2003 went out with a horribly traumatic bang for me. There were a bunch of us at my mom’s house for New Years Eve, and somehow Henry and I wound up on opposing Trivial Pursuit teams. I can’t remember–or maybe it’s more that I won’t remember–the gritty details, but there might have been a skirmish between Henry and me revolving around the video game character Yoshi, and perhaps it culminated in me lunging at him from across the top of my mom’s coffee table while all my friends watched with scared eyes as I called him a mother fucker amongst a shimmering array of death threats that all but came out in the backwards tongue of Satan.

That’s the thing with us bi-polars: you toss us in a roomful of people, some of whom we’re only pretending to like; place a bevy of alcholic choices at our finger tips; top it off with the element of intense competition and watch our tops blow, mother fuckers.

It starts off with nervous laughter, always. But it escalates, inexplicably and fast, like having your thalamus double-fisted by Charles Manson. It was a scene. Quite embarrassing after the fact, but while it was playing out, all I could comprehend was: I was PISSED, I was HURT, no one CARED, and I wanted to fucking KILL myself.

I drove home drunk that night. No one bothered to stop me, no one seemed to care at all, really. In fact, before I left, I overheard my mom griping to my friends, “Ugh, she always does this shit.”

Sometime after I got home that night, after I staggered through the door and collapsed in a pathetic Sybil-esque heap on the couch, Henry called me from my mom’s house and instead of asking how I was doing (NOT WELL, thanks for not asking), he had the audacity to say, “Your friend Lisa is really pissed off at you. You ruined her night.”

That right there? That caused me to hurl the cordless phone into the decorative fireplace that has pissed me off since I moved into this house in 1999 because in whose world is a fireplace a DECORATION? It’s a heat source, you fucking interior designing cunts.

It was a low point in my life. Maybe the lowest, but there are a few contenders for that title. I cried a lot. Quit talking to Lisa. Began reevaluating my other friendships and even my relationship with Henry. I knew I needed to talk to someone, probably (definitely) someone with a sturdy psych degree. But for now, at that moment, I needed a friend more than someone spouting off clinical “How does that make you feel?” ‘s and prescriptions for tiny blue pills.

That’s how I knew I was alone, as I sat on the couch a few days later and scrolled through the numbers in my phone. “I don’t want to talk to any of these assholes,” I thought. And then I remembered Christina, how she was always so supportive in the comments she left on my LiveJournal entries, how she went to Bible College. And maybe that was the kind of person I needed to talk to. Someone who had Christ on her side.

So I called her. I let it all out. I don’t open up very easily, if at all, yet I found myself I telling her things I never would have admitted to a therapist or any of those people programmed into my phone. We spoke of my abandonment issues, and how that past New Years Eve exemplified my fears. We spoke of my Pappap and my ability to consistently feel alone even in a crowded room.

We spoke of everything that mattered. And instead of telling me what she thought I wanted to hear, she did something better: she made me feel understood, cared about, unalone. For the first time in a long time, I remembered what it felt like to have a friend. Sharing psychological horrors with a near-stranger will do that, I guess. But moreso, what I realized was that she was no longer laying on that bombastic persona with me. She sounded real now when we spoke on the phone. She wasn’t coating her words with smarmy humor and squirting the conversation with a creamy braggadocio filling; instead, the phony game show host voice was retired in favor for her true sincerity and I liked this girl.

This was the Christina with whom I wanted to be friends, and hanging up with her day, I was suddenly very thankful to have met someone as fucked up as myself.

And it was completely unexpected, like scoring an STD after having protected sex and shouting at the doctor, “But I didn’t think it could happen to me!?”

Hi, it’s me. I have been trying fruitlessly since Sunday to get Henry to post in here. He witnessed quite a spectacle at the grocery store and I said, “Henry my love, it seems to me that this would be an ideal entry for you to guest-blog over on that namsy-pamsy Internet diary I maintain.

”

But he’s too busy tugging on himself under a Cars blanket while watching previews for Mary Poppins.

Internet, I’ve failed you. Or perhaps this is considered collectively as a triumph, in which case I shall take a bow.

As soon as my muscles stop aching from the extra workouts I’ve been stuffing into my days as a pathetic way to fill the bottomless pit of unemployment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to invade Farmer McDonnells farm on Zombie Farm. My life is enviable.

