Hi. I’ve posted this on LiveJournal before, but never here on Oh Honestly, Erin.

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There are some standard cultural traditions that I avoid like the plague. For example, having ‘Happy Birthday’ serenaded to me.

It makes me want to unzip my skin and climb inside my body cavity. I never know what to do with myself while locked in this thirty second predicament. Where do I focus my eyes? Do I mouth the words along with everyone? Do I laugh, smile, cry, fellate a candle? Where do I put my hands!? I cannot explain this phobia, but my mom is clearly to blame for the one regarding dressing up for Halloween.

It wasn’t always a disaster. In fact, I used to enjoy it.

Exhibit A: Erin as a bunny in Kindergarten:

Notice how carefree I was. I’m undeniably thrilled that it’s Halloween and I get to dress up and be pretty. But this was back when Halloween was pure and simple—before my mom caught wind of the costume contest at my elementary school. Children from each grade can win a prize for the most creative costume? Who knew?

By the time second grade rolled around, my mom had morphed into Pageant Mother:  Halloween Edition. Choosing my own costume was no longer in the cards. While all my friends were running amok in Kmart, fingering racks of synthetic Snow White capes and vinyl witch masks and probably inhaling 567,872,536 incubating germs left behind by the hundreds of people before them who breathed inside the masks, my role was to sit idly on my ass while my mom tapped into her creative genius for the perfect costume, year after year. I wanted to contract viruses, too, goddammit. But my mom would remind me that there was real life fame and fortune on the line, and since I was only eight, I still had faith in her.

My first homemade costume wasn’t all that sufferable. I have a vague recollection of wanting to help and having my fingers slapped. (Oh my god, I totally do this to my kid now. I have become my mother.)

Though I was shy, I secretly gloated behind my crayon tophat as everyone shrieked about the coolness of my costume. Other kids paraded around the elementary’s parking lot wearing their generic Made in Taiwan costumes, but I was the real deal, yo.

That year gave me my first taste of Halloween costume greatness. I was the winner from my grade, hands down. I remember clutching my prize (a real life silver dollar!) to my heart and beaming knowingly at my mom—we were on our way to big things, I could feel it in my immobile torso. If we had been given the opportunity to recite an acceptance speech, I would have dedicated my winnings to her.

The excitement of the costume contest came to a crashing halt that evening. It was nearly time for Trick or Treating, and I realized that I didn’t have a real costume. You know, real as in ‘practical.’ Real as in ‘I will be traversing great lengths for the sake of candy and this fucking mummifying cardboard box is slightly invasive, can I get a leotard and some mother bitchin’ fairy wings?’  My mom, when I brought this to her attention, scoffed at me and said, “Yes, you do have a real costume!” Next thing I know, my arms are in the air and she’s shoving the Crayola box over my body. This is not the sort of costume that a child wants to wear while on a hunt for candy; my range of motion was limited. My step-dad rose to the occasion and pleaded with my mom that it was going to be a serious buzz kill for me. But don’t get it twisted, this isn’t the heart-warming moment of the story where the girl realizes that her step-dad loves her and decides to call him “daddy” for the first time. His concern was thinly veiled selfishness; he was attempting to save himself from the inevitable whining in which I was about to unleash like tiny verbal firecrackers. I remember hearing my mom respond with, “Yeah, but I want the neighbors to see.”

My shuffling got me down half of a block before I had to head back home, thanks due to cardboard chafing. That was the lightest load of candy any child over the age of five has ever obtained in history, with the exception of those getting hit by a car, kidnapped or only having a palm  to put it in. And it was all my mom’s fault.

By the time third grade rolled around, the Crayola catastrophe was a far off memory. Figuring the ambitions of my mother was a one time deal, I asked her to take me to the mall so I could pick out my next costume. My request was greeted by a look of horror, and she said, “I’ve already started working on your costume.” Oh. We’re doing this again, are we? Goodie.

One would think I would have a say in my own ghouly accoutrement, but all of my ideas and helpful suggestions of butterfly wings and fake blood were shot down. I was, after all, only a kid. And it was only my costume. This one would prove to be the single most over the top costume of my elementary school’s history. (I did extensive research. And by that, I mean I assumed.)

Notice how I’m gazing longingly off in the distance. I think I was devising a plan to steal He-Man’s sword and slash my way out of the sandwich board costume.

The traditional parade was a bitch, as this latest costume proved to be a proverbial thorn in my side. I had to take tiny baby steps, because walking with too much zest caused the cardboard to bounce off of my knees, running the risk of dislodging some of the game pieces. It was during this panoply that I discovered what it’s like to be chased down by the paparazzi. Not that I knew what paparazzi was back then. I had cameras being shoved in my face by a bevy of soccer moms and lunch ladies.

I won again, this time grudgingly. Another silver dollar. That novelty was being stretched thin. My strongest memory of that day was being divided: on one hand, I was elated and lapped up every last drop of attention that was tossed my way because I was no longer an only child and had to resort to destructive behavior to get even a glance in my general direction back at home; but on the other hand, I was embarrassed and wanted to go home and cry in bed.

I returned to my classroom after enduring another photo-op with the principal, and I couldn’t help but sense resentment from some of my peers. A handful of them had even retired their standard super hero costume fare for the likes of Coke cans, a skyscraper, and french fries. They were all clustered together on one side of room, sulking over their failed efforts. But then there was the other half of my classmates who were happier of my win than I was, and wouldn’t cease pawing at my costume. Here, have it. It’s all yours.

By the time I got home, I had put the horrors of Monopoly behind me. This time, my mom relented and I had a backup costume for Trick or Treating. I had to make up for the last year’s debacle, and the painful memory of it made possible my desire to cover extra territory. It was at this young age when I grasped the concept of heaping large amounts of chocolate and caramel into my system to temporarily numb depression.

Apparently I was doing too much indulging, because I became fat. Fortunately, by the next year, I was too busy worrying about weighing more than 85% of my class than stressing over my stupid grandfather clock costume. Suspiciously, there’s no picture of that year’s effort, and I think the fact that I was trumped by my classmate Mike’s grape guise may have something to do with it. To this day, my mom insists that it was about (PTA) politics.  I was relieved to have the heat taken off me. Mike’s costume was killer, yet oh-so simple. A purple sweat suit with purple balloons pinned to it. Genius. My mom still goes off about how he didn’t deserve it. “What did that take? Like, five minutes to pull off? I had worked on that fucking clock for a week!” The grandfather clock really was a crappy costume, though, and I didn’t know the meaning of constricting until that year’s sheath of cardboard was shoved over the shaft of my newly plump body. Divine would have had an easier time sausaging into her evening gowns.

Oh, how I longed for a drug store costume. Imagining how comfortable a plastic Rainbow Brite smock would be was the only thing that held my sanity in place during the ritual romp around the parking lot.

My mom, still feeling the blow of defeat from the previous year, pulled a “phoenix rising” and came back with this one:

It would turn out to be her swan song, and she was rewarded handsomely when I reclaimed my title. I won a real dollar bill that time, which I believe went right into my mom’s purse.

Of course, people who didn’t know me then always express genuine concern with the fact that I’m so into October and all of its creepy overtones yet so blase about dressing up.  Well, NOW THEY KNOW.

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We spent the afternoon at Henry’s sister Kelly’s house yesterday.

It was a nice time, for sure, but when Kelly pulled out some old photo albums, it was ON. Typically, I can go hogwild making fun of a gawky teen Henry wearing bitchin’ shades, high-waisted pants, and steepling his fingers. (Seriously, he steeples his fingers more than sinister cartoon crime lords.)

But then Kelly slipped me a strip of photobooth pics taken at Kennywood in 1974.

(For those of you who are bad at math, that is FIVE YEARS before I was born.

To spell that out: HENRY IS WAY OLDER THAN ME.

)

And aside from the idiotic gaping maw pose he’s got going in the last photo (he claims this was back when an actual person was in there taking the pictures and telling you how to pose), there wasn’t much I could say other than “OMG aw” and “SWOON.”

I also want to add that I’m thankful he doesn’t still have the pervy beer-drinkin’ molester look he had going on in his twenties.

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For the longest time, I didn’t have my high school listed on Facebook because I just flat out did not want to be found. The only reason I used Facebook at all was to keep in touch with recent friends, not reunite with old ones. But eventually, people started finding me and friend requests began to stockpile. I’d stare at them, hover the cursor over “Accept,” then veer it over to “Decline.” Then back again. Over and over until I would eventually just log out altogether.

It’s like a phobia, not wanting all those people to know who I am now and what I’ve been doing and have done and am planning to do.

Because of the way I bowed out back then, I had harbored some uneasy feelings about my high school years and instead of remembering the good points, I’ve mostly just dwelled on the confused decisions I’d made.

But then I saw this one girl on there, and I thought, “Aw, she and I were close at one time.” We had a story-writing club in middle school. It was pretty lame, but thinking about it made something tug at me. And so I friended her, and she seemed genuinely happy to reconnect with me. From there, people started finding me. And while I only declined one request so far (for very good reasons and I have no idea why this broad would even WANT to feign affectations toward me), it has gotten easier each time, and I’ve been reminded that I’m not as horrible as my insecurities, issues and failed friendships have fooled me into believing. It’s helped me see that maybe I didn’t finish high school, maybe I didn’t finish college, maybe I don’t have a job right now (OK, this seems much worse now that I’m typing it out), but there are still things that I am doing with my life and have some cool shit that I’ve already accomplished, so maybe I’m not too much of a failure.

