I miss the good old “You’ve been tagged!” days of LiveJournal.  So here’s one of those 10 Random Facts things, after which I’m going to hunt down some of you and tag your asses.

1. Littering boils my blood. I once pushed a girl (who also appeared to be a minor) for throwing an empty cigarette pack on my sidewalk. And when our foreign exchange student (the summer of 92) willingly allowed the wind to catch his straw wrapper, I yanked him back by his shirt collar and learned him that while his triflin’ ass was in MY country, his refuse would go in the trash can.

2. When I was 18, I befriended a garbage man (albeit a CUTE one, please) at a Steve Miller show. A few days later, he came all the way from Ohio to smoke me out in his car. He was also owned the first pierced-tongue to ever slip into my mouth. But then I panicked and thought he was going to rape me, so we went to the mall and he bought me custard. It was good. The custard. Was good.

3. The first time I ever tried to leave a message on an answering machine was when I was in elementary school. I kept messing up, so I would hang up and call again, not realizing that although I had terminated the call, all seven of my screwed up messages remained etched onto that tape, waiting for my friend and her parents to play back and laugh.

4. I called grilled cheeses “girl cheeses” for the first ten years of my life and would get highly agitated anytime my brother would eat one. Even after I learned the correct name, it took me another five years to break the habit.

5. The first time I heard the word “scenery” was in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and even though my friend Christy told me what it meant (I think I was seven), it took several more years for me to actually comprehend.

6. I spent months convincing an ex-boyfriend that he had a stalker. He was so paranoid that he would come bolting into my house, panting that someone was following him the whole way and that he just knew it was that girl from the internet! I even wrote myself a fake threat-note from her and he turned pallid as he read it.

7. I wanted to be in a gang really badly when I was 15. My mom threatened to send me to boarding school. I laughed at her bluff.

8. I hate cops to the point of risking getting pulled over (and worse) when I see them because I get real obnoxious and Henry gets so paranoid and yells for me to grow up. I guess it stems from when my mom called the police on me because she thought I was in my room “doing drugs and suicide.” (I think I wrote about this once already?) I had bruises on my arms from the asshole cop who broke down my door. AND he made snide remarks because my room was messy, and it really wasn’t that bad! Fucking popo.  Even worse, one time I caught a cop LITTERING. This also works for #1.

9. I was one of 12 white people at a Bone concert in 1996. I went with my friends Jameelah and Ericka (my sistahs, if you will) and my then-boyfriend who embarrassed me by wearing a NIN shirt. The nerve. There was a shooting in the parking lot afterward and I was really angry that I missed it. But now, I’m petrified of guns, thanks to Tales From the Hood. Life-altering movie for me, right there.

10. I worked at Olan Mills when I was 18. My supervisor was on work release, but came to my apartment once before the shift started and we got drunk off Jack Daniels. He got busted later that night at work (I didn’t because I’m a sweetheart) and things escalated to where he wound up in jail. He used his one phone call to call me instead of his wife. My boyfriend at the time was NOT pleased. I bet that dude’s wife wasn’t too thrilled either. <–I actually might write about this soon because my naiveté always makes me laugh.

I tag:

MrsEvils

Misty

Francesco

Carrie

Kate

Ally

SWSNBN

Rhonda

Scienter

Nance

“You’re not wearing any green,” Henry said, semi-accusatory after he saw my new Facebook profile picture.

“Uh, yeah. I kind of hate St. Patrick’s Day,” I said with a questioning intonation. I checked my mental calendar. Yep, nine years we’ve been together, that’s what I thought. And somehow he didn’t pick up on this?

“Why do you hate it?” he asked, probably thinking what everyone else thinks: But your name! It’s so Irish! You should be pissing shamrocks and fucking potatoes!

Newsflash! I’m not Irish. It starts with the name and ends there, too. I don’t even like BEER.

Well gosh, Henry. Draw your chair near, mama has a story to tell you!

St. Patrick’s Day, 1993. I was in eighth grade and dressed like the goddamn Blarney Stone itself birthed me. Hokey Irish sweatshirt, probably purchased from some god awful basement of disparity mall shop like Beer Tees; green leggings; green sequined suspenders; green sequined bow tie. I feel like I probably had some clover-inspired garbage entwined with my locks, as well.

In other words: I looked SUPER CUTE.

That evening after school, my mom wasn’t home for some reason. I’m going to say she was at her ceramics class, because that seems most plausible.  Her absence did not please me because my step-dad and I were embroiled in one of our infamous stand-offs, which is basically how I remember most of my childhood. He commanded me to set the table before dinner. My step-dad, the reason for my Irish name, was always on the prowl for a reason to start a fight with me. This particular evening, I didn’t set the table to his liking. Something was out of place, or he didn’t like my attitude, or I looked at him wrong.

Pick one.

We began screaming at each other, which was something of a tradition by that phase of my life. He hated, absolutely hated, that I would always stand up for myself.

I suppose he wanted me to retreat with my tail between my legs, whimpering and finding a dark corner in which to sit with my weak sense of femininity and brittle backbone.

There was distance between us during this confrontation, something like ten or fifteen feet. So when he picked up that fork to chuck at me, it had plenty of time to pick up speed before plunging between my knuckles. I’m sure though that in some parts of Ireland, this is part of the St. Paddy’s tradition, right before chugging Guinness but in between watching live rabbits boil in cauldrons and blowing up cars with pipe bombs.

There was no apology, not that I was expecting one. He went back to making dinner and I was still crying and cradling my hand by the time my mom came home.

Now Val, she never wanted to get involved in these fights. And the fact that it went beyond verbal was nothing new. He and I were known to get into some heavy fisticuffs, which is probably why I’m so aggressive toward men to this day.

