My awesome friends Bill & Jessi got married yesterday by Elvis in Las Vegas. I wasn’t able to turn enough tricks to finance a trip out there, but luckily there was a webcast. So Alisha came over and we ate cupcakes while waiting for the big show to start. I mean, you know it’s a Really Big Deal when Alisha willingly puts down the Chia Pet she’s grooming to come over to my house to watch something on the computer.

Chooch pretty much had no idea what was going on, and every time Elvis started to sing, he’d slap his hands over his ears and yell, “TURN THIS DOWN!” Alisha was closest to the speaker, but she was too busy ogling Jessi’s boobs to rescue Chooch’s hearing.

You can’t really tell from a photo taken of a computer screen, but Jessi looked ridiculously hot in her dress. How could Bill concentrate??

And Bill’s hair was ridiculously pomp’d up. It was impressive. How could Jessi concentrate??

There was a major party vibe to the ceremony and I can’t imagine anything otherwise for the two of them. It was so sweet and fun to watch, but I wish I could have been there in person.

TOO CLOSE!

Congratulations, Bill & Jessi!!

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

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

”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You guys remember the organization I blogged for during the last Blogathon?  Well, this Friday every one can be a part of their movement just by writing a simple word on their arms. I’m doing it, and you should too. Take pictures and share them on here with me!

This is a reminder why I love hockey, posted mainly for my own sake.

I’ve been around the past week or so, but not in blogging mode. I hate when that happens, because blogging is like, my favorite thing to do.  Here is a succint (hahahahaha) breakdown of what I’ve done the last 8 days.

• Went to Rogers, Ohio for some flea market that has enthusiasts all over jerking off in porta johns over its large expanse. I believe my immediate thought on this shit hole was, “Yeah, it’s huge, but that just means it’s more room for people to dump their shit.” It was like “Crap, shit, junk…oh that’s sort of cool…shit, trash, tetanus-hazard.” There were also pens upon pens of puppies and Henry said NO to each one. Fucker. And then every time I would see something I wanted (which wasn’t often), he’d be all, “THEN WE HAVE TO CARRY IT ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE CAR.” Well, excuse me, geriatric. And I love how he slapped down $3.50 for a fucking jar of horseradish with no hesitation. It was a decidedly non-fun outing.
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• Last Saturday, we went to Living Treasures, which is a glorified petting zoo. But they also have tigers and shit like that there too, and it’s better than the zoo in that you can actually get up close without having to peer through snot-streaked glass. Chooch rushed us through, and then we went on a really lame “safari” ride, which cost an extra $4 per person to essentially see everything we had already seen, but from a different angle, while two huge horses pulled us in a wagon. Basically, I paid $4 to have a baby sit next to me and pull my hair the whole time.
• One of my old high school friends was in town for her bridal shower (which I couldn’t attend, oops), and stopped by Monday night to visit. She’s one of those crazy cats who decided to save herself for marriage (no seriously, I actually do respect her for that), so she is positively GIDDY that her wedding is coming up in less than a month. She was talking to me about birth control and was all, “Oh my god, you don’t use birth control??” and I’m all, “No and I never have.” She looked absolutely appalled and asked, “But you guys use condoms, right?” Now look, Henry and I have been together for what – eight years now? But the look on her face, that innocent, sexually naive look, it made me say, “Oh, of course! Sometimes, three at a time, with a rubber band for good measure.” It was an awkward convo that I wanted to end ASAP. Luckily, Chooch farted, and said friend is secretly a nine-year-old boy so her laughter distracted her for a good ten minutes.
• Painted. Painted painted painted painted. I have some family portraits I’m trying to knock out and I’m also trying to get some new pieces together for a shop that’s slated to open in October. I met with the owner last week and she’s interested in not only selling some of my things in the shop, but she also offered me a showing in the gallery that will be in the back of the shop. She was like, “Think it over and let me know” and I was like, “OK. I have my answer. It’s yes.” Because seriously, it’s not like anyone is beating down my door with opportunities like that. And the shop is in a trendy/arty part of Pittsburgh so I can pretend I’m way cooler than I actually am (which is not at all.)  Unfortunately the only chance I get to really paint without distraction is after hours when the males of the house have gone to bed. I seriously need my own apartment somewhere far away from civilization. My productivity would sky-rocket.
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• Friday, one of my old friends from school – Liz – was back in town, visiting from Philly. We were tight in middle school, and were friends through high school but admittedly I had gone down a dark path, so she and I didn’t really hang out that much. I hadn’t seen her since 1997, so when I met her in the lobby of her hotel, it was super surreal. We went to Panera and basically shared pieces of info on old classmates we had collected over the years and reminisced about when my family housed a foreign exchange student from France during the summer of ’92.
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  It’s funny how there are vignettes from childhood that stick with you as an adult. I remember being at her house in 7th or 8th grade and her mother sternly saying, “Elizabeth, stop making unilateral decisions!” That was the first time I had heard that word, and I know, I just KNOW the wordwhore in me orgasmed. I still think of that moment whenever I use or hear that word. I told her about that and she didn’t remember it, but thought it was hilarious. Anyway, it was a good way to spend the afternoon and I hope that, now that Facebook has reunited us, we can get together again in the future.

