HAHA SIKE. This is just another post about Warped Tour and not actually the maniacal manifesto/illegible murder confession that I think some people (Henry) have been nervously expecting.

Every time I look at the Warped Tour lineup for 2015, I feel like I might have immaculately conceived. The only downside is that there is no way I’m going to be able to see every single band on my list; there are just too many and some are bound to overlap. #musicfestivalproblems

In all of my obsessive Warped Tour thinking/planning/daydreaming, I uncovered some photos of Chooch that I never posted from his first time at Warped Tour in 2013. They were lost in some random desktop folder, probably Henry’s fault.

Christofer Drew is offering 45-minute songwriting classes this summer and Chooch and I have been talking about whether he wants me to sign him up for that or not. It costs extra, and if he’s going to get all starstruck like the last time he met Christofer, then that’s kind of a waste.

Chooch was all pissed off a few weeks ago because he was waiting for the bus that takes him to the after school program, when some middle school girl walked past him, saw that he was wearing a Pierce the Veil shirt, and said, “You probably don’t even listen to Pierce the Veil.” Bitch, he was singing Isles and Glaciers songs when he was still sitting in a CAR SEAT, so shut your dumb face.

If she only knew that he was practically born into this scene! Last night, I was YouTubing live Dance Gavin Dance videos while Chooch was putting together some Minecraft Lego thing, when he said, “Put on something from when Kurt Travis was the singer.” And then we watched an entire A Lot Like Birds show.

Because clearly, Chooch is a poser.

I hope we see that girl at the Sleeping With Sirens show next month. You know, if she was able to get tickets before they sold out in less than 5 days.

I posted a picture of my Warped Tour ticket (it’s the special 3D collectors ticket with Choonimals artwork, duh) on Instagram and WARPED TOUR REGRAMMED ME!

^^^^ Totally the apogee of my Instagram tenure.

TWO MORE MONTHS. TWO MORE MONTHS. TWO MORE MOTHERFUCKING MONTHS!!!

Saturday was so chill in comparison to past birthday parties, where we rent a pavilion and stress over weather, food and decorations. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good birthday blowout, and I love getting to see everyone, but the “getting to there” part gives me gray hairs and then I’m usually not even able to hang out with everyone because I’m running around like an asshole and trying to make uncomfortable small talk with school parents. This time, we opted to just have family over for cake, and then a small, separate party for his school friends at a laser tag place next weekend.  My nerves are still thanking me profusely. Birthday parties are a lot of work!

Chooch looks like he’s smiling, but he was actually in the middle of making gritted-teeth demands and being a brat because his party hadn’t started yet, god forbid he had to sit with Janna and me any longer!

So then he was like, “Eff y’all, I’m doing my word search, which is more entertaining than either of you.”

But then Blake showed up with a present and believe me, Chooch’s love can 100% be bought. But then if you stop buying him shit, that love gets lost real fast.

Blake got him some kind of talking cat thing, so Chooch had it saying “Janna sucks” within seconds.

We invited the neighbor kid because he’s adorable and Chooch is always at his house, so we figured it might be time to return the sentiment. I don’t like kids in my house because of all of my Stuff and Breakables and also because it’s My House, plus you never know what will be going on in here, anything from making STD cookies to serial killer cards.  But I made an exception and within 2 seconds, the kid ogled the Devil rug and then put on a pig mask. It seemed to be OK.

“I just wanted to take a picture of you being a brother,” I said to Blake as I snapped this.

The guests:

• Janna
• Markie
• Blake
• Robbie & Nikki
• Corey
• Judy
• Kelly
• Zac
• Sam
• Steph and Kian

Then Henry’s sister Kelly and her crew arrived, so it was officially a party. And Sam is old enough to drink legally now, I can’t believe it!

The only annoying part of the whole thing was a cake. The laser tag place provides its own cake (which I’m sure is going to be “delicious”) so I only had to order one for the family soiree. Chooch said jokingly that he wanted a Teletubbies cake, and I was like YES I CAN MAKE THAT HAPPEN. I ordered a photo cake from my beloved Bethel Bakery, and submitted a picture of the Teletubbies onto which I had Photoshopped Chooch. But the next day they emailed me and said I would have to submit a different picture because of Copyright bullshit.

My response was a curt, “That’s fine,” which obviously is Bitch Code for You Just Fucking Ruined Everything, Including My Life.

I just had a “That’s fine” moment two days before, when we went to Sugar & Spice specifically so I could get a soft serve cone with crunchies, but then I had tha audacity to order one of the “designer” flavors instead of standard chocolate or vanilla, so the broad was like, “NOW THIS WILL BE TOO SOFT AND MELTY FOR THE CRUNCHIES.”

To which I replied with, “__________”

“Do you want me to try and blend them in instead?”

“No, just forget it. Forget the crunchies,” I said in pout-slur.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

IT WAS NOT FINE. THE CRUNCHIES WERE THE WHOLE REASON I CAME TO YOUR LAME ICE CREAM SHOP, BITCH, LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR DUMB MACHINE THEN!

Meanwhile, Henry was like, “Ooooh, I know THAT ‘it’s fine’!”

I didn’t have a plan B for the ice cream, but I had one for the cake. I told the bakery to just nix the photo aspect and give me an outdoors background. Then Henry printed out the Teletubbies and the photo I wanted to use of Chooch, and we just stuck them on the cake with popcicle sticks.

I was kind of angry at the half-assed cake decorating on the bakery’s end though. My family has used this bakery for as long as I have been alive and it has never let me down, except for being closed EVERY YEAR the week of my birthday. I mean, the cake itself was still delicious as fuck (it’s the best in the city), but it looked like it was some kid’s first time using an airbrush. The piping along the edges didn’t even connect!

They were apparently running behind and made Henry wait, but they apologized by letting Chooch pick a complimentary treat from the bakery store. At first, I was all fired up and ready to put my Hate Mail cape on, but I don’t know. I love Bethel Bakery. Maybe I should excuse them this one time.

(If the cake had tasted bad, then it would be WAR.)