Axes in hoes,
Erin Rachelle

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

• 14:37 Could probably pass as a member of Rise Against. brizzly.com/pic/1SOS #
• 14:42 Henry & Chooch are across the playground, leaving me alone to look like a pedo-creeper in ridiculously large shades & bloody hair flower. #
• 15:09 Babies are essentially mutes until they become unmuted & join the human race. If you have any more questions, come to my symposium. #
• 15:20 I’m still at Brookline Park if anyone feels like getting on their horse to rescue me. #
• 15:27 There is the biggest ho of an 11yo here. (Had to ask expert child-ogler Henry her age.) Bet she got pregnant yesterday. #
• 16:31 At Bado’s for dinner, hoping Chooch doesn’t act bad-o. OH! brizzly.com/pic/1SQ8 #
• 17:08 Me, after refusing to eat my salad: Im a salad snob; I can’t help it. Henry: Youre just a snob in general. #
• 17:58 Designing a product label for Chooch. “Instant Asshole, just add sugar.” #
• ***
• 00:10 Bitch and cry on Facebook and Twitter, everyone, THAT’LL SHOW THE GOV’T!! #
• 00:21 Your beef may be with Obama, but MINE is still with “God” for only “creating” 2 genders. I want at least a third option. #
• 00:32 My mom tried to pull a While You Were Out on me once. I’ve been waiting 7 years for her to finish it. #
• 10:26 Monday’s like the wad of cum left to wipe up after Saturday & Sunday have sex. #
• 10:27 I’m going to start my own fortune company. Chinese dinners are about to get vagynafondued. #
• 11:49 It’s not a successful ab workout wi thout some puke involved. #
• 13:02 Everytime cancer touches someone I know I want to sucker punch my ex-bff for saying she wished she’d get cancer & die. Boo hoo, emo bitch. #
• 13:06 Somehow Kevin Smith brought up abortions on @nhllive. Almost makes me like him. Then he started his fat rant & I’m back to being annoyed. #
• 17:25 I sit in the car until the very last possible second. I’ll be damned if this company gets free work from me. #
• 17:53 Current job status: about to be unemployed again this week. Henry’s gonna have a fun time doing my taxes next year. #
• 19:35 Suck a cock, #redwings fans. #
• 20:31 My boss brought in frownies for our last night. :(. brizzly.com/pic/1T40 #
• 23:24 I’m glad I had the foresight to buy myself presents while still gainfully employed. #
• ***
• 01:31 It’s almost time to dust off #thingieball! I wish THAT could be my job. #
• 11:30 I hate Peeps. I hate Italian ice. I think maybe that means I might probably hate Peeps-flavored Italian ice. Won’t be testing this theory. #
• 11:59 The worst part of Steve Irwin dying is his asshole daughter being handed fame on a platter. Bindi Irwin: Australia’s Miley Cyrus. #
• 16:42 I wish more musicians were as genuine as @craigeryowens. #
• 20:10 My salad tastes like a haunted house. Mmm, fog machines, chainsaw fumes & the stench of scared teen girls. #
• 20:29 I like watching Celebrity Apprentice because it makes me feel less inferior as a person. But I can get that from watching Henry, too. #
• ***
• 00:56 Hay laundry boy @awoodhick: way to not wash the pink blanket again. You are always letting me down!!! #
• 09:02 I’m really kicking myself for not joining the Milledgeville police force back when I got that invitation 2 yrs ago. #
• 09:08 Who wants to dye eggie-eggs with me this weekend? #
• 09:43 Three years ago, my first ever tweet informed my 0 followers that I had just changed my tampon. Life was simpler then. #
• 09:58 2 yrs ago I had a heckle-filled post abt a Cleveland roller derby team. My blog stats show it being viewed a lot today by Clevelanders. WHY? #
• 10:03 Oh OK, I see now. Someone on their team found it, posted it on Facebook, & it’s spreading like wildfire. Preparing to get jumped now, thx. #
• 10:13 Practicing roundhouses on my child. I mean, flour sacks. Practicing on flour sacks. #
• 12:38 Ask me anything formspring.me/ohhonestlyerin #
• 13:50 I really pissed off the wrong people this time!!! Make sure lots of Cure is played at my funeral, will ya? #
• 15:29 I was just interviewed by a burgundy-haired Tea Leoni. She made me feel comforted. #
• 15:34 Henry, regarding my present fear of an ass beating: “it’s not your ‘stupid blog,’ it’s YOU.” #
• 18:33 Well. At least having no job means I can watch the #penscaps game tonight. #
• 19:42 God, these #penscaps games raise my blood pressure. One period played & my throat is already raw from screaming like an asshole. #
• 20:26 That was like watching a How To Score a Goal 101 video, thanks Guerin! #letsgopens #
• 21:23 Oh thank you, Staal! These games make me feel like I’m waiting for the dentist to start the root canal. #letsgopens #NHL #
• 21:36 Oh my heart. It’s like the #pens are my sons & I’m watching them ride their bikes w/o training wheels for the 1st time. #nhl #
• ***
• 09:40 I might have a job with Pittsburgh’s largest law firm. Can’t wait to meet a rich I mean nice lawyer & kick Henry t o the curb. #
• 13:34 I like Life Unexpected but I HATE the theme song. & Lux. I hate every scene w/ Lux. I’d send her whiny ass back to the orphanage. #
• 13:57 Fou nd in an old journal, 3-8-03: I can’t wait to be Henry’s wife. I hope it happens soon! (AHAHAHAHAHAHAH how naive of me) #
• 14:17 Chooch thinks a grilled cheese is a cheese sandwich that’s melted in the microwave. I may have had something to do with that. #
• 17:44 I wish my job was sitting in an arm chair on a stage, reading from my journal collection. Henry said “don’t u pretty much do that already?” #
• 21:41 Got the car stuck in mud. I’ll never hear the end of this one. #
• 21:51 That was fun, watching Henry blow blood vessels in his head as he pushed the car while I floored it. He keeps saying YOURE LUCKY. #
• 21:53 He just spilled Chooch’s chocolate milk. Thursday night vs Henry is turning out to be an exciting match-up. #
• 22:33 Previews for the girl-girl storyline on 90210 made Henry smirk, then frown. HENRY HATES GAYS. #
• ***
• 12:16 I have never been this nervous for an interview. Just drank some regurgitated veggie sausage juice. #
• 14:04 Pretty sure all I wanted for my 4th bday was crayons, maybe my mother’s love. Chooch? He wants a laptop & an iPhone. #
• 14:16 Friends, don’t seek reassurance from my son. Just asked him if he thinks the ppl at law firm will like me. “No. They won’t.” No hesitation! #
• 15:53 Um. I couldn’t even figure out how to open the door to the office. Great start!!!!! #
• 16:38 That might have been the best interview ever. They have a table full of candy in pretty bowls. And not the dumb kind of candy, either! #
• 17:49 I’m about to start calling up successful people I grew up with & saying, “Remember when you sunk my battleship in ’86? Yeah? Gimme a job.” #
• 17:51 Yelled at Chooch for leaving a stinky fart after which he had the audacity to tell me, “Oh well. Then go outside or sumpin’.” #
• 19:19 Watching Chooch count blocks, I reminded him that he always forgets 7. “Yeah,” he said, “because I don’t NEED seven.” Schooled as usual. #
• 19:43 Randomly flashbacked to when I got the staples removed from my C-section incision &, even after 4 years, almost passed out. #
• 21:53 Walmart’s loss prevention: reuniting Henry with his son Blake. Touching, like a Folgers commercial. #
• 21:59 Well like I always say: if you’re gonna get caught stealing, it better have been something worthwhile. Like K-Y. #
• ***
• 11:25 Jackie Warner just made me puke up my Special K. Losing weight is easy! #
• 13:19 I’m always half-expecting to walk into Chooch’s room and catch him with our cat Nicotina, mid-evisceration. #
• 13:25 I miss Rob Scuderi. #pens #NHL #
• 13:44 Thank you, Kunitz. My neighbors thank you too. They love hearing my big fucking mouth. #pens #
• 14:15 Pratfall by Hartnell, followed by a Dupuis goal – I lov e when we play the Flyers! #letsgopens #

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.

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.

I almost never buy myself stuff, but when I checked my account last Friday and was gently reminded by my balance that I have income again, I decided to go ahead and buy myself this Mama’s Little Babies bracelet I had been salivating over on Etsy. And then I splurged on some lotion samples from Haus of Gloi.

“Oh, that’s great,” Henry patronized. “Don’t buy things you need, like clothes and new tennis shoes!” (Seriously, the soles on my current tennis shoes are so worn that I’d be better off doing jumping jacks barefoot.)

“I might soon be walking down the street naked,” I reasoned, “but at least I’ll smell good and have a pretty wrist.”

And of course, I lost my job on Monday. Which is why I almost never buy myself stuff! JINX FACTOR!

I mean, I knew it was only supposed to last a few weeks, but I guess I sort of expected more notice than basically being told not to ever come back as I was getting ready to leave after Monday night’s shift.

Monica and I knew it was coming because we’re not deaf to the anxious whispering that was going on around us.

And I heard Evelyn say that she was going back to her regular daylight shift on Wednesday.

So I thought, “Oh, well it sounds like we have one more night.”

Then, Evelyn came back from her break with a dozen frownies from King’s. Everyone else might have been using their frownie to mop up tears of unemployment, but mine was collecting tears for another Penguins loss.

