My friendship with Andrea aka MrsEvils has been one of the best things to come from my membership in Etsy’s Dark Side. Not only is she the go-to girl for all things zombie, but she’s witty, pretty, and basically one of the coolest people I know. So when a box was received by my pants-less son yesterday (the mail man is pretty much unfazed by us anymore, doesn’t even flinch when he hears one or all of us screaming bloody murder), and I saw the My Pretty Zombie label on it, I wrenched it out of Chooch’s hands faster than Henry jerks off when he sees an F-16.

Inside was a Gogol Bordello CD to keep me all crazed during Blogathon, a horned rubber duck (Chooch confiscated that), and a tub of my favorite shade of eyeshadow from the new cosmetics line she’s launching. All of that alone would have been enough to appease me, but then she had to go and throw this into the mix:

MY VERY OWN MY PRETTY ZOMBIE! I have been coveting these ever since I first found her shop! Chooch tried to say it was meant for him and I was like, “Go get your own birthday, asshole.

” I made the mistake of eating carrots and hummus while editing these photos and subsequently sent my gag reflex begging for mercy.

  I’m pretty sure that means Andrea has succeeded.

DON’T YOU WANT TO HOLD HER HAND!

?

Chooch inspected her with complete unbridled awe, then murmured, “I wish she didn’t have any clothes on.”

Ugh. I love her so hard. AND SHE TALKS. My favorite thing she says is “L-O-L!” She is so my doll. Andrea, you are the raddest. I hope that someday we can sip champagne from straws together.

If you want to know more about Andrea, go read the feature I did on her last August! It’s totally worth the read.

(This is my favorite thing, aside from raising money for charity, that was born from one of the past Blogathons when I was super-ambitious and had my sponsors give me photos and I’d write 15-minute flash fiction for each one. I’m reposting it because, come on guys, get excited!)

Thomas was a man who worked hard everyday in the shipyard, making sure the paddle boats didn’t churn any of the river-swimming runaways into orphan butter. It was not the cleanest job, uncoiling hair caught around the paddles; sometimes the scalps would still be intact and Thomas would upchuck into his lunch pail. His aim was fairly decent, and most times his roast beef could be salvaged after a few residual specks of regurgitated morning porridge were flicked by the wayside.

He would come home in the evening hours with the prospect of a roaring fire and war novel to cozy up with. His wife Millicent always had other plans for him, though. Gather some twigs to use for kindle. Pump some more buckets of water for the morning wash. Check my bosom for lumps. I ran out of tampons, go get me some more.

Thomas knew that if he didn’t get away for a weekend with the guys, he’d likely stick an axe between Millicent’s eyes. He packed up some long johns and amateur pornographic literature and retreated to the forest with his best guy, Marvin, who in turn dragged along his nineteen year old son, Jacob. Now, Jacob’s story is that he was a bad seed, maybe even evil incarnate, if you dare acknowledge that there is a Devil. Jacob lived for skulking around in the alley, kicking three-legged dogs (there were a lot of those back then; dog legs were used for medicinal purposes and drum sticks) and sticking foreign-tongued immigrants with hot tongs.

Everyone knew these things about Jacob; he did not commit these heinous acts in secret. He wanted to be known, to be showered in accolades! “Jacob did it again,” the elderly citizens would mutter to each other over top of the daily newspaper, waiting for the workday to begin.

On the first night, Marvin whipped up a pot of bubbling porridge, spooning heaping ladles into three mugs. Thomas began shoveling the gruel into his mouth; porridge-eating was second nature to him. He ate it twice a day, after all. Startled, he paused in between chews. Using his tongue, he spat out a chunky stump.

“Marvin! There’s a thumb in my porridge!” As Thomas twirled the thumb between his own thumb and forefinger, Marvin examined it from over his friend’s shoulder. In the end, they shrugged it off and Thomas chucked it over into the weeds. Pausing only once to wipe away the porridge creeping past the corner of his lips in an oozing puddle, Thomas finished off his meal with a loud smack of the lips.

Jacob laughed slyly into his napkin. Each night when his father and Thomas were fast asleep in their tent, after having engaged in a bit of after dinner cognac and back scratching, Jacob had a habit of running off to other campsites, hacking off the thumbs of slumbering campers, then stealing away into the shadows before the afflicted came out of their shock. For Jacob, it was better than experimenting in the crudely made hallucinogenics that Alexander Fisher made in his father’s fishing shanty.

The next morning, another thumb was found, buoyant among the thick sludge on Thomas’s spoon.

“Goddamnit Marvin! There’s a thumb in my porridge again!” Thomas began choking. He tried to expel it back up through his esophagus, but it was too late. Strangely, he had begun to notice a throbbing pain coming from his right hand. “What’s that?” Thomas asked aloud. He looked down and discovered that his own thumb was missing. He had been gaffled by Jacob.

I should have stayed home and cleaned the commode for Millicent, Thomas thought bitterly.

Henry, Chooch and I drove to Wheeling, WV on Saturday to meet up with my sister Amy, her boyfriend Dick, and her daughter Brooke at the Italian Festival. It was probably about 100 degrees that day. It was like a back sweat swimming pool out there.

For those of you who have kids or Alishas, you’ll know what a big deal this was: Chooch fell asleep on the way there and Henry and I got to have adult conversation! And by that of course I mean Henry sat silently in the driver’s seat while I rambled on and on about music and changed CDs at whim. It was awesome.

There were no rides there, but there were like 127875654 different bouncy houses, all of which cost a dollar to enter. One of them was just a tunnel and it pissed me off that it cost an entire dollar for literally the ten seconds it took to get to the other end. I kept begging Chooch to go slower, but I think he was getting claustrophobic.

Chooch and Brooke scaled that sucker in no time. Meanwhile, that dumb blond girl kept losing her footing and tumbling back down to the bottom. It was hilarious. If I was her mom, I’d have left her there out of shame.

It’s funny how kids don’t need to really talk to each other when they’re playing. Because I’m not sure I’ve seen these two speak to each other yet, but they were all about rolling down a hill together.

A few days prior to the weekend, Chooch had dumped cereal out the window of the car. Yes, it could have worse, like a plastic bottle or Faberge egg, but we still yelled at him. A few minutes later, a cop car flew past us with its lights and siren on and Henry said, “Oh you’re lucky. They were looking for you but must not have seen you back there.” Chooch was real heightened in his car seat after that.

At the Italian Festival, there were a group of cops standing together on an overlook above the wall on which we were sitting. We had Chooch totally convinced they were watching him. He was like a human Litter Gitter for the rest of the night.

(Note: He’s not wearing shoes because he was playing in the bouncy houses, not because West Virginia got to us.)

Hottest man there, OK?

Highlights:

• Buying a pina colada that came in this thing and having the entire population of the Italian Festival want to talk to me about it.
• Making a new boyfriend named Alan who was working at the seafood stand and was very interested in my “coconut.” We chatted for awhile and he said, “Please come back and see me tonight. I would really like that.” But then I went and sat down directly across from him, right next to Henry, Chooch and Brooke. Kind of killed my chances. Oh, and Henry witnessed the whole sordid episode and completely didn’t care. Probably because he turned it into porn in his mind.
• KARAOKE.

Oh shit, we seriously stood around for an hour, letting the vocal delights of West Virginia’s finest tickle our ear drums. This broad with the vat of beer sang “Love is a Battlefield” and thought she was God’s gift to the entire institute of hearing. And when she wasn’t singing, she was drunkenly leaning against the cotton candy stand for support, hungrily waiting for her next turn.

Her name was Becky in case you want to find her and hire her for your next bachelor party.