This was a scary moment, but I need to put out that Chooch has better cake-cutting skills than me. I mean, a blind double-arm amputee probably does, as well.

My house was full of so many good people and it made me incredibly happy. Marcy would have hated this.

….and this.

I know, it looks like they’re engrossed in their phones, how cliche, but they were all actually playing some Xbox party game that you use your phone with. I think this particular one was a Pictionary-type game and one of the pictures was “surprise tape worm” which is the best thing ever and sounds like one of my old AIM screen names, to be honest.

JUDY.

Don’t think I forgot to treat myself on this sacred day. I celebrated the ninth year of my C-section incision phantom pains with a ticket to the Smashing Pumpkins acoustic show at the Library Music Hall in June. They’re only doing this in like 10 cities as a pre-tour thing, and surprisingly Pittsburgh was one. Tickets went on sale Saturday at noon, and I’m glad I (impulsively) bought mine then because it’s sold out already. I bought mine only an hour after they went on sale and the best available ticket was in the last row of the balcony. I’m fine with that. I was actually surprised that there were any left at all at that point!

Corey with the sprinkles that he made Henry buy him over ten years ago when he was sleeping over and had a “hankering for sprinkles.” I can’t believe we still have these in the kitchen?!

“What? They never go bad!” Henry said defensively.

Meanwhile, Corey and I were excited that we had a big audience to entertain with our Janna Tales, especially now that we have the Robitussin incident to add to the repertoire. The Silhouette Story in particular seemed to get a better response this time around. (At Marcy’s wake, it was met with a few unreadable reactions, like possibly we were being offensive.)

I think my favorite part was that Blake and Robbie stayed so long. And Robbie brought his new girlfriend, Nikki, and we all highly approve. She was so nice and cute! 

Sometime after 11, Henry’s family left and it was just me, Chooch, Janna and Corey. We promised Chooch that we would do the Tetris Dance on Just Dance with him, because he needed three more people. We had all been drinking, plus our natural giddiness exacerbates the drunkiness, so when it got to the part where we had to pick up Chooch horizontally, we totally dropped him. He was so mad, which only made us laugh harder because that’s what dicks do.

And we’re dicks.

Chooch reached his limit around midnight and declared that he was going to bed. He stopped as he was passing Corey and sarcastically said, “Oh, and thanks so much for the present.”

“Your mom said I can just bring it to the laser tag party next week!” Corey cried.

“Whatever. It’s probably going to be something dumb. Like a spoon,” Chooch grumbled. And then as an afterthought, he spat over his shoulder, “For me to shove up my ass!” before storming off to his room.

We fucking died. Can he be anymore like me? Nothing is ever good enough! Weee!

And so that is why Corey now has a “get spoon” reminder in his phone.

(Flashback to 4.)

Thank you to everyone who wished Chooch a happy birthday via text, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—I showed him every single one of the birthday wishes and he ate it all up. Birthdays rule, man!

Henry took Chooch out shopping for “anything he wanted” and then successfully talked him out of 99% of the “anything.” He finally got Just Dance for Xbox and spent most of the day getting in accidental exercise*, stopping long enough to go to the Southside with me and Janna so I could take my Marcy portrait deposit to Kyklops (the girl doing the tattoo for me is married to an old friend of mine who was actually attacked numerous times by a young Marcy) and to get a late lunch at La Palapa, where we had a handsome waiter named Lester who was so handome that I had to tip him handsomely to match his handsome face. Sigh. Lester.

Then Janna had to use to the bathroom, which inspired Chooch to make hashtags with his fingers and loudly announce, “HASHTAG JANNA USES THE BATHROOM.” She was so pissed. His inner “Kelly” becomes more and more dominant by the day. He is TOTALLY related to me and Corey.

NO children allowed in Kyklops. Chooch didn’t give a fuck. He had a word search book.

*(Here’s a clip of Chooch dancing to You Spin Me Round, with cameos by me and Janna.)

The day culminated in a family cake gathering with a grand finale of Corey keeping us up late watching “ghetto fights” on YouTube.  Pretty sure that’s what gave me nightmares last night. 

Both of Henry’s sons came! And Corey! I can’t remember the last time all three of them were here at the same time. It was awesome.

I will write more about that later. Right now, I’m nursing a severe cinnamon horchata Blue Moon and confetti cake hangover. Devil Rug help me.  

Ugh, Chooch is going to be nine on Saturday. How does time go by so fast? I hate it! We’re not doing a big party this year. He wanted to have a small party at the laser tag place for his friends, and then we’re having some people over on Saturday for cake.Nice and simple, which will be a nice reprieve for my bulging nerves.

I don’t know what dumb Henry is getting him, but I bought him a ticket to the Sleeping With Sirens acoustic show in June, because The Summer Set is opening and they’re one of his favorite bands. I’m pretty meh about both bands, but I took one for the team and made sure I was on the SWS website at the exact moment tickets went on sale. It did eventually sell out too, and it’s at one of the smaller venues in Pittsburgh, so I really anticipate a night in a small room with hundreds of screaming teenage girls!

But, it’s worth it. Especially when he found out I bought tickets and then proceeded to scream like one of the aforementioned teenage girls.

(From last summer’s Warped Tour.)

I ordered his birthday cake last night (oh boy, it’s a good one) and wanted to order one for my C-section incision too (9 years of phantom pains!) but I took Henry’s frown as a no.

Sometimes my day can be so spectacularly disappointing (all work-related, nothing that actually matters) but then something music-related happens to save the day. Pierce the Veil was added to the Warped Tour lineup, and even though everyone pretty much already knew that because of a leaked flyer, it was still awesome to find out for sure!

This year’s Warped Tour has the potential to be better than 2008, which was my favorite one! 

Being in the house has been hard on me this past week, and I have been lashing out at Henry and Chooch. Projection, you know? I am definitely grieving this death in a much different way than I have with the other cats. I feel like I have no control.   Luckily, it was a beautiful, sunny day, kind of chilly still, but who cares. I made the unilateral decision that we would get tacos and take them to the cemetery.

