Henry must really love me because he won this super fly fucking phenomenal piece of 1980’s shit for me on Ebay. He must have known that the production of my thirtieth birthday party would certainly have to be halted if I didn’t have the perfect prom dress to wear. I feel like this dress needs to send a telegram to Uggs, demanding its name back. The only way it could be any uglier (aside from the fact that it will have a one Erin Appledale sausaged into it) would be if I wore it WITH Uggs.Seriously, someone originally paid $230 for this slipshod collage of metallic taffeta and lace.

Yes, my birthday is in July and yes planning has already begun. It is going to be big because I’m tired of having sad and pathetic birthdays and everyone is invited. There will be tombstone cookies! THERE WILL BE (MIGHT BE) A PHOTO BOOTH! THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

Almost a year ago, I made the big scary leap from LiveJournal – my home since 2001 – to my own website. It was dark and lonely for awhile, and then there was the incident where Henry deleted some of my posts and I plugged his asshole with a stick of dynamite, but then everything calmed down and blogging became fun again. There’s not much interaction on here, as opposed to LiveJournal where I had a crowded friends list several years in the making, but I do like the fact that I feel less censored, like I can reveal more of myself. I found myself caught up in a clique that was all about who could be the bigger douche on the Internet; all about e-sucking the most dicks. I didn’t like that. It’s less about popularity now, and that’s a good thing. LiveJournal was like the devil to me.

However, sometimes I think, “It would be kind of cool to know who is actually reading this shit.” So please, if you read, let me know. It doesn’t mean I’ll expect you to be an active commentor from here to eternity. I won’t seek you out for bone marrow someday. Just give me a little shout out, tell me what you like about my blog, what you hate about my blog, what you’d like to see more of, etc. For instance, I was thinking the other day that I am probably going to make my Tweets private, since I only post them here for my own posterity anyway. I imagine they must be annoying to read.

So please, say hello. Tell me a fun fact about yourself. If you have a blog too, let me know so I can add you to my paltry blogroll.Give me a good soup recipe that I can slide under the locked steel kitchen door for Henry.

(If you’re reading this on the LJ feed, can you please comment over here for this one? I don’t always remember to go back and check the feed for comments! I’m a pain in the ass, I know. Henry reminds me daily! Sometimes HOURLY!)

Today we took Captain Vulgarity to the Apple Fest in the ultra conservative farmlands of Western Pennsylvania. One has to park in various fields several miles from where all the apple action goes down and board chool buses doubling as shuttles. Our bus was pretty quiet, and the whole way there I sat with clenched muscles and pinched nerves, praying that Chooch wouldn’t start snarling spontaneous “Asshole“s to the elderly couple adjacent to his seat. The excitement of being on a school bus for the first time seemed to work effectively as a cuss retardant, thank the fucking Lord, so I was able to focus on the adorable lesbian couple in front of me, mouthing along to West End Girls and kissing the top of each other’s heads. Seriously, I wanted to paint a cupcake couple painting for those lucky assholes. (I don’t know WHERE Chooch gets that word.) I tossed a few resentful glares over my shoulder at Henry, who does NOT mouth the words to awesome synthpop songs or kiss me lovingly atop my crown. BUT MY GIRLFRIEND DOES.

If you like kettle corn, the apple fest is a fine place to spend a Sunday. If you like personalized wood-carved toy flutes and crafts made with puffy paint, then the apple fest could potentially complete your mantle collection. Do you like face paint? YOU WILL LOVE THE APPLE FEST. How about the tones of Jimmy Buffet cover bands colliding with whining kids and the grinding horror of chainsaws? Then the apple fest is like one mother of an orgasm contained on one whopping acre.  Is the tied and bound body of your latest victim incomplete without an apple gag? You can buy ’em by the BUSHEL at the apple fest!

For someone who is not interested in any of the above (the last one, maybe someday), my typical I Hate The World venom was sort of tempered. I only said, “This is so fucking lame, ” once. ONCE. (I’m either growing up or someone plopped a Valium in my tea.) I had one goal, and one goal only: Eat some applelicious delicacies. Keep that pulled pork away from me.

