Andrea said bullet-points make her pay attention, so this one’s for her.

• I am pained that this walking challenge does not allot me as much free time as I need to write in here properly. Two more weeks, guys! Two more weeks. (And from under my desk, my ankles whimper woefully, “Two more weeks…”
• Lately, I’ve been eating all sorts of wasabi-coated snacks, but when a co-worker asked me if I was on a wasabi kick, I said, “No..?”
• Henry’s job is all fucked up again, and I have barely seen him all week. I mean, yes, it sucks that I have to take the trolley to work and make my own sandwiches (which then get smashed on the trolley), but the worst part is that I miss him.
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  Our only interaction lately is phone calls and texts—I have only gotten to playfully punch him in the balls once all week!!

• But at least he hasn’t really had to deal with my manic-walking, so I should thank his job for keeping our relationship intact.
• We were debating on going to the a zombie crawl this weekend, but that was pre-walking challenge. Now I’m not so sure I want to go and lose valuable pedometer steps, but I suppose I could be one of the zombies from 28 Days Later and shamble at a rapid pace. We’ll see.
• (Totally choking on wasabi powder right now.)
• There is a new person at work who brought me something to scan, complete with explicit orders on how to do my job written a Post-It note which ended with, “Pls don’t scan this Post-It note.” OH OK, New Person; thanks for assuming I’m a dumbass because I don’t have a law degree.
• Sometimes I consider dumping this blog and going back to LiveJournal, but apparently no one reads LiveJournal anymore either.
• Wednesday night, I couldn’t stop walking. My only goal was to reach 20,000 (if I end the day with anything under that, flames will engulf me while Nickelback blares in my face). But before I knew it, I had 24,000 (I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, that’s why) so I thought, “Well, no way can I go to bed without reaching 25,000” so I kept walking around my house, and it became a race against the clock — and the clock won. Midnight hit, resetting my pedometer when I was at 24,864 and did I fall to my knees and scream, “Nooooo!” with my fists shaking to the heavens? Absolutely. I KNEW I shouldn’t have stopped walking to eat!!
• Jonny Craig called himself the Ginger Jesus on Twitter last week and I almost died.
• If I had a band, I’d pull all of my blog titles from my blog’s spam comments. Track 4: “We All Nod, Every Kitten Has a Name.” (4 is my favorite number so of course I’d start with that.)
• It’s my favorite number because that was my last year as an only child and it was such a good, spoiled age.
• IT’S ALMOST WACKY WORM TIME! Big Butler Fair, I can’t wait to be inside you.
• Speaking of the Wacky Worm, this just happened: Glenn came over and was taunting me because he only has 1,000 less steps than me. I said, “Yeah, but the difference is that I’ll keep walking until 11:59 tonight.” Glenn Henry-smirked at me and said, “You don’t think maybe you have a problem?
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  “

• How annoying would it be if every blog post was just a list of everything that happened to me that day. “And then Henry called me a fucking retard!” “I just stared adoringly at a picture of Jonny Craig!”
• I think it’s adorable when the new kids on the blog-block try to tell other bloggers how to write in their blog. How ’bout putting  in your time first, young blood.
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  (2001 represent! Although I guess I shouldn’t brag about that because in 11 years I’ve only amassed about 100 readers, and that’s on a good day.)

• It’s been more than two years since I’ve been working at the Law Firm, and I still have not brought in my own coffee cup. The one I use was “borrowed” from a closet where abandoned kitchenware go to die; it’s plain and lime green, which does not suit me, since I am not plain nor am I lime green. Please, help me find a really special coffee cup to purchase for office use.
• If you read this thing, say hello sometime. Pretend I’m your neighbor who you feel sorry for but don’t want your other neighbors see you talking to, because how embarrassing.
• I only posted this so I could use the word “fait accompli” and impress no one. (I only know this from the Curve song, not because I’m so cultured.)

Congratulations. You now know what it’s like to talk to me on the phone. I put all of my faith in non sequitors.

Friday morning, Chooch had to follow me around the house just to have a conversation with me. Poor kid. But he knows that mommy is trying to win, you guys. So he doesn’t complain too much. Besides, he’s known me for 6 years. If he doesn’t know by now that his mom isn’t normal, then I want a refund because this kid’s defective. And then Henry drove me to work, so since I missed all those crucial steps walking to the trolley station, I made Henry drop me off a retardedly far-away distance from the Law Firm so I could try and make up for some of that. There was a time when I would have been concerned about getting sweaty before work. But then I got this fucking pedometer.

Toward the end of the night, my sanity suffered a schism and I just lost it, completely cracked up alone to the point of tears, and then I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything other than an apple, almonds and air all day. Amber² tried to give me an apple but I turned it down because:

1. It was green
2. The last time I ate two apples back-to-back, I got sick
3. It was green

Henry and Chooch met me downtown after work that night because Chooch wanted to see some furries at Anthrocon; thanks to all the furry-chasing that day, I accumulated 23,000 without even trying,  because in addition to walking to and from the furries, we also had to walk home from the trolley stop. The downside to this was that it was after 10:00PM and I had still barely eaten. I wanted to get something to eat downtown, but Henry kept saying, “There’s nowhere down here to eat!”

Oh. OK.

I guess all those places we passed walking down Liberty Avenue were just selling food-scented oxygen to taunt all the hobos and psychotic girls with walking obsessions.

There’s an Eat n Park down the street from our house, so Henry said we could just eat there since we have to walk right past it after getting off the trolley. By this point, Henry’s face was looking like a fine protein substitute, but I followed him into Eat n Park anyway, where I then ended up sitting for an embarrassingly unacceptable amount of time waiting for one of their lethargic waitresses to take our drink order. Henry knew it was coming, he had to have known, after 11 years of being my lesser half. In a terse, yet highly enraged tone, I demanded that he hand over the house keys, because it was no longer humanly possible for me to sit there another minute without food in my face.

“Please don’t do this,” he begged. “Oh god, not here, please not here.” But then I flew off the handle about how he was trying to control me (three days later, I can now see the absurdity in that claim) so he quietly handed me the keys before everyone in the restaurant became privy to the dysfunction at table 15 and I stormed off, marching like a strung out maniac the whole way home, where I made a sloppy and highly uninspired cheese sandwich which I ate so fast I didn’t even taste it, not even the eight times I choked on it. Then I collapsed into bed and was asleep before Chooch and Henry even came home.  I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before 11:00PM, but I can guarantee it would have had something to do with a fever and/or rufies in my drink. So that is how exhausted I was.

***

I had been anxiously awaiting Day 6 all week because that was the day I was going to hit 30,000 steps.

