Tomorrow is the third annual pie party! It’s funny that something I started as a joke has become an annual event. But come on – tables full of pie in the park?! How could that possibly be a bad idea. Anyway, while Henry runs around to every single grocery store like a bumbling Food Network Star hopeful, I have been preparing by reminiscing about the other pie parties. Here’s a repost of last year’s!

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Why do I keep having parties? All they do is stress me the fuck out. And you know, this time, I was trying to be more lackadaisical about it but all that did was make me wake up Saturday morning to a constricted chest and a build-up of pre-party heart palpitations. And it wasn’t like there was a ton to do — Henry just had to make two pies while I roamed around the house, looking at my imaginary Swatch watch and calling him a motherfucker.

“I don’t know why you get so stressed out when I’m the one who has to do everything,” Henry called out from the kitchen, elbow-deep in butterscotch, while I zoned out to Chiodos and buffed my fingernails. Finally, he finished his pistachio pie and deemed the butterscotch pie as “getting there,” so we packed it all up and split for the pavilion; upon arrival, Henry had already written a list of a hundred things he forgot, which meant Chooch and I got to hang out alone in the pavilion while he “ran real quick” to the store.

I. False Hope

While I was chastising my son for being 5 and incapable of using a swingset on his own, a car pulled up the dirt part alongside the pavilion. Chooch and I ran a Special Olympics practice lap toward it just as a man was emerging from the driver’s side. It wasn’t anyone I recognized, but I am never one to turn away a pie aficionado.

“Do you mind if I take some pictures of my wife?” he asked. That’s when I noticed that in place  of a checkered bib fastened around his neck and a pie fork in each hand, he came equipped with his camera, his very pregnant wife, and a young kid.

Oh.

Hopes crushed, I gave them the green light and Chooch and I moped back to the playground with our heads down. Maybe that was just me. It was already past the start of the party and no one had arrived, so what did I care if some weirdos were taking lovey-dovey family portraits over by the porta john.

Then another car pulled down and around the pavilion, so Chooch and I jumped up and cheered just in time for the two strangers in the car to leer at us as they drove back up the road.

“What the fuck?!” I yelled to the party gods, who were clearly angry with me for some reason. Not sending thank you cards fast enough after my birthday party? God, fuck off.

Finally, Henry came back at the same time my brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle arrived, so they were here for the next fake out, when a pick up truck pulled into the lot across the street but then it turned out to be some assholes bringing their dog to the park for a walk. It was nearly 2 at this point and I started to cry a little.

II. The Horse

The incredibly affectionate family/pie party crashers had taken a break in their photo session long enough to plop down for a picnic in the grass. We were sitting at a table under the pavilion, openly mocking them, when Corey noticed a horse coming out of the woods. Atop the horse sat a poised older woman in some kind of fucking safari hat and chambray shirt. Corey could not stop talking about how poised she was, like she was expecting to be photographed or draped with a champion’s sash.  Everyone (but me) took turns telling her how beautiful her horse was as she clomped off toward the playground.

Chooch decided that he HAD TO GO TO THE SWINGSET at this moment and he would have to RUN AS FAST AND AS LOUDLY as he possibly could because it might not be there much longer. Off he ran like a madman, ignoring Henry’s warnings of “Don’t run near the horse——aw, shit.”

Too late.

The horse got spooked and started to buck. The bitch on his back was suddenly less than poised as she tried to get him to calm down. We all just sat there and stared, and then I had to turn away because I was laughing so hard. We’re all so incredibly irresponsible when it comes to that kid.

At least she wasn’t thrown off the horse, I guess.

III. This Is My Brother, Corey; He’s Color Blind

Since there still wasn’t a party happening, Corey, Danielle and Chooch sat down and colored some Star Wars pictures. Thank god for crayons and coloring books.

“You know I’m color-blind, right?” Corey asked me.

“What? No!” I replied.

“Yeah, I found out when I was like, 7 and got my first pair of glasses. The doctor was basically like, ‘You’re color-blind as fuck.’ I can’t believe you’ve known me for 21 years and didn’t know this!” Corey said, mock-offended.

Meanwhile, Chooch was chastising Corey for coloring Luke Skywalker totally wrong and I was like, “Dude doesn’t know his colors, Chooch. He can’t help it.” I tried to give Corey a sympathetic smile but I couldn’t stop laughing long enough.

Anyway, the point of Corey’s story is that his color-retardedness is affecting his ability to excel in one of his classes, so his adviser intervened and told the professor about Corey’s “condition,” at which point he was sent to the disability office and had to sit among suicidal students and a guy with one leg.

This was so ridiculously funny to me that I could not stop laughing and talking about it. All day long, whenever someone new would arrive (and yes, people did eventually arrive), I would introduce Corey as “my brother; he’s color-blind.” Show me your weakness and I will mock you relentlessly.

 IV. The Butterscotch Blunder

People were finally beginning to arrive and Henry let me set out the pistachio pie (which was like spooning a cloud from Heaven into your mouth; I bet angels get breast implants made from this sweet fluff) but said that the butterscotch pie still wasn’t ready.

“Don’t touch it!” he barked preemptively when I made to open the weird helium-balloon looking cooler stowing the runny pie. “I just checked it and it still hasn’t jelled.” He tugged on his coller a little and then took another swig of his iced tea jug.

This pretty much went on all day, this dance around the reverse pie-incubator, until finally it was 6:30 and everyone had left with nary a slice of butterscotch pie (which is one of my all-time favorite pies and I haven’t had it in years because my mom doesn’t care enough about me to bake me one, but she’ll still bake them FOR HER EX-HUSBAND WTF). I was devastated. Yes, I had shoveled multiple varities of fruit- and cream-filled desserts between my oscillating lips, but there was a void that couldn’t be filled by any berry or Nutella. I needed that fucking butterscotch.

(Two pies came close though: Kaitlin made a black forest pie and then told Henry to suck it; and Laura’s fiance Mike baked one of the best apple pies with a crust soaked in some sort of sex nectar, I don’t even know but I think I may have broken a few laws with it in my mouth.)

V. The Park

Everyone is always bitching about how hard it is to find park pavilions, no matter what park we’re at, so fuck that: the next pie party will be at a strip club. Maybe then people will actually show up.

And then there won’t be any stink bugs to freak people out. Just crabs.

VI. Where’s the Avocado Pie?

Henry didn’t make the avocado pie this year and of course everyone was like, “Did Henry make the avocado pie?” No, Henry didn’t make the avocado pie because he was too busy fucking up the butterscotch pie.

VII. Pictures of People Eating Pie

Pie Eaters:

• Me me me me
• Henry and Chooch
• Laura
• Corey and Danielle
• Robbie and Karen
• Ron
• John, Jennifer, Abby and Gavin
• Nancy and her baby, Joey
• Jamie and her baby, Crosby
• Barb
• Kaitlin
• Sandy and Elena
• Sean and Kylie
• Joy and John
• Kristen and her dog, Joey
• Blake and Shannon
• Henry’s mom Judy
• Henry’s sister Kelly
• Zac
• Janna

 Henry bought some sort of pie shower caps, except I thought he said they were for vaginas. I was so confused, but figured it was something he saw his ex using one time, so I didn’t question it.

I don’t think these kids stopped moving long enough to eat even a bite of pie.

WHAT WERE THEY TALKING ABOUT? It seems so intense.

Since it was an open house-type of party, people came and went all day. Henry kept trying to make everyone take pie home with them, because the pie:person ratio was totally ridiculous this year. There were some pies that hadn’t even been cut into by the end of the day. Was everyone on a diet this year?

