American finally freed in Nicaragua.

Thank fucking God. I’ve been personally invested in this case for quite some time now. After I watched some crime show about him, I felt like I had a real mission in life. I was going to start a coalition to vindicate him. I was going to make a website and go on Good Morning America and Tyra and I was going to collaborate with Bono to make the best charity mix CD ever. But by the time the show ended, I had to ask Henry to remind me what that dude’s name was, and by the next day, I had moved on to other missions, like eating raspberry preserves.

But now he’s free! That guy is way too hot to be in prison. Oh, and also he shouldn’t have been in prison because of that whole alibi thing.

A Google search for “sewing-up-her-vagina” brings up my blog in a very respectable number two position. I cheer.

For the past week, I’ve been doing this really obnoxious thing where I brag about how awesome I am. Mostly this has been happening at work. Anytime I know the answer to something, trivial as it might be, I get all sore-winnerish and shout about how my innards are made of awesome.

"Did you just make coffee?"

"Uh, yes. Because I’m full of awesome."

I bet it’s really charming to be on the other side of that.

Tonight, I was telling Christina about how my son has been a little asshole lately. "He keeps grinding his teeth, and when I tell him to stop, he fixes his eyes on mine in a stubborn glare and does it harder," I complained.

"You know what they say," she schooled. "Your kids end up being two times what you are."

"So Chooch is double stuft with awesome?" I asked.

All of my entries are fixed now, for those of you who were trying to go back and read the older stuff.

The html got all jacked up when Henry imported everything to WordPress, but I cleaned it up and all the pictures are back in the Super Gay Stories posts now.

Yesterday, I used my Holga for the first time, but now I can’t find anywhere local to develop the film and it’s driving me crazy. I want my pictures! I took a picture of some bikers outside of a bar and I want it.

Does anyone know where I can get a roll of 120 developed?

I found a place where I can send it out, but they wanted me to buy a minimum of 5 pre-paid mailers. Why do I feel like I’m going to need a side job to support my lame hobbies?

Henry lost some of my entries when he moved my stupid blog over to a different thing and now I really feel like bashing his ugly fucking face in. He won’t apologize either. I have to go back and fix the html on every entry now. Fucking douchepie.

“We can still be friends.”

I should have known then, when he took my hand as we walked down E. Carson Street, that it wasn’t going to end well. I should have known.

Oh wait. I did know.

Today, I toured the WQED studio with my Creative Non-Fiction class. We were incognito as Communications majors. Perhaps if I truly was a Communications major, it would have been more interesting. But, as an "Erin," it was horrifically boring and counted as the first time since the Great Kidney Infection of 2007 that I had to stand. Kind of a lot. On my feet. Without the aid of Henry’s arm as a crutch. But at least I got to see some Mister Roger’s props. And we got "treat bags" full of guitar picks and stickers from some synth company, which we learned were leftovers from a Battle of the Bands that the studio hosted two weeks ago. I’m so excited that I’m going to score my picks right now.

Now I’m supposed to write about this for Wednesday. Christ. It’s going to suck.

I be lovin’ my new beret.

I will wear it when I bake next, yes? Crepes and French bread, mon ami? Frog leg casserole, ole? Bravo.

There I was, scouring the kitchen for the perfect receptable to hold the large amount of orange juice and DiSaronno I was about to pour, when Henry disbanded the party.

"Uh, are you sure you should be drinking? You do have a kidney infection."

"Oh shit, you’re probably right." My shoulders caved a little as I replaced the amaretto on the shelf.

"And did you take your antibiotic today?"

"Oh shit…"

I sent Henry off to the market with his little wicker basket to fetch the ingredients I need for my SECRET pie.

He just called and yelled, "I’d like to thank you for sending me to Giant Eagle so I could have some jackass back into me!"

I was really panicked about it, wanting to know the degree of damage, but first I had to sit through Henry’s painful (because he’s a crappy storyteller) account of the accident. "….and I was just sitting there, at a complete stop, waiting for someone to pull out of the space ahead of me, when this dick comes backing out real fast into me and then he has the nerve to get out and yell at me! ‘Don’t you see people backing out?!’ Yeah, and I’m at a standstill!"

