Happy Freakin’ New Year, guys! We greeted the new year with mild excitement and little effort, lots of Kpop and some neighborly confrontations. Henry and Chooch made strange-tasting sugar cookies & I drank wine. Basically just a regular night up here in the Appledale shanty. 

2016 was the worst year I have personally experienced in 20 years. I get it – let’s not blame a random calendar year, etc. But there’s no denying that this past year was heavy with a glaze of depression, oppression, and great loss all around for everyone, universally. I experienced personal loss myself and the best way I can explain it is that it was like having my childhood resurrected only to watch it get stabbed to death right before my eyes. Most of the year was a living nightmare, no hyperbole intended. 

I learned a lot about myself (for instance, I haven’t healed from past traumas like I thought I had, just built a wall around my heart stronger than any dumb wall Trump has in mind), cried a lot (I am extremely emo though), but I also got to spend time with a lot of awesome people, and that’s my takeaway: no matter how shitty everything may be, friends will always make it seem OK. (I guess also I couldn’t have gotten through it all without dumb Henry and Chooch, too.)

I went to even more shows alone this past year and have discovered that I actually like it! Being alone is ok sometimes, especially if it means not forfeiting doing something you want to do just because you don’t have anyone to do it with you. It’s helped the “old Erin” resurface a bit more, and I remembered how much I kind of liked her, even though she made bad decisions and was SUPER OBNOXIOUS and TEMPERAMENTAL, lol. A cameo here and there is OK. 

So for 2017, I want to take all the good from 2016 and multiply it by a million. I want to:

• hang out more with my friends / being more diligent in solidifying plans so they don’t fall thru – socializing takes effort!
• make new friends (BUT KEEP THE OLD ONES, ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER GOLD – Girl Scouts throwback, y’all.)
• go to even more shows (and I went to A LOT in 2016–I think it may have been a record for me!)
• travel more (literally every trip we took last year involved traveling for a concert or festival, with the exception of Disney, so I want to go places with the sole intent of being a tourist)
• finally redo the third floor so that my out-of-town friends can stay here when they visit! (AND ALSO BANDS CAN CRASH HERE)
• spend time with the THREE NEW GRANDKIDS that Henry is expecting! (I guess it makes me a fauxma?)
• actually start researching what I need to do realize my dream and not work in an office for the rest of my life
• do more kpopx!
• take more pictures with my broken camera and get back into film photography too because I miss that shit
• be more outspoken about social issues because just because 2016 is over, doesn’t mean the nightmare is going to just go away.
• Learn to cook (LOL EW JK)
• continue being ridiculous with Chooch, i.e. driving Henry mad. 

(Some of my favorite shows from last year: Dance Gavin Dance, Anthony Green, any of the four times I saw Citizen/Mat Kerekes, The Cure, Ke$ha, RIOT FEST.)

And the Carly Rae Jepsen show!!

So that’s that. Let’s all stay positive and be better, because flipping a page in a calendar isn’t going to automatically make things better. Write that shit on your hand if you need a reminder. 

Tonight, Austin Carlile officially announced his decision to leave Of Mice & Men because of his health. While I’m glad his priority is his physical well-being, I am for sure going to miss the way his screams made me feel at so many Warped Tours. 

I took these pictures of him in 2011. Hopefully someday he will be able to return to music, but he will always have a place in my heart regardless. 

Austin has spent so many years healing his fans. Now it’s time for him to focus on healing himself. <3

Spotify was nice enough to compile my most played songs of the year. Most of this is like “Oh hello, Mr.Shocking. Welcome to the House of Predictability.”

Anyway, maybe this here’s something you can listen to while cleaning the litter box or burying that body in the woods. Hopefully you’ve got good service. 

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Oh wow, more merry merry holiday recaps, thank god. 

I can’t even believe I’m about to say this about my own kid, but wow is he so unlike me sometimes! There was only one thing he wanted for Christmas, and had been telling us since at least the beginning of summer. I remember thinking, “A Nintendo 3DS? Wow, aren’t those like, yesterday’s news?” I’m too busy immersed in my own interests and obsessions to keep up with the world of gaming, but evidently, every single Nintendo gaming system was in high demand this season, even the 3DS XL.

Of course, we didn’t know this until three days before Xmas (THREE DAYS BEFORE – we’re getting less and less last minute each year, you guys!) when some asshole at GameStop laughed at us like we just asked to see the motherfucking basement of the goddamn Alamo.

