Archive for June, 2012
Frown of the Day: New Nondescript Shirt Edition
Henry got a new nondescript shirt! It’s some ugly shade of orange!
It billows!
The “Bitch, I’m just trying to purchase some iced tea at CoGos, and by the way It’s actually ‘melon,’ not orange” frown.
We’re en route to the Big Butler Fair, so I’m sure there will be 87 more frowns of the day to follow.
2 commentsKennywood In Pictures
Every Father’s Day, we glorify Henry’s existence by spending the day at Kennywood. (He’ll tell you this is more for me than him, but he’s just being “HUMBLE”.) This year, we were joined by Henry’s 19-year-old son Blake (whose age drops down to 10 when he’s around Chooch); Henry’s mom, Judy; Laura and Mike (their first time at Kennywood!); and Chris and Kari, who were accompanied by their adorable daughter, Katelyn: a/k/a the cause for Chooch’s flushed cheeks.
One of these days, my child will learn how to eat an ice cream from top to bottom.
Chooch can almost ride everything now! And the things he didn’t want to ride, I berated him about it until he finally conceded and then realized, “Oh my god, Mommy, you were right! I DO love this ride!”
Mommy knows, son.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
I was so uptight about Blake having Chooch out in the open waters of Kennywood (which is probably only like 4 feet deep) that I had to walk away. God only knows what they talked about during their 30 minute paddleboat getaway.
(DAMN, that would have been the perfect question for my interview with Chooch!)
Probably coming back from his 87th jaunt to the restroom.
(What? Summer makes the balls chafe, you guys.)
(By the way: nice oversized, nondescript shirt, Henry. I’m seriously going to take all of his plain t-shirts and stencil Jonny Craig’s mugshot on them. FRONT AND BACK.)
Robbinseseses. (Look at their matching calves.)
(There were no winners at this game.)
Laura and Mike needed to take a few breaks from Chooch. Sometimes I even took those breaks with them.
Despite some failed attempts to put a ginger-tinged damper on our day, we all had a really great time, I didn’t lose my pedometer, and Henry got to spend quality time with two of his three sons. I don’t even think Chooch and I fought once.
I know this is a very truncated account, but I have to keep walking.
3 commentsBlind Date: Wheelchair Edition
On one particular occasion, I had met a few seemingly nice guys who answered one of my ads, and after emailing back and forth for a week or two, I divulged my phone number to those who piqued my interest. Steve was the first one to call.
True to his word, my phone rang within a half hour. I noticed that the call came up blocked, but I answered it anyway. But after I said “Hello?” I was quickly annoyed.
“Uuuunnnh, hellllloooooo? Thisss is unnnhhhhhh Thteeeeeevveeee [slurpy intake].”
It may have been cute for a second, but after several minutes of me trying to carry on a conversation with him, I couldn’t get him to break out of this character.
“Look, call me back when you’re not going to talk like a retard,” I said. Sure, we had hit it off with alarming speed, but it was still soon for him to be prank calling me, I thought. Phone-sex on the first call is OK, but emulating Corky should be reserved for later encounters.
Steve called back a few minutes later and acted like nothing had happened. “Oh good, I see you’re speaking normally again,” I said with relief.
“What are you talking about?” he asked. And over and over again he gave me his pathetic denial. “I swear, I was talking to my sister this whole time.”
I started to get pissed off and then I realized, how typical. You think you meet someone good and then it quickly dissolves into a bucket of shit. But then something clicked in my mind and I urged him to recount his personal ad pertinents to me.
And so he went through the details of where he lives, how old he is, and what he does for a living, adding in various hobbies and musical tastes along the way.
This is when it dawned on me that there was another Steve who answered my ad. Another Steve who had my phone number. And that particular Steve had mentioned in his emails to me that he was in a wheelchair. Because I’m presumptuous, I had imagined that he was in some sort of accident, and not handicapped because of some disease or infliction on his nervous system. Furthermore, what is that particular Steve really was retarded?
I quickly apologized to Steve #1 for accusing him of prank-calling me.
Steve #2 called me the next evening and I fumbled through a nervous apology to him too, begging him to forgive me for calling him retarded. He laughed, but he could have been crying; I couldn’t tell. I struggled through an awkward phone conversation with him, not really knowing what to say and being unable to interpret some of his responses; he had a very slow and thick slur. When he invited me out to dinner, I didn’t have the heart to say no. I had called him a retard, for Christ’s sake! The least I could do was grant him a dinner date. Would it be wrong to accept a free meal from a guy after I called him retarded? Not in my world.
But I wasn’t going by myself. I dragged my friend Keri along with me.
