I have some kind of terrible restless brain syndrome, where if I’m not already doing something, then I’m thinking of 87 different things that I want to be doing / could be doing / should be doing. Usually it’s just small tasks, like “ATTEMPT TO MAKE SHIT WITH SCULPEY AND CRY!” or “TRANSCRIBE THAT CLEVELAND TRIP FROM ’04 ONTO THE BLOG*!” or “TAKE CHOOCH TO EXORCIST.”

*(I think I really am going to do this though because there are some choice Henry anecdotes up in that piece. EVEN A SERVICE STORY.)

But then last Thursday, I was sitting here at work and texted Henry, “LET’S PAINT THAT ONE WALL IN THE LIVING ROOM GRAY!” which turned into “AND ALSO LET’S PAINT THE INSIDE OF THE ARCHWAY AND SHELVING UNIT YELLOW!” and then by the time Friday rolled around, it had morphed into “FUCK IT LET’S KNOCK DOWN THE ENTIRE HOUSE AND REBUILD!!”

It is imperative that I stay busy during this time of the year. It’s my top survival tactic.

I worked from home on Friday while Henry diligently moved all of the furniture into the center of the room and then when I was on my break, I helped him take everything out of that shelving unit, which is super cute and built into the wall, but it admittedly is like a catch-all for shit that we shouldn’t even be keeping and by we I mean me and my ridiculous bottle collection.

“Really?” Henry asked, holding up a dusty, unopened Fiji water bottle.

“I didn’t know they were going to become so readily available!” I cried in defense, chucking it into the “GOODBYE CRAP” pile. Ugh. He tried to pitch a dusty, plastic bottle of Coke but I screeched, “THAT’S FROM GREECE, YOU ASSHOLE!” I’ll probably dust it off here at some point.

I also found one of my journals and the first page I flipped to was from June of 2006 where I was writing about a fight (pick one) that Henry and I were having and he stopped and said, “ANSWER THIS FOR ME: DO YOU EVEN STILL WANT TO BE IN THIS RELATIONSHIP” and I wrote all this self-absorbed shit about how I didn’t really care either way but how would I be able to pay my bills if we broke up?

(For the record, my answer today would be OMG HENRY DON’T LEAVE ME.)

And then Henry found a bunch of my old address labels from when I was HEAVY into penpalling.

“‘Ace‘?” Henry asked, holding them up for me to see.

“Yeah, that’s when I was a tennis player. Duh Henry.”

“‘No preps or posers‘?” he continued, ending with a mumbled “Oh my god.”

He’s just upset that he didn’t know me then, that’s all. And then he found a picture of a couple and read the back.

“Oksana and Bob? Who are they?” And before he even showed me the picture, I knew that it was my much-older pen pal Bob  (a 40-something-year-old man writing to a 13-year-old girl, nothing to see here) and his Russian mail order bride, Oksana. Bob was kind of dull so we didn’t write to each for very long. (He was no Eddy, that’s for sure.)

********

On Sunday, I was sitting on the couch pretending to rest because I was sick, when I started staring at one of the smaller walls that has always, almost for as long as I have lived here (since 1999, omg), held a large portrait of Robert Smith. It’s always bothered me because it’s so plain, but I didn’t want to paint it another color, because it’s adjacent to the gray accent wall that Henry just slaved over.

I chose gray because there are approximately 702374028375489023456 different colors in our living room alone. Sometimes Henry will mutter about all of the colors and have you been to my house? Someone once said it looked like a Crayola box had exploded in it. Thanks for the compliment, friend.

This is me in my bedroom in 1996. I have always loved to be surrounded by color! That room was like sleeping inside of a Spencer’s. I had strands of novelty lights and lava lamps everywhere, and my wallpaper was foiled. FOILED! 

Then it hit me: lyrics. I would paint lyrics to a Cure song on the wall and then hang Robert up like the God that he is, so his words would surround him.

“I’m going to paint lyrics on the wall,” I said casually to Henry.

“OK,” he hesitantly answered. “Which ones?”

“Same Deep Water As You,” I said in my DUH voice. Because DUH, Henry. That’s only like my favorite Cure song ever.

He shrugged and said OK and then went back to what he was doing. I forget what it was, other than it was something I told him to do.

“Well, you have to draw the lines for me!” I cried. Because I need lines. Otherwise, those words are going to slant right on up to the ceiling.

I guess he thought I meant, “Take your time, we don’t need to do this right now” but then he saw me standing there, tapping my foot and holding a pencil, so he sighed and came over with his level.

I wrote the lyrics, freehand, with a pencil and then went over with black paint and a brush. My hand felt AMAZING the next day, you guys. Like the hand of someone who just learned how to masturbate, ugh.

The lyrics start right below the ceiling and run all the way down to the floor. It’s all finished except for the last two lines, which I plan on doing tonight after work. (My right hand just spasmed as I typed that.) I will post again when it’s complete.

After that’s finished, we have approximately 58 other things to tackle and did I mention that I started all of these projects one week before people are coming over for a post-Thanksgiving game night? We are literally stepping over piles of furniture, paint cans and stuff. I DO LOVE A GOOD HUSTLE.

*******

Here is the song that’s on my wall, IN CASE YOU ARE INTERESTED.

Corey & Chooch putting ornaments on my mom’s Christmas tree. I miss Chooch’s curls! And you know, family holiday dinners. I hope when Chooch grows up, he marries someone who loves to cook and they have 8 kids. I want big holiday dinners.

When I asked Chooch if he would comply, he said, “Uh…no. I can’t handle kids.”

“Neither can your mom,” Henry mumbled.

You might know this about me, but I am a hoe for Swiss/Bavarian/German culture, especially when it involves American tourist traps. So it’s really no surprise that one of the biggest draws for me when it comes to Ohio Amish Country is definitely the small town of Sugarcreek. Henry, Chooch and I had briefly stopped there in 2010 after I insisted we take a detour on our way home from Michigan so that I could see the world’s largest cuckoo clock. Henry was PISSED because when we finally found it, it wasn’t even assembled; it had apparently been dismantled after the restaurant it was once attached to had closed, and now it was just sitting in an empty lot.

I had heard that it had finally been bought and moved to the center of town, so I had been begging Henry to take me back for the last two years now and he always has some stupid excuse like, “I don’t want to spend money” or “That place is dumb.”

So when Corey suggested we take a sibling trip to look at Amish people in Ohio and I found out that he was actually talking about THIS SAME AREA, it was on.

