It hit me today that I’ve officially been living in my current house for eleven years – one year more than I spent in my childhood home [pictured below].

I moved into this place around the time Nine Inch Nail’s The Fragile was released, which I’ve been listening to a lot the last few days.

Not sure if it’s a coincidence or a subconscious choice, but it’s crazy how visceral, tangible the transport back to October 1999 feels. It’s like I’m sitting in the middle of an unfurnished dining room all over again, “We’re In This Together” on repeat, wishing it reminded me of my boyfriend at the time, but knowing that the only thing we were in together was a shitty, incompatible relationship based on distrust and disgust.

My landlord has been trying to sell all of his rental property for the last year. We have a broken For Sale sign in our yard and a ditzy real estate agent brings the occasional potential buyer through our house.

I never thought I’d still be living here after all this time, but it’s looking like it won’t be my home for much longer.

I think my mom should just give me her house.

I’ve been trying to take photos of Kara’s baby Harland forever and something always arises, whether Chooch is busting open his mouth or peeing in his pants. Seriously, he did that as soon as we got to the park on Wednesday. He never pees himself! And I didn’t have any spare clothes because, again, he never pees himself! So we had to leave the park as soon as we got there.

Tried again today, and even though the weather seemed iffy at times, it all worked out. Plus, Henry was there this time to provide an extra set of hands, and he was so insulted when Harland immediately reached back for Kara when Henry was holding him, yet allowed me to hold him. Me! I figured that it was just probably because my chubby body was cozy for him, but Kara said it was because he could tell babies make me nervous.

And they do. My fear must smell like Blow-Pops and babywipes.

But honestly, how would YOU react if you were a baby (or adult!) and suddenly found yourself ensconced in the arms of some retarded pirate-looking man with a molester-stache and poorly executed jokes?

And I can only imagine what Harland must think of Chooch. He eyes him up suspiciously. And Chooch has had a crush on Kara since the beginning of his time, so he’s kind of suspicious of Harland as well. There was one scene where Choocj watched as Kara sat Harland on her lap and together they slid down a slide. Chooch thought it should be his turn next, so he ordered Kara to put her baby “over there” while pointing to the ground a few yards away. Henry and I had to explain to him that she couldn’t abandon her child just to free up her lap for Chooch and he was kind of like, “But you guys abandon ME all the time….?”

Don’t ask.

I haven’t gone through all the pictures of Harland yet, but goddamn is that kid cute!

“I met him when I was twenty-five.” The sticky dough was passed back and forth between Agatha’s hands and she kneaded it rhythmically until chubby logs were formed. “I had noticed him around town before — cruising down Main Street in his pimento-hued jalopy; one lanky arm, permanently marred with dots of trauma from his recurring bout with shingles, draped confidently over the side of the door. Grease the pan, Cecilia.”

“Mother, what’s a shingle?” Cecilia asked as she moved the stick of oleo along the cookie tray, edges of which were blackened from years of use. Agatha ignored her child’s inquiry as she methodically bathed each log of dough in a lake of sugar; she was lost in thought.

“We always seemed to be at Barb’s Taffy Stand at the same time. My mama said it was serendipity, but I argued that he was tailing me. Not wanting to surrender, I’d fixate on the wide, colorful bands of chewy sugar being pulled and stretched by metal arms, pretending not to notice that he was standing well inside normal human comfort zones, with his cowlick prominent and glistening from a daub of pomade, and his butterfly knife tucked into the front pocket of his jeans. I tried to ignore the acrid redolence of chewing tobacco bred with halitosis and a marinade of anchovies as he breathed his order for banana taffy too close to my nostrils.”

Agatha squirted several drops of red food coloring into a bowl and began folding it into the goo, creating sanguine swirls among the stark white frosting. She continued her tale, in no need of prodding.

“One day, we ended up in the same room together. I pretended to be immersed in a gossip rag, but every time I glanced up, I spied him making lewd gestures at me from across the room.”

“What kind of gestures, Mother?” Cecilia asked, dropping dough logs too-close-together on the tray.

“Well, like the universal sign for cunnilingus,” Agatha ruminated, quickly lashing her tongue between v-spread fingers, in an impetuous demonstration.

With Cecilia nodding to show her comprehension, Agatha continued. “After a few minutes, he sidled up next to me and whispered, ‘Hey broad, let’s blow this abortion clinic.'”

