Dude, you know how everyone loves a good giveaway? Well, now you have something to project that love onto because Mrs. Evil’s is having a contest on her blog RIGHT NOW. She makes these cross stitch kits, but these ain’t your granny’s threaded Kincaide chastity scenes, OK? These are cutely gruesome broken animals and because Mrs. Evils is a gem, she’s giving one away!  GO ENTER! It’s super easy, you just have to comment with which one you like best, but if you’re an overachiever like me, there’s some extra credit you can do to earn more entries.

Like writing a haiku. This is mine, don’t steal it! I  might try to get it published in one of those fucking chapbook things.

The “Forgot to Bring My Tampax” haiku

Elephant got drunk
With me riding on his back
Uh oh I’m bleeding.

I can never remember the stupid syllable count for haikus so I googled it. Of course, I found contradicting information. So if the first line should have 6 syllables, just pretend there is a “The” in front of the elephant.

And if you’re into humiliating your loved ones, you can make them up all pretty and have them pose with a sign, like this:

Except that the sign was supposed to say “Do I Look Pretty?” but I was too excited/stupid to make it properly.

So go ahead, enter!

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

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

Maybe I’m making this up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OVER IT.

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

So then he would have to yank it off me, take everything out and start from scratch. I wish he were that precise and anal about HOUSECLEANING and peeing INTO the toilet.

There were a lot of little bridges there. I think maybe that’s why this particular Letterbox locale was called Little Bridge something or other. Maybe? Yeah? Chooch almost fell off this bridge while I was snapping away. Don’t worry, he probably wouldn’t have died.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recently, this really great girl named Barbie contacted me through Etsy and inquired about some custom portraits.  She ended up being one of the friendliest people I’ve interacted with through there and she even said that I’m too cool for Pittsburgh so of course that made her sparkle in my book. Because I am, you know. Too cool for Pittsburgh. Although living in Pittsburgh, that doesn’t take much. But still!

Anyhow, she wanted a 20″ x 20″ portrait of her daughters as octopi. This was daunting for two reasons: I’d never painted anything that large before  (my default is small, smaller, smallest), and her daughters are adorable and doing justice to them was intimidating.

It took a few weeks, but I finished it and she ended up, thankfully, loving it. Customs scare the SHIT out of me. The end result is so rewarding, but I’m so tightly wound that I panic the whole time that it won’t be good enough.

I’ve also been working on three separate ones for my LiveJournal friend Dorothy and she’s been sending me really encouraging emails, so even though I put stress on myself, in the end, it’s worth it to know I’m making people happy.  Deep down that’s a pretty cool thing for me, even though everyone is convinced I’m heartless.

Plus, I get to meet awesome people.

I used to ride my bike past Franklin’s Bar every day on my way home from school. Sometimes we’d drive past it in mom’s car if we were going to the grocery store in the next town over, where no one would see Mom purchase large quantities of laxatives. My best friend Stacy and I would sit on the stoop across from it in the summer, drinking slushies from the convenience store down the street and watching angry wives stomp inside and pull out their hammered husbands by cinched skin.

Franklin dated Dad’s cousin for a while, so sometimes we’d have birthday parties in the bar’s back room and I would dream of the day I could walk in, sit at the bar, and have fat men buy me drinks. No, not really. I hated that place. It was smoky and the men reeked of beef jerky and a mysterious film coated the surface of every table. Franklin was a vile pig who would shove his hand down my mom’s shirt when Dad wasn’t looking and I rejoiced the day cousin Margie dumped him and we went back to celebrating birthdays and promotions and straight As down the street at the VFW.

Back then, if you would have told me that Franklin’s was where I’d meet the man I was going to rape, I’d have laughed at you. Then kicked your ass.

But something made me go in there that night last week. Something made me pop open more buttons than usual and something made me wink at that traveling salesman sitting in a corner booth with a briefcase and lonely eyes. His breath was malodorous, like a fecal sausage wrapped in garlicky cabbage, and his effeminate hands were marred with paper cuts and hangnails. His once-white clothes now had the dirty yellow hue of coffee-stained enamel and a slight stench of a foreign fishing village wafted from his pits.

But still, something made me want to try out my new vagina.

The salesman was now idly snapping a rubber band wrapped around the handle of his briefcase.

In fourth grade, Stacy and I eavesdropped on her older brother and his friends, embroiled in a heated debate. One of the boys had his index finger extended; it was red and swollen under the pressure of a rubber band. Stacy’s brother pulled the slack taut and made to wrap it around once more.

“If you wrap it too tight, it’ll fall off!” his friend wailed, snatching back his hand.

I took the salesman back to his motel room, under the pretense of wanting to see the sea shell clocks he was peddling. He gave off the distinct impression that he was not well versed in the song of sex, averting his eyes any time my cleavage got too close, and emitting a sickly wheeze from his nostrils any time I’d touch him. I think, through his thick Slavic accent, that he was trying to say no, but I stuffed a broken sea shell into his flapping mouth.

I left him laying there naked on the bed when I had finished. Rummaging through my purse, I found the perfect way to cap off the evening.