Sunshine helps. So do tacos.

I had been wanting to try El Burro for a few months now, once I found out that they have a vegetarian/vegan menu. Any food establishment that has the decency to cater to those of us who don’t dine on animals is immediately OK in my book. However, this place kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Literally.

First of all, I didn’t feel “cool” enough to even walk in. And then Chooch was being difficult because he loves doing this thing where he’s only interested in eating things that aren’t available where we are. So of course he was whining about only wanting a sandwich. Luckily, the girl behind the counter was too busy staring at her phone and listening to Chvrches to notice that a meltdown was about to occur.

This all happened while Henry was outside putting money in the meter because he thought we were eating there even though I explicitly said, “And we will eat in the cemetery.” I said this like four times. FOUR TIMES! I was already irritated, so this helped a lot, thanks Henry.

Anyway, I got a sweet potato and cauliflower taco, which was excellent. But as a game time decision, I also blurted out that I wanted the vegan chorizo burrito, which turned out to be a mistake. It was TERRIBLE. It takes a lot for me to be disappointed with Mexican food (authentic, TexMex, Taco Bell — I’ll eat it all), but this made me super sad.

The tortilla tasted exactly like that Taco Bell grilled stuft thing, I don’t know what it’s called. Grilled Stuft? Which is whatever, I guess. But the inside was just terrible: bland, soggy rice and the vegan chorizo was dry as fuck. It was like eating something I had made for myself, you guys, like dining on actual dry rot. So disappointing and peppered with alarming flavors that you just can’t pinpoint. I even made Henry taste it and I screamed, “WHAT IS THAT WEIRD TASTE!?” and he was stumped. It takes a lot to make me complain about food, but that was enough for me to probably never go back.

But those tacos though. Ugh. I should have just gotten more tacos instead of that day-ruining burrito.

There is this local guy who reviews the FUCK out of the city on Yelp, and he is so goddamn annoying. He’s like the Oh Honestly, Erin of Yelp reviews in that they are way too long, didn’t read. But the worst part about him is that he has his dick so far inside a thesaurus that his reviews are actually sketchy to read if you’re the type of person who frowns upon becoming inseminated by jizz-coated 5-syllable words. Sometimes Henry will torture himself by trying to slag through an entire paragraph about the salt on a pretzel, and he has to pause after every other word to ask me, “What does this word mean?” and a lot of times, I don’t even know!

“He has no fucking life!” I cried after hate-reading a particularly War & Peace-ish review of pizza, to which Henry sneered, “Actually, he does. He’s always going places so he can write his obnoxious reviews.”

In one of his reviews about your basic bar food, he replaced “salty” with “saliferous.” SALIFEROUS! Even my phone was like “the FUCK is this?”‘ and tried to change it to “saki detours.”

UGH FUCK THAT GUY. There is a time and a place for smart würdz, and a Yelp review is not one.

Anyway, I only mentioned him because Henry was excited when he looked up El Burro on Yelp and noticed that our mortal enemy hasn’t been there yet.

Yeah so I totally pouted about my burrito and we left the cemetery after about 10 minutes. Luckily, the day was salvaged by a spontaneous trip to the Antique Mall on Rt. 65.    

There were no wheelchairs, but I had my eye (I only have one of those now) on some questionable art work.

My least favorite part of the day was when Chooch didn’t know some broad had entered the room with us and he came bursting out from behind the beaded curtains, saying some shit about “JUST DID DRUGS.” Great. I’m glad that his YouTube habit is teaching him to associate beaded curtains with drugs.

I should probably pay better attention to the shit he watches. Ugh.

We taught Chooch about these things called ROTARY PHONES and then some old man came over and told us a yarn about how when he was a kid, he’d put a nickel in his shoe in case he needed to phone home from the soda shop’s phone booth. Chooch had this shit-eating grin on his face the whole time, like this guy was lying to him.  I mean, what a boring lie.

Then we got gelattttoooo and I was sad because I got coconut cream pie gelato but wished I had ordered hazelnut. UGH. GELATO REMORSE.

I don’t think I was mean to anyone for the rest of the day. So, that was good.

We watched some more Breaking Bad that night and I was excited because Howard Jones’s “New Song” was playing very faintly in the background of one scene! I was like HOWARD JONES! I JUST SAW HIM! And Henry had that HOW CAN YOU HEAR THAT?? look on his face. (OMG HE’S ON THE RADIO RIGHT NOW TOO AS I’M WRITING THIS! I can hear him wafting down from my bedroom radio.)

And then it was Easter! We are guilty of falling into the whole Christmas Lite mentality. So this year we were like fuck it and just got him 2 CDs (Fall Out Boy & Ed Shereen—he LOVES Ed Shereen for some reason), a Grumpy Cat coloring book and the standard candy loot. Which is still more than Easter is worth, but oh well. Jesus is Risen, put on the Fall Out Boy CD.

Chooch didn’t seem to notice that we even downgraded the size of the actual basket. I guess he’s not as spoiled as I thought!

Then, family photos and a late afternoon frolic in South Park where Chooch ended every one of his actions with the obnoxious declaration of “LIKE A BOSS” except for when he fell and bit it, but don’t worry, I made the declaration for him.

Like a boss, Chooch.

After the park, we met Corey at Pan Asia for inappropriate, LOUD AS FUCK laughing which Henry haaaaates.

For some reason, Corey and I are still riding high on the time we went to Nemacolin Castle with Janna in December and Janna got in trouble for taking her mom’s car. Corey pointed at the frosted pane of glass behind the sushi bar and cried, “I’m picturing Janna behind the glass, getting beat by her mom!” And then I started cracking up too and Chooch yelled, “Is that all you two do is laugh?!” He was just mad because he brought an entire backpack of Pokemon cards and crayons and Corey was too distracted by his salacious thoughts of Janna.

And then somehow we started pretending that Janna was a coke head  and Henry was just like DISAPPOINTED SIGH. Sorry you’re so saliferous, Henry.

It was a nice Easter weekend.

