Henry’s Facebook user picture for the longest time was a photo of the three of us from Christmas 2010. I mean, that’s fine, but my face was even fatter then (seriously, try to imagine) and my hair was really dark brown. I really, really hate that picture which is probably why he insisted on being Facebook-identified by it.

And then Alyson took some photos of us when we were on vacation last week and it really made me stop and think about how few photos we have together, as a family.

So I finally made those jerks sit down with me on the 4th of July to update our ghetto family portrait (seriously, can you imagine us sitting down at Sears for some blue marbled-background photos?).  Perhaps someday I’ll quit giving a fuck about vanity and have some real portraits done. With a real camera. That’s being held by someone whose arm is not connected to my body. MAYBE WE WILL BE EATING APPLE PIE UNDER A TREE! And Henry will be wearing real life “slacks”! And a nice hat! And my lips won’t look like they were sliced off by a serial killer and pasted back onto my frightened face into the shape of a smile. And Chooch might be doing something normal. Like holding a baseball mitt? Is that what normal 7-year-old boys do? Who even knows anymore.

I’m partial to the one on top because it lets everyone know that I am the head of the family. Duh. As if anyone needed visual confirmation.

Anyway, there you go. We actually all three exist all at once.

In other blog news, I actually have something real in the works for you guys! Yes—real! As in, something that’s not comprised of 5,800 paragraphs about an amusement park*, videos of Henry eating ice cream, or a deluge of photos from my iPhone. Real substance is on the way! I can only imagine how many people I’ve driven away with my inane bullshit posts. I just really, really, really like to blog, you guys. Even if it’s stupid shit. Who cares about quality on the Internet, amirite?

(* We did recently go to the Big Butler Fair, though….so there will still be the obligatory blog posts with me turning basic carnival rides into sleazy Asian porn vignettes. Sorry in advance!)

One of Chooch and me for good measure. Downton Bunny is ALWAYS with us. I miss Fox!

Because it’s never a bad thing to look on the bright side. I think I learned that from my Pappap. Or the Care Bears.

1. This song has been getting me through the week.

It reminds me of the 80s but also, oddly, the fall of 1999 when I was “goth.” It makes me want to dance with black ribbons while being cautiously optimistic.

2. Crossing the precipice of June. This means that county fair season is about to commence, finally! And Warped Tour is just over a month away!

(I just sat here staring blankly at the screen for a good 5 minutes, so I guess there are less things making me happy this week than I had hoped, haha.)

3. Oh! Chooch! I mean, that’s a given, though, right? Ha ha….But no really, that kid makes me laugh harder than anyone. Yesterday, he was sitting next to me, doing god knows what on my old iPhone, when he oh-so-casually asked, “So um, quick question. When’s your birthday? I just want to know for absolutely no reason.” He was leaning across the couch, propped up on his elbow, looking at me all seriously. I saw through his shit right away though and asked him WTF he was signing me up for. A Discover card! Because it would give him 3,000 stars in Draw Something.

4. This picture of Marcy, the Sue Sylvester of Cats:

I’m trying not to be morbid and just enjoy every last day I get with her, but I decided that when the time really does arrive, I would like to have a funeral for Marcy. I think having my friends around to celebrate her life will be the only way I can get through it. I told Henry yesterday and he surprisingly didn’t give me a weird look so I guess he understands. I don’t want it to be sad, I want it to be happy because she has provided me with a lifetime of funny memories and she deserves to be celebrated. (Though some of her victims may disagree.

) Unless I can get one of the Salvatore brothers to make her immortal. I haven’t ruled that out yet.

5. Naked people driving cars with ballgags in their mouths. Because we saw this yesterday in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and it was really great.

6. Nightmares! I had a really bad one last night. I love a fucking nightmare.

7. Finding a prosthetic hand on my supervisor’s desk! But then it turned out to just be a flesh-colored pocket book. ;(

Well, I guess that’s all I’ve got. It feels like the rainforest in my house and the Pens lost last night.

Maybe Henry will buy me something today.

• A few weeks ago, I signed up for this wellness screening thing at work. All I knew was that it had something to do with our health insurance and my grown-up friends here at work were all saying that it was a Good Thing. So I scheduled mine for Thursday. Angie had hers on Wednesday and off-handedly mentioned that there is finger-pricking involved, which gave me TWENTY-FIVE HOURS to overthink, panic and fixate on the split-second pain my fingertip was going to inevitably endure. I carried on like a fucking bitch-baby about this for the rest of Wednesday and picked right back up as soon as I got to work yesterday. Amber2’s appointment was fifteen minutes before mine, and I begged my boss to let me go then too so I wouldn’t have to ride the elevator alone while crying into my palms like some pious robed woman watching Jesus hang on the crucifx. Joy was like, “Uh, yeah. I don’t care” and then made fun of me for being so scared. Glenn stopped by my office before he left for the day (a few minutes before Amber2 and I went up to the screening) supposedly to get one last look at me SINCE I WAS PROBABLY GOING TO EXPIRE. Anyway, even though I yelped pretty loudly and made the nurse laugh, I survived and ended up walking out there feeling like Wonder Woman after the nurse raved about how great my numbers are so SUCK IT GLENN.

• I have a Candy Land band-aid on it now, too.

• My brother Corey stopped over yesterday morning before work to drop off an Easter basket for Chooch on behalf of my estranged mom and aunt Sharon. “Doesn’t Val ever wonder what Chocoh even looks like now?” I asked sarcastically. “Yeah, you’d think,” Corey said. It didn’t really bother me until afterward, but what the fuck. Sending over obligatory holiday offerings is definitely not the same as being a sane and stable figure in my kid’s life and it just pisses me off. And while one could argue that this is my mom’s way of “making an effort,” I’d like to point out that buying “things” is what has always come easily for her. It’s the “love” part she struggles with. Yay, chocolate bunnies, toys and gift cards. FYI, he doesn’t even know who you are. 
• The other day, Chooch said that he dreamt I wasn’t in the house and he looked outside and saw all of my body parts on the road & Henry was laughing. Then a few minutes later he told he actually didn’t remember his dream so it’s good to know that’s the one he thought up on the fly.
• Chooch was going on and on one night about how bad Henry’s mom Judy sucks at drawing. “She’s horrible!” he cried, and then laughed smugly as if he derived great satisfaction from this. “I love that Chooch is just like and heckles people for their inadequacies.” Henry frowned and said, “Yeah, that’s called being a dick.”