Amy was obsessed with this broad that had enough confidence to allow herself to leave the house without tucking her back fat into a pocketbook.

Amy was hoping to get to see her sing, but she couldn’t stick around long enough. It’s a shame too, because she finished her set with a very dexterous display involving cans of Schlitz and the crushing they endured inside the flaps of her posterior breasts.

Chooch sweats.

And that is all that I’m writing because I’m trying to conserve all those words and shit for Blogathon on Saturday, where I’m certain to run out of fodder after hour three. And then I will have a meltdown and then Henry will say, “There, now you can write about having a melt down and breaking all the good China over your head.”

After I gave myself a Trix’stache for Crunchy Betty’s Food On Your Face contest, I was 99% sure I didn’t do it right. So I emailed Leslie, the writer of Crunchy Betty. And I was right! It was wrong. It was supposed to be a facial mask made from natural products, so I scoured her website looking for something that was easy enough for me to not screw up, even though Leslie said I didn’t have to. I was determined at this point to do it up proper-like.

First, I saw that I could just take some aging bananas and mash it all upon my face. Good thing Henry likes to leave fruits and vegetables laying around in open graves, attracting fruit flies by the droves.

“What exactly are you doing?” Henry asked when he saw me monopolizing prime counter space while he was trying to cook dinner.

I turned around with banana entrails coating my fingers.

“I’m doing something awesome. Go away.” I squirted honey into the bowl and ran off to the bathroom where my banana mush could make love to my face in privacy.

Not a minute after pushing him away, I was yelling down for Henry to help me.  He walked in just in time to catch me dry heaving into the shower curtain.

“It’s just bananas!” he said all condescendingly. But the consistency! The color! It was like mucous. Think, chunky mucous collected from a team of hawkering truckers.

I have a real problem with putting stuff on my face. Even store-bought masks that are all honeylicious and gooey; not gonna happen on this girl’s face, which might make one wonder, “Then why are you bothering with this, dummy?” To which I might answer, “I don’t know.” Although, I do have a lot of time on my hands. Time and determination, my friends.

I can handle clay-type facial masks though, so I went back to Crunchy Betty and found one that sounded like it would fit within my parameters of acceptable epidermal food-smearing.

Mocha-Frappucino Mask

• 2 Tbsp freshly ground coffee (the finer the grind, the better)
• 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 3 Tbsp. milk (whole), heavy cream, or yogurt
• 1 Tbsp. honey
  

Henry was angry because he had to stop cooking his dinner in order to supervise. I was trying to mix everything together with the tablespoon measuring thing and I didn’t think it was all that big of a deal. Mr. Pampered Chef started rummaging through drawers in search of the proper mixing device. Then he goes, “You should add an egg to that for protein.” Henry always has to urinate on things to make it his own.

It’s really annoying.

“You know I’m not eating this, right?” I asked.

But Henry knows everything! Even stuff about what is good for FACES. God, that Henry. Am I right? I don’t know how he finds the time to learn everything about everything in the entire history of the planet.

Next thing I knew, he had cracked an egg on the counter top and was separating it while it was still in the shell. I think he secretly hopes that I’ve been filming him on the sly doing all these things throughout the years, so that one day I’ll have enough footage of his sheer ingenuity and culinary aptitude to submit an audition tape to Food Network on his behalf.

Oh, I do. But that’s not where I’m sending it.

Anyway, my gag reflex thanked me for the new concoction. The texture was pleasant against my fingertips and it didn’t make my face feel harassed by viscousness. It made me feel like a cake, so I added candy stars which have absolutely no benefit to the skin as far as I know. But they sure are pretty.

In the instructions, Leslie says to “apply to a sleepy morning face.” Henry read that and said, “Does it work on miserable, bitchy night time faces, too?” Oh, our house is bursting with so much love it hurts. Ask Alisha. She was once accidentally impaled with an ice pick that I chucked at Henry out of love.

I like this picture because I look like Henry with a shit-beard.

Chooch wanted in on the action. But he’s just like me and HATES having stuff on his face (which is why I was surprised he was so willing to be made up into a zombie at his birthday party last May. Probably because he saw his BFF Bill do it first.)

That’s as much as he’d let me apply before shouting with authority, “OK! That’s enough now. Christ.”

It didn’t take very long for the concoction to harden against my face and I could feel my skin becoming taut beneath it. The best part about it is that it smelled SO GOOD. And it didn’t drip off my face  like bungee-jumping pus.

And if you like the flavor of coffee grounds, then the mask tastes great. Just lick it off your face; I did. Who needs a shower and a washcloth?

The coffee grounds were less brutal than I imagined them to be. I don’t know what I was expecting, to rinse my face and find that I’m suddenly the new addition to the Bodies exhibit? It left my skin super soft and oil-free. Stupid me came running downstairs, yelling, “Touch my face! It’s so soft!” only to have two pairs of gross male-hands grope my cheeks. I probably could have stood to repeat the process after that.

So go on. Get yourself over to Crunchy Betty and find some stuff to put on your face.

Tom Weston made a video of people reading from really God-awful books; among them: Miley Cyrus’s biography and that waste of paper Sarah Palin tries to pass as a book. It’s really fun, so go watch!

Rotten Writing from Tom Weston on Vimeo.

She denied it up to the day the final nail was driven into our friendship’s coffin, but Christina was crazy jealous of my friend Alisha. I often wondered if it would have been an issue if Alisha had been my friend first, but as it turned out, she didn’t enter the picture until nearly two years after Christina put her possessive fingerprints all over my life. Christina’s jealousy was rooted in a few factors:

• Alisha and I became fast friends and quickly began spending pretty much every weekend together.
• Alisha is a lesbian so clearly we were having sex together here, there and everywhere during all those weekends.

Unfortunately, this was not true, but it’s how Christina acted.  I thought she would be happy for me because at that time, I didn’t really have many friends around Pittsburgh. And now I had found one with whom I connected on a deeper level than I would typically. Alisha and I could spend hours just sitting in her kitchen, smoking cigarettes and talking about everything; I could be myself around her, serious and silly all at once. And I quickly found that she was open to new music, so I started making her mix CDs.

Another thing that boiled Christina’s blood, I’m sure.

Alisha was also the one, back in March of that year, who warned me of the potential dangers of getting romantically involved with Christina. We had a talk about boundaries and when I told Christina this later, she insisted Alisha was trying to talk me out of it because she wanted me for herself.

Obviously! But I wonder why Alisha, after FIVE YEARS, has yet to make a move? Maybe because WE’RE JUST FRIENDS?

***

That Sunday, the day after the infamous pb&j meltdown, Alisha came over to meet Christina. I’ve never really felt like that before, but I was actually embarrassed to have them meet.

Embarrassed that Christina was going to act like an idiot.

Embarrassed that Alisha was going to think, “Oh my god, THAT’S what you’ve been having sex with?”

It was pretty awkward. I don’t remember the two of them really talking at all. I can close my eyes and picture Alisha sitting in the chair by the window, her back to Christina, eyes on the TV. Eyes still closed, I can picture Christina roiling about on the couch, animation level kicked up to 900.

And then Henry left to pick up pizza, at which point the tension increased significantly. It was obvious that Christina wasn’t going to make an effort, and I honestly didn’t feel it was Alisha’s job to go out of her way.

Since the next day was Memorial Day and Henry was once in the SERVICE, I decided we should make him a card. Not out of love or respect, of course; don’t get it twisted. But out of my special brand of emasculation that I reserve for Henry.