• I went to Lakemont Park yesterday with Henry, Chooch and Alisha. My brother Corey met us out there because it’s near where he goes to school. Expect a post about that sometime this week.
• Tomorrow I’ll be posting a new Freaky Feature so you should look for that. It’s an interesting one!
• Henry did yardwork all on his own today. If I still had a reward chart for him, I’d have put a gold star in the column for “One Uninterrupted Hour to Watch One of Your Stupid CSI Shows.” I’d give him two if he would stop blowing the roof off the house every time he sneezed, Jesus fuck.

Most of Saturday was spent with Alisha while she did some big girl shopping. You know, boring shit like housewares and groceries. Mostly I just got in the way, although she did force me to help her stow a heavy shelf in the bottom of the cart at Target. It was funny (to me) because I was basically just touching it with my fingertips while she did all the grunt work.

While standing across from an acreage of paper towel choices, we witnessed quite possibly the funniest thing since miscegenation: A mom-type squeezed past us with her cart, followed by her (I’m guessing) 4- or 5-year-old son who was erratically pushing his cart, if a cart is really his wheelchair-bound grandma. That sight in itself was mildly amusing, because the kid kept skidding the wheels into the sides of the aisle. But then suddenly the mother bellows, I mean full-on unleashes the wrath of nine generations of pissed-off mothers, “Michael! That is NOT FUNNY!” because apparently Michael decided to turn granny’s wheelchair into a New for 2009 ride at the county fair, complete with sparking wheels and popping bolts, and nearly toppled her. And Michael, while his mother is coating his face with a sheen of scolding-saliva, is doing this unrepressed high-pitched giggle, like he knew what he did was wrong but it was just so goddamn funny.

I couldn’t control it. I was dying so hard on the inside that I had to back into the nearest aisle, lean over a shelf and laugh into my folded arms. Then I happened to catch Alisha’s eye, and she looked like she was going to pee herself as well. I REALLY want there to be a reenactment of that for the next Hover Round commercial. “Don’t let THIS happen to YOU.” It could be the next best thing since “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Somewhere between the bath aisle and toiletries, Alisha was on the prowl for measuring cups. As we’re standing there, a couple encroached on our personal space. The woman part of the couple saw something on the other side of Alisha and let out some high-pitched exclamation that only those fluent in kitchenware can understand as she reached across us to get a closer look. Catching herself, she looked over at us and apologized for being rude, which saved her from becoming an entry in Alisha’s Death To You notebook.

Her husband immediately joined in and joked, “Just hit her! That’s what I do!” Now, I was already giddy from Michael and the wheelchair shenanigans, so this whole situation was seriously fanning the giddy wildfire taking over my body. Alisha still looked a little uncomfortable by the fact that this intensely social couple was pulling us into their conversation. We learned the woman’s name was Melanie and that she’s never peeled an avocado but would consider doing so if she had the clever avocado tool she saw hanging on the wall.

It was about two minutes of high energy hysteria before they left Alisha to pick out measuring cups in peace. (She found orange ones. Orange is her favorite color and she says it in two syllables.)

I called out, “Bye!” making Alisha squint her eyes shut like she does so often when we’re together. (She doesn’t like that I encourage strangers to be social beings around us.) They turned around and loudly wished a good day upon us.

Now, I’m not ALWAYS down with situations like that, where strangers randomly try to strike up a conversation while I’m shopping, but there was something about them that I really liked, almost like they were inviting us to their inside joke party. It was bonding at its most purest. They were leaving right as we were checking out, and Mel and me (yeah, we got it like that) pointed at each other and laughed. As I watched their Steelers jerseys disappear out the doors, I felt my heart sag.