The Easter Bunny came back from vacation just in time for Henry and me to regress and sit on his lap.

Chooch just sat there eating carrots while Henry and I fought in between shots. But to be honest, I think this one of the most docile photo shoots we’ve ever done, somehow.

I have shorts on underneath here. I’m not that slutty. Ignore the writing on the bathroom stalls.

Chooch happily took our pictures. He was like fuck yes, the camera isn’t pointed on me for once.

God forbid we should ever just have a regular photo taken of us.

Happy Easter, you guys!

Hi guys! Entertainment blogger Spencer is back to give you some gritty alternatives to the standard rom-com flicks you might be queuing up for the big V-day.

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Valentine’s Day can be a wonderful thing, between spending time with your significant other, celebrating your love, chocolate… However, it’s a very stressful day for many of us who find ourselves rushing to get reservations, picking apart nearly empty store displays for the perfect card, and praying that we got our SO a gift they’ll actually like. It can be, well, a horror.

So, instead of opting for a traditional, sappy, Valentine’s Day movie to watch, why not opt for something a bit grittier? We already know that celebrating the unconventional side of the Holidays can be an enjoyable experience, so why not do the same for Valentine’s Day? Here are some V-Day flicks to get your heart racing in an entirely different way.

The Birds

This Hitchcock film features the classic story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, then boy and girl get attacked by flocks of blood thirsty crows! In the film we follow Melanie Daniels and Mitch Brenner, who meet in a bird shop and begin a little romance from there. That is until the birds in town begin to act strangely. It’s a classic film for a reason; it’s thrilling, it’s groundbreaking, and it has just the right touch of romance to warm the heart (before the birds get to it, that is).

Interview With The Vampire

This film made vampires popular before many of today’s Twilight fans were even born, and for good reason. Based on Anne Rice’s book, the movie tells the story of two vampires from the 1700’s (played by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise) who are living, and preying, on the residents of modern-day San Francisco. Told from the point of view of Lestat (Cruise) the story chronicles his journey over the past 300 years. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the film comes with the introduction of Lestat and his friend Louis’s (Pitt) vampire “daughter” whom they rescue and train to be a blood thirsty killer in a riveting performance by a pre-pubescent Kirsten Dunst.

 Only Lovers Left Alive

In an unconventional twist on the “love story about a couple who’s been married forever”, this film’s central characters Adam and Eve (played by Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton) really have been married for centuries. When Adam, who is a wealthy and famous musician, becomes distraught at the state of the world, Eve, who’s living in Tangiers, picks up and comes to visit him in Detroit. Their peaceful moments together get turned upside down by the visit from of Eve’s spoiled little sister Ava. Things go from bad to worse, and the couple is driven closer by their obstacles. It’s a vastly underrated film that many missed due to poor distribution and promotion. Luckily it’s easy to catch through services like Netflix and DV.

My Bloody Valentine

Perhaps the most appropriate horror movie for the season comes in the form of this classic 80’s horror film. The film takes place in the appropriately named Valentine’s Bluff on the day of a big Valentine’s Day dance. In their rush to get to the dance a group of miners clock out early but forget there are men below. Soon after, the mine caves in and only one man is left alive. The lone miner, Harry Warden, goes on a killing spree in town as revenge. He warns the townspeople to never again have another Valentine’s Day dance and they oblige for 20 years. But nearly two decades later they decide enough time has passed, and boy, are they wrong.

Spencer Blohm is a freelance entertainment and lifestyle blogger who lives and works in Chicago. You can follow him on Twitter at @bspencerblohm.

It was Christmas, and I opened presents and spent time with my family. I will tell the most important things that I got . A camcorder, singing machine classic, and a Gunther CD (Gunther is this thing I found out on the internet and he made a song “Ding Dong Song”).

I looked in my stocking and I just a bunch of candy and a Simpsons LEGO mini figs blind bag. I got Ralph Wiggum. I really wish I got a Shopkin Blind Box. I really want a Shopkin.  OK back to the story, I got sprees and reeses cups.

I got a Pet Talk Cat and Dog pillow it has a little recorder and you press the button and talk into it and save it and put in the pillow. Press the ear and it says what you said in the recorder.
I hadn’t used it yet. I hadn’t slept on it.  It isn’t that fluffy its pretty cold.

I was having fun opening presents and spending time with my family. I got a lot of stuff. And a lot of candy. I love Christmas!

Daddy’s being a nerd while watching me open presents or looking at my camera. He’s so dumb. LOL. He is a creep. Just standing there watching me *shivers* open presents *screams*! I get nightmares sometimes. *shivers*.

I got a bunch of cool books. Right now I’m reading The Fourteenth Goldfish. I didn’t finish it though. I got a Kareoke Machine and sang a bunch of songs lime the Party rock Anthem. I love everything I got!

Christmas is so fun, I got games like Cat games, Tetris Namo, and Story Cubes. Blake came over and we played Kitten Caboodle. I won and I adopted the most cats.

I got a camcorder and I recorded everything I saw like Daddy’s face. I went crazy with it. It was from the Shaytards. I got so I can be a youtuber and play games and record stuff. I said I would call my 0 subscribers Demon Cakes. I would be a better youtuber than PewDiePie. I would have 1 billion subscribers. I would get 1000 dollars per video. I would be RICH. Youtube knowledge.

I got Kitten Caboodle where you have to adopt the most cats when there are only 7 cats. So get four and you win instantly. I played against Blake and I won because I got the cat that looks like Speck. Her / His name was Fergie. The way to get a cat is you ask for something when you only have 2 cards ask for something you need like if you  have a yarn ball and a bed ask for a milk bowl so you can get Fergie.

I got Gunther I saw that it had Ding Dong Song on it so I started to say Ohh you touched my tra la la. I laughed too. I listened to it and sang it on my Kareoke Machine and all I knew was Ohh  you touched my tra la la. No lyrics were on the screen like there should be but I just changed the song to Charli XCX. It had no lyrics either. So I just sticked with the ones it came with.

I had a fun time doing stuff and listening to music while opening presents. I got a bunch of awesome stuff.