We arrived at Eat n’ Park and Steve was waiting inside with his dad. We all shook hands and introduced ourselves, all the while Keri tossed me sidelong glances. (I may or may not have filled her in on the extremity of Steve’s condition.) And then Steve’s dad said, “OK kids, you all have fun. Bye!” And he left.
He’s leaving?! I panicked inwardly. Steve was very crippled: he had a face that kept wanting to tuck itself into his chest, arthritic and gnarled hands, and arms that didn’t want to straighten. You leave me to my own devices with someone who has special needs and that’s as good as tucking a homemade bomb into my stretched out hands. I can’t even take care of myself. My napkin is shredded and twisted and saturated with ketchup before I’m even a quarter of the way through a meal.
So who was going to help Steve get to the table? Who was going to make sure he didn’t spill his Coke?
The three of us convened in a cumbersome huddle, looking stupidly at one another, before I finally snapped out of it. I took his wheelchair by the handles and began pushing him toward our booth. As I tried to position him as comfortably close to the end of the table as possible, I repeatedly banged his legs against the booth. I looked down to apologize, but he had his face upturned toward me, plastered with a puppyish grin.
While waiting for the food, small talk was made and we learned that Steve had some terrible nerve condition that was akin to cerebral palsy, and while it had no bearing on his mentality, it did impair his speech. He told us tales of his assisted living complex and started one about his imminent feet amputations, just as our food was slid onto the table. Yummy.
I watched in horror as Steve painfully tried to maneuver his hands around his burger, like lobster claws. He would occasionally use one hand to latch onto the sleeve of the opposite arm in an attempt to hoist the sandwich up to his mouth. I was frozen. What was the protocol here? Do I cut the burger into bite-sized morsels for him, or physically lift the burger to his awaiting chops? I felt like people at surrounding tables were watching in full-fledged “What will she do?” anticipation. I cast a desperate glance at Keri, who gave me a nonchalant “He’s your friend” shrug. So I dipped my napkin in water and dabbed at the ketchup and mustard smudges around his mouth before they became crusty.
In moments of utter discomfort, I don’t cry or sweat or swear; I laugh. And I laugh good and hard too. Of course, I’m smart enough to know that laughing at a handicapped man who has burger shrapnel all over his lap and face could be perceived as cruel and uncouth. It’s not that I found his condition to be a side-splitter, but I wanted to mask my trepidation and discomfort with laughter. So I started to make fun of Keri, and brutally so. This caused Steve to laugh and snort and spray our table with his half-swallowed sips of Coke. It went something like this:
“Hey Keri, remember when you were playing Truth or Dare—”
“Shut it, Erin.”
“—and you had to put that pickle—”
“That’s enough, Erin! OK!”
And so the evening advanced, with me ruminating over all of Keri’s past relationship foibles and peccadillos, while she hunkered down in her side of the booth, glowering at me. I knew I would have to deal with her wrath later, but it would be worth it; our night had regained normalcy. As much normalcy as it ever was going to achieve when one guy is in a wheelchair and the other two girls are like, “OMG he’s in a wheelchair.”
“Hey Keri, why don’t I give you a chance to push his chair?” I offered with faux-sincerity.
“Oh, thanks Erin, but really, I know how much you enjoyed it.”
“I would never be that selfish, Keri. Now hurry up and take those handles before I change my mind!”
She glared at me as she began to pull Steve away from the table. As she started down the aisle between the other diners, Steve began exuding a monotone moan.
“Uuuuuuunnnnnnnnnhhhhhh. Ooooooooooowwwwwwwwww uuunnnngggghhhh.”
Keri kept pushing his wheelchair along even though it was obvious something was catching. Steve was lurching forward as Keri was violently throwing herself against the back of the chair. “Why won’t this fucking chair roll?” she cursed.
I bent down and looked under the chair. “Jesus Christ, Keri, you’re wheeling it over his foot!” There it was, one limp leg bent back like it was made of rubber, with the foot hooked around a wheel.
Even after nearly receiving one of his amputations early, Steve paid for both Keri and me and said that he still wanted to hang out with me again. He invited me to his apartment. Again, I brought buffer, this time in the form of Janna.
We sat in my car in the parking lot outside of his building, and I concocted a plan. I liked Steve, I really did, but it was hard for me to be around him because I don’t have compassion programmed into me anywhere. I try to reach out and it comes off as forced and robotic. So I decided that I would have my boyfriend Jeff call Janna’s cell phone in approximately one half hour to forty-five minutes. We would then pretend like it was one of our friends with a dire vehicular emergency and therefore we would have to cut the visit short.
Steve had requested a lunch of Taco Bell. I tried to talk him out of it because I could only imagine the mess factor borne from the pairing of Steve and tacos, but the prospect of seven layer burrito got the best of me and so Janna and I arrived at his door with bags of steaming quasi-Mexican heartburn.