“Didn’t he mean ‘popsicle stand’?” Cecilia scrutinized.

“Oh, no dear,” Agatha chuckled. “We really were in an abortion clinic. He was there delivering pizzas and I was there—” She stopped when she saw Cecilia’s face, constricted with horror. “Oh honey, no!” laughed Agatha. “I wasn’t there to abort you. But let’s just say that if I hadn’t gone back the next day, you’d have a big brother or sister. Possibly inbred,” she mused.

“So,” Agatha continued, extracting the first batch of baked cookies from the oven.  “Against my better judgment, I began seeing him.

We’d meet up behind the bait shop, under the rusted train trestle, sometimes on an honest to goodness mattress.

I kind of started to like him.” Agatha stared out the rain-streaked window.

“What went wrong, Mother?” Cecilia asked, her face furnished with curiosity and chicken pox scars.

Agatha seemed to bristle momentarily, but then forged on with the story. “I found out he was seeing someone else. Nancy Jenkins, the proprietor of the town bordello. They shared a Winnebago together, and kept it parked near the river bank where together they could share the perfect view of the sunset. I tried to be OK with being the mistress, his dirty secret, his fat-bottomed hussy, but my father told me that I deserved better than that, even despite my cleft palate.

“So I told him he had to break up with her,” Agatha recounted as she slid the cookies onto a cracked serving platter. “He seemed angry at my audacity, and I saw his hand gravitate, almost instinctively, toward his knife. But then he turned and left without a fight; I fear I’d never see him again. The next night, he showed up at my doorstep, holding out a red velvet ring box.”

Cecilia’s cookie-frosting came to a halt and she smiled up at her mother expectantly. Agatha finished dabbing the tip of Cecilia’s neglected cookie with a flourish of crimson frosting before continuing.

“I thought to myself, ‘This is it, Aggie. Someone’s finally going to make an honest woman of you,’ and I gingerly accepted the gift from his out-stretched hand. But there was no ring inside, Cecilia. Not even a pendant or a brooch.”

“Not even a key to his Winnebago?” Cecilia asked, befuddled.

“Not even a key.” Agatha licked her lips, gummy from being so chatty. “Inside that box, resting gently atop the velvet innards, was a finger.”

“A WHAT?”

“…a blue-nailed finger,” Agatha calmly repeated. “I never meant for him to kill her!

It was all a misunderstanding,” Agatha rushed, assuaging Cecilia from conniptioning. “‘I said break up with her, not break her!‘ I hollered at him. He laughed and said, ‘Well babe, same end result either way, am I right?'”

“You left him after that, right Mother? You ran real fast, right? Tell me it’s so.”

“Well, not exactly, sweetheart. I had to stay with him…”

“…because you were pregnant with me? He got you pregnant didn’t he? He’s my real daddy isn’t he? And not that clown from the circus who stole our refrigerator!”

“Oh honey, no,” Agatha laughed into the tray of tampon-shaped cookies, freshly baked for the upcoming Menstruation Masquerade; it would be Cecilia’s first time attending. “It was because he had an enormous cock!”

[Originally published January 8, 2008. Reposted because I can do shit like that.]

Sep 11 2010 020 , originally uploaded by appledale.

Spotted at Children’s Hospital, obsessed over, picture taken from a ninth floor window.

Even though I was a yo-girl in high school with a predilection for gangsta rap, I always had a soft spot underneath my Cross Colors hoodie and marijuana pendant for soft rock. I attribute this mostly to my grandparent’s house; they always had Lite FM on in their kitchen, and some of my best memories are sitting on a stool at their kitchen counter, eating a grilled cheese while Phil Collins and Gino Vanelli filled the room.

In the mid-nineties, before my Pappap died, I started seeing infomercials for a new Time Life music compilation called Body Talk. It was chock full of all my favorite Days Of Our Lives power couple power ballads, like Steve and Kayla’s Kenny G and that Joe Cocker song that always played when Doug and Julie had romantic flashbacks. (I recently had a mild argument with a co-worker about this and of course I was right; bitch, I BETTER be right, I kept a goddamn Days of Our Lives scrapbook in elementary school.) And what CD collection would be complete without Hope and Bo’s sex jam “Tonight I Celebrate My Love.”  I begged my Pappap to order it for me, and he did. Because I’m the best.