That morning in bed, Henry reminded me what a bitch I was the night before and said that this walking challenge was probably going to break us up. Then when he went to lovingly spoon me (it happens sometimes), he pulled back and said, “Oh my god, did you sleep with your pedometer on?” after feeling it on the waistband of my pajama shorts.

“Um yeah. What if I had to get up to pee?!” I exclaimed defensively.

“I can’t be with you right now,” he mumbled and got out of bed.

Anyway, what a perfect day it was! Henry and Chooch were gone for most of it, opting to help our Castle Blood friends move stuff to their new location (and by that I mean Henry helped while Chooch drove everyone crazy, I’m sure). I went straight to my favorite cemetery and basically did my usual, pre-walking challenge routine and racked up 10,000 steps by noon. It was really hot out there, which I love, but I figured I should go home and maybe rest for a little bit, since I literally had the rest of the day to do nothing but walk. Honestly, when people at work asked me what I was doing that weekend, I looked at them like they were stupid and said, “Uh, walking.” The standard response to that was a sarcastic, “Oh yeah. Duh.”

I am going to be the loneliest person at the Law Firm by the time this challenge is over.

After about two hours of sporadic and intense pacing around the house while listening to a playlist of Drake and The Weeknd (I pace so hard that it actually counts as aerobic steps), I decided to take my show onto the streets of Brookline. Talked to Christina for a few minutes while I power-walked, and she said she was glad I decided to stop hating her just in time for her to come to my funeral. She knows me way too well.

It was even hotter by then, and of course I picked the parts of town with the steepest hills because I’m a sado-masochist. I murdered the pavement until the number on my pedometer seemed adequate, and then made my way back home. This is where things got weird: I was feeling a little spacey by the time I got to my house, so I decided to sit down on my front steps for a little bit before entering  my un-air-conditioned house. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on my front porch. I’m not sure if I fell asleep or passed out, and there was ringing in my ears, but yay—20,000 steps!

I went inside and drank lots of water. Then I laid silently on the couch for awhile, staring at the ceiling.

Henry and Chooch came home around 7:00PM with dinner. (That’s how you know I’m totally preoccupied with this—I allowed Henry to be apart from me for nine and a half hours on a weekend and not once did I call him and demand him to drop everything and come back to me. I mean, not that I have ever done that. Shit, I’m not that kind of a girl.) At the sight of me pacing, the phrase, “You’re a fucking idiot” came out of Henry’s mouth 87 different ways. Later that night, Chooch was being a royal backseat brat on the way home from Target, so I had Henry pull over about a mile away from home and I walked the rest of the way. Thanks for the motivation, son.

I was so close to reaching 30,000 by the time Chooch went to bed that night, but Henry said he refused to watch Pretty Little Liars with me if I was pacing. So I actually had to be still for a little while. As soon as it was over though, I back to moving frenetically until the numbers of my pedometer finally flipped to 30,000. Henry made me sit down for the last 55 minutes of the night because I was “making [him] nervous.”

I asked Henry if he thought I would lose any weight doing this and he muttered, “Yeah, while you’re in the hospital.”

My grand total that day, thanks to Henry keeping me down, was 30,139. It proved that my ultimate goal of 50,000 might be slightly out of my reach, though. BUT I WILL STILL TRY.

MAYBE.

***

 We were at Kennywood for Day 7 and I was absolutely panic-stricken that I wouldn’t continue my 20,000 streak. That’s really all I’m asking. Henry rejected my plan to “get up super early” and walk around the cemetery for 10,000 steps pre-Kennywood, because he didn’t want me to be a bitch that day.

Do you know how excruciating it is to stand in a line for a ride when your body is not used to being at rest? Oh my god, I had the shakes. I did mini-laps whenever I could, since my Kennywood crew spent so much time milling about and strolling.

STROLLING.

On every ride, I would pat down my right side and scream, “MY PEDOMETER!” before realizing it was still there. On some rides, I even left it in the “Leave At Your Own Risk” box with everyone else’s keys, phones, and glasses. My precious pedometer.

Even during a slight drama-laden glitch in the day, I heard T-Pain’s vocoder-voice whisper in my ear, “Walk it out.” And so I did, 20,053 times.

***

Yesterday, Day 8, I came close to failing. I didn’t have a chance to do much before work, so I didn’t get there with my usual 10,000-11,000 like I had been doing last week.  So once all the day shift people left, I just started doing laps around the department under the ruse of  “Oh, I just want to use the other scanner that’s the furthest from where I sit.” I think my fellow late-shift co-workers  saw right through my subterfuge though, because they all know I’m going insane over this. When people at work ask me questions about my step-collecting, I can hear myself answering in this crazed, hyper voice, but I can’t make it stop.

At one point during the night, Carey asked me if I my computer was running slow.

“No,” I answered. “You know why? Because I walk so fast.”

“Asshole,” she mumbled from her office.

That night, I had to put on my professional walking attire and hit the streets of Brookline. I really didn’t want to because Brookline sucks at night (also see Brookline sucking during: the day, dusk, sunrise, Christmas morning, Memorial Day, summer, winter, fall, spring, your grandma’s cat’s birthday, everyday) but I powered on past loitering teenagers at the heckle-ready, drunk people staggering along the Boulevard’s sidewalk, and someone with a smoker’s voice screaming through his phone at his mom that he was on his way home so shut the fuck up, and when I turned around, I discovered it was actually a boy somewhere between 10 and 12 and not actually my old meth-addict neighbor Robin.

I will only stay on the main drag of Brookline at night, which is still scary in spite of all the street lights and constant witnesses (i.e. traffic), so I still needed about 4,000 more steps when I returned home, which meant it was Master Chef Pacing Time.

Henry came out of the kitchen and said, “Wait….now you’re holding weights above your head while you pace?”

“I wanted to make it harder,” I panted.

Henry sat on the couch for the first 5 minutes, before saying, “I can’t watch this anymore,” and retreating to bed. I made it to 20,000 with 30 minutes left to the day. This shit is not getting any easier.

I almost never read the emails we get from the Firm; they’re usually just missives to make me feel like a guilty asshole for not ever giving blood.

So if not for Amber asking me a few weeks ago if I wanted to join her team, I’d have no idea why half the department is scurrying around with pedometers clipped to their waistbands. We then picked the new Amber (Amber² herein) and Carey to round out our team, which Amber named Team Apple.

(First, she wanted me to name it, but then quickly added, “And nothing with Jonny Craig in it!!” I guess at that point she realized I’d be at a loss, so she made an executive decision. Probably a really smart idea.)