We let Chooch go on some kiddie rides and molest some farm animals. (I saw a retarded man clap after he pet a sheep and I seriously almost died. Between that and the drugfreeworld.org commercials, I’m wondering what the fuck is going on with my heart-frost and estrogen levels.)

Ninety percent of the apple-humpers there were sporting Steelers jerseys and I felt slightly angry about it. But then I saw THREE WHOLE PEOPLE in Penguins shirts and I felt less alone. Chooch cheered when he saw one of those people, too, and I shouted, “That’s my boy.” Then I looked up to the heavens and mouthed “Thank you” when Chooch didn’t tack a gritty “Asshole!” to the end of his cheer.

We followed some shoddy and ill-placed signs for a hayride, hoping to keep Chooch’s attention masturbated since it was growing close to his naptime and his ornery side was beginning to peak. The designated area for the apple fest just isn’t large enough to hold all the fruity wonders and delights that are to be had, so the activities and vendors tend to leak down onto a nearby street. The hayride depot (I don’t know what I’m talking about) was situated next to a church. Henry pointed to a sign on its steps and said, “Let’s go see that.” Because my eyes are as bad as my ears (if not worse), I read it as “Come see the trans.” I was intrigued that a church would have transvestites on display for us hee-haw apple-folk. “How progressive,” I said out loud.

But it was just some model train display.

In the church’s basement, a bevy of booths were set up. As I walked past a stand of necklaces, I accidentally made eye contact with its purveyor, who flitted her hand and said, “They’re made from paper mache!” I fake-smiled and said, “OH OK” and hurried along before she compelled me with the Holy Spirit and Mod Podge. It stunk really bad in there, like church craft fairs often do. Some kind of horrible odor bomb of cooked cabbage, Avon perfume and shitty diapers. Chooch began acting like an orphan who was force-fed caffeine capsules and then turned loose on the world, so we yanked him out of there in time to go on the lamest hayride ever, where I was seated across from some older God-fearing woman who glared at me every time I looked up at her and her teenage daughter who had a broken foot and chowed on a bag of kettlecorn while staring dispondantly off into the horizon. Chooch only said “asshole” once, but no one heard him over the put-put of the tractor’s engine.

The tractor-driver let the wagon glide to a rest on top of a hill, where our screams would be heard by no one for miles and miles and miles. Slowly, he turned around, and as though he were in some sort of cigar and whiskey-flavored fugue, he slurred, “Six feet of snow….nothing but the moon in the sky….what do you think the view would be like up here?” No one seemed to know what to say, so I looked at Chooch and said awkwardly, “Pretty awesome, huh?” The only other person who humored him with an answer was the God-fearing woman, who curtly replied, “Nice.” I kind of felt bad for that old hick; he was just trying to fire up some camaraderie, after all.

Maybe if he would have added flagellation stations and bleeding Stigmatas to the vision, God-Fearer would have been more excited.

There really wasn’t much to see out there. Several cows, but that novelty wears off pretty fucking fast, especially when Chooch got to pet pigs and sheep on the actual festival grounds. In fact, I’m not even certain the hayride was a part of the apple fest. It was probably just some neighboring farmer trying to make a quick buck because his crops sucked this year.

After that disaster of a hayride, I finally got to have some sugary apple slop. Standing in line, I was certain I wanted apple crisp, but as we got closer to the front, that apple pie looked simply to die for, so I changed my mind. Henry went with the apple crisp and we took our plates of fat and calories inside where some old broads were quilting on a raised platform, watching everyone eating at the tables. Awkward.

After two bites of my pie, I stole a bite of Henry’s apple crisp, deemed it tastier than my pie, and arranged for a switch.

“Good thing I know you so well,” Henry grumbled. “I was going to get pie myself, but I figured you would be disappointed and wish you had ordered the crisp.” It’s a good thing, having someone studying my indecisiveness so thoroughly since 2001. He’s somehow always one step ahead of me.

After that, we got in line  to board a bus back to the lot. Some older gent, who took his job way too seriously, shouted commands at us before he’d let us get on. “THE BUS IS APPROACHING. BEGIN FOLDING YOUR STROLLERS NOW. GET IN THE BUS AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND PLEASE FILL UP THE SEATS STARTING AT THE BACK OF THE BUS FIRST.” A hearty brow-swipe followed, and then he stepped to the side to let us through. I’m certain he was reliving the good old days of the Korean War.

