I think I’m pregnant just from watching this. It will always be one of my favorite Emarosa songs, but acoustically it kind of makes me want to faint. I wish Jonny Craig was still in Emarosa, but at least I’ll always have YouTube.

Henry just walked by and said, “Don’t care.”

I don’t really remember how it started. I know it was 1995 and something that my mom and I liked to do together, back when we actually liked each other and were able to get along for longer than one half hour at a time. We would get the weekend newspaper and scour it for haunted house ads, mapping out all the ones that were close enough in proximity to ensure we could fit in at least two a night.

It was a sickness. Some of my friends caught the bug from my mom and me and soon we were salivating for weekends in October, piling seven or eight people in Lisa’s minivan and driving down dark country roads to farm fields where we would scream like motherfuckers in the chainsaw guy’s face and horror-flirt with Michael Myers, not letting ourselves believe that it was really some Clearasil commercial douchebag in a cheap K-mart mask. It was an opportunity to play scared, helpless victim around boys I had crushes on and to be one of those obnoxious teens in lines that I want to punch in the face now that I’m a “grown-up” with a low patience threshold.

Fighting with Keri over Jason Voorhees outside of Terrordome (she won and ended up taking him to our high school’s Christmas dance that year, but he ended up being a real motherfucker, so I guess I won after all); peeing my pants inside the claustrophobic fog-machine-stenched halls of Victory’s Haunted School and scream-singing Superdrag’s “Sucked Out” with Lisa in order to be let out of one of the rooms; wrecking into the chainsaw guy’s car at that same haunted house years later and sometimes literally wondering, “OMFG WHAT IF THIS IS REAL & I’M GOING TO DIE TONIGHT?” while having some strange man snarl in my ear and coat my neck with his warm, sleazy breath: These are all some of my favorite memories and why, even as an adult, my stomach does little flip-flops every October. That adrenaline rush of being someone’s horror movie prey for 30 minutes a night and the release of tension when it’s over is what makes me continue to fork over money to this crazy industry year after year. (Though there are some that I refuse to go to because they’re over-hyped and just not good. Keep your animatronics and give me all the old-fashioned garbage bag-curtained VFW haunted halls; it’s the simple things that scare me.)

It started with a scrapbook of sorts, just a regular notebook into which I modpodged ticket stubs, newspaper ads and other haunt memorabilia. (Like a penny I found at the now-defunct Castle Shannon Haunted School. Who keeps shit like that? A future hoarder, that’s who.)

That same year—1995—I was in a writing class in high school and we had to keep journals which would be turned in to the teacher weekly. I would basically write about shit that I did, just as I still do, but when my mom and I went to the Terrordome that October with my best friend Christy and I wrote about it, my teacher particularly loved that entry because haunted houses were something she was scared of, so scared that she refused to go to any. She wrote in the margins of my journal that she enjoyed reading about it because it was her way of being there without having to leave her house. Around that same time, I realized that as much as she liked reading it, I loved writing it. So the following year, even though I was no longer in her class anymore, I continued writing about every haunted house in that same journal until I ran out of room and my friend Angie bought me a new journal.

I still keep hand-written haunted house journals which is why I don’t often write about it over here on my blog; in fact, I’m almost out of room in the Goosebumps journal I’ve been using. There are so many stories (literally tomes-full!) and photos that I should probably start sharing them on here, too; maybe start a series if anyone is interested in it.

Someday, Chooch will be old enough to do this shit with me and I just honestly can’t wait. Because when I think back on my early haunted house experiences, it makes me remember how awesome my mom used to be. I wish this was still “our thing.”

Usually, if someone suggests to me that I add one of their friends on Facebook, I decline the invitation. Especially if I’ve never met the person, because I have been trying very hard lately to not be a creep. (And it’s not really working out very well, thanks for asking.)

But last year, when my friend Erica was visiting Pittsburgh she suggested to me over lunch that I look up her friend Rick on Facebook because he’s also from the area and big into haunted houses. She mentioned that he used to run his own home haunt called the Haunted Chamber and I recognized the name immediately. I had never gone to it, but definitely remembered seeing ads for it every year.

Figuring Erica wouldn’t lead me astray, I looked him up a few days later, sent him a friend request along with a message explaining why some random broad in his city was wanting to be his friend. He accepted, but we never really interacted very much. Chiming in on a stranger’s status updates can be awkward, especially when it’s me doing the chiming.

Months later, he sent me a really wonderful message. I will never forget it, because it was when Henry and I were in Cleveland and I was sitting on the bed in our hotel room checking my email before the AP Tour show that night. Rick was writing to me about my blog, which is the one thing I always get down on myself about, and his words were just so encouraging and supportive. I sat there crying while I read it and was just really touched by how nice and honest this perfect stranger was being to me. Plus, it broke the ice.

A few weeks ago, we met for lunch and spent the next 2+ hours talking about his history with working haunted houses, my history with going to haunted houses, and I quickly realized that Erica was right — I had a ton of stuff in common with this guy and he is easily one of the most interesting people I have had the pleasure of encountering.

He’s friends with the people who run Castle Blood and invited Henry and I to meet him and his wife Tammy out there last Saturday. So with stomachs full of 80 different varieties of pie, that is exactly what we did.

***

Rick and Tammy were talking to one of the Castle Blood denizens when we arrived. He was already a familiar face, after years and years of making the worthwhile hike out to Bealesville for the annual Castle Blood tour. But now instead of Professor Scrye, I know him as Chris and he is awesome. (He just loaned me some fake skin in jars for my Murder Desk at work!)

Awhile back, I had written about taking Chooch to one of the no-scare daylight matinees. I usually only write about my haunted house experiences in my paper journals (because I’m dork-loser and have been keeping a diligent record since 1996), but for whatever reason, I wrote about that one here on Oh Honestly, Erin. One of the Castle Blood girls found it and shared it with everyone else, and it was cool because some of them even commented on that post as their characters.

But I didn’t think anyone there would remember that, so I was surprised when Chris and Ricky (aka Gravely MacCabre, Castle Blood’s caretaker) both brought it up to me.

“You might be a fan of Castle Blood, but we at Castle Blood are all fans of Oh Honestly, Erin,” Gravely said and I kind of wanted to die on the spot. Chris said that they’re always on the look-out for Chooch now at the matinees. Things like this don’t happen often and I usually like to assume that only 4 people read this thing, so whenever I’m in public and someone says, “I read your blog” — well, that’s a feeling that I’m not sure I will ever get used to. It’s cool and I love it, but it’s also very bewildering.

Gravely told me there was a girl inside the Castle named Dawn and that she was the one who found my blog. “You have to tell you’re Oh Honestly, Erin when you see her!” he urged, telling me what room she would be in.

Within 3 seconds, I had forgotten. Tammy and Henry both admitted that they hadn’t heard what he said, so then I was left to internalize my panic while we stood in line, because I can’t ever just be a normal, calm human being. What if I didn’t say hello to her, and then Gravely found about it later and became angry that a subordinate had crossed him? Because clearly this was the most important thing on his mind that night, never mind the fact that he was ensuring the night’s tours went off without any fires, stink bug attacks or gang violence.

While in line, I became temporarily distracted from my plight when one of the denizen approached us with a big basket of commemorative Castle Blood roses. They were only $3 and I really wanted one. Henry and I don’t often go to haunted houses together anymore and I thought it would be really ROMANTIC if he could spare a measly $3 of his blue-collar beverage factory income, but he merely smirked in response.

Then I remembered why I don’t go to haunted houses with him. He’d sooner leave me out for the chainsaw guys than be a man and claim his property. I guess he doesn’t have hero fantasies.

So Rick bought two and I was all happy about that until he said, “What? I bought this one for Henry.” Figures, people always side with Henry within 7 seconds of meeting him. (Sometimes even BEFORE meeting him. That’s because I write him as a downtrodden underdog. If only you guys knew the truth.)

(OK fine, that is the truth.)

Meanwhile,  the lady with the roses had fetched her albino friend and brought him over to inspect me, thinking I would make a good wife for him. I was very enthusiastic about this prospect, because at this point I would like to be SOMEBODY’S wife. Why not a dead albino guy with scary eyes?

He asked me what blood type I am, but then he and the rose-slinger ran off on an O+ tangent that rivaled Who’s On 1st. While those two were bantering, I looked at Henry in horror and whispered, “What’s my blood type?”

“I don’t know!” he said in that shitty, nerve-scraping tone that makes me want to castrate him along with the entire male population.