So I decided, on Christmas Eve, that I was going to gently break the news to Chooch so that he wouldn’t be super disappointed on actual Christmas. And by gently, I mean that I s-l-o-w-l-y ripped off that Pokemon Band-Aid while saying things like, “OK promise you won’t get mad” and “Please don’t hate me, but….” until finally I think he figured out where my hemming and hawing was leading (even though I tried to throw the “you’re adopted” curveball at him) and you know what? HE DID NOT THROW A FIT.

How is that my kid?

HOW HAS HE BEEN WATCHING ME THROW TEMPER TANTRUMS FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS AND NOT ONCE FELT THE NEED TO EMULATE ME?

Because if that was 10-year-old Erin and my mom was all, “Sorry, but the Brony phenomenon started 20 years early and there’s not one My Little Pony to be had, I checked EVERY LAST KAY-BEE” I would have slammed ten thousand doors and broken every glass object that dared to stand in front of my testosterone surge.

But Chooch was all, “It’s OK, I understand” and proceeded to be completely happy with the other non-coveted items we bought him.

Like, wow.

Whose kid is he!?

Oh right, Henry is a parent, also.

Christmas morning was really good, you guys. It was peaceful. We didn’t fight (not until later at the cemetery but we always fight at the cemetery because using my broken camera makes me lose my temper), just hung out and listened to all of my favorite bands while Chooch had about 19 different toys in action all at once.

Henry is like, so thoughtful.

We could have probably just got him a handful of Pokemon cards and he would have been content.

And scratch offs. The kid loves himself some lottery.

Butt-crack scratch offs.

Papa Bae* got me another beautiful piece of The Cure art to add to the collection! THANKS BAE.

*(Never gets old. To you, it probably does. And definitely to Henry.)

Obligatory Christmas family photo, in between me yelling at them and them rolling their eyes.

Henry brought a ziplock bag of black olives, which made me scream in horror.

“Um, I thought you love black olives?” he sighed.

“I do! But not in this context!” I screamed.

“In this context? You mean, in a plastic bag?”

YES THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN, ASSHOLE.

Speaking of black olives! We had our team Christmas lunch last week at Villa Reale. I sat next to Amber1 and THANK GOD I DID, because she ordered a side salad and then proceeded to pick out all of the olives.

I cried, “If you don’t want your olives, I’ll take them!” and so she made a little pile of olives for me, which I later smashed into my slice of cheese pizza. Black olives is basically the only pizza topping I care about.

Glenn and Todd were sitting across from me and seemed disgusted by my olive actions, but I didn’t care. My pizza tasted so much more familiar after that.

Actually, here is a picture of that time it took three people to pull apart a piece of garlic bread, with my olives waiting patiently for their hot, greasy bed to splay across like Miss(es) December(s).

Ugh, erotic olives get me every time!

But yeah…olives from a plastic bag? That’s not hot.

Came home after our “picnic” and spent the rest of the day relaxing, watching Netflix things, not giving a shit about the Steelers, and spying on the neighbors. 

Oh, and lots of KpopX workouts!

Well, that was my Xmas 2016. It was kind of perfect, not gon’ lie.  Most days, I feel like your basic Schleprock, but on this particular Christmas, I felt pretty lucky. DON’T TELL HENRY I SAID THAT, EW.

Chooch was really stoked to get this book from Octavia, and as he excitedly flipped through the pages, he said he couldn’t wait to read it. 

“It’s pretty scary I guess, because Octavia asked me if it was OK to get it for you,” I said.

“Oh like you give an eff if anyone in this house has nightmares,” Chooch scoffed, a montage of Doll and Man in the Attic likely flip-booking through his mind. Welcome to Erin’s Brookline Shanty of Horrors! “Unless you’re the one having the nightmare, then we all have to care.”

Henry started choking on whatever dumb breakfast thing he’s savagely eating, because I guess he agrees with this. WHATEVER. 

(But I mean, I do have really amazing nightmares.)

Last weekend was one of those weekends where absolutely nothing was planned and nothing spectacular happened, but it was still so satisfying in a low-key, housebound way. IF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE. I feel like for no reason whatsoever, Chooch and I were extremely batshit bonkers, more than usual, even though he was sick….so OK maybe it was mostly me being a giddy noisemaker.

One thing’s for sure though: I took a lot of pictures. WANNA SEE THEM, HERE THEY GO.

Penelope, imitating Robert Smith.