I do NOT let a man fuck with me. I do NOT cower in front of a man, either. Val looked at  my hand, which was red and swollen, the simple God-given act of flexing ones fingers had become something that inspired cries of pain.

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” she insisted, but she knew, and I knew, that it wasn’t. She wrapped it for me, and made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone at school what happened.

I ended up having to get an X-ray. One of my knuckles had a slight fracture, but it was nothing severe enough to require a cast. The doctor wrapped it tight and eventually it healed, but for years, if you looked hard enough, you could see a little scar from where one of the tines had pierced through my flesh.

I don’t let things go very easily, and I never really cared much for St. Patrick’s Day after that. It’s just not the same without a fork protruding from my hand.

As far as family goes, this past weekend was one of the best I’ve had in awhile.

I’ve been in a rough place lately. Henry and Alisha can only hear me cry about it so much before it makes them feel frustrated and extremely annoyed I’m sure, and I started to wonder if my “new” sister would be able to help me by listening. A fresh pair of ears can usually do wonders, but I wasn’t sure if she would feel comfortable, since we only just met. I sent her a message on Facebook asking if we could meet up sometime so I could talk to her about something, and to my surprise she replied within moments, suggesting that upcoming Saturday. We arranged to meet at the Union Grill in Washington, PA, and I made Henry print me out thorough directions.

Too bad it didn’t say on the Union Grill’s website that they’re located across from the Pittsburgh Paint shop, on top of which Erin’s ex-boyfriend Psycho Mike once lived for a month in the summer of ’97. Then I would have been able to blindly navigate my way there, probably not without Vietnam-caliber flashbacks.

After Amy and I were seated, I wasted no time for pleasantries; I dove right in and found myself being more honest with her than I have ever been with anyone in my family. I held back nothing.

“Wow,” she said after a few minutes. “I totally wasn’t expecting all that.” And from there, she went on to be sympathetic and supportive and made me realize (along with Alisha, who I had spent the earlier part of the day with) that I wasn’t retarded. Sometimes having your feelings validated can do wonders in turning around your outlook, and I felt like Oprah’s ass had finally been crane-lifted from my chest. Cathartic.

Amy mentioned that my mom had recently called her to see if she had spoken to me recently. Amy said no, and my mom said, “Something seems to be bothering her.” I almost choked on my salad upon learning that. My mom, noticing something was amiss with me? And actually caring enough to ask someone about it? (I know what you’re thinking – “Why didn’t she just ask you?” But understand that the fact that my mom noticed at all is mind blowing to me.) I think that means my mom must really love me after all.

I drove home, amazed at how easily I can talk to someone who has the same mother as me. We’re hoping the next time we get together, that our mom will be there too. We want to get her drunk so she’ll tell us stories. I told her about that later, and she goes, “Who, me? I don’t have any stories. I lived a very clean life.” Indeed.

While I was gone, Chooch apparently stepped on the broken handle of a broom and gave his foot a mean slice. I had to stop and get bandaids and Neosporin on the way home, but had no idea how bad it really was until I walked through the door and saw the bloody paper towel strewn across the floor and watched as Henry dressed the wound. It’s a nasty one, and my legs still quake at the memory of it. Henry deemed it wasn’t bad enough for stitches (I disagree), and has it held together with like, an entire box of butterfly bandages, cotton pads, and tape. We’ve instructed Chooch not to walk on it for awhile, to keep it from splitting open again. (OMG I just puked up some vegan sausages at the thought.)

On Sunday, we went to my mom’s house before the Penguins game so Henry could get all Handy Manny around her house. Any opportunity he can drudge up his old electrician tools makes him happy, almost complete. I don’t know what he was doing, fucking around with a light fixture in the kitchen and poking and prodding around a nest of wires that were hanging out of the ceiling like color-coded entrails. My favorite past time is emasculating Henry, so when I walked through the kitchen and saw him about to climb a ladder, I snorted and said, “Real men don’t use ladders.”

“No, tall men don’t use ladders,” he retorted, and then looked around to see if anyone was laughing.

We weren’t, Henry.

Meanwhile, my mom was being super attentive with Chooch. She’s even been helping us find somewhere to live, since the company we rent from is in the process of selling all their property on this street and we might be squatting within the next few months here.

“If you move out this way, you’d be able to get a full time job again, because I could watch Chooch,” she mused. I almost sullied my pretty heart-patterned underwear.

My grandma lives two houses up from my mom, so Chooch and I popped by for a visit while Henry was playing with tools. I really expected my aunt Sharon to have the front door barricaded, blocked by a moat, and lined with rental thugs armed with switchblades.  It was locked, but she actually opened it after we knocked. She didn’t seem harried and put out that we were there, like she oftentimes is. And my grandma, cocooned in a blue Snuggie, was coherent and seemed in good spirits. Her hearing has even improved since the last time I saw here. Which, sadly, was way back on Christmas.

Sharon is even suddenly interested in my art.

I left there with my mind blown. Someone must be putting happy sauce in their water supply, because everyone was almost acting normal.

And then, back at my mom’s house, she showed Chooch and me some YouTube videos and usually I ignore her when she’s like, “Oh my god you have to watch this it’s the funniest thing ever you’ll die!” because it’s never funny to me. But this time, it actually was and I even laughed out loud. I’m usually the last to watch all the popular YouTube shit, so I’m sure this is old news, but I’m obsessed with this guy now. Last night, I said to Henry, “I’m going to watch every one of his videos tomorrow.”

“Well, at least you have your day planned out,” he mumbled.

Meanwhile, I’m still carrying Chooch from the couch to the bathroom to the computer, ad nauseum. He’s getting too used to his new life as a cripple, I think.

