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

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

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

)

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

Thanks for the feedback, ho-bag.

)

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

LOOK BEHIND YOU, DANDELION!!

He’s so hot.

Chillin’ with Don, watching “Desperate Housewives.”

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

God, I’m so smitten.

What I really want to do is just lay my body down across the keyboard and post whatever comes of it; only then would you understand what it was like to be inside my head as Henry and I followed Jason down the hall and through the door to the Alternative Press offices.

I know a lot of people don’t really get it; maybe you feel underwhelmed about it at best, because really—why get so excited over a magazine?  But if you really knew me, you would know that this was my Make-A-Wish-Kid moment. Because in a world of car payments, rent, student loans and chaperoning preschool field trips, this is the one connection I have left to my youth. This is something to get excited about every month when I get the mail and find it amongst all the bills and political propaganda. (And Henry’s issues of Better Homes & Gardens.) And when you devour a magazine from front to back like I do, the names you read every month become as familiar as family; you start to value their opinions and it maybe makes you feel slightly less alone in a community of grown-up friends.

So maybe it makes sense to you now, and you can understand why I was practically riding Henry’s back through the doorway.

“I’m too nervous to walk in first,” I whispered to Henry. “I’m just going to stand behind you the whole time.” But Friday’s definition of “stand” had clearly changed to “to meld one’s body against the backside of another.”

The first thing I saw was the wall of framed AP covers. I had heard about this wall, how it will literally stop bands in their tracks when they walk into the office, but I had no idea it would make my breath catch in my throat. The first issues were there as well, the ones that (AP creator) Mike Shea put together by hand and for the first time in awhile, I felt that I could use the word “awesome” in its appropriate sense.  It was better than a museum. (For me, anyway. I’m sure Henry thought it was cool, but he’d probably have rather gone to a strip club or some Air Force memorial.) There was so much history on the walls, so many signatures and memorabilia, it was all I could do not to act like some jejune farm girl plucked straight from the corn fields of Iowa. I just wanted to touch everything and squeal like a rosy-cheeked girl who’s never watched porn.

Jason took us around and introduced us to people, all while making me sound way cooler than I actually am; there were times when I wanted to say, “Dude, I know who this is” but opted to smile politely in lieu of desecrating the office with my overt creepiness.

I remembered standing in line outside of the Grog Shop in 2009, waiting for the doors to open for Craig Owens’ solo show. I used to get Craig’s tweets sent to my phone back then, like a good little hyper-fangirl, and while I was standing out there, shivering, he sent a tweet saying that he was hanging out at the AP offices  before the show.

I was with Alisha that night, and I remember turning to her and saying all bitterly, “He’s so lucky.”

Almost exactly two years later, my Facebook status said something like, “Just sitting in Jason Pettigrew’s office, listening to The Cure. No biggie.”

When Jason told me a few weeks ago that he’d like to give me a tour of “where the magic happens,” my first thought was to wonder if I’d get to meet Mike Shea.

“I’ll cry,” I told Henry. “And then probably puke.” At the risk of sounding like a syncophatic psychopath, his is a name that I’ve known for a long time.

I did get to meet him, but I didn’t puke on his shoes or cry in his face. I felt I did a good job keeping it together even though what I really wanted to do was squeeze Henry’s hand harder than your typical woman in labor. I have so much respect for him. (Mike Shea, not Henry. Bitch, please.) Especially after the Oral History of AP was printed over the course of several issues and I saw how much adversity he overcame to keep the magazine alive. Because music is that important.

That’s the kind of person I want to know still exists in this world.

There were moments where I legitimately cried while reading the oral history, and I don’t care if the whole Internet knows.

I think “appreciation” is the best word to describe it.

Jason told him how long I’ve been subscribing, and Mike thanked me. But really what I wanted to do was thank him. I’m not even sure if I did, it was all such a blur. All I remember now is petting his dog and asking him if he wanted me to shut his door on the way out, then feeling my eyes burn a little with tears when we went back to Jason’s office.

I also remember Mike asking me, “So what are you listening to these days?” Without hesitation I blurted out, “Dance Gavin Dance,” much to Henry’s chagrin. Well, I’m not going to lie to the man.

I texted Barb and Andrea a bunch of over-capitalized jibberish to express my sheer mania. I suspect they were able to translate it appropriately. Seriously one of the coolest moments of my life; the whole afternoon was perfect. I didn’t even care that I got made fun of for liking the band Xiu Xiu, because I was in a building full of people who actually know who Xiu Xiu is.

As we walked out of the office a few hours later, my arms full of AP swag, Jason asked me if I was happy. How do you effectively convey that you feel like the happiest girl alive, without the aid of a confetti gun?

When I look back on it now, the most amazing part about last Friday was that Henry and I not only made it to Cleveland right on time to meet Jason at Melt, but we drove the whole way without:

• tears
• bloodshed
• break-ups
• one of us getting kicked out of the car
• muffins being whaled at faces*

(*This happened once, in Virginia. And I will never let Henry forget it. In fact, I might write about that this week since I’m on a roll with illustrating to the Internet what a fucker he can be.)

