Way too nice outside to sit around blogging today, so I’m closing out the weekend with some posts from my makeup-lovin’ friends! I’ll be back tomorrow to show you the coolest thing ever I got at the flea market today, OMG you’ll just die. (Except that you won’t, unless you REALLY like religious shit.)

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Claire is starting a new project at Claire’s Beauty and wants your help!

RSVP to Bekka’s Birthday Party Giveaway at glostix! Open internationally!

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Stephanie’s been playing with green and orange yarn at From Star Stuff.

Karoliina’s having a giveaway to celebrate a hundred followers! Go toBones and Lilies and leave a comment for a chance to win!

I’m kind of a dick and barely ever mention Marcy’s daughter (and Don’s sister) Willie. She’s always been kind of the wild card out of the bunch: skittish, spent most of her life hiding from people, a loose cannon as far as temperament goes. Henry hates her because she attacked him out of the blue years ago and he apparently holds grudges.

A few weeks ago, I noticed she hadn’t come out after Chooch went to school (they all come out after Chooch goes to school). I saw her once, just a brief flash of her, that day and then before I went to bed that night I found her laying on the bathroom floor, panting.

The next day, she let Chooch pet her which was the biggest sign ever that something was wrong, bigger even than the fact she wasn’t eating.

Henry and I took her to the vet, who gave us the defeatist version and basically had us thinking the next step was euthanasia.

“We’ll load her up on fluids, give her some vitamin and antibiotic shots, along with some more antibiotics for you to give her at home, and if there is no improvement, well…..”

So of course I’m standing in the exam room, sobbing, and telling her, “I just lost a cat in December!!!” like that is going to matter or change anything.

I wasn’t very optimistic after that, and even two days later when Willie seemed to be more mobile and shedding her death bed demeanor, I was afraid to get my hopes up; the vet said all the fluid they gave her would perk her up for a day or two, so it didn’t necessarily mean she was better. But Henry and I diligently administered the medicine to her everyday (a daunting task, she is way meaner than Marcy and almost feral-like in her temperament) and now, two weeks later, she appears to be normal again! Her appetite is back and Marcy isn’t hissing at her anymore.

They’ve even resumed taking naps together.

I feel that Willie and I bonded a little during this time (even though she bit me THROUGH MY THUMB the first day I tried to give her medicine), therefore I owe her some facetime on here. Sorry for neglecting you, Willie!

“There’s a deaf birthday party today,” the owner’s wife whispered to us as we walked in. “So if you see anyone acting weird on the rink, that’s why.”

“Aren’t there always people acting weird on the rink?” Henry retorted, making her shift uncomfortably because she clearly didn’t want to be standing there making fun of the clientele, even though we had totally been joking about amputation moments before.

Meanwhile, the prospect of sharing the rink with deaf people had left me positively giddy, like I was at a theme party. I love deaf people! (Just not Marlee Matlin. Actually, she’s the only deaf person I know.) Henry kept giving me warning glares, like I was going to do something stupid, as if I haven’t learned my lesson from the horrible blog backlash I’ve been getting in 2012.

If it hadn’t been for the occasional frantic signing, I wouldn’t have even noticed that there was anything unique going on. It seemed like a typical afternoon skate to me, complete with the rogue assholes skating on the diagonal, against traffic.

“God! Why isn’t Robin blowing her whistle?!” I yelled at Henry after nearly being plowed down by some directionally-challenged runt.

“Um, because they can’t HEAR it,” Henry reminded me.

If ever there was a time to use the IP Relay service for good!

I don’t know what the hell Chooch’s problem was that afternoon, but when the first couple skate was announced, we made it around the rink once before he got all inexplicably angry at me and left me to skate alone to Luther Vandross’s “Here and Now,” and suddenly it was the 6th grade all over again and my crush du jour was dancing with some other stuffed-bra bimbo to that same song and to this day THAT IS WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHEN I HEAR THAT SONG. Which is often, actually, because if I’m not listening to Jonny Craig on repeat in my bedroom, the radio dial is set to soft rock. There, now you know something about my private bedroom life.

Oh, was I in a foul mood after that! Never has someone had a scowl so chiseled while being serenaded by Vandross. Toward the end of the song, Henry skated onto the rink and attempted to take my hand, oh valiant one that he is. I was like, “Quit trying to look romantic in front of your rink ref girlfriend.”

And that’s another reason I was in such a surly mood: Every time I would look around for Henry on the rink, I’d always find him over by the snack room, hyuking it up with either the owners or the employees and NEVER ON THE RINK WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND. And Chooch was off somewhere laying on a bench, being a pouter-bitch. I think he may have only skated for one song all afternoon. Oh holy shit was I livid. Nice to know I came to the rink to skate alone.