Coming to terms with this is a really big deal for me!

(As I’m typing this, Chooch is standing next to me, persistently chanting, “Are you done?

Are you done?” because he wants to play puzzles on jigzone.

com and let me just tell you, I rue the day I showed him that site.)

So in honor of high school memories, I’m sharing these scanned excerpts from my (9th?) 10th grade yearbook that I found in my old LiveJournal photo folder. They make me LOL.

So, judging by these, we learn that in high school I was: loud, annoying, mean and sometimes broke out into disco dance numbers. Sadly, it appears that I haven’t changed much, except in lieu of disco, my only dance moves on the current are raising the roof and sometimes a very lazy shimmy.

I want to know what you guys were like in high school. Tell me, tell me now!

6 comments

Sometimes, when I stupidly have an urge to procreate again, I go back and read some of my pregnancy posts on LiveJournal, wherein I am quickly reminded to close them legs up, close ’em up tight, ya’ll.

Today, I had a fleeting desire to try and birth a creature that might actually enjoy to cuddle with its mother, unlike Chooch who might as well just start pulling a switchblade out of his underroos and rolling cigarettes in his shirt sleeve. So to LiveJournal I went, and I found this lovely memory of Ponderosa and realized that hey, I still haven’t been to a buffet since then. This grudge thing, it comes easy to me.

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Originally written January 13, 2006

It was all Henry’s bright idea, really. While idling around the house, wondering what to do for dinner (I was content extending my breakfast and lunch of gummies into the evening), Henry suggested Ponderosa. I quickly thought back upon my last trip to a buffet and decided that I wasn’t living life to the fullest unless I gave it another go. Besides, my mom used to take me to Ponderosa when I was a wee chitlin’, and if memory served me right, I believe I liked it.

Things immediately got off to a rocky start when we arrived. I stood in front of the large menu hanging on the wall behind the counter, heart rate increasing from the impending pressure cast onto me from the impatient stares of Henry and the cashier. My only option, of course, was the buffet, as everything else was steak, steak, seafood with a steak smoothie, or super steak. That’s gross for a vegetarian.

We walked over to the secluded booth I chose and it was here when I became arrested by what I affectionately call Fish Out of Water Syndrome. I stood there, next to the table, with one knee on the slippery booth, looking to Papa H for guidance. Do we sit down first? Do we stand here and wait for a signal, a green light or the peal of a dinner bell? Maybe we should just leave; I really wanted to just leave.

“What do we do now?” I whispered. I could feel the anxiety branching its russet fingers across my face, panic wavering from my flesh like heat on the horizon.

“Uh, we go up and get a plate,” Henry chided in the tone he reserves for moments he feels I should be reminded of my fucking retardedness, after which he stood there and stared at me for a second longer, then shook his head and walked away. I quickly ran after him, grasping onto the elbow of his shirt with my sweaty fingers.

I hung back awkwardly, observing Henry’s professional buffet maneuvering. Following his lead, I grabbed a plate, making certain it didn’t come complete with a hair like his selection did, and then I began to tentatively prong clumps of withered lettuce into a small mound on my plate. The lack of fresh spinach among the salad spread had me so bereft that I had to mentally talk myself down from tear-shed. Hormones are a bitch, but to be fair I probably would have stamped my foot even without-child. Two steps down, an employee was coveting the green pepper slices, thereby monopolizing the container from all the paying customers such as myself who really had their hearts set on the addition of the crisp, snappy vegetable to their salad. The peppers were already overflowing! There was no need for restocking at that particular moment, but then I remembered that to me, buffets are  merely an extension of a waking nightmare, so I tried to stop having standards and began to expect typical salad fare to lie in festering clumps, marinating in general buffet splooge and skin flakes from the arms of overreaching salad fixers.

Sans peppers, I moved on to the dressings, which I was delighted to find were not labeled. I blindly added a small dribble to the center of my spinach- and pepper-less crap hill, and shuffled back to our booth with my head down. (I shuffle while pregnant.)

As I pushed the questionable bits of salad around on my plate, I took the time to scope out what nonpareils Henry had acquired. This resulted in an interrogation of how he managed to escape my side long enough to seek out an array of slightly-edible choices. Items such as a golden roll and mac n’ cheese garnished the edges of his plate; things that maybe I would have enjoyed as well.

“If you would have continued along, you would have run right into it,” he explained while tearing chicken off the bone like a caveman, as I whimpered with jealousy.

It’s true, I could have taken more time to explore the depths of the buffet, but not while some old man was breathing down my back, waiting for the right moment to swoop down under the sneeze shield. He was right up against me, tongue wagging and elbows primed and jutted, waiting for the opportunity to start jabbing. I imagined him coating me in the remnants of his impending whirling dervish, and to be honest, I wasn’t trying to stick around for that. Buffets make me feel so rushed as it is, but throw a buffet bully into the mix and watch me freak out like the amazing social abortion that we all know I can be.

After I explained this scene to Henry, while trying to be brave and stifle my tears, he promised to take me back once I picked my way through the salad. Henry’s plate of thoroughly gnashed goods had long since been whisked away by the nicotine-damaged waitress, and still the minutes ticked on. He sat hunched over the table, watching me with his glazed-over eyes as I tediously cut too-large florets of broccoli into bite-sized morsels with his knife.

(My knife was adhered to the napkin it was rolled in, courtesy of an unknown viscous substance, so I wasn’t really anticipating using it on food that would eventually wind up in my mouth.)

By the time I had devoured all parts of the salad that appeared to be health code compliant, there were too many people in line at the buffet, so I made Henry wait some more. It was during this interim that I really got a good look at my fellow diners. Interspersed with folk of Henry’s ilk, and a handful of citizens who looked like they could self-suffice for a few weeks without sustenance, sat:

• (1) man who arrived with his belt already unbuckled;
• a troika of children who had thrown their jackets onto the floor upon arrival and then proceeded to lay on them;
• a group of guys who clearly had just gotten high out in the parking lot

I also finally got to put a face on the noisy nose-blower behind me. And boy I wish I hadn’t, because for that moment in time, I feared that I had somehow wound up in Appalachia.

On my second round of facing the ominous buffet, Henry walked me through and pointed out things that maybe I would enjoy, like cottage cheese, potato salad and macaroni and cheese; it was like having my own guided tour and I felt the need to ask when we were going to see the basement. Little dollops of everything Henry recommended dotted the perimeter of my plate, which I then crowned with a hesitant spoonful of buttered noodles (they looked like worms swimming in snot, you guys) and chocolate pudding (it looked like soft serve poop with a  diarrhea skin, you guys). Henry brought me back a smaller plate featuring a diminutive lump of mashed potatoes (which I took one taste of and gagged back up for added effect), nachos and cheese, and a slice of pizza.

I’m really glad that he had the foresight to include the nachos because otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to deduce that the cheese sauce festering away in that vat on the buffet was the same exact coagulated concoction used to coat the macaroni. It was disgusting, and it made my face crumple up like an air-filled paper bag being crushed.

I may have struck out with everything on my plates, but I still had the pizza to count on. The cheese was so thick and heavy, congealed with a luminous sheen of grease not unlike a pool of oil in a parking lot or the complexion of an amputee after performing a one-legged fornication obstacle course on the most humid day of the summer while chugging mugs of habanera chili, that I had to use a fork to pry the slice off the plate. Mistaking that I was in a real restaurant, with a real slice of pizza in my paws, I dove right in. And what a shock to the taste buds (whom I have promised to make it up to, by the way) as they drowned in a wad of artery-plugging mush. I managed to lumber through half before the thick tomato paste became too much to bear. And the crust was like no other: A strange hybrid of what one might assume was soggy Ritz crackers crumbled and rolled out with Nilla Wafers on a tray spritzed with Grandma’s Aquanet to form a sad semblance of pizza dough. I was intrigued. Nauseated, yes; but intrigued nonetheless.

Hope blossomed around the ingested sludge in my stomach when Henry suggested that maybe the desserts would be better. He brought back a smörgåsbord of pint-sized confections: A small bowl, which bore a striking resemblance to an ashtray, housed a small portion each of sugar-plated bread pudding and a crumbled mass of what I believe had “apple” in the name. Next to the bowl, he set down a plate which carried a slice of some curious variety of sweet bread and a brownie.

The crap in the bowl was decent, but the brownie was no more than a glorified piece of school cafeteria cake with an APB out on the icing. And the bread! Good Lord, the bread. Having the inferior taste buds that are programmed into your average blue-collar worker, Henry masticated his bite of bread as though it were a caviar-capped truffle, but I droned on and on about how dry it was — I even conducted an experiment using a small sample of bread, a sip of water, and an extended tongue — and oh yeah, what exactly was I eating, anyway? He insisted it was nothing more than nut bread, but halfway through the shared slice, I bit into a mushy mouthful of banana.

“It’s banana bread!” I announced as I pulled the plate away from Henry and happily ate the rest.