What? My priorities might be a little different from yours.

Wah.

So I wasn’t too surprised when I learned my services would not be needed. Ever again. I was a little sad, because that was an easy job and a very mellow place to work. I didn’t hate it.

But! I had a backup plan at another staffing firm, which I called the next day and was pleased to learn the job was still available. I met with my agent at the firm yesterday, and she got me an interview for tomorrow.

Luckily, my bracelet arrived today so I can wear it to the interview.

Because good wrist ornamentation is what all employers look for. I’m sure there will be excited chitchat around the office about how that circus bracelet girl would make a fantastic addition to their staff.

At least I was home to watch last night’s Penguins/Capitals game. Which we lost.

On May 23, 2003 I posed a very important question for LiveJournal.

I had just edited Henry’s Friendster profile to enhance his more homoerotic qualities and within an hour, someone had suggested a match for him. However, Henry had already begun taking a liking to our new neighbor, Chris. So I asked LiveJournal to choose for him, since his head was practically smoking with indecision.

Jonny or Chris, OMG?

I received this comment from one “chunkstyle4”:

i’d pick jonny… but only because he looks like the kind of person who would hunt out people with the similar intrest [sic] of “teresa strasser”… comment to a journal that intrested [sic] him and ask if he could add them.

ok- so he’s a little like myself. too much infact [sic].
i change my vote to chris.

At least she spelled “too” correctly.

Teresa Strasser was the host of a since-canceled TLC show called “While You Were Out” and apparently I was one of two or three people who had her listed as an interest on LiveJournal. That’s how Christina found me. So thank you kindly, Teresa Strasser.

I added her back and the first LJ post of hers that I read was about how this girl Sylvia wouldn’t stop emailing her. How annoying this Sylvia was. How she wished she never met Sylvia. The comments on that post said things like, “Just stop talking to her! She’s just a stupid little girl!”

I admit that I usually skipped over her posts. Mostly she would brag about being high, complain about her job, talk about God. Nothing that interested me. She would write these juvenile sex poems and constantly complain about how lonely she was, even though she was supposedly in a relationship with this Sylvia girl. She’d post emails from Sylvia, and follow it with commentary like:

“well- i want to hit her over the head and say “I DON’T LIKE YOU!!!”

“she has about as much depth as a crepe.”

“i’m obviously not going to ever give her what she needs or wants and i knew a long time ago, she could never meet my needs.”

Reading these things made me uncomfortable. Why stay with someone who made you so disgusted? Why sit there and whine about how lonely you are when you hold the key that will detach that ball and chain from your ankle? Meanwhile, she was all but sexing me via comments on my LiveJournal posts. Anytime I’d jokingly write about Henry doing something wrong, Vegas would go wild with their bets on Christina dropping a lesbian-in-shining-armor comment.

I didn’t mind it. But my friend Keri was repulsed by this. “She’s trying to make you gay!” Keri would spit over the phone. “I can’t stand it when she comments on your stuff.” But as someone who has developed girl crushes before, the idea of e-flirting with some strange girl was kind of fun. And there were times when she would say things that really picked me up after a shitty day. She always seemed to be right there, lurking in the wings, reaching out to me when no one else would. So through LJ comments, we became closer. By that fall, we had tried to be pen pals, which was really me sending her letters and mixed CDs and her promising to write back, but instead she always trying to chat with me on AIM and coax my number out of me.

“We should talk on the phone sometime,” she proposed one day. I thought this was a horrible idea. I barely talked on the phone at all with people I actually knew in person, and I couldn’t imagine having to struggle through a phone conversation with some strange girl from Cincinnati. But I obliged when she asked for my number.

The first few times she called, my stomach knotted and I let the machine pick up. Later, I’d make up excuses for why I missed her call for the seventh time.

“I was potty-training Henry. In Syria. After rescuing him from the sex slave industry.

You know how it is.”

Eventually, I had to take her call. My inherent politeness told me it was the right thing to do. Taking the phone upstairs, I retreated to the bedroom so Henry couldn’t mock my social-stutter and nervous monotone.

Basically, she just talked while I sat, perched on the edge of the bed, desperate to end the call. She made me uncomfortable. She talked a lot about sex, and it’s not that I’m prude (I mean, obviously), but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth the way she was so intent on letting me know that she “wasn’t all-the-way-gay” and that even though she was supposed to be with Sylvia, she was still fucking random men.

“I fucked a black guy at [random amusement park] when I used to work there,” she bragged. Unbeknown to her, I was sarcastically clapping my hands.

Finally able to end the phone call, I went back downstairs and was met with Henry’s line of interrogation. “Well, how was it? What was she like?” he asked.

“Well. She sounds like a boy, first of all, and brags about sex like one, too,” I recounted. “She was annoying. A little cocky.” We really had very little in common, aside from that fateful joint-love for Teresa Strasser.

I went back to ignoring her phone calls, keeping the contact to online only. Too bad it didn’t stay that way.

That December, she learned that Sylvia had been cheating on her the whole time, but that was OK, because Christina was apparently “in love” with a man now. She started posting love poetry again and there were times when I had to  read some of the lines twice because it seemed like she was calling me out. Then Sylvia joined LiveJournal so Christina’s posts suddenly turned into big pools of lesbian love jizz.

Meanwhile, she was hitting me up on AIM, griping about how she was trapped with a girl for whom she felt no love.

“So break up with her,” I’d say, not knowing that in the next six years, I would utter that statement enough times to fill Michelle Duggar’s stretched out vagina.

I think Marcy’s a little dejected because ever since Chooch was born, the frequency of me shoving a camera in her face waned a bit. Or maybe she’s happy about that, but I DOUBT it.

She went to Pampered Pet for a little groom-session on Saturday morning, so she’s been looking real luxurious and I couldn’t resist shoving her inside a photoshoot oven last night. Unfortunately for Marcy’s son Don, the battery died during Marcy’s sesh. I had big plans of wrapping his head in a babushka but I guess I’ll do that tonight since I have no job again.

I know it’s horrible to play favorites, but of my four cats, Marcy’s IT. She’s the equivalent of poking a hornets nest. I feel like my reflexes are outstanding because of her.

Anyone who meets her usually leaves with a strong feeling of either love or hate. You know who really loves Marcy? My friends Bill and Jessi, who were actually just here last week for a quick visit on their way back to Michigan. Bill can never resist dangling his hand in front of her, which inevitably gets him maimed, and then you have Jessi crying and screaming, “Billy! Why do you have to touch her?! You know she’s going to attack! I hate that cat so much!”

When they were visiting in October, Jessi was trying to use our computer to finalize some wedding stuff;  Marcy jumped onboard and sat near the keyboard, daring Jessi to extend her fingers. Marcy was glaring and growling, and Jessi was yelling for me to come stop the madness, but I just sat on the couch and watched. It was exciting!