I got out all the supplies and set to work on the floor of the living room. All the other two had to do was sit there and wait for their turn to sign it. I’m very Type A when it comes to arts and crafts. Since we didn’t have much time before Henry came back, I tried to be as simplistic as possible, relying mostly on marker but adding a small amount of glitter glue for spunk. A very small amount.

Before handing the card over to be signed by Alisha and Christina, I warned them to be careful they didn’t smudge the glittered outline of the stars.

Alisha signed her name with competence.

Christina grabbed the card and immediately rammed her big fucking thumb into one of the stars, smudging the perfection of my masterpiece.

It was not a good weekend for something like this to happen and I probably made a bigger deal about it than I should have. But there was already an air of annoyance steady radiating around Christina all weekend. Even when she was sitting quietly, I was finding things to hate about her. Glitter-thumbing Henry’s card was the last straw. I was over it. Done-zo. Couldn’t co-exist in the same room with her anymore.

It’s safe to wager that I made her cry after vomiting my wrath all over her face.  I had a knack of making her cry just by slitting my eyes in malice.

***

Apparently, Henry liked the card so much he jizzed on it.

Then Henry had to ruin the already-cursed card by pointing out that he’s not technically a Vet, which caused me to cry, “OMG YOU HATE MY CARD!” (This card’s clearly been through the war over the last five years. OH!)

***

At the end of the night, I wanted to take Alisha home by myself.

“She only lives 10 minutes away, if that,” I argued with Christina. “Just stay here.”

“But I want to come!” she begged. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. God forbid I should be alone in a car with Alisha! She might try to impregnate me. Short of distracting her with a toy and sneaking out like I do with Chooch, it was clear no ditching was going to happen that night.

So not only did she get her way, but she sat in the front seat! Alisha is very mild-mannered and didn’t make a big deal about it, but I was pissed. Alisha was my guest and Christina should have sat in the backseat where she belonged.

We drove in silence.

Alisha got out.

We drove back in silence.

That night, I lay in bed with Henry and blurted out, “Henry, what have I done? I can’t stand to be around her! I want her to go home.”

He just laughed and mumbled something about the bed I’d made.

***

After watching the annual Memorial Day parade that goes past my house, Christina and I were sitting on the couch together. I was trying to watch the French Open, but all I could hear was her breathing.

And her toes cracking.

And her breathing.

There was a good three feet between us on the couch, but it felt like she was melding into me.

“When does your bus leave?” I asked with gritted teeth.

She answered, “6:00pm” and I felt my heart sink. It was only 11:00am.

“Aren’t there any buses that leave earlier?” I prodded. She shrugged and I suggested, “Maybe you should go FIND OUT.”

There weren’t. Short of dropping her off at the Greyhound station seven hours early (which I wanted to do but Henry stepped in and stopped that), I was pretty much stuck with her.

And her toes cracking.

And her breathing.

This was not something I’ve ever experienced with friends before – only boyfriends that I’m growing tired of. It’s the inevitable closing credits of the honeymoon period where the reality of all their flaws and peccadilloes come bubbling to the surface, leaving a trail of strewn socks and Q-tips and puddles of urine all over the lip of the commode. There’s little physical contact and everything is amplified. I never noticed her breathing before. Or the cracking toes. Or how pathetic she looked when she stared at me with her jutting lips and drooping eyes. I wondered how much her presence  was responsible for tipping the scale during my bi-polar episodes; if the pb&j craving would have even inflated to such Sybilacious proportions had she not been there.

I knew that it was time to end this bizarre relationship and try to salvage what ever pieces were left of our friendship. I didn’t want to hate her. I wanted to go back to the way things were. We didn’t talk about it that day. The whole weekend was so traumatic to me that I just wanted it to end on a good note. So Christina watched old home videos with me, videos from when I was 18 and living in my first apartment. It helped to see myself so happy on TV. It distracted me from the cracking toes, the breathing, and the Dear John letter that was looming around the corner. We were able to spend the last few hours laughing together as I immersed myself in the backstories of everything she was watching on these videos.

Sharing those memories with her made me realize that I definitely didn’t want to ruin our friendship.

***

I emailed her after that weekend and explained it all to her, how I felt that every time we crossed that line, it might have seemed like it was making us closer at first, but I was afraid that it was actually chipping away at our bond and I didn’t want to reach that point of no return, where it became all or nothing.

Her reply:

i just don’t know what to say.

i understand that our “relationship” wasn’t typical,
or as you say it was barely one… but even so- it
meant a lot to me. i can move on though- because our
friendship means more to me than any of that other
stuff ever did. i’m not trying to do anything that
makes us not friends…

She swore she was fine with things, but I knew she wasn’t based on the fact she had resorted to her old ways of drowning her problems in sex. She still hadn’t fully come out yet and would pretty much give herself to any man with a working penis. I remember one day that June, she called me and bragged that she had given a blow job to this guy Jack from her work. He was married. His wife had just had a baby. Kudos, Christina.

I didn’t seek out to hurt her through the whole process. I never felt that I was playing games with her. I was following my heart. I was willing to give her a shot. It didn’t work out and now she was going to make me pay for it by whoring herself out and bragging about it to me.

We were supposed to go to Warped Tour together in Columbus (our halfway point) shortly after that, but I bailed on her the morning of. I just couldn’t imagine spending an entire day with her so soon after breaking up with her and then processing the fact that she was essentially doling out blow jobs at the workplace. Christina wound up still going with her sister instead and told me later that she saw Sylvia there. Awfully coincidental that Sylvia, whose brain isn’t developed enough to appreciate anything that isn’t Mariah Carey or anything equally as banal, would not only go to Warped Tour, but one that wasn’t even in her own city.

Even when Christina and I were just platonic friends, that hag was always hanging around, waiting, plotting, salivating hungrily for her turn at Christina. I always knew in my heart Sylvia would eventually get her way, but I still had faith that Christina would make the right choice.

One of the awesome things about my friend Lisa is that she calls me every time something reminds her of me. This has been especially meaningful  since she’s been living in Colorado for the past few years and I don’t get to see her very often. Even if it’s just a song I like that’s playing in the supermarket, she’ll call and sing it on my voice mail.

Today’s phone call was because she saw someone that reminded her of me.

“I was in Whole Foods,” she began. “This lady was walking past me and I was like, ‘Erin Kelly!'”

I’m sitting in my car, having just left the cemetery, and imagining my Colorado doppelganger walking past Lisa, looking fantastic with a slew of sycophants in her wake. Hopefully she wasn’t dripping in sweat and sun tan oil with her hair pulled back in a moist bun like I was at that moment.

Lisa went on to extrapolate. “She walked just like you! You know the pouty way you used to walk in high school when you were upset and wanted someone to follow you?”

“Lisa, I still walk like that,” I admitted.

She laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

I came home from my cemetery run and relayed the phone call to Henry.

“I know that walk quite well,” he mumbled with a frown.

One week and three days until Lisa and her husband Matt move back to Pittsburgh!

[Ed.Note: I mentioned when I started this series that I was going to write some things that would make me look bad, too. This is one of those things. But it’s important, because otherwise I would just be writing a biased “Christina is a horrible friend, pity me!” series of posts. She was, at one time, a loyal friend. Maybe now it will make a little more sense why I kept going back to her, in spite of the stalking and the lies.]

The month of May 2005 was practically a Lifetime movie of the trials and tribulations of a bi-polar asshole. It had it all: suicidal thoughts, attempted OD’ing on anti-psychotics, and worst of all – LIVEJOURNAL DELETION. I know what you’re thinking: How did you ever survive that, Erin?

