Please excuse me while I micro-blog here super quick.

Flea Market Finds!

Against Henry’s wishes, I bought these lamps for the future clown room. Chooch marched right up to the lady selling them and asked how much she wanted. Chooch is the best mouthpiece! Apparently, he was grocery-shopping with his grandma Judy and Henry a few weeks ago, and as Judy tells the story, Chooch walked with authority over to some broad and asked, “Excuse me, do you shop here often?” After she said yes, Chooch asked, “Then do you know where to find the Tofurkey??”

There’s a little vegan girl in his class, but I’m sure that had NOTHING to do with his hunt for faux-deli slices.

We let Chooch buy this pillow at the flea market because hello, he’s the Cat King. The lady selling them had stepped away from her booth, but we waited dilligently for her to return because I was NOT letting my feline-obsessed child go home without a cat cushion for his cranium.

Allen’s Haunted Hayride

There was some knock down-drag out at the grocery store between Henry and Chooch Saturday morning, leaving Henry to call me and shout, “THIS KID IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE TONIGHT!”

We were supposed to take him on his first haunted hayride, so I was completely bummed out about this.

“Why do I have to be punished for something Chooch did?” I cried. But Henry held firm.

“He’s NOT going,” he reiterated.

In then end, Chooch and I left Henry at home baking pies and went to the hayride anyway. My brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle joined us, and Corey had this big Halloween gift bag for Chooch.

“It’s from our mom,” he muttered, while Chooch ravaged the contents.

This made my heart hurt so bad. I’ve mentioned it on here before, but October is the one month I miss my estranged mom. I miss going to haunted houses with her (and having her pay), hosting bonfires at her house (and having her provide all the food and liquor), watching horror movies at her house, and ALL OF THE DECORATIONS. God, she used to do it up proper-style.

But…this is not the mom she is anymore. And pining for something that is long since gone is futile and a huge waste of time. Meanwhile, Chooch didn’t even question it, he just dug right on into the bag. And there was lots of really good shit in there, too.

I wonder if she even knows what he looks like now.

Replacement Big Green Glasses!

My friends Tammy and Rick, ever so thoughtful, gifted me with new glasses at the Pie Party on Sunday, knowing how forlorn I was when my other pair broke. I love them! I can pretty much see better out of those than my contacts.

Motherfucker in a White Van

This morning on my walk home from taking Chooch to school, I had the right of way to cross the street. Some dickhead in a white work van had just rolled up to the stop sign moments prior to me stepping off the curb, and gestured impatiently for me to cross. Here are some things I found wrong with this picture:

• I had the right of way.
• There was nowhere for him to go anyway, considering the street he was trying to turn on to was at a traffic standstill.
• I had the right of way.
• I had the right of way. (I looked it up, even! “When traffic-control signals are not in place or are not in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.”)
• I don’t permit motherfuckers to gesture impatiently at me.
• I HAD THE RIGHT OF WAY. PEDESTRIANS RULE.

This jackass picked the wrong motherfucking day to get all impatient on me. As previously noted on this blog, I was having a Bad Morning. In fact, Henry was presently getting an ear-beating from me when this all took place, and he’s one lucky motherfucker because I instantly redirected all of my hatred upon this new unmarked van-driving douchebag.

(At the time of the street-crossing, I had been shouting at Henry about how I was going to take a hatchet to our piece of shit couch, chop it into 18 pieces, throw it to the curb and then buy BEAN BAG CHAIRS TO SIT ON, MOTHERFUCKER. God, I hate that couch!!!)

First, I looked this dumbshit in the eyeballs and yelled, “YEAH, I KNOW I CAN CROSS, YOU ASSHOLE!” I continued to glare at him the entire way across the street, and then for two more blocks, I screamed into the phone about this pathetic Yinzer fuckstick who was probably all bent out of shape because his precious STILLERS blow this year. Taking it out on some precious street-crosser is not going to change that fact, you cocksucker!

I was just getting done screaming, “I hope I see him again tomorrow and every day after! I’M GOING TO RUIN HIM!” when I happened to look to my left and noticed some broad sitting on her front porch, quietly drinking her coffee, and staring at me expectantly.