“I’m going to miss them,” I confided to Alisha. “Like, I keep picturing us having a barbeque with them. I might even let them talk about the Steelers.” THAT IS HOW MUCH I LIKED THOSE PEOPLE.

Of course I brought them up a ton of times throughout the day, and at one point I said, “I think I’m going to think about them forever.” Alisha’s  reply, which tested positive for sarcasm, was, “No, not you. You NEVER obsess over ANYTHING.”

Within minutes of leaving Target, I received a text from my friend Justin, whom I haven’t seen in years. He was my first “OMG I’m going to kill myself if we break up” boyfriend back in high school, but we’ve always kept in touch. The text said, “Hey were you just at Target? I thought it was you but wasn’t sure.” Now at this point, Alisha and I were walking through the Toys R Us parking lot.

I read the text out loud to her and yelled appalling, “He wasn’t SURE if it was ME? What the fuck, he’s been in MY VAGINA, for Christ’s sake, and he wasn’t SURE it was me????”

I guess Alisha wasn’t expecting that because she sort of looked a little blanched and her eyes turned into a spinning marquee of #!#@#$%$#@%$, kind of  like a  WTF-version of a slot machine. She kept murmuring, “Why? Why? Why did you have to say that?” while rocking methodically in the passenger seat.

“Well, you know me. It’s what I’m good at.”

“Putting people in your vagina???” she cried.

“No! Making people uncomfortable.” But the more I thought about it, both I guess.

Chooch is going through that phase that I always heard about but never paid attention to: the Telling People How You Really Feel About Them phase. For instance, he knows I dislike my one neighbor (for all you LiveJournal friends, that’s HNC’s wife/girlfriend/thing). She’s like the Ears and Eyes of the block, a gossip perpetuator, a rat. She’s always trying to trap me into her web by pulling me in close and whispering speculations in my ear about all the new neighbors, and then she expects me to rally behind her in her imaginary crusade. And on top of that, ever since Chooch had his step-falling accident in June, I felt like she was looking at me with suspicious eyes, silently accusing me. I also noticed that she had begun to speak differently to Chooch, almost like she was pitying him, which made me feel like a bad mom. So I said one day that I hated her.

And then two nights ago, she was outside and Chooch ran up to her and said, “My mommy hates you!”

Henry was outside when it happened and he said she didn’t say anything but that he’s 99.9% positive she heard him. Now, I don’t really care if she knows I don’t like her, but at the same time, I don’t need Chooch acting as some drama-spawning mouthpiece for me either. So that night, I sat with him on the couch and said, “Chooch, I don’t really hate her, OK? I was just joking.” He looked at me like I was crazy, like he couldn’t fucking believe I was sitting there promoting the art of flip-flopping so blatantly in his face.

“Yes you do!” he shouted. “You TOLD me you hate her! You told me THREE TIMES YESTERDAY!”

(In Chooch’s world, there are only two days: yesterday and Thursday. And everything is always said three times. Not twice, not five times. Three times.)

He also has no qualms expressing his own hatred to people. There’s a loud mouthed woman who’s friends with the infamous Robin from three doors down. Nearly every day, she visits Robin and then as she’s leaving, she always stops on the sidewalk right in front of my house, turns around, and continues conversing with a porch-planted Robin. And I’m always like, “Really? Does the whole town need to hear that you’re walking to CVS to buy a carton of Newports?” I don’t understand why she has to finish all of her conversations in front of my house. And she has one of those deep, distinctive, raspy smoker’s voices too, which makes it even lovelier. Sometimes, I like to peek out the window to see which Looney Toon character is on her shirt that particular day.

Anyhow, this broad drives Chooch NUTS. He’ll be sitting on the floor playing with his cars and then next thing you know our living room is polluted with this grating sonance. He’ll pause in the middle of a Hotwheels collision, make a disgusted noise with his throat and with a great dramatic flourish will whine, “Oh, it’s THAT lady again. God, I hate her.”

She happened to be walking past our house Friday evening just in time for Chooch to express his hatred in person. It was awesome.

I just hope he doesn’t tell the priest across the street the thing I said involving a crucifix and his asshole.

[I have more neighbor news which I will share later, preferrably when I unearth more facts.]

EDIT:

I was just outside and The Broad was leaving Robin’s house. Not ten seconds after I took this picture, she turned back and shouted (and I do mean hollared), “Did you take the keys out of my purse?!?” When she got no answer, she tossed her arms up exasperatedly and continued her drunken cat walk  in white foam mules. I am SO GLAD that happened otherwise I’d have felt like a liar in light of this post.