Our pedometers arrived a week before the competition officially started and Nina, bless her heart, saw me struggling to open mine. “Here, let me do that for you, buddy,” she said and proceeded to put the whole thing together for me, and then even programmed it for me.

Thank god for Nina!

Amber and I immediately started wearing ours and it was really fun to take the long way around the department in order to rack up more steps. One night last week, I begged Carey to take the steps with me, instead of the elevator.

“For what?” she asked, probably thinking that her constant loop of Adele made her miss a fire alarm.

“To get extra steps!” I snapped.

“You do realize this challenge hasn’t started yet, right?” she said, looking seriously concerned. “I mean, I didn’t even take my pedometer out of the package yet.”

“It’s called TRAINING, Carey!” I yelled in that sweet self-righteous way I’m known to do. Look—I’m the only fat one on our team. My only goal at that point was to not bring the rest of them down.

How humiliating.

We took the steps that night. It was scary, yet exhilarating in a running-from-Michael-Myers-in-a-hospital-stairwell kind of way.

****

The Challenge officially started this past Monday. Amber and I were totally stoked about it, and she even made a group event on Facebook for us to do laps around the building at precisely 3PM, at which time Amber² and Carey were conveniently MISSING. So Amber and I went out alone. I even went back out later that night and did laps IN THE RAIN, that’s how many shits I give about Team Apple.

Meanwhile, Carey had accumulated approximately 1,000 steps by that afternoon and was seemingly proud of this.

“What the fuck, Carey?” I exclaimed. “Are you wheeling yourself around!?” And that’s when I really began noticing that she doesn’t actually walk, she meanders, and now I picture sleepy Southern scenes scrolling alongside of her, weeping willows and plantations, Kevin Spacey in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. (What? That’s all I know about the South.)

And then our Team Leader Amber didn’t even have her pedometer! She left it at her parents’ house – TWO HOURS AWAY! She had them overnight it to her and had the foresight to use her iPod in the meantime. Because she actually cares about our team, Carey!

Amber² at some point realized that she had her pedometer set up wrong and it was resetting itself at noon. I pretty much knew going into this that our team didn’t stand a chance, not with all the pseudo-professional athletes just in our department alone, but after Day One, whatever hope remained had peaced out.

****

Carey didn’t come into work until 4PM on Day Two. Amber asked me if I knew where she was; I shrugged and said, “Probably not walking.”

Meanwhile, Amber² had concocted some lame excuse about how she didn’t do any walking after work because “Dance Moms” was on. I haven’t been very mean to her about this though because she is still kind of new to our crazy department, but I mean come on – Dance Moms would want her to walk her ass off.

I wound up with a little over 15,000 steps for day one. That seemed pretty good to me. But on Day Two, I didn’t get much of a chance to collect a lot of steps before work, so that night after Chooch and Henry went to sleep, I decided to walk in place while watching Master Chef. Walking in place then turned into pacing, and that then morphed into maniacal marching, back and forth, side-stepping, sometimes even in figure 8s. It was like walking on the longest, most retarded broken tread mill.

My cat Marcy was not amused and gave me menacing glares from her orange chair which said, “SIT THE FUCK DOWN, BITCH.”

90 minutes later, I had surpassed 20,000 steps. It wasn’t even really my goal, but my recessive OCD reared its ugly head and I became absolutely obsessed with the numbers and I’d promise myself things like, “Just round it up to 17,000 and you can be done.” And then 17,000 became 18,000. 18,000 became 19,000. 19,000 became I HAVE TO GET 20,000 BEFORE MIDNIGHT OR THE WORLD WILL IMPLODE!

I was marching so hard that I was glazed in sweat and every step had actually registered as a cardio step. I’m pretty sure I burned more calories that day than I took in. BECAUSE I AM SUCH A SMARTIE.

It’s just that competition is my third favorite c-word. I can’t do anything half-assed. Do I need to remind everyone about Blogathon? Or that fucking Halloween decorating contest last year at work and how it completely consumed my life? I was literally thinking like a serial killer for 31 days. (I know, I know—way to low-ball that number, Erin Rachelle Kelly.) As soon as I told Henry about this challenge, he murmured something along the lines of, “Great, this isn’t going to fuck up my life at all. You’re probably going to end up in the hospital. Now all your co-workers will find out how much of a competitive douchebag you really are.” (I’ve actually kept the douchebaggery under control so far. Don’t ask me how. I mean, I’m the girl who straight slapped a friend over a game of Scattergories.)

****

I was on a high for Day Three. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal that I got 20,000 steps, but it was a big deal for ME. I excitedly told Barb and Amber, and before I knew it, most of the department knew.

I was a little embarrassed about it, but mostly I was paranoid because now everyone else had a number to beat. And news travels fast there. No less than 10 minutes after telling Amber, I was confronted by about 6 incredulous co-workers. Some of them are now calling me a freak (I know, only now?!) and one of them was like, “Where are you walking to?!”

I told her that I just naturally walk fast. I mean, I live in Brookline: I walk like someone scary is always behind me. (Seriously, I walked around town when I got home from work that night and all I kept thinking was how I really didn’t want to be able to say, “Totally got raped in the bowels of Brookline, but at least I made it to 20,000 steps!” Plus, there are entire city blocks here that stink of urine, so that helps me pick me up the pace.)

And then this happened:

****

Yesterday morning, while Henry’s mom was watching Chooch, I went to the nearest cemetery and just kept walking and walking and walking until my pedometer hit 7,000. I felt that was pretty good for 10AM. I came home, possibly staggering like I was on bath salts but really it was because I was still tired from my late night Brookline power-walking tour, and Henry’s mom started lecturing me about how I’m over-doing it and I was like, “OKAY MOM.” I actually was feeling kind of sketchy though. Then later I walked to the trolley, got off a stop earlier to add extra steps to my route and then proceeded to lap around the Law Firm building until it was time to start my shift. I had 11,000 steps by the time I got to my desk. Barb sighed and said, “You’re going to walk away into nothing!” and I said, “Um duh, isn’t that the challenge?” Maybe I read it wrong.

In a hyper-pitched, half-hysteric tone, I tried explaining to Barb that I couldn’t stop, and then I couldn’t stop saying I couldn’t stop. I think that was the first time all week I had started to scare myself.

Later, I was straight cornered by three of my work friends whose opening line was, “We heard you’re walking 20,000 steps a day” and then they tried to draft me onto their team.

Went on a furry search (it’s furry convention time in Pittsburgh! More on that later!) and racked up more steps. I saw a furry in a wheelchair who was moving faster than Carey. By the time I left work at 9PM, I had 19,000.

