Our friend Bill and two of his friends realized their dreams by opening their very own comic and gaming shop in Wayne, Michigan. The grand opening was set for Labor Day weekend.

“You know,” Henry postulated a week prior. “If you wanted to go to the opening, I bet we could swing it.”

Since I was brought on as a permanent employee at The Law Firm, we’ve been decidedly less stressed. In fact, one day I was sitting in the car thinking to myself, “What is that weird feeling I feel? Oh. I do believe that’s called ‘relief’.” Bill and Jessi come to Pittsburgh quite often to visit us, have been to Chooch’s last two birthday parties, and even one of my game nights, so I was like, “Hell yes, let’s do this.” I wanted to be there in person to show our support! And also to drive around the outskirts of Detroit with my Penguins flag waving proudly atop my car.

Saturday morning, I was up at 6:00am and ready to go. Henry and Chooch didn’t wake up until 7:00 and 7:30, respectively, and we didn’t hit the road until 8:30. I was angry about this, and Henry decided this would be a good time to flirt with me, which only succeeded in deepening my scowl.

The ride was pretty uneventful and long as shit. It only should have taken us about 5 hours to get there, but with a four-year-old in the backseat, that’s never going to happen without a hearty dose of Nyquil. Since I forgot the Nyquil, we pretty much stopped at every fucking rest area so Chooch wouldn’t petrify in his car seat.

At the one rest stop, he got a kids meal at Burger Meal. “What?” he exclaimed dramatically, extracting a girl toy from the bag.

“Go give it back to the lady at the counter,” I advised, and then Henry piggy-backed my advice by advising I go with him.

Chooch shrugged his way through the travelers crowding the front of Burger King, slammed the girl purse thing onto the counter and spat, “I’m not a GIRL.”

He got some plush Wrestler thing that makes a noise that I would end up hearing for the rest of the trip.

At another rest stop, we were parked next to Border Control. Henry, being the wise old man that he is, explained that he was probably here checking for drugs.

“And with a dog like that,” he said, gesturing to the German Shepherd accompanying the officer, “you’d be screwed if you even just had a marijuana cigarette.”

“Marijuana cigarette?” I repeated, losing it. And then it turned into a five-minute laugh fiesta, with Henry frowning as he drove down the highway. Sometimes it’s like talking to your Grandpa Elmer. What a lamer, I mean really. Then I couldn’t stop picturing an adolescent Henry, trying to fit in with the “bad” kids at school, pushing up his glasses and asking for a hit of their “marijuana cigarette.” Now I’m laughing all over again.

It was about 2:00pm by the time we finally arrived at Warriors 3. We were warmly received by Bill and Jessi and ushered into the backroom, which quickly became the VIP room upon my arrival. Don’t let them fool you. We were just in time for pizza, which Henry ate hungrily, and I finally got to meet Bill and Jessi’s friend Josh, who I’ve gotten to know from Twitter and Facebook over the last year, so that was extremely cool and conversation with him came easily. It didn’t take him long to start busting my chops, and I like that. It makes me feel loved!

Aimee, the girlfriend of one of the Warriors 3, was also in the VIP room and I could tell Chooch was crushing on her pretty hard. He kept looking at her for approval every time he would say something. And speaking of Chooch, now I know where to take him the next time he needs stimulated. It was like he was in his own Wonderland. There were toys and games every where and grown-ups were actually playing with him.

“Will you play with me?” he’d ask any random guy, who would usually wind up saying, “Sure, dude,” provided they weren’t already involved in a game. Chooch would look at me in amazement, like, “I can’t believe they keep saying YES!”

Chooch also brought some of his own toys with him, and Josh sang the theme from the Hulk cartoon, which made Chooch look at me and laugh. He just had this expression on his face that screamed, “These guys know my toys?!” At one point, he was pawing through a box of HeroClix (I’m so proud of myself for remembering the name of those; I was completely out of my element there, but enjoyed learning about this stuff!), and no matter which one he pulled out, there was always someone near by who could tell him what he was holding. Which was better than when he kept asking me, only to get my patented ‘I dunno’ mumble.