There’s this American Kpop dancer that I LOVE (jellybeannose) and I was making Henry watch her YouTube channel. We watched a lot of her “random facts about me” videos and then on Saturday we watched her FOUR PART VLOG from when she went to KOREA in 2013 for a Kpop competition!! But then BOOTS AND PHYLLIS kept interrupting that with their explosive fighting (an update on them is forthcoming). 

Chooch had an ear infection and spent most of his weekend making rainbow loom bracelets (lame). When I took this picture, he we freestyling a song about how he was dying of an ear ache and all his mom cared about was getting drunk on a Saturday night. Hey, I wasn’t sick so I could do what I wanted. 

Earlier that day, he insisted on watching the Polar Express and I only half-watched but hated it. The animation made me uncomfortable! (He rolled his eyes at me for that.) Also, he was mad because I asked him when someone was going to die. 

Me: WHY ARE THEY SO CREEPY?

Chooch: Well, they’re elves, so….

You know what else makes me uncomfortable? The Merci chocolate commercial where they sing that ZZ Top “Thank You” song. 

More rainbow looming, under the watchful eye of Mr. Tom Selleck 

On Sunday, Chooch had piano lessons and we both gave Cheryl a present – I gave her a mixtape painting and he gave her — SURPRISE — a rainbow loom bracelet. And then we competed to see whose present she liked best but she wouldn’t tell us. 

“Yeah, well, she can’t WEAR yours,” Chooch said. 

“I mean, I could probably wear it around my neck….but that would be weird,” Cheryl said. 

She is honestly the best and I hope she never quits teaching him piano. But if she does, I hope we can become friends IRL (as opposed to just inside my head). 

Came home and had a HUGE fight (ok not really) with Henry, a/k/a Worst Boyfriend Ever, because he said he wouldn’t rise from the dead to avenge my death if we were both murdered. NO WE WEREN’T WATCHING THE CROW, WHAT. 

Henry took this picture of Chooch & me, conspiring against him and I love it because this image captures our devious relationship so perfectly. WE ARE MENACES. 

Meanwhile, Henry baked some bomb coconut cream pie. Our little Martha Stewart, rewarding our shitty behavior with dessert. 

We show our affection by fluffing Henry’s beard and he hates it. 

To cap off the weekend, I made henry drive us around so I could judge people’s Christmas lights. I AM VERY PARTICULAR ABOUT LIGHT DISPLAYS. 

“Did you just call that house a monstrosity?” Chooch asked from the backseat. DAMN RIGHT I DID. Don’t mix big bulbs with small bulbs and I won’t criticize your gross judgment, sloppy homeowner. 

I get real heated about this. 

I know, you probably have me pegged as the type who gets a thrill out of those houses buried under eight tons of bulbs with every square inch of their yard occupied by blow-up Santas and plastic snowmen and you know what? GUILTY! But I also really love houses that do nothing more than line their frame with those old-school big bulbs, the kinds that were prominent in the 70s and 80s I guess. 

And I love the minimalists, with candles in the windows, bows on the doors, and a subtle spotlight illuminating the house. 

It’s easy to judge when your house has zero decoration on the outside, haha. 

We listened to Joyce Manor the whole time and that was just so divine. 

Not an outrageous weekend full of social engagements and milestones, but it still felt pretty perfect. <3

Christmas card inspiration didn’t strike me until Monday so I wasn’t able to get many of these in the mail (LOL, in a world where many = 1). 

Of course Henry has to be wearing a Faygo shirt, but then Chooch insisted on having me wear a Citizen shirt since that’s the last band I went to see a few weeks ago. That’s FINE, I love Citizen, but I probably would’ve chosen The Cure of Dance Gavin Dance if he had consulted me. 

Anyway, happy holidays, etc! We’re nowhere near ready as usual. 

I was supposed to be helping Henry shop tonight but if you know me even at all you know that I hate shopping, especially Christmas shopping (twist ties and Skittles and something else from my junk drawer for everyone!) so then Henry and I had a fight because I WAS SO OVER STORES AND CASHIERS AND NO ONE HAVING WHAT WE NEEDED BECAUSE HENRY INSISTS ON WAITING UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE.

(Although, three days before Xmas is like super good for us.)

So now I’m home alone (Chooch is at Judy’s) while Henry went back out to deal with this shit. Fuck presents.

Since I’m in a sour mood, I decided to engage is a real tough mental exercise by listing THREE GOOD THINGS from today.