We sat around his dining room table and began to eat. I thought I would have been slightly desensified during the sequel to Steve’s dining skills, but it was still just as excruciating to witness. Janna sat with her burrito mid-air as she watched Steve repeatedly fashion a shovel from his hand and scoop up the fallen contents of his taco. Over and over again, he would attempt to take a bite and then plop, the taco’s intestines would come plummeting back to the table. I quickly went through my arsenal of napkins as I plucked stray lettuce shreds from his glasses and mopped up tiny pools of fire sauce from the floor around his seat.
By the time he managed to down one bite, I was just as caked with meat and beans as he was. It was like we had bear-hugged around a burrito. For the first time in my life, I was unable to finish my Taco Bell.
It’s just food, I reminded myself. It’s not even regurgitated. It’s cool; he can’t help it, I thought over and over again. But I had a rising lump of burrito in my throat and every time I looked in his direction, at the cheese dangling from his gnashing lips and the slivers of taco shell sticking to his chin, the lump threatened to re-acquaint itself with the world. I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t bring myself to help this poor man eat his taco.
Just as Janna was on the verge of the tears from intaking this harsh slice of life, her cell phone rang from within her purse.
“Oh! That is my….cell phone. No one…..ever calls me….on my….cell phone. I wonder…who it could….be,” she said in a foreign and mechanical voice akin to a computerized operator. I glanced behind me, trying to find the cue card she was reading from. Fuck, Janna — he’s handicapped, not retarded.
And so we told Steve that Keri had gone and broken down somewhere and we had to go help her. You know, me and my tow truck.
“Ooohhhh. Keri. The one who puuuuut the piccckkkle—-”
“Yep, that’s the one! That’s Keri!” And we laughed and talked of her big boobs for a few minutes before Janna and I grabbed our jackets and flew out the door.
And on the way home, I felt so riddled with guilt. I can remember crying about it when I was alone. This guy was so sweet and nice, but it was hard as hell for me to be around him.
However, not able to say no, I attended his New Year’s Eve party a few weeks later. I brought Janna and two other friends and it wasn’t so bad because some of his friends from his complex. That was fun, walking into his apartment and being greeted by a collective round of, “Uuuunnnnnhhh”s. To keep from laughing in their faces out of nervousness, I equated them with zombies. Because zombies are no laughing matter; zombies are scary. And then I comforted myself and dulled the awkwardness by hovering around the spread of food, where I could be found devouring mass quantities of Russian tea cakes.
His family was also there. Great, meeting the family on the third date? I better break this thing off before we end up betrothed, I thought to myself in a panic. But not before I eat some more cookies.
One of the more mentally-incapacitated of the bunch took a liking to Janna and that made for some good memories.
That was the last time I saw Steve. Things took a turn for the worst when he began sending me e-cards filled with animated roses and cupids. And then on one occasion, we had mixed our signals and I ended up meeting him one night at the wrong place, causing him to believe I had stood him up. He called me that night, bawling like a maniac on the phone (at least, I think he was crying. Sometimes when retarded people, or people who sound retarded, cry, it can be mistaken for laughter. I know this because I watched “Life Goes On.”) and accusing me of hating him.
For as cold and icy as I am, that broke my fucking heart. I had a quick glimpse of what it must feel like for a mother to unintentionally make her child cry. I couldn’t do it anymore.
I became the dick who stopped returning the handicapped man’s emails.
Meeting of the Minds
Or: Breakfast at Tom’s Diner
I wanted a real breakfast, and it was all I could think about last night at work. So when Henry and Chooch came to pick me up last night, I informed Chooch that he and I would be going to Tom’s Diner the next morning so mommy could stuff her nutrition-deprived face with nutritional eggs covered in grease, grease, cheese, and grease. He immediately protested — what a sonofabitch.
He never wants to do anything I want to do!!
But by morning, I was able to gently coax him into putting on his shoes and walking the several short blocks to Tom’s. On the way there, he randomly posited, “What if there were Chooch seeds, and when you planted them, a bunch of Chooches were born?” At first, my response was, “I would scream and run” but then some of my friends pointed out later that my pedometer wouldn cheat me out of steps if I ran, so I guess I would maniacally march — straight to the BANK after I sold those newborn bitches!
Chooch reads everything now. Signs, newspapers, magazines, Henry’s Craigslist ads for “Clean Buxom Ginger Wanted For Discreet Playdates,” and oh yeah — books too. At Tom’s he read aloud the “Watch Your Step” sign that was behind me and of course I half-assedly praised him while shoveling my maw with a plate of oily A.M. food fare that I really couldn’t even taste but my body was screaming CARBS!!!!!!! with sheer, shoulder-shimmying ecstacy.
