I remember that it was very breezy that day in the park. Her skirt kept blowing up, flapping around her waist like the mouths of those old women who sit on their front porches and whisper falsities about me.

They said I killed her that day. That I gave her the old garrote, maiming that willowy ivory-skinned neck of hers. They said I did it, that afterward I wrapped her in a sack and dropped her off the bridge into the pond below.

They said all of these things, these flappy-mawed old bats did. They said it to each other. They said it to the postman. They said it to the detective, the one in the Florsheim loafers whom I kept catching sniffing around the building. I wanted to tell him how stupid those little shoe tassles are, but my better judgment held down my tongue real tight.

But I didn’t kill the bitch. I had an airtight alibi – that gypsy caravan watched me from their bonfire as I picked dandelions by the edge of the forest. They watched me and then tried to pick pocket me. Even after they came up empty, they still shared a bowl of lima beans with me. Good people, those gypsies. They told that detective this too, as they robbed his stupid tassled loafers right off his feet.

I didn’t kill the bitch. I had an airtight alibi, like I said. I didn’t kill the bitch; I paid the wino on 54th Street to do it for me.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 15:44 تقوفتسنقبقثقثثقننتاالعهخحخععةمكجحمنا و #
• 15:45 Henry elbowed me in the face. Please bruise. #
• 19:31 Apparently I don’t know the difference between dragons and dinosaurs. #

• 12:37 My g-ma is back home & Crazy Aunt is back to her old agenda of keeping everyone away from the house. Apparently everyone is just me, tho. #
• 12:52 I’m the featured item today! tinyurl.com/7ywznf #
• 13:04 I want Kanye West and Dillinger Escape Plan to collaborate. The hotness would abound. #
• 13:33 can someone please trust in me the secret to drinking beer and liking it? #
• 17:13 Henry just asked “why haven’t you started drinking yet, Alkie?” I’m a little insulted. #
• 22:48 twitpic.com/x7yn – Marcy and her crew. #
• 00:36 I hope one day Henry will exhume my grave and rebuild my putrefied flesh, and then marry me at last. #
• 00:38 Another hope for the future is that Henry will stop sounding like he’s chomping on a mouthful of gravel when all he’s eating is popcorn. #
• 01:11 I think that Wonder Hangers could change my life. #
• 01:21 I consider myself a professor of whoreology. #
• 01:24 I want everything I see on tv after midnight. Twin Draft Guard? I’ve got my eyes on you. #
• 01:29 Henry talking abt my paintings: u should give the option of offering stories w/o mature content. wait, can u even write stuff like that? #

• 11:27 Henry is watching something about Walt Disney and crying. #
• 12:42 I’d love to coldcock my crazy aunt right about now. #
• 14:17 I may be a Forrest Gump in the kitchen, but I make damn good mac n cheese. If Food Network has a mac n cheese challenge, then you’ll see. #
• 14:18 Mac n cheese might be my gateway to throwing down with Bobby Flay. Great, now I’m in porn mode. #
• 14:52 twitpic.com/xdq5 – I hope MY game night is that fun! I will wear pigtails to make it so. #

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While Choocch ravaged the pile of gifts (I didn’t get one single thing and still, my bottom lip did not protrude), all the cats hid safely in the basement. Except for Nicotina (see also: Speck, Breakfast Nook) who was right up in it, playing with wrapping paper scraps and twist ties.

Because we’re stupid parents, nearly everything we bought required assembly. I attemped to master the instructions that came with an airport playset, but quickly found that drool was pooling in the corner of my mouth and my hands were beginning to curl inward. Henry took over and had it erected in a matter of minutes, but he left the sheet of stickers intact for my enjoyment.

And here is where Christmas quickly spiraled into a clusterfuck on par with being fucked by barbed wired dildos: I think I might have a mild form of OCD, I don’t know, but I found that the tiniest slight in sticker application was bringing my blood to a rolling boil. Henry kept saying completely insensitive things like, “What are you retarded? You can’t put a fucking sticker on properly?” and, as I was twisting my arm around Chooch’s fat head, trying to slap a sticker on the airport tower, “Here’s a thought: Why not wait until Chooch is done playing before putting the stickers on?” I couldn’t stop. In fact, I was about to get out a fucking level to ensure precision.

Then, to Chooch, he says, “Ignore her Chooch. She doesn’t understand that you just want to play. She’s a GIRL.”

And then this exchange happened: “Shut the fuck up! I’m more of a boy than you’ll ever be! Get back in the fucking kitchen you bitch!” And he did. Henry went right the fuck back in that kitchen and continued coddling the eggs he was was hardboiling for our picnic. He’s such a bitch I’m surprised he didn’t try to breast feed them, too.

And here is where I regressed to the emotionally undeveloped age of five: I noticed that while I was undergoing the diligent, steady-handed task of toy embellishing, Chooch was in the process of peeling off every sticker I had painstakingly smoothed on. And I lost it. Absolutely flipped my shit and shrieked, “OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT JUST FORGET IT TODAY IS FUCKING RUUUUUIIIIINNNNEDDD!!!!” No exaggeration. I said that. In high-pitched, calling-all-dogs mode. And then I stormed off to my bedroom, where I slammed the door behind me and layed in bed, staring at the ceiling for fifteen minutes until the electrical currents stopped zapping my nerves.

And then the rest of the day was great! Really fucking good. No fighting, no tears.

I got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. Judging by his confusing expression in this photo, you can tell he just loves it.

“Great, Mommy’s projecting her interests on me again. I wish I could just get a shittin’ Elmo like normal kids my age.”