We even considered handing off some pie to the picnicking pregnant family down by the porta john.

Joy’s fiance John asked me what started the whole pie party thing. When I told him that it was basically because I wanted pie and wondered how I could trick people into bringing me some, I think he believed me but I’m not sure. It’s kind of cool how much people enjoy pillaging a spread of pies in a park pavilion on a beautiful autumn day, though.

Probably frowning at Kaitlin’s black forest pie.

Laura actually likes having her photo taken, so she doesn’t care when I sneak up on her.

Overall, it was a great day, great weather, great pies, and great people. But by 6:00, I was writhing around and yelling WHY DID YOU LET ME EAT SO MUCH PIE!? because everything is Henry’s fault.

The next morning, Henry finally admitted that he fucked up the butterscotch pie, which had never jelled, not even after a full 24 hours. There goes your spot on the Food Network, Henry, you fuck-up.

I heard through the grapevine that Glenn liked last year’s Murder Desk better than this year’s Carnival Desk because he got to be the killer. (I’m going to pretend that he wasn’t being sarcastic.)

So I decided to incorporate his murderous streak into this year’s theme, too.

I’ve been calling this Candy’s Corner.

Remains of Candy mingle amongst circus peanuts.

I figured I could use Glenn to tie in Candy’s Corner with all the department sideshow freaks, so I made a newspaper article. (The picture of Candy is random — I didn’t want anyone here to be all, “OMG WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE VICTIM!?”)

(But really, aren’t we all?)

The “unknown metal object” will be officially revealed next week when I have Candy’s stomach contents on my desk.

I tried to throw in a few shout-outs here and there, like Barb’s newfound predilection for tacking on “holla!” to the end of random proclamations and Amber1’s publicly shared affection for her wiener dog.

And Brad’s midget-ness.

Another new addition: creepy old jack in the box!

Candy’s wig and bow.

Sean and Glenn checking out the latest Glenns on the wall.

The real Glenn got Little Orphan Glenn in today’s clown head digging. George got Jesus Glenn, and to quote Lee: “George gets ALL of the good Glenns!

“

I’m so happy that the Glenn Dispenser (as dubbed by A-Ron) is a hit! (Above is a close-up of the clown head’s mouth, where all the fun is.) It makes me laugh to hear my work friends asking each other, “Which Glenn did you get??” And when Lee found out George got the coveted Juggalo Glenn, he whined, “George always gets the good Glenns!

”

I added a bunch more Glenns to the mix today, including Rainbow Brite Glenn, Swoop-era Bieber Glenn, Furry Glenn, and “Carrie” Glenn.

Today, Glenn’s prize capsule contained a fortune.

“Wow. How deep,” he mumbled after reading it, but really I think he was disappointed that he didn’t get a Himself.

We have really been scoring at the thrift stores lately. Last week, Henry found an elephant table and sent me a picture of it. I was in a meeting at the time though, and by the time I got back to him to say, “Fuck yeah, I want that!” he had already left.

So I made him go back. You can’t pass up a goddamn elephant table, Jesus Christ.

The original table featured an elephant-colored elephant, which is fine for some, but I knew that if that table was ever going to belong in my house, it would have to be pink. So we pinked the fuck out of it and now have the best accent table of all time, which will be perfect in the clown room of my imaginary house.

In other news, paper mâché sucks. But I said I was going to do this, so now I must see it through.

Scored a new member for the Wheelchair Gang today at Goodwill!

I can’t believe someone would give away such an evil specimen.

I’m so pleased with him! I’ve named him Mauricio. He’s fit in seamlessly with Malachai and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Baby.

Can’t wait for them to come alive and gut the neighborhood with melon ballers!

Scored these “baby’s” as well.

In other OHE happenings, I’ve been off work for the last two days and it has been lovely. I spent yesterday catching up with my oldest friend Christy (she’s the one you’d want to go to for confirmation on all the Adolescent Erin tales, and also the one who tried to warn me about getting involved with Psycho Mike, god bless her), and then Seri and I spent 87 hours in the car just to get psychologically tortured at Ghoul Mansion in Sharon, PA. More on that later (and also my annual Castle Blood review)!

Today was spent scouring various stores for components of my Halloween desk decor – I’m really excited about it this year and can’t wait to start putting it together on Monday! Henry is helping me make a large paper mâché clown head today so hopefully that ends successfully and with little blood shed.

I’ve also been spending my time off catching up on season 2 of The Killing which has quickly become my new obsession and possibly in the Top 5 of my favorite TV shows, so naturally it was canceled.

On top of all that, I’m pretty sure I’m getting sick. Yay!

Hi, hello! The first week of the new Law Firm Walking Challenge has been going swimmingly (walkingly?). The first day, I lapped my way to an easy 20,000 steps by walking to Seri’s house, which is only 1.88 miles away, but to be fair to my awesomeness, I didn’t get there by walking a straight shot – I zig-zagged up and down several side streets, whaddup.

Anyway, I allowed myself to stay temporarily idle long enough for Seri to say nice things to me, stick a bottle of water in my mouth and ply me with a cookie. I had 6800 steps when I arrived at her house, but after walking one block into my departure, I still only had 6800.

STOMACH: SINKING.

But then I realized I had the pedometer showing the aerobic steps, which don’t move until you’ve been walking at a quick pace for a certain period of time.

I had 12,000 steps by noon!

I wasn’t even angry when Teammate Barb called off work! Or when Amber¹ didn’t seem as gung-ho as last time. I even chose to ignore the fact that Carey had less steps than Stephen Hawking and opted to focus instead on the fact that she was even wearing her pedometer at all.

By the time I left work at 8:30, I had 20,000 steps!

This time, I’m doing things differently. I’m staying calm. I’m not going to berate my team members (for now). But apparently, I’m still verbally Bobbiting Henry as ruthlessly as I was last time.

“Oh boy,” he said with mock surprise as he drove me to work on Tuesday (I’d walk if I could). “It’s only day 2 and you’re already being a bitch. Can’t wait until day 5.”

Two hours later, he was driving back downtown to deliver me my TOMS after I discovered that the shoes I wore to work were too painful to aggressively walk in.

God, what a sucker. I mean, thank you Henry! You’re my hero!

Chooch being in school this time around has given me ample opportunity to rack up tons of steps before work. However, Wednesday I had to contend with him being home from school plus RAIN. So I made him mall-walk with me and all the elderlies.

He was thrilled. But we actually had a pretty good time. I was even going to be a decent mom and buy him something for going along with my walking madness.

We walked into Claire’s because he saw Frankenweenie swag as we walked by.

“What brings you here today?” the store manager asked us, and I launched into this manic explanation of the Law Firm Walking Challenge, flashing my pedometer at her as Chooch groaned and the manager appeared sorry that she asked. I guess she was expecting me to exclaim, “Just wanted to buy some sweet ass Hello Kitty pasties.”

Chooch ended up finding a wallet he liked. (“IT’S SO SOFTTTTTTT!” he kept cooing. Meet the lighter side of Chooch, fan of furry panda change purses.)

Speaking of wallets, this was the part of the day when I realized I left mine at home. The Claire’s manager looked super pissed that she listened to my walking challenge story and didn’t even get a sale out of it.

Before we left, Chooch, around a mouthful of giggles, “dared” me to go into Victoria’s Secret. Then he saw a spotted stuffed dog in the middle of the store and said, “Um…I’m just gonna run in there real fast and look at that….stuffed dog.” And that is exactly what he did, rubbernecking around to ogle all the over-sized pictures of models on the wall while he was half-assedly petting the stuffed dog.

