The rink was blissfully free of derelicts, white trash and birthday parties this past Sunday. We almost went to a different rink, but our late night of gaming plus springing ahead caused us to sleep in. We’re lucky we made it to the 1:30 skate at all. We’re also lucky we have a four-year-old son to wake us from the dead.

My mood was so great that I even attempted to take Chooch around the rink by myself while Henry was lacing up.  This probably wasn’t the best idea. Anytime I try to teach someone something, I immediately refer to my inner Svengali and it just never ends well. Case in point: I was rather sternly trying to coerce Chooch to stop body-humping the carpeted wall and skate on his own. He was like, “OH MY GOD LADY ARE YOU NUTS I CAN’T DO THAT!” and I was all, “YES YOU CAN OR ELSE YOU WILL NEVER LEARN AND YES I AM NUTS, DUH.” Eventually, Henry appeared, with his stupid black curls billowing in his wake like he’s some roller rink knight, and he excused me from…what did he excuse me from? Oh that’s right, being an AWESOME PARENT.

Anytime I am in any sort of a mentoring position, it becomes painfully and quickly obvious that I am a Leo and my patience drains faster than veins in Mystic Falls. I remember one time when I worked at MSA, my supervisor asked me if I ever had any interest in supervising positions. I laughed so hard. Lady, the last thing your company wants is for this asshole to have any sort of power.

I feel like I really hit my stride that day. I was effortlessly ducking in and out of congested clumps of roller amateurs and even skated backward for a bit, which I will admit is the ONLY FLAW in my skating repertoire. And there was only one fool I hated on the entire afternoon.

He had two immediate strikes against him, in that he was:

1. a teenager
2. a teenager on rollerblades

One of the cardinal rules is that obviously  speed-skating is verboten. But this motherfucker with the shaggy hair and ugly hoodie (he totally wasn’t a scene kid) felt that he was exempt from all roller rink decorum and did whatever the fuck he wanted, felling skaters like dominoes in his rolling back wash.

Meanwhile, rink ref blew his whistle not once, not twice, BUT NO TIMES. Unreal. I’d skate past rink ref seconds after this erratic douche-on-wheels cut through the stream of skaters ON A DIAGONAL and I would scowl at him and his stupid striped Foot Locker employee shirt and with my eyes I’d scream, “I know you saw him do that, blow your whistle, motherfucker!” But he never did.

So it has been decided that I want to apply to be the new rink ref.

This current one just isn’t doing it for me. He’s lazy, oblivious,  doesn’t blow the whistle when overweight middle-aged men attempt splits in the center of the rink, he doesn’t stare at my breasts nearly as much as all the other men here, there and everywhere do. I know I would be a fantastic rink ref.  I think the reasons are pretty obvious:

• I excel at intimidating kids.
• I wear stripes. A lot.
• I love to blow things.

When Chooch woke me up yesterday morning at 4:00am, wanting to talk about his desire to be an octopus standing in a crowd, I wondered if maybe if he was getting sick. When he expressed concern that his entire body felt like it was covered in tattoos, I was like, “OK, he’s sick.

” I mean, saying weird shit isn’t at all unusual for him, but the sad, droopy eyes accompanying his random statements weren’t generally a part of his delivery.

“Do you want some medicine?” I asked him, fumbling for my big green glasses.

“Yeah, if it tastes good,” he said with attitude.

Later in the afternoon, he established an “Are You OK?” protest. I guess constantly asking him if he was OK every time he even half-coughed had gotten under his achy skin.

“What do you think?” he snarled after I felt his forehead for the 87th time (Sidney Crosby, holla). “No, I’m not OK! I’m sick.”

He’s still pretty delirious (and bitchy) today. We were sitting together on the couch when he said, in a very disgusted tone, “I haven’t watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid in years because daddy will never get off his ass and find it.” And then when I continued to just sit there–god forbid–he yelled, “Well?

Go find it!”

Oh, I found it. It’s at that orphanage outside of the city. Here, allow me to DROP YOU OFF THERE.

Fucker.