We arrived in Sugarcreek sometime after lunch at Der Dutchman but before visiting our dad’s beloved “hardware store.” The clock puts on its show every 30 minutes, so since we had about 15 minutes to kill, we asked some local jogger to take our picture. She was pretty much slowing her roll before we even asked because I’m sure we looked like idiots trying to take a selfie while capturing the entire clock in the background. The struggle was real.

People in Sugarcreek are super nice. Obviously. IT’S OHIO’S LITTLE SWITZERLAND!

Sitting on the bench (which Corey discovered flips over into a picnic table!), waiting for the 3:00PM edition of Swiss folk music to blare out of the barely-hidden speakers, I was revisited by all of my past lives where I was better known as Swiss Miss, Heidi, and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

(Whoever said this waste of Internet space wasn’t occasionally educational?)

I felt so excited and in touch with my inner Alps-frolicking, Ricola-sucking self at that moment, it was like someone stuffed a bouquet of edelweiss up my ass.

Very kitsch. Such creep. You just know those lederhosen-clad band members sneak off in the middle of the night and drag stray cats and severed human limbs back into the dark penetralia of the cuckoo clock.

Another family joined us for the highly anticipated 3pm viewing, and somehow Corey and I were able to act like civilized human beings through its entirety. We managed to get our fill of the cuckoo clock’s 2 minute presentation of robust Swiss folk music**, right before a tour bus, probably full of those impatient cheese-grubbing fuck lords at Heini’s, rolled up to clog the area with a coterie of obstructed bowels.

**(Seriously, click that link to watch exactly 15 seconds of the clock in action. It’ll take you to Instagram, because I just found out the hard way that I apparently can’t embed my Instagram videos here now.)

After sufficiently making fun of the tour bus, we decided that our next sibling adventure will definitely need to involve us booking one of those weekender tours.

“It’ll be us and old people,” Corey said dreamily. “They’ll love us!”

And they really will, too, because somehow old people are incapable of sniffing out our douchiness.

Next up: the shoo fly pie saga.

Last night, right as I was falling asleep, “Jackie Blue” came on the radio. Do you know this song? It’s old, like from the SEVENTIES OMG, and it’s by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I have been obsessed with this song since high school so as soon as it started playing, I cried, “JACKIE BLUE FUCK YEAH!” and started dancing in bed which is something that Henry totally LOVES when he’s already sleeping, but who cares.

“This song makes me think of when I was 17 and went through a phase where I wore shoelaces as headbands!” I laughed, but Henry just mumbled some sleep-stifled sentiment into his pillow, so since he didn’t care to listen to my stories, I am ready to shoot them from my fingertips like smoking words from a phalanges-cannon. His loss is your gain, Blog a/k/a My One True Friend.

• Back when I was 17 and wearing shoelaces in my hair, Lisa and I used to frequent a pool hall called Cue and Cushion. I’m really not sure how this all began, and for as much time as we spent there, we never really got good. Every time I would ever get a ball in the pocket, I would make an obnoxious gesture toward the pocket and say, “Skilllllllls” while every one else would groan, “Shit shot.” There was this one guy we befriended and I can’t remember his name but I can see him very clearly in my mind, especially how his face went from friendly to “You are dead to me” when he expressed interest and I was like, “I am dating a psychopathic fire-starter whom I love very much and will never betray!” Which was actually true. I never cheated on Mike once, yet he would constantly accuse me of. Also, I remember him being in his 20s and I was saving my cradle for Henry to rob at a later date, obviously. BUT I DIGRESS. I would ask Lisa if she remembers his name, but I’m lucky that she even remembers being friends with me back then, let alone some random pool shark’s name.
  • I have a photo of myself with this guy and I’m wearing a striped velour shirt that I bought from Contempo after it changed from Contempo Casuals but before it became Wet Seal. I’m wearing that shirt under overalls because that’s how I did it back in 1997, holla.
    • Speaking of photos, Lisa and I hung out at Cue and Cushion so often (and were probably the youngest people there on most nights), that we became friends with the proprietor, Lou, who hung our senior pictures up on her bulletin board.
• Thinking of Lou got me remembering all of the other mom-types that loved me and Lisa back in the day, like Maryann from Denny’s, who kept a picture of me on her key chain (Henry rolled his eyes at this) and then there was a broad who worked at a diner that we called Home Cookin’ because that’s the generic name that was on the outside of it (it was in a shopping center) but really it was called Russitano’s. We NEVER called it that but then when I met Henry, it turned out his mom knew a bunch of the waitresses there and he would correct me every time I called it Home Cookin’. Probably because he couldn’t stand that he wasn’t included in my antics back then and hearing me calling it Home Cookin’ forced him to think about me having a life that GOD FORBID didn’t include him. Anyway, I can’t remember that lady’s name, but she used to let us go behind the counter and get our own drink refills. God, I miss that. I think it eventually changed to the Plaza Cafe, back when I was 19 and getting grilled blueberry muffins and coleslaw with the aforementioned Psycho Mike and then it moved down the street and now it’s something else but it seems to rarely be open so why bother.
  • And then all of this made me think of the disgusting amount of time my friends and I spent at various diners but mostly Denny’s and how the hell did they never kick us out when all we were ordering was coffee and essentially loitering.
    • One of my favorite Denny’s memories was going there for dinner with Brian, Chooch’s godfather, when we were…20? 21? He saw someone he knew sitting at a booth across the restaurant, so he told our waitress to send that table the sampler platter and to put it on Brian’s check. Because that’s the Denny’s equivalent of sending over a bottle of champagne at a classy restaurant, I guess. Brian spent the rest of our time there waiting and waiting for some acknowledgement from his friend, but then later, some kid that we knew from high school stopped by on his way out and thanked Brian for the nice gesture. The waitress had delivered it to the wrong table and Brian was SO PISSED but I was dying. Then, when we were walking through the parking lot of my apartment complex afterward, Brian tripped over a speed bump and I cried, “THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT OF ALL TIME!” Probably we went inside and sent Janna fake emails from a fictional man named Tyree, because that’s what we did for funtimes back then. I mean, I would never anything like that now.
    • Speaking of coffee, it’s funny to think about how we would go to actual diners and restaurants (like Denny’s and Eat n Park) when we wanted to hang out and have coffee with friends. There were no Starbucks or really any other coffee houses in the suburbs where I grew up that I can think of, aside from Gloria Jean’s in the mall. Which leads me to my next topic…
• Ever since I had Dark Matter coffee at Riot Fest, I have been straight feenin’ for it. I finally buckled and bought a bag of the Mastodon-collaborated coffee, Black Blood. It’s a limited release and aged in Basil Hayden’s Bourbon Whiskey barrels. I’ve been in a Keurig rut for YEARS so this inspired me (Henry) to get off my (his) ass and buy a french press. My first cup of that steaming Black Blood reminded me that Keurig’s K-Cups are essentially the mp3s of the coffee scene, and I’ve gone back to vinyl, you guys. I’m just sorry that I was led astray for so long. Convenience, etc.
• Long-time readers might remember Eleanore, an older broad I used to work with at another job. I found her on Facebook about a year ago, but then I forget all about it until over the weekend, when I fell down the Old Job rabbit hole on Facebook. You know what I’m talking about: you find one person on FB that you used to work and then suddenly you’re scouring their friend list for other co-workers and then you accidentally send friend requests and it’s a whole big thing. Anyhow, I was reminded of Eleanore’s Facebook presence so I was scrolling through her shit and hearing her voice in my head reading all of her status updates out loud and then DYING at the amount of times TINA (OMG TINA HAHAHAHAHA) has posted to her wall saying “Hello dear friend, I miss” but in Tina-type, it’s more like “Hekjllo Dar friend i mis u.” Anyway…it turns out, and this is not funny at all, that Eleanore had a stroke two years and is no longer working. She seems to have bounced back, but that is still really sad and scary. I ended up having a dream last night that I went to visit her under the pretense of caring about her but in reality, I knew that she had three wheelchairs in her house and I wanted to buy one from her. OK, fine, I’ll tell you the truth: at first in my dream, my intent was to STEAL ONE. I have only stolen something once in my life and it was magnet made out of peanut shells that I took from Lechter’s, a home goods store that used to be in the mall. I was around 4 or 5 and I fucking swear to god, I was so racked with guilt after that, that I don’t even take pennies from Take a Penny trays at gas stations, even if I need one. OK, back to my dream. So I was going to steal one of these beautiful wheelchairs similar to the blue one I already have, but then I woke up in real life and forced myself to go back to sleep so that I could finish the dream by offering to buy one. I don’t know if I was successful, because then I was eating an ice cream cone that I didn’t like so my friend Jeannie let me have her ice cream cone, which was PEACH MELBA, so when I woke up this morning, my first thought was, “Wow, I forgot how much I used to love peach melba ice cream when I was a kid.”