In the car on the way home, Henry said, “And I’d like to thank you for turning on the bedroom light and pacing last night while I was trying to sleep.”

“I had to! I couldn’t just go to bed when I was 200 steps away from 21,000!” I cried. God, he just doesn’t get it.

(OMG I think I might really have a problem, it’s just now occurring to me.)

I’ve been walking something like 8 miles a day – and not moseying or meandering a la Carey, but really walking like a crazed fugitive. When I’m at home, I’m almost never sitting and it’s making everyone kind of nervous. EYES ON THE PRIZE.

And naturally there are some people who are saying I must be cheating, that I’m probably putting my pedometer on Chooch and setting him loose on the playground*. Oh, it’s because I’m Chubs City, right? No way could a fat girl walk that much, right? Because clearly I go home everyday and have Henry, clad in muddied overalls, push me around in a wheelbarrow while I stuff Little Debbie treats in my fat fucking lazy mouth. CLEARLY.

*(FYI, he has pretty much been with his grandma every morning while I’m out breaking my toes around Brookline).

It’s kind of insulting. I don’t care about the Dick’s gift card or the Kindle (the prizes we are walking for), and putting my pedometer on my kid is not going to get me those things anyway because he’s a little slug. (Forced him to go for a leisurely stroll last week and he legit cried, “My hip hurts!” Um, OK, I forgot you’re 60, not 6. Jesus Christ.) Yes, competition motivates me, but what motivates me even more is besting myself. So if I was cheating, I’d only be cheating myself. When I wind up passing out at work, that’ll prove it.

(But no seriously, I’m clearly doping.)

****

Oh shit, Carey left her diary open on her desk, and look what I found!

****

I just want you to know that it killed me to stop moving in order to write this.

• I like to keep the radio on in my room 24:7; there is something comforting to me about keeping it old school, gratingly unfunny DJs and all. Recently, I had to change the station to our local classic rock one, because it is literally the only station aside from sports radio and the urban station which I can’t pick up from the bedroom that doesn’t play that motherfucking Gotye song. I just want to cry “Uncle!” every time I hear it. The downside of having the classic rock station on is that apparently Nickelback is now considered classic rock. However, the odds of hearing any Nickelback song (but really, aren’t they all just the same song?) is still way less than hearing motherfucking Gotye. I wish I could go back in time and delete the master recording of that song, and then for good measure, go back farther and hit him in the face with one of J-Woww’s tits at the precise moment that song started to write itself in his head. Fuck you, Gotye.
• The Stanley Cup is about to be won any day now which means I’m going to grow a beard and mourn the end of yet another hockey season.
• A store in Wisconsin contacted me about selling my non compos cards, which is awesome. I’m sure Henry and I will find unlimited ways to fuck it up. (Having our printer break is a good start.)
• I didn’t mention Jonny Craig once on Henry’s birthday!
• Sometimes I want to kick this blog in its face. I bet if it had a face, it would totally look like Sloth, but a girl. And she would have the ultimate Annie-ginger hair.
• The other night, I dreamt that I was making out with [name withheld to keep my pride in tact] in my mom’s basement. When I told Henry, he scoffed, “All your dreams like that take place at your mom’s house, because that’s when you were the biggest whore” which isn’t even true, it was the first several years after I lived there that I was the biggest whore, so we had a mild argument about that, which wasn’t even the most ridiculous argument of the week; that award goes to the disagreement I had with Carey the other night at work regarding Farrah Fawcett versus Meredith Baxter.
• Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I feel like [name withheld] knows about my dream, or maybe [name withheld] is just playing off the fact that I’ve been acting like a complete headlighted-deer.
• I still cry about my cat Don several times a day.
• Today is my brother Corey’s birthday! He’s 22 and still color-blind!
• I’m at work, eating an apple as I write this. I might also eat an orange too, since I sort of know how to peel those now.
• Some of us have been getting reprimanded for being too social at work and I am totally about to start passing notes just to feed into my new stereotype.
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• Doing makeup at a zombie party tomorrow night!
• I ate a bunch of peppermint patties just now (wherein bunch equals two) and I don’t even like peppermint patties.
• Been spending a lot of time with Henry’s mom lately thanks to his newly-fucked work schedule which leaves us needing a babysitter (and also leaves me taking the trolley to work). She unwittingly presented me with three gems on Monday alone:
• Somehow, the topic of Henry leaving for the SERVICE came up and she was waxing nostalgic about how it was the worst day of her life when he left, etc etc. And how, when she finally got to go down to Texas 8 weeks later to see him, she couldn’t believe how much of a man he had become. I was literally cannibalizing the inside of my cheeks to keep from laughing.
• Totally out of the blue (and unwarranted!) she looked at me and said, “My son is going to get back at you one day.” Something in the way she said it gave me quick flashes of meat hooks, Nickelback’s entire discography, and acid-dipped ball gags.
• “What do you call that, when they put the ice cream in a cone?” Oh I don’t know, Judy, but here’s a wild guess: an ice cream cone!?
• I’ve been craving Bonkers which is pretty weird because I don’t think I’ve eaten those since 1988.
• This post is in bullet-points because I am mentally crippled after this week.
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I will end this with a picture of a rainbow and Chooch eating cake from Wendy’s daughter’s graduation party last weekend. That was a good day, and not just because Henry got schooled on cake-cutting.

A loud crash came from downstairs yesterday as I was getting ready for work. In a panic, I raced down the steps only to discover it was just the fan, which had tumbled from the front windowsill. As I was replacing it, I noticed an elderly man in a chambray shirt straight shambling toward my house from across the street. He was carrying something in his hand, maybe papers, I don’t know, because at that moment, we made legit eye contact. I screamed, like anyone else would do having just made a basic connection with another human being, and then threw myself flush against the wall. (I watch lots of CIA dramas. Mostly just “Covert Affairs,” but it teaches me a lot. Like how to run in heels and have very little personality but still have a new love interest in every episode. And also, how to stay flush against a wall.)

Craning my neck, I risked a peek out the window and saw that he was on my neighbor’s porch.

I started to walk away from the window, when I noticed that the dial of the fan had snapped off from the fall and was laying on the floor. When I walked back to the window to put it back on the fan, the stranger was now shambling across the yard to my sidewalk, at which point he TURNED AND LOOKED RIGHT AT ME.

More eye contact! I’ve really done it now, I thought, as I raced to the front door, slammed it shut and flipped over the dead bolt. He had just begun knocking by the time I reached the steps and clambered up them, hurtling over Marcy and diving onto my bedroom floor, which is where I stayed for the next several minutes with my hands covering my ears and my eyes squinted shut. I was convinced he was a zombie and was probably by now using his rotted wile to rip the screen off my front window. MY OPEN FRONT WINDOW.