Well, I had Henry and Christina. They were like a Bi-Polar Damage Control tag team. When Henry couldn’t handle me, he’d turn me over to Christina, who would try to soothe me via telephone. Christina took to buying me CDs and even made me a memory box full of things only she and I would understand, in an attempt to keep me on this earth.

The hot and heavy portion of my relationship with Christina had fizzled out into a ramekin of soggy, ambivalent passion ashes, like a culinary student’s first flambe, but she was still my best friend. At the end of the day, that was her number one role in my life. Best friend.

It got really bad one weekend, like wrist-slitting bad. Henry called Christina himself for that one and asked her to come here. It was a Sunday, but she didn’t hesitate. She somehow bribed her sister to drive for 300 miles and I was a total shit to her when they got here. Christina had stopped somewhere along the way and got me a ring out of a gumball machine. It was a lion,  still inside its round plastic cocoon; I took it from her and chucked it across the room. She spent the rest of the night sitting on the couch, me all curled up like a suicidal cat, crying and punching her. Then crying and hugging her. Then crying and slapping her. She had to leave the next morning so she could make it to work that evening. 600 miles so I could take it all out on her.

Like I said, it was a bad month.

And like I said, she was my best friend.

****

She came back for Memorial Day weekend, arriving here that Friday night on a Greyhound. I was still not feeling right mentally, but she had started to broach all those dreaded relationship questions. She was definitely the female in this dynamic. Me, I’d have been delighted to just let it fizzle. But she was so lovesick. I would literally catch her staring at me with these droopy, sad eyes and her lips would be protruded in such a strong pout that Gary Coleman could have used it as a trampoline. And the heavy, wistful sighs. And the unwanted gestures. And the breathing! God, just fucking stop breathing on me.

I couldn’t have felt more smothered, even if my face was pinned under the ass of Ruben Studdard. (And I don’t even watch American Idol, so figure that one out.)

Saturday afternoon, I was hungry. Actually, I was passed the point of basic human hunger, and had reached the point where I was trapezing from the precipice of homicide. There is a small window in which my hunger can be sated with no causalities, but Henry and Christina were too busy being insensitive to my needs to realize I was about to start busting caps.

For the 79th time, I screamed, “I want a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwich!”

“We don’t have any bread,” Henry said in the calm tone of Dr. Loomis, after Michael Myers escaped for the fortieth time.

“Well, I want a peanut butter and JELLY SANDWICH!” I roared.

This went back and forth for quite some time and you can imagine how pleasant and thoroughly intellectually stimulating it must have been for all involved parties.

Eventually, I did what I do best and stormed out of the room, being sure to brattily knock things over in my mad wake. I pouted at the computer for a little while.

Meanwhile, golf was on. Yeah, I was missing GOLF because Henry was being a complete prat and wouldn’t go buy BREAD so that his QUEEN could have her fucking  CAKE (peanut butter and jelly sandwich). And then I heard something that shot straight up my spine and bazooka’d my amygdala.

Laughter.

Quiet, sly, SHARED laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I screamed, twisting around in my chair to further inspect the guilty parties. I hated that they were straight up twittering over there. They were supposed to hate each other!

“We were just laughing at what this one golfer is wearing,” Christina started to explain, but I had already stampeded up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door. Unfortunately, I was still hungry so I came back down.

Somehow I wound up with a grilled cheese suctioned to the bottom of a  styrofoam container on account of all the molten cheese tentacles congealing with grease and pure disgust. It was from this sandwich shop that used to be down the street but went out of business on account of all the molten cheese tentacles congealing with grease and pure disgust.

It was so far from what I wanted. You know how can you tell? BECAUSE IT WASN’T A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH. So I found myself sitting there on the chaise, picking at this grody grilled cheese, when suddenly Henry decided it was cool to make light of the situation and began poking fun at how “difficult Erin can be when she’s hungry!” Oh hardy har har, you mother fucker, let me show you difficult.

I freaked out. Tossed the sandwich. Began windmilling my limbs like I was at a Gravemaker show, while screaming, “Don’t make fun of me! What’s so hard to understand when someone asks for a PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH?”

This went on for awhile and ended with me locked in my bedroom with a bottle of Trazadone.

Actually, when I tell this story to people, I always say, “And then they thought I was trying to like, kill myself or something, but all I was doing was reading a magazine.” Though according to the entry I made that night in my journal, which I just read to make sure my facts were straight for this, I was totally hoping to kill myself. I must have blocked that part out.

All these years, I really thought I was just trying to read Alternative Press.

***

That’s the thing about being bi-polar. The good times are really super good times, and the bad times are slit-your-throat-with-a-frying-pan bad times.  It wasn’t really about the peanut butter and jelly that day. It was a greater frustration, a sad confusion, a muscle-shaking fury which all met in the middle and took on the embodiment of a two slices of bread slathered with Skippy. There’s always a trigger. Sometimes it can be someone’s tone that I’m mishearing, sometimes a shirt I can’t find in my dresser. Today it was a pb&j.

I’m not that bad anymore. As I age, I find new ways to control it. Oh, I still feel it. I still break things and I still lock myself in my room. But mostly I can just walk away now. Mostly. It’s still there, festering in my brain but I’m a mom now. I have a kid. I have to try extra hard to make sure he doesn’t see Hulk Erin. And this is why I don’t have many close friends. It’s embarrassing when this happens, and it has happened in front of an audience before. I keep most people at arm’s length, because no one should be expected to have to deal with this behavior. It’s easier that way.

***

I ignored the knocks at my bedroom door; after awhile, suspiciously, they stopped. I imagined the two of them leaning into my door with Peanuts glasses pressed against their ears, listening for sounds of a razor meeting flesh.

Then I heard Henry’s muffled voice telling me Christina was crying. Like that was going to lure me out. Oh, Christina’s CRYING? Let me suddenly turn off my psychosis and I’ll be right down.

Then I heard Christina sniffling. She said, “I walked to the store and bought bread,” and when she received no response, she added, “And I bought you something.”

Meanwhile, Henry, not to be undone, had fetched his TOOL BOX and was going to take the door apart the door, I suppose. I could hear him out there pissing around in some manner of disassembly and it was really jacking me off.

But Christina had won with the words “I bought you something.” Maybe also because deep down, I couldn’t stand that I had made her cry. I opened the bedroom door before Henry could even figure out which screwdriver to use on the hinge. It was the most passive aggressive competition ever. What happened to the days when Scott Ash and Jay Mulligan fist-fought for my love after gym class in ninth grade? Now all I get is a purple plastic cup with a straw bent to resemble a flower and some pedestrian attempt at breaking down a door? A real man would have shouldered that bitch right off the frame. A real man like JOHN BLACK from Days of Our Lives.

So Christina came in and laid down with me in the bed, trying to suggest all these terrific diversions, like going for a drive and listening to Fall Out Boy. (Please, this was 2005.) I kept telling her shut up but she wouldn’t so I screamed some more and ran downstairs, where I sat on the chaise and tried to just focus on the really exciting golf thingie that was on TV.

And here came Henry, with a goddamn peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Like he was some goddamn hero now.

“No thanks,” I said. Like I wanted that now? That ship has sailed, you bastard. I mean, Christ. Now they’re both so eager to feed me peanut butter? (I realize I could have solved this whole dilemma myself hours earlier, like a big girl, but then I wouldn’t have this super awesome story to share today. And you might not have gotten any other chance to see how fucking retarded I am!)

But he kept pushing the sandwich on me.  “No, I don’t want this anymore,” I said again, clenching my hands. Besides, Christina bought the wrong kind of bread.

Henry then began baby-talking me, like it was OK to start with the jokes ten minutes after they were practically hanging up with the suicide hotline.