I still have a job! And it’s going well. Jim and his collection of Cosby sweaters only lasted two nights. So now it’s just me; the supervisor, Ev; Monica with the cool hair; and four older broads. Mostly, it’s just very quiet there, aside from Ev’s frequent monologues she has with herself.

Ev might be my new favorite supervisor. I’m not sure she realizes I’m as old as I am, because she seems to baby me, calls me missy and says things like, “You know, those things that all you kids listen to.” An iPod, Ev? Because I have mommy issues, I have succumbed to my new role with little to no arm-bending.

The cleaning crew at this place are seemingly normal people who don’t wear Krueger-like acrylics and drive kidnapper wagons. The girl who cleans my area is young with long red hair and I think she might be flirting with me sometimes but I’m dumb when it comes to girls.

The other night, I was listening to the Penguin game while trying not to cheer out loud or punch my desk when the Rangers scored. It was a trying time for me because I have a big mouth. But I was pretty successful, though I hurt my wrist during one of my fist pumps.

The game went into OT, and as I did a celebratory lurch in my seat when Malkin scored and won the game, Monica with the cool hair shouted YES! Everyone turned and looked at her, and she sheepishly said, “Sorry, I was listening to the Pens/Rangers game.”

“Oh my god, me too!” I gushed, hoping she would invite me to a sleepover and do my hair up in corn rows. She just smiled and went back to work, probably whispering, “Oh-em-gee, yay, stupid white girl.”

We are SO going to be besties.

And the job itself continues to be low-stress and mindless, which is mostly a good thing until I start getting lost in my head and thinking about shit that’s better left alone, and then I’m practically rolling me and my ball of angst into the house every night, at which point I become Henry’s responsibility.

*****

In Chooch news, he was downloading zombie games on my iPhone and one of them plays sound bytes from Night of the Living Dead. He’s been walking around saying, “I’m coming to get you Barbara” in his strangled zombie voice and then in a high-pitched tone he goes, “Stop it, you’re ignorant!

” We’re in the middle of Target and he’s reciting this. He’s been watching clips from the movie on my phone, and then the 1990 remake was on over the weekend, so I DVRd it and he watches it 1683 times a day, though he gets irritated that the new Barbara says “You’re being mean” instead of “ignorant.”

*****

I hate Pizza Hut. I guess hate is a strong word, but I’m notoriously picky about my pizza.

However, they’re offering Penguins collector cups so of course that’s where I wanted to eat after the Pens/Bruins game on Sunday. Alisha came with us which meant I got to sit in a cramped booth with her and her purse, which is so prominent it might as well be capitalized.

I think our waiter was an escapee from a halfway house and I’m sure he drives a Pinto. We asked him questions about the cups and his answer to everything was, “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure.” Kind of like when people ask me questions about the city I live, which I know next to nothing about because I don’t care and I’m also a partial shut-in. We ended up spending ALL THIS MONEY in order to get all four cups, only to be told later that they only had two of the players, so what combination of that would we like.

Fucking foiled as usual. Now we’ll have to go back there AGAIN to get the other two and I just don’t think I can answer any more confusing questions like, “What kind of crust do you want?” and the be expected to ingest it, too.  Fuck you, Pizza Hut.

While Henry was inside paying, Alisha, Chooch and I decided to go out to the car. I was dealt the arduous task of securing Chooch into his car seat (I CANNOT WAIT TO BE DONE WITH THIS CAR SAFETY RIGMAROLE). There I am, in a dark parking lot, ass jutting out of the backseat when I feel a sharp jab between my ribs and the voice of a convicted child molester snarling, “Give me all your money.”

I blew back Chooch’s face with the loudest shriek I could muster, only to find it was Henry being an asshole.

“I can’t believe Chooch didn’t cry when I screamed in his face,” I marveled.

“That’s because you were using your horror movie scream and not your hockey scream,” Alisha rationalized. And that’s probably true.

The line outside of the House of Blues was not very long and we were blessed to not be surrounded by roiling assholes. Alisha kept saying she felt old, but it seemed to be that there was a pretty good mix of ages out there. I’ve been to much younger shows so I felt like a big sister standing in this line, instead of a den mother.

Once the doors opened and our persons were checked for weaponry, we headed upstairs to the balcony. I’ve seen The Used enough times to not care too much about being close to the stage, and Alisha was still bummed about last year’s show at a shitty Pittsburgh venue where we could barely see the stage no matter where we stood. So the balcony seemed like the best bet for us.

I had a feeling I was going to dislike the opening band as soon as the curtain was drawn to reveal a set decorated with anarchy propaganda. And then Drive A bounded onto the stage and started playing stale punk anthems that knocked off old school Greenday and I was immediately in hell. I hate Greenday and therefore I hated Drive A. They had BORING stage presence too. The singer felt the need to explain what every song was about and all that accomplished was taking up more time.

After their set, two guys klutzed in front of us to claim the seats next to me. Instant entertainment. They appeared to be in their late 20s and the dorkier one was wearing slacks. The one immediately next to me spoke in a way that screamed Card Carrying Dork and seemed intent on talking loudly about all the chicks he’d fucked lately. Alisha was more annoyed than me and she wasn’t even sitting next to him. “He’s trying to impress you,” she kept saying.

When Atreyu came on, I would then learn that my new friend was a very skilled and thorough multi-air instrumentalist. He even fist-sung a few times. I was impressed for real at that point and was hoping I could be the next chick he had sex with in the back of his dad’s van.

Atreyu was boring. I swear I liked them once in my life, maybe when their first album was released? But they just weren’t holding my attention. I was freezing in that building, and was using Alisha’s coat as a blanket at that point. Rock shows should not leave a person cold.

