The last couple of apples Henry has bought have been downright horrific. I’m talking so bad that I have THROWN AWAY more than half of each 7pm work apple. They taste hard and like the ground, similar to raw potatoes. Total fucking fruit foul. WHAT IS GOING ON!?

So I asked Henry just that: “WHAT IS GOING ON?!”

“It’s not apple season,” explained Henry.

I didn’t like that answer, so when I was whining to Debbie and Barb about it at work today, I wailed, “WHAT IS GOING ON?!”

“It’s not apple season,” explained Barb.

OH OK, HENRY JR.

Later, I sidled up to Barb’s desk with my “I AM A VERY SWEET GIRL” smile on my face, while palming a Gala apple behind my back.

“Can I feel your apple?” I demanded. And of course Barb let me feel her apple, because I’m Erin Rachelle Kelly.
In response to Barb’s curious expression, I said, “I just know that my apple is going to suck, and if that’s the case, then I would rather you eat it.”

“OK. So, do you want to trade apples?” Barb is so good at reading between the lines.

And that is how I turned my Gala into a Pink Lady. I don’t know yet if it sucks. If it does, I’ll be interofficing Barb some hate mail.
———————–
Speaking of apples, Henry’s mom Judy was singing the praises of grapples a few weeks ago. She told me that they are apple and grape crossbreeds and that they are REALLY JUICY. This sounded good to me, so I asked Henry why he never buys any.

“Because they’re 4 for $4!” he cried. I always forget that we are peasants living in Shantytown, wearing sardine cans as shoes, and that we cannot afford such extravagant and superfluous foodstuffs. I guess I’ll just have to make do with the vittles I scavenge while playing wildberry roulette in the forest.

Finally, Henry bought a sleeve of grapples and by George those motherfuckers are some fine ass produce. They reek of grapes but taste like really moist apples! No wonder all these other apples taste like overripe garbage.

Grapples or gtfo!!!!
———————-
Henry and I had time to kill while Chooch was at a birthday party on Sunday, so I suggested that we walk up to the local Mexican market in Brookline. I went there with Chooch in December, but that was before I cared about fruit, so we only looked at candy and rosaries.

At first, I was so excited. This place had all kinds of non-American fruit!
But then I realized that it was just regular fruit with the names written in Spanish.

There were cactus petal things that Henry refused to buy, and these long ass weapons that were apparently aloe. Henry said no to those too. He did let me get these dwarf mango things, like I’m supposed to get down on my knees now or something.

“Ow! What are these?” I asked Henry about these grapefruit-sized balls of pain.

“I don’t know,” Henry answered.

“Ow!” I yelled again.

“Yeah. Keep touching it,” he muttered.

I made Henry buy tomatillos because I thought they were what fried green tomatoes are made from, but apparently fried green tomatoes are made from green tomatoes. But now we have a shit ton of tomatillos so Henry made salsa which is better than stupid fried green tomatoes anyway and now no one has to get hit by a train.

Henry also added some of my midget mangoes to the salsa. It was OK, but kind of tasted like a garden. I guess because that is what “fresh” is supposed to taste like.

Henry turned around after buying chorizo from the meat counter to find me standing with my arms full of scary religious candles, which is all I really wanted to go there for anyway. Truth comes out.

——————–

In other ethnic market news, Henry went to Pitaland (right next to the Mexican market; I hope they don’t decide to feud anytime soon because I walk past both of them A LOT) to get pita (surprise!) for his mom. He also came out with a bag of fresh dates. I love dates, but these dates were DESIRABLE. Super plump and soft, I couldn’t believe it.

SIDE NOTE: When Henry and I went to Coachella in 2004, visiting a date farm in Indio, CA was the highlight of the trip for me, probably because we fought so furiously—enough to make Sid and Nancy blush from their Afterworld drug den—that I literally blocked out most of that trip from my memory. But that date farm I will never forget. We watched some video about dates having sex, and they have always had a sleazy connotation for me ever since.

And we had date milk shakes.

Motherfucking milkshakes made from dates.

I would do unspeakable things to have one of those gyrating down my gullet right now.

