Something just happened!

There is a church across the street from me. Every Saturday night, there is an NA meeting that takes place there. Sometimes it gets really rowdy, and the attendees will congregate in the parking lot, laughing and talking loudly at 2am. It’s like living across from a bar sometime.

I was outside having a cigarette with Alisha when I heard a particularly loud and boisterous voice emanating from within the bowels of the church.

“I’m going over there to inspect,” I informed Alisha. She didn’t care. She is EXHAUSTED today from having to post twice an hour in that blog that she doesn’t have. She sat on my front steps and let me go, didn’t even tell me to be careful, to call out “MERLOT TASTES LIKE FEET” if my covert operation went awry.

Hunched down low, I crept over to the steps that lead down into the basement of the church.

“I put my pants on in the morning like all of you do in hopes of staying CLEAN!” boomed the voice of a worked-up, feverish black man. I froze in my tracks. The hair stood up on my arms. This man was angry. He was preaching to his former-junkie apostles.

Just then, a car pulled in the lot.

Spotted, I ran back across the street just as a man got out of his car and walked over to the steps.

He stood there. I turned my back on the church and faced Alisha, horrified.

“There’s nowhere to run!” I hissed. “I LIVE HERE. NOW HE KNOWS. HE’S GOING TO GO IN THERE AND TELL EVERYONE I WAS SPYING.”

“He’s just finishing his cigarette,” Alisha mumbled as the man stubbed it out on the wall next to the steps; we watched as his head vanished as he descended the steps to join the others in the meeting.

Only a full workday left to go!

The first gift I received when I was born, aside from that gosh darn gift of life!, was a brand new, pink stuffed dog. As soon as I was able to speak real words, I named him Purple. I don’t remember any of this, but it’s what I was told when I visited the Sphynx Gate that one time I starred in Neverending Story.

Ever since July 30, 1979, this cotton-stuffed object has been the only loyal friend in my life. We’ve been through the war and back, so he doesn’t exactly look the same anymore. In fact, he’s not even pink. What was once a plump and healthy stuffed animal is now a limp, decrepit rag. He’s also in three pieces: a stuffing-less head with one ear, no eyes, and a gaping hole where the nose once was; one washcloth patched paw; and a multi-colored patched torso, the whereabouts of which I am unsure.

Purple went everywhere with me. I had a habit of rubbing his paw between my fingers; it was my comfort, my pacifier. I freaked out anytime someone dropped him. Because he’s real. He has feelings. Nerve-endings. All that.

When I was four, my step-dad threw Purple into the fireplace. He hated my attachment to Purple, said I was too old. It was “time to let him go.” Thankfully, only his ear was singed, and those small black dots burned into Purple was a constant reminder of why I hated my step-dad.

That same year, we went to Florida with my grandparents. My step-dad was all, “Hell no, the dog stays home.” He thought Purple was “filthy” from me carrying him everywhere. My poor pappap, in an effort to make it up to me, bought me pretty much every stuffed Disney character he could find during our stay in Orlando. What kid wouldn’t love that? I know I did, but it wasn’t the same. Rubbing Mickey’s right mouse ear just wasn’t the same.

One of the few pleasant memories I have of my grandma is her sewing kit, full of colored threads, buttons, Jan Brady-esque ribbons, and hope for Purple. Because that kit is what re-attached Purple’s leg time and time again. My step-dad’s mom once offered to operate. I didn’t have the heart to say no; she was such a sweet lady. She returned Purple with his leg sewn on backward. After that, she stuck to the things she was good at, like buying me cheap snow globes.

I’m 31. Purple went from being patched up by my grandma to being surgically altered by Henry. And I still can’t sleep without (some part of) Purple.  Fucking love that thing.

There was very little that was good during the year and a half Psycho Mike and I did our little domestic (abuse) dance, but there was one thing we could always agree on: food at the Plaza Cafe. It was a hole in the wall. A small little diner in a sparsely populated shopping plaza (get it now, Plaza Cafe? It’s all coming together!) with three or four booths on one side of the wall and a counter in the back.