So then I spent the next countless moments suspended in time with my blood type quandary, until my prospective husband asked me again and I blurted out, “O+.” Henry said that’s probably what it is anyway. Not like he cares about my blood.

God, why can’t he just care about my blood?

Gravely was walking by so I snagged him and asked him to remind me who I was supposed to say hello to.

If someone tells me to do something, my blinders go on and I’m on a pothole-filled track to the finish line, with sweaty palms and shallow breaths, ignoring everything that passes by.

I’m kind of tightly-wound.

A witch with prosthetics was all I could think about the entire time we were in that fucking Castle.

So in every room on the tour, I would hiss to Henry, “Is that her? Do you think that’s her?” to which he would always hiss back, “I DON’T KNOW!” He was too busy nursing a corset fetish to help me not have a panic attack.

I was distracted from my mission once and only once, in the laboratory where I developed a hearty crush on the cute steampunk inventor guy.

I’ll be back for him.

Eventually, I found my contact and after everyone else in our group continued to the next room, I blurted out, “AREYOUDAWNI’MOHHONESTLYERIN” and we shook hands and I think she said something (not once breaking character) but all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears because OMG I had to TALK to someone.

I really should have a perpetual Xanax prescription.

The worst part of the tour is always the end. I mean, yeah—It’s great to turn in the talisman your group has collected and get your vampire teeth prize, but it just means that it’s time to leave. I’ve never had a bad time at the Castle, not even when Henry and I were stuck with a group of disrespectful teenagers who subsequently got thrown out and we were given complimentary tickets for having to deal with that, but going with Rick and Tammy really made it a cool, personal experience. It was really awesome getting to meet everyone there for real and it made me wish my mom and I were on speaking terms because she would have died. Castle Blood used to be our thing to do together. You know, before she went crazy. I will forever associate it with her.

(OMG, that steampunk guy was so hot.)

***

Afterward, we decided to go to dinner.

“I don’t care where we go, just as long as I can get a grilled cheese,” I said, whining about being sick of pie. “I just need cheese, anything with cheese.”

We wound up at King’s and Rick taunted me as we walked past the pie case. I was choking back regurgitated crust every time I even THOUGHT of the word “pie” after eating it all day at the pie party.

However, I did remark that there was not one pumpkin pie to be had at the pie party, which surprised us all. That’s not saying I was desiring pumpkin pie at that point, I was just simply making an observation.

King’s has creamed spinach now as a side, and I kept trying to coax Henry into ordering it.

“Why?” he asked, clearly annoyed at my persistence.

“Because you’re old. And also, because I want to try it,” I reasoned.

He did not order a side of creamed spinach with his burger.

However, when our waitress brought our food, she said to me, “I was told to bring you this instead,” as she slid a slice of pumpkin pie under my nose, followed by a bowl of creamed spinach.

According to my dinner companions, I looked like I was about to cry. I craned my neck to look for my grilled cheese while everyone laughed. The waitress didn’t have the heart to drag out the prank any longer and finally rewarded me with a sparkling plate of God’s Favorite Sandwich and sweet potato fries.

It was a perfect ending to a great night which served as a reminder of why I keep writing in this blog. It has provided me with the opportunity to meet so many awesome and interesting people, and it’s something I think about whenever I feel like throwing in the towel. I’m just really appreciative. (And now I have to go egg an orphanage to balance it all out.)

[If you live in the Pittsburgh area and haven’t ever been to Castle Blood, you’re dumb. But seriously, go check it out! And if you have little kids, they offer  daylight matinee tours on the last 2 Sundays of October. It’s only $5 for that and the kids get to trick-or-treat inside the Castle. Totally worth the drive out to Bealesville, so go and do that now.]

This song is giving me bona fide chills right now. I liked A Lot Like Birds pre-Kurt Travis, but he adds a brand new element of awesome. I’m enjoying him so much more in this band than when he replaced Jonny Craig in Dance Gavin Dance.

I went out for coffee with my friend Evonne yesterday. (Working evenings while having a kid in school has suddenly opened up a world of coffee and lunch dates for me.) She is really into laws of attraction and that whole Secret phenomenon and is always urging me to visualize what I want and open a door to it in my mind. (Mostly this speech is preceded by, “Did you write that book yet?”) I always say, “Yeah sure, I’ll try that” or “No, but I’m working on it” where “working” can be loosely translated into “thinking about it occasionally but then feeling exhausted and watching shows on The CW instead.”

“You just have to think about what you want and put it out there in the universe,” she said. “If you really want it enough and concentrate on it, it will happen for you.

”

Later that night, something clicked. I remembered Tuesday night, sitting at work and rooting through my purse. One of the pictures of Jonny Craig that I had stuck in a cheap frame for our trip to Tennessee was at the bottom of my purse, looking all lonely and rejected.

“I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you Jonny,” I said out loud as I taped the picture to my monitor. So then I had Jonny on my mind (Henry loves that) and spent the rest of the night at work listening to Dance Gavin Dance and wishing that they’d go on tour before the end of the year. When I got home that night, I went to their Facebook page, which is rarely updated, just to see if anything was happening with them since they actually weren’t going to be a part of the Rock Yourself To Sleep tour as previously promised throughout the music blogosphere.

The most recent update was from a few hours earlier that day, announcing their new fall tour. So there Evonne, I did it and it worked. This Law of Attraction shit might come in handy when I’m finally ready to take down Katy Perry.

A Lot Like Birds is also on this tour and Henry said we could go to the Columbus show. I ONLY HAD TO ASK HIM ONCE. Either he really fucking loves me lately or he’s just tired of fighting. (Or he has secretly grown to love Dance Gavin Dance, chances are slim.) Anyway, you just know I ran around the house screaming. It’s on a work night but I already requested off. I told Barb if it’s not approved, I’ll quit and she said she’ll quit too. BECAUSE AIN’T NO LAW FIRM KEEPING THIS BITCH FROM JONNY CRAIG.

“I’m not going to eat from now until November 14th,” I said to Henry, all serious-like. “Then maybe I’ll have a chance to run off with Jonny.” (The sad thing is that I was only partially kidding.)

“Yeah, do that,” Henry urged supportively. “Because then when you’re in Western Psych with an eating disorder, I won’t have to go see Dance Gavin Dance.”

In other news: I’M GOING TO SEE DANCE GAVIN DANCE IN A MONTH!

Thank god I have a friend like Casey who finds YouTube gems for me. This has been the only thing that’s succeeded in getting the psycho Russian girls’ cover of Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper” out of my head. It has a very Wicker Man*-esque vibe to it.

I am beyond obsessed, perplexed and smitten with this video.

MAYBE ENOUGH TO BECOME A NUN.

(* The original, not that Nicolas Cage abomination.)

[Originally written in August 2005]

I was delivered a crushing blow this morning in the cemetery as I panted my way back to the car after an hour-long walk/jog amalgamation. (My jogging is something  like 2 parts Corky, 1 part wounded unicorn, garnished with a candied twist of poor eye sight.) It was a hot August day and my hair was dreadlocked with sweat, bugs and dirt, possibly blood, like you’d expect from someone who had just engaged in a spirited flee from Leatherface; this is how I exercise.

Vanity made me freeze as I rounded the edge of the mausoleum next to which I had parked, because not only did I spy my car (homestretch!) but also a suspicious rotund form hovering behind it.

Great, there’s my car, please don’t let this man talk to me. Please don’t let him talk, maybe he won’t see me, please, keep facing straight ahead, no eye contact, so close, so close, so—

All hope was lost as he turned toward me and furtively motioned me over. Trying not to scuff my feet, I grudgingly sidled up next to him.

“Look, two fawn and their mother,” he whispered to me as he pointed down the hill to the valley below.

Terrific, because I don’t see enough deer here in Western Pennsylvania. Still, I feigned interest and together we stood in silence for a few seconds longer. Would he be offended if I walked away? Do I say goodbye first? Small talk protocol is not my strong point.

And then he began talking about deer: what they eat, where they sleep, where they buy their Uggs. I didn’t want to talk about deer. I wanted to go home. Sweat was stinging my eyes at this point and my ankle hurt from when I ran into a slight ditch in the path (things like this wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t so preoccupied with whipping my head around every three seconds, looking out for ghosts and rapists, or the ghosts of rapists) and I could see the silver dome of my car over yonder, pointing and laughing at me.

I hope they don’t get hit by a car was my delightful addition to the conversation before I started to subtly back away. I told him to enjoy his morning to which he countered with, “Have a good walk.”

“Thanks,” I said as I walked the five feet to my car. Thanks? Why did I say thanks?! I was finished with my walk. Now I’m That Asshole who accepts underserved well-wishes.