Josh answers a HeroClix inquiry for Chooch while his critically acclaimed Cthulu supervises and Eddie stews in his AT&T hatred.

I’m convinced Chooch thinks Bill is his big brother.

Chooch got to help Joe, the honorary 4th Warrior, advertise outside the shop. He was thrilled to be involved, and I was thrilled that there was enough going on to keep him thoroughly entertained. I figured we’d have to do a lot of coming and going to ensure his attention was well-kept. Aside from getting a little too wild on occasion, I didn’t have to really go out of my way to keep him in line. It was nice being able to hang out without my nerves keeping me clenched.

At one point, Joe decided to demonstrate how fast the Flash could run around the building, which inspired Chooch to yell, “Hey, I can do that too!” and before I had the chance to snag him by the collar, he was off. So then I had to chase after him, while he was chasing after the Flash, and I’m sure to the casual observer it looked like some kind of Retard Race.

He must have fallen at least a dozen times while we were there that day. Sometimes I really do want to staple bubble wrap to him.

“Do I really have to remind you that you were JUST in the hospital?” I found myself yelling once every 30 minutes.

The mom of one of Bill’s friends baked a bunch of cookies and brownies, which were all tied up with ribbons and laying deliciously in baskets. Henry chose an iced sugar cookie and proceeded to obsess over it all weekend. Someone found an extra one and gave it to Henry, which made Josh jealous. He disappeared for awhile, and I’m not convinced he wasn’t trying to train his Cthulu to slaughter Henry and return with the cookie.

That was one damn fine cookie, though.

This was no less than 5 minutes after he was sprawled out on his stomach in the back parking lot, M&Ms scattering everywhere

At least now I know where to get his Christmas presents.

Bill and Jessi’s friend Nick would up playing with Chooch for a good hour. He was such a sweet and patient man! I kept mouthing “thank you!” to him and he’d just smile and wave me off, as though playing with a four-year-old was exactly what he signed up for when he walked into Warriors 3. When people take a liking to my kid, it’s the best feeling in the world. So I really did appreciate it, and I also appreciated the fact that everyone talked to him like he was just one of the guys.

When Chooch is at the playground, he gets so excited and wants to play with everyone, but I feel like more often than not, he’s not included with the other kids; as a mom, that’s one shitty scene to have to stand there and watch. Because of that, I think he really does prefer to hang out with adults, and the fact that he was able to wrangle some of them to play games with him at the shop really made him light up. I’ve never seen Chooch so non-distracted. He sat at that table playing diligently for a good portion of the time we were there (which was from 2 until about 11:30pm, minus two hours in the evening when we cut out to do some touristy shit). Of course, everyone pretty much let Chooch play the way he wanted to, which was smart because I tried to read the directions for some of those games and felt as frustrated as I did trying to translate the Iliad in high school.

Now Chooch wants to own all of these games, and I’m like, “That’s great, but can we just stick to comic books for now?” as I envision elaborate pieces strewn all over the floor of my house. Board games with  many pieces makes me nervous, you guys!

Comic books are not the worst things he could be into, so I approve.

Warriors 3 is a fantastic shop which kept up a steady crowd throughout the day, deservedly so. I’m so proud of Bill and Jessi and their friends for making it happen, and I’m glad I got to be there for the grand opening and to finally meet so many of the people I’ve heard so much about. Fine, I’m also glad I got to meet Josh, and the fact that he MADE FUN OF ME the whole time just made me feel more included. So there!

I almost didn’t open the door yesterday afternoon when the knocking came. But it was a friendly rap, not the battering ram banging that the gas man brings with him.

Thinking it must be Hot Neighbor Chris, I relented and opened the goddamn door.

It was not Hot Neighbor Chris. A young guy dressed all in white who looked to be about eighteen (and wasted) stood on my porch. He had a friendly smile and short, kinky dark blond hair, and in spite everything I try to instill in myself about stranger-hatred, I was immediately infected by his personality. He was a talker. Noticing my fingernails, he said, “Oh lime green is my favorite color! Well, I like my lime green a little brighter than that, but still – good choice.”

