I didn’t know it then, but I was about three weeks pregnant at the time of this trip. It was originally posted…ew, exactly 5 years ago. And this day will come up later in The Christina Chronicles.

***

I haven’t been to an amusement park since we attempted to run amok at Six Flags in Ohio two years ago, with disastrous results. See, I evidently became sick after two hours, leaving Henry no choice but to take me home. No, Henry’s no quitter — he tried everything in his power to get me to stay, tossing out suggestions such as: “Well, you don’t have to ride anything. I can ride by myself. Just sit on that bench over there and I’ll be back in a few hundred thousand hours” and the classic “Go in the bathroom and use your finger. Make yourself puke and then you’ll feel better.” What are you saying, Henry? Is this some sort of double entendre? Do you think I’m fat? Why do you really want me to throw up, Henry, so I can stay a few more hours and not make this a wasted trip, or so that last candy bar and plate of cheese fries don’t stick to my ass? So now what, you’re some sort of pageant mom? Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, if I turned bulimic. Then I could be an Olsen and make it easier for you to keep me locked in the closet. Oops, did I just say that? Now the world knows!

Now here’s the thing — I can’t remember if I really did get sick, or if I was just being bi-polarish and over dramatic and that’s why we left. In my mind, I can see myself roiling in pain, pressing back a torrent of vomit with shaking hands, but I have a habit of creating my own memories, in which I paint myself as a victim. I’m going to toss out an educated guess here and suggest that I probably wanted something and Henry said no and the day’s mood quickly soured from there, so I faked illness to get sympathy. On the ride home, I vaguely remember producing a slight fountain of pity waterworks while Henry white-knuckled the steering wheel and kept his eyes glued to the road. Between theatrical sniffles and staccato intakes of breath, I could hear the cash register in his head dinging as it calculated all the money we wasted that day.

However, there was a time right before that doomed trip where Henry’s kid Blake and I were the only patrons at a rickety mall parking-lot carnival. We bounded from one death trap to the next like Japanese beetles buzzing in the wind, not having to piss with any lines.

We both got really sick that day.

Now, these are the only two pieces of evidence I have to fall back on and exhibit A is pretty fucking distorted. Am I at that age where spinny rides have the ability to blast through my equilibrium and shackle my body with waves of nausea? Or were these just two very bad circumstances?

I find myself worrying about things that never occurred to me as a kid. What do I eat? Do I eat something light before I get there? Will coffee come back to bite me in the esophagus later in the day? Do I stick with familiar edibles of a doughy nature in order to absorb any future risk of gastric acid rising from centrifugal force? If I don’t eat at all, look out maelstrom! One thing is for sure — my Rolaids SoftChews will be tucked snugly into my pocket.

I worry about rides breaking and catapulting me to my grisly death. I hear nuts and bolts popping and clicking and my mind starts racing and making up premonitions that I can visualize behind closed eyes, and before I know it, the ride’s over and I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy it. These are the things that used to make me applaud as a kid, the element of fear that makes your blood buzz with exhilaration. I don’t feel that anymore. Relief–now there’s something I feel. With each and every ride I disembark without whiplash, hemorrhaging or sprained body parts, I’m flooded with relief and feel an overpowering urge to go to church. For real this time, is what I say to God in my head.

And my hair. What do I do with my hair? I want to wear one of my scarves because I’m so scene, but what if it blows off on a spinny ride? That’s a whole FOUR DOLLARS drifting off in the wind. I don’t like to wear my hair pulled back because it brings out neurotic smoothing motions every thirty seconds, much like a nervous tick. Don’t even get me started on fly-aways–I’ll produce a cold sweat. Flashbacks from days sporting more barrettes than a braided black girl as my mom attempted to keep each and every last stray tuft of my hair in place. My scalp tingles when I think of how some of those plastic barrettes held down sections of hair pulled much too taut–now that I’m an adult, I realize my mother did this on purpose. It was a form of “accidental” torture.

But if I wear my hair down? O-ho — knots ahoy!

What do I wear? This frantic compulsion stems from school picnics at our local amusement park, Kennywood. It was tradition to have a new outfit to wear so all the boys will notice you. Never mind that they didn’t notice you in a thirty-desk classroom. I remember my eighth grade apparel like it was yesterday. It came from Merrry-Go-Round and I looked like an extra in Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It” video–jean shorts with purple leather on the fronts of the legs, a black tank top with a purple mesh shirt over top. Oh, I was so fly. By the end of the night, that fucking shirt had more snags in it than the stockings on a hooker’s trunk-stuffed body.

I’ve been stressing over this all week. If I squeeze my eyes shut real tight, I can hear the cruel cadence of my step-dad’s chastising voice, reminding me that it’s not the fucking prom. Almost like holding a seashell up to my ear. Thanks, daddy.

Many moons ago, I was a young and spry youth with pigtails and Bandaid-adorned knees, skipping around Kennywood like I owned it, when a tragedy struck. A friend and I were exiting a ride equipped with swinging cars. As I stepped out, my friend took her hand away from the car, which had been holding it in place and keeping it from swinging. The car swung toward me and scraped the back of my ankle. I remember an eternity of travail, time stopping, voices sounding afar, and thinking, “This is it. I’ve lost my foot. Now I’ll have to get fitted with a club and all the kids at school will mock, ‘Hey let’s play croquet with Erin’s club foot!'” Cotton candy and funnel cake proved to be a sure-fire distraction and I eventually stopped hopping on one foot.

This is the part that stands out the most–when I went home that night, I couldn’t take off my sock. It was actually glued to my heel with blood. Each and every tiny tug and pull created a stinging sensation that traveled up to my thigh. I was so afraid to show my mom because I just knew she would take me to the hospital and the sorry doctor would shake his head and I could read his lips as they mouthed, “We need to take the foot.”

At the very least, my step-dad would want to pour peroxide over the wound which always made me feel as though I was being punished for getting hurt.

Vowing to keep my mutilation under wraps, I thrust my socked foot under warm running water in the bathtub, grimacing as it saturated my laceration, until I was finally able to slowly peel off the sock and watch rivulets of coagulated blood slide off my ankle and swirl around the drain.

I still remember the socks I was wearing that day.

As kids, we’re more resilient. What if something like this occurs on Saturday? What if the rusty steel from a thrill ride pierces and catches my skin and before anyone can save me, my flesh is being unraveled like a mummy. I’m no kid–I’m much higher off the ground now; I’m susceptible to much more damage. Chances of me breaking a bone are more likely than walking away with a sprain. I’m a walking accident! Call me on the phone and listen to how many times I murmur “Ow” as I walk from one room to another. I am fucking panicking here. I don’t want to get hurt! I don’t want the whole of King’s Island to see my blood!

If I die on Saturday, it better be from something cool, like a roller coaster jumping track and plummeting into a ravine. Not something anticlimactic, like me tripping over my feet and then getting run over by a tram.

There is an upside, however.

When Henry and I spend large amounts of time together in public, the tension grows and multiplies until eventually a thick fog of it is smothering us and testing our gag-reflexes. But this time, we won’t be alone — Christina and her sister Cynthia will be accompanying us and hopefully cutting through the bulk of that fog. Instead of fighting with Henry all day, I can mix it up between him and Christina. And of course, any innocent by-standers who cross my path.

Plus, maybe I can convince Christina to buy me a souvenir cup.

***

We left Saturday morning and drove through a consistent sheath of downpour, which led Henry to blabber on about how “if it’s raining like this when we get there, I am not wasting my money at King’s Island, I’m sorry.” And somewhere on a stretch of wet highway still within the boundaries of West Virginia, we had a shouting match about how he’s going to treat our pre-conceived baby (we love playing Hypotheticals) and I stamped my foot down hard and yelled, “Take me home!” at which point he laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes and I wanted to break his stupid glasses.

After many stops so he could drain his grizzled bladder, we finally made it to Christina’s house in Hamilton, neither of us maimed or sustaining any head trauma, amazingly (my limbs flail when I’m angry and trapped within the confines of a cramped Nissan Sentra).

I know many of you had been holding your breath all weekend long, wondering what I did with my hair and/or if I retched myself into clammy-handed oblivion on any rides at King’s Island.

1. I wore my hair down in hopes of starting a knotted and dreadlocked free-for-all. I tried to act blissfully unaware (I think maybe I did a not-so-good job) and only ran my fingers through it as a makeshift comb about forty times after each ride. And I only furtively smoothed down the mini afro of frizz atop my head all day long, but really—who’s counting? By the second hour, I purposely avoided any glimpses of myself in restroom mirrors.
2. I did not get sick; however, I brought home a lot of (free) souvenir bruises. No contusions, bless our fine Lord. What the hell — and his mommy, too.

While I would love to sit around the campfire with hot cocoa, recounting tales of all my favorite rides (Son of Beast was the most funnest you guys), all I can really remember amidst the whirlwind of clanging metal parts and side-stepping fresh gum in my path is one thing: checking for my period.

I came prepared. The arsenal of tampons was just short of being strapped to my body like dynamite—I had one waiting in each pocket of my cargo pants in addition to a surplus of “just in cases” in my purse. If I had worn boots, I would have tucked one or two in there, also…next to my switchblade. Which I don’t have yet, but someday. Someday.

“Check me! Do I have stainage?” These were my pleas to Henry, Christina and Cynthia every ten minutes while we were held hostage in one line after another. Oh, how I yearned to make fun of others in my proximity, but feared to in case Karma came back to paint a large blood target on my crotch.

I got lucky when we disembarked Flight of Fear, an indoor ride, as no one was around me. “Block me,” I whispered hoarsely to Christina as I leaned forward and spread the legs of my pants apart nice and wide, to inspect for wetness. Doing this while keeping a steady pace walking down a slanted corridor takes skills. Skills which I possess. I like to compare it to performing magic amidst a ring of fire.

But something good came out of my obsessive bathroom breaks–the highlight of my amusement park junket.