Because I’m neurotic and as if that man actually cared what I did, I ignored my itchy trigger finger which was waiting impatiently to press down on the button to unlock my car door and I continued walking past it. I’d look like an idiot (to no one but myself) if I get in my car and leave after I just said thanks.

And that’s why, out of principle, I walked an extra fifteen minutes (not like I couldn’t use it, but still) uphill. All because I said “thanks.” As I looped up and around the path, I wondered maniacally about which direction the man had gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and the intensity was making me have to pee. What if I ran into him again? Should I turn around? If he was still standing by my car watching the deer by the time I get back…he’d probably think nothing of it. But try rationalizing that to me after I already the devastating finale penned in my head.

And so I kept walking until I reached a path which would have brought me back in the same direction I was headed pre-meeting with the deer watcher, when I noticed him one path below me, taking in the view of the pond. Perhaps he had shifted his awe onto the fish. Had this man maybe not ever seen real life animals before? And then I did this thing that I do where I start to imagine worst case scenarios and I started to feel horribly compassionate for him to the point where I was on the verge of tears. What if his wife was fucking his boss at the zoo and now he has nothing going for him but a stack of National Geographic magazines and memories of skinning buck in Uncle Herb’s storage unit?

Surely he can see me, I thought. If he sees me, he could very well start walking in my direction and we’d end up meeting up at the bottom before I’d have time to hit the next path. He’d maybe want to talk more about the deer, maybe he’d want to tell me how many deer he’s seen in his lifetime. Maybe he even keeps track in a little pocket notebook, and he’d whisk it out of his back pocket to show me the yellowed pages with tiny slashes for each deer sighting. What if he kills people and feeds them to the deer? Do deer eat meat? Maybe he eats the people for himself. Maybe he kills the deer too and then stuffs them with the murdered people and displays them all over his house.

I bet he has a lot of grandfather clocks.

Time stood still for what seemed like eternity. My perspiration had nothing to do with the heat and the laps at this point. This was pure, stinking liquid-fear seeping from my pores and sluicing down my temples.

So I kept walking further away from my car. My right contact lens, clinging onto my eye with its last few ounces of suction, hated me. But I had sacrifices to make in the name of small talk avoidance. (See also: murder; abduction; rape.)

I eventually made it back in the opposite direction and, right before the bend in the path which would show me my car, I quietly slipped behind the mausoleum wall and peeked around the corner. Clear.

For all I know, this man could have very well left the cemetery and gone to feed (deer to) the homeless before swinging by the hospital to read children books (about deer). Yet here I was, playing cloak-and-dagger with some stranger and he didn’t even know.

Maybe I should just get a tread mill.

And no, I’m not referencing your cheating ex-wife’s vagina.

About a week before we left for Tennessee, I turned to Roadside America to help us map out a route. By the time I was done adding side-excursions all over the west side of West Virginia, our 8-hour drive had morphed into a 12-hour trek.

Henry was totally not OK with this. But I begged him, out of all the roadside attractions, to let me keep the Mystery Hole. It was on our route!

That morning of our departure, I was up by 4AM, packed, showered and rearin’ to go. Too bad Chooch and Henry didn’t wake up until 7. And then we didn’t even leave until 8. Henry argued that we could go to Mystery Hole on the way back home and I threw a substantial fit, pointing out that it was only open until 4 and how could he be sure we’d make it.

So we didn’t speak for awhile. I stared at my framed pictures of Jonny Craig to punish him. He hates when I openly lust like that.

But then Jessi texted me from the road (they had departed from Michigan but pretty much were looking at the same arrival time as us) a few hours into the trip and said they had been snagged by some traffic and weren’t expecting to make it to Gatlinburg until later than anticipated, so we should feel free to be leisurely and linger at any roadside stops we might pass on the way.

I read this text out-loud to Henry in my best “INYOURFACE” voice and then smugly said, “Mystery Hole. We’re going.”

And getting there was half the fun! And not just because Henry had to rely on my shoddy map-reading skills*, but because the town in which it’s located (Ansted, WV) is creepy as shit.

*(GPS is for losers. And couples who don’t like having incessant explosions of domestic  violence underneath the fuzzy car roof.)

I’m already planning a daytrip back to Ansted with props and costumes because it’s crying out for a photo shoot. The bus stops looked like open-air outhouses; there was a bar in an abandoned warehouse and you just know all brands of rape, animal sacrifice and baby-roasting goes on in the back next to the collection of scrapped, blood-soaked vehicles from unlucky travelers who get lost because they don’t use GPS; every other house was boarded up; tiny churches  sat flush against the woods. There was even a Civil War encampment.

In other words, there was nary a Starbucks to be found in Ansted.

But once we passed through “downtown” Ansted and started traveling up into the mountains, it got even better. Ramshackle sheds, confederate flags, cinder-blocked cars eaten by rust. Most of the houses looked unlivable and I’m sure each had a clothesline out back, pregnant with damp overalls. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to get out of the car and tempt fate, see if you can get chased away by a shotgun-toting hillbilly in faded camouflage stained with underarm sweat and Skoal-tinted slobber.

And then this appeared on the left hand side as we reached the top of a crest:

One of the tips on Roadside America warned that it was easy to miss. I hope they were being sarcastic. How the hell does someone miss something that looks like Sid and Marty Kroff spent too much time in the mountains subsisting on little else but Moonshine, mushrooms and sardines and then vomited all over the side of a Quonset hut after plowing into it with their VW? The whole compound was a fluorescent host for tetanus.

Just how I like my roadside attractions: colorful and deadly.

For Chooch and me, this was a real feast for our eyes, a nice break from all the mountains and nature bullshit we had been subjected to. But Henry, who I’m pretty sure is color- and fun-blind, didn’t seem fazed by this wondrous explosion of Flower Power.

“Now what is this supposed to be again?” he asked all curmudgeonly.

“Um, only the most awesome place in the world!” I exclaimed in my teenaged “duh” tone. He kept looking at me though, waiting for a real answer, until I mumbled, “I don’t know, it has something to do with gravity or something.”

Real Talk: I only really wanted to go because one of the Roadside America tips likened the proprietor to the Soup Nazi, saying that he denied her entrance because she kept her camera in her coat pocket instead of returning it to her car, even after his wife laid out the rules of the land for her. So the woman’s husband took the camera back to the car, leaving his wife to be continuously chided by the Mystery Hole gate keeper and he still refused to let her enter because she BROKE THE RULES.

I had to see this guy for myself.

I also wanted to see the unbelievable.

Tickets for the tour were $5 and we purchased these inside the technicolor gift shop. The woman at the register, whom I can only assume is Mrs. Mystery Hole herself, ran down the list of rules to us and never once cracked a smile.

“And no large purses,” she finished, giving me a hardened stare. I took my purse back to the car. I was totally not trying to get kicked out of the Mystery Hole like some emasculated husband in the doghouse. (All of these photos were taken post-amazement of the Mystery Hole tour.)

Not a huge fan of Mrs. Mystery Hole, I gotta say.

We had around 10  minutes to kill before the next tour (“We’ll ring the cow bell,” Mrs. Mystery Hole monotoned, not even a smidge of personality slipping through. Broad made me shudder.), so we enjoyed the scenic overlook, and by that I mean Henry enjoyed the scenic overlook while I screamed, “OMG CHOOCH DON’T FALL OVER THE EDGE JESUS CHRIST HENRY HOLD HIM!”

Mountains: still a novelty on Day 1

Still waiting for the elusive cow bell, I gave Henry a spontaneous hug.

He looked at me all wide-eyed. I never hug him in front of people, and there were definitely a few people milling about. “What was that for?” he asked skeptically.

“I’m just so happy to finally be here! I’ve wanted to come here since….” I quickly thought about how long it had been since I found it on Roadside America. “….last week.” Henry just sighed and walked away.

And then the cowbell happened! I grabbed Chooch’s hand and together we ran to the entrance like the uncoordinated idiots we are while Henry and an older couple walked like regular people behind us. I wanted to be in the front of the pack, up close to Mr. Mystery Hole (whose name is Bill, by the way) and his crazy “I collect soiled underwear” eyes. Bill, a slender man with an eccentric energy and slight mountain drawl (he and his wife are actually Michigan natives, if we are to believe my Internet research), reiterated the rules to us and then asked if any of us have heart problems. We all said no (Henry lied) and Bill asked me if I wanted to see a rattlesnake egg.