1. Obviously #1 was when I was forced Chooch to get his picture taken with Santa after work. This was before the shopping, back when Henry and I were still on the same side, and I hadn’t yet missed my 7PM mandatory coffee fill-up. We went to Meder’s, which is where we usually go for Santa picture-happenings, if we even go at all. Because, lazy parents. It wasn’t crowded at all, but we still had to stand in a short line for about 10 minutes, which gave Chooch a chance to reflect upon his poor decisions. “I don’t know why I agreed to this. And this sweater is too small. And how the hell is that reindeer supposed to carry an entire sleigh?” he grumbled, pointed to a stuffed reindeer in a North Pole vignette. And then Santa waved to him while we were in line! SANTA REMEMBERED HIM. Soon it was his turn and, after hissing, “I’m way too old for this” to me, he got nice and cozy with Santa and gleefully said, “NINTENDO 3DS* AND LEGOS” when Santa asked him what he wanted. I told him to go against the grain and ask for world peace, but don’t listen to me, I’m just a basic social justice warrior, a/k/a liberal whiner. “That was so creepy,” he said afterward in the car. “Santa had his legs spread open too far and it made me nervous.”

*(LOL, good luck. Fuck you, Nintendo.)

2. I am OBSESSED with this Joyce Manor song and have been pining for them ever since I saw them last month, please come back to me Joyce Manor (this whole album is on my list Best of 2016 list, it’s so goddamn great). Henry particularly loves it when I put this on in the car and perform fancy hand-dances in his face while he’s driving. “THIS IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN TEXTING WHILE DRIVING, ERIN” he yells and that’s probably true but I JUST CAN’T STOP MYSELF:

3. This is really tough to come up with three. Today didn’t SUCK, but it wasn’t wonderfully exceptional, either. Um, I bought a ticket to see Pianos Become the Teeth next month?! Amer2 brought in cookies that she made with her dad and they were good?! And I got to spend all day trying to convince people that I made them because she set them out near my desk? But no one believed me? OH HERE’S A THING: I renamed Glenn “The Office Voldemort” and he actually seemed kind of upset about it, like after all of these years, and all these photoshops, I finally went too far. Lori seemed on board though.

Oh well, I think I failed this exercise. Henry Claus should be home soon and I bet he’s PISSED, lol. OH WELLz0rz! I’ll just turn up the Joyce Manor.

During the Holiday season of 1999, I turned my back on Christmas music and pretty much exclusively listened to my Black Bible – an epic 4 CD compilation of the goth music. I was so obsessed with it that I turned my purple hand chair into a shrine for it: 

My friends were like “Sigh.”

Anyway. I’ve been all out of whack (or Waco, as autocorrect wants it to be) this week and totally lacking Christmas spirit so I’m pouring salt in the wound by listening to music that I listened to during some of my most depressed nights because GODDAMN what a plan. 

I’m off tomorrow. Maybe I’ll find my holiday joy. Suck the Yuletide marrow out of a candy cane or something.  Or maybe I’ll just sleep all day because I’m tired as fuck, in every aspect. 

Other than that, my only plans are spying on the neighbors, foraging for things to eat without having to cook, and I guess cleaning kind of. 

My plan for tonight was to finish watching episode two of The Affair and I then write about my mysterious neighbors tonight but then something  weird happened over there and I’m too shaky and flustered to finish that right now so here’s a series of photos that have nothing to do with anything at all.

Peen Lop’s turn with the bow tie.

Current DIY mani. I barely spend any time on my nails anymore like I used to. #2016Blahs

Pretty sure this basic mannequin bitch on TV is jealous of Trudy’s opulence.

Tried to give Chooch a man bun but then remembered I can’t do buns. So, Pebbles it is.

Henry framed my Riot Fest 2016 screenprint and I softly run my fingertips across it every time I walk up and down the steps. The co-founder of Riot Fest, Sean McKeough, passed away last week and I never met the guy, but it broke my heart. That’s one of my people, for sure.

******

BONUS: Vintage photos of Chooch from 2006, because how has 10 years gone. Y already??!!:

Early stages of our competitive relationship. WHO CAN SWING HIGHER?!

(He still sucks at swinging, FYI.)

Ugh when I see these old pictures of him, I’m like, “HEY HENRY….???” But then I remember how shitty my pregnancy was and I just laugh it off psychotically. Maybe someday we’ll get a foreign exchange student?