Finally, I knocked the plate out of his hand and yelled, “I SAID NO, I DON’T WANT THE FUCKING SANDWICH! WHAT PART OF NO DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Then I spent more time locked in my room. I suppose you would be upset too, if you nearly got raped by a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Blogathon is only a little more than a week away. I don’t like hounding people (Henry is probably choking on an incredulous laugh right now), which is why I’d make a terrible religious zealot (well, that and the non-believer aspect of my personality too, I guess); but this IS for a good cause. It’s exciting! It’s fun! No, really, it’s excruciating but at least in the end I feel like I’ve polished my humanity a little tiny bit and maybe made a small impact on something bigger than all of us.

So here is the original post again; maybe you want to sponsor me. Maybe you want to stake out a spot in the cheering section. Maybe you even want to participate in Blogathon yourself, which would be fantastic! Maybe you don’t care at all, and that is fine too. (Actually, that sucks, but forcing you to care would be like forcing me to go see Miley Cyrus “live” on stage. I feel ya.)

Thank you so much to the awesome people who have already sponsored me! Don’t forget to claim your incentives! Just drop me a comment or an email: butgavincantdance @ gmail.com

It’s that time of year, you guys! Blogathon time!

This year, the masterminds behind the official Blogathon have pulled the plug on it, quite unexpectedly and without explanation. Luckily, there are people out there unlike me who are good at rising to the occasion and taking charge. So there will be an alternate Blogathon after all! It will still take place on Saturday, July 31st, starting at 9:00am EST and ending twenty-four hours from then. The goal is to post every half hour for the entire twenty four hours, no cheating!

I have done this three times in the past and while it is a BEAST to get through, it’s more fun than anything else, and the end result is so rewarding, even for assholes like me. I always want to be able to donate to charities, to do SOMETHING to make a difference, and annoying the Internet for an entire day is a pretty Erin-perfect way to do so.

This year, I have chosen the Greater New Orleans Foundation Oil Spill Relief Fund. Since there is no official Blogathon site to keep track of sponsors, and to give you guys peace of mind, I have created a fundraising page over at Razoo. This way, you can rest easy knowing that if you sponsor me, the money isn’t going to be put in a Wacky Worm collection pot.

As always, there will be incentives!

• $10 – you give me a word, any word, and I have to use it in an entry
  
• $15 – the aforementioned word to be used in an entry, plus the fan favorite: Have Henry Do Ridiculous Things In Front of the Camera
  
• $20 – all of the above, plus I’ll prank call someone for you
• $30 – all of the above, plus one of my Somnambulant pendants (if you’re a dude, I will just paint something for you if you prefer)
• anything greater than this, you get it ALL plus I will interview you on my blog. That’s >30 seconds of fame right there!

And remember – if you can’t donate at this time but would still like to help me, please remember to check back here on Saturday July 31st and leave me cheerleading-worthy comments! And tell your friends and family! Or, if you don’t have friends and family, tell your cell mate, parole officer, interpreter.

If you would like to sponsor me, please visit my Razoo fundraising page!

To get a taste of what Blogathon is like ’round these parts, feel free to check out the archive from last year. It’s um, a real treat. For everyone involved. Right, Henry? (For the record, Henry said he’s moving out for Blogathon.)

One of the best things about being a member (it took me four tries to spell ‘member,’ I hate myself today) of Etsy’s Dark Side is the birthday swap that goes on there. I had forgotten that I had signed up for it until Monday, when I came home to a package that Henry had propped on the fireplace mantle, (sort of) out of Chooch’s reach.

“Oh shit, birthday swap!” I yelled, after remembering that my birthday is July 30 and that I haven’t sent away for any complimentary Bibles lately.

It was a gift from the undeniably awesome Canadian Meeshah!

Knowing that I love horror movies, she painted me this:

I fucking love it! Of course Chooch thinks it’s his and we’ve been fighting over it like hateful siblings ever since.

She also included a skull necklace, which I wanted to wear to work yesterday but Henry was being an asshole and wouldn’t put it on for me. THIS is why we’re not married, you guys.

Just this. Not my infidelities, oh no.

So far this birthday has the promise of being way better than last year’s disaster.

Thank you, Meeshah and Etsy’s Dark Side for making this ol’ sack of emo potatoes feel loved.

If you left a comment on my blog Monday night and it’s since been deleted, it’s because Henry was fucking around with the database.

Not because I’m a bitch or a whore.  Well, I am both of those things, but you know what I mean.

Not gonna lie, I leaped out of bed at 7:30am on the day of Warped Tour. Never mind the fact that I didn’t even go to bed until after 3:00am, because I was all giddy and jittery like it was Christmas Eve. I had waited an entire year for this year. Henry had barely pulled into the parking lot of First Niagara Pavilion a little after 10:00am and I was already crying. Not bad tears! No, these were “I’m so fucking happy, fucking finally” tears. I can’t explain it, but the atmosphere alone of Warped Tour is like an upper for me. Instant good mood. Huge, goofy smile. Excited tugs on Henry’s sleeve.

And this is just in the parking lot.

It was over ninety degrees that day and I know Henry had to have been broiling a ballsack feast inside his shorts, but he knows by now that Warped Tour is a No Bitch Zone. It was so humid out that some guy in front of us quietly vomited three times.

And this was just in the line to get in.

There’s always that one band I’m dying to see every year, and this year it was hands down, no contest Pierce the Veil. The fact that they didn’t start until 3:40 was a blessing and a curse all at once. A curse because, obviously, I”m super anxious to see them and just thinking about it made me do pee-squats, like I was waiting in the woods for my boyfriend to arrive and steal my virginity. Those kind of pee-squats. Maybe you’re familiar. But it’s also a blessing because the first set of the day start AS SOON AS the gates open. And the line doesn’t always move that swiftly. In 2007, I missed CHIODOS (CHIODOS, YOU GUYS) because Christina’s douche canoe sister pissed around so bad that morning that we didn’t arrive until noon and their set was at 11:15.

So, I was happy that I wouldn’t have to right off the bat grab Henry’s bear-paw and drag him frantically over hills and through droves of scene kids, searching for the right stage. We had plenty of time to mosey around like creepy old people and catch Call the Cops and Dillinger Escape Plan, and then pause to watch some of Set Your Goals, Alesana, and The Pretty Reckless (little Jenny Humphrey can SANG, ya’ll), all in the first 90 minutes. Best part about Warped Tour: bored? Then move the fuck on.

I’ve been to all sorts of music festivals: a bunch of the various radio shows (you know, the X-Fests that pretty much every city had), even driving as far as Wisconsin from Pittsburgh to catch Cold play a 30-minute set at one; Rolling Rock Town Fair; Locabazooka; Curiosa; even Coachella. But none of those festivals ever made me feel like Warped Tour does. Coachella especially, I can remember feeling really insecure and self-conscious. It was hands down one of the most pretentious concerts I’ve ever gone to. Don’t get me wrong, it was worth flying across the country for, because The Cure headlined the second night, but the whole vibe of the place was shitty for me. I spent more time feeling uncomfortable and out of place than actually enjoying the experience for what it was worth (two plane tickets from Pittsburgh, a rental car, a hotel room, and the tickets to Coachella was a LOT OF WORTH). There was a blog post on Alternative Press’s website that I linked to a couple of weeks ago about why Warped Tour is still relevant. And in this opinion piece, the writer mentioned that it’s a place for kids to feel like they belong somewhere, to be somewhere around similar people. I’m far from a kid, I’ll be 31 at the end of July, but this is why Warped Tour is relevant to me as well. I feel more comfortable in my skin on that one day than I do any other day of the year. Even as an adult, I’ve never really found my “place.” I still don’t feel like I “fit in,” (though there’s less of an urgency for that these days) and I still kind of feel unaccepted by my peers at times because there is a large part of me that is forever young. It’s just that now it doesn’t bother me like it did. Now I find ways to get around the fact that I don’t have much in common with people my age, and I’ve learned how to make it work.

