I guess Chooch turning four has really hit me harder than I thought it would. Not that I still considered him a baby, but goddamn, he REALLY isn’t a baby anymore. I was looking through some old pictures of him on Flickr and began reminiscing. It’s hard to imagine what life was like back then, when he couldn’t yet walk on his own, ruin my stuff intentionally, or call me a bitch when I follow his sneezes with a “bless you.”

This would NEVER HAPPEN now.

I think this will always be one of my favorite photos of him, because he looks like a cartoon. And I’ve been told that about myself more times than I care to recall.

Chooch and his doll Rot at the Uniondale Cemetery. Miraculously, Rot is still intact! Probably only because Chooch hasn’t learned how to set things on fire. Yet.

Robert Smith pins!

Oh my god, I wish he was still a baby. I did less fearing for my life back then. I think today is going to be the start of  Old School Chooch Week where I’ll post old stories from his baby days. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

I fell apart in your arms

for the last time

And I felt free to do what I want

Because of the things you told me

One of my favorite bands for the last 5 years now. Their new album came out a week ago and I can’t stop listening to it! Henry absolutely hates them, but I think I don’t think it has anything to do with the music. The first time we saw them was at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, July of 2005. This was actually the last show I went to before I got pregnant.  Anyway, we were standing outside near the doors after the show, because I wanted to (not) talk to Anthony Green (the singer). While we were waiting, some of the guys from the opening band, Emmanual, were coming out of the doors, hauling equipment in their wake. Henry held the door open for them, and one of the dudes said, “Thank you, sir.”

SIR.

Not “thanks, man” or “appreciate it, holmes” or “good job, brosef.”

But, “THANK YOU SIR.”

I’m pretty sure that was the precise moment Henry started to feel old, in spite of the bandanna he used to wear to keep him “edgy.” (No seriously, he wore it because I liked his hair long but didn’t like it when he put it in a ponytail because it made him look mean and harsh with a big face, like that bastard from Kindergarten Cop who was trying to steal back his son and yes, I realize that’s the second time in a month I referenced that Z-list actor, what the hell.)

Anyway, Henry has been projecting the hate he felt at that moment onto Circa Survive ever since, even though it wasn’t even any of them who called him sir! I’ve gotten him to see them once since then, in 2008, but now I’m asking him to go with me to Philly at the end of May to see them and he is REALLY dragging his feet. I have a job now! We can maybe not eat for a week and afford to go! Tell him to take me, you guys! I have to see them; it’s part of my religion.

“And what will we do with Chooch?” he keeps asking me smugly.

Who wants to have a sleepover with Chooch at the end of May? One night only! Will pay in porn and shitty art!

I don’t know if I ever explained this yet, but Henry drives me to work every day like the good little jitney he is. I start at 4pm, and he doesn’t leave his job until at least 3, so for me to take (OMG) public transportation, he’d have to come home even earlier, forcing his boss to have a stroke. Plus, being poor folk, we only have one car and sometimes Henry actually needs it to go out and do things for me while I’m filing my nails at my comfy job.

The first two weeks of this went well. Henry is a seasoned pro at driving around downtown because that was his delivery route when he worked at the horrible Jewish meat asylum. So every day, we’d take a different route and I’d marvel at all the new sights of a city where I lived MY WHOLE LIFE. Put me in the center of town and force me to find my way home if you ever want to see me completely give up all hope and succumb to rocking back and forth with hugged knees atop a steaming sewer grate.

Then the cop incident happened, and that was sort of the impetus that took Henry from being all, “No, this is fine; I don’t have a problem driving downtown everyday” to “FUCKING DOWNTOWN OMG ANOTHER BUS I WANT TO BOMB THE BUSES NOW WHAT DOES THIS BROAD THINK SHE’S DOING?”

Two days ago, there were two young black guys yukking it up while jaywalking. I waited for Henry to slow down.

Henry did not slow down.

If I close my eyes, I can still the one boy’s lips beginning to hug the words OH SHIT as Henry nearly grazed his left side.

“WHAT THEY WEREN’T USING A CROSSWALK” Henry bellowed at me, and then approximately five seconds later we almost got t-boned by a bus.

Henry was flipping out. His nostrils, I’ve never seen them that flared, and come on – he’s lived with ME (Erin Rachelle!) for TEN YEARS.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS MY CAR INVISIBLE” he screamed out the window.

(Punctuation need not apply when quoting Chafed Hank.)

As he started to round the corner to drop me off, an older woman was attempting to cross the street.

“Watch—” I started to warn.

“I DON’T CARE I’LL KILL THEM ALL” he spat.

I was very happy when my feet touched my curb, because it meant I’m a survivor. Where’s my magnetic ribbon for the car?

[Side note: When I was shuttled to work yesterday, Chooch had chocolate frosting smeared like shit all over his lips, and was dangling a blown-up latex glove and one bare foot out the window. When you’re met with judgmental stares of homeless people and curb-dwelling wiggers, you can damn well be sure you just exited a Hillbilly Mobile.]

As soon as I got in the car last night, he started rambling about strippers. “They think because they’re strippers, they can just STAND IN THE STREET? I ALMOST RAN ONE OVER” He sounded so exasperated and disgusted, of course I was going to laugh at him.

A note to strippers from Henry: Just because you make him erect does not mean he won’t run you over if you walk in front of his car.

***

The UPS man brought Chooch a package yesterday. It was a Lego set. And not just any Lego set – but a SPONGEBOB lego set!

Spongebob is probably my least favorite cartoon in the world. Legos are probably my least favorite toy in the world.

OH WAIT, this is about CHOOCH. I keep forgetting!

“That’s mean,” I said to Henry, who had stopped home on his lunch break. “To get a kid Legos.”

Mean for the parents. Or, for the Erin, in this case.

But then I noticed on the invoice, it said it was purchased from his wish list. “That little asshole added it to his Toys R Us wish list!” I said to Henry.

“Yeah, because I wanted it,” Chooch butt in with his patented “no duh” tone.

Henry went back to work just in time for Chooch to start begging for someone to help him sort through 98,098 of the tiniest pieces I’ve ever seen – when did Legos shrink? Is there a growing dwarf population that Lego is trying to accommodate? Just what I wanted to do, spend an entire afternoon on the floor, tugging on my hair and blowing out steaming obscenities.

And then I heard Chooch snickering as he sat elsewhere, playing with less complicated toys that came already assembled by the manufacturer.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked angrily.

“Because you’re doing that all by yourself,” he giggled. “And you’re so pissed.”

Not ten minutes after I put the final dust mite-sized piece on the Krabby Patty Hell House, Chooch picked it up and five sections broke off, shattering as it hit the ground like pieces of a glass leper.