After watching his stupid movie, down to the very last second of credits,  Chooch turned his drowsy attention to “Suite Life,” which he has seen a million times. He asked in a sick drawl, “What, are they supposed to be twins or something?

“

“Uh, they’re not supposed to be twins. They are twins,” I answered, slightly alarmed that whatever illness he has had begun eating his brain.

“Oh. And do they know this?”

Oh my god, my kid is turning stupid.

There was a drowning today in the sea monkey tank. We tried to stop it, I swear.

Pre-infant suicide, I caught one of the sea monkeys writhing around on the hood of one of the pink cars, like it was caught in some sort of Whitesnake video.

The other sea monkeys didn’t seem very impressed at its poor Tawny Kittaen impression.

I was embarrassed for it.

We entertained Kim, Chris and their friend George on Saturday. And when I say “we” I of course actually mean “Chooch” who gets so excited about having company that he doesn’t even fight us when we tell him to put on pants. The illustrious Jimmy Wenger even graced us with his presence. When I introduced him to Chooch as “Jimmy,” Chooch nodded knowingly and said, “Oh, Jimmy Wenger.” At least I know Chooch is listening when I blabber endlessly about my ghost hunting adventures.

Don really took to Jimmy, who brought with him two bottles of Asti which I pretended to open on my own, but really it was all Chris. Jimmy also brought his ghost-capturing camera and spent a large portion of the night photographing all the spirits in my house. Don’t worry, he said they were all very mild and docile.

I was hoping someone other than George’s reflection would show up in the mirror, which made Henry shake his head and scoff like he does when watching “Jersey Shore.” (Which he does, by the way. He watches “Jersey Shore.”)

Kim’s friend George had just bought Last Night on Earth earlier that day and brought it with him. I was afraid to make any commitment when he asked if we wanted to play because board games of that elaborate nature intimidate my patience and attention-span. And also my intellect, in that it makes me woefully aware of how little I have. But once Chooch went to bed, after delighting the masses with his sassy remarks and toothless-lisp (like when Kim had the audacity to ask him what his painting was of and he said, “Oh for god’s sake, it’s monster brains!” and then made me take it off the wall and write it with a Sharpie so that no one will ever insult his artistic impressionism ever again), I decided to put my preconceived notions regarding gaming behind me and then laughed as Henry pretended to be literate by burying his furry face in the 8,000 page instruction manual. Jimmy quickly deduced that this wasn’t going to be some short pleasant stroll through Candyland, so he said good night before we (i.

e. the boys) started laying out the pieces.

Everyone but Kim and me took a stab at the rule book. My motto is basically, “You tell me when to roll the die, and I will roll the die. Then when I draw a card, I will pretend to read it and then give it to the person closest to me who is not named Henry and have them read it and tell me what to do.” This worked quite well for this particular game and I even started catching on during the LAST ROUND, when I went to play one of my cards, paused and said, “Wait – that would be stupid at this point, right?” George politely concurred but Chris was like, “Yeah, you dumbo!” and then made all kinds of hateful noises while Kim gave me sympathetic looks and mouthed, “I know exactly how you feel.” Assuming I knew how to read lips.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

Henry was Father Joseph; I controlled ALL OF the zombies. Obviously my goal was to kill all of the humans, but all I could focus on was killing Henry’s fucking chaste character. I was irritated with him because he knew we were having company that night, but waited until they GOT HERE to go to the store and get snacks. I guess some of that can be attributed to the fact that we are notoriously blown off by people. I can’t tell you how many countless times we (haha “we”) have cleaned the house, bought beer and wine, made preparations to order pizza, only to sit by the window and wait for no one to show up. Granted, it was always the same two people who pulled this stunt on us, one as recently as three weeks ago, both habitual liars, but it is really sad how we now just expect everyone to do it. Meanwhile, Kim and Chris aren’t social assholes and showed up like they said they would, prompting me to have the urge to act super-giddy and over-the-top excited, like I’ve never had people over before in my life. Luckily, my naive amazement was eclipsed by a hyperactive child, so they probably didn’t notice how excited I was to bring out the plate of cheese.

Did I mention I controlled ALL OF the zombies?