Every month, I’d get a new double CD in the mail and run up to my room to listen. Richard Marx, Gregory Abbott, DAN FOGELBURG, MOTHERFUCKERS. You want a Crystal Gayle and Eddie Rabbitt duet? Body Talk’s got you covered. It was all there. All my favorite “70-year-old in a 16-year-old’s body” classics. I’d slip in some England Dan and John Ford Coley in between Scarface and Foxxy Brown tracks on my signature mix tapes that none of my friends ever wanted me to play in the car. These tapes could seamlessly soundtrack a drive-by shooting and a quiet evening with knitting needles and a cup of Earl Grey. That’s just how I do.

The fourth collection arrived one day and I can remember listening to it my room and pausing when I got to a song on the second disc that I had never heard before. It was Billy Preston and Syreeta’s “With You I’m Born Again” and it became my new favorite song that I had to listen to over and over and over and over again. And then I made my friends listen to it over and over and over and over again. Of course, none of them liked it. They were teenagers. Teenagers don’t want to listen to some lame love song that their parents probably fucked to in the 80s.

But I just really loved this song. It would make me cry so hard and get all swoony. So it went on one of my mix tapes.

I was at Lisa’s house one day and she had begrudgingly allowed me  to put on one of my tapes in her room while she got ready for us to go out. All of my friends back then typically let me have my way because they knew I was still on the same emotional plane as a five-year-old with Downs. I’m sure the tape was bursting with all of Lisa’s faves, like Bone Thugs n Harmony and 2Pac. (Lisa was into alternative back then and hated rap, but tolerated it in my presence. I guess she never learned that good friends don’t let friends listen to rap.)

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, my love jam came on and I got all somber and melancholy. With me in the background plotting my suicide, Lisa had accidentally knocked her calculator off her bed (do kids in school still use calculators?) and it broke. She picked it up tenderly, cradled it in her arms, and began singing along with Billy Preston and Syreeta in hopes of serenading her calculator back to life.

From that day on, it became known as The Calculator Song.

***

In last night’s episode of “Glee,” the club was doing some duet contest; Rachel and Finn wanted to purposely blow it so Rachel devised a plan where they would sing a really bad song, because that would be the only way they could lose.

They fucking sang the Calculator Song and I almost died. It was after midnight when I was watching it, and I didn’t want to call Lisa that late. So instead, I ran upstairs and woke up Henry, excitedly telling him all about it.

“OK,” he murmured before falling back asleep.

IT WAS A BIG DEAL FOR ME.

I went back downstairs and stewed in my urgent need to share this amazing moment. It was Hell, keeping it to myself.

I haven’t heard that song, ever, outside of that damn Body Talk CD. Up until last night, I couldn’t be convinced that it wasn’t recorded specifically for Time Life.

Finally, I managed to fall asleep around 1:00AM, after some of my buzz wore off.

Once I took Chooch to school this morning, I called Lisa. It was a little after 8:00AM and I figured that was late enough.

I excitedly ran through the story, pausing occasionally to choke on obnoxious giggles.

“And guess what song they sang!” I yelled.

“I don’t know,” Lisa mumbled, clearly not fully awake.

“THE CALCULATOR SONG!” I squealed, laughing all over again.

“Ha,” Lisa said with little conviction. “I’m going back to bed now. I’ll call you later.”

OK FINE. I’ll just be sitting here, listening to my precious slow jam all morning long. Maybe later I might slip some Peabo Bryson into the mix.

***

My Body Talk collection was never completed. After my Pappap died, a few more still came in the mail, but then my grandma was like, “Yeah, I’m not paying for this shit.”

It didn’t seem like the Pie Party was going to be very successful. We didn’t get to the pavilion with enough time to decorate properly, not to mention Henry rented the largest pavilion and then only bought THREE tablecloths. He also forgot to bring the votive holders for all the pumpkin candles we bought, so he had to run to a nearby craft store to rectify that.

He left me with Chooch, who was being antagonized to death by Blake and his hyper-annoying friend Artie, who was actually pretty entertaining but I would never let him know that. Besides, he made fun of the Cure, so we have big beef now.

Chooch literally did nothing but cry hysterically the entire 30 minutes Henry was gone. The tablecloths I did have kept getting blown off by strong autumnal gusts.  My head was starting to hurt from all the screaming and crying between Chooch and the two teenage boys who should have been smoking a joint in the woods, not torturing a FOUR YEAR OLD. It was 80 degrees and I was sweating. I kept praying for Jessy to get there because she has a very calming effect on me, but she ended up getting held up with work stuff and was two hours late.  I kind of just stood around in the middle of the pavilion, which had a very distinct non-party feel, and panicked.