And I will end this with a picture of me and Lisa at Denny’s (of which I have many).

(Pictures. Not Denny’s.)

The proposition of “Let’s go downstairs” seemed innocent enough. No, that’s a lie. I was actually quite taken aback and had visions of being knifed/blackmailed/tickled/forced to lick a shoe until I caught Alisha shaking her pack of cigarettes at me. We were at her friend Mark’s apartment, watching the Penguins game, eating pizza and quickly drankin’ our way through three bottles of wine.

“I’ll come too,” Mark decided, since the first period had just ended. He and Alisha grabbed their wine glasses. Not wanting to seem like some wino who can’t be without a glass in her hand for five minutes, I left mine on the table.

I had never met Mark before, but he was very affable from the get-go and had good vanilla handsoap in his bathroom. And even though I usually get annoyed with girls who watch sports for the eye-candy factor, it wasn’t annoying when Mark gushingly admitted to thinking Sidney Crosby is cute.

After Alisha and only Alisha finished her cigarette because she was the only one smoking, not me, I don’t smoke, Mark swung his keys in his hand and went to unlock the front door.

“Oh, shit,” he spat. Alisha and I stood there waiting for an explanation, but all he had to do was open his hand to expose my car keys dangling from his finger.

Mark lives with his brother, who conveniently was in Ohio for the weekend. And of course, Mark’s phone was in the apartment, watching the hockey game that had resumed by that point. His landlord’s number was in his phone, along with his brother’s, which he didn’t know off by heart.

Through a phone relay, Mark managed to acquire his landlord’s number, and it naturally went straight to voicemail.

And then a bunch of panicking happened. At one point, we found ourselves sitting in my car, where we at least learned that the score was 3-0 Penguins. I emitted a dialed-back, near-silent “yay….” accompanied by a watered-down roof-raise, because I had a feeling maybe Mark was a little bit too stressed for someone to be punching the roof of a car in jubilation.

“I can always ask one of my neighbors for a ladder,” Mark postulated. Moments before, we had scoped out the back of the house. He lives on the second floor, and there’s a small roof beneath his kitchen window, which he admitted to not locking. Standing on the sidewalk in front of his neighbor’s house, Mark turned to us and asked, “Before I go and ask for a ladder, will one of you actually climb it?”

My hand shot up to the sky. “Me! I’ll do it.” I could sense Alisha looking at me in surprise. But probably it was adoration.

“Hold my glass,” Mark said, shoving it at Alisha’s hand.

As he turned to walk to the neighbor’s house, I started jumping up and down in excitement.

“This is fantastic! I’m so excited!” I squealed.

But Alisha, turning somber, placed her hands on my shoulders. “I just want to say that, of all my friends, I am so glad that it’s you here tonight. You are the bravest person I know, and I feel safe in your presence. When this first happened, in fact, I thought to myself, ‘A-Prid, you need to calm yourself right down, girlfriend. You’re going to be fine. Erin’s here, and she’s like MacGyver. She will get us through this. And then you’ll have the rest of your life to bake her chocolate-covered rewards.’”

And then she thrust one of the empty wine glasses at me so she wouldn’t be mistaken for a drunken sidewalk-bound hobo.

Able to procure a ladder, Mark tramped around to the backyard. I followed, beginning to feel the onset of nerves manifesting as prickles in my fingertips. The ladder was sprawled out on the shadowed grass with Mark muttering, “How do you open this thing?” while I scoped out (with eyes stretched out to the size of porn-industry standardized tits) all the things I could potentially impale myself on. Like literal wooden stakes that were used to prop up flowers.

The ladder was opened to its fullest potential and propped against the back of the house. Making sure Alisha and Mark had firm grips on either side, I began my ascent. It was a wobbly ascent. The ground below seemed uneven and I can’t say I felt very secure. But I thought about some really awesome things to help me get through it and by the second rung I was already pretending I was on one of the Real World / Road Rules Challenges, about to win $10,000 for my team and a snowboard I’ll never use. And then I remembered my team was Mark and Alisha and I won’t lie – I considered throwing the challenge.