We were the first ones on and I was determined to follow instructions. That guy seemed like the type to march aboard the bus and throw out the rule-benders by their ears. So I plunked down in the very last seat, just like my friend Rosa.

Five minutes later, the bus was pulling away, and there were only about ten of us on there. An old man in front of me mumbled, “He was so adamant that we fill up the back of the bus, and there’s hardly anyone on here.”

IT WAS FUNNY BUT I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

I really, really want to write about the Chiodos show. I do. But every time I try, I get all emotional and hormonal and feel inspired to do nothing more than weep on a mound of studded belts, razorblades and post-hardcore albums. I am hoping that the veil of post-show depression will have been pierced by this weekend and I can resume that thing called “being an adult” and begin to properly nourish myself and spell correctly once again. Seriously, my brain is tramping around on some other planet lately and it’s starting to scare me.

In work-related news, my new job is pretty fucking cool. It’s so laid-back there and it’s really nice to be working in an office again.

And no one here wears Crocs and country Jamboree shirts, which is A-plus. I will write  more about  my co-workers soon, but so far they are all normal, funny, and super easy to talk to. The best part is that they fill me in on gossip so I’m not sitting there like the lame new girl, wishing to be included.

We’re going to Target now, where I will buy myself a new pair of Converse as a hearty pat on the back for keeping a new job for a week without quitting.

Today was a cruel reminder that summer is coming to a close. Aside from the fact that all the awesome amusement parks are done-zo (though I still have one more to write about, as soon as I get all my swear words loaded up in the blogging cannon) and the fair circuit has exhausted itself, there was a constant chill in the air all day that made me want to do nothing but cuddle on the couch with my runny-nosed kid.  Because of said chill, I tried to get Chooch to wear jeans and a hoodie but he absolutely freaked at the thought of having his limbs completely swaddled in cotton after two months of dressing like a Californian. The hoodie has ROBOTS on it. I would wear it if it came in my size.

Chooch likes to admire it, but he runs every time I scrunch it up to prepare for his gigantic head. He’s in for a rude awakening this winter when he’s walking around in the snow in barefeet and a tank top, and here comes CPS to take him away from mommy and daddy.

In other news, I got called back in for a second interview today. I signed some papers, took a clerical test, passed the clerical test, and was sent down the street to engage in some obligatory cup-pissing festivities. Thankfully (depending on how you look at it), I quit indulging in meth back in ’94 and had to give up heroin after my veins collapsed, those bastards.  So I would imagine my results will come back in good standing. And I didn’t even have to have someone urinate in a condom and shove it inside my vaginal cavity.

During the first interview last week, there was mention of an online psychological test, so that should be a lot of fun.

With luck, I should be employed again soon. Now I’m making Henry take us out to eat. It’s an pre-celebratory “Erin Might Have a Job” occasion.

But I’m considering it my reward for sulking in a stinky waiting room at the clinic for an hour, waiting to be drug-tested.

I sat amongst vagrants, now give me cherry pie.

This picture has no correlation to the words below it, other than IT MADE ME SMILE.

I entered one of my photos in an Etsy Challenge. Please vote for me, I have an inferiority complex.

Go here to vote; my photo is the one with the owls. THANKS!

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 16:07 removed my phone from under my ass, noticed I was on hold w/ my friend Lisa & connected w/Janna. Ass-dialing, I’m a gold medalist. #
• 09:58 I need a spitoon for when I play poker. And then I need to learn how to play poker. #

• 15:28 HENRY JUST TURNED DOWN MY MUSIC. THIS is why he’s on my Asshole Parade t-shirt. #
• 15:48 Detective Henry is questioning the neighbors about the syringe I found outside. If he was on Days of Our Lives, he’d be in the ISA. #
• 16:21 Henry to me, with disgust: “calm down. Blake gets in the car and you lose 10 yrs.” #
• 17:02 Blake and I just unsuccessfully tried to find henry something fashionable to wear to a wedding. Henrys motto is DO NOT LIKE! #
• 17:07 twitpic.com/9her – YOU SUCK #
• 19:02 There’s a scene kid in my car! #
• 00:34 Sleepover at my house, holla. #
• 01:20 Watching MTV Hits with Christina while Blake is trying to sleep on the chair. Not as exciting as my riotous laughter makes it sound. #
• 11:26 Christina just admitted to being the equivalent of a 15-year-old boy. #
• 12:11 @GraveDirt Henry loves Sheetz restrooms! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter Now you can rest easy, knowing my inner most thoughts and movements.