Be a bitch, I don’t care!!

He wouldn’t even stand near us for the Chicken Dance. THAT’S COLD.

In other rink news, I have been having a big issue with the music there. I feel like it used to be a decent mix, with some nerve-grating tracks, but you have to expect that shit when the DJ is paid to cater to the masses of ordinary people who like shitty, ordinary music.

When Ladies Only was announced, I said to myself, “Single Ladies or Barbie Girl in 3…2…1.”

It was “Barbie Girl.” Fuck that song. Fuck the other song too. This is the best us ladies get? Beyonce or motherfucking Aqua? Yeah, I still skated to it, but I WASN’T HAPPY ABOUT IT.

Men Only was next and it is almost exclusively “Boom Boom Pow” for the guys. I sat on the bench, gripping my phone and clenching my jaw. Deaf people are so lucky they get to avoid the Black Eyed Peas.

My ear drums were crying uncle at this point, so I skated over to Roller DJ’s music room and pleaded with him to play The Cure.

“Oh…I don’t think I have any Cure,” he said, but not making any moves to actually check.

“I haven’t finished bringing all my music in yet, so I only have new stuff, or like, really old stuff.” Yes, I know — that fucking organ bullshit.

“You don’t even have ‘Just Like Heaven’?” I continued to press. What the fuck kind of DJ doesn’t at least have “Just Like Heaven”?! Supermarket sound systems have “Just Like Heaven” and those aren’t even real DJs!

I skated away in disgust and immediately this really terrible song came on that he plays every week.

“What the fuck kind of song is this!?” I shouted over the feel good “You’re my best friend” lyrics. I figured Henry would know, because it sounded like some goddamn Leif Garrett Afterschool Special track that he would have hitched up his tube socks and pranced around his bedroom to.

“It’s the theme song from the Pokemon movie,” Henry answered entirely too quickly.

RECORD SCRATCH.

Roller DJ has the motherfucking POKEMON MOVIE SOUNDTRACK but he looks at me all crazy when I request THE CURE?

Furthermore, why does Henry know this!?

So instead of skating dreamily to the sonic bouquet of black roses that is Robert Smith’s golden voice, I had to mope around on wheels to this bullshit excuse for a song:

Please try to imagine me skating around, shoulders all scrunched up in annoyance and a look of absolute horror and disgust on my face EVERY WEEK WHEN THE SAME KID (who is the best roller blader I’ve ever seen) REQUESTS THIS SONG. And on this particular afternoon, HE WASN’T EVEN SKATING TO IT!!!!

Oh for Christ’s sake.

Sometimes instead of writing on here, I just really want to share music. Not only does my Twitter friend Richie love to hate the same hockey teams as me, he’s also in a really amazing band called Diamond Dancer. I love them so much and periodically drop him hints about coming to Pittsburgh.

(PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!) Maybe someday Richie will let me conduct one of my lame interviews on him.

You know you love reading the awkwardness that is Erin interviewing someone.

I just want to lay in the cemetery on a beautiful spring day and listen to this song on repeat. Henry may or may not be invited.

[Interested in hearing more? Go here!]

Playing Draw Something with Henry is really bringing us together.

Except for the fact that his user name is “hatemygirlfriend.”

I’m sure Henry thought to himself, “I’m so glad I’ve listened to Erin blather on and on about scene bands for the last 11 years so that I might one day guess ‘Skrillex’ correctly.” Skrillex will always be Sonny Moore from From First To Last in my heart.

RIP FFTL.

Nice school house, Henry. You shoulda put him in a wheelchair!

Draw Something has totally overridden Words With Friends as my lone social activity. Start a game with me!

P.S. Henry evidently fixed the email subscriptions for my blog, so if you suddenly start getting irritating email notifications, just remember: YOU SIGNED UP, DUMMY! But don’t worry, I expect it will stop working within a week, anyway. That’s the way things go on my jerry-rigged blog. I think I am going to have an avocado smoothie today.

Sunday was so beautiful. After the hockey game (PENS WON, FUCK YEAH), I suggested that we spend quality family time outdoors, so we went to the cemetery like anyone else would do. I chose the Homewood Cemetery on this particular day because it has a pond and it’s been awhile since we were there last. So many great memories were made in this place. And it’s where Chooch was conceived!

(Kidding. No really, it seems like it would have to be true, but it’s a joke.)

“Look at that tree!” Chooch yelled, pointing to some weird, ugly, low-to-the-ground clump of vegetation. (Not the tree in the above picture.) He covered his mouth and giggled obnoxiously. Not even plants can escape his scathing mockery.