(Apparently, it is a date garden.)

That milkshake alone makes up for the stripper shack in San Bernadino in which Henry put us up, and the 113 degree heat during the weekend-long concert in the desert, not to mention the fact that I was there with Henry.

“What are dates made out of, anyway,” I asked Henry, closing my eyes and obscenely sucking face with a fat ass date.

“Um…..dates?” Henry said, in his typical snide Professor Henry von Fuckstick tone.

I ate one of those sexual dates while I was writing this. I probably looked like a muted porno, just so you know.

After WEEKS of being forced to eat American people fruit, we finally went fruit hunting last weekend, thank the fucking lord. Henry asked me where I wanted to go and I just looked at him like his mouth had turned into a flapping kooka.

“Um, an Asian market, idiot!” I scoffed and it’s a wonder that man never backhands me.

There we were, surrounded by the fruits of the Oriental Market, and Henry asked, “What are we getting?”

What a fucking dumbass. All of the persimmons, obviously.

I haven’t had persimmons in weeks. WEEKS. The regular grocery stores quit selling them, but I just had a feeling my stinky little Eastern markets wouldn’t let me down.

Henry wouldn’t buy all of the persimmons, just four. Fucking tightwad. I was picking through the pear selection when I noticed a box of small green balls.

Apparently, jujubes aren’t just teeth-hugging candy. I tried to unload a handful into the basket but Henry juju-blocked me.

“You better google that shit and find out what it is first,” Henry warned, not wanting a repeat of the 2004 Durian Disaster.

Google told me that jujubes are basically Chinese dates. I love dates! So we bought some. Unfortunately, I didn’t read enough to learn that when the jujubes are green, that means that they’re not ripe and will essentially mock the taste of an apple, only without any flavor at all.

They also had mangosteen, which I desperately wanted and not only just because it looks like some crazy medievel marirtal aid. However, Henry did the whole cartoon-eyes act when he saw that they were only available in mesh bags (probably also doubling as marital aids in some uncivilized country) and were $8.toomuch a POUND.

This is apparently a lot of monies for fruit so Henry quickly shooed me away from the produce aisle, which was fine, because it’s in close proximity to the fish counter resulting in a veil of rotting scales got trapped in my throat every time I opened my mouth to complain.

So then we went to dumb Whole Foods where Henry stocked up on boring, regular fruits (seriously, how many types of tangerines do yuppies & hippies really require?!), which is what I ate all week in lieu of exotic pulps.

I’m a citrus’d out. Henry watched me eating a grapefruit the other day and was one errant eye-squirt away from enrolling me in the remedial living facility down the street.

“Who eats grapefuit like that!?” he cried, watching me stab the pink with a limp wrist and a fork.

“Someone who doesn’t have a GRAPEFRUIT SPOON!” I snapped, opening the door for another Life Lecture from Henry who tried to  tell me all I need to do is CUT IT WITH A KNIFE.

Oh OK, Henry. Remember my knife allergy?

Every time I eat a grapefruit, I wind up looking like the tail end of a citrus porno was just filmed on my face.

One time, I used one of Chooch’s coats as a bib.  And I don’t care if you tell him, because:

• he shouldn’t have left his fucking coat on the goddamn couch
• he’s done way worse shit to my stuff

Eating fruit is exhausting. I’m one step away from having Henry chew it for me first.

We went back to the Oriental Market on Saturday. The whole way there, I chanted, “Please can I get a mangosteen. Please can I get a mangosteen. Please can I get a mangosteen I’VE BEEN SO GOOD!” (Lies.) Totally wore Henry down and he snapped, “OK! OK. God.”

And of course they didn’t have any so I got to indulge in a Veruca Salt moment.

They did, however, have a jackfruit! Look at the size of that motherfucker! I didn’t even bother asking Henry if we could get it. That fruit’s girth had his answer written all over it.