Just now, Henry saw Purple Pants walk past the house and said, “She’s probably at about 70,000 steps by now.”  Ugh! I have to go walk some more! I want to walk to Lisa’s husband’s graduation party today but I don’t think I’d make it there on time.

 Today’s “I’m Too Busy Walking to Blog” vintage post is about how I was robbed of $20 but made a new friend.

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“How To Die In the Event of a Rape”

I’m too busy walking to write just now – once I get back into a groove, I’ll be fine! But for now, here is an essay I wrote for my creative non-fiction class in 2008. The formatting is probably all jacked-up, but OH WELL. My pedometer is more important!

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      “Stop, you’re making me choke on Skittle juice!” Cinn screamed from behind the steering wheel. A long ribbon of highway unraveled in front of us and I grimaced when Cinn said we had at least two hours left in our journey. I tickled our ennui by flirting with the driver of every vehicle that had the misfortune of passing us, only exciting the burly and unwashed-looking men manning the gigantic semis that made compact cars like Cinn’s sway perilously.

Two days earlier, I was meeting Cinn in person for the first time after several encounters in a gothic chat room called DarkChat. She arrived at my apartment, her shocking red locks were closely shorn to her pate and jutted out in spikes here and there, and we went off to buy our costumes for the upcoming Type O Negative show and Dracula’s Ball in Philadelphia. I knew nothing about her but that she was twenty-eight to my nineteen and lived only a short jaunt away from me. I didn’t even know she was married until that weekend, when I arrived at her house at the designated departure time, but somehow the particulars didn’t seem to apply to this friendship – we had somehow managed to connect based on something entirely more intrinsic than a/s/l.

Agreeing to go on this trip was just what I needed, coming off the heels of a tumultuous summer filled with break-ins, having my wallet pilfered and car stolen (and then ever-so-thoughtfully returned hours later) by people I thought were friends.  It was a summer that started off strong, full of parties and crushes and a bounty of alcohol, but by the end, it had become a twirling tailspin of depression, loneliness and the stark reality that 99% of the people with whom I shared my apartment weren’t going to be there when I needed them. I had taken to living as a near-recluse, keeping my heavy curtains perpetually drawn, even on sunny-skied days. During this self-imprisonment was when I stumbled across the chat room. At first it was nothing more than a release for my pent up aggression, a place admittedly to flame and mock the suicidal Goth kids; but then I began noticing that there was interesting conversation scrolling past the screen, people gushing about bands that I liked. Before I realized what was happening, I was being sucked in to this strange realm of pale-faced misfits. And I fit in because I was a misfit too.

***

Our dresses hung like black-laced shrouds from the garment hooks in the back of Cinn’s car. The plan was to check into a hotel when we arrived in Philadelphia, change into our off-the-Hot Topic-rack gowns and meet up with another DarkChat user, Your Druidess. I had never chatted with this lady before, but Cinn confidently assured me that she would be standing outside of the Trocadero with our free tickets to the Type O show. Here I was, recuperating from a summer full of broken trust, only to turn around and hand over what little left I was able to scrape up  to this strange woman who I essentially knew nothing about. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider, at least once, that this woman with her Simon LeBon coif was a real vampire, luring me to a sinister abattoir for Internet chat room newbies under the guise of some gothic jamboree. Maybe I might have second guessed some of her innocent sidelong glances, seeing them instead as the shifty glance of a nervous Internet predator.  I would later learn that she was nervous – of what I was furiously scribbling in my vacation journal.

Her real name was Allison, but she preferred to be called by her online moniker – Cinnamon Girl — and preferred to call me by my chat handle, too – Ruby. Conversation flowed easily between us, even though we had engaged in minimal chat room interaction, and I diligently noted in my journal that she kept count of every cemetery we passed, had an eye for spotting majestic trees, and churned out a myriad of cheesy one-liners, such as “Call me a bitch, but call me” and “Boobage is like mileage,” which I still don’t really understand even a decade later.

My friends thought I was making a mistake by coming on this trip. Meeting people on the Internet is bad idea, some of them said, trying to deter me. This isn’t going to end well. You don’t even know her. Do you even like Type O Negative?

Aside from a cover of “Summer Breeze,” I knew little about Type O Negative, but Cinn changed that with a nonstop Type O curriculum in the car.

I’ve been a fan ever since, though it’s a wonder I didn’t wind up abhorring them.

But that wasn’t the point. It could have been any band, it could have been Anal Cunt, and I still would have said yes. It was something that at nineteen years old, after the reality of the summer’s end had set in, I felt I really needed to do. It would be an experience, something to write about, a story to tell.  I wasn’t in college; I wasn’t living in a dorm and going to frat parties or spending semesters abroad. It may have been just a trip to Philly, but it was more than that to me.

***

“We’re not going to have time to find a hotel,” Cinn said, exhaling a heavy sigh of defeat. We had finally reached the city only to be met with gridlocked traffic. “Start putting your makeup on.” She tossed me my bag from the back seat and I bedaubed my eyelids with a layer of glitter thick enough to make a drag queen proud and possibly get some change tossed at me if I stood on a corner.

“Do I have to wear these fake eyelashes?” I groaned, tumbling the plastic package over in my palm, in search of instructions. I had already managed to squirt glue in my eye before she had a chance to say anything, but in my journal I wrote that she physically forced me to adhere them to my eyelids else I’d sleep on the streets that night.

We squeezed into our slutty Morticia dresses in the tight confines of a dingy gas station bathroom. The fluorescent white track lighting made my normal complexion look legitimately sallow and I wished I could achieve that look at the ball. Cinn made that wish her own reality by heavily coating her entire face with white powder, a measure I was unwilling to take. Cinn accidentally dropped a ten dollar bill in the commode.

***

Your Druidess never showed up.

We stood dejectedly outside the Trocadero for an hour, watching hordes of Type O fans bustling into the sold out show, clutching onto hope so fleeting, it was like cocaine sifting through our fingers. I silently breathed a sign of relief though, because I wasn’t 100% on board with donning my ridiculous Goth uniform anywhere other than Dracula’s Ball. Cinn was openly weeping over this  imbroglio when a big-wheeled pick-up truck sped past, Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” blasting ironically at high volumes from the windows. I shot my fist into the air and saluted.

Your Druidess is a stupid name, anyway.

***

Refusing to let Your Druidess’s blunder ruin our trip (she was probably a fifty-year-old fisherman, anyway), we decided to make the best of it and seek out the Dracula’s Ball, which we had planned to attend after the show. Driving through Central City on Halloween night, past loading docks and alleys full of shadowed forms, I began to understand why the Fresh Prince’s mom made him move to Bel Air. It didn’t seem like we were in the right place and my old friend Panic began to rise again up my esophagus, like a recently ingested model’s salad. It burned.

She’s going to stab me with her fake fangs and roll my body into the river. But before I let my paranoia get the best of me by hurling myself from the moving car, I spotted an undulating line of poorly dyed raven locks, billowing capes, and sparkling neck-bound crucifixes. We had found the Dracula’s Ball. In my head, I rejoiced with the Tabernacle Choir.

***

       This is high school all over again, I thought as I came precariously close to being engulfed by the obnoxiously large black velvet couch on which I sat, like a shell-shocked Alice at a tenebrous tea party, while Cinn was over at the bar getting refreshments. My feet dangled inches from the floor, the chair was that ludicrously oversized. Cinn came back with a beer, which I grabbed for desperately (and I don’t even like beer), but she handed me a glass of Coke instead, mouthing off some spiel about not contributing to minors.  And here I thought we were bros.