Remarkably, she hasn’t attacked Chooch yet. She has just recently got to the point where if he approaches her daintily (which is a feat for him), she will allow him to give her a small goodnight peck on her head. But she’s not happy about it. I think she knows that if she ever hurt Chooch, Henry would punt her out the front door (and then I would leave Henry). So when Chooch screeches, “Marcy!!!!111 Watch me play cars!!!!” she disgruntedly obliges. Mostly she sits stalk-still, hoping he’ll mistake her for a furry statue.

She draws blood from 8 out of 10 people who enter this house. Maybe you’ll be one of them.

I just love her so much!

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!

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

• 14:55 Spent a lovely rainy day with mah ninja @saucalisha & am now meeting my new sister for dinner. Henry will miss me for sure. #
• 17:34 I love my sister. That is all. #
• 19:04 Chooch has a nasty slice on his foot and I almost puked while Henry bandaged it. I think I need to sit in a dark room now. #
• 19:11 OMG I THINK CHOOCH NEEDS STITCHES HENRY SAYS NO IM GOING TO DIE. #
• 19:31 Trying to convince Chooch that a vampire’s at our house, sucking on the bloody paper towel left behind from his cut. #
• 20:29 Chooch is offended at Burger King. “Is that all that guy’s gonna do? Pee and not get food??” The nerve of some ppl, son. #
• 22:25 Today was good, with the exception of Chooch cutting off his foot, and that Republican taking a shit in my front yard. #
• 22:32 Alisha: I’m surprised none of yr blinddates ended up being handicapped. Me: Yeah, one was. Wheelchair Steve. Alisha: Oh yeah. Of course. #
• 23:13 I really hate the term “puck bunny.” I prefer “hockey cunt.” I am going to get that engraved on my face. Or at least shaved into an eyebrow. #
• ***
• 00:05 I wish my favorite poet still posted poems. #
• 13:32 Chooch can’t walk thanks to the fact his foot is practically split open. I hope he doesn’t get too used to me carrying him. #
• 13:34 A nd I keep whacking Chooch’s foot off objects while I try to blindly navigate thru the house w/ him clinging to me. Blind leading blind. #
• 13:42 Getting his foot dressing changed by the callous hands of Henry. yfrog.com/4pos6j #
• 13:44 Good job, Jose Three-or-more! #NHL #crapitals #
• 14:05 Pulled out an old journal & an autographed photo of Teresa Strasser fell out. I asked for a sign & the universe began shitting them. #
• 14:19 I’ve been using Twitter for three years now. That’s longer than I kept my first child! Seems excessive. #
• 14:21 Henry: You have such a grim outlook on life. Me: Wouldnt you, if your supposed bff fucked u over? Henry: You have. Touché. #
• 16:01 If there’s a frame on my mom’s wall, you can bet there’s some depiction of Noah and his ark in it. #
• 17:10 Henry’s talking about some day a few years ago that was almost the end of our relationship & I don’t even remember it; am laughing. #
• 17:24 Henry wants me to get “HANK” tattooed on my knuckles & I’m like, Why? So you see yr name everytime I punch you? #
• 17:58 Being Henry: mehoover.livejournal.com/43605.html?format=light #
• 19:25 Does Tampa have any fans at this hockey game? #letsgopens! #
• 21:45 RT @TheConfluence: #NHL Hockey: Call Cooke dirty if you must, but then include OV in the same breath bit.ly/cTGq6o #pens #
• 22:23 Oh my god, Chooch is milking this foot injury. Pretty sure it rivals the time I broke my toe. I mean, wait – my broken toe was more serious. #
• ***
• 01:14 Too bad soul searching didn’t feel more like an orgy on a cotton candy bed & less like being fucked anally by Miley Cyrus’s discography. #
• 12:58 Glanced at my last blog post. I’m writing like English is my second language again, yay! I must have a broken lobe. #
• 14:21 The burning desire to reach cookies made Chooch find a way around his immobility. He’s now sitting on his blanket & scooting. #
• 16:53 Guys on NHL Power Play are defending Ovie, saying he just plays a fast and hard game; but they can’t say the same for Matt Cooke? #
• 16:54 God, I wish Cooke was suspended just so everyone would STFU about it. #
• 17:21 On my way to work, I thought about how Henry & I still hold hands when we’re in the car. Guess we don’t hate each other too much after all. #
• 20:13 I’ve found myself engaged in a silent imbroglio with the security guard at my job. I’m childish so I like it. #
• 21:04 In the cafeteria on my break, thankful for the soft rock playing & my on-going lack of appetite as I sit across from 5 vending machines. #
• ***
• 12:35 I have some intense abandonment issues. I can pinpoint it to the exact moment when I was left in a treehouse when I was 4. Fucking twats. #
• 13:46 Henry’s making Creamy Fresh Coconut Cake! for Easter. I haven’t told him yet, but how can he say no when BH&G touts it as A Spring Classic. #
• 16:16 Thank god for Henry changing Chooch’s bandage. Nowhere in my future lies even a joke I’d be a nurse. #
• 16:20 Chooch just wailed “I hate you” to Henry for rubbing the burn-y red stuff on his cut & it sounded oddly familiar.… #
• 18:55 I think it’s time for me to finally write the whole story, from the beginning when that fateful comment was left on my livejournal in 2003 #
• ***
• 11:24 I’m so happy to have the windows open again! I missed the sound of clanging car haulers & meth addicts shouting on my sidewalk! Oh spring! #
• 11:28 I’m pretty sure I don’t actually have any Irish in me & when I did, I couldn’t wait to get it out of me. #
• 11:31 I think I’m going t o celebrate St Patricks Day by punching a ginger. #
• 13:05 For those who think I don’t exist because I never tweet self-pics: yfrog.com/6u24pdj #
• 13:07 Addendum to last tweet: Notice The distinct lack of green attire. Ooh, I really know how to stick it to those Irish! #
• 14:05 There might be a problem if the ladies at work are asking if I’ve lost weight, & I’ve only been there for 2 weeks. Tapeworm, what now? #
• 14:29 I’m so glad that “erectile dysfunction” dropped by my blog to tell me that he read a few topics, respects my work & added blog to favorites. #
• 14:30 If “erectile dysfunction” respects my work, the sky’s the limit! Maybe “vaginal secretions” will offer me a book deal. #
• 14:46 Hay look @ the dumb! St. Forktrick’s Day: “You’re not wearing any green,” Henry said, semi-accusatory after he saw… bit.ly/a4NvGK #
• 16:59 Forgot how much I used to love Now It’s Overhead. #
• 19:16 No shutout for YOU, Mr. Brodeur. #NHL #pens #
• 19:29 Something you don’t hear very often: “Letang missed the net.” Oh. Wait. #pens #