“So because you now know it’s banana bread, it’s suddenly good?” A veritable pylon of steam chugged from his ears as Henry wrestled with this concept. I love confusing him with my nonsensical food laws.

Unfortunately, one slice of banana bread is not enough to change my prior conception of the buffet, so from this day forward, the word will be completely obliterated from my vocabulary. Buffets no longer exist in my universe.

The lesson learned is that evidently, my boobs aren’t the only thing that have gone and changed on me since I’ve entered adulthood; my taste buds are no longer the same under-developed specks upon my tongue as I once knew them to be. Which explains why Chuck E. Cheese pizza isn’t exactly a delicacy worth writing home about these days, either.

What bothers me the most is that I still don’t know what dressing I had covering my wilted salad.

5 comments

You know how when your neighbor is chasing you around with that fifteen-inch barbed dildo and electrical nipple clamps, your heart swells up with such a rush of adrenaline that you feel like you might die right then and there in a pantsful of terror-based soft-serve shit? That’s how I felt the day when I was fourteen and being hunted by a cannibalistic rabbit.

I was ambivalent when my brother Ryan won the fight against our parents, the one where every seven-year-old begs, pleads, promises, swears that they’re responsible enough, that they’ll feed it, that they’ll scrape the shit off the floor and pet it and hold it and love it forever and forever, until my parents cried uncle and allowed him to bring home a rabbit. He chose a standard black and white cow-spotted one and after quickly conferring with me, the all-knowing Big Sister and thinker of The Best Names EVER, the final choice for the new pet’s name was Rudy, after one of the kids from Monster Squad, a Kelly Family classic.

Rudy was a motherfucker. We kept him in a large cage in the garage, where he would gnaw at the flesh upon our fingers every chance he got. Feeding him was a nightmare, and I began to fear it more than church. My mom, trying to shove a carrot in between the grid of his cage, was left with a shaving of thumb skin dangling in the air, exposing the bright pink under layer of her hand. And that was only a sampling of the damage Rudy could cause.

That summer, my dad bought a hutch for him; we thought perhaps being one with nature would soften his temper, maybe the birds could do some social-workin’ on his dingleberried ass. But evidently, the great outdoors amplified his testosterone level and Rudy just kept growing more violent and more bloodthirsty.

One fateful day, Rudy squeezed his way out of the hutch when I was attempting, nervously. to toss some slop into his bowl. I was almost relieved, figuring instinct would send him hopping for the woods at the edge of our yard. Instead, he set his beady evil eyes hungrily on my legs. His nose twitched devilishly. For one frozen moment, we stood in tense stances: Rudy, hunched over awaiting to pounce; me, half-twisted at my waist, anticipating the start of a chase. Almost as if a gunshot fired, Rudy and I unfroze at the same time and I began sprinting wildly and blindly through the backyard, Rudy hot on my heels. I wasn’t sure if my appendages were going to be used as a humping post or a dinner buffet, but neither sounded very savory to me. I screamed in vain for someone, anyone to come to my aid. Preferably the Crocodile Hunter.

Bring a shotgun! I don’t care!

My dad was in the garage, engaging in a leisurely afternoon phone conversation, when I whizzed past him, followed closely by a black and white streak of unbridled fury.

Hysterically, I screeched, “Daddy help me! Before he kills me! Daddy help!”

An outsider might have mistaken my screams for over-dramatics. But my dad was no stranger to the extent of injury we feared Rudy could cause, and so he abandoned the telephone in favor of a broom, then quickly joined the frantic chain of hunter and the hunted.  My dad gained on him and began swatting with frenzied heroics, but it was all for naught: Rudy was too quick and agile for me, his paws powered by the wrath of Hell, and soon had me tackled to the freshly mowed grass.

Rudy’s sharp bucked teeth pierced through the flesh on my ankle. I swung and kicked my leg around, like I was the bull at the rodeo, but his fanged clench abated. My dad finally unlatched him with one hard smack of the broom. I’m against animal cruelty, but Rudy earned no tears from me that day.

Later that summer, even though I vowed to never speak to Rudy again, I didn’t think twice about coming to his aid when our dog, Dazee, chased him into the neighbor’s yard before grabbing his neck with her gnashing jaws. When I reached the scene, Rudy lay unmoving under a pine tree. Luckily, I was in the middle of summer health class, so I grabbed my notes and embarked in a relentless series of CPR attempts.

Sadly, Rudy was a goner. I think of him every time I look at the scar on my ankle.

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The other day, I found this picture of my friend Lisa and me. It’s from 1996, and we were at Denny’s before going to our friend Evan’s art show. I’m not sure why Lisa looks so tired. Maybe she was just feeling psychologically worn knowing that she had like, 5 more hours  to spend with me that day. (I was kind of hyper & annoying back then. I’m totally not like that anymore.)

Lisa was just in town over the weekend, and with her she brought her shiny brand new fiance, Matt. Because Lisa currently lives in Colorado and no one here in Pittsburgh had met Matt, there was a meet and greet at her grandma’s house Saturday afternoon. I wanted to make a good impression on Matt, so I sent Henry to Vanilla Pastry Studio that morning to pick up a quad of Congratulations, You (and everyone else) Got Engaged Before Me cupcakes.

We arrived to find Lisa in the kitchen, where a nice buffet of party food called to me like the fucking Green siren of weight gain. I kept eyeballing it around Lisa’s shoulder, and oh shit was that mango salsa? (It was.)

Lisa introduced me to her future husband by saying, “This is Erin, we’ve been friends ever since I threatened to beat her up in eighth grade.” (True story. It happened at the Halloween dance, because I was being a punk bitch.) And then I presented Lisa with the cupcakes. I was going to say something to the effect of likenening them to God’s wedding cake, because she’s a radical Christian; however, her dad was looming too close for comfort and I’ve always felt he didn’t approve of me (probably because my entire aura flashes HEATHEN in neon) so instead I was like, “Yo, here are the best cupcakes ever.”

And as she lifted the top, I stood there smugly, chest puffed out a little, waiting for her to enthuse about how beautiful they looked, almost too beautiful to eat, and if she could, she would choose one to wear atop her wedding veil.

But instead, she let out her signature goblet-shattering guffaw. (She seriously has the loudest, most startling laugh of anyone I have ever met and I pray someday it’s recorded and used in a cartoon.) And (after recoiling from the sonic blast) I’m all, “What the fuck is so funny about cup—-…..Oh.” Apparently, they had decided to have group sex in one of the corners of the box, presumably to an updated version of an old Spice Girls song,  “4 Become 1.” (That was for you, Alisha.)

And of course, the revelers had paused their conversations long enough to witness this catastrophe. (It was a catastrophe to me, OK?) I heard someone murmur, “Aw, oh no.”

Not really knowing what else to say, and feeling the burn of strange eyeball beams upon my person, I let out a monotone, “Oh, oopsies” which apparently sounded entirely more sarcastic than I intended, because Lisa laughed even harder and said, “Oh, nice reaction!”

Apparently, she thought I had known about it, possibly even done it intentionally. Then she made me say “Oh, oopsies” again and stand there awkwardly displaying the box of car-crashed cupcakes while she took a picture and EVERYONE WATCHED.

I know, I have been writing on the Internet since 2001, but I do NOT LIKE BEING FOCUSED ON IN REAL LIFE. I’m a walking study in contradiction.

Eventually, everyone ripped their eyes off my mangled mess and went back to conversing. I think half of the guest list was engaged. Lots of ring-flashing was going on, which made me glare at Henry with such intensity, I hope he could feel the bamboo sticks with which I was mentally q-tipping his dickhole.

“What?” he said defensively. “I’ll propose! When I find the right girl.” A typical Oh, Henry moment.

Later that night, Lisa called me to thank me for coming. Then she goes, “So Matt and I were reviewing the best moments of the day, and you and the cupcakes win hands down.” More raucous laughter. “What was it that you said again?”

Jesus Christ, Lisa.

To Henry, I was saying, “Why would she think I did that intentionally??” and he goes, “Uh, because she knows you very well and that’s totally something you would do.”

“Well, yeah. But not with her family there!”

Somehow, I’m sure I’ve made worse entrances, at least.

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Today I annoyed hung out with Alisha, who brought up Phipps Conservatory at least fifteen times because she is apparently wildly obsessed with weeds. I let her babble on about all her exciting trips there, and then I remembered the one whole time I went. It was two years ago, and it was with Kara, who doesn’t live her anymore so I feel compelled to repost this since I don’t have any fresh examples of torturing her.

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Learning About Plants & Kara

Originally posted August 21, 2007

There I was on a dreary Sunday, sitting around in just Henry’s underwear and watching instructional knitting videos, when Kara arrived to hang out. I started to get up from my filth to fetch her a particularly swiss-cheesy pair of underroos, when she stopped me. It seemed that in lieu of festering in Henry’s waste and eating freezer-burnt bonbons while watching 70s horror porn, Kara was in favor of actually leaving the house and going to that place where people go — I think it’s called the outside. Outdoors? Public? Slaughterho—no wait, I’m thinking of something else.

She seemed desperate to wile away her afternoon at Phipps Conservatory, where a riveting Chihuly glass exhibit was underway. Not wanting to get in between her and culture, I agreed. It gave me a reason to use my rainbow backpack that I bought specifically for Warped Tour but then left it hanging on the knob of the bathroom door.