“Sure, why not,” I answered and cupped my palms for him to place a small manilla envelope, which immediately vibrated wildly in my hands and emitted a loud rattling noise, causing me to shriek and hurl it to the ground.

Everyone laughed at me because they’re assholes.

Bill retrieved the envelope and opened it up to show me that it was just some stupid rubberband-rigged gag, which I have totally seen before yet STILL fell for.

“Does anyone here know why there weren’t actually rattlesnake eggs in here?” Bill asked. The old lady in our group answered, “Because rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs.”

Smug bitch. I choose to fill my brain with important facts, like shit about music and serial killers, thank you.

“And by the way,” Bill said teasingly to me. “Your heart’s just fine.”

I kind of liked Bill after that.

He opened a gate and led us down a relatively steep ramp into the basement of the souvenir shop. Even moreso than outside, the interior was steeped in the stench of the ’70s. It smelled of moth balls, musk and the sweat on a paisley-print A-line dress after a long night of dancing to ABBA. It was also quite damp and there were probably impressive arrays of fungi growing in the darkened corners. Random memorabilia from the ’70s lined the walls and one small room even glowed with the power of a black light in case we weren’t comprehending that we had traveled back to the Me Decade. I’m sure it brought on a flood of memories for Henry the Elder.

And there were mannequins.

I wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with the Mystery Hole, which was actually the largest room down there. We had to enter it by walking up a ramp and then down a ramp, at which point we found ourselves unable to stand upright and needing to grip the wall to keep from falling. Bill instructed Henry, Chooch and me to sit on a couch, while the other two leaned against the wall.

Bill then walked with an extreme lean to the front of the room and began showing us a variety of gravitationally-impossible tricks, like balls rolling up a hill (which I’ve seen before in Laurel Caverns and sorry, Bill, but I do understand how that happens), water flowing uphill, and Bill being able to sit on a chair perched on nothing more but a small nail in the wall. He then had Henry, Chooch and me hold out our arms in front of us and try to stand up. We couldn’t, because while it appeared that we were sitting normally, the way the room was set up we were actually almost laying on our backs. (Henry would never have been able to do this even if he was sitting on a couch in a room with normal gravity. Because he’s old, remember?)

The old couple politely declined Bill’s offer for them to sit on the couch after we unsuccessfully struggled to get up.

According to the Mystery Hole website, those who don’t ask questions are the unintelligent ones. But when asked, none of the people in our group asked any questions (though Chooch had repeatedly whispered to me, “When are we leaving? This place is scary.”), so I guess Henry shouldn’t have been the only one I was calling “Dum Dum” all day.

Besides, I would have only inquired, “When do we get to see the basement?”

They had a guest book in the gift shop, which I happily scrawled “Stoked to be here!” after my name. Henry frowned. But in his own words: “It was pretty cool.” That’s a big deal for Henry to admit.

Bill was high energy, full of jokes and showed us some cool parlor tricks. Totally worth the slight detour and $5, and I would tell any one of you to go there and be amazed. But probably more by the tacky decor and crazy blue eyes than the actual “gravity defiance” show.

I was still riding a Mystery Hole high hours later in the car. “I didn’t think the tour guide was an asshole at all. In fact, he seemed to really like me. He paid a lot of attention to me.”

“I wonder why,” Henry smirked, lowering his eyes to my cleavage.

***

The next day, we were tromping around downtown Gatlinburg when I noticed Henry was acting weird and off-balance.

“What’s your problem?” I asked with my usual lack of compassion.

“I think Mystery Hole really fucked me up,” Henry moaned. “I haven’t felt right since we left there yesterday.”

Well, there is a disclaimer for that.

If there was a way for me to put this song into my veins, I think I would find a way to get over my fear of needles something quick-like.

I have to see them again before the end of the year or my heart will shrivel up into a prune. (And then Henry the Elder will try to eat it.)

Oh, Jonny.

My week can be summarized in two parts:

• OMG MY BACK HURTS OW OW GRAB MY CANE
• OMG I LOVE JONNY CRAIG EVEN THOUGH HE IS A RODENT-LOOKING DOUCHEBAG

Let’s start with my back. I guess it’s a pinched nerve, I don’t know. I’m not actually a doctor (don’t tell those Mexican girls waiting in my basement for an abortion). Every time it starts to feel OK, I exercise (because I’m weight-obsessed, if you hadn’t noticed; please send tape worms to My House, Pittsburgh PA 15226) and then it gets all jacked up again and I have to listen to Henry say the words, “I told you so” which always makes me hate his face even more than usual.

If I’m lucky, I can get my lazy, uncaring son to walk on my back which floods me with relief, but I can only have him do this when Henry is home supervising, otherwise I might be typing this right now from a straw in my mouth. The other day, Chooch said to Henry, “I can’t wait for Mommy’s head to hurt so I can walk on her face.”

And then at the playground on Wednesday, he ran past me with a bunch of kids. With frantic jazz-hands he said, “My mom can’t play with us” and then in a shitty tone laden with sarcasm and packed with more condescension than any 5-year-old should be able to muster, he added, “because her BACK hurts her!” What a fucker. I yelled after him, “I wouldn’t play with you anyway!”

Five-year-olds are assholes.

Meanwhile, there were grandparents at the playground more able-bodied than me, running across tire-bridges and playing tag with their grandkids while I was curled up arthritically on a bench, looking all sad and pouty-lipped.

And in Jonny Craig news, it’s been getting really out of control in my house. I should explain myself lest anyone thinks I seriously AM 15-years-old: My mania is in large part attributed to the fact that it annoys the shit out of Henry. And what is my sole purpose in life? Annoying the shit out of Henry.

Jonny Craig is a HUGE douche bag. In fact, two years ago on this blog I wrote about him being a piece of shit, and it is to-this-day the single most viewed post I’ve ever written. The search terms for my blog every day are variations of “Jonny Craig is an asshole.” Random kids STILL comment on that post, sharing their tales of Jonny-woe. He is notorious in the post-hardcore scene. The only thing that keeps me coming back for more Jonny Craig is that I am absolutely head-over-heels in love with his voice. Literally, it will make me quake and get all stupid-swoony and light-headed and this concerns Henry because he cannot provide me with such ecstacy.

Therefore, Henry hates Jonny Craig.

So what better way to get under Henry’s skin than to project my love for Emarosa and Dance Gavin Dance onto their fire-crotched arrogant vocalist (ex-vocalist, in Emarosa’s case)? Jonny is already our desktop background and my iPhone wallpaper. On Tuesday, I made a special trip to Target to buy an 8×10 frame for the picture of him at Bamboozle that I tore out of Alternative Press months ago. It’s now hanging on our wall and Henry is very unhappy about this.

“Why don’t you just tape up some posters too?” he spat miserbly so I went on eBay that night at work to look for some.

Yesterday, I painted my nails and then etched Jonny’s name on my left hand.

It was supposed to be a surprise, I wanted to see how long it would take Henry to notice when he came home, but fucking Chooch the Snitch called him immediately and said, “Ugh, Mommy put Jonny Craig’s name on her NAILS.” Still, when Henry came home, I made sure to lovingly stroke his beard with my Jonny-hand. (And I do mean the beard on his face.) He kept shrugging me away from him. I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY.

Then at work last night, Barb, Sandy and I posted pictures of Jonny Craig on Henry’s Facebook wall, which gave me great joy.

“I need to find a real douchey one,” Barb said, Googling his name.

“Yeah, that’s not going to be hard,” I said.

Henry never said a word about it when I came home last night.

This one from Sandy was my favorite, so I made it my profile picture:

That moustache alone should get its own entry in the Douchebag Dictionary.

But back to my broken back: we’re supposed to be going to the Westmoreland County Fair tomorrow, so that should add a new dimension to the usual pain of the carnival rides. The last time we went to this one, I had a broken toe and the carnies had to help me on all of the rides, which was hotter than anything I experience at home with Henry. Perhaps he’ll let me interview him again! (Provided he doesn’t dump me for someone more age-appropriate before then.)

Spending a birthday at the county fair seems like a great idea on paper: gut-churning rides, complimentary (if not downright sleazy) carnies, fried desserts (calorie counts are nil on birthdays, everyone knows that), the cacophony of laughing children and tractor pulls (forgetting for a moment that I hate children and anything with even the slightest redneck-tilt).

Yes, a perfect day!