And I still kept bitching even after I grew tired of bitching to Henry and hung up on him.

Man, that dumbfuck walked right the fuck onto my war path…the van driver and Henry.

Near-Fatal Work Injury!

Yesterday, I inflicted upon myself the motherlode of all paper cuts.

Barb was supposed to be looking for a Bandaid in her drawer when suddenly I heard her exclaim, “Ooh! A Heath bar!”

That’s OK, Barb. I’m just BLEEDING OUT, THAT’S ALL.

Today, once all the BLOOD AND SWELLING went away, I was able to see that there were actually EIGHT (8) cuts, not 4.5 like I originally counted at the time of slicing.

This is what my hand looked like by the time I found a Bandaid.

Current Favorite Glenns!

Did a bunch more today, including a Glenn or Glenda one as suggested by my friend Chris, which so far has only been appreciated by ONE PERSON (Amber² who is obviously super smart and has excellent taste in cinema).

Perhaps tomorrow I will drink some energy drinks and write about the pie party. I at least have all of the photos ready! Ah, memories of when I was a real, dedicated blogger.

This morning, as soon as I woke up, I got in one of my bi-polar cleaning snits. Every room of this house was making me freak out and kick things, and then I called Henry and took it out on him too. When I came home from taking Chooch to school, I sat down and put on Gary Numan’s Exile album in an effort to calm myself down. And then all the memories came flooding back.

It was October of 1999. I desperately needed to find a new place to live after getting (wrongfully) evicted from my current apartment. (That’s a whole different story.) My dad had found this great duplex in Brookline and I was waiting impatiently for the landlord to call me back after I filled out the application. Renting this house was all I could think about; back then, it was a great space—HUGE for one person. Granted, this was before a boyfriend, cats and a kid would shit all over its value. (In some cases, literally.)

During this time, I was going through a heavy Gary Numan phase. Not so much Tubeway Army-era, but his more current, sludge-y Goth work. One night, in my apartment, I had fallen asleep on the couch* listening to his Exile (Extended) album on repeat and had one of the most vivid nightmares of my life, of which I still have flashbacks even to this day.

(*When I lived in that apartment, I slept on the couch every night because some old bitch always had her TV blaring 24:7 on the other side of my bedroom wall and no matter where I moved my bed, I could hear it and it was slowly making me want to take a pickaxe to her face. I even complained to the landlady about this, but that bitch was in bed with all the other old ass people living in that complex, which led to my eventual eviction.)

In the dream, I was rollerskating down highways at night, frantically trying to get to the house in Brookline. I was totally out of control, skating over medians and down cobblestone hills, unable to stop. But finally, I made it to the street. In the dream, the house had an enclosed front porch (in real life, my house does not have a front porch); I let myself in and had to squeeze my way around bikes, toys, stacked furniture, debris in various stages of decomposition. Clearly, someone was still someone living there.

Squatting down in a corner was a little girl with black hair, dressed in a nightgown. She said, “You can’t go in there, Erin.”

I asked her how she knew my name.

“Marcy told me,” she said in a monotone, and then her eyes flashed red and I woke up totally freaked the fuck out. (Marcy is my evil cat, if you didn’t already know.)

Thirteen years later and I can’t wait to get the fuck out of the house I had to rent. Thirteen years is way too long to have been renting the same place.  In my dream, I was told I couldn’t go in there, and now I feel like I can’t get out. I’m so unhappy here.

A few years ago, when I actually tried to be a part of the Blogosphere, I participated in a Blog Bash that some blogger broad was hosting. Basically, everyone posted shit about themselves, answered questions, and then went around reading everyone else’s shit.

I thought it would be fun to re-post mine and maybe, if anyone out there gives a shit, they can make their own post on their blog. JUST A THOUGHT.