When I saw that old arcade game sign at the antique store over the summer, I didn’t stop to consider how we would get it to hang on the wall because I keep a secret, all-purpose tool on hand AND HIS NAME IS HENRY. One of the great things about Henry is that he knows how to do things. Like, things that require tools to be done.

One of the not-great things about Henry though, is his proclivity to procrastinate. Which in turn makes me a NAG, but come on — there really is no good way to constantly tell someone to do something, you know? That fucking sign sat on our chair for nearly 4 months before Henry finally heard my desperate nags. Probably because he finished binge-watching Person of Interest on his phone.

I decided that first, we needed to paint the wall because I felt that the Mouse Attack sign wouldn’t POP as much with a white background. Of course, Henry sighed wearily at this because he’s so sick and tired of painting walls. We had some pink leftover from our bedroom, so I decided he could just use that because I love pink so, so, so much. So he painted that on Thanksgiving, and naively thought he was finished, but I was like, “Oh, lol – sorry, did I forget to tell you that I want stripes?” And he just hung his head in response.

I wonder how Henry feels about living in Erin’s Playhouse? Lol, wait—who cares.

We woke up bright & early on Saturday and I was ready to get the home improvement show on the road. So basically after Henry properly fed us and Chooch and I fought 7 seven times, we were ready to go to Lowe’s by 11:30. Typically, I would just stay home but I needed to pick the color of the stripes Henry would be adding to the pink  wall.

Henry’s favorite activity: a trip to Lowe’s with Chooch and me tagging along like drunks!

Chooch and I fought over that, too. We picked hues of blue that were literally .0004 shades away from each other and henry was just like OMG THEY ARE BASICALLY THE SAME?! We went with my choice obviously but then henry remembered that we’re poor and we were looking at the premium people paint, so we had to start the deliberating process all over again in front of the poor people paint swatches.

We went with Summer Splash.

Then it was time to look at booples and woodles, and lurvies and blurbies.

You know, things that Henry needed to hang up the Mouse Attack sign.

Like I said earlier, this is the part I didn’t think of. My mind moves like this:

1. Sees old arcade sign on floor in shop.
2. NOW IT’S ON MY WALL, ALL LIT UP AND SPARKLY!

I don’t fuck with the in-between.

Apparently, this was going to be a Big Project, because we were hanging it on the wall above the fireplace, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking, “But a wall is a wall is a wall.” I learned that this is untrue! And that this particular wall was pretty much the worst wall in the whole entire house because there are BRICKS behind it, because FIREPLACE = CHIMNEY. And Henry was concerned because he didn’t know if the bricks behind the wall were neat and orderly or just basically piled in a heap.

So he had to consider things, which he did while I painted my nails, drank coffee, watched music videos, updated my secret avocado toast porn blog — you know, Erin things.

This is how he knew he needed to go to the METAL SHAPES AND RODS AISLE!

Wow, this is an aisle that exists. I was there!

“Boring. Dumb. Stupid. Idiotic. Wrong,” I said as Henry selected and examined metal shapes and rods. He was starting to get very irritated when Chooch came barreling into us.

“Did you hear that announcement about aisle 13?” he panted. “Well, I was there when it happened.”

Wait—-did we know that Chooch wasn’t with us? Eh. Oh well. He’s here now and that’s all that matters!

Also, I decided I didn’t want to know what happened in aisle 13 while Chooch was there.

Meanwhile, Henry was trying to sound cool by talking about how he was buying brackets or something to mount to the wall, and I was like, “For what?”

He looked at me like I was stupid or something.

“To hang up your fucking sign!” he cried incredulously.

“That seems really involved,” I said around a yawn. “You should just use a magnet.”

“Oh, yeah, OK. A magnet,” he scoffed. “And how are we attaching the magnet to the wall?” he asked in that infuriating Dad Who’s Also an Industrial Arts Teacher tone that seems very specific but not when you know Henry.

“Glue,” I shrugged. “No! Another magnet!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Henry mumbled as he elbowed past me.

In some other boring aisle, we were naturally in some guy’s way, so he gently placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder and cordially said, “Excuse me, buddy.” I immediately started shaking with laughter because LOWE’S BRO CODE. Henry flashed me the “STOP IT” look, which everyone knows is the worst thing to do.

Tool World: I’ll say!

This was the section where Chooch and I were getting so out of control and causing scenes that Henry banished us to the Christmas decoration aisle. :(

Don’t worry, he came to fetch us when he was ready to check out, and that’s when we learned that a cashier has to come over to examine the goods when you’re using the self-check out if there are plants involved in the transaction, because people try to steal things in trees!