“That’s not a tree,” my Pointdexter Eagle Scout boyfriend corrected. “It’s a rhododendron bush.” And he even pushed up his glasses as he said it.

“Oh boy, I always forget that you’re a nature know-it-all,” I mumbled, picking up my pace. He gets on my nerves with this shit. If it’s not moss education or bird identifying, it’s smug bush naming.

Get a fucking life, Henry.

Ever since that one dickhead made a comment about how I post too many Instagram’d photos, that’s pretty much all I want to do. AND I THINK I WILL. I am full of self-righteousness these days. (I know, what else is new.)

OMG DEER!!

This is like the most anti-Chooch bench of all time. Love to all? Yeah right. He divvies his love in tiny increments between our dead cat Speck, Star Wars, wii and whichever girl he’s fake-hating at school this week. (Names will forever be omitted for the sake of all those Catholic school families who do not want to be associated with any of the Satanic smut on this website.)

This is part of the maintenance building, but it reminded me so much of the Bayernhof Music Museum, that I had to take a picture and send it to Andrea. I should have waited until much later that night, though, so she would have had horrific nightmares of vagina dentata, where the dentata was actually the thrashing lid of a music box. She told me I’m evil — only to my favorites!

It’s a wonder he didn’t fall into the pond. I almost fell into the pond when I was yelling at him about falling into the pond. One of these days, I really am going to fall into a pond and I’ll be part of that small percentage of people who wind up with some nasty parasitic worm swimming up their nostril (I’d say kooka, but I’ve already mentioned vagina once and I’m trying to keep this a Catholic family blog), but if it’s the kind that will make me lose weight, I’ll be fine with it.

“CARRY ME, MY LEGS HURT! I’M SO BORED!” He says bored when really he means LAZY. This kid has so much energy and I have seen him run laps around most other kids on a playground, but if we’re anywhere else where he has to walk like a normal human being, he gets all bent out of shape. Not like I walk like a normal human being, but I can at least walk uphill without having a major fit about it.

(Mostly.)

OMG SO FUCKING TIRED!!!!!!

Oh OK, Nature Dick.

Chooch and I spent most of our walk bickering with each other. I told him lies about cemeteries and Henry would sigh and say, “No, Chooch, that’s not true.” Then he would threaten to hit me with sticks and I would retaliate with threats to leave him there alone over night.

During one of our typical banter sessions, I was frustrated to the point where I said he was my least best friend.

“Yeah, well you’re my frenemy,” he retorted with a smugness.

On the way back to the car, we passed a couple sitting on a secluded bench behind some overgrown bushes.

“WHAT ARE THEY DOING, LOOKING AT DEAD PEOPLE?” Chooch shouted in his normal high-octave voice.

Henry tried to shush him, but then I noticed what they were actually doing so then Henry turned his futile shushing onto me.

“Chooch, do you know what they’re doing?” I asked mischievously.

“WHAT? WHAT ARE THEY DOING?!” he asked, stopping in his tracks and craning his neck toward them again.

“They’re MAKING OUT!” I yelled, and Henry shook his head and walked away while Chooch and I cracked up like two five-year-0lds.

Who needs a playground when there are cemeteries?

As my two year anniversary at The Law Firm nears, I received some good news tonight: I was approved for full-time! I think I’ve mentioned on here before that when I was originally hired as a temp, it was just to cover the late shift from 4-9.

And those hours worked wonderfully for me! I got to watch loads of MTV, harrass the cats, write bullshit in my blog, work on my dumb book  spend time with my kid once he got home from school, and then after 6 months they made me a real Law Firm employee. But now that Chooch is in school for full days, there’s really no reason for me to be home. And Henry was all, “If you can convince them to bring you on full time, I will worry about what to do with him in the summer. You leave the summers to me.”

So that is what I’m going to do: leave the summers to Henry. He’ll be having Chooch pushing cases of Faygo on a forklift and napping luxuriously at a desk  in no time.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working mostly full days to help out while Barb is recuperating, but I wasn’t sure how necessary that would be once she comes back.

In any case, I can always be Barb’s afternoon gofer.

Man, this is going to be great. Just think of all the extra time I’ll have to mastermind more office pranks and annoy the shit out of Barb once she returns. And then maybe someday this can afford us to move the FUCK out of Brookline, which eats a little more of my soul with each passing year. Or maybe that’s the effect of the local meth fumes.

It might not seem like that big of a deal, but it really matters to me. I am so happy/relieved/grateful right now. Seems like just yesterday we were about to be evicted.

We went to King’s after Soul Skate a few weeks ago and Henry was all jacked off because the waitress completely forgot his order of wings.