We did, however, listen to copious amounts of Dance Gavin Dance, even though I had made a mix specific to our road trip. I hate my one-track mind sometimes.

Jason, when planning the itinerary for Erin’s Dying Wish Day, remembered that I’m an aficionado of melted cheese sandwiches, even had my friend Sarah draw me a grilled cheese in the stylings of the Sacred Heart, complete with crown of toothpicked-pickles, which I’d have already had tattooed on my arm if it weren’t for student loans fucking up my entire life. I’ve wanted to go to Melt for sometime now, so Jason made that happen and even got there early to act as a place-holder since Melt is a hot commodity and can get super crowded before the doors even open.

Now, the whole two and a half hours it took us to get there, I tried to reason with myself that I should focus on one thing at a time instead of the entire day ahead of me, which would undoubtedly cause me to ping around the car like a cat with Scotch taped-paws. So that’s what I did, I focused all of my nervous energy on Melt.

What was I going to order?

How was I going to decide?

What if I got sick?

Why didn’t I buy Rolaid Soft Chews*?

What if I puked?

What if it was super crowded there and I had a panic attack and died before even tasting my grilled cheese?

(*When I was friends with Christina, she knew to always keep Rolaid Soft Chews on her person at all times when I was visiting her. My excitement and nervous energy, combined with even the slightest speck of grease on a plate, never fails to manifest itself into a brick of anxiety in my stomach.

)

There were a lot of things to consider. Maybe if Henry was more fun in the car and would play obscene travel games with me, my neuroses wouldn’t have time to activate. Or if he’d be less of a square about picking up the occasional hitch-hiker. (I haven’t helped out a hitcher in ten years because of Henry. This is, right now, being added to the CON column of my Henry List.)

We arrived shortly before 11 and I was relieved to see that Jason was the only one standing outside the doors—no crowds! There was one “what if” to scratch off the list, but I still had to worry about what to order and going into cardiac arrest, possibly finding a way to lethally impale my eyeball on the straw in my water glass. Maybe I shouldn’t use a straw…Or maybe skipping a beverage altogether was key.

But then what if I found myself choking? Henry knows the Heimlich (he learned it in THE SERVICE; I just found this out recently because he was bragging about it), but would he actually use it on me, or would he find himself paralyzed in a state of extreme pleasure, watching my face morph from Erin to Smurf in 0.5 seconds?

While my internal dialogue was percolating my synapses, Henry and Jason stood around talking like normal people.

I wonder what that’s like.

By the time the back door was unlocked, a substantial line had started to form behind us. Suddenly, waking up early to get there didn’t seem like such a drag after all. (Not that I could even sleep the night before, anyway! God, I was so giddy.)

We were seated at a corner table, and Henry filled Jason in on my need to sit in whichever seat allows for the most panoramic view of the restaurant, like I’m a CIA agent. (I just prefer having as few people behind my back as the seating arrangement permits.) Jason offered to switch seats with me and I almost took him up on it until I realized how ridiculous I was being. Lately, I have become hyper-aware of my neurotic preferences.

“And then I’m usually stuck staring at the wall,” Henry complained. Bitch, shut your mouth and be thankful that I even allow you to go out in public with me.

Confession: I had already looked at the menu the night before at work, in hopes of narrowing it down. I was pretty sure that I wanted the Mushroom Melt, but then I made the mistake of picking up the menu in front of me which immediately placed my brain at the center of a maelstrom of grilled cheese choices. I felt confused and panicked, especially when I noticed that there were vegetarian options for nearly every item which I hadn’t known, and this opened up a brand new ordering quandary by practically doubling the choices available to me.

And then! I noticed the Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana, which sounded rebelliously unorthodox amidst the cheesy variety. I kind of wanted to be That Person who goes to an establishment built around grilled cheese and not order a grilled cheese. Plus, the latticed nerves in my stomach were kind of craving something sweet.

But how much of a faux pas would it be to not order a grilled cheese on my virginal visit to Melt?

Everyone at home would be so disappointed in me. Chooch would probably get harassed at school. My grandfather would roll over in his grave and haunt me for the rest of my life: All those years of practice you had, ordering grilled cheese at Denny’s and Blue Flame, and for WHAT? It would be right up there with dropping out of high school. I’d eventually get that tattoo only to be reminded of the fraud I am; the banner on it would have to be changed from “4 lyfe” to “fair-weathered fan.”

(Technically, the peanut butter and banana has cream cheese on it.)

After all of this inner hemming and hawing, I went with my first instinct and ordered the Mushroom Melt, which the waiter, after suggesting 87 vegetarian options, admitted was his favorite. This ended up being a wise choice because it was simple enough to not sink through my stomach like a cannonball, but it still had enough going for it to make it better than any restaurant grilled cheese I ever had. Carmelized onions* were draped luxuriously around clumps of portobello mushrooms and stuffed generously into the middle of  a viscous expanse of hot provolone, providing the sweetness I was looking for without making my teeth ache.

(*One of the few onion variations I can tolerate on a sandwich; I’m notoriously fussy when it comes to onions, enough that Henry had to make himself a guidebook to prevent instances prompting me to chuck meals back in his face.)