“You’d be surprised the things we see people try to sneak out of here inside larger plants and trees,” the Lowe’s guy laughed. “But uh, I think you guys are good to go,” he said, pointing to the tiny cactus Chooch bought.

I learned something at Lowe’s!

Sunday morning, Henry painted the stripes and it was exactly how I envisioned! I waited until he was finished to tell him that my color scheme inspo was Miami Vice and his frown leveled-up to a scowl. Why though, Miami Vice ruled.

I’ll spare you the boring details, because to be honest I wasn’t paying attention to most of the process, which required MEASURING and me fetching Henry his LEVEL which I proudly announced, “I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!” And then there was another moment when he made me mark the wall with a pencil while he held one of this metal shape things and you know I did a lot of huffing and puffing about that, because I was in the middle of playing a game on my phone, you know?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNa4l0GDp6Z/?taken-by=ohhonestlyconcerts

Anyway, I remember that there was a lot of drilling, and then TA DA! My damn arcade thing was mounted to the wall!

AND I LOVE IT. This is what I pictured that day in July when I saw this poor, abandoned Mouse Attack sign languishing alone on the floor of an antique shop. It needed to be a centerpiece! And my house needed upgraded to the next tier of tackiness.

Henry and my friend Shawn still have to figure out a way to modernize the light source inside of it, but I’m just super thrilled that it’s on the wall and not collecting dust on the floor anymore.

Thank god Henry knows how to do these things. Otherwise, there’d be a lot more duct tape on my walls.

Some things:

• I hate that I share “sore winner” traits with Trump. At least I have (marginally) better hair. 
• I had the day off today and had every light on in the house for no reason other than I’m wasteful, which Henry was not thrilled about when he came home. 
• The Affair is back on and I still hate Noah!
• Watched the Gilmore Girls reboot over the weekend and my heart feels like it free-fell through a paper shredder. Lisa and Octavia texted me to make Henry:Luke comparisons and I’m like IKNOWGUYZ! I thought a lot about it during my day of doing nothing, and it made me wonder if he was sent to me by my Pappap, because NO ONE else could have the patience and ingenuity to make me happy. Henry is the ultimate Luke. Sorry, but this year has promoted me to whatever level is above emo and all I do is think about super mushy things and cry my ugly face off. 
• Don’t worry, no GG spoilers.
• Remember the derelicts who are working next door? Well, they apparently were fighting so bad at 2am that Henry woke up and wondered if he should call the cops but someone beat him to it, so awesome – the people who aren’t even technically living next door to us have already had the police break up a domestic dispute. HOW DID I SLEEP THRU THIS? I let myself down. 
• I want to adopt something, maybe a kid,  but Henry said no. :( Maybe I’ll just do an imaginary adoption after I get imaginary married. 
• Bumper cars are expensive. 

• Someone bought two sets of my Dahmer Christmas cards! This is definitely my most popular Xmas card design. Today, I made a new BTK one for this year, so you should ch-ch-check it out!
• I also painted something today and did gospel aerobics so I guess my day off wasn’t TOO unproductive. 
• Oh and I listened to Balance & Composure! You’re shocked. 
• We’ve had these cats for almost a year & everyday we have to get them to remember us, like it’s 50 fucking First Dates.  They give us Stranger Danger stares and then, “Oh yeah, you guys.” 
• My tattoo is still in the OMG ITCHY phase and I’m driving Henry nuts with my whining but that could be any day, really. 

• Chooch ruins every picture on purpose. He has to actually try though, whereas it comes naturally for me. I win again! SUCK IT! IM THE BEST AT BEING UGLY!
• I still like The Walking Dead. Sorry, guys. 
• Henry’s eating yogurt. 
• He just said “So what? You’re so dumb.” HE CALLED YOU GUYS DUMB. 
• This one time last week, Gayle sewed a pompom back on my poncho thing and it was a super big deal (for no one but me):

• I bought an old wheelchair over the summer but everyone is too afraid to sit in it because the seat is like wicker sort of so it’s just been chilling here looking pretty but then I decided to use it as a supplement to the beverage buffet, so it’s now a bar cart! We’ll see how well that works when I have a holiday party here in a few weeks. 