Broad with the pasty, spider-veined & suspiciously bruised legs, please don’t ever stop your hollering, because it never fails to make me lose it every time.

Dear precious Blackberry,

I was really kind of embarrassed Saturday night when I realized that I was purse-dialing my most recent ex-boss as I left Target. I quickly punched you in an effort to end the call and hoped that he wouldn’t call back.

Well, he did call back, it just took him five days, but the call came bearing good news.

Blackberry, I have my job back.

I had to re-apply for it, and employment probably won’t start until a week or two (barring any abnormalities in the re-hiring process/my infamous black cloud coming back to hover) but holy shit, it will be nice to have a steady income again. Especially since our second income just ended last week. And it’s still a part-time position so I can still piss around with that art shit.

I have no idea if I remember how to do a single fucking there. Oh well!

Blackberry, I’m attributing my good fortune to you, because I believe that my boss forgot that I existed until you decided to prank call him at 9:30 on a Saturday night, making him realize that hey, maybe there was once again enough work down there for a need to bring me back in. Thank you, Blackberry, and my inability to put you in lock-down mode despite everyone’s urging.

Loving you lots like tater tots,

Employed Erin

I’ve been really stressed out lately so my Aunt Charmaine sent me some free zoo passes, assuming that taking my wild child out to a public place would solve all my problems. I never would have taken him by myself, because I’m not too proud to admit that I know how much I can handle, and that is not one of those things. Luckily, there were four passes and Alisha had off work on Friday.

Blake expressed interest so by Friday morning, we had put together a quaint little zoo expedition.

The only thing missing was Henry the Chooch-Wrangler, but I figured with three sets of capable hands, we’d be fine.

Yeah, right.

It was a rainy day. I hoped deep down that would deter most people from coming out.

Yeah, right x2.

It was more crowded than I have ever seen the zoo. So crowded, in fact, that we were banished to some gravel lot riddled with tall weeds, empty Newport boxes, and probably if we looked hard enough, a syringe or two.  I hoped Blake and Alisha would be all, “Fuck it, let’s go to a strip club instead” but no, they were under the impression that braving solid human walls was worth it since our passes were free.

Chooch refused to pose for this picture because we wouldn’t let him scramble to the top like he wanted. So he posed for this pouting shot instead.

0.5 seconds after this photo was taken, he kicked mud all over my shoes and ankles, which was very refreshing. My pink Converse looked so plain without wet sod splatters all over them, anyway.

Blake was super worried about his hair getting wet and washing away scene points, so he hid under Alisha’s umbrella the whole time. Alisha hid under her hood, while I braved the rain, allowing it to jeri curl my bangs. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because rain or not I’d have still been drenched with sweat from chasing Chooch around. Jesus Christ, that kid does.not.stop EVER. He’d approach an exhibit, glance at whatever was behind the fence, and say, “Aw how cute, OK let’s go” and then all we’d see was a flash of his shirt as he jettisoned deeper into the crowd.

And speaking of the crowd — sure, there were small pockets of people huddled together at each animal exhibit we came upon, but nothing as bad as I was anticipating, which made me wonder where the fuck everyone was because judging by the parking lot, half the city was out ogling wildlife. Of course, there were the obligatory fanny-packed wide asses that shove their way past and stand in just the right position to block your view with their frizzy heads.

Aside from all the people-ogling, I’d have liked to have stopped to gawk at the elephants a little but that wasn’t on Chooch’s agenda.

Running through the monkey house was, though.

That’s what Chooch looked like the whole time: a blur. Even with three of us, it seemed like all we did was bolt after him. It’s time to invest in a leash, a taser, and a straight jacket.

Blake spent $2 on a zoo key so he could jam it in the box, make some annoying animal song play in the key of 80s power ballad, and then walk away after twenty seconds of it. In this particular photo, he was lamenting that no matter what side of the key he plunged in, the box would only spurt out animal facts AND NO SONG. I bet if he was on Twitter, his followers would have felt tremors.

Later, when we arrived at the aquarium, it was clear that THAT’S where the contents of every parked car was. It took all the braun and crowded room-germ alert endurance I had within in me just to snap a quick photo of the penguins, and it was only dire to me because of the Penguins banner.

Chooch would have nothing to do with anything in the aquarium, yet later on when we asked, “Hey Chooch, what did you see at the zoo?” he’d spit out, “Nuffin’! FISH.” And then roll his eyes in disgust that we had the audacity to bother him with such asinine questions.

