Per my friend Sandy’s request, I am going to live-blog Game 2 of the Penguins/Islanders 1st round playoff matchup thing and pretend like I can string together professional sports-people words and not just HOLY FUCKING SHIT I LOVE YOU SIDNEY CROSBY!!!! and my usual brand of X-rated hockey heckles.

This should be really interesting, because I’m at work and listening to the game on my phone while, you know, working. So keep checking back for updates, OK?!

7:00PM: Mike Lange just reminded us that it is indeed a hockey night in Pittsburgh, so suck it, non-Pittsburghers.

7:01PM: I am going to make a quick cup of coffee. Hopefully I don’t fall into some stupid work conversation while I’m in the kitchen. Or worse — break the Keurig again.

7:04PM: Orange is my least favorite color.

7:11PM: I went to the kitchen and realized I forgot a K-cup so I had to come back to my office and then go back to the kitchen and LONG STORY SHORT I MISSED THE FIRST GOAL OF THE GAME. AND IT WAS A MALKIN GOAL.

7:12pm: This is significant because I am wearing a Malkin t-shirt right now at work.

7:13PM: Islander douchebag got called for slashing, and not the good Jason Voorhees kind either. What a fuck up!

7:16PM: HOLY FUCKING SHIT I LOVE YOU SIDNEY CROSBY!!!! 2-0 you guys!!

7:20PM: My prom date James Neal is not in the line up tonight but I’d still give him the Prom Night Special.

7:36PM: When they say the goalie stopped the hard slapper in his pads, it makes me think of menstruating girls stopping advancing penises.

7:37PM: I just lost about 25 updates. What you missed: The Islanders scored and all their fans probably listened to Nickelback in celebration and then Crosby scored 18 seconds later because he is the greatest hockey player in the world and that is just what he does. Oh, and I hate Fran Drescher. Unrelated.

7:42PM: Letang hammered it down the ice and every girl in Pittsburgh is left wishing that it was his penis he was hammering into their kookas.

7:46PM: Periods. PPs. Hammering. Squirting [pucks]. 2 minutes for receiving. My future hockey porn is going to be so successful.

7:53PM: Thank god, end of first period. Now I can eat my dinner. (Is that OK, Sandy?)

SECOND PERIOD

8:08PM: I’m trying to eat my Lean Cuisine, but how sad is Tavares that he’s stuck on such a shitty hockey team I mean really.

8:10Pm: Remember when our goalie punched their goalie in the face?

8:11PM: Mike Lange just said something about someone having a dozen something and all I can think about is a dozen cupcakes because I’m on a diet.

8:14PM: YESSS Niskanen is fighting Okposo who is essentially a sewer-dwelling black albino.

8:17PM: Guys really, WTF is this?

8:18PM: Of course the Islanders scored while I was busy finding a picture of this strange albino-hybrid for you, but at least it wasn’t him who scored. Albinos make me sick.

8:22PM: Penguins are on the power play for some unknown reason, woooooo!!! I’m sure it’s because one of the Islanders tried to slit someone’s throat with a hockey stick.

8:27PM: Fuck the Islanders. 3-3

8:29PM: I guess I’m not surprised that the Islanders are playing well. They probably don’t want to get deported to their coach’s secret puppy mill for washed up NHL players.

8:32PM: Don’t albinos have poor eyesight? Or am I confusing them with moles? But albinos are just like human versions of moles, right?

8:34PM: Forgot that my hockey porn will have a “back door” vignette, too. That will probably be Henry’s favorite scene.

8:40PM: Someone got hurt while I was washing my coffee mug. It wasn’t a Penguin though. Thank god.

8:42PM: Double minor what’s up bitches.

8:44PM: There should be an amusement park darkride that takes you on a psychedelic cruise through the last 3 decades of the Islanders’ Stanley Cup-less history. A true Laff In the Dark!

8:47PM: The three Islanders’ goals have mob ties.

End of second period. I’m going home and watching the rest of the game on a real life television. You guys are on your own. Check ESPN or something, I don’t give a fuck.

Hey, remember a couple weeks ago when I thought I was going to get stabbed on the trolley, so I got off one stop early and then Henry got all mad because he had to walk me to work via his cell phone? Well, I took the trolley to work today (trade off for Henry taking Chooch to school TWO DAYS IN A ROW, BEST BOYFRIEND EVER) and inadvertantly sat right across from that guy again! Jesus fuck. This time it wasn’t so bad: I was only entertained with a series of exaggerated yawns and some motorboating. I felt safe enough this time around to get his picture, right before we arrived at our stop. I know it’s not up to my usual stalking-par, but I took this through a plexi glass divider.

