I like to think that saying hi to strangers is a nervous tic that I have. It’s not that I’m overly friendly, I’m just, for some reason, polite. Alisha loves this about me.

Physics play a big role though:

• If I’m walking alongside someone, I will pretend to be too distracted to notice their presence.
• If I’m sitting in a room, and another person is sitting in that same room, and there is an alarming sense of awkward silence in that room, I will not make eye contact.

These two scenarios are too tempting for a simple salutation to morph tragically into small talk. And small talk is cause for panic. (Unless it’s with the cute cashier at CVS who is always intent on asking me what  my plans are for the night. I’m certain I’m at least 10 years older than him though.)

• If I pass someone going the opposite direction, or one of us is in motion while the other is stationary, then I will gladly open my big mouth for a hello and sometimes even toss a flimsy wave.

There are many more clauses and addenda and special cases I could add, but that’s something to save for the inevitable case study that some ambitious Psych major will be writing on me before I die.

The first two days at my current job, the guard at the front desk was very chatty with me. He had to take my photo for my ID badge and joked with me because I was being so dramatic and stubborn about it.

“I hate having my picture taken!” I stated, with faux-petulance.

“Aw, come on. You look beautiful!” he exclaimed, tilting the camera so I could see my frightened eyes and stroke-victim smile, all contained within one fat, scrunched up face. He was standing so close to me when he took the photo, that it looks like I’m trying to force my head to break through the wall behind me.

In a word, I look awkward.

“No, not you, Erin!”

Yes, me.  It’s true.

As I filled out the information needed to park my car in the lot, he peered over me and deadpanned, “Erin Kelly! What are you, Polish?” He laughed, and I laughed too, but I actually am part Polish, and no Irish.

On my second day, I was greeted with a bombastic “Hello Erin!” as soon as I walked through the door. I thought, “Wow, this is nice. What a friendly man.” It made me feel like less of “the temp,” and more of someone who belonged there.

But that’s where it ended. I continued to say hello to him every time I walked in through the front door, and when I passed his desk on my way to the cafeteria or bathroom, but I noticed that his hellos were flatter now, and were only offered up if I said it first.

“Maybe he’s having a bad day,” I thought the first time this happened. But I noticed that it got progressively worse as the week went on, getting to the point where he would actually turn his head away from me as he mumbled, “Hi,”  while simultaneously looking up at the ceiling rather than have the unpleasant experience of allowing his eyes to find my face, I guess.

Say it’s my bad breath, say it’s my pickled body odor, but the fact of the matter is I’m always at least fifteen feet away from him when this goes on. I’m not exactly shuffling past him with my hobo house wrapped around me, either. I’m well-dressed every night. I wear pretty shoes. My hair is brushed.

I don’t get it. What is wrong with me?

“He probably just hates his job,” Henry said. He sits at a big reception desk, in a mother-whompin’ leather chair, watching TV all  night, for Christ’s sake. If that guy hates his job, I’ll trade him.

Meanwhile, I’d catch him having jovial discourse with other people, saying goodbye to the day shift people that happened to be leaving at the same time I was walking in.

I’m a great game player. In fact, some people might even say that I’m a little CHILDISH. So instead of just letting this whole thing go, I decided to give him the silent treatment, see how long this charade would last before he’d crack and start acknowledging me again. He might not have noticed yet, but this guard and me are embroiled in one hot and heavy imbroglio.

Monday night, I was so pissed about it that I sat in the cafeteria on my break, angrily texting Henry. I just can’t stand it when someone doesn’t like me and I have no idea why. I can’t stand not being liked in general, though after writing on the Internet for the last 10 years of my life, I’m pretty accustomed to it.

That doesn’t mean I like it!

“Don’t let it bother you,” Henry texted. (Imagine every word spelled wrong, though.)

“Oh don’t worry. Tonight, I showed him,” I replied with angry tap-tappings.

“What, your tits?” I’m sure he laughed out loud as he hit “send,” wrote about it in his diary. “Diary, tonight I thought of something funny for the 3rd time in my life!”

And I explained that during one of my jaunts to nowhere, one of the cleaning guys was standing near the guard. Now, I have a great rapport with this cleaning guy and we exchange pleasantries on a nightly basis. And no, I don’t mean oral sex.

With great exaggeration, a bounce in my step, and my biggest Pollyanna grin, I exclaimed, “Hello, how are you!?” to the cleaning guy.

RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GUARD, TO WHOM I SAID NOTHING.

“Oh. Yeah. You…sure showed him,” Henry said. “Wow.”

Fuck that guard. He’ll be sorry when I have Henry bake cupcakes for everyone but him.

I wanted to have one last game night of the year, especially since my brother will be studying abroad next semester and he loves a good game night. But at the rate December was going, the only night I could schedule it was for a Sunday, which is apparently a bad night for people with jobs. (I wouldn’t know. Every night is Friday night for me.) And my brother ended up not being able to come anyway.

But Blake, Deanna, Alisha, Janna, Mose, Stacey and Brenna didn’t let little old Sunday get in their way of snack food, wine punch, and my horrible selection of games.

We started out with no one’s favorite – Catchphrase. Alisha immediately opted out, remembering that this is the ONE GAME that brings out my competitive side. (That’s an understatement.) I got saddled with a team of people who  were skip-happy and didn’t know the word “pediatrician.” The team that had all the boys on it basically pulverized my pathetic team and furthered my hatred of Henry.

My Liberatree is so fabulous, it won’t let the camera focus on anything else. And everyone got to (inadvertently) take home tinsel as a parting gift.

Kara’s too good to come to Game Night (maybe it might have something to do with the fact that, I don’t know, she lives in Maryland and just had a baby) and Catchphrase really flounders without her policing every person’s fuck ups. I tried to step up and bark at people for not following rules but no one listened to me.

And at one point I sort of removed myself from my body and realized I was being a psycho-competitive asshole. But that didn’t stop me from screaming at my own team mates for not doing it right.

It was supposed to be that whomever got this cup was permitted to leave early (after punching Alisha in the face, of course). Unfortunately, Henry got it and even though he begged, I remained firmly planted in my decision that he was ineligible.

Alisha was all hunkered down in her arm chair, laughing  as my gasket threatened to blow. Winning Catchphrase is pretty much all I have in life, OK? We can only play so many rounds before I get all anxious and one side of my face starts to sag like a stroke victim’s.  I’ve hit people in more heated rounds before. No wait, that was Scattergories. Which we also played!

Somehow there were too many people for everyone to get a Scattergories scoreboard (I know, how often does “too many people” and “at one of Erin’s parties” ever go together?) so we had to pair up. Alisha immediately clung to me and whispered, “What? I want to win.” See? She knows! Now, Stacey HATES playing Scattergories with me. Something about how she thinks I cheat? I can’t remember. But I firmly believe this is the reason why she hasn’t been to a game night since November 2006. (Yes, I keep track.)

Henry and Mose were a team, which apparently Henry thought was awkward. “Because we’re two guys,” Henry explained. Oh, of course, that makes sense now—wait. I thought we were playing Scattergories, not TouchEachOthersPrivaterories. And even THEN Henry might need a better argument than “because we’re two guys.”

Maybe that’s why they played the game so straight. OH HO.

And of course Alisha and I pwned the whole room with our unbeatably ingenious answers. Janna sat this game out and totally had our backs, righteously defending our answer of “gas stove” for furniture. HELLO IT’S CALLED ANTIQUE.  I know so many people who have one and use it as a fashionable footstool, so suck a dick Henry. And when Henry and Stacey accused Alisha and me of making up the name Giacomo for “boys name – letter G” (maybe if they READ MY BLOG they would know that I wrote a story in 2008 called Giacomo’s Secret, not that I’m angry about that or anything) and that “at best, it starts with a J!” This is because Henry is not as worldly and traveled as I. Had he ever been to Italy, perhaps he’d have had the opportunity to ride on the back of one Giacomo’s Vespa.

“That’s a real name,” Janna said, waving her imaginary flag. “Erin knew a Giacomo once. He liked to brush his teeth.”

“What? I did?” I asked, thinking she was making this up to help. I searched her face for a wink, but found nothing other thana look that said “Why are you staring at me like that, psycho-perv?”

“Yeah, don’t you remember? He brought his toothbrush over to your apartment.”

So now I’m thinking silently, “Oh my god, did I fuck some guy named Giacomo and he knew he was going to spend the night so he brought his toothbrush? That’s awfully brazen. I’d remember one-nighting it with someone named Giacomo though, wouldn’t I? I wonder if it was good. Probably not. It rarely was.” But the more clues Janna fed me, it finally clicked that he was some blind date I had and in order to meet him, I had a get together at my apartment and yes, he brought his tooth brush, and also a pack of cards which he later used to wow no one.  I should write about that dude sometime. I vaguely remember the night ending with me locking myself in my car and crying. You know, the usual.