Then he launched into his very confused magazine spiel and told me a yarn about how his group had traveled straight to Pittsburgh from Tennessee last night with no stops. “I’m like, exhausted,” he laughed. “I’ve had so many energy drinks, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you how many,” came out in a blurt of high blood-pressured mania. I’m still not sure what he was earning points for, a trip or something? But his smile was so elvish and sincere and he already told me his name was Ray, that I didn’t have the heart to cut him off. He started fumbling with all the literature and subscription forms and asked, “Is there somewhere I can sit down to show you this stuff?”

I NEVER let people in my house. Not even my neighbors. Mostly it’s because I’m inhospitable, but also because ever since having a kid, my house’s interior rivals the ambiance of my first apartment which was little more than a party palace. I’m pretty sure Chooch shits clutter. But this kid had me captivated, completely intrigued, that I didn’t want to send him away yet. I’m pretty sure this is how Charles Manson operated. (Don’t worry – I got the Henry Lecture.)

I had to literally clear a spot on my couch for this poor kid to sit. I don’t think he noticed; he was too busy rambling on and on about everything. At one point he said something about not having parents and quickly added, “But don’t feel sorry for me! I’m OK!”

And Chooch, prancing around in his Diego underroos, was so excited to have a visitor. “Oh, you like Ben 10 huh?” Ray said as Chooch thrust one of his action figures at him. Chooch looked at me in amazement, like, “Oh shit, this guy KNOWS.” They become instant besties,  Chooch’s  second in as many days.  (We gave one of my co-workers a ride home Wednesday night. I let her have shotgun, figuring Chooch would accost an unfamiliar backseat companion. He still accosted her. They passed his Ben 10 toys back and forth and he was so excited to tell her all their names. Then he invited her to his carrot party. She told me yesterday that carrots are her favorite food so I guess it was destiny.)

Chooch ran off to find more shit to show him.

I leafed through the magazine selections while Ray was struggled to spell my name on the subscription form. He stopped abruptly in the middle of his high-speed ramblings – wherein I learned he doesn’t like Crown Royal and his iPhone was dead – and asked me, with so much seriousness, “Are you happy?”

I was really caught off guard. I sort of froze with this crumpled-up magazine brochure in my hand and noticed that he was looking at me very intently. He didn’t seem like a church person, although he was wearing a silver cross that he rubbed occasionally, like when he was talking about not having any parents and turning his life around. So instead of being insulted by his question like I would if a Mormon came calling, I was really touched.

People I talk to on a daily basis don’t even ask me that question. Which doesn’t mean that they don’t care, but it’s still not something I’m asked often. Therefore, I assumed I misunderstood him. We had just been talking about Robert Smith from the Cure a second before, so I said, “Is Robert Smith happy now? I guess so, because the last album–” He cut me off and said, “No, are you happy?

”

I really had to wrangle with my tongue to spit out a meaningless “yes.”

Ray stayed and hung out for about thirty minutes. I didn’t end up buying a magazine because they were all three-year subscriptions and I didn’t want to spend that kind of money in the middle of trying to get caught up with everything else. But Ray understood and didn’t pressure me. In the end, he used my name and address as a reference so he’ll still earn points. Then he gave me a small sign to tape on my door that said BUG OFF RAY’S #1 in case anyone else from his group showed up trying to usurp his territory.

Before leaving, he mentioned that his birthday’s in July, that he’ll be 21. “I know, I look super young,” he said.

“Are you a Leo?” I asked.

“How did you KNOW that?!?!” he exclaimed, and looked genuinely impressed to have met a real life psychic.

“Because my birthday’s in July, too,” I said, never mind that it’s basic astrology and it was a 50/50 chance he was either a Leo or Cancer.

Ray thought this was absolutely wild, like we should share each other’s blood there in my living room, next to Chooch’s Bat Cave. “What are you going to be – 25?”

RAY, I LOVE YOU.

When I told him 31, he refused to believe it and I was like, “Can I keep you?”

I gave him a bottle of Faygo root beer to take with him, and he in turn gave Chooch some parting advice. “Buddy, don’t ever get branded!” He showed us the back of his calf, which had giant, raw-looking letters seared into it.

“My boss paid me to do this a few days ago! I jumped three feet! Well not really, I’m just being sarcastic now, but it really did hurt!”