Then I had one of my signature “WHY DID I THINK THIS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?!” break-downs and considered suffocating myself in Henry’s avocado pie.

And of course, the first guests arrived just in time to see that there was no party. (Surprise! YOU’RE the pie! Boys, go get Mama her hatchet.)

And of course, it would happen to be my friend Shannon whom I hadn’t seen since senior year of high school.

I rushed out to the parking lot to meet her and her friend Bill and before I even said hello, I blurted out, “We are woefully unprepared!” They admitted that they weren’t even sure they had the right place since absolutely nothing was going on inside the pavilion aside from one sad girl, standing around confused and dejected. What a great impression I gave them of my party planning prowess.

Henry finally came back with ice and tablecloths but STILL forgot the votive holders. I was all riled up about that for a few seconds until I saw that he bought a few bottles of wine while I was stranded in Hell’s Playground. I was OK after that. And then more people started arriving in clumps and I was sort of shocked. Because generally, in my party planning experiences, people SAY that they’re going to come and then they don’t come. But that’s good, because it only makes it extra-special when guests DO come.

And everyone brought a pie.

In addition to Shannon, two other people I haven’t seen since high school came: John and his wife Jennifer (who also loves the Cure) came with two pies and their three adorable kids, and Ron came with his friend Chrissy¹. The last time I saw Ron, I was 18 and trudging through my one and only shift at a local restaurant, where he was dining with his brother.  He probably doesn’t even remember that, but I do because my memory is ridiculous. (Just not when I need it to be, like Saturday night when my friend Jen/Bonecrusher² and I were at Haunted Hills Estate and I made our team lose a challenge because I was SO SURE my memory was right when we had to put pictures in the correct order.)

Pie Party people, in a pie procession

When my friend Lisa arrived with her husband Matt, I rushed their car and squealed, “I had a party and people came!” With Lisa there, it was like a mini-high school reunion. I was happy that my lame idea for a party had turned into a very Rockwell-esque scene of people coming together.

So there was the Thomas Jefferson High School table, and then there was The Law Firm table. Usually, I can never get people from any of my jobs to come to my parties. Probably because their pimps won’t give them time off. But apparently my current co-workers are awesome and didn’t think I was lame for inviting them to a pie party. They didn’t even act suspicious like some of my friends did! Kaitlin couldn’t make it and we were all very sad, not because we like her, but because she was going to attempt to make a pie constructed of an array of her famous French macarons in pie flavors. No, seriously – orgasmic baked goods or not, we all love Kaitlin and it sucked that she couldn’t be there to sit at the cool work table with Barb, Wendy and her husband Shawn, Sandy, and Jeannie. And best of all, me. That’s OK, because someone suggested having a cupcake party next, and you better believe I will sit down with Kaitlin and her calendar before setting a date for that one.

Jeannie’s name tag was a direct reflection of her sparkling attitude!

My Grandma Lois and Aunt Charmaine came with a pie, as well as Moon Dough, which was the sleeper hit of the day. I’m pretty sure every pie party attendee inadvertently took some of it home with them.

Gina³ and Amber (whose name I temporarily forgot because I had been DRINKING and she wouldn’t let me live it down for the rest of the day, and probably not ever, assuming she would even hang out with me again after I committed such a faux pas!) hung out at the kids table with Chooch, churning out Moon Doughed puppies and milk bones. Gina adoringly called it the Moon Dough puppy mill and now I know what to get her for Christmas.

Amber said her favorite part of the pie party was during the first hour, when Chooch (still being bullied by TEENAGERS) sat under a picnic table and cried, “I HATE THIS PARTY!” But then he caught wind of the fact that John’s little girl was there dressed like a princess and you could almost see his mind thinking, “Who’s this hottie?” and he was pretty much at her side the rest of the afternoon.

I might have also plied Gina with pie in an effort to convince her to go to a haunted house with me. I think I have her worn down. I can be quite needling.

“Who wants pie when there’s Moon Dough to ingest?” Harland thinks, willing Kara to bring him closer.

Somehow, with the multitudes of pies that filled nearly the whole length of two pushed-together picnic tables, there was not one duplicate. I’m going to try and remember every type of pie that was there that day. Because I know the five people reading this absolutely lurched forward in anticipation.