There was enough cheese packed between those slices of bread to fashion a fromage robe, and believe me, I thought about it. Fuck Lady Gaga.

I’m adding cheese to the list of porn I need to direct.

Henry and Jason ordered things that had meat on it so I didn’t ask them how it was. And really, wasn’t it all about me anyway? I can’t even remember what we talked about while we ate, I was so tuned in to my sandwich and the fact that once it was demolished, we were going to the Alternative Press office which would make my stomach lurch but I’d wash it down with water all while managing to not impale my eyeball on the straw after all. But I do know that I lasted forty-five minutes before practically vomiting the subject of Jonny Craig, causing Henry to wince from across the table. I tried to promise that I wouldn’t reveal my true, obnoxious 16-year-old fan girl self by eagerly mentioning him (and it’s always eagerly, believe me), but keeping promises was never my strong point.

The Mushroom Melt was glorious, like taking the best grilled cheese in the world and infusing each bite with seasoning ground from comfort, magic and the best childhood memories. But, truth be told, I’m going to have to make at least a dozen more pilgrimages to Melt before I can write an accurate review. (In other words, I REALLY want that peanut butter thing.)

I think one of the worst feelings for me is having all these things I want to write about, but being sick for the fortieth time this year has left me with the mental energy for little else but catching up on my DVRd CW shows. (Whoever thought I would like Hellcats?) Seriously considering home-schooling Chooch so he’ll stop bringing preschool slime home with him; he and I have been sick so much this year and it’s never been like this until he started SCHOOL.

His party is Saturday and I have no idea how I’m going to get anything done and I’m freaking out.

Thursday night, I outright lost my voice at work. It returned the next day, only to go AWOL during the show that night and even now it’s only at about 60%. (I love making up percentages. I guarantee that they are inaccurate 96% of the time.) I sound like an emphysemiac* trying to converse while J-Woww’s boobs plow-drive my chest.

(*Totally not a word.)

As the #1 Hater of Erin’s Voice, Henry is not complaining.

Speaking of Henry! He did fuck-all for me on Mother’s Day. His excuse is the same one he’s been slapping me in the face with for the last 5 years like a raw, bleeding steak: “But…you’re not my mother.”

Oh OK, well then I guess our son can just call himself a cab to drive him to whichever store he decides to shoplift my gift. Good job, Henry.

Not even a card. I couldn’t even look at Facebook at all on Sunday because I didn’t want to be reminded of the non-family I have.

This latest let-down will get filed in between the Black Forest Cake ball-drop of 2010 and the thirtieth birthday that blew by like a dejected balloon, except a balloon would falsely imply that there was some sort of celebration planned in my honor.

Which there was not.

I think I have bronchitis.

I have no shame in being a whiny sissy lala. Cheer me up, please.

Over on the Instagram app, I participate in this fun little weekly photo assignment called “Homework.” The last assignment’s theme was “Home,” something that makes you feel at home, reminds you of home, etc.

I only had to think about it for .87 seconds before choosing two photos from Warped Tour.

That one day every summer is literally where I leave my heart.

Just thinking about July 22 (this year’s Pittsburgh date! I’ve had my ticket since December!) makes me feel giddy, light, warm in the aorta. I can’t explain it, but on no other day do I ever feel like I’m 100% me.

Warped Tour is home to me. (Fitting that my home, my heaven is Henry’s Hell.)

Audience participation: Where’s YOUR home?

Henry and I will often find ourselves up late on weekends, flipping through music channels, but I almost always have him stop on VH1 Soul to pacify my inner yo-girl. For as much screamo, hardcore, post-hardcore, goth, emo, indie rock, etc. etc. I listen to, my roots actually lie in r&b. I am always down for a good motown joint; some old school Anita Baker; or my 1990’s favorite, El DeBarge. My favorite r&b singer of the last decade is hands down Trey Songz. When I first heard “Can’t Help But Wait” in 2007, I was pretty much like, “El DeBarge who?” That song accompanied me on many cemetery suicide-jogs, prompting me to wail to Henry, “WHY DON’T YOU EVER CALL ME A STAR?!!?”

Not to mention Trey Songz is fucking hot. Every time I see his video for “Can’t Be Friends,” I will literally collapse onto Henry and squeal, “HE IS SO PRETTY I CAN’T STAND IT.” (Trey, not Henry.) The song is unbearably sad to me, like barbed wire strangulating my already-broken heart, but I must have watched this video 87,878,787 times over the last few months, because HE IS SO PRETTY I CAN’T STAND IT.

I’ve listened to this song over and over. One time, I left it on repeat almost all day (it was actually on a torturous playlist with a whole whopping two other love songs) until Henry snapped and turned it off. (I feel like this happened on Thanksgiving Day when he was already stressed-out in the kitchen.) I’ve always been excellent at playing out songs. There was one New Year’s Eve in high school when I listened to the same Howard Hewett single on repeat, crying over some dumb boy, and I really thought my friend Christy was never going to talk to me again, she was so fucking annoyed.

