I know it wasn’t my birthday, but Bill and Jessi had a present waiting for me at Chooch’s party.  Because they know I was probably petrifying from the inside out, having to watch my kid get all the attention instead of me. (I’m a Leo. We like our attention. In fact, there are things here at work called “Attention Required” and I often think the stamp should just say “ERK.” Those are my initials. Now you know, in case you wanted to order me something monogrammed from Sky Mall.)

It’s OK though, because Chooch’s birthday party means that Bill and Jessi will come visit from Michigan, so I’m alright with giving him his own day. Besides, I had more friends there than he did, so I win.

(It just occured to me that maybe this is one of the reasons my co-worker Sean just asked me who I’m referring to on Facebook when I say “Chooch.” He seemed surprised that’s my son’s nickname and said he assumed it must have been my brother. BECAUSE I AM SO COMPETITIVE WITH HIM.

)

As usual, I’m typing way more than I intended to, which will just give one of those Blog Frog broads more reason to tell me that people don’t read my blog because my posts are too long. (True story, happened last night.

Thanks for the feedback, ho-bag.

)

My present was a Michael Myers plushie. Michael is my BOY. I have very strong feelings for him. In fact, back when Henry was “courting” me, he bought me several pieces of Halloween memorabilia until he eventually whittled down my defenses and look at me now. LOOK AT ME NOW.

LOOK BEHIND YOU, DANDELION!!

He’s so hot.

Chillin’ with Don, watching “Desperate Housewives.”

Tonight, he’s at work with me. I’m trying to convince him that one of the sea monkeys is not Laurie Strode.

God, I’m so smitten.

“Are you ever going to ask me?”

“Yeah,” Henry said, completely immune to my nuptial nagging by now.

“Do you even know when?” I prodded, arms crossed in petulance.

His affirmative answer seemed steeped in honesty, inspiring me to probe deeper.

“Is it going to be sometime in 2011?”

Henry said yes, and I screamed, “OMG ARE YOU GOING TO PROPOSE AT WARPED TOUR?”

He gave me a “don’t be stupid” smirk.

“But that would be so perfect,” I whined.

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “For YOU.”

Um, isn’t that the point?

Then I asked him if he planned on asking my dad for my hand (lol) but Henry reminded me that after we’ve lived together for ten years and spawned a child from our mutual hatred, my dad probably couldn’t care less either way.

Maybe by the time Henry finally puts a ring on it, Jonny Craig’s career will have collapsed upon itself faster than his veins and I can snag him to sing at our reception on the cheap.

I’m taking the day off. (Because I do SO MUCH on here, you know.) So here is an oldie about littering and cops, and cops who litter.

Another Reason to Hate the 5-0

May 2007

It was the middle of a lazy Saturday afternoon in Hamilton, Ohio. Christina and I were lounging around her room and I was making her cry by talking about how I hate God. I suppose I should have been penciling in a time for church in my day planner since “He” evidently spared our lives the night before when we got caught in the midst of a hail storm on our way from Pittsburgh to Ohio. It was probably the single most terrifying moment of my life and it took place right after I had been talking about Hell.

Over top of Christina’s mighty exaltation for her love of all things Christ, I heard the squelch of a siren from behind her house. We ran over to the window and discovered that there were two police officers on the street behind her house and they had pulled over a man in a truck. It seemed like it was just a traffic violation and I was quickly becoming bored. Luckily, I hung around long enough to witness the most appalling act of crime I have ever seen with these green eyes.

The officers were beginning to wrap things up and as the one cop made to get into the passenger side of the patrol car, he poured out the remainders of a can of what appeared to be Pepsi and then deliberately tossed the empty can into Christina’s back yard.

“Oh no he didn’t!” I exclaimed to Christina, right before shaping a makeshift megaphone with my hands and shouting “LITTERER!” and then ducking, leaving Christina framed alone in the window looking like the sole perpetrator.

Stomping over to her bed, I grabbed my shoes and sat down hard.

“What are you doing?” Christina asked nervously.

“I’m going out there.” I walked out of the bedroom and bounded down the steps, leaving her pleas in a cloud of my dust. She caught up with me before I made it to the back door and grabbed my arms.

“Look, I really don’t think going out there is a good idea. The cops around here are dicks.” She had thrown herself between me and the door so I knew she meant business. I walked dejectedly back into her kitchen as she explained to me that her neighborhood is kind of bad and that the cops are always looking for a reason to, well, be cops and that she really didn’t want to have to make that call to Henry.

“Henry!” I exclaimed in remembrance of my boy-toy in Pittsburgh. “Let’s call him for legal counsel.” And of course he wasn’t home. I left a message and that dickshitter never called back because he figured it was “something stupid” I was calling about, as I would later learn.

The cops had left by then, leaving me alone with a heightened sense of extreme community failure. I didn’t want it be over yet so I continued pacing and spouting vulgarities until I finagled Christina into calling the police station. “We have their patrol car number! Do it, Christina, for all of us civilians. And the environment. It’s God’s will.” I knew that would clinch it.

Christina finally relented, only because she didn’t want me making the call because supposedly I’m too “hot-headed.” But I would have used words like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘detestable’ to convey to the sergeant how appalled I truly was. And I would have thrown in the words ‘law’ and ‘suit’ somewhere in between mention of dying babies and that our earth is God’s playground (HAHA).

But Christina still wouldn’t hand over the phone; she was eventually dispatched through to Sgt. Ebbing (a man I will never forget, bless his heart). Explaining the complaint, she actually said, “Sir, I know this may seem trivial.”

Excuse me, trivial? Are you kidding? That prick littered in her back yard. He did something that people like us would get fined for. Oh, I was livid. She was being too nice and congenial during the phone call and my body was burning. I started to envision what would have happened if I had managed to get out of her house while the cops were still there. They don’t scare me. Plus, I have big boobs.