Coconut cream – Henry’s mom, and Kelly and her brood

Pumpkin – Shannon and Bill (This was the first pie to be devoured.)

Pumpkin mousse – Gina and Amber (Somehow there was a tiny bit leftover and Blake was prepared to shank a bitch for it.)

Blackberry – Wendy and Shawn

Apple – John and Jennifer (OMG it was the best apple pie I’ve ever had & I’m still talking about it with Henry, because that’s what fat girls do – talk about pie. 24:7. Sometimes I even draw pie doodles on my desk at work.)

Hershey chocolate pie – Chooch’s girlfriend, Abby (Huge hit with the kids!)

Cream and Sugar – Henry

Avocado with citrus whipped cream – Henry (It turned into pudding; good job, Martin Stewart.)

Strawberry Rhubarb – Lisa and Matt (she made it herself and it was amazing!)

Banana Cream – Jessy, and I will not give Tommy credit (This is one of my all-time faves so she scored points.)

Lemon – Charmaine and Grandma Lois (I didn’t get to have any, but everyone kept raving about it.  I lose.)

Pecan – Barb

Some delicious fruit mixture – Jeannie (She said it was just blueberry, but I’m pretty sure she’s wrong. She’s wrong about a LOT of things. I know this because she likes the FLYERS.)

Red raspberry – Kara

Pomegranate mousse (pictured above) – Ron (It was amazing and exciting! Clearly, I like weird pie flavors.)

Pie tastes best when wearing a cape. Everyone knows that.

Lisa brought her dog, Tucker. We ate him, too.

Matt serves himself pie while talking on the phone. He must be a professional of some sort.

The real winner here was Blake, who walked away with a stack of pie plates stacked so high, it looked like he walked out of a cartoon.

“My mom doesn’t feed me,” was his defense.

And of course, in spite of Henry rushing out to purchase extra tablecloths, everyone chose to sit at the bare picnic tables.

It was a great day, filled with delicious pies, great weather and awesome people. Since it wasn’t a failure, let’s do it again! Say, next weekend?

¹Henry’s mom knew her. Henry’s mom knows EVERYONE. It’s kind of disgusting. I can only hope to grow up and be half as popular as her.

² I prefer calling Jen by her roller derby name because it’s more fun. Also because it’s the first name I knew her by. Also, I didn’t know how to spell her name until I saw her write it out on our challenge card. I win at friendships.

³Gina is the result of my lame blog helping me make new friends. She lives in the same little town as me, and this was the third time we hung out. But it was the FIRST time we hung out in a non-creepy environment so I think we’re making headway on our blossoming friendship. Though, Henry was there, in the pavilion. So never mind. Still a creepy environment.

Chooch was taking a bath after a long day of running amok in the park and pigging out on pie. I was trying to coax him into speeding it up because I had a headache from maybe drinking too much wine and possibly eating too much pie.

“Hurry up, I want to go lay down,” I said.

“Just go lay down then. I’m not done playing in here,” Chooch countered.

“What kind of mother would I be if I just left you in the bath tub with no supervision?

”

With no hesitation, Chooch answered, “A mother without a headache.”

Touché, young one.

My hair has needed cut(ted) for way too long now.

I was starting to look like a baglady.

Plus the pie party is tomorrow and god forbid I should get HAIR tangled in my PIE-forking.

Anyway, I’m going back to the salon in a few weeks so Lucia can start the Back to Blond process.

Enough’s enough.

This concludes a very boring post about nothing other than my hair.

Screwing around with some old photos at work while I have a little bit of an unusual lull. 

Chooch zombified himself with my iPhone:

Some other things:

Hockey season has begun! The Pens game starts in 30 minutes, which means I will be acting all indignant and put-off every time an analyst brings work for me. Can’t they see I’m TRYING to listen to the goddamn game?

!

Of course everything would be doubled-over-in-hysteria funny tonight at work since I have chest pains. Ow.

I posted a review of the new Chiodos album last night. It was met with a very “Bueller?”-esque reception. Some random girl on Twitter read it and said it was well-done. That was good enough for me. Really fucking love Chiodos, in case you haven’t figured that out, considering I have an entire blog category devoted to them.

Kettelbell workouts are my jam.