I was well-hated Saturday night. I think Chris hated me the most. I’ve never been called a bitch in one sitting so many times in my life! (To my face, anyway. Except that one time I beat all those Koreans at gymnastics.) I would have held it against him if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with the memory of how wonderfully rich his homemade Dutch apple pie tasted.

Anyone who brings pie to my house is a winner.

“Fucking zombies.”

Henry was irritated that I chose to play the game on the floor in lieu of sitting at a table like normal adults worried about the curvature of their spine. He complained about it a lot the next day, too, but I’m pretty sure he was just projecting his anger at getting KILLED BY ZOMBIES the night before.

Yeah, that’s right. Father Joseph BIT IT at the hand of my zombies. Ooh, how I relished snuffing out that motherfucker. Henry acted like he was happy about. “Oh good, now I can stand by myself in the dining room and not be a part of this epic game and feel completely left out but not show it.”

Did I mention the awesome soundtrack that came with the game? It brought me back to my goth days, for sure.

Anytime the “humans” didn’t like the way the game was going (usually every time I drew a card that allowed me to be awesome in my undead actions), they would all blame George, since he wrote the rule book. In the end, my zombies were defeated, but in my heart, I was still a winner. Because I killed Henry, which was exactly what I set out to do.

Jimmy Wenger just sent me this picture he took:

This is how we always pose: Me smiling like a ditzy farm girl while using Henry as my dumb-faced man-shield. Imagine him in a tux and me in a white dress with blood splattered all over it and we’ll be able to save ourselves the future financial blow of hiring a wedding photographer. (As if.)

God, Henry is so dumb. How do we even HAVE friends?

Here are some pictures of Chooch from this weekend. (I took the time to write that sentence for all the people who suffer from Title Illiteracy.)

God help us.

Harmoniously sharing. (This like, never happens, because we are secretly siblings.)

He can never leave the fucking cat alone. The cat can never stay away.

I made Chooch a sandwich after school (shredded cheese on white, melted in the microwave; a.k.a. Grilled Cheese a la Mommy) and then we sat down and watched CNN together. He was full of questions about today’s tragedy in Japan and while I struggled to answer some of them, it occurred to me that this was the first time he seemed genuinely aware that something very wrong was happening in the world. I made sure to point out to him how lucky he was to be sitting there, eating some piss-poor excuse of a sandwich, while so many people were having their world turned upside down and dropped in a barrel of rotten pandemonium.

“They shoulda just run,” he said, shoulders all scrunched up after he learned that there was a death toll. “Why didn’t they just run?”

I was left with the unenviable task of explaining that some natural disasters just can’t be outrun.

We must have watched the news coverage for at least an hour, and then after learning that Andrea and Paul were safe in California, Chooch said, “Thank god,” in a decidedly un-four-year-old tone.

Then he started asking me unlimited questions about CNN, ending with him taking a virtual tour on their website.

***

Henry had been home from a work for a few minutes when the day’s events came up.

“Yeah, did you know what happened?” Chooch asked Henry, eager to fill him in.

“I heard,” Henry said. “Earthquake.”

“No, about Japan!” Chooch argued.

“Yeah, I know. There was an earthquake.”

“NO. IT WAS A WAVE!” Chooch cried in frustration. He was really focused on the tsunami part of the package and desperately needed to inform his father.

“I heard about that too,” Henry promised. This was the WRONG answer. Chooch is apparently just as competitive with news-spreading as he is with Wii and winning impromptu races up the driveway, because he lost his shit.

“GODDAMN YOU!” he yelled, and then more calmly, he added, “I wanted to tell you.” But there were demon-eyes and crossed-arms that went along with it, so it was still pretty frightening.

Yikes.

I realized on Sunday that I miss football season. It kept all the idiots inside on Sundays and let me enjoy life without the promise of asphyxiating on humanity. And apparently, the skating rink is where all the people want to be when suffering football withdrawal, because that fucking rink has been packed tighter than Clay Aiken’s asshole for the last few weeks. In fact, the one week we went, the parking lot alone was so crowded that we promptly left and went bowling instead.