Picture it: You’ve just emerged from a stall with eyes raised to the Heavens (bathroom ceiling) above and are silently praising the Lord Almighty for no blood stains on your panties (if you’re a man, picture it anyway. It’ll help build character). As you’re washing your hands real good because this place is dirty (and if you had a more accelerated condition of OCD, you probably would be convulsing and foaming at the mouth by now), you start to panic as you wonder when your next chance will be to “check.” Everyone in your group groans as you drone on and on about your need to “check,” but you can’t shake the paranoia and obsessive need to make sure you’re not drizzling menstrual blood down your legs; the fabric of your cargo pants is thin and blood will seep right through in no time.

You slowly snake the paper towel around your wet hands, sopping up the water and looking at yourself in the mirror, wondering when you became so uptight about the small things. You contemplate telling Christina you want drugs (ask and she’ll do it) so you can relax and if you end up floating around town with curdled blood around your thighs, big deal; you’re too busy goo-goo’ing and ga-ga’ing at the giant unicorn smiling down at you from a cloud.

And then you start thinking about unicorn porn.

Wait, where were you? Bathroom, hands, drying. So, you turn to your left and casually pitch the paper towel into the large garbage can, when you happen to get a glimpse of something extraordinary. So extraordinary it snaps you back to the here and now. No more unicorn.

The bathroom stall directly in your line of vision is slightly ajar, with its occupant standing hunched over, jean shorts and white cotton underwear down around her knees. Before you even have a chance to scold yourself, your eyes slip down a few inches and that’s when you see it.

a  real life vagina.

You feel your friend Christina tugging on your arm and saying in a terse whisper, “Erin, let’s go. You’ve seen enough” but you can’t pull your eyes away from the hairy mound of flesh ten feet in front of you. Your body slightly lurches as you feel the giddiness building up and you’re ready to explode into a conniption of giggles. Christina steers you to the exit and you run and tell your friends what just happened, waving your hands like you’re approaching the climax of a jazz dance routine, and rubbing it in their astonished faces. “You don’t know what you just missed in there!” you say smugly, trying to catch your breath. You feel like you’re on a safari. Then you make them stand around, in the way of hundreds of fast-moving patrons and strollers, so you can point out the woman whose vagina you saw. They don’t really care but you make them wait anyway, and when she comes out of the restroom with her kids, you jump and point and they shrug and start walking away.

And that’s my big exciting highlight. It would have been cooler if she was being scalped or having her face painted at the same time I saw it, but what can you do.

My second favorite moment was eating at the Festhaus. I had pizza and fries, but not just any fries: Fries with a buffet of condiments. I derived great, some might even say ecstatic, amounts of pleasure by deliberating in which pool of sauce each fry would be taking a bath: would it be the succulent marriage of ketchup and mayo, the tiny basin of honey mustard, or the thick and rich vat of creamy nacho cheese? My companions had long since finished eating and sat around idly while I dined on one single fry after another. It was heaven.

Lately I’ve been really into dipping things.

We left around 10:00 that night so I could be back at Christina’s in order to bid on a spectacular piece of Cure memorabilia. In between spastic menstrual wonderment, fleeting thoughts of missing the Ebay auction would swim through my mind. I even carved a reminder on my inner wrist, imagining my pen was a box cutter and I was sacrificing my tainted blood in the name of Robert Smith.

“Why would you write it there?” Henry asked in a tone that would suggest I just pissed in the corner of a church (I would actually do that too).

“Because it’s the part of my body that I look at the most.” Sadly, I had to explain this to him because, evidently, after four years he hasn’t picked up on my morbid fascination with my veins. And my ribs. Ooh, shivers.

Most kids my age would be planning clandestine keggers while their parents were away, but me? I was ironing out the final details for my first real dinner party, and a vegetarian one at that.

It was going to be so perfect.

I was a senior in high school that September in 1996, and opted out of my family’s weekend trip to Tennessee. If you want to get technical, I think it was more that I just wasn’t invited because my step-dad and I hated each other. My mom didn’t really have a problem with me staying home, especially since her sister Sharon lived two houses up the street and we all knew that Sharon would be popping over in regular intervals of excess.

My dinner party was scheduled for that Friday night. I stayed home from school in order to get a head start on preparations, and by that I mean I was trying frantically to learn to cook.

  I had a few recipes torn out from Vegetarian Times and, aside from all the ingredients I couldn’t pronounce, it seemed like it was going to be a breeze.

Apparently, in the mid-90’s, being a vegetarian wasn’t the cool thing to do yet; I had a horribly difficult time finding nori flakes and tempeh, and truth be told, I didn’t even know what those things were. Most of my day was spent calling around to various markets, trying to not only locate these ingredients, but explain to the confused employees what it even was that I was asking for, and setting the dining room table with my mom’s good dishes. I was stressed. Harried. Frazzled. A good bit of the pumpkin puree for my soup was splayed across the backsplash like the arterial spray of a grisly gourd murder/suicide.

By the time Lisa arrived at  my house after school to take me on a wild nori flake chase, I was down-right furious with a tinge of self-pity, and on the verge of calling the whole thing off.

“It’s going to be a disaster,” I wailed to Lisa, slouched down in the passenger seat of her Jeep. “No one’s even going to eat this shit!”

But then we found the nori flakes and tempeh at some frou frou health food market in one of the yuppier parts of town, so I started to have hope again.

Lisa dropped me off and left to get ready. She was bringing a date with her to my dinner party. His name was Jon and he went to a local Catholic school. A mutual friend of ours had hooked them up and it was going to be their first date. Even more pressure for me to make a perfect dinner and tone down the crazy.

By 8:45, everyone had arrived. The guest list included: Janna, Keri and her boyfriend Dan, Sarah, Angie, Lisa and Jon.

Everyone sat around in the family room for social hour while I put the finishing touches on the pumpkin soup. I was still in panic-mode and unable to properly entertain everyone like I had wanted with trays of hors d’oeuvres, clove cigarettes and scantily-clad virgins performing parlor tricks. I felt bad that Jon, a perfect stranger, had found himself sitting in a rocking chair in some maniac girl’s house in the suburbs, waiting to eat a crap dinner made of pretentious faux-meat ingredients and inadequacy.

The entree, something called a Layered Tofu Supreme which I’m sure was actually just a glorified meatless lasagna, had finally been slid and slammed into the oven, and I was ready to start serving the soup. Everyone took their places around my family’s barely-used dining room table and stared at their small glass bowls with upturned lips and scrunched noses.

“That looks disgusting,” Keri scowled, creating persimmon peaks with her spoon.

“It’s just soup!” I yelled. “Made with pumpkin! It’s not disgusting, it’s fabulous.” I stamped around the table, firing my homemade croutons into everyone’s bowl, like angry torpedoes.

And the pumpkin soup was fabulous, much to my surprise. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be. But it was thick and rich and full of hayride-memories and cornstalk mazes, and well, pumpkin patches. It was the perfect starter for an autumn dinner.

Dan liked it so much, he ate Keri’s too. Her palate was clearly too pedestrian to handle such an elegant waltz with flavor.

It happened during the salad course.

While everyone picked around the tempeh strips and nori flakes in the “sea-sar” salad (which I actually really happened to enjoy, thank you), the phone rang.

It was  Sharon, and in true Sharon fashion, she sounded frantic.

“Did you see that car that just pulled into your driveway?” she asked, her voice strained with concern. I had in fact noticed headlights, but saw that the car had turned around just as quickly. “So, that wasn’t someone coming to your dinner?”

“No, it was probably just someone turning around,” my reply was packed with teenaged attitude. I was trying to host a dinner party, not talk to my aunt. Plus, every time the phone rang, I had hoped it was my true (and verboten) love Justin, and my heart would soar.

I hung up and returned to the table in hopes of coaxing  my guests to give my salad a chance. I found it to be quite delightful and couldn’t imagine why they were rejecting it..

“What exactly is tempeh?” Jon asked, spearing a strip with the tines of his fork and holding it up to the chandelier.

“You want a jeweler’s loupe for that?” I asked scornfully. Really, I had no idea what tempeh was, other than it was a bitch to procure and these ungrateful fuckers were going to eat it and like it.

The stacked tofu extravaganza was still baking in the oven, so I filled the gap between courses by breaking out a bottle of 1986 Sutter Home White Zinfandel I had been hoarding since I was seven. It was a Christmas gift from my cousin/godfather Chris, who had attached a tag that read, “For the girl who has everything.” And it was true. When I tell people about this, they usually say, “What a stupid gift.” But to me, that bottle represented my future. I kept it on my desk for years, and couldn’t wait until I was old enough to open it.

That late September night of 1996 seemed like the perfect occasion. It was my first taste at being an adult, having a real dinner with my friends that wasn’t served by a waitress at Denny’s. It was a glimpse at living on my own, away from parental supervision. It felt good. I felt proud, mature and sophisticated.

But then came the ensuing fuckarow of trying to open the wine bottle, which sent my feel-good coming-of-age moment straight down to Hell in a shit-and-tempeh-coated pipe. Jon was ready to break out the samurai sword until Dan finally ripped the cork from the neck of the bottle in eighteen crumbly pieces.

We had just toasted and were about to enjoy (or pretend to enjoy, considering the unrefined palates that usually come with teenagers) the Zinfandel from my mom’s wedding glasses when the phone rang again.

“That car was on the lane again!” Sharon shouted. “I stopped them this time.” (What was she doing, sitting on the street with night goggles? Probably.) She went on to say that she asked them what they were doing and they said they were looking for me. “I told them they don’t need to be going to your house, then I think I saw one of them in a bush!” Sharon added, filling me with a dread that I desperately did not need right then.

My family lives on a private lane. A little ways past my house were two more houses, and then a dead end.  People didn’t usually just drive up and down this street, and any time this happened it was alarming because there are some big houses on that street.

My house was surrounded by woods on two sides. It didn’t take much more than a creepy car casing my house to put me on edge.