Now remember, Mose has never been to my house before and has never met any of my friends. So the poor guy had to sit through all of this and probably wonders about my credibility as a human being now. For his sake, I did go easy on the rest of them, and funneled my brilliance into smaller doses than typical. I know how some people feel threatened by my awesomeness. (Henry and Stacey.)

Whenever our answers would be questioned, we’d use Arkansas as our scapegoat, since that’s where Alisha is from and ain’t no one gon’ mess with Alisha. Like when we said Galaxies for a professional sports team and immediately followed it with “THEY’RE FROM ARKANSAS.” Too bad when Henry asked, “What sport?” I nervously yelled, “Basketball! Women’s basketball! WNBA!” while Alisha said, “They’re a baseball team” at the same time. I vaguely remember someone opening their fat mouth to question, “I thought there was no WNBA anymore?” Well guess what, tonight there is, and you’re not my friend anymore.

FUCK.

It didn’t matter because Alisha and I KILLED at this game. No one stood a chance. And as usual, we got cold shoulders at the end of it, something I’m all too familiar with since I always prevail. “Now you know how it feels at the top,” I whispered somberly to Alisha. “Lonely.”

I’m not going to front, I used to play Scattergories alone as a kid.

After Henry took a generous one hour to read the directions, because no one remembered from last year, Last Word was the next and last game to be played. I sat this one out because the worth of my brain is far too valuable to be overexerted on such silly child games. It’s insured by a very powerful Slavic corporation.

Somehow during this game, the topic of anime came up, and Mose mentioned that he has a friend who love Inuyasha.

I could sense Janna shooting me desperate glances and willing my mind to notice that she was psychically zipping her lips. Too late. I pointed at her so hard that I almost propelled myself out of my chair.

“JANNA LOVES THAT SHOW AND HAS THE HOTS FOR THAT BOY CARTOON THING!”

And her face got all red and she sputtered something about that being a long time ago and we all had a good laugh at Janna’s expense. Thanks for baking that lovely banana bread, by the way, Janna.

And then we all talked about porn and Henry was like, “Hello, may I remind everyone that my son is sitting right here” and I was like, “Yeah I know, and I think he’s the one that broached the topic.” Awkward for Henry, LOLs all around for the rest of us.

Poor Chooch. He wanted to play so bad. But instead, he hauled out Candyland and played quietly on the floor. It reminded me so much of myself as a kid. And also now. Being this awesome can be so alienating, Chooch. You’ll get used to it. If you’re lucky.

I think I’m done with game nights. The next one will be just a regular party. Or something really awesome, like a quilting bee.

Because Henry was being a little angel by cleaning for game night (more on game night horrors later), I decided to do the grocery shopping. But really it was so I could use the shopping list tab in my Awesome Note app, which is so far my favorite app, aside from Words With Friends, which is apparently good for meeting future husbands on top of learning new two-letter words.

What you should know about me, and probably could have guessed, is that I am no grocery shopper. Basically, I’m a fat red “F” upon an essay on the topic of housewives. I mean, there was a time a year ago when I wanted Henry to make sugar cookies and he was all, “If you want cookies then get your jigglin’ ass to the store and buy the ingredients.” Even after writing it down, Janna and Blake still had to come with me to make sure I didn’t fuck it up. For Christ’s sake, this is what my fridge used to look like pre-Henry:

(Lol @ Zima. That was probably for Janna.)

So yesterday I made Alisha go with me. I didn’t need a lot of stuff. In fact, I had given myself a budget, which I never actually put a number to, but just kept chanting ‘budget budget budget” in my mind as I roamed sadly through aisles of shit you can make food with. Alisha is pretty no-nonsense when it comes to shopping, so I sort of felt safe. I was even really impressed when I called Henry to see if he wanted me to get stuff for spinach dip and Alisha already knew how to make it!

And even where to get the ingredients! (Although I still felt it necessary to send Henry a photo of the packet of Knorr’s vegetable powder shit to make sure it was right.)

I was going to get salsa, but the kind I like is nearly $5 and I was like, “Oh, not from my checking account.” I’ll save that for Henry’s next trip. In another aisle, I found myself wondering how I got to the point where $3 for a bag of candy inspired me to clutch my heart. Jesus christ, I can’t tell  you how much I hate to spend money when it’s my own and not my mommy’s.

Every single person in that store I hated. Every last one of them. Were you at Giant Eagle in Brentwood, PA yesterday? Hated you. Handicapped? Still hated you. A baby? You were ugly and I hated you. I was sick of the squeaking wheels on my cart; sick of the ugly babies; sick of the women who camped out in the aisles with their carts, chatting to other uppity soccer moms they know from their swinger parties; sick of the $14.99 price tag on the Penguins coffee mug I was eyeing up (Alisha considered getting it for me for Christmas, saw the price, and then picked up a shot glass and said, “Uh, can you just drink your coffee out of this?

” and I thought, “Well, it’s better than the arsenic-laced thimble Henry pours my coffee in.” TIMES, THEY ARE TOUGH!).

Alisha even asked me if I was crying at one point.

But then I saw it. It was in the aisle with all the baking bullshit. We were there so Alisha could get marshmallows for rice krispie treats. It’s all because of Alisha that I found a bag of gigantic regular and strawberry marshmallows, made in some unknown, off-brand factory, probably in Arkansas, and ready for me to buy them for only .

99.

“What the fuck are you going to do with those?” Alisha asked hesitantly as I tossed them in the cart.

“Make something awesome,” I said. I mean, duh.

Then we had to go down a bunch of other aisles before checking out. “I love grocery shopping,” Alisha said, which you know warranted a look of incredulity from me. “It’s fun because you can find cool stuff.”

“That’s what European travel is for!” I sighed, moments before Alisha chose the WORST POSSIBLE LINE TO STAND IN and I started getting hot flashes and our cashier was some slow-as-shit young kid who I think might have been exisiting solely on canned cheese. I texted Henry and thanked him for not making me grocery shop on the regular. Can you imagine?? No wonder people say I don’t look my age yet – it’s because I’m not forced to supermarket sweep.

But it was all worth it, newly cultivated gray hairs and all, because I got to come home to a clean (semi-clean) house and make these beautiful marshmallow monsters that were supposed to serve as game night referrees but instead just sat on the coffee table, frosting-hair congealing into poison and candied eyeballs slowly sliding down their sugared faces. To tell the truth, I am quite smitten with them and plan on preserving them so that their friendly facades can be enjoyed by all for years to come. Amen.

Henry and Alisha kept giving me annoyed looks as I tediously labored over them in a very Dr. Frankenstein fashion. I like to pretend they’re my army. With their help, I’ll be mayor of this town. Or at the very least, the person who gets to ring the bell in the clock tower. After Henry builds me a clock tower.)

Because I’m obsessed, I tweeted another photo of them  today. Henry was sitting next to me and when the tweet came through to his phone (yes, he gets  my tweets to his phone; that’s TRU LUV), he glanced at it quickly then put his phone down.

“You didn’t look at the picture,” I whined, insulted.

“Um, I know what it is. It’s those stupid marshmallows. And they’re right there on the table.” OK it’s true, they were right in front of him. But my photo was from a different angle. No excuses.

The one on my right is my favorite. He’s my little edible scene kid! (Although, I wouldn’t actually eat these. Chooch helped with some and well, he touches his butt as often as a dog LICKS his butt. Also, I saw him lick a toothpick-arm before spearing it into the side of a monster.)

I might make more, turn them into ornaments and sell them on ETSY. LOOK OUT WORLD (and Regretsy).

I got to go to the Pens vs Blackhawks game Saturday night with Brenna and her friends as a belated birthday party for her. Crosby was sidelined and we ended up losing 1-2 in OT, but oh my sweetly spanked Mussolini was it a self-hugging good time. (Except for when Jordan Staal got the game tying goal with 1:32  left in the third – then it was a Brenna-hugging good time.)

It had been years and years since I got to go to a game, and the way the Mellon Arena smelled and sounded and the way the crowd melded together in verifiable best friendship (minus the Chicago urinal cakes behind me) as soon as the Penguins took the ice made me realize I shouldn’t have taken my family’s season tickets for granted back then.

I like to imagine this is how God shits on me, plopping me down amid fans of the opposing team, because this always happens at a sporting event. Last hockey game I went to, we played the Sabres and a group of asshole frat boys from Buffalo were right behind me, mocking me every time I cheered, ridiculing Lemieux, being regular beer-chugging pigs, spouting off made-up stats to sound cool and mighty. I’m  not sure if I  mentioned this before, but I don’t have a good lock on my temper and it seems that males try to capitalize off this the most.