Although, it’s still nice to have that one day where I can walk around and hear kids name-dropping Ollie Sykes and Austin Carlile (who wasn’t there, but two of his ex-bands were), or wondering out loud who’s going to be guest-screaming today with Of Mice & Men (because I know you’re chomping at the bit to know, it was Coco from Her Demise, My Rise). It’s like, this is my language. I talk about this shit anywhere else and people are like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you just talk about John Mayer & Dave Matthews Band & health insurance  like the rest of us normal adults?”

And it’s funny because Henry knows all this shit too, just because he has to live in a world strewn with worn pages of Alternative Press, Havoc music videos, and a teenage daughter (THAT’S ME) who reads online music forums instead of Us Weekly like most normal girls her age. He even likes some of it, but he probably wouldn’t admit that out loud.

I like this picture for 2 reasons:

1. you can see tents in my sunglasses

2. Henry looks put-out

Every year, there’s always that one band that I’ve never heard of that I end up falling in love with after thirty seconds. Last year, it was Remember Thy Name. This year, it was Last Call Chernobyl. The singer had a scream that tore the skin off my soul. “That’s my favorite kind of screaming!” I yelled to Henry, and I mean YELLED TO HENRY since we were in the front of the stage by the speakers. Henry of course looked at me like I was retarded for liking screamo so much that I have a predilection for a certain type of scream. And there ARE different types of screaming.

I was excited to see Polar Bear Club, since the previous time was at a really shitty venue in Pittsburgh when they opened for Thrice and I couldn’t actually see the band. They were playing on the AP/Advent stage under the pavilion, so Henry gave a little fist pump because this meant he could sit down. Polar Bear Club is a band that “older people” like too, so I thought Henry would finally get a chance to see something he could enjoy. That motherfucker was snoring within two minutes. Every year he falls asleep! Although this time it wasn’t as impressive as last year when he slept through a thrashing metal set.

At around 3:20, we made our way to the front of the Altec stage and claimed our spots at the barrier. Waiting is the hardest fucking part. I was doing a pee jig and flashing giddy squealing faces over my shoulder at Henry. I was somehow not surrounded by assholes (other than Henry). It was the perfect spot on the perfect day, waiting for the perfect band.

Pierce the Veil was at Warped Tour in 2008. Blake saved me from getting knocked out, but I still took a few shoes to the head that year. Aside from Chiodos (who were there last year), they are definitely my favorite band to see at Warped Tour because their sets are flawless and exciting; even Henry said after the first time that “they weren’t bad.” That’s the best Henry can do when it comes to the bands I like.

They always pretty theatrical entrances. I don’t even know (or care) what this guy was saying because everyone was screaming so loud.

They came out and dove right into “Caraphernalia” and I tried so hard to fight the tears but they started rolling down my cheeks in spite of my efforts. I cried through the entire set, it was so stupid.

• Caraphernalia
• Chemical Kids and Mechanical Brides
• Currents Convulsive
• The Boy Who Could Fly
  
• Yeah Boy and Doll Face
  
• The Sky Under the Sea

I’ve waited almost two years to see them again. The last time was in Buffalo in 2008 with Christina, and that was not so good because of the company. Besides, this is one of the few bands Henry likes too and I like seeing them with him. So many of their lyrics make me think of him. (Don’t tell him that. Well no, you can, because they’re mostly the morbid ones.)

During “The Boy Who Could Fly,” (they used Drake’s “Find Your Love” as an intro which was fucking sick) Vic climbed into the crowd and held out the mic for all the kids to shout a resounding “Without you there is no me” and I lost it. I was crying so hard at that point, that my eyes were burning from the mixture of tears and sweat. I was so grateful for my sunglasses. When they were done, I turned around and put my head on Henry’s belly. My heart hurt so much and I couldn’t remember how to breathe correctly. Essentially, I was just a huge mess.

All the live videos I found were shitty and did no justice.

But there was no time to stand around and slit my wrists because Emarosa was playing next on a stage which required us to hustle to get there on time. It was actually the smallest stage there that day, which made laugh because Jonny Craig, Emarosa’s singer, is so fucking cocky that I imagine he expected to be on the main stage. But no, they were relegated to the tiny stage that folds out from the side of a truck. We grabbed spots next to the barrier and I immediately spotted Jonny in a douchey red trucker cap, hanging out behind the truck. I mean, stage. You might remember a post I had about him last fall, after I experienced his backwoods brand of douchery first hand for the second time. Well, that particular post is one of my top 3 posts, stats-wise, thanks to all the fans out there who Google terms such as “Why is Jonny Craig a dick?” “I hate Jonny Craig” “Did Jonny Craig impregnate a dog?” & “Why does Jonny Craig suck so hard?” See? I’m not the only one. He’s pretty notorious in the scene.

There were a few times we made direct eye contact, and I kept hissing to Henry, “OMG HE KNOWS I WROTE ABOUT HIM!” (Someone involved with the band does, because the dashboard to their bandcamp.com page was a referring link in my stats a few weeks ago, for that specific post. That was awesome.)

It was hilarious to hear the murmurings of “OMG it’s Jonny!” spread like wildfire as kids began noticing his presence.

The moment he picked up the mic and began belting out “Set It Off Like Napalm,” I was in this confusing, twisted agony of love and hate. Never have I experience such conflicting emotions over a band before. They have had a huge impact on my life over the past few years, mostly because of Jonny, and that impact started even before Emarosa, when he was in Dance Gavin Dance. And now, mostly because of Jonny, I almost cringe when I hear them, because of my personal experiences with him. I don’t want that to affect how I feel about the music and it’s a constant battle to keep those things separate. But as a fan, I’m not too proud to admit that he let me down. I don’t like having a foul taste in my mouth when it comes to a singer I admire. I want to respect him as an artist, but it’s hard when I can’t respect him as a person.

I kept turning around and sticking my tongue out at Henry to signify my disgust for who was on the stage, but at the same time, my inner teenager was sighing, “Oh, Jonny.” It was so bi-polar. It was agony.

Luckily, he didn’t do too much douche-drizzling on stage that day, instead opting to put on a fantastic set.  He clearly wasn’t drunk this time, yay! So his vocals were spot-on and the band was sick. I cannot deny that this guy has one of the best, if not THE BEST, vocals in the scene today. I’d be willing to fight about it, actually. I still prefer his early work in Dance Gavin Dance though, because it was more interesting, but that’s just me. My only problem with Emarosa is that the lyrics don’t really strike me; they’re average and at times, contrived. If it wasn’t for Jonny’s voice, they’d be just another band fighting for an identity. (In my opinion, that is; I’m big on lyrics!)

Nice to see he has a mullet now. I would have been happier to see the Jonny-tail of yore. (Which is seriously what the back of Chooch’s head is modeled after.)

• Set It Off Like Napalm
• Heads Or Tails? Real Or Not
  
• A Toast To Future Kids
• Truth Hurts While Laying On Your Back
• The Past Should Stay Dead

I could tell Henry was fighting the urge to scream, “OMG JONNY!!!” with all the other little girls (and guys!) as Jonny walked off the stage. (Chooch just walked over here, saw these photos and said, “Ugh. Jonny’s a bitch.” See?! Even a four-year-old knows.)