"And is there a lot of damage?" I cut in.

"….he just gets back in his car and leaves. Dumb bastard."

"Damage?" I ask again.

"I mean, if he hadn’t pulled out so fast…."

"Damage?" I ask with a mouthful of fingernails.

"….didn’t do any damage to the van…."

"Oh, you’re in the company van? Then I don’t care. Good bye."

I like this picture because it shows off my awesome Pacman arm warmers. And my kid! And my kid.

Look, I lost an eye in the Great Kidney Battle of ’07. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

Today was a day for thanksgiving indeed: Henry had the doctor call me in an alternate prescription because I apparently am allergic to Cipro. Or my pain threshold just does not have the braun to withstand the brain-swelling sensation that the side-effect head aches were giving me.

(Oh, don’t worry! I’ll be back later with a thorough recap of each and every kidney twinge I endured this past week!

)

Anyway, today was the first day since Sunday that I actually: looked un-sick, dressed in clothes made of fabrics other than cotton, and applied makeup to my face. We went to my Grandma’s and my mom cried over the phone about having a “headache,” her stand-by excuse for every little situation she wishes to escape (I jumped at my chance here to smugly remind my grandmother that I had just been to the hospital but I still made it and she solemnly concurred, probably feeling even more disappointed with her daughter thanks to my interjection), I got to eat my first actual meal of substance in days, and there were onions in my un-meated stuffing. However, I was happy. My belly was happy. My head was happy, thanks to the large pain killer the doctor also prescribed.

Happy Thanksgiving, yee-all.

[Edit: It is sad when I’m so out of it that HENRY catches my typos.]

I’m currently battling the worst kidney infection of my life. This is the first time since Saturday that I’ve even been able to sit at the computer long enough to write this.

BBL!
(Hopefully.)

You know how
People will write about
How they got
their heart
broken by some prat in
         the 8th grade
whose eyes were
too CLOSE together
and maybe he had athlete’s foot a lot
and then

they might
     Say something about how
their dad used to rape
  their mother
every Friday night
and they could hear it
from the other side of the
bed posts      and
that
they secretly kind of
liked hearing it
and

       sometimes

it would RAIN really hard
on days when the sky was
blue and
what, was God playing games?
Like when he took away
the family dog

           Oswald?
and then
just because they
basically have written
a paragraph
detailing the saga
they call L.i.f.e
and s p l i t up the sentences
into artful little stanzas,
they call it a
Poem?

I
don’t
get
it.

Enter Henry, returning home from a day of doing little at his job. Spies something awry near the computer.

Henry: What has happened to the keyboard?
Keyboard is half-dead, whimpering, with its space bar dangling from its socket. Those plastic-proppy things are snapped clean off the back and lay in a dilapidated fashion on the computer desk. A mysterious prong-y apparatus also sits in discarded discord.&

Erin, nervously: I don’t know. It’s been like that all day. Fiddles with cuticles.

Henry, inspecting it closely: Strange, it wasn’t like that last night.

Erin, self-righteously: I DID NOT DO THAT. I SWEAR TO GOD. IT WASN’T ME.

Henry, in a goading tone: Erin.

Erin, screaming hysterically and obviously: IT WASN’T ME I SWEAR TO GOD!

Henry: This is an Erin-move. It has your name written all over it. So, what pissed you off and made you smash it?

Erin: OKFINEITWASMEITWASN’TWORKINGANDIGOTANGRY!

Henry provokes Erin some more, laughing at her state of frantic imbalance. Walks over to shuffle through the mail.

Henry, holding up a flyer from Full Sail, a recording arts school, reads it out loud: “Create a career in music.”

Erin, still ruffled about the appropos inquisition: I don’t want a career in music! I want a career underground, in a casket.

Henry, still perusing the flyer: Let me help you with that.