So here I am at this hockey game. I’m 17, at the game with Lisa and our friend Angela. I can bear it no longer and find myself spending most of the game half-turned in my seat, attacking these flanneled mother fuckers with words they probably don’t even understand. Meanwhile, Angie has her face in her hands and Lisa is squeezing my arm, reminding me that I am a weak girl, susceptible to rape and having my intelligence insulted because girls aren’t supposed to know shit about sports, damn ya’ll, get me back into the kitchen so I’s can finish bakin’ my hubby a bundt cake.

Of course I wouldn’t back down. I motherfucked those inbreds all the way to the end of the third.

And of course we were parked in the same lot as them. And wouldn’t you know, as soon as we got outside the arena, it was all, “Hey baby, wanna go get a beer with us?”

Sure, ten minutes ago I was just threatening to fillet your mothers and string them up by their intestines like mistle toe, but yes, now I’m ready to sneak into a bar with you guys, drink some Schnappes and suck you all off in the mens room later.

Unfortunately, Lisa was there, perched on my shoulder, and steered me toward her car.

“That’s the last sporting event I go to with you,” she said, as Angie stared out the window exhaustedly.

“Yeah, really,” she agreed.

I went to a haunted house in Donora, PA last Saturday with my friend Cinn and her boyfriend Bill. I don’t get to see Cinn very often but she’s always been the big sister I never had, so when I do get to hang out with her, it never feels like a ton of time has passed. Every October reminds me of when we met in 1998, and we reminisced about that plenty in the car Saturday night (much to Bill’s chagrin, I’m sure, as he’s heard the story a thousand times by now).

Two years ago, I wrote an essay for a writing class about the event that solidified our friendship, and I guess because it shines a big, embarrassing spotlight on my softer, more sentimental side, I never posted it here.  But I don’t know, who cares. Here it is.

————————————————-

       “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 summerful 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.

I’ve been in a slight mental rut lately. I blame Henry. Somehow, someway, he’s behind this awful malaise.

Luckily, my MICHIGAN FRIENDS Bill and Jessi are visiting this weekend. They came in last night around 7:30 bearing gifts of baked goods, wine, and a Fantastic Four Bop Bag for Chooch. Of course, it only took him about 30 minutes to injure himself on it, and I think Bill and Jessi felt badly about that but they shouldn’t because he finds creative ways to hurt himself even without the aid of extraneous apparati.

They brought me what Bill kept touting as The Best Pie In the World. I graciously snatched it from his hands and thanked him, but in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that.

” AND IT WAS THE BEST PIE IN THE WORLD. Oh my fucking shit, I can’t even begin to extol it’s virtues, but it’s got like a billion berries in it and some delicious creamy custard-like substance that creates this orgasmic stratum akin to a sucrose reach-around.

Before they embarked on their road trip yesterday, they texted me to see what Henry’s favorite baked good is. This is something that, despite spending the last eight years together, I didn’t know the answer to. Mostly this can be chalked up to the fact that in my mind, Henry doesn’t have any favorites, interests, or thoughts. I called him to find out the answer to this million dollar question, but when he didn’t answer, I texted back what I would want: anything pumpkin flavored.

So “Henry” got a pumpkin bar. And that was delicious, too.

We decided to go down the street to Eat n Park for a late dinner.

Normally, we would walk since I only live a few blocks from it, but it was drizzling and chilly, so we drove. After dinner (a large part of which was spent watching Bill and Chooch thrown down with monster finger puppets, thank god I had a bag of them in my purse), it was raining harder. As we walked back to their mini-van, Jessi goes, “Good thing we didn’t walk,” and Chooch (who is only three, remember), retorted with a very teenagery, “I know, right?”

Back at my house, We began drinking this delightful concoction which is homemade by one of Bill and Jessi’s friends. It’s called Apple Pie, and it’s a homebrewed beverage made from apple cider, apple juice, cinnamon sticks and Everclear. It honestly tasted like an apple pie’s life fluid had been siphoned into red plastic cups so idiots like me can immediately get corcked and start talking super loud and laughing at things that Henry says. THINGS THAT HENRY SAYS. Like that would ever happen otherwise.

Here’s Jessi after one small cup:

And here is me after two cups, plus some wine:

This was taken by Chooch, who can now operate the crappy point and shoot we have. He likes to leave a finger hovering in front of the lens; it’s his signature. Oh, how I celebrate the day he discovered this camera.

Nothing pleases me more than taking time out of my day to delete unflattering photos of me and my chins.

At first glance, you might mistake Thingie Ball for a generic paddle and ball set sold at Target for $9.64.

BUT DON’T GET IT TWISTED.

Thingie Ball, once placed in my hands, is actually a game of skill, violence and foreplay. Alisha and I came up with tentative rules, combining the exciting serve and catch action with all the flavor and full-contact of flag football and all the punkish fashion of roller derby (i.e. another excuse to pull out the tutu, which is still the sweetest tutu in the world) without the skates. Unfortunately, every time I tried explaining my new and evolutional conceptual sport of the millennium, my giddy smiles were met with confused and unsure frowns.

We learned on Sunday that Thingie Ball is a Really Good Icebreaker, as Henry  invited his work friend Jess and her girlfriend Christina to  join me, Alisha, Janna, Brenna and Liz at our cookout.  Jess in turned brought along her friend Jennifer. It wasn’t planned to be a Girls Only Cookout, but that’s exactly what it turned into, much to Henry’s delight.

Awkward Sitting.

At first, we all sat around somewhat awkwardly, waiting for Henry to finish grilling. We made idle conversation, which mostly consisted of me bragging about the totally tedious caramel apple salad I made upon my friend Angie’s suggestion (she failed to mention that prep time was no less than HALF A DAY and I had to PEEL & SLICE SIX APPLES OMG). I chose this particular recipe from those given to me by a collection of LiveJournal friends because it didn’t call for any cooking; no water-boiling, over-heatin’, no measurin’. I was able to do all the prep work and mixing at the dining room table which put me out of Henry’s way. AND it was the only recipe that called for six Snickers bars. So yes, aside from all the peeling & chopping, it had win practically jizzed all over it in caramel.

I also had Henry make some potato salad crap and peach pie twisters, both of the recipes I found in Better Homes and Gardens. Everyone raved about the peach pie shit, and I didn’t want to say anything out loud for fear of embarrassing Henry in front of his work buddy, but there was like, no sugar in that shit. Also, he was supposed to tie rustic-looking fabric scraps around the lips of the dixie cups they were served in, and then a cute little wooden spoon was to be tucked inside the fabric. He did no such thing.

He always quits one step away from reaching true Martha Stewart status.

Henry was also supposed to make these awesome-sounding garden sliders, and he even bought all the ingredient-shit for them, but claims he “forgot” to prepare them.

Oh well, at least we had Alisha’s gimp fruit kabobs to fall back on. I mean, the BEST KABOBS ever. They even had Rolos on them. ROLOS! And they were sharp enough to stake any vampire that might have tried to crash our half-assed driveway picnic. Aside from my son, I mean.

Please don’t anyone stake my son.

Chirping Crickets.

Once the subject of praising Henry’s grilling prowess grew old, we kind of sat there looking at each other, sizing each other up, wondering what to talk about. Christina suggested we get a deck of cards but then Alisha was all, “Well, there’s always Thingie Ball.” I was waiting for everyone to be like, “That looks dumb” when I came back outside with some paddles and a ball. But once we started, all inhibitions were lost to the wind.

And that is how I ended up in a church parking lot Sunday evening, drunk and standing in a deformed circle with six other drunk girls, swatting a ribbon-tailed ball back and forth, sweating Woodchuck and trying not to wind up with protruding bones. Alisha kept mocking my Captain status because she’s jealous of my agility and nimbleness, the suave way I soar through the air, performing perfect scissorkicks and landing with the ball firmly stuck to my paddle.  Meanwhile, Alisha just clomps around and sometimes accidentally catches the ball.

By the end of the action, we were all BONDED FOR LIFE. This is just one of the many things Thingie Ball does with it’s magical velcro, along with lint removal, drink tray, and serving as a sexual submission aid.

When we get our team shirts made, my name (underneath the blinking CAPTAIN marquee pin I’m having made) will probably just be my good old standby of Vagynafondue. I dubbed Alisha “Arkansuck” because she’s from Arkansas and she sucks, you see. She wasn’t pleased but I guess she’ll have to learn to love it because that is her name now. Janna will be something equally appropriate, but I need to sleep on that one.

We capped off the night by wasting a good two hours of our lives playing Uno underneath the dim light of our backyard spotlight, and this is where I learned that Christina cheats, Alisha is an asshole baby-smacker, Draw Fours make Jennifer yell like she’s on Springer, and Jess might just have the worst Uno luck I’ve ever seen. At one point, I laughed and said, “My neighbors probably think we’re having a fucking cock fight back here when all we’re doing is playing motherfucking UNO.”