*********

• My birthday is July 30, 1979. That means I’m a Leo, which means I roar a lot. Which means I have an awesome singing voice.
• My boyfriend Henry and I have been together since 2001. We did a REALLY SICK THING which produced a boy named Riley, but everyone calls him Chooch. You can too. He’s 4 now. 4 is the age where kids get the  manual on how to be dicks, in case you didn’t know. And if you have a 4-year-old and are disagreeing with this, then I hate you. Can we trade?
  • ACTUALLY, at the time of this posting, he’s six and has since earned a black belt in dickness.
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• I live in Pittsburgh! I hate it here!
• I hate water towers, power plants/abandoned factories, the ocean, outer space, glaciers, Alaska, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, the Steelers, liars.
• I like hockey!
• My past time is stalking people and playing with animal masks. (Yes, in tandem.)
• I like the Cure and most any music that features incessant screaming.
• Annoying people with reckless abandon is sort of my thang.
• I can turn any situation into a study of awkwardness.
• I am a girl!

5.) Let’s hear the story behind your blog title!

My grandma and I have a very illustrious history, full of afternoons  light-hearted flour fights during impromptu snickerdoodle bake-offs and reading Dickens together beneath a parasol.

That’s a lie. I don’t know why I typed that just now.

The truth is that I was always the black sheep, that a lot of my actions or ideas shamed my grandma. Even as a small child, when I would fuck up, she would sigh exasperatedly (sometimes even disgustedly while running a red pen across my name on her Will) and say, “Oh honestly, Erin.”

And not a day goes by where I don’t have some extent of an “Oh honestly” moment.

Now you know.

Morocco 1993. I was so excited to ride a camel. Pretty sure my Aunt Sharon intentionally cut off my head, making this probably the prettiest picture of me ever.

My history with camels suck.

I bought an old muffin tin for a dollar or something (Henry paid, I wasn’t watching) and then made a clown collage for my desk because I felt I didn’t have enough things of a clown nature. I didn’t know right away what I was going to use it for, but this all played out during the weekend before I started decorating my desk, so the clown idea came to me pretty fast. Like “in the car on the way home, exclaimed OH-HO! with so much vigor, it made Henry jolt” fast.

First I painted it and then pasted Internet-procured clown pictures in there.

(“Did you wash it first?” Henry asked. Um, what do you think? Fuck, no.)

Then I coated it with some kind of glaze bullshit. This was on an Erin-level of disaster.

I also super-glued circus peanuts, a clown head and a moustache in three of the thingies.

It was on an Erin-level of easiness.

NOTE: If you don’t have an old muffin tin, rob a hoarder.

And that concludes my DIY mixed media thingie tutorial.

No, Henry didn’t help me with any of this.

That’s me in the lower righthand corner! I think I was three. Chris said it’s the creepiest picture in there.

This one is my favorite. I think I found it by Googling “Asian clowns.” I’m really not sure.

Elsewhere in Halloween Desk World, Barb has been helping me make some Glenns.

“Um…why don’t you sign your name to the back of this one?” I suggested when she showed me her so-so rendition of Pinhead. God forbid people think my Glenn-defacing talent is tapped out.

Joy found two old Jesus and Mary portraits at her grandfather’s house and, knowing my gravitation toward things of a religious icon nature, brought them into work for me.

While I was admiring them, Debby came over to my desk and started telling me a story about her great-grandma’s house and how it had a legit parlor room where people were laid out.

“So now I have a big box in my attic full of pictures of dead people,” she finished.

HOLD UP WAIT A SECOND.

“You mean like this,” I asked, pulling open my desk drawer and extracting a photo of some dead dude.

(Yes, I keep post-mortem photos in my desk. Helps motivate me.)

“Um…yeah actually. Just like that,” Debby stammered, clearly not expecting me to have that.

She said she doesn’t want them, but doesn’t like throwing away pictures of people. So now I’m trying to get her to give me the box.

God, I can’t believe she’s known me since May and waited THIS LONG to tell me her dark secret.

***

In other work happenings, the thrill of collecting Glenns hasn’t yet fizzled like I thought it would. In fact, Chooch has jumped on the bandwagon and wants to make Glenns all the time at home now.