This past Sunday, we decided to grin and bear it. I knew as soon as we walked in that it was going to be bad news; maybe it was the immediate and shrill cacophony of dolphins on a sugar rush which tipped me off to that.

There were kids everywhere, and they were fucking HYPER, like eight orphanages had planned a field trip on the same day and then set off porridge bombs and false hope of adoption. Totally unacceptable. There was almost nowhere to sit, and some kids were sprawled out in the middle of the walkway like they fucking own the joint, which made me tremble with territoriality.

And of course, they all came paired with douchey parents. Before my skates were even laced, I had already made twenty-three enemies, unbeknownst to any of them. No, you are NOT excused, you mom-jeaned tart.

I made it around the prepubescent slalom course six times at best before slowing to a stop next to Henry (who was patiently pulling Chooch along near the wall) and saying, loud enough for all to hear, “I’m done! There are way too many kids here. THEY ARE RUINING IT. KIDS RUIN EVERYTHING. FUCK!” Henry just looked at me patiently, waiting for me to put a cork in my effervescing rant bottle. I expected him to concur, to say something like, “Yeah, fuck these bitch ass kids. Let’s string ’em up in the corn field and let the Lord take over!” But there was no massaging of my neuroses, so I skated off the rink in a huff, staked out an empty spot on the bench to squeeze my fat ass into, and proceeded to vent to all of my imaginary friends on Twitter. I did a lot of angry exhaling too, because I needed everyone around me to know that I was extremely disgusted by their infiltration of my roller rink, which I purchased 49 years ago in a secret sale before I was even born, that is how awesome I am.

At one point, I happened to look up just as Henry and Chooch idled on the rink across from where I sat. Chooch pointed at me and laughed while Henry pantomimed a crying fit.

Fuckers.

In the middle of my stew session, Roller DJ (who actually gave us a super warm welcome since he hadn’t seen us in like three weeks so that in and of itself made me feel like I belonged there more than any of these other motherfuckers) announced in his signature lackadaisical drawl that it was time for Couple Skate. Sometimes, Kim and Chris will chill out off-rink with Chooch so I can chase Henry down and skate-rape him, but they weren’t there this particular afternoon because Kim hasn’t been feeling well. (And let me add that it sucked not having a partner with whom to plow into small children). So, I stayed on the bench and played into the role of downtrodden single hag while Henry and Chooch couple-skated. And of course, this would be the one time Roller DJ actually played a song worth couple skating to.

Paula Abdul’s classic sex jam, “Rush Rush.”

MOTHER FUCK.

So instead of fake-holding Henry’s hand while telling him about all the boys this song made me want to make out with in middle school, I sat unloved and alone on the bench, witnessing a verbally violent domestic quarrel between the human versions of the Gorgs on Fraggle Rock who were seated across from me.

King was very upset and bellowed loudly, “WHY DON’T WE JUST FUCKING LEAVE THEN?” while Queen sat there acting all Appalachian and shouting back at him to shut up and leave then. I tried to piece it together, maybe he caught her in the back alley fucking a chicken leg, and goddammit this is the LAST time she’s gon’ fuck some greasy chicken leg behind HIS back, so good luck finding another man with a gas station attendant job as good as his who can also fill the role of dead beat dad as adequately as he did.

But no, it was because he done got himself the wrong size roller blades.

“YOU AIN’T LEAVIN’ ME HERE ALONE WITH THESE TWO,” Queen hollared back at him while giving the two youngest ragamuffin spawn a neglectful flick of her thick wrist. “WHY DONTCHU JUS’ GET A NEW SIZE?”

I didn’t even try to pretend that I wasn’t watching. How ya’ll gon’ argue while “Rush Rush” is playing, anyway?

In the end, he ended up getting a new pair of roller blades and I can only hope they went home later and fornicated on top of a week-old pizza box while Jeff Foxworthy did some stand up on the tellyvision behind them.

Realizing sitting it out was more detrimental to my nerves than actually fighting the masses on the rink, I decided to give it another go-around. My patience hadn’t improved much during my short hiatus and I found myself flat-out yelling at children because fucking RINK REF wasn’t doing his job. What a motherfucking waste of a striped shirt and whistle. Then a parapet of inexperienced wheeled grade schoolers forced me into the wall and your fucking mother could have easily steamed some goddamn succotash on my face after that. I resumed skating with locked-arms and hands balled into fists.