If you hadn’t heard of the MommyAndGracieShow you would laugh. I got a
#CookiePizza picture with CBG (CreepyBasementGrandma) LOL. Me and mommy were watching Birthday Party videos and we came across Mommy And Gracie Show. They live in New Jersey or something because they have that New Jersey accent.

We were going to Corey’s house and we went to Pan Asia for dinner or Chinese food. I recorded mommy with the camera while it was just resting on the wall and it recorded mommy drinking tea. LOL! My Christmas was fun!

Today is the last day of 2014 (newsflash for those calendar-ignorant motherfuckers out there) and I was just struck with an extra dose of blogging panic because I need to purge all this December bullshit before it’s too late and I get shot in the neck with a poisoned dart and then dragged to whatever the blogging version of Guantanamo Bay is….Dooce’s basement? I shudder to think.

• First, let’s talk about Secret Santa! I had A-ron this year and I was super-stoked about it and went completely overboard because Secret Santa-shopping is fun as fuck. I mostly got him toys and candy and novelty socks, but the best part was in the wrapping, which I can’t post here because it all involved pictures of various people around the law firm and I’m trying to not be a reckless blogger, remember? Meanwhile, my Secret Santa was KILLING IT. I was convinced that it was Nate, because every day, I was getting very Erin-specific notes and Kit Kats, and not too long ago, Nate asked me what my favorite candy was. AND I SAID KIT KATS. Plus, I figured it had to be someone that I talk to everyday and/or am Facebook friends with, because the details were on point.

The TMNT figures made me really lean toward Nate, but then toward the end, Barb was like, “FYI it’s not Nate” because she had to deliver something on behalf of Nate and it was not to my desk. But then I started thinking, about how my gift wasn’t there that day when I got in, but then it showed up later, AFTER MEAN AMBER HAD ARRIVED FOR LATE SHIFT. How could I have been so blind!? All of my notes were specific to things that she is forced to talk to me about EVERY DAY. (Except the Pens—that’s a mutual topic for us.) So yes, it was definitely Mean Amber (or Amber Claus) and she told me that Nate only asked me what my favorite candy was because she told him to. WELL-PLAYED. God, Secret Santa is so fun!

• In other Christmas news (j/k, this whole post is Christmas nonsense), Chooch joined chorus this year and has consistently failed to bring home pertinent information that involved parents might need to have. Such as: when recitals are and what he needs to wear for said recitals and what time he needs to be at the school before these supposed recitals. A few weeks ago, I got a text from Henry at 5:20 (10 minutes before I was done with work) to tell me that our son had just informed him that he had to be back at school by 6:00 in order to get ready for the 6:30 recital. That jerk is so goddamn lucky that my job is in such close proximity to our house and his school. So yes, we got him there in time and got to watch him sing a medley of Christmas carols. When that was done, the music teacher took the stage to announce that while the band was setting up, several students were going to come out and play a piece on the piano. I was like, “Oh great, more unbridled talent. How will we stand it” when suddenly, the first kid to come back out on stage was my own goddamn son. My stomach flip-flopped, my entire body spontaneously clenched. This was a big surprise to me. Chooch got behind the piano and knocked out a few bars of “Deck the Halls” and, while not without flaws, it wasn’t too bad for a kid who barely practices and has a laid-back punk keyboardist as his teacher. I mean, I knew that he had been working on this song but I thought it was something that he was playing for the kids in music class or something, not in front of all of these parents. And then when he finished, he promptly took a bow. The people behind us were fucking loving it and kept shouting, “IS THAT YOUR BOY? IS HE YOURS?” like we just witnessed a young Amadeus up there and not an 8-year-old rushing through Deck the Halls from spotty memory. But goddammit, I was proud of that kid. Especially afterward when he joined us in the crowd and kicked back in a chair like his solo was no big deal. I asked him if he was nervous and he looked at me like I was absurd. “No. Why would I be?” We are so not alike in that regard.
•   
  • Also in CHORUS NEWS, I was just getting on the trolley two Mondays ago when Henry texted me and said that Chooch had called him from school, that he had his chorus field trip that day and was supposed to wear a white button-down shirt since they were going to be performing at the courthouse downtown, and that he HAD a white shirt on, but MOMMY made him take it off. Fucking little liar. You know what he was wearing that day, because he insisted on dressing himself? An over-sized CAT T-SHIRT. Again, this kid is fucking lucky that I work downtown and was able, with Glenn’s permission of all people, to run down the street to Burlington and buy a stupid white shirt for my lying sack of a kid, and then later in the morning, I had to run up to the courthouse which I actually know where that it is thanks to JURY DUTY 2011 when my co-workers did everything short of aiming beacons into the air to make sure I knew where I was going. I found the spot where all of the other school buses were dropping off the band kids, etc., so I stood there waiting for Chooch’s school, which of course passed right by, with Chooch, wearing a baggy cat t-shirt and a shit-eating grin, waving to me from the window. So I had to follow the bus around the entire courthouse because the music teacher apparently is as woefully unprepared as me, until finally the bus pulled over and the teacher jumped off and ran inside the courthouse, I guess to check in. All of Chooch’s dorky friends were waving and pointing to me from the bus, and I’m like, “I gotta get back to work, put your damn window down” and Chooch is like, “What? Why?” and I’m really getting irritated at this point, at him, at the situation, at all these dumb kids laughing and waving at me. It took FOUR KIDS to help him get his dumb window down, at which point, I balled up the Burlington bag, chucked it through the window and growled, “BREAK A LEG!” I found out later that he was pissed that I didn’t stay to watch his performance, are you fucking kidding me? Maybe if I hadn’t wasted my entire lunch break plus some SHOPPING IN A SCARY STORE and practically casing the courthouse like a creep, I could have stayed.
  • Between all of this, the Open House fuckarow, and god only knows what else we’ve unknowingly missed, his school probably thinks he has alcoholics for parents.
• I didn’t think Henry and I were exchanging gifts this year since we did the whole Philly weekend thing two weeks ago, but then he told me he had something for me so of course I begged him on Christmas Eve to let me open it. I could tell right away that it was a CD and you guys know that I love music so much but I still started to feel disappointed because CDs are every day purchases, you know? #spoiledbrat But then I opened it and realized that it was a Mike + the Mechanics CD with tickets to the show stuffed inside! YOU GUYS. This was one of the few times I didn’t have to feign appreciation! I was actually going to go to this show alone because Henry seemed really off-put by the ticket prices (when you’re accustomed to $10-$20 small band shows….), but then he bought two tickets for the same seats we had for the Goblin show and I am so incredibly stoked! My Pappap loved this band. I don’t even care that the original singers aren’t going to be there (well, one is dead…) because Mike Rutherford will be, and hopefully my Pappap’s spirit.
  • Also, Henry’s lucky that there were tickets inside, because he didn’t get the album that has “Silent Running” on it. What an asshole.
• Before going to my dad’s house for a Christmas visit, we had dinner at Pan Asia with other loners/non-Christmas types. It was nice because the place wasn’t dead. But I made the rookie mistake of sitting across from Chooch, who just got a camcorder and is already calling the (zero) subscribers of his (non-existent) YouTube channel “demon cakes.” There’s an approx. 7-minute video of me sipping my oolong tea. It’s riveting. Henry has already made a gif out of it.