I hung up and was explaining to everyone what Sharon had said, when the phone rang again. Everyone jumped, and then laughed. A male voice was on the other end.

“Hello, Erin,” he said. I still had hopes of hearing from Justin that night, but this wasn’t Justin.

“Who is this?” I asked, calmly at first.

“A friend,” he answered in a deep monotone that implied the absolute opposite of camaraderie.

“Who the fuck is this?!” I screamed, because there is no keeping calm and carrying on with Erin R. Kelly. And then, from the living room window, I saw headlights. A car was idling at the end of my driveway.

Phone still to my ear, camcorder dutifully recording in my other hand, I ran out of the house, shouting, “Who are you? What do you want?” while everyone else was trying to get me to come back inside and STFU.

“They could be dangerous!” Angie cried, tugging me back inside. Meanwhile, it turned out to just be one of my neighbors, pausing at their mailbox before continuing on down the lane. (They were previously privy to my crazy rep, so I’m sure they thought nothing of this latest public outburst at 120 Gillcrest.)

Still, the phone calls had been enough to encourage Jon to retrieve a tire iron from his car, and Dan was pacing around the house with a knife.

We all crowded back in the dining room. In all the commotion, I hadn’t heard the oven buzzer and the tofu crap souffle had all but burnt down the house. And then a dish towel went up in flames on the stove that I forgot to turn off. It was all too much, and I ran up to my room to pout, after hurling my camcorder into a corner. I mean, I’m naturally dramatic on regular nights, but throw in some mildly threatening phone calls and a failed salad course, and the crocodile tears and butt-hurting are out of control. Dan followed me to my room and took this as an opportunity to put the moves on me, which he was always trying to do every time Keri had her back turned. Yes Dan, there’s a maniac casing my house and prank-calling me, please fuck my fears away. I won’t tell Keri.

That only angered me more.

“My entree is ruined! No one liked the salad! My vanilla rice milk tastes like shit and Justin obviously isn’t going to come tonight!” I sobbed into my pillow.

And then the phone rang again.

“It’s them again!” Keri called up the steps.  I rejoined everyone in the dining room, with the plates of wilted salad and flutes of warm wine, and snatched the phone from Keri.

“Nice little dinner you’re having there,” the voice. “Is the wine any good?”

“Whoever it is can see us!” I hissed, hand covering the receiver. Dan and Jon picked up their weapons and went into the backyard. “What do you want?” I asked again, trying to think of who I had pissed off lately at school. This guy Damien had been acting weird toward me, and he knew about my dinner. I added him to my mental shit list.

“Your dog’s not really all that tough, you know,” the voice went on. “All I had to do was feed him some of my fries and we’re best buds now.”

I ran to the front porch to find my German Shepherd, Rama, smacking his lips next to an empty bag of McDonald’s fries. Great watchdog.

While I was on the phone with him, Sharon came screeching to a halt in my driveway. “Those fuckers drove past again,” she said, marching up to the house.

I waved the phone at her and whispered, “They’re on the phone right now.”

Yanking it from me, she started screaming into the receiver some spiel about this being private property. Then she paused and asked, “Are you threatening me?” Meanwhile, Jon and Dan were walking along the perimeter of the property, like they expected to see the culprits perched on a tree bough.

“I’m calling the police. This is ridiculous,” Keri muttered after Sharon hung up. So Keri was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher while Sharon told us that whoever she was talking to was somewhere watching us, because he knew we were all standing out in the driveway, and apparently at one point, he threatened to kill my sheep. (My family had pet sheep. Don’t judge.)

I went back in the house and stood in the kitchen next to Keri, who was still on the phone with the police. My private line rang and at this point, I was ready to murder a fool. In lieu of standard telephone salutations, I yelled “WHAT?” into the receiver.

“Mrs. Kelly? This is Sergeant Hanson from Pleasant Hills,” the man on the other end said. I felt like an asshole for yelling and quickly put on my sweet little girl voice.

“This is her daughter,” I said politely.

“I just wanted to inform you that we’ve been receiving reports from other residents on your street of potential burglars in the area. Whoever it is could be armed and dangerous, so you should remain inside and keep all the doors locked.”

I was just starting to explain to the officer that we had been receiving threats when it dawned on me that he had called my personal, unlisted phone number. Why would the cops call that number and not the main house line. BECAUSE IT WASN’T THE COPS AND I WAS A FUCKING IDIOT.

Just as I started to say, “Hey—wait!” the fake cop disconnected the call.  I was less creeped out and just really fucking pissed off at this point. Because the real police were on their way thanks to Keri, I had to pour all of my wine into the sink since I wasn’t sure if they would be coming inside the house, and if they would even take note that a bunch of underage kids were imbibing alcohol.

All that wine. All those years of dreaming of the moment I’d finally get to savor this gift from my cool godfather.

All down the fucking drain.

This was the impetus; this is what set me over the edge. I grabbed a cleaver and ran into the backyard, with Angie and Lisa trying to stop me. Everyone knew that if this was a real life horror movie, I’d be the first bitch to bite it.

And while I was out there, cutting the night sky with a cleaver, screaming threats to my hidden harassers, the real cops arrived. Sharon spoke with them first, out in the driveway, while I waited impatiently for my turn to speak.

They said they would search the area, that they would report back in a few hours.

That was pretty much the ultimate party foul, so everyone left after that, except for Keri, Dan and Janna, who decided to stay the night with me so I wouldn’t have to be alone.

I cried about it for awhile that night. The fact that my tofu entree had turned into an inedible brick of charred vegetarianism. That I never had the chance to prepare my baked apples for dessert. That I hadn’t succeeded in converting anyone to the meatless side of life.

“Hey, that pumpkin soup was really good,” Dan reminded me. It was really good. Somewhere in between the harassing phone calls, flaming dish towels and threats to slaughter my sheep, I had forgotten all about that damn soup.

And what a great first impression for Jon, this poor unsuspecting guy who was just being introduced to me. Somehow, he stuck around for the next five years. Every once in awhile he liked to remind me that I still had his tire iron.

“Oh look, Halloween 6 is on,” I said. And that’s how we ended that scary, Scream-esque night. Watching a goddamn movie where people get stabbed to death by a psychopathic stalker.

Big surprise, the cops never did follow up.

***

About a week later, the truth came out. It was Janna’s boyfriend Matt and one of his friends. Matt despised me back then, certain that I was getting Janna to do drugs and have recreational sex with bait shop owners. So he did all of that to scare Janna into leaving, because god forbid she was spending a night doing something without her crazy-possessive boyfriend.

And how did that work out for you, Matt?

He did eventually apologize, and asked how he could make it up to me. But all the wine in the world could have never replaced that one special bottle.

(l to r) Janna, Dan, Lisa, Sarah, Jon, Angie and dumb old me in the front.

There was a girl with whom I had a brief friendship in 1995.  Her name was Jessy and she was taken in by the family who lived at the end of the lane. The only thing we really had in common on the surface was that we were both sixteen, but there was an easy comfort when I was with her, and a lot of the times I was sneaking out to go down to her house because I just couldn’t be around my parents anymore. I have vivid memories of dyeing Easter eggs in her kitchen and going to the mall to  buy 2Pac’s “All Eyez on Me” and a pair of purple pants from Contempo that were dangerously close to being bell bottoms.I have no idea what I was thinking.

Then one day she was gone and I never knew why. She wasn’t in school anymore, wasn’t in the house at the end of the lane anymore.

I’m not sure what made me look for her on Facebook, but I found her a few months ago. I sent a friend request with a message that started with, “You probably don’t remember me, but…” I never think anyone remembers me; that’s my inferiority complex rearing it’s gnarly head, I guess.

But she did remember me, and so we started messaging each other. Then we started texting. It took a few months and a lot of rescheduling, but we finally met up last Sunday for lunch at Panera.

She was exactly as I remembered. There is something about her, something very nurturing and maternal, that makes my walls come down. I found that I could speak freely with her, and was admitting things about myself that I would never be so quick to share. Especially with someone I hadn’t seen in fourteen years! I wasn’t even speaking with a stutter, which I often do when hanging out with someone new. But then, I associated calmness with her, because she was sort of my refuge for awhile there when things were bad at home. I’ll never forget that.

“Are you still really clumsy?” she asked. I laughed, but inside, I was really happy that she remembered that about me.

She brought a present with her. She’s been reading my blog (which is the #1 most awesome thing someone can do to prove they give a shit about me!) and picked up on my obsession with my cat Marcy. She found a cutting board that has a Marcy-esque cat on it. It’s the cutest thing!

“Henry can use it,” she laughed, knowing that I don’t cook.

Before we knew it, our Panera lunch  had crept into dinner territory.

I had hoped that this wouldn’t be one of those one-time deals, that we’d make empty promises to hang out again, only to gradually drift apart.

But then she invited me over on Saturday to swim with her and her friend Pixie. I have this phobia where I feel that my friends are embarrassed to have their other friends meet me (Alisha knows!) so right away I was like, “OMG I’m a cool kid now!”

I almost didn’t make it. I didn’t have a bathing suit, and was having the worst time finding a one-piece. The middle of July is a fantastic time to shop for swim wear. I was sending her all of these “I’M GOING TO KILL MYSELF FUCK MY LIFE TODAY SUCKS” texts but she kept coming back with words of reason, plan b’s and c’s and z’s, until finally I calmed down and found something that wasn’t meant for grandmas.

Henry dropped me off at her house, happy that I had a play date that didn’t involve him. And I ended up having a great afternoon in a pool with two cool girls who didn’t make me feel lame or left out. (That is, after I walked into Jessy’s house and promptly tripped going into the living room. And I also entered the pool by basically stumbling and falling off the ladder.) And it turns out her friend Pixie likes A LOT of the same bands as me, like Pierce the Veil, Emarosa and Chiodos. I almost drowned.

When Henry came back to get me, we all stood in the yard and talked while Jessy’s husband Tommy antagonized Chooch. Chooch LOVES IT when grown-ups play with him. LOVES IT.