Chooch is still really into Japanese horror, so he made a Ju-On Glenn, which absolutely no one will figure out on their own. He was in the middle of making one Saturday night, but it was time to leave for a haunted hayride.

“But I’m not done with my Strawberry Shortcake Glenn!” he wailed, which is totally weird because the other day I was going to make a Strawberry Shortcake Glenn but got distracted. WHAT ARE THE ODDS.

Amish, DJ Lance, Harry Potter Glenn.

Literally only 2 people have recognized this as Robert Smith Glenn. God, get with it, Law Firm.

Jesus, Phantom of the Opera, Native American, Bieber Glenn.

“I don’t think you should do a Jesus Glenn,” Barb said at the exact moment I dropped the vending capsule containing Jesus Glenn into the clown head. I guess because Sue vetoed Barb’s desire to do an Hasidic Jew Glenn. But it was too late, Jesus Glenn was already inside the clown head, lost amonst the other plastic balls. “Well, maybe just tell whoever gets it to not hang it up,” she advised.

But George, who gets all the good Glenns, got Jesus Glenn and it went right up on the wall. I pointed it out to Barb today and she mumbled, “Yeah, I saw.” Clearly, she’s harboring a little resentment!

Juice Head Glenn and Pinocchio Glenn!

Little Red Riding Hood (Brad’s suggestion) and Jack-in-the-Box Glenn. Even with the “Yay grandma!”, some people are still having a hard time figuring out Little Red Riding Glenn. :(

Today, Chris got Kato Kaelin Glenn (basically looks like a broad in a blazer but it amused me immensely to draw it) but refuses to put it on the wall with the other Glenns because he wants them all for himself. When Jamie found this out, she marched into his office and schooled him.

“At least put the Kato Kaelin Glenn on the wall!” I pleaded when Chris walked by a few minutes later.

“Kato Kaelin Glenn…do I have that one?”

Barb gave him a weird look. “Um, you JUST got that one like five minutes ago,” she said.

He doesn’t even know which Glenns he has! What a Glenn-collecting poser!

He’s still hoarding them though.

Otherwise, my life goes like this: haunted houses, haunted houses, haunted trails, haunted hayrides, haunted hayrides, haunted houses, pie party.

I have a tough life.

Tomorrow is the third annual pie party! It’s funny that something I started as a joke has become an annual event. But come on – tables full of pie in the park?! How could that possibly be a bad idea. Anyway, while Henry runs around to every single grocery store like a bumbling Food Network Star hopeful, I have been preparing by reminiscing about the other pie parties. Here’s a repost of last year’s!

**************

Why do I keep having parties? All they do is stress me the fuck out. And you know, this time, I was trying to be more lackadaisical about it but all that did was make me wake up Saturday morning to a constricted chest and a build-up of pre-party heart palpitations. And it wasn’t like there was a ton to do — Henry just had to make two pies while I roamed around the house, looking at my imaginary Swatch watch and calling him a motherfucker.

“I don’t know why you get so stressed out when I’m the one who has to do everything,” Henry called out from the kitchen, elbow-deep in butterscotch, while I zoned out to Chiodos and buffed my fingernails. Finally, he finished his pistachio pie and deemed the butterscotch pie as “getting there,” so we packed it all up and split for the pavilion; upon arrival, Henry had already written a list of a hundred things he forgot, which meant Chooch and I got to hang out alone in the pavilion while he “ran real quick” to the store.

I. False Hope

While I was chastising my son for being 5 and incapable of using a swingset on his own, a car pulled up the dirt part alongside the pavilion. Chooch and I ran a Special Olympics practice lap toward it just as a man was emerging from the driver’s side. It wasn’t anyone I recognized, but I am never one to turn away a pie aficionado.

“Do you mind if I take some pictures of my wife?” he asked. That’s when I noticed that in place  of a checkered bib fastened around his neck and a pie fork in each hand, he came equipped with his camera, his very pregnant wife, and a young kid.

Oh.

Hopes crushed, I gave them the green light and Chooch and I moped back to the playground with our heads down. Maybe that was just me. It was already past the start of the party and no one had arrived, so what did I care if some weirdos were taking lovey-dovey family portraits over by the porta john.