Fuck, it was a good day.

[Thingie Ball photos are from last weekend. Blake wasn’t able to attend the cookout which was probably a good thing lest he drown in estrogen.]

Guest List

• Alisha
• Bill & Jessi FROM MICHIGAN
• Corey, my brother
• Janna & her mommy, her mom-mom-mommy
• Blake and his girlfriend Deanna
• Brenna
• Kara and her baking baby
• Dyanna
• Carol, my surrogate mommy
• Henry’s mom
• Henry’s sister and her caravan of five children, also her boyfriend
• Scott, Judi and Sam Robbins (Henry and I used to work with Scott)
• My aunt Charmaine & paternal grandma Lois 

Chooch’s birthday was April 25th, but I wanted to move his party up to May, figuring it would make for better weather. Too bad it was like 55 degrees and so windy that if Alisha had brought her broom, she’d have blown straight back to Oz.

Bill, Jessi, Alisha and Brenna came early to the pavilion on Sunday to help me decorate. I was still sick, perhaps even sicker than the day before, and Alisha had given me more debilitating poison from her purse. Because I was feeling under the weather, I couldn’t really be bothered with switching lenses and changing settings, so most of my photos came out looking like I used a ten cent disposable. 0wellz0rz.

I was thankful to have extra hands there to help me with all the HARD WORK, such as staple-gunning table cloths (I’m such a whore for staple guns now, the power surge is nearly orgasmic) and slinging streamers through rafters.

Jessi at one point stepped back and commented that it looked like homeless people had decorated. Then she wanted Henry to start a hobo fire in one of the metal trashcans. IT WASN’T THAT COLD! But I probably had a FEVER so never mind. Alisha had some body-warming potion in her purse but Jessi declined, which is good because that’s how Alisha date-rapes people.

Have I mentioned lately how overjoyed I am to be friends with Alisha again??

Lost Boys cake, obviously. Henry waited until we were standing above it before the party to say, “We should have Photoshopped Chooch’s face on it.” Yes, that would have been awesome. Thanks for thinking of that before I sent the order in. The cake was almost was a no-show, seeing as how Henry forgot to pick it up the day before and Bethel Bakery is closed on Sundays. Luckily, they made a concession for him and had someone meet him there the next morning so he could pick it up. That fucker, he got lucky. However, he conveniently forgot the veggie burgers at home, as usual. I’m screwed every time we have a cook out. EVERY TIME. I yelled at Henry that Jessi probably would have liked to have a veggie burger as well, and he was all, “Oh. Do they even have those in Michigan?” He made veggie kabobs though, but the one I had was terrible. Jessi said hers were good. Probably because Henry was all, “Here Jessi, have the one that wasn’t dropped on the ground. I’m saving that for Erin.”

Chooch and his eyeball pinata. He looks so sad, and I almost feel sorry for him, but then I remember how abusive he was to his older cousin Zac.

Blake was the only person who even attempted to kill the pinata. After Henry bought it, he realized we didn’t have a bat so he searched the house for an adequate substitution, and that is how I learned Henry has a night stick. Oh please, let’s use that for the pinata! Because our party isn’t trailer park-esque enough!  I asked him why the hell he has a night stick, anyway, and he got real shifty and said, “I don’t know, OK?? I’ve had it since high school.” Which translates into: My ex-wife had a thing for cop-domination, OK??

We ended up using some broken Vegas-themed pool cue instead. Classy.

What? Kara’s eating for two.

I swear these are real people that I know, and not homeless people! It wasn’t really a hobo party.

Oh the innocence!! This was taken right after she gifted me with a Now or Later bracelet which MELTED on my wrist and left me with a sticky candy poop smear.

Janna was so excited to be eating Kiefer Sutherland’s face that she practically tackled me as I walked by because she needed a souvenir photo. 

I’d also like to add that this was the first time in HISTORY that the important ordering of the birthday cake responsibility was laid upon my shoulders. I’m really surprised I was trusted enough. Now, my family has been patronizing Bethel Bakery for all their cake needs since before I can even remember. But they always get the same standard cake: half & half batter with the French buttercream frosting. And it’s delicious, it really is. But twenty-nine years I’ve been eating this same combination. Finally, the decision was in my hands and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I was playing God at that moment, clicking the various cake components of MY CHOICE on the website.

In the end, I settled on almond batter, stuck with the French buttercream because they’re famous for it and it really is the best cake icing I’ve ever had, but in lieu of that same buttercream as a filling, I went with red raspberry. I walked around the party as everyone ate their cake and made it known that I had built that cake and that I should be praised for it, just as Noah was for his ark. It seemed to be a hit, so I was able to sneer in Henry’s face.

“What? I never said a single thing about it!” he cried in defense. Oh sure, as if he wasn’t lying awake at night, hoping I didn’t wind up ordering a foot-flavored cake.

Present opening. Boring. However, he somehow managed to walk away with three new Cars puzzles that he doesn’t already have, which is a small miracle. My favorite part was when he got to Corey’s unwrapped presents, casually laying inside a Toys R Us bag, and cried out, “I already have this!”  as he withdrew a small Domo plushie. I hurriedly corrected, “No, you have the HALLOWEEN one, so this is different!” It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I would like to have my own Domo and I think I’ll just take that one. Thanks Corey! 

 It was a really nice day and I’m glad that some of my friends were able to come out and celebrate Little Trucker’s third birthday. He even was pretty good about not swearing.

[So, this was supposed to be a post of just photos, but of course I had to fuck it up with words.]

Bill and Jessi (my MICHIGAN friends) came to visit over the weekend for Chooch’s birthday party (more on that later when I’m not coughing up my ghost). Perhaps they think I’m making fun of their state, but the real reason I introduce them as “my Michigan friends” is so everyone will be like, “Wow, Erin is so wonderful that people will drive from MICHIGAN to hang out with her” even though the secret is that most people come for Chooch. Probably my friends walk away thinking, “I don’t even like to cross the Liberty Bridge to hang out with that cunt, but these assholes will drive five hours?”

So I happened to be sick all weekend (and I still am, but at least now I have that phlegmy cough that I love so much) but luckily Alisha came over on Saturday to act as a liaison of sorts. We took the aliens, I mean Michiganers, to Mt. Washington, where they could take in the breathtaking view of our city. And this is where I learned that Alisha moonlights as a Pittsburgh tour guide, because she was whipping her arm all over the place, pointing out buildings and rivers and I think I heard a few dates roll off her tongue too and I was kind of like, “Wow, I lived here my whole life and I did not know that.” And Alisha is from Arkansas!

Still, I was thankful to not have to speak too much, because I was sick. Like, take-me-to-the-nearest-infirmary sick. And to make it worse, Alisha had given me some bogus drug combo and I lost feeling in my finger tips and then I almost fell into the river at one point, too.

I think I even blacked out and I’m pretty sure Alisha picked my pockets when my consciousness was AWOL.

Bill and Jessi got to ride the incline, which is probably the biggest treat to offer Pittsburgh visitors. Yes, our city is THAT awesome — people can sit in a house that goes up and down a hill. Space Needle what now?

(I am  not the biggest fan of our city, I don’t know if anyone noticed.

)

Anyway, on the incline’s return trip, some douche with Wolverine mutton chops sat with us and I thought Jessi was going to slice him because Bill has to have the best ‘chops. “There can only be one!” she kept saying. For what it’s worth, Bill’s are so much better anyway.

I think 45% of the day was spent talking about nasal douches.

Then we ate at Mad Mex with Henry and Chooch and I’m pretty sure our waiter thought that Chooch was Bill’s son and I was growing sicker by the second with the aid of Alisha’s traveling medicine cabinet and all I could think of was the girl on Prom Nightmares who used to be a raver but got out of the scene only to decide to take that one last hit of Ecstacy at her prom and she died, she fucking died, and none of her friends listened to any of her complaints until she past out and then you know what happened? She started to turn BLUE, motherfuckers. BLUE. And then she was in a coma and DIED.

And when I shared this cautionary tale with my dinner companions, they all kind of looked at me stupidly and then said, “Yeah, you’ll be fine.” MY HEART WAS FLUTTERING!!! I am so lucky I made it home that night, for fucking realsies.

Good thing too, because the Penguins won their game that night and I was able to scrounge up just enough energy to cheer.

(On the real, I love these guys. They watched hockey with me and Jessi hates it and didn’t even complain and even said that if she were ever to hit her head real hard and suddenly like hockey, she would be a Penguins fan.

That, my friends? That is love.)

The other day, I found this picture of my friend Lisa and me. It’s from 1996, and we were at Denny’s before going to our friend Evan’s art show. I’m not sure why Lisa looks so tired. Maybe she was just feeling psychologically worn knowing that she had like, 5 more hours  to spend with me that day. (I was kind of hyper & annoying back then. I’m totally not like that anymore.)