Meanwhile, Marcy was perched at the top of the steps, growling. She hates visitors and suspected zombies, too.

I got up from the floor and turned the volume down on the bedroom radio, maintaining my hunched-over, in-hiding stature, until I determined that the knocking finally ceased. To be sure, I did my best war-zone shuffle over to the bedroom window and looked out just in time to see him standing in my yard, looking up at the house, one hand above his eyes like a visor.

“Hello!” he shouted. An actual English word, and not a strangulated, “UUUUnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg” was how I determined that he was not actually a zombie, but perhaps a zombie choreographer.

I sprinted into the bathroom, where I paced in front of the sink, muttering words of strength and courage to myself, and then, just to see what would happen, I recited “Jonny Craig” three times into the mirror.

(Nothing happened, in case you were wondering. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing in here right now, I would be too busy hanging off his jock and begging him to sing “Thug City” JUST ONE MORE TIME PLEASE OMG.)

Since I was in there, I finished my eye makeup.

After another ten minutes of jumping at the sight of my shadow, I determined that it was safe to come out from under the proverbial covers, so I went downstairs and poked around on the front porch. He left no trace, not even Jesus papers, pizza shop menu, or a shut off notice.

I called Henry and frantically reported the events to him.

“OK.”

That’s all he said: “OK.”

And then, “I have work to do. I’ll call you back.”

Now that I think about it, it was probably a bag of candy in that man’s hand. I WAS ALMOST ABDUCTED BY THE OLDEST MAN IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. Nice of Henry to care. I wish I would have let him take me. Then the book “Deranged” would have to be reprinted with an epilogue about how the ghost of Albert Fish kidnapped some broad no one cared about in Brookline and then feasted upon her ample body for weeks.

(New weight loss tactic: lose all of the weight so as not to entice local cannibals. LOSE ALL OF IT NOW.)

****

When Henry came home from work, I jumped in small circles around him all the way to the kitchen, explaining in auctioneer-speed every last detail of what happened.

“Why didn’t you just answer the door, you idiot? What if he was here to give you a check for a million dollars?” Henry laughed at the absurdity of this, because everyone knows us Schleprocks don’t win things.

“Um, hello. Did you forget my aversion to opening the door for strangers?” I quickly recounted all the reasons: belligerent gas men, pushy Mormons, neighbors asking to borrow flashlights, THE STATE CONSTABLE*. I even run from the PIZZA GUY now, that’s how Pavlovian my response is to door-knocking.

(* This one is my favorite. Although, it wasn’t at the time.)

“Did he go anywhere else?” Henry quizzed me.

“I don’t know, Henry! I couldn’t see from my prostrate post on the bedroom floor without my periscope,” I whined.

“Was he here to shut something off?” Henry mused, knowing full well that we’ve been out of THAT hole for quite some time now.

“No, he wasn’t wearing a costume,” I said seriously.

“A costume?”

“Yeah, you know. A work costume.”

“It’s called a uniform, retard.”

****

Before bed last night, Henry came out of the bathroom holding the dial for the fan.

“I was looking for this all day, and I just found it on the sink. How the hell did it get in the bathroom?

” he said mostly to himself, sticking it back onto the fan which he had just brought up to our room.

I couldn’t help it: I started to laugh uncontrollably. “Well….when that guy was knocking—” I started to blurt out.

Henry just sighed and shook his head. “And I was going to blame Chooch,” he mumbled. “I should have known better.”

– My most intimate relationship is with music.

– I like being social to a degree, but I’m super quick to feel smothered.

– I have a compulsion to anthropomorphize things, like: “Oh no, I haven’t used this coffee mug since last week & now its feelings must be hurt.” Sometimes this will drive me nuts with guilt & I find myself apologizing to Chooch’s toys if I chuck them too hard into his toy box.

– I’m talking to someone I shouldn’t be talking to. (No, I’m not cheating on Henry; put your whistles away.)

– Recently I have discovered that I hate people who hum.

– 2011 ended on such a horrible note, & 2012 has been following in those fucked up footsteps. Yet somehow I feel like I’m holding it together better than I ever have in the past when I have had every opportunity to crack open by now.

– I don’t let go of things easily, or at all.

– Obsessing over Jonny Craig is my only little break from reality & the real meaning behind it is something that I couldn’t put into words even if I wanted to, but I will say that it is a classic case of projection.

– I hate change so much that I almost started crying last week at the roller rink when the owner made me try on a new pair of skates, which prompted the rink ref to talk to me in a soft voice about how he doesn’t like change either but sometimes it’s good, & I felt like the biggest loser of all time.

– Over & over again, I attract people who want to possess me, & I quit being friends with Alisha for that very reason. Last year, it was a couple of car jackers. (Well, technically only one of them jacked a car, but isn’t one car jacker in anyone’s life enough?) And yes, it is happening now as well.

– I don’t really care about being “understood” anymore.

– I hate pretty much everything I have my hand in, this blog included.

– The house I live in makes me so upset that I cry about it at least once a day.

– I have not once had any desire to contact my mother since we quit talking on 12-25-10.

– People always say I’m lucky to have Henry, and I get that, but sometimes I wish he felt he was lucky to have ME.

No more drinking alone for this girl.

Sometimes I sit here and watch 9767896 videos of live Emarosa and Dance Gavin Dance performances because I’m so afraid I will never get to hear Jonny sing in person ever again. PLEASE STOP SHOOTING UP, JONNY CRAIG.

***

In other news, I got my hair chopped off the other day. It’s not man-short, but the longest layers skim my chin. I asked Chooch the next day if he liked it, and without even looking at me, he said, “No.” Granted, he is very surly in the morning, but he is also HONEST. So I was pretty bummed. Right before I took him to school, I prodded him some more.

“Do you think it’s better or worse than before?” I asked, like my future on America’s Next Top Model is on the line.

Watching the news (he watches the news every morning now and is really interested in what the “traffics” is like), he sighed and said, “Well, did you like your hair before?”

I thought about this for a few seconds. My hair was getting to be too long and the ends were pretty obliterated. The color was bland, too. “No,” I answered him confidently.

“Well, then I guess it’s better,” he said in a tone that implied, “Good job, you just answered your own question.”

Naturally, 80% of the office freaked out over it (except for WENDY WHO DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE!!!) and you all know how much I love to be gang-praised. Which is to say, as much as I like to be gang-raped. I think I had longer conversations about it with the boys though, which was kind of weird. Chris even stopped bouncing his fucking orange ball long enough to put his hands under his chin and call me adorable. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT EVERY GROWN WOMAN WANTS TO HEAR.