After that, we were able to just float around and take our time with things, soak up the atmosphere. Well, that’s what I was doing anyway. Henry was too busy spending all my merch money on $5 bottles of Sprite because he’s too much of a bitch to suck it up and drink water like the rest of us smarties. You know how much I spent on beverages? $4.50 for one bottle of water, which I proceeded to refill at a water fountain all day long.  Henry’s too good for that, though. Thanks Henry, I didn’t really want to buy a t-shirt anyway.

There’s always a Top-40 artist included on Warped Tour (two years ago it was Katy fucking Perry), and this year it was Mike Posner. When the set first started, it was pretty chill. I was actually not minding it. But midway through the second song I was bored to tears. I needed screaming and thrashing guitars. Plus, we were sitting under the pavilion watching him while eating frozen Minute Maid lemonade and I suddenly felt really old, like I should be at a Steve Miller show (which I actually went to when I was 18, so I don’t know why I picked that as my example).

I’m not a fan of chick-fronted bands. Alisha can vouch for that. And there were a lot of girly bands there this year. Fuck Hey Monday and Automatic Loveletter (seen them before, snooze fest). But I did make a point to catch Eyes Set To Kill, because that girl can fucking sing, and they’re not a pussy band.  Alexia has more talent than most of the other Warped Tour girls combined.

I hate when the sky looks like that because it means the day is coming to an end. Leaving is the worst part. Waiting for next year is even worster! I nagged Henry the whole way to his sister’s house to pick up Chooch.

“WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART?” <–He always says “when we left” for that one.

“DID YOU LOVE PIERCE THE VEIL?”

“WHAT DID YOU THINK OF JONNY?

“CAN WE GO TO THE ONE IN CLEVELAND?”

Henry said this was his last year. We’ll see about that.

I have been so sad ever since July 7, 2010. To torture myself, I still get the official VansWarpedTour tweets sent to my phone and I read them wistfully, sighing heavily at all that I’m missing on the other dates. Warped Tour brings on a post-show depression like none other than I’ve ever experienced. My Christmas Day is over for another year.

[There are more photos here! Plus, they’re better when viewed larger. My blog layout doesn’t allow for wide photos, right HENRY?]

There was a girl with whom I had a brief friendship in 1995.  Her name was Jessy and she was taken in by the family who lived at the end of the lane. The only thing we really had in common on the surface was that we were both sixteen, but there was an easy comfort when I was with her, and a lot of the times I was sneaking out to go down to her house because I just couldn’t be around my parents anymore. I have vivid memories of dyeing Easter eggs in her kitchen and going to the mall to  buy 2Pac’s “All Eyez on Me” and a pair of purple pants from Contempo that were dangerously close to being bell bottoms.I have no idea what I was thinking.

Then one day she was gone and I never knew why. She wasn’t in school anymore, wasn’t in the house at the end of the lane anymore.

I’m not sure what made me look for her on Facebook, but I found her a few months ago. I sent a friend request with a message that started with, “You probably don’t remember me, but…” I never think anyone remembers me; that’s my inferiority complex rearing it’s gnarly head, I guess.

But she did remember me, and so we started messaging each other. Then we started texting. It took a few months and a lot of rescheduling, but we finally met up last Sunday for lunch at Panera.

She was exactly as I remembered. There is something about her, something very nurturing and maternal, that makes my walls come down. I found that I could speak freely with her, and was admitting things about myself that I would never be so quick to share. Especially with someone I hadn’t seen in fourteen years! I wasn’t even speaking with a stutter, which I often do when hanging out with someone new. But then, I associated calmness with her, because she was sort of my refuge for awhile there when things were bad at home. I’ll never forget that.

“Are you still really clumsy?” she asked. I laughed, but inside, I was really happy that she remembered that about me.

She brought a present with her. She’s been reading my blog (which is the #1 most awesome thing someone can do to prove they give a shit about me!) and picked up on my obsession with my cat Marcy. She found a cutting board that has a Marcy-esque cat on it. It’s the cutest thing!

“Henry can use it,” she laughed, knowing that I don’t cook.

Before we knew it, our Panera lunch  had crept into dinner territory.

I had hoped that this wouldn’t be one of those one-time deals, that we’d make empty promises to hang out again, only to gradually drift apart.

But then she invited me over on Saturday to swim with her and her friend Pixie. I have this phobia where I feel that my friends are embarrassed to have their other friends meet me (Alisha knows!) so right away I was like, “OMG I’m a cool kid now!”

I almost didn’t make it. I didn’t have a bathing suit, and was having the worst time finding a one-piece. The middle of July is a fantastic time to shop for swim wear. I was sending her all of these “I’M GOING TO KILL MYSELF FUCK MY LIFE TODAY SUCKS” texts but she kept coming back with words of reason, plan b’s and c’s and z’s, until finally I calmed down and found something that wasn’t meant for grandmas.

Henry dropped me off at her house, happy that I had a play date that didn’t involve him. And I ended up having a great afternoon in a pool with two cool girls who didn’t make me feel lame or left out. (That is, after I walked into Jessy’s house and promptly tripped going into the living room. And I also entered the pool by basically stumbling and falling off the ladder.) And it turns out her friend Pixie likes A LOT of the same bands as me, like Pierce the Veil, Emarosa and Chiodos. I almost drowned.

When Henry came back to get me, we all stood in the yard and talked while Jessy’s husband Tommy antagonized Chooch. Chooch LOVES IT when grown-ups play with him. LOVES IT.

“You’re family now, babe,” Jessy said, hugging me before I left.

The whole way home, I talked a mile a minute to Henry, like I had just come home from summer camp with eighteen new friends.

Sunday morning, Chooch was like, “I want to go to your friend’s house again and play with her dogs.” And so Henry, Chooch and I spent most of Sunday with Jessy and Tommy at their house and it was pretty much amazing. Henry and I don’t have couple friends! And now he and Tommy are talking about going FISHING together! I can only imagine how much fodder that will give me for Henry’s fake LiveJournal!

Best of all, it was nice to see my kid have so much fun. Tommy rode him around on his quad and set off firecrackers for him. And Jessy and I only nearly let him drown in the pool twice.

Tommy and Chooch, bonding over explosives. (I didn’t bring my camera, because I’m a dummy. iPhone pics for the loss.)

Tommy and Jessy are so fun and welcoming. Apparently, there are plans to put me in a CANOE. If you know me at all, right about now you’re like, “Oh, good luck.”

[Promise this is the last of this series!]

There were two reasons I had to go back to the Butler County Fair last week:

1. When Chooch found out that I had gone to the fair without him, the sad dog pound eyes he gave me seriously made me feel like the biggest asshole of a mother
2. I’m so neurotic when it comes to photos that the fact I left the Canon at home absolutely gnawed at my heart

I needed to go back with:

1. my son
2. the good camera (it’s a sickness, I’m aware)

Alisha was game to go back too. We decided we (Alisha, Henry and myself) would just stick with the $5 general admission and just get the ride all day pass for Chooch. I thought I would be OK with this, having had just re-learned how to walk without bowing my legs after all the riding I did the previous week. But as soon as we walked through those gates, that goddamn itch was there. I saw the Wacky Worm and the Freak Out and began wistfully chewing on my lip. Then I saw KIRK! and yelled to Henry, “OH MY GOD IT’S KIRK, LOOK! NO DON’T LOOK! LOOK IT’S KIRK!” He was walking right toward us and I was practically weaving a disguise out of Alisha’s hair so he wouldn’t see me.