(Fifteen years later, and I’m still Queen of Overkill. In fact, the same Dance Gavin Dance album has been perpetually spinning in my bedroom for a week now. Henry gets to be lulled to sleep every night by Jonny Craig’s sex-lungs and Jon Mess’s redrum screaming. LUCKY HENRY AMIRITE?)

“Can’t Be Friends” has that same Howard Hewett-sadomasochistic effect on me.

Oh, the things I could say about this song.

We were talking about George Benson the other day, Henry and I. Well, mostly just I was. I think I was making a painfully stretched comparison between a Dance Gavin Dance song and George Benson, and I’m sure it only made sense to my ear drums, as evidenced by the aghast look on Henry’s scruffy face.

“Seriously, this song could have been in Short Circuit 2,” I cried, pleading my case. And then, “George Benson always make me think of Joe (our ex-boss from the early 00’s).”

Henry snorted. Joe is a sore subject ’round these parts.

“I remember when he found out about us,” I said.

“He came into my office, shut the door and said, ‘Let’s have a little talk.’ I was sure I was getting fired.”

Henry and I did pretty good for awhile in the beginning, keeping our relationship as clandestine at work as a bi-racial love affair in the ’50s. Of course, I’d toe the line by making out with him in the break room. He’d always get so nervous and try unsuccessfully to push me away, but I’m too much of a harlot to get shooed away like some dung-caked horsefly.

I will never forget this one fateful night in October of 2001, Henry and I were on our way to a haunted house. At a red light, I sat in the passenger seat, holding Henry’s hand across the console, when I casually looked out the window. I made eye contact with the driver of the car next to us, and of course it would happen to be a co-worker, Jim.

Motherfucking Jim Landis.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and I flung Henry’s hand far away from me like it was the heroin-packed rectum of a corpse and a wagonful of DEA had sidled up next to me.

The light turned green and we sped away.

That Monday, I had to pull Jim aside and beg him not to tell. And especially since he was one of Joe’s Golden Boys, I was panicked and paranoid.

Joe eventually found out, albeit months later, which was where the absurd, but kind of cute I guess, Concerned Father chat stemmed from. It was the whole, “This man is much older than you and I don’t want to see you get hurt” spiel, which I guess I should have considered more seriously, on second thought. BECAUSE LOOK AT ME NOW.

“You know, our old landlord gave me the same talk, sat me right down in his office when I went up there and told him you were moving in with me,” I told Henry, remembering it with a certain fondness because that guy is dead now and he was such a great land lord. “I guess he wanted to make sure I had thought it through.”

“I wish someone would have had that talk with me,” Henry mumbled.

When I broke up with Psycho Mike back in 1998, it was for good. Done-zo. Fini. We didn’t really maintain a friendship, but there were several occasions where we did find ourselves hanging out with each other in the three years that followed.

The last time I saw him was the summer of 2000. We had drinks at some Chinese restaurant for my 21st birthday, and shortly after that he moved to Maryland with his current girlfriend. I never sought him out after that, never even considered it. Just the fact that I was occasionally hanging out with him post-break up was playing with fire. Our relationship was extremely tumultuous, and he remains the one and only guy who ever had the pleasure of controlling me, psychologically and physically. Actually, I attribute to him my extreme dominance and desire to emasculate in every following relationship, because after two years with that guy there was no way I was letting another man tell me what to do or physically bully me. (Sorry Henry – imagine what life would have been like for you had we met prior to 1996. I mean, after you’d have served jail time for statutory rape.)

In early 2006, I started having fleeting memories of Mike (much to Henry’s delight, I’m sure). The memories weren’t of the pining variety or anything, just random flashbacks here and there, such as an instance where Henry and I were driving around and I pointed excitedly out the window at a parking lot and said, “Look, that’s one of the places where Mike kicked me out of his car and told me to have fun walking home, bitch!” And another time when Henry and I were at the grocery store and the song that was playing via the store’s stereo was the same one that played in my apartment the night he tried to kill himself with a butter knife.

You know, little snippets like those.

This went on for several days, these weird memory tuggings, until Henry called me from work and said, “Hey, you know how you’ve been thinking about Mike a lot lately? His mom just died; it was in the paper.”

***

That was five years ago. To be honest, I barely even remembered that happening until I started having dreams about Mike. The first one was about two weeks ago and left me coated in a cold sweat. The dream was subtle, but extremely effective; in it, Mike stood before me, naked from the waist up except for a sinister grin. No words were exchanged; it was just me sitting there, watching him before me, waiting for him to presumably strike.

That tiny vignette stayed with me for days.

Then I found a raunchy love letter he had written me, casually sitting on top of Chooch’s desk. It must have been in a box of VHS tapes that Henry brought down from the attic now that Chooch has inherited a TV/VCR combo. Honestly, I didn’t even think I still had that piece of amateur Penthouse trash, but of course I quickly re-read it and then made Henry read it too; we had a good laugh. But damn if it didn’t give me a little jolt to see that tattered envelope, to have my memory bitch-slapped with his handwriting, to fucking hear his voice in my head as I stumbled through this letter of misspelled words. (Apparently, I used to call his weener “Russell.” I don’t remember that.)