Then it was off to the Uniondale Cemetery (going to the cem on Christmas is kind of our accidental tradition, I guess), where we had a very fast and frigid picnic consisting of egg salad sandwiches, pretzels, cheese cubes, and frozen strawberries (per Chooch’s request). Yes, it was a feast for kings, to be sure. For the record, the shopping list I gave Henry the day before demanded things like “a delicious array of rich cheeses” and “hearty artisan bread for which to sandwich the delicious array of rich cheeses,” among other fine products you might find in a palace’s pantry. All Henry got was eggs to hardboil, bland wheat rolls that were so dry they sucked the mayo from the egg salad, and two packages of Helluva Good.But I didn’t complain. I guess I’m complaining now, but the point is that I didn’t complain THEN. As in, on CHRISTMAS. I kept my maw packed with picnic fixin’s and distracted myself with the camera.

The coldness kept us from enjoying a lingering tour of the cemetery, and Henry and I were desperate to leave after twenty minutes. Chooch had other plans and took off, slaloming through tombstones and whacking trees with sticks while chomping on a pretzel; probably I’m sure this is some nefarious sequence used to raise Samhain. Chasing him down, I panted, “Come on, we have to go home! The zombies are coming!” and he replied, “Aw, cute. Zombies!” None of my lies work on this kid.

Later, we stopped over my dad’s, where Henry presented him with a case of Faygo rootbeer in bottles. Apparently, this was a good gift because my dad got that nostalgic glaze over his eyes and began regaling us of the good old days when soda was a luxury and if your parents gave you a glass bottle of Cola, you damn well drank it to the last drop. Henry I’m sure remembers those days too.

Now, my dad and Henry haven’t spent much time together, and my brother told me that when Henry and I first got together my dad didn’t approve because of the age difference. But that case of old fashioned root beer just may have brought them together, as evidenced by the jolly way my dad was patting Henry on the back, offering him kielbasi and referring to him as “buddy.”

My other, less-mentioned brother Ryan was there too, but only emerged from the basement long enough to hit up the bathroom. “Did Ryan say hello to you?” my dad asked. And I said, “If a head-nod counts as a hello, then yes. Yes, he said hello to me.”

My dad’s house is always so warm and cozy. I should spend more time there. But instead, I only opt for the requisite holiday face-showing. I’m a horrible daughter. (Somewhere, my mom is cackling and rejoicing, “She admits it!”)

Back at home, we spent the rest of the night eating nut rolls and chocolate, and watching Chooch play with his Thomas train tracks. And I got drunk.

So maybe my family (Mom’s side) is a bunch of pathological nut jobs and so maybe we didn’t have a Christmas tree  and so maybe we didn’t even set out cookies for the fat man on Christmas Eve, but by golly I wasn’t going to let my Christmas go down the shitter. All that really mattered anyway was the Chooch was happy, and I’d be willing to bet that, based on the deliriously goofy smile that was plastered on his grubby face all day, he was pretty fucking delighted.

And oh, look who likes Poe after all!

The 51st comment was left by Michelle. Congratulations! Your monster will be delicately wrapped in a paper blanket and sent out asap.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday/day off. Ours was mellow (meaning I only threw one tantrum) and overall ended up being a nice day. More later; I have a Thomas playset to project my OCD on for now.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 15:38 all i want for xmas is for armsbendback to reunite. get on that, fat man. #
• 18:37 a big heart is filling the April 5 block of my calendar.. #
• 21:53 It is weird seeing Henry in his natural habitat. #
• 23:51 Elmer Klump took a dump in his grandmother’s wig. #

• 11:23 Had a spaz attack trying to follow “sticker placement” instructions for a toy airport playset only to have Chooch peel them all off. #
• 11:52 The Thomas Carnival Adventure set comes with stickers adhered. I’m sending a thank you card. Maybe even a fruit cake. #
• 12:52 twitpic.com/wefe – FUCK YOU. Get terrorized, you piece of shit. #
• 14:35 Got Chooch an Edgar Allen Poe doll. His response was “Um. Oookay,” after which he dropped it in favor of, u know, age appropriate toys. #
• 17:08 Chooch is on this odd church-going kick. Whose kid is this? #
• 19:59 Well, if Henry really did marinate my tofu in urine, I’m only alarmed because I liked it. #
• 20:03 The trick to not overeating on holidays is to not have family who invite you over for dinner. #

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Cosgrove lived in a volatile house, with a bickering wife and frightening children. He would try to come from work and sneak into the basement, where he would cower underneath the thin shield of his newspaper, hoping to be devoured by his armchair. But his wife would always sniff out his presence due to the fact that she forced him to wear the aftershave she bought him at the drug store.

“He will never stand a chance at engaging in wanton sex acts with his secretary so long as he smells like Pinesol,” she thought bitterly as she slapped the bottle with a bow on Father’s Day.

There were plenty of things Cosgrove wanted to do when the five o’clock bell rang.

 Cosgrove wanted to go home and play catch with his sons, like a normal father might do, but his kids were too violent and always wound up throwing knives and pitch forks instead. Cosgrove wanted to sit in the den with a frosty mug of beer, kick back and watch the game.

But there was no alcohol allowed in the house, and Cosgrove’s wife felt that sporting events promoted violence. Cosgrove didn’t see what that mattered anymore, since his kids predominantly wore fatigues and blew up feral cats in the junk yard down the lane. He couldn’t imagine how a few innings of a ball game had any impact on their inherent need to live a life of rogue commandoes, but he wasn’t one to argue with the wife. She had sharp nails.

And maybe Cosgrove wanted to scratch his damn balls while sitting in the privacy of the bathroom, but he supposed even that was too much to ask.