This was when I decided that I really, truly, and legitimately hated that littering officer. My ears were roaring with the sound of large, wavering sheets of metal and my heart was pounding like I had just run ten yards after ingesting fourteen fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches and an eight ball. I imagined scratching his face (out of malice, not passion) and striking his nose with the heel of my palm in an upward motion, just like Mr. Miyagi taught me. Then I would retrieve his discarded aluminum can and crush it against his jock.

Oh heaven, I have finally reached you through my fantasies.

Christina ended the call and jolted me out of my daydream. She explained to me that Sgt. Ebbing was going to call her back once he reprimanded the officers and that he also informed her that she could go to the courthouse and file for a citation, to which she said would not be necessary (I would have done it – fuck the police). I felt a tiny bit reassured and calmer but Christina was a little leery that Sgt. Ebbing had asked for her full name and address. “I’m a pot head! What if they’re going to be watching me now?”

“What do I care? I live in Pittsburgh.” And then I laughed. And if you know me, you know that laugh, and are probably wanting to bitch-slap me just at the mere thought of it.

In the meantime, we called Henry to fill him in. “You didn’t go out there, did you?” was the first utterance from his fat mouth. I began to feel a complex developing and asked, “No, I didn’t go out there but would it really have been so bad if I had?”

“Uh, yeah!” he answered. “With your temper? I don’t need to be bailing you out of jail.” I have to say I’m a little insulted that I’m not trusted to handle situations such as this one on my own. But Christina was happy because Henry shared in her apprehension.

Sgt. Ebbing called back about two hours later (presumably because he was banging broads in the drunk tank), at which time Christina’s sister Cynthia answered the phone and yelled to Christina, “I don’t fucking know who it is!” The sergeant (I don’t trust him, by the way; I think he’s a cocksucker to be honest with you) relayed the disciplinary action that was sanctioned, and might I add it only entailed asking the officers if it was true and then telling them to come back and pick up the can.

But he lied to us and I know it. Sgt. Ebbing, you’re a lying cocksucker. He told Christina that the officer admitted to tossing the can, which was purportedly an “illegal can of beer” which was confiscated from the man who had been pulled over. In the midst of the confusion while they were making an arrest, it must have slipped the officer’s mind that he had littered.

Except that I didn’t see them make an arrest. I saw the man get back in his truck and leave. What did they say, “Just meet us at the station”? Oh, I don’t think so.

In other words, the sergeant wanted us to think that it was admirable of the officer to be honest about the littering, but at the same time he tried to make us feel guilty or ashamed that these men were in the throes of serving justice and that they should be excused of such a trivial act.

“I’m going out there to wait for them to come pick up the can,” I announced as I ran for the door. Christina came with me and we discovered that the can was no longer there. That asshole sergeant waited for them to come pick it up before calling back because he knew that I was about to get all Firestarter on their asses. I just know it!

I don’t feel like justice was served. And I didn’t get to swear at anybody.

I’m going to pay one of her neighbors to let me slice their baby with a Pepsi can and then pretend it happened on the one in the Christina’s backyard. THIS IS FAR FROM OVER.

[Ed.Note: Obviously, it was over. Christina plied me with pie and the day quickly turned into “Sgt. Ebbing who now?”]

A few months ago, someone was trying to get my work friend Kaitlin to buy a lamb-shaped cake pan that they didn’t need anymore. Included in the email he sent to her was a picture of what the finished product could conceivably look like, so she sent it to Barb and me because it was so horrific-looking.

Of course I took to it immediately and tried to convince her that she really needed this cake pan, in spite of its exorbitant cost.

“Not for that price I don’t!” she assured me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it though and even found one that was much more reasonably-priced. I didn’t buy it though because I figured it would just be another thing to nag Henry about.

“Clean the house.”

“Do the laundry.”

“Cook my dinner.”

“Propose to me.”

“Put this makeup on.”

“Bake me a fucking lamb cake.”

A lamb cake just might be what it takes to break Henry’s back and leave me single and helpless.

Anyhow, I dropped it, but the use I had for it was always still in the back of my mind.

***

For some reason today, I brought up the fact that Henry dropped the ball for my thirtieth birthday. I have some pretty deep-rooted esteem issues, so this isn’t something that I’ve gotten over yet. Probably won’t, either, without a hearty helping of therapy.

“You couldn’t even get me the only thing I wanted for my last birthday, a fucking black forest cake!” I cried petulantly.

“I couldn’t find anywhere to get one!” Henry yelled back.

“I gave you two months notice that I wanted one! You could have BAKED one, motherfucker.”

I was still bitching about how he didn’t even love me enough to bake me a stupid birthday cake when I arrived at work.

Feeling utterly sorry for myself the whole 10-floor elevator ride, I walked around the corner to my desk only to find a large box with a post-it that said Open Carefully.

“She’s here!” Barb announced, and people started coming out of their offices and crowding around. I couldn’t imagine what was going on.

It wasn’t my birthday.

It wasn’t my workiversary.

Was I getting fired and they were trying to soften the blow?

To throw me off even further, Chris chimed in and asked, “Did you get your hair cut?” and I found myself bracing for another one of Those Episodes where I slightly modify my appearance and everyone swarms around me with spotlights.

Apprehensive is one way to describe how I felt. There were maybe six people watching me expectantly. I reached for the box lid, because that’s what they kept probing me to do, and we all know I do as I’m told. But then Barb commanded me to wait as she hit play on The Whiffenpoof Song, so now not only did I have a surplus of hungry eyes feasting upon me, my every roboticly awkward movement was to the tune of singing Muppets.

Please don’t let it be a crappy spreadsheet, I thought, as I eventually buckled and ripped the lid off like the proverbial bandaid it was starting to become.

It took a few good seconds for it to sink it, that awesome pins-and-needles sensation of being sufficiently stunned. Then I laughed. Then I almost cried. Then I laughed some more.

Apparently, this had been in the works for awhile. Barb placed an in-house classified ad and found someone who was willing to lend her the cake pan. Kaitlin baked the cake and then some of my friends here helped decorate. Anytime one of the less in-the-know co-workers would inquire about the reason for the cake, they were told it was told for Chooch.

Because everyone here knows my kid is weird. It’s me they think is normal.

This, after the babyish argument I had just instigated in the car with Henry. Fuck you, Henry. SOME PEOPLE are willing to bake this bitch a cake. Even now, I keep pausing to look over at it adoringly. People kept suggesting I wrap it up and I was like “I AM NOT COVERING THIS, EVER!” (But apparently it’s because they thought it was actually going to be eaten. As if. I want this thing to petrify and sit on my fireplace mantel for the rest of ever.)

I’m just so unbelievably touched that my friends here would do this. It has officially become so much more than just a lamb cake, and I’m beyond stoked to put my plan into action this weekend. STOKED BEYOND BELIEF.

Oh Lamb Cake, mama’s got big plans for you.

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat in front of my computer, watching this video, wishing I had the chance to see Dance Gavin Dance during the Jonny Craig/Jon Mess era, trying to accept the fact that it was never going to happen since Jonny was kicked out.

But then last night my dream came true.

I was so happy that I cried. SO HAPPY THAT I CRIED.

I have so much to say about last night, but right now, I’m just going to watch this video another 87 times.

I can’t stop smiling.

I think I mentioned last week that I’ve been trying to take a picture a day of Marcy, mostly because she is so hated among my friends. I’ve been having fun with it (when I remember to do it) because the look of disdain Marcy flashes me each time is priceless.

Seriously you guys – when/if  Marcy dies, stick a fork in me.

Looking down on me. (Everyone’s favorite sport!)

Skeptical of one of Chooch’s toys

Fishy kisses!

Marcy Dorklestein, early for class.

The Reigning Queen

In other weekend news, I obviously survived my first real life ghost hunt! It was an amazing, visceral experience and I have no idea I will put it all into words.

But trust that there will be a write-up about it sometime this week, with photos. And there was more rollerskating today! So far, the winter is losing the war against my sanity. Fuck off, winter depression.

The year was 2000 and I was standing in a parking lot with my dad, having just eaten dinner together at Olive Garden.

“Do you need any money?” he asked, reaching for his wallet like all good daddies do.

“Actually,” I mused, considering his offer. “I’ll take all your quarters if you have any.”

He looked at me strangely before rummaging in his pockets for loose change. I cupped my palms as my dad poured in a chunk of quarters.

I arrived at the Best Buy up the street just as an employee was pulling down the gates.

“We’re closed,” he said apologetically as I pressed my nose sadly against the door.

“I don’t need all the way in the store!” I said desperately. “Just need to get right there,” and I pointed at the row of vending machines in the small foyer between the two sets of automatic doors.

The employee let me duck under the gate and watched as I inserted all my quarters into the same machine, two at a time, cranking the dispenser wheel until it shat, one by one, tiny plastic capsules stuffed with Homies.

I was at the height of my Homies addiction that year, transported them in a metal Krishna lunchbox to and from work. Lined them up on my desk and smiled at them. Used them to put on plays for my cats. Considered giving up smoking so I could jam the extra money into vending machines all over the tri-state area, expanding my Homies collection from a tenement to a motherfucking barrio.

Every holiday season, there was always this one thing I was itching to do: Build a house of gingerbread and turn it into a crack house for my very best Homies.

Problem was that I’m not actually into the construction of gingerbread houses.

Seems tedious to me.

Two weeks ago I learned that Chooch would be making his own gingerbread house at school! Unfortunately, this required each child to bring an adult to school that day. I reminded Henry that I took one  for the team in October when I chaperoned that hellacious field trip to the pumpkin patch, and that he best take a motherfucking half-day.

Henry did just that, too. Together, he and Chooch spent the morning as carpenters of sugared shacks, and when they came home I was finally able to realize my dream of having a gingercrack house.

Ten years in the making and so satisfying.

I’m on the way to work and just got a tweet from Alternative Press announcing some early bands playing at next summer’s Warped Tour.

Hysterical shrieking commenced.

“I can’t wait until you’re old enough to go by yourself,” Henry mumbled with absolutely no feeling, at the same time Chooch reminded me, “You don’t have to shout about it!”

There was a special holiday pre-sale going on and you better believe I snatched one up. I want my motherfucking commemorative ornament.

I’m on another Pierce the Veil kick. This happens often and now you must suffer along with me. It’s ridiculous that I haven’t overplayed their new album by now (though I’m sure every time Henry gets in the car, he thinks, “Goddamn haven’t we listened to this album enough already?”). I just don’t think these guys get enough credit. Especially not from a lyrical standpoint. A lot of people can’t get behind Vic’s voice, but that’s one of the things I love so much about this band – they sound like no other.  (Plus, I like boys who sing like girls yet can still fucking scream.)

This is my favorite song off Selfish Machines and I really hope they make a video for it. In Alternative Press’s track-by-track breakdown of the album, Vic said a fan approached him and said that her boyfriend had died in a car accident, and that it had been at one of their shows where he held her hand for the first time. This song was meant to be from the boyfriend’s point of view and it kills me every time I hear it.

Listening to them today has provided a nice bit of catharsis after last night’s volatile post. I haven’t even re-read it so I can only imagine it’s obscenity- and typo-laden. Thank you for making me feel calmer today, Pierce the Veil.  I might die if I don’t get to see you again soon.

I think Marcy’s a little dejected because ever since Chooch was born, the frequency of me shoving a camera in her face waned a bit. Or maybe she’s happy about that, but I DOUBT it.

She went to Pampered Pet for a little groom-session on Saturday morning, so she’s been looking real luxurious and I couldn’t resist shoving her inside a photoshoot oven last night. Unfortunately for Marcy’s son Don, the battery died during Marcy’s sesh. I had big plans of wrapping his head in a babushka but I guess I’ll do that tonight since I have no job again.

I know it’s horrible to play favorites, but of my four cats, Marcy’s IT. She’s the equivalent of poking a hornets nest. I feel like my reflexes are outstanding because of her.

Anyone who meets her usually leaves with a strong feeling of either love or hate. You know who really loves Marcy? My friends Bill and Jessi, who were actually just here last week for a quick visit on their way back to Michigan. Bill can never resist dangling his hand in front of her, which inevitably gets him maimed, and then you have Jessi crying and screaming, “Billy! Why do you have to touch her?! You know she’s going to attack! I hate that cat so much!”

When they were visiting in October, Jessi was trying to use our computer to finalize some wedding stuff;  Marcy jumped onboard and sat near the keyboard, daring Jessi to extend her fingers. Marcy was glaring and growling, and Jessi was yelling for me to come stop the madness, but I just sat on the couch and watched. It was exciting!

Remarkably, she hasn’t attacked Chooch yet. She has just recently got to the point where if he approaches her daintily (which is a feat for him), she will allow him to give her a small goodnight peck on her head. But she’s not happy about it. I think she knows that if she ever hurt Chooch, Henry would punt her out the front door (and then I would leave Henry). So when Chooch screeches, “Marcy!!!!111 Watch me play cars!!!!” she disgruntedly obliges. Mostly she sits stalk-still, hoping he’ll mistake her for a furry statue.

She draws blood from 8 out of 10 people who enter this house. Maybe you’ll be one of them.

I just love her so much!

I know this might be hard to believe, but before Henry, there was another old man on the receiving end of my affections.

It was the summer of 1996 and I was on a Trafalgar tour of Italy with my aunt Sharon. She was the worst traveling companion because she always had to be the center of attention and would get snotty anytime someone on the tour had the gall to speak to me. Mostly, she would answer questions for me, which would make me rampant with teenage temper-flares and pout sessions. But on this trip, which would end up being our last trip together since I was soon  to become a disgrace to the family (i.e. a high school drop out), I decided to branch out on my own.

In previous years, my grandparents used to come with us and after day two, I’d be clinging to my Pappap, scowling when I would have to sit next to Sharon on the tour bus. When Sharon and I started to take these trips without them, it was hell for me. I would spend a lot of time crying on the bus because she was just so mean to me sometimes, and would put me down in front of the other travelers. She’d go off and make new friends with the other adults while I would have to be content with being the silent tag-a-long. And the thing with Sharon is that she lived for flaunting the fact that she was a “seasoned pro” at these European vacations, and would butt into people’s conversations to tell them where to get the best pasta in Rome or the best leather deals in Florence.

And she would do this thing, whenever the tour guide would share something that Sharon was already planning on including in her own tour book, she would close her eyes and nod her head knowingly, making her stupid fucking chandelier earrings tinkle with pretentiousness.

Oh my god, this is making me hate Sharon so bad.

My grandma’s brother Eddie and sister Donna were also on this particular trip with their respective spouses, which was awesome because I never really got to spend much time with them since my grandma got all weird a few years earlier about, oh I don’t know, having familial relations.  The four of them had already booked the trip when Sharon found out and decided it would be fun to surprise them. It was great for me to have them along because it allowed me to have allies in the very certain case that Sharon would try and ostracize me as usual.

Since I was 17 this time around, I was a little more secure in myself, had less complacency when it came to Sharon running the show. So I branched out. (I had tried this, mostly without success, on the trip prior to this one. Sharon caused a few scenes, but that’s another chapter involving a guy named Udo from Austria.) While she would be taking naps in the room, I’d wander down to the lobby in hopes of stumbling into some other people from our tour.

  In Lugano, I ran into Anahit, an Armenian lady from our group who Sharon hated. Probably because she was wild, extremely well-preserved for her age, and loved to drink the vino in excess every night at dinner. Since she was a single traveler, she was paired up with another single, Jackie. Jackie was in her 50s, wore fanny packs, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Nathan Lane. Sharon didn’t think very highly of Jackie either (“She gets on my fucking nerves” is what she’d hiss every time Jackie would breeze past us to her seat on the bus),

Our evening stroll took us down to Lake Como, where vendors were in abundance and the atmosphere was pregnant with romance and drunk laughter. I know, writing those words is extremely cheesy and out-of-character for me; but the truth is that I remember it so vividly, wishing I was older and there with a man. Not my mom’s possessive older sister and busful of retirees.

While there, we ran into more people from our tour, one of whom was Stefan—a very handsome Australian with well-coiffed prematurely white hair. He was there with his two (less attractive) friends, David and Ted, who were absent from this lovely nighttime stroll. It was the first time on the trip that I had really been around him, and we wound up walking back to the hotel together, as everyone else had found themselves paired up. I was in a panic. What could I possibly say to this older man that wouldn’t make him think (nay, believe) that I was just an immature kid. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I’m sure at some point I said, “OMG I play tennis and love rap music! My bedroom has purple carpet!”