We were the first people to be let in, having been hand-picked in front of everyone by Malachi, Philadelphia’s Baron of Goth. I never did find out who he was supposed to be, but I know that girls swooned when he neared them and men shook his hand with great respect shining in their eyes. A top hat nestled stately upon the carefully tousled kohl hair framing an alabaster face; a tailed tuxedo suitable for Marilyn Manson to wear to the market and a cane imprisoned within the grip of a white-gloved hand finished off his meticulous look.  He could be a vampire. He could really be a vampire. When he approached us with an extended palm, every girl gasped in envy. Murmurs of our luck resounded around us as we advanced to the doors, leaving everyone to reapply their black eyeliner in disgust.

It smelled like a clove and anise cocktail inside the Ball, with a slight trace of sweat and smoke coalescing to provide an acrid after-scent.  Black velvet and gossamer draped from rafters, chandeliers, and limbs, like gauze on an unraveling mummy.

Tall, emaciated boys in high-collared shirts with frilly sleeves strutted to and fro, arms akimbo, feet stuffed into thick-soled black Creepers, while girls spiraled dream-like around the dance floor, giving off the illusion that they were floating above the ground as they skipped in staccato patterns, yet managed to retain their fluidity; cupping their hands into cordate offerings, they contorted their arms in hypnotic patterns which a friend would later tell me he dubbed “Passing the Ball of Energy.” Every third girl had some variation of fairy wings clipped to her back and none returned my smiles.

You know those stares you get when you leave the house accidentally still wearing the skin-suit you fashioned from your last murder victim? It was like that.

I tried to tell a girl I thought she danced beautifully and she all but hissed in my face while dripping gobs of glitter much like the molten blobs of wax that plop from tilted taper candles. And here I thought I had escaped the Prom two years before; this must have been Thomas Jefferson High School’s revenge. The girls could see right through my façade, sniffing the scent of my dress’s cheap threads and knowing that it wasn’t purchased in some Elizabethan boutique, branding me a poseur. The acceptance I once felt in the Goth chat room was all but shattered when I was forced to stare this culture in the face, without the shield of a computer monitor.

Feeling safe with my roots in the wall, my aphasia and I remained sidelined for most of the evening.

***

“What’s an egg cream?” I asked Cinn, scanning the menu at Silk City Diner. It was 11:30PM and the diner was sprinkled with several other Ball escapees. Cinn said that we would see how we were feeling after we got some food in our stomachs, that we’d decide then if we were going to go back to the Ball. Under the table, I crossed my fingers for a vomitous outburst, an exploding appendix, an arm severing spontaneously.

Minutes later, the waitress had convinced me that egg creams were quite possibly the most delicious refreshments one could ever want to flow down their gullet; I imagined Jesus ripping himself from the cross and striding purposefully into the nearest diner and ordering a tall glass of creamed eggs. “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get down from that cross, Jesus?” “Get myself a nice cold egg cream, friend.” And how could Jesus be wrong?

The waitress slid a tall glass of egg cream along the Formica table top. I should have known I couldn’t ever agree with Jesus. It was disgusting. A foaming cylinder of soda water and chocolate syrup, essentially. I didn’t know what eggs had to do with it, but there must have been a lot of courage infused into that vile libation, because I felt recharged and feisty, like the Erin I was before my generosity and effervesence had been wringed dry like an old ratty dish rag. Mounting the sparky-vinyl booth, I shouted, “Can I have your attention? We’re from Pittsburgh and I’d like to take your picture!”

In a surprising twist, everyone graciously obliged. It was like an awakening for me, a reclaiming of that spark that had been robbed from me that summer, the lack of which had quickly shoved me into a shell. I felt rejuvenated from my moment of bravery and decided that I wanted to go back to the Ball.

But first I had to wait for Cinn to emerge from under the table.

***

She introduced me to the man with red irises, long and slick black hair, and two sets of fangs, saying his name was Tom and that she had met him earlier in the night, during her quest for beverage which should have taken five minutes, not thirty. Suddenly oblivious to my presence, they began making out and I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time their tongues met that evening. I rolled my eyes and wandered around the building, curious what I might find on the other floors.

The basement was a crypt for kegs and an astringent aroma of cloves and mildew which made my nasal passages feel unwelcome. The second floor seemed dandy until I entered a room that was like walking into a bathroom at Studio 54. Sickly Goths lounged languidly around tables of blow. I had a feeling that probably wasn’t the best room for me to be loitering. I’m a very addiction-prone girl.

Not really feeling comfortable anywhere inside (except Vendor Alley, where I threw down fifty dollars on a red leather bat choker with wings so salient they bore small holes into the skin of my throat while I wore it), I relocated to a stoop outside, taking solace in my pack of Camels and scribbled furiously in my journal. I began panicking about where I was going to sleep and how I was going to get home, because I realized I had no idea of Cinn’s intentions.  I felt threatened by this man Tom. Women get weird when men enter the picture. I hoped that I wasn’t about to get ditched, although it wouldn’t be the first time.

I returned the raucous salutations of inebriated passers-by, declined offers of rides and wild nights, and accepted a stamp pad which I promptly tossed to the side, afraid it might be laced with acid or whatever hallucinogenic was popular on the streets of Philly. A homeless man sang in my face until I silenced him with a crumpled dollar.

As I lit my fifth cigarette with cold-shook hands, I heard a shrill voice reverberating down the sidewalk on a wave of the pulsating beat of Electric Hellfire Club.

***

Every October, I feel nostalgic for that music. I fill my autumns with a rotation of goth-rock bands like Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death; I remember the way those people danced and looked so free, and still wish I could fit in with them. But instead, I listen to this music alone, this time in the warmth of my house, and not from a curb outside of a club, on a cold hemorrhoid-incubating slab of city concrete. Not only am I fake Goth, but a seasonal one at that.

***

“Jesus Christ, I’ve been looking all over for you! I thought you had been stolen, and I was so scared. And then I kept thinking about your damn journal and all the made-up stuff you were writing about me, and what would the cops think—-” She roughly pulled me into her, hugging me tight and petting my hair.

It was a scene straight out of a crowded department store at Christmastime, except that I wasn’t a crying child silently thanking Santa for helping her Mommy find her, but a nineteen year old girl with rogue specks of glitter scraping her eyes and a sleep-deprived surliness.

Tom was still saddled protectively to her side.

***

“Are you sure you’re not hungry? We can stop there,” Carl said, jabbing a finger out the car window at some fast food chain. “Or there.” It was the third time he suggested this supposed good intentioned pit stop. I was seated awkwardly in the passenger seat of his truck, my dread-filled eyes staring straight ahead, glued to the back of Cinn’s car.

Tom had invited us back to his apartment and devised a brilliant plan which put him in the driver’s seat of Cinn’s car, while I was pawned off on his friend Carl, who appeared to be an amalgamation of Ozzy Osbourne’s and Michael Bolton’s genetic markers. Translating this to mean that Tom and Cinn wanted to spend time alone, I acquiesced – but not without a loud, throat-scraping exhale, the kind that every teenager perfects, to illustrate my annoyance — and joined the lascivious Carl, who was desperate for an excuse to stall our reunion with the others.

“No, really. I’m not hungry. I just ate two hours ago. A lot. I ate a lot. Four courses, at least.”  My gaze remained indestructible, refusing to let Cinn’s car out of my sight.  “Maybe even eight,” I mumbled in an undertone. I’m going to be so pissed off if I get raped tonight, I thought bitterly.