One day, instead of dodging through the garage door and attempting to slip into the basement undetected, Cosgrove decided to take a stroll through the garden in the backyard. There, he discovered that if he squatted, he would be completely masked by the cattails and sunflowers.

Day after day, he hid in the garden. He was finally able to widdle that pirate ship that he had been dreaming of, but was always interrupted by his nagging wife, who would fling a list of chores at him. “Take out the garbage! Buy me tampons! Castrate the dog!” It was always something with her.

On a Thursday, Cosgrove ate sushi in the garden. He had always wanted to eat sushi, but his wife was strictly against foods of a raw nature and forbade even a longing glance at the sushi shack on Main Street. Cosgrove even downed the contraband rolls with sake. A real treat, when you consider that his wife wouldn’t even allow him to rinse with mouthwash, claiming he would get drunk from it.

It didn’t take long for Cosgrove to realize the best dream of them all. He began bringing his secretary to the garden with him. There, the pungent bouquet equalized the rank stench of astringent which burned off in invisible waves from his neck flesh.

In the garden, Cosgrove could be the man he always wanted to be.

========

Cosgrove was inspired by one of the drivers at my job, who admits to going home and hiding in the gameroom for as long as possible until his wife discovers him, and who visibly blanched yesterday when she screamed through his cell phone for him to come home. I imagine his weener was tucked timidly between his legs as he obeyed her and left work last night.

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 11:32 When I don’t have contacts in, Henry looks like Russell Brand. If you have skewed taste in men like me, then you know that’s a good thing. #
• 13:02 Me: “I’m not retarded!” Henry: “Well…you are, sort of.” #
• 16:36 Where does a bitch have to go for a fucking Jungle In My Pocket. #
• 17:04 I need to stop buying things that I want to play with & start shopping from Chooch’s perspective. #
• 17:44 I asked henry if he thinks anyone wished we would break up when we first started dating, and he asked, “u mean, besides me?” #
• 21:13 you know who gets drunk off wine really fast? this girl. me. erin r kelly. #
• 22:13 Merlot won the position of Erin’s BFF before I even had a chance to hold auditions for the show. GIVE MAMA A KISS, MERLOT. #
• 23:50 Satanic porn. #
• 00:09 Dallas must have low standards. In the 70s anyway. #

• 01:07 BOBBY FLAY me with ur ween. #
• 11:47 DAN FOGELBERG IN THE HOUSE. #
• 13:21 I want to learn how to solder. apparently this is a laughable to henry. #
• 23:04 It would behoove me to learn the ropes of a corkscrew. #
• 07:21 A truth: Vertical Horizon makes me cry. #
• 15:41 Henry yelled at Chooch for swiping my crackers. IN YOUR FACE, CHOOCH. #
• 17:50 It took two men to help me heat up a cup of coffee. #

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Thank god I get emails from Pampers telling me how many months it’s been since my son was born, or I’d have to continue telling people he’s two-and-a-halfish. So if I put my faith in Pampers, Chooch is 32 months old now, and pretty heavy into Nickelodeon sitcoms like “Drake and Josh” and “iCarly.

” I always know when he’s watching the latter by Henry’s boisterous laughter, which comes with a nervous  epilogue of “I mean, I’m only laughing because it’s so stupid and improbable.”

I don’t mind these shows, but I pray they’re not some sneaky gateway show into the stool-softening garbage on the Disney channel.

While he still gravitates toward the Cure and post-hardcore sundry (I melt when, from the backseat, he requests, “Pierce the Veil, mommy!”), he has taken a liking to Katy Perry. I’m not thrilled about this, but I can acknowledge that it could be much worse. Oh so much worse. Miley Cyrus? Jessica Simpson? NICKELBACK?? [Why are people still buying Nickelback records? I met them in 2001 before they were mainstream radio whores and Chad Kroeger had already been prepped and primed for douchehood.]

The other afternoon, I was getting ready for work while he was “napping.” (I use that term very loosely as he primarily uses that downtime in his crib to plot Mommy’s impending mental breakdown and pen possible meals he can make once he succeeds in slaughtering our cat Nicotina.) So in his room, I keep his radio on one of the variety stations, and the newer Katy Perry single, “Hot and Cold,” came on. Chooch got quiet, then murmured, “Oh. Katy Perry’s on!” Then he quietly laughed – pre-nap delerium – and cooed, “Ha, Katy Perry…” He knows the video by heart, and yells, “I do!

” at precisely the right moment during the wedding scene. Then it’s, “Dance, Mommy! Dance!” and I’m dragged off the couch and forced to run laps around the coffee table.

He still upchucks obscenities with the gusto of a Southern trucker but he, thankfully, has been good about it in public. We dropped him off at Janna’s on Saturday so we could finish shopping and she said he never swore once and was “really cute.” That explains why the car ride home was peppered with “asshole”s and “jackass”s then – he was like a clogged pipe.

But hey, other than that, he hasn’t committed arson or anything.

The holiday spirit hit me late last night. It was probably one of the several glasses of Merlot talking, but let’s not argue about it. It’s  not often that I get all inclined to do something good, something for nothing, but I really want to give away one of my monster mini’s as a holiday thing. A gift, I guess you would call it; or an apology even, for coming here and reading this shit.

The details:

• The contest is open until a week from today, 12:00pm EST December 28, 2008.
• Comment on this entry, and this entry only. If you read this from a LiveJournal feed and comment on that, it won’t count.
• Make sure you use a valid email address so you can be contacted if winner.
• Winner will be chosen at random, using random.org.
• I like having contests. They make me feel presidential.
• The painting will also be chosen at random, but it will be one of the 5x7s, not 4x6s.
• You can only enter once, else your soul will be mine to play drunken frisbee with.