I would usually get a piece of pie and cole slaw. No, I wasn’t pregnant. (Now that I think about it, it’s amazing that Mike’s seed never sprouted in my womb. There was one scare though. We bought a pregnancy test and I pissed on it in a bathroom stall at a petting farm. It was negative and we rejoiced by getting a pay-by-the-hour motel room and having more sex.)

They had really good cole slaw there.

I’m a fan of cole slaw. Remember that. It might come in handy some day if you’re ever trying to talk me down from a ledge.

Sometimes I would get a muffin and our favorite waitress would halve it up and throw it on the grill. No one has ever made me a muffin like that since then.

For a very short time, there was a movie rental shop next store to the Plaza called Firehouse Videos. We had a membership and would rent Argento films to watch in my parent’s basement, where we would subsequently start fighting and break up. One fight was because he accused me of CHEATING ON HIM WHILE TAKING MY GED EXAM. Yes, Mike. I tossed my vagina in a vat of penii before entering a crowded classroom at the YWCA. Then I picked it up back up from vagina daycare and re-inserted it, all nice and freshly fucked.

Now I want a grilled-up muffin and I KNOW Alisha and Corey aren’t going to make that happen. Those assholes are too immersed in Degrassi.

Sponsors Bill and Jessi requested a photo of Henry and Chooch cuddling.

This was no small feat. Chooch HATES cuddling. Just the fact that I call him Professor Cuddles is enough to set him over the edge.

I thought we were going to have an Episode, but he eventually acquiesced and growled, “Just take the damn picture.

”

Chooch. Not Henry.

I tripped over my own feet in an effort to absquatulate from the bedroom before daggers were thrown at me.

By Chooch. And Henry.

Getting these photos is sometimes harder than writing actual posts.

Just so you know.

To those of you who have been following again and reading this bullshit, thank you! You are so very much appreciated! I have a headache. I’m chewing on my hair still. Sweating a little. Would rather be watching Food Party. But look, we’re doing good things here! To date, $456.00 has been raised for the Oil Spill Relief Fund!

You guys are generous and lovely and without you, this would be pointless.

It’s not too late if you still want to donate. The link will be posted at the end of this entry.

In other news, Henry and Chooch have been gone basically all day. They’re home now, looking like they spent the day at the beach and no one told them about this little thing called sunscreen.

Chooch’s face is burnt. Henry’s face is burnt. I don’t care about Henry, but come on man. Lather our son up, please!

Apparently, they went to a fair tonight. A fair! Without me! Henry said three random people gave Chooch ride tickets for no good reason. Just, “Here, kid. Have a ticket.” It must be really charming to be Chooch. I’m jealous of my own son at times.

DONATE HERE!

(I mean, if you want to.)

It was back in 2002, maybe 2003, when my brother Corey was really into the Canadian show Degrassi: The Next Generation.

He forced Janna and me to watch it with him one time, and every time Emma was in a scene, he would swoon and say, “That’s Miriam McDonald!” I think he only liked her because she looked like our neighbor Lauren whom I HATED because when she was 5 or so, she called me BRACE FACE and hello, I was HER ELDER. I was like, ten!

Last year, when I was out of work, there was a Degrassi marathon on The N (now Teen Nick, FYI).

I watched it to be ironic. But then I found myself saying things out loud like, “Wait, JT died? WHEN?” So it became an obsession. I had to see every episode. From the beginning. AND I DID. I would send Henry texts throughout the day, saying things like, “OMG JAY GAVE EMMA HERPES” and he’d be like, “Oh my god! Wait…Oh. Degrassi.”