***

Tom’s apartment was what you’d expect for a man convinced he was a vampire: no matter where you placed your ass, an animal print of some sort was promised to be underneath; black pillar candles occupied every free surface area; Egyptian relics and religious tchotschkes gave the room a very underground Pier 1 ambiance.

I was trapped on Tom’s couch for three hours, during which I suffered through a painfully awful vampire movie (Vampire Journals), and even worse, Tom’s lame attempt at humorous commentary; a photo op for Carl, in which I appeared to be shrinking back inside of myself while Carl ravenously leered over my shoulder (a photograph I treasure to this day); and Tom’s guided tour through the technological wonderments of WebTV.

While Tom was searching for a better ankh image to embed in his email signature, I slipped out to Cinn’s car where I proceeded to collapse into frustrated tears in the passenger seat. It was 6AM and I wanted to sleep, but not in Tom’s perverse lair. Cinn came after me, and I sobbed about not knowing what Tom keeps under his floorboards and not wanting to sleep in the same room, building, state as Carl, and I complained of the searing pain I was feeling in my eyebrow. I had just had a new ring put in days before, by a husky goliath in a piercing parlor who looked like he could have just shimmied down Jack’s beanstalk. The gauge was all wrong, but he forced the purple hoop through the miniscule holes in my brow. When I awoke, I was supine and groggy on a couch, and he showed me the paper towel drenched with my blood.

“I need to wash my face,” I wailed, hiccupping on tears. “This glitter is really making my piercing hurt.”

Probably scared of what fabricated tale I was bound to weave inside the purple cover of my vacation journal, Cinn placed her hands on my shoulders and promised we would leave right then. She was true to her word. She drove all morning, stopping near Hershey to feed me a nutritious breakfast of raspberry Danish and strawberry muffin.

***

After that weekend, Cinn and I forged a sisterly relationship, which isn’t always a good thing, but I know that she would save my life if she could. We’ll go for months, sometimes years, without speaking, but underneath it all, it was like we survived a train wreck together, a Gothic train wreck of spider-webbed carnage and fish netted limbs, anise smoke and novelty fangs, and that alone bounds us together, no matter our differences or penchants for running off with mysterious strangers. I still haven’t found my place in life, an accepted membership into some snobby subculture, but I’m OK with that. I like being the girl with a cover no one can judge.

***

The night after I returned home found me in the emergency room, with a doctor surgically extracting my eye brow ring, barely visible amongst the swollen patch of eyelid that caused people to mistake me for a mongoloid.  “Look at all the puss that came out!” he lectured me, while two nurses vowed to never let their daughters get pierced.

I still have a scar.

As if I wasn’t already totally clingy and obsessed with Marcy, having two of my cats die 5 months apart has only worsened my attachment. Sometimes I have to force myself to let go so I don’t hug her to death.

We’ve still been flip-flopping about getting a kitten to fill the void, but considering I still can’t visit Speck and Don’s graves without crying, or seeing other kittens without crying (especially chubby gray boy kittens), I don’t think this is in the cards for us.
Plus, my friend Jessi recently shared an article about caring for elder cats, and it said that introducing a rambunctious kitten to an older cat is not the best idea. I was telling Henry about this yesterday.

“I mean, can you imagine Marcy with a kitten? She’s already annoyed enough with—-”

“You,” Henry said, cutting me off.

“—Chooch.”

But he’s right. I totally annoy the piss out of that cat. But I think she secretly likes it. Maybe?

This was right after I made her watch the finale of So You Think You Can Dance. I kept poking her and asking, “Marcy, did you see that!? WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN!?!?” She responds by ruffling her fur and shifting her body away from me.

I JUST LOVE HER SO MUCHHHHHHHH. :(

[EDIT: She just totally fucked up my hand.]

Carey and I were talking just now at work about geocaching, which made me kind of nostalgic for the days Henry and I used to letterbox, which were admittedly not very many days considering we’d fight so heatedly about it that our souls would become torn asunder, tiny, ragged  morsels pregnant with hate, sinking down to Hell for their turn as Satan’s murder-flavored hors d’oeuvres.

Anyway, I felt inspired to re-share our last go around with letterboxing, the pioneer people version of geocaching, and now I totally want to try this again sometime. Like maybe the weekend, unless Henry is going to be a big pussymotherfuckercooze about it.

(Also, get a load of Henry’s Sir Johan hair of 2009. Jesus, Henry.)

—————-

November 2009

Henry and I used to letterbox back in 2004. The definition of  “used to letterbox” can be loosely translated to mean: we did it 2 or 3 times in the span of a month before it made us hate each other even more.

Letterboxing is like the primordial version of geocaching, where you follow clues and natural landmarks to reach a treasure consisting of a tupperware box with a booklet and rubber stamp inside. Letterbox purists make their own rubber stamp to use as their signature inside each letterbox they find. You then scribble the date next to your marking and take the rubberstamp supplied inside the letterbox to stamp your own booklet. It’s kind of like getting a Passport stamped and using it to remember where you’ve been.

Maybe I’m making this up.

But the way Henry and I do it is this: pick a letterbox within Western Pennsylvania, print out the directions, argue the entire time about who’s right and who’s wrong and who should just get pushed into a ravine, find the letterbox and then remember how pointless it is when we:

• a. don’t have our own stamp because I justcan’t find enough time to carve that intricate design of Satan with a vagina
• b. always forget to bring a pen to write inside the booklet
• c. remember that it’s not actual treasure we’re scavenging for

And then it’s always awesome when we’re looking for a box that was planted in 2004 and almost none of the natural landmarks are still there. “Look for the gray bunny standing next to the bubbling brook.” Yeah, sorry, that bunny’s long been filleted and skinned by a serial killer in-training.

But letterboxing is a good poor man’s hobby, and since we are a house of poor (wo)men I thought that maybe it would be something fun to do with Chooch, who only vaguely cared that we were searching for “treasure” and then stopped caring altogether when we passed a playground on the way to the pathetic bounty-hiding park.

I wanted to hug this tree and say, “Don’t worry, tree. I’m po’, too. So much that I had to ask to postpone my art show because I have no money to make anything to, you know, SHOW.”

The first letterbox we found (where “we” is a pronoun for HENRY who monopolized the directions as usual) was on the side of a hill. I’m sure in the summer it’s a cake walk, but autumn’s moist leaves could make an ant hill treacherous. It’s a good thing I have an itchy (camera) trigger finger, because I totally knew Chooch would fall.

I can’t remember the name of the “park” this was at, other than it was in Shaler, PA and it was less of a park, more of a great place to get yourself raped, stabbed, and then thrown over a waterfall. It had a very ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha ambiance that I loved/hated. The path was swampy from the rain we got the night before and mama didn’t like that one bit. I’m such an indoorswoman that the tiniest burr on my shoe has me shrieking “GET IT OFF!” And Chooch did just that, calmly wrenching the burr from my laces, but not without giving me an annoyed scowl full of incredulity.

There was a lot of aimless trekking, in search of a path that had two fallen trees strewn across it. We never found the fallen trees. BECAUSE A SERIAL KILLER HAD ALREADY CHOPPED THEM UP TO USE AS FIREWOOD TO FUEL HIS BODY INCINERATOR.

This is my favorite picture because it details Henry abandoning his family. Apparently Chooch and I are “annoying.” I’m sorry, but when you’re deposited within an enclave of trees, you scream as loud as you can. Everyone knows that. The Girl Scouts teach you that. So SORRY if that’s ANNOYING to you.