Entire collection of miniatures can be found here.

Hurry, before I change my mind!

Denny hurt his friend Brenda pretty bad. He told her that her prom dress made her look like she was jaundiced.

“Orange always does that to me!” she sobbed.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t wear orange anymore?” Denny suggested, in spite of the frantic waves and throat-cutting motions of their friends.

The next day, Denny told his mom about it.

“And I just can’t afford for Brenda to be sore with me,” Denny finished.

“Her friendship must mean so much to you,” Denny’s mom cooed, rubbing the back of his scruffy neck.

“It’s not that, Mom,” Denny continued, an annoyed tinge to his tone. “She promised to get me a fake ID so I can go to the new strip joint in town.”

And so that afternoon, armed with a pot of apologetic flowers, Denny rang Brenda’s doorbell.

As Brenda danced around the peace offering, sniffing each bud, Denny hoped she wouldn’t notice that two of them were orange.

————————————————————–

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 18:14 I wish we all drove bumpercars. #
• 18:33 I’d like Drake and Josh, if Josh wasn’t in it. OVERACTING does not equal FUNNY. #
• 23:16 I just told someone to have a grilled cheesey day. Oh, if ever there was a moment that should be stuffed in a paper shredder…
  buy lasix online https://naturalhealthcareservices.com/wp-includes/sitemaps/providers/php/lasix.html no prescription

  #

• 23:19 the fucking serial killer xmas card factory has been officially SHUT DOWN for the season. Manson was the big seller this time around, fyi. #
• 11:48 I’m just going to start letting spellcheck change all my “fuck”s to “duck”s. What do I care. #
• 11:48 In a world without Gilmore Girls and Felicity, its hard to care about much at all. #
• 11:55 I love metal detector commercials. #
• 12:30 I feel like 8 years of blogging and now its like 7th Heaven – should have been canceled after the first season. #

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A woman bid on and won a Cupcake Couple painting that I had donated to an animal shelter charity auction, and ended up liking it enough to ask me to paint a cupcake family portrait for her mom.  It was really fun to paint but nerve-racking, because hello – it’s a Christmas present for her mom. She hasn’t seen it yet and I’m freaking out that she won’t like it.

But still, my first family portrait.

Speaking of Christmas, I dragged Janna along to Toys R Us with me yesterday so I could get in some shopping for Chooch. Is it just me or does it seem like there’s not much to choose from anymore? There were only two or three things that really grabbed me, and everything else was little inexpensive stuff that we would get him for no reason other than he’s Chooch and hasn’t killed us today. (He didn’t make us bleed and only called me an asshole five times today! Stuff an apple in a pig, this calls for a feast!)

 I don’t really know what I was looking for – a Willy Wonka-for-sale to turn ordinary household objects into sugared bliss? A real life Beetlejuice? A portable life-sized circus complete with elephants and ring toss (and a hot bearded lady for mommy)? Maybe my standards are too high. But I’ll tell you one thing – these educational “toys” are taking over. All that Leap Frog shit, Discovery Channel schlock. What’s THAT about? I don’t want to LEARN while I’m playing! I want to be starting (pretend) fires (OK fine, I want real flames) and force GI Joes into the inferno to rescue my satchel of benzos, and then I want to sit back and laugh as I watch their frames drip and melt into a viscous mound of molten carnage. And then I want to sprinkle glitter on that shit.

Bring back fucking Micromachines, man. Sweet Secrets, those were the shit.I will admit that my eyes get all alit when I carouse the crafty aisle.

All those jewelry kits! I could make crappy rings to shill on Etsy just like an ex-friend of mine does!

I lost Janna for awhile in the Barbie section and then I caught her donning a Hannah Montana wig, but in the end, we managed to get to the register without sucking on anyone’s elbow.

Toys R Us is less magical, more sterile. I’m writing a letter to corporate.

They need to have leprechauns walking around with trays of cupcakes that make you float upon swallowing. Have  a unicorn grazing on sugared grass in aisle five. MAKE IT MAGICAL FOR ME, ASSHOLES. At least make it look less like a warehouse, shit. Fuck you, Toys R Us. You could at least give me a shitty balloon for stopping by.

I’m just not looking forward to it this year. I mean, I’m not like pouting about it or anything pansy like that. I just haven’t taken any Yuletide Spirit pills this year, is all. We still don’t have a Christmas tree. Last night, Chooch was asking me where his presents were because he knew that me and Santa had gone out shopping for him yesterday. I started to say, “Well, Santa still has to wrap them and put them under the—-” I paused to shoot Henry a scowl and wished I could halve his head like Silar on Heroes.

“—on the…floor? Yeah, on the floor I guess. Over in that corner there. We’ll just have to sweep up the cat fur first.”

And I don’t think we’re doing anything with either side of the family. His sister always seems to forget I exist, and obviously I’m still not speaking to my  mom. So I guess if the weather allows, we’ll go to a cemetery where we will frolick among bones and pretend like it’s not Christmas. Until I start whining that Henry didn’t get me a My Little Pony.

There’s a song by Some By Sea called The Saddest Christmas. I will probably be listening to that a lot. Oh, ho ho ho!

Oh shit. I found a bunch of old junk I wrote in high school, for random writing classes, and they are painful. Because I get off on looking lame, I am going to share this one piece of feces I actually had the audacity to turn in. AND IF YOU LIKE THAT, THERE IS A WHOLE FOLDER WHERE THAT ONE CAME FROM!