As a sort of foreword to the opinion I’m about to drop, I’d like to start by saying that Craigery Owens is someone who has touched my heart over the years. So much that I paid someone to paint a small portrait of him, which hangs on my wall. So much that I drove to Cleveland to see his solo performance and also give him one of my own paintings, which he inspired. So much that I cried when I heard of his suicide attempt during the summer of 2008.

That being said, you can imagine that I, like so many of his staunch supporters, was really upset when he was let go from Chiodos last fall. Like, heart-droppingly upset. Like “this must be some sort of a mistake” upset. And like so many of you, I felt betrayed by Chiodos and I vowed to not give a shit about any future music they might happen to produce if they had the balls to carry on without their signature voice.

But then I thought back to the winter of 2008 when they met my son, who was not quite two-years-old yet, and took such a genuine liking to him (particularly ex-drummer Derrick Frost). And that memory started to dissipate my anger. That memory enabled me to remember that Chiodos was not ever just Craig Owens. It was also Bradley, Derrick, Pat, Jason and Matt. And each one of those guys is overloaded with talent in their own right.

There are always two sides.

When the Craigery-less Chiodos announced the addition of new singer Brandon Bolmer last year, my first thought was, “Poor dude. Poor, poor dude.” The shoes he was about to step into were not only huge, but sacred in this scene.

Live videos began popping up on YouTube. Videos of the new Chiodos, with Brandon singing “Letter From Janelle.”

“This is like sacrilege,” I thought. But then I saw a video of a new song, “Caves,” and I realized that this new singer kind of had a nice voice. And this new song was kind of better than nice.

And you know what else? Craig seemed to quickly bounce back and soon began piquing his fans’ interests with cryptic tweets about new music, a new band. Knowing that made me feel relieved, kind of like finding out your ex was dating again so you didn’t have to feel guilty anymore for moving on. I realized I could support Chiodos and Craig at the same time, that there was no real post-hardcore “bro code” telling me this was unacceptable.

I pre-ordered Chiodos’ “Illuminaudio” without so much as a twinge of guilt. And when it arrived the other day, I was no more than 30 seconds into the first track when the tears began to fall, goosebumps done sprung. It made me realize that all the times I described something as breath-taking? I was lying. It took Illuminaudio to literally make me momentarily stop breathing for me to learn that lesson. Chiodos succeeded in weaving 12 tracks together with more craftmanship than your grandma’s Amish-made quilt.

In a recent interview in Alternative Press, Brandon had expressed concern that he would not be well-received by the hardcore fans of Craigery-era Chiodos. Brandon, I am here to tell you to stop your worrying. Those big shoes? They spillith over, my friend.

Brandon doesn’t try to emulate Craig’s vocals. He sings with heart and conviction; he brings with him an urgency that’s perfectly synced with the tight music chugging out behind him. This album is twelve songs sung by a man who has something to prove, backed by the intense post-hardcore metallics of a band who have something to prove.

One listen was all it took to make me a believer in Chiodos v.2.

This is a brand new Chiodos. This is a finely aged Chiodos.

So there’s a new singer. Bummer city. But this is still your Chiodos, bare-footed Jason Hale, keyboard-lurching Bradley Bell and all, who practically bled out in a studio to make a record for you. Don’t turn your backs on them. I have a feeling they might even recruit some of those vitriolic, Absolute Punk-trolling bashers of Craig Owens’ love-it-or-hate-it falsetto. Change is hard, I know. But if we all stay strong and braid each others hair, I promise you we can survive a line-up change.

Still can’t justify giving your Chiodos boycott a reprieve? Then you’re depriving yourself of a fucking anthemic, brilliantly accomplished album that segues with flawless cohesion between the scourgingly heavy (“Modern Wolf Hair”) and the shimmering melodic (“Notes in Constellations”). You’re missing out on the earworm-breeding (“Caves” – have you heardthis song? I challenge you to listen and not get it lodged in your cochlea. It’s hypnotic.)And with Mr. T’s ferocity I pity the fool who passes up a guest spot that will make all the scene girls squeal* (Pierce the Veil’s Vic Fuentes in the tongue-in-cheek “Love Is a Cat From Hell”). Sucks to be you. If you need me, I’ll just be over here in the corner, blissed out on Illuminaudio. And soon I’ll add the product of Craig’s new band, D.R.U.G.S., to the rotation. I guess I’m just greedy like that.

*Fine. I’m one of those squealing scene girls.