When 18+ skate was announced, I legit cheered. Loudly. There was a vigorous Roof Raise connected to it. However, it didn’t take long to figure out that even 18+ skate was going to be a bust. The rink was full of honky doofs that day. I watched some older man attempt to do a split in the middle of the rink, only to fall on his broad cracker ass. Bring back the black people!

We left shortly after an hour and a half, and Henry had to buy me a shamrock shake to cheer me up.

I was trying to put Chooch’s coat on him this morning before school, when he quite earnestly asked, “What makes me have dreams?”

Great. Anything more than, “What is your name?” and  “Name the cast of the Jersey Shore” is too hard of a question to dump on me pre-8:00am. “I don’t know. Your brain, I guess,” I mumbled, struggling with the zipper.

Chooch made a very agitated noise, and then spat, “Well, I hate my brain.” He paused, (waiting for me to ask why, I’m sure, which never happened because I was too busy being gagged by a yawn) before explaining, “Because it made me dream about Dora.”

Poor child. I would hate that brain, too.

***

Today’s Show n Tell is for the letter S. I gave him my Sid & Marty Kroft Sigmund the Sea Monster plushie to take. I originally was going to let him take his play sword, but Henry was like, “Um, no. They’re not allowed to take swords.”

“What? Why? Where does it say that?” I asked, wondering if there was some bulletin I missed (which would pretty much be all of the bulletins).

“Um, they’re not allowed to take anything that resembles a weapon. It pretty much says that everywhere, in every school.” He said this using his “I’m talking to my 8-year-old daughter” voice, then he gave me that patronizing once-over with his eyes while shaking his head sadly.

Well, sorry that I clearly did not know that. When I was in kindergarten, I wore a charm belt to school and one of the charms was A REVOLVER. Twenty-five years later, and I haven’t shot anyone. Yet.

When Milly came calling on Ethel one afternoon, she was a bit unnerved by the soft plopping sensation she kept feeling on her shoulders.

Milly tried not to look distracted while Ethel yammered on about the new compost pile her husband Jim-Bitch had engineered right there in the backyard, next to the rusted 1967 pick up truck and behind the pig sty. As more gentle plops landed upon her shoulders and gingham’d bosom, Milly tightened her grip on the mason jar of moonshine Ethel done served up. Trying her darndest to retain eye contact, she waited for Ethel to get up and whip her kids before flicking and swiping at the hardening lumps on her shoulders.

Twenty-eight minutes into her visit, Milly was taking a long slurp of ‘shine when something wet and mushy went splat-squish on her head. And then, a second later, a thick brook of warm goo glooped right on down her forehead, right on past the whisker-sprouting mole, before pooling into a moist inlet of fecal marsh at the bridge of her nose.

Looking up slowly, Milly was met with ruffled feathers and at least eight sets of beady eyes.

“Ya’ll gots some birds up in there,” she drawled to Ethel, pointing up at the rafters. And she took another long gulp of moonshine while Ethel went to town with a leather belt on the backside of her redheaded stepson for burying the neighbor in the brand new compost pile, goddammit.

***

New size pendants up in here! Measuring 1.22 x 1.22″, a print of my original painting Ya’ll Gots Some Birds Up In There has been miniaturized and sealed with resin so that you can have your own piece of lilliputian art to string around your neck.

Chain not included, just in case the dangling gets weird and verboten; I don’t want to be held responsible.

I found a stash of self-portraits on my phone that Chooch had snapped, featuring nothing more than his bare legs, a collection large enough to fill an entire coffee table book for lovers of nude limbs.

Too good to pass up.

I was going to write something along the lines of “content” today but then I spent all morning making a mix CD instead, which wins every time.

Oh well.

While reading this, I hope you could hear my total monotone in your head.

I have a bit of the malaise glaze.