I didn’t go looking for this letter. It was just laying there. In my kid’s room of all places! Thank god he can’t read yet.

The other night, I had another nightmare. This one was more involved, more blatant about the fact that he really did intend to hurt me. Henry and Chooch were in the dream, we were all in my mom’s basement with Mike, but I couldn’t get them to see what was happening; I kept trying to act like I hadn’t picked up on his murderous ruse and would make up excuses to try and sneak away, saying that I was going upstairs to make popcorn, really had to have popcorn, which would only lead to me speeding down highways and trying to get strangers to let me hide in their homes. I woke up with my pulse racing and relieved that Chooch had found his way into my bed sometime during the night. It’s sad when I feel protected by a four-year-old.

Henry and I had a conversation about it later that day, and he said, “Hey, remember a few years ago when….” and the syncronicity all came flooding back. “You’re probably going to run into him,” Henry teased, because IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUNNY WHEN MIKE LODGES A BUTTER KNIFE INTO MY NECK.

“Of all the people I’ve dated, he’s the one I could totally see being a serial killer. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said to Henry in the high-pitched squeal of a woman who fears for her life. I had flashbacks of the times he strangled me and threatened to “poke out my eyes and shove them up [my] vagina.” And that’s a true motherfucking story.

***

I came home this morning around 8AM, having just deposited Chooch across the street at school. I was on the phone with Henry, probably cellularly demoralizing him, when I walked in the house. I noticed it right away.

“Henry. The piggy bank,” I said in a hoarse whisper.

“What about it?”

“IT’S MOVED.”

Chooch has this creepy fucking piggybank, lovingly named Pignaceous, which I like to keep against the wall in the living room for all to grudgingly admire. But when I came home, he was pulled out from the wall and moved to the center of the room, facing the dining room table.

I knew exactly who did it. It was Mike. That motherfucker was in my house, probably come to reclaim his Neil Diamond boxed set.

“You need to come home. Right now.”

Henry laughed. “There’s no one in the house.”

How would he know?

“Then I’m leaving. I can’t stay here,” I shouted, pacing like a crazy lady.

Henry laughed again and asked where I was going to go. “I don’t know! I’ll sit on the front porch until Chooch is done with school!”

More laughter from Henry, then I told him to fuck off and hung up on him.

In the kitchen, I grabbed a steak knife. Together, the steak knife and I stood at the bottom of the steps, where I whispered, “Is anyone up there?” to no response.

The steak knife and I then watched “Vampire Diaries” before taking a shower, making sure to lock the door behind us. I was fully prepared to pull a reverse-Psycho.

Eventually, I forgot about obsessing over a home intrusion and resumed my normal–yet completely glamorous–Chooch-free morning routine.

It wasn’t until Chooch had been home from school for nearly an hour when I remembered the piggybank, which I had nervously nudged back into its rightful spot with my foot.

“Hey, Chooch?” I asked tentatively. “Did you move Pignaceous this morning?”

“Yeah,” he said, very matter-of-factly, popping a Cheez-It into his mouth.

“Show me where you moved it to,” I prodded, wanting to test him.

He sighed in annoyance and stood into the exact spot where I had found Pignaceous that morning.

Relief flooded over me, and I laughed out loud. “Why did you move him?”

“Because I wanted him to say ‘oink oink’ to the cats,” he explained, shrugging.

Maybe Chooch also has a rational explanation for these Mike-centric nightmares. But if I suddenly stop posting here in my blog, know that it’s likely because I came home to find Psycho Mike standing in Pignaceous’s place.

Monday was library day at preschool and Chooch came home with this bright pink book about praying. Either they don’t have any secular books to offer, or my child has chosen a decidedly different path than my own.

I’ll admit, I had my reservations about sending him to preschool at a Catholic school. (He’ll be going to a public elementary school, though.) We just don’t really do religion here. I mean, he came home from his first day and told me about the song that they learned, which included an “Amen.”

“I don’t even know what that means!” Chooch said. And I didn’t really know what to say, to be honest.

It’s not that I’m a devil worshipper. Yes, I make my sacrilegious jokes and I take the Lord’s name in vain almost as much as I kick Henry in the nards.

But I guess a lot of that is just part of my facade.

***

When I was a kid, I was into that religion shit. I went to church every Saturday night with my Pappap. Even when I was a teenager. On a Saturday night. It was usually just the two of us, though sometimes my step-dad would join us if he wasn’t going to make Sunday mass (and we hated when he would he would tag along because that meant we couldn’t blow that popsicle stand straight after Communion like we normally would; with my step-dad there, we’d have to leave after the Priest). And sometimes my aunt Susie (my Pappap’s youngest daughter) would come along depending on which restaurant we’d be dining at afterward. (There’d be a 99% chance she’d grace us with her presence if we were going to Napoli, because she lived for their osso bucco.)

But I just went because it was something that my Pappap and I did together, so it wasn’t a drag. It was nice.

It was tradition.

It also wasn’t something that was forced on me, and it wasn’t used as a threat against me. (Although I do remember a particular scene of my childhood where my mom sat me down and made me watch “The Exorcist,” saying that this was what was going to happen to me if I didn’t stop being an asshole.) I was enrolled in CCD (a/k/a Sunday School) because I was part of a Catholic family and it was the natural course of things.