This was the second box we found. I had to stick my hand under a crappy wooden bridge and yank it out. It was horrifying and I kept waiting for a troll to bite my hand and give me HIV. This was about the time Chooch realized that, what the fuck, letterboxing is a fucking crock.

Henry is a rubber stamp enthusiast and likes to thumb through the booklets to admire all the handiwork. It’s something he got into when he was in THE SERVICE and all his SERVICE BUDDIES were out getting laid. However, I have no idea what that is in the picture. It’s definitely not a rubber stamp, and looks like some crude sex drawing scribbled by a passing-by serial killer.

OVER IT.

This time, I at least had the foresight to bring some of my art cards with me, so I stuffed those in the Ziplock bags. Henry didn’t think it was a good idea, but whatever. He also didn’t like the way I jammed everything back into the baggie, left it unsealed, and then attempted to punch it all back into the letterbox.

So then he would have to yank it off me, take everything out and start from scratch.

I wish he were that precise and anal about HOUSECLEANING and peeing INTO the toilet.

There were a lot of little bridges there. I think maybe that’s why this particular Letterbox locale was called Little Bridge something or other.

Maybe? Yeah? Chooch almost fell off this bridge while I was snapping away. Don’t worry, he probably wouldn’t have died.

On the way back to the car, I was trailing back slightly and kept tapping Chooch on the head. He’s like Henry and has a strong threshhold for ignoring me, but eventually he cracked, spun around and yelled, “Would you stop doing that??

”

“It’s not me, it was the man who was walking next to me,” I shrugged, like it was natural for a strange man to fall into cadence next to me without me screaming my face off.

“Oh, Chooch, we know that’s a lie, because if there was some man walking next to mommy—”

“I’d have run off with him by now,” I finished for Henry.

There was a moment of silence as Henry considered this. “Yeah. I guess it could go that way, too.”

I’m determined to plant my own letterbox someday, probably just in my backyard so I can sit on the porch and wait for idiots to come digging. The directions will be so simple:

• Start at Robin’s Meth Lab
• Walk approx. 100 feet
• When you hear what sounds unmistakably like a murder between brick walls, turn right down the driveway
• Pass the carelessly strewn hypodermic needle
• If you stumble upon a pretentious kerchiefed hipster wearing peddle-pushers and planting carrots in her trendy Devendra Banhart-soundtracked garden, you’ve clearly gone too far. (I really hate the girl two houses up from me, FYI. She is single handedly spearheading a movement to bring back the Donna Reed mentality in women and I’m just not down with that bullshit at all. I hope she rides her fucking vintage wicker-basketed bicycle into a goddamn cyclone that’s en route to 1959 where she can cook a meatloaf for someone who cares and let me stew in my anti-domestic bliss. FUCK GODDAMN SHIT.)

Here is a new blog series about Henry eating cole slaw.

Episode 1: Eating Slaw at Smoke BBQ Taqueria.

Seriously, when I suggested that this be a series, he frowned (no evidence was captured) and said, “Don’t be stupid.

”

In addition to our tacos, we also shared a side of mac n cheese. “This is almost as good as mine,” I said all dreamily and Henry almost vomited from laughing so hard.

It was actually jalapeño apple slaw, i.

e. the only kind of cole slaw I will be eating for the rest of my life.

Dare I say I had a nice Sunday afternoon with Henry?

I came home from shopping (and touring my old childhood haunts) with Seri* a little while ago to find that Chooch had made me a paper zombie doll and a little note that said “I <3 u Mom.”

And then he made Henry’s tombstone.

Apparently, Henry died from putting on an electric party hat, which blasted off his glasses and the bottom half of his face. What a way to go.

***

I am so exhausted you guys. I really want to just lay down and listen to the new Circa Survive album all night, but I have all these things that I need to work on and plan out and for what? It’s not like it’s my job, but then Henry randomly went out and bought new supplies and said, “Hey, look. I want to make those pendants again.” (Yeah. Remember that pendant bullshit?) So now instead of resting like I really should be doing because my body is screaming, “HELLO, IT FEELS LIKE YOU HAVE MONO AGAIN, DUMMY. HOW ABOUT POPPING A FUCKING SQUAT FOR THE NIGHT?” all I can think about is getting together all the pictures I want to use for new pendants.

So, I guess I will just rest when I’m dead.

But I am still going to listen to Circa Survive all night, too. FYI.

(*Seri told me today in the car that she likes Pierce the Veil now and asked me to bring their CDs over when we she makes paper lanterns for the pie party. She can be my best friend now.)

I’ve been trying to give myself a bit of a blogging rest, which is why the last few posts have been mostly photos. It is good to rest the brain here and there, or so I’m told; this isn’t something I do often, but when I start catching myself staring off into space, in complete subliminal shut-down mode, I know that it’s time. This break combined with Chooch being back in school means that I’ve even had time to READ A BOOK.

• I made Henry stop and get me an iced pumpkin latte at Starbucks on the way to work today. “You have one in your building!” he cried in defiance. Um yeah, but it tastes better when Henry gets it for me. His attempt at dissension prompted me to remind him that I don’t ask for much. “I know,” he sighed. And then, “Wait, what do you mean?? You ask for EVERYTHING.”
• There is going to be another Walking Challenge! It’s starts near the end of September and this time it is the ENTIRE Firm, not just our Pittsburgh office. (There are 30-some offices worldwide; so many new ones have sprung up in the two and a half years I’ve been there that I’ve lost count.) My team is almost the same as last time, except Barb replaced Amber². Barb and Carey were the only ones who flat out asked to join my team, which I think is outrageous considering I was #1 in our department (#7 in the whole Pittsburgh office) last time. Barb even caught me screening people on the phone. “Exactly how well did you do last time?” I asked Regina. “Um, I was average,” she admitted. Average? Forget it!
  • Henry said that he and Chooch are going to live down the street at the Comfort Inn until the Challenge is over. Seri claims she is not mentally prepared for this, but it’s not her “mental” that needs preparing, it’s her feet because she’s going to be walking half of this along with me.
• I’m going to see Barry Manilow next week! (Yes, I like Barry Manilow!) Pretty stoked about this, to be honest. Will probably be pulling out my old Manilow Greatest Hits CDs this weekend. Hopefully Henry’s mom will let me borrow something to wear to this.
• All I have been able to focus on lately is the upcoming 3rd annual Pie Party: Third Coming of Crust and this god forsaken 2nd annual Halloween decorating contest at work. I have had that all planned out in my head before last year’s competition was even judged (if you have so rudely forgotten, I owned that bitch last year), but over the last week it has really started to come together and I just can’t wait to get started! It’s going to be a big departure from last year’s installment.
  • If you’re local and want to come to the Pie Party, hit me up for details! It’s always a fun day in the park, porking out on pies.
• In the car tonight, Chooch said, “I always know when a song is Robert Smith* because the voice always sounds sad.” (*It’s always Robert Smith to him, never the Cure.)
• Today at work, Amber² told me she liked my nails. “Thanks!” I said. “I painted them while I was watching The Real World.” I have a really tough life.
• I know I’m supposed to be not caring about blogging right now, but we went to the Westmoreland County Fair two weeks ago and I still haven’t written about it yet and it’s pretty much driving me nutso.
• My brother Corey got a temp job at a law firm across the street from my Law Firm, so he stopped by the other night on his way home to say hello and see my desk in all of its Jonny Craig splendor.
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  One of my co-workers saw him and asked me, “Is this your lover?” That was almost as awkward as the time I was at Warped Tour with Blake and Henry, and some dude asked if Blake was my boyfriend, and then when he found out it was actually Blake’s DAD who is my boyfriend, asked, “Oh. Do you guys ever have threesomes?” That’s not Awkward City; THAT is Awkward Megalopolis.