I firmly believe that Hell is carpeted with Legos, and everyone is forced to watch Spongebob ad nauseum while seated in chairs cushioned with the up-ended swords of the PlayMobile viking set.

FUCK TOYS.

But Chooch is happy with it, and my sister was nice enough to get it for him. And that’s all that matters!  I can say that now, because I got all my anger out yesterday after I punched all those orphaned babies and took a gin bath.

Look at me, being a grown-up!

Seriously though, I kind of want to just give him a cardboard box and tell him to use his imagination.

[ETA: After skimming through this, I realize I sound like an ungrateful asshole! I’m not, I swear! This was meant in good humor. I’m glad Chooch got a present – something he wanted, no less –  from someone other than me.]

More cards from the Chooch collection! We’ve sold a few over on Etsy and he just thinks he’s the shit now. And I split the proceeds with him.

So now he’s able to buy his own food.

Inside is blank, in case you want to write a haiku about your lovah’s frontal lobe.

Front

Inside. Prepositional rules don’t apply when you’re professing love.

And if your love-person has a penis?

Inside is the same as the girlie one.

They can be boughteded here: Non Compos Cards. Help Chooch survive!

Chooch turned four yesterday by rolling out of bed and colliding with the nightstand.

But it was all uphill after that!

Since he has a birthday party coming up in two weeks, we decided to just give him some small things for his birthday. I bought him (notice I said I – I’m the best parent; Henry is a deadbeat!) some Batman stuff; the Friday the 13th remake; Diary of the Dead; and a fucking viking PlayMobile set, over which I’m currently suffering stabbing pangs of buyer’s remorse. Fuck you, PlayMobile! The outside of the box said it included something like 40 pieces, but it didn’t specify that 3/4 of those pieces rival the size of ANTS. It’s some goddamn BULLSHIT. I kept trying to hide it from him all day, and every time he was on the precipice of forgetting its existence, asshole Alisha would say, “Gee, Chooch.

Where did your VIKING SET go?”

I actually had a nightmare about that viking set. Worst purchase ever. OK, maybe not quite as bad as the cream I bought eleven years that was intended to make you lose weight once applied to your wrists. (It did not make me lose weight, so I went back to the pills I bought at GNC that made me black out.)

Janna joined us later for a Vanilla Pastry Studio circle jerk. Chooch wanted cupcakes from Shop n Save, and at that moment, I actually saw a little bit of Henry in him: poor taste and frugality. The horror.

I was like, “Son, this is as much my day as it is yours, lest you forget. And I’ll be damned if we’re eating stale lumps of Betty Crocker mix out of a plastic grocery store bakery container.”

All day, Chooch kept asking, “Is it still my birthday?” and it was kind of adorable. Which is a new thing for me, because usually he’s being a holy terror.

Henry burnt himself no less than 18 times lighting these, which made me happy because he had previously spent a good five minutes haranguing me for buying “too many” candles. I’m sorry, what? There’s no such thing as too many candles. (If Henry were writing this, that would say “to many.”)

There were no complaints as everyone ate themselves into a cupcake coma. THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

Look at her, thinking of ways to ruin my life. This was right before she extracted Chooch’s “bonus gift” from her purse….

A whistle! A motherfucking whistle! Who gives a four-year-old a WHISTLE? An asshole who hates the kid’s mother, that’s who!

Chooch REALLY likes knives. We were at IHOP last week and he asked to take his knife home with him. Chooch, giving new meaning to WWJD. (WHAT WOULD JASON DO.)

When Janna is around, Chooch is super good. She’s like a goddamn Chooch Whisperer. I keep trying to drop joint-custody hints around her, but I don’t think she’s quite picking up on it.

It was a good day. I think my favorite part was when he was watching his new Friday the 13th DVD, and very seriously said, “Whoa. She is really good at killing Jason.”

He was so well-behaved yesterday. I don’t think I had to lock him in his cage once!

Today is Chooch’s last day as a three-year-old. Here’s hoping he’s as charming and adorable as I was at that age, because if he continues down this path of petulance, I’m not so sure I can continue being his mommy.

You got that, Child Protective Services?

Pantsless zombie, the new fashion statement. It’s what I’m wearing to work on Monday.

This is either him emulating the undead or mocking me. I can’t decipher between the two anymore.

God help me.

If the two’s were terrible, then the three’s were a regular trepanning.

This was right as he was saying, “Zombies are fucking assholes.”

We are currently looking into homeschooling. Well, Henry is. I’m looking into a nice one bedroom apartment a few states away.