• I was over at Barb’s desk a few days ago, talking to her and Nate, when Chris joined the conversation. Then this weird thing happened, where it literally felt like I had floated out of my body and drifted away from the conversation. Chris picked that precise moment to ask me something which I didn’t understand because it sounded like he was talking underwater, and even still, I shook my head “yes.”  I was telling Barb about it yesterday, about how I think I have neurological damage maybe because this isn’t the first time this has happened, and she was all impressed at my overachieving ability to peace out of conversations. MAYBE I’M ASTRAL PROJECTING!? I still don’t know what I said yes to.
• Henry the Foot Barbarian clipped Chooch’s pinky toe with his humungous sledgehammer feet Wednesday night. So now Chooch has joined my Abused Phalanges Club. In the bathtub that night, he took on his Henry-mocking voice and said, “My name is Dumb Henry. I like cooking eggs, stepping on my son’s toes and hurting Erin’s feelings.” INDEED.

• On our trip back home from Lancaster a few weeks ago, we were driving through Breezewood when that “close the window, come alive” song came on (yes! we were able to find a soft rock radio station in the midst of an FM country jamboree!) and these huge tears literally started cascading out of my dumb eye sockets. So then Henry and I had this long conversation about Anne Murray (my Pappap loved her!) but then the DJ told us later that it was actually Rita Coolidge, so I guess that song really isn’t that memorable to me after all.
• “You’re not a writer because you don’t have any books,” Chooch schooled me last week. First of all, duh. Second of all, I lost count of all the friendly reminders like this one that I’ve been doled over the years. My favorite was when I told a “friend” that I was going to school for English Writing and he said, “Why? You don’t write.” And then last year he tried telling me that he has always been one of my biggest supporters. HAHAHAHA. Go fuck yourself.
• I guess I should just stick to keeping a photo blog.
• I sent Henry frantic 911 texts yesterday because I found out my beloved Gilad has a 24:7 streaming workout channel called Gilad TV AND I WANT IT.  When I was in 6th grade and my aunt Susie asked me to be a junior bridesmaid in her wedding that fall, I PANICKED. I was a fat kid. 5th and 6th grade were NOT good years for my vanity. So like any other 11-year–old, I started doing the Slim-Fast diet [yes, my family supported this; what assholes! (not you, Susie)] and a combination of Denise Austin and Gilad’s Bodies in Motion. I lost a ton of weight and even though I still struggled with it, I never really was “fat” again (until I had Chooch, thanks buddy). So now that I’ve been doing Weight Watchers, I’ve revisited my love affair with Gilad. Most of his shows are from the 80s and 90s and everyone wears LA Gear, but if it was good enough for me then, why can’t it be good enough for me now? (I also do some Jillian Michaels videos because she scares me and she’s hot.)

• There are still pendants left if anyone is interested! The nurse who did my wellness screening went on and on about how she liked the one I had on yesterday (it was a Pumpkin Head in a pink filigree frame) and I tried to get her to buy it. She just laughed. I don’t think she believed me, but I was being totally serious.

• I keep telling Mumford and Sons that no really, they DON’T have to wait for me, but they still keep playing that fucking song A MILLION TIMES A DAY like what they’re really saying is that they’ll wait for me to start liking their stupid songs. I don’t know what it is about that band, but they get under my skin.
  • However, I’ll shush a room and pause the world for Band of Horses.
• I want to punch the smell of mulch in the face.
• Some of my photographs were published in a real life magazine! (See below!)

• I’m trying to get Henry to guest post about the Jonny Craig show because I just don’t think my emotions will allow me to revisit that night without hemmorhaging all over the keyboard. At this point, my post would be pictures of Jonny flanked with this: OMGJONNY%^$&^$####&^^%*(!!!!!! <3333333!!! And then my tears would fry the keyboard.
• I bought a ring with a real cavity-inflicted tooth in it and everyone at work is like “GTFO with your gross jewelry.” You know it’s totally haunted. Lee said, “You’re totally going to break that. It’s so cumbersome!” and I reasoned that, “Yeah, but I don’t really do much.” He shrugged in agreeance and said, “And then there’s that.”

• This is about all the fun I can handle for today. Perhaps I will start writing real blog posts again some day even though they won’t be books, so it won’t “count.” Thanks, Chooch!