Meanwhile, two white vans full of Asian adolescents dressed in their most eye-blinding neon swag (lens-less neon eyeglass frames, check!) spilled into the store and began loitering in every area I needed to access, like they were waiting for an LMFAO appearance. Chooch and I took that as our queue to go sit in the car, but car key-carrying Henry and I were separated by a sea of shopping carts spilling forth with bricks of tofu and seaweed-wrapped quail eggs and not one of the carts’ pushers would respond to my sad whimpering and quiet “excuse me”s so I had to walk all the way back around the produce department just to make it to Henry, like some lame Asian market rom-com.

Mangosteenless in Pittsburgh.

You’ve Got Exotic Fruit.

I don’t really watch many rom-coms so I have no idea what I’m saying right now, except that I had this overwhelming desire to get back to Henry, like he had just come home from the SERVICE and the only thing that stood between us was a bunch of adulterating whore-bitch army wives and psychological quicksand.

I have never felt that before! Either I’m Falling in Love For Real or I just really wanted out of that market.

Meanwhile, Chooch was squinting at candy wrappers, like clearer vision was going to help him understand how durian could possibly be made into a delightful treat.

After finally escaping with my precious produce, Henry got in the car and animatedly spoke of being jostled around by Eastern  elbows and finding himself the victim of a brutal line-jumping*, which was probably more action than he experienced in the SERVICE, but Chooch and I definitely didn’t care because there were no battle wounds to show for it, plus it didn’t happen to us and we are selfish motherfuckers cut from the same cloth.

(*Some old lady sideswiped him with her cart when he was trying to move up in line, totally robbing him of his spot. Cry us a river, Henry.)

At least I have enough persimmons to get me through the week.

I guess this wasn’t as urgent as I thought.

Oh, sure—this pile of fruit looks beautiful, doesn’t it? Too bad being aesthetically-pleasing to the eyeballs don’t mean SHIT if the tongue’s not getting flavor-fucked.

We have officially run out of Weird Fruit at the Appledale household. Henry went grocery-shopping over the weekend but came home with nothing that I haven’t already eaten, nothing that only grows in a riverbed of wombat dung, nothing that requires watching a YouTube video to learn how to eat it.

Just strawberries (yawn), blueberries (seriously, Henry?), pears (and not even exotic pears, but regular pears  that even orphans probably eat), apples (oh OK, 2011!), kiwis (Jesus Christ, Henry, I outgrew kiwis in the 90s), mangoes (overrated) and cherries, which I’m actually happy about because apparently when I settled for a Blue Collar Life with a man whose fruit palate is clearly as calloused as his hands, I settled for a life where a bag of fucking cherries is considered a “splurge.”

Even the blackberries Henry dumped into my fruit salad tasted like nothing more than petty Pittsburgh produce. I mean, what went through Henry’s mind when he was at the grocery store? “Oh, here are some plain oranges that plain Americans eat. I bet Erin will love that because her standards are so plain.

” IS THAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT, HENRY!? Bitch, please! He might as well just go buy me fruit from Wal-Mart.

My fruit purveyor Andrea called my current fruit menu “pedestrian,” and while she was probably mocking me I don’t care because this fruit is fucking PEDESTRIAN. I will stop short of calling it jejune, because that word sounds too fancy for what this fruit really is.

Oh my god, I miss the days of lychee and longans and jackfruit!

Persimmon and cherimoya! Eating that fruit made me feel important, like the guts of that cherimoya was really some kind of indulgent fruit-oyster that plain people weren’t allowed to share with me. But this everyday shit? There are elderfucks in nursing homes eating the same fruit as me right this very moment, except that theirs is suspended in green Jello and sadness.

Oh, I just can’t stand it.

This is Henry’s face while I listen to new Jonny Craig songs on my phone, holla.

However, he’s not even trying to put up a fight about going to see Jonny Craig in March*.

Either he has lost his will to fight, is cheating on me, or is banking on Jonny OD’ing before then.

*OMG JONNY CRAIG IS COMING TO PITTSBURGH IN MARCH!!!

I GET TO SEE JONNY THREE DAYS AFTER SEEING PIERCE THE VEIL, WHATTTTT!