Once he was back outside on my front porch, we still continued to talk. “So, you’re from Tennessee you said?” I asked.

“No!” he yelled in horror. “South Carolina. We were just in Tennessee for a trip,” he explained.

I laughed. “You seemed so offended at the thought of being from Tennessee!”

Ray went on to tell me of his hatred for Tennessee sports teams and from there we talked about hockey, which I always try to work into every conversation I have on a daily basis. (I don’t talk to many people, so my stats aren’t that great.)

Before I shut the door, I said, “Wait! This might be weird, but are you on Facebook? Can we be friends?” He said he was, told me to just search by his name, which he had written on my copy of the receipt. I looked for him later but couldn’t find him, and that made me more sad than I thought it would. He’ll probably never think of me again, but I’ll never forget him.

All night at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about his question to me. I never really give myself the chance to stop and ask myself if I’m happy, does anyone really? But having a total stranger do it really made it swirl around in my brain and I realized that, oh my God, I think I actually am happy. And I can’t remember the last time I could say that honestly, or the last time I was touched like that by a stranger, and I’m not talking about the “your uncle just fingered me under the picnic table” type of touching. Probably Justin the Gay Hitchhiker from 1998.

I’ve felt really calm and good about things since he left yesterday afternoon. You might say it’s coincidental, but I’ll never believe it. Thank you, Ray the Magazine Schiller. I hate Crown Royal, too.

Henry and I never go out. I think the last time was when we went to see Thrice back in November, and it was good until the end when some guy started pushing me and Henry acted like he knew nothing about it.

I had a pack of four tickets to a Wheeling Nailer’s game that I bought a few weeks ago from one of those “just pay half” sites, thinking it would be cool to double-date with my sister, since she lives in Wheeling and we both like hockey. Henry and I dropped Chooch off at his Aunt Kelly’s house (bless her!!!) on Saturday afternoon and for the first time in forever, spent time in the car without a loud-mouthed child screaming MOMMY!!!!! DADDY!!!! every two seconds and calling us bitches.

It was glorious. Except for the part where Henry donned the Professional Driver cap and began weaving and veering through back roads and I was so anxious, staring at the clock, knowing we weren’t going to be in Wheeling by the designated meeting time of 5:00pm.

He drives the SPEED LIMIT for Christ’s sake!

Other than that, I was doubled over with giddiness. It was practically a date! We were acting like a real couple! God, was it ever exciting. So exciting that I put on Of Mice and Men (the band, not the book) real loud and Henry started complaining when I kept tugging his arm up in a roof-raising motion, and then I thought it would be fun to try to kill him and he was shouting, “Hello, not while I’m DRIVING!”

Oh man, just like old times.

We were about ten minutes late, and my sister Amy and her boyfriend Dick were already waiting for us at River City, where we decided to meet for drinks because I hear that’s what grown people do. It was kind of awkward at first, mostly because of Henry’s social displacement, but once the beers (and my lame amaretto sour) arrived, everyone started loosening up and Henry began to be scared of the similarities shared by my sister and me. And I think Dick thought I was retarded, maybe?

My favorite part was when Dick asked Henry what he did for a living. Dick is a doctor so Henry, feeling inadequate,  mumbled something about working for a beverage company and I considered shouting, “HE PLAYS WITH FAYGO ALL DAY” but didn’t want to embarrass him. I mean, any more than he already is just by being my boyfriend.

Henry hated our waitress for not knowing anything about the beer on tap, and he went to the bar to look at the beer selection for himself. Then he told the bartender he hated the waitress. Then we got a new waitress! This one was trying unsuccessfully to cover a black eye with orange foundation. She made me feel uncomfortable, like I had an uncredited role in a Lifetime movie.

By the time we left to walk across the street to the arena, it seemed like everyone liked each other (except for Henry and me, but, well….duh) and I would have been more happy about that if I wasn’t busy panicking about redeeming our tickets. I get nervous about things like this! I’m tightly wound. When I slid the email confirmation printout under the glass at the will call booth, the man began asking me a torrent of questions, like: “Did you call the box office?” and “Did the box office call you?”