“Maybe it’s because you also ordered a burger and she feels that’s enough,” I offered. But Henry grumbled and added a fifth packet of sugar into his iced tea.

When he told the waitress about the wings, she was super apologetic and vowed to bring him a plate immediately. But Henry, refusing to look at her, mumbled, “THAT’S OK.”

And that is how he treated her for the rest of the meal, as though she was the stripper who ground her yeast infection into his crotch at his 30th birthday party.

Laura and I kept defending her.

“You don’t know what’s going on in her home life!” I cried. “She may have just had a miscarriage!”

This got me a scowl.

It’s not that I was super keen on this waitress, but I do love it when Henry has bad luck at restaurants! You guys have no idea the levels of pouting, disappointment & self-loathing it brings out in him. Poor Henry, indeed.

The waitress finally talked him into taking home a dozen mint Frownies, which still didn’t make him happy. WHAT DO YOU WANT HENRY, A BJ BEHIND THE FRYER?!

Yesterday after skating, Henry finally got his wings.

But this time, they forgot his order or fries. Best day ever!

I just love her so much.

But she only loves Henry so much. :(

The Mattress Factory is a contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh that I try to visit at least once a year because it’s cheap (used to be free with my Pitt ID), fun, bizarre, and at times — perplexing. My brother Corey has never been there so I was stoked to accompany him for his first visit. I taunted Henry before we left, trying to m ake him jealous, but the expression he gave me shouted, “Yeah, just what I want to; go watch you and your brother be obnoxious art dicks.”

There is usually at least one installation that makes me angry because I don’t get it and I REALLY WANT TO GET IT because that will aid my cause for pretentiousness.

This time it was some exhibit with two videos of shutters being opened and closed, and large plastic bags randomly inflating.

There was a couple in the room with us and the boy was all, “Oh, I totally get this” and as he was explaining it to his girlfriend, I was like, “Awesome, I will just learn from him and pretend that I got it all along” except that everything he said was steeped in concepts that my brain refuses to let in because it is too full of ginger douchebag obsession, Jersey Shore anecdotes and lame office prank ideas.

I quickly realized that me and that guy could never, ever hang out. I could probably fake intellect and a love for Sufjan Stevens for about 9 minutes before he saw right through me to my screamo collection and trashy MTV reality show-filled DVR.

Breathing Bags*

*not the actual name of the exhibit. I am too tired to Google.

I really enjoyed the room full of plaster hands holding bread. This one I really did understand! It’s called “My Offering.” Here’s an excerpt from the artist’s statement, because suddenly I feel inspired to be a factual blogger:

I have not escaped the memories of the victims’ hands asking food and help in the aftermath of the Nagis cyclone that hit Burma’s delta in 2008. When my wife and I were doing relief work with other friends, I saw the many hands of people who were hungry for food, for safety, for kindness and for others. We continue to see countless hands like these all over the world today.

A bland room with a very clinical white-tiled floor held several clumps of found objects called “Roadkill.” I did not really understand this one too, but I almost accidentally stepped on a collection of tiny candle stubs because I wasn’t paying attention. This was one of the many installations that made me feel secure in my decision to say “NO! N-O spells NO!” when my 5-year-old Godzilla-footed son asked if he could come, too. Another experiment in child endangerment was the large wormhole that cut through the 4th floor and extended into a chute that went outside. Perfect size for a kid’s slide. SEE YA ON THE OTHER SIDE, SON!

I have no idea, but I will look at it and nod. 

I posted this on Facebook, and someone asked, “Your living room?” I wish!

This is my favorite installation, hands down. It’s called “It’s All About ME, Not You.” The artist, Greer Lankton, died in 1996 after the exhibit’s opening, and her family recently gave it to the Mattress Factory to be permanently displayed.

Imagine John Waters puked inside my head and then a transvestite artist drank from it. It is equal parts white trash, retro fabulous, creepy-queer and Valley of the Dolls. I want to live inside of it.

I wish I had known Greer Lankton because this small relic of her heart, brains and guts really moves me in a way that art rarely does.

 Honestly, I wish this was the last thing I saw every night before closing my eyes and the first thing every morning when I awoke. I am so smitten.

I LOVE THIS ROOM! IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!!

Corey was like, “Haha, there are so many of us!”

“It’s Henry’s worst nightmare!” I exclaimed, and then Corey and I erupted in our signature brand of gang-laughter.

When we emerged from the mirrored dot room and put our shoes back on, I sneered, “Nice penny loafers,” to Corey.

“Actually, they’re boat shoes,” Corey replied, matching my sneer and raising it one notch of indignation.