But then you add in Henry, whose face threatens to crack a million different ways if even the slightest hint of a smile creeps upon his lips; Blake, who is apparently an 80-year-old retiree in an 18-year-old’s body, adverse to sunlight and complaining of back pain and lethargy all day; Chooch, who is a little motherfucking birthday killer-in-training who makes the day all about HIM HIM HIM; and Janna, who won’t ride anything aside from a carousel and a 20-second-long Haunted Mansion ride that Henry’s SAT score out-scares.

Not to mention the fact that these assholes weren’t constantly fawning over me and winning me plush Family Guy characters. IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY, NEED I REMIND YOU.

Blake and his new friends, planning their upcoming move to Florida.

Awkward Standing.

At first glance, I was like, “Aw shit, this fair might be pretty good.” I mean, it was run by Powers Great American Midway, after all, and I am obsessed with them. However, it was only about half the size of the Big Butler Fair, and I’ll tell you: That fair can spoil a bitch. Power’s light blue unit brought along some choice rides. (Is it sad that I know which “unit” PGAM deployed to the Fayette County fairgrounds? Maybe I look at their website too much.) And I saw lots of familiar carny faces, one of which was Kirk’s! I didn’t talk to him, though. What’s the point when my lame non-carny boyfriend was glued to my side all day?

But the layout of the fair sucked. And it was super muddy and smelled like sewage, but that was probably because Henry kept standing so close to me. Still: 100% better than the shitty Washington County Fair. (I go to county fairs a lot. It’s kind of become A Thing.)

You know you go to a lot of fairs when you start to recognize carnies, is all I’m sayin’.

Blake: Jeepers, it’s so hot! I think I’m dying! And I left my cane at the home and missed my 3:00pm dinner! I wonder if Dad has any individually-wrapped prunes in his pocket before I pass out.

Thank God Lisa and her husband Matt met us out there a few hours after we arrived. They joined us in standing around awkwardly, which is something that people need to master before even attempting to hang out with me. (I suggest going to a crowded store and standing right in front of a doorway or at the top of an escalator for practice. Do not move when you find that you are blocking foot traffic, and ignore the scowls you inspire. Only then can we hang out.)  Lisa was in a really good mood and I like to think it’s because she knows how delicate of a situation my birthday is, like the entire premise of Speed, with less bus more birthday cake, but actually Lisa is always pretty chill and somehow wasn’t completely put off by the foul moods of my companions who need to be reminded that SOME PEOPLE AREN’T LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET TO GO TO THE FAIR.

Fuck!

Within minutes, Chooch claimed Matt and I’m sure everyone at the fair assumed they were father and son after that. I’m sorry, Matt. But Henry and I were relieved to be off the hook for awhile.

***

A week before the fair, I was on the phone with Lisa.

“I hope the fair is a good one,” she said thoughtfully.

“Um, Lisa? Of course it will be. It’s run by Powers Great American Midways,” I informed her haughtily.

“I don’t know what that means.”

THAT’S BECAUSE SOMEONE DOESN’T READ MY BLOG.

***

Lisa and Matt agreed to ride the Orbiter with me immediately after they arrived. I was SO EXCITED. Finally! I get to ride something moderately extreme! But then we got in line and I saw it said “No single riders” and those asshole words are ALWAYS BEING SNEERED AT ME at fairs because I am perpetually single in this world of grinding traps of pleasure (amusement rides, not vagina dentata).  I looked at Janna who had accompanied us to the line and she said no before I even asked her. Way to tag along on something you’re not a part of, then Janna! So I had to run over to Henry and Blake, who had combined to form a Dildo-ic Duo while Chooch rode some stupid train operated by Kirk.

I hadn’t even approached them yet and I was already absolutely wailing about how Janna ruined my life and wouldn’t ride with me and Blake, while I was still approaching them mid-run, said no. Henry, however, said: “Fine.”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“I said fine,” he sighed.

I guess he was trying to make up for the fact that he failed epically in the birthday present department once again. (Seriously, he got me a shirt that I already have, which proves that he doesn’t look at me. Ever.) This was the SECOND ride he rode on! (We rode on the Swings when we first got there. They made him sick.)

Oh, I was so happy! And the best part was that it took so long for the ride to get loaded to capacity, that Henry and I had plenty of time to talk about Jonny Craig!

Henry bitched about the Oribiter for the rest of his time at the fair. “I have cold sweats,” he kept complaining, though I’m not sure to whom because last time I checked, his mommy didn’t come with us and she’s the only person who gives a shit about him. He didn’t ride anything else after that, though I kept trying to con him into being my partner on the Skydiver, since it’s less commitment that being my partner for life. He kept saying, “We’ll see,” which everyone knows means NO.

After Chooch and Matt, Lisa, Janna and I had our turn at sliding down the Fun Slide, which I hadn’t done since I was a kid and good goddamn is that scary. Ascending the steps alone made me clutch my heart. I felt like there was going to be a religious cult waiting at the top to push me back down the steps into God’s eternal arms. It was like walking into the hospital on D-Day and wanting to run back out the doors but having 3 nurses pull you back in because “that baby’s gotta come out one way or another, sweetheart!” Longest climb of my life.

“I’m scared,” I told the Mexican carny who smiled, probably assuming I said, “Let’s go fuck behind that lemon cart you pushed across the border.” What? The Pennsylvania border, you guys.

Lisa thought it was the funnest thing at the fair, Janna had no comment, and I was just glad I didn’t slide through piss, shit, vomit, a chewed-up wad of Skoal or semen. And by “it,” I mean the Fun Slide, not Mexican carny sex. I know you were probably confused.

Things took a turn for the worse when I decided I was ready to eat something and made everyone halt and bow to my whims. I ended up getting a small bowl of haluski, which seemed like an OK choice as far as keeping my stomach lining primed and at the ready for vigorous riding.  (And yes, finally I’m talking about sex!)  Besides, it was either that or throw away 16 years of vegetarianism for some unidentifiable meat on a stick. There was some lame square dance bullshit happening inside the 4H building, so we all sat around and pretended to care about that while I ate. (Lisa really did care, though. She likes the simpler things in life.) This was about the time Chooch turned into the biggest prick of all the fair, and Blake did nothing but antagonize him which only increased Chooch’s crowd-drawing by 500%.

I attempted to not look like I belonged to the two of them by focusing my attention on the asshole inside the 4H building who was singing the most ridiculous square dance songs for these idiotic plaid-tastic children to clomp around to. I almost wished he had CDs for sale so I could buy one and break it in front of his face. God, get fucked with your pathetic farm melodies, douchebag square dance warbler.

In the middle of the Chooch & Blake: American Assholes show, there was an older lady sitting nearby (the blond Peg Bundy in the background of the above picture) who said about Chooch, “Boy he sure is cute” but what she meant to say was, “Damn, child. Your mama needs to put you in a cage because you are acting like one hell of a mother fucker.” And then to me, she said, “We just ate some fried Oreos for dessert. Boy they sure were good!” and what she meant by that was, “Bitch, why don’t you go to the other side of the fairgrounds, far away from me, and choke your bastard child on some fried Oreos, because he is being one hell of a mother fucker.”

Chooch flipped over a chair in response while I pretended that Janna was his mom.

The square dance brigade had some young child canvassing the area with literature. He approached me with his stack of white and green papers and said, “Would you like one, they’re free?”

“I want a green one,” I said with just the right drop of bitchy entitlement. He looked slightly stunned, like no one had ever bothered to make a color request before. While he shuffled through the stack in search of a green one, I said smugly, “It’s my birthday.”

Lisa and Janna were watching this pan out. Lisa looked mildly amused and Janna looked like she was bracing herself for the ‘splaining she was going to have to do to the kid’s mom by the time I was done antagonizing him. This is just how I talk to children: in a very demeaning, ironic way. They seem to like it.

Meanwhile, the guy who was inside singing the square dance “songs” promised “this next one” would “speed up.”

“You should join our square dance group!” He sounded nervous, slightly intimidated by me. Just how I like boys to be.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, as I folded up the paper. (The age limit is 20, by the way. THAT KID RULES FOR THINKING I’M NOT OLDER THAN 20.)

“This next one” still hadn’t “sped up.”

“Dylan!” a lady called from inside the 4H house. “Come dance to this last song!” Sure, maybe there was some plaid lass inside who missed being partnered-up with Dylan, but I have suspicions that this lady just didn’t want him near me anymore.

“Yeah!” I yelled in my best “I’m riding the Wacky Worm, motherfuckers!” impression and when he looked at me all startled-like, I gave him a thumbs-up and said, “Do it! Wooo!”

Lisa hadn’t heard the lady call for him in the first place, and admitted later that she thought I was just spontaneously excited, though she was confused why I was telling some young boy to “do it.”