I was a nervous wreck. “No!” I answered to both questions. Was he going to tell us to leave? Would we have to work for the tickets? Because I might, MIGHT, give some oral for a ticket but no way am I mopping a floor.

Then he typed some stuff on his computer and handed me 4 tickets.

JUST LIKE THAT.

No one else seemed impressed or surprised. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to happen, the gestapo to swarm from all sides, handcuff me and put me away for being violating some serious Wheeling ticket embargo by just paying half on some seedy illegitimate website created by scamming Nigerians.

Once we found our seats, Henry and Dick went off to do Men Things, like buy beer and clap each other on the back a lot. Meanwhile, I explained to Amy that the Nailers had to win that night, since they were playing my least favorite in the entire world, Cincinnati.

“That’s where Christina’s from,” I reminded her. “So there’s A LOT on the line for me.” I think she’s beginning to realize that every little thing in my life is OMG so DIRE, because she just let out a little laugh and said, “Oh, yeah that’s right.”

While Henry and Dick were getting beer, the game started. Literally twenty seconds into it, the Nailers scored. I gloated when Henry came back. (With beer in kids cups, no less.)

I hated the people in front of me. They kissed with open mouths. They were there with their kids! They probably all sleep in the same bed, too. Naked. It was awful to spectate.

Henry spent most of the game obsessing over the fact that the family in front of him belonged to Spike the Mascot. I’m surprised he didn’t send out numerous tweets about it. “You know how Spike came over and kissed that baby?” he asked in an excited hush. “That’s because it’s his DAUGHTER.” He looked so pleased with himself. I asked him how he found out and it was because he overheard the conversation the baby’s mom was having with the Jesus impersonator sitting next to us.

You’d have thought he called up Shane Donovan of the ISA (whaddup Days of Our Lives fans) and had a DNA test ran.

Throughout the game, I kept trying to be affectionate with Henry. In normal ways, like flicking his face and pounding his knee with my fist in lieu of clapping along to the “Let’s Go Nailers” chants. He kept pushing me away! Can you believe that.

In the second period, Crapinnati got a lucky goal and Jesus rose in jubilation. Figures Jesus would be rooting for a team that hails from Judas’s town.

And then I noticed there was an entire section full of Ohioans, hollering for their dumb team.

“What are they called, the FLAPPERS??” I asked Henry incredulously.

“No, retard. The Cyclones. How do you get Flappers from Cyclones?” Because people from Ohio don’t know how to cheer properly.

Anyway, the Nailers came back to score three unanswered goals, and Jesus wept. Happy Easter, asshole!

Apparently, the Nailers didn’t have a very good season (they didn’t even clinch a playoff berth) but you’d never be able to tell by the way they played during their last game of the season. Every three minutes, I had a new favorite player.  It was a great game and awesome to hang out with my sister again!

By the time we left though, I was starving, which meant it was time to fight with Henry. “You’re a fucking bitch when you’re hungry,” he yelled, and then we remembered we have a kid and had to go retrieve him.

It had all the makings of a disaster.

My job interview was scheduled for 4PM today, and as the time drew nearer, this horrible sense of foreboding came over me. I forced myself to get dressed, but by the time Henry came home from work, I was a basketcase.

“I have bad feelings about this!” I yelled. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want this job. AT ALL!”

“You haven’t even gone for the interview yet, you can’t know that,” he said calmly, choosing his words carefully because he knows how quickly and unpredictably his words can morph into the stick poking the bear.

The job is for a large law firm downtown Pittsburgh, the name of which I will obviously never, ever in a million years be able to publish. Since Henry had to stop back at his work later anyway, it was more convenient for him to just drop me off down there. But when we were leaving the house, he didn’t hold the door open for me and it caused me to spill several droplets of coffee on my shirt! (Granted, my shirt was black, BUT STILL, HOW DARE HE.) I took the liberty of throwing a fit and refusing to get in the car. Then I pouted a little in my room until I started to feel somewhat of an adult again, marched back downstairs and yelled, “Fine I’ll go but only because I don’t feel like calling and canceling.”

The lady at the staffing agency told me to get there a few minutes early in order to check in with security. But when I approached the snaggle-toothed guard in the lobby, my inquiries were met with an annoyed stare.