On the way out, Chooch walked ahead of us and I hoped that maybe that could be his new family. Like if I could just sneak him inside that woman’s bag.

As we were leaving down the steepest escalator in the world, Blake wistfully said, “I wish there was a CD with all those awesome zoo key songs on it” and no more then fifteen seconds later, a recording came on through the speakers in the escalator, informing us that a CD of the zoo key songs could be purchased in the gift shop. At that moment, I was so relieved that I wasn’t Blake’s parent and therefore under no obligation to take him back to the gift shop and fork over some exorbitant sum for a CD with songs about what zebras eat for dinner.

Why I continue to go to the zoo is beyond me. I mean, you think I would learn my lesson by now. [Ex.1. Ex.2. Ex.3.] I love animals, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t like people, and I don’t like humidity, and I especially don’t like these things while I’m chasing after my child, making sure he doesn’t become a snack for the lions or the Silverback’s new bouncy ball.

So at the end of the day, was I any less stressed out?

No. But I guess it was still kind of fun. A little bit. Hey, at least I saw a Penguins banner?

It wouldn’t have seemed right not to go, so Henry came home a little early on Monday and by 10:30am we were en route to the Penguins Victory Parade downtown. Now, I live a 5-minute’s drive from downtown, so I suggested that we just take the trolley, which is within a few blocks from our house. But Henry, good ol’ Henry, he’s all, “Oh no no no, we’ll drive and park at Station Square (which is right across from the river from town and has several parking lots) that way you can just drop me off at work after the parade.”

Immediately I was leery of this great plan.

We reached Station Square and, naturally, were met with gridlocked traffic because of course every fucking person outside of the city limits swarms en masse like fucking Syrian locusts looking for a parking spot to plague. (Just remember who suggested taking the trolley.)

We crawled ahead a few feet in five minutes,  and it occured to me to ask, “You have money to park, right?”

“No.”

Let me reiterate that for the few people who might think Henry is actually smart: He said no.

OF COURSE HE DIDN’T BRING MONEY. Why should I have been surprised at all.

What happened next may seem like an accident but I’m convinced it was carefully plotted stratagem.

“Jump out and go to that ATM,” Henry ordered, pointing across the street.

“No one’s going anywhere, so don’t worry about me leaving,” he laughed, sweeping his hand out the window at all the cars idling ahead of us.

Funny how in the ONE MINUTE it took me to take out money, he was GONE. I’m not kidding. And where I had gotten out was right about where the road split, and then there were three different lot entrances he could have gone through.

I convinced myself not to panic and for the first minute I did really well. But after that, I sat on a retaining wall and cried behind my Mary-Kate sunglasses while throngs of excited Pens fans trampled past me, on their way to the parade that I just wasn’t destined to attend. I kept thinking I’d see Henry and Chooch amid one of these packs of fans, but they never emerged from any of the lots. I was four years old again, lost in the grocery store and all the faces looking down on me had the morphed and oblong faces of the kidnappers in my nightmares and I just knew the rest of my childhood was going to be spent in a moldy cellar eating stale crackers and Cheez-Whiz in front of a constant loop of American Gladiator reruns, if I was even that lucky.

Oh but I could just call Henry, IF ONLY I HAD MY PHONE. Which was in my purse. Which was in the car.

I WAS OMG LOST I’M GOING TO DIE. And scared. And pathetic. My future was looking grim, like I would never reunite with my family and left to my own devices, how would I ever survive long enough to make it home? I had a twenty in my pocket but if I came upon a panhandler, you just know I’d be guilted into buying that bastard a Big Mac, Hustler, and a jug of Old Crow.

So I sat there, on that wall, hugging my knees to my chest and feeling desperate and completely sorry for myself, and I even heard myself whimper once or sixteen times. And then I thought, “Jesus Christ, did I just whimper in real life?”

It took me twenty-minutes to find someone willing to let me use their phone. His name was Tyrone and he was a janitor who literally LEANED BACK and slid his glasses down so he could ogle my tits while I was trying to locate Henry.

“Your man LEFT YOU?” he asked when I handed the phone back, clucking his tongue to illustrate just how appalling this was to him.

Look Tyrone, NOT ON THIS DAY, my friend. I thanked him, shook his hand (he held his grasp a little too long and I was honestly bouncing on the balls of my feet because hello, I was about to miss this fucking parade. I had to walk in the opposite direction to meet Henry and Chooch. They were relegated to a lot a good half mile away from where I was with Tyrone, and Henry needed the cash I took out so he could get his license back from the lot attendant who was leaving soon.