By the fourth rung, I began ruing the fact that I left my wine on the coffee table.

By the fifth rung, it occured to me that no one asked Mark why he wasn’t shimmying up to the roof to save us. I already knew why Alisha wasn’t – she’s not a team player. And also, I think she once told me she was abused by a ladder one time? Maybe I dreamt that? Oh right, I remember now what it was – she’s allergic to heroism.

I vaguely remember hearing forced and monotoned words of encouragement, in the style of “Bad Actor Reads From Cue Card.” Supportive gems such as “Oh yay. You are. Doing. A great. Job. Yay. Woo.” and “Don’t worry if the a/c unit falls on you! I don’t care about it!” and “I see that weather vane just plunged into your thigh. Can you try to not get any blood on the walls though? Thanks.”

Finally, I was at the top. The only thing left for me to do was turn to my right and swing my body onto the roof. And for the record, I’d like to point out that from the ground, the roof looked flat. But with it half a foot in front of my face, I was able to see that it had a slight peak to it. Awesome. But I had two people below counting on me, and without even swearing once (I KNOW RIGHT), I did a gentle dive over the gutter, where I then landed with the grace of a prima ballerina. And I won’t even remark on how the ladder simultaneously started sliding to the left, except that I just did.

Crab-walking to the kitchen window, it dawned on me that I never thought about what I’d do if I couldn’t get the window open. No way was I going back down that ladder. I once sat in a treehouse for hoursbecause I was too scared to come down the ladder. Granted, I was four. But I haven’t grown up much. I was able to slide up the screen with ease, but the window was more stubborn. Every time I would get a good grip on it with my palms, the top half of the window would jiggle, and I’ve watched enough Dario Argento movies to know that this is not a good sign. Finally, I held my breath and pushed up as hard as I could. The bottom window slid up high enough for me to drop my forearms under it and finally have something other than clammy palms to use as leverage.

And then something that had been hanging on the inside of the window fell and made a loud enough crash for Mark to scream from the ground, “Do NOT break my Fiestaware!” This was right as I was swinging a leg onto the ledge and kicked a bowl that had been placed decoratively on the sill. My arm shot out and grabbed it, which was probably enough of a talent-display to play for the STEELERS. Just as I set the bowl out of harm’s way, my other leg was en route though the gaping window and kicked another Fiesta piece.

I saved that one too. I may be clumsy, but ain’t no one ever said nothin’ about bad reflexes. Safely in the kitchen, I straightened up the Fiestaware collection and noticed that the first thing that fell was actually a stained glass window hanging. A quick examination learned me it was unscathed. A good thing, as I would later learn it was the first piece of stained glass Mark made.

There was two and a half minutes left to the second period. I got to see Max Talbot attempt a penalty shot as I poured another glass of wine.

“Hey Mark, you know what’s funny?” I said once he returned from taking back the ladder. “I’ve never climbed a ladder before.” And oh, how we laughed. This was when Mark admitted to not wanting to climb it because he was wearing slippers. And really I have to agree that my ballet flats are way better for house-scaling.

It’s crazy to think about what might have happened had I not succeeded. We’d probably have had to fashion an igloo from leaves and Alisha’s cigarette butts, catch some rats to cook with her lighter. Maybe we could have eventually started a brand new colony down by the river. Oh, the homeless have already done that? Shit.

The “how” isn’t important, but I found Alisha’s diary entry from that night.

With all the roof-raising I do, it was only natural that I would wind up on a roof someday.

[A note from Present Day Erin: This is one of my favorite memories of Alisha. I miss that broad a lot sometimes. Also, I haven’t climbed a ladder since.]

Yesterday was my Pappap’s birthday. Or, would have been. I did really well until right before bed and then I cried myself to sleep because sometimes you just need to let it all out. Just let it all out, it’s ok!

I woke up with a terrible headache.

I would say it’s gotten easier since he died in 1996, but that’s not entirely true. In a lot of ways, it’s gotten so much worse. But I can at least make it through entire days at a time without falling down the rabbit hole of ugly mourning.

Having a child makes it kind of harder to ignore that slow-burn, sinking sensation inside my chest. Because now when I watch Chooch attempt to hit targets at amusement park shooting galleries, it makes me think of how he will never know how much my Pappap loved those things. Or how my Pappap would always let me blow out the candles on his birthday cakes and would 100% let Chooch do the same.

Or how he was just the best guy I have ever known. I never thought I would meet a guy even half as great as he was, until I met Henry. I hate that my Pappap never got to meet Henry.

I have been in a really weird place lately, family-wise.

I just really miss him a lot, still. I miss my whole family.

Standing in line for Flying Turns at Knoebel’s two weeks ago, Chooch spotted a kid at the front of the line, wearing a bacon costume.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if his name was Kevin?” Chooch asked, laughing. “And he’s wearing a BACON costume?” He was beside himself with laughter at this point. “GET IT, MOMMY? KEVIN…BACON!?”

YES I GET IT! GOD.

He watched Footloose once last year so obviously Mr. Bacon has been on Chooch’s radar ever since. I mean, it’s Kevin-fucking-Bacon.

In fact, earlier that same day, as Henry was driving around the town of Danville, PA in circles, Chooch piped up from the backseat, “Don’t Kevin Bacon your way around.” It makes less and less sense the more you think about it, but goddamn did we laugh at the time!

And then, after seeing the bacon kid at Knoebel’s, Chooch said that’s what he wanted to be for Halloween: a bacon suit with a Hello My Name Is: Kevin name tag. You guys. Finally. A simple goddamn Halloween costume. With two weeks to go! No makeup needed! No DIY crossbows or cardboard boxes to turn to mush in the rain! No ONELASTTHING that has one of us running to CVS 15 minutes before trick-or-treating begins.

Last weekend, we went to the Halloween store and bought the bacon costume. I had no problem spending $30 on it because even though it seems like we’re being so economical with all of our DIY costumes of Halloween-past, all the bits and pieces that we have to collect from Goodwill and eBay add up, not to mention the stress of putting it all together. But the best part was the Chooch was so excited and proud of this costume! I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s not the first person to do this. But he might be the first 8-year-old to come up with the idea on his own!