• Today in Pittsburgh, it is raining some sort of disgusting snowman shit, which affects me greatly now that I have to take the fucking trolley every day to work. (There is no end in sight to my bitching and whining about that, I’m sorry. You can mute me by clicking that “x” up in there in the corner though. I probably won’t even know you did it.) Anyway, today on my walk to the trolley, I was splashed with REALLY COLD WINTER WATER by some motherfucker who was BLASTING Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue.” Really, god?Who blasts that shit? Some motherfucker who is reliving his prom night in 1983 where he date-raped his hand in the backseat of his dad’s Pinto.  Next time, make it a real Electric Avenue and strike me with lightning or gtfo, god.
• Goddammit.
• I have so much to say about this whole Steubenville rape debacle but right now, all I can do is foam at the mouth and shake uncontrollably when I think about it. Two of my favorite things: complete & utter denegration of women and HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYERS.
• Yesterday, Chooch very seriously referred to a lamp as a “lightbulb holder,” which made me wonder if I ever even taught him the word “lamp” since I usually just say, “Hey, turn off the light thing.”
• Also yesterday, Chooch went to a birthday party at some ceramics place. One guess what he chose to paint.
• Jonny Craig got a private audition for NBC’s “The Voice” back in December and was all cocky about it. It was just revealed over the weekend that, after a background check, the producers of the show decided not to have him on the show because he is “too controversial.” Understatement, check. I laughed so hard about this, but then Henry of all people defended him and said, “This could send him into a tailspin!” I guess Henry is really hoping he doesn’t lose money on those tickets to next week’s show.
• In my dream last night, I was on a bus (like THAT would ever happen — um, KNOCK ON WOOD) with my friend Octavia, who gave me an apple and a citron, which I had to Google as soon as I woke up and Jesus, now all I can think about is some hardcore citrus mastication. Anyway, it’s also noteworthy that the bus was taking us someplace parallel with Hell and that there was no floor in front of me and I kept almost-falling out, which I think speaks volumes of my lifestrong resistance to taking public transportation.
• During the summer of 1999, I took bartending classes. I was partnered up with a wishy-washy middle-aged man named Milt. Really nice guy, but wasn’t very quick with picking up on mixology. A young, stocky Asian frat boy in our class, whose name I can’t remember (though I do have a video somewhere of him making a complete ass of himself), pulled me aside during one of the classes and told me that Milt was also the word for fish sperm and that was all I could think about every time I looked at Milt after that, like he was some undulating mound of fish jizz in the shape of a dowdy, slunched-over man with glasses and a saliva-crackling chuckle.
• • Milt didn’t graduate.
  • I play the SHIT out of his name in Ruzzle.
• Remember that one time I told you a story about when I was in bartending class? I graduated top of my class and never got a job.
  • That is probably because I only “kind of” looked for one.
• Can you imagine me as a bartender?
• Henry got all pouty yesterday because Chooch and I opted to stay in the car instead of going into Lowe’s with him. “That’s the Land of Sad!” I cried while Chooch simultaneously yelled, “That place sucks!” Good thing too, because Henry ended up almost running into his ex-hag. “Almost” because  the sound of her alcoholic voice completely activated his Duck & Run senses (and probably also simulated a burning sensation in his dick), so he was able to avoid any awkward scenes. Now imagine if Chooch and I had been there. You can’t slink away quietly from ANY situation when we’re tagging along. We might have made the evening news!
• I was supposed to be eating some sexual vegetarian food tonight with my friends but our reservation was canceled at the last minute due to poor communication at the restaurant. I’m very upset about this but we were promised a table at the next seating (god only knows when that will be) plus $25 off for each of us. I guess that is a consolation prize that’s worth taking. And now Henry won’t have his head explode trying to update my Weight Watcher points.
• Speaking of, I’ve lost 20 pounds since January, no big deal. I’m nearly ready to trade in my burlap sacks for some hot flea marketed muumuus.
• Chooch flipped out on our waitress at Eat n Park for not being able to fulfill his wish for a side of grapes. She laughed at him, and she’s lucky she didn’t get a fork in the hand.
• Speaking of! I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and here’s why. But I hope you all had a great time and that no one choked on green vomit.
• I am supposed to write a guest post for some Pittsburgh blogging thing which is hysterical since I can’t even write anything of worth on my own dumb blog.
• We are going to Lancaster this weekend to see Pierce the Veil and my crush Sam Link will be there, so “god” willing, I might be coming home with a new boyfriend. Merry Tate!
  • What? I’m on the market. Henry can’t WAIT to unload my supposedly high-maintenance ass.
    • Fuck. I’m going to be single forever.
• I went to Blue Flame on Saturday for lunch with my buddy Lisa, who is 12 weeks pregnant. My internal dialogue went something like this: “Hahaha, better her than me!” and “OMG I AM SO JEALOUS! I WANT A BAYBAYYYYYY!” Guess I should start looking for some man milt.
• I have some pictures to post too but who even cares anymore really.

Lately, the only time I have had to blog is on my breaks at work. So sometimes, like my last post about the Magic Mob, I spend all week writing tiny chunks of it until I finally get it all out. I rarely go back and re-read my posts right after I post them (usually it’s a year later; it’s this weird thing about me) so I can only imagine how disjointed and jarbled things must come across. Even more of a typographical shitstorm than usual!

And it has been KILLING me. I love to blog. I have been doing it since 2001 and no matter how often I whine about barely getting comments or feeling like no one is reading this garbage, the bottom line really is that I do this for myself. It is a virtual timeline of my life, and of Henry’s and Chooch’s and all of my friends, too. (Poor guys.) Sometimes I think about how great it will be for Chooch, as an adult, to have this written collection of his childhood to show his wife (or husband! we don’t discriminate at OH,E) and his children.

In my hand-written journals, it is so easy for me to write “We went to Kennywood and it was fun” and then spend the next eight pages obsessing over and dissecting my weight/appearance and my disgusting infatuation with Jonny Craig or how much I hate/love Christina. Because that is what my paper journals are for: to purge my inner Angela Chase. But my blog is the dumping ground for the minutia — what rides did we go on? what made Chooch throw a fit? what did Henry do to ruin the day?

These are the things I want to be able to go back on and remember when I’m 70 years old and unable to ride things at amusement parks & am now sitting in my wheelchair collection because I physically need to, not because they’re cool.

Or when I’m looking for evidence in a fight with Henry.

And sometimes I just post some Hipstamatic pictures or a YouTube video of my current favorite song, and maybe that might not be as “high-quality” as some of the other more well-thought out pieces on here (ha-ha, as if!), but it is MY life, and anything that fills this blog is something that must matter to me. But lately, I am only blogging at work (and my own time, not company time!) and on my phone. I’ve blogged from the car (as a passenger!) and in the trolley. Today is the first time in months that I have actually sat down at the computer at home to knock something out. Because I am so sick of sitting in front of computers!

There have been a million times when I have declared, “I’M DONE! I’M NEVER BLOGGING AGAIN!” because it gets to me sometimes, you know? Like after I go somewhere (eg. The Bayernhof) and there is so much information ricocheting in my head that I know it’s going to take up more than just one post, and I keep putting it off, because the very idea of sitting down to tap it out makes me feel so exhausted. And I feel so much pressure, not because I suspect that anyone out there is sitting on the edge of their seat, waiting for Oh Honestly, Erin to blog about music boxes, but because I feel like if I don’t get it out of my head, I WILL FUCKING PERISH.

I even once deleted my LiveJournal because I couldn’t take it anymore. I think I actually had some kind of nervous breakdown and it was pretty scary. When I made the leap from LiveJournal to my own domain in 2007, my old LJ friends were pissed. I got a lot of criticism because I started writing short stories and referring to Henry by his real name, and not the stupid LJ nickname I had given him. I started writing things with more honesty and not like a fucking cartoon script. I started to let people see the real me, the real Henry, and what life was really like and I lost a lot of readers for that. But if there is one piece of advice I can give new bloggers out there, it’s to write what YOU want. Don’t compromise yourself. And don’t quit just because you haven’t amassed some huge Internet following — it just means you probably aren’t a sell-out.