Earlier tonight, I go to Corey, “Do you still watch Degrassi?” He laughed, all smug-like, and said, “Uh, no.” Like he’s so above it because he’s in college now. I began a wild flurry of a recap, telling him what had went down in the dramatic, action-packed mini-movie “The Heat Is On.” He was aghast. His mouth hung open.

“It has a shout-out to DRAKE*,” I saved for the cherry-on-top.

“Shut up,” he whispered.

“I saved the recording for you and Alisha to watch tonight!” And that’s what they’re doing right now.

*Drake the rapper was JIMMY on Degrassi, in case you weren’t already privy. He was CAPPED IN THE BACK in a school shooting and PARALYZED. The last I saw him on Degrassi, he was going to New York for some experimental surgery, but then never came back to tell us if he could walk again because he had to go off and start a highly successful music career IRL.

What a selfish prat.

“You probably don’t know who Zsa Zsa Gabor is, do you?” Barb asked me the other day, having just read of Zsa Zsa’s bone-breakage upon falling out of bed.

“Oh, DO I!” I exclaimed, swiveling around in my chair.

In fifth grade, we had to get into interview/interviewee groups. I have no idea what we were studying that made this a necessary assignment, but I was in a group with my friend Spring and some asshole bitch whose name isn’t even worth mentioning (the same one who years later went on to befriend Henry’s ex-wife!

).

Everyone else in the class chose normal people to role-play with, like one girl was Debbie Gibson and the interviewer asked her questions about her new perfume, Electric Youth.

Someone was a skateboarder. Another boy was a weatherman. Normal fifth grade character studies!

Me? I was Zsa Zsa Gabor. My Aunt Sharon swore it would be a hit. “Either her, or you could be Imelda Marcos!” I had no idea who either of them were, but Sharon found me a shoulder-padded sequined blouse and a blond wig, so it was decided that I would be Zsa Zsa.

Spring was the interviewer, and The Bitch was the cop who received Zsa Zsa’s backhand. That was the big thing in celebrity news at that time.

The Bitch was perfect for the role as the cop, because she was portly and looked like Chief Wiggums from The Simpsons.

I didn’t know much about Zsa Zsa. Sharon told me to just keep splaying out my hand and saying “Dahhhhling” over and over.

It was a train wreck. No one in the class understood who we were supposed to be, except for Mrs. Madden who was behind the camcorder failing at stifling her laughs.

Somewhere, I have a copy of this disaster on VHS. Maybe one day if I find it, I’ll find a way to put it online so everyone can laugh at my visible discomfort of playing the role of some old Hungarian stranger that no under the age of 40 knew back then, and then dance around in a ring of schadenfreude.

“You’re a very interesting young lady,” Barb said after I told her this story. Interesting is not the word Henry and Alisha would use.

Me: “That made me sweat.”

Corey: “Me, too. My forehead’s a little moist.”

It all started when Corey said, “Look at the picture in this ad!” It said “Who’s hungry?” and has three people hammily-eating a giant hoagie. I started laughing. Then Corey started laughing. But we never would laugh in tandem. It was like gang-laughter.

“STOP!” Alisha yelled from the chair in the living room.

So we did. But then, under my breath sneaked out a throaty giggle. Corey fed off it and laughed once, loudly. Then I laughed louder. Alisha was very upset at this point.

It sounded like this:

From the living room: “I hate you guys so bad right now.”

And then the laughing started ALL OVER AGAIN. Good job, Alisha Priddy.

EDIT!!! I just played this back and Alisha goes, all calmly, “Oh. I know what that reminds me of now. When I used to work at WESTERN PSYCH.”

Tried doing this earlier for Andrea, but something about the pickles make them stick-retardant. HMM…Maybe all that brine-eriffic moisture.

Mmm, MOIST. So they kept sliding down my face.

Then Alisha! She can be brilliant sometimes. Alisha suggested, “If you have needle and thread, we can string them up and hang them from your glasses.”