**********

Halloween was a wet mess. It started raining late-morning and basically never let up, so the parade at Chooch’s school was moved to the gym. At first I was really pissed off about the parade in general because Henry kept saying he would probably be able to make it but of course at the last minute, his mistress showed up a truck driver showed up at work, so he couldn’t leave in time to make the parade. But then when I got to the school, I quickly forgot about being mad because THE GYM TEACHER WAS THERE AND I AM SO HOT FOR THAT GUY! So instead of sending Henry death-threats via text, I occupied myself with taking stealth-shots of my gym teacher crush while Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” played on a loop in my slutty head.

Don’t worry! There was still room for me to judge 3/4 of the parents in the room.

The parade only lasted about 15 minutes. Once the adults realized Chooch’s entire costume, there was a ton of snickering and he seemed pleased. I figured most people assumed this was a costume that his bossy parents forced on him.

“None of your friends are going to get it,” I told him the other day.

“No…but the teachers will,” he shrugged. Because that’s all he cares about: impressing grown-ups.

***********

It was still raining by the time trick-or-treating started and I was completely upset about it. Chooch didn’t give a fuck, but I was all, “HALLOWEEN IS RUINED! AGAIN! WAHHHH!” But really it was because I was mad that I had half-assed a baby doll costume (I was wearing a donuts-in-space baby doll dress, even) and then had to cover everything up with a rainjacket, ugh. I hate everything!

Anyway. We wound up going around the neighborhood with our neighbor Sam and her son, Markie. Markie is kind of like the little brother that Chooch always says he wants until he spends too much time with Markie and then he turns into a little jerk-bully and it is so infuriating. I hate kids with superiority complexes and Chooch definitely has one that rears its head every now and then. I spent most of the time saying things like, “CAN’T YOU JUST BE NICE?! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO MARKIE? STOP BEING A JERK.”

Ugh.

Stop making me be a MOM on HALLOWEEN.

Henry was absolutely no help whatsoever.

Markie’s mom has trick-or-treating on LOCK. She would quickly point out if they missed a house or if they only took one when the sign said TAKE TWO and she was on top of things when it came to crossing the street. Have you seen me cross the street? Thank god for Markie’s mom.

A few Halloweens ago, Chooch completely bit it down a set of stairs not unlike these ones. And this year, he was practically making the trek in a DRESS. He did fall once, not down any steps at least, and Markie’s mom was on top of it. That’s just one of the reasons why everyone assumed she was my kid’s mom that night.

Sigh.

AFTER THIS HOUSE GO TO THAT HOUSE. DON’T WALK THROUGH THEIR YARD! YOU MISSED THAT HOUSE! THE LIGHT IS OFF BUT THERE IS A BOWL ON THE PORCH!!!!

Ah, the sounds of hyper-bossy trick-or-treating parents. They should have their own show on TLC.

And I thought Henry was a candy-fetching militant.

Seriously, Chooch’s costume. It’s like a breakfast gown. I had the ingenious foresight to pin it up, but that brilliant mom-idea came the day before, so by Halloween, I had forgotten to do it. But still, people freaked out over his costume. One lady even asked to take his picture. I was happy to stand in the background and not take any credit. This was all Chooch and I let him have it all. (There were times when people would laugh and say to each other, “Oh, he’s bacon, how cute” and, after fisting their candy bowl, he would snap, “I’m KEVIN Bacon” and then sauntered away while they let that sink in.

Toward the end of the night, we parted ways with the neighbors, and if there was a house Chooch felt like skipping, we let him skip the everloving FUCK out of it. It was cold and wet and we wanted to go home and eat candy, you know? Leave us alone.

********

All in all, it was a pretty “meh” Halloween, and I hate the word “meh” so now you know how “meh”-ish Halloween must have been for me to say it was “meh.” Chooch was kind of like, “I have a headache, can we be done now?” with about 30 minutes left to go and I wanted to go to a haunted house afterward but Henry was all, “YOU HAVE BEEN TO ENOUGH GODDAMN HAUNTED HOUSES, DAUGHTER” and it just didn’t feel like Halloween, you guys. The weather was so dreary and I was tired and something just felt…off. It felt off the whole entire month, if we’re being honest with each other here. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it: Did I not watch enough horror movies? Didn’t go to enough haunted houses? Was it because we didn’t carve pumpkins (or even BUY any for that matter)? Not enough pointless trips to the Halloween store?

It hit me over the weekend. I miss my mom. My stupid fucking mommy. Wait. Let me rephrase that: I miss the person my mom used to be. You guys, she had a lot of really great moments, and Halloween was always one of them. She was so into it: our yard decorations were on point. My homemade costumes were award-winning. She’d host costume parties for her friends and she would make sure the cheese trays never ran out of perfectly-cubed bites of colby and cheddar. And when I was older, we would have Halloween bonfires at her house, all of my friends and my brother Ryan’s friends, with beer and Woodchuck and autumnal revelry…and it hasn’t been the same since then. I try to distract myself with all of the haunted houses and the crazy-detailed Halloween desk themes at work, and it mostly works. It does! But that slippery depression is there in the shadows, waiting for me to forget to busy myself for a few minutes so that it can slip in and remind me of everything that I try so hard to forget.

Next year, I’ll just have to try harder.

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

DON’T LIE!

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

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

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

Hopefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This gate literally only keeps out truck-sized people.

Henry REALLY didn’t want to do this.

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

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

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

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

CHOOCH’S INITIALS!!

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

“I already did,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We came across the entrance to the cemetery

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

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

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

And the pièce de résistance:

Ha ha.

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

When my brother Corey was texting me pictures of the Amish guys working on our dad’s roof, it brought back fond memories of the time my other brother Ryan and I stalked the man who was building our back porch when we were kids. I knew I had written about it at some point, so I searched my LiveJournal archives and now I am sharing it here, because I think it’s kind of funny how I am still basically the same person as I was when I was a kid.

I have a different dad than Corey and Ryan, so clearly our penchant for stalking comes from our mom.

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

What was the best summer ever? Could it be the summer of ’92 when we hosted a French exchange student (that deserves it’s own entry)? The summer of my nineteenth birthday party marathon? No, my friends. It’s the summer of 1994 that wins this title.

My parents were in the process of having a back porch built onto our house. This was a big deal for my brother Ryan and me, because stalking one of the workers became the sole reason we got out of bed each day. I mean really, who wants to swim and lay out in the sun when you can be violating someone’s privacy?

We would run from window to window, snapping pictures of him. One day, Ryan even chased his truck up the street. Those pictures turned out fabulously. I’ll never forget the day we discovered his name was Gary. We ran into the house, erupting into shrieks and giggles.