My Jonny Craig doll has been pretty lonely so Chooch suggested that I have a Vic Fuentes (Pierce the Veil) doll made. So I went straight to Maya, who can pretty much make ANYTHING because she’s a creative genius. And damn, she is FAST! I think this whole process only took a little over a week once I got some pictures sent to her.

She even gave him a little nose ring, OMG!

The first time I saw Pierce the Veil, Vic was wearing a Jaws t-shirt, which Maya replicated into a tiny baby size (even embroidered teeth on him!).  I can’t wait to get him in the mail and squeeze him! (Although, Chooch totally thinks that it’s HIS doll.)

I can see Chooch and I are going to be doing a lot of sibling-esque fighting over Vic.

Earlier today, there was a gentle, friendly knock upon my door. “Probably Hot Naybor Chris wanting to use Henry for sex tools,” I thought.

(*Or SEX TOOLS!) 

Then there was another congenial little rap, followed by the sound of the door opening.

I was in the middle of making new serial killer Valentines*, so you can imagine where my mind went.

(*More on this later; I’m super excited about it!)

But it was just the mailman, putting a giant box between my doors. A giant box of FRUIT from my friend Andrea in California! She hooked me the fuck up. Persimmons, guava, honey tangerines, cactus pears, a giant Mexican papaya that didn’t survive the flight…plus CANDY!

You know I’m on a fucking fruit kick when I literally toss the CANDY aside in order to gain better access to the FRUIT.

 Henry came home from work and I screamed, “HURRY UP AND CUT THIS FRUIT FOR MY FRUIT SALAD!” He glanced at the mound of exotic Californian fruit and growled, “Andrea!” in the vein of Pee Wee finding out Francis! stole his bike.

Look at that bitchin’ prickly pear! When I have to Wiki how to eat the fruit in my fruit salad, you know shit’s about to get cray. I should have done my research beforehand, but then I wouldn’t have found out that eating the green part of the prickly pear is a bad idea. Tasted like spicy cucumber and I openly wept a little, loud enough for my office neighbor Angie to ask me WTF was wrong. When she learned that I was just being weird with my fruit, she seemed to lose interest in my plight. I could have been seriously injured!

Then my friend Kevin from Miami (another place that probably has much better fruit than stupid Pittsburgh) told me on Facebook that he bought a sapodilla today. I Googled it and learned that it tastes like brown sugar and ROOT BEER?! WHAT!? I emailed the link to Lee, who is working late shift with me tonight, and he told me I have a full blown problem.

I put in a call  to my fruit purveyor and she’s putting her feelers out for sapodilla. She said she might even have a cherimoya hookup!

What if I became a fruit blogger?

[See also: This Post.]

A few weeks ago, I made one of my bi-annual trips to the grocery store, much to Henry’s chagrin. He’s very focused on the things we need, like milk and toilet paper, but when I’m there with him, I like to jack up the bill with my natural ability to sniff out expensive foods.

On this particular day, I saw a gross-looking thing called a Sharon. No, not your ex-wife. It was some kind of ugly tomato thing, so I tossed it in the cart.

“You don’t even know what that is!” Henry cried. Oh noes, I just added $1-something to his stupid tab! Get over it!

Anyway, I googled it on the way home and it is apparently a persimmon from Israel. You know what else it is? Fucking delicious. Henry totally thought I was going to hate it, I could tell by the way he slid the plate of cut-up Sharon across the table and then ran for cover. But instead, I was pleasantly pleased by the gentleness of the fruit, the subtle cinnamon notes, the non-grotesque texture.

I can’t believe you guys let me become 33 years old without ever knowing that I like persimmons. THANKS A LOT.

So now of course, I’m on a persimmon pilgramage straight to a little place I like to call Palate Paradise. I brought a Sharon to work with me on Monday and then texted Christina about it. She lives near the best grocery store of all time, Jungle Jim’s. I figured, if some asshole can walk into that place and purchase a durian, surely they must have an array of persimmon that’s downright pornographic. I wanted her to find out for me, so she called the produce department and ended up getting an extensive oral history.

Now I’m jealous that Christina might know more about my beloved tree diamonds than I do.