12 comments

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

• 14:42 I just dusted, sorta! You guys should have been there. #
• 16:56 Painted a bunch of umbrellas. Somnambulant goes Mary Poppins, apparently. I always want to spell apparently with an -ally b/c I’m dumb. #
• 16:57 Cleaning update: Henry is asphyxiating on bleach in the bathroom; I’m watching a commercial for the EZ Cracker. #
• 17:02 @penschat Agreed. I can’t stand fair-weathered fans. I guess not even Pittsburgh is above that shit, though. :/ #
• 17:14 Boy. I was JUST ABOUT to get up and help Henry clean when I pulled some muscle somewhere. Oh well. A for effort! #
• 17:24 Goddamn I sure love my laugh. Henry does too. It’s what made him fall in love with me. Not my deep-throating skillz, no sir. #
• 18:13 Henry just admitted that I helped by staying out of his way. I bothered my cat Marcy all day instead. She says thanks, Henry! #
• 21:54 Fuck Backstrum, am I right Montreal? #
• 21:56 Backstrom. Backstrum. What the fuck ever. He should be carrying pails of water up a hill somewhere, is all I know. #
• ***
• 13:49 Henry’s starting a fight w/ me b/c when he asks what I want from the store I say “something delicious” then get pis sed at what he buys. #
• 13:49 HE’S NOT GOING TO WIN THIS ONE. #
• 15:22 We’re @ the nursing home visiting Henry’s mom & he’s jelis b/c one of her neighbors is here, trying to steal Henry’s spot as her only son. #
• 15:24 I think his name is Adrian & Henrys mom hasn’t said a word to Henry the whole time. Henry keeps twitching his ‘stache in fury. #
• 16:17 The Chrstina Chronicles: Where Spring Fever & My Big Mouth Get Me In Trouble www.ohhonestlyerin.com/archives/4670 #
• 16:39 Henry’s mom is popular. #
• 18:54 Drankin’ wine, watching hockey. Thank god for weekend playoff games. #
• 18:57 Oh Canada, how quickly you forget the man you’re booing is the one who won you that thing called THE OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL. #
• 19:19 NO GOAL! Ottawa cries in their poutine. #letsgopens #stanleycup #
• 19:34 I bought a Strap Perfect. I was starting to feel too cool, so I needed a lame purchase to knock me down. It was either that or a Bump-it. #
• 19:36 And despite what the commercial says, Henry had to put it on my bra for me. It was less ‘boom chicka’, more circus calliope. #
• 19:51 All you have to do is glance at my fingernails to know it’s #StanleyCup playoff time. #pens #
• 20:12 KEEP BOOING CROSBY, GUYS! #stanleycup #
• 20:50 For a second there, I was sure that was Uncle Jessie on the ice; turns out it was just a helmetless Kris Letang. #stanleycup #pens #
• 21:03 Hate it when fans boo their own team. Hated it when Pittsburgh did it on Friday & now tonite Ottawa look like douches too. #Stanleycup #
• 22:00 Chooch is bitching about having a headache & in a pissed off tone, he said, “Because you were too noisy during the hockey game!&quo t; #
• ***
• 10:51 Chooch is watching “Halloween” while I work on the computer. What a terrific example of great parenting. #
• 13:29 I derive great joy from updating Henry’s LiveJournal. GREAT JOY. #
• 14:48 Bumpershoots, ‘oots, ‘oots // www.ohhonestlyerin.com/archives/4684 #
• 15:36 Today I put my bracelet on by myself. I don’t need you anymore, Henry. #
• 20:19 You might have heard a rumor about me. But it’s not true. I’m not a copier machine whisperer. Maybe ask someone else for help. #
• 21:42 Chooch made his first Etsy sale. It’s totally bloating his head. Now he’s all, “I want to paint now!” as dollar signs spin in his eyeballs. #
• 21:52 For the last 5 minutes, Chooch & I have been intensely discussing candy bars. It was the most adult convo I’ve had in days. #
• ***
• 00:18 I need a fluke. No, a flute. No. A fluke. #
• 10:53 Stumbled across a photo of me from when I was pregnant. Suddenly don’t feel so bad about myself today. #
• 10:55 Showed the photo to Chooch & screamed, “LOOK WHAT U DID TO ME U LITTLE MONSTER!” He seemed proud. #
• 14:18 It offends me when people say Chooch looks like Henry. #
• 16:52 Whoever would have thought one little letter “e” could have so much power. #
• 17:06 Hooooo boy, a new mehoover post // bit.ly/dyuhr5 #
• 20:46 #PENS, STOP TAKING PENALTIES THX. #
• 20:49 #pens #sens game is bananas. 6-3 Pens in the second period! I LOVE THE #STANLEYCUP PLAYOFFS!! #
• ***
• 08:48 @awoodhick Oh shit. I just noticed you spelled all those words right. #
• 08:51 Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Pittsburgh now hates Ben Roethlisberger like I always have. Weird to be in majority. #
• 09:55 My coffee tastes like celery. #
• 10:41 Me: Today’s Robert’s bday (I don’t have to say his last name for Chooch to know who I mean) Chooch: I wanna see what cake he’s gonna have! #
• 12:53 Dear Chooch, sorry I burnt your lunch. But what did you expect when you asked for buttered noodles? #
• 15:28 Chooch just angrily yelled, “Why are those little bitches looking at me???” Probably because you’re acting like u have Tourettes, Chooch. #
• 16:29 We’ve been discussing porn for the past 15 minutes. I love my job!!!! #
• 17:06 I HAVE A HANGNAIL AND A WORK BOYFRIEND. #
• 17:16 I think work bf’s name is Andy. Don’t worry, @awoodhick, he’s not one of the lawyers so it’d just be a lateral move. #
• 21:40 Henry is the wor st business partner ever. #
• ***
• 10:36 The Christina Chronicles: The Ambush bit.ly/ct3WRS #
• 13:52 Fuck you for not taking Chooch to work today, Henry. #
• 14:07 @awoodhick Ooooh burn. Chooch just said, “Daddy loves Blake more than me.” GOOD JOB DAD. #
• 21:04 I never ever thought there’d come a day when I’d give someone the larger half of a piece of chocolate. Enjoy it, Chooch. You jerk. #
• 21:19 OMG my hockey fingernails; OMG this game. #letsgopens!!! #
• 22:00 I really can’t handle OT playoff games. #
• 23:41 Fuck that. #
• ***
• 00:40 The Penguins might have lost in triple OT but at least there’s a Mint Condition video on VH1’s Soulphrodisiac RIGHT NOW. #
• 00:44 I don’t remember this guy’s voice being so falsetto. Henry’s was for awhile tonight. I kept kicking his weener while he brushed his teeth. #
• 00:46 Oh look! Another video with an r&b group wearing matching suits WITH NO SHIRT UNDERNEATH! omg I’m so horny now. #
• 00:49 I like how sometimes the guy from Silk we ars glasses in this video. And sometimes HE DOES NOT. And WTF ever happened to En Vogue. #
• 00:52 I think being retweeted by @MeeSoHorny is a good indication that it’s bed time. #
• 10:16 Chooch does everything by himself. What does he even need me for?? I’m going to the bar. Outtie. #
• 13:57 Oh thank god for Kohls! I haven’t seen shit splattered on a wall in so long. Probably since I was last locked in the psych ward. #
• 14:19 OMG Henry’s giving a truck driver directions & I’m trying so hard not to laugh. Ok, I’m not really trying. At all. He thinks he’s so cool. #
• 18:19 One of the bigwigs just asked, “Why are you working here? You should be out taking photos!” And writing books too, no?! Too easy. #
• 18:20 I’m really starting to feel like a waste. #
• 18:58 Shooting Sprees & Chiodos // www.ohhonestlyerin.com/archives/4709 #
• 19:09 I’m the least artsy “artist” you will ever meet. Jesus Christ, do I fit in anywhere?! #
• 21:44 #HABS!!! #HABS!!! #
• 21:52 The ppl in the booth behind me at Kings are making flux capacitor jokes. I’m making exaggerated laughing faces & Henry scolded me. #
• 21:56 The old lady behind Chooch is neither amused nor softened by Chooch’s dimpled grin. CUNT! #
• 21:59 Chooch can write all his letters, every last one! He’s already smarter than Henry! #
• 22:17 Just watched my son eat his ice cream like a dog. In a restaurant. And I didn’t care. #
• 22:54 When Hockey & Murder Collide bit.ly/9UPS8K #
• 23:07 I’d like to punch Bruce Boudreau in his flapping jowls. Of all the #Caps, I despise him the most. He is the TRUE crybaby of the NHL. #
• 23:46 My cat Don just used his ass to turn the channel from the NHL Network to some God programming. Not feeling it, Don. #
• ***
• 02:05 NHL On the Fly’s on in the background & I promise, every time I look up it’s just in time to see #Caps Belanger pull out his bloody tooth. #
• 10:19 I feel like if it doesn’t reduce me to tears & leave me fashioning a noose out of my sports bra, it’s not really boot camp. #
• 11:07 Almost bought a pair of stripper shoes. Still considering it because THEY’RE CUTE AND I DON’T CARE. #
• 11:12 Me: I just won’t wear them to work Henry: Then where will you wear them? To the strip club? FUCKER. #
• 11:41 Midwestern emo never lets me down. #
• 12:57 Just bought the new Circa Survive & Henry mumbled “oh boy.” Also bought Chooch the new Friday the 13th for his bday tmrw. Great parenting. #
• 13:03 Our car is filled with Anthony Green’s voice and Henry looks ready to blow his face off. #
• 13:05 Fuck Walmart for being the only place that sells How To Train Your Dragon shit. This is the 2nd time in a mth I’ve had to go to Shitmart:( #
• 13:10 Oh thank God, avoided Walmart. Though I feel filthy and have the urge to say “ain’t” just f rom driving thru the parking lot. #
• 13:12 Apparently 2 minutes in the Walmart parking lot is long enough to see three men spitting their tabacca with great gusto. #
• 14:18 It’s amazing I’ve come this far utilizing such poor judgement. #
• 14:18 It’s amazing how many times it took me to spell “utilizing.” #
• 14:2 8 Henry to me: YOU’LL BE CRYING IN A MINUTE IF YOU DONT STOP. We’re in love, he and I. #