There is one permanent exhibit called Pleiades, which basically requires one to sit in absolute darkness. I have never had the patience to see what the outcome might be, but here is what the Mattress Factory says about it:

Pleiades, 1983
Permanent Installation
Drywall, paint, incandescent light
500 Sampsonia Way, 2nd floor

You approach the gallery through an inclined corridor so dark that you are virtually without sight. At the top of the ramp, you sit in a chair and face blackness. After your eyes adjust, an amorphous sphere of grey-white, or perhaps red, begins to appear, more a presence than an object. As you look harder, the form becomes smaller. You turn away for a moment and back again. It grows and glimmers. But the source of light itself is constant and still.

Art Critic and his girlfriend were already in this particular exhibition, probably practicing their dissertation on art and blindness, so Corey and I were told by a gallery employee standing next to a vintage British Airways bag that we would have to wait for them to finish being art douches.

Since we didn’t have any art to frown upon, fawn over, or openly mock, I decided to tell Corey about the night before, when I discovered that the only reason Chooch won’t eggs is because he can’t cut them. Henry’s reaction to this was, “I am NOT cutting eggs for him because then he is going to be 25 and still needing his food cut by someone, JUST LIKE YOU AND YOUR BROTHER!”

Corey laughed but then defensively said, “Hey, I was like, 14 when Henry had to cut my pork chops!” as if it’s perfectly masculine and acceptable for a 14-year-old male to need his protein cut for him. But then after a thoughtful pause, he admitted, “Although…I had to get  my girlfriend’s dad to cut my food recently.” The absurdity of how absolutely related we are made me crack up, and then he laughed loudly too, which echoed and ricocheted up the dark corridor and into the Pleiades room, totally disrupting the thoughtful banter between the art smarties that I am clearly making fun of only because I’m jelis that they have such a greater appreciation while I am left to stumble in their intellectual wake with undulating question marks floating above my head.

Finally, it was our turn, but we barely had a chance to feel around for our seats before two other people came tromping blindly up the corridor, thanks to British Airways not doing her job. So then we had the awkward task of trying to skirt past them in the dark without groping them. I felt the one guy’s breath on my neck, it was so intimate. I hope he was hot. His breath sure was.

Yay for overpriced shoddily crafted art in a cigarette machine! Corey actually wanted a body part key chain but then was all, “Well, I’m not paying $5 if I don’t know what kind of limb I’m getting.” Andrea can probably make him a better one, anyway.

At first I said, “Who would want a fruit cozie?” but then I realized I totally would, just to be a dick.

Another room that confused us, and was also extremely dangerous for equilibrium-challenged people like ourselves. It was essentially a small-scale construction site with lots of dangling steel beams and random ditches in the ground. Another terrific room for Chooch to roam free.

I love that Pee Wee was in the basement.

The Corey Installation

We decided that we should go more often. Maybe one day we can be real life art smarties!

;

Something weird happened between me and Orange Ball. No, nothing that you’d have to pay to see, but kind of like a reverse Stockholm Syndrome: I WAS STARTING TO BOND WITH THE BALL. I knew I had to give it back to Chris—and soon—not only because I was afraid of growing too attached, but I never know how far I can take these things. Some people only have so much patience when they’re on the receiving end of pranks! I will never forget when I worked at the Tina and Eleanore Company, my one co-worker Collin ate a Hot Pocket every night. So another guy, Bob, decided, “Hey wouldn’t it be funny if we took Collin’s Hot Pocket out of the freezer and hid it?” I of course thought this would be the best idea ever because who I am to ever say, “No, one musn’t pull pranks on another colleague.” So I encouraged Bob to do it and Collin absolutely had a Hulk-caliber freak out, almost busted out of his shirt to make room for all the rage. He was beyond-pissed, slamming shit around in the kitchen, and we were all afraid of him for a little bit after that.

I also have a mildly adverse reaction to Hot Pockets now, too.

I didn’t want to see this happen to Chris. I don’t like it when men yell. Unless they’re on a stage at Warped Tour making Henry hate his life.

So I decided last night that today would be the big reunion. But not after posing Orange Ball with Michael Myers.

Aaron originally had the twin to Orange Ball, and he agreed to sacrifice it for the prank’s sake. I knew that I wanted to cut the ball in half and place it in this little coffin that my friend Octavia sent to Chooch two Christmases ago.

(Not because she was sinisterly insinuating! It came with a zombie doll inside. God!)