I ran as fast my boobs, sans sports bra, would allow me, and when I finally met up with those two assholes, I yelled, “Do you know how scary it is being lost???” to which Henry replied, “Um, you’re an ADULT.”

Yeah, adults go missing too, asshole. I was practically a sitting duck back there, any serial rapist could have dumped a burlap sack over me and THEN WHAT. My body becomes a penis cozy, that’s what.

To summarize what happened next – Chooch was being an asshole, Henry was being slow, and I lost my fucking temper on a walkway next to the RIVER, and I hate the RIVER. I hate a clusterfuck. I mean, who doesn’t. And it was about a second away from defeating me. I was ready to go home. I was sick of ambling around that fucking parking lot with no direction and I took this plastic snack bowl of Chooch’s and whaled it against the pavement, screamed “FUCK” in several different contexts, and demanded Henry take me home. Seriously, Henry had parked so far away that there wasn’t a soul around to hear my moment of crazy lady anguish. But Henry got that hissed tone of his and goes, “I am NOT going home after making it this far, we’re going to this fucking parade.”

We eventually caught up with the rest of the last-minute stragglers, walked across the Smithfield Street Bridge, which of course made me convulse and re-eat my breakfast, and somehow, someway, found a really nice spot right on the parade route that wasn’t clogged with gyrating and sweaty fans fifteen-heads deep.

And all the frustrating pratfalls of that morning became worth it as soon as the parade started and I found myself crying again, but in a good way this time.

Seriously. Mario Lemieux.

Typically, I’d have found 1,000 people to hate in one minute flat on any other day, but on Monday I loved everyone. (Not Henry, though.)

Hossa: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

You guys! Billy Guerin, you guys! You guys OMG!

Three of my faves, one truck: ORPIK!!, Cooke, and Sykora. I cried.

Malkin was the only one I couldn’t get a good shot of, because every girl started boinging up and down with thrusted boobs, waving their ring fingers frantically. I may or may not have been apart of that.

Oh hello, best hockey player in the world. Fleury was on the other side of him.

I want so badly for Jessi to have this shirt, and to always stand in that exact pose while she’s wearing it.

These were set off as we were making the long trek back to the car.

Henry told Chooch they were day fireworks, but Chooch heard it as “gay” fireworks, so that’s all he’s been talking about. “Mommy, remember when we saw the gay fireworks?” And then I have so many things I want to say to that but there’s only so much a three-year-old’s mind can handle.

More pictures (and larger sizes) here. 

(We may be the “City of Champions,” but I still don’t like the Steelers. Except when they’re playing the Bengals.)

All the months of finger-nail gnawing and heart-clutching paid off last when the Penguins won the fucking Stanley Cup, motherfuckers. No one thought they would do it, everyone hated on Crosby, blah blah blah. That was the  most vindicating sporting event I’ve ever witnessed and I sent Chooch into a fit of hysterical crying with my screaming. Sorry Chooch. And Alisha. And my neighbors whom I’m not sure even give a shit about hockey.

Thank god  for Alisha who consistently babysat me during the games and fielded my manic texts when she was unable to be here with me.  And thanks to Bill & Jessi for pulling for the Pens even while being in enemy territory. It was fun having you guys to cheer with!

Now I have a few months to grow back my nails and re-learning how to breathe. But I’m sure by the end of next week, I’ll be whining, “I miss hockey!”

Missing the Craig Owens show last night in order to watch those guys hoist the Cup was the best decision I’ve made since, well — April.

[Photos taken from espn.com. Plz don’t be suing.]

You know how I’m never like, “Hey everyone, pimp me out?” Because I feel extremely weird and uncomfortable about doing stuff like that? And because, well, it’s just me? Yeah, I’m going to break my rule real quick because I got a batch of magnets made for my Somnambulant gig, and I was JUST WONDERING if maybe some of you guys who read this thang would maybe like to have a few mailed to you, with some of my business cards, to maybe possibly pass out to your friends, priest, bartender, deathrow penpal? Kind of like a street team OMG?

I have enough to ration out to the first five or so people who comment here on this post, but I always have a ton of business cards so if anyone still wants to help after that, I am quite capable of hookin’ a bitch up.

I’m working on Appledale sweatbands next. (Seriously.)