Then some tall, handsome man was all, “Ladies first” in a very seductive tone, and I was like, “Thank god people still recognize me as a lady.

”

Actually, all kinds of people were nice to me on the way to work today, which is weird considering I’m usually a trash receptacle for unwarranted sneers and snarls.

Today, the Law Firm is showing their Pens support, so I wore my Sid Vicious shirt that Andrea got me when she was visiting last December. Game 5 starts in less than two hours.

I have an eye twitch.

Between Stanley Cup Playoffs and Chooch’s looming birthday party (this Sunday!), my whole body is one big eye twitch.

I would have killed to have been at that game last night, but I’m just as happy to sit here all morning and watch YouTube videos from the people who were there. I missed most of the game because I work stupid evening shift (although I did get to listen to it), but I recorded it so I got to see everything that I missed and I cried approximately 87 times.

Nearly a year off from the NHL, and he comes back to rack up 4 points in 15:54 minutes of ice time, and then goes on record saying that he still “needs to work on some things”?

Yeah, he “sucks”, alright.

Andrea is coming back to visit in December, for a whole week this time. (Mostly to visit my frog FRANCIS! and to watch Lil Wayne videos.) I asked her, “Will you watch a game with me? I mean, we don’t even have to watch the whole thing.”

“Like you could ever not watch an entire hockey game,” she pointed out. And that’s true.

I’m so happy right now. I was beginning to think he was never coming back.

That was really all I wanted for Christmas, so we’re good here, Santa.

Second chance breakfasts with reunited friends, a fortuitous flea market trip wherein Henry spent more than $1 on a Moroccan souvenir bracelet for me, my kid singing along to Frank Turner in the backseat, taco night later at Laura’s, and now THIS:

BEST FUCKING SUNDAY.

“THERE IT IS!” Steigy screams as a head crowns in his vagina. We have the worst, most embarrassing announcers.

JAMES NEAL! I think every hockey-watchin’ motherfucker in Pittsburgh called this one. I have been on his jock since we acquired him a few months ago, even though he hasn’t been really showing his worth (and everyone calls him Raw Deal Neal), but I kept saying, “No. Just wait. He’s my prom date; he won’t let us down.” Because I obviously know how to pick ’em. (Pretend for a minute I didn’t pick Henry. Or Psycho Mike. Or Christina. Or Big-Headed Gordon.)

Sorry for the annoying hockey post, but it’s been hard to focus on anything else. I have a journal sitting next to me filled with notes about things that I need to write about (like the Zombie Self-Defense Course which was completely ridiculous but fun), but all I can do is watch NHL on the Fly and read hockey blogs. Today, I will be purchasing some more Rolaid Chewables. Playoffs are like a paper shredder for my stomach lining.

I don’t even know why I’m posting this, it was such a gross night for hockey. If you’re not a hockey fan, just know that this is not what games look like, pretty much EVER, in modern hockey times. The Penguins went into this game as a team decimated with injuries, fleshed out with a chunk of AHL players, and left the ice with even less of a team. I get that there was the need for retaliation after last week’s game, but only the Islanders could have served it up like this.

I guess this is what you do when you have no chance of winning the Stanley Cup. They are fucking disgusting, classless pigs and an embarrassment to the league and I want to fight all of their beer-swilling, derelict fans.

By the end of the game, I think we were down to 2 guys on the bench, a player and a coach with a suspension, and over 300 minutes in penalties between the two teams.

Crosby and Malkin, I fucking miss you.

I was so stressed out last night that I was considering looking for my own fight, which is probably why Henry quietly slipped away and went to bed.

I’m getting my finger tattoos changed up a bit today and am really craving the pain.

We got HBO just for this 4-part series, and last night’s opener proved that it was worth every penny of our astronomical cable bill. I’ve watched the whole show three times already. Now go grab your sac and compete!

I know, I know, boring hockey shit. Boo, Oh Honestly Erin! But I can’t fucking quit watching Crosby’s third goal. How do you DO THAT? I am obviously very excited about this. You can ask Chooch. I wouldn’t get him pretzels until he finally conceded to watching this on my phone.

He is just…I can’t even. For once I have no words. Look how short all these sentences are!

Every time I see this, I cry.

Then this morning I was watching the Flyers/Devils exhibition game from last night on NHL Network and seeing Billy Guerin in that orange piece of shit jersey made me cry again.

Oh, hockey. Who needs Days of Our Lives when I have you to bring the drama and the tears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“This is called a mop, Erin.”

I cried, like I’m his mommy. MAYBE I WISH I WAS.

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

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

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

He drives the SPEED LIMIT for Christ’s sake!