• Yesterday at work, I totally lost my mind thinking about my old Mexican deaf persona, Manuel. I was laughing alone at my desk so violently, that I couldn’t speak to anyone when they approached me, and one co-worker mistook my laughter for asphyxiation and seemed genuinely concerned. Thank god the Paper Clip Monitor is teaching himself CPR. However, I began thinking about this and my nonsensical obsession with wheelchairs and said to Barb, “You know, I probably sealed my fate. I’m going to wind up deaf and in a wheelchair one day.
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  “

• The zipper was broken on the brand new pair of pants I wore to work yesterday. (Or “slacks,” as the Barry Manilow demographic might say.
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  ) Barb thought this was just the greatest thing, because for once, misfortune had shifted from her to me. At one point, I leaned all the way back in my chair at my desk and shamelessly yanked the zipper up like a fat old man. Deaf and in a wheelchair with broken pants. This is my future.

  • My suggestion of Wheelchairs and Hearing Aids as our walking team name was vetoed. So was Praise Ginger Jesus.
    • I don’t even care that Jonny Craig is getting married anymore. He sucks even more now that he’s sober, if that’s even possible.
• IT’S ALMOST OCTOBER. HAUNTED HOUSES. HALLOWEEN. PUMPKIN THINGS. FALL SMELLS. APPLEMANIA!

Prologue:

Sometime in high school, I made the implausible leap from gangsta rap-lovin’ yo-girl to a classic rock hussy. One particular band I had an intense liking for was .38 Special, of all bands. I would listen to the classic rock station all day with a blank tape on the ready, waiting for “Caught Up In You” to come on so I could dive into some frenzied finger-stubbing “record” action.

My friend Lisa, who was into more alternative music, was probably the happiest of all my friends when I retired my gritty urban flava mix tapes in favor for music that didn’t scare, offend and irritate her. So in 1997, when I asked her to go see .38 Special with me, she was more than happy to agree.

I’m sure it didn’t hurt that my mom was buying the tickets for us.

The day of the show, my boyfriend Psycho Mike came to my house. He didn’t want me to go to the concert and thought that starting a fight with me would suddenly make my head clear so I could understand the error of my ways.

“You’re going to end up fucking some drunk guy!” he yelled, his eyes getting that crazy glint to them, like the time he told me he was going to poke out my eyes and shove them up my vagina. “Maybe even more than one!”

Yes, Mike. You’re right. Foiled again!

He left in a huff. Soon Lisa had arrived and we left for the Rostraver Ice Garden. Not surprisingly, we were the clear winners in the “Youngest Concert-Goers” category, and probably the only one who didn’t have the Harley-Davidson logo somewhere on their person.

During Molly Hatchet and another opening band that Lisa totally loved but I can’t remember anything about other than their wildly crimped and Aqua Netted manes, we took in the sheer fury of shaking mullets, over-sized tie-dyed shirts, and leather-vested bikers showing off prison-quality ink on their forearms. I loved every second of it. It was fun and the energy of the crowd was contagious.

During the bands, we made friends with a completely blitzed cradle robber named Nelson and his slightly sober and calmer sidekick Nick.

Sadly, if I were to revenge-cheat on Psycho Mike, Nelson and Nick were probably the cream of the crop from that crowd. I think Nelson sloshed his beer on Lisa.

Goddammit I loved that shirt. It was metallic! I didn’t love that hair though. I remember I had gotten a horrible hair cut at Fantastic Sam’s of all places (the only time I ever deviated from the fluffy salons I usually go to and immediately learned why I pay so much to get my hair done – so it will look GOOD) and spent the next month and a half pulling what was left of my hair back into ponytails.

Side bar: A few years ago, I was riding in the car with Henry, my mom and Corey after a night of haunted houses. “Caught Up In You” came on the radio and I shouted, “Yes! I love this song!” My mom, ever so casually, goes, “Huh. This is the song that was on the radio when I was driving to the hospital after your father wrecked.” You know, the wreck that killed him when I was three-years-old, no biggie.

Thirteen years later, I had just come home from seeing the Used in Cleveland; it was 3:00 in the morning and I was about to pass out on the couch when I noticed I had a voicemail from Lisa, who was living in Colorado at the time. The message on my phone started out with her humming something vaguely discernible before belting out “So caught up in you, little girl!” She went on to sing for a few more seconds before stopping to add, “So I’m at a supermarket right now and this song came on; I had to call and sing it to you.”

Not going to lie, that kind of meant the world to me.

***

NOW:

Lisa texted me late Friday night and said, “Did you know .38 Special is playing at the Rib Fest this Sunday night for FREE!?” No, I did not know this! And just like that, I now had plans for Sunday night. You’ll never get me to go to something like this unless some relic of the 1980s music scene is going to be spitting forth free jams, like Eddie Money (where I got busted for videotaping, are you kidding me) and Bad Company.

BAD COMPANY!

[A few summers ago, my old neighbor Robin (she’s since moved and life in Brookline just hasn’t been the same) was slinking around her front yard in one of her standard terry cloth tube clothes, to the tune of Bad Company’s Greatest Hits. That was a good day.]

Since Lisa’s husband Matt was going too (an attendance for which he said she owed him), Henry said he would go too so his mom came over to babysit and we actually had one of those date things. Lisa’s friends Carrie and Wes met us down there too, so we had a legit posse which made me feel safe against all of the Steelers propaganda. (It was at Heinz Field, probably the closest I’ll ever get to that place considering my extreme dislike of football.)

At one point, I realized I had meat sweats, which was impressive considering I don’t eat meat.

But if anything was going to convert me, it was going to be the goddamn Rib Fest.

OMG, it smelled so good.

OMG and so many trophies! How can you argue with trophies?!

And then Henry spend $5 on a black cherry old-fashioned soda for me, can you even believe it? I only had to beg him for 10 minutes and then point out all of the other men who supplied their ladies with flavored wets in a tin cup.

Wow, it really was a date, you guys.

And since Henry was surrounded by barbequed flesh, about to see an age-appropriate band, he couldn’t even PRETEND to frown.

Pork samples keep my man placated.

The King of Meat! He was my favorite person there, even after he creepily demanded that Lisa take his picture with me after this. I was like, “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly—” but then his meat-hand was around my waist and I was all, “Oh! Ok…”

He made me feel like my cleavage was on point, so I made Henry go back and patronize his booth for some mac n cheese and cornbread.

I just don’t eat enough cornbread, and that’s a goddamn shame.

We soon realized that .38 Special wasn’t coming on until 9:00, two hours later than we thought. So we walked down to Rivertown, where Lisa, Matt, Henry and our waiter Mike held my hand as I took babysteps into beer-liking.

In my 33 years, I have not once been able to drink beer without clamping shut my nose. But a co-worker suggested Summer Shandy, which I just had Saturday night (along with a Lemon Berry Shandy), and while it took me 2.5 hours to drink it, I DRANK IT GODDAMMIT. And it was not too bad.

Mike kept pushing me to get the Woodchuck Fall, but hard cider is always my fall-back when I go to bars and all my normal friends are drinking beer like it’s water. So I got some Belgian white thing which wasn’t very bad but I still had to drink it slowly, and then I eventually just gave it to Henry (after drinking more than a third of it!!).