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On the way home from work tonight, Henry and I talked about this nutcase who stabbed his wife to death because she was angry with him for staying up to watch the Penguins game last night, triple overtime and all.

“It would be the reverse in our house,” I laughed.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure there’s more to the story. She was probably a NAG and NAGGED him for the last time,” Henry said with great enunciation, taking his eyes off the road to glare at me.

“Oh, please,” I sneered. “If anyone is going to be doing any killing, it’s me.”

“But the difference,” Henry explained, “is that you’d never know I was coming. You, on the other hand, would probably trip and fall before you even left the kitchen with the knife.”

Upon further thought, Henry added, “No, you probably wouldn’t even be able to find the weapon you wanted to use, and would end up having to ask me.”

Oh, you just turned this into a competition, Douchebag Henry.

“Oh, here’s some [Lawfirm] history for you, Erin,” Barb said yesterday out of the blue. “You remember that guy who shot all those women at the gym last summer—”

“YES!” I answered way too hungrily.

Barb looked at my crazy woman eyes for a few seconds before continuing. “Well, he used to work here.”

“I know!” I shouted, leaving out the part where I was that much more eager to get the job because of that. “In fact, when i was waiting to hear if I got the job, my friend jokingly said, ‘If they hired THAT guy, you should be a shoo-in’.”

Barb laughed. “Gee, what does THAT say about you?”

Yes, what indeed?

“Anyway, the reason I brought it up is because I just found a bunch of old emails from him. He was one of the ones who created [the program our department uses] and he was helping me last year when I had a problem,” Barb told me. “Gives me the creeps to see his name in my Outlook.” She shook her shoulders in a mock shiver.

I wanted so badly to ask her to forward one of them to me.

Prior to that, I was explaining the meaning behind my tattoo to Barb. One of the girls here overheard me say Chiodos, and not only has she heard of them, but she likes them too.

Is this what home feels like?? I mean, minus Henry’s dirty socks strewn around carelessly and Chooch’s screeching obscenities?

It started out like any normal Sunday, if normal to you means being awakened at 8:30 am by an unexpected knocking at the door.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Henry said, after craning his neck around the bedroom blinds  to get a glimpse of the knocker. “It’s Christina.”

He might as well have said it was a pan of cooked onions, an iceberg, a water tower, an entire dead-body filled river. Because that was how disgusted and full of dread I felt to learn that one of my least favorite things was sullying my front porch right there at that moment. Suddenly, I felt very unsafe. Suddenly, 300 miles didn’t seem very far.

All those weeks of lamenting that she was so far away, and suddenly – she was entirely too close.

Since we had “broken up,” we had attempted to remain friendly, but phone conversations mostly unraveled into her whining and me getting really fucking pissed off. The past couple days, she kept suggesting that we hang out in person, that maybe it would make me see that we should be together. I was pretty sure that all that would accomplish was me punching her in the face.

“Just let me come there,” she’d cry. “I just need to see.”

See what? The weathered veneer of my front door?

While I was having a panic attack in my bed, she was still outside knocking on the door.

“I’ll handle this,” Henry said, clearly at the end of his rope with this whole girl-on-girl Lifetime drama.

“Don’t make her cry!” I called to him as he reached the bottom of the steps. By this time, the knocking had woken Henry’s kids, who came into my room and hid with me on the floor. I still don’t know why I was hiding on the floor. She couldn’t see my bedroom from the front porch. But it made me feel safer down there. Words can’t properly convey the other emotions sucker-punching me.

But I felt violated! Like I was visitationally raped.

“Is that the weird girl who was just here from Ohio?” Robbie asked.

“Why is she here again?” Blake wanted to know, and I was at a complete loss for words. I couldn’t tell a 10- and 12-year-old that, “Oh, it’s nothing really. She’s just a crazy lesbian who I led on for a few weeks and she’s probably here to shoot your father.”

After a few minutes, I heard the door close. Henry came back up to the bedroom with a letter, a bottle of Propel, and two CDs: James Taylor and KC and the Sunshine Band.

“She claims she came all this way just to bring you this stuff.”

I sat on the bed and looked at the CDs. Sure, I like James Taylor as much as any grocery store sound-system, but KC and the Sunshine Band? I looked at Henry quizzically.

He shrugged. “Who knows with her. That girl has some major problems, Erin.” And he proceeded to tell me how he lectured her on the front porch.

“Did you make her cry?” I asked accusingly. I didn’t want him to make her cry.  “You made her cry.”

“Well, I didn’t yell at her,” he said exasperatedly. “But I was stern. I had to be. She’s nuts, Erin.” During the big show down, which sounded more like a meltdown to me, he drilled it into her head that I was with him, and that I was not going to leave him for her, and that if she ever wanted to remain friends with me, she was going to have to understand that and let it go. She tried to convince him that that was why she came here, to prove to me that she my friend.