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

Oh man, just like old times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JUST LIKE THAT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still have a job! And it’s going well. Jim and his collection of Cosby sweaters only lasted two nights. So now it’s just me; the supervisor, Ev; Monica with the cool hair; and four older broads. Mostly, it’s just very quiet there, aside from Ev’s frequent monologues she has with herself.

Ev might be my new favorite supervisor. I’m not sure she realizes I’m as old as I am, because she seems to baby me, calls me missy and says things like, “You know, those things that all you kids listen to.” An iPod, Ev? Because I have mommy issues, I have succumbed to my new role with little to no arm-bending.

The cleaning crew at this place are seemingly normal people who don’t wear Krueger-like acrylics and drive kidnapper wagons. The girl who cleans my area is young with long red hair and I think she might be flirting with me sometimes but I’m dumb when it comes to girls.

The other night, I was listening to the Penguin game while trying not to cheer out loud or punch my desk when the Rangers scored. It was a trying time for me because I have a big mouth. But I was pretty successful, though I hurt my wrist during one of my fist pumps. The game went into OT, and as I did a celebratory lurch in my seat when Malkin scored and won the game, Monica with the cool hair shouted YES! Everyone turned and looked at her, and she sheepishly said, “Sorry, I was listening to the Pens/Rangers game.”

“Oh my god, me too!” I gushed, hoping she would invite me to a sleepover and do my hair up in corn rows. She just smiled and went back to work, probably whispering, “Oh-em-gee, yay, stupid white girl.”

We are SO going to be besties.

And the job itself continues to be low-stress and mindless, which is mostly a good thing until I start getting lost in my head and thinking about shit that’s better left alone, and then I’m practically rolling me and my ball of angst into the house every night, at which point I become Henry’s responsibility.

*****

In Chooch news, he was downloading zombie games on my iPhone and one of them plays sound bytes from Night of the Living Dead. He’s been walking around saying, “I’m coming to get you Barbara” in his strangled zombie voice and then in a high-pitched tone he goes, “Stop it, you’re ignorant!” We’re in the middle of Target and he’s reciting this. He’s been watching clips from the movie on my phone, and then the 1990 remake was on over the weekend, so I DVRd it and he watches it 1683 times a day, though he gets irritated that the new Barbara says “You’re being mean” instead of “ignorant.”

*****

I hate Pizza Hut. I guess hate is a strong word, but I’m notoriously picky about my pizza. However, they’re offering Penguins collector cups so of course that’s where I wanted to eat after the Pens/Bruins game on Sunday. Alisha came with us which meant I got to sit in a cramped booth with her and her purse, which is so prominent it might as well be capitalized.

I think our waiter was an escapee from a halfway house and I’m sure he drives a Pinto. We asked him questions about the cups and his answer to everything was, “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure.” Kind of like when people ask me questions about the city I live, which I know next to nothing about because I don’t care and I’m also a partial shut-in. We ended up spending ALL THIS MONEY in order to get all four cups, only to be told later that they only had two of the players, so what combination of that would we like.

Fucking foiled as usual. Now we’ll have to go back there AGAIN to get the other two and I just don’t think I can answer any more confusing questions like, “What kind of crust do you want?” and the be expected to ingest it, too.  Fuck you, Pizza Hut.

While Henry was inside paying, Alisha, Chooch and I decided to go out to the car. I was dealt the arduous task of securing Chooch into his car seat (I CANNOT WAIT TO BE DONE WITH THIS CAR SAFETY RIGMAROLE). There I am, in a dark parking lot, ass jutting out of the backseat when I feel a sharp jab between my ribs and the voice of a convicted child molester snarling, “Give me all your money.”

I blew back Chooch’s face with the loudest shriek I could muster, only to find it was Henry being an asshole.

“I can’t believe Chooch didn’t cry when I screamed in his face,” I marveled.

“That’s because you were using your horror movie scream and not your hockey scream,” Alisha rationalized. And that’s probably true.

The votes are in and the Crosby/Talbot spot was voted #1 NHL commercial, which I’m sure has caused an uproar in the Crosby HaterNation and that makes it even more satisfying. I love reading the hate that spews from anti-Crosby fans on the NHL Facebook page because it’s so unwarranted and nonsensical.

Anyway, I love this commercial; it’s sweet and cute, even if you don’t like hockey. It makes me wonder if someday Chooch will be famous for…something, and the computer monitor he slashed with a pumpkin carver will be in a commercial.

This is an extended version of the commercial that’s on TV:

Seriously, Chooch slashed our monitor with a pumpkin carver. That was two nights ago. I’m only moderately sick over it now.