Then another car pulled down and around the pavilion, so Chooch and I jumped up and cheered just in time for the two strangers in the car to leer at us as they drove back up the road.

“What the fuck?!” I yelled to the party gods, who were clearly angry with me for some reason. Not sending thank you cards fast enough after my birthday party? God, fuck off.

Finally, Henry came back at the same time my brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle arrived, so they were here for the next fake out, when a pick up truck pulled into the lot across the street but then it turned out to be some assholes bringing their dog to the park for a walk. It was nearly 2 at this point and I started to cry a little.

II. The Horse

The incredibly affectionate family/pie party crashers had taken a break in their photo session long enough to plop down for a picnic in the grass. We were sitting at a table under the pavilion, openly mocking them, when Corey noticed a horse coming out of the woods. Atop the horse sat a poised older woman in some kind of fucking safari hat and chambray shirt. Corey could not stop talking about how poised she was, like she was expecting to be photographed or draped with a champion’s sash.  Everyone (but me) took turns telling her how beautiful her horse was as she clomped off toward the playground.

Chooch decided that he HAD TO GO TO THE SWINGSET at this moment and he would have to RUN AS FAST AND AS LOUDLY as he possibly could because it might not be there much longer. Off he ran like a madman, ignoring Henry’s warnings of “Don’t run near the horse——aw, shit.”

Too late.

The horse got spooked and started to buck. The bitch on his back was suddenly less than poised as she tried to get him to calm down. We all just sat there and stared, and then I had to turn away because I was laughing so hard. We’re all so incredibly irresponsible when it comes to that kid.

At least she wasn’t thrown off the horse, I guess.

III. This Is My Brother, Corey; He’s Color Blind

Since there still wasn’t a party happening, Corey, Danielle and Chooch sat down and colored some Star Wars pictures. Thank god for crayons and coloring books.

“You know I’m color-blind, right?” Corey asked me.

“What? No!” I replied.

“Yeah, I found out when I was like, 7 and got my first pair of glasses. The doctor was basically like, ‘You’re color-blind as fuck.’ I can’t believe you’ve known me for 21 years and didn’t know this!” Corey said, mock-offended.

Meanwhile, Chooch was chastising Corey for coloring Luke Skywalker totally wrong and I was like, “Dude doesn’t know his colors, Chooch. He can’t help it.” I tried to give Corey a sympathetic smile but I couldn’t stop laughing long enough.

Anyway, the point of Corey’s story is that his color-retardedness is affecting his ability to excel in one of his classes, so his adviser intervened and told the professor about Corey’s “condition,” at which point he was sent to the disability office and had to sit among suicidal students and a guy with one leg.

This was so ridiculously funny to me that I could not stop laughing and talking about it. All day long, whenever someone new would arrive (and yes, people did eventually arrive), I would introduce Corey as “my brother; he’s color-blind.” Show me your weakness and I will mock you relentlessly.

 IV. The Butterscotch Blunder

People were finally beginning to arrive and Henry let me set out the pistachio pie (which was like spooning a cloud from Heaven into your mouth; I bet angels get breast implants made from this sweet fluff) but said that the butterscotch pie still wasn’t ready.

“Don’t touch it!” he barked preemptively when I made to open the weird helium-balloon looking cooler stowing the runny pie. “I just checked it and it still hasn’t jelled.” He tugged on his coller a little and then took another swig of his iced tea jug.

This pretty much went on all day, this dance around the reverse pie-incubator, until finally it was 6:30 and everyone had left with nary a slice of butterscotch pie (which is one of my all-time favorite pies and I haven’t had it in years because my mom doesn’t care enough about me to bake me one, but she’ll still bake them FOR HER EX-HUSBAND WTF). I was devastated. Yes, I had shoveled multiple varities of fruit- and cream-filled desserts between my oscillating lips, but there was a void that couldn’t be filled by any berry or Nutella. I needed that fucking butterscotch.