“Use the elevators on the left,” he mumbled.

“That’s it? I don’t have to show you my ID or anything?”

“Nope,” he said, not bothering to meet my eyes.

Awesome.

The elevator spat me out on the 10th floor, and please don’t think I’m lying when I say it was like stepping into Heaven. Everything was white.

The floor.

The walls.

The art on the walls.

Everything glowed like sun off a snowbank and screamed, “Don’t we give off a fresh and modern vibe? You’re not good enough to even stand in this foyer, let alone work within our walls. Your insecurity is sullying our pretentious essence, stop that.”

I was intimidated. It felt cold and sterile, and I kept waiting for Otho from Beetlejuice to round the corner with his ascot trailing behind.

Then the fun part happened! I didn’t know how to open the fucking door to the office!

The handle was some stainless steel piece of modern art, fixated low on the floor-to-ceiling glass door. If I leaned all the way to my right, I could see several desks but the people sitting at them were blurred by panes of frosted glass. I didn’t want to knock on the glass door, but there was no other way to get in.

I stood there for several seconds, pressed against the door, hoping to be noticed. Until I saw the button that said “Press to exit.”

It was a very Alice moment. I had a feeling that pressing this button was the wrong avenue to take.  But the woman I was supposed to be meeting wasn’t answering her phone and the foyer was quickly going from modern art museum to feeling like a fucking morgue.

I almost left. Almost got my ass right back on that elevator and went the fuck home.

But something in me made me push that goddamn button. Even though it said “exit” instead of “enter.” Why would it say “exit”? There was a plaque above it that said, “Door can be opened after 15 seconds.”

It left out the part where I’d have to stand and suffer through fifteen seconds of AN ALARM BLARING first. Then I expected the floor beneath me to gape and engulf me.

But then the alarm silenced and the door opened. And as soon as I walked inside, I wanted to die. Every person in the office was half-standing at their desk, looking to see who had walked in uninvited.

Oh my god, I’m going to swallow my tongue, I thought. I’m about to have my first ever epileptic seizure, I can goddamn feel it. This was certainly an epilepsy-contracting situation, if ever there was.

I scrounged up enough of my voice to announce I was there for Sue, and then I was left to stew in my idiocy until Sue and another woman, Barb, came to greet me.

The rest of the interview went swimmingly from there. Sue and Barb made me feel instantly at ease, and I was even able to joke about my bumbling entrance.

“That’s the guard’s fault!” Barb assured me. “He was supposed to let us know you were here so we could come down to get you. You poor thing, being sent up here blindly like that!”

YEAH. Fuck you, Guard.

We talked candidly as well, and I assured them that the part-time hours they were offering wouldn’t deter me.

“I prefer part-time evening work, because I take care of my son during the day, and I’m an artist.”

I realized that was the first time I said that out loud without hooking my fingers around the word “artist.”

Sue  asked me about the kind of stuff I make. I mentioned the cupcake couples, since those seem to be the most popular things I paint.

“Oh, how clever!” Sue enthused. “You know, there’s a girl in the office who bakes cupcakes. She brings them in for us sometimes and they are so good!”

Please hire me. Please fucking hire me.

This was the first time I can remember not being interrogated in an interview, and not being asked those ridiculous critical thinking trick questions. It was almost like they wanted to know me as a PERSON and not just a breathing extension of my resumè. I noticed that I wasn’t wearing my shoulders as earrings, as I normally do in these begging-for-employment situations.

Barb gave me a tour of the office, which I’m certain was designed by Ikea. There is a round table set up JUST FOR CANDY. A fucking CANDY STATION is what it is. And the good kinds too, not dumb, cheap shit.

I noticed that at one point, Barb pointed to a desk and said, “This is where you’ll be sitting.” MAYBE SHE KNOWS.

I’m not going to get my hopes up, but again: Please hire me. Please fucking hire me.

It’s been two years since I last partook in a roller derby bout, so when my e-friend Bonecrusher posted on Facebook about the season opener, I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, “Well, here’s my opportunity to hate on opposing bitches and be a creepy Bonecrusher stalker. I mean, fan. Bonecrusher fan. Why is my reflection looking at me like that?”