****

“Put that back. You know your brother doesn’t like Capn’ Crunch,” Val ordered as I loaded up the cart at Giant Eagle with unwanted food. [Ed.Note: I like how I didn’t even bother to call her “mom” when writing things for school.]

“But I like it!” I whined. It wasn’t fair how the world revolved around my brother. [Ed.Note. This tiny line of dialogue makes me realize that I haven’t changed. This could have come from a trip to the grocery store with Henry just last week.]

“So many brands of cereal. But you know what? We’ve discovered that generic brands taste just as good. Plus, you get a whole hell of a lot more.”

Val and I turned around and saw a woman who – if I was pressed to guess-  was in her late forties, leaning on her cart behind us. Her scraggly black hair lounged on top of her head. She looked tired and overly stressed, as if she had spent the last couple of  nights trying to catch up on her soap operas. [Ed.Note: Here is where, if this was written now, I probably would have guessed she had been out all night working the pole and thrusting her pelt in the faces of bearded truckers. Oh, to have that youthful innocence back.]

“You know, I might have some coupons for some of the junk you’re buying.” The woman reached into her bulging purse.

“Oh,  no thank you. Don’t bother. I’ve never been much of an avid coupon user.” Val gave me the ‘hurry-let’s-get-outta-here-before-I-get-stuck-talking-to-this-freak-forever’ look. Once we attempted to walk away, the woman started talking again, as if trying to lasso us back with her unwarranted conversation.

“When I said ‘we’ earlier, I was referring to my husband and myself.” Her face grew dark as she filled with staged sorrow. “Now I’m in a big legal battle with him.” Val knew that she was in for a long chat. “He wants to keep the dog! Can you believe that? My beloved Mitzy! I was the one who brought that dog home; I fed her, I bathed her, I played with her. Not John! No, all he did was neglect her.”

“That’s a shame. Look, I really should be on my way. It’s getting late and I have a baby at home—” Val started nudging me along.

“My lawyer, Mark? He says that he’ll handle the whole mess and that I shouldn’t worry.” I used this woman’s plight as a distraction to toss my box of Capn’ Crunch in the cart.

“I’m sure things will be fine,” Val looked at me, silently pleading for me to help her get away from this strange character, but I’m loving every second of it.

“My husband has gone so far as to lock the shed! How am I supposed to finish my garden with all of my tools locked away in the shed?” A nervous tug on a twisted strand of hair follows.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get things straightened out. Erin, you about ready to go? My frozen foods are melting.” Val started coaxing me away from the cereals, just as the woman started to open her purse.

The first thing that ran through my mind was GUN GUN OH MY GOD GUN and that this neurotic woman had found her victims. Val, obviously sharing my same sneaking suspicions, backed away in panic.

The woman’s hand started to retreat from the depths of her bag when a voice suddenly boomed from the ceiling.

“Clean up in aisle five.”  The clerk’s voice was like a knife slicing through the tension, and it caused us to momentarily break our gaze from the mad woman. When we turned back around, she held out her hand and showed off a shiny…bottle of pills?

“Check out these pills. These are my anti-depressants. Dr. Hutchinson prescribed them to me so that  my  mood swings can be controlled.” The woman, holding her bottle of happy pills, rambled on and on about her missing son, her kleptomaniac maid, her car that needed new brakes.

It would seem as though Val was offering an unadvertised, pro bono shrink session.

After an eternity had passed, and probably the box of popcicles I hid under the loaf of bread had melted, Val finally spoke up.

“Well…look. I wish you all the best, and I hope that you find your son soon, but I really need to get home.”

“Oh, my. Didn’t you say something about that earlier? I just go off on these tangents sometimes.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a piece of scrap paper. “Here’s my number,” she said, clicking a pen. “Why don’t you call me sometime and we can have tea? I’d love to hear your stories someday! I live across from the high school.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure, I’ll do that. Sure.” Val stuffed the number in her pocket and quickly shoved me down the aisle. “Thanks for all the help back there,” she hissed, pinching me under the arm. [Ed.Note: MY MOM ABUSED ME.]

“What? You mean you didn’t think she was lovely?” I dead-panned.

“Listen!” Val stood stock-still. The mad woman’s voice trailed from the neighboring aisle.

“Oh, you shouldn’t buy those diapers! I used Luvs for my baby. Im in a custody battle with  my husband, by the way.  He wants to  take my daughter away from me!”

Turning back toward me, Val said, “Well, I’m ready to go. How about you?”

“Yeah, now that Supermarket Schizo has a new victim.” [Ed.Note: Wow, I sure was witty.]

Urgent. Will die without reading.

• 18:56 Creepy Uncle-Type just gave me his number. #
• 00:03 The only way I know to get my brain to shut off is by hitting myself in the head with a frying pan. #
• 12:34 I love the word “ointment.” #
• 14:10 WORDPRESS I HATE YOU SUCK A DICK FUCKER #
• 15:07 You know that shrill tone 5yo’s adopt when something’s not going their way? Hello. Me. Right now. #
• 15:26 I keep getting some rogue trackback that contaminates my blog. You know its bad when Henry sits down and rolls up his sleeves.
  buy cenforce online buy cenforce generic

  #

• 15:50 Henry saved the day!!! #
• 16:08 I ran out of patience 5 minutes before I woke up today. I’ve been snapping like rubberband ever since. #
• 16:24 I want to re-record that gay “Had a Bad Day” pop song as a death metal cover. #
• 18:22 Dare I say, I think I might need a hug. #
• 20:49 The Terrible Day ended with one of the guys passing off a bottle of Merlot to me. COME TO MAMA. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter Now you can rest easy, knowing my inner most thoughts and movements.