• 21:34 Just LISTENING to the #pens game was depressing. It’s like they all have crushes on the Devils & go into blushing klutz-mode. #NHL #
• 21:36 “Dammit, Elias took the puck while I was ogling Parise’s stick…hockey stick…” #
• ***
• 09:56 Last nite someone left 2 new stuffed animals on the porch. Guess I shoulda checked them for drugs before letting Chooch sleep w/ them. #
• 10:21 I can’t wait for True Life: I Have Digital Drama. It has the promise of being more riveting than I Need a Transplant. #
• 11:50 There’s a halfway house on my block; 1 of the residents is outside “exercising” by walking back&forth in front of the 2 houses next to mine #
• 12:05 He gets to my driveway & turns around, starts over. Chooch just asked if he’s playing a game. yfrog.com/2sqr4j #
• 12:19 Hay look @ the dumb! The Christina Chronicles: Prologue: I did a bad thing. When my so-called friend Christina fuc… bit.ly/bSLcGY #
• 16:10 I wish I could show Twitter how frustrated Henry gets when he learns I pitched the circulars. He’s ranting. This is how I get my jollies! #
• 16:30 Wouldnt have a prob paying $100 for a grilled cheese if it was served by a singing Cyndi Lauper. It better have exotic cheese, tho. #
• 17:05 Heard on radio: “Remember the last #Pens #Bruins game when Cooke took out Savard…” Wow really? When was that…? #
• 17:27 Would not want to be a #pens fan in Boston tonight. #NHL #
• 18:40 I actually have chills anticipating this #pens #bruins game. Talk about hockey hype night. #NHL #
• 18:43 Consistency what now? RT @NHL NHL.com: #Ducks Wisniewski gets 8 game suspension for hit on #Blackhawks Seabrook bit.ly/adsT4T #
• 19:43 Are there any Bruins fans at this game? The Matt Cooke-inspired boos don’t seem very collective #
• 21:34 BIG WIN, #PENS! Fleury finally gets his shut out. Glad there was no stupid goonism on the ice. #
• 22:50 Coworker to me: “Youre prob too young to remember Walkmans.” HOW YOUNG DO T HEY THINK I AM? I have gray hairs, check it. #
• 22:51 Then before I left, my supervisor said, “Youre just the cutest little girl.” Concern, I have it. #
• 23:53 Puppies and babies might warm your cockles, but for me it’s hockey players nuzzling their goalie after a win. #NHL #
• ***
• 01:19 I’ve seen the Wisniewski hit on Seabrook abt 48x & still find myself sharply intaking my breath. How was he able to STAND after that? #NHL #
• 10:44 How To Ruin a Painting: swear to me that the background color doesn’t matter; then when it’s done, ask that I change the background color. #
• 12:03 Never thought I’d say this but I’m really starting to love my abs. Fitting into pre-preg jeans might also be adding to the ab-lust. #
• 14:14 Chooch just said he has lots of “ambitchin’.” Pass some of that to me, son. #
• 15:14 Bought myself stuff today. Either the earth is off its axis or someone on #SNL did something funny, b/c that almost never happens. #
• 16:09 It’s funny to me now! This is a good sign. #
• 16:14 A billion songs on my Zen and all I listen to is sports radio. When did I become a middle aged man. I haven’t started calling in. YET. #
• 17:22 IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL OUT I WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH YOU & HER & HIM & EVERYONE. #
• 20:09 My boss eats pizza like she’s giving oral sex. Might not need to watch porn tonight. #
• ***
• 00:59 I might start tweeting lines from my old diaries, add a shot of melodrama up in here-ahhhh. #
• 09:13 My cat Marcy always knows when it’s grooming day. The next time i see her she’ll smell like roses, be even surlier, &have a bow on her head #
• 10:22 Do u ever look over & see a carful of lepers, a kettle of HIV+ blood, & Sarah Palin & think “I’d STILL rather be in that car than mine”? #
• 10:30 OCD halfway house guy is back in action! brizzly.com/pic/1S95 #
• 14:18 Rough day at the salon. brizzly.com/pic/1SCP #
• 15:12 It took me a good 10 minutes to explain to Alisha why we cheer when the #pens kill a penalty. Oh, Alisha. To be young & naive. #
• 16:50 Alisha’s acting like we just met or she just noticed how pretty I am. On our way to the roller derby bout! #
• 19:44 Just so you know, that asshole from Kindergarten Cop is at the roller derby. brizzly.com/pic/1SGI #
• 19:47 I’ll try to get a picture of him. Hopefully I don’t disrupt any devious kidnapping plots, inspiring his mom to shoot me. #
• 20:17 OMG I JUST MET @BONECRUSHER!! She didn’t crush my bones but she STUNNED ME WITH AWESOMETUDE. #
• 20:25 Last tweet should say @bonecrusher82! I’M TOO EXCITED TO TWEET PROPERLY!! #
• 20:36 I can’t wait for Semi Precious 10kt to go back to Canada. The cunt. #
• 21:23 Alisha’s favorite thing to do is sit under the stars with her cherry cake. (THAT IS ME IN CASE YOU DIDNT KNOW) #
• 21:24 Alisha just pointed out that cherries and cake are 2 things she’s not very fond of. #
• 22:03 A minute left and the score is 178-49. I think Steel Hurtin’ might win? Dunno. #
• 22:14 I’m cushioning my lumbar on the current. Jot that in your log. #
• 22:58 Getting my gay on at 5801 #
• 23:18 There is so much leather and HOTDANCEBEATS here. AYOOOO. #
• 23:59 I WANT TO HUG THIS BAR NO BIGGIE. #
• ***
• 00:08 You know what’s gonna be super funnnnnnnnnnnn? When i try to Stand uppppppp! #
• 00:29 I just very nearly took out innocent bystanders doing jumping j acks in a barrrrrrrr. #
• 10:55 Woke up today to find that I was replying to myself while drunk. Those are now KINDLY DELETED. #
• 12:25 Henry turned on Retro just as the original Night of the Living Dead started. Chooch is anxiously awaiting “Theyre coming to get u, Barbara” #
• 12:32 For a man who’s not metrosexual, it sure takes Henry a long time to get ready. Maybe he’s attaching prosthetics I don’t know about. #
• 14:14 I hope Henry knocks over a row of Hell’s Angels’ motorcycles toda y. #
• 14:23 Henry dressed Chooch in too-small jeans and a black skin tight skull t-shirt. He looks like an accidental scene kid on the playground. #

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.

My co-workers think I’m 12, I’m sure of it. Last week, Monica was talking about how she applies so much of what she’s learned from being a mother into the real world.

I thought about this. “I’m a mom, too, but I just barely bumble through it,” I laughed, resorting to self-deprecation as always.

“Oh honey,” our supervisor Evelyn started, spinning around in her seat.

“You’re so young! It’ll come to you eventually.”

I smiled tautly, thinking to myself, “I’m THIRTY, not some teen mom on MTV. How the fuck old does she think I am?