Did I mention the adorable unicorn appliqué on the backpack? I hoped people would think I was a lesbian. A lesbian with an enviable collection of black light-sensitive felt unicorn posters in a day-glo array.

Flowers and non-flower plants don’t really get my fancy very tickled, but I was pleasantly pleased to discover some new species that I had never heard of.

1. Creepy Laughing Male:

Balding on the crown of his head and clad in an army jacket, this species will creep up behind you and molest your ear drum with his scandalous laughter, which feels like a big wet tongue and makes your shoulders raise to your earlobes in hopes of acting like a condom, before whipping out his camera and turning his molestational instincts onto the helpless plants. He is accompanied by his presumed paramour in a striped shirt and he will later make you recoil when he appears to be snapping perverse shots of a random baby in a carriage. Later you will learn that the baby is really his and his companion is his father, not paramour. But watching him slouch in his seat in the cafe still doesn’t make you feel like planting his seeds in your garden.

More angles of Creepy Laughing Man:

2. Witch Disguised as Pedestrian:

Slipping into a pink sweater does little to camouflage this white haired witch’s natural aura, especially when she is incapable of denying her vast knowledge of every spice and herb growing in the outside garden. Your first reaction will be to assume she’s planning on making a brew that will eradicate the entire elf population of Western Pennsylvania, and you’re ashamed when you find out that really she’s just planning on whipping up an aromatic stew for her dinner guests that evening. Way to be prejudiced. You’re probably also the kind of person who would slide over a chalice of bat juice to a witch without actually taking their beverage order, when maybe they’d have preferred a nice White Russian in a frosted high ball.

But yeah, you’re right. She does have some magical locks.

3.Thai Food Aficionado:

Can be found predominantly in the tropical gardens of Phipps’ Thailand Section, monopolizing the employee inside a kiosk displaying samples of Thai spices. He will pressure her until her eyes water in fear, demanding to know every last datum of curry until she eventually fakes the need to blow her nose continually, causing him to shrug and leave. If you have the misfortune of finding yourself ogling a lotus while he is within earshot, do not speak poorly of it, for his female companion (wife or mother, relation is unknown) will sneer at you and lambaste you about the sweet, sweet balm the lotus secretes, causing Thai Food Aficionado to radiate death waves from his robotic eyes as he brusquely chimes in that lotus root is best served as a tempura. Interaction with Thai Food Aficionado learns you that it’s about as savory as spending an afternoon under a willow reading Chaucer with some stink weed.

Here, Thai Food Aficionado is deciding if the pond fish would taste delicious with a nice curry. Later, you hear him spinning yarns of pad Thai and lemon grass.

To my delight, I also learned some new things about my friend Kara:

Kara doesn’t like orchids; they are ugly and gross and they scare her.

Kara is scared to death of butterflies and will pull all kinds of exaggerated faces to convey her dismay while trapped in the butterfly room. She explains that it’s “like bugs crawling all over [her].” Hopefully, Kara’s first born will be a butterfly.

Kara thinks star fruit is gross and ugly.

Kara will yell “Ew!” as if she has just put her hand in a jar of eyeballs, when really she has only touched a soft leaf called a Lamb’s Ear.

Kara hates lotuses and they remind her of worms and make her protectively cover her boobs.

I had to double check my ticket to see if I was in Kara’s Haunted House.

Kara was also kind of cranky and surly. She admitted it was probably because she was hungry and in a very strange and disorienting moment, I realized that it was almost like hanging out with myself. If that’s the case, then damn, I’m annoying. Wait, don’t people tell me that all the time?

In typical Erin fashion, I ignored the fact that there was a finger print on the lens. It gives the pictures character. Charm? No? Ok.

Thingies.

Life would be worth living if these were what eyeballs looked like. Or nipples.

When penii party.

Would suck to fall on.

Kara’s fortress will protect her from all the scary flowers and sinister butterflies, but I fear she’s on her own with that foreboding sky.

Afterward, I fed Kara’s face in the cafe, where Creepy Laughing Man had been joined by his wife and kid and that dude we thought was his lover but really was his father. It was kind of comforting, even though I kept hearing him laughing and it was really like having my ear fingered, which kind of made me blush and wish I had a rosary to nuzzle.

Right before we left, Thai Food Aficionado stamped in with his mother-figure and proceeded to ask the girl behind the counter what every dessert tasted like. Kara and I tried to hold back squeals when they chose the table next to us. His companion, having fallen in love with her cake, made the life-or-death decision to go back and get another hunk, which she paid for in exact change. She then cut it right down the middle, employing an enviable steady-handed precision. I took it upon myself to imagine the dialogue exchanged was akin to her telling him that he just hadn’t lived until he prayed with the Tibetan monks, but instead it was really, you know, tasting some crappy cafeteria dessert. Thai Food Aficionado, well on his way to becoming Stale Dessert Connoisseur, speared his half with a fork and raised the entire chunk to his mouth. He gnawed off a large portion, swallowed, and then engulfed the rest.

I hope there was at least some coconut milk in it.

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Many moons ago, when I was a spry sixteen year old, I went to my neighbor Jessy’s house to color Easter eggs. Not knowing Jessy very well, I had to censor the ideas I had for my eggs. It’s never wise to draw pictures on the eggs with wax crayon depicting Jesus molesting young boys when you haven’t officially tested the waters surrounding your company. She may have been a Bible jockey – what did I know? So our eggs were your standard fare – brightly colored, some boasting our names and superlatives expressing the magnitude of our undeniable coolness.

As we marveled over our freshly colored eggs, Jessy shared with me a tradition from her childhood. She encouraged me to select my favorite egg from the batch and then told me to take it home, place it somewhere dark and dry, and eventually it would shrivel and become hard as a rock. I would be left with an unbreakable souvenir of that year’s Easter. She said her grandma did it every year, so I had a lot of confidence in her.

I went home and chose a porcelain container situated in the hutch in our dining room. Carefully nestling the egg inside the dark compartment, I gave it one last loving stroke for good measure and replaced the lid.

After an uncertain amount of time, my mom decided that she was going to clean. Typically, when my mom said she was going to clean, it entailed clutter being kicked and shoved under furniture and into drawers that already were resisting closure [note: this is where I learned my housekeeping ethics]. But on that day, something had possessed her to go all out and dust the dining room.

All was calm and quiet in the house; the muted din of cartoons mingled with a cacophony of chirping birds from outside. Suddenly, my mother’s piercing shriek could be heard ’round the neighborhood. I ran into the dining room just in time to witness my former pre-birth vessel, frozen in terror, holding the lid to the porcelain jar while an army of maggots swarmed around it, undulating and looking generally disgusting.

I was in trouble.

Since then, I’ve learned that there’s an entire process that needs to be followed in order to preserve Easter eggs. And it’s too much work for me.

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Four years ago, in an effort to really immerse ourselves in the Easter spirit, Henry and I invited Alisha over to indulge in some adult egg coloring. And by adult, I mean to say none of this wholesome “I Love God” egg-dyeing bullshit. My eggs were billboards for unsavory epithets like Fucknoodle and Dickshitter. This was the way eggs were meant to be. This was art.

I had huge dreams of making a Porno Series, in which we would enhance each egg with paint so that they would depict naked nymphos, ready to get it on. I had this highly ambitious endeavor of creating an entire storyboard from it which would propel me into stardom.

I could sense the fear that Henry was emanating. It smelt of nachos and the Service, circa 1984.

“Um, so what exactly is this going to entail, this porno egg thing?” Henry questioned as he nervously rubbed his arms. I’m afraid that he was picturing some grandiose scene of us shoving freshly-colored eggs into his ass while paying spectators watched from behind a red-velvet rope. So paranoid. But that would make for some classy performance art.

Everything was progressing normally until Alisha plopped an egg into a mug of dye and ogled over the unusual sludgy color. Henry, always needing to stick his nose into everything, came over to inspect it as well.

I haven’t dyed eggs probably since the previous story unfolded, so I assumed that maybe Paas was trying to be all hip by not discriminating against colors and they were maybe slowly introducing ethnic shades into their color line. Personally, I thought it was a huge leap forward for the future of egg-coloring.

Alisha swished and swirled her egg around in the brown dye a few more times before announcing that nothing was happening. That was when we realized it was my coffee. It took three of us to come to this conclusion. College has made a huge impact on me so far!

The eggs turned out splendidly, especially my blue and yellow variation, but unfortunately the eggs in my Porno Series did not come out as expected. The … male genitalia that I drew with tongue-protruding concentration and accuracy dried to resemble a smiley. I remembered that we had glitter egg paint, so I demanded that Henry drop trou and model for me as I attempted to paint over the failed weener. He refused and opted instead to Google images for me. Because I’m Amish.

The result was still terrible and looked more like an elephant. Much respect for Michelangelo. However, the boobs I painted on the female egg came out perky and voluptuous, rivaling any silicone-enhanced pair crafted by the hands of a Beverly Hills surgeon. Well, almost.

And I made a very special, Henrydandy egg that will surely be cherished by a certain someone for years to come.

[Henry used to wear a bandanna and have long hair, FYI. (Not FTW.)]