Wanted: Random photos in order to write my standard brand of dumb stories, recalling the glory days (day) of Blogathon 2007. If you have one, and would like to see what lame yarn I will weave about it, please leave it here on this entry or email it to me: butgavincantdance [at] gmail.com. I can’t promise anything good will come of it, but I suppose if you read this blog semi-regularly, you don’t really expect too much to begin with. Ha-ha-z0rz.

And now I am preparing to watch the Penguins game. I really wish I had  never gotten back into hockey.

Dear friends,

Please help distract me. I’m bored and restless. Talk to me. Recommend cultural delights. I feel like my fingers want to be dancing but have no music, so ask me things you want to know about me. Yes, let’s have a Q&A session. I need interaction.

This is your chance to ask me about my bra size.

Signed,

This Girl Right Here

My only experiences with bowling have revolved around birthday parties for childhood friends where sporadic granny-rolls were interspersed with running amok around the lanes, annoying the shit out of the grown-ups who were there to bowl seriously, and wondering when the fuck cake was going to be served. In fact, the last time I ever set foot in a bowling alley was twelve years ago and I didn’t even bowl. Instead, I pretended to know how to keep score for my friends and some wrinkled ho working the counter kept coming over to yell at me for doing it wrong, all wrong.

But for some reason, lately I have been having this strong urge to re-visit the bowling scene. Even if I never actually bowled, I always enjoyed the atmosphere, especially of the dingier, old-school alleys.

After trying unsuccessfully for a few months to round up enough people to join me, it magically gelled. And that is how Collin, Dyanna, Justin, Alisha, Henry and Blake found themselves joining me at Dormont Lanes for THE BEST NIGHT OF THEIR LIVES.

Alisha came over early and I pumped her for info.

“So like, what do we do when we get there?” I excitedly wondered.

“Um, we go up to the counter, pay for the games, and get shoes. I think you will be disappointed with how anti-climatic it is.” Then she briefed me on some bowling etiquette, like how I should never bowl at the same time as the person in the lane right next to mine.

“And probably I shouldn’t be too vulgar, right?” I added.

“Well, that’s just COMMON etiquette,” she said. That Alisha, she always was so smart.

What. I like to be prepared.

It was a nice evening so we decided to just walk the several blocks to the alley. Dyanna and Justin brought a six-pack since I read that the alley was BYOB, but Henry kept drilling doubt into me because I was going by several outdated reviews that I read online. We weren’t even a block away yet and I was starting to worry that this alley wasn’t even open anymore.

So when Dyanna pointed to a house across the street that had decorated its rock garden with bowling balls, I laughed nervously and said, “They probably got them from Dormont Lanes after they went out of business.”

And when we got to the small shopping center that Dormont Lanes is underneath, the parking lot was all but empty and there was a giant FOR LEASE sign under Dormont Lanes.

“Yeah, it’s real crowded, Erin,” Blake sarcasm’d, since earlier I was panicking about that as well.

Much to Henry’s chagrin, it was a storefront that was for lease, not the bowling alley. However, there was a sign on the alley’s door that advised against glass bottles. I looked at Dyanna and Justin, toting their six-pack of glass bottles, and said, “Oopsies.”

They decided to each drink one outside while we waited for Collin to arrive. Justin had the sense to at least be a little discreet about it, but Dyanna was all, “What? I’m drinking a Mike’s out in the open, ohwellzorz.”

Dyanna and Justin slid the rest of their booze behind the propped-open door, but Henry was really nervous about this. You know, the latent police officer in him and all. After paying for our games and getting shoes, he paced back and forth at the bottom of the steps, waiting for Collin to arrive so he could stash the contraband in his car.

Inside the alley, I clung excitedly to Henry while he paid. I was immediately enamored of the alleys dingy wood-paneled 1970s interior and hoped to see some sideburns and bell bottoms trouncing around. Dormont Lanes even has their own surly lane technician who I’m sure stashes the slumped corpses of his conquests behind the pins after hours.

Ideally, I’d have preferred to bowl in my socks, but Henry goes, “You aren’t a seven year old,” so I settled for those ugly two-toned shoe things. I wasn’t sure if I should get my shoes in a 7 or 7.5, and the sun-ripened broad behind the counter leaned in and said, “You can’t exchange them if they don’t fit.” Then, laughing at my sad face, she followed with, “Oh, I’m just kidding hon!” Look, I was really anxious about this entire process and plus I’m naturally gullible and tightly wound, so it wasn’t funny! Henry laughed, which made me angry. Then everyone was all, “Go pick a ball” and that was a task in and of itself. I wound up with a delightful ball of pink and purple swirls, only to find that Dyanna had previously picked an almost exact replica, that ho!