And then Chooch burped. Loudly and with great gusto. I reprimended him and said, “I’m going to tell daddy!” and I don’t know why I always resort to that because Lord knows Henry ain’t no threat, ya’ll.
“Don’t you dare,” Chooch warned. And then, in this deep and low tone pregnant with menace, he growled, “Watch your step.”
OMG.
There was some construction worker sitting a few booths over that was basically choking on his food trying not to laugh out loud at our exchange.
After breakfast, Chooch bought me a revolver keychain out of one of the gumball machines!
Now the other one we use as a Christmas tree ornament will have a mate. Oh my god, it’s practically a set!
On the way home, we saw Purple Pants, who was not wearing her purple pants but was wearing a red sweatshirt that I have never seen her wear before! Chooch managed to get her to bark a terse “hello” and you would have thought some asshole politician just kissed his head, he was so excited.
No commentsChooch’s Blogging Debut: Kennywood
Me: If you had to see Daddy poop his pants on one ride, what ride would it be?
Chooch: Jack Rabbit because of the double dip!
(We both pause here to relish the image of Henry pooping his pants, leaving his seat, and then smashing the poop upon returning to his seat. We’re all children here.)
Me: Why do you like Garfield’s Nightmare? That’s the worst ride there.
Chooch, making a super angry face: WORST?! It has all those statue stuff!
Me: Aren’t you afraid the boat is going to tip over? (That might actually salvage the fun factor, really.)
Chooch, shaking his head like I’m a fool: No.
Me: How safe did you feel riding the Jack Rabbit with your brother, Blake?
Chooch: Why do you type my name as ‘Chooch’ on everything?
Me: Because that’s your name. Just answer the question.
Chooch, making some gross boy noise: It’s cold in here, don’t you think?
Me: Stay focused. (Repeating the original question.)
Chooch, sounding extremely unsure: Really safe?
(That means NOT SAFE.)
Chooch, seeing this picture: Oh, crap.*
Me: Talk about riding rides with [our friends’ daughter] Katelyn.
Chooch: Aw, come on. Not fun! [Laughing giddily, which means OMG ALL OF THE FUN.]
Me: Then why did you get mad when her cousin wanted to ride with her?
Chooch: No I didn’t! I did not! ….how did you know that?
Me: Seriously, how badly did you want to put your arm around Katelyn on the baby roller coaster?
Chooch, blushing furiously and smiling while struggling to maintain his faux-anger: I did not!
(*Chooch, after re-reading this, cried out, “I did not say ‘crap’ there! I said ‘shit’!” Trying to keep Child Services out of our house, OK KID?)
mommy took a picture of grandma who was annoyed of mommy
Me: How pissed off do you think grandma was having to spend a whole day with us idiots?
Chooch, laughing: Uh, fucking* pissed off. Grandma wouldn’t go on everything. Probably because her foot hurts.
(*Seriously! Child Services, kid!)
Me: Look at Laura in the background!
Chooch: Looks like she’s drinking something out of a pee cup.
Me: What do you think you were thinking about in this picture — Katelyn?
Chooch, panicked: No! Now you made me forget what I was thinking because you had to type in Katelyn, thanks a lot!
Me: Talk about how dumb daddy looks in this picture.
Chooch: Oh, I got a great one. It looks like daddy is eating that pizza and he’s going to poop in his pants. And Blake is laughing and smiling because daddy looks like he’s going to poop his pants.
Me, laughing: I mean, look at daddy’s face!
Chooch, pointing in a demonstrative manner: I know, it looks like he’s pooping in his pants! I already said that!
Me: How bad does daddy suck at playing games? Isn’t he the WORST DAD EVER for not winning you all kinds of BIG MAJESTIC stuffed animals?
Chooch: It made me sad.
Me: He totally sucks. I bet Jonny Craig would have won you the BIGGEST STUFFED ANIMAL THERE.
(Probably because he would have needed something to transport his heroin & ego in.)
Me: What was your favorite ride?
Chooch: Uh, the Jack Rabbit.
(I think this is the only ride whose name he can remember.)
Me: Even after you fell down the ramp and scraped your knee and cheekbone?
Chooch: Blake fell too!
Me: Did he really?
Chooch: No, he didn’t really. I just like to say that.
I wanted to stay there at Kennywood but daddy would not let us sleep over at Kennywood.
And this concludes Chooch’s first Oh Honestly, Erin guest post, mostly because we have both lost interest.
11 commentsA Conversation at Work About Walking
To Carey just now, I said, “I think I walked myself sick. I feel pretty nauseous.”
“Drink lots of water*!” she lectured, followed by other ‘I’m Being Stern Because I Care’ sentiments.