Then I called Dylan my “new son” and Chooch got all upset. I win at parenting.

I have no recollection of Henry being anywhere near us that whole time.

Oh apparently he was off supporting his cocaine habit.

I told Dylan I was going to watch him, but that was actually the time we rose up as a group and went to the petting zoo. Fucking with children is the one true talent your God gave me.

Here is all I remember about the petting zoo: I relayed my birthday woes to a camel and then Chooch fell in a pig sty and Henry had to take him and Blake home.

Coincidentally, my night really picked up after that! Janna bought me root beer in a tin mug from an old broad who tried too hard to sway our decisions and Lisa and I rode the Gravitron with the cast of Jersey Shore. It was fabulous!

Lisa encourages me to take pictures of every little thing she does. She’s like Chooch, but grown.

The only downside to the Fair: After Hours (read: After the Douches Left) was that neither Lisa nor Matt would ride the Zipper with me. I was only able to ride it once, earlier in the day before Blake’s desire to drink a glass of Metamucil and take a nap got the best of him. We talked a little bit about music while trapped inside the Zipper’s jaws, but I could tell he wasn’t having too much fun.

Everyone is growing up but me.

Janna, Lisa and I rode this moderate thrill ride called the Tornado, which is pretty tame but Janna was still clutching her rosary and trying not to re-eat her haluski while Lisa manually spun our car around on top of giving Janna dating advice. My favorite part was when the ride ended and Lisa’s safety bar didn’t release. She pulled it toward her, hoping it would spring back, but it only made it tighter. I fetched the carny and then ran away to stand outside of the ride’s gate by Matt, who had been relegated to little more than a Purse Tree at that point.

The carny gave Lisa a hard time for awhile before manually releasing the bar for her. As she and Janna approached Matt and me, Lisa yelled, “And I love how Erin just ran away!”

Behind her, looking a gorgeous shade of gangrene from her jaunt on the Tornado, Janna irritably mumbled, “Yeah. She does that.” Possibly Janna’s way of suggesting that Lisa spends more time with me.

Janna bought* me a birthday ice cream cone from a girl who had been punched in the eye. Lisa opted for more scatastically phallic fare. Then we said goodbye to the fair and immediately upon leaving the parking lot, Janna’s GPS lured us out onto un-lit backwoods lanes and I’m not going to lie: It was scarier than riding the Zipper in a lightning storm with the cage unlatched. This was after Janna got raped by a bug.

(* This mostly happened because when Henry left the fair, so did my money.)

Happy fucking birthday to me, to me, to me.

In between two of the 87 bratty post-birthday meltdowns I had today, I warned Henry that there was something I had to tell him. I used one of several “This is serious” tones I’ve collected from years of Days of Our Lives viewing.

Henry was walking past me when this happened, so he slowed to a tentative stop and cautiously asked, “What?”

Now, this could go several ways. I could tell Henry I’m cheating on him. I could tell him I used a fork on one of his precious cooking pans. I could tell him I can’t wait for the 2012 Olympics  so I can take my no-holds-barred humanity heckling global. Nothing puts me in the mood for some ethnic bashing than some good old-fashioned synchronized swimming.

It was none of these things, though.

“Yesterday at the fair,” I started.

“Yeah?” Henry asked, his moustache bristling in trepidation.

I baited him slowly. “I did something.”

“What did you do?” Henry asked in an exhausted sigh, probably realizing that we weren’t together the whole time yesterday and bracing himself.

“Whenever I felt sad, I looked at a picture of Jonny Craig on my phone,” I admitted gravely.

Henry shook his head and continued on his march toward to the kitchen, bent out of shape that I wasted a whole minute of his life when he wasted my last ten years.

“And then it made me feel so not-so-sad!” I giddily called after him.

Right now, I am currently designing my own I <3 Jonny Craig t-shirt. I’m going to wear it to the mall and all the 15-year-old girls are going to want to sit by me in the food court.

The Pittsburgh stop of Warped Tour was exactly one week ago. I’ve wanted to write about it every day since then (even though no one reads the music shit on my blog*) but instead I’ve been floating around, basking in the glow, like Jeffrey Dahmer after masticating his first Hispanic rump roast. Even people at work have noticed a difference—I guess because my smile hasn’t been fake all week. It’s nice that I don’t get made fun of there for going to Warped Tour like I do elsewhere, you know, because I’m supposed to be “too old” for things like that. I have bitterness, can you tell?

(*I’m going to interview Henry about his Warped experience, which will probably be more appealing to people.)

I’ve had my ticket since last December, when there was a holiday pre-sale. That’s how 100%-without-a-doubt I am that I will be attending this thing every year. It’s my Christmas, that one day that gets me through. Henry and I have gone to a lot of music festivals together and I am known to miserably complain about the heat and the crowds, and we almost always end up breaking up. Coachella ’04 was so bad that I actually have large time frames of it blacked out in my mind.

However, Warped Tour is where Henry is pretty good about not being a puckering asshole because he knows how happy that day makes me. (Although this year we did have one or two snippy moments, but they were short-lived and stemmed from the fact that he wasn’t kissing the stage that Dance Gavin Dance plays upon.) And I never complain there. This year, it was already in the nineties at 10:00am when we were standing in line to get in. The heat index was over 100. Even just standing there, I could feel waterfalls of sweat cascading down my back. And I never stopped smiling and giddily elbowing Henry.

August Burns Red

I am a kid in many ways, but let’s face it—being in a pit is not something I can handle these days. I’m pretty content standing a ways back from the stage and aggressive kids, but there are certain bands that I break policy for and try to get as close as I can without putting myself in the line of fire. Of Mice and Men is one of those bands. Henry was originally right behind me, but by the end of their first song, I turned around and he was a few feet further away. By the end of their second song, I could only barely make out his bandanna in the crowd behind me. By the end of their set, I couldn’t see him at all and had to wait for the crowd to clear out.

“Yeah, this was close enough for me,” he said when I found him a few seconds later standing alone, out of sight of the stage, and looking aurally scarred.

I was smashed up against unlimited sweating bodies near the barricade and I know it must have been hot because the sweat never stopped dripping down my face, but the heat was the last thing on my mind. When Austin Carlile said “jump,” I jumped. I almost cried, I was so happy in that moment. Months of stress and tension melted away by Austin’s screaming. This is why I love bands with screaming: it matches what I already have in my head. The other night at work, I tried to explain to Barb the different kinds of screaming. At first she seemed interested, but by the end her eyes were glazed. I could talk about this shit for hours, which is probably why no one ever asks me questions about it.

I don’t hate anyone at Warped Tour, not even that Ginger kid right there.  I’m all Free Love and shit.

My legs were shuddering like sheet metal by the time Of Mice and Men were done. I felt like I was tweaking for real and I couldn’t quit smiling. This is why I keep doing this year after year. I had a conversation the other day on Facebook with an old high school friend who said he’s afraid of the day when he realizes he’s that old guy who shouldn’t be at the show. But for me, I don’t give a shit how old I am. As long as music makes me feel this way, I will keep going. I don’t care if I’m in a fucking HoverRound.

On the way to the next stage, I yelled to Henry, “And it doesn’t even seem that hot out here!” Henry looked at me with full-on incredulity as he panted like a dehydrated pitbull chained out back. What? I felt fine.

It was apparently hot enough for some of the local news stations to do the weather live at Warped Tour, though.

Always the most entertaining merch booth. Love Fueled By Ramen so hard.

If you’ve been reading this blog for more than like, a day, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the band I was most excited to see was Dance Gavin Dance. I mean, I could have left right after they played at 1:15 and been OK with it. The first thing I do every year after I finally make it through the gates is rush to find a schedule to make sure I don’t miss my favorite bands on the tour that year. I will never, ever in a million years forget the sense of loss I felt at the 2007 Warped Tour in Cincinnati when I ran over to the Inflatable, only to see that Chiodos (this was back before Craig Owens’ head burst open like a pinata stuffed full of fame and megalomania) was the first band to go on at 11:00. It was, at the point, noon. It was also the point where I completely wrote off Christina’s sister, whose fault it was that we didn’t get there on time because she spent a thousand minutes in a fucking WALGREENS before we officially left that morning.

And this is why I go with Henry now. I don’t fuck around when it comes to Warped Tour. I know what I’m wearing the night before. I know when I’m waking up. I know what I’m eating for breakfast and when I’m leaving. And Henry is pretty good about complying with all of this. I will not go with anyone else. I do not cater to anyone else. I run a well-oiled machine that no one wants to fuck with.