Look, the fact that I know anything about this is embarrassing, because I learned it from The Blog Frog, which is supposed to be a community for bloggers but us decent ones are unfortunately out-numbered by the vanilla, scripture-slingin’ mommy variety. So, evidently, there is some Christian mommy blogger who gets paid by BlogHer to write mediocre accounts of her loosely truth-based life and take crappy photos of her kids. BlogHer recently found out that she’s been plagiarizing so they terminated her account.

Some uber-Christian zealot started a thread over on The Blog Frog, practically condemning all the people who are in agreeance with BlogHer. I don’t really understand what God has to do with any of this, but she brings him up constantly in the original post and all of her replies to the people who are actually trying to approach this with some rationality.

Here is a quote from the original poster:

That being said, I can honestly say that without a second thought I would take a picture from the internet and put it on my blog ( i don’t have a blog but I’m just saying). If you want credit for it then put your name across the middle of it like I see eveyone do. I wouldn’t even think that was wrong.

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If I were copying someone elses words I would change them up alot into my own style, not write word for word, but I don’t think anyone should have reported it. They only did it to hurt her because they felt mad. Those thoughts and feelings come from the devil. They just can’t see it.

Oh really? Fuck you. Fuck you with your own Goddamn Bible. The fact that someone doesn’t think stealing another person’s images, words or intellectual property is wrong makes me feel ill. Whatever happened to originality? When did that become such a novelty?

And the fact that the bible jockey who posted that doesn’t even have her own blog is very unsurprising to me. If she did, it would likely just be filled with emoticons and theft.

Some of us actually put effort into what we write, even though it may not always seem like it when you come here and see that once again, the bowels of my punctuation skills have dropped out all over your screen. But if you want to steal my typo’d words and pass them off as your own? Be my guest. You just better make damn sure I don’t find you, motherfucker.

I am very upset about this.

[eta: I apologize if this makes me sound like some Christian-hating freak. I don’t hate any religious person. I just don’t like being told my opinions are influenced by Satan.]

Last year, Henry took Chooch and me to some goddamn flea market in Ohio that was supposed to be some sort of God’s gift to junk-riflers.

Every time I would see something I wanted (which wasn’t often), he’d be all, “THEN WE HAVE TO CARRY IT ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE CAR.” Well, excuse me, geriatric. And I love how he slapped down $3.50 for a fucking jar of horseradish with no hesitation.

It was a decidedly non-fun outing. But I did convince him to barter on an old Coke crate and you know he bitched about it all day because poor, weak Henry had to carry it back to the car, poor baby.

A short time later, I painted the inside of it.

“1 Apple, 10 Of Us”

I stare at it a few minutes every day and it drives me nuts because it just doesn’t look done. Then this morning, it hit me. Artificial grass. It needs artificial grass.

Then I will finally be able to make Henry attach some wire shit to the back of it, so it can hang from the wall and constantly remind us all of that horrible day at the flea market where I walked for miles with a broken toe and Henry grumbled a lot and wouldn’t buy us a puppy.

In other non “fake art” news, I went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday with Chooch’s class and it was pure, unadulterated terror, from the bus ride all the way down to the song we learned about dirt. I will maybe write about it tomorrow, but I will be honest – I’m a little traumatized.

I really do live for fucking with Marcy. Deep down, she loves it. Just like Henry does, too.

My old friend Cinn was notorious for meeting a plethora of men online. (Sometimes she would even give them my phone number and address, which I can’t tell you how much I appreciated. In fact, she’s one of the reasons I signed up for Caller ID. For the other, please see: Lesbian Blind Date.)

In the fall of ’98, she called me up one day and said that she met a man named Shadoe on AOL. After IMing for a minute, Shadoe naturally invited her over for dinner. Things move rapidly in Cinn’s world of Internet dating. She asked me to tag along, because everyone knows that my 5’4″ frame is made specifically for overpowering Internet predators. And because my judgment is (still) exceptionally jarred, I said yes and even applied glitter on my eyelids to announce my excitement.

Shadoe’s real name was Shawn, and he lived in a trendy little section of Pittsburgh populated by college students and toed the line of a particularly seedy part of town. His apartment was small—my knees would rub against his tub every time I sat down on the toilet to pee—and his kitchen boasted a variation of the Last Supper portrait, the table seating various serial killers in lieu of disciples and Jesus. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it and I knew unequivocally that Shadoe and I were going to get along just fine.