*(Originally, I typed, “Drink lots of walk!” That’s how consumed I am with this. I might even start watching every season of “Walker, Texas Ranger”. CHAMPIONSHIP WALKING 4 LYFE.)
“Yeah, but I have almost 20,000 steps for the day already!” I cried defensively. (19,755 to be exact, and it’s only 6:30.)
(My friends are even having dreams about me and my steps now and I love it.)
(OK, it was one friend. But clearly Gina is my BEST friend now. If she plays her cards right, I might start walking to her house for no reason.)
“That’s great!” Carey enthused, and I thought she actually was being supportive until she tacked on, “but when you’re lying in a grave, your pedometer isn’t going to work.”
DANG, YA’LL.
3 commentsWhere I Didn’t Walk for FOUR HOURS!
I took an unprecedented time out from my walking routine (see also: directionless marching) to have an actual sit-down dinner at Mad Mex with my new friend (and new-to-Pittsburgh) Seri.
Don’t worry — I parked really far away.
I know what you’re thinking: “How does this broad sucker people into being her friend?!” That’s something I ask my diary every night, so your thoughts are not alone.
Sometimes, meeting someone for the first time can be a nightmare, a complete blueprint for awkward exchanges, embarrassing stuttering, and painful silences.
This is something in which I have accumulated much experience. So I thought for sure I’d be clandestinely checking my phone under the table, silently calculating all the steps that were passing me by while I was being held prisoner over burritos and salsa, and willing myself to choke on a tortilla chip so I could go to the hospital. (There was legitimately a coffee date I had with someone in 2005 where I got all wistful at the sight of an ambulance speeding past.)
But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, we had so much in common that conversation flowed as freely as our black cherry margaritas and I quickly learned that this girl is basically the taller version of me. Our background similarities are astounding, and her husband Pete and Henry should probably just go ahead and start a support group for men with tightly-wound, temperamental lady-child partners.
Um, and she pronounced “Chooch” correctly without me ever saying it in front of her.
I mean….
And the fact that she even came bearing a gift was just gilding the lily at that point. (Not that I mind gilded lilies!) Her husband Pete did an impeccable wrapping job (Henry is the household present-wrapper too!), and somehow, someway, the paper matched my nail polish exactly. The signs, they were everywhere and neon.
“It’s so you won’t smash your sandwiches on the trolley anymore,” Seri said, and I was so touched. I need people to take care of me and my sandwiches! It was such a sweet gesture, and maybe it was because my emotions were tequila-tinged at that point, but I for real got a little choked up. For real.
And even though I had to drunkenly shamble around the streets of Brookline* afterward to get my 20,000 steps, it was worth it!
*(At one point, I slurred out loud, “Why is it so quiet out here?” and then 3…2…1, “And there it is!” Domestic dispute in the middle of the road. Now that’s the Brookline I know.)
I’m meeting Seri at the nearby high school track this morning, so we’ll see how well she endures an hour of me talking about Jonny Craig. THAT is the true Erin Rachelle Kelly Friendship Litmus Test.
2 commentsNEVER FORGET: Jimmy Gets Shot
This will never fail to make me lose it!
Ironically, listening to Drake (the rapper formerly known as Jimmy “Got Shot” Brooks on Degrassi) has been an immense help in getting through the Law Firm Walking Challenge.
As soon as this is over, I need to have a Degrassi marathon. My brother Corey doesn’t know it yet, but he’s bringing the (Canadian) snacks. My house is a pit, but you guys can come too.
No commentsFlea Market Vendibles
Honestly, I had no intentions of buying anything at the flea market this morning; it was just an excuse to collect some leisure-steps on my pedometer. But then I saw this little Nativity set, and then the guy selling it saw me seeing it and shouted “$2!” How could I say no when I have literally always wanted a Lilliputian nativity set for my desk?
(Might not be entirely based on truth.)
I wish I was fast enough to snap a picture of Henry frowning as he begrudgingly slapped a five in my palm.
The broad in the yellow shirt almost speared my eyeball on the sharp pitchfork she was carrying, dispelling my theory that no one actually goes to the flea market to purchase rusty farm equipment.
Immediately after I took this, my son Mouth yelled, “MOMMY DID YOU JUST TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT MAN’S BUTTCRACK?!” which of course prompted the plunging crack offender to whirl around and glare at us. My solution was to look all around and hum while rapidly (and stiffly) waking to the next table.
He kept yelling, “Hey!” but my completely innocent whistling rendered it impossible for me to hear him, you see.
Look, it’s the guy (and his wobbling eye mole) who educated me about Saint Rita and sold me the majestic Last Rites box! Walking past him, something clicked and I realized that he’s also the same guy from whom I (and by that I mean Henry) bought an old portrait of a child, which I immediately named Uncle Otis and wrote a nonsensical biography.