Hello. It took me TWO HOURS to copy and paste that last fucking post.

Apparently, I’m not allowed to edit it, but I should just be thankful that WordPress allowed  me to publish it AT ALL considering it completely devoured my last attempt, which was actually formatted correctly, and left no evidence that it was ever posted.

So I apologize for the pisspoor, hard to read formatting, and I apologize to my subscribers for basically getting spammed by me today.

I’m really fucking over this whole blog thing, motherfuck.

I need to go jab myself with something sharp.

L8r.

EDIT: I love u Henry. Marry me.

I had been looking forward to this dinner for a few weeks; I hoped Janna wouldn’t ruin it. Because I’m a good cattle herder, Kara, Janna and I arrived promptly at the Bigelow Grille at 8:40pm where we were then told by the stiff-lipped host that the 6:00 seating hadn’t ended and we’d have to busy ourselves some other way for the next twenty minutes. I wanted to get naked and set things on fire, but that was vetoed. So instead, we went outside where I was lectured ad nauseum about smoking by Kara and then we all complained about our shoes and wondered if the cute girl duo standing nearby were on a date. After that grew tiring, we sat in large chairs in the lobby with a wide table separating Janna and me from Kara. It was nice to have some distance for awhile. Then of course Janna had to pee.

Finally, it was 9 so we took another stab at being seated but were shooed away again like flea-infested pound puppies.

Other people began arriving for the 9:00pm seating, so a few of us congregated in a small foyer outside of the Grille. I stood too close to the outside door, triggering the sensor to repeatedly engage the opening mechanism. Every 60 seconds there would be a loud whoosh followed by a blast of air. I maintained my stance until someone from another group politely wondered out loud, “Wow, I wonder if someone is standing too close to the door. That’s awfully annoying.”

Behind Janna, there was a small-framed man with a loose blazer hanging over his bones like a death shroud. His hair was forked in thick clumps; he had a sharp, thin nose and a lipless mouth jammed with serrated teeth. I was intrigued by this man and his close-set eyes and the way his eyebrows disappeared into the creases of his forehead when he dryly said to his companion that the hallway we stood in “smells just like the hotel in Tokyo!” I wanted to have his picture in the worst way.

By 9:15, the other diners had cleared out so we pushed our way into the restaurant. That asshole host was doing a fine job ignoring us as he went down his stupid reservation list and called names of people who weren’t even there, instead of saying, “Hi, and your name is—?” A woman next to us asked him just that and he tersely answered that there were people seated at the bar as well, but then the logicality of her suggestion must have found a small brain cell to seep into, because he acquiesced and asked me for my name. He waved his pencil up and down the list until he spotted me.

“Oh yes, I already called you and you weren’t here. Follow me.”

I did not appreciate the snideness of his tone. We weren’t there because he kept telling us to leave! We were right on the other side of the door; he could see us from his stupid hosting station! I hated him. Imagine how thrilled I was when I found out he was doing double duty as a server, too.

That asshole. The host/server, not Janna. Oh alright, Janna too.

In other words, if Beer ran for president and won, I’d move to Canada.

Scott from the East End Brewing Company came out from the kitchen and welcomed everyone for coming, and recited a bunch of Really Important Things that I could not hear because the cacophony from the bar was blowing out the drum of my left ear; Kara and Janna appeared enrapt though which made me wonder if it was really important at all. The waitstaff burst through the kitchen doors again, and slid little plates piled with cheese castles under our noses. Scott said that the chef, Kevin Sousa, would be out momentarily to give us an explanation of the Amuse bouche and the first course.

“That means don’t eat it yet,” I hissed at Janna, who rolled her eyes and visibly bristled. Wouldn’t it be fun if Janna had feathers? I’d ruffle them all the time.

There was a man my family and I met in Europe when I was eleven. His name was John and he taught me one of the most important life lessons that I know of even to this day, the tenor of which your God, church, college, or the blind sage that lives behind the dumpster in the park could never comprehend matching. This nugget of knowledge has pulled me from the claws of destruction and devastation more times that I’m comfortable admitting.

I might have never eaten Spaghetti O’s again had I not known that secret.

Using my advanced math and reasoning skills, I can brilliantly deduce that if a dish is centered around cheese, I know I’ll enjoy it. And I did. I wished it was larger, though. I hoped Janna wouldn’t eat all of hers so I could swipe it like an orphan with a porridge-allergy, but that was wishful thinking.

An interesting thing to note is that the Kvass Bread Beer was the only beer I was able to completely down. Probably because I like bread. However, it took me all the way into the second course to do so, after collecting two other glasses of beer. I was pleased to be the only diner with an ale armada.

Kara and Janna knocked back their beers like the booze floozies they are. I hoped they wouldn’t detract from the sophisticated and, how you say, refined example I was trying hard to set, by sitting upright and spreading a napkin out on my thighs, which were not slung open like those of a benched baseball player, I swear. Maybe once or twice, but I caught myself.

One
Lobster Roll : lobster mushroom, corn, tomatoes, citrus coriander bloom, huitalacoche-tofu mayo, avocado
Smoked Porter

Kara had been freaking out over this course for awhile, ever since a friend of hers outed the lobster mushrooms. [Note from Kara: “I just want to add that it wasnt the lobster mushroom that kept me from eating that roll, it was the fact that huitalacoche is DISEASE INFESTED CORN. “] I wasn’t deterred by the fact that it was really a parasitic mold, and I’ll tell you why: it tasted delicious. [Note from me: AND SO WAS THE INFESTED CORN.]