I wrapped the rubberband tightly around his penis, laughing as he howled.

“They say if you wrap it too tight, it’ll fall off,” I whispered, pulling it back for one last snap. I didn’t stay to find out because I was about to be late for my soup-ladling gig at the shelter.

He never got to find out either, before I shot him in the head.

Earth-shattering updates throughout the day, brought to you by Tart-Tits. Please try to continue breathing while taking it all in.

• 12:39 If this son of a bitch doesn’t choose a costume on the ASAP, I’m fashioning a large green box around him & he’s going as a dumpster baby.
• 17:23 In the height of my Roller Coaster Kingdom obsession, I’ve been signing up for “free offers” using Henry’s cell# to get Coaster Cash.
• 21:26   Fedotenko eased the #Pens deficit to 1 and I just broke my heels on the floor. This game is killing my heart. (And heels, too, apparently.)
• 21:28 SICK!!!!!!!! Just like that, TIE GAME. #Pens #NHL
• ***
• 10:59 If this is supposed to be my favorite holiday, why do I feel like crying.
• 11:16   I think I’m just going to be Henry for Halloween. I just have to kill & de-bone him first; skin will have to be taken in quite a bit too.
• 15:20 Down to the wire, Chooch has decided to just go as the Jason Voorhees default. Instead of a machete, he wants to carry Playdoh. Wtf.
• 16:22 Or, how about we UN-Cage the Elephant.
• 17:55 http://twitpic.com/nqr96 – At this point, I’m like “whatever.” Let’s see how long he keeps the mask on.
• 18:15 All he cares about is everyone’s yard decorations. He’s like the fucking Christopher Lowell of Halloween.
• 18:30 Chooch and Michael Myers just stared each other down.
• 18:35 35th house and he finally got the “trick or treat” part down.
• 18:48 And I wish he would stop choosing lollipops. Mama doesn’t WANT lollipops.
• ***
• 11:51 Sam & Freddy > Carly & Freddy.
• 11:54 I don’t know why we keep pretending. I hate his guts. He hates my guts.
• 13:31 Hey cuntwagon who called me Big Nose in 7th grade, take ur Facebook friend request & deepthroat it. This big nosed bitch can hold a grudge.
• 14:49 Waiting for the day Henry opens his own driving school. And then maybe on his days off, he can teach the Penguins how to play hockey.
• 14:54 Blake is chasing Chooch around a parking lot with two large knives. Sounds like a normal Sunday to me.
• 16:42   It’s hard to remember life pre-NHL Network. Although I feel like I maybe got more shit done.
• 17:46 Just when the world thought it was impossible, another reason to hate football has landed on my crotch.
• ***
• 10:14   Chooch said “Just don’t call daddy anymore” when I said I was in a bad mood. Aw, I hope I win him in the custody battle.
• 10:25 Murdering coffee makers is a messy crime. My sock is saturated with coffee grinds. Better than brain matter, I guess.
• 11:26 Oh hey, how about when I call you crying, you DON’T say “Let me call you back.”
• 16:45 This is a good day for old Jimmy Eat World. Chooch walked by and goes “Oooh, I want to see them. At Warped Tour?”
• 17:17 I thought Henry came home from work early because he gave a shit about me, but turns out it’s because he’s sick. Silly me.
• 20:00 This retarded whore on Brainsurge doesn’t even deserve the bike she just barely won.
• 20:29 You know I’m chocolate’s bitch when I eat a piece out of Chooch’s hand, & god knows where THAT’s been. Ok, I know, just trying to forget.
• 22:53 I’m dying right now, hearing Kate Gosselin refer to herself as selfless. Everyone calls Jon a douche & I’m like “Maybe, but what about HER?”
• ***
• 09:28 Today’s my pappap’s birthday. Wish I could be where he is.
• 09:52 Who needs friends when there’s hockey.
• 10:23 I look @ my stomach & kick myself for not finding some broad to blackmail into surrogacy. What, did you forget I’m a soap opera villainess?
• 14:09 I have to get my license renewed today & Chooch wants me to wear his Jason mask. Wouldn’t it be great if we could go thru life masked.
• 15:11 Henry is writing a thesis on my fake smile. #
• 15:32 My hair looks fantastic in my new license photo. Then my face enters the picture and pukes all over it. #
• 19:18 Chooch is getting a tour of a kitchen by @ohidontthinkso. Who needs the Met when there’s Kara’s parent’s house? #
• 22:11 twitpic.com/o7btb – Chooch drew me and a ghost. Made my day. #
• 22:39 The #Pens are playing like they’re strang ers to each other & their power plays, well, those are making me cry like a porridge-less orphan. #
• ***
• 00:06 #Pens #Ducks game is bananas! #
• 00:38 Hay look @ the dumb! Pumpkin needs a hug: No words. Just pictures. bit.ly/1X5wKT #
• 01:08 Oh hay, yr dad just died? Well, this is So You Think You Can Dance, not So You Think You Can Play That Card. Don’t get tears on our stage. #
• 01:21 There’s nothing like getting an out of the blue phone call from someone who just wants to say you’re on their mind. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter. Now you can rest easy, knowing my (sometimes incriminating) inner-most thoughts, actions and tampon-change. Please do not call the FBI.