• Hanging out at my dad’s on Christmas night was really nice and we all laughed a lot. On the way home, I was thinking about how nice this Christmas was — no tears, no ungratefulness. And then my phone buzzed with a Facebook notification. My friend Jenny had tagged me in a comment that she left about my serial killer cards. She’s always pimping my shop, so I didn’t think anything of it at first, until I noticed that the thing she was commenting on actually WAS one of my cards….only with some other person’s logo on it. So I went to the actual page on FB that this was posted on, and it turned out that they had taken EVERY ONE OF MY CARDS and put their logo on it. From what I could tell, they weren’t selling them, but they were taking credit. And they were getting A LOT of great feedback from people who were commenting, liking, and sharing. We’re talking 100s of people. This guy, whose name I refuse to mention, has over 30,000 likes on his page. These are all people who could have been potential customers, but instead, they think he’s the “brilliant” one churning these things out. I know it’s a really weird/dumb/sketchy thing to be involved in, but I have literally cornered the market on serial killer greeting cards since 2007. And I take pride in that. So first, I commented on one and, even though my immediate reaction was to fucking go off, I tried to stay rational and explained that I was the creator of these cards, here’s the link to my shop, etc. Then I started replying to some of the comments too, saying things like, “Thanks! I made this card. Here’s the link to my shop.” I tried to send this guy a direct message and couldn’t find the option to do. Then I noticed all of my comments had been deleted. He fucking blocked me. I found his website and contacted him through that; meanwhile, I had posted on my personal and business Facebook pages and a lot of my friends and customers were going after him, only to have their comments deleted and get blocked as well. Some lucky people were even getting personally harassed by him. I couldn’t even believe the balls on this guy. He was so mean and cocky. He told my one friend that he was trying to enjoy Xmas with his family, so what’s her beef. WELL THAT IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO DO TOO! Oh my god. Then he and Henry started messaging back and forth and he flat out told Henry that his girlfriend “found” my cards on the Internet and since I didn’t get “permission” from the inmates to use their pictures (are you fucking kidding me), that it was OK for him to steal from me. Because my ideas and the time I put into creating these cards don’t mean shit without BTK’s seal of approval, I guess. Then he replied to my email and basically tried to bully me into giving him a cut of my card sales because, and I quote: “I have 30.000 followers and you have 200. Who are you?” And then he attacked me on my business page, basically saying that just because I “steal” inmates’ pictures and cut and paste, doesn’t make me an artist.  It was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to reason with this piece of shit, but luckily Facebook came through in less than 24 hours and took down all of my images from his page. We’re protected under basic copyright laws, but you better believe we’ll be registering for an LLC, which I never thought would be necessary before since we don’t really sell  that many of these things and it’s certainly not our bread and butter. I mean, Henry and I both have full-time jobs. I’m not sure how I would feel if I made enough money off serial killers to quit my day job, anyway. I haven’t heard from this guy since Facebook stepped in (although the next night, he “liked” my non compos cards FB page….and I have a feeling it’s not because he wants to kiss and make up). I just have a feeling this isn’t the last I’ve heard from him, but I’ll tell you — I have never been so thankful to work at a big law firm.
  • Not to be corny, but the best thing about all of this is that so many of my friends, and their friends, and past customers totally had my back. They defended me, they hijacked this guy’s hashtag, they reposted on their own FB about what he was doing, they tipped off their mutual friends who also liked this guy’s page. It was just really, really nice to not be in this alone. Octavia even started sending messages to the people who had liked his posts that used the images of my cards, since he had blocked her from replying to their comments. And now I’m officially friends with one of my favorite repeat customers, Polly! I’ll take my 200 friends over his 30,000 followers (which he probably paid for) any day.
  • The worst part was that I let this guy get under my skin and into my head and spent the rest of the weekend questioning my validity to the point where I wanted to just close my shop altogether.
  • Also, it wasn’t about the money. It was about pride. I created these and he was taking credit. Do you know how nauseating it was to see people giving him praise for something that I made, something that came out of MY head? I was shaking so violently Thursday night that Henry had to tell me to sit down and he handled it from there.
  • In his email to me, he stated that he writes to all of the “big name killers” and that Dennis Rader probably wouldn’t be too happy knowing I was using his picture, but he spelled his name “Radar.” And then he did it again on mu Facebook pages, and Henry said that he spelled it that way in a message to him, too, which makes me laugh. It was everything I could do not to type “I HAVE A DEATH ROW PEN PAL TOO!” Ugh.
• In better Christmas news, Henry framed my Goblin and Circa Survive show prints! And then he didn’t hang them the way I wanted. But still. At least they’re framed and not rolled up somewhere.