Lisa was just in town over the weekend, and with her she brought her shiny brand new fiance, Matt. Because Lisa currently lives in Colorado and no one here in Pittsburgh had met Matt, there was a meet and greet at her grandma’s house Saturday afternoon. I wanted to make a good impression on Matt, so I sent Henry to Vanilla Pastry Studio that morning to pick up a quad of Congratulations, You (and everyone else) Got Engaged Before Me cupcakes.

We arrived to find Lisa in the kitchen, where a nice buffet of party food called to me like the fucking Green siren of weight gain. I kept eyeballing it around Lisa’s shoulder, and oh shit was that mango salsa? (It was.)

Lisa introduced me to her future husband by saying, “This is Erin, we’ve been friends ever since I threatened to beat her up in eighth grade.” (True story. It happened at the Halloween dance, because I was being a punk bitch.) And then I presented Lisa with the cupcakes. I was going to say something to the effect of likenening them to God’s wedding cake, because she’s a radical Christian; however, her dad was looming too close for comfort and I’ve always felt he didn’t approve of me (probably because my entire aura flashes HEATHEN in neon) so instead I was like, “Yo, here are the best cupcakes ever.”

And as she lifted the top, I stood there smugly, chest puffed out a little, waiting for her to enthuse about how beautiful they looked, almost too beautiful to eat, and if she could, she would choose one to wear atop her wedding veil.

But instead, she let out her signature goblet-shattering guffaw. (She seriously has the loudest, most startling laugh of anyone I have ever met and I pray someday it’s recorded and used in a cartoon.) And (after recoiling from the sonic blast) I’m all, “What the fuck is so funny about cup—-…..Oh.” Apparently, they had decided to have group sex in one of the corners of the box, presumably to an updated version of an old Spice Girls song,  “4 Become 1.” (That was for you, Alisha.)

And of course, the revelers had paused their conversations long enough to witness this catastrophe. (It was a catastrophe to me, OK?) I heard someone murmur, “Aw, oh no.”

Not really knowing what else to say, and feeling the burn of strange eyeball beams upon my person, I let out a monotone, “Oh, oopsies” which apparently sounded entirely more sarcastic than I intended, because Lisa laughed even harder and said, “Oh, nice reaction!”

Apparently, she thought I had known about it, possibly even done it intentionally. Then she made me say “Oh, oopsies” again and stand there awkwardly displaying the box of car-crashed cupcakes while she took a picture and EVERYONE WATCHED.

I know, I have been writing on the Internet since 2001, but I do NOT LIKE BEING FOCUSED ON IN REAL LIFE. I’m a walking study in contradiction.

Eventually, everyone ripped their eyes off my mangled mess and went back to conversing. I think half of the guest list was engaged. Lots of ring-flashing was going on, which made me glare at Henry with such intensity, I hope he could feel the bamboo sticks with which I was mentally q-tipping his dickhole.

“What?” he said defensively. “I’ll propose! When I find the right girl.” A typical Oh, Henry moment.

Later that night, Lisa called me to thank me for coming. Then she goes, “So Matt and I were reviewing the best moments of the day, and you and the cupcakes win hands down.” More raucous laughter. “What was it that you said again?”

Jesus Christ, Lisa.

To Henry, I was saying, “Why would she think I did that intentionally??” and he goes, “Uh, because she knows you very well and that’s totally something you would do.”

“Well, yeah. But not with her family there!”

Somehow, I’m sure I’ve made worse entrances, at least.

Learning About Plants & Kara

Originally posted August 21, 2007

There I was on a dreary Sunday, sitting around in just Henry’s underwear and watching instructional knitting videos, when Kara arrived to hang out. I started to get up from my filth to fetch her a particularly swiss-cheesy pair of underroos, when she stopped me. It seemed that in lieu of festering in Henry’s waste and eating freezer-burnt bonbons while watching 70s horror porn, Kara was in favor of actually leaving the house and going to that place where people go — I think it’s called the outside. Outdoors? Public? Slaughterho—no wait, I’m thinking of something else.

She seemed desperate to wile away her afternoon at Phipps Conservatory, where a riveting Chihuly glass exhibit was underway. Not wanting to get in between her and culture, I agreed. It gave me a reason to use my rainbow backpack that I bought specifically for Warped Tour but then left it hanging on the knob of the bathroom door.

Did I mention the adorable unicorn appliqué on the backpack? I hoped people would think I was a lesbian. A lesbian with an enviable collection of black light-sensitive felt unicorn posters in a day-glo array.

Flowers and non-flower plants don’t really get my fancy very tickled, but I was pleasantly pleased to discover some new species that I had never heard of.

1. Creepy Laughing Male:

Balding on the crown of his head and clad in an army jacket, this species will creep up behind you and molest your ear drum with his scandalous laughter, which feels like a big wet tongue and makes your shoulders raise to your earlobes in hopes of acting like a condom, before whipping out his camera and turning his molestational instincts onto the helpless plants. He is accompanied by his presumed paramour in a striped shirt and he will later make you recoil when he appears to be snapping perverse shots of a random baby in a carriage. Later you will learn that the baby is really his and his companion is his father, not paramour. But watching him slouch in his seat in the cafe still doesn’t make you feel like planting his seeds in your garden.

More angles of Creepy Laughing Man:

2. Witch Disguised as Pedestrian:

Slipping into a pink sweater does little to camouflage this white haired witch’s natural aura, especially when she is incapable of denying her vast knowledge of every spice and herb growing in the outside garden. Your first reaction will be to assume she’s planning on making a brew that will eradicate the entire elf population of Western Pennsylvania, and you’re ashamed when you find out that really she’s just planning on whipping up an aromatic stew for her dinner guests that evening. Way to be prejudiced. You’re probably also the kind of person who would slide over a chalice of bat juice to a witch without actually taking their beverage order, when maybe they’d have preferred a nice White Russian in a frosted high ball.

But yeah, you’re right. She does have some magical locks.

3.Thai Food Aficionado:

Can be found predominantly in the tropical gardens of Phipps’ Thailand Section, monopolizing the employee inside a kiosk displaying samples of Thai spices. He will pressure her until her eyes water in fear, demanding to know every last datum of curry until she eventually fakes the need to blow her nose continually, causing him to shrug and leave. If you have the misfortune of finding yourself ogling a lotus while he is within earshot, do not speak poorly of it, for his female companion (wife or mother, relation is unknown) will sneer at you and lambaste you about the sweet, sweet balm the lotus secretes, causing Thai Food Aficionado to radiate death waves from his robotic eyes as he brusquely chimes in that lotus root is best served as a tempura. Interaction with Thai Food Aficionado learns you that it’s about as savory as spending an afternoon under a willow reading Chaucer with some stink weed.

Here, Thai Food Aficionado is deciding if the pond fish would taste delicious with a nice curry. Later, you hear him spinning yarns of pad Thai and lemon grass.

To my delight, I also learned some new things about my friend Kara:

I had to double check my ticket to see if I was in Kara’s Haunted House.

Kara was also kind of cranky and surly. She admitted it was probably because she was hungry and in a very strange and disorienting moment, I realized that it was almost like hanging out with myself. If that’s the case, then damn, I’m annoying. Wait, don’t people tell me that all the time?

In typical Erin fashion, I ignored the fact that there was a finger print on the lens. It gives the pictures character. Charm? No? Ok.

Thingies.

Life would be worth living if these were what eyeballs looked like. Or nipples.

When penii party.

Would suck to fall on.

Kara’s fortress will protect her from all the scary flowers and sinister butterflies, but I fear she’s on her own with that foreboding sky.

Afterward, I fed Kara’s face in the cafe, where Creepy Laughing Man had been joined by his wife and kid and that dude we thought was his lover but really was his father. It was kind of comforting, even though I kept hearing him laughing and it was really like having my ear fingered, which kind of made me blush and wish I had a rosary to nuzzle.

Right before we left, Thai Food Aficionado stamped in with his mother-figure and proceeded to ask the girl behind the counter what every dessert tasted like. Kara and I tried to hold back squeals when they chose the table next to us. His companion, having fallen in love with her cake, made the life-or-death decision to go back and get another hunk, which she paid for in exact change. She then cut it right down the middle, employing an enviable steady-handed precision. I took it upon myself to imagine the dialogue exchanged was akin to her telling him that he just hadn’t lived until he prayed with the Tibetan monks, but instead it was really, you know, tasting some crappy cafeteria dessert. Thai Food Aficionado, well on his way to becoming Stale Dessert Connoisseur, speared his half with a fork and raised the entire chunk to his mouth. He gnawed off a large portion, swallowed, and then engulfed the rest.

I hope there was at least some coconut milk in it.