Anyway, the verdict was that, while Jungle Jim’s typically has three persimmon types to offer, they currently are only selling two. Sharons are one of them.

At lunch with Carey on Monday, I tried to strike up a friendly and not at all awkward conversation about persimmons. Funny, but I guess there isn’t a whole lot to really be said about them beyond “I like them a lot.” And then I spent the rest of the day at work looking up dessert recipes for them.

“THERE’S PERSIMMON PUDDING?!?” I email-shouted at Carey.

“I guess so,” she replied. I clearly need to find myself a more enthusiastic produce pal.

Wikipedia taught me that persimmons are popular Asian fruits, so I decided that it was imperative to visit the Asian markets yesterday. Maybe we’d get lucky and arrive right after a massive persimmon harvest.

Chooch is really into Asian horror movies; his favorite is “Ju-On,” which is funny because I don’t think he’s even seen the original, just all the sequels. However, he just doesn’t understand that “Ju-On” is not the name of a character, but rather a concept. It literally means “grudge.”  So he is always saying things like, “What if Ju-On is hiding behind that bush?” or “Look Mommy, I’m dancing like Ju-On to ‘Call Me Maybe’!” We even wrote “To Chooch, From Ju-On” on one of his Christmas presents, because if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?

Chooch got Ju-On 2 for Christmas.

Chooch was stoked when I found this thing I filled out in 2004 on LiveJournal, where I listed “Ju-On” as being one of my Top 7 movies. (LOL @ Alice Doesn’t LiveR Here Anymore.)

In front of the second market we stopped at, a group of Asian girls were outside, stuffing food into suitcases. (Seriously, I have no idea what that was about.)

“They all look like Ju-On!” Chooch exclaimed. “That’s a good sign.” I tried to tell him that he was being rude, but you know, he’s six. To him, he’s being observant.

Chooch walked around the market, casting accidental aspersions every which way. “Ew, that looks DISGUSTING!” was his very succinct review of every single Asian food product, except for the box of Pokemon-like trading cards.

And then he started singing Gangnam Style.

There were no persimmons in either market we went to, however, there were copious amounts of treats in temptingly-packaged bags. Henry wanted to buy nothing but a bag of fresh green beans, but I just kept coming at him with the harajuku of snackfoods: plum candy, durian taffy, pudding marshmallows, Pocky (really, the only safe bet in these joints), some kind of 3:15pm Rose Milk Tea that I am only going to drink at exactly 3:15 because I’m scared to do otherwise.

“You’re not going to like any of that!” Henry cried, but I insisted that I knew what I was doing. (Just like that time in 2004 when I came home from Cincinnati with a durian.)

“We have to get this!” I shouted, shaking a container of some kind of fried sesame balls in the air.

“How much is it?” Henry wondered, pushing down his glasses to get a better look.

“Can you really put a price on a happy mouth?” I shot back, and it was literally the first time in maybe 2 years that Henry actually laughed at something I said. Too bad I was being serious.

Persimmon-less and with $50 less in the bank, we were in the car and I was tearing open bags of Asian crap-candy. “You’re going to eat all of this whether you like it or not,” Henry said in his Scary-But-Not-Scary Dad Voice just as I stuffed a taro/sweet potato “cake” into my Western mouth.

I like taro.

I like sweet potato.

I like cake.

Still, I should have known that in Asian cuisine, these mean completely different things. I tried to act like it was the equivalent of sucking on Jonny Craig’s tongue, but no amount of ginger mouth-muscles could get me to stop pulling my face into a montage of dry-heaval.

I almost killed myself trying to spit that shit out the window. It tasted of sewage and fear.

Long story long, persimmons were procured at the regular grocery store and, with the addition of longan (my favorite froyo topping!), lychee and jackfruit all purchased in the canned food aisle at the Asian market, I brought the most exotic and overpriced fruit salad to work with me today.

Fuck an apple. They’re old news.

Look out co-workers. I’m bringing in my rejected candy bounty for you guys. Plum candy all day long! Mmm, happy mouths for you! It won’t at all taste like you’re sucking on the toes of Takashi Miike’s nightmares.