After a week of wasting film on this fine craftsman, we decided to incorporate a little more extremity to our game. More thrill, if you will. We needed a bigger adrenaline rush. The next obvious step was to collect Gary’s cigarette butts and beer cans. When you’re young, you want souvenirs for everything you do.

We would wait until he would go to his truck, then sprint out in the backyard like scavengers, picking through the grass in search of a butt or two. Once we accumulated enough to satiate our pursuant appetite, we brought our treasures in the house and stowed it underneath the couch in the family room.

Stalking Gary consumed so much of our summer. How much, you ask? So much that it infiltrated the summer of my friends, as well. Christy was in Atlanta (I believe) for some sort of academic camp. I wrote her a letter and enclosed one of Gary’s cigarettes butts for her to cherish as well. I just wanted her summer to be as rich as ours had become, thanks due to Gary. I wrote letters to every one of my pen pals, detailing Gary’s every action and movement. Everyone clung to the Summer of Gary with bated breath.

Unfortunately, the fun and games ended when my dad unearthed our stash of memorabilia under the couch. Now, any other dad would have rightfully accused us of smoking and drinking. Not my dad. Luckily for us, my dad recognized the extent of our weirdness long before this incident, so he believed our tale and we escaped punishment. The downside was that he forbade us to continue our game. Something about we were embarrassing him or something.

I often wonder what Gary is doing these days, and if he knew he was being stalked. Was he flattered? My mom says ‘nay.’

Going through old haunted house journals for research (seriously, my life has zero point; if you could have seen the shit I wasted time on after work today, you would have been like, “Bitch, find some direction, this is much sad, very get help”), I found some old photos from 1998, back when I thought it was a great idea to bring a 35mm camera to haunted houses with me and then spin around to take pictures without warning. I’m sure the volunteers at these haunted houses would also agree it was a great idea after they blinked away the stars that the flash left in their eyes.

Anyway, this picture was my favorite picture for a really long time! I took it at the now-defunct Castle Shannon Haunted School (RIP). That’s my friend Angie and her then-boyfriend Mike. Something terrible was clearly happening.

God, I miss those days a lot sometimes. I’m pretty sure that haunted house was like, $5. This season rapes my wallet nowadays. BUT I CAN’T QUIT IT.

The truth is, I have purposely been putting off writing the last installment of Riot Fest, because it feels like once I write it, then that’s it: Riot Fest is truly over. The whole weekend was so perfect to me, especially coming off the tail end of a summer that was emotionally draining, just a total black spot on the year. Maybe it seems like I’m being overly-dramatic, god knows that’s basically my default, but I’m serious when I say that my three days at Humboldt Park felt like a religious retreat, in the same way that some people climb mountains to escape their past, cast out their demons in sweat lodges, or rail a quadstack off a hooker’s ass in the back of a 1984 Pinto.

This is how I heal.

The whole weekend was a collection of experiences and heart-clutching moments, stepping stones that paved the way to the culmination of my catharsis: The Cure.

As I mentioned in my last Riot Fest post, The Cure was scheduled to play the main stage at 7:45, so we made our way over there during Patti Smith’s 5:45 set in hopes of getting a decent spot.

My expectations were low. I even told Henry that I didn’t care if we ended up across the park by the food trucks. As long as I could hear The Cure (and not shitty Weezer who were going to be playing at the same time on a smaller stage), I was fine. Besides, I had been dragging Henry around like a rag doll all weekend, and I knew he probably wouldn’t want to be standing stock-still in the middle of 50,000 people at the end of the day.

Except that Henry grabbed my hand and pulled me further into the crowd during Patti’s set. Every time even the smallest gap would open ahead of us, he would continue to squeeze us in. And he kept doing this until we finally hit a wall of unbudging people. Still, I was impressed with his determination and how far it got us, so I wasn’t complaining!

After Patti was over at 6:45, people began leaving the Riot Stage, which opened up more spots, so Henry once again tgook  my hand and started weaving us closer to the stage. He got us to a really great spot, about 50 heads back from the stage. This was pretty remarkable, considering most people had been standing there all day in order to get a close spot.

Don’t tell him this, but Henry was kind of my hero that night.

Social Distortion began playing on the stage adjacent to us and I was so thankful that we got to listen a decent band for the next hour, because I was so full of anxiety waiting for The Cure, that I couldn’t imagine adding shitty music on top of that. Also during this time, we made friends with the people around us, like an older couple (Henry’s age, probably, haha) from St. Louis. The wife was really kind to me and even offered to take the above picture of me and Henry, which is why he’s smiling — because a stranger is taking the picture. She reminded me a little bit of my friend Natasha, who is also a rabid Cure fan, and I think that’s why I liked her so much.

The view behind me. 

The only downside while waiting was the two middle-aged assholes in front of me, who spent the whole wait loudly talking about how they’re such seasoned music festival attendees, and how they saw The Cure last year at ACL and then the one guy, the one who was wearing a huge professional backpack that jutted so far from his back that it kept hitting me in the face, extracted a video camera with an extension stick thing and I was just like, “Oh great. And he’s a rock documentarian, too.”

I don’t think that’s a word.

Then they started making a big deal about passing a joint back and forth, like LOOK AT US, WE’RE OLD AND STILL SMOKE POT! and I honestly had to cup my hands in front of face in case I needed to catch my eyeballs when they rolled out of my head.

When I heard of one them mention Weezer’s upcoming set, it all made sense to me. Weezer fans. Of course.

My new friend from St. Louis pulled me closer to her so that dildo’s backpack wouldn’t hit me in the face anymore, and I thanked her profusely.

She was also extremely good at blocking people from getting in front of us once The Cure started. We worked hard for our spots way before The Cure came on! You can’t expect to wait until after they start playing and just steamroll your way  through. Bitch, you gotta work for that shit.

I like Social D just fine, but when they were still playing “Ring of Fire” at 7:45, I was like, “I FUCKING HATE YOU SOCIAL D! STFU! GO HOME!” And then Mike Ness kept screaming, “ONE MORE TIME!” and the crowd over at that stage would sing the fucking chorus ONE MORE TIME and it was so obnoxious and we were all getting super agitated.

So they went a few minutes over. It wasn’t the worst thing ever, but that was like an entire extra song that The Cure have played at the end of the night!

But as soon as the last note of “Ring of Fire” petered off into the air, the lights on the Riot Stage came on and the most beautiful sounds to ever have been crafted enveloped us all in such warm beauty. And then Robert walked on the stage and my hands flung up to my chest and basically stayed there for the next two hours, along with the burning lump in my throat and the stinging tears in my eyes.