I hated this broad. I’m not sure what it was about her: the fact that she and her boyfriend were seconds away from reproducing from the moment they sat down, her hair that I envied,  or the cattiness I detected behind her eyes. I just sincerely couldn’t stand her. I laughed when her boyfriend rubbed her back protectively when Atreyu took the stage with a sound equivalent to 800 air horns going off at once.

It was during Atreyu when I first noticed the girl screaming behind me. I don’t mind loud noises when I’m at a show. That’s what shows are meant for – screaming and acting idiotic (to a degree; I don’t condone asshole-y behavior at shows). But this girl? My god the lungs on her. It sounded like a bag of babies screeching behind my head. I have never really been in a position to say that something was blood-curdling and mean it. But my blood was curdling all the way down to West Virginia. This was not an euphoric scream meant for shows; this was better reserved for expressing just how insanely painful it is when Leatherface nips your thigh with his chainsaw as you’re stumbling through trees in the the dark woods of Texas.

I fucking hated her and the way she made my left shoulder rise up to my ear, like she had it on a fucking string.

There was an incident in the crowd below, and one of the guitarists paused before starting the next song to ask the crowd to please help out the person who I imagine must have fallen. The singer of Atreyu very disinterestedly repeated, “Yeah, give him room. Security, get out there or something. OK the next song—” only to be interrupted again by the guitarist, who was pretty much refusing to continue the show until the person in need was helped.

I was kind of disgusted at that point, because the whole situation made the singer look like an insensitive prat and somewhere around that time I had also realized that from where I sat, he looked like Dunbar from the Real World: Sydney, so I double-hated him.

“I love how you have a talent for incorporating The Real World into your daily life,” Alisha said. At first, I thought she was being sarcastic but then I noticed she was shoving her Autograph pad at me.

When The Used came on, I was immediately overcome with mixed emotions. I so badly wanted to enjoy the show, but I couldn’t fight off the nostalgia; I felt really sad and frustrated and began to wonder if it was a good idea that I came at all. When I saw them last year, my friendship with Christina had ended (God only knows what do-over number that one was) and I was at a point where I had a lot of hate for her and the situation, so seeing The Used that time was like revenge in a way. Like, “Haha, this was our favorite band but I’m going to see them with someone else, you dumb bitch.” And it felt good, like a release.

But this time was different. I don’t have hate for her anymore. That has dissipated and left me with a very raw pain and an excruciating sense of betrayal and confusion. Being there in the House of Blues, especially when they played “Blue and Yellow,” it was like having our friendship play out in front of me, while being forced to drink kerosene.

I thought I was doing a good job keeping it together though, keeping my emotions in check. Until the very end, during the encore, when this drunk Napoleon with a God complex behind me started getting to me. I could feel my skin burning as my temper rose, and it’s a feeling I know all too well.

I did not want to lose my shit there, and I kept repeating that to myself over and over until I found myself pre-rage blackout, twisting around and spitting Angry Girl ire in this fucking frat boy’s face. We exchanged heated words in a cloud of alcohol-fumes and profanity until his girlfriend (who I’m pretty sure was the murder-scream girl) begged him to shut up.

I don’t even want to get into it, really, because it doesn’t make me feel proud of myself. It doesn’t make me look “cool” or “hard.” It just makes me upset every time I replay the situation in my mind, which is something I did A LOT that night and the next morning and the next day and yesterday and right now. And it sucks. To work that hard to be a good sport, to try so hard to mind my temper, only to waste all that on some doucheknob who instigated a situation that didn’t even deserve a response from me, that wasn’t even directed solely AT me. But no, I was already so tense, so confused in my head, that I let a complete stranger get the best of me, and I’m not stupid – I know I was projected. He gave me an opportunity to unleash and I took it when I should have bit my tongue and walked away.

I wanted him to hit me. I honest to god wanted that guy to hit me.

Just so I could feel pain on the outside instead of within.

Worst of all, it created a tiff between Alisha and me. She wasn’t mad, just worried that the situation was going to escalate and she wouldn’t be able to protect me if he got physical. So I stormed ahead and acted all angsty for a few minutes before realizing how stupid I must have looked. And we were good after that, but I fucking swear to god that really killed the night for me. I’ve spent all week being totally reflective about myself and the situation and my triggers, and it’s been exhausting. Just exhausting and traumatic. Perhaps that might be the last time I see The Used.

After getting lost after the show, we found an IHOP where the plastic cover to the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom stall opened up and fell onto my lap while I peed.

(Bathroom: 3, Erin 0.)

Sometime in high school, I made the implausible leap from gangsta rap-lovin’ yo-girl to a classic rock hussy. One particular band I had an intense liking for was .38 Special, of all bands. I would listen to the classic rock station all day with a blank tape on the ready, waiting for “Caught Up In You” to come on so I could dive into some finger-stubbing “record” action.

My friend Lisa, who was into more alternative music, was probably the happiest of all my friends when I retired my gritty urban flava mix tapes in favor for music that didn’t scare, offend and irritate her. So in 1997, when I asked her to go see .38 Special with me, she was more than happy to agree.

I’m sure it didn’t hurt that my mom was buying the tickets for us.

The day of the show, my boyfriend Psycho Mike came to my house. He didn’t want me to go to the concert and thought that starting a fight with me would suddenly make my head clear so I could understand the error of my ways.

“You’re going to end up fucking some drunk guy!” he yelled, his eyes getting that crazy glint to them, like the time he told me he was going to poke out my eyes and shove them up my vagina.

“Maybe even more than one!”

Yes, Mike. You’re right. Foiled again!

He left in a huff. Soon Lisa had arrived and we left for the Rostraver Ice Garden. Not surprisingly, we were the clear winners in the “Youngest Concert-Goers” category, and probably the only one who didn’t have the Harley-Davidson logo somewhere on their person.