“And so I asked her, ‘Don’t you think this looks weird? Don’t you think this is going to freak Erin out?'” Henry relayed. “It’s not like she drove here from across town. She had to have left Cincinnati around 3:00 am to come here. Who does that? That’s a little unstable,” he went on. I felt like I was talking to my dad, but it was comforting all the same. What if Henry hadn’t been home? I shivered a little.Think back to the time you crouched behind your locked door when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came calling, flapping their literature in the wind. Now, add to that the way you felt when you learned you lived next to a halfway house for sex offenders. Got that? So, multiply that stomach-churning, genital shielding sensation with the way you felt the last time you hid behind a tree at Camp Crystal Lake while Jason Voorhees stood six feet away, wielding a whirring chainsaw, sniffing the air for the wafting stench of your soiled panties and fear-induced pit-sweat.

And now you know how I felt that morning, as I sat in my room with my knees drawn in close to my chest, reading Christina’s letter while Henry lectured me about laying in the bed I made for myself.

3:06am: So – I’m leaving my house right now. I’m coming to bring you your CDs. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. I’m so scared. I’m sweating and my heart feels like it’s going to explode. It’s kind scary feeling. To be honest…I DO know why I’m doing this. I love you. And…I miss you.

3:15am: I’m still so close to home. Should I chicken out? no.

I didn’t even know I still had this. I actually forgot it existed, really. But I found it in December, about a month after our friendship ended, when I was cleaning out a dresser drawer. I felt sick and repulsed when I saw it, much like I did all those years ago. To be honest, I didn’t even re-read it, just sort of tossed it aside. I’m glad to still have it now though, if only for the sake of this story.

5:58am: I keep thinking about you – and what you’re going to do. Just don’t hate me. I love you, Erin. I want you to see that. I hope this proves it to you, too. OK- back to the trip. See you soon.

Well, Christina, what would you do if someone invaded your privacy?

7:23am: We’re like 2 miles from West Virginia and I’m so panicky now. My heart is crashing against my chest. I know we’re so close now. I feel like I’m going to puke now.

Guess who the other part of the “we” was? Sylvia. Hahahaha. What a dumb bitch. “Yeah, I’ll take the girl I love more than anything to see the girl she loves more than anything.” What a spineless ginger cow. Although, she had to have known it was going to blow up in Christina’s face. Maybe she had hoped this would be it, that I would never talk to Christina after that, and then for Sylvia, it would be smooth sailing in an Erin-less sea.

It’s not that I”m afraid of you or anything. I guess I’m more afraid of your reaction. Of course I’m running all sorts of scenarios through my head. The one I think I’m most afraid of is you slamming the door in my face. Not that I really think you’d do that —

Does she not know me at all?

— but God, I really think you’ll be very surprised. I guess I’ll see very soon, won’t I? I love you, Erin. I can’t wait to see you.

7:36am: Pennsylvania just welcomed me. I hope you do too, haha. I’m always so good at playing it cool. But…for some reason, when it comes to you, I can’t maintain my composure. You shake me.

7:44am: I’m so close right now. My blood is rushing all throughout my body, but I can’t feel anything. I keep thinking that I’m going to wake up.

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This isn’t a dream though. I’m almost there. I want to pass out – literally. This like, one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. You drive me crazy though, so I guess this makes sense.

7:57am: Whew…I’m probably…20 minutes from you or something. I hope you’re awake, hoe. I’m so scared that you’re going to be mad at me. Just chock it up to the romantic in me…or something. I wonder if this trip is a metaphor for this experience. I started out late at night…kinda secretly. I hope that by the end of this trip…I’ll be in the light. I’ll know. Maybe — I’ll understand. I’m totally overwhelmed right now. It proves to me that not telling you was a good idea. Otherwise, I could only imagine what you’d be like. I’m practically pulling out my hair. You’d be pulling your whole face off. Seriously. Just kidding, but I do sort of feel brave. I love you so much, Erin…this much…and I’m willing to prove it. You’re the best you little bitch.

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I’m so thankful to have you in my life. Thanks for being my best friend. This Sunday should go down on the history books (or journal). I love you…and I’m almost there.

Oh it’ll go down in the journal, alright.

(Reposted from May 23rd, 2008)

IV: Pre-Show

In the 3.5 miles it took us to travel across the Walt Whitman Bridge back into Philadelphia and parked the car at the Wachovia Spectrum, I managed to spend $14: $3 to cross that scary-ass too-big bridge and ELEVEN DOLLARS TO PARK. I’m used to shows at small clubs, where you park on a fucking curb for free, so I felt physically ravaged after that.

There wasn’t so much of a line outside of the arena, but more like relaxed huddles of people waiting for the doors to open. We only had to wait for about 10-15 minutes before they started letting people in, and we occupied our time by people-funnin’ and inhaling clouds of clove-smoke drifting around our faces.

“There’s a lot of old people here,” Corey noted, staring dead-on at two aging goth women swaying on the edge of the steps. Too much Absinthe perhaps.

Corey and I both really took a liking to a young man in tight red pants. I liked him because when he smiled, he looked like Timmy from Fairly Odd Parents.

Tickets scanned and hips bruised on the turnstiles, we ran straight for the merch table, where I bought a bright pink shirt and joked that our motel room only cost $13 more than it. Corey almost bought a girl shirt so I made fun of him for way longer than acceptable.

After we got situated in our seats, the real fun began. We scoped out the fans around us and Corey pointed out that we were surrounded by an alarming amount of crimson-locked women. He gave them names like Ginger and Big Red and dramatically announced their movements.

“Ginger just got up! I wonder if she’s getting nachos?” We could only hope.

My personal favorite was the Asian man who sat down a few rows below us with a large, drooping hot dog. I fixated on him for a long time, laughing so hard I was wheezing.

“Asian Hot Dog is getting up!” I yelled, hand on my heart. Corey and I silently followed him with our eyes, snickering inappropriately. That’s when I noticed his face was constricted in awkward spasms and his tongue seemed to wag uncontrollably.

“I think there’s something wrong with him,” Corey whispered, and we sat quietly in shame. But I wasn’t too ashamed to take his picture when he returned with some sort of food product wrapped in foil.

A young couple found their seats in the row below us and Corey was entranced. “I want them to be our friends so bad!” he enthused. So I named the girl Margot and he named the man Jean-Paul. A few minutes later, Jean-Paul turned to us to make sure he had the right section and I could feel Corey cheering internally.

Corey really liked his shirt. They sat motionless through the entire show.

V: The Show

Sometime after 7:00pm, 65DaysofStatic emerged and treated us to a thirty minute set of top-notch post rock. I won’t lie — I was moved to tears a minute into the inaugural song. I have a penchant for post rock.