The Cure, you guys. The motherfucking Cure. This was my fifth time, but it might as well have been my first. Seeing them will never lose its value to me.

I have never been the type of person who could separate herself from the show unfurling in front of her long enough to keep track of the set list. Luckily, I knew that Chain of Flowers (the best Cure fansite in the world) would have me covered.

• Open
• Fascination Street
• Sleep When I’m Dead
• Push
• Inbetween Days
• Play For Today
• A Forest
• Before Three
• Lovesong
• Just Like Heaven
• From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• alt.end
• Pictures of You
• Lullaby
• Close To Me
• Hot Hot Hot
• Wrong Number
• The Caterpillar
• The Walk
• Mint Car
• Friday I’m In Love
• Doing the Unstuck
• Bananafishbones
• Want
• Hungry Ghost
• One Hundred Years
• End.

We were this close! Not bad for waiting until 6PM to stake out a spot!

Around 8:30, the idiots in front of me (who acted all smug as  they recounted all the times they’ve seen The Cure and the proceeded to just stand there like lumps once the show started…some fans they are) got their Riot Fest alert on their phones that OMG WEEZER was about to start over on the Revolt Stage, so they turned around and began pushing their way out of the crowd. I cheered and then moved up into their vacated spots, which came with a better view of my beloved Robert Smith.

Aside from those Weezer dorks, we were surrounded by true Cure fans. Those who knew all the words, knew to thrust their hands upward when Robert sang, “Put your hands in the sky” during From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, and who didn’t engage in banal discourse with their friends. I know that if we had stayed in the back, I would have been miserable and forced to listen to drunk assholes scream to each other about sports and god knows what else. Just like the miserable time I saw them at miserable Coachella, where drunk frat boys screamed out, “Play Just Like Heaven, Fat Bob!

” and then booed every time deeper cuts were played instead. Fucking Americans. The Cure graces our country with their presence and this is how they’re treated. Coachella will always have such a sour connotation to me. The hipsters can have it.

I can’t think of a better way this weekend could have ended. My favorite band in the whole entire world with my favorite person in the whole entire world (ugh fine, I’m referring to Henry and not Robert Smith). There’s no one else I would have rather experienced this with, no one else who understands how much this band and this music means to me.

When we first started to get to know each other back in 2000/2001, before we were dating, Henry made me a Cure screensaver. Totally out of the blue. I was like, “OK. You have my attention.” I know that The Cure headlining this festival is without a doubt the reason Henry didn’t say no to me.

And he actually said that this was his favorite part of Riot Fest and not because it signified that the end was near.

He even displayed moderate levels of PDA throughout the night by placing his hands on my back!

From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea – Chicago, Riot Fest 14-Sep-2014 from itsaperfectday on Vimeo.

Thank you to this person ^^^ for recording this because my heart felt like it was about to combust inside my rib cage during this one. One of my all-time favorites, ow ow ow. 

There was supposed to have been an encore, but they ran out of time. Thanks, Social Distortion.

Even though I think this was the shortest of the 5 Cure concerts I’ve been to (clocked in at just over 2 hours), I have to say this one ranks #2 on my list. Right under Canberra, Australia for the Bloodflowers tour. It was the perfect crowd, the perfect ambiance, the perfect company and the perfect weekend. What else can I really say about it, short of copy/pasting every synonym for “heaven” and “perfect” and “emo” and “STFU Erin, we get it.”

****

“You know what would have made that weekend even more perfect?” I asked Henry on the way back to Pittsburgh the next day. “If you had proposed to me during The Cure. Way to go, you blew it.”

Because even during moments of extreme, euphoric perfection, I still manage to find the flaws. But I wouldn’t be me otherwise. Right?

RIGHT?!

My brother Corey and I went out to breakfast yesterday and, as we normally do, we started talking about our family. Corey mentioned that he has basically no memories of us all doing stuff together, like just being together, going on family outings, being normal.

So I started thinking about that too, and he’s not wrong. I can’t think of one time that the five us (our parents, Corey, Ryan and myself) even went out to dinner together.

“I remember going to Fatheads one time,” Corey said. “But I can’t remember you being there.”

“That’s because I wasn’t. You guys started to go to Fatheads when Daddy hated me, so I was never invited,” I laughed, and it wasn’t even a bitter laugh, either. It was a real “Oh, memories” laugh because if I let this shit be anything other than fucking hilarious, I’d have probably killed myself by now.

For real.

So this really got me thinking about the later years when those a-holes would go off and pretend that they were a loving family but it was mostly just because my dad wanted me to feel like I wasn’t a part of things. There was the spontaneous trip to Tennessee that I didn’t even know about until the night before they left. (When this happened.) And then there was the time, during the spring of 1997, that they went out of town again and I feel like maybe it had something to do with Ryan playing tennis but why bother trying to figure it out now.

The whole point of this is that it made me think of something that I hadn’t thought of probably since it happened. I didn’t go to school that Friday that my family was AWOL. I distinctly remember that I was going through a pretty major bi-polar episode, spawned by the fact that Psycho Mike was locked up in a juvenile mental facility again and dumped me for some damaged cheerleader he had met on the inside. But I was all, “No I’m fine, I swear! Just because I’m staying home and jamming sharp metal things into my legs doesn’t mean I need help!”

Somewhere along the way, I decided that I was going to get drunk. I could have raided my dad’s beer (he had actual vending machines stocked with various beer out in his garage), but I hated beer. My mom wasn’t a drinker, so we never had liquor or wine in the house either, unless she was about to make her famous Kahlua baked beans. But what she did have was a huge, dusty jug of port in the pantry. I guess she would use it to cook with sometimes.

I took a huge swig and it was fucking disgusting, but still way better than beer. So I spent the afternoon chugging this shit until my friend Jon showed up because we were going to pick up our friend Justin and then hang out for a little bit before the impromptu get-together I was having that night.

I didn’t want to leave my port behind so I did the smart thing: I poured some into a to go cup, which just happened to be one of my dad’s collector’s glasses he used to bring home from all of the stupid car shows he went to. This one was some stupid daiquiri glass thing and I filled it to the top with liquid spite.

When I got in Jon’s car, he was all, “Whoa, what’s that?” and I was all, “Don’t worry about it” as the port sloshed around when he drove over the speed bumps on my street. So then we got to the high school and I was straight slurping port from a ridiculous car show glass on fucking school property and Jon was freaking the fuck out, yelling at me about how I was going to get in so much trouble and I was like I DON’T GIVE A FUCK” and to be fair you guys, I probably really didn’t give a fuck. I was a fucking mess back then. (Haha, back then.)