During Molly Hatchet and another opening band that Lisa totally loved but I can’t remember anything other than their wildly crimped and Aqua Netted manes, we took in the sheer frenzy of shaking mullets, over-sized tie-dyed shirts, and leather-vested bikers showing off prison-quality ink on their forearms. I loved every second of it. It was fun and the energy of the crowd was contagious.

During the bands, we made friends with a completely blitzed cradle robber named Nelson and his slightly sober and calmer sidekick Nick.

Sadly, if I were to revenge-cheat on Psycho Mike, Nelson and Nick were probably the cream of the crop from that crowd. I think Nelson sloshed his beer on Lisa.

Goddammit I loved that shirt. It was metallic! I didn’t love that hair though. I remember I had gotten a horrible hair cut at Fantastic Sam’s of all places (the only time I ever deviated from the fluffy salons I usually go to and immediately learned why I pay so much to get my hair done – so it will look GOOD) and spent the next month and a half pulling what was left of my hair back into ponytails.

Side bar: A few years ago, I was riding in the car with Henry, my mom and Corey after a night of haunted houses. “Caught Up In You” came on the radio and I shouted, “Yes! I love this song!” My mom, ever so casually, goes, “Huh. This is the song that was on the radio when I was driving to the hospital after your father wrecked.” You know, the wreck that killed him 27 years ago, no biggie.

***

When I came home from Cleveland at 3:00 this morning, I was about to pass out on the couch when I noticed I had a voicemail from Lisa. It started out with her humming something vaguely discernible before belting out “So caught up in you, little girl!” She went on to sing for a few more seconds before stopping to add, “So I’m at a supermarket right now and this song came on; I had to call and sing it to you.

”

Not going to lie, that kind of meant the world to me.

Here are some things that are currently attaching themselves to my mental health like tassels to a stripper’s nipples. And not pretty tassels either, but macrame ones that someones blind grandma made in a nursing home in Ypsilanti. Skip if you’re a fan of the sanctity of marriage, figure skating, and Sarah Palin.

Tiger Woods: Am I the only one not offended by his actions? I don’t feel that I was entitled to an apology and you shouldn’t feel that way either. Let him apologize to his family and be done with it, OK? Maybe it’s my dried-up well of morals speaking for me here, but I don’t give a shit who he fucked. It’s not my business. He can fuck whoever he wants for all I care, so long as it’s not a child or an animal. If he wants to fuck your grandfather in a barn while hens peck chicken feed off his ass, and your grandfather consents? Beautiful.

Perhaps he should have not been married before indulging his weener in such a vaginal buffet, but still. Not my business.

Get a fucking life. Go find a fucking whale to save or some shit. Go get laid and stop concerning yourself about into whom Tiger dips his wick. If he was a basketball player, ESPN would be trying to get a bronze cast of his cock.

And now there’re these assholes out there who are don’t want the debacle to end, so they’re going to start lighting pyres of angry entitlement and shout that, oh my GOD, how dare he schedule this disgustingly unnecessary public apology DURING THE OLYMPICS. He took away from the all the events that are billed as live, but guess what my friends? NBC IS NOT AIRING THIS SHIT LIVE. I know who wins what color medal and at what fucking time, hours before NBC decides to get off its rich, lazy ass to show us, all while acting surprised as though it’s happening in real time.

And speaking of the Olympics!

Who the fuck is in charge of the hockey coverage? Because I missed nearly the entire first period of both Team Canada games because CNBC (or whatever the equivalent is to the lunch table for NBC bastard channels  unloved hockey was relegated to) decided they needed to show bonus coverage of curling. And on top of that, they cut to commercial whenever they felt like it, TV time outs be damned, only to return to a game in the middle of power play for a penalty that was never shown; or, my personal favorite – returning from a commercial with a completely different SCORE. But I mean really, who watches hockey to see goals? I watch for the AMAZING commentary by the AMAZING NBC announcers.

Really, the only way NBC could fuck up their Olympic hockey coverage any more would be if they had Jay Leno announcing.

Figure skating. Why? Why does it have to be so douchey. I feel like when I was a kid I actually enjoyed it, but now I watch it for more than thirty seconds at a stretch and I feel like I’m watching Liberace go down on my grandma.

Those skaters are fucking assholes. Arrogant and snotty. I keep hearing about how some Russian douchebag on skates (no, not Alex Ovechkin; this Russian douchebag has his questionable ballsack ensconced in sparkly spandex) is bitching about scoring being unfair or some bullshit and it’s like, who does that? I mean, besides me if I were an Olympic loser. I guess bitching about not getting the gold is the new Olympic sport.

Speaking of douches with sparkly spandexed ballsacks, why is Sarah Palin still around? Has no one thought to mistake her for a wolf and shoot her aerially? Usually I can just tune her out, turn the channel, plug my ears and hum, but her latest publicity headlock made me laugh because as usual, she succeeds in making herself look like a complete you-betcha hick-cunt asshole piece of shit, this time by voicing her outrage of a Family Guy episode that featured a character with Down Syndrome. It really set me off, and I found myself ranting about her to Henry The Great Conservative to the point where it felt like a game of Space Invaders was in session inside my chest. I don’t generally like to get involved in political rants because I fear it’s horrible for my health, and I’ve had this Sarah Palin shit clogging my arteries for a few years now.

You know, I’d like to pay someone to rape her and then laugh when she has to pay for her rape kit.

I’d be screwed if I had to pay for my own rape kit, because I’m going to be unemployed again real soon here. Oh yeah, that’s right. You know how Henry was breathing down my neck to get a job, and being so emphatic that if I had to get a daytime job, he’d work it out with his boss and for me not to worry?