With Matt and Henry shaking their heads in the background, Lisa let me try her IPA; my tastebuds promptly curled up and died, reanimated and gnawed off the back of my throat.

(I am open to your beer-sampling suggestions, my friends. Just remember that I have a very weak and girly ale palate.)

Since I’m not a beer-drinker, that was enough to get me a little buzzed, so I was even more stoked for .38 Special. Plus, this enabled me to better fit in with my beer-breath brethren.

“We’re going to see .38 Special now, aren’t you jealous?” Lisa said mockingly to Mike the Waiter.

“Actually, I kind of am!” Mike said. “‘I Want You To Want Me’, right?” he offered as proof that he knew who we were talking about.

No, Mike. That’s Cheap Trick.

.38 SPECIAL!!! Oh my god, it was so much fun! The crowd was a perfect cross-section of middle-aged couples reliving their youth, from aging biker-babes now with literal saddle bags to 50-year-old men in polo shirts and khaki shorts clinging to their yuppie-youth. Before the show started, Lisa and I were talking about the last time we them in 1998, and how long ago that was.

“The last time I saw them was in 1980,” Henry said dourly, and we all got a good laugh at his age. Oh god, I hope he wore a Confederate flag belt buckle with his bitchin’ Adidas shirt.

(To give you some perspective, Lisa and I would have been 1.)

Lisa and I were so amped for the first 30-45 minutes, even during the medley of songs we didn’t know. Three songs in, I turned to her and shouted, “I don’t remember there being two singers!”

She just shrugged.

Henry even made physical contact with me numerous times, like we were a real couple or something. It was amazing, but then I realized he probably felt more comfortable doing so at a show where he was part of his own generation.

Then a mid-40s drunk couple drunkenly pushed past us and began drunkenly dancing and copulating through their Coors Light-sloshed boat clothes. I guess Southern Rock is the next best thing when there’s no yacht rock shows going on in town. The woman was unattractive, squat like a troll, and dressed like a nondescript mom. The man had on a white polo and jean shorts and looked like he probably worked for an insurance company or sold swimming pools. They were extremely amusing to watch as they staggeredly gyrated against each others’ clothed genitals, and the woman kept doing these washed-up stripper body rolls which was vomit-inducing in and of itself, but when she dragged one sultry hand down the man’s back, across his ass and then IN BETWEEN HIS LEGS, I had to look away. The look in her eyes was crying out, “PORN DIRECTORS! LOOK AT ME! OVER HERE!” and I felt sleaz(ier) by association.

I started to record this lascivious display, but then they moved on, becoming engulfed by the crowd. I thought it was because she caught me taping them with my phone, but I think they just felt it was time to unleash their classic rock burlesque show on fresh eyes.

This sums up the set list:

WOOOOO ROCKIN’ INTO THE NIGHT!

WAIT, THIS ISN’T STILL ROCKIN’ INTO THE NIGHT? OH, THIS IS ROUGH-HOUSING? WHY DOES IT SOUND JUST LIKE ROCKIN’ INTO THE NIGHT?

WOOOOO I HAVEN’T RECOGNIZED THE LAST 4 SONGS THEY JUST PLAYED!

YESSSS, FANTASY GIRL!!!

OMG, PLAY CAUGHT UP IN YOU, ALREADY.

I DON’T KNOW THIS SONG. That’s because it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd. I STILL DON’T KNOW THIS SONG.

OMFG CAUGHT UP IN YOU!

I WONDER WHICH OF THESE SONGS HENRY LOST HIS VIRGINITY TO?!!?

OMFG HOLD ON LOOSELY!

I also learned that Henry knows A LOT about .38 Special and was answering all sorts of questions for us. Like when there was this somber moment in between songs while the one singer was talking about his brother and then we realized, “Wait…his brother was Ronnie Van Zant?!?” and Henry was like, “Um, yeah!” And then when they sang, “Second Chance” and Lisa and I exchanged confused looks and shouted to Henry, “Wait, this is .38 SPECIAL!?” He said yes, but we didn’t believe him. Lisa was even trying to Shazam it at one point, when Henry sighed and showed us his phone. If GOOGLE says it’s so…

I always thought it was a Steve Perry song. I guess I shouldn’t have made fun of the 21-year-old girl in front of me who said, “And ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’!” when John Burnett from KDKA got on stage and rattled off a number of their big hits when introducing the band.

(I’m still dwelling on this a day later. “But it doesn’t even SOUND like them!” I cried just now to Henry. “That’s because it was sung by their keyboardist!” he shouted irritably, ready to close this chapter.)

Then we were subjected to a five-minute drum solo in a song that was written for the Super Troopers soundtrack, and Lisa and I both started to taper off. But they hadn’t played “Hold On Loosely” or “Caught Up In You” yet, so I remained firmly planted in my spot.

Does a song on the Super Troopers soundtrack (appropriately named “Trooper with an Attitude”) really need a drum solo?

Of course, they saved their two biggest songs for the end. When they sang, “Caught Up In You,” I thought I was going to die. Memories of driving around, waiting for the classic rock radio station to fulfill my request.

(I used to call CONSTANTLY asking for it; one time they played “Hold On Loosely” and I was supremely disappointed, but let’s face it, that song is pretty fucking great too.)

Lisa whipped out her hair brush and serenaded me and all of a sudden I was 18 again, with a 47-year-old man pressed up against me. Yep, sounds about right.

The company was quality, the music was fun and nostalgic, and the people-watching was prime. I really needed that night. After Henry came back from taking his babysitting mom home, he admitted on his accord that he had a lot of fun, and even THANKED me for forcing him to go.

You guys: HENRY HAD FUN.

I mean, of course he did. He was surrounded by smoked meat, Southern Rock, and had a girlfriend who was STILL younger (and with better, less reptilian skin) than most of the other women around that stage. What could have possibly been bad about that? Clearly, we need to add .38 Special to the imaginary set list for our Never-Wedding.

Henry’s heyday, reflected upon his eyeglasses. I get the biggest kick out of seeing him in his own scene.

***

I wondered out loud why it was taking Henry forever to wake up this morning.

Chooch said, “Um, he’s probably TIRED. He was with you for a LONG TIME last night, probably somewhere he didn’t want to be.”

For once, son, you are wrong!

[arve url=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/zg21Rkew874″ /]

Today is Chooch’s first day of 1st grade at a real school! Good riddance, Catholic bitch-moms*! Goodbye, daily heart palpitations! Sayonara, judgmental glares!

Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make this all about me.

(*This is not directed at all Catholic moms. Even I am technically Catholic. Just the Catholic BITCH-moms from Chooch’s old school.

You know, the ones who follow “God’s Word” SO WELL.

Their example is the reason I consider religion to be a joke.)

Do you know how many kids came to Chooch’s birthday party last year? 4. Because those 4 kids have parents who didn’t hold my blog against Chooch. Almost no one else even RSVPd. Punish the kid for his mom’s sins. That’s awesome.

Chooch was so excited this morning.

He had orientation the other night and is thrilled to be going to a school that, oh I don’t know, looks like a school. And his little buddy from next door is in his class, so his dad suggested that we just alternate walking them both up the street to school. I am so all about that. Any day where I don’t have to put on a bra pre-8:00am is a good day.

No more tuition stress, being looked down upon, and feeling like the heathen outcast. And trust me, that was way before any of the blog drama happened, and I stand by every word I wrote that they so vehemently disagreed with – if you don’t want called out for being a dick, then don’t act like a dick. There’s a thought!

There is really nothing like a good, fresh start.