From that moment on, I had big plans for Stefan. I only wore my tightest shirts for the rest of the trip. During walking tours, I would try to weasel my way near him, find some excuse to talk to him. Stupid shit like, “Look what I bought today!” and the chance of it being something that didn’t reflect my age was about 1 in 1,000,000.

If you were to read my vacation journal, you would notice a suspicious lack of Stefan entries. This is mostly because that journal was passed around between Sharon and my aunts and uncles every day on the bus, wherein they would laugh at my exaggerations, which to me were fairly accurate depictions of my surroundings and the subsequent events of the trip. (Events like: “August 15th, Milan: Sharon pointed out a zit on my chin in front of a group of people from our tour; I found a seat in the back of the bus and cried.”) The thing with my family, any family really, is the moment they catch a whiff of some blossoming crush, you better go out and buy the biggest Lady Gaga-approved hat to die beneath. However, my journal does learn me that at dinner that night, my Uncle Eddie withdrew a stack of Steelers trading cards from his shirt pocket and tried to exchange them with the waiter for bigger portions.

Near the very end of the vacation, we were on a day trip in Siena, during which Sharon and I had one of our signature rows. I used this as an excuse to ditch her and I sought out Stefan, who was with David and Ted. In my very dramatic nature, I filled them in on the horrors that is traveling with Sharon, told them how she was always trying to keep me down when all I wanted to do was make friends with everyone on the tour. I remember, all these years later, that I was wearing a sheer white tank, under which the slightest hint of my bra could be detected. I hoped Stefan would notice.

(I hadn’t yet learned the definition of “tacky.”)

(Or “SLUTTY,” apparently. Don’t worry—Henry is a ticketing slut patrolman; he makes sure I don’t leave the house with my vagina hanging out nowaways.

)

Stefan and his friends took great delight in hearing my woes of Sharon and suggested that I fight her. We all laughed at this and I thought it was so amazing that I was just a kid, sharing an inside joke with these three men. Later, on the bus, Stefan made his way back to where Sharon and I were sitting to see if we were fighting yet. I laughed at this, probably with more gusto than it warranted, just to make Sharon question what was going on.

“Nothing,” I said, when I was able to talk again. “Just an inside joke.” My ego practically did a pole dance, it was so turned on to see Sharon feeling left out.

Later, on the bus, my Aunt Donna asked in her I’m-Going-Yell-Since-I’m-On-A-Submarine voice, “What’s that Australian’s name who had a birthday?”

“Ted,” I answered.

“Ken?”

“No, Ted.”

“Ten?!”

Sharon, unable to take anymore of this, hissed, “TED.”

“Oh!” Aunt Donna exclaimed. “Theodore! Now what about that handsome one up there with the white hair? That’s the one I like.”

Knowing the shade of my face was quickly on its way to matching the heat of a rolling boil, I mumbled, “Stefan.”

Loudly, real loud, she said, “Oh, STEFAN! I like the name, too!”

Meanwhile, Ted and David were sitting diagonally from us and were probably asking each other, “Why the fuck are these Yankee broads throwing our names around?”

This is why I never wanted anyone to know I was practically drawing up blueprints to find a way inside Stefan’s suitcase so I could go home with him and live a glorious life in Brisbane as his American concubine. Their mouths, they are loud. Every night at dinner, my Uncle Eddie would get all Heidi Fleiss and try to pawn me off on any waiter he deemed cute enough. This would send the rest of them into giddy histrionics, making them shout things like, “Oh, Erin, he’s a cute one! Look at his butt!” and drawing everyone’s attention to the young blond girl with the lobster-hued cheeks who was just trying to enjoy her caprese salad in peace.

The last day of the trip, everyone congregated in the lobby of the hotel in Rome, crying and hugging, promising to keep in touch. (No one ever does.) Some of the people had later flights, like Stefan, and didn’t make it down in time to say goodbye.

But Stefan did. He found me in the lobby, waiting for the airport shuttle, and came over to hug me goodbye. The tears were on their marks, getting ready and set to go, but I postponed the race in favor of allowing my hormones to throw a party against my pelvis because oh my GOD, I was in the arms of an older man.

I left Italy positive that I was in love with him.

***

When I found this photo, I was quick to point out to Henry that he wasn’t my first old man crush, and then proceeded to tell him all about Stefan.

“I think Sharon must have liked him too, because any time Stefan and I were together, Sharon would rush over with a reason to pull me away,” I said angrily, holding the picture of him adoringly.

“Or! Maybe she was pulling you away because you were only seventeen?” Henry hypothesized in that tone he uses when he thinks I’m stupid and that he knows everything.

“Oh, yeah. Or that.”

Friday, June 1, 2007

There are two of them ascending the steps to my front door, wrapped in a shroud woven of the Holy Word and sweat beads; long wool skirts shifting left and right against their panty hosed-calves. Their presence is announced not by the gentle rapping on the door, but by inflexible clodhoppers amplifying their chaste footfalls against the concrete.

Henry, in typical older male fashion reminiscent of our fathers, is splayed out on the couch in a striking pair of boxer briefs; he hurriedly stuffs a pillow onto his lap and coaxes me to get the door.

Balancing my kid on my hip, I open the screen door and nervously greet them. I learn that they are Mormon sisters which intrigues me as I have only ever encountered the elders;  they had not intended to stop at my house but happened to notice Chooch at the door and that little asshole smiled at them, which I guess is the Mormon code for “Someone in here needs some savin’! Come on down!”

I think I’ll make my child a Tamburitzen as his future penance.