There was no hiding of eggs in dark, dry places yesterday after Alisha and I painstakingly turned the ordinary stark shells into glorious masterpieces. So this Easter, while some people were in church learning about the Resurrection of Christ, I was learning that coffee does not adhere to eggs and that I shouldn’t go into business painting weeners.

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I’m hoping that tomorrow night, when I try my hand at egg-dyeing once again with Alisha, it will be so much fun that Jesus will rise a day early to dunk his junk in some green Paas. I mean, egg. To dunk his EGG. Oh, and Blake will be here too, so maybe, if all goes well, the night will veer into  STD Cookies: Ovum Edition.

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Thoughts are being gathered over here at 3021 Pioneer, so have an oldie (but probably not really goodie) for today. Originally written August 13th, 2007, and apparently on that day I felt compelled to call Chooch by his actual name.

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I’m not sure Henry’s and my relationship was much stronger the last time we were there , but in an attempt to recapture some of the magic we painted smiles upon our faces and stuffed the child into the car and headed out to the Living Treasures Animal Park. It’s about an hour drive from Pittsburgh, and we managed to arrive without a single episode to cause me to stare out the window in protruding-lipped angst. A good sign.

Of course, with Riley being the wild man that he is, it wasn’t exactly the casual hand-holding stroll beneath Victorian lace parasols in Kensington Park, but more like running a relay race in an attempt to chase around your child in near-90 degree heat, trying to make sure he doesn’t end up leaving with another family, shoveling rogue rooster poop into his mouth, or falling into the duck pond. When you’re drenched in clammy-handed sweat there’s no way do you want to be holding the hand of your partner who just got done feeding a cow and the entire three-ring fly circus he’s hosting upon his back.

For the most part, it was what you would imagine from a small zoo.

Animals shitting, lions sleeping with their backs toward you, asshole kids cutting in front of you while their asshole parents talk on their asshole cell phones like the asshole Ray-Banned yuppies they are. And all my child cared about was this one fucking duck over in a gazebo and finally I was like, “I didn’t just spend $20 for you to sit here and throw shit at a duck when we could have driven five miles from home and done this shit for free so now you’re going to come with me and look at a monkey and fucking like it” and then he melted down into a full-blown display of histrionic fireworks, complete with real, plump tears, and it was a nice little glimpse of the next eighteen years of my life. (And also the last 27 of my own, I guess I should add.)

I splurged on the large bag of feed and of course, with the exit in our sight, half of the bag still remained. Not wanting to waste it, I spent some extra time with the dromedary camels. Henry kept yelling at me to keep my hand flat, and I was getting angry. It was flat! I’m quite capable of reading signs, I’m in college, remember?

So I’m standing there, grimacing and dry heaving over the thick and sticky saliva being lacquered onto my hand, when suddenly the one camel started to inhale my entire palm into its large vacuum of a mouth. I was so horrified that I actually choked on my scream. I was wrist-deep in this motherfucker’s jaws and it was starting to apply pressure with its flat teeth. I tried to yank myself back out, but the camel clamped down harder.

Hysteria renders it impossible for me to relay every detail, but I’m fairly sure I roared something to the effect of, “Get it the fuck OFF OF ME!“

You know the situation has reached emergency status when Henry forgoes the eye-rolling and nearly drops our child to come to my aid. I had to squint to see it, but I do believe I detected a trace of panic filling in the lines of Henry’s weathered face. But by this point, I was losing consciousness, so what do I know.

Great, soon I’ll be attending tea parties on a cloud with Steve Irwin, I thought pitifully.

Luckily, Henry used his big manly muscles to rip out my arm with force, postponing my tete-a-tete with the Crocodile Hunter.

It was the closest we came to hand-holding all day. Aw, thanks camel.

I was afraid to look at what mangled flesh and bone remained. I held it up, with my non camel-molested hand wrapped around it, stroking it lovingly and swearing to never place it in such compromising situations again. When I finally peeked at it, there were red splotches here and there, presumably broken blood vessels, and my one fingernail was black underneath.

I shoved my camel-battered hand in Henry’s face and screamed, “Look at what that asshole has done! He’s murdered my hand!” Henry seemed alarmed at the blackness of my nail and urged me to show it to one of the staff members. I inwardly gloated at the fact that the son of a bitch actually gave a shit, waited a bit for his concern to balloon into hospital bill horror, and then admitted that it was really just paint souvenirs from my weekend of furious and maniacal art therapy.

Apparently, by ‘flat,’ what the signs really meant is “Don’t feed these fuckers, else you’ll be devoured up to your elbow until you’re fisting this Satan-spawned beast’s hay-stuffed colon. And if, by chance, you’re still conscious when that happens, grope around a bit and see if you can find my wedding band.  – The Handless Management.”

All of the fond memories I harbored of riding camels in Morocco have flown out the window. Ahoy, Aversion Island.

And thus, the tone of the day was set. We went to lunch after we left the farm of maim, where we ate to the tune of my whines. “It’s growing worse by the minute!” I’d sob. Henry would make exaggerated efforts to lovingly squeeze my hand from across the table; I’d scream out in pain.

Feigning concern, he would ask, “Oh, was that your camel hand?”

I really wished he would stop calling it that because it made me feel like I was wearing an ill-fitting glove.

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[This is not going to be articulate, and I don’t care because I’m crying.]

When Henry and I first started dating, my favorite band was Cold. And by favorite, I mean that I would sob through their sets and be an emotional wreck for days after. The first road trip Henry and I ever took together was to Wisconsin, where they were performing a 30  minute set at a radio festival. It took us two days to get there and it was worth every fucking second, even when I cried for an hour on the way home and fought with Henry because he wouldn’t take me to Wisconsin Dells (this is totally one of those stories that will get passed on from generation to generation). We also saw them in Norfolk, Virginia and a million times here in Pittsburgh. And before Henry, there was my best guy-friend Wonka, and together we saw them together in Hershey, Columbus OH, and Buffalo. I still have the orange Starburst that Scooter Ward gave me before the show in Hershey, where we bonded over Robert Smith and I cried in his face. I keep it in the freezer every summer to keep it from melting.

The last time I had the chance to see them was April of 2004, and I was in a very bad place emotionally. I had written Scooter a letter, thanking him for his words and for always being there for his fans. Cold shows were one of the only times I felt I belonged somewhere, and I needed him to know that. But I couldn’t find the nerve to give him the letter. He was standing a few feet away from me before that show and I panicked. Henry, supportive boyfriend that he is, was so angry with me.

“Just give him the fucking letter! He’s right over there! No one’s even bothering him!” Henry doesn’t get it, that it’s not just some petty star-struck syndrome. It’s something more than that, something greater. It’s about being in the presence of someone who I know gets it, someone who I feel a connection with, even if I don’t know them personally. Someone who, in a strange and inexplicable way, was the only one there for me.

I remember wanting to go home. Doors hadn’t even opened yet and I was ready to surrender and just walk away. I knew that I was going to walk inside that venue, the now-defunct Rock Jungle, and lose my shit like I always did when they took the stage. But Henry convinced me to stay, and once inside, he swiped the letter from me and hand-delivered it to Sam, the drummer. Henry wasn’t happy about it, because it made him feel lame, like he was passing notes in high school. But it made me feel like a weight had been lifted.

The next time they went on tour, I was pregnant and knew it would be  a bad idea, so I didn’t go to any of the shows.

Unfortunately, they broke up soon after that, and I had always regretted that I missed what could have been my last chance to see them. I knew that Scooter was going through some shit, and I was worried that he wouldn’t bounce back, that the scene would take away another underrated, amazingly talented and inspirational man.

In October, my friend Jenny texted me, alerting me that they had reunited. I will never forget where I was — in line for Cheeseman’s Haunted Hayride. It was one of the best nights ever.

And that’s how Henry and I ended up in Cleveland last night, watching them live at the House of Blues. For the first time in five years. FIVE YEARS and they still rip my heart right through my fucking ribcage.

I think my favorite part of the night, and the only part where my face wasn’t wet, was when Henry lost his cell phone. We were sitting upstairs, and had switched seats three times because Henry is a fucking retard and kept choosing inappropriate seats. (He was happy to be seeing a band with an older fanbase, where sitting down didn’t call forth the Old Person spotlight.) So in our last seat switch, he reached down and noticed his cell phone was missing. “That’s what you get for clipping it on your belt like an asshole,” I scoffed. Within seconds, people around us noticed that something was amiss, and a small search party had spontaneously formed. I couldn’t call his phone, because I had no service (I found out a few minutes later that it was only in the exact spot I was sitting, and that if I moved my arm to the left, it worked, but owellz0rz Henry), so some dude was all, “Hey bud, I am old too like you so I want to come to your aid. Here, please use my phone to locate your own!” And Henry was all, “OMG thank you, Hot Older Guy!” and then tried in vain to tuck in his Fellow Oldie boner.

Anyway, the man two seats down from me had been sitting on it, so he handed it over and everyone had a good chuckle. I continued sitting there as I had been all along, rolling my eyes. Seriously, there were at least seven to nine people scrambling around, looking under seats, and scratching their temples, but I was not one of them.

Girlfriend of the year!

I know, right – where’s the climax to THAT story?