“You’re family now, babe,” Jessy said, hugging me before I left.

The whole way home, I talked a mile a minute to Henry, like I had just come home from summer camp with eighteen new friends.

Sunday morning, Chooch was like, “I want to go to your friend’s house again and play with her dogs.” And so Henry, Chooch and I spent most of Sunday with Jessy and Tommy at their house and it was pretty much amazing. Henry and I don’t have couple friends! And now he and Tommy are talking about going FISHING together! I can only imagine how much fodder that will give me for Henry’s fake LiveJournal!

Best of all, it was nice to see my kid have so much fun. Tommy rode him around on his quad and set off firecrackers for him. And Jessy and I only nearly let him drown in the pool twice.

Tommy and Chooch, bonding over explosives. (I didn’t bring my camera, because I’m a dummy. iPhone pics for the loss.)

Tommy and Jessy are so fun and welcoming. Apparently, there are plans to put me in a CANOE. If you know me at all, right about now you’re like, “Oh, good luck.”

P1010028, originally uploaded by appledale.

My friend Mose came over Saturday night to drink wine and be a porch-sitter with me. Somehow the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast came up in conversation and I felt inspired to go back and look at the pictures from when Henry took me there for my birthday. I think it was in 2003. So now we know that 2003 was the last good birthday I had.

Anyway, he and I were the only guests that night in July, aside from this really goofy guy named Mike who was house-sitting for the summer. I remember being beyond scared to the point of barely sleeping, and then cracking my thigh on the underside of the super-low dining room table the next morning over a breakfast of jonny cakes. Scared and bruised, that is my summation.

This is a picture of me and my big arms, sitting on Lizzie’s parent’s bed, writing a very un-ironic postcard to my death row pen pal, Greg. “Hey Greg, I’m in a house of murder. IS THIS WHAT YOUR HOUSE FEELS LIKE!?”

I would like to go back there someday.

The thing that made Henry angry about my inaugural lesbian dalliance wasn’t the fact that Christina and I, you know, DIDSTUFF (I’m still awkward as an eighth grader when it comes to this girlie shit, but if it was a dude I was writing about, I’d have no qualms telling you all about that), but that she and I literally slept together. I suppose if she was some Mexican whore that I discarded by the train tracks upon conquering, he would have felt better about it. But no, she and I had slept together in her bed and Papa Henry was a little jerked off by that. Oh, and also he maybe had a slight issue with the fact that she went and got a tattoo to commemorate our weird friendship.

So it was a little awkward and tense when she came here to Pittsburgh a few weeks later.

She arrived early on a Friday morning in April. It was still dark when I picked her up from the Greyhound station after dropping Henry off at work. He had spent the entire car ride expressing his malcontent for the upcoming weekend, but I ignored him because I’m selfish and spending time with Christina made me happy.

Later that afternoon, Henry called, bitching that I never came to pick him up from work. “I’ve been trying to call you all fucking day,” he said angrily. “But the phone has been busy!” This was back when we still had a landline, and the phone was definitely hung up all day. In fact, the later it became in the day, the more worried I became. I kept checking the phone, wondering why Henry hadn’t called yet.

Of course, in Henry’s mind, this meant that I had purposely left the phone off the hook so Christina and I could have sex all over the house, probably with 17 wigged strangers and a horse.

He didn’t believe me, probably still doesn’t, but she and I honest to god watched music videos on On Demand all day, and I even read aloud from my vacation journals while we drank coffee outside on my sidewalk. Seriously, we didn’t need to be running around with studded strap-ons to be entertained by each other. It wasn’t about that for us, though I’m sure Henry imagined it was all “Cue porn soundtrack!” every time we were alone. But no, there was definitely innocence there between us. We were just two little girls, giggling a lot, being stupid.

We always kept it platonic when she’d visit. I’d have felt weird DOINGSTUFF with her in my house, and didn’t want Henry to have to feel weird about it too. I mean, somewhere inside of me, there actually is a little tiny atom-sized pocket of respect for the man.

I can’t imagine how annoying it must have been for Henry though. She and I had a language that consisted solely of strangulated giggles, sighs, and choking motions from laughter gone wild. Everything was an inside joke, a knowing glance, a secret smirk.

In fact, he and I just spoke about this and he said, “Of course I wasn’t happy that weekend; I don’t trust you.” I suggested he should just leave that as a comment on this entry, but he mumbled, “No. I don’t want any involvement in this. I’ve already had enough of it.” That’s real talk, straight from Henry’s mouth.

***

Henry had to work that Saturday, and we arranged for me to pick him up when I was done with my English Comp class at Pitt that afternoon. Christina decided she didn’t want to wait at my house, so she hung around on campus while I was sitting through tedious discussions of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” I had explicitly told her what time to meet back outside my classroom, but when class got out, she was nowhere to be found. I roamed around the Cathedral of Learning for nearly an hour looking for her, before giving up and sitting on a bench outside of my classroom. It turned out the idiot forgot to set her watch ahead and thought she had way more time than she actually did.

So once again, I was obscenely late picking up Henry from work and the wheels of adultery were surely spinning wildly in his head. No Henry, we weren’t having sex with mop handles in the campus supply closet, I promise.

This was probably the Universe’s way of saying, “Hey, kid. The jig is up. You can’t handle this new lifestyle, so please hand over your dual citizenship to Sexkatchewan and have yourself a nice heterosexual day.”

In spite of the tension and lack of trust on Henry’s end, it was still one of the most gut-bustingly hilarious weekends I had with her, or anyone. Everything was always funny when she was around. Everything. I miss laughing until I’m nearly puking. I miss finding meaning in a blue marble and sharing a root beer float. I miss being a part of something that must have appeared so strange and unusual to anyone attempting to figure us out; it must have been like looking through fun house mirrors.

It’s important for me to remember these brief moments in time, because I don’t want to be full of hatred for her, and sometimes as I’m writing these stories, I feel that I’m letting my anger take over, that I’m starting to be biased based on the recent falling out. There were so many beautiful memories from back then, when she was still Christina and I was still Erin and we were strong enough to not let the words and actions of other people come between us. So to keep true to the story, I’m going to end this with something I wrote after she left that weekend, and if you can, imagine me telling it to you in a voice high-pitched and sped-up with giddy delirium, because that’s pretty much the tone I always used back then when she and I were together. It’s the tone I use when I’m so happy I could die.

***

Last week, when I asked Henry if he was excited that Christina was coming to hang out, he unfalteringly shook his head and said, “No, you guys act so middle school and weird when you’re together.” I was appalled and determined to show him that Christina and I were adults who acted in a very mature manner when in each others company.

Typically, when an out of state friend comes to visit, people like to show them around the city. Have a good time, see a show, be touristy, throw down a few dead prezzes for a hooker. Not me, though.

The weekend with Christina was spent watching quality TV, such as Charles and Camilla’s wedding, music videos on On Demand (the same ones repeatedly, much to Henry’s delight), the Eternal Word Television Network, and golf. I love golf now. And not just as a joke like before. I even joined Phil Mickelson’s fan club and within five minutes of getting my member confirmation email, I was already defending his name on his message board. Some idiot had the audacity to go in there and say that he heard Phil had sired an illegitimate child with a prostitute. Can you imagine? This was unacceptable, so I knew I had to take action. My reply was “STFU.” That’s right. Christina said she was uncertain if golf fans knew what that meant, but I’m confident that they’ll figure it out.

Unfortunately, when you pair us up, Henry’s correct in that we regress into two middle school girls and our giggling drives him right into the arms of Migraine. We all went out to eat Saturday night and he actually had the brass to grab my arm and admonish me for being immature and obnoxious. I know, I know – me, obnoxious? Henry’s got the wrong girl, obviously. Then he told me to stop fake laughing. Excuse me, but fake laughing? I engaged in no such thing. I was really just that out of control.

Sunday, we took a breather from watching bad television programming because it was getting completely ridiculous. I should have deduced this Saturday morning when I almost herniated a disk because some man reporting from Windsor Castle was wearing a tie with tiny blue dots on it. That’s not funny and I had no right to laugh. Except I did and then Christina fed off it and we couldn’t stop laughing and slapping each other and I nearly swallowed my tongue.

So, it was obvious on Sunday that we needed to get out of the house, plus Christina and I wanted to take our show on the road. Henry piled us into the car and we went to the Homewood Cemetery. I love going on Sundays because there’s always a bunch of Chinese people there and they like, have bonfires and stuff (although Henry maintains that they’re just burning incense).

We arrived and I was already bolting out of the car before it even came to a complete stop. Almost immediately, I unearthed a huge tree branch and started parading around with it. Christina decided that we should pretend like we were honoring the Pope, but that we needed a flag at the end to make it complete. We begged Henry to give us his bandanna but he held his ground. He was trying to be all firm and hard core, until we walked past a man with his little daughter near the pond. The man nodded at Henry, who demurely returned his sentiments with a feminine “Hi.” I think he blushed, too. So the next three minutes was spent carrying on about Henry’s new boyfriend, until I found a pile of leaves to trample over.

I left Henry and Christina for awhile because there was a path leading up a hill that was just begging for my feet to touch it. It felt empowering being so high above them on a parallel road. Henry was OK with me straying until I threw a huge rock down the hill at them and let loose my warrior cry. Henry snapped his head up to look at me and hissed, “Be quiet!” while pointing at the Chinese people who were honoring the dead.

Hanging back a bit, I let the two of them round a bend before I made my way stealthily back down the hill, stopping halfway to crouch behind a bush. Every so often, they would stop walking and look up the hill, scratching their heads when they couldn’t find me.

Christina told me later that she had mused out loud, “I bet she’s going to try and hide from us” and Henry, without so much as a glance over his shoulder, quickly informed her that, “She’s right over there.” How does he do it?

I knew I had been spotted so I ran the rest of the way down the hill and fell into place with them. I asked Henry how he knew I was hiding.