• I’m a sad doll lately. 
• I offered Henry one bullet point but he said no. 
• When I woke up Saturday morning, I became extremely sad that Henry isn’t Dracula. Ugh. 
• I changed Penelope’s name to Peen Lop. She answers to it. 
• Remember when Henry told me I was overreacting over the people next door and now he’s complaining about how they woke him up at 2am? LOL. 
• Last week I was on my way to work and someone sat next to me on the trolley which is usually never good and then to my surprise, he said, “Erin?” So my knee-jerk reaction was to say no but then it ended up being my high school Lawson so it was OK! I haven’t seen him since I was 17 so wow, that was a long over-due reunion. Lawson was part of L.A.M.E. (Lisa/Ang/Melissa/Erin – the boys in our crew didn’t get to be a part of the acronym) and man we had some ridiculous/fun/stupid times together. I never see anyone I know on the trolley (mostly because I hide behind my hair) so that was a really great start to the day!
• I briefly considered learning how to cook but then I got bored before I could finish the thought in my mind. 
• OH YAY THE ASSHOLES NEXT DOOR ARE HOME. 
• I don’t have another show to go to until December 12th :(
• OMG for like 7 years I’ve been telling Henry I want Flex Seal (I might need it for something—YOU DONT KNOW WHAT I DO) and he’s always waving me off but a commercial for it just came on and now all of a sudden he’s like “That’s what we need.” UM NO SHIT?! Apparently, he has an actual use for it and doesn’t just want to buy it because it seems like a cool thing to have. 

• Peen Lop, boys and girls. 

That’s all. You’re dismissed. 

So our fridge was slowly dying because why not? ANYTHING GOES IN 2016!   Finally last week, Henry declared, “Ok we need to get a new fridge now before we don’t have one at all” and so he picked one out but I was like THIS IS NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH and then he showed me the prices of INTERESTING FRIDGES and I was like “SO BORING FRIDGE IT IS!”

But by the time Henry finally chose one that he felt confident would fit through the narrow kitchen doorway, it was Saturday and our fridge had officially bit it.  And then when Henry went to hit the big fat ORDER button, our electricity went out and he had to wait for the computer to reboot.

EVERYTHING WAS AGAINST US.

Let me use this space to type out my millionth Thank God For Henry shout-out of the year because if I lived alone, I never would have considered “cubic feet” and if the doors can come off and switch sides so that they don’t slam against the wall when opened. WHO WOULD CONSIDER THESE THINGS?! Henry would. That’s who.

If it were left up to me, there’d be an Erin-shaped hole in my kitchen wall right now and good luck watching TV around the too-big fridge chilling in my living room.

So the fridge was supposed to be delivered Monday night but Best Buy waited until 8pm to leave Henry a voicemail saying that “Oh btw the fridge is out of stock, see ya Saturday!”

WHAT THE FUCK BEST BUY.

Docile Henry called them back the next morning and got them to put us on some priority list but because it was out of stock, the best they could promise was Friday. So let’s just say we’ve been eating lots of noodles and take-out this week.

Uh, good thing we weren’t hosting Thanksgiving up in here! LOLFOREVER. LOLCORNUCOPIA. It would have to be a “bring your own food” event. Like, all of the food. We’ll provide the chair.

*********

After not having a fridge for a week, the delivery guys are finally here setting it up which means Chooch and I are hiding upstairs, giggling like hyenas. Chooch thought they left at one point and went flying down the steps only to run right into one of them, who cheerfully greeted him with a, “What’s up, buddy?”

“Nothing,” Chooch said, before running upstairs where we cracked up together from our hiding spot in my room.

My favorite part was when Henry was outside talking to the delivery guys and Chooch opened my bedroom window and screamed, “YOU’RE NOT MY DAD!”

“I can just picture Henry down there with his hands on his hips, desperately wanting to help them,” I laughed.

“Yeah like, ‘hey man I like your tools—is that an x360 WRENCH?! Did you know I was IN THE SERVICE?!'”

We are fucking dying.  Now Chooch is creeping on the staircase, recording them.

Ok now they’re gone and we came out of hiding. Henry said I should have stayed down here because one of the guys kept talking about HOW MUCH HE LOVES THE ART IN OUR HOUSE.

HELLO THAT IS MY OWN ART HE IS TALKING ABOUT.

https://instagram.com/p/BNQJ8QEgZaR/

Yay, now we can go buy food! Lol, I mean yay now Henry can go buy food. And now I can hang my magnets back up!

Oh how I missed the sweet melodic hum of a fridge.