And  I enjoyed going to CCD. Especially around the time fifth grade rolled around, because the focus shifted from prayer memorization and learning Confessional formalities to more of a Biblical history lesson. We had an instructor who would give us tests. Isn’t that sick? That I actually enjoyed taking tests on Biblical times? I guess I never really looked at it in terms of faith or spirituality; to me it was more of a history course. Learning about Moses and the Red Sea, Noah’s Ark, the Ten Commandments, Cain and Abel – all that shit fascinated me. Some of it was horrifying, all that murder and pestilence – and even as a child I loved my horror. My Grandma Kelly (who is extremely devout) caught wind of this and started buying me these little religious books for children. I ate that shit up.

I was baptized, made my First Holy Communion, and did the whole Confirmation rigamarole. I had a rosary and knew how to use it.

I think I did believe in God as a child. But then my Pappap died when I was sixteen. Whatever stock I had in God? It was replaced with soul-crushing resentment. Weekly mass stopped for me. Even Christmas mass was eschewed. My mom and I would pretend to go to midnight mass so we wouldn’t get stuck going in the morning with my step-dad. Meanwhile, we’d go to my mom’s office and just sit there for an hour.

I never really found a way to get that faith back, if I ever had any at all, so I began making disparaging comments and insults about “your God” as a lame defense.

As an adult, I believe that we carve our own paths. I don’t look to some imaginary astral projection to help guide me through life. I don’t need the fear of God to get me to choose right from wrong. I don’t believe in Heaven and Hell. But that’s just me.

Even though I’ve been on this atheist path all these years, I never really lost interest in the history part of religion. In college, I took some classes on the origins of Christianity, and still found that I was fascinated by it. This obviously wasn’t your grandma’s Wednesday night Bible Study.

I was so thoroughly sucked into those classes (I never even sold back the books) that I even considered minoring in religious studies. Then, you know, I never finished college. Because I never finish anything.

***

“Today we did that thing you do when you exercise, Mommy,” Chooch said from the backseat of the car on Wednesday. “Except it was a little different. We didn’t say ‘Namaste.'” And sometimes, while he’s on the floor playing with his Batcave, I catch him murmuring pieces of Jesus-y songs that he’s being taught.

If my son chooses to believe that there is a God and decides to explore that further, I will support him. Because sometimes I do wish I had something to believe in.

This is one of the sponsor paintings I made for Blogathon. I got a little attached to it AND NOW IT’S GONE. I hope my sponsor likes it.

The second time I participated in Blogathon, back in 2007, I decided to bribe people to sponsor me by offering to paint them pictures. I wound up having to churn out nearly 20 paintings on 6×8 canvas board. It was the first time I had painted in YEARS. And it showed. Believe me. (Not that I’m some fucking Picasso now, but still – at least I’ve upgraded from q-tips to brushes.) As crude as my style was,  it still made me remember how much fun it was, and how good it was to just lose myself in paint swirls for a little while every day. So I kept doing it. That’s how Somnambulant started three years ago.

I stopped painting a few months ago, with the exception of a few custom cupcake couples here and there. Painting started to have a bad connotation for me. I’d look around my house and see all these old paintings I made that were based on songs Christina and I liked, or a line from a poem she had written about me.

It made me not want to ever hold a paintbrush again, like a piece of my mind had petrified.I just felt dead.

Saturday night, as I sat across from my friend Jessy on a bench, she asked in earnest, “What can we do to get you past this? To get you to start loving painting again?”

I’m not sure what that answer is. I know I need to get all these old paintings out of my house. Be it by selling them, burning them, frisbee’ing them over a cliff, I don’t know. But I think the only way is to start fresh. My style is still pretty rudimentary and childish, but that’s how I like it. And apparently, there are other people who like that, as well and it’s been really fun making friends and connections through art. I’ve been missing that part of it. The part where people send me photos of their newly purchased painting hanging on their wall. The part where people take time out of their day to send me convos on Etsy telling me they enjoy the stories that go along with the paintings. I miss that.

I first painted skulls back in May because of that Etsy’s Dark Side birthday swap I’m apart of. The girl I was given to gift loves skulls and I had never really done much with skulls before. Something similar to the above painting is what came of that. And it was sort of fun! Cutting and gluing newsprint teeth proved cathartic. There wasn’t a sadness backing it like so many of my other paintings have (whether you can see it or not, I know it’s there).

I have mini ones on Etsy and I might make more; I’m trying to take baby steps. But these skulls, they’re fun to paint and don’t remind me of heartache.

Yet, anyway.

Hi! Apparently this is a Blog Bash!

I’m not very social in the blogosphere so I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ve been trying to be more active in the blog scene, if you will, so I am now going to attempt to play with others.

I’ve been instructed to talk about myself, so here are the pertinents you might want to know if you are new here:

• My birthday is July 30, 1979 (OMG that’s coming up you guys!). That means I’m a Leo, which means I roar a lot. Which means I have an awesome singing voice.
• My boyfriend Henry and I have been together since 2001. We did a REALLY SICK THING which produced a boy named Riley, but everyone calls him Chooch. You can too. He’s 4 now. 4 is the age where kids get the  manual on how to be dicks, in case you didn’t know. And if you have a 4-year-old and are disagreeing with this, then I hate you.
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  Can we trade?

• I live in Pittsburgh! I hate it here!
• I hate water towers, power plants/abandoned factories, the ocean, outer space, glaciers, Alaska, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, the Steelers, liars.
• I like hockey!
• My past time is stalking people and playing with animal masks. (Yes, in tandem.)
• I like the Cure and most any music that features incessant screaming.
• Annoying people with reckless abandon is sort of my thang.
• I can turn any situation into a study of awkwardness.
• I am a girl!

5.) Let’s hear the story behind your blog title!

My grandma and I have a very illustrious history, full of afternoons reading Dickens together beneath a parasol and light-hearted flour fights during impromptu snickerdoodle bake-offs.

That’s a lie. I don’t know why I typed that just now.

The truth is that I was always the black sheep, that a lot of my actions or ideas shamed my grandma. Even as a small child, when I would fuck up, she would sigh exasperatedly (sometimes even disgustedly while running a red pen across my name on her Will) and say, “Oh honestly, Erin.”

And not a day goes by where I don’t have some extent of an “Oh honestly” moment.

I leave you with obligatory photos of my obnoxious mug:

Bonjour from my work! I was tagged by the lovely Alaina to do one of the fabulous 25 Things About Me lists which makes a stalker’s job that much easier. I just did this same meme on Facebook last week, and perhaps it’s a cop-out, but I’m just going to repost that. If that’s a problem, send me an Evite letting me know what parking lot to meet you and we’ll have a dance-off, followed by a grisly stabbing.

(OK FINE: I changed some of the answers. God, are you happy now?)

1. In kindergarten, I used to tell people that my real mom lived in Paris and would be back for me one day.

2. Two years in a row, in the 80’s, I had my birthday party at an outdoor roller rink. Birthday people always got to have a song played in their honor, and both years I requested T’Pau’s “Heart and Soul.

” I had the record and thought I was the shit because of it.

3. In my first apartment, I let two guys build this gigantic bong that required the smoker to go upstairs to my loft just to hit it. And I can’t even remember if I personally ever partook. I think I was like, “PVC piping might not be something I want to inhale from.”

4. One of my favorite pets was a Pac Man frog named Hubert. Sometimes I took him to school with me, in his little pink-lidded aquarium. He used to watch me get undressed.

5. I tried to resuscitate my family’s pet rabbit when he died. Even broke out my summer health notebook.

6. For some high school English project, I made a video of Barbie and Ken making out to some Kenny G song, but I can’t remember why.

7. The happiest times of my childhood were spent at Wildwood, NJ; I haven’t been back since 1992.

8. Sometimes I hear certain old songs that give me flashbacks that aren’t my own.

9. I love humidity when I’m outside running in it, but hate it any other time.

10. Tennis is the only thing I’ve ever been able to admit being good at, but I haven’t been able to play, physically, since I was 17.

11. I’ve always liked older dudes.

12. I miss staying out all night in the summer, doing innocent things like sitting on a swing set at 3am, talking and laughing.

13. I don’t connect with people very easily, if at all.

14. My greatest ambition in high school was to join a gang. Yes, I was this stupid rich white girl, trying to pretend like she was so street. It is not embarrassing to look back upon at all. AT ALL.

15. I am generally super smooth and coy when it comes to flirting with guys, but as soon as I try to flirt with a girl, my face burns up and I become a case study for social awkwardness. One time, I told some girl I had a crush on that I have cats, and it came out all blurtedly. It was a disaster.

16. My favorite drink is Strongbow and I never get to have it.

17. I always have time for some impromptu Phil Collins devotion.

18. When I was a kid, I listened to mostly soft rock, like Gino Vanelli, Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow, stuff that grandparents get down with. I was kind of an old soul, musically. Now that I’m an adult, I listen to all the music teenagers love.

19. I’m convinced that people from my past never remember me. I guess that ties in with my inferiority complex.

20. I love having parties, it was a true source of happiness for me, but now my house is such a disaster that I’m too embarrassed to invite people over. It feels like a part of me is dead now because of that. And also, Henry won’t let me invite strangers from the Internet:(

21. My #1 pet peeve is being interrupted. Unless it’s an emergency, or relates to what I’m talking about, shut your goddamn face. I wouldn’t do that to YOU, so don’t do it to me. FUCK. Look how angry I’m getting! I just burst out of my tank top and put a hole in the wall.

22. In 1998, I was in a training class for Echostar/Dish Network, and caused such a ruckus (I was a 19 and 19-year-olds are assholes) that one of the big-wigs from Colorado came out to lecture my training class on how it’s not polite to leave disparaging public remarks about the trainers. It totally tore my class apart: half the class thought it was hysterical; and the other OLDER half thought it was horrible and embarrassing that they’d get dragged down by my shenanigans.