And even if no one was reading this, which at times feels like the truth, I would still keep posting nearly everyday, because honestly it is something that I not only feel like I HAVE to do, it’s what I WANT to do. And to not have as much time to give it my all anymore is driving me fucking crazy.

• We were about five minutes into the commute to work when I realized I left my fruit at home.  Henry didn’t have time to turn around because he needed to get back to his own job, so of course I made this a Henry Problem. Like he is the one who left the container sitting on the couch. He should have put it in my purse! Why didn’t you put it in my purse, Henry?! I sat there, wailing about how my day is ruined — nay, my LIFE is ruined — and he was sweetly tossing out workarounds. Like, “Can’t you just walk to a store downtown and buy some fruit?” WHAT STORE!? Even my co-workers defended me on this one. “Yeah, if you want to pay $4 for a crappy apple,” Cheryl laughed and I was like, “OMG please call Henry and tell him that.” She laughed again and walked away but I wasn’t joking. I really wanted her to call Henry and tell him that. “I can bring it down for you later,” Henry offered, but I was in full-blown Indignent Girlfriend mode at this point and spat, “JUST FORGET IT.” We drove in silence for a few minutes until I realized that Henry was silently LAUGHING AT ME. “God forbid if I ever break up with you,” Henry said, which is of course the mother of all opening lines. “I’d feel so guilty. You’d probably wither away.” (That’s one way to lose weight, I guess.) Joke about it, Henry. Then I got to work and my computer wouldn’t turn on and then I knocked a bunch of pictures off my closet thing when I was hanging up my coat and I cried, “THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF THE FRUIT!” (There were witnesses.) Luckily, Barb had an extra apple so my shakes have mostly subsided, knowing that I will have an apple to eat at 4PM. (I don’t eat my apples at 7PM anymore, now that I’m full-time. Keep up.) Just looking at the Honeycrisp in front of me, preciously perched near a picture of Jonny Craig, is keeping my heart rate steady. I need things to be a certain way, OK? I don’t like change. Anyway, when I returned to my office with Barb’s apple, I held it up for Cheryl to see and told her she didn’t have to worry. She just laughed because I don’t think she necessarily grasped the severity of the situation.
• Before The Fruit happened, Henry came home from work and immediately asked, “Why is the mayonnaise out?” God, Henry and his stupid questions. I told him it was because I was going to make tuna but didn’t feel like opening a can so I had leftover brown rice with barbeque sauce instead. So I forgot to put my shit away SO SUE ME.  It’s been a real day, you guys. A REAL DAY.
• I hate doing things for myself. Especially things that require me to stand in the kitchen. The kitchen makes me so sad and tired.
• I asked Henry the other night if he thought my mom would cry when she was identifying my body at the morgue. “Well, wait — why aren’t I identifying your body!?” he cried. Um, murder/suicide, Henry. Get with it.
• Speaking of my mom….oh wait, there’s nothing to speak of. Still aren’t talking.
• Chooch has his first pottery class tomorrow night! I took a half day so I can go to the first one, since everything happens on weeknights and I have to miss out because of my crappy work schedule. I can’t wait until he molds his first weener.
• Henry and I laid in bed Saturday night and talked about all of the music festivals we’ve traveled to over the years. It was pretty awesome to reminisce, until Henry started bringing up all the times I acted like a motherfucker, none of which was deserving of me having a BLUEBERRY MUFFIN thrown at my face, though, I promise you. Now I’m thinking about all the other conflicts which arose on the road and suddenly the cute little romantic stroll down memory lane is more like a foot-stomping Sumo stance down a flaming path of domestic dysfunction.
• Spent $50 on new Adidas Samoas for Chooch and after one day, he totally scuffed one of them. I threatened to make him start wearing Crocs if he doesn’t treating his shoes better, and that seemed to scare him into shape.
• I let Chooch watch “Sinister” and he totally wasn’t scared. Didn’t even get startled once. It’s no “Ju-On” I guess.
• We’re having cake at work in 20 mintutes but I don’t care because I have an apple. (It would be a different story if it were a Law Firm Lamb Cake, though.) OH, OF ALL THE DAYS FOR THERE TO BE CAKE.
• Speaking of Law Firm Lamb Cake*,  Andrea and I are collaborating on an Oh Honestly, Erin eye shadow set! And by collaborating, I mean of course that I say things like, “What about Henry’s Melon Shirt?” and then she does theactual labor. More details later!
  • I should probably take her to a Lil Wayne show as payment.
  • *This is already an MPZ eyeshadow shade and it is fucking regal. Get some.
• One night last week, Henry and I stayed up late, watching “Dexter” and making pendants. TRU LUV.
• On Saturday, I had lunch at Zenith with Kara. The guy who sold me my very first wheelchair was our waiter, and I said to him, “I don’t know if you remember, but you sold me a wheelchair over the summer…do you acquire wheelchairs often?” He said right away that he remembered me, because that was an unusual acquisition for him. “But now that I know that you collect them, I’ll definitely start looking,” he said enthusiastically. “I do have a really old syringe that I haven’t brought into the store yet….” he mused. “Oh god, please don’t get her started on syringes,” Kara muttered. And I guess she had a valid point there. Here are some pictures from our time at Zenith:

The owner set this down at the table next to us and deadpanned, “Jesus is watching you.” We were having a pretty serious conversation at the time, so it was super apropos and gave us a much-needed laugh.

Man, my grandma LOVED THE SHIT out of Julio Iglesias. I remember one time in the 80s, her Cadillac was stolen from the mall parking lot and all she cared about was that all of her Julio cassettes were in there.

I need to go back for this.

• Hey speaking of wheelchairs, the Craigslist guy finally replied to Henry, so Henry is going to go out to the dude’s dad’s house this week and hopefully not killed, because I really want that wheelchair.
• Had someone from my past profess their undying love for me today, which was not as flattering as you’d think. Just really sad.
  • Just to clarify, I don’t mean this to sound arrogant. I really am pretty sad about it.
• I want Danni to be The Biggest Loser.