I like to humor solicitors by feigning interest. Especially the Mormons, who have always amused me so. They provide me with human contact, doses just large enough to keep my society membership card from being revoked. And sometimes it does end up being interesting! There were two Elders who swung by once on a Saturday evening, many years ago, after I spotted them walking past my house and hysterically screamed for them to come say hi. They allowed me to video tape them as they commented on the party debris covering every flat surface of my living room. “The Christmas lights are lit, there’s beverage on the table, looks like a party to me!” the one hollered, channeling his best frat boy dialect which he probably picked up from the WB, while the other Elder stood nervously to the side. Then the bolder one took the camcorder just in time to pan onto me as I stumbled drunkenly onto the sidewalk, tripping all over my halter-topped slutiness. He was my favorite Elder. Strangely, I never saw him again. And after all that flirting, even?

However, I have a really terrible tendency to laugh in their faces, only partially because I’m an asshole. From birth, I’ve been tagged as an Inappropriate Laugher. Even when I actually was religious (truth!) and cheered when I was blessed with a Sunday School teacher who deemed it necessary to give us exams, I would still rip open the insides of my cheeks with my molars in awkward attempts to stop laughing during mass.

So when one of the two sisters enters a coital-like trance and begins her spiel, I start to relive the day Henry and I attended baptism class. It’s like my bottom lip is trying to mount the top one, like humping earthworms, causing them both to contort in jackass-y smirks and lewd leers. I laugh hard and try to project it all onto  Chooch, hoping they’ll interpret my uncomfortable display of giddiness as the universal sign for a mother’s joy. Look at me! I am so happy to be the mother of this sticky kid that I just can’t stop twisting my face into sneers better reserved for serial killers! Oh-ho, will the laughter never stop?

They pause in between glory be’s to acknowledge my giggles with interjections like “Yeah! Uh huh!” as though I’m that delirious from their recount of Joseph Smith’s vision that I am losing my mind in a God-loving fervor.

And then, as I’m in the height of my seasonal lesbianism, it dawns on me just how hot this here Sister McRae really is, with the natural highlights sparkling in the sun’s heat and her cute little sweater vest enveloping her in innocence. Her words begin to perform a strip tease on her tongue, grinding to the hottest ecclesiastical club anthems, and making me want to collapse in a fit of immature giggles.

A thousand knee-slappers whir through my mind, the kinds that have made the Elders crack smiles; but as past instances have pointed out, I can’t flirt with girls. My tongue gets caught and I end up spitting out sociopathic flag-raisers like, “I have cats!” (Another truth, and possibly one of my darker moments on the playing field.)

The more marmish-looking one asks me if I know that Mormons have a living prophet.

Do I. I’ve watched Big Love.

It is clear that she is the no nonsense, get-convertin’ one of the pair, so I deep-six all eye contact from that point and focus on Sister McRae’s perfectly plucked eyebrows.

During all of this talk of Joseph Smith and light pillars (which I already know about thanks to the last time I was approached), I have been inadvertently leaning back on the front door, causing it to open wider and expose Henry and his Fruit-of-the-Loomed nut sack. He is very unnerved by this because the ugly Sister keeps staring at him (he swears she is only looking at his face, and I kind of believe him because who’d want to gawk at Henry’s package?).

The couch becomes his Iron Maiden.

My cat Marcy slips out through the crack I left in the front door and proceeds to weave in and out under the stauncher Sister’s skirt, pausing underneath to look up. Marcy has a long tail, which is erect and wagging like a large feathered quill, dusting the cobwebs. I bet that’s considered first base back on the compound. Stifling back chuckles, I give Marcy halfhearted scoldings and fight the urge to regress to a fifth grade mindset.

Fifteen minutes and lots of unintentional laughs later, the pretty Sister picks up on my dire need to retreat into the house (or else her love for Jesus isn’t strong enough to keep her standing in the ninety degree heat for more than twenty minute intervals). She asks if they can come back another time. I happily agree because I love torturing myself. She pencils me in for Monday at 1 and gifts me with a church pamphlet, which I am told to study in the meantime.

I am sad to see that the Jesus depicted on the cover is of the gentle, lamb-cradling shepherd variety, one that I just had no right picturing in sweaty, pretzel-bodied trysts. No, a date with this one would probably be jam-packed with seed scattering and roof thatching. Maybe a few blessings before dinner and then a reenactment of the apple scene by the local youth group.

Unless there’s some back scratching and strawberry shortcake involved, I’ll pass.

Henry shot off a torrent of disbelief. He asks me things like why I invited them to come back and if I’m really going to attend their mass like I said I would. I ignore him as I flip through my Mormon study guide and laugh at pictures portraying loving families and content hand-holding parishioners.

I will undoubtedly spend my weekend daydreaming about what Mormon mass is like and how quickly I get myself blacklisted. Will they at least serve  doughnuts and orange drink first? Can I wear a bonnet? I hope to make lots of friends there so I have more people to invite to future game nights. Then I’ll put them in a room with my friends who are adamant debaters of opposing religions and have them all sic each other.

At least they didn’t make me pray with them.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Henry is home from work early. On his way upstairs for a nap, he reminds me that I have a date with the Mormons.

By 12:45, my front door is barricaded, the windows pulled closed and robed by curtains, and the volume on the TV lowered. I’m on lock down. I even bite off one of my nails in a fretful fit.

1:00 comes and goes, and I feel abandoned and unloved. Am I so pathetic that even religious recruiters stand me up? I go upstairs in search of consoling from my napping partner, but he shuns me, so I return to the living room and make snarly expressions with my mouth until I’m distracted by a Ciara video.

The clock turns to 1:35 and my ears perk at the sound of Christ-like exaltations growing louder outside my door. I swear that I even hear the heavenly notes of harps helmed by cherubs, but it might just be the sound of my own angelic breathing. Suddenly, I’m consumed by an animalistic danger response and I flee to the bedroom, tripping over my flip flops on the way.