I won’t share my Sharons, though. Not even with Ju-On. I might have what you’d call persimmon parsimony. OH, I WENT THERE.

After asking Henry repeatedly to buy me “No Room For Rockstars,” a Warped Tour cinéma vérité, for my birthday last summer and then not receiving it because God forbid Henry should break his streak of never buying me a gift, ever, I finally bought it for myself as an early Christmas gift.

(It’s the only way, really.)

I watched it yesterday before work and wouldn’t you know I cried through the whole thing? Ask my cat Marcy. She was there.

I cried because there was so much footage of a premortem Mitch Lucker and his little girl. And I cried because Kevin Lyman, the Godfather of Warped, has made so many dreams come true for so many little bands. And then I cried some more knowing that I’m given that one day every summer as a vacation from being a “grown-up,” from sitting in an office, from never really belonging anywhere else. I’ve been ridiculed about it so many times from people who just don’t get it, or can’t be bothered to try and understand, but that doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s where I feel at home. In fact, I brought some of my Warped Tour photos to work so whenever I feel overwhelmed or down, I can look up and do a quick countdown in my head to next summer.

And yes, I already have my ticket for next summer. Presale FTW!

Anyway, here’s the trailer for anyone who might be curious.

Hi, hello! The first week of the new Law Firm Walking Challenge has been going swimmingly (walkingly?). The first day, I lapped my way to an easy 20,000 steps by walking to Seri’s house, which is only 1.88 miles away, but to be fair to my awesomeness, I didn’t get there by walking a straight shot – I zig-zagged up and down several side streets, whaddup.

Anyway, I allowed myself to stay temporarily idle long enough for Seri to say nice things to me, stick a bottle of water in my mouth and ply me with a cookie. I had 6800 steps when I arrived at her house, but after walking one block into my departure, I still only had 6800.

STOMACH: SINKING.

But then I realized I had the pedometer showing the aerobic steps, which don’t move until you’ve been walking at a quick pace for a certain period of time.

I had 12,000 steps by noon!

I wasn’t even angry when Teammate Barb called off work! Or when Amber¹ didn’t seem as gung-ho as last time. I even chose to ignore the fact that Carey had less steps than Stephen Hawking and opted to focus instead on the fact that she was even wearing her pedometer at all.

By the time I left work at 8:30, I had 20,000 steps!

This time, I’m doing things differently. I’m staying calm. I’m not going to berate my team members (for now). But apparently, I’m still verbally Bobbiting Henry as ruthlessly as I was last time.

“Oh boy,” he said with mock surprise as he drove me to work on Tuesday (I’d walk if I could). “It’s only day 2 and you’re already being a bitch. Can’t wait until day 5.”

Two hours later, he was driving back downtown to deliver me my TOMS after I discovered that the shoes I wore to work were too painful to aggressively walk in.

God, what a sucker. I mean, thank you Henry! You’re my hero!

Chooch being in school this time around has given me ample opportunity to rack up tons of steps before work. However, Wednesday I had to contend with him being home from school plus RAIN. So I made him mall-walk with me and all the elderlies.

He was thrilled. But we actually had a pretty good time. I was even going to be a decent mom and buy him something for going along with my walking madness.

We walked into Claire’s because he saw Frankenweenie swag as we walked by.

“What brings you here today?” the store manager asked us, and I launched into this manic explanation of the Law Firm Walking Challenge, flashing my pedometer at her as Chooch groaned and the manager appeared sorry that she asked. I guess she was expecting me to exclaim, “Just wanted to buy some sweet ass Hello Kitty pasties.”

Chooch ended up finding a wallet he liked. (“IT’S SO SOFTTTTTTT!” he kept cooing. Meet the lighter side of Chooch, fan of furry panda change purses.)

Speaking of wallets, this was the part of the day when I realized I left mine at home. The Claire’s manager looked super pissed that she listened to my walking challenge story and didn’t even get a sale out of it.