I knew I had needle and thread because just the other night, I was watching The Real World while sewing all the holes my son put in the couch’s slipcover with his scissors. When am I going to learn to toss those scissors out with the Monday night trash.

So hours later, Alisha strung those booger-y bitches up for me and Corey attached them to my glasses. Unfortunately, I had switched out my glasses hours ago for contacts, so I got to take this picture with double vision.

I’M REALLY THIS SAD IN REAL LIFE.

My 19th birthday was the best ever! (Hola Corey, Big Sis is typing over here and you’re still talking; stop that.) It was FOUR DAYS LONG and different people came each night because that was back when people LOVED me! (And it had nothing to do with the fact that I was the only broad who had her own apartment and a mommy who kept the fridge fully stocked with beer & assorted alcohol).

It ran the gamut from good, light-hearted fun to Saudi Arabians teaching people how to roll pyramid-shaped joints to fist fights between brothers to reenactments of hissy fits to one guy wanting very badly to stick his dick in me in spite of my vehement turn-downs to me leaving on the fourth night, completely drunk and in tears, and driving to nowhere really while blasting Foo Fighter’s “Everlong.”

A week prior to my birthday, I had broken up with my boyfriend Erik. There was no real good reason other than as long as I had the title of “Girlfriend,” I couldn’t help all the neighborhood boys use up their condoms.

He came to my apartment on the third day of birthday bacchanalia to give me back my stuff, and with him was  his  ex-girlfriend who had stalked him the entire year they were broken up. He had apparently gotten back together with her after I dumped him. Also with them was our friend Sergio, who I eventually ended up winning custody of since Erik no longer was allowed to have friends, having gotten back together with his crazy asshole ex.

Erik seemed genuinely sad that day on my front porch. He started to wish me a happy birthday, when the ex-girlfriend snapped and started screaming, “You fucking whore! You dumb fucking cunt! I’ll kill you!” And then she broke away from  Sergio’s grip and charged after me. Erik clothes-lined her and dragged her back to his car, shrugging an apology along the way. My friend Heather didn’t even bother to put her shoes before running out the front door, ready to fight this temperamental nutjob who had just threatened me on my birthday. That was the awesome thing about my friend Heather. She was always ready to throw down.

For years, Erik was the “one who got away.” I kicked myself for dumping him. It was stupid and impulsive (though, so was the way we hooked up to begin with, but that’s a non-Blogathon story). Sergio told me years later that Erik had married that broad and had succumbed to a life of emasculation. It was settling at its finest. For awhile, I tried to find him. Searched for him online. I never could find him.

Then I met Henry and forgot about my hunt to get him back. But I still think of him, and that fourth night of my birthday party marathon, every time I hear “Everlong.”

Lawson (l.) and Evan, who was always nervous and hyper-aware of my presence.

Eleventh grade started out to be a horrible year for me.

Rumors were started by a bunch of janiform assholes who were merely masquerading as my friends.

Half the time, I didn’t want to go to school. I was being harassed on the daily. Teachers were intervening. My friend Lisa stepped in at one point too, and there was a confrontation which made the situation worse for me, but I loved Lisa for trying.

Of course, the whole brouhaha started over a guy. And one that I didn’t even give a shit about, to boot.

I wasn’t super close with Lisa until that year. She took me in under her wing and slowly but surely, we found ourselves as the nuclei of our own group. In addition to the two of us were two other girls, Angie and Martha (her name was actually Melissa but we all called her Martha, the origins of which I’m unsure). We called ourselves L.A.M.E. accordingly.

There were some guys in our group, too. Lawson and Russ from the previous post, and Evan. We went to haunted houses togethers. Had parties at each others houses. Watched hockey games in my grandparents’ basement while Sharon stamped around in a huff upstairs. (She HATED that my pappap let us hang out there.)

Of course, when my pappap passed away halfway through my eleventh grade year, all those other assholes were suddenly remorseful, showing up at the funeral, calling me with their hollow sympathies. Two of those people continued to make my life shit even after high school; one of them befriended Henry’s ex-wife and alerted her of my pregnancy before Henry had a chance to tell his kids.