LIVIN’ LARGE, BABY.

I never get into the Black Friday festivities of fist-fighting over a microwave or leaving the house at 3am for Uggs or whatever. I don’t even know what the HOT ITEMS are these days. Because – not a grown-up.

What I am interested in is all the holiday merch and limited edition pressings that my favorite bands have been rolling out today! It’s one of the small and few pleasures I still have in life SO BACK OFF EVERYTHING ELSE SUCKS. 

I was lucky to snag a limited edition anniversary vinyl of Alexisonfire’s Crisis album (my favorite) which was no easy feat because their website kept crashing because hello Alexisonfire! Even Henry was trying to buy one. 

I drool every time I look at this. I love you, AOF. 

And then Dance Gavin Dance released their holiday bundle, which includes SALSA (their song Chucky vs the Tortoise has lyrics about pico de gallo which has spawned a ton of memes) and a COCAINE CRINGEFEST CREW NECK which is hilarious because when their album was released, everyone thought the lyrics were Cocaine Christmas and DGD was like NO IT’S CRINGEFEST and the fact they made this crew neck made me laugh so hard that I started crying and then I was just straight up sobbing because 2016 has frayed my nerves, people. FRAYED MY FUCKING NERVES. 

So happy fucking Black Friday to me, I guess. This makes up for the fact that I had to work from 6am-noon. 

If I ever find someone foolish enough to propose to me, my registry is going to be on MerchNow. 

Chooch and I were walking home from getting coffee and hot chocolate on the boulevard and I blurted out, “I’m so excited about that Alexisonfire record — did you see how beautiful it is?!”

And Chooch said earnestly, “Honestly,  no one gives a fuck.”

:(

****

In other news, we had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving just hanging out and spending time together without fighting or trying to meet any kind of familial expectations. I’m not ruling out traditional Thanksgiving dinners in the future, but for right now, this is good. 

We ended up at Denny’s and while it mainly just had the feel of a basic, every day dinner, we laughed a lot and made fun of Henry and it just felt right, you know? Like don’t cry for us, Argentina. 

<3

Today was the first day of the school year that truly required a winter jacket and not the casual windbreaker Chooch has been skating by in (when he even wears a jacket at all). 

I gave myself a mom-pat for remembering to fish out his puffy winter coat before he left this morning. That entailed yanking every last article of outerwear and old purses from the closet. 

Purses I don’t even remember buying. Coats that I never wore last year because they were hidden behind purses I regret buying. So I’m tossing all this shit over my head with wild, careless abandon, like someone would do in a cartoon except this is real life and I haven’t grown up yet and was that a torn bag of Henry’s forgotten dreams and broken balls I just tossed?

Chooch was waiting behind me with a look on his face that said, “Oh god, please don’t get one of your weird ideas and send me to school wrapped in garbage bags set alight, I swear it’s not that cold. Here, I’ll just double up on the layers.”

Flaming garbage bags might be a bit extreme, but what if I MICROWAVED them for warmth?! WE DO WHAT WE HAVE TO DO TO KEEP THE COUNTY AGENCIES AT BAY, SON. 

Anyway, you can exhale now because I finally found one of his old red puffy coats in the back of the closet, entangled in an octopus of Erin’s Impulse Buys. 

“Here, put  this on,” I panted, worn out from all the last minute mothering. I began kicking and punching things back into the closet (but not everything because I wanted to leave some shit strewn about for Henry to put away because why should I have to do it all); when I turned around, I found Chooch standing like a scarecrow, completely stuffed into what turned out to be his coat from first grade. The arms stopped at his elbows and he looked like he was doing a juvenile impersonation of Fat Man in a Tiny Jacket. The look on his face was one of sadness and also disappointment in his mom’s lack of maternal savvy.

But then my eyes floated over his shoulder and I saw, laid out like a dead man’s suit, his actual puffy jacket! Henry had beat us to the punch and plucked the coat out of the closet for us, draping it over the wheelchair like a beautiful yet smug YOU’RE WELCOME, clearly anticipating either a hysterical phone call from me or one later from the school social worker. 

Chooch sighed in relief, peeled the tiny coat from his husky 10-year-old frame, and easily shrugged into the proper coat. I even made sure he had a hat and gloves! (The gloves didn’t match but when do they ever?!)

Thank god Chooch has two moms. 

*******

At least I didn’t let him go to school the way he tried to leave the house on Saturday, in shorts, no shoes, and an unbuttoned shirt: