It’s been exactly one week since I got my temporary crown. Every night around nine o’clock, it starts hurting.

I’m still not chewing on that side of my mouth, so I don’t know why it still hurts. Is this normal? Or should I expect to have what’s left of my molar amputated? Or am I going to die of sepsis?

I need to be held. Also, I need some hillbilly heroin and a good porn.

When I was visiting Christina last weekend, I was relieved to see that the Used amulet I got her last year for a belated Christmas present is still thriving. I mean, I’d prefer that she’d use it the way God intended — wrapped around her neck like a sparkling, rhinestoned noose — but as long as it’s not in a Goodwill (or landfill), I guess I can’t complain.

Maybe that’s why she was so adamant about using her car on Saturday and not mine, to ensure that I’d see for myself that it’s still kicking — as a car ornament. I’d be pissed though if I was the amulet. It’s essentially been relegated to the land of pine tree car fresheners and plastic Hawaiian leis. She should at least wear once a day. Thursdays would make good Designated Amulet Days.

What kind of crappy gifts have you received that you grudgingly keep around to stay in the good graces of the gifter?

Xiu Xiu was playing at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky on Saturday. Doors opened at 9:00 and even though it’s only about a thirty minute drive from Christina’s house, she insisted on leaving early; so early that we wound up arriving at 6:30pm. Our time-killing options consisted of:

• walking aimlessly around Newport on the Levy with all the trendy lacquered-nail fuckers

• extracting teeth to finance the overpriced beverages at the piano bar (featuring the most annoying female lounge singer I’ve heard this side of Jessica Simpson — I know this because her pulverized rearrangement of "Hotel California" polluted the sidewalk through speakers)

• perusing Claire’s Boutique for pink clip-on hair extensions

• jumping off one of the bevy of bridges.

My tooth was bugging me from my recent crown procedure, and I implored Christina  to get me drunk. It was the only way I was going to survive the night. "Surely there’s some sleazy dive bars around the corner?" I asked out loud. The next thing I knew, Christina was asking one of the valets, "Hey, you know of any sleazy bars around here? We don’t want to drink anywhere inside there," she said, cocking her head toward the carnival of flashing neon lights and people with fake laughs. Immediately he suggests somewhere inside the mall, the place she emphatically said we didn’t want to go. A lot of the bars there were chains that we have in Pittsburgh too. It’s like going on vacation and eating at Denny’s. I wanted to kickback in a local bar. Maybe take in a knife fight or two.

I stepped up and explained this to the valet. He gave us directions to a street a few blocks away and told us there was a "real dive bar that just opened up on the corner down there." When we walked away, I hit her.

"What’d you have to go and say ‘sleazy’ for?" I yelled.

"Well, that’s what you said!" she retorted, all up in arms. She’s all up in them arms a lot.

Apparently the valet’s definition of "sleazy" is: brand new sports bar with an old-fashioned wooden facade, brass door handles, and men in white collared shirts limp-wristing their chicken wings while watching the basketball game. Survey says they had gold money clips, too.

Christina was about to walk in but I was all, "Don’t be stupid. That place already has me yawning." We kept walking. And by walking, I mean jay-walking. Christina was so mad at me for it, but let me tell you something, this bitch don’t wait for no light to change, okay? 

A homeless man with frizzy gray hair and a mouth full of rot stopped us and asked for spare change. I wanted to tell him to not be so cliché, ask for something different like a bottle of benzos or Soap Opera Digest, but instead I gave him the cliché answer of "Sorry, no cash" complete with the obligatory downward tug of the mouth corners. After we crossed the street, I looked over my shoulder and saw that he had stopped a few feet away on t he sidewalk and was presently boring holes through our non-homeless skulls with his vacant eyes.

"He’s staring at us," I hissed at Christina.

"Well, no shit. His friend in Pittsburgh told him you give homeless people twenty dollar bills."

Just then, the flickering of a neon light captured my attention. 

"That’s it, that’s the place where we’re getting drunk." I pointed across the street to a shabby bar called Brass Lounge.  

I especially liked the twinkling gold star that looked out of place without a Christmas tree lodged up its ass and the neon pink animal of an indistinguishable species. Oh, and also the cocktail with floaters in it really made me lick my lips.

Christina looked unsure, but followed me, for I am her shepherd. My hand was on the door knob, I was about to tug it open, but I caught a glimpse of the gigantic sign in the window that said DANCERS WANTED. I took one big step backward and looked up at the front of the building, where it said "Girls girls girls" along the bottom in a cute little train of blue neon.

Now, I have no qualms about slapping down bills in a strip club, but something told me that this was not the establishment I wanted to be entering that night. And that the dancers were probably the human equivalent to a stable of horses that needed to be put down. I was afraid that if we walked in, we might not be walking back out in time to make the show. And not because we’d be having so much fun.

We may have been able to catch a knife fight in there though, and undoubtedly glimpsed various incarnations of Henry, leaning forward with wagging tongues and jostling beer bellies.

Next to the Brass Lounge was a dancer’s apparel store. The mannequin in the window modeled a delicate Y-shaped band of spandex  which strategically crossed over the nipples and crotch. It was in the most gentle hue of violet a stripper ever did wear.

We crossed back to the side of the street where flesh wasn’t being flashed and came close to colliding with two older men who were about to walk into Huddle’s Cafe. The older of the two wore a billowing flannel shirt and seemed like he would be at home on the floor of a garage with a car jacked up above his body. He was laughing loudly at the exchange he just had with his friend and, noticing us on the sidewalk, shared with us why he was laughing, which wasn’t funny enough for me to remember, but we politely laughed along with him and then he gallantly held the door to the bar open for us. Christina whispered, "When we’re together, everyone is so nice to us" and I agreed, unaware that she was jinxing us for later, when people around us would morph into jiggling bags of douche syrup.

I think at first he had hope, but then he probably thought we were lesbians (which is 50% true, in our case), so he and his buddy left almost as soon as they sat down, to the dismay of the bartenders.

Huddle’s Cafe was clean, dark, and had the requisite sad guy sitting alone at the bar with his heavy head hung over a bottle of beer. Aside from the two female bartenders, the joint was deserted. Christina and I made ourselves at home, taking up enough space along the bar for four people. I have a lot of stuff that I like to set out in front of me. Like my phone, my camera, makeup, prosthetic phelange. My jacket got slung across the stool next to me and my brick of cocaine didn’t drop out of the pocket, which is a miracle.

If I lived in Newport, I would definitely be a regular. The younger of the two bartenders was easy on the eyes (kind of stupid though), the jukebox had an amazing selection (not so amazing that it would include Xiu Xiu, though), there was a pool table in the back, and the bathroom had vanilla brown sugar hand soap.

We killed the next hour and a half knocking back amaretto sours (OK, that was just me), having jukebox wars with some stodgy middle aged man sitting on the other side of the bar, spilling drinks (OK, that was just me), pretending to care when the bartender talked shit on the owner, and talking about world issues (as long as those issues somehow involved me, I mean).

I was kind of drunk and it was getting close to eight o’clock, so Christina tipped the bartender a hundred million dollars for having a nice rack, and we split. I felt like peeing in the corner first, to stake my claim; maybe lacerate Christina’s arm and use her tawdry blood to scrawl "ERIN WUZ HIZERE" on the wall. I miss that place now.

I know, I know — you’d think I’d never been to a bar before.

Outside the bar, I ducked in between two buildings in order to take a picture of the sky, which looked especially moody and foreboding behind the a-framed roof of an American Legion building. A Mexican man walked by and asked what we were doing. I started to panic, maybe the cops were cracking down on camera-usage in alleyways, until I realized that he was smiling. I told him I was taking a picture of the sky, to which he laughingly responded, "Oh, I thought maybe there was a dead body back there!"

And we all laughed. Then I was sad that there wasn’t really a dead body, because that would have been way better than a stupid sky at twilight.

When I walked into the dentist’s office on Wednesday, the dental hygienist held the door for me and asked me how I was.

“Scared,” I told her, without hesitation.

Another hygienist — Suzanne, my favorite — called out, “That’s gotta be Erin!”

Yeah, ha-ha, guys.

I sat in the leather chair and gripped the sides while the hygienist assisting my dentist walked me through the “so quick and easy!!!!” process of crown work. She even had a model which scared me further.

“And Dr. Ammons is just going to drill down your tooth until it’s a little cone, like a cylinder, and we’ll mold a temporary crown and stick it right on!” I learned her name was Carol and she had fifty billion grandkids. When she stretched and manipulated a band of molten plastic to be used to grab a mold of my tooth, I pretended instead it was dough and we were in her kitchen getting ready to make cookies. Sticky plastic cookies shaped like molars. Mmm.

They don’t fuck around there at my dentist’s office, there’s no kicking back and leisurely listening to soft rock, waiting for the dentist to realize that they have a patient. No, Dr. Ammons swept in quietly while Carol was making me promises that I was unsure she could keep, and popped a squat on her little dental stool. She came at me with one of those super-fun and gigantic syringes that deranged doctors kill people with all the time. The Novacaine didn’t bother me as much as the idea of having my molar shaven down into a peg.

While Dr. Ammon’s continued to grind away at my tooth like a jackhammer on asphalt, Carol spoke of her plans to take one of her grandsons for a walk that evening. “I know it sounds weird, but we like to go to the cemetery to walk.”

“MMMMMJKUIUikiioiiii!!!!!” Dr. Ammons stopped drilling and Carol looked like someone who had just heard a retarded person speak for the first time.

“Me too!” I repeated, once my oral cavity was clear of gloved hands and dental weaponry.

If Helen Mirren was presenting the Academy Award for Erin’s Crown, it might sound something like this: Unnerving. Blood-curdling. Tense. Shocking. Chilling. Dusty. Drilly. Smoking. Yucky. Sucks. Balls. Very. Hard. Fuck. This.

I made the mistake, during a short rest, to tongue the tooth being worked on. Yeah, my whore of a tongue migrated right on over and oh my God where the fuck was my tooth. A tiny little stump hung there, suspended from my gums like a miniature enamel stalactite. FUCK.

“Can you open your mouth a little wider, Erin?” A question I’m just not asked often enough, I’ll tell ya.

“Yeah, if you can just go ahead and grab that hacksaw from my back pocket? I’ve been meaning to get my mouth surgically altered into the Joker’s smile anyway.”

Once all the drilling was complete, Carol took over and began the arduous task of making the temporary crown that I would have to live with, like it or not, for the next two weeks. It’s made from acrylic so essentially I have a stripper’s fingernail for a tooth now.

Then, and this is my favorite part, Carol told me that if my crown should happen to pop off during the weekend when the office is closed, I can just march my ass right down to Walgreen’s and pick up some Fixadent or something else from the vast array of DIY dental products.

Let me tell you something, if this fucker falls off this weekend, I’ll go into shock. Seriously, I’m not trying to deal with this temporary cement bullshit. I’ll be with Christina, so if it happens, she can put it back in for me. Hopefully while I’m still passed out. And hopefully before I wind up swallowing it.

Before I left, Carol warned me not to eat anything hard, crunchy, or sticky. “Oh, that’s OK. I won’t be eating anything. Ever. Unless I can start absorbing food through my skin.”

Of course, I only lasted a few hours before my stomach was trying to eat itself so Henry made me a nice batch of mushy Ramen noodles to take to work for dinner. So basically, I’ve been eating nursing home-approved meals since Wednesday and I freak anytime food floats over to the left side, the forbidden side, of my mouth.

The pain has finally waned a little by today, but I am still so very aware of the presence of an alien object all up in my grill. And I have a cold on top of it all, so when I say that every time I round a corner, I kind of wish the Grim Reaper would be waiting to lop my head off with his sickle, I really fucking mean it.

I realized yesterday that I haven’t used my Twitter since July, and now it seems like everyone and their hairdresser are all about "tweeting," so I decided to resurrect mine. Probably a bad idea because I tend to abuse shit like this, especially since I can update it from my phone.

"12:56pm: I am sitting at a red light!!!!!!!!"

Dumb shit like that.

If any of you have Twitter, you should add me, you know — since I did such a great job promoting myself:

Vagynafondue

Last Friday, the day after my act of charity, something made me check the voice mail on my cell phone. I almost never it, a really bad habit. One of the messages was from the receptionist at my eye doctor’s office, letting me know that my contacts had arrived. I checked the call log and the number wasn’t listed as an incoming call. If I hadn’t checked my messages, I wouldn’t have known they called.

It’s fate, I thought excitedly.

The office was only supposed to be open for about another hour, so I stuffed shoes onto my feet and ran the few blocks to the doctor’s office. I know my doctor told me to not wear my contacts until he sees me again this Friday, but there was no way I was going to squint my way through the Armor For Sleep show that night. Besides, how could I make fun of people if I couldn’t see them?

I left the office with two boxes of contacts resting peacefully inside my purse, and then walked another block to pick up some diapers at CVS. A young guy held both doors open for me with an exaggerated flourish and it made me smile. When I thanked him, he answered back with a "You’re welcome" that was so friendly and genuinely enthusiastic, the kind that you almost never hear anymore, except maybe if you’re watching an old movie.

Inside, I squinted and fumbled over bags of diapers until I found the right size, (I had to call Henry first to ask him what size to get. I’m such a great mother, I don’t even know the size of my kid’s ass.)

Leaving the store, I passed an older man — a charming Richard Dawson-type — as he was walking back to a pick up. While he hoisted himself into the passenger seat, he jovially called out, "Good afternoon, lady!" I replied with a very plain hello. As I walked away, I heard him murmur something that sounded like, "Green girl." Why yes, I am wearing a green jacket, how observant.

I crossed the street and the pick up idled next to me at a stop sign. The aforementioned man rolled down the window and shouted, "Hey!" to get my attention.

Oh great, I thought, I’m about to get heckled. That hasn’t happened in awhile. The last time it happened I was walking down the side walk with Henry and some kid in a passing car hollered, "Your shoe’s untied!" It wasn’t, but it got me to pause and look, which I guess was the effect he was going for. Still, what a lame heckle.

"Does your husband tell you how pretty you are?" he asked, his query coated with just the appropriate film of sleaze. It occurred to me then that he wasn’t actually calling me a green girl earlier, but "pretty" girl. This is good because I was afraid that "green" was code for: FAT ASSED STUPID BITCH. Maybe I need to book an appointment for a hearing test once I get my eyes figured out.

I laughed. I laughed so hard I was almost doubled over. First, I laughed at the thought of Henry ever securing the title of my husband, then I laughed at the thought of him complimenting me without expecting my vagina to immediately fall in his lap.

"No!" I answered childishly, arms akimbo for added effect.

"Well, he should!" he said seriously shouting over traffic. "You’re a very pretty girl—" behind him, the driver reiterated the sentiment, "—and he’s a very lucky man!"

Maybe he’s not allowed to wear his contacts, either.

I thanked him, laughed a little, and continued on my way home.

Back at the house, Henry sat on the couch and sneered as I told him the story, obviously jealous that random men don’t stop to tell him he’s a pretty girl, too. I keep telling him all he needs is the right lip gloss.

"This is all because of Mel," I realized out loud. "This is what they mean by paying it forward!"

"Yeah, doing good deeds usually comes back to the person, not that you would know anything about that."

I vowed to started good-deeding it up, maybe donate two of my ribs to an animal shelter or something. I had big plans to let hobos live in my basement, to let stray hookers gyrate against my downspout (not a euphemism for Henry’s weener!). But then I lost interest and resumed being an asshole.

I was just asked if I’m 21 or older. I said yes but I have no id. The ticket lady was all, “No wristband for you” so now I’m stuck in the kiddy area. I’m struggling with how to feel about this. Who needs alcohol when there’s Powerade, am I right?

If you’re looking for the most convenient way to be served my pointless word-sludge, you can subscribe here and a polite little email will alert you every time I desecrate the Internet. Just in case you didn’t know.

In the span of two months, I get to see five bands that rank on my Top 10 Faves list. It finally started to sink in today and even though I have a ceiling that leaks every time someone showers, a molar in dire need of a crown that I can’t quite afford just now, a job that your average monkey could perform (and probably better too), and a gay ass boyfriend who refuses to wash my coffee mugs on the rare (like, Haley’s Comet-rare) occasion that he actually dips his fat hands into the sink yet expects me to scrub his skillets sullied with meat residue ensnared inside a witch’s brew of thick and coagulated grease, I can’t help but be in a really great mood.

Granted, three of these shows will find me with Henry as my chaperone. ("Hurr hurr, that girl came with her dad!" is what I imagine all the cool kids say when I shamefully slink inside the venue with Henry trailing ten paces behind me.) My favorite "Old Dude at the Show" moment was in 2002 when Henry and I went to Buffalo, NY for Edgefest. He was a newbie to these radio festivals, and probably hadn’t been to a concert since the 1980s when he pushed some broad over a railing at the Judas Priest show because he couldn’t see over her. In my mind, when I think of Henry in the glory years of youth, he’s always wearing a bitchin’ Foot Locker t-shirt and pushing up his over-sized tinted eyeglasses with one stubby finger, his newly mustachioed lips curling into a predatory leer as he ogles a bunch of big-breasted bimbos in shredded stone-washed jeans and mile-high curled bangs, hot pink Wet n Wild polish chipping from their fingernails. (I always try to trick him into telling me that story so I can get better details, but then he realizes that my intention is to ridicule him, so he catches himself.) Sugarcult was playing on one of the smaller stages, and I grabbed Henry’s hand, leading him close to the front, but not so far up that we were crushed against the security gate. I didn’t think he’d be able to handle being that close. Sugarcult starts playing, kids go crazy. Everyone’s having a good time and Henry actually looks like he could possibly be enjoying himself. Suddenly, a young boy, maybe around fifteen, slams into Henry’s side. Henry thinks this is some sort of personal attack on him, that maybe next this kid is going to seek out Henry’s car and pour sugar in the gas tank. So he reacts by violently shoving the kid back into the crowd. I gave him a scolding look and hissed, "Dude, that kid is like, 4 compared to your 67. You trying to go to jail?"

"It was a reflex! That kid shoved me!" Henry whined. I started wondering what kind of pussy tattle-taler he must have been in school.

Ever since then, and one other occasion when Henry shouldered some teenager for standing too close to him in line before a Mindless Self Indulgence show, Henry has been pretty well-behaved, We just don’t stand so close to the stage anymore.

2008 is really shaping up to be The Really Rad Year that I’ve been patiently waiting for. And by patiently, I mean kicking holes in walls and threatening to kill myself and/or others but mainly just Henry every other day for the past four years.

(OK, so I guess the year of Chooch’s birth was a Pretty Good Year. What was that, 2006? Who can keep track anymore?)

I’m embarrassed, yet strangely delighted. I blame LiveJournal for teaching me all I know.

Hello. I’m twenty-eight years old. I have never built a snowman.

We got a good bit of snow on Friday, so I got all ambitious and decided that it was time to change my status as snow architect from "never" to "active."

I concentrated hard on my efforts for an entire, let’s say, three minutes, before walking away and playing with the shovel. Henry spied my attempt and asked what it was. "Uh, that’s not how you make a snowman," he patronized as he continued to sneer at the uneven mound of snow that I formed by scooping and patting, not rolling which is apparently the universal method of birthing snowmen.

"Oh, then show me how," I said, knowing that it was a surefire way to con Henry into doing all the work while I pranced around in a crocheted frog hat and rain boots. (By the way, rain boots make terrible snow boots.)

By the time he was done playing snowman God, I was tired of being outside. It was still snowing hard and Chooch kept trying to sneak past us into the street, no matter how many times I yelled, "Danger danger!" I decided I would implement by carefully planned-out snowman face and accouterments the next day, which turned out to be beneficial because by the next day, it looked like this:

I was pleased with it’s current Leaning Tower state — it would make a more realistic dying snowman. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to slap a piece of salami on its face for a protruding tongue, some asshole kids stole his head and torso.I found the head a few yards up the steet, but the torso is probably in a garage somewhere, being harvested for kidneys.

Snowmen suck. So do kids.

I guess technically I still haven’t built a snowman. It’s the cherry that can’t be popped.

On the up side, we got a new car today. (No more hitchin’ rides, renting from Enterprise and borrowing cars from family members.

)

On the down side, keeping Chooch out of trouble in a car dealership for two hours is a pretty good recipe for a sanity split, no matter how many balloons, pretzels and cookies he’s plied with.

[1]: Pickle Park: – an interstate rest area frequented by prostitutes, for those not up with the trucker lexicon.

I’ve hit a dilemma for this weekend. We’re supposed to go to Columbus to see a Chiodos in-store appearance. I love Chiodos (apparently because they’re hot and not because they’re good) and they’re probably my favorite band at the mo’. They write the kind of songs that I would write.

If I could write songs.

Which I can’t, in case you were wondering.

But then today on the way to work, I heard a radio ad for World of Wheels which is apparently taking the Convention Center by storm this weekend. I started to tune it out, because car shows are stupid. But then I heard the excited announcer proudly shout that Mater from "Cars" is going to be there. Immediately I start picturing my kid, happier than an orphan being spoon-fed porridge by Santa’s arthritic hand, hugging a real life version of his beloved tow truck.

But Chiodos is more important than making the kid smile, I reminded myself.

I started to tune it out once more, but the announcer came back at me with a secret weapon — Drake Hogestyn, better known as John Black from "Days of Our Lives." HENRY’S FAVORITE SOAP PERSONALITY.

I dialed Henry with the urgency of an ER after a meth lab explosion.

"We have a problem!" I yelled, out of breath from all the excitement.

He loves it when I make calls like that while I’m driving. Loves it.

I quickly told him about the car show, about how Mater is going to be there. "And there’s someone else," I teased. "Someone that you REALLY LIKE."

"Who?" There was trepidation in his voice.

"John Black!"

"Goodbye."

But I think there’s a chance we can do both. I really might die if I don’t get a picture of Henry and John Black. I really might die.

Sunday night, I had this strong desire to read a book. This presented an unfortunate situation, because I didn’t have any unread books here to choose from. The used stores were closed by then, and I didn’t feel like going to some gigantic book Babylon like Borders or Barnes and Noble because I wanted to get in and out and the choices there are entirely too overwhelming.

So I sucked it up and went to Wal-Mart. I know, I know. I hate Wal-Mart. It’s dirty there and bleak and makes me feel like I’m stuck in a state-run institution and I want out out out. But I figured the limited selection would enable me to grab something quickly and bolt.Convenience – that’s how they get you.

Since Henry was with me, we had to stagger down the completely boring computer aisle and then we had to look at lamps and then Chooch saw a large display for Cars magnets so I had to toss Lightning McQueen, Mater and Sally into the cart. You can imagine how disgusted I was since we were supposed to be there for me, to have my needs met. I could have gone off to peruse the books while Henry browsed what’s probably considered fine merchandise by people of his own social tier, but anytime I stray from him, he inaccurately gauges the amount of time I need before meeting up with me, and so I finish up in my aisle while he’s still off looking at butt paste and American flags. Then I go off in a panic-stricken search for him and my palms sweat and I whimper and I wind up tangled in racks of scarves and headbands and Looney Toons-emblazoned oversized sweatshirts and it’s just never a good scene.

Henry was having a troublesome time pushing the cart. "It must be one of the exercise carts," he grunted as he gave it another sharp shove.

"They have those?" I exclaimed.

"Um, no. It was a joke. Re-re." Here I thought Wal-Mart might be getting fun.

Henry stalled the cart in front of a row of magazines and I wandered off to the whole four columns of books. I peeked around the corner, expecting the row of books to continue on the other side, but instead came nose-to-nose with a blinding green St. Patrick’s Day headdress.

I skipped over the romance section and kids section and self-help section and Oprah section and was essentially down to one rack boasting a meager selection of current fiction. Now, aside from Harry Potter, I really haven’t had the chance to read in a very long while. I think the last new book I read was The DaVinci Code, and that was when it very first came out, before all the hype. So that was a long time ago.I used to read all the time when I worked at the meat place, but they were mainly James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell-type thrillers, nothing that really stuck with me so I don’t count those.

I tentatively tucked two books under my arm and held another in my hand, debating which to get. Some of the books I had actually heard of but wasn’t sure if I’d like them based on the cover art, because I’m shallow and I judge books by covers, evidently.

Just as I was about to put two books back and grab The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a middle-aged woman with black hair and thick-framed glasses shoved her way next to me. Her body touched mine at one point, that’s how close she was standing. I withdrew, but then she spoke.

"This is a great book," she said as her arm jutted out and her finger jabbed the cover of Best Friends. The suddenness of her movement set me off balance and I took a step to the side. "I read it, then read it again immediately. It was great, couldn’t put it down." She slapped it into my hand, which was limply sticking out in front of me.

"Oh," I said with buzzing nerves. "Thanks." I’m always confused when strangers spontaneously speak to me.I learned all about people like her when I was in pre-school. She’s the kind of person who sticks razors in apples and drives rusted vans with tinted windows and has a doll collection that inhabits an entire bedroom in her old dilapidated farmhouse  and their eyes follow you around the room during the day and at night they come alive and fuck you with their porcelain hands. 

"This is great, too," she said. Her voice was full of self-assurance and confidence, as though she was recommending books to her sister or baby’s mama. She continued poking at books on the shelf, telling me what she thought of them, like we were having our own private book club meeting, while I casually skimmed the back of the first book she dumped into my arms. I’m thinking that if I wanted these kinds of suggestions, I’d just ask Eleanore for some good reads. Or Tina, though she strikes me as the type that enjoys Tim O’Brien war novels.

"Let me see what you got there," and I fearfully held out one of my original picks. "Oh, I haven’t read any of his books, but I hear he’s wonderful," she said of Nicholas Sparks. Then she titled her head back and pulled down A Thousand Splendid Suns.

"Have you read this?" I shook my head to the side. "All of my friends loved it. Me? Couldn’t get into it." She slammed it down and bent at the waist to look at the next row. I took that as my cue to leave. And I did, hurriedly, just turned and ran before she could talk again. And I was sure she wasn’t through talking to me. What was the protocol? Should I have said goodbye? Thanks? I didn’t really fucking care; I just wanted to go home before she made our bodies touch again.

At the self-checkout, I decided that the book she handed me looked really gay, so a Wal-Mart employee had to come over and help me since I already rang it up. Then I got home and realized that Nicholas Sparks is that asshole who writes all those sappy love stories like The Notebook. The one I bought is Dear John and I’m nearly done with it and it hasn’t done a damn thing for me. It reminds me of the stupid books my aunt Sharon used to read on the plane every time we’d vacation  together. She’d sit there and cry dramatically and clutch my arm and read passages out loud and I’d tell her to shut up and take a nap.

So please tell me what books you like. I really don’t know much about what’s "good" and "essential" these days — I’ve always been more into music. I’ve been having a hard time going to sleep when I come home from work and I’d rather fill that time with books and not TV. (I’m sure the fact that I chug coffee up until 11:30pm has nothing to do with my inability to sleep.) Tell me what to read; I trust you guys. No romance or science fiction, though. I really like horror and memoirs, and anything that’s unforgettable. Whatever that means.