I corralled Alisha into being my partner in spectation. The whole way to Romp n Roll in Glenshaw (we didn’t get lost, because Henry didn’t give us directions), I regaled Alisha with my favorite antidotes from the new sports radio station I’ve been listening to obsessively. I was laughing all over again at the memory of it all, and Alisha was like, “Um, maybe you should just try to get a job there.” She looked worried about me.

We were early to the bout so we had to stand in line for a bit.

“I feel cooler just being here,” Alisha said, looking around at all the non-lame people surrounding us. But really, I could take her to a landfill and she’d feel cool, just being there with me, Erin Rachelle.

There was a man in line in front of us with a long brown ponytail and a corduroy blazer the color of camels. He spoke with his female companion about funny-to-them moments they shared in Europe and I would have puked into my cupped hands if I wasn’t so mesmerized by the uncanny resemblance the man bore to someone I knew but I just couldn’t place it. It wasn’t until later, when he walked past us once we were inside, that I realized he looks like the BAD GUY from Kindergarten Cop. I pointed it out to Alisha and she was like, “I’m from Arkansas. What are movies?” So I went through all this hassle of finding a picture of him on IMDB only for Alisha to shake her head and say, “No, not all. He looks nothing like that.” At that moment, we almost fought.

I reiterated that the resemblance was uncanny before dropping the subject. (OK, it was only slight at best, but still.)

Before the first bout started, I had to use the bathroom and of course I picked a stall neighboring someone who was pooping. But it was a nice complement to the signature roller rink stench of fermented b.o. After awhile, it became a part of me.

At the sinks, I found myself washing my hands next to an exact doppelganger of ex-friend Christina. Only this one was black. But she was dressed like her, was wearing the sort of stupid hat that Christina would probably leave the house beneath under the misconception that she looked cool, had the same build, EVERY FUCKING THING POINTED TOWARD AN AFRICAN AMERICAN CHRISTINA HARRISON. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Simultaneously, I wanted to die and punch her in the face. By the time Alisha was done readjusting her prosthetic hand, the doppelganger was gone.

Later, I saw ANOTHER look-alike. This one was taller, white, and a bit thinner, but it was remarkable nonetheless.

“What do you expect?” Alisha snapped. “There are a LOT of lesbians here.” I already knew that because I could tell Alisha was developing a lot of crushes. I wonder what her diary looked like after that night. Don’t worry, I’ll find out for you.

Still, never have I seen so many mirroring Christina’s duck lips and the build of a compacted football player with Elvis hair ALL IN ONE LOCATION. I was scared.

Luckily, the first bout started soon after and distracted me. Pittsburgh’s B-Unit was playing a CANADIAN team! That was more exciting to me than it should have been. The Canadian team was awful and Alisha and I took a particular disliking to their Semi Precious 10kt. Actually, Alisha hated her first and then I piggy-backed the hate because I was really in the mood of channeling some rage and spewing disparaging slurs.

The Canadians lost real bad. At least Canada still has Sidney Crosby.

Before the second bout started, Alisha was like, “Hey, there’s your friend.” I turned around and Bonecrusher was RIGHT BEHIND ME, being all glamtastic and exuding glittery awesomeness. I was so nervous, but I forced myself to call out her name. I  was fully prepared to start jumping up and down and waving Alisha’s hair if I had to, but Bonecrusher noticed me after the second yell.

This is where Alisha causally leaned back against the wall of the rink and watched the awkwardness unravel. She loves witnessing me meeting new people.

After saying hi, I wasn’t sure what direction to take it, so I complimented on her cool face painting. “Does that take long?” I asked stupidly, like I was the world’s first ever reporter. She told me about the process and I just stood there and smiled retardedly, not knowing where to place my hands or where to settle my roving eyeballs. I can’t meet people! It’s disastrous. She probably thinks I have fucking Asberger’s.

I didn’t want to hold her up any longer so I wished her luck, hi-fived her, and said, “I’ll be screaming real loud for you!” Because that didn’t make me sound like a lame sycophant trying to secure a seat at the cool lunch table. As she skated away, I turned back around and pretending like I wasn’t dying internally. I was afraid to even look at Alisha, because I knew she had smirks and biting one-liners ready to explode from every orifice.