I can’t wait until I’m this old and stylin’. Mixed animal prints: 100% acceptable past the age of 80.
(The heads of fashion bloggers are now capped by mushroom clouds at the very thought of this ever being OK. But high-waisted shorts and rompers? Wear with dignity!)
Chooch is REALLY into flea market shopping and takes it very seriously. This is him impatiently waving wrestler figurines in the air, trying to get the vendor’s attention. The problem is that later when we’re at Target, he doesn’t understand why all the toys aren’t $1, arguments ensue, we come to blows, you know how it is.
Since I wasn’t looking for anything, I of course found the most amazing clown artifact for the collection I’m going to put in the house in my head. It’s a 1982 Shriner’s relic and if you pull up on the yellow knob and push it back down, the clown spins in a top-like fashion.
I was enamored instantly, but Henry was not particularly in love with the price. But by the time we were ready to leave, Henry sighed and handed me cash, at which point I walked in my usual walking challenge pace (“I hope no one bought it already!” I cried to Henry, who mumbled, “No one bought it, believe me.”), slaloming around asshole kids riding bikes down the pathways (seriously? You can’t just walk, you little menaces?), caterwauling toddlers in strollers, and sun-ravaged biker broads boasting faded rose tattoos on their wrecked bosoms, until I made it back to the men with the prized tin clown.
It was a no nonsense, “here’s the cash, gimme the fucking clown” transaction. I even made real life, unscripted small talk with a tall man passing by, who told me he used to be a clown for parties; we agreed that clowns are so misunderstood when all they want to do is bring joy (and possibly stuff a body or 24 under their floorboards).
Good day at the flea market!
1 commentFrown of the Day
The “I Spent All Day Doing Laundry & Cleaning the House, & Now I Would Like To Reward Myself By Enjoying Some Television Programs About Cute Kittens, So Get Your Phone Out of My Face” Frown.
3 commentsWhaddup, Purple Pants!
Remember last year when I was making People of Brookline postcards? I don’t think I ever posted this one, but this lady* is a walking addict. For as long as I’ve been living here (13 years, OMG), I have seen her walking through every season, every element, usually always in the same clothes. (Ignore the text on the postcard — the purple pants are BACK, bitches.) This grizzled broad walks EVERYWHERE.
We’ve even seen her walking up the steepest hills in neighboring towns.
(*Actually, the jury is out on the gender.
)
One time, Henry saw her COME OUT OF A HOUSE. She might actually live somewhere other than the streets! I can’t even…
I’m hoping to see her walk past my house at some point this weekend, because I’m going to hitch a ride on her walking-wake. If I can keep up with her, that’s a surefire way to crush this walking challenge. She could walk me to victory. (And probably also an IV hook-up in the ER.
)
I have a sinking suspicion Purple Pants might be my future.
3 commentsFriday Fait Accompli
Andrea said bullet-points make her pay attention, so this one’s for her.
- I am pained that this walking challenge does not allot me as much free time as I need to write in here properly. Two more weeks, guys! Two more weeks. (And from under my desk, my ankles whimper woefully, “Two more weeks…”
- Lately, I’ve been eating all sorts of wasabi-coated snacks, but when a co-worker asked me if I was on a wasabi kick, I said, “No..?”
- Henry’s job is all fucked up again, and I have barely seen him all week. I mean, yes, it sucks that I have to take the trolley to work and make my own sandwiches (which then get smashed on the trolley), but the worst part is that I miss him.
buy filitra online www.arborvita.com/wp-includes/SimplePie/Content/Type/php/filitra.html no prescription
Our only interaction lately is phone calls and texts—I have only gotten to playfully punch him in the balls once all week!!
- But at least he hasn’t really had to deal with my manic-walking, so I should thank his job for keeping our relationship intact.
- We were debating on going to the a zombie crawl this weekend, but that was pre-walking challenge. Now I’m not so sure I want to go and lose valuable pedometer steps, but I suppose I could be one of the zombies from 28 Days Later and shamble at a rapid pace. We’ll see.
- (Totally choking on wasabi powder right now.)
- There is a new person at work who brought me something to scan, complete with explicit orders on how to do my job written a Post-It note which ended with, “Pls don’t scan this Post-It note.” OH OK, New Person; thanks for assuming I’m a dumbass because I don’t have a law degree.
- Sometimes I consider dumping this blog and going back to LiveJournal, but apparently no one reads LiveJournal anymore either.
- Wednesday night, I couldn’t stop walking. My only goal was to reach 20,000 (if I end the day with anything under that, flames will engulf me while Nickelback blares in my face). But before I knew it, I had 24,000 (I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, that’s why) so I thought, “Well, no way can I go to bed without reaching 25,000” so I kept walking around my house, and it became a race against the clock — and the clock won. Midnight hit, resetting my pedometer when I was at 24,864 and did I fall to my knees and scream, “Nooooo!” with my fists shaking to the heavens? Absolutely. I KNEW I shouldn’t have stopped walking to eat!!