Yeah, that lasted two weeks. Today, Henry had to go back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon, wherein his boss handed out new job descriptions to everyone. In Henry’s, it states that he now he has to stick to a more rigid shift of 6am-3:30pm.

Which means I’m faced with the awkward task of giving notice at a job that I only just started, a job where I was told today that I could “have a bright future.” Sure, that made me laugh in my head, but really – when was the last time something like that was said to me?

I came home from work today to find the house looking like a crime scene and Mr.

Mom stationed at the computer, playing online poker. “Every Conservative’s dream,” said my friend Matt when I tweeted about it.

Maybe I should just consider Bedazzling a soapbox and grabbing a spot on Public Access.

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.

I was 19 when my mom decided to tell me that I share the same dead biological father with an older brother and sister. My brother lived close enough that my mom began to worry I might meet him at a bar and go home with him. I swear to god that’s the reasoning she gave me! She arranged for us to meet shortly after. His name is Shawn and we got along alright but he was way more into this newfound sibling thing than I was. He moves around a lot so I don’t really have much contact with him, but I remember that he was really into clubbing, Corvettes and creeping. Too bad “The Jersey Shore” wasn’t on MTV back then. And our sister Sonja lives in Oregon. Neither of us have met her, and while I’ve talked to her on the phone a few times and receive (extremely egotistical) letters from her every Christmas, I’ve never felt any sense of a familial bond there. Totally not a fan, to be honest. We couldn’t be more different if I amputated my right leg and replaced it with the decapitated head of a cow.

Apparently, there is a rumor that the three of us have another half-sibling as well. Our father was clearly a gigolo.

Around that same time, my mom dropped another bomb on me: I have another half-sister, but this one was the product of my mom. Now, when I was younger, my mom loved to fuck with me. She was always making up farces to see if I’d fall for it. I can’t count how many times I’d go to school and spread outright lies told by my mom, fully believing them. Like when she told me Mr. Wizard cancelled an assembly he was doing at my elementary school because he died. I told all my classmates that Mr. Wizard WAS DEAD and it wasn’t true. So there were times when she would mention a baby she had been forced to give up for adoption, a few years before I was born, and I would laugh. “Yeah right,” I’d say sarcastically. “Let me try and get that put on tomorrow’s morning announcements.”

Sometime before I moved out of my mom’s house, I was rummaging through her dresser looking for old ringer tees to steal (my favorite is a blue Jackie Sorenson aerobic marathon shirt that I still have), but instead found an old, fat manila envelope stuffed full of old correspondance with friends who had moved away, notes, and several letters from an attorney addressing the case of Baby Stonick.

So when my mom told me that, all those years later, I knew it was true. But there was more: my mom had found her. Her name was Amy, she lived in Wheeling, WV and my mom and brothers were going to meet her.

I remember reacting completely immaturely about it, throwing a tantrum, unwilling to accept this. I had grown up thinking I was my mom’s only daughter. And our relationship had always been kind of fucked up, strained, and I just knew that she was going to give Amy her best side. So I was jealous and hurt and refused to have anything to do with it. Eventually, my mom just stopped mentioning it. I guess I didn’t mind so much about the other half-brother and sister because the dad we shared was dead. I don’t know, and I probably didn’t know then, either. It was just too much. In the span of a summer, my family had doubled. I couldn’t really handle it. And eleven years later, I feel like an asshole.

This past December,  I received a friend request on Facebook from Amy, and she said she’d like to meet. Eleven years later and yes, it was still shocking, but I didn’t have that jealous pang anymore. It was replaced with absolute curiosity and a desire to see what it’s like to have a sister. We began sending messages, getting to know the pertinents of each other, and finally last Wednesday, I found myself driving to a Panera in Washington, PA, oscillating back and forth between: “What if she hates me?

” “What if she resents me?” “What if this is actually just my mom fucking with me?”

I was fully prepared for it to be awkward, but instead I found myself hugging her right off the bat. I’m not a huggy type of person. There are people I’ve been friends with for 15 years and have never hugged. But I share genes with this girl and at that moment, right there on the sidewalk in front of Panera, it seemed like the right thing to do. And I hoped she didn’t think I was a freak. Plus, she was wearing a yellow vest which simultaneously soothed and invited.

Over coffee and a grilled cheese from the kids menu, we talked about our childhoods, our relationships with our parents, the various issues we both share (it’s uncanny), and the choices we’ve made over the years. She remarked that I look like our younger brother Ryan and I pointed out that she and I have the chin. It was surreal. And it made me regret the way I acted all those years ago, but I wonder if I had met her right away, if I’d have acted like a complete bitch and sabotaged what could have been a cool relationship.

And I hoped she didn’t take offense to that, because I really am a different person now, and more open to change.

She had to leave after an hour to take her son (my nephew!

) to get school supplies and I actually found myself feeling a little disappointed. I didn’t want to leave! I had so many more questions, like what kind of music she likes and if she went to the prom and what are her thoughts on uncooked tortellini, but she said she’d like for all of us (her family and Henry and Chooch) to get together sometime soon. I hope I have enough time to teach Chooch that Amy’s five year old daughter is his COUSIN which means he can’t stalk her like he does all the random girls he sees at Target.

I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and I hope that it’s not too late to build a relationship with her, because we have a lot in common. I mean, it’s sick how much we have in common. Plus, she said she likes my art, so I was all, “Welcome to the family!”

Probably I should draw a family tree so that this makes more sense:

It’s crazy because for 19 years of my life, I believed I was the oldest child. Not only am I NOT, but I’m also the YOUNGEST child on a completely different side of the tree.

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.