Taking a cue from my blog buddy Danielle who shared 5 things she’s currently loving over the weekend, here are my right-now fave fives. (I would have done mine yesterday, but I was too busy watching the Superbowl. /jokes.)

1. Clowns

I love clowns and I love collecting clowns! I recently snatched up this vintage paper mache mask from eBay and I pause to look at it 87 times a day. Chooch watched me hang it and said exasperatedly, “God. What is with you and clowns?!”

I JUST LIKE THEM OK?!

2. Planning Adventures

One of my strategies for making it through winter is planning adventures, short road trips, stupid tours to take. Just get me out of here, you know? Janna and I are going to Mansfield, Ohio at some point to check out the Biblewalk at the Living Bible Museum. It looks like it has the potential to be triple the uncomfortable fun which was experience at Christ in the Smokies, and I can’t wait! There’s also a small funeral home museum in Ohio that’s on the list.

And of course, just thinking of all the amusment park trips over the horizon is making me completely giddy. Seriously — sometimes you gotta trick yourself into being happy! It works. Mostly.

3. Making Creepy Crafts

My friends at Castle Blood are opening up the Castle on March 30 for an all-day shopping spectacular called Crafts in the Crypt and they gave me a vendor table. I haven’t actually done anything like this before, so I’m pretty nervous. [A few years ago, a local boutique called Wildcard offered me gallery space for my own fucking art show, but I had to decline because I was poor (for real; as in: ‘do this or eat’ poor) and they wanted my photographs to be the main focus. Printing photographs isn’t very cheap.]

For this show, I’m going to have a bunch of my serial killer cards, some paintings & pendants that are leftover from my Somnambulant days (and maybe some new paintings; we’ll see), Appledale prints now that we have a fantastic printer, and new pendants like the ones below.

Whether I sell anything or not, it’s been fun working with Henry on this shit, even though he gets totally annoyed at my frustration and impatience over drying glue. (IT TAKES TOO LONG!)

4. Pee Wee!

Boy, do I love Pee Wee Herman. He’s one of the few infatuations that have carried over from my childhood. (OK, that’s a lie, considering I’m basically still living my childhood.) His Big Adventure is one of the only movies I can (and do) freely quote, and the best part is that now my kid can too! There’s going to be a Pee Wee festival next September in Kentucky called Pee Wee Over Louisville and we are totally there. I’m hoping to meet my long-time LiveJournal friend Michelle there, too. PEE WEE LOVE FOR EVERYONE.

I bought this giant 19×23 print for Chooch a few weeks ago and it finally came today. It’s his favorite part of the movie!

5. Henry & Chooch

No matter how much they annoy me, I really love my little unconventional, imperfect, weird family. The daily dialogue we share is pretty ridiculous and never boring. And thank god.

HONORARY MENTION:

Religious programming. I love it. I love just having it on for background noise but then ASSHOLE HEATHEN HENRY always snatches the remote and puts something stupid on, like Criminal Minds.  One time, Christina was visiting and had to call her mom. I had EWTN on so loud that she had to take the phone outside because she couldn’t hear her mom over top of the clanging church bells.

 I don’t watch EWTN as much as I used to, but I had it on long enough the other night to catch this gem:

I even downloaded the Vine app specifically so I could share this with the 0 people who I follow on there.

Later, I discovered that there is an EWTN Spanish channel but ASSHOLE HEATHEN MEXICAN-HATING HENRY won’t let me order it.
OK, your turn!

You know my brain is all jacked up when I break out the bullet points. January can blow me.  

• Yesterday, Chooch paused as he was putting on his gloves and thoughtfully said, “I wish that there were gloves that you could wear and still be able to feel the fur of a cat when you pet it.” In that split second, I saw into the future: Chooch, 47-years-old, living in my garage with 18 cats and 24 bookshelves stuffed with every Goodwill cat book he ever made us purchase, going on his 87th prototype for said gloves.
  • At least his ridiculous cat love means he likely won’t grow up to be a serial killer.
• Henry and I kind of had a fight yesterday, but then we both started laughing. I’ve totally lost my edge.
• Today, there was a food fest at work. Today was also the day that I fit into a pair of pants that have been too tight for the last year. That totally made it easy for me to just say no to the food and cuddle up to my fruit salad.
  • The fact that I’m not feeling very “festive” at work lately also helped.
•  

• I caught Henry looking at house listings on his phone the other night! ALL ON HIS OWN! Maybe that  means we’re getting closer to officially looking, I don’t know.
• Chooch was accused of punching one of his classmates in the mouth two Fridays ago. This classmate also has the distinction of being our next door neighbor. Instead of coming straight to us, his mom (who has lived next door to us for like, 10 years – she’s Hot Naybor Chris’s stepdaughter-ish thing!) went to the vice principal the following Tuesday. We only heard about it because Chooch had a dentist appointment that day, so the VP told Henry when he went to the office to sign out  Chooch. However, their teacher knew nothing about it even though the kid was supposedly bleeding. You know who else didn’t know about it? Chooch. And I know he wasn’t lying, because I KNOW when my kid is lying. He lies just like me! We both start nervously laughing and then become belligerently defensive. And he did neither of those things, just sat there acting thoroughly confused. Meanwhile, the kid he apparently punched is a fucking Neanderthal Yinzer-bully who calls people “homos,” so if Chooch did punch him in some alternate-reality where he’s not preoccupied watching kitten videos on YouTube, then I’d give him a high-fucking-five and a goddamn donut.
  • I am so 110% over conflict right now, you have no idea. I’m too young for this chest-pain bullshit!
•  I listened to a lot of Eisley over the weekend. I forgot the soothing effect those sirens have on me.
• Weekends mean so much more to me now that everything is falling apart. They also go by so much faster.
• I realized the other day that the biggest difference between Now and Then is that Now I have an amazing support system. Then I had a bunch of bitches who wanted to see me fail.
•          I miss my Pappap so fucking much.
• What is the weirdest fruit you’ve ever eaten? My fruit salads have been pretty boring lately and I need some suggestions.  Henry bought a pepino melon and I guess I was supposed to be more excited about that, but come on — my melon fetish was so 2004. (This is not a metaphor for my sex life.) At least he “splurged” and bought a bag of cherries. Usually his canned response to cherries is: “Not for THAT price!” (Nor is this a metaphor for my drug habit.)
• This is what I look like now:
• I need a fucking adventure. Who’s with me?