It was back to Cleveland on Sunday to catch Craig Owens on his solo run. I was so thankful that it was another weekend show, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made it and then you’d all have to suffer through bitchy angst-ridden posts for at least two weeks. Another thing I was thankful for was the fact that Alisha and I dusted off our friendship earlier in the year and that she was willing to spend time with me in an enclosed space and see some bands she didn’t know much about. Thank god for Alisha!

The Drive

Before we exited Pennsylvania, we stopped at Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch, and I brought in my empty Starbucks cup in hopes of disposing it because I have issues about leaving garbage in the car, something Henry is very insensitive of, do not get me started, DO NOT. My anxiety of seeing Craig Owens was starting to make me do stupid things, like squeal a lot, squirt soap all over my arm in the restroom, and stash the empty coffee cup in my purse UPSIDE DOWN upon discovering there was no garbage can outside the restaurant, so Alisha suggested I order an adult beverage. She slid the drink menu toward me, but I go, “No, I’m good. Seriously.” I think she was relieved when I ordered water instead of more coffee, but after a few more minutes of me giggling degenerately and doing weird breathing exercises, she was all, “No really, I insist” and then I found myself getting carded over a Sangria which made me VERY HAPPY. Especially when I got to pull my ID out of my iCarly purse.

After we left, I realized that when I retardedly stashed the empty coffee cup upside down in my purse, the remnants spilled out right onto the painting I made for Craig. Henry had painstakingly (not really, but he did act put-out that I asked him to do it) wrapped it for me that morning  and it was completely stained on one side. “I can’t give him something that looks like it was fished from a dumpster, what the fuck am I going to do?” and I could tell that Alisha was preparing to pull over and have me sedated, but I was OK once I peeled the painting out and saw that it remained untainted. The envelope to the card, however, was also stained. So I outlined it and turned it into a dumb little creature and prayed for the best.

There was a rogue diaper strewn across the backseat, and I considered wrapping the painting in that, you know, to keep it safe and give it some pizzazz. “I can guarantee he’s never received anything wrapped in a diaper,” Alisha said. And it would soften the blow when I lost my nerve to hand it to him, and ended up chucking it at his head and bolting. But ultimately, I decided that messing with it any further would likely turn into a disaster, so I stashed the painting in the backseat and tried very hard to forget about it.

And then I was fine, really fucking fine, until we made it to Cedar Road, which was the third to the last street we needed before reaching the Grog Shop. That’s when I started getting all stupid and dizzy-feeling and Alisha began tensing up because my anxiety was contagious and then I fucked up the directions and she cried a little. It was an amazing 15 mile track of emotional roller coaster. And it only got better after we parked and began walking the street, looking for a place to pee, only to settle on a grocery store in which I accidentally locked myself in the restroom and then BROKE MY ICARLY PURSE trying to break out. It was awful. Who was going to take me seriously without a purse that says “LOL” on the zipper pull?

In Line

Because I’m not normal, I really enjoy standing in line before doors open. It’s a great opportunity to people watch and make enemies, which almost always is inevitable. This time it was immediate, so that was fucking lovely. I overheard a girl behind me mention she had seen Chiodos last year at Club Zoo, so I excused myself for butting in, and then asked, “Are you from Pittsburgh? We’re from Pittsburgh,” you know, just trying to make convo with someone to kill time. Well, this dumb ginger bitch was all, “Um, yeah, kind of, but not really” but the way she said it? It came out like a word-encapsulated scoff dipped in a vat of holy attitude jam and wrapped in pretension and I swear to god I wanted to punch it right back into her crooked-toothed maw. It was like a hobo having the audacity to speak to Paris Hilton, is exactly what she made me feel like. My hate bell was ding dang RUNG, bitches.

A few minutes later, I heard her complain about there being so many scene kids there and my palms were instantly half-mooned. Seriously? What did she think SHE was with her Stay Positive hoodie, day-glo t-shirt and seam-popping skinny jeans? And you all know how deep my scene kid love runs, so she was really stirring my pot. And she had hideous lime green eye liner on and I wanted to spit on her eyeballs and scrub it off with a Brillo pad, that dumb whore. You are in line with a bunch of people who share the same love of music as you do, so put a fucking hat on the hate, Jesus Christ. I wouldn’t even be making fun of her right now if she hadn’t opened up the ignorance spout. I can’t stand that shit.

Oh, and she thought she was a regular Chelsea Handler too, with her dead-panned commentary of every fucker who walked past us. I kept making faces at Alisha and hissing, “SHE IS SO NOT FUNNY WTF??” And unbeknownst to me, one of her minions heard me talking shit on her and ratted me out. Alisha knew of this, and was wise enough to not tell me until much later when we were inside because she didn’t feel like dealing with a fight. But evidently the girl was all, “I don’t care!” and Alisha said something else non-threatening was said but it wasn’t bad enough for her to remember I guess. And when she told me this, we were sitting at the bar, and I found myself scanning the room looking for that douchebarrel so I could kill her. Alisha reminded me that she was underage. I DON’T CARE.

So no, I guess that pickled tampon really wasn’t a scene kid; she wasn’t awesome enough.

Aside from that. the wait in line was cold yet entertaining. We got to watch some boys in front of act like assholes with a half-full bottle of Vitamin Water and Alisha was braced to call 911. It ended up bursting at one point, the contents splashing right past my feet. I cried, “I so knew that was going to happen!” and they were genuinely apologetic, which I was NOT expecting. They kept asking, “Are you sure it didn’t get on your shoes? I’m so sorry!” and then the one boy was all, “And those are really cool shoes, too, by the way” and I was like, “OMG a scene kid accepted me!” and I was so happy and Alisha was like, “You are so pathetic” but I could NOT STOP SMILING even though it was like 40 degrees and I wasn’t wearing a coat. I seriously smile like a mentally incapacitated farm hand the entire time. When I later relayed to Henry that for once people were approaching me left and right, I hypothesized that it must be my darker hair. But Henry goes, “No, it’s because you didn’t have a 44-year-old man standing next to you.” Touche, Henry.

There was also this crazy phenomenon where, no matter where we stood, passers-by trying to get into the neighboring sports bar or Chipotle would always cut in front of us. But not without a warm “Excuse me” and a smile. Alisha was getting annoyed, and finally deduced that it was because of me, not her, because she was not wearing an inviting expression like I was. “I’m like, the golden entrance,” I said with a shrug, and then decided that sounded like a porno so it became even more apropos. Alisha’s final straw was when some guy said, “Chinese cut!” before squeezing past us. I couldn’t stop laughing. Two of the guys from VersaEmerge — the fantastic opening band — chose me to squeeze past as well, and they were both very gentlemanly and friendly about it. Especially the drummer, with whom I wound up dancing  in my effort to step out of his way when he tried to enter the Grog Shop, and we shared a laugh over that so you know, we’re bros now obviously. And every time this would happen, I would turn to Alisha and laugh and she would roll her eyes.

The Show

Inside, the doorman was all taken aback that I was ready to greet him with my ID, because apparently we were the first people over-21 he had encountered in line so far. It was hilarious, but once the room started filling up, I was shocked at how many older people had turned out to support Craig. It was a beautiful thing. Especially since we sat at the bar most of the night and I proceeded to get drunk off cider and walk into the men’s room two fucking times in a row, like it was my first time in a fucking bar.

VersaEmerge and The Color Fred preceded Craig, and both had excellent sets, although Fred’s went on a little longer than we liked. It had a little to do with the fact that he broke a string, twice, and only had one guitar. Both times that happened, he allowed people to go on stage and tell a joke while he rushed to restring. One of my Vitamin Water friends went up and told a joke and I was like, “OMG YES!” and clapped and screamed real loud, and Alisha was all, “STFU.” But that was our BOY Tony, I said to her! And then I wondered aloud if he still had a price sticker on his ass, which Alisha prevented me from telling him about in line because it would be too “mom-like.”

But VersaEmerge were incredible, and not just because the singer was a really hot chick with magnificent scene hair. Alisha ran off to buy their EP but swore it had nothing to do with her fast-developing crush. And later, we chatted with their bassist Devin, when he came over to the bar for a drink and I had to rub my eyes because that boy did not look 21. He was very down-to-earth and personable, and seemed genuinely humbled when he saw Alisha’s copy of their EP resting on the bar in front of her. After he retreated with his drinks, the bartender paused to talk to us about how  nice he was, and how she’s much more willing to cater to bands who are kind.

“The boys in Agnostic Front? Some of the nicest guys I have ever dealt with, no lie,” and that was when she noticed that I was drinking Woodchuck. “Ever tried Strongbow?” she asked, and then proceeded to sell me the perks of the English import. She gave me a sample in a plastic cup, and when I agreed that it was really so much better than Woodchuck, she set a tall glass of it in front of me and said, “That one’s on me.”