No really, I’m OK with “adorable.” When you have the face of a turtle, you will take whatever complimentary handout you can get.

Probably the fact that I pull unflattering faces should be my main concern of model-rejection, not my hairstyle.

I would like to take a second to apologize for my posts being all over the place lately. It seems like I’m posting from my phone more often than not these days and that’s just never good. I mean, not that you guys have come to expect New Yorker-quality syntax and editing on this joint, but you know what I mean.

It took me a month just to recap the haunted houses I want to, I never finished writing about jury duty, the things that happened yesterday in Cleveland are enough to fill up a week’s worth of posts. AND THE APPLES! OH, THE APPLE TALES I HAVE TO TELL! But then I have shit distracting me, like designing an asshole-y Christmas card and using my deaf persona to prank call people. Someone needs to school me on priorities, and fast.

And December is going to be fun, with tons of fodder for this blog, I can feel it. Andrea is flying in late next Friday and she’s staying for an entire WEEK this time.

Hijinx are sure to ensure. I’m having a Pornament Party a week later, where people will come over and desecrate Christmas ornaments and be general, all-around assholes. The Craig Owens solo show is a week later in Cleveland, and I think we’re taking Chooch and Janna along with us this time; Chooch in a new city is always a sight to behold. I’m sorry in advance, Cleveland.

Oh, and then that Christmas thing. Cemetery picnic, holla!

So I will try to be a better blogger, not that I think anyone cares that much about my life (you shouldn’t), but because I get this horrible nagging sensation within me if I don’t get everything down for posterity. It’s a sickness, a mortality thing I guess.

Nineteen years from now, I might desperately need to know every detail about the day I had jury duty so I can save the world, motherfuckers.

But for now, I’m going to luxuriate lazily and think of how excellent yesterday was. I’ll leave you with a video from one of the bands we saw last night. (Henry liked a whopping three out of five bands in the AP Tour lineup!)

I kind of always wanted to get summoned for jury duty. Not that I think it’s glamorous or fun, but fuck–what a prime opportunity to people-watch, right? And that’s kind of my thing.

A few weeks ago, I got my official notice in the mail, filled it out immediately and tucked it back in the mail slot for the mailman to retrieve the next day. When Henry came home from work that day, he saw the torn-open notice and asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”

“In the mail slot, already filled out!” I answered all incredulously, like how was this not his first guess? “I REALLY want to do this!”

“You’re fucked up. No one WANTS to do jury duty.” (Too bad at least TEN people have told me otherwise in the last day.) And then Henry dampened my parade by explaining to me the ins and outs of jury duty, how I would need to check the website on a designated date to see if I was even summoned in the first place.

Well, that day was yesterday and OMG I was!

But my joy soon turned into panic. Do you guys know me at all? I’m pretty much helpless. And now I’m expected to be turned loose into the real world, to ENTER A COURTHOUSE without setting off five alarms, to find a particular room without crying….

“What room is it?” Barb asked me and I told her it was 3-something. “OK, so take the elevator to the third floor—”

“BUT WHERE ARE THE ELEVATORS, OH MY GOD BARB?!”

There better be attendants at every corner, waiting to point me in the correct direction.

“Will I have to talk to people?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Barb said. “You might get asked questions.”

“IN FRONT OF PEOPLE?” I cried.

And then I found out that this doesn’t even mean I’ve been chosen? I have to sit there all day, in a room I may or may not find, waiting to see if they want me?

Talk about my life story.

Henry agreed to drive me down there tomorrow morning so I’ll have one less thing to worry about, like: WHEN SHOULD I GET OFF THE TROLLEY? AND THEN WHAT?! And then he tried to explain to me how to walk to work afterward. Seriously. I do not understand downtown Pittsburgh. There are roads and people and buildings; lots of them.

Today on the way to work, I pointed at every building we passed and asked, “Is that the courthouse? What about that one?”

“We’re not even on the right side of town,” Henry mumbled exasperatedly.

“You said you were going to show me!” I wailed, about to get hysterical. I have lots of…complexities, we’ll call them…when it comes to going somewhere alone for the first time. I like to over-think things until I’m sure that I’m going walk into a building for the first time and promptly fall into a hole to a land of Katy Perry-soundtracked church sermons and food overrun with crunchy onions because how would I know that it was there when I HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE.

“I am going to show you,” Henry said. “Tomorrow morning when I drop you off in front of it.”

Then he tried to explain to me how to get to work once I’m released.

“This is too confusing,” I sighed as he was trying to point out landmarks. “It’s a good thing my phone has a compass.”

“Yeah but do you even know what direction to go to begin with?” After his question was met with silence, he said, “Didn’t think so.”

I was starting to feel OK about it at work as my co-worker Cheryl said, “Oh you’ll be fine! You mostly just sit around. And then you break for an hour and a half for lunch—”

An hour and a half? NINETY MINUTES?? What the fuck am I going to do for ninety minutes? Find a bathroom stall in which to tremble and cry?

Barb did her best to comfort me. “I’m trying to think if there is anywhere to eat inside the courthouse,” she mused, knowing full well that if I attempted to stray outside, I might never find my way back and wind up having to change my address to:
Some Guy’s Occupy Pittsburgh Tent Some Random St.
Pgh (I think), PA.

“If you need to, you can just call me. I’ll come find you,” she promised, and that made me feel like maybe I could survive this day.

“Just stand outside and shine a mirror into the sun; I’ll follow the light signal,” I said, trying to complicate this into some failed Choose Your Own Adventure book.

But then Wendy came over and said, “Fool, just walk outside the courthouse and look up. You can see our building, duh.”

Why does this have to be downtown? Why can’t it be on a farm that’s easy to find and full of boughs pregnant with apples. (My apple obsession is still going strong. More on that later.)

So that’s where I’ll be tomorrow if you need me, walking around in circles and looking up at the sky. I should probably take that bloody pie server thing out of my purse first, though.

Thank god it’s Wordless Wednesday because I’m being tortured slowly by fuckerbitch allergies. Anyway, here is a scan of a photo from when I met The Cure in Canberra, Australia back in 2000.

Someday maybe I’ll tell that story on here.

But not today.

Definitely one of the Top 5 Moments of my life; but right now, at this moment, I’d be happy with just meeting The Cure for allergies.

(I’m the girl on the left with the long, stupid hair; not the man in the doorway, tonguing himself.