However, Aaron CONVENIENTLY couldn’t find the ball in his office yesterday. Was he telling the truth and now there’s a Chris-wannabe out there on the 10th floor? Or is Aaron PLAYING BOTH SIDES? I may never know, but what I did know was that my finale now needed to be modified and I was not happy about that. I went over the possibilities again and again last night, but I knew that unless I could come up with a similar ball, I was fucked and this was about to be the worst prank in Law Firm history.

(Considering I was busted five minutes into it, I’d say it already took that honor.)

Today, I skirted the astonishing amount of Brookline crazies and walked several blocks to the nearest CVS, where I found a foam basketball set in the kids aisle. Of course, because it’s a drug store, it was over-priced at $8 (EIGHT DOLLARS!) but I was desperate and bought it. (Not before witnessing kan irate ex-hippie flipping out because the equally-irate cashier wouldn’t honor his coupon; I hid out by the nail polish, so that explains why my total bill was over $20, sorry Henry.)

I cold hear Henry in my head saying, “Please don’t put actual money into this stupid prank” but I had to finish what I started, which is how Chooch wound up with a miniature basketball hoop and no basketball. I cut the ball into pieces and once I got to work, I rubbed some of the ball shrapnel in fake blood and placed it all inside the coffin, with a note written in blood.

Then I sent one final email from Orange Ball to Chris, with the above picture attached and a simple message of “Check under Lee’s desk.” Moments later, Chris emerged from his office and I heard him behind me saying to Lee, “Orange Ball sent me under message. We have to look under your desk.”

(I really appreciate that he continued to play along after the flimsy veil was blown off my anonymity before I even really started.)

Right away, Lee exclaimed, “THIS IS NOT ORANGEY. IT’S THE WRONG TEXTURE!”

But Chris still feigned horror. I got the real “Orangey” out of my desk and tossed it to him, causing a collective eruptive of “NOOOOO!

“s to fill our quadrant. That ball is not very loved around these parts.

Here are some reactions to Chris and Orange Ball’s reunion:

• A weary: “I know, I heard him bouncing it.”
• “I heard that damn ball and immediately clenched up in anger.”
• “WHY DID YOU GIVE IT BACK!?”
• The start of a high-five, which was retracted once the owner of the hand realized that the ball guts did not actually come out of the Orange Ball.

I also got several, “Of COURSE you have a miniature coffin. Why wouldn’t you?” (“It’s my son’s,” I kept correcting)and, in mocking tones, “Of COURSE you randomly carry fake blood in your purse because you never know when you’re going to need it.”

Needed it today, DIDN’T I?

Some people were really impressed with my effort, but I’m sure there were just as many if not more who were annoyed at this complete waste of Company time.

I think I’m going to keep the coffin and remains on my desk as a permanent installation. After all, I didn’t pay just to discard it in a dumpster like a dead hooker.

Orange Ball, I kind of like you now. Come visit sometime! (Just not through the air, at a fast pace.)

I suppose I could have just played keep-away with that damn orange ball last night, maybe a rousing round of Monkey in the Middle, but instead I decided to make it more interesting. I waited for Chris to leave the office for the night and then Orange Ball and I went on a photo-taking rampage.

The first thing Chris would have seen this morning was a picture taped to his office door of a frightened Orange Ball being Xeroxed.

I rubbed an orange Sharpie all over a napkin and then stuffed it in an envelope marked URGENT in red left-hand writing. Chris’s first email today from the Orange Ball address told him to check his work mail box. Since I was still at home for all of this, Nina was texting me with updates. Apparently, a frenzy ensured and handwriting analysis was done.

Someone suggested right away that it was me, but Chris wasn’t so sure.

Second email had this picture attached to it. Chris’s response was begging me not to hurt his son, and to take him instead. And then Nina texted  me and said that somehow, Chris had placed his suspicions on Lee, so when Lee asked to see the third email, Chris said, “Why do you want to see it, you already know what you said.”

I took delight in the fact that they were turning on each other because I just play a kind, smiling sweetheart at the Law Firm. I’m actually quite cutthroat, just don’t tell the 2 remaining co-workers who think I’m an angel.

But then one of Chris’s cohorts googled the email address and found out it was me. “Oh great triumph! I cracked the flimsiest crime of all time!”  Did anyone ever really doubt it was me from the get-go? I’m surprised it took them as long as it did.

Nina said that Chris, Lee and Tyler were scoping out my desk for something to steal in retaliation, and apparently they had my Michael Myers doll for awhile, but I guess someone felt bad and put it back before I came to work. I was reading all of Nina’s texts to Henry when I was still home, and he scoffed and said, “If they really knew you, they would just take your stupid Jonny Craig pictures.” AND THAT IS SO TRUE. Except that there are like 100 more on my desktop (I have a Jonny Craig folder) that I can print out to replace anything that’s stolen or defaced.