Before we left, Chooch, around a mouthful of giggles, “dared” me to go into Victoria’s Secret. Then he saw a spotted stuffed dog in the middle of the store and said, “Um…I’m just gonna run in there real fast and look at that….stuffed dog.” And that is exactly what he did, rubbernecking around to ogle all the over-sized pictures of models on the wall while he was half-assedly petting the stuffed dog.

Just now, Henry saw Purple Pants walk past the house and said, “She’s probably at about 70,000 steps by now.”  Ugh! I have to go walk some more! I want to walk to Lisa’s husband’s graduation party today but I don’t think I’d make it there on time.

The fries I had with my sandwich at Frank & Shirley’s were the kinds that make me close my eyes and cry out in disturbing ecstasy. Deep-fried crispy shell with a buttery middle that melted on my dirty tongue, holy shit I ate those bitches like it was a fucking religious experience.

“I can’t remember the last time I had fries this good,” I moaned. I’m the kind of broad who will pick through fries on my dining companions’ plates, searching for “good ones.” Past boyfriends have written case studies on it.

“California,” Henry answered.

“Huh?” I asked, tonguing a masticated potato like I was being filmed for money.

“At that Greek restaurant, remember?”

“Um, Henry? I barely remember anything about that trip [to Coachella in ’04]; I had major rage blackouts.”

And then Henry finished the rest of his omelet with a frown, because I guess that trip meant more to him.

The pet cemetery where Speck and Don are buried isn’t exactly conveniently located, but we try to get out there as much as we can with bouquets of flowers, because I just can’t bear the thought of them thinking we’ve forgotten them. And laying flowers on their graves really makes me feel a little bit more at peace.

We have to go back up with a Sharpie because Speck’s name is wearing off her temporary grave marker. Next year, both burial plots will be ready for real, fancy plaques. (Henry is off somewhere as I type this, psychically cringing at the cost.)

I’ve always been obsessed with death. My pappap dying in ’96 really fucked me up good, as evidenced by the way my life spiraled and snowballed out of control after that, leading up to my eventual decision to drop out of high school. I spend more time in cemeteries than most people, even celebrating Christmas there every year, and I once strongly considered going into mortuary science. (I even toured the school and still think about doing this often.)

I know, it’s surprising I’m not Goth. But I never really felt the need to “look” the part, I guess.

Speck and Don dying five months apart from each other has really made me hit rock bottom. I’m even more obsessed with death and old funeral home paraphernalia and have been decorating our future home around this morbid fascination and also the old wheelchair thing, which seems to complement the other beautifully. I’ve been buying post-mortem pictures and old photos of handicapped people on eBay. I might be losing it, I don’t know, but it has been distracting me from how much I hate our current home and it’s been keeping me sort of calm, so Henry just keeps his mouth shut. There are just too many memories here and I want out. And somehow my subconscious has decided that my next house needs to be decorated with other people’s memories, if that makes sense.

I don’t really know what is happening.

I am in a complete state of comedown today. Yesterday was such a blur: I wait all year for it and then it’s over in a whiplash-inducing flash. I’ve already cried in mourning. But the euphoria definitely outweighs the depression!

Before the gates opened.

Finding out Pierce the Veil’s set time was our (my) main priority.

Henry, dryly before Chelsea Grin even took the stage: I can already tell I’m going to love THEM.

I try to let him sit every couple hours.

Emily’s Army. I had a crush on the boy scout.

Ugh, Funeral Party was so sick. Of course there were only 10 people watching them with me because there were no gimmicks or ridiculous wardrobes or KISS-copying.

Waiting for Pierce the Veil.

;

Took this for Chooch. Missed him so much. :(

On the phone with his sister, fondling a broken pair of sunglasses he found on the ground.

AUSTIN CARLILE MAKES ME HAPPY. He screams the demons right the fuck out of my body.

Seriously, the best Mexicans ever. I love Pierce the Veil so hard and will probably start crying about it in 3….2….

The ever-omnipresent Jeffree Starr.

Our annual “I’m Stoked, Henry’s Not” picture. Henry actually did smile a few times though.

LIKE WHEN KELLIN QUINN SANG WITH PIERCE THE VEIL, ADMIT IT HENRY.