Then last night, another co-worker walked by and tapped my headphones. I slipped them off and she said, “I love your headphones! I can’t wear those things that go in your ears.

”

“Oh me either,” I emphatically agreed, feeling an instant bond. “They make me feel like I’m in a submarine.” I went on to tell her the selling points of my Skullcandy headphones and where she could get a pair herself.

“That’s awesome,” she said. “It’s so hard to find headphones anymore! I just want a small pair, like the ones that used to come with —” she paused. “Well, you’re too young to remember Walkmans!

”

WHAT THE FUCK? I had at least fifteen Walkmans throughout the course of my adolescence.

And before I left that night, Evelyn stopped to admire my necklace. “You always wear the cutest things. You’re just the cutest little girl.”

I’m not computing. I have gray hairs, check it! I’m clearly not seeing the same person they are, because when I look in the mirror, I see a tired lady.

**************

Tonight after work, I walked through the parking lot with my co-worker Charlene. We started talking about our supervisor and how she’s such a pleasure to work for.

“I like her because she doesn’t feel the need to sit there all night and talk to us,” Charlene said.

I nodded in agreement, although I’m too busy listening to sports radio all night to really notice. (Seriously, when did I become a middle aged man.)

“There are these two girls who sit on the other side of me. They’ve been staying until 6:30 lately and I can’t stand listening to them talk. All they do is talk about the people there that they don’t like, and how this one girl never wears the right pants but today she did. And then they called some guy an asshole.” Charlene scoffed, shook her head.

I took this opportunity to add my own gripes, though I have very few. “Oh, and what about that guy that coughs so bad every day, it sounds like he’s going to puke?” I gave a short, disgusted laugh. Seriously, some times I expect to stand up to see his ghost circling above his head.

She stopped walking and looked at me. I was waiting for her to be all, “Oh, I know right? Like, go in the bathroom if you’re gonna cough up a lung!”

Instead, it was, “Oh, he has a disease.”

AWKWARD.

We had approached her car by this time, so I got to nervously mumble, “Have a great weekend” and shuffle over to my own car with my head down.

I did a bad thing. When my so-called friend Christina fucked up for the last time back in November, I held my head high and acted like I was cool with it, like it didn’t bother me that she had fucked me over yet again. But it caught up with me last month and since then I’ve run the gamut of emotions. The worst of it caused me to spend my days chasing an appetite and my nights crying on Henry’s shoulder. I emailed her sporadically, and she wouldn’t answer. I knew that she was back with her pathetic girlfriend, that this was why she played the “I’m just too fucked up to be friends with anyone, I need to get my life together” card last November. Her girlfriend would never allow us to be friends, and obviously being in an abusive relationship with a disgusting human being was more important than staying true to herself and her feelings.

Henry actually talked to her last week, said she sounded unhappy. She told him she thinks about me everyday and to tell me that “it’s not over.” Well, la-de-da. Let me sit here and wait for you to murder your girlfriend (would not be surprised if that happened) and then come running back to me covered in blood. Fuck you.

“Please tell Erin not to tweet or blog about this phone call,” she begged Henry. Because her girlfriend Sylvia is so devoid of TRUST that she creeps on every single thing I write on the Internet, checks Christina’s phone and probably reads her emails too.  What a great relationship! Where do I get one of those?

Well, that was all I needed. I asked her one last time to talk to me, to give me the answers I feel, after seven years, I deserve. And now? Now I’m just angry. And ready to tell the story. Every sordid detail, starting from the beginning.

Consider this a prologue. There is a lot I have to say, and it will take a lot of time, and there will be times that I don’t come across so favorably. There will be times aplenty where you will want to comment and say, “Why didn’t you just end it?” and I will tell you now that my reply will always be “I’m not quite sure, I guess because I’m a sadist.” I am sure I will at some point receive a barrage of hate mail from the Christina Camp. But I’m willing to risk that for the sake of getting this 1,000 pound hog off my chest. I am done letting this piece of shit hurt me and invalidate my feelings. By writing this, it will forever ensure that this is the end. No more take-backs. No more I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it ‘s.

This coffin has needed a nail since 2004. I’m here now with a few dozen.

So, if you like the stench of dirty laundry and want a behind the scenes look at the emotional luggage to which I’ve been handcuffed for the last 7 years, then this is for you.

I want to thank everyone who has been supporting me and encouraging me to do this.

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.

“You’re not wearing any green,” Henry said, semi-accusatory after he saw my new Facebook profile picture.

“Uh, yeah. I kind of hate St. Patrick’s Day,” I said with a questioning intonation. I checked my mental calendar. Yep, nine years we’ve been together, that’s what I thought. And somehow he didn’t pick up on this?

“Why do you hate it?” he asked, probably thinking what everyone else thinks: But your name! It’s so Irish! You should be pissing shamrocks and fucking potatoes!

Newsflash! I’m not Irish. It starts with the name and ends there, too. I don’t even like BEER.

Well gosh, Henry. Draw your chair near, mama has a story to tell you!

St. Patrick’s Day, 1993. I was in eighth grade and dressed like the goddamn Blarney Stone itself birthed me. Hokey Irish sweatshirt, probably purchased from some god awful basement of disparity mall shop like Beer Tees; green leggings; green sequined suspenders; green sequined bow tie. I feel like I probably had some clover-inspired garbage entwined with my locks, as well.

In other words: I looked SUPER CUTE.

That evening after school, my mom wasn’t home for some reason. I’m going to say she was at her ceramics class, because that seems most plausible.  Her absence did not please me because my step-dad and I were embroiled in one of our infamous stand-offs, which is basically how I remember most of my childhood. He commanded me to set the table before dinner. My step-dad, the reason for my Irish name, was always on the prowl for a reason to start a fight with me. This particular evening, I didn’t set the table to his liking. Something was out of place, or he didn’t like my attitude, or I looked at him wrong.

Pick one.

We began screaming at each other, which was something of a tradition by that phase of my life. He hated, absolutely hated, that I would always stand up for myself.

I suppose he wanted me to retreat with my tail between my legs, whimpering and finding a dark corner in which to sit with my weak sense of femininity and brittle backbone.

There was distance between us during this confrontation, something like ten or fifteen feet. So when he picked up that fork to chuck at me, it had plenty of time to pick up speed before plunging between my knuckles. I’m sure though that in some parts of Ireland, this is part of the St. Paddy’s tradition, right before chugging Guinness but in between watching live rabbits boil in cauldrons and blowing up cars with pipe bombs.

There was no apology, not that I was expecting one. He went back to making dinner and I was still crying and cradling my hand by the time my mom came home.

Now Val, she never wanted to get involved in these fights. And the fact that it went beyond verbal was nothing new. He and I were known to get into some heavy fisticuffs, which is probably why I’m so aggressive toward men to this day.