For the remainder of the month, I’m donating 15% of all Somnambulant sales to Haiti. I know it’s not much, and I’m hoping that once I work a little bit and help Henry catch up around here, maybe I can give some more. So, I don’t know – have a look around my little shop if you want!

In other Somnambulant news, I was interviewed by Amber over at A Whole Lot of Whatever. In true Erin fashion, I had a thousand things going on around me, so I’m sure it’s peppered with nonsense.

And in ERIN news, I’m supposed to be meeting my sister tonight for the first time ever. I thought I would be scared, but I woke up feeling excited. Hopefully it pans out and I’ll have a great story to share with you guys!

That’s all I have for today, unless you want the rest of this post to be a hundred sentences like this: “OMG LAST NIGHT’S HOCKEY GAME WAS FANTASTIC!”

Now I have to try and “work” and pray that Chooch isn’t naked on the roof.

Because Henry was being a little angel by cleaning for game night (more on game night horrors later), I decided to do the grocery shopping. But really it was so I could use the shopping list tab in my Awesome Note app, which is so far my favorite app, aside from Words With Friends, which is apparently good for meeting future husbands on top of learning new two-letter words.

What you should know about me, and probably could have guessed, is that I am no grocery shopper. Basically, I’m a fat red “F” upon an essay on the topic of housewives. I mean, there was a time a year ago when I wanted Henry to make sugar cookies and he was all, “If you want cookies then get your jigglin’ ass to the store and buy the ingredients.” Even after writing it down, Janna and Blake still had to come with me to make sure I didn’t fuck it up. For Christ’s sake, this is what my fridge used to look like pre-Henry:

(Lol @ Zima. That was probably for Janna.)

So yesterday I made Alisha go with me. I didn’t need a lot of stuff. In fact, I had given myself a budget, which I never actually put a number to, but just kept chanting ‘budget budget budget” in my mind as I roamed sadly through aisles of shit you can make food with. Alisha is pretty no-nonsense when it comes to shopping, so I sort of felt safe. I was even really impressed when I called Henry to see if he wanted me to get stuff for spinach dip and Alisha already knew how to make it!

And even where to get the ingredients! (Although I still felt it necessary to send Henry a photo of the packet of Knorr’s vegetable powder shit to make sure it was right.)

I was going to get salsa, but the kind I like is nearly $5 and I was like, “Oh, not from my checking account.” I’ll save that for Henry’s next trip. In another aisle, I found myself wondering how I got to the point where $3 for a bag of candy inspired me to clutch my heart. Jesus christ, I can’t tell  you how much I hate to spend money when it’s my own and not my mommy’s.

Every single person in that store I hated. Every last one of them. Were you at Giant Eagle in Brentwood, PA yesterday? Hated you. Handicapped? Still hated you. A baby? You were ugly and I hated you. I was sick of the squeaking wheels on my cart; sick of the ugly babies; sick of the women who camped out in the aisles with their carts, chatting to other uppity soccer moms they know from their swinger parties; sick of the $14.99 price tag on the Penguins coffee mug I was eyeing up (Alisha considered getting it for me for Christmas, saw the price, and then picked up a shot glass and said, “Uh, can you just drink your coffee out of this?

” and I thought, “Well, it’s better than the arsenic-laced thimble Henry pours my coffee in.” TIMES, THEY ARE TOUGH!).

Alisha even asked me if I was crying at one point.

But then I saw it. It was in the aisle with all the baking bullshit. We were there so Alisha could get marshmallows for rice krispie treats. It’s all because of Alisha that I found a bag of gigantic regular and strawberry marshmallows, made in some unknown, off-brand factory, probably in Arkansas, and ready for me to buy them for only .

99.

“What the fuck are you going to do with those?” Alisha asked hesitantly as I tossed them in the cart.

“Make something awesome,” I said. I mean, duh.

Then we had to go down a bunch of other aisles before checking out. “I love grocery shopping,” Alisha said, which you know warranted a look of incredulity from me. “It’s fun because you can find cool stuff.”

“That’s what European travel is for!” I sighed, moments before Alisha chose the WORST POSSIBLE LINE TO STAND IN and I started getting hot flashes and our cashier was some slow-as-shit young kid who I think might have been exisiting solely on canned cheese. I texted Henry and thanked him for not making me grocery shop on the regular. Can you imagine?? No wonder people say I don’t look my age yet – it’s because I’m not forced to supermarket sweep.

But it was all worth it, newly cultivated gray hairs and all, because I got to come home to a clean (semi-clean) house and make these beautiful marshmallow monsters that were supposed to serve as game night referrees but instead just sat on the coffee table, frosting-hair congealing into poison and candied eyeballs slowly sliding down their sugared faces. To tell the truth, I am quite smitten with them and plan on preserving them so that their friendly facades can be enjoyed by all for years to come. Amen.

Henry and Alisha kept giving me annoyed looks as I tediously labored over them in a very Dr. Frankenstein fashion. I like to pretend they’re my army. With their help, I’ll be mayor of this town. Or at the very least, the person who gets to ring the bell in the clock tower. After Henry builds me a clock tower.)

Because I’m obsessed, I tweeted another photo of them  today. Henry was sitting next to me and when the tweet came through to his phone (yes, he gets  my tweets to his phone; that’s TRU LUV), he glanced at it quickly then put his phone down.

“You didn’t look at the picture,” I whined, insulted.

“Um, I know what it is. It’s those stupid marshmallows. And they’re right there on the table.” OK it’s true, they were right in front of him. But my photo was from a different angle. No excuses.

The one on my right is my favorite. He’s my little edible scene kid! (Although, I wouldn’t actually eat these. Chooch helped with some and well, he touches his butt as often as a dog LICKS his butt. Also, I saw him lick a toothpick-arm before spearing it into the side of a monster.)