***

Overall, 2014 wasn’t too bad. Sure, it had low points, what year doesn’t? But it also brought a lot of laughter, amazing shows, and new friendships. And I get to end it by going to the hockey game tonight with Henry! So for that, I can’t hate on 2014.

Initially, we weren’t going to host any Christmas-y festivities since we were spending Christmas Eve at Henry’s sister’s and then visited my dad on Christmas day. But at the  last minute, I decided to try to have one of those White Elephant things that people are always going on about. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh is in the middle of flu season, so party attendance was at an all-time low. We still had fun!

Blake arrived two hours early and then left after about 30 minutes, but we’ll take what we can get with that one.

I had spent literally all day dealing with Etsy/Facebook drama that really killed my mood. Seriously, it was the biggest party foul of all and Henry and I didn’t even start getting shit together until an hour before people were set to arrive. It really seemed like it was going to be a bust. Especially considering that one of my punches didn’t turn out right (that peppermint coconut crap on the right) and we all know that my parties revolve around the goddamn beverage buffet. Luckily, that red nose shit was exceptional.

Henry made bite-sized versions of the Funfetti grilled cheese we had on Christmas, but was mad because he had to use French bread since the lame Brookline bakeries didn’t have any brioche. I bet if he had a food blog, he’d have ranted about it on there by now.

Now I want to ghost-write a food blog for him. Henry’s Hankerings. I’ll porn it up real good so you won’t be able to tell if you’re reading about how to fill a burrito or knocking on backdoors in a Tijuana hostel. (Don’t mind me. I’m getting over a fever.)

Waiting.

Corey and Janna were the first to arrive, just in time to hear Chooch’s rousing rendition of Jessie J’s “Bang Bang.” We completely lost all good sense and bought him a Singing machine for Christmas, and it connects to the TV so we can all sit back and read along as Chooch sings songs brimming with sexual innuendo.

 That Time Henry Had a Friend Over.

We’re all obsessed with Trivia Crack (and sometimes Quiz Up, but Trivia Crack has my heart) so Chooch and Corey decided to try and teach Wendy about it since she’s always the last to learn about the cool things us kids are doing.

Seriously. This, for hours.

But then Chooch pulled out his Perler beads, which he has recently become obsessed with. They’re just these little colorful beads that you put down in a pattern on a pegboard and then you iron it (or, in Chooch’s case: you get Henry and not Erin to iron it because Erin is no good) which fuses all the beads together and now, hooray, you have some relatively useless plastic thing. Chooch made a Minecraft sword (see above picture) out of these things, using no pattern somehow, which I thought was pretty impressive.

“I’m going to see this on Etsy for $50, or maybe $20,” Chooch told Blake.

OK, maybe not THAT impressive. He did make me a super adorable Michael Myers though. I bet if he made O-Town perler bead guys, Amber¹ would be his best customer.

Chris came over later with her cousin, Amber, just as Chooch was preparing to sing some terrible Backstreet Boys song. You guys. Do I know how to throw a party, or what? Basically, put out some booze, choke Chooch’s neck with a bowtie, and then sit back and watch as it escalates. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to go back to entertaining when he’s out of the house. HE DOES IT ALL FOR ME.

Now that everyone was here, we got to fumble through the White Elephant exchange. Wendy was pissed because I told her that she could literally bring stuff around the house that she didn’t use, so that’s what she did and then she accused everyone else of bringing real gifts, but hello, my thing was a plastic vampire that you put on top of a ketchup bottle so it looks like it’s bleeding when you pour it out. It cost $3!

OK, bad example. My thing was fantastic and you could tell that Amber, who had picked it, was not letting that gem get plucked out of her arms.

Anyway, Wendy brought two gifts: one from her and one from Shawn, which is how Janna scored a fabulous lens cleaner kit that she can even use on her binoculars and scuba gear, and Corey got a stationery set that may have been made in the 70s.

Seriously though, the Facebook Event thingie said this:

Make a potholder! Regift that candle that reminds you of your ex-boyfriend’s grandma’s bathroom! Turn some lint into a throw pillow! Put some gasoline in a mason jar & pretend it’s moonshine!

I don’t care what you bring, just come over! I’m desperate for human contact.

Chooch totally got Chris and Amber to finish one of his perler projects for him, because he’s got that Charles Manson charm. “Here. You do this while I go and do something better.”

Everything was fine and then Marcy had to come downstairs and inspect the situation. Of course she sat with her back toward everyone though, because she’s rude.

Mid-performance.

Janna brought over a very delicious dessert dip, the leftovers of which she said that I could keep but that she would eventually need the plate back, because it’s her mom’s. This reminded me of a few weeks ago, when we went to Nemacolin Castle, and Janna’s mom supposedly gave Janna permission to just take her car since Corey, Janna and I all have unreliable cars. We had just arrived at the castle, about an hour away, when Janna’s mom called her and was all concerned because she apparently looked out the window and saw that her car was gone, so they had what sounded like an argument, even though Janna was like, “No it’s fine. She told me I could take her car, so I don’t know what she’s talking about” and I’m thinking we’re going to get dragged to the local Brownsville slammer once Janna’s mom reports her car as stolen.

Since we had met up at Janna’s parent’s house, we had to go back there to get our cars. “I’m not going in!” I cried, as Janna rolled her mom’s car to a stop. And then Corey and I joked about seeing the silhouettes through the front window of Janna getting beaten by her mom.

“Does your mom know you used her plate?” I asked, my voice cracking with giddiness at the end.

So of course, Corey and I were practically bursting blood vessels from laughing so hard, and we had to retell the Nemacolin story in a tag-team fashion for Chris and Amber, and Henry just shook his head in that “For Christ’s Sake” way of his.

“Apparently, something bad happened in Brownsville that night we were there,” Janna said, her tone pregnant with somberness.

“WERE PEOPLE SLORING?!” Corey cried, because that was his favorite word the night we went to Nemacolin Castle, when we tried to start rumors that Janna had a secret life where she wore a beeper and “slored” around Brownsville.

“No!” Janna said exasperatedly. “There was a fire or something.”