Still sick, but at least my shirt has space donuts on it.

“I have terrible news!” I cried into the phone yesterday morning, the fat boy of all tears rolling down my cheek. Henry didn’t respond, probably because he gets this call 87 times a week. “MY BIG GREEN GLASSES BROKE!” I wailed after he said nothing.

“Oh, you big idiot,” he spat. “That’s no big surprise, the way you treat those things. You sleep with them, sleep on them*, they’re on the bathroom floor, in the bathroom sink…” He continued to spout off how abusive I am to my eye glasses – well, SORRY I wasn’t in the SERVICE and didn’t learn how to swaddle them in the American flag for protection, HENRY.

(*This isn’t a lie – just the other morning, I had to pull them out from under my back when I woke up.)

I bought my babies from Zenni Optical a little over two years ago. The prescription was totally fucked. (I had to lie about that pupil measurement thing because  Zenni Optical kept saying those frames weren’t available for people of my pupillary distance. God, can any of my measurements be socially standard!?) Here’s a list of the side effects I experienced during the first week of wearing my Big Green Glasses:

• Unless I’m sitting stalk-still, it appears that I’m peering out of a fish bowl. Everything is curved. I can’t remember if convex or concave is the word I’m looking for, and to be honest, I’m too busy thinking of when I’m going to get to the cemetery today to worry too much about dictionary.com’ing that shit.
• Saturday morning, I had the brilliant idea of writing in my blog while glassed. Thought it would be good practice, train my eyes to be more like those of goldfish. It was worse than trying to type without any visual aid at all! Every time I attempted to glance down at the keyboard, I’d recoil in horror because the fingers tapping along the keys looked like they belonged to tiny (not yet dead)  Jon Benet Ramsey hands. EVERYTHING IS MINIATURIZED IF I LOOK DOWN, WHAT THE FUCK.
• Sunday morning was the food test. If I could EAT with the green monstrosity perched on my nose bridge, I could be convinced to keep trying these frustrating exercises. A simple bowl of cereal – Honey Bunches of Oats, if you need to know for your case study – was all I was trying to conquer. Thanks to my inability to look down, my chin, cleavage, and the person I keep chained under the computer desk all thanked me for the lovely breakfast.

I should note also that these were the first glasses I had since…2003? Perhaps even earlier. And after I totally forced my eyeballs to adapt to the new fucked up fishbowl lenses, I wore the shit out of these things! Sometimes I even wore them ALL DAY. (Only once to work though, and I was made fun of by Chris, who totally doesn’t even remember. BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET.)

“How did you break them?” Henry asked me when he came home from work yesterday.

“I woke up and put them on and they were CROOOOOOOO-HOOO-HOOO-HOOO-KEDDDDDD!” I cried. (That’s “crooked” for those can’t read Whiny Type.)

“Because you sleep on them,” Henry interrupted while I was still relaying the tragic events.

“So I tried to bend the one arm back up—-” I continued sadly.

“You’re supposed to heat it up first,” Henry interrupted again.

“OH LIKE I KNOW THAT!” I yelled. God, I didn’t take any eye glass survivor courses in high school like you Henry, OK? I was too busy being COOL.

Ugh!

I took this picture the NIGHT BEFORE THE MURDER. I distinctly remember saying out loud, “Hey Big Green Glasses, I haven’t photographed you in awhile!” and take a second during my obsessive viewing of the TV show The Killing (which you can see in the reflection!) to take a photo of those sexy green goggles.And they were only $9!! NINE DOLLARS.

If only I knew that would be the last time I would ever wear them.

Of course, Zenni Optical doesn’t have them anymore. So now I have to scour the Internet, looking for a comparable replacement, even though I know in my heart, there will NEVER be a replacement.

Unless I can find these:

(I’ve been obsessed with Brett Somers and her bitchin’ Coke bottles for most of my life.)

Please, help me in my quest! I’m helpless!

Until then, I will be turning my Big Green Glasses into some sort of commemorative art. RIP, babe.

• Last Sunday, we were hanging out at Castle Blood (well, Henry was actually HELPING out at Castle Blood). I was super stoked because my friend Dawn is here from Canada for the Halloween season, so Chooch and I  totally pulled her away from her haunt-related duties and made her entertain us. At one point, we were playing 20 questions. When it was my turn to come up with something, I had only just barely said, “OK, I got one” before Dawn yelled, “Jonny Craig!”  “Dammit!” I hissed, just as Chooch burst into tears because he knew it was Jonny Craig too but Dawn had the nerve to beat him to the punch. They’re totally frenemies now.
• Speaking of haunted houses, I scared Chooch so good at his grandma Judy’s apartment (and Judy, too) that he punched me and then cried. I asked him how he’s going to go to any haunted houses when I scare him so easily and he said, “Yeah, well you’re SCARIER than a haunted house.” YESSSS. I finally feel some level of success in this world!
• But then I go to work and receive my penance every time I work late shift with my nemesis Brad, who sometimes scares me without even trying. One time last week, he came up behind me and smacked my pen out of my hand. I really need to buy some mace. Or eyes for the back of my head. I’m so paranoid there.
• I’ve been using Boggle to help Chooch with spelling, and it’s been totally fun (for me) because I love shaking up those letters. And being the best. Don’t worry, Chooch. Someday you’ll be able to obnoxiously correct all of Daddy’s 2nd grade-level spelling mistakes, too. (And yes, “stab” was the first word we found.)
• 
• Henry still hasn’t made a website for me to sell the pendants. “Aw, damn!” says absolutely no one.
• Me, bitching about priorities: “All I want to do is look for haunted houses, think about haunted houses, and text my friends about going to haunted houses.”
  Henry: *Frown of the Day*
  • No, seriously. This is all I have been doing. I have my little calendar pages printed out and people’s names/haunted attractions penciled in everywhere. I was poring over it at work the other night and one of my co-workers was like, “What are you doing? It looks like you’re trying to figure out your Trig homework.” BECAUSE IT’S SERIOUS BUSINESS, OK?
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    You don’t keep haunted house journals since you’re 16 and then treat your October planner casually.