Anyway, back to Dance Gavin Dance. Everything else I did that day was planned accordingly around their set time. I mean, I put them even above D.R.U.G.S., Craig Owens’ new band, and we all know how much I love Craig (although that love has been starting to wane lately). The thing with Dance Gavin Dance is that they’re not instantly palpable to most people. Adults, especially. Henry hates them (though I think he’s grown immune to them over the years). They have a screamer, but they’re not really all that heavy, musically. They have an extremely underrated drummer and guitarist. They’re definitely not metal, and lately they’ve kind of veered toward the prog-rock scope of things, with even slight hints of funk here and there. They’re kind of frenetic, which I think must appeal to me on a subconscious level, because it feels like what my brain would sound like if it could talk: schizophrenic. How else can I explain Dance Gavin Dance?

Oh yeah. Jonny Craig, provider of clean vocals and a million scene teen-heartthrob fantasies. If it were up to me, my entire bedroom would be covered in Jonny Craig posters, but it’s Henry’s room too and I actually do have a small ounce of respect for him somewhere. (You’d never know it by the way I’ve made him keep all of his belongings in boxes stored in the attic, basement and garage since he moved in with me in 2002. He claims this is convenient for him because when he eventually leaves me, everything but his clothes will already be packed, and he doesn’t really have much of those considering I’ve thrown 80% of his sock collection in the garbage.) A ginger has never been so hot to me before, but I blame this solely on the fact that he has a voice specifically designed to hit the g-spot and he’s a huge douchebag. That love/hate thing is hot. And really, what girl doesn’t secretly wish to be treated like shit.

Sometimes I worry that Jonny’s voice is going to get me pregnant.

(I just literally spent the next 6 minutes staring through the computer screen, thinking about Jonny Craig. These things happen when Henry isn’t here to keep me in check.)

Um, OK. So Dance Gavin Dance played on one of the stages under the ampitheater, which was hugely displeasing to me. Those stages are hard to get close to because there is very little empty space before the seating starts and I definitely don’t like the sensation of being trapped, so Henry and I grabbed seats a few rows back. I wasn’t able to get any pictures but I also wasn’t really worrying about my camera considering I was barely able to keep myself upright when they started playing.

There is one word that Jonny sings that inexplicably makes me fold in half and crumble into a pile of pheromones and Erin Luvs Jonny notebook graffiti: “Wonder.” I have no idea what it is about the way that word slides off his tongue, but I grip Henry so hard every time and smother my annoying sex sounds into his bicep, while he shrugs away from me disgustedly.

Can you sense a theme here?
Dance Gavin Dance disgusts Henry.
Erin disgusts Henry
Erin listening to Dance Gavin Dance drowns Henry in a barrel of his own filthy disgust.

I tried to get Henry to fist pump during “Turn Off the Lights, I’m Watching Back to the Future,” but he fought me. In the end, his pocket-stuffed hand won. We had a brief argument afterward because I was mad at him for not paying attention to them (he kept looking over his shoulder during their set, which is the rudest) and he was all, “I STOOD UP FOR THE WHOLE THING DIDN’T I” and I guess that’s progress considering he’s old and prone to collapsing spontaneously. Every time Jonny would talk between songs, Henry’s mouth would creep into that same exact disgusted sneer that I know so well. Jonny and I must definitely be meant to be if we both inspire the same look of appallation from Henry.

“I think his eyes got closer together,” Henry yelled at one point. And: “I don’t like how he keeps touching his crotch.” That’s because in Henry’s eyes, Jonny Craig is a predator. If it wasn’t 1,000 degrees, Henry probably would have protectively draped his arm around me.

Never before has a man made me want to vomit and swoon in tandem. Oh, Jonny Craig. You’re so sleazy but with 6 condoms, a before-and-after dip in a Purell pool and doctor’s proof you at least don’t have AIDS, I would 99.9% do you. (And then pray I don’t get pregnant with a ginger baby.)

I never hold my breath when making my friends listen to them, because no one my age ever does and it’s always the screaming that does it. But just try and focus on Jonny’s clean vocals. This is one of my favorites:

For the rest of the day, I would periodically rest my head on Henry’s shoulder and murmur, “I can’t believe we just saw Dance Gavin Dance. I miss them now.” He would give me that sneer, of course, but I know deep down he was all, “OMG I JUST SAW JONNY CRAIG. KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE, HANK, YOU OLD DOG YOU.”

Terrible Things were not terrible. Coincidentally, I used their album ad in Alternative Press for the letter “T” day at Chooch’s school. It was a picture of a boy and girl having a tea party. (With a burning house in the background.)

Would have bought Henry a pair for Christmas if he hadn’t DRANK ALL MY MONEY.

It started raining after 5 and everyone fled for cover. Henry and I stayed at the front of the stage and continued watching Sharks. It’s just rain, you guys. These people complained all day about the heat and had no problem getting drenched at the misting stations, but when nature provides relief? OMG run. The rain only lasted for about a half hour and it cut the heat for the rest of the day. It was perfect.

Bands we saw that day that no one cares to read anymore about:

• Go Radio (good way to start the day.)
• Grieves with Budo (high point of the day!)
• August Burns Red
• Of Mice and Men
• Dance Gavin Dance
• Big B
• Sick of Sarah
• Sharks (so good)
• Peelander-Z
• A Skylit Drive
• Terrible Things
• Stephen Jerzak
• Larry and His Flask (more Henry’s speed than anything else that day)
• D.R.U.G.S. (Henry was upset that Craig dyed his hair darker. OK, Us Weekly.)
• Moving Mountains
• Middle Class Rut (Henry had this moment of excited realization when they played their radio single)
• The Wonder Years
• Set Your Goals

Set Your Goals came on at 8, and they were the last band we saw that day. During their set, I looked at Henry and started crying. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, knowing it was because it was almost time to leave.  I feel like I wait all year for this one day and it’s over so fast. (If you ask Henry, he will say it’s the longest day of the year.) Being there makes me so happy, breaks down my walls, lets me live. I can’t believe it’s been a whole week now. I wish I could go to every single one.

Oh, and I’m totally getting married at Warped Tour. Just as soon as I find a groom. MAYBE IT’S YOU.

When I launch a new obsession, I of course want to share this with my work friends. For example, the Wacky Worm. I was hoping it would become a wide-spread sensation, culminating in a department field trip to DelGrosso’s, which is a semi-local amusement that has A PERMANENT WACKY WORM, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Naturally, the Wacky Worm hysteria flopped as far as pandemics go, although Barb very thoughtfully brought me a DelGrosso’s brochure she saw in a State College hotel over the weekend, so that was progress.

Most of my work friends smiled and let me go on about the Wacky Worm, except for Glenn. What you need to know about Glenn is that he is little more than a better-dressed Henry. He makes the same faces at me that I get from Henry on the daily: those judge-y smirks and annoyed frowns. I’m pretty sure he thinks I have a mental handicap that went undetected during my interview.

I’m used to this treatment at home, so it’s OK. Glenn and I are still friends.

Regarding the Wacky Worm, I believe Glenn’s reaction was, “WTF is wrong with you?” And then when I showed him a picture of it and asked, “See? Doesn’t it look awesome?” he very dryly said, “No. Not really.”

He was equally unimpressed with my Wacky Worm t-shirt design. “Does it come with a helmet?” he asked with a very Henry-iffic smugness.

“Obviously that means you want one,” I provoked.

“I’m pretty sure people would get the wrong idea if I wore that,” Glenn laughed.

“Why, because it’s pink?” Sometimes I’m not that quick.

“Uh, no. Because of what it says.” He even used the same “I’m talking to a child” tone that Henry has patented.

Glenn should have just kept his mouth shut, because from that moment on my mind was in full-blown revenge mode.

Yesterday at work, I had Barb and Nina stall Glenn near my desk so I could take a covert picture of him. (Although I don’t feel I was very covert about it. We made eye contact at least four times but he didn’t seem to catch on. Probably because he’s used to me huddled at my desk, laughing alone and looking suspicious.)

This morning, I made a new Wacky Worm graphic. I’m printing a bunch out and plastering them around Glenn’s desk. (This is why I don’t ever get important shit done.)

Nobody puts Wacky Worm in the corner.

[ETA: It is now the end of October and Glenn still proudly has his Wacky Worm postcards taped to the front of his desk like they’re pictures of his kids.]

I have an obsessive personality, so it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that after riding the Wacky Worm (or, for those in the know, The Caterpillar) for the first time at last year’s Big Butler Fair, the hope that it would return in 2011 was one of the few things that kept me from hanging myself with a hobo’s necktie over the winter.