23. I am resigned to believe that there really isn’t anything out there for me, career-wise, so I keep taking menial jobs.

24. I was trying to move to Chicago when I started dating Henry, but he couldn’t move because of his kids. So I stayed because I wanted to see how things would work out with him. I regret it sometimes. Not the Henry part, but not moving.

Pittsburgh makes me unhappy.

25. I like discovering things that my friends hate and then forcing it on them. Like Alisha for example, she LOVES it when I talk about phlegm. And don’t tell me if you hate the word “moist” because I’ll use the shit out of it and then I’ll text you the sound byte of the dictionary.com pronunciation of it. Not that I’ve ever done that to anyone.

And now I’ll tag some of my newer blog friends, who will probably groan!

Kristie from misskris.nu

Cecilie from en,to,tre:cecilie yeah

Vivobello

Josh from joshhilden.com

Kelly from Blue Frog Legs

Well. My glasses are here. Yaaayyyy….

I hate them. They’re not big enough! Their width is pleasing to me, and I can almost touch the bottom of the frames with my lips if I scrunch up my face enough…

but they don’t extend as high into the heavens as I had hoped. I would have liked them to at least cover my eye brows, the way my sunglasses do.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Grin and bear it? We all know I’m not that type of lady. Probably, I’ll just have to walk around with magnifying glasses from now on.

Cry for me. CRY FOR ME NOW. (I know, this was a little too much Erin for one entry. I’ll go back to only posting one photo of myself a year!

)

I haven’t talked to my older brother Shawn (same dad) in about three years and haven’t seen him since like, 1999 (partly because he wasn’t living in the state for a large portion of those years). That’s also the same year we met for the first time, after our moms were afraid we’d meet in a bar. So when he called me out of the blue Sunday night, I was pleasantly surprised. Shawn always makes me laugh because he skips over all the pleasantries and just launches right into whatever’s plaguing him at the moment, and I just sit back and giggle.

When he said he’d come see me and Chooch sometime this week, I was like, “Yeah OK sure,” figuring that I’d probably have to wait for Heidi Montag to exhaust all options of body augmentation before anything like that would happen.

But then yesterday, he texted me and suggested we all go see our Grandma Lois today. (This is my paternal grandma who lives in an assisted living apartment complex, not the one who’s Sharon’s prisoner.)

Chooch and I met Shawn at McDonald’s. It was their first time meeting each other, and already Chooch was trying to steal his orange juice. Some elderly McDonald’s employee walked by and tried to touch Chooch’s shoulder, which made him shrink back in horror. People are always trying to touch my kid! Then we drove up the street to Lois’s building and spent a good fifteen minutes that Shawn was not our dad, and that Chooch was not his son.

It was a little awkward. Hello, siblings here!

Once inside Lois’s apartment, it was all over. Chooch began jumping all over Shawn, impaling him with a banana clip, kicking him, stomping on his feet, farting on him. He never stopped, never sat down, never shut his big mouth. I’m pretty sure he was convinced Shawn was just a really tall kid.

Shawn’s paranoia and apprehension is palpable in this photo.

I forgot the flash for my camera, so the photos turned out blurry. That just means we have to hang out again and take more.

Chooch is extremely awkward around old people, much like I am around other children.

It was really cool to see Shawn again and Chooch is completely smitten. Too bad Shawn quickly declared early on into the meeting that he won’t ever be babysitting for me. I don’t blame him.

Meeting my niece Brooke for the first time on Saturday, the whole Sharon debacle on Sunday, Blake moving in with us (really, we’re just like his private hostel), and then seeing Shawn again after all these years (I also saw Lois and her sister Charmaine on Tuesday when they popped over for a quick visit) – it’s been such a crazy week as far as family goes! But I’ve really been enjoying hanging out with my sister Amy, and I hope that Shawn and I will get to hang out more regularly too. Ever since Chooch came around, I’ve wished I had more of a family for him, and now it’s kind of turning out that way.  I grew up thinking I literally only had two little brothers, Ryan and Corey, and then all of a sudden found myself with two big sisters and a big brother (and speculation of a second).

It’s been pretty cool.

All this sentimentality makes me feel gross. Excuse me while I go make fun of someone in a wheelchair.

After yesterday’s heavy entry, I wanted to lighten the mood a little, so here’s that stupid video I kept threatening to post of Corey, Janna, Blake and me on some ridiculous ride at the Westmoreland County Fair called High Roller.This is from two summers ago. I know that because last summer, Blake brought Deanna with him and was too cool (and busy playing Bingo with the elderly) to ride anything with us lowlifes!

I just want to add that I am always the first to get annoyed at people who find themselves in front of  a camera, seemingly for the first time ever, and immediately flip the bird or do something else equally as stupid and trite. It’s almost embarrassing to look at. So what do I do? Act like this is the first time I’ve been in front of a camera! “Oh, you’re recording right now? Let me stick out my tongue and make a stupid sound for you, because everyone will think, ‘Wow, that was really cool and funny – why have I not ever thought to pull a face like that?'”

I have to live with myself. Be glad you don’t.

Also, I clearly just learnededed how to do annotations on YouTube videos; oh I am so advanced!