“How are you going to try to hide in a cemetery while you’re wearing a bright orange shirt?”

Lots of gravestone heckling ensued and we kept catching Henry trying to pick up his pace. He succeeded in losing us for awhile when we became sidetracked by the cemetery office. I was running around trying to find an unlocked door, despite Henry impatiently reminding me that it’s Sunday and there’s no one there. I had to find out for myself so I started to ring the doorbell while playing with cigarette butts in the big flower planter. I could hear Henry in the distance spouting off about how I shouldn’t touch cigarette butts because they’re dirty.

No one answered so Christina came with me around the back to search for another way in where we became sidetracked by big rusty gardening tools. I was enamored with one that looked like a sickle and she was appropriately fiddling with a hoe or something. We were going to have a sword fight until I noticed that civilians were watching us from the street. We threw down the tools and ran, which was when we realized that Henry had gained a great distance on us.

We knew that he was embittered with our childish antics, so we each procured a bunch of wilted Easter flowers that had been plucked and thrown carelessly from a grave. We presented him with the flowers and he swatted our offerings away! Ingrate.

On the way back to the car, we passed a tombstone that boasted Christina’s last name. I exclaimed in horror, “Oh my god, you’re dead!”

“So are you!” she countered, as she pointed to one further over that said, “McWhiney.” Oh, ok. I see. Henry thought this was incredibly hilarious until Christina pointed out one across the road and said, “Look, you’re here, too Henry! ‘Meanor’!”

Then we came home and watched the final round of the Masters and I gave myself a sore throat from cheering with too much zeal.

And when we returned from taking Christina to the bus station, the house was filled with silence. It was sad, but I bet my neighbors are thankful.

I tried to watch our favorite From First To Last video this morning, but it just wasn’t the same. I didn’t have anyone to punch and squeal with during our favorite parts. I miss her.

A green and black striped Henley and jeans with a hole in the knee was what I wore right before I lost my girl virginity.

It was about a week after I leaked my secret to Christina, and we were sitting nervously together on her bed; she was more in the middle, I was perched on the edge. The Used was playing in the background. I let her giggle anxiously for a few minutes before I, always the predator, went in for the kill. It wasn’t as scary as I thought. Sort of soft. A stark contrast when compared to Henry’s bristly mug.

We had discussed this very scenario ad nauseum over the span of about 35,000 phone calls and emails, all of which ended with me emphatically stating that we were only going to kiss, nothing else.

But after about five minutes, my inner hussy emerged and was all, “Yeah go ahead, just do whatever.” All of my preconceptions, hang-ups (and standards, apparently) had blown out the window with one big gust from Christina’s duck lips. You know, maybe it’s crazy, but I kind of liked it. She treated me like I was some perfect being and I have never actually been able to see tangible love (or burning obsession, it’s all semantics) in someone’s eyes before, like I could in hers. It was addicting, knowing I had this crazy effect on someone.

The rest of the weekend was filled with delirious giddiness, stolen kisses, goosebumped arms, and nonsensical inside jokes. It was one of the best weekends of my life, because with Christina, I was thirteen again. I could say anything I wanted to say around her, do anything I wanted, be anyone I wanted – like, for instance, myself. She had somehow tore down every one of my walls when I wasn’t looking, and to this day Henry is the only other person who has done that.

So I found myself valuing her even more; that I was able to quite literally strip down and still find myself comfortable with her?

It was a really big deal to me.

We could spend hours just listening to music, no need for words. And when certain parts would come on, we would look at each other knowingly.

**

When I was in seventh grade, my friend Liz invited me to take acting classes with her. One of the exercises we had to do was pair up with someone and attempt to mime their motions with closed eyes. I guess the point was that you were supposed to open yourself up and feel that slight electric connection that apparently is meant to happen when two people are just about to touch.

I couldn’t feel it.

“Stop thinking about it too much,” the instructor said. “Just let yourself go.”

Liz and I were bombing the exercise so I had to cheat and peek to see where her hand was so I could follow it with my own. I was so upset that night, that I wasn’t able to connect with my partner like everyone else could. I felt there was something wrong with me. Was I that emotionally shut off that I couldn’t even sense that another human being, and not even a stranger but a friend, was standing inches away from me?

Ten years later, I finally was able to let myself go and feel that connection.  I could close my eyes and feel Christina. Sometimes I felt that I could feel her even with 300 miles between us.

**

Christina took me to a cemetery that weekend, this huge sprawling graveyard in Cincinnati where we got lost almost immediately after parking. We must have spent hours there, harassing ducks, kicking tombstones, me spitting “I hate you!“s, which is Erin code for “I might kinda love you, maybe.

” We held hands the whole time. Everything was funny. Everything was special. Everything was big and important and significant. It felt simultaneously innocent and wrong.

I remember an older couple passing us, and for a split second I wanted to let go of her hand. But then they smiled at us and it kind of made me appreciate the day even more.

Somewhere in the middle of the cemetery, we came across this small, gnarled, leafless tree. To anyone else, it would have been just that – a tree. But to us, all hyped up on lust-induced adrenaline, sleep-deprived giddiness, and the sense of sharing some big secret love-thing, it became a very big deal.

With feigned gravity, we declared that this tree needed a closer inspection. We ducked beneath the boughs, which took on the shape of a busted umbrella above our heads; we were just about to make it our new Clubhouse for Gaybos when Christina noticed that there was a dead snake half-buried under a carpet of dead leaves and pine cones. And then – oh, look! –  there was a dead bird, too, so we ran out from under the tree, screaming and waving our hands in mock-horror. This should not have been that big of a deal. But for years, that tree came up in conversation. She wrote poems about it; I had it make tiny cameo appearances in some of my stories through the years. Once, we even tried to find it again, before realizing that there were at least fifty other trees in that cemetery with the same bare, arthritic branches.

When it was time for me to leave that Sunday afternoon, we said goodbye in her kitchen and she cried. I couldn’t get her to stop, and I couldn’t stay any longer, so I just left her there, crying against her kitchen counter.

Yes, everything was great that weekend. Like a fucking Twinkie filled with stuff that movies are made of.  If anyone would have suggested to me then that in five years, my friendship with Christina would be splayed, broken-hearted and decomposing beneath the Death Tree, I would have punched them in the face.

I wish I could have put it all in a snow globe, because I know I will never get that back again.

After yesterday’s heavy entry, I wanted to lighten the mood a little, so here’s that stupid video I kept threatening to post of Corey, Janna, Blake and me on some ridiculous ride at the Westmoreland County Fair called High Roller.This is from two summers ago. I know that because last summer, Blake brought Deanna with him and was too cool (and busy playing Bingo with the elderly) to ride anything with us lowlifes!

I just want to add that I am always the first to get annoyed at people who find themselves in front of  a camera, seemingly for the first time ever, and immediately flip the bird or do something else equally as stupid and trite. It’s almost embarrassing to look at. So what do I do? Act like this is the first time I’ve been in front of a camera! “Oh, you’re recording right now? Let me stick out my tongue and make a stupid sound for you, because everyone will think, ‘Wow, that was really cool and funny – why have I not ever thought to pull a face like that?'”

I have to live with myself. Be glad you don’t.

Also, I clearly just learnededed how to do annotations on YouTube videos; oh I am so advanced!

Typical Friday night. Sitting on the couch, reading excerpts from an old journal to Henry. Really awesome tidbits about how suicidal I was (I ended one entry with: “Don’t be surprised when I check myself out someday” and another was about how I kept imagining jamming a shard of glass in my neck. LOLWTF.) & how bad I hated Henry. Things I can’t put in here or else my intricately woven façade will be tattered!

“What month is this from?” Henry asked in horror after listening to me read a particularly sordid entry filled with hate, mania and Girl, Interrupted nuances.

“July of 2005,” I answered, wiping away tears that sprung from laughing so hard.

“Um, and we conceived a child a month later?” he exclaimed. “I wish you would have read this to me first.”

Yes Chooch, you were conceived from strong uncertainty, hate sex, and my desire to slaughter your father while he slept. But don’t worry, I was in therapy while I was growing you!

In my “serious research” for The Christina Chronicles, I’ve made it to the journal containing a good portion of 2005. Jesus Christ, I was a mess! Even messier than I am now, which is really saying something and I admit that I took a moment out of my day to feel utterly sorry for 2005 Erin.

It’s interesting to look back on the state of my relationship with Henry and wonder how the hell we’ve made it to the point where we have a four-year-old son when it was apparently such a big deal if we got along that I would preface journal entries with all-capped ovations of WE DIDN’T FIGHT TODAY!!!!

Anyway, the point of this is that I wrote one night in February, Henry was thoroughly engrossed in a game of Ghost Recon (I AM SO GLAD HE DOESN’T PLAY THOSE STUPID GAMES ANYMORE!), when my cat Don approached him and cried.

Without taking his eyes from the TV, Henry replied, “Oh yeah?

And did that happen yesterday or today?”

Then he realized I was in the room and tried to deny it, because Henry big man! Henry no speak to animals!

Interestingly, I was always flat-out ignored if I had the audacity to speak to the Gaming Master.

(Ed.Note: He still makes these same faces when we’re together. I miss the days when he had no choice but to sit with me.]

[Originally posted September 2006]

Two and a half years. That’s how long it had been since I was last sick. Two and a half years. So it came as no surprise when I developed a cold the night before the baptism. Pair that with the fact that Brian waited until the eleventh hour to suggest that we just do the luncheon at his place (because he was too scared of my wrath to just come out and say that he failed at securing a room in the church), and you have yourself a Very Erin Baptism.

Figuring that most of the guests wouldn’t be willing to drive from the church to downtown, where Brian lives, I decided to just have the luncheon here, in my cluttered house. Which meant that Henry spent Saturday night and Sunday morning cleaning. He tried to use that as an excuse to bail on me, claiming that it would be more conducive if he stayed behind and cleaned some more. After inspecting the house, I realized that there was nothing left to be done, short of polishing the silverware and waxing the doorknobs, so I snapped my fingers and he reluctantly donned his I’m Playing Dress Up attire. After securing Riley into his slippery baptismal garments, we were ready to go.