I do NOT let a man fuck with me. I do NOT cower in front of a man, either. Val looked at  my hand, which was red and swollen, the simple God-given act of flexing ones fingers had become something that inspired cries of pain.

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” she insisted, but she knew, and I knew, that it wasn’t. She wrapped it for me, and made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone at school what happened.

I ended up having to get an X-ray. One of my knuckles had a slight fracture, but it was nothing severe enough to require a cast. The doctor wrapped it tight and eventually it healed, but for years, if you looked hard enough, you could see a little scar from where one of the tines had pierced through my flesh.

I don’t let things go very easily, and I never really cared much for St. Patrick’s Day after that. It’s just not the same without a fork protruding from my hand.

I know this might be hard to believe, but before Henry, there was another old man on the receiving end of my affections.

It was the summer of 1996 and I was on a Trafalgar tour of Italy with my aunt Sharon. She was the worst traveling companion because she always had to be the center of attention and would get snotty anytime someone on the tour had the gall to speak to me. Mostly, she would answer questions for me, which would make me rampant with teenage temper-flares and pout sessions. But on this trip, which would end up being our last trip together since I was soon  to become a disgrace to the family (i.e. a high school drop out), I decided to branch out on my own.

In previous years, my grandparents used to come with us and after day two, I’d be clinging to my Pappap, scowling when I would have to sit next to Sharon on the tour bus. When Sharon and I started to take these trips without them, it was hell for me. I would spend a lot of time crying on the bus because she was just so mean to me sometimes, and would put me down in front of the other travelers. She’d go off and make new friends with the other adults while I would have to be content with being the silent tag-a-long. And the thing with Sharon is that she lived for flaunting the fact that she was a “seasoned pro” at these European vacations, and would butt into people’s conversations to tell them where to get the best pasta in Rome or the best leather deals in Florence.

And she would do this thing, whenever the tour guide would share something that Sharon was already planning on including in her own tour book, she would close her eyes and nod her head knowingly, making her stupid fucking chandelier earrings tinkle with pretentiousness.

Oh my god, this is making me hate Sharon so bad.

My grandma’s brother Eddie and sister Donna were also on this particular trip with their respective spouses, which was awesome because I never really got to spend much time with them since my grandma got all weird a few years earlier about, oh I don’t know, having familial relations.  The four of them had already booked the trip when Sharon found out and decided it would be fun to surprise them. It was great for me to have them along because it allowed me to have allies in the very certain case that Sharon would try and ostracize me as usual.

Since I was 17 this time around, I was a little more secure in myself, had less complacency when it came to Sharon running the show. So I branched out. (I had tried this, mostly without success, on the trip prior to this one. Sharon caused a few scenes, but that’s another chapter involving a guy named Udo from Austria.) While she would be taking naps in the room, I’d wander down to the lobby in hopes of stumbling into some other people from our tour.

  In Lugano, I ran into Anahit, an Armenian lady from our group who Sharon hated. Probably because she was wild, extremely well-preserved for her age, and loved to drink the vino in excess every night at dinner. Since she was a single traveler, she was paired up with another single, Jackie. Jackie was in her 50s, wore fanny packs, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Nathan Lane. Sharon didn’t think very highly of Jackie either (“She gets on my fucking nerves” is what she’d hiss every time Jackie would breeze past us to her seat on the bus),

Our evening stroll took us down to Lake Como, where vendors were in abundance and the atmosphere was pregnant with romance and drunk laughter. I know, writing those words is extremely cheesy and out-of-character for me; but the truth is that I remember it so vividly, wishing I was older and there with a man. Not my mom’s possessive older sister and busful of retirees.

While there, we ran into more people from our tour, one of whom was Stefan—a very handsome Australian with well-coiffed prematurely white hair. He was there with his two (less attractive) friends, David and Ted, who were absent from this lovely nighttime stroll. It was the first time on the trip that I had really been around him, and we wound up walking back to the hotel together, as everyone else had found themselves paired up. I was in a panic. What could I possibly say to this older man that wouldn’t make him think (nay, believe) that I was just an immature kid. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I’m sure at some point I said, “OMG I play tennis and love rap music! My bedroom has purple carpet!”

From that moment on, I had big plans for Stefan. I only wore my tightest shirts for the rest of the trip. During walking tours, I would try to weasel my way near him, find some excuse to talk to him. Stupid shit like, “Look what I bought today!” and the chance of it being something that didn’t reflect my age was about 1 in 1,000,000.

If you were to read my vacation journal, you would notice a suspicious lack of Stefan entries. This is mostly because that journal was passed around between Sharon and my aunts and uncles every day on the bus, wherein they would laugh at my exaggerations, which to me were fairly accurate depictions of my surroundings and the subsequent events of the trip. (Events like: “August 15th, Milan: Sharon pointed out a zit on my chin in front of a group of people from our tour; I found a seat in the back of the bus and cried.”) The thing with my family, any family really, is the moment they catch a whiff of some blossoming crush, you better go out and buy the biggest Lady Gaga-approved hat to die beneath. However, my journal does learn me that at dinner that night, my Uncle Eddie withdrew a stack of Steelers trading cards from his shirt pocket and tried to exchange them with the waiter for bigger portions.

Near the very end of the vacation, we were on a day trip in Siena, during which Sharon and I had one of our signature rows. I used this as an excuse to ditch her and I sought out Stefan, who was with David and Ted. In my very dramatic nature, I filled them in on the horrors that is traveling with Sharon, told them how she was always trying to keep me down when all I wanted to do was make friends with everyone on the tour. I remember, all these years later, that I was wearing a sheer white tank, under which the slightest hint of my bra could be detected. I hoped Stefan would notice.

(I hadn’t yet learned the definition of “tacky.”)

(Or “SLUTTY,” apparently. Don’t worry—Henry is a ticketing slut patrolman; he makes sure I don’t leave the house with my vagina hanging out nowaways.

)

Stefan and his friends took great delight in hearing my woes of Sharon and suggested that I fight her. We all laughed at this and I thought it was so amazing that I was just a kid, sharing an inside joke with these three men. Later, on the bus, Stefan made his way back to where Sharon and I were sitting to see if we were fighting yet. I laughed at this, probably with more gusto than it warranted, just to make Sharon question what was going on.

“Nothing,” I said, when I was able to talk again. “Just an inside joke.” My ego practically did a pole dance, it was so turned on to see Sharon feeling left out.

Later, on the bus, my Aunt Donna asked in her I’m-Going-Yell-Since-I’m-On-A-Submarine voice, “What’s that Australian’s name who had a birthday?”

“Ted,” I answered.

“Ken?”

“No, Ted.”

“Ten?!”

Sharon, unable to take anymore of this, hissed, “TED.”

“Oh!” Aunt Donna exclaimed. “Theodore! Now what about that handsome one up there with the white hair? That’s the one I like.”