I might make more, turn them into ornaments and sell them on ETSY. LOOK OUT WORLD (and Regretsy).

I’m cheating and posting what I wrote for Blogathon, because it concisely sums up how I feel about TWLOHA.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had bouts of depression, mania, suicide dreams, the urge to hurt myself or break things. It got really bad when I was in high school and I knew something wasn’t right, that living like that couldn’t have been normal; and the school’s social worker knew that something wasn’t right, but it was something that my family just didn’t want to hear. Still, my mom abided by the school’s wishes and got me into therapy, though she held true to her theory that this was all “because of a boy.

”

But it wasn’t because of a boy and it was the first time things started making sense to me. Depression, bi-polar, any mental illness, wasn’t something that was being talked about that much and it wasn’t like I could call up a friend and be like, “Hay girlfriend, how ’bout that chemical imbalance, oh hahaha.” I did a lot of suffering in silence pre-therapy. If I tried to talk to my family about it, I was laughed at. Accused of trying to get attention. Well, um, yeah. I kind of was. Attention to the fact that I needed help.

But then my mom pulled me from therapy. I went back to being unmedicated and it didn’t take long at all for the heaviness to come back over my heart and the noise to refill my head. For years and years and years, when people would ask me, “Why did you drop out of school?” I would say I didn’t know.

But I do know. It was that. Depression was making going to school into a horror show for me. And my family still laughs at me when I try to talk about how I feel. Still. Because they don’t know how to handle taking it seriously.

These days, kids talk about it. And if their family is as close-minded as mine, they have other people to go to. It’s not taboo anymore. And with organizations like To Write Love on Her Arms, kids are starting to realize that there is help, and hope, available to them. And becauseTWLOHA is very tightly affiliated with music and Warped Tour and you see bands wearing the shirts, I think that makes it even better for the kids because it gives it less of a clinical help-line feel and more of a haven for kids to know that it’s OK, that they WILL BE OK.

I wish To Write Love on Her Arms was around when I was in high school.

Yeah, this picture wasn’t hard to accomplish AT ALL. No, I just had to bribe my son with a shitload of chocolate, threaten to get Santa’s fat ass on the phone, and promise a lifetime of wedgies until he finally conceded. I dont know WHERE he gets his bull-headedness. And the unfortunate inability to stand tall under bribery’s iron fist.

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

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

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

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

Exhibit A: Erin as a bunny in Kindergarten:

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

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

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

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

That year gave me my first taste of Halloween costume greatness. I was the winner from my grade, hands down. I remember clutching my prize (a real life silver dollar!

) to my heart and beaming knowingly at my mom—we were on our way to big things, I could feel it in my immobile torso. If we had been given the opportunity to recite an acceptance speech, I would have dedicated my winnings to her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 I’ve been out and about the past few days. Thursday, Christina and I went to Cleveland to see Brand New and Manchester Orchestra. Let’s just say it was not the best of times. We came back to Pittsburgh on Friday and I sacrificed an entire hockey period to go to  Hundred Acres Manor, one of several over-priced haunted houses in the area.

At least we didn’t get herded through with one of the many groups of obnoxious teenagers standing in line with us, and there were a few good scares, but there was a fucking chainsaw guy in the maze near the end and let me tell you, I hate chainsaw guys. In fact, one time last summer, we were driving around in a country-ish area and somewhere in the woods I heard the rev of a motor and screamed so loud. Henry goes, “That was a dirt bike, you asshole, not Leatherface” because he knows me well enough to understand why I freaked.

So this piece of shit chainsaw guy is pacing around near the maze’s exit and like frightened rabbits, we keep backtracking because neither we, nor the two girls with us, want to meet this fucker face-on. But finally, I’m like, “This is fucking ridiculous. Doesn’t he know the fucking Penguins are playing?

” So I used Christina as a SWAT shield and we barrelled through. Never did run into him, but the fumes from his ‘saw made my stomach hurt and I considered suing. Or at least writing a letter. Because you know, I love writing a good letter.

Keeping with the theme of scary things, Henry and I went to my friend Lisa’s wedding yesterday. Weddings make me feel so nervous. I think it’s the whole church aspect. But I didn’t implode, dissolve into a mound of sinful ashes, or contract a loud case of hiccups. What I did do, however, was lose my shit when Lisa and her dad appeared at the beginning of the aisle, when I saw that she was crying. I did NOT want to cry. I kept saying I was going to. But that was all it took and then I was panicking because I didn’t bring tissues and what if my nose started to run or worse, BLEED, because I’ve never had a bloody nose in my entire life but that would be my luck to celebrate my first nose bleed while God is looking down on Lisa and Matt but then I started thinking that if I ever get married (will have to dump Henry first for that to ever happen), how fucking awesomely gory would it be to get a bloody nose while all a’mermaid in a white dress? I’m sure the list of volunteers to punch me in the face on my wedding day would be staggering.

And it made me laugh a little, because the first encounter I ever had with Lisa was at the 8th grade Halloween dance, when she was threatening to give me a bloody nose because I was bullying one of her friends. I remember not feeling too threatened, but I’ve always gotten weak-kneed thinking about my nose bleeding so I was like, “Great, thanks for ruining this already lame dance with that thought, Lisa.” Somehow, she and I became friends and seventeen years later, I’m sitting in a church pew, listening to a minister Freudian-slip about husbands sacrificing their wives instead of lives, and freaking out that my nose is going to spontanteously hose Lisa into a bridal Carrie when I meet her in the receiving line.

Also, I’m expecting my period so I guess I’ve just had blood on the brain lately. Well, that and all the amateur blood transfusions I got lined up for this week.