Everyone arrived at the church on time, even Christy, who has tardiness ingrained in her nature. I was glad to see that she was already there, because she’s the godmother. And it’s important for the godparents to be at the church.

Once inside the church, the first thing that happened was Brian rushing up to me and giving me a huge, hearty hug as if this was common practice within our friendship. For the record, it is not. Wow, Church Brian is different than Street Brian, I mused to myself.

I was too busy willing my nose not to drip to pay much attention to the guests preceding the ceremony, which I feel bad about now. Except that I don’t feel bad for ignoring Janna, who flitted around me like a fucking fairy, telling me all about the trials and tribulations she endured when baking cookies for the luncheon. I think she might have expected a pat on the back, but I was like, “Bitch, I told you to just make chocolate chip cookies, not scour the Food Network website for the most ambitious recipe you could find.”

She repeatedly worried out loud that no one would like her cookies. “Do you think my cookies will be good enough?” she’d ask. I don’t know Janna, can my kid get dunked in water first? I delegated video camera duties to her, so that arrested her mind for awhile and gave me some peace and quiet.

In a happy turn of events, two members of my family showed up: my aunt Charmaine and Grandma Lois, on my birth dad’s side. That made me less embarrassed about the fact that my other family blew it off like it was simply a communal trip to the grocery store. Even my brother Corey let me down, but that’s OK — now I won’t have to go to his high school graduation. (Oh that’s right, I play those games.) I was happy to see that Christy’s parents were there, along with Janna, Brenna, Kara, Lisa, Carol, and Christy’s boyfriend Andrew. And of course Brian, the godfather and resident churchy person.

The cold medicine which I had coursing through my system made me oblivious to the fact that I was standing near an altar. Trying to dab my nose with discretion also helped keep me from erupting into giggles every time the priest spoke. Most importantly, I didn’t do anything stupid or childish.

I was chagrined, however, to learn that I would have to speak out loud from a baptism guide book. It was your basic “I do”s and “Amen”s, but still. That made my skin crawl a little, and it was hard to keep a straight face as I realized that Henry was intentionally not participating in his speaking role. He busied himself with the squirming Riley, so I don’t think anyone noticed that his lips were not, in fact, moving.

I spent a large portion of the ceremony flipping ahead in the booklet to see how much more speaking I’d have to partake in. I’m sure I appeared to be very grateful and pious.

At one point, Riley arched his back so extremely that I felt like if someone would have slid a set of stairs underneath him, he could have recreated the deleted scene in The Exorcist. That would have been a good time.

The priest, who was quite the card, anointed Riley’s head with some scented oil crap. He then closed his eyes and said, rather dramatically, “Oh yes, that does smell wonderful” and he encouraged Henry to take a whiff of Riley’s head, but Henry was still being a spoiled sport and ignored the suggestion. I, on the other hand, had a dire need to know what it smelled like, so I announced to the church, “Well, I want to smell!” and made a show of sniffing my kid’s head like I was a dog. I don’t know why I made such a scene of it; I could barely smell anything through all the sick in my nose.

God, I must have been so attractive, standing up there with red, sore nostrils, clutching a wilted Kleenex. When I looked in the mirror before we left for the church, I swear I looked semi-decent. Then it all unraveled in the car on the way to the church and I look like Throw Mama From the Train in every picture that was so rudely snapped of me, like the only thing that’s keeping me from looking like a true Cyclops is that I have an extra eye. I somehow managed to appear pregnant all over again. Sick or not, I’m just not photogenic and you would think that after twenty-seven years of scratching out my face with a Sharpie, I’d have come to terms with this.

But no, no I haven’t. It still makes me want to rip my face off.

After about twenty minutes, Riley was officially baptized and I hastily ran away from the altar so I could blow my nose. I don’t even think I thanked the priest. Now I kind of feel shitty about that. But no, not really. Not at all.

Back at my house, everyone lavished my kid with exorbitant attention (except for Brenna, who doesn’t like kids, and Janna, who was too busy staking out the perfect spot for her cookies) and he was in his glory. He cruised around the house in his Tot Rider, showing off for all who would cast a glance his way, until Christy’s dad decided that the only way he’d stay for the luncheon and enjoy himself without faking was if I turned on the football game.

So my son was soon forgotten and the baptismal luncheon quickly morphed into a football party, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that everyone was there and staying. Every time someone would approach me at the food table, I’d desperately cry out, “You’re not leaving, are you!?” Turns out they were coming to the food table to, you know, get food. I don’t get much company.

Lest anyone get too godly, Marcy came out of hiding and skulked around under a cloud of Satanism, seducing hands to pet her so she could suckle the blood that her claws were sure to draw. I could hear Christy in the other room, begging her dad not to touch Marcy.

“Daddy please don’t touch her! I tried to tell Ma once and she didn’t listen and that cat attacked her!” She usually punctuates her pleas by holding her hand against her chest, like a mom does when her child is about to fall off the monkey bars. Christy is the head of the Put Marcy Down Coalition. They have history, those two.

I dare say that Marcy was able to eclipse the football game, if only for a few minutes.

My Grandma Lois was happy to get an opportunity to give Riley a bottle. He started coughing at one point, and with a mouthful of cake, I feigned concern. “Oh. No. My son is choking. I hope he is OK.” I even craned my neck slightly in an effort to look like I cared. Then Henry called me out. “You don’t care about him; you just want to know if you have to stop eating or not.”

Come on, I was eating cake! I don’t know many people who are inclined to forsake a piece of cake in order to save a choking victim.

Did I mention that Janna made cookies?

I started to regret asking Janna to make the cookies in the first place.

Every time I’d see her talking to someone at the luncheon, I imagined she was filling their head with her stories of being a broken woman forced to bake cookies.

“Do you like those lemon cookies? Yeah? Did you know that it took me five billion hours to make those? Well it did. I even went to Egypt and excavated the jaw of a Pharaoh which I then used to grate the lemon rind to perfection. And the cinnamon on those Snickerdoodles you’re enjoying? It’s actually directly from a cinnamon fern in Asia, and it is very helpful with diarrhea.”

It would figure that Janna would be the last to leave, and she was still expelling sour air over her fucking baked goods. She wound up with a few leftovers to take home. I feel bad for her parents.

Riley was in a sound sleep in his crib by the time I realized that I had forgotten to take a picture of him with his newly appointed godparents, so a cute bottle of Mountain Dew served as a stand-in.

All in all, it was a good day. We laughed a lot and my kid was loved on a lot and he made me proud by being such a good sport about the whole manhandling by a priest situation. And that church was really pretty, too. I’m glad I let my aesthetic disposition prevent me from using the church across the street. Because that one is very plain. And you know, looks matter.

Ever since I got pregnant, I knew I would have the baby baptized, for the obvious reasons:

1. Babies dressed in uncomfortable garb while squirming under a deluge of water should be a spectator sport
2. The party afterward = food
3. Finally, a legitimate excuse to have Riley dunked (provided the church I choose goes that route)!

And also maybe I have some personal reasons as well, but getting into that would be bo-oooo-ring.

Henry, on the other hand, is quite opposed to this and has voiced several times that he doesn’t care what I decide to do, but not to expect him to support me. As a non-practicing Catholic, he said he’d feel like a hypocrite. Why? I don’t.

Surprisingly, this hasn’t sparked many blow-outs with us. If it were political, I’d have undoubtedly broken his glasses (again) with my right hook.

After discussing the situation with the priest across the street, he signed me up for the baptism class and recommended that I bring one of the godparents, since the class was going to be full of couples and I’d likely feel uncomfortable.

Wait, what? I had to go to a class? You mean I couldn’t just march the kid into a church and have a priest plop him into a fountain?

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. I didn’t even want to go! Because really, church and me? Seriously? I would rather be pooped on by Henry’s gross ex-wife. But getting the baby baptized is surprisingly important to me, and I knew that by attending this class, I was proving that I was serious.

After spending two weeks moping around the house with a heavy bottom lip, I scored myself a side-kick for the class in the form of our very own Hoover. He was quick to reiterate that he was still not on board with the baptism, though.

At noon on Sunday, we slid into the second pew from the front of the baptism classroom and watched as the teacher–Cindy–began rustling through papers, making her last minute preparations. I immediately felt an urgent desire to laugh.

I’m one of those Inappropriate Laughers. I’ll erupt at a moment’s notice in the most solemn of places: churches, funeral homes, abortion clinics. I know I’m not alone in this, either. Henry gave me a toothpick to jab into my thigh to quell the giggles, although he first offered to do it himself.

The silence was stifling. I didn’t know where to lay my eyes. I kept staring at the pattern on Cindy’s dress, but she caught me a few times and I have a feeling she thought I was a lesbian and Henry was my skirt. Better than thinking, “Ew, that doofus sired her son? Poor baby.”

I wondered what the class would be like. I imagined there would be some Holy water flicking and maybe one of the couples would be a dear and come bearing homemade cookies. Simulated baby dunking, if we were lucky. But I would quickly find out that baptism class was really just a facade for Cindy to spend an hour beating into our heads just how fantastically in tune with Christianity her daughter is and how her son has a remarkably high IQ.

I picked at my cuticles for the next five minutes, and still no one else had arrived. Cindy decided to start without the others and passed over a sign-in sheet, which Henry refused to sign.

Cindy then asked her 10-year-old daughter Sophie to stand at the podium and start off the class by reading the Parent’s Prayer. Relieved that we weren’t going to be strong-armed into reading out loud with her, I got comfortable in the hard wooden pew as Sophie started reading. And stuttering. And fumbling over words. And completely rearranging the order of words. I wanted to slap her in the back of the head and yell, “SPIT IT OUT, KID!” Henry, sensing my annoyance and growing anger, hissed, “She’s only 10!” I didn’t care! I could read better than that when I was ten!