My new shirt, boasting my favorite assholes: Spencer Pratt, Dubya, and of course Henry. I love this shirt so much that I was considering wearing it to Kara’s wedding tomorrow, but I paid a lot of money for my dress so I guess I should just wear that.

It all started quietly, this particular Tuesday. Chooch and I were sprawled across the floor, me watching the US Open, Chooch flipping through OK!

Magazine.

And then the urgent pounding happened on my front door.

Great, I thought, figuring it was the maintenance man arriving unannounced as usual, but hoping it wasn’t the dreaded gas man. I was just happy I had on a bra as I pulled open the door and found myself nose-to-badge.

No cordiality, no good mornings, just a very gruff and blunt, “Do you live here alone?” I looked past the tall bear of a Pittsburgh detective and did a rough count of at least nine others, milling around my front yard and driveway in navy blue t-shirts and ball caps.

The first thought that clouded my mind was, “Oh shit, wtf did I do now?” If it’s true what they say about your past catching up to you, then those peanut shell magnets I stole from Lechter’s when I was six now have me in a full-nelson. Not to mention the hobo I shot point blank back in ’02 and rolled into a tar pit.

(KIDDING. God.) I could feel my sweat glands pumping out pools of anxiety and guilt. I gathered my composure and told him that my boyfriend also lives here. Oh shit, wtf did HENRY do, I thought.

“But you don’t have roommates? A male and female?” he asked, and I could feel his glare searching my eyeballs for the truth, a flicker of hesitance, a shadow of doubt. His eyes kept darting over my shoulder and into my toy-strewn living room. Chooch leaned against the door frame and kept pointing at me, as if he was trying desperately to alert the popo that the perp was standing right in front of them, in the bright pink shirt. I was kind of hoping that perhaps Chooch would choose that moment to shout his new favorite salutation — HEY DOUCHE! — and maybe offer a round of Freezepops.

When I told him no, he began asking me about my neighbors, if I knew of anyone – a male and female – who had moved into one of the apartments on my block, within the last month. I laughed inwardly and considered explaining to him that I’m nearly a recluse and try with all of my might not to have any association with the people here.

“Obviously, we’re looking for someone,” he explained, thank God because my blond hair prevents me from gathering clues and forming conclusions without the aid of big tough men.

Eventually, I was dismissed and retreated back to my living room, feeling guilty and suspicious like I always do when questioned. The same way I feel when I go to the bank, like the teller naturally assumes I’m withdrawing money to purchase supplies for my meth lab.

Now I want to know who my neighbors are and if there’s a body count.

I met up with my friend Stacey last night for some drinks. It had been about a year and a half since we hung out, so it was kind of a dorky mini-reunion type thing which was totally spoiled and tossed out for the maggots by the bartender of the Apple Inn.

When I chose to meet her there, my rationale was, “My boycott of the Apple Inn has been going on for nine years now. I think that’s a long enough run.” It’s right down the street from my house, so it could have made for a very convenient place to get shit-faced, and then get mistaken for a hooker on my walk home.

However, after I graduated bartending school, I tried to get a job there, and that sort of threw a wrench in any chance of making the Apple Inn my own personal Cheers. The owner, Rob, held me prisoner in a booth for nearly an hour, drilling me, slashing my flesh with his rapist eyes, only to tell me at the end of the interview that he wasn’t hiring girls. I distinctly remember him squeezing my shoulders on my way out and how my sex drive fossilized right then and there.

Rob is also the bartender and for the hour Stacey and I sat at the bar, he did little more than growl at us. Then he acted all aghast when Stacey shouted her beer order to him so he would hear over top of his personal phone call (on which he explained, “Sorry I’m trying to serve these two girls” in an irritated tone). His presence alone made me hunker in my stool, shoulders scrunched.

At one point, Stacey said “sex” at least thirty times in one sentence, which probably set off some kind of bell at the Playboy Mansion, and I was silently begging her to talk about chastity and menstruation and yeast infections so Rob and the two older men at the bar would put their dicks down.