- Jonny Craig called himself the Ginger Jesus on Twitter last week and I almost died.
- If I had a band, I’d pull all of my blog titles from my blog’s spam comments. Track 4: “We All Nod, Every Kitten Has a Name.” (4 is my favorite number so of course I’d start with that.)
- It’s my favorite number because that was my last year as an only child and it was such a good, spoiled age.
- IT’S ALMOST WACKY WORM TIME! Big Butler Fair, I can’t wait to be inside you.
- Speaking of the Wacky Worm, this just happened: Glenn came over and was taunting me because he only has 1,000 less steps than me. I said, “Yeah, but the difference is that I’ll keep walking until 11:59 tonight.” Glenn Henry-smirked at me and said, “You don’t think maybe you have a problem?
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“
- How annoying would it be if every blog post was just a list of everything that happened to me that day. “And then Henry called me a fucking retard!” “I just stared adoringly at a picture of Jonny Craig!”
- I think it’s adorable when the new kids on the blog-block try to tell other bloggers how to write in their blog. How ’bout putting in your time first, young blood.
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(2001 represent! Although I guess I shouldn’t brag about that because in 11 years I’ve only amassed about 100 readers, and that’s on a good day.)
- It’s been more than two years since I’ve been working at the Law Firm, and I still have not brought in my own coffee cup. The one I use was “borrowed” from a closet where abandoned kitchenware go to die; it’s plain and lime green, which does not suit me, since I am not plain nor am I lime green. Please, help me find a really special coffee cup to purchase for office use.
- If you read this thing, say hello sometime. Pretend I’m your neighbor who you feel sorry for but don’t want your other neighbors see you talking to, because how embarrassing.
- I only posted this so I could use the word “fait accompli” and impress no one. (I only know this from the Curve song, not because I’m so cultured.)
Congratulations. You now know what it’s like to talk to me on the phone. I put all of my faith in non sequitors.
26 commentsThrowback Thursday: A Really Lame Carnival
It was August of 2008 and we went to a really lame carnival. Here, let me tell you about it.
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“When are we going? Hello? When are we going? The carnival, when can it expect us?” For three days, I hounded Henry about some wimpy-assed fucking church carnival after we saw a sign for it.
“You know this is going to be a small thing, right? Probably not very many rides, if any,” Henry kept reminding me, probably hoping to change my mind. But my mind is unchangeable without something of equal or greater awesomeness to replace the void. And no one came knocking on my door, inviting me out to play with moon boots, so I remained fixated on the Saint Sylvester church carnival.
We got there around 6:30 and I immediately became aware that what this was, right here, this carnival, was really goddamn lame, a real sad affair. The rides weren’t running yet, so we cautiously followed the signs that promised us CRAFTS and FLEA MARKET, and led us into the church basement.
The CRAFTS were sparsely strewn amongst tables forming a small horse shoe on one side of the room. Taking over the rest of the room was a fucking holy picnic of some sort, with people straddling tables and shoveling haluski and other church food into there religious maws. We awkwardly circled around the crafts, not even pretending to admire, me saying something obnoxious, before returning to the Little Church Carnival That (Possibly) Could (If Father Would Go ‘Head and Order Those Belly-Dancing Pygmies).
After two seconds of taking in my surroundings, I realized that this wasn’t a carnival so much as an asshole parade. All the moms strutted around, haughtily greeting each other, their mauve eye shadow caked on in thirteen layers and pooling in their crow’s feet. I of course did not fit in. Especially when you consider the fact that I am not a parishioner of this or any church, other than the church whose bell tolls in my head.
There were three of them that I especially hated:
- a tall corn-fed hoe with tightly-wound brassy curls that were clumped and heavy-hanging with Dippity Do, probably semen. She really looked out of place without the plow she should have been pushing on the farm, that dumb bitch. I bet she was a Majorette in high school.
- some haggard broad in an ugly pink shirt (not the awesome hue of pink that MY shirt was) who was friends with Olga the Plow Pusher. She had the worst eye makeup of them all and stood right in front of me with her saggy-assed chinos and pleather fucking fanny pack and the two of them dove right into a nauseating display of waving. It’s a sport for those people, you know. Church people? They wave for entrance to Heaven. And it’s phony, too. Their “hellos” are so nasal, like they’re playing Operator with their toy phones, and they stand there with their fists on the waistbands of their flood jeans, fluttering their costume-ringed fingers in their pretentious little waves and you know what? Go home and bake me some pumpkin bread, you assholes.