When she finally finished butchering the eight paragraphs (is that what you would call the individual clusters of Christlike adulation?), Cindy beamed and praised her for a job well done. I choked back the bile.

“I want to talk specifically for a minute about the one line of this prayer,” Cindy announced, still wearing her church-appointed fake smile. It was a line talking about teaching our children not to lie and cheat. Cindy pulled out the big guns in the form of an anecdote. Ooh, I was shivering with anticipation. “Just recently, we came back from Disney World. Now, while we were there, we could have lied and said that Sophie was only nine so she could get in at a cheaper admittance price, but we didn’t want to set an example of lying to get something we want. Right Sophie?” Sophie cocked her head and smiled tightly at us.

Oh my god, I really hated her.

Cindy went on to gush about Sophie’s work in the church.

“She’s filling in for an altar boy on vacation, so she’s really been able to see how mass works from behind the scenes, right Sophie?” Big deal. Sophie remained in the front of the classroom with her hands on her hips as her mom continued to stroke her ego.

What a smug bitch.

I wondered how much longer we’d have to sit here and watch their Happy Valley dog and pony show when a haggard-looking woman padded into the room. Henry gave me a squinted side-long glance as he noticed that she was alone.

Next, Cindy asked us why we wanted to have our children baptized. “We’ll start over here,” she decided as she looked at me.

What?! No one told me there was going to be a Q&A session.

“Uh…because I was baptized. And it’s like, the right thing to do?” I suddenly became aware that my answer would only have sounded worse if recited by Butthead himself.

I white-knuckled the edge of my seat, waiting for Cindy to shake her head sadly and say, “No, I’m sorry. Wrong answer; you fail. Now get the hell out of my class. Oh–and may the Lord be with you.” Instead, Cindy looked at me with the pity generally reserved for three-legged dogs.

“Yes, OK. So, because of tradition, right? That’s certainly not a wrong answer.” Then why was she making me feel like it was wrong? She turned her attention to Henry, who irritably mumbled, “I’m with her!” His reply was barely audible over all the hostility radiating from it. She skipped over him for all the other questions.

I rolled my eyes when she asked the single woman at the end of our row what her reason was and we had to sit through a veritable dissertation. I felt so out of place.

Soon, another single woman rolled on in. And another. And another. Henry’s scowl was deep-set and animosity was rolling in waves off his skin. Once again, I couldn’t stop laughing.

After getting the newcomers up to speed, Cindy decided to hurl another pop quiz our way. Something about what could we do as parents to instill faith into our children. She looked at me expectantly. I mumbled that I would take the kid to church.

Cindy gave me that look again and reiterated my answer in case those in the back didn’t quite hear just how lame it really was. Then she steepled her fingers and said that yes, going to church was certainly an obvious route to take. She was clearly digging for some profound spiritual example and I was unsure that she was going to find it within the motley crew gathered together that day.

I was wrong.

There was a woman sitting in the pew behind us, and when it was her turn to answer Cindy’s stupid question, she closed her eyes and said, “You know, I learn more about faith from my children than I could ever teach them myself. Every time my daughter hears a bell, she says a prayer.”

Don’t Erin. Oh god, don’t laugh.

Cindy stopped dead in her tracks and clutched the back of a pew. “That gave me goosebumps,” she announced, as though the woman had sung a hymn in the dulcet tones of an angel, rather than simply answering a question. Cindy rubbed her arms for effect.

This class was a piece of shit. I started to get restless and began to rifle through our handouts. There was a dated booklet about the religious aspects of being a parent and it featured pictures of real life families. There was a shot of one child with a bowl cut and thick-framed glasses who particularly tickled my funny bone. My body convulsed in amusement as I realized that the kid bore a striking resemblance to a young Hoover. Then I noticed the headline of that page said Raising Special Children.

Jesus, I’m a bad mom. No one wants to hear that their child resembles Henry.

Finally, the end was drawing near and Cindy’s husband Sam–who appeared to be running on the fumes of last night’s alcohol binge–ushered us into a classroom down the hall, where two rows of miniature chairs were set up in semi-circles. I was happy that I was able to successfully plant my ass on the chair without my cheeks dripping over the sides. Sam pressed ‘play’ on the VCR and we all sat back to watch Bishop Wuerl, circa 1988, walk us through a real life baptism. It was fifteen excruciating minutes of him narrating over top of scenes from a baptism, interspersed with shots of him in his Bishop-y costume, clasping his hands in front of a bookshelf which was no doubt filled with books about praying and swindling money from parishioners.

Quickly, I lost interest in that nonsense. Instead, I busied myself by taking inventory of the best educational toys from the ’70s, housed in ragged boxes held together by masking tape and stacked haphazardly on a shelf next to my seat. Maybe when I start attending church, my monetary offering will go toward upgrading the flashcards.

When I start attending church. I love saying that over and over in my head.

“…and then the priest anoints the godparents….”

The Bishop was on his ninth “and then.” I was waiting for the “…and then the end.” Would it ever come? That Christ-hugger Cindy said that it was a “short” video. To me, short is two minutes. Anything longer than that and I’m lost in a land of spittle and undulating hot dogs.

“…and then…”

Ooh, birdie outside the window!

“…and then…”

Jesus Christ, I couldn’t stop staring at Hoover’s head, which looked like the prize-winning gourd at the county fair.

“…and then comes the part of the ceremony where the priest performs an exorcism…”

Wait…what? Way to lasso my attention, Bishop Wuerl.

And so the video segued into the section about Original Sin and cleansing the soul. I was captivated as, over and over again, Bishop Wuerl said things like, “..expel the darknesssss.” This creepiness was certainly unexpected in a video about a fucking baptism.

“Darknesssss….”

The video ended and Sam presented us with a certificate praising us for completing baptism class. That almost made up for not attending high school graduation.

I ran for the door and as soon as my feet hit the pavement of the parking lot, my tongue tripped over itself as all the comments I had held back for the past hour came racing out past my teeth. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to distract Henry, who immediately began to berate me for dragging him to a class full of single women when he could have stayed at home and jacked off over his hair cut.

“Darknessssss.” Ooh, it still makes me shiver!

Later on that afternoon, while licking a soft-serve ice cream cone laden with crunchies, Henry said thoughtfully, “That lady—Cindy—was hiding something.” Like what? The fact that she didn’t really recite the Parent’s Prayer every night? Sophie’s on the pill because she can’t keep her legs closed?

Ever since the class, I’ve been dangling water bottles above Riley’s head so we can practice for the big day, but then Henry gets all, “OMG no!” on my ass and rips the bottle from my hand.

The baptism will be the first time I’ve entered a church since I was seventeen.

[Originally posted July 2006]

[Ed.Note: Apparently, in the beginning, I tried extra hard to pretend we weren’t actually calling him Chooch 24:7. This post was originally written June 2006.]

Last week, I had Riley on the front porch and I noticed that he was staring at a bird perched above us on a telephone wire. Clearly, this meant that he is obsessed with birds so Henry and I took him to the National Aviary on Saturday. Because that’s how all infants want to spend a hot and humid Saturday afternoon, right?

We get him inside and I extract him from his stroller, in spite of Hoover’s pleas to let him wake up first, and began thrusting him at all the birds. Now, he’s not even two months old yet, and the rational portion of my brain realized that he wasn’t going to give a shit about an enclosure full of birds. But the child-like section of my brain is a large expanse of Legos and spit bubbles and it always wins when pitted against rationality and reason. So there I was, holding him up and saying, “LOOK AT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS! WHY DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THE GODDAMN FLAMINGOS?” When he was nary a week old, I got all fed up and deflated because he wasn’t paying attention to his toys. “Make him wake up!” I would whine to Henry. Now I’m all, “For the love of God, make him go to sleep.” But I still get frustrated when he won’t take delight in the treasure trove of toys I totally splurged on when I could have been buying CDs for me me me.

I realized that Henry wasn’t capturing these riveting aviary memories so I barked at him to start videotaping for Christ’s sake. We now have a few minutes of Riley slobbering and staring blankly at everything but the goddamn birds, and then a few seconds of Riley bursting into tears at which point Hoover hurriedly turned off the camera because God forbid people know that our baby cries.

We sat outside under the protective cover of shade for a bird show, also not cared about by Riley. I looked around at the toddlers, who were squealing and applauding with expressions of pure fascination, and I wished Riley were older. But then we went into the gift shop and one of said toddlers was running amok and throwing merchandise off shelves and it really made me appreciate my little infant Riley, sacked out in his stroller. Please don’t grow up.

Then he arose and screamed bloody murder. He is not the happiest of babies. Henry said he has my temperament. Mine? But I’m a DOLL.

Oh well, at least we didn’t have to pay for him to not care about birds. But really, not even the parrots, Riley?!

Riley, enjoying life in the quiet sanctuary of his crib before being whisked off into a rowdy and humid pen full of bird shit and bellowing children

Two days earlier, I had wanted to dip Riley into a fountain at the cemetery we were at, but that was when I realized that I might have left the stove turned on. When I relayed my foiled plans to Henry that night, he breathed a sigh of relief and began lecturing me on dirty fountain water. It looked so clean and sparkling to me, though!

While we were there, I noticed a refreshing pond-sized rectangle of water down yonder from the aviary and begged Henry to let me dunk Riley in it. Maybe this particular receptacle of water would meet Hoover’s standards.

“Do you even know how filthy that water is? I don’t think so. And what’s with you wanting to ‘dunk’ our son in water?”

I can’t help it, he just looks so dunkable! I want to be dipping him in swimming pools, ponds, puddles, vats of molasses. I just want to be dunking him!

Yesterday, Henry compromised and let me dunk Riley in his little bath tub.

Thank you for dunking me in clean and sanitary water, Mom
At least it was clean and sanitary until he let loose with an explosive shit. I screamed and made Henry clean it. Anytime he protests, I viciously remind him that I’m breastfeeding. The breastfeeding card is just as good to play as the birthing card. I love this game.