“Is there a reason they’re not singing?” Corey shouted in my ear. I had to explain to him the concept of post rock, something that I’ve grown used to. A man behind us was unable to contain his disgust for lack of vocals. “Maybe the singer forgot to show up,” he scoffed sarcastically. There always has to be that one person with something shitty to say. Just enjoy the music, douche! It’s fucking incredible.

By the time they left the stage, Corey had decided he was a fan of post rock.

A fire in the pit of my stomach ignited for the yuppie couple sitting next to Corey. Every time their tight yuppie asses rose from their seats, they hovered over top of us, imploring us with their dead yuppie eyes to let them through. The woman part of the yuppie-parade had a short black hair helmet, greased securely into a side-part. Before the Cure came on, I embarked on a spy-cam mission, pretending to take cutesy sibling love pictures of Corey to paste in my high school locker.

“Alright you two, hand the camera over,” an older man behind us demanded. My face flushed slightly, thinking I had been busted taking asshole-y pictures of strangers. “Let me get a picture of you two!” Oh. I handed him the camera, initiating the most awkward minute of the entire trip.

“Put your faces closer!” he insisted, but since we were turning around in our seats for the photo-op, it was a difficult maneuver.

“I can’t, my neck is going to snap!” Corey whined.

The worst part for me was that people around us were intently taking it in like a circus side show, as if I don’t hate having my picture taken enough as it is. Great, now my misery is a spectator sport. And then the picture barely turned out anyway because we still had the flash off from when I was taking secret pictures.

Shortly after 8:00, the lights went out and into music ricocheted all throughout the arena. One by one, the Cure walked out and when Robert strapped on his guitar, every voice in my mind quieted and my breath caught in my throat. Dude, it’s the fucking CURE.

Appropriately, they started with “Open” and I’m pretty sure I didn’t breathe once through the entire song. From there, they presented us with a three hour orchestral buffet of new and old, pop and gloom. I stole occasional glances at Corey, who was in the throes of having his Cure cherry popped, and his face was smothered with a look of awe.

The Cure had an amazing energy that night. This was my first time seeing Porl, now that he’s back in the line up, and I laughed every time he treated us to cutesy little dances and circle-skips. Simon has more stamina than most bass players half his age. Jason is a king atop his drum kit throne, and Robert continues to make me die. At one point, between songs, he sheepishly said, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing up here.” You’re touching lives, dude, that’s what you’re doing up there. And having fun.

It’s amazing how no matter how much time passes, each song still takes me back to different times in my life. “Kyoto Song” plays and I’m buying a plane ticket for Australia. The opening notes of “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep” waft from the speakers and I’m laying on floor pillows in my living room, crying into a glass of black cherry Manischewitz. Robert sings “Maybe Someday” and I’m thinking of killing myself on St. Patrick’s Day in 2000, but decide to have a party instead. I’m looking for bus fare so I can run away in tenth grade, “A Strange Day” indeed.

Below me was a woman who was dancing for Jesus. You know the dancing I’m talking about:  the person is so wrought with the Holy Spirit that they’re moved to rock and sway like listening to someone singing the Bible atop an orchestra of bongo beats and sinner flagellations. You see this in Jesus camp all the time. ALL THE TIME. Sometimes they take their shoes off, too. Her husband remained in his seat the entire night, passing her fresh beers and sticking out one strong arm to catch her when she began to fall at the end of the night.

Toward the end of the main set, “Just Like Heaven” was played, and Jean-Paul turned excitedly to Margot. They shared a brief moment of giddiness and I thought they’d rise from their seats, but then they turned back to the stage and continued emulating statues. But one row in front of them, the yuppiest man ever to attend a rock show stood up, ran his hands down the pleats of his khaki shorts, and took the hand of his blond bobbed female companion; together the two of them rocked moves that I imagine are stored safely for really special occasions, like a Michael McDonald show on a cruise ship. The man kept his eyes closed, head back slightly, and pursed his lips like a duck, while the woman did a really disjointed hip-rock paired with car-driving arm movements. Corey kept calling her SpeedRacer. Could not take eyes off her.

The highlight for me was during the first encore, when they pulled out the big guns with “The Kiss.” That song is like the most violently intense hate sex you can imagine, stuffed into a cannon and left to roil like a cat in heat, until Robert finally shouts into the mic and all that hate and fucking and frustration explodes and you have strong desires to punch the fat Goth woman simmering in Patchouli next to you.

“From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” was amazing as usual, and I made sure to check if Corey was putting his hands in the sky upon Robert’s command. He wasn’t so I lifted his arm up by the sleeve and all was made right. I can never get Henry to abide.

The third encore was dubbed “Old School Encore” and it knocked the wind out of me. Seven straight classic Cure songs, hold me back. It was like the BMW at the end of the Sweet Sixteen party.

This was my fourth time seeing them and they still made it feel like the first time. There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to properly convey how extraordinary this band is, and somehow after twenty+ years of doing their thing, they still manage to bring it, and bring it hard. They are the true definition of serious business. As we walked back to the car after the Cure reached the venue’s curfew, I could still feel them pulsing in my veins.

• Open
• Fascination Street
• A Strange Day
• alt.end
• The Walk
• End of the World
• Lovesong
• Kyoto Song
• Pictures of You
• Lullaby
• Maybe Someday
• The Perfect Boy
• From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• The Only One
• Push
• How Beautiful You Are
• Inbetween Days
• Just Like Heaven
• Primary
• Never Enough
• Wrong Number
• One Hundred Years, End 1st encore:   If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Kiss
  2nd encore:  Freakshow, Close To Me, Why Can’t I Be You?
  3rd encore:  Three Imaginary Boys, Fire In Cairo, Boys Don’t Cry, Jumping Someone Else’s Train, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab

***

[Part 1][Part 2][Part 4]

Did you know I like the Cure? I do. A little. Just a tad. In honor of Robert Smith’s birthday, I’m posting my favorite version of The Kiss. I’ve seen it a million times, and it still knocks the wind out of me and makes me want to have hate sex. Luckily, I’m dating someone I hate so it all works out! Oh, ho ho ho.

Seriously, goosebumps galore. I still feel privileged for all the times I got to see this happen live, in front of me, standing under the same roof as Robert Smith. Or, as it were on two occasions, under the same sky. I will never take that for granted.

I used to watch this video over and over and just quite literally want to die. Many nights of drinking Manischevitz from blood red goblets come to mind. I think later today, I’ll repost the entry from when my brother Corey and I went to Philly in 2008 to see them. Because I love the Cure and I love that entry, and it’s Robert’s birthday and this is my blog so I’ll post what I want OK GOD! And maybe someday before I die, I’ll actually write about when I got to meet him, provided I can find a way to do that without getting washed down to West Virginia in a flood of my tears.