The teams were picked without me. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I’ll tell you how I feel about having my name entered for me on the scoreboard: APPALLED. I pushed past Alisha and typed the elegant and regal APPLEDALE over top the plain and bourgeois ERIN. The people lucky enough to round out  my team were Alisha, Henry and Blake. I’m sure Collin rejoiced when he arrived LATE to find that he could get cozy with Dyanna and Justin on the enemy turf.

I was a little bothered by the fact that it was 4 against 3. I like things to be even. Henry tried to explain a dozen or so times that even though we were on teams, it was still every bitch for themself. And even still, I was bothered.

Collin brought his own ball. It was green. I laughed.

With Alisha’s guidance, I managed to not make too much of an ass of myself as far as form and gutter balls go. (Though Collin and Blake are probably sitting somewhere with raised hands, waiting to interject.) It was my first time doing it the right way, fingers plugging the holes (oh, ho ho ho) and all. I wasn’t able to perfect that cute little kick-thing that you professional/non-Erin bowlers do though, but at least I didn’t fall like Henry almost did. (I missed it and Blake said it was a magnificent moment. Fuck.)

Somewhere during the first game, I got my first ever strike and everyone was pretty much like, “Why? How?” Collin looked especially nauseated, especially when I approached him after my big show and said, “Collin, isn’t it funny how I’m so good at every single thing I do?” I think if I was a boy, he’d have cold-cocked me. Instead, he asked me to please go away.

I was having so much fun that I could barely stop laughing. I’m not sure anyone else was having that much fun, though. In fact, Blake seemed pretty annoyed by me and Henry was off somewhere calling sex hotlines.

The counter lady came over to wipe down the video game I was sitting next to, and struck up a convo with me. I bragged that I hadn’t been bowling in twelve years, and apparently I’m some kind of natural. She praised me, as was expected, and then began talking about how painful Blake’s gauges looked. I was a  little turned off, since we were no longer talking about how I’m a secret sensation, but I humored her nonetheless. By the time we both admitted to crying when we had our cartilage pierced, a lifelong bond had formed.

By the end of the first game, I was tied with Blake for last place, but Alisha and Dyanna said it was still respectable considering it had been thirty years (in Collin’s words) since I last bowled.

The second game is a blur to me, mainly because I was so used to getting strikes by then that it was no big thang at that point. My fans just pretty much expected it from me, you know? Plus, I had found out that the jukebox had free requests and I spent a large portion of my time looking for the perfect jam and then trying to get Blake to give it to the counter lady. Alisha finally grabbed the slip of paper and turned it in for me so I wouldn’t have to talk about cartilage-crunching again.

And then, at the start of every song, Dyanna and Alisha would ask, “Is this your jam?” And it never was.

By the time we started the third game, I noticed that everyone was slinging excuses left and right. “I’m tired,” was the general consensus, but the two bitch-babies — Blake and Collin — were complaining of mysterious thumb ailments, though I’m pretty sure I saw Collin squatting behind a table, self-inflicting a flesh wound with a switchblade to make him look less girly for losing to me.

Oh, I didn’t mention? I BEAT COLLIN AT THE THIRD GAME. In fact, I beat almost everyone, except for Henry who is suddenly gunning for sponsorship. Blake at one point said, “Maybe if I bowl like Erin, I’ll do better.”

I guess he meant “like a professional.”

But yeah, that third round, I totally dominated. I ended up with 120 points, 289 overall. AYO! I guess that means I can buy MY own ball now. Right, Collin? And now I’m completely amped to go back soon, very soon, wish-I-was-there-right-now soon.

On the walk home, everyone was saying things like, “Oh ho, I’m so tired. We’re going to be so sore tomorrow, ya’ll!” But I wasn’t tired at all when we left. I forget who, but someone said, “Probably because you weren’t doing it right.” Or maybe I said that about myself. In any case, it was clearly tongue-in-cheek because I am amazing and very swan-like in my bowling form.

I’m in the process of making t-shirts for my new bowling crew. Except for Collin because I don’t want him to get the impression that he’s included.  (We were going to have league until Henry explained that you have to pay for that shit and Collin added that the whole point of leagues is to win, where I thought it was just to hang out, be stupid with matching polyester shirts, and maybe at some point be on TV.)

We never did get to hear my jam. (Omarion’s “Ice Box,” I know you were dying to know.)