ETA: This just happened:

I asked Chooch (whose legs are still unclothed) if he wants me to put anything in particular on the mix CD I’m making for Kaitlin, and he said, “Yes. A heart.” Which would have made for a really sweet story to tell everyone if only he hadn’t tacked on, “Or daddy’s furry weener.” (He is determined to alert the masses of the existence of his dad’s furry weener, by the way. Henry is thrilled by this.)

What better photoshoot conditions than a cold and rainy day. Henry wasn’t thrilled about it, but too fucking bad. I need him around to hold my lenses.

“That was kind of scary,” Chooch informed me just now as he walked past, looking for a cat to torture.

This was Chooch’s idea. I went along with it because I liked the angel/demon juxtaposition.

How apropos.

I asked, in a kind of huffy tone, “Why do you always have to pose like a goddamn zombie?

”

“Because we’re in the cemetery?” Chooch answered, hands raised. Then he shook his head and gave me the “You’re so stupid, Mommy” laugh.

The ratings company sent some awesome swag in the mail yesterday: A whole booklet of decals. Because slapping a picture of the American flag on my personal meter will make it way less embarrassing to carry on my person!

I chose this one though:

“Too bad there isn’t one with the Steelers logo,” she said around chunky bites of sarcasm.

That might even be my next tattoo, right smack on my left jug. Obviously I’d have “Mom” added to the banner.

Or “Nascar.”

The next show I go to, I’m going to have the band sign my meter, OMG.

Additionally, the ratings company was so kind to send a catalogue of “fashionable” meter accessories, such as an elegant pleather holster and my personal favorite, the meter sock:

There’s even an accessory to turn the device into a NECKLACE, which I was just thinking the other day would be the next logical move from shamefully stuffing it in my pocket.

I was so excited to show off my newly haute couture’d meter to everyone at work last night.

And by everyone, I mean the two people who have been mocking me ever since I was dumb enough to tell them about it.

“I forgot to tell you, I got stuck talking to that travel office lady last night,” I complained to Henry yesterday. “We were in the bathroom together before I left work, and she started talking to me about my hair while we were washing our hands.” Here is where I would make a disgusted sound for effect. “It was so awkward.”

Henry didn’t say anything, just kept driving.

“Then we had to walk down the hall together! I mean, there was no way around it. We were both headed the same direction.” I shuddered a little in the passenger seat, reliving the horrors of it all, how she penetrates my soul with her intense eye contact that makes me instinctively take two steps back. “And of course, we left at the same time so I had to ride the elevator with her.”

I had a quick flashback of frantically thumping the “close door” button to no avail; she was too quick in her approach and managed to slip in between the doors before they closed completely.

“And then, the whole way to the lobby, all TEN FLOORS down to the lobby, she asked me questions!” I added incredulously.

“Like what?” Henry asked.

“Like, ‘What’s your name? What do you do here? Why do you work part time? Are you in school?'” I rolled my eyes and made more disgruntled throat scrapings. “It was so awkward,” I reiterated.

“That just sounds like a normal conversation to me,” Henry said impatiently. That’s because he lives in a world where conversation is invited, and not the impenetrable bubble of ignorance in which I’ve set up my cozy little hobo camp. My friend Alisha once pointed out that she had never known someone with as much ability to turn every situation into something as painfully awkward as I manage to do every single day of my life. I take a certain pride in that.

“I have to remember I’m talking to a twelve-year-old,” he said mostly to himself; and then, shooting up his voice with an extra dose of condescension, he patronized, “That’s how you MAKE FRIENDS.”

I laughed haughtily. “What makes you think I want to be friends with her?

She’s lame. And old.”

“You’re so judgmental! What if she thinks you’re lame? What if she likes the same music as you?

” And then, as if to really drive home his point, “What if she’s going to see Dance Gavin Dance, too?”

This time absolute hilarity drove away the anger from my laughter and I was practically in tears at the absurdity of his statement. “Trust me, she does not like the same music as me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she wears this ugly leopard print hat from the Grandma Cleavage Store!”

Henry shook his head in defeat and dropped me off at work. Minutes later, the elevator door opened on my floor; as I went to step off, Travel Office Lady was waiting to step on. “Welcome to work!” she exclaimed in that friendly manner that I haven’t quite yet mastered.