Before Chooch was born, Robert Smith was the most important man in my life. Don’t worry, Henry knows.

At my new job, there’s some no-microwave rule on our floor, has something to do with safety, I don’t know. Everyone bitches about it on the daily, because this is a new thing for them and they’re not used to it. The closest microwave is in the kitchen one floor up and every day I hear things like, “Now I have to walk around two floors with cups of hot soup, like THAT’S not a safety hazard!” Last night, one of the analysts bitched for fifteen minutes straight about wanting popcorn but hated having to go upstairs to pop it. She eventually gave in, but when she came back to her office with the popped bag, she called one of her friends on the phone to bitch about it some more.

I thought about this for awhile, this microwave debacle, and then had a flashback to my job at the Tina&Eleanore Company and realized that maybe it’s a good idea there’s an entire floor separating me from the microwave.

————————————–

The Burnt Popcorn Situation

March 16th, 2007

Henry bought me snack-sized bags of popcorn to fall back on in case I get post-dinner cravings at work. One night last week, I made one and as I returned to my desk, Eleanore flung off her headphones and, with a mouthful of disgust, moaned, “You know I love popcorn. I damn near eat it here every night. Now someone went and burnt a bag! Ain’t nothing smell worse than burnt popcorn.”

There was fire in her eyes.

I held my bag up with two fingers and gave it a playful jiggle.

“It was me, Eleanore.” I added a bashful giggle just to be safe.

“Girl! Imma chop you!”

And we laughed together.

Monday night, I managed to pop a bag to perfection. Plain. It tasted plain and stupid.

When I prepared a bag last night, I swear I only left it in there for two minutes, taking into account the smaller snack-sized bag. And I know I should have been panting and pacing in front of the microwave like a good obedient snacker, perking my ears for the two second silence between kernel pops, but I was too distracted with graffiti-ing one of those “GUYS you’re not following the RULES!!!” signs on the refrigerator.

I burnt this bag almost entirely to a crisp. Instead of pitching it right there in an effort to contain the wrong smell into one room, I trekked back to my desk, pulling the top apart on my way and leaving a trail of residual burnt stench in my wake.

Eleanore was waiting with her arms crossed.

“Girl! You done went and did it again! What am I gonna do witchu?” (When I’m not incinerating popcorn, she calls me “babe.”)

I was going to eat around the burnt part, which was the entire center. It was a solid brick of charred destruction, like I tried to cook it in a fireplace. I must have looked real triflin’ to Eleanore because she gave me the rest of her regular sized bag of Act II.

I know it was a kind gesture, one that I accepted graciously I might add, but my popcorn was Pop Secret. And I kind of like it when it’s burnt. At least around the edges. So my hand, clutched sadly around my dejected burn victim, wavered above the garbage can and I took a few seconds to assess the situation. I kept my bag. I balled it up and shoved it in my purse so I could enjoy it in the privacy of my home, where burnt popcorn haters wouldn’t flock around and taunt me with their popcorn slurs.

“Next time you want popcorn, just give the bag to me and let me do it,” Eleanore said, giving the knife one last wrench.

On my way home, I called one of my friends and confided in her about my filthy popcorn secret, and she went off on me like I had just shat on her Bible. She used to manage a movie theater and she gets easily up-in-arms over any related matter. She made me feel embarrassed and self-conscious about my popcorn preference. I could probably fuck a dead body with less guilt.

I came home and left my scorched goods on the kitchen counter, where I would come back for it the next day. Maybe nibble a handful along with my morning coffee. Who knows?

Except that this morning, when I entered the kitchen to reclaim my prize, it was no longer on the counter.

It was in the garbage.

I called Henry. I think he was anticipating it, because his argument of “The whole kitchen stinks now!” rolled a little defensively off his squirming tongue.

Et tu, Henry? You mother fucker.

This is what I was doing on Saturday instead of helping Henry clean. I haven’t painted anything in a long time. It was fun. The end.

It was a Saturday at the end of the March 2004 when it finally hit me.

The whole week after leaving Cincinnati, I felt weird. Half-empty. I was so happy to be home with Henry, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

“I guess I just miss Christina, that’s all,” I wrote in my journal. The weekend was fucked up where her sister and friends were involved, but when it was just Christina and me, it was really fun. Aside from Henry, I had never really spent time with someone who wanted so badly to make me happy. It was like winning a contest and getting to take a tour of the inner-workings of Awesometown. She did everything I wanted, when I wanted it, and how I wanted it. Like I was royalty.

A girl could get used to that right quick, you know.

I took her CD with me to work and listened to it all week, the same 20-some songs over and over. I sat at my desk wondering why my stomach was feeling like mush, like I could puke at any second; wondering why listening to a bunch of songs was making me want to cry.

Henry and I went for one our cemetery walks on Saturday, March 27 and he grumbled the whole way there in the car because he hated the Used, and I had started listening to them again since the Christina Weekend. When “Blue and Yellow” came on, I caught my breath. You know how sometimes you can hear a song a thousand times, and then suddenly on play #1,001 something finally clicks and you start to really listen to the lyrics and it’s like being socked in the gut by a brick-fisted dwarf?

That happened to me that day.

And you never would have thought in the end,
How amazing it feels just to live again,
It’s a feeling that you cannot miss,
And it burns a hole, through everyone that feels it.

Well you’re never gonna find it,
If you’re looking for it, won’t come your way, yeah
Well you’ll never find it, if you’re looking for it.

Should’ve done something, but I’ve done it enough.
By the way, your hands were shaking.
Rather waste some time with you.

Listening to it, I felt my stomach flutter. I started to get giddy. I felt my face flush.

A few minutes later, as Henry and I walked through the cemetery, I blurted out, “I think I have a crush on Christina!”

Try to imagine the glint of horror that clouded Henry’s normally vacant eyes.

“No, you don’t,” he rushed to say. “You’re just confused. You miss her and you’re not used to missing a friend, that’s all,” he tried to rationalize.

“I think I need to tell her,” I mused.

“No. No, that’s a really bad idea. Don’t you dare tell her, she’s fucking in love with you, I could see it all over her face when she was here last week.” Henry looked very worried. I liked that.

Friends, once the seed is planted in my head, I’m not satisfied until I let it sprout and find myself on an operating table, having some poisonous vine extracted from my scalp. Try to advise me all you want, it will be in vain. Just like in 12th grade when my friend Christy tried to warn me not to date this guy she knew, but I ignored her and now I have nearly two years worth of Psycho Mike tales to share with Chooch one day when he’s older.