    • Unfortunately, this is the time of the year I always miss my mom.
• At work the other day, Amber¹ got a call from some dating site called It’s Just Lunch. She came over and was telling Barb and me about it, that her friend must have referred her.
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  This perked my ears up. “Refer” you say? I got that super-creepy throaty giggle and raced to the website, where I entered all of Henry’s info, in spite of  Barb’s discouragement. About a half hour later, I got this text:     You’re welcome, Henry!

  • Then I started to panic. What if he actually found someone?! Barb calmly said, “Don’t worry. It’s just lunch.” Touché, Barbara! But then Amber reminded me that it costs $1000 to sign up, and I don’t think Henry is that desperate to get out. At least, I hope not. However, if I find out that he suddenly has a spare grand to spend on this when I’ve been sitting on a broken couch for the last 5 years, you can bet I’ll make it so he has a difficult time finding a woman who wants to date his castrated self.
• Some kid made the sign of the cross when he walked past our house on Thursday. Either this is because we live across from a church, or we’ve just really built up quite the reputation.
• Thursday night, Henry texted me all excited because he bought himself a Scooby-Doo Chia Pet. Apparently, he was deprived of one as a child. I was like, “OK, that’s wonderful, but please get Marcy toys while you’re out.” So he bought her (and stupid Willie) a bag of cat nip pom-poms, which he left on the dining room table.
  • The next morning when Chooch and I went downstairs, we found the Chia Pet on the floor, shattered into hundreds of pieces, and pom-poms scattered all over the house. At first, we pointed fingers at Willie, but as the day went on, Marcy was looking more and more suspicious.
• Barb yelled at Lee a few weeks ago (to her defense, he made an ill-timed, insensitive joke about the Paper Clip Situation at work, which I’m not sure I’ve ever explained on this blog, but it’s really stupid and petty and has Barb and I completely up in arms as it’s mostly directed toward us). Because of this, Lee has been calling her Darth Riley ever since and asked me to make this, which is now printed out and taped on her desk:

• Yesterday, Barb was trying to email her Darth Riley picture to her brother, but accidentally sent it to one of the Firm partners in Spokane, who is probably in his 80s and his picture tells us that he probably hasn’t laughed since 1959, while watching Leave It To Beaver. Her face was so red, and so was mine — FROM ALL THE HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER HEATING IT UP. I had to actually get up and run away from my desk because I was losing it so bad.
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  She thinks she may have been able to recall the email, but I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope he saw it. I actually hurt my back from laughing!

• Before I left for work yesterday, Henry was watching me put on blush and said, “You’re so cute. You’re like a little doll.” But then he got another call from It’s Just Lunch and took it all back.

Tonight I’m having dinner with some of my favorite ladies, so I’m really looking forward to drinking a lot of wine and laughing some more at Barb’s expense. But right now, I have to go on Chooch’s tour of Halloween stores, where I will say goodbye to half of my paycheck.

Apologies for the bullet points. This is all I can muster right now, blog-wise.

This band got me through the weekend. If this show was tonight and not November 27th, I would feel a lot better.

———-

Eight years ago, someone close to me was killed. Not close as in we were good friends, but  close in that our jobs required us to see each other’s faces for 8 hours a day. His death has always bothered me because mere days before it happened, I had found myself in a screaming match with his dad – my boss. A screaming match about him, which ultimately led to me and my co-worker Carol storming out and never looking back.

I walked into that job in 2000 with all the naïve confidence and self-esteem of a 20-year-old girl and all I took with me 4 years later was a trauma-derived stutter and a crippling fear of offices which would leave me unemployed for nearly 3 years—the beginning of an avalanche of financial duress which we are still trying to clean up.

(And Henry. I got Henry out of the deal.)

I know his death wasn’t my fault, that’s not really what this is about. And I kind of feel too mixed up and sad and tired to try and explain, because explaining means going into the whole story. And the whole story is a saga, really, which I’m technically not permitted to share, a stipulation of the settlement I was awarded after a mediation with the EEOC.

But, maybe someday.

Eight years later, I still have nightmares about what happened. The flashbacks to the phone call. He’s still alive in my dreams. I still think I see him sometimes when I’m out. (This just happened on Saturday.

That “Oh shit, it’s—-wait. No, he’s dead” heart-clutching moment.) And that is how I ended up standing awkwardly in a Jewish cemetery yesterday morning, looking for a closure which may or may not exist.

I had wanted to do this back in 2004, but I just wasn’t ready. But I needed to see it yesterday. Chooch—had he been born a day earlier, would have shared his birthday with this man’s death day—helped me lay down wildflowers along the gravestone. Chooch kept asking me questions that I wasn’t ready to answer.

I couldn’t stop staring at his picture etched into the marble.

We went to see Speck and Don at the pet cemetery after that, and that’s where I really cried, which is what I have needed to do for weeks now.

Smiling (and laughing like a crazy person) through the sadness only gets us so far before we eventually have to deal with it.

• Henry and I went to dinner at Alma with our friends Rick and Tammy on Saturday; the dinner was wonderful but I honestly can’t stop thinking about the horchata martini I had, OMG. If I had known how cheap our bill was going to be, I’d have ordered another and then 3 more.
• My birthday is Monday. I will be THIRTY-THREE. So far, I have been enjoying my thirties way more than my twenties. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m more proactive at doing what makes me happy and I’ve learned to be pickier with the people I let in. I’ve met some real gems since kissing my twenties my goodbye.
• Henry is taking me and Chooch away this weekend for my birthday. Nothing major, just Erie which is only about 2 hours away and not that great BUT there are two little amusement parks around that area so we’re making a weekend of it.
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  I LOVE ME SOME BABY AMUSEMENT PARKS.