I did, however, bring an extra apple because I thought for sure they would have taken the one I left on my desk from last night.

Orange Ball and Chris’s dog, Porter. I printed this out and left it on his desk when I got here today (after getting the stink eye from him).

“No! Porter will kill him!” he yelled from his office.

Chris walked past me once today, making a sad face and bouncing an invisible ball. Another time, he yelled BOO HISS, which made Lee crack up, but I was unruffled because this actually happens to me a lot.

I still haven’t returned Orange Ball (which they now apparently call Orangey, I guess because they needed a name for the Reward flyer they made). This isn’t over!

Oh shit, guess who slipped up and left his self-proclaimed best friend, a/k/a that fucking orange ball, over on neutral turf?

It’s about to be a fun night.

(OMG this thing is so dirty.)

ETA:

The fucking orange ball now has its own email address (AWOLorangeball@live.com). I’m going to start taking pictures of it around teh department and emailing them to Chris. He’ll totally know it’s me*, but I don’t care.

*(A-ron said that I’m the only one here with the energy and imagination to pull a prank like this; eveyone else is too defeated.)

Even when we were on a skating hiatus during the fall (tried to explain to Roller DJ that things are just too busy for us during that season but he didn’t want to hear it, jerk), I still kept tabs on the roller rink through Facebook to see if any soul skates were going to happen. Because I’d drop anything for some fucking soul skate. Some of the best times of my life (read: 2011) happened on that rink, beneath the flashing lights and pulsating beats of “Roll Bounce;” it’s kind of romantic, actually. For three whole hours, Henry and I get along. Sometimes he even looks attractive to me.

Finally, Roller DJ sent me a Facebook invite for an upcoming soul skate at the end of February. I RSVPd without even looking at the date, to be honest.

When we pulled into the lot that evening, I let out a ridiculous “Yay, black people!” cheer, which made Henry cringe, but you guys just don’t understand how happy I was to see all the Rollers milling about out there. They are THE BEST SKATERS IN THE WORLD. They make me embarrassed for my fellow white people, the same way my reverse racism embarrasses Henry. Thank god I’m only 2% white.

Sometimes, during regular afternoon sessions, there is this awesome semi-scene kid who comes alone, with his own green-wheeled skates. He is a fast, adept skater and these are things I look for in potential mates, plus he seems like he would be open to listening to Dance Gavin Dance in the cemetery at night, something that is on Henry’s never-to-do list.  When he showed up after us at adult skate, I could barely contain myself, tugging on Henry’s arm, squealing “I hope he asks me to prom!” in Laura’s face. I was also pretty smug because the last time I saw him, Henry argued that he was sure this guy was underage, but the fact that  he showed up alone to adult skate made me confident that he is AT LEAST 18. Sure, I will probably be consumed with a bit of shame once we produce roller-babies together, but I’m sure it won’t last long.

I’ve done worse.

(Not underage stuff, though! Jesus.)

(This post is not going well.)

He was sitting behind me in the snack room, so I propped my phone up to make it look like I was taking a picture of myself.

“No. No. To the left. More. No, you’re still blocking him,” Laura kept saying, trying to coax my phone in the proper direction so I could snag an image of my new prom date to share with all my imaginary Internet friends.

“You’re the worst at that,” Henry grumbled, watching me with his furrowed caterpillar-eyebrows, lips bent up in his signature disapproving smirk.

Later on the rink, he whirled past me and I shouted to Henry, “I want to go ask him where his flute is!”

Thank god Henry is old and gets all my stupid 70s television programming references. This doesn’t mean he thinks they’re funny, though.

(Seriously, you have to see this kid from the front. H.R. Pufnstuf has got to be waiting out in his car.)

Laura reveling in her first Soul Skate!

Henry’s rink ref bromance was there.

His name is Paul and he’s actually a very  nice guy, I just don’t get why he allows Henry to skate with him. I trailed them silently for a while, trying to eavesdrop, because what could they possibly have to talk about? Paul is a tangible majesty on wheels, leaving a trail of rhythm and skate-sex in his wake (you should see this man couple-skate!); Henry looks like Opie skating down to the creek to skip some stones before the Mayberry sock hop, leaving a trail of wedgie-inducing khakis and pocket protectors in his wake. I sidled up behind them but all I could make out over top of a 50-minute funk track was Henry’s HYUK-HYUK-HYUKing.

I like to do a Godzilla-dub of his laugh, making sure my jaw movements don’t  match up with the hyuk’ing. Henry does not find this amusing.