Then we saw Andrew and his Dutch pancakes and I shouted, “Oh my god, there’s Andrew! Henry, do I have your permission to have sex with him? OH MY GOD, DON’T LOOK OVER THERE!” It was so surreal, like we were walking through an alternate plane, seeing all these people Alisha and I had met a week before, but now they were like celebrities that we couldn’t approach. (Mostly because I was being too idiotic at that point.)

In my other Big Butler accounts, I never mentioned this one super slick guy Alisha and I previously met. She and I were innocently sharing an order of cheesy tornado chips at a table tucked away behind two food vendors when this really smooth guy sauntered over and asked, “Do you think I should put this shirt on, or would it be too much blue?” Currently, he was wearing a gray wife beater with blue plaid shorts. Alisha and I both agreed that he should just leave well enough alone.

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” he said, stuffing his t-shirt under his arm. “I’m Jordan. What are you guys drinking?”

“Well, I have water, and she has tea,” I answered slowly, wondering where this was going and instinctively palming the top of my water bottle to block any imminent date rape. The next thing I knew, he had grabbed his friend John from one of the food booths and, after introducing us to him, smugly added, “They’re partying with us tonight.” Oh OK, how lovely. Alisha and I exchanged surprised glances. Actually, hers was more of a “Do they not know I don’t like dudes?” smirk. There was some more braggadocio-laden banter, when Jordan realized he had a customer at his sunglasses tent. “Customer, be right back. Don’t leave!” he yelled over his shoulder.

We left. Quickly.

And then we saw him again a week later, as Henry was ordering food FROM JOHN and I did everything but stuff lit cigars in my eye sockets to keep from making eye contact.

JOHN. He “owns all the booths on the block,” according to Jordan.

JORDAN. He was actually sort of cute, but his personality was trying way too hard to be Jersey Shore. Alisha said if she liked weeners, he would be her type. Then she fist-pumped.

I made sure to tug on Henry’s arm and point Jordan out to him. “I could’ve had sex with him last week,” I added, in a bored tone, blowing on my finger tips. “But he was trying too hard.” Henry really enjoyed this virtual walk of carnival boyfriends. I think he would have probably handed me over to Kirk though. Actually, I kind of wish I had instigated a fight between those two.

Unlike Kennywood, Chooch was actually very eager to ride things. I couldn’t get him to ride the fucking Wacky Worm though! He preferred instead to ride things where he could make girls do all the work. I really don’t know where he learned that considering I don’t do shit for Henry.

Chooch’s favorite ride seemed to be that stupid Fun Slide; you know, the one that requires asses to be swathed in potato sacks? There was another little boy who was just as charmed by it, and they began racing each other. They’d get to the bottom, throw their sacks at the Mexican carny, then run right back to the entrance. Finally, the carny was like JUST KEEP THE SACKS, JESUS. Alisha and I were sitting in the grass, watching this spectacle, while Henry stood off to the side looking like a creeper. The little boy’s mom deduced that I was Chooch’s mom and inched her way closer. At first it was a brief laugh and smile, a shared acknowledgment that yes, our sons looked cute racing each other down the slides.

And then, before I knew it, she was popping a squat right next to Alisha, and delving into a tale about how her sister Amy was on her way from PITTSBURGH to bring her cigarettes and she sure hoped Amy would arrive soon because her phone was dying and she sure did need a cigarette.

“I’d take anything at this point!” she said, passively hinting to Alisha.

So Alisha sighed and fished in her purse for a cigarette. Sometimes Alisha is nice like that.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to prop my camera up on my thigh to shoot clandestine snaps of her.

I got a text from Henry that said, “You are the WORST at stealth photography.”

A helicopter flew past and Anonymous Mom asked if any of us had gone up in it yet. Rides were $15 per person. We said no and she told us that she and her son had done it and it was totally worth it. Alisha and I pretended to be impressed.

My brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle were there that night and came over to join our awkward pow wow. Corey sat right next to Anonymous Mom and began pulling out all the Silly Bandz he and Danielle had purchased. “This entire pack is fast food scented,” he said, draping each bracelet carefully across the bag on his lap so we could all not ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ Danielle was excited to show off her collection, too.

Then Corey brought up the helicopter, since we were sitting relatively close to it’s little launch area.

“Oh, she went on it with her son!” Alisha announced with faux enthusiasm, pointing to Anonymous Mom, which prompted her to give Corey the same spiel we already snored through. While she was talking about it, I texted Corey: She just sat down with us…?

Once he learned that we had no idea who she was, he put on this exaggerated guise of interest, totally making her think like we gave a shit about her helicopter ride and sister Amy from Pittsburgh.

We must have sat there with her for thirty minutes without ever making introductions. It was so uncomfortable (clearly not for her, though). When we finally pulled Chooch away from the slides and began to walk away, Alisha hesitated and then said, “Nice meeting you!”

Later on, we saw her again. Amy was with her! We rejoiced.

Naturally, this girl’s mom had to come running over to make mom-talk with me, too. Thank god she didn’t linger though.

“It’s that damn soup place, don’t make eye contact!” I yelled, but then I was like, “Piss on that, I want some samples.” So once again, Alisha and I promised to be back for a full bowl but we stood them up because it’s SUMMER TIME. That soup was seriously good though. I went to their website and they have apple pumpkin soup, so now I want to buy a batch and have a soup party at Alisha’s house.

Eating tornado chips like a champ. (Don’t ever call them tornado fries. Alisha made that mistake and almost got punted out of the fairgrounds by a grisly old lady in a red cowboy hat. It only got worse when she ordered “pop” and not “soda.”)

Chooch just walked right up to the food places and said things like, “I WANT LEMONADE.” Then Henry would be all, “SHIT now I have to pay for this, thanks.”

In the end, I caved and decided it was imperative to at least ride the Freak Out and the Zipper. So Alisha, Corey, Danielle and I bought tickets. I loved Freak Out even more this time, though I was pretty aware of the group of guys across from me who mimicked me during the entire ride, and decided that I really need to have this in my backyard, just as soon as the house behind me accidentally gets hit with a “meteor.” A quick jaunt on the Freak Out will soon become my new morning coffee. You just wait.

Danielle was so happy to have survived her first time on the Freak Out, that she began doling out hugs to everyone.

Before we left, Chooch begged me to ride the Sizzler with him, so I had to pay another goddamn $3 for a ticket, but it was worth it because he was laughing his little underoo’d ass off the whole time. And I didn’t drop him after the ride ended. Not that that’s ever happened before.

I don’t see how any other county fair this summer is going to outshine the majesty that is the Big Butler Fair.

[MORE PICS HERE.]

Somewhere in my blog travels, I stumbled across Crunchy Betty, who is (super pretty and) having a contest thing where you send her a picture of food on your face. I thought, “Boy, that sure sounds fun, and maybe I should keep up with this blogosphere elbow-rubbing thing.” You know, instead of being that pissed-upon loser blog in the corner.

And really, does it get any better than applying balls of sugary Trix to your face in ninety-degree heat, using peanut butter as adhesive? I had to take these pictures faster than I jump into bed at night. (I don’t like standing next to the bed after dark because SOMETHING MIGHT LOP OFF MY FEET WITH A SICKLE, so I usually do a little running leap, like I’m some goddamn gymnast in fear of being whipped by Bela Karoli.)

There. That was fun. But no one wanted to kiss me…?

[ETA: I’m sure I did this wrong, now that I think about it. I have this incredibly rich habit of glossing over words like a sixteen-year-old fresh out of Adderal and I’m wondering if I was supposed to actually make one of the facial mask recipes on Crunchy Betty’s blog. There might be a do-over in the future.]