• This is provided our car doesn’t break down, Chooch doesn’t get us arrested, or Dorothy’s house doesn’t fall on us, considering every time we try and go away something stupid and/or devestating happens.
• Then next weekend, I’m continuing the celebrating with Laura at the Fayette County Fair, holla. She better buy me some ice cream or at least arrange a carny lap dance. Whichever is cheaper.
• I just found out today that Jonny Craig was name-dropped in a meeting I wasn’t even attending. I have poisoned The Law Firm!
• A lot of things have been changing at work and I am totally overwhelmed by it, but at least I’ve only cried once in Wendy’s office so far.
• We’re in the process of moving all the non compos cards to their own site so everyone can buy directly from me very soon. Fuck Etsy.
• I’m not against accepting whatever sorts of trinkets, love letters and Call Me Maybe tank tops you’re wont to send me on my birthday, FYI. Address available upon request.
• I’ve been keeping an open dialogue with Chooch regarding the theater massacre in Aurora, CO. Chooch is full of ideas on how to “take care” of James Eagan Holmes, such as: “Tying a string around his head, setting it on fire, and watching the blood explode above his head like firecrackers.” I didn’t even yell at Chooch when he called him a motherfucker.
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And on that note…here is a picture of Pete and Henry being directed by Seri, who kept making me give them words to act out, but they were very insubordinate about it. (To be honest, I myself wasn’t sure what was going on. Sure do love hanging out with that girl, though, even when we somehow tend to find ourselves alone, late at night, in unsavory places without pepper spray, thinking that some hump-backed rodents are really cute little kitties.)

After a mimosa-friendly brunch at Sonoma Grill, Carey and I went to see “Annie” yesterday at the Benedum. I’m not a big musical fan at all, but I do like “Annie.” In fact, that is the only musical I have ever seen in a theater.

When I was thirteen, I was maniacally entranced by “Annie.” I would watch the movie nearly every night, sing along with the soundtrack, and I even tried to make a reproduction of it, starring various kids in my home room. One of those kids was our beloved Keri. She was not as keen on “Annie” as I was, so she snatched my cast list from me and ripped it to shreds. Bitch.

That year, my mom bought three tickets for the production of “Annie” at the Fulton Theatre. I invited my best friend, Christy. She was my pseudo-sister since age four.

The night rolled along quite smoothly until toward the end of the last act. Christy leaned over and mentioned that she was starting to feel sick. Since I’m known for displaying total compassion for my friends, I laughed in her face.

The play ended and we began to descend the steps along with a million other people who wanted to leave just as fast as us. Christy was in front of me and I was pushing her, because I am was really annoying like that. She turned around and pleaded, “Please stop. I’m going to throw up!” Throwing my head back in laughter, I gave her one final push.

Oh, if you could have seen the faces of the surrounding crowd as Christy projectile vomited in the middle of the Fulton Theatre.

And as a young girl walked by with her mink coated mother, pointing and exclaiming, “Ew, mommy- look!” Christy began an encore round of regurgitation.

Nothing vomitus happened at yesterday’s showing, aside from a mild argument over seats which resulted in the lady in the wrong “accidentally” knocking over the other lady’s small ginger child. Although Sally Struthers got a little over the top with her inebriated Miss Hannigan, and that didn’t mesh well with the mimosas in my belly. But overall, the production was fantastic and I was so happy Carey invited me.

Before the show started, I was sitting in a chair across from the rest rooms when a moderately mentally-challenged man approached me and took the neighboring seat. “Great,” I mumbled internally, mid-text, as he struggled to make small talk with me. Most days, I wake up hating people, and while I wasn’t feeling particularly in love with humanity that day, something about this guy (Brian) really charmed me.

(He had come all the way from New Brighton with his mom to see “Annie.”)

(New Brighton is by Beaver Falls.)

Carey returned from the bathroom in enough time to witness the tail end of this forced study in small talk, and of course made a joke about me having a new boyfriend. I joked about it too, how “people like him” are magnetized to me, but when he found me again during the intermission, I felt, for lack of a signature-OH,E sleazy way to put it — touched. I guess I’ve just been so disconnected lately, so unwilling to pull down my walls, and so inside my head, and here comes this guy out of nowhere who, in a few short minutes and with so few words, makes me feel compassion.

I cried through most of the second half of the show, but I don’t think it was entirely because Annie finally found a family.

I took an unprecedented time out from my walking routine (see also: directionless marching) to have an actual sit-down dinner at Mad Mex with my new friend (and new-to-Pittsburgh) Seri.

Don’t worry — I parked really far away.

I know what you’re thinking: “How does this broad sucker people into being her friend?!” That’s something I ask my diary every night, so your thoughts are not alone.

Sometimes, meeting someone for the first time can be a nightmare, a complete blueprint for awkward exchanges, embarrassing stuttering, and painful silences.

This is something in which I have accumulated much experience. So I thought for sure I’d be clandestinely checking my phone under the table, silently calculating all the steps that were passing me by while I was being held prisoner over burritos and salsa, and willing myself to choke on a tortilla chip so I could go to the hospital. (There was legitimately a coffee date I had with someone in 2005 where I got all wistful at the sight of an ambulance speeding past.)

But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, we had so much in common that conversation flowed as freely as our black cherry margaritas and I quickly learned that this girl is basically the taller version of me. Our background similarities are astounding, and her husband Pete and Henry should probably just go ahead and start a support group for men with tightly-wound, temperamental lady-child partners.

Um, and she pronounced “Chooch” correctly without me ever saying it in front of her.

I mean….

And the fact that she even came bearing a gift was just gilding the lily at that point. (Not that I mind gilded lilies!) Her husband Pete did an impeccable wrapping job (Henry is the household present-wrapper too!), and somehow, someway, the paper matched my nail polish exactly. The signs, they were everywhere and neon.

“It’s so you won’t smash your sandwiches on the trolley anymore,” Seri said, and I was so touched. I need people to take care of me and my sandwiches! It was such a sweet gesture, and maybe it was because my emotions were tequila-tinged at that point, but I for real got a little choked up. For real.

And even though I had to drunkenly shamble around the streets of Brookline* afterward to get my 20,000 steps, it was worth it!

*(At one point, I slurred out loud, “Why is it so quiet out here?” and then 3…2…1, “And there it is!” Domestic dispute in the middle of the road. Now that’s the Brookline I know.)

I’m meeting Seri at the nearby high school track this morning, so we’ll see how well she endures an hour of me talking about Jonny Craig. THAT is the true Erin Rachelle Kelly Friendship Litmus Test.