Later in the night, we were talking to Paul about skates, since we’re both looking into buying our own. (This is a big, serious process! I don’t want to fuck up and get some lame pair that doesn’t accentuate my scene kid swag.)

“I just like to skate fast,” I yelled over top of the quaking speakers.

“Yeah, I know you do!” Paul shouted back emphatically, which made me proud that he noticed. So we talked about my options, and then Paul kept trying to convince Henry to give his skates a try.

“Maybe later!” Henry kept saying on a bed of sheepish giggles, like Paul had just pulled a string of anal beads out of his back pocket. Before the end of the end, though, Paul finally wore him down, and Henry thought he was the baddest cracker out there, gliding around in a pair of $1,000 boots under-lit with a blue neon track light. He bragged about it for days.

Nauseating.

A gaggle of obnoxious honkies infiltrated the rink with their Valley Girl lilt and Katy Perry fan club membership cards. I knew right away that they were going to make the Rollers whisper “This is why segregation is sometimes OK!” They all looked like they stepped out of a 1998 Gap ad campaign, so basically imagine a gang of giddy Jannas. The ring leader was a ginger bitch wearing underwear on the outside of her jeans. (Laura overheard her telling someone she had lost a bet, but I could tell she was the type of person who thrived on the attention, good or bad.) There was something about her that immediately rubbed me the wrong way; well, yeah, there was the fact that she was a ginger (and not a good-looking one, either; but one plucked from the branches of the Bonaduce family tree).

The only good thing about their presence was that their sheer skating inadequacy made me look even better to the Rollers, I’M SURE. They just clomped around the rink in a tight group, stumbling and wobbling, having no rhythm and being white. I kept speeding past them, like I do, and I think Gingerpants was getting angry about it, because toward the end of the night, she suddenly broke away from the pack and passed me out of nowhere.

One thing to know about me is that I get easily up-in-arms. Sometimes (see also: 90% of the time) unrightfully so. When I am on that rink though, I get what I like to call skate muscles, where I really feel like everyone is out to get me and I am there to beat up the world. So when this ginger bitch smoked me, I didn’t take very kindly to it. Whether she did it intentionally or not (I honestly believe that she DID, though), this carrotbroad just threw down the gauntlet for a skate battle.

I skated off the rink and skidded to a stop next to Henry.

“DID YOU SEE WHAT THE GINGER DID TO ME?!” I exclaimed, arms akimbo, voice trembling with haughtiness. “SHE FUCKING TRIED TO RACE ME I THINK!”

Henry answered me by doing that thing he does to signify he’s exhausted by my antics, which is sighing wearily and running one calloused hand over his eyes.

“WATCH THIS,” I shouted as I skated back on the rink. She had rejoined her little suburban whitebreads; I dug down hard and picked up a good speed, turning to the side to skim between her and the wall.

She almost fell.

I couldn’t tell if Henry’s expression was one of shame to be associated with me, or one that said, “I’m gon’ bed that badass tonight.

”

I was halfway around the rink, figuring that the battle was over, when I noticed a bright red beacon in my periphery; I looked over just in time to see Carrot Top’s illegitimate daughter glaring at me over her shoulder, like I’m her greatest enemy: The Sun.

“OH FUCK NO!” I shouted to no one and everyone, firing up my skates and passing her again. She never did catch up with me again, I don’t know if she gave up and or just succumbed to her melanin deficiency, but I noticed that she and her goof troop left the rink shortly after.

“I can’t believe that stupid white girl tried to race me, ” I scoffed later.

“You’re white,” Henry reminded me.

Only on the outside, my friend. Only on the outside.

Hello. I hope you’re having a non-murderous Sunday morning.

My contribution to the Internet today is a collection of links from my friends who like makeup way more than I do, but accept me anyway. I’d be using Sharpies on my face if not for them, so I guess you can basically say that they saved my life.

I left my own link in there in case you missed the orange post.

Anyway, if you’re like me and generally spend your Sundays locked in your bedroom pouting, now you have something to read in between scribbling death notes with your boyfriend’s blood!

Lizzy shares a few items that stole her heart in February at The Nature of Beauty

Luna wants to know what your favorite eye shadow primer is at TOXiD-LOTUS.NET

Jen put together a colorful collection of Meow Cosmetics swatches at The Everyday Opinionista

Karoliina wants to show off a lilac look done with Darling Girl Cosmetics at
Bones and Lilies

Orange things piss off Erin at Oh Honestly, Erin

Sharon swatched sparkly goodness from her Fyrinnae stash at Hello There, Blondie!

Stephanie kicks off the second round of Nerd Wars with tiny knitted hexagons of doom.

Claire uses some Brazen colors at Claire’s Beauty.