- rounding out the iron arc of pretentiousness was some bitch that was younger than those two, and it was clear, so so so clear to me that she only fraternized with them because they made her feel like the token spunky young mom with the poorly executed tattoos and too-skinny husband who I think I might have went to school with. I was glaring at her about the time Janna arrived and I didn’t even say hi, just pounced right into a hateful tirade that started with, “There’s a bunch of cunts here that I want to kill, Janna.”
And the rides! Oh, my brothers and sisters, please don’t get me started on the rides. There were only four of them: a rickety ferris wheel whose too-fast revolutions made me clutch my heart while watching from the ground, stupid ass helicopters, a tiny carousel that appeared to be fashioned from orphaned horses, and some dumb little kid spinny thing.
EACH RIDE WAS TWO FUCKING DOLLARS. Two dollars that would be better off tucked into a g-string. But Chooch seemed to enjoy the helicopters, and Henry reminded me several times that that was really all that mattered. I guess.
We stopped and bought three fried Oreos.
They were pathetic. I ate half of one and begged Henry to take the rest. He was angry that I was complaining and reminded me that they only cost a dollar so what did I expect.
I DON’T KNOW. Perhaps for them to be drizzled with a nice ganache? Some kind of delicate rum sauce? LACED WITH COCAINE?
We walked over to the petting zoo, figuring Chooch could at least meet his animal manhandling quota for the month, but there was an extra fee for that.
“WHAT A RIP!” I yelled, purposely, hoping to be heard. “THIS CARNIVAL BLOWS.” Just then, the priest walked past me and Henry grabbed my arm, grabbed it the way a father does to an out-of-line child, the way my step-dad used to when I would spit YOU ARENT MY REAL DAD in his scruffy face. So Henry grabbed my arm and squeezed, hissing, “This is a CHURCH CARNIVAL. It’s to raise money FOR THE CHURCH.”
WELL. For someone who was so against Chooch being baptized, Henry sure seemed intent on defending the carnival. The holy fucking ghost must have anally entered him when I was busy looking for scene kids. Probably why he was walking like he had chronic jock itch. Meanwhile, we were going to sit at table but some undulating diseased genitalia stole it right from underneath us, an entire table just for her and her fucking hot dog. I was tirading all over this side of Pittsburgh by this point, pushing Henry to tersely say, “OK, that’s it. We’re leaving.”
I had sinful desires to jack this truck. I have a lot of things I could use it for. And I’m not just talking about carting crates of chickens around town.
On the way home, Henry lectured me about being hateful and that no one there gave me a reason to be so angry. IT IS HOW I AM WIRED. CANNOT, WILL NOT, CHANGE. it’s how my mama made me. And sometimes I don’t mind people. Like today, on my walk to the post office, I said hello to ONE ENTIRE PERSON and even exchanged weather-related pleasantries with a crossing guard. Granted, I considered changing my route home so I wouldn’t have to talk to her again, but I didn’t scowl at a single soul. And I walked, like, eight blocks or something! (Actually, I don’t really know how to count blocks when they’re not obvious.)
Janna didn’t seem to mind the carnival. I bet she went home and wrote about it in her diary.
Dear Diary,
Jeepers, I went to a carnival up at Saint Sylvester’s tonight and it sure was swell. They even had fried ice cream! Can you imagine, Diary? It was so dreamy, like really tremendous! Fried ice cream outside of a Mexican restaurant!
buy diflucan online buy diflucan genericAlmost better than a malt in a frothy glass with a spiral straw! And pony rides! I ought to have straddled one of those ponies, Diary, if only I had the courage. Gosh, it was the craziest scene! Real life ponies! And people sporting their fanny packs, no shame whatsoever! I totally ought to have worn mine! And my best cuffed plow-pushers! My only regret is not bringing enough money to buy a macrame tissue box holder from the craft table. But overall, what a night! I mean, it was really the limit!
I guess the Westmoreland County Fair spoiled me after all.
3 commentsLaw Firm Walking Challenge: Week One Results
Somehow, someway, Team Apple is #11! I am astounded, to say the least. But this inspired Carey to increase her meandering to a steady gait!
And she even found her pedometer!
OMG I’m one of those 22 people! Actually, my grand total for the week was 152,075. I have the suntan and delirium to prove it.
Two? Three more weeks to go?
5 commentsWordless Wednesday: iPhone photo dump
Some stuff on my mantle. That awesome killer klown head protruding from the popcorn box was made my friend Chuck, who had me write some descriptions for his new products, like this one here!
Marcy, thoroughly agitated by my frantic walking challenge nightly house-pacing.
There was a furry and a parking meter with handcuffs behind me.
Self Portrait.
Henry’s on the prowl for kittens again.
2 comments