It was there, over a pasta spread at his kitchen table, that I learned he worked at my favorite record store in Pittsburgh, Eide’s Entertainment.

“Why don’t you guys accept American Express?

” I asked with a slight brattiness to my tone, clumsily twirling a hive of pasta around my fork tines.

“Erin!” Cinn exclaimed, accusing me of being rude. I didn’t think I was being rude. All I was trying to do was save a sinking ship.

Because Cinn, upon coming face to face with Shadow’s large stature, was immediately chagrined. She was a bitch the whole night, slashing him with sarcasm and attempting to put me down, which is what she always did when someone had the nerve to care about what I had to say (see also: Giacomo 1999). But Shadoe spent most of the night laughing at my unfiltered outbursts and was grateful I think for my presence, especially after Cinn downed a bottle of Irish Rose and put her drunken stupor on display in the aisles of the Blockbuster we walked to after eating the dinner that Shadoe had graciously prepared.

I’ve never been what you would consider “goth” on the outside, but I’ve always had a propensity for the music. Of course The Cure is my favorite, but I also liked a lot more from the oeuvre: Lycia, Switchblade Symphony, Front Line Assembly, Corpus Delicti; everything from dark wave to synthpop, EBM to industrial. And Shadoe had an impressive collection of all that. He seemed surprised that I knew so much in his collection, because on the outside, I was a Lip Smackers girl with beach waves and fuzzy sweaters from Contempo Casuals.

I’m all Goth on the inside, baby.

While Cinn sat on the couch simmering in her bitch-stew, I rummaged through his records and CDs. I laughed when I came across Johnny Hates Jazz.

“When I was a kid, I always thought it was ‘Shadow Dreams,’ not ‘Shattered,'” I laughed, which made Shadoe blush a little. Now I think of him every time I hear that damn song. (Which, for some reason, is often. Liking 80s music is not a crime, OK!?)

Meanwhile, Cinn (who didn’t even like the guy) couldn’t stand the fact that she had nothing to contribute to the conversation and that, God forbid, she wasn’t the center of attention. She was used to guys lavishing her with come-ons and sleazy innuendos, neither of which Shadoe was doing.

So she did what any drunk, attention-starved Alpha female would do: while I was sprawled out on my stomach across the floor, looking at CDs, Cinn staggered over and straddled my back. And then she tried to dry-hump me. “What the fuck, get off!” I yelled, flipping her off my spine. I suppose the point was to impress Shadoe. “Look at me! Wine over-consumption turns me into a pseudo-lesbo! Watch in awe as I pretend to be hot for my friend while staying far away from her vagina!”

It was just pathetic. Not to mention embarrassing.

Cinn strung him along for a few weeks, even though she clearly wasn’t into him, until I couldn’t take it any longer. Cinn was married and I didn’t want Shadoe to get hurt.

So I told him. I don’t care about whatever unspoken Ho Code there might be for something like that.

She was being a douche and I couldn’t get behind that.

They never spoke again, but I remained friends with Shadoe and it fucking drove Cinn nuts. How dare I, right?

Because of where he worked, he always hooked himself up with the latest horror release and called me up for some cheesy pizza and a cheesier movie. Whatever pizza place he ordered from, it was the most delicious pizza. Maybe that’s just my sweet memories enchanting my taste buds to believe that eleven years later.

We watched a bootleg copy of The Blair Witch Project before any information was really known about it, so we totally thought it was a true story, that clearly they all died and some hiker found the tapes completely unmarred in the woods. Another time, we watched Pecker and liked it so much that we immediately dove into an encore presentation. I watched it once again a few years ago and can’t imagine why we liked that much. It must have been the pot.

Eventually, Shadoe met a woman who was able to lay stake in a spot of his heart that Cinn had vacated, and he subsequently moved to Virginia to be with her. We kept in touch for awhile, but I had moved around the same time, and life just got in the way. The last I heard, one of the guys at Eide’s told me that Shadoe had taken that woman onto that court show “Judge Joe Brown” because they had split up and were fighting over property.

Even though our friendship lasted through all four seasons, I always think of him the most right now, in the fall. Especially on chilly, rainy days when nothing seems as perfect as curling up on a friend’s couch with good pizza and a horror movie. I miss that son of a bitch.

This is also the time of year I start pining for my old friend Cinn, so thank you, memory of Shadoe, for bitch-slapping me right out of that delusional fantasy.