Janna and Kara didn’t finish theirs. Janna claims she felt intimidated by so many non-regional ingredients piled onto the roll, but I think she was just trying to score points with Kara by proving her solidarity in parasitic mold-hate.

Their palates are pathetic.

The smoked porter was disgusting. I thought I heard a man at a nearby table liken it to the taste of a burning house, and he was not wrong. Janna guzzled hers right down, though, and then she and Kara started talking about gluten which was outrageously dull.

Two
Cucumber Gazpacho : cucumber sorbet, pickled lemon zest
East End Witte

When Chef Sousa mentioned that the cucumber gazpacho would include ‘jicama,’ Janna belted out a very serious, “Ooh.” I jerked back a little and wondered if Janna had some secret life of which I was unaware. “What, do you really like jicama or something?” I asked suspiciously. “I don’t know,” she answered. “It just sounds nice.” It’s a potato, asshole.

While the soup was served in an interesting asymmetrical bowl that would probably inspire a boner from the interior decorator from Beetlejuice, I did not likey. Probably because I don’t like regular gazpacho either. The only time soup should be cold is when it’s made from ice cream. Pretty though, isn’t it?

The chef’s right hand man, Jimmy, walked by right as I announced to being a failure for not liking beer and convinced me to eat that there yellow flower which was a cucumber blossom and not half-bad.

I was initially excited to try the beverage because I mistakenly read it as “East End Wine,” but no, it was beer.

Vegetarian Sushi : cantaloupe roe, porcini sashimi, tempeh “tamago”
wasabi fondue, vanilla soy, crispy pickled ginger
Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale

Something amazing happened during this course. Continuing my role as a trouper, I took a delicate sip of the Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale. I wanted to at least try every beer. I was paying for it, after all. My lips followed their instincts and immediately puckered. My taste buds, however, were like, “Yo, hold the phone. This shit’s kind of not so bad.” I took another tentative swig and deduced that this was no fluke — Fat Gary and his nuts were definitely agreeing with me. I excitedly announced to my dining partners that I was in love with this beer. “I’ll meet you at the altar,” I thought as I took another sip.

Unfortunately, after sip 4.5(b), he proved himself to be just as bitter and deceitful and displeasing as all those other assholes, so we broke up.

The course, though, was delightful. Janna didn’t know what wasabi was so I laughed at her small-town farm girl ignorance and considered chucking some standard food fare at her, something she would recognize. What could I throw at her that she’d recognize…? Oh, I know: an apple.

The cantaloupe roe was the most amazing thing and of course I couldn’t hear how Chef Sousa made it, thanks to all the white noise radiating from the bar. Kara tried unsuccessfully to explain it to me. Something about cantaloupe and compression and then dwarves waved voodoo wands over it and they magically shrunk to look like the spitting image of roe.

Somewhere near the end of the course, I wound up with Janna’s tempeh. The more the merrier has always been my belly’s motto.

All pickled ginger should be served up crispy. When I buy out Food Network, this will be so.

Oh hello, new favorite course! If this was a person, I’d have killed it and stuffed it and put it on pedestal in my bedroom, where I could shower it with love (hey, sexual innuendo!) every day.

Even Kara said, “If you can get Henry to learn how to make this for the next game night, I’ll suck his balls inside out.” (Stop blushing, Henry. No one would ever like you that much.) I was a little tweaked that Janna and Kara had three full globs of creme fraiche panna cotta on their plate, while my third one was MELTED. Rip off.

This was the worst beer. Even Janna flinched a little, and it inspired a hearty “Whoa, buddy!” from Kara, who promptly fondled her freshly-sprouted chest hair. Before the waiters came to relieve me of my growing beer collection, I mistakenly took a giant quaff of the barley beer, thinking I had grabbed my water. Janna said I made the funniest face she’s ever seen, so we’ll take her word for it because:

a) People are typically unable to see their own faces without the aid of a reflective surface

and

b) Janna has to see her own funny face every day, so assuming this is her basis of comparison, it must have been pretty hysterical.

Then I just sat there, not knowing what to do with it. I was absolutely dreading having to swallow that vile wetness coagualting with my saliva—it might as well have been Satan’s own post-asparagus-banquet-urine and seminal fluid cocktail, with a nice sprig of Athlete foot as a garnish.

I swallowed; I’m a whore.

Intermezzo
Fresh hop instant slushy, dried hop vapor
Pedal Pale Ale
(i.e. the part where all the palate cleansing goes down. I hoped they had a horse scrubber for Janna’s tongue.)

The wait staff slowly circled around the dining room, pausing to perspire dried hop vapor out of big plastic pillows and into our faces. I thought I would hate it — you know, because of the beer thing and all — but it was really delightfully refreshing. They dragged it on for a long time though and with nothing to stuff into my mouth, I was growing bored. Where’s a ball gag when you need one?

I didn’t get any salvageable photos of this because the batteries in my camera died so I had to rely on my shitty Razr. I still haven’t really gotten over it.

Kara was starting to act weird from all the vapor, like she was on stage with a televangelist and being cured of herpes. When she started talking about wanting to invent hop perfume, I tuned her out. But she became my friend again moments later when I was frantic to learn about the second part of the Intermezzo as the waiters began placing beakers of orange juice on our tables, and she was the only one paying attention when Chef Sousa explained it.

According to my notes: paint gun —-> tea made of hops ——> liquid nitrogen.

So there, now you can try to figure it out.

The beakers contained orange juice, honey and cardamom which was to be poured over top of a frozen scoop of the paint-gunned hop tea, the creation of which still plagues my mind.