That’s me who he’s smiling at, by the way. I was so excited the day he flashed his first smile, because it was 6-6-06. But then I realized it wasn’t so exciting because that was also Henry’s birthday. However, I noticed that while he does in fact gift Henry and I with his occassional smiles (which he usually follows with a scowl or blood-curling scream as he realizes that, “Hey, I’m being happy. There goes my reputation.”), the recipient of the bulk of his beams is none other than Robert Smith. It’s true. He’ll be staring off over my shoulder and I’ll follow his gaze straight to one of my many Robert Smith portraits. Maybe those nine months of rubbing my belly, playing the Cure and chanting “Robert Smith is your daddy” really paid off.

This kid is going to be so confused.

I guess Chooch turning four has really hit me harder than I thought it would. Not that I still considered him a baby, but goddamn, he REALLY isn’t a baby anymore. I was looking through some old pictures of him on Flickr and began reminiscing. It’s hard to imagine what life was like back then, when he couldn’t yet walk on his own, ruin my stuff intentionally, or call me a bitch when I follow his sneezes with a “bless you.”

This would NEVER HAPPEN now.

I think this will always be one of my favorite photos of him, because he looks like a cartoon. And I’ve been told that about myself more times than I care to recall.

Chooch and his doll Rot at the Uniondale Cemetery. Miraculously, Rot is still intact! Probably only because Chooch hasn’t learned how to set things on fire. Yet.

Robert Smith pins!

Oh my god, I wish he was still a baby. I did less fearing for my life back then. I think today is going to be the start of  Old School Chooch Week where I’ll post old stories from his baby days. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

(Reposted from May 23rd, 2008)

IV: Pre-Show

In the 3.5 miles it took us to travel across the Walt Whitman Bridge back into Philadelphia and parked the car at the Wachovia Spectrum, I managed to spend $14: $3 to cross that scary-ass too-big bridge and ELEVEN DOLLARS TO PARK. I’m used to shows at small clubs, where you park on a fucking curb for free, so I felt physically ravaged after that.

There wasn’t so much of a line outside of the arena, but more like relaxed huddles of people waiting for the doors to open. We only had to wait for about 10-15 minutes before they started letting people in, and we occupied our time by people-funnin’ and inhaling clouds of clove-smoke drifting around our faces.

“There’s a lot of old people here,” Corey noted, staring dead-on at two aging goth women swaying on the edge of the steps. Too much Absinthe perhaps.

Corey and I both really took a liking to a young man in tight red pants. I liked him because when he smiled, he looked like Timmy from Fairly Odd Parents.

Tickets scanned and hips bruised on the turnstiles, we ran straight for the merch table, where I bought a bright pink shirt and joked that our motel room only cost $13 more than it. Corey almost bought a girl shirt so I made fun of him for way longer than acceptable.

After we got situated in our seats, the real fun began. We scoped out the fans around us and Corey pointed out that we were surrounded by an alarming amount of crimson-locked women. He gave them names like Ginger and Big Red and dramatically announced their movements.

“Ginger just got up! I wonder if she’s getting nachos?” We could only hope.

My personal favorite was the Asian man who sat down a few rows below us with a large, drooping hot dog. I fixated on him for a long time, laughing so hard I was wheezing.

“Asian Hot Dog is getting up!” I yelled, hand on my heart. Corey and I silently followed him with our eyes, snickering inappropriately. That’s when I noticed his face was constricted in awkward spasms and his tongue seemed to wag uncontrollably.

“I think there’s something wrong with him,” Corey whispered, and we sat quietly in shame. But I wasn’t too ashamed to take his picture when he returned with some sort of food product wrapped in foil.

A young couple found their seats in the row below us and Corey was entranced. “I want them to be our friends so bad!” he enthused. So I named the girl Margot and he named the man Jean-Paul. A few minutes later, Jean-Paul turned to us to make sure he had the right section and I could feel Corey cheering internally.

Corey really liked his shirt. They sat motionless through the entire show.

V: The Show

Sometime after 7:00pm, 65DaysofStatic emerged and treated us to a thirty minute set of top-notch post rock. I won’t lie — I was moved to tears a minute into the inaugural song. I have a penchant for post rock.

“Is there a reason they’re not singing?” Corey shouted in my ear. I had to explain to him the concept of post rock, something that I’ve grown used to. A man behind us was unable to contain his disgust for lack of vocals. “Maybe the singer forgot to show up,” he scoffed sarcastically. There always has to be that one person with something shitty to say. Just enjoy the music, douche! It’s fucking incredible.

By the time they left the stage, Corey had decided he was a fan of post rock.

A fire in the pit of my stomach ignited for the yuppie couple sitting next to Corey. Every time their tight yuppie asses rose from their seats, they hovered over top of us, imploring us with their dead yuppie eyes to let them through. The woman part of the yuppie-parade had a short black hair helmet, greased securely into a side-part. Before the Cure came on, I embarked on a spy-cam mission, pretending to take cutesy sibling love pictures of Corey to paste in my high school locker.

“Alright you two, hand the camera over,” an older man behind us demanded. My face flushed slightly, thinking I had been busted taking asshole-y pictures of strangers. “Let me get a picture of you two!” Oh. I handed him the camera, initiating the most awkward minute of the entire trip.

“Put your faces closer!” he insisted, but since we were turning around in our seats for the photo-op, it was a difficult maneuver.

“I can’t, my neck is going to snap!” Corey whined.

The worst part for me was that people around us were intently taking it in like a circus side show, as if I don’t hate having my picture taken enough as it is. Great, now my misery is a spectator sport. And then the picture barely turned out anyway because we still had the flash off from when I was taking secret pictures.

Shortly after 8:00, the lights went out and into music ricocheted all throughout the arena. One by one, the Cure walked out and when Robert strapped on his guitar, every voice in my mind quieted and my breath caught in my throat. Dude, it’s the fucking CURE.

Appropriately, they started with “Open” and I’m pretty sure I didn’t breathe once through the entire song. From there, they presented us with a three hour orchestral buffet of new and old, pop and gloom. I stole occasional glances at Corey, who was in the throes of having his Cure cherry popped, and his face was smothered with a look of awe.

The Cure had an amazing energy that night. This was my first time seeing Porl, now that he’s back in the line up, and I laughed every time he treated us to cutesy little dances and circle-skips. Simon has more stamina than most bass players half his age. Jason is a king atop his drum kit throne, and Robert continues to make me die. At one point, between songs, he sheepishly said, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing up here.” You’re touching lives, dude, that’s what you’re doing up there. And having fun.

It’s amazing how no matter how much time passes, each song still takes me back to different times in my life. “Kyoto Song” plays and I’m buying a plane ticket for Australia. The opening notes of “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep” waft from the speakers and I’m laying on floor pillows in my living room, crying into a glass of black cherry Manischewitz. Robert sings “Maybe Someday” and I’m thinking of killing myself on St. Patrick’s Day in 2000, but decide to have a party instead. I’m looking for bus fare so I can run away in tenth grade, “A Strange Day” indeed.

Below me was a woman who was dancing for Jesus. You know the dancing I’m talking about:  the person is so wrought with the Holy Spirit that they’re moved to rock and sway like listening to someone singing the Bible atop an orchestra of bongo beats and sinner flagellations. You see this in Jesus camp all the time. ALL THE TIME. Sometimes they take their shoes off, too. Her husband remained in his seat the entire night, passing her fresh beers and sticking out one strong arm to catch her when she began to fall at the end of the night.

Toward the end of the main set, “Just Like Heaven” was played, and Jean-Paul turned excitedly to Margot. They shared a brief moment of giddiness and I thought they’d rise from their seats, but then they turned back to the stage and continued emulating statues. But one row in front of them, the yuppiest man ever to attend a rock show stood up, ran his hands down the pleats of his khaki shorts, and took the hand of his blond bobbed female companion; together the two of them rocked moves that I imagine are stored safely for really special occasions, like a Michael McDonald show on a cruise ship. The man kept his eyes closed, head back slightly, and pursed his lips like a duck, while the woman did a really disjointed hip-rock paired with car-driving arm movements. Corey kept calling her SpeedRacer. Could not take eyes off her.

The highlight for me was during the first encore, when they pulled out the big guns with “The Kiss.” That song is like the most violently intense hate sex you can imagine, stuffed into a cannon and left to roil like a cat in heat, until Robert finally shouts into the mic and all that hate and fucking and frustration explodes and you have strong desires to punch the fat Goth woman simmering in Patchouli next to you.

“From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” was amazing as usual, and I made sure to check if Corey was putting his hands in the sky upon Robert’s command. He wasn’t so I lifted his arm up by the sleeve and all was made right. I can never get Henry to abide.

The third encore was dubbed “Old School Encore” and it knocked the wind out of me. Seven straight classic Cure songs, hold me back. It was like the BMW at the end of the Sweet Sixteen party.

This was my fourth time seeing them and they still made it feel like the first time. There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to properly convey how extraordinary this band is, and somehow after twenty+ years of doing their thing, they still manage to bring it, and bring it hard. They are the true definition of serious business. As we walked back to the car after the Cure reached the venue’s curfew, I could still feel them pulsing in my veins.

• Open
• Fascination Street
• A Strange Day
• alt.end
• The Walk
• End of the World
• Lovesong
• Kyoto Song
• Pictures of You
• Lullaby
• Maybe Someday
• The Perfect Boy
• From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• The Only One
• Push
• How Beautiful You Are
• Inbetween Days
• Just Like Heaven
• Primary
• Never Enough
• Wrong Number
• One Hundred Years, End 1st encore:   If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Kiss
  2nd encore:  Freakshow, Close To Me, Why Can’t I Be You?
  3rd encore:  Three Imaginary Boys, Fire In Cairo, Boys Don’t Cry, Jumping Someone Else’s Train, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab

***

[Part 1][Part 2][Part 4]