtrack on repeat.
My love for Annie runs deep, like a stream of piss in Hell’s urinal.
I had him in bed by 10:30 (early for him, believe me) but then Henry had to come in the house like a fucking bumbling burglar and Chooch was all, “Huh? Daddy’s home?” and then it was stomp-stomp-stomp down the stairs, at which point his mild mood completely mutated into whirling dervish mode and he started throwing toys and spilling apple juice. And I took no part in it. I stared emotionlessly at the TV and mumbled, “He was fine all night.
You make him turn into an asshole. He’s all yours, have a ball, Daddy.”
I had scheduled a phone call with my new friend Jessi. When you’re raising a hellion, phone calls can no longer be fielded at whimsy. And it’s always fantastic when you have to tell people, “Don’t call me until after 11pm” because you know it’s going to sound like Oakland rioting in the house up until then. Fortunately, when Jessi called, Chooch and Henry had at least taken their screaming show upstairs, but the ruckus was still jarring enough that I had to strain to concentrate on parts of the conversation. I could hear Henry shouting, “Get back in bed!” and Chooch answering from across the hall, “No way!” and then devilishy laughing and chucking what sounded like boulders out of his crib. Finally, it quieted down (apparently Chooch ended up falling asleep in our bed while I was still on the phone and Henry had no idea. We make a great parenting team) and I was able to enjoy a grown-up conversation with a really cool girl.
Today, I woke up and remembered, “Fuck, I promised I’d make French toast for breakfast.” I can’t remember why exactly I promised, what horrendous activity I was trying to bribe the child to quit, but I do know that he reacted well to the bribe and was, for the most part, a decent human being last night. And when I promise him things, I make sure to follow through because the last thing I want is to be like my own mother. (That song “Promises, Promises” by Naked Eyes? ALWAYS makes me think of her.)
So I google “easy french toast” and only 68798097 results turn up, oh lucky day. Quickly, I become confused. Every recipe is different. One says one egg and two slices of bread, another says 2 eggs and 6 slices of bread. I’m not even in the kitchen yet and I’m in tears.
But I did it. Sort of. I mixed all the shit together and became mildly frustrated at the way the cinnamon melded into a curdled skin with the milk. I didn’t know exactly what “grease the pan” meant, because that was so vague.
So I wiped it with canola oil. That didn’t seem greasy enough, so I sprayed it with Pam. Finally, I caved and plopped some fucking butter up in that shit and marveled at the sizzle.
The first piece, thank God I tried it before serving it to Chooch, because it was wack. Totally raw. The pieces that followed were not much better, but I felt confident that the eggs were no longer raw. One piece actually had a little scrambled egg hanging off it like a breakfast dingleberry. It was cute, but tasted absolutely disgusting.
I let Chooch and myself ingest several bites. But I noticed that there was something terribly off with them, so I said, “Er, maybe we should not eat anymore, Chooch.”
And then Henry came home. Scraps of evidence remained on both of our plates, and Henry asked, “Did you cook it enough?” as he held up a piece tentatively between two fingertips, like he was trying to spy the contents of his cheating wife’s mail.
“I’ll tell you right now what you did, you used too much milk.” He said it in that superior “I watch Alton Brown” tone that makes me want to castrate him sometimes, with an Alton Brown-approved cutlery set. But then, sniffing the kitchen, he added, “You caught it on fire, didn’t you?” And then, upon further inspection of my damning trail, he yelled, “Tell me you did NOT use this metal spatula on my non-stick pan!!!!??”
Later, after he was sure that Chooch and I weren’t going to need our stomachs pumped of swirling raw eggs, Henry tried to reason with me. After eight years, he still tries this sometime. It’s kind of adorable.
“You know, cooking’s not that hard. Your problem is that you rush. You want it done NOW.”
“Well, duh. Why else would there be the high setting on the stove, if not to help me cook things as fast as possible?” And Henry did this thing where he holds up to his hands in a silent prayer, like he’s telepathically asking some entity to please provide patience.
Finally, I snapped, “Look, cooking is not fun for me. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I do not get joy from rooting around the refrigerator for ingredients, I do not like the way my head feels when struggling to read a sentence that contains words AND numbers, and I absolutely do NOT enjoy standing in front of a stove wondering when this shit is going to be done.”
I don’t care if I suck at this. I do not like to cook, not here not now not then not there. And if it takes me writing it out Dr. Seuss-style to get it through his head, then I will gladly work on that shit this weekend. That is, after I bathe in a tub of vodka and have a harem cater to me. “That’s right, you drop that tab in mama’s mouth, just like that.”
Hello. It took me TWO HOURS to copy and paste that last fucking post.
Apparently, I’m not allowed to edit it, but I should just be thankful that WordPress allowed me to publish it AT ALL considering it completely devoured my last attempt, which was actually formatted correctly, and left no evidence that it was ever posted.
So I apologize for the pisspoor, hard to read formatting, and I apologize to my subscribers for basically getting spammed by me today.
I’m really fucking over this whole blog thing, motherfuck.
I need to go jab myself with something sharp.
L8r.
EDIT: I love u Henry. Marry me.
“I dreamt about serial killers today when I was taking a nap,” Henry said as we got ready for bed last night. He started to elaborate, but I cut him off.
“Oh, I had the WORST dream last night.
I was on vacation. I think it was supposed to be Romania, but there were ice caps everywhere, so I think in my dream Romania had relocated to the Arctic Circle.
It was so beautiful, there were rainbows everywhere—“
Henry snorted. “Rainbows? And this was a nightmare?”
Ignoring him, I continued. “I was on a bus with this guy Jared that I haven’t even thought about since high school, and the road we were on was flush with all this water, I think it was an ocean?
” I could sense Henry holding back laughter next to me. “And the bus driver was driving erratically and I was so afraid we were going to careen over the road and into the water—“
“But there were rainbows,” Henry reminded me, trying not to laugh.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t funny! It was a fucking scary dream. Fucking forget about the rainbows. And I remember–“
“Rainbows.”
At this point, I’m envisioning some barbed wire pulled taut around Henry’s nads, but I forge ahead with my traumatic tale.
“– in my dream, trying to find my phone so I could tweet about it, but I was distracted—“
“Probaby because of the rainbows,” Henry guessed, and started laughing into the pillow.
I never finished telling him about my dream.