Another person who missed the explanation was Janna, who was en route to her fifty-third potty field trip. While she was gone one of those times, Kara and I were having an intense discourse about the kinds of girls we would go for if we were gay (I use “if” loosely). So when Janna came back, I posed the question for her, then sat back and watched as the temperature rose in her face. She of course assumed I was being an asshole for asking her and put up a defensive wall. I had to remind her that I was being Sophisticated Dinner Erin (read: nice) but she still wouldn’t answer.

Anyway, the tea was served in a glass which spilled forth fog and vapors. We then poured the orange juice over top and mashed it all around, turning it into the most delicious slushie ever and if 7-11 won’t add this to their refreshment repertoire, then look for my very own chain of convenience stores coming soon. I mean seriously, what a refreshing ade on a hot summer’s day when you’re on your way to work or picking up the kids from school or going in for liver surgery.

But don’t take my word for it! Here’s what other people were saying:

“Those assholes at that other table think this is grapefruit juice.” — Kara V.
“This is good. This is cool.” — Janna H.

In fact, Janna’s tone was so dramatically reassuring that it made me feel like she was my mom whom I just walked in on with a transsexual’s wang in her mouth and a cotton candy-wrapped broom stick in her ass. “What? This is good. This is cool. This is natural!”

Who knew that hops shit could be turned into such a delicious confection.

This was also around the time that we learned the contents of the cooler which sat on the floor next to a table of seven obnoxious businessmen. We hoped it was a head, but really it was home made beer that they wanted to ply the East End beer guy with.

Six
Watermelon Salad : melon with pickled rind, French breakfast radish, noble sour, mint, feta, pine nuts, watermelon bubbles
Russian Sourdough

Coming off of my hop-high, I hoped I would enjoy this here Russian Sourdough, because I like sourdough bread and while I’ve never actually had a Russian, I hear good things about them all the time. I took one sip and never really tried again after that. The whole process was getting kind of old. If it makes my lips draw back like an old lady without dentures, then I probably shouldn’t drink it.

The salad was great, though! I don’t know what was up with that watermelon foam, but it was fun to play with and didn’t taste half bad, either. I’ve always been one to hold internal parades for the pine nut/feta combo, but now that I’ve had it atop a juicy wedge of watermelon, a ticker tape trifecta was born. In fact, I think this weekend I’m going to see about making a watermelon sandwich on SOURDOUGH with some pine nuts and feta and whatever that shit-streak is in the picture, because in spite of it’s fecal appearance, it was really quite delicate on my tongue.

Kara ate a radish and exclaimed, “Oh wow, that is one hot radish!” Wanting to form my own opinion, I tasted one for myself and Jesus Christ is she a fucking liar. There were no palate pyrotechnics a-happenin’ in my mouth.
 

Seven
Mahleb unbaked Brulee: chicory ice cream, almond black berry streusel
Blackstrap Stout

The waiters swooped in and dropped dessert spoons in front of everyone. Everyone but me. I was crippled for several seconds after this appalling exclusion, my spoonless fingers stiffened and curled back like talons. Kara diffused any impending tantrum-bombs by hailing down a rushing waitress and asking her to please bring me a spoon. The waitress smiled politely and when she returned (and I’m not kidding about this), she laid down the new spoon in front of me with a sweeping flourish, stood back upright and smiled cartoonishly. Essentially, she was mocking me for being the big fucking baby that I am, and it made me laugh that a complete stranger was acknowledging this. When she left, I whined, “Hey! It’s not the same kind as yours!” after I noticed that the spoon she gave me was a plain dinner spoon and not the fat, rounded kind which were made to be jammed into my ever-flapping mouth. Kara rolled her eyes and traded with me. She mumbled something about me and my sped spoon, to which I responded, “What’s that? I can’t quite hear you over top of this resplendent bonne bouche before me.”

Jimmy, Chef Sousa’s right hand man/Kara’s fantasy bedmate, came out and explained the origin of the ingredients and based on the oohs and aahs of everyone, I figured it must have pretty otherworldly. Of course, I only vaguely heard something about goats eating cherries and “dropping the pits” for the villagers to collect? And all of our desserts were supposed to be decked with a rare wild strawberry.

Two complaints re: rare strawberry :
1. Mine was yellowish green and not a pretty pink hue like Kara’s and Janna’s and, oh, everyone else’s.
2. Kara and Janna had two strawberries. I had ONE.

Bigelow Grille will be getting a hand-penned letter from one angry, neglected diner.

When I found out that the beer was made from brown sugar and molasses, I asked, “Ooh, do you think even I’ll like it?” Kara unconvincingly said, “You might,” and then exchanged doubtful smirks with Janna. (No, I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it. And apparently either did they, but their excuse was that they “just don’t like stout in general.” Oh OK.)

The chicory ice cream, though? Oh my god, I will only ever be coating my gullet with chicory ice cream. And to think all these years, I was settling for coffee flavored ice cream? Was I insane?! Even the streusal was better than most meals I’ve eaten in my twenty-eight years and I fought with the spoon to collect every last morsel. Every so often, I would have to protectively hug my plate with an arm, after noticing Janna and her furtively darting eyes. She had big plans, I’m sure, but she wasn’t getting any of my brulee. Eat your own, Two-Strawberry Bitch!

We all decided that we wanted to come back in an hour for another serving.

After everything was over and we all gave Chef Sousa a round of applause (and I really meant it, too! Plus, he was pretty hot), we let our bellies lead us down to the parking garage where I’m pretty sure I caught Janna pitching her belt into a urine-soaked corner.