This is my mother’s fault. I grew up hiding with her in the attic as Jehovah’s Witnesses circled around our house like crows; PTA member Donna Thomas made spontaneous visits to try and get her to type programs or bake cookies or be a room mother; and my uncle’s insane girlfriend Stella would appear for impromptu cups of tea, her psychosis only thinly veiled as she choked on tears and hysterical laughter (she once hid under the bed for a week because she wanted my uncle to assume she had gone off and killed herself). I’d pretend whoever my mom had us hiding from on that particular day had shotguns and that if I lifted my head, my brain would explode like Gallagher’s watermelon and sound like a moist sponge as it splattered against the wall and dripped down into a gelatinous pile of blood and skull fragments. It was exhilarating.

As I spy between the slats of the blinds, Henry asks me through a sleep-coated slur what I’m doing and in my best hushed tones, I inform him that the Mormons hath returned and I’m hiding. I haven’t even read their literature! The only term I learned was Aaronic Priesthood, and that’s only because it topped the list. I didn’t even complete the study questions at the end! Did Jesus’s Apostles know that an apostasy would occur? I don’t know!

Henry shakes his head and rolls over, rejecting me with his back.

I cower in the dark sanctity of my bedroom corner until I’m certain they’ve left. They pull out of the driveway in what appears to be a brand new Camry in golden hues, probably meant to mimic a halo’s tint. I then briefly consider converting, until Henry informs me that the car is likely owned by the church and not two Mormon hustlers who don’t have jobs. But then I start to think of other scenarios that could afford them a car, like drug dealing. Mormonism is starting to sound scandalously tempting. I could probably get used to the itchy wool caressing my thighs if it meant reaping the rewards of Christ’s drug deals. The scratchy caresses might even be an improvement on Henry.

Do Mormons engage in self-flagellation?

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

I’m hanging out in the living room with Henry and Chooch, enjoying a block of music videos that teach my son to call girls bitches and hoes and to fuck them barebacked to see if they really are a wonder woman. To keep our wandering child in one room, we pull out our chaise and use it to block the entrance to the dining room, since it’s too wide of an area for a standard baby gate to cross. Henry is presently laying across it on his stomach in a position he hopes will make him look younger than he really is. How is he going to slip his hand down his pants with his jock pressed against the chair? I wonder.

In my peripheral, I catch two wool-skirted smudges through the open front door. The Mormon Sisters have nearly reached the front porch, but I’m not opposed to obvious dodgings. In what feels like slow-motion, I leap up from the couch and lurch into a scissor-kicked hurdle over top of Henry’s lazy form on the chair. I pause briefly once I land, impressed with the height I reached on that one, but then I sprint like I’m being chased by the muthafuckin’ popo until I’m swaddled in safety’s sweet embrace at the top of the steps.

I hear the soft rapping upon the front door. I hear the door open. I hear Henry’s gruff voice. Though I can’t hear it well, I imagine his voice all but paints a portrait of his chagrined state.

I hear silence.

And then, Henry is standing at the bottom of the steps.

He hisses for me to get my ass downstairs.

No, I hiss back, slinking further into the shadows.

This is your doing, he seethes. Tell them you’re not interested.

But I won’t, and he knows he can’t make me.

He shuffles off to do my dirty work. I wait a few moments after I hear the closing of the door before I come out of hiding.

Henry tells me smugly that they’re coming back tomorrow. I hope they come in time to spectate the simulated baby sacrifice that I perform on Chooch. He loves it so much that he laughs until he vomits.

I love the thrill of the chase, the sensation of being stalked; I love how my heart palpitates wildly and I feel my blood rushing, in a nervous race to hide from the word of the Lord. Sometimes I call myself Susie and pretend that I’m in the Witness Protection Program. Other times I pretend my house is a forest bathed in moonlight and I’m fleeing from a chainsaw-brandishing Jason Voorhees, tree branches snagging my camp shirt and jagger bushes carving thin trenches into my flesh. What really provides good cardio is envisioning that they’re rapists saddled with 12-inch barbed-wired and hot sauce-ensconced dildos, pelvises thrusted and jutting, ready to penetrate.

I can’t wait for them to come back.

Some girls have a lot of shoes; I have a lot of purses. So many in fact, that occasionally I run into one while scouring the house for something else. This never fails to turn into a treasure hunt. I tear through that sucker like I expect to find wads of crisp greens or that damn SWV cassette single that’s been AWOL for the past decade. Sometimes I find lip gloss that I had written off as a pick-pocketing casualty; other times I only find a lone tampon and a broken cigarette.

Once, I found a testicle.

But a few years ago, I stumbled upon quite the bonanza. One of my lunch box purses had been negligently shoved under the couch (probably by that worthless sack of shit, Henry). I flung open the top and found four (4) lip glosses that I can’t even remember ever using (let alone buying), tobacco dustings, a free cd acquired at a local concert that I’ll never listen to, more pens for my house to devour and a note from myself.

But wait. What’s that? Oh yes, the pièce de résistance. A vintage picture of one of my pen pals past.

Eddie was my pen pal back in 1992 or so, when I was a spunky, yet highly naive twelve year old. I thought it was such a nice act of charity to be pen palling with a prisoner (and old habits die hard, let me tell you). His letters were filled with such tittilating nuggets of news like how much weight he bench pressed that day and how the canned pears at lunch were floating in just the right amount of syrup. Sometimes he would even placate my fiery loins with a love poetry or two.

As you can see from the cryptic question mark in the photo’s inscription, he really wasn’t sure if I was nice. Or if I was really a lady? Or young? But he probably figured it was a vary safe assessment.

Our friendship was really beginning to blossom until one fateful day. That damn mailman was late again and my mom ended up getting to it before me. My letter from Eddie was intercepted, something about how she saw the stamp from a state prison and felt it was her motherly duty to confiscate it. I saw right through her thinly veiled mask of jealousy – she just wished a hot, smoldering inmate was writing to her.