The opening band  -Drama Club – came on around 8. I was a little ambivalent about them. The singer sounded like he was trying to come across way more glam than he was, but then some of the band members looked like they were on the cusp of being scene yet stuck in a decidedly non-scene band. I didn’t mind them, but I wasn’t riveted. It made me miss the energy of younger crowds at post-hardcore shows and this is no joke, there was a fleeting moment when I imagined I was in the middle of a scene kid group hug. I made the mistake of telling Henry after Drama Club’s set and he of course was annoyed.

[Music geek side note: there were several moments when the singer of Drama Club sounded vaguely familiar to me, and then he mentioned that they’re from Wilkes-Barre, PA. I thought to myself, “Huh. I wonder if that’s the dude from Lifer” because how many bands are actually from Wilkes-Barre, and it totally is; he just dyed his hair black and became fey. The whole way home, I kept bragging to Henry about being a music genius and I think he wanted to dickslap me. Now I’m nostalgic for Lifer.]

The next band was the Killer and the Star, Scooter’s side project which currently features Rocky Gray (ex-Evanescence) and Michael Harris (Idiot Pilot). Scooter sat down at his piano and by the time the second word was sung, my cheeks were salty. I didn’t even try to stop it, I know a thing or two about futility. But sitting there, listening to these beautiful songs, it made me angry that he doesn’t get more respect, that some people think “Just Got Wicked” or “Stupid Girl” is the extent of what he has to offer, when his songwriting weaves the perfect blend of melancholy, angst, and aggression, the resulting product something I can’t even put a label on. Call Cold nu-metal if you want, but there’s depth there in the music and the lyrics. A lot of it. And this new project is the perfect vessel for him to scream “LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO!” Killer and the Star is still slightly heavy but Scooter’s piano-playing and soulful vocals (he sings differently with this band) bring a bluesy element to the plate, making it impossible to compare it to anything else.

“Hallelujah” was my favorite song, and Michael Harris was amazing to watch on stage. The vocals he provided melted with Scooter’s and I kind of couldn’t handle it. I imagine it’s what church-y people feel like on Sundays – goosebumps, tear-stung eyeballs, and involuntary shudders. The hairs on my arms were erect. (ERECT.)

I really was so unsure that I would ever get to hear this man sing live again, and to have him there, mere feet away, it  made me appreciate him so much more. After that set, I looked at Henry and whispered, “I’m not so sure I can handle this.”

“Yes you can,” he said, and gave me a patronizing back-pat. My man.

I distracted myself by hating the Southern drawlers behind me, one of which was wearing some nasty patchouli/ash concoction that buffeted me every time she came back from getting a beer. Then I noticed one of the stage guys propping a bust of Michael Myers on top of one of the speakers and I felt giddy. Terry Balsamo used to come out on stage wearing a Michael Myers mask, but he quit doing that sometime after they stopped touring for 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage. And then he left to play for Evanescence, but that’s all I’ll say about that, otherwise I’ll get angry.

Before Scooter came back out with Cold, there was a little tribute video that was played on the big screen in front of the stage, recapping Cold’s journey to get where they are now, starting in the early nineties when they were Grundig. And even that proved to be a test for my tear ducts.

This is the first time the original 5-man lineup has been back together in something like five years. In fact, the last time I saw them live, it was the new lineup and it felt so strange and unfamiliar, like the first holiday after a family member dies.

I would love to go through every song they played, giving you objective thoughts and reviews based on technical merit and sound quality, but the truth is, I’m still an emotional wreck. Today, I was still crying as I recounted the show to a friend on the phone. I still got choked up when I said, “Scooter seems happier now,” because while I don’t know him personally, I care about him very hard.  To see him on stage, in his glory, in his element – it was fantastic. And he is so humble, pausing to thank his fans after every song. A middle-aged woman with spiky red hair and clothes too tight for her age, yelled, “No, thank YOU!” and I thought to myself, “Hey old broad, you might be too old to get away with wearing that studded belt that I know you think you’re rocking, but Amen.” But then I secretly wished she’d fall over the balcony, because fuck, she was annoying.

The show was like being home again.

I didn’t talk.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t move, apart from a few feeble attempts at applause.

I just sat there, motionless, and, with a few friendly reminders to breathe, I let my heart melt. It is agony at times, running this psychotic gamut of emotions, like swishing hot tea over a toothache – painful but it feels so fucking good.

On the way to the car, I looked at Henry and tried to talk but all that came out was audible sobs (Henry’s instinct was to ignore me and ask aloud, “I wonder which way I should go to get out of here” as he left the parking garage, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a greater scope to that question). I felt emotionally exhausted, drained, numb, but 100% willing to do it again, like, right now.

You can make fun of me for crying. You can tell me that Cold is so 2002. You can tell me to get a life. But the one thing I know for sure is that, no matter how much it hurts, I would rather feel this than nothing at all. And if, someday, music stops making me feel that way? Well, why bother.

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This is my friend Alisha and me at Henry’s FORTIETH birthday pity party in 2005. I don’t know why my expression screams post-rubber cement sniffing session, but I am wearing a purple bowtie and that’s all that really matters.

Alisha and I hadn’t been in touch for a few years, but we reconnected recently and went out to lunch last Sunday. It was awesome to have a little bit of familiarity after all the changes that have going down lately. I guess I expected some tension, but there was none to be found. On my end, at least. After I forced a high-five upon her, we walked to the Elbow Room where we had super greasy grilled cheeses (the best kind) and reminisced about all the ridiculous memories of 2005, like when I talked her into going roller skating with me.

It’s a wonder that she ever came back for more, to be honest.

In other Twitter news, now that Henry is working this second job I talked him into signing up for Twitter so that my savory tweets can breathe some will to live into his weary soul. Or utterly disgust and annoy him, it’s hard to tell with him sometimes. He left it up to me, which is like giving a thief your PIN, and by Friday afternoon our little Henry became the proud owner of his very own Twitter account: A Woodhick. I even went ahead and added John McCain as his very first friend! I figured it’s the least I could do since it’s been a whole three years since I placed a personal ad for him.

He was not happy with the name I gave him. It’s a funny little story, really. (No, it’s not really.) But one time last year, we were watching some local show called  Dave and Dave’s Excellent Adventures and on that particular episode, they were at some lumber thingie. I don’t really fucking remember, but I know that they were talking to some jackass who worked there and that jackass was all, “Yeah, we’re known as woodhicks.” And I started laughing because before I knew Henry, he was a delivery driver for a lumber yard. So in my most obnoxious manner, I was all, “Haha, Henry was a woodhick.” And of course, Henry had to bring logic to the table and remind me that he never actually cut down trees. But it was too late. The image of him as a woodhick, wearing a trucker cap with “WOODHICK” emblazoned on it in hot pink threading, was already seared into my mind. In some variations of this vision, he’s wearing suspenders.

I decided to change his name in my phone from “Asshole” to “Woodhick” but was not pleased when I realized this would knock him all the way down to the end of the list. So he’s in there as “A Woodhick.” (And to further anger him, I put “Gayblade Juice” as his company instead of Everfresh Juice, and his title is “Head Fag”.) God help me if I die when I’m with someone and they can’t find Henry’s number in my phone. I thnk about that all the time. I should really do that ICE thing.

Speaking of phone book entries, I was going through Henry’s contacts one day (he was sitting next to me, chill! I’m not one of those crazies who sneak peeks at their partners call logs/text messages when they’re sleeping. That’s creepy, even for me) and was a little disappointed to see that there were so many people listed above me. So I changed my name to Adrian to ensure I’d be #1. In fact, I think I should do this for all of my friends’ cell phones.

This concludes an intimate glimpse into my delightful relationship with Henri the Woodhick.

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Foreword:

I had a quick flashback of staking out in a mini-snow storm to video tape some pizza delivery guy whom I was stalking for God only knows what reason, and I decided, “Hay ya’ll, that was a fun yarn, let’s all reflect on that right now, ya hear.”

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 Originally a LiveJournal post from November, 2005.

The Jimmy Set-Up

One night while taking a leisurely stroll with Henry, I insisted that we walk past the pizza place which employs the latest delivery guy that I’m stalking (I have a thing for pizza guys: Exhibit A / Exhibit B). His name is Jimmy. This I know because last week as Henry and I were ambling past, Jimmy was sitting in his car, waiting to pull out when another employee of Pizzarella came running out, yelling, “Jimmy! Jimmy, wait!” Alas, Jimmy didn’t hear him and pulled out into traffic with a squeal of his tires, the Pizzarella sign adorning the top of his car. “Huh, there goes Jimmy,” I said as we looked on.

Big deal, right? Well, on our way back from our walk that night, we were crossing  the street. All was clear, but suddenly, while we were in the middle of the road, a car came flying up over the hill, forcing me to run the rest of the way. I was clutching my stomach and yelling, “Don’t hit me I’m pregnant!” (LOVE playing that card), when I happened to toss a glance over my shoulder and I saw that it was Jimmy in his dinky white sputtering car with the Pizzarella sign on top. “Aw, it’s Jimmy!” I yelled, as I tugged on Henry’s arm. He didn’t care.

One block over, and it was time to cross the street again. We had just stepped off the curb when another car came barreling at us. I started to yell threats about being pregnant when I stopped and screamed, “Hey, it’s Jimmy again!” His window was down and he clearly heard my zealous exclamations of his name; they were rather orgasmic. Henry was embarrassed. So I decided that it was fate; I mean, obviously. Maybe there’s supposed to be a movie made about us, I suggested to Henry. A romantic comedy!