Then Jon started yelling at me to get rid of it so I chucked it out the window. Just, bam—tossed it right out of the passenger window right as we pulled up to the school, and it shattered everywhere, taking shards of my sanity with it. And it felt SO FUCKING GOOD. Fuck you and your dumb car shows, “daddy”! Jon was like, “OH NO YOU DIDN’T” and I was just giggling gleefully.

(Sometimes I would tape over my dad’s mixtapes, too. OH YEAH, I DID THAT.)

****

Later that night, Lisa, Janna, Keri and her dumb ex-boyfriend Dan came over, along with Jon and Justin. I had continued drinking all evening so from what I was told and vaguely remember, they had to hold me up Weekend at Bernie’s-style, every time my aunt Sharon would stop over to “check” on things, usually under the ruse of, “I BROUGHT MORE POP IF YOU NEED IT!” And Keri and Janna would have to try to block her from coming all the way in and seeing her slobbering niece.

Dan used my drunken state to try and enter my porthole (oh!) but thank god Jon and Justin were there and quickly stopped me from becoming a limp sex doll. I remember Justin hauling Dan out of the house and saying, “YOU’RE DONE HERE” and then angrily driving him home. No one ever really liked Dan. Except for Keri, I guess. She wasn’t too thrilled with the events of that night.

I think this was the same night I tried to get everyone to work out to my Jackie Sorenson aerobics tape? Who knows. All I know is that I never drank port again.

****

During breakfast yesterday, I mentioned that our coffee mugs reminded me of our dad. They were big, chunky and the color of earth.

Corey noted that they had some for sale and I made some casual remark, something like “I should buy one for Dad,” but I didn’t. Now I kind of wish I had.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was very concerned with his unopened water bottle.

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

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

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

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

MENZINGERS

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

LAURA STEVENSON

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

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

THE FRONT BOTTOMS

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

BILLY BRAGG

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

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

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

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

TINY MOVING PARTS

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

LA DISPUTE

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

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

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

TEGAN AND SARA

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

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

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

 MINERAL

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

PATTI SMITH

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

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

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

Flashback Friday to when we went to Coachella in 2004 to see The Cure and it was 113 degrees all weekend (no joke), Henry put us up in a prostitute and feral cat-inhabited motel* in San Bernadino, and I had rage blackouts like you wouldn’t believe. But…I got to see The Cure.

Somehow, Henry and I are still together 10 years later and are about to see The Cure this Sunday in Chicago and I am absolutely bubbling over with giddiness!

*(I know, it’s amazing that I wasn’t down with this.)

I mentioned my love for the Game Show Network several times on this blog recently, but another thing I really loved about the invention of digital cable was all of the music channels! I’m not talking about MTV, et al, but the ones that are like radio stations for TV. You can listen to music while reading random facts about the music you’re listening to.

I mean, that’s how it works nowadays. But back then? It was literally a black screen. It didn’t even tell you the name of the song and the artist you were listening to! Shenanigans. (a/k/a Salem’s best bar.)

One day, this song came on the alternative channel and I was like, “EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND HEAR, I MEAN REALLY HEAR, THIS SONG.” And for once I wasn’t talking to my imaginary friends, because back then, I actually a ton of real life people who were always hanging around my loft. I had no idea who it was singing this haunting song; it didn’t sound like anything that was being played on the radio, which was odd because there was no real underground thing happening on these channels back then. It was seriously all bullshit you would hear on regular radio stations. But this song 100% was not being played on Pittsburgh’s alternative radio station.

I lunged over and hit “record” on my VCR, because this was pre-DVR days, my friends. I literally recorded a blank TV screen onto a VHS tape, just so I could later record that onto a cassette tape too. I was real tech-savvy in 1998.

Now that I had it recorded, I decided to call the local alternative station and do this: “If I play a song for you, can you tell me who sings it?” This worked once for me, when I first became transfixed and heart-eyed by Huffamoose’s hit single “Wait.” The DJ knew immediately who it was, flaunting his credentials and probably blowing on his finger tips as soon as he hung up the phone.

So I tried this tactic and the DJ was like, “I have no idea. Sorry.”

I waited for the next DJ’s shift and made the same call. Still no dice.

And I kept doing this for days until I exhausted all of my options. I was really big into videotaping every mundane thing I did back then, and I can tell you for a fact that I have legit video of my friends making these calls for me, too. One night, we just went around the room, taking turns calling the same DJ who fucking FLIPPED OUT finally and screamed, “I TOLD YOU I DON’T FUCKING KNOW WHO SINGS THIS STUPID SONG!”

You might say that this was the title track to Erin’s Summer of 1998.

I would play it over and over again in my car. I didn’t even care that the beginning was cut off. My friend Heather, who was basically living with me at the time, would subconsciously hum this song while half asleep on my couch. Some of my guy friends would threaten to pull the mix tape apart if I didn’t stop listening to it.

WE WERE ALL HAUNTED BY THIS FUCKING SONG. Friendships were ruined. Sanity was snapped. Local radio DJs were angered. That’s why I slept with so many guys that summer, Henry. It was the song making me do it. Really.

That fall, I met and began dating Jeff; even then I was still listening to The Song in the car, not as obsessively, but it was on several mix tapes. So this fucking song at some point had wormed its way into Jeff’s ears and set up camp in his brain, just as it had every sorry mother fucker that came to my apartment that summer. Flash forward to that spring, and we’re hanging out in my apartment (a different one at this point), and Jeff casually says, “Hey, that band you like was on [some late night show] last night.”

“Which band?” I asked, because hello. There are many.

“Guster,” he answered, and then looked confused when I said I didn’t know any band named Guster.

“Oh my god, are you fucking kidding me? You listen to that damn airport song all the fucking time!” he cried. And then it hit me. The airport song. The song I obsessed over that ended with the line “You’ll be selling books at the airport.”

Jeff unknowingly cracked the fucking code. And yet I still I fucking dumped him. Sorry, Jeff.

I went out and bought their CD immediately. But…I never actually became a Guster fan. I only just liked that one song. The fucking Airport Song. (That’s actually the name of it, too!”

So today, I am going to share this goddamn song with you, because it practically ruined my life and you should know that.

I recently posted this video on Heather’s Facebook wall and she was like, “Thanks. I hate you.”