Who the fuck is this kid in the red shirt and why isn’t he cheering? You’re on the Wacky Worm; get stoked, motherfucker!

As soon as Janna, Chooch and I had our ride-all-day wristbands slapped on (so proud of Janna for sucking it up and going all-out! Henry, however, remains a pussy) I suggested we take a preemptive stroll around the fairgrounds. I was trying to stay cool about it, but the truth was that my pulse was quickening due to the fact that the Caterpillar was not in the same spot it was in last year and I couldn’t even begin to imagine a day at the fair without it. Especially since I spent an hour the night before coaxing and bribing Chooch to want to ride it. (He punked out last year and in that moment, I was no longer looking at my son, but at a 40″ failure. And you better believe I let him know it! And you better believe Henry lectured me for letting him know it.) So while I pretended to be interested in the money-guzzling midway games boasting oversized Rastafarian bananas as prizes and the joyful beam on my kid’s sweaty face as he rode on some kiddie truck ride (which was actually pretty awesome and I should have went on it too, why didn’t I go on it too?), I was actually craning my neck to see overtop tents and pendulating cages of death, in search of just one glimpse of my beloved Caterpillar.

THANK GOD IT WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE, YOU GUYS.

“Why do you keep laughing like Pee Wee Herman?” Janna asked me, herself laughing quite nervously as we embarked on the first of many frivolous journeys.

“I don’t know, I’m just having so much fun!” I answered a little defensively, like I now needed to prove I wasn’t going to whip out my penis and coat the Caterpillar with my gooey joy.

Corey met us there an hour later and immediately joined the fan club. I think we rode it like, 18 times, with no promise of ever slowing down. I’d still be riding it right now, if I could. I think The Law Firm should have one in the building. As a stress reliever. You know. Fuck yoga.

Unfortunately for Corey, who is six-foot-alot, he was unable to join us in raising the roof each time the Caterpillar cruised down the hill.

“I’ll for sure break my wrists,” he announced when he realized how low the track was above us. I let him believe that that’s what would happen, when I really know that his arms would most likely get gruesomely divorced from the rest of his torso. And it would still remain the best ride ever.

At one point, I noticed that older kids started lining up for it.

“That’s because they hear you screaming and now they think this ride is fun,” Henry mumbled.

“Um, it is fun,” I corrected him.

“No, you’re just an idiot,” he sighed. How would he know when he wouldn’t even ride it? What the fuck, Henry. It’s because he was too scared. TOO SCARED OF EXPERIENCING 60 SECONDS OF SHEER DELIGHT. It might actually force him to crack a smile, possibly even tack on a few more minutes to his miserable life, god forbid.

So instead of joining us, he stood off to the side like some purse-toting pedophile, while all the other moms stood nearby and encouraged their respective children to cheer each time the caterpillar carried us past. Of course, this made me carry on even louder, like I was single-handedly trying to bring back the Arsenio;  sometimes I would even shout Henry’s name and then point at him so everyone would know we belonged together.

He was really enthused about that.

This guy and another younger Mexican were the official Wacky Worm operators of the day, and let me tell you—they tired of me real fast. I mean, REAL FAST. I was about as amusing to them as border-crossing and I’m certain they mistook me as mentally challenged. Or on drugs. Why? Because no one has that much fun on the Wacky Worm? Damn right no one has that much fun on the Wacky Worm!  I am the champion of the Wacky Worm!

Anyway, I’m glad he decided to fuck with the ride’s foundation while Corey and Chooch were on it, and not me.

Furthermore, why wasn’t I on it that time?! I have no idea. I’m sure I must have had some sort of reason to willingly pass up a joyride on the back of my beloved Caterpillar, but the only thing I can think of is that’s when I was giving a blow job to the Dunk-a-Clown under the bleachers during the tractor pull.

Let me try to walk you through the glory that is the Caterpillar (or Wacky Worm, whatever you feel most comfortable, as an adult, calling it). It’s like riding in Jesus’s lap (that can go either way you want, holla to the religious porn addicts) as a caterpillar ascends you up to the Heavens, far away from all the grouchy grown-ups, while tiny angel-dusted kitten paws knead biscuits of lost childhood memories on your belly, and all of a sudden you remember what it felt like to score that coveted Scratch n Sniff sticker you needed to fill the page and to not have bills to pay and a house to make sure isn’t exploded by your kid and a boyfriend who might have even been the same age as you, and it feels great. Great like freedom. You absolutely want to ride it 87 more times. Caterpillar, take me away.

I got to do something that I missed out on last summer: riding the Caterpillar at sunset. Nothing is better in life than riding the Caterpillar at sunset.

We never got to ride in the front seat, though we came close on our second-to-last go-around but the dumb bitch in front of us in line caught wind of our plans and pushed her way to the coveted front spot. Or it could have been that her beer-bellied dad was hollering, “GET THE FRONT, GIRL. GET IT!” when the carny opened the gate.

I tried to get Henry to act as a placeholder while we were on the ride. You know, have him stand alone in line, saving us a spot in the front; but he refused, mumbled something about not wanting to be the only adult male in line for a kiddie ride, at which point I had to argue that Powers Great American Midways mistakenly lists the Wacky Worm under the “kiddie ride” section of their website when they obviously meant for it to be under “spectacular rides.”

The next morning, Chooch came over to me and said, “Thank you, Mommy.” The fact that he said this earnestly and with no hint of sarcasm gave me pause.

“For what?” I asked hesitantly.

“For making me ride the Caterpillar yesterday. It was so awesome.”

That was my proudest moment as a parent.

***

Since I’m friends with Powers Great American Midways on Facebook (laugh all you want, it’s informative!), I know that they’re affiliated with the upcoming Fayette County Fair which is happening on my birthday. You better believe I’m going! I went to the PGAM website and filled out the contact form with a very pressing question:

This inspired Henry to sigh heavily and say various interpretations of disapproval, such as: Don’t send that; Get a life; You need help; Get the fuck over it.

They haven’t responded to my pressing inquiry yet. Until then, I will just watch my video continuously until Henry takes the Internet away from me:

(Henry thought I pushed that girl out of my way at the end. I promise you I employed great restraint not to. Also, I apparently wasn’t holding Janna’s phone properly BUT WHO CARES IT’S THE FUCKING CATERPILLAR YA’LL. Henry really wants me to stop calling it that. It’s apparently a completely different ride.)

Also known as: HOW ARE THEY STILL TOGETHER?!

A couple of you (literally, two people) expressed interest in seeing this video of Henry and me in Cleveland back in 2004. We were there for Curiosa, but I talked Henry into going a day early so we could do touristy things. And by touristy, I clearly mean drive aimlessly through Cleveland’s ghetto in search of E.99 and St. Clair, the crossroads that Bone Thugs n Harmony commonly rapped about. Most of my high school career was spent being a hyper fan girl for Bone, calling record stores demanding to know when their new releases were going to come out, cutting pictures of them out of Rap Pages and The Source, and trying to con my best friend Christy into taking a field trip to Ohio when she got her license. (She wisely said no.)

When Art of War came out, I made my then-boyfriend, Psycho Mike, drive me an hour away to a certain record store that was promising a FREE COLLECTOR’S MEDALLION with the purchase of the new release. It was totally worth being berated and emotionally denigrated in his car the whole time.

I do not have that medallion anymore. But I loved it dearly (although briefly, I guess).

Anyway, Professional Driver Henry had difficulties finding it (blamed it on Cleveland, not his refusal to LOOK AT A MAP) and we became even more Sid and Nancy than usual. We finally made it to E.99 (aka the double glock, yo) and I should have been dying of happiness but considering douchey Henry was next to me, my joy was clearly negated.

I posted the video on LiveJournal years and years ago, but somehow THE ORIGINAL FILE DISAPPEARED, WHADDUP HENRY. So I made him re-edit it and today he finally finished. He said he would have done it much faster if I had been nicer to him about it. But I think he just wanted to put off the inevitable: that everyone will coo sarcastically over his luscious locks of yore. The quality is super bad. Probably Henry’s fault.

Annoying, right? (Me, not the video quality.) This is why I rarely post videos.

The last time I had this on YouTube, I was barraged with hateful comments from REAL BTNH fans who are neither stupid, white, nor girls. Hopefully that doesn’t happen again.

P.S. The part where I call Henry “uneducated”? Don’t go crying rivers of pity for him just yet. That was my tip of the hat in reference to the time he and I had a political argument and he told me I was uneducated. I responded by breaking his glasses.