For a split second, I felt guilty.

But then my eyes flicked up to her stupid fucking leopard hat and I carried my sanctimonious attitude to my desk like the bloated extra appendage it’s known to be.

The first time I met Evonne was February of 2005. She was Alisha’s roommate at the time, and Alisha and I had just become friends through LiveJournal. My first time visiting, Evonne pulled out her Psychic Circle and it was there, at their dining room table, that I learned Henry was my soul mate but I should break up with him. Being a classy broad with a fully developed maturity level, I took this information home and smashed it in Henry’s face. Even though Evonne reminded me over and over that this was really just a game and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Obviously, we didn’t break up. And things between us got a lot better than they were during that time. Such as, I’m not in a constant effort to make him bleed anymore. And that in turn has made him nicer to me. Who ever would have guessed.

Evonne, Alisha and I tried to play with the Psychic Circle once last year, but it didn’t work because I was being too spiritually uptight, psychically frigid, I don’t know. So when my friend Wendy and I went to Evonne’s this past Saturday night, I made sure to leave all of my expectations and preconceived notions at the door. I mainly focused on all the cheese that we would be eating, and that really helped quell my nerves.

After having social hour with Evonne’s menagerie (she has the sweetest cats and dogs), we said a prayer around the board before jumping right in. I was happy that it was moving for us this time, after last year when my mental baggage created an energy roadblock and the disc basically just sat on the board, dragging its feet like a stubborn child. We quickly learned that there were a ton of spirits there for Wendy, and there was a really emotionally intense moment involving her, which I’m not going to write about it because it’s too personal. But I will say that crying is contagious and I realized then that in the short time I’ve known her, I’ve cried more in front of her than most other people I know, which made Henry shake his head when I told him that later.

When my spirit guide took the reigns, we learned that his name starts with K and he’s someone related to me, but I have no idea who it could be.

“When we did this in 2005, the same thing happened. I still have the notes you gave me that day,” I said to Evonne, who had an accident a few years back and doesn’t really remember meeting me in 2005. We learned that K has been with me for 31 years. The disc slid over to the corner of the board closest to my right and stopped on the word “Look.” The three of us looked all around, and then the disc slid closer to the corner so we focused on that area.

“It’s sitting on the corner for ‘air,'” Wendy pointed out. “So maybe we should look up.”

And when I did, I noticed an old door bell box on the wall with a K on it.

Wow, my spirit guide is a dick.

K also told me to protect myself from Henry and you know me – I got all wide-eyed and started OMG’ing, but Evonne calmly reiterated that this is just a game and shouldn’t be taken literally. Henry’s lucky, otherwise he’d have been slapped with a PFA post haste.

So when he accidentally drops a piano on my head late on a Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be able to laugh and say, “Oh K, you old devil!” before perishing from a brain bleed.

[I will admit that the next night, when we were at the Chiodos show (which I have yet to write about because I’m still too sad) I was afraid to stand too close to Henry. During one of the opening bands, in fact, I left him standing in the back all by himself while I went closer to the stage. YOU NEVER KNOW.]

After awhile, the spirits were like, “Jesus Christ, go eat your fucking fromage already,” and I said a silent prayer because do you know how rough it was for me to sit there with a pile of fine cheeses to my left? I kept tossing it sidelong glances.

One of my contributions was Havarti and I made sure to point out at least six times that it was from God’s Country, wherever the fuck that is. Evonne gave me a knife (mistake #1) and expected me to help her arrange a platter. I silently struggled and when she didn’t notice, I made a few quiet grunts of frustration before she grabbed the hunk from me and did it herself. I was OK with slicing the Amish Butter Cheese, though! Henry would have been proud.

We stuffed ourselves with cheese while bullshitting and I realized that I was feeling absolutely drained, yet very peaceful. We closed down the board a little after midnight and made promises to do it again very soon. You better believe I’ll be back. I need to find out more dirt on Henry.

07 08 042, originally uploaded by appledale.

I love the expression on that ginger’s face; makes me crack up every time.

July feels so fucking far away.