But the people in this picture below? None of them ever fucked me over.

Angie, me, Martha, Lisa, Russ, Lawson, Evan: in my pappap’s game room.

DISCLAIMER: This is from my journal for a writing class in eleventh grade. Clearly, I have never used a microphone before. Sorry. (Or, as they say on Degrassi: “Sore-y”)

OH MY GOD.

All of this is happening simultaneously:

• My brother Corey is sitting next to me, eating yogurt and telling me about a safety video he watched at his summer job at Columbia Gas (our dad works there too AND THEY SAT TOGETHER).
• Chooch is dangling my charm bracelet (guess it’s not so prized after all!!) in front of me, exclaiming, “A NEW BRACELET? MOMMY YOU GOT A NEW BRACELET? COREY DO YOU LIKE YOGURT?” Oh my god, he just almost dropped my camera.
• Alisha is at the door dealing money to the pizza guy (I’ve forgotten to eat all day; Alisha has rectified that.)
• Henry is hovering behind me, breathing

Oh my god, so much is going on, my head is spinning and just now, I started to cry.

Corey and Chooch are looking at my old pictures of dead pets.

It’s a sobering moment.

Now Corey is telling me that he was in the garage attic looking for something for our mom, who called up to him, “You know, your dad used to have a big glass bong in that corner over there, see if you can find it!” Unfortunately, it must have been something our dad remembered to take with him after The Divorce.

In this picture, please find that Stacey is smiling while Alisha frantically checks her phone for the time to make sure I’m not fucking up the agenda.

When I came downstairs on the morn’ of my birthday, I caught a glimpse of a large box perched on the dining room table. I gasped! “For me?!” I said aloud, resting my lovely hand upon my birthday bosom.

It was just the light box, which I forgot to put away the night before.

My heart fell. My stomach sank. My fist plunged through a wall.

But a little while ago, Stacey came to visit!  With he, she brought a birthday present for me! A gift card for Best Buy so I can buy all the things that were in Henry’s invisible box of imaginary birthday presents for me!

Then Stacey got to leave to go to work, and I watched as Alisha’s eyes followed morosely. You’re stuck here, my friend.

So that was something nice that happened today (along with Evonne’s visit as well!), amidst all the technical difficulties, high blood pressure and incessant hair-chewing.

My pappap wore this big thick diamond ring on his pinky. It was masculine, just oozing with rich testosterone. We would go to church together every Saturday night (yes, when my pappap was in my life, I really did believe in God), and sometimes he would rap his pinky against the pew and whisper, “One day, this ring will be yours.”

And it was. For a day.

He Willed it to me, and I was “allowed” to wear it on a chain for my senior pictures. It was really the only piece of him I had after he died.

And it was taken from me.

My family was afraid I’d run off and pawn it, which was apparently, to them, a typical Erin thing to do. I haven’t seen that damn ring since I was seventeen.

According to my Aunt Sharon, my grandma put it somewhere “safe” for when I was “older” and now she “can’t find it.”

That bullshit smells worse than the hair grease on the cast of Jersey Shore on a humid day.

But what I do have is a charm bracelet. My grandfather used to take me to Europe when I was a kid, and on one of the trips, he thought it would be a good idea to put together a charm bracelet for me. So every city we visited, we would stop in several jewelry shops, looking for the perfect representation of that city in charm-form.

When I went to Australia by myself in 2001, I carried on the tradition and found a gold koala. It was bittersweet, coming home and taking it to a jeweler without my pappap. But it’s the one thing I own that I look at feel like I do still have a piece of him with me.

I almost never wear it for two reasons:

• It’s easily the most expensive thing I own and it makes me feel like I’m flashing a strobe light for all the muggers in the city.
• It’s REALLY FUCKING JANGLY.