)

“Henry!” I said all breathlessly into the phone, which is his cue to brace himself. “I just saw the line up for the Rock Yourself To Sleep tour and guess who’s co-headlining?”

In a bored monotone, Henry muttered, “I don’t know.”

“No, guess!”

“Chiodos,” Henry guessed with a heavy sigh.

“Wha—? No!” I couldn’t believe he didn’t get it right off the bat.

“D.R.U.G.S.,” was Henry’s noncommittal second guess.

Meanwhile, I have my kid sitting next to me yelling, “THE CURE! Jonny Craig!”

“God, it’s Dance Gavin Dance!” I yelled into the phone. “I can’t believe that wasn’t your first guess.”

“I didn’t want to guess it,” Henry said in a tired voice. “Because I didn’t want it to be true.”

I HOPE IT COMES TO/NEAR PITTSBURGH!

***

In other pre-teen glee, we went to my friend John’s son’s 4th birthday party yesterday. I didn’t know anyone there at the park, and Chooch pushed the birthday boy down a hill within the first 15 minutes of us arriving*, so I was grateful when John’s cousin Chrissy sat across from me and introduced herself. Her daughter Alex joined us and my first thought was, “I wonder where she got that cool bow in her hair?”

(*This is why we don’t get invited places.)

“Look, Erin’s nails are painted almost the same as yours,” Chrissy said to Alex. (We both had symbols painted on just one hand, opting to keep the other hand plain.) A few minutes later, she also pointed out that Alex and I are both vegetarians (though I do fancy some fish nowadays, to be fair).

When Henry and I were alone a few minutes later, I said to him, “Isn’t it funny that the one person here I have the most in common with is a fourteen-year-old girl? I wonder if she wants to run away from home all the time, too.”

“Sad,” Henry mumbled.

But considering that Henry always compares me to twelve-year-olds, this is an improvement, no? In fact, on the way to the party, he was ridiculing me in the car.

“You have the hands of a 12-year-old,” he scoffed when I fanned out my left hand in front of his face. The fact that every ring I wore that day was made of neon plastic and cost a quarter only gave him more reason to jeer. “‘Look what I did, Daddy!'” he mocked, rolling his eyes at the ampersand I painstakingly painted on my thumb the night before.

“I should have painted ‘Jonny Craig’ on my nails,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Jesus Christ,” Henry mumbled, looking out the window, clearly wishing he commanded my attention as much as this ginger douchebag does.

Back at the party, Chrissy was pointing at my shoes and asking, “Are those TOMS? Alex wants a pair of those.” A little bit later, Alex walked by and said, “I like your shoes!” causing Henry to shake his head and flash me one of his signature Disappointed Smirks.

When we were leaving, Chrissy said jokingly, “You and my daughter will have to hang out sometime!”

(Only if she likes Dance Gavin Dance!)

Henry looked all chagrined by this, and Chrissy added, “What, you don’t want her to be an old lady, do you Henry?” YEAH HENRY! I AM WHO I AM, OK ? Stop trying to make me boring.

I’m going to try and follow the rules as much as I can.
1. Link the person back who awarded you
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Answer the following questions below
4. Award this to 15 bloggers

Seven things about myself:

1. Randomly-strewn items across my house pull my Bi-Polar Lever. If Henry leaves his socks on the floor, I throw them in the garbage. Bro is 46 fucking years old. He knows where the hamper is.
2. I love jelly on my grilled cheeses.
3. I have a slight problem with anthropomorphism. For example, I hate leaving my shopping cart alone and always try to choose a cart return that has other carts already in it. WHY SHOULD ANY SHOPPING CART HAVE TO FEEL ALONE LIKE ME?
4. Ska is my least favorite genre of music. I think it’s just too happy-sounding for me. You know how people will say, “I like everything but country”? Give me country before you give me ska. In fact, don’t give me ska at all. I’d rather listen to Katy Perry and Jessica Simpson have a yodel-off.
5. I hate Katy Perry & Jessica Simpson.  I’d consider quitting my day job (night job, as it were) to be the president of their hate club. FOR FREE.
6. For a minute in high school, I considered going to college for sit-com writing. Instead, I dropped out of high school. Look how awesome I turned out.
7. I have a pretty sizeable inferiority complex.

Questions:
Name your favorite color-
purple, pink, puke

Name your favorite song-
This is an impossible question. Damn you for asking it. But let’s just say this morning I turned up the radio real loud because a commercial for a restaurant with “In the Air Tonight” was playing in the background.

Name your favorite dessert-
All of it? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem very fair to pick favorites. Henry will probably tell me I’m being racist, because apparently being racist is the only thing I excel at. Cherry pie almost always pleases me. But that’s just because I’m racist against all the other berries.

What wizzes you off-
When Henry doesn’t let me wizz him off.

When you’re upset you-
Beat bitches up. In 99.9% of all cases, the “bitches” are “Henrys.” I also break the fuck out of breakables, which is why factories in China make them in the first place.

Runner-up: Listen to screamo real loud and cry.

Your favorite pet-
MARCY, THE BEST CAT EVER. But don’t tell Don, Willie, Nicotina, FRANCIS! or Henry.

There was also that pet orange I had in 10th grade that was a real good pal to me.

Black or white-
OMG WHAT A RACIST QUESTION, RIGHT HENRY??

Mulatto, for sure.

Your biggest fear-
Having to go to Alaska. Fuck Alaska! Scariest place in the world with all that icy water and non-sexy vampires. Also, falling inside of a water tower. Having river water touch my delicate skin. Clearly I’m horrified of water, which is probably why I stink so bad.

best feature-
Being so obnoxious, immature and flighty that people are shocked to find out I’m a mom. In fact, I believe “juvenile” is the most-used word Henry chooses to describe me. Close second: fucking psychopathic whore-bitch.

Everyday attitude-
Stay posi.

J/K. That’s for pussies & nancies.

I guess my attitude is STRANGER DANGER. Every time I walk out the door, it’s social fail.
What is perfection-
The Cure’s Disintegration.

Vanilla Pastry Studio cupcakes.

My child during those rare 15 minutes a week he’s not making me regret things.

Guilty pleasure-
MTV reality, specifically The Real World and all the various incarnations of The Challenge.

Uncooked tortellini

Ke$ha, replacing Lady Gaga who just isn’t weird enough for me anymore.

Xiu Xiu

Um, I’m not popular enough to know 15 other bloggers.

stutterbrain.

mrs.evils

the real mean girl

onyx and alabaster

josh

If you are reading this and have a blog, congratulations! It’s your turn.

When I was a kid, I loved my birthday. And not just because my Pappap spoiled the shit out of me, but because I always had a party. And being a summer baby means pool parties.