I really love the fucking Grog Shop.

But what I didn’t really fucking love was the texts I was getting from Henry, keeping me abreast of the Pens game, which they lost. It nearly ruined my night. I’m sure Alisha thought that I was reading a text alerting me to a horrible accident at the homefront, but when I tilted my phone her way and she saw that I was just reading the score to the hockey game, she was like, “Oh” and then quickly added, “That sucks.”

 By the time Craig walked past us, I was feeling REALLY FUCKING good. So good, in fact, that I was able to enjoy the entire set without bawling, sobbing, shaking, or obsessing over giving him that fucking painting. I just remember smiling so big and feeling happy and lucky to be sitting there with Craig singing a few feet away.

He started with “Letter From Janelle” and I was all, “Oh yay!” and next thing I knew my fingers were involuntarily curving into heart-formation, and Alisha was happy too because she likes that song, and it was just good, so so so good. He did a Bright Eyes cover, two Cinematic Sunrise tracks (I thought of my friend Jessa when he busted out “You Told Me You Loved Me”), and the most beautifully heart-stopping acoustic version of “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek” that I ever could have imagined possible and I know I was beaming like a five-year-old getting a unicorn and a Mogwai all on the same Christmas. And maybe also like Henry when he was getting a hand job, the Vick’s VapoRub edition, from a Thai hooker.  OK, maybe my grin was not so sleazy. I hope, anyway.

But then today I watched a video of it that s0meone posted and since I no longer have hard cider acting as a dam for my emotions, I got all emotional band-y and cried a little. But seriously, this song has some prime fucking real estate staked out on my heart.

(Original version here.)

Craig was happy and full of humor and stories. I didn’t expect to go to this show and laugh! He said “J/K” for some reason, and some girl up front mocked him. He was all, “Did you just mock me? I’ll punch you in your face, little girl” and I started to think, “Wow, he could punch me in my face anyday!” but then I remembered that I don’t like anyone that much to receive a fisted gift in the grill. Not even my own son, but he still does it anyway.

So, Craig admitted that the reason he was so happy was because he’s in love now, and like any good fangirl, I already knew about his girlfriend (who is so freaking cute, by the way). He wrote a song for her, tentatively titled “Song For Joanna” and before he played it, he had everyone sit on the floor, and then he, Brian (Isles & Glaciers, ex-Receiving End of Sirens) and Nick (of Underminded, Cinematic Sunrise, Isles & Glaciers) all sat at the edge of the stage, sans microphones, and Craig proceeded to serenade the room campfire-style. It was intimate and absolutely beautiful. They played the rest of the set like that, including “Vacation to Hell” which he wrote when he was 16, and “Intensity in Ten Cities” (one of my favorite songs off Bone Palace Ballet and Chiodos never plays it live). It was like nothing I had ever experienced at a show before. That alone was worth it.

He is so beautiful, in a myriad of ways, and I could barely stand it.

After the show, we ran back to the car so I could grab the painting, and then spent the next 30 minutes or so standing in a small group of anxious fans eager to say hello to him. I realized there was a half-assed line forming, and Alisha and I were sort of off to the side of it. A young couple heard me mention it and turned around to say it probably wasn’t a big deal.

“I’m not trying to cut in line and take away anyone’s time with Craig. In fact, I don’t even want to talk to him. I just need to hand him this painting and then run away.” So then we started chatting a bit (I almost said “for a spell” because apparently I’m an eighty-year-old now) and the boy member of the couple reached out to touch my arm (this is according to Alisha, as I was kind of hammered) as a means to console me since I was probably blubbering on about how I’m a social reject. Alisha said his girlfriend seemed angered by the physical contact and that was the end of that convo.

While standing around, I was thinking about how awesome it was that there was such a large turn-out of older people; but then I saw one of those older people (a ginger around my age, I guess) who was so drunk she was laying on the floor and being a general nuisance, and suddenly I remembered why I enjoy shows that have a primarily under-age attendance. Alisha thought she was hot.

Eventually, my bartender friend emerged from the back and gave us the bad news that Craig wasn’t feeling well and therefore was not going to be able to come and talk to us. I was disappointed for about .000005 seconds until I realized, “Hey, now I don’t have to unravel into an overzealous and embarrassing display of verbal impotence.” Spotting Nick Martin coiling up some wire on the stage, I decided to just pawn it off on him, but felt like an absolute heel in doing so. It’s like, “Hey faceless boy who plays guitar with Craig, this token of appreciation is NOT for, can you please give it to Craig? Wait, what did you say your name was?” But really, I love Nick. I think he’s amazingly talented and I tried to convey that as eloquently as possible as a preface to my request, but unfotunately it sounded more like, “Oh wow, you were awesome. You guys were awesome. What an awesome show. Would be awesome  to see you in Pittsburgh. How ’bout the awesome weather. I’m upchucking the awesome. Oh, and can you give this to Craig thanks see ya.” I felt awful about it, but he was so sweet and said, “I promise you this will be in his hands tonight.”

I know, wow, fan art. How fucking precious. But, you know. Craig’s lyrics are what inspired a lot of my paintings. So what better way to say thanks than to give him one that’s made especially for him. I trust that Nick gave it to him, and I feel content and even a little relieved, to know that maybe, in some small way, I might have been able to touch Craig’s life like he has touched mine. And I don’t care how cornville that sounds, motherfucker.

 ***

On the way home, I stared out the window at the dark, malignant expanse of forest next to the highway and asked, “Do you ever wonder if someone, right now as we drive by, is getting murdered in those woods?”

In a horrified tone, Alisha answered, “Um no. But now I am, thanks.”

The Suckers:

• Janna
• Blake
• Collin
• Corey
• Kaycee
• Dyanna*
• Justin*
• Jessi*
• Bill*
• Alisha*

(* all new to the horror of my game nights.)

When I sent out the Evite for game night, I apparently excluded the words “game” and “night” from the invitation. I wondered why Blake’s RSVP was all, “Yes but will there be games?” I guess Henry probably clarified that for him, though, so he wouldn’t think he was walking into a lingerie party. Because that would probably suck for a sixteen year old dude.

So this Game Night was special because finally, after including him on every Evite, my Michigan friend Bill was finally like, “OK FINE YOU WIN” and attended, along with his lovely girlfriend Jessi. I was worried that even after spending the entire day with me, once they saw my true colors (because game night brings them out in fucking prism-style, trust) they’d be all, “Yeah, let’s never come back here. Ever. Except for those cupcakes.” But they still like me! Even after I introduced them to a crowded room as “Bill & Jessi, sometimes they talk funny.”

We started off with Catchphrase as usual because that’s the best game to get everyone acclimated with the screaming that is bound to escalate as I imbibe more and more Woodchuck. Unfortunately, my two mouthpieces – Kara & Rhonda – were unable to attend so I had to actually be a hostess and explain the game to the people who had never played it. And then I had to start it too. It was really upsetting, not having anyone to do it for me. I like it better when someone else takes the reins and I sit around lollygagging, which is something that I truly excel at.

I like this picture because that’s pretty much how Collin looked the entire eight months we worked together.

Kaycee’s default clue is usually, “Oh my God, shit. I don’t know! He’s like an actor I think!” Somehow she is always on my team and somehow, we always figure out what the fuck she’s getting at. Also, this is one of two expressions typically found on my brother’s face at game night. The other is utter boredom.

My friend Alisha and I recently reconnected and I can tell by this photo that she is supremely thrilled to be sucked back into the maddening vortex that is my pathetically retarded social gatherings. I think the last party she came to, I threw a fit during wiffle ball because Henry called me out when I was quite clearly SAFE ON FIRST but he is dumb cooze with crooked glasses and was trying to look all badass in front of his big shot friend Randy. But lookie, she came back for more!

Bill and Jessi are serious game-players. I’m surprised Bill didn’t issue tickets when people on his team fucked up (like Janna, but that’s just her nature and I think Bill realized and accepted that, so she was kind of written off as the retarded person at the institution who cuts the grass behind someone else with a mower). She even forgot to give her team a point after one round and if she had been on my team, I’d have cold-cocked her and then turned her into a drug mule.  Just throwing that out there.

I can’t remember what Blake was trying to describe, but I remember he was super happy when Dyanna took this picture (I dumped my camera on her for the night, and she didn’t seem to mind, but that  unfortunately means that there is only like, one picture with her in it, shit). If it was just me and Blake on a team, we’d have won. Unfortunately we were saddled with Collin and he can bring down even the best team.

I covet Blake’s scarf.