That guy is lecherous. I bet he has a date rape scrapbook.

I was burning to bounce.

Plus, my amaretto sours were some of the worst I’ve ever had.Clearly, nine years is not long enough.

We closed our tab after an hour and walked up to Tom’s DIner for food. I asked the waitress what kind of desserts were on the current, and in a bored tone she pointed over her shoulder and said, “They’re all up there in the dessert case.” So I had to WALK ALL THE WAY UP THERE (I know, right? And half-drunk in heels, too; oh the injustice) only to not know what anything was, so I just ordered cherry pie because it was the only thing I could identify and it was easier than ordering “that chocolate thing with the chocolate stuff”. Taking my pie order, she then asked me if I wanted chocolate syrup on it. No, not today.But thanks.

The waitress never came back on her own accord to offer refills, so Stacey had to keep calling her over. “I feel like a bitch just for asking for a refill,” she laughed.

And when the waitress DID come over, she had no qualms about interrupting our convo, when I was trying to discuss very important matters of the heart, such as kick ball and my cat Marcy.

When I was a waitress for a day, I NEVER did that.

On our way out, Stacey told her to have a nice night and I hissed, “Don’t tell her that! I don’t want her to have a good night.”

Then I came home and was treated like the proper princess I am by my favorite waiter, Henry.

Your friends – you love them like family. But sometimes they get unruly, start making eyes at your human property, kill your goldfish, stretch out your fave shirt, leave you stranded in the drunk tank.

Sometimes they need a friendly reminder to keep their douche-osity in check before it spills out of the bag and needs a larger vessel, like a canoe. Send them this “Don’t be a douche canoe” note card to get your point across before they REALLY get out of hand and jack your car.

4.75×4.75 note card, blank inside, comes with envelope.

For today’s day trip to Saltsburg (totally lame, btw)  I wore the Bela Karolyi (Yeah, he said it) t-shirt I made. We stopped for lunch at Dean’s Diner, a place where all the waitresses wore white scrubs and clung to their beloved crimped hair fad, and I delighted in the fact that some of the seated diners were eyeing up my shirt as I walked to our table.

Afterward, as a waitress rung us up, she squinted at my shirt and then asked, “I guess that’s someone I should know, but don’t?” So I had to explain it and she was like, “Oh OK. That’s cool. Exercising his freedom of speech, I guess, huh?

” but my special CIA-coveted ability to hear thoughts told me that she was wondering if I was on a psych ward field trip. Blake, who was standing beside the only person in the world lame enough to create a t-shirt in honor of some aging gymnastic coach, probably lost about 2738994 scene points just by association. Poor Blake — and he just started wearing girl jeans!

Later on, we stopped at Pat Catan’s to pick up supplies for that fucking card business that is slowly crushing my will to live.

As I was paying, a woman in another line turned around and sized up my shirt. Then she looked over at Henry before returning her hardened soccer mom gaze at my chest. I’m pretty sure she thought it was a photo of Henry splayed across my tits. Because I’m totally that kind of broad.

Chooch is obsessed with my shoes. He takes them all out of my closet, strews them around, admires them, then rearranges them. Sometimes the occasional pair call out to him and he feels obliged to try them on.

My brother Corey went through this phase.

He didn’t grow out of it until he was thirteen. (As far as I know – he might be hording an impressive moonlight stiletto collection.)

The sad thing is that I feel like he walks in these ones with more grace than I do. I know, I know, not much of a feat.

His legs are screaming for a garter.

I just found this today and I can’t stop laughing.

I totally need to recreate this outfit so I can achieve the ultimate jump roping experience.

A girl on Etsy asked me yesterday if I had any Virgin Mary birthday cards, having seen the Mary and Jesus Halloween cards I sell. I didn’t actually have any, but felt inspired so I hurried up and whipped one up. She actually bought it, too, which surprised me.

The inside says: “Though it won’t be awesome as my son’s.” The two other versions are: “Hopefully God doesn’t knock you up” and “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

I also added a Ted Bundy general “thinking of you” card.

The inside says, “…and how this piece of nylon would look wrapped around your neck.”

I love Ted Bundy. I love making cards.