No words. Just pictures.

It was the morning of Halloween and we still didn’t have a costume for Chooch. We tried everything: reminding him that no costume = no candy; telling him that Blake was wearing a costume and therefore was the better son; and, when all else failed, threatening to disown. Thankfully, a last minute trip to the Halloween store found Chooch agreeing to go with the good old Halloween costume stand-by: Jason Voorhees. (Although in lieu of a machete, he wanted to carry Play-Doh. yeah, I have no idea, either.) To be fair, he had actually said a few times that’s what he wanted to be, but Henry and I were unsure how well he’d do with his face obscured by plastic, because he’s a little anal about these things. (OK, he’s my son, so – a lot.) And we also knew that face-painting was totally out.

The next thing we knew, it was nearly 6pm and Chooch began putting up a fight. I had already decided hours ago that if this happened, I was just flat out not going at all. This was the first time in years that I was completely not feeling it anyway and would have preferred staying in with a glass of wine rather than sidestep around throngs of screaming children burped straight out of Hell’s mouth. But then the deadbeat mother internal guilt trip set in, so I sucked it up and struggled to get dressed.

And while Henry was struggling to get Chooch dressed (which only required him wearing regular clothes anyway), we were blessed when a crew of early trick-or-treaters knocked on the door. Chooch stood behind me and watched as I filled the bags of a lion, lady bug and some stupid action hero with mini M&Ms (we waited until an hour before and aside from Dum-Dums, that’s all that was left at the CVS down the street; still, that’s better than handing out Slim Fast bars like I was once pressed to do). Suddenly, Chooch seemed to get it and was all, “OK I’m ready hurry let’s go come on.”

At least I had the foresight to splash some red paint on the mask.

Some Things I’d Like Chooch to Learn For Next Year:

1. The order is: trick or treat; thank you; Happy Halloween. And you say these things while you’re still at the person’s house, not back on the sidewalk, blurting them all out in one breath as you flee the scene. Unless you’re doing something at these houses that I’m unaware of. Fuck, are you swearing at these people?
2. Participating houses are not just the ones with dogs on the porch. Next time, I won’t chase you down and pull you back to the houses you missed, so just imagine all the candy you’ll lose out on. Dummy.
3. Yes, Halloween decorations are so cool, Chooch; I agree. But the longer you’re bent over admiring some spooky electrical lantern, the longer Mommy has to stand in awkward silence with the homeowner, so knock that shit off. Get the fucking candy and LEAVE. You can thumb through a Halloween decor catalogue later, Christopher Lowell.
4. STOP CHOOSING STUPID SHIT LIKE SUCKERS AND TOOTSIE ROLLS. Dots and candy necklaces? WRONG.  By the end of the night, only a third of the bounty was chocolate-certified, delicious-approved. And what was up with that mini bottle of bubbles? YOU CAN’T EAT BUBBLES. Halloween is about collecting an entire pillowcase worth of all that’s wrong with Americans and their metobolism, and you failed. (Although, good job on scoring three Baby Ruths. What diamonds in the rough.

If I ignore the fact that I was stuck by Henry’s side for an hour and a half, I’m able to glean a few highlights from the night.

• Chooch and Michael Myers staring each other down on the porch of one house.
• A group of older girls doing a shrill, “OMG it’s Jason!” every time they passed Chooch. Each time, he looked up at me and laughed and I could tell he was proud. He really loves that Jason Voorhees. (I think he does it on purpose, knowing I’m a Michael Myers girl.)
• We passed another, slightly older Jason who was wearing his store bought hockey mask as-is. I scoffed and said to Chooch, “At least your mask has blood on it.” Another lesson in snobbery complete.
• Walking down the street with a group of teenagers, Chooch yells, “Aw SHIT Daddy. You forgot to bring my knife!” It got real quiet after that.
• Convincing him to growl “Trick or treat” and “Happy Halloween.” That went over well with all the old ladies.
• Some asshole made the mistake of saying, “Oooh, look at this scary Freddy Kreuger!” As Chooch stomped away, he snarled, “I’m NOT Freddy Kreuger!”
• Learning that Scary German Guy lives in Brookline.
• Now I know where Robin’s Loud-Mouthed Friend lives.

Chooch demanded to be carried like a baby for the last block or two, and aside from deleriously sprawling out in people’s front yards toward the end (and also laying in the middle of the road which is always a terrific thrill for a mother), he did really well and covered a good bit of streets for a three year old. And the biggest plus: his attention span lasted way longer than mine.

In Fear and Faith + Craigery Owens = palpable beauty. A Craig-less Chiodos is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but at least he’s peeing all over other areas of the scene.

In other news, Henry pointed out that I use him as a proxy for my rage against everyone else in my life who consistently let me down, and by george, I think he’s right. Perhaps I don’t hate him as much as I thought.

Oh well, who needs friends and family when there’s music (& wine), is what my motto’s always been.