Backne popping during Sleeping with Sirens. Please join me in my repulsion.

Finally succumbed to exhaustion around the 7PM mark and crashed on the lawn during Breathe Carolina.

I still have to take the pictures off the regular camera, and I’ll be back with those and an actual account of Henry’s agony.

Fuck, that was the best day of the summer and I can’t wait to do it all over again 100 more times.

You with me, Henry?

This will never fail to make me lose it!

Ironically, listening to Drake (the rapper formerly known as Jimmy “Got Shot” Brooks on Degrassi) has been an immense help in getting through the Law Firm Walking Challenge.

As soon as this is over, I need to have a Degrassi marathon. My brother Corey doesn’t know it yet, but he’s bringing the (Canadian) snacks. My house is a pit, but you guys can come too.

Honestly, I had no intentions of buying anything at the flea market this morning; it was just an excuse to collect some leisure-steps on my pedometer. But then I saw this little Nativity set, and then the guy selling it saw me seeing it and shouted “$2!” How could I say no when I have literally always wanted a Lilliputian nativity set for my desk?

(Might not be entirely based on truth.)

I wish I was fast enough to snap a picture of Henry frowning as he begrudgingly slapped a five in my palm.

The broad in the yellow shirt almost speared my eyeball on the sharp pitchfork she was carrying, dispelling my theory that no one actually goes to the flea market to purchase rusty farm equipment.

Immediately after I took this, my son Mouth yelled, “MOMMY DID YOU JUST TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT MAN’S BUTTCRACK?!” which of course prompted the plunging crack offender to whirl around and glare at us. My solution was to look all around and hum while rapidly (and stiffly) waking to the next table.

He kept yelling, “Hey!” but my completely innocent whistling rendered it impossible for me to hear him, you see.

Look, it’s the guy (and his wobbling eye mole) who educated me about Saint Rita and sold me the majestic Last Rites box! Walking past him, something clicked and I realized that he’s also the same guy from whom I (and by that I mean Henry) bought an old portrait of a child, which I immediately named Uncle Otis and wrote a nonsensical biography.

I can’t wait until I’m this old and stylin’. Mixed animal prints: 100% acceptable past the age of 80.

(The heads of fashion bloggers are now capped by mushroom clouds at the very thought of this ever being OK. But high-waisted shorts and rompers? Wear with dignity!)

Chooch is REALLY into flea market shopping and takes it very seriously. This is him impatiently waving wrestler figurines in the air, trying to get the vendor’s attention. The problem is that later when we’re at Target, he doesn’t understand why all the toys aren’t $1, arguments ensue, we come to blows, you know how it is.

Since I wasn’t looking for anything, I of course found the most amazing clown artifact for the collection I’m going to put in the house in my head. It’s a 1982 Shriner’s relic and if you pull up on the yellow knob and push it back down, the clown spins in a top-like fashion.

I was enamored instantly, but Henry was not particularly in love with the price. But by the time we were ready to leave, Henry sighed and handed me cash, at which point I walked in my usual walking challenge pace (“I hope no one bought it already!” I cried to Henry, who mumbled, “No one bought it, believe me.”), slaloming around asshole kids riding bikes down the pathways (seriously? You can’t just walk, you little menaces?), caterwauling toddlers in strollers, and sun-ravaged biker broads boasting faded rose tattoos on their wrecked bosoms, until I made it back to the men with the prized tin clown.

It was a no nonsense, “here’s the cash, gimme the fucking clown” transaction. I even made real life, unscripted small talk with a tall man passing by, who told me he used to be a clown for parties; we agreed that clowns are so misunderstood when all they want to do is bring joy (and possibly stuff a body or 24 under their floorboards).

Good day at the flea market!

Somehow, someway, Team Apple is #11! I am astounded, to say the least. But this inspired Carey to increase her meandering to a steady gait!

And she even found her pedometer!

OMG I’m one of those 22 people! Actually, my grand total for the week was 152,075. I have the suntan and delirium to prove it.

Two? Three more weeks to go?