After unearthing this photographic gem, I curled up with a cup of tea and allowed a montage of what could have been to run through my mind. That is, assuming Eddie is out of jail now.

I could very likely be sharing a double wide in an Alabama trailer park with Eddie, shooting at pigeons with my cross-eyed son’s BB gun, swilling on the neighbor’s moonshine while talking about that day’s Jerry Springer and Judge Judy with my mother-in-law on the tellyphone. Evenings could be spent with Eddie and I giving eraser tattoos to our eighteen younguns. Bathrobe, cold cream and curlers a given.

Fortunately, my life with Henry is not too far off from that.

And just a few months ago, while rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers, I came across a photo of a more recent jailbird. (One could say I was once a bit obsessed with harvesting dangerous friendships.) His name was Mason and he was in there for drugs. Nothing fancy.

The back of this photo says: Erin, I took this picture in August. I hope you like it.

It was scrawled in blood. No I’m kidding. He just used regular old boring black ink. What good is having an inmate penpal if they’re not going to send letters written on chunks of prison guard flesh?

I never did get to ask him if that’s how he always dresses because Henry freaked when he saw this picture and started screaming, “I can tell by his sandals that he has a huge cock; stop corresponding with him immediately!” I mean, does he at least have a matching tie for Sunday mass?

And those were just two of my inmate suitors.

Some girls have a lot of shoes; it appears I have a lot of death wishes.

When I was in high school, way back in those scary times known as THE NINETIES, FX started showing reruns of a 70’s show called “Vega$” starring a pre-cancer Robert Urich. I don’t know what it was about that show, but I was sucked in. I mean, I would drop everything when “Vega$” came on. I could have had Robert Smith’s dick in my hand and I would’ve dropped that too. Or probably multi-tasked, but still.

I was in the attic not too long ago, looking for incriminating evidence against Henry to post here on the blog, when I stumbled upon an old VHS tape that boasted VEGA$ MARATHON! in orange marker (and under that in pink: Bone videos! Bone on the VMAs!) and it just all came flooding back. It feels like that show consumed years of my life, like it was with me when I got my braces off, learned to drive, lost my viriginity, graduated (oh, wait. haha). But really I think I only watched it for a few months. But that was long enough to make fond memories! Walk with me.

• In 11th grade English, we were put into groups. My group had to make a video about Longfellow. Because that’s not a boring subject or anything. I remember this to be at the height of my Vega$ mania, as evidenced by the ridiculous cameos I made in other people’s scenes, walking slowly in the background while holding a large posterboard sign urging people to watch Vega$ on FX, with air times and maniacal exclamation abuse following. But everyone in that class knew I was retarded so I don’t think it illicited much reaction, aside from maybe a few eye rolls.
• That same year, FX was having a Sunday MARATHON. Can you imagine? An entire afternoon of that beloved 1970’s wok-wok disco soundtrack carrying a polyestor bell-bottomed Dan Tanna across my television screen. The only thing that would make that day better was to have a PARTY to go along with it. Of course, none of my friends thought this was a very enticing way to spend a day off from school so I ended up making a sign to advertise my Vega$ party, and I tied it on the street sign at the end of our lane. With balloons. Don’t worry, I’d never forget the balloons. Oh, it was going to be grand! I could imagine cars pulling over left and right and random strangers showing up with arms full of spinach dip, wine coolers, and disco balls. Of course, it was only me and my brother Corey home at the time (and he was only 5 or 6), so this came as a nice surprise to my mom when she turned onto the lane later that day and saw my open-to-all invitation billowing on the street post. Then she burst into the house and saw that it was just Corey and me, eating chips and watching Vega$ together. If I remember correctly, Corey was wearing a dishtowel on his head. I have video of this somewhere.
• One of my favorite episodes featured an appearance by WAYNE NEWTON! He sang this one song that went something like “Daddy, don’t you walk so fast” and I was OBSESSED with it. I made all of my friends watch it. They were like, “Ok?” Luckily, my friend Lisa was mildly amused by my Vega$ infatuation, so when I asked her to sing that Wayne Newton song with me on my answering machine (I had my own line in high school, which didn’t get me into any trouble at all), she agreed and it was my favorite answering machine greeting ever. Maybe tied with “Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina” which angered my Aunt Sharon so much, she quit calling me for awhile. That’s a winning situation if you ask me.

And I could go and on about Robert Urich’s appearances on “Battle of the Network Stars” (I was so obsessed with that too, but that didn’t happen until much later, which was awesome for Henry because it meant he got to witness me taking a good thing and running it into the ground). But instead, I will leave you with the opening sequence to my beloved “Vega$.”

What old shows did/do you obsess over? I really need to know. It’s for… research.

The Penguins are playing the Flyers right now so I had to turn the marshmonsters around to watch. Alisha started preaching about how its unnatural to obsess over marshmallows and how if I lived in Arkansas and tried pulling that shit, I’d get gang-raped by a baseball team called the Galaxies. Then Henry said something stupid and shit-coated, like, “Did you just take another picture of them?

They haven’t CHANGED” and I was like, “But people on Twitter might be curious as to what’s going on with them right now.

”

Then I went upstairs to pee and while peeing I started thinking things through, this whole marshmallow thing I mean, and I started thinking about how I never played with dolls when I was a kid, and maybe this is some latent need to play and dress inanimate objects that just bloomed late inside of me.

Or maybe I just really like to make food into play things, because this is not the first time I’ve lost myself in the world of make believe edible friends.

And it probably won’t be the last, either.

This hockey game is fucking fantastico, by the by.