Knowing the shade of my face was quickly on its way to matching the heat of a rolling boil, I mumbled, “Stefan.”

Loudly, real loud, she said, “Oh, STEFAN! I like the name, too!”

Meanwhile, Ted and David were sitting diagonally from us and were probably asking each other, “Why the fuck are these Yankee broads throwing our names around?”

This is why I never wanted anyone to know I was practically drawing up blueprints to find a way inside Stefan’s suitcase so I could go home with him and live a glorious life in Brisbane as his American concubine. Their mouths, they are loud. Every night at dinner, my Uncle Eddie would get all Heidi Fleiss and try to pawn me off on any waiter he deemed cute enough. This would send the rest of them into giddy histrionics, making them shout things like, “Oh, Erin, he’s a cute one! Look at his butt!” and drawing everyone’s attention to the young blond girl with the lobster-hued cheeks who was just trying to enjoy her caprese salad in peace.

The last day of the trip, everyone congregated in the lobby of the hotel in Rome, crying and hugging, promising to keep in touch. (No one ever does.) Some of the people had later flights, like Stefan, and didn’t make it down in time to say goodbye.

But Stefan did. He found me in the lobby, waiting for the airport shuttle, and came over to hug me goodbye. The tears were on their marks, getting ready and set to go, but I postponed the race in favor of allowing my hormones to throw a party against my pelvis because oh my GOD, I was in the arms of an older man.

I left Italy positive that I was in love with him.

***

When I found this photo, I was quick to point out to Henry that he wasn’t my first old man crush, and then proceeded to tell him all about Stefan.

“I think Sharon must have liked him too, because any time Stefan and I were together, Sharon would rush over with a reason to pull me away,” I said angrily, holding the picture of him adoringly.

“Or! Maybe she was pulling you away because you were only seventeen?” Henry hypothesized in that tone he uses when he thinks I’m stupid and that he knows everything.

“Oh, yeah. Or that.”

As far as family goes, this past weekend was one of the best I’ve had in awhile.

I’ve been in a rough place lately. Henry and Alisha can only hear me cry about it so much before it makes them feel frustrated and extremely annoyed I’m sure, and I started to wonder if my “new” sister would be able to help me by listening. A fresh pair of ears can usually do wonders, but I wasn’t sure if she would feel comfortable, since we only just met. I sent her a message on Facebook asking if we could meet up sometime so I could talk to her about something, and to my surprise she replied within moments, suggesting that upcoming Saturday. We arranged to meet at the Union Grill in Washington, PA, and I made Henry print me out thorough directions.

Too bad it didn’t say on the Union Grill’s website that they’re located across from the Pittsburgh Paint shop, on top of which Erin’s ex-boyfriend Psycho Mike once lived for a month in the summer of ’97. Then I would have been able to blindly navigate my way there, probably not without Vietnam-caliber flashbacks.

After Amy and I were seated, I wasted no time for pleasantries; I dove right in and found myself being more honest with her than I have ever been with anyone in my family. I held back nothing.

“Wow,” she said after a few minutes. “I totally wasn’t expecting all that.” And from there, she went on to be sympathetic and supportive and made me realize (along with Alisha, who I had spent the earlier part of the day with) that I wasn’t retarded. Sometimes having your feelings validated can do wonders in turning around your outlook, and I felt like Oprah’s ass had finally been crane-lifted from my chest. Cathartic.

Amy mentioned that my mom had recently called her to see if she had spoken to me recently. Amy said no, and my mom said, “Something seems to be bothering her.” I almost choked on my salad upon learning that. My mom, noticing something was amiss with me? And actually caring enough to ask someone about it? (I know what you’re thinking – “Why didn’t she just ask you?” But understand that the fact that my mom noticed at all is mind blowing to me.) I think that means my mom must really love me after all.

I drove home, amazed at how easily I can talk to someone who has the same mother as me. We’re hoping the next time we get together, that our mom will be there too. We want to get her drunk so she’ll tell us stories. I told her about that later, and she goes, “Who, me? I don’t have any stories. I lived a very clean life.” Indeed.

While I was gone, Chooch apparently stepped on the broken handle of a broom and gave his foot a mean slice. I had to stop and get bandaids and Neosporin on the way home, but had no idea how bad it really was until I walked through the door and saw the bloody paper towel strewn across the floor and watched as Henry dressed the wound. It’s a nasty one, and my legs still quake at the memory of it. Henry deemed it wasn’t bad enough for stitches (I disagree), and has it held together with like, an entire box of butterfly bandages, cotton pads, and tape. We’ve instructed Chooch not to walk on it for awhile, to keep it from splitting open again. (OMG I just puked up some vegan sausages at the thought.)

On Sunday, we went to my mom’s house before the Penguins game so Henry could get all Handy Manny around her house. Any opportunity he can drudge up his old electrician tools makes him happy, almost complete. I don’t know what he was doing, fucking around with a light fixture in the kitchen and poking and prodding around a nest of wires that were hanging out of the ceiling like color-coded entrails. My favorite past time is emasculating Henry, so when I walked through the kitchen and saw him about to climb a ladder, I snorted and said, “Real men don’t use ladders.”

“No, tall men don’t use ladders,” he retorted, and then looked around to see if anyone was laughing.

We weren’t, Henry.

Meanwhile, my mom was being super attentive with Chooch. She’s even been helping us find somewhere to live, since the company we rent from is in the process of selling all their property on this street and we might be squatting within the next few months here.

“If you move out this way, you’d be able to get a full time job again, because I could watch Chooch,” she mused. I almost sullied my pretty heart-patterned underwear.

My grandma lives two houses up from my mom, so Chooch and I popped by for a visit while Henry was playing with tools. I really expected my aunt Sharon to have the front door barricaded, blocked by a moat, and lined with rental thugs armed with switchblades.  It was locked, but she actually opened it after we knocked. She didn’t seem harried and put out that we were there, like she oftentimes is. And my grandma, cocooned in a blue Snuggie, was coherent and seemed in good spirits. Her hearing has even improved since the last time I saw here. Which, sadly, was way back on Christmas.

Sharon is even suddenly interested in my art.

I left there with my mind blown. Someone must be putting happy sauce in their water supply, because everyone was almost acting normal.

And then, back at my mom’s house, she showed Chooch and me some YouTube videos and usually I ignore her when she’s like, “Oh my god you have to watch this it’s the funniest thing ever you’ll die!” because it’s never funny to me. But this time, it actually was and I even laughed out loud. I’m usually the last to watch all the popular YouTube shit, so I’m sure this is old news, but I’m obsessed with this guy now. Last night, I said to Henry, “I’m going to watch every one of his videos tomorrow.”

“Well, at least you have your day planned out,” he mumbled.

Meanwhile, I’m still carrying Chooch from the couch to the bathroom to the computer, ad nauseum. He’s getting too used to his new life as a cripple, I think.