After Catchphrase, Alisha cried uncle as she ran out the door so we switched to Apples and Apples, which Jessi explained so I could sit back and stew in my drunkeness. Henry didn’t play at all, he just stood there wearing a DARE shirt that I bought off some man at a gas station last year because I felt bad for him. I feel like this shirt gave Henry some unwritten license to puff out his chest all night and it was really kind of making me sick. Every time someone arrived that night, I would make the proper introductions and then slip in a, “Look at how gay Henry’s shirt is” to which he would haughtily mumble, “It was the only clean shirt I had.” I really wish he had worn his Vietnam belt buckle with it.

I think this was the first time anyone had played Apples to Apples, and naturally I won. There was no competition, I was practically playing alone. (Like when I play Boggle.) But I particularly enjoyed playing judge. It made me feel powerful, like I could smite the entire room with a bolt of cyborg semen from my metal-ensconced fist. Which I don’t really have, by the way, but now I feel I need to. Dyanna totally kept trying to make me cheat for her. She’s a sneaky one, that girl.

After two or three rounds, much to Collin’s chagrin, we dusted off good old Scattergories. Everyone had to pair up, and Blake immediately sidled on over to me and I’ll tell you why: It’s because I’m a winner and if you want to win, you join forces with the masteress of win. Henry was a little disturbed at the answers we came up with and reminded me after everyone had left that Blake is only sixteen and I shouldn’t be answering movie title categories with Candy Can’t Cum or putting “candied cunts” as a disease (when meanwhile Henry was finishing that thought with, “now that’s a disease I’D like to treat.”) Then he mumbled something about how annoying it is when Blake and I are together because suddenly I’m sixteen too, and I go, “Well, maybe it’s more that Blake is 29, too.”

After a fleeting pause Henry reiterated, “No, you’re sixteen.”

Bill mentioned the next day that there came a point when he was less concerned with winning and more amused by Collin’s visible agitation with my answers.

I think everyone officially left around 1:30am or so, and I sure hope Dyanna’s boyfriend Justin doesn’t think I’m a complete loudmouthed lunatic. I only yelled, “FUCK YOU” once out the window to random bypassers.

Since last weekend was all about cucpakes and game night, I find it apropos to repost an old LiveJournal post about the same subjects. And hopefully sometime Capn’ Cusspants will let Mommy have a fucking minute to sit down and write about the recent game night. If not, Doctor Nyquil might have to make an appearance. (KIDDING.)

Originally posted January 21, 2007

 Bathing in a tub of warmed pistachio pudding with buoyant sponge caked-rubber duckies.

These are the sensations I imagined would wash over me while I tackled the cupcakes last week. I did not feel any of these things. Instead, I felt tired, bored, agitated. All the things I normally feel when spending time with Henry.

First, he quickly talked me out of the “from scratch” mindset and set me free in the baking aisle of Giant Eagle, where I bought three boxes of cake mix and decorative thingies and neon food coloring. There was so much more I wanted to buy but I don’t know where to go to get the good baking stuff. I wanted to encrust my cakes with edible diamonds and sugared seaweed, but time was fleeting.

My cupcake-baking enthusiasm quickly waned as I struggled to mix the batter, but interest was regained when Henry took the blending-reins and set me free with a kitchen-full of ingredients to plop into each pocket. He lingered close-by, though, to make sure that everything I used was edible. Just because I had hoped to fill the innards with mud, grass, thumb tacks and soiled baby wipes, I guess. Henry was disgusted and even remarked that I have the audacity to wonder why I can’t keep friends. And here I thought it was because of my wicked mood swings and inability to trust!

Here is what I learned:

• Cheerios shrivel and get very hard when baked
• Fruit snacks don’t melt; they still stick to your teeth even after being baked into batter
• Fistfuls of marshmallows should not be allowed inside a cupcake because then Henry has to use a knife to cut the finished product out of the pan. And then your guests think that one was nibbled on by your cats. And then you feel like shit because people think your house is unsanitary and they start holding cupcakes up to the light to inspect further.
  
• Maraschino cherry sauce sinks and congeals at the bottom for a bloody good-looking finished product
• Janna will eat her weight in cupcakes flavored with blueberry preserves, and won’t even notice that a well-concealed olive is awaiting her beneath a cap of green icing
• Chopped dates blend into cake batter and come out the other end of the baking process undetected. Seriously, who ate the one with the dates? No one knows
• When Henry urges me to only fill each baking cup halfway, I should listen

The next morning, Henry and I stood in the kitchen staring at two dozen un-iced cupcakes. We marveled over their non-uniformity and I grabbed the next box of mix.

“Whoa! Oh no. You are not making anymore. Are we looking at the same cupcakes here? You got two dozen disgusting cupcakes sitting here and let me tell you something: once your little friends find out what’s in them, ain’t no one going to be eating them. We don’t need any more cupcakes going to waste.”

I was enraged, yet relieved. Baking is tiring business, you guys. It’s not fun like it looks like on TV. I couldn’t even read the directions on my own. I tried, but words blended together and it started to look like a word problem which angered me because numbers just don’t belong in sentences with words because it makes my brain seize up a little. But I ate a lot (a lot) of batter and felt like it might have been my last day on earth.

So instead of boarding the baking train, we (read: Henry) whipped up some butter cream icing which was then separated into several bowls so I could get all Picasso with my food coloring.

“Just put like, two drops in,” Henry advised as I meat-fisted the small vial and sent at least fifteen droplets splattering into the icing.

We made purple (regular flavored), pink (amaretto), lime (almond), blue (marshmallow) and then I got bored and ditched Henry. He used this quiet time to concoct his own icing: bright green flavored with a hint of red pepper, which left a pleasant warmth in the mouth. It was my favorite, but none of the game night attendees noticed and had to be told what was happening. Sometimes I wonder if Janna’s mommy has to accompany her to the potty since Janna seems to need dialogue added to her every action.

“Now you’re passing a corn-studded turd through your anus. Here it comes! Plunk! That was the sound of it dropping into the toilet water! Now wipe yourself good, Janna. Front to back!”

Honestly. She probably didn’t notice the olive because I wasn’t giving her a play-by-play.

After I finished slathering my disfigured cupcakes, it was finally time to decorate them! Except that I didn’t give a shit anymore! I half-heartedly dusted each one with sprinkles and plopped a cherry on some of them. I was kind of over it. I mustered enough energy to impale two of them with toothpicks in order to create a two-story cupcake shanty.

It’s a shame really, because I had big plans of desecrating each iced dome with obscenities and unmentionables and maybe even using a piping bag to scrawl out some of Janna’s dirty secrets, but my belly ached from the fingerfuls of icing I had scooped out–behind Henry’s back–and jammed into the back of my throat like an orphan eating porridge. (I’ve been obsessed with porridge all weekend.)

I guess baking wasn’t the worst thing for me to find out I don’t mesh with. It could have been something dangerous, like knife-fighting. (Which isn’t to say that’s not a hobby I’ve flirted with in my head.)

For some reason, my guests actually ate all but five or six, forcing Henry to eat his words. There were several murmurings of “What is that sticking to my tooth?” but I really think that Henry’s delicious icing (ugh) overpowered my misuse of creative baking license.

Granted, two of my guests were stoned, but hey–I’ll take it.

Hung out with these freaks all weekend. I’ve known Bill there for about five years now, thanks to LiveJournal. In Internet years, that’s pretty much long enough to qualify for kidney donorship. He lives out near Chiodostown (i.e. Detroit, and I swear that’s not the only reason I like him) but we’ve never met in person until this weekend. And not to take anything away from Bill,  but recently I started talking to his girlfriend Jessi and she is just the total package of awesome, smart, pretty and fun, professionally wrapped with those curly ribbons that I always end up shredding when I try to curl them myself. Luckily, I kept my scissor blades away from her.

Chooch is absolutely obsessed with them, thanks to Bill giving him piggy back rides, Jessi allowing him to punch her boob so long as he prefaced it with “Give me my money”, and the fact that they brought him a puzzle, a Mr. Noisy book (apropos) and a Benjamin Franklin book (seriously, the kid really likes him).

However, about an hour after they left today, Chooch seemed in a zone. I assume he was having some sort of sentimental montage of the weekend, because he adoringly cooed, “Bill and Jessi…” but then he followed it up with, “Ha-ha, those assholes.”

I couldn’t have been happier with how much fun and comfortable it was with them. And we spent A LOT of time together! And not once did I feel smothered or bored or agitated, not even when Bill carelessly let a REALLY HEAVY wooden door slam into me. Not even when they dragged me into a STEELERS MEMORABILIA store. (You know I like a bitch when I suffer through a claustrophobic tomb of Sixburgh t-shirts, as I did the last time they won the SuperGayBowl and my good friend Alyson came to visit and wanted swag. Sometimes it is exhausting being such a great friend.)

(I hope you know my tongue is in my cheek right now.)

There are more stories to come featuring these guys. And then hopefully even more after that, since I begged them to move to Pittsburgh and naturally that means they’ll be quitting their jobs this week.