I began to outline the premise for Henry. Man drives recklessly around town with the intent of running over any and all pregnant women he comes across, because he hates babies and the vessels which bear them. One fateful night in November, he sees me walking with Henry. Henry selfishly dives out of the way, leaving me in the headlights of Jimmy’s car. He hits me, but unfortunately for him, I survive, and so does the baby, which ends up being his, so he spends the rest of his life hunting down me and the kid, trying to kill us with his pizza delivery car.

“How is that a romantic comedy?” Henry asked. Well, maybe it’s more of a thriller. Or it can be a dark comedy and we’ll just have Pee Wee Herman doing something occasionally.

Ever since that night, no matter what Henry and I are involved in, I make time for Jimmy. “Hey, remember Jimmy?” I’ll ask. “No,” he’ll say. Maybe his lack of a Jimmy memory is because he’s trying to trick me into having sex at that particular moment or he’s too engrossed in “Good Eats,” but I know deep down there will always be room for Jimmy’s memory in Henry’s heart. Someday, maybe he’ll be secure enough with his manhood to admit it.

Unfortunately, Jimmy wasn’t at the shop last night. However! As we walked past, a man exited the pizza shop, carrying a precariously-stacked tower of trays. We watched him walk over to his parked Audi and struggle with the opening of the passenger door.

I’ve never seen Henry move so fast in my life. “Here, let me get that for you!” And then an awkward exchange of “No, it’s cool, I got it” and “Are you sure, man?” followed by “Yes, thanks man” and ending with “Oh, OK, bud!” ensued. I was able to hold it in long enough for Henry to rejoin me on the sidewalk, but then it all came tumbling out of the loose cannon.

“Oooooooh! Henry’s new boyfriend!”

He wouldn’t talk to me after that and even tried to walk me into a sign.

Anyway, I’m going to order from Pizzarella this weekend, but only after I make sure Jimmy is working. Then when Henry is paying him, I’ll be hiding by the window, taking his picture. You just wait, Jimmy.

---

The Jimmy Fake Out

But I don’t even like their food, I thought, after I urged Henry to place an order to Pizzarella that Saturday night. And when Henry brought up that tiny detail, I of course lied and said, “You must be thinking of another place, buddy. I love Pizzarella. It’s like being in Italy. With all that real Italian food. Mmm. Trevi Fountain, holla.” Indigestion brought on by sub-par Brookline Italian fare was a small price to pay in order to lure Jimmy to my doorstep.

Thirty minutes later, Henry began pacing back and forth in front of the window, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Wow, I thought, Henry is nervous too!

Turns out he was just really hungry.

When I heard a car pull up to the house, I lurched for the camcorder and yelled, “Is it him!?”

It wasn’t. It was some worthless piece of shit who could never match up to Jimmy’s talent for pizza slinging.

My pasta tasted like poison. I ate bitterly as I reflected on how Henry refused to grant me permission to cut him earlier that day. Just one little slice across his chest with a box cutter, it was all I asked; a small token of our love, I begged. “Shed your blood for me, you son of a bitch,” I hissed with my fingernails at his throat. If he really loved me, he’d have let me. So now I can add this to the list of his other vetoes: me vomiting in his mouth; him dressing as Michael Myers and raping me (I would have loved to one day tell my child that that’s how (s)he was conceived); allowing me to take a Danish lover; and the list goes on, my friends. The list goes on.

And so I start thinking. I don’t have the money nor the appetite to continue ordering shitty food every day in hopes of drawing Jimmy to my front door; I would just have to go straight to the source. I begged Henry to give the night one more chance by walking with me to Brookline Boulevard, where we would have a real life stake out.

“Either do this or let me cut you”: a proposal in which I win either way. I suggested that we pack a small bag full of sustenance, maybe some crackers and peanut butter, because there was no telling how long we’d be gone.

“Oh, we won’t be gone that long,” Henry mumbled as he zipped up his jacket. I tucked the camcorder snugly into my pocket and pulled my hat down low over my eyes.

It was time.

****

There was no sign of any of the Pizzarella delivery cars as we walked past the shop the first time,  me giggling uncontrollably and Henry telling me to shut the fuck up. When I’m giddy, I walk like a drunk, forcing him to grip my arm hard to pull me out of the way of other pedestrians. I hoped it would bruise so I could show the cops, but it didn’t. Damn those cold-weather layers. I plan on battering myself in time for my sonogram next week so all fingers will point to Henry.

We passed this guy Brice who used to stalk me, and his dog took a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. He acts like he doesn’t even know me now, I thought, as my wave and bright smile were met with a vacant stare. I looked at Henry in disdain. It’s all his fault. All of my stalkers retreated with their tails between their legs once Henry came barreling into my life, disrupting the natural order of things. (Gas station grocery shopping, inviting people over from chat rooms, blind dates, roller skating in the house. This list deserves its own entry. Or book.). I walked in silence for a few seconds, shedding invisible tears for stalkers past. Tossing a quick glance over at Henry, I felt a thousand pounds of hatred as I watched the way he scrunched up his shoulders to block the wind; the way he looked like a hoodlum with his hood pulled up tight around his fat face. Look at what he’s done to me, I thought, thinking of all the fun he’s driven out of my life. Maybe he can give me some STDs too, to ice the cake; make sure no one will ever want to stalk me again. No more Brices or Gothic Carls or Johnny Blazes. I’ve been tainted by domesticity. What stalker in their right mind would risk peeping into my window only to catch a glimpse of Henry traipsing around in his underwear? Who wants to stalk a boring quasi-housewife? (If you answered “I do” to that, my address is available upon request. I can also send pics of Henry’s bare legs to requested parties, as well.)

Luckily for Henry and the fate our unborn child, I distracted myself from further thoughts of running away by making zombie noises. The first one I did was the best, but then I couldn’t remember how I did it and I began to try too hard, which resulted in me sounding like I had emphysema. Still, I practiced on and on, relentless, because I’m no quitter. Plus, I wanted to test it out on unsuspecting passers-by.

“Was that it?”

“No.”

“Was that it?”

“No.”

Finally, Henry stopped answering me altogether, but it didn’t matter since we were now across the street from Pizzarella. I dusted off a spot on a retaining wall and made myself comfortable.

Cracked my knuckles a few times, blew on my finger tips, punched Henry in the crotch — you know, all the things people do when they’re preparing to undergo some heavy surveillance.

While I was getting nestled, two young kids pedaled past on their bikes, so I hit them with my zombie sounds. And then I laughed about it for a few minutes and kept saying, “Hey Henry, remember when those kids rode by and I made zombie noises at them?” He wouldn’t answer; that happens sometimes. I guess it’s because he’s old.

As luck would have it, right when I got the camcorder all set up (you know, extracted from my pocket and turned on), a drunk old black man came from our right, slightly staggering with his head down. So I taped him, with Henry whispering, “Don’t. That’s not nice. Stop.” See what I mean? I am so oppressed. Too bad Henry then started to laugh. Mr. Fucking Humanitarian. This is the same guy who comes home from work and brags about seeing prostitutes fighting and a woman wearing white pants with a menstrual Rorschach pattern on her crotch.

But I’m cruel for videotaping a wino.

While I was fully immersed in this anthropological specimen, Henry jabbed my arm and pointed across the street. A delivery man had returned. I swung the camera in his direction and began squealing, “Oh my god it’s Jimmy! It’s Jimmy!!” The butterflies were ricocheting all over my stomach as my laughter shook the camera, and then Henry said, “Oh wait. That’s not him. Jimmy had a white car.”

What, daddy? There’s no Santa?

I was crushed. Even more so than when I lost the Alternative Press “Number 1 Fan” essay contest last year. (I lost to some cunt in California who wrote something similar to this: “OMG I DON’T HAVE AN OLDER BROTHER BUT THANK GOD I HAVE AP BECAUSE YOU ARE LIKE AN OLDER BROTHER WHO SHOWS ME GOOD MUSIC.” How does that make her their number one fan? I would say that makes AP her number one imaginary friend. Fuck you and your non-brother, you fucking slut. Of course, I didn’t follow the rules and my essay was about three hundred words — give or take a few hundred — too long.

In any case, I know that girl’s name and where she lives. And in one of my lowest and darkest moments, I even tried to find her on LiveJournal so I could flame her. There, I said it.)

You see, we don’t actually know what Jimmy looks like; just his car. Still, I really think I’m in love with him.

I really am, I think.

We waited a little longer, huddled together against the wind. “Sweetie, I don’t think he’s working tonight,” Henry said as he patted my head. You know it’s dire when he calls me sweetie.

But then the clouds parted and another delivery car pulled up.

“That’s not him. That’s the guy that delivered to us earlier,” Henry said with authority because he excels in all things pizza and vehicles. But while Henry was shooting me in the face with his smugness, he totally missed the delivery guy emerging from his car. Suddenly, one of his legs completely gave out, like it was made from putty, and he fell back against the side of his car. I laughed, and I mean laughed, with enough volume and zest for him to hear and look over at me. This made me laugh even harder and I’m going to admit something here because I’m honest: I peed. Yes, I pissed my fucking pants, right there, sitting on the wall. Erin urinated. Granted, it was the tiniest dribble, maybe the size of a gum ball at best. But it was enough to feel warm and uncomfortable.