“She seemed really cool!” I said and we left it at that. Then I spent the next ten minutes kicking myself for not rehearsing this in the mirror, or making my cat Marcy role-play.

I held true to my word and screamed real loud every time Bonecrusher knocked a Maine bitch on her ass. “I know her! I know her,” I’d say every time. Meanwhile, I was texted Henry in all-caps and he wouldn’t answer me because I was being obnoxious. He was probably just nervous that I was going to wind up with another girlfriend, you know how I do.

During the bout, I suggested to Alisha that we should start our own teams. “But it’ll just be me on one team, and you on the other,” I started, and I had so many more ideas to add but Alisha stopped me abruptly and said, “No, not ever.

There was a sailor there, taking photos of the Maine team. I couldn’t get a good shot of her, but you can imagine just from this angle how awesome she must have been. Her boots rivaled Wonder Woman’s and her sailor hat was…so very kawaii. I can’t even believe I just wrote that. Anyway, I saw Alisha ogling her and I suggested she take her to the bar later to make her girlfriend jealous. Because I know if Henry brought home a vinyl sailor, I’d be forced to piss on him.

Steel Hurtin’ kicked the collective ass of the Maine All-Stars. I don’t know why Maine even bothers having a roller derby team. I love roller derby because I always forget that the opponents are actual human beings and not corrupt fembots waiting to infect the spectators with Satan’s sperm and rust shavings.

After the bout, Alisha and I went to her favorite bar, 5801, to meet up with  her girlfriend Jess and Mark. (You might remember Mark as the lovely fellow who forced me to climb a ladder and break into his apartment.) I don’t go to bars very often because I don’t like sitting. When I drink, I like to be outside, playing extreme frisbee in the church parking lot across the street and diving into bushes. That’s just me. “I’m just going to stay long enough to get one glass of wine,” I warned Alisha.

But then we arrived and Mark made me feel like a visiting diplomat with the reception he gave me. “I didn’t know you were coming, too!” he exclaimed. He even stood up to hug me! Alisha doesn’t ever do that.

“It was a surprise,” I said. I think all surprises should involve me just showing up somewhere.

Jess and Mark donated their seats to us since we had stood for four hours during the roller derby bout. Actually, it was only Alisha who complained while I’m the one with spurs on her lumbar. Someone needs to send her to boot camp. As soon as I sat down, I looked down the bar and noticed several pairs of eyes on me. A straight girl has landed!

Mark leaned down and asked, “Is this your first time at a gay bar?” I told him that there was another one I had gone to several times with my ex-gay-bestie Brian. (Not to mention all the Tegan and Sara shows I had attended back in the day.) “Oh, that doesn’t count!” Mark laughed, and we both agreed about how filthy that place was. 5801, on the other hand, was awesome. It was very lime. I wanted to hug it. There was even a festive collective singalong to “Sweet Caroline” and I felt like I had finally found my way home.

Not to mention Mark and I bonded over synthpop (“Synthpop is my heart,” I said melodramatically) and then Jess, noticing my iCarly pocketbook, admitted she watches that show too and we shared our favorite parts and I felt so accepted! It only took thirty years!

Two glasses of white wine later and I was pretending to dance with this large scary spiky-hair woman next to me while her back was turned, and then almost took out innocent bystanders with an impromptu round of jumping jacks. My behavior seemed to be accepted, plus Alisha wasn’t flashing me mean looks, so I think that I will be spending more time at 5801. If only to see more octogenarians nearly stroke-out while spry dread-locked bois grind on them at the bar.

Nothing could have went wrong on Saturday. It was just one of those days that it is infused with Awesome extract from the moment you wake up until the second your head hits the pillow. There might have been an incident early that morning where I quit my job as a Mother and swore that I was leaving and taking my cats with me. But other than that, and the fact that the Penguins lost their game with .9 seconds left in OT, my face actually hurt from laughing/smiling all day.

The first day of spring is apparently very agreeable with the balance of my chemicals.

P.S. Oh good, look what I found!

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.)