My grandparents had an in-ground pool and lots of patio space, so I could invite as many girls as I wanted. We would swim for hours and then my Pappap would grill us burgers and hotdogs while boasting to anyone within earshot about how he was the best griller around. If anyone could turn me back into a carnivore, it would be him.

Afterward, we would all wrap ourselves in towels and go down into the game room, where we would shiver in the air conditioning while playing slots and Pacman.

And if I didn’t want to have a pool party that year, my mom would rent a party room at V.I.P. in South Park where everyone could swim if they wanted to, but most importantly—there was outdoor roller-skating. The birthday kid always got to request a song ahead of time, and two years in a row I chose “Heart and Soul” by T’Pau.

There are a million reasons I miss being a kid. But having my Pappap around for my birthday definitely tops the list.

It hasn’t been the same since he died in 1996. I didn’t really want to celebrate my birthday for awhile after that, just little, simple things with close friends. But during the summer of 1998, I decided it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and I threw myself a birthday party marathon.

It was the best ever! It was FOUR DAYS LONG and different people came each night because that was back when people LOVED me! (And it had nothing to do with the fact that I was the only broad who had her own apartment and a mommy who kept the fridge fully stocked with beer & assorted alcohol). There were so many different people that I made everyone sign a guest book.

It ran the gamut from good, light-hearted fun to Saudi Arabians teaching people how to roll pyramid-shaped joints to fist fights between brothers to reenactments of my hissy fits to one guy wanting very badly to stick his dick in me in spite of my vehement turn-downs to me leaving on the fourth night, completely drunk and in tears, and driving to nowhere really while blasting Foo Fighter’s “Everlong.”

A week prior to my birthday, I had broken up with my boyfriend Erik. There was no real good reason other than as long as I had the title of “Girlfriend,” I couldn’t help all the neighborhood boys use up their condoms.

He came to my apartment on the third day of birthday bacchanalia to give me back my stuff, and with him was his ex-girlfriend who had stalked him the entire year they were broken up. He had apparently gotten back together with her after I dumped him. Also with them was our friend Sergio, who I eventually ended up winning custody of since Erik no longer was allowed to have friends, having gotten back together with his crazy asshole ex.

Erik seemed genuinely sad that day on my front porch. He started to wish me a happy birthday, when the ex-girlfriend snapped and started screaming, “You fucking whore! You dumb fucking cunt! I’ll kill you!” And then she broke away from Sergio’s grip and charged after me. Erik clothes-lined her and dragged her back to his car, shrugging an apology along the way. My friend Heather didn’t even bother to put her shoes before running out the front door, ready to fight this temperamental nutjob who had just threatened me on my birthday. That was the awesome thing about my friend Heather. She was always ready to throw down. I don’t have friends like that anymore.

For years, Erik was the “one who got away.” I kicked myself for dumping him. It was stupid and impulsive (though, so was the way we hooked up to begin with, but that’s another story). Sergio told me years later that Erik had married that broad and had succumbed to a life of emasculation. It was settling at its finest. For awhile, I tried to find him. Searched for him online. Fruitless.

Then I met Henry and forgot about my hunt to get him back. But I still think of him, and that fourth night of my birthday party marathon, every time I hear “Everlong.”

Since then, I haven’t really done anything major for my birthday. A small, poorly attended get-together here and there, but nothing noteworthy.

Then came my 30th. I was sure Henry was going to do something awesome for me. I hadn’t hinted about it, you can’t hint about things to Henry and expect him to catch on. No, I flat out told him, “I want you to have a party for me.” Turning 30 is a big deal, and I’ll tell you what—I was ready for it. I was ready to forget most of the last decade and the toxic people that came with it. Bring on the 30s.

So, my birthday came and went. I spent the day helping my friend Alisha move into her new apartment. It was in the 90s that day, and rainy. Have you ever moved boxes in a rainforest? That’s what I did that day. It wasn’t pleasant. That night, Henry made me a grilled cheese and I watched DeGrassi. I tried not to be a big bitch-baby. He did get me a ticket to see Emarosa and Dance Gavin Dance for that October, after all.

But I wanted a party. It’s not about the presents. It’s about sharing a day with my friends, having them all together in one place (serial killer logic!). I wanted to feel loved.

I waited a week. Maybe he planned something for the following weekend.

Nothing.

Finally I broke down and started asking my friends, “There’s not going to be a party, is there?”

There wasn’t. Of course not. Throwing parties for friends is something I would do, and have done. But fuck me for having lofty expectations of others.

Last year on my birthday, I blogged 24 hours straight for charity, while Alisha sat next to me and whined about the abusive relationship she was in with a married woman, because it was all about her, l the time, always. Never mind I needed to stay awake for 24 hours and write relentlessly. It was all about her.

Even on my birthday. That was the beginning of the end of our friendship.

And for that same birthday, I told that motherfucker Henry all I wanted was a motherfucking black forest cake, and did he think he could handle that? Apparently not, because I got nothing. Not even a CARD. People might think I’m being over-dramatic here, but I think back to those last two birthday fails and I feel like shit. I’m a Leo for Christ’s sake! We want things big. We want our friends to give a fuck. And when they don’t, we at least want our BOYFRIEND SINCE 2001 to give a fuck.

And when he doesn’t? Well, our self-worth kind of gets flushed down the commode like nothing more than a soggy turd.

Which is exactly what we feel like.

So last winter, when I started roller-skating again, I knew. I just KNEW that I was going to take matters into my own hands, like I always have to do when I want anything to get done, and I decided right then and there to stop feeling sorry for myself and stop relying on Henry (joke city) and just throw myself my own 32nd birthday party at the roller rink. And not only that, I was going to rent that bitch out for the night. Do it up proper-like. (Also because I’m so pathetic, I hope that free admission will make people want to come.)

And that’s exactly what I did, so on the night of August 7th, I get to relive my childhood and skate to my favorite songs and if only 10 people show up? Well, then I’m lucky to know 10 people who care enough to want to celebrate my birthday.

And you better believe I’m putting “Heart and Soul” on my birthday mix and telling Roller DJ to give a shout out to the birthday girl before he plays that track, motherfucker.

Oh, and you know what else? My actual birthday is next Saturday and I’m spending it at the Fayette County Fair, which is run by my favorites: Powers Great American Midways. IT IS ALL ABOUT ME THIS YEAR. AND IF I WANT TO FUCK A CARNY, I WILL FUCK A CARNY. I want to be happy, too, you know.

Also known as: HOW ARE THEY STILL TOGETHER?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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