Look, I’m pregnant, OK? This shit happens. And by shit I mean piss.

This was the final straw for Henry and he urged me to get up and start walking home with him. Also, he was pouting because he missed the stumbling delivery man.

“Wait,” I said. “Not until I know for sure. Give me change, I need to make a call.”

And so I walked a half of a block down to the gas station and called Pizzarella from the pay phone, because I’m proud to be part of the world’s 10% without a cell phone. While I dialed the number, Henry stood beside me but I pushed him away because I didn’t want to laugh. I needed privacy for this one.

A girl answered and, while my mouth was wide open, there was this ill-timed delay in my speech. I almost hung up but didn’t want to waste the fifty cents. (Fifty fucking cents to use the pay phone now? It’s been a long time since I had to use a pay phone. Jimmy, my man, you’re raping my pockets.)

I had it all rehearsed in my head. A simple, “Hello, is Jimmy working tonight?” would have sufficed. But instead, I ended up sounding like a head gear-wearing 12-year-old Bobcat Goldthwait making his first prank call at a slumber party.

“HI!!!! [pause to bite back laughter] IS JIMHAHAHAHAPFFFFFFFFT WORKING TONIGHT!?!?!?”

“Who?” She was clearly annoyed. I hoped it wasn’t his girlfriend.

“Jimmy.” I wasn’t laughing now, but rather trying to hold back more spurts of urine.

You know how hard it is to manually shut yourself off once you’ve started!

And so I was informed that Jimmy was not working that night.

“THANKS” I yelled and slammed down the receiver. And then I laughed all the way to a stomach ache, while the urine burnt my thighs as it dried.

ETA: At exactly 2:20 PM, I was on my way to Pitt to schedule classes and I totally passed Jimmy and his white car on the road. It’s so on for tonight.

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Last Saturday, the weather was sunny and 70, so my brother Corey met up at Jefferson Memorial to take some pictures. We saw a wedding ceremony which we desperately wanted to crash, and we also broke up a couple’s romantic interlude near the pond we chose as our location.

The pond is my favorite area of this cemetery, but it also happens to be near the scene of one of my most traumatic childhood memories. I was eight or so, and was with my mother and younger brother Ryan. I don’t know if we were visiting some dead relative or just poking around, but I remember we were all out of the car and it was getting close to dusk. Because my mom enjoyed inflicting psychological trauma on her children even back then, she decided to lock me out of the car. Here is where I will state that my mom to this day insists (through streaming tears of laughter and delight) that this even never occurred and that I dreamt it all up, that I always had an overactive imagination. But that’s only because she doesn’t want me to get to the climax of the story, which is where she would only let me back into the saftey of her Blazer if I read her three names off the mausoleum wall.

This is fact; it happened.

Conversely, my mother likes to make up her own memories, like the one where I pushed my brother Ryan down the attic steps. She still swears that this happened, and I know that I was an evil witch of a child, but I never pushed that kid down the attic steps, I’m sorry. Not even after he drove his twenty-wheeled remote control car in my mid-back lengthed hair which subsequently resulted in my mother doing one hell of a number on my pretty blond locks with shearers. Not even after he caused me to suffer through years of inadequacy issues and brutal, bloody competition. (I was the better tennis player, but  my family never came to any of my matches so they wouldn’t know.)

Fuck, I hate my family. (Not you, Corey. You’re safe from my voodoo doll army.)

Wow, thank you Random Picture Sunday. I feel much better now.

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Oh shit. I found a bunch of old junk I wrote in high school, for random writing classes, and they are painful. Because I get off on looking lame, I am going to share this one piece of feces I actually had the audacity to turn in. AND IF YOU LIKE THAT, THERE IS A WHOLE FOLDER WHERE THAT ONE CAME FROM!

****

“Put that back. You know your brother doesn’t like Capn’ Crunch,” Val ordered as I loaded up the cart at Giant Eagle with unwanted food. [Ed.Note: I like how I didn’t even bother to call her “mom” when writing things for school.]

“But I like it!” I whined. It wasn’t fair how the world revolved around my brother. [Ed.Note. This tiny line of dialogue makes me realize that I haven’t changed. This could have come from a trip to the grocery store with Henry just last week.]

“So many brands of cereal. But you know what? We’ve discovered that generic brands taste just as good. Plus, you get a whole hell of a lot more.”

Val and I turned around and saw a woman who – if I was pressed to guess-  was in her late forties, leaning on her cart behind us. Her scraggly black hair lounged on top of her head. She looked tired and overly stressed, as if she had spent the last couple of  nights trying to catch up on her soap operas. [Ed.Note: Here is where, if this was written now, I probably would have guessed she had been out all night working the pole and thrusting her pelt in the faces of bearded truckers. Oh, to have that youthful innocence back.]

“You know, I might have some coupons for some of the junk you’re buying.” The woman reached into her bulging purse.

“Oh,  no thank you. Don’t bother. I’ve never been much of an avid coupon user.” Val gave me the ‘hurry-let’s-get-outta-here-before-I-get-stuck-talking-to-this-freak-forever’ look. Once we attempted to walk away, the woman started talking again, as if trying to lasso us back with her unwarranted conversation.

“When I said ‘we’ earlier, I was referring to my husband and myself.” Her face grew dark as she filled with staged sorrow. “Now I’m in a big legal battle with him.” Val knew that she was in for a long chat. “He wants to keep the dog! Can you believe that? My beloved Mitzy! I was the one who brought that dog home; I fed her, I bathed her, I played with her. Not John! No, all he did was neglect her.”

“That’s a shame. Look, I really should be on my way. It’s getting late and I have a baby at home—” Val started nudging me along.

“My lawyer, Mark? He says that he’ll handle the whole mess and that I shouldn’t worry.” I used this woman’s plight as a distraction to toss my box of Capn’ Crunch in the cart.

“I’m sure things will be fine,” Val looked at me, silently pleading for me to help her get away from this strange character, but I’m loving every second of it.

“My husband has gone so far as to lock the shed! How am I supposed to finish my garden with all of my tools locked away in the shed?” A nervous tug on a twisted strand of hair follows.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get things straightened out. Erin, you about ready to go? My frozen foods are melting.” Val started coaxing me away from the cereals, just as the woman started to open her purse.

The first thing that ran through my mind was GUN GUN OH MY GOD GUN and that this neurotic woman had found her victims. Val, obviously sharing my same sneaking suspicions, backed away in panic.

The woman’s hand started to retreat from the depths of her bag when a voice suddenly boomed from the ceiling.

“Clean up in aisle five.”  The clerk’s voice was like a knife slicing through the tension, and it caused us to momentarily break our gaze from the mad woman. When we turned back around, she held out her hand and showed off a shiny…bottle of pills?

“Check out these pills. These are my anti-depressants. Dr. Hutchinson prescribed them to me so that  my  mood swings can be controlled.” The woman, holding her bottle of happy pills, rambled on and on about her missing son, her kleptomaniac maid, her car that needed new brakes.

It would seem as though Val was offering an unadvertised, pro bono shrink session.

After an eternity had passed, and probably the box of popcicles I hid under the loaf of bread had melted, Val finally spoke up.

“Well…look. I wish you all the best, and I hope that you find your son soon, but I really need to get home.”

“Oh, my. Didn’t you say something about that earlier? I just go off on these tangents sometimes.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a piece of scrap paper. “Here’s my number,” she said, clicking a pen. “Why don’t you call me sometime and we can have tea? I’d love to hear your stories someday! I live across from the high school.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure, I’ll do that. Sure.” Val stuffed the number in her pocket and quickly shoved me down the aisle. “Thanks for all the help back there,” she hissed, pinching me under the arm. [Ed.Note: MY MOM ABUSED ME.]

“What? You mean you didn’t think she was lovely?” I dead-panned.

“Listen!” Val stood stock-still. The mad woman’s voice trailed from the neighboring aisle.

“Oh, you shouldn’t buy those diapers! I used Luvs for my baby. Im in a custody battle with  my husband, by the way.  He wants to  take my daughter away from me!”

Turning back toward me, Val said, “Well, I’m ready to go. How about you?”

“Yeah, now that Supermarket Schizo has a new victim.” [Ed.Note: Wow, I sure was witty.]

9 comments

My mom has always abhorred the idea of being immortalized in a photo. Most of the pictures I have of her from my childhood feature an arm splayed across her cheek, or her face obscured by her drape-like hair. But occasionally, a photo will surface of my mom actually smiling. Maybe the camera-holder caught her after she downed an extra glass of Sangria, who knows.

I could never understand my mom’s camera-shyness, because I always thought she was so pretty. Maybe if I looked even half as good as she did at my age, the act of having my photo taken wouldn’t give me indigestion and cold sweats. I hate having my picture taken so much, that I don’t even have the obligatory mother-holding-slimey-baby shot after I gave birth. If I ever get married, I suppose a stand-in will be in need.

P.S. That’s my step-dad with her. Back then, he wore shirts tighter than my mom’s and shorts shorter than Freddy Mercury’s, and also he was really into his Soloflex.

9 comments