By the next night, she knew I was having feelings for her. Sylvia was dropped like an over-sized sack of ginger potatoes and Christina started sending me romantic emails and poems, and it was exciting. I loved Henry, but he wasn’t sending me romantic emails and poetry! Letting her call me her girlfriend was like having the best of both worlds. She said things like, “I’m struggling to keep things out of my head and palpitations out of my heart. Do you know what I mean? Like, little forceful firecrackers blowing holes into each breath? No one has ever lit those before.”

It was just like But I’m a Cheerleader! Except I’d have preferred Clea Duvall over Christina Harrison.

While I was enjoying all the pretty words and sentiments, I admitted in my journal that I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. It wasn’t that she was a girl. And her face had even started to grow on me by the end of that weekend I spent with her. It was more of the “what if”s that had me bugging out. Henry kept lecturing me that it would ruin the friendship, that I was playing with fire. That she was in love with me, when all I felt for her was some crush born from confusion, curiosity, and subtle persuasion on her part. And I considered that, and even wondered if she somehow made me feel like this by going out of her way to spoil me. But I shook off the doubt because it was exciting and new and, selfishly, I liked how it felt. She was telling me constantly how beautiful I was, how funny I was, what a great writer I was – but while most people would end it there, leaving their affectations vague, Christina would practically write dissertations on the colors of my eyes, what she loved about my laugh, how I chewed my grilled cheese sandwiches. I’m not kidding. The girl was very thorough.

By the second day,  I was convinced I was in love with her. “I don’t want something sexual,” I wrote on the pink pages of my Hello Kitty journal. “Nothing beyond kissing, if even that.” Meanwhile, Christina was dreaming of white picket fences and in vitro fertilization.

Fickle at heart, I kept vacillating between extreme feelings of goo-goo ga-ga lust, confusion, disgust, and denial.

I love her. I don’t love her.

I’m gay. I’m straight.

She’s pretty. She’s ugly.

Internally, I had become an amusement park of gyrating emotions, plunging sensibilities, pendulating preferences and swinging sexuality.

Henry was the only one who knew what was going on, so he got to begrudgingly fill the role of armchair therapist. There was a part of him that was intrigued by it, because come on, he has a penis after all. But then he’d remember it was Christina on the other end and would immediately  go limp. I think there was a part of him that was scared I was going to discover that this latent lesbian tendency was something more than that and he’d wind up sitting on a curb amidst his garbage bagged belongings.

I was too scared to tell my friends about it, and I think some of that was actually thinly-veiled shame because she wasn’t exactly the type of girl I ever would have imagined liking in that way, and I certainly couldn’t see myself parading her around town.  Anytime the thought of going public would enter my mind, my embarrassment and shallowness would push that thought right back to its grave.

It hadn’t even been a week yet, and I was already having doubts. In fact, it was only three days after I threw Christina that initial love bone, and I was already realizing that I wasn’t in love with her so much as the attention. That I would never leave Henry for her, or anyone. That she was making me feel trapped and…kept. And my least favorite sensation of all? Smothered. Ooh, how I hate to be smothered. She was coming on so strong, pressuring me to make plans with her, and I was starting to freak out. I tried to tell her I was feeling claustrophobic and that she needed to back off a little.

Yeah, that went well. She cried and cried and cried and flipped out and cried and sobbed. I don’t respond well to tears so I screamed uncle and let her go back to building a shrine for me.

By the end of that week, I was convinced all these feelings were really just worms in my stomach, the manifestation of some unrealistic fantasy. I decided that avoiding her would be the best option, but Henry convinced me that I should just talk to her, or else she was going to keep talking to me at work.

She sucked me back in with her frilly fucking words, goddammit. And the cycle started all over again. Henry suggested that I talk to my friend Liz. She was another girl I knew from LiveJournal, and she was currently in a relationship with a girl after years of dating only boys. I emailed her and she called me right away. At first, she was excited for me wanting to explore that other side of myself, but when she found out it was Christina on whom I had focused  my affections, she wasn’t so excited anymore. From watching our interaction with each other via LiveJournal for the past year, and knowing about the Sylvia factor, Liz expressed her concern, citing numerous red flags she saw in the situation.

But I still kept at it. And the longer it went on, the more hurt Henry became. We started fighting. A lot.

“I understand that this is something you need to do, but I just wish it was with some random girl and not someone in love with you,” he admitted one night, after two weeks of me being a faux-lesbian. And then those inevitable words finally came out: “You need to choose.”

And the next day, I kept seeing his face as he said that and it was breaking my heart. He was more important to me than she was, and I broke it off with her for good that time.

I’ve broken up with many boys in my time, but making a phone call to break up with some girl in Ohio was definitely something new, and not something I’d recommend scribbling on your bucket list. She was blowing up my phone, my inbox, my AIM, begging me to reconsider. Now I was just getting angry, really fucking angry. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a sniveling beggar. Show some backbone! I was starting to think that never talking to her again might not be the worst thing in the world. I told her she needed to stop sending me those emails and stop posting poems about me in her LiveJournal, but she said she couldn’t stop because I was her muse.

In hysterics, she screamed, “It’s not fair! Why are you doing this to me? You didn’t even give me a chance!” And apparently I had the poor taste of breaking up with her on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. He was one of her idols, so she threw that in my face too. This was my first taste of her emotional immaturity. I knew that she had never been in a real relationship before, and if the two weeks we had spent acting like giddy school girls was the only taste of a relationship she had ever had, well, that wasn’t my fault and I refused to let her make me feel like it was.

Two weeks! It had only been two weeks. Long distance, at that.

When I wouldn’t answer her emails or respond to her IMs, she started calling me at work. This is when I was working at Weiss Meats, that horrible place, and I didn’t feel comfortable  getting calls from my mom there, let alone some insane, sobbing lesbian. I shared an office with the bookkeeper, Carol, who was like a second mom to me, and it was so hard to answer these calls from Christina without making Carol wonder what the fuck sort of shit-swamp I found myself wading in this time. Terse answers was all Christina would get from me at work. Sometimes I would simply hang up upon hearing her androgynous voice through the receiver.

While I was sorry that she got hurt in the process and that I didn’t take the time to put some forethought into the whole thing, I wasn’t sorry for admitting my feelings to her, because I needed to know where it was going to go. Selfish? Yes, I’ll take the blame on that. I’m an impulsive person, I always have been. And because of that, I don’t really have many regrets in life. I had hoped that she would see it the same way, that our “relationship” hadn’t gone on long enough for her to really suffer any heart break, and that we could still find a way to salvage our friendship.

For me, I was able to walk away thinking, “Well, that was fun while it lasted” as I dusted the carnage of her shattered heart off my shoulders. I felt confident that we ended it early enough to curtail any collateral damage on the friendship. What I didn’t know was that she was over there in Ohio, making plans to win me back.