And then we lost interest because it had nothing to do with neither sluts nor whores.

Chooch and the finished product of Chris and Amber’s labor. Plus his $50 Minecraft sword.

It was around 1:00am at this point and we were all super slap-happy (except Henry; never Henry), so Corey decided he was going to write Wendy a thank you note using the stationery he got from her and Meghan Trainor song titles. Because Wendy HATES Meghan Trainor and if there is one thing you never want to do, it’s tell me the things that you hate because I will use it in my Jerk Cannon for the rest of the time we’re friends. One time, Janna told me that she hates that Billie Myers “Kiss the Rain” song so I bought the CD (this was like, 1998 you guys) and put just that song on repeat one time when she came over. And she dealt with it. Because that’s what you learn to do when you’re friends with me.

As the party came to a close and Janna left with her lenscleaner kit, Corey looked at me and asked, “Does Janna even wear glasses?”

I said I didn’t think so, and then we promptly lost it all over again. Oh, Janna.

So really, not the worst White Elephant party in the world.

I think out of everything under the Christmas tree, the gift that elicited the most reaction from Chooch was the framed picture of Creepy Basement Grandma/#CookiePizza. He was like, “WHERE DID YOU GET THIS!?” and then I was all “I WENT THERE” and then we were both all, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA” and basically puking into our hands, because we are that obsessed with this stupid thing. Henry just sat there and tried to fit in but we were like, “Shut up, you don’t know.” DON’T ACT LIKE IT’S FUNNY NOW WHEN YOU REFUSED TO GET OUT OF BED TO WATCH THIS WITH US WHEN WE FIRST FOUND IT LAST MONTH.

God, can you imagine being in that house with all that weird doll reviewing going on?

This gift cost $1. It’s the simple things in life, you guys:

We had some people over on Friday and the fact that we have a framed picture of some random grandma just chilling on an end table for no reason made for a great conversation starter. And then over the weekend, I got the best text ever from my brother:

#CookiePizza never gets old. Never. I might get it tattooed inside my lip. But for now, I’ll just keep it as my Facebook profile picture a little longer.

Our Christmas tradition, ever since I was pregnant with Chooch, has been to have a picnic lunch in the cemetery. It started in 2005 when I was on the outs with my family (when am I not) and refused to sit around doing nothing on Christmas, crying into my hands like my mom probably hoped. I suggested that we go eat with the dead people at the cemetery, which is one of my favorite places in the world. I expected Henry to say no, but I was pregnant and he has no balls, so we packed a picnic lunch and by that I mean we swung by a CoGo’s on the way to the cemetery and bought disgusting pre-made egg salad sandwiches, plastic bottles of eggnog, and Moonpies. See? We’ve always been classy.

Then Chooch was born and it became a tradition to pack a small lunch and take some christmas portraits of Chooch before visiting whatever family hasn’t written us off that year.

Some years, the weather is decent enough that we can actually sit down for a little bit, but usually we’re speed-eating because it’s so damn cold. It was like, 60 degrees on Christmas Eve, but the temperature dropped by Christmas. Henry made Funfetti grilled cheese (Funfetti batter mixed with ricotta–might sound gross to less adventurous grilled cheese fans, but it was goddamn delicious), which we ate so quickly it was like we were trying to eliminate evidence of a drug crime.

At the last minute, we decided to buy Chooch a camcorder so that he can finally reach for the YouTube stars. I’m lucky I was able to get any shots of him without it fully obstructing his face.

Forcing him to pose for cemetery Christmas pictures is the most stressful part of the day, and always full of fights and hateful glares, with me crying, “THIS IS LITERALLY THE ONLY PART OF THE DAY THAT’S FOR ME AND YOU’RE RUINING IT!!!!!” but it’s worth it in the end. 

I hope everyone had a great Whatever December Holiday You Celebrate! My Christmas was really nice, but then it ended pretty shittily. More on that another day. Right now, let’s talk about art-stuffs!

You guys really put a lot of faith in me by ordering custom paintings for Christmas gifts, and I am honored. Now that Christmas is over, I can show you some of them!

“Meow Meow, Motherfucker” for Janna. Chooch was PISSED that this wasn’t for him!

“You Won’t Find a Better Butter” for Corey, an homage to our Amish Day Trip in November. Here’s a video of Corey unwrapping it:

Remember when I was interviewed last year for an article on bloggers in the Pittsburgh Trib? Rachel, the journalist who write that story, commissioned a painting of wrestler portraits for her husband, who is (clearly) a huge wrestling fan. I got this one done with barely any time to spare. The best part about it was meeting up with Rachel last weekend for the Shady Art Deal because I had never met her in person before. She is so sweet and even brought me a jar of fudge (which Henry and Chooch devoured in the same day, ugh).

I think I may have posted this one already, but Wendy asked me to make a Phish portrait for her stepdaughter, who sent me a Facebook message on Christmas to tell me how much she loved it — that’s my favorite part!

Among other odds and ends, I also did a slew of those monster name paintings, a Jesus Take the Wheel-inspired painting for Chris and Monica to give Chris’s sister (I had a picture on my phone but I must have deleted it, ugh!), and a Lou Barlow portrait for Terri, which I stupidly failed to get photographic evidence of.

I’m happy that the Christmas rush is over because that means I’m free to accept requests again! Hit me up, homies! Either on here, or contact me through Etsy: Somnambulant Art.

EDIT!
“Jesus Take the Wheel” (where Jesus is actually Chris’s brother):

And edit again to add a picture of Terri with Lou Barlow yay!

Surprisingly, Henry’s mom was OK with this card. (She is super protective of her Golden Son!) There was a moment last night at Kelly’s house when she noticed it and we all braced ourselves. But then she started laughing and cried, “OH, THAT’S CUTE!”

Hey guys! Whether you celebrate or not, we hope that your day is fun and not too annoying.  I’m bad at holiday well-wishing.

(I only managed to send out roughly 1/4 of the Christmas cards I usually send because I really let this month get away from me. Sorry! I kept running out of stamps and envelopes and then I eventually just lost interest.)