(Two pies came close though: Kaitlin made a black forest pie and then told Henry to suck it; and Laura’s fiance Mike baked one of the best apple pies with a crust soaked in some sort of sex nectar, I don’t even know but I think I may have broken a few laws with it in my mouth.)

V. The Park

Everyone is always bitching about how hard it is to find park pavilions, no matter what park we’re at, so fuck that: the next pie party will be at a strip club. Maybe then people will actually show up.

And then there won’t be any stink bugs to freak people out. Just crabs.

VI. Where’s the Avocado Pie?

Henry didn’t make the avocado pie this year and of course everyone was like, “Did Henry make the avocado pie?” No, Henry didn’t make the avocado pie because he was too busy fucking up the butterscotch pie.

VII. Pictures of People Eating Pie

Pie Eaters:

• Me me me me
• Henry and Chooch
• Laura
• Corey and Danielle
• Robbie and Karen
• Ron
• John, Jennifer, Abby and Gavin
• Nancy and her baby, Joey
• Jamie and her baby, Crosby
• Barb
• Kaitlin
• Sandy and Elena
• Sean and Kylie
• Joy and John
• Kristen and her dog, Joey
• Blake and Shannon
• Henry’s mom Judy
• Henry’s sister Kelly
• Zac
• Janna

 Henry bought some sort of pie shower caps, except I thought he said they were for vaginas. I was so confused, but figured it was something he saw his ex using one time, so I didn’t question it.

I don’t think these kids stopped moving long enough to eat even a bite of pie.

WHAT WERE THEY TALKING ABOUT? It seems so intense.

Since it was an open house-type of party, people came and went all day. Henry kept trying to make everyone take pie home with them, because the pie:person ratio was totally ridiculous this year. There were some pies that hadn’t even been cut into by the end of the day. Was everyone on a diet this year?

We even considered handing off some pie to the picnicking pregnant family down by the porta john.

Joy’s fiance John asked me what started the whole pie party thing. When I told him that it was basically because I wanted pie and wondered how I could trick people into bringing me some, I think he believed me but I’m not sure. It’s kind of cool how much people enjoy pillaging a spread of pies in a park pavilion on a beautiful autumn day, though.

Probably frowning at Kaitlin’s black forest pie.

Laura actually likes having her photo taken, so she doesn’t care when I sneak up on her.

Overall, it was a great day, great weather, great pies, and great people. But by 6:00, I was writhing around and yelling WHY DID YOU LET ME EAT SO MUCH PIE!? because everything is Henry’s fault.

The next morning, Henry finally admitted that he fucked up the butterscotch pie, which had never jelled, not even after a full 24 hours. There goes your spot on the Food Network, Henry, you fuck-up.

I heard through the grapevine that Glenn liked last year’s Murder Desk better than this year’s Carnival Desk because he got to be the killer. (I’m going to pretend that he wasn’t being sarcastic.)

So I decided to incorporate his murderous streak into this year’s theme, too.

I’ve been calling this Candy’s Corner.

Remains of Candy mingle amongst circus peanuts.

I figured I could use Glenn to tie in Candy’s Corner with all the department sideshow freaks, so I made a newspaper article. (The picture of Candy is random — I didn’t want anyone here to be all, “OMG WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE VICTIM!?”)

(But really, aren’t we all?)

The “unknown metal object” will be officially revealed next week when I have Candy’s stomach contents on my desk.

I tried to throw in a few shout-outs here and there, like Barb’s newfound predilection for tacking on “holla!” to the end of random proclamations and Amber1’s publicly shared affection for her wiener dog.

And Brad’s midget-ness.

Another new addition: creepy old jack in the box!

Candy’s wig and bow.

Sean and Glenn checking out the latest Glenns on the wall.

The real Glenn got Little Orphan Glenn in today’s clown head digging. George got Jesus Glenn, and to quote Lee: “George gets ALL of the good Glenns!

“

I’m so happy that the Glenn Dispenser (as dubbed by A-Ron) is a hit! (Above is a close-up of the clown head’s mouth, where all the fun is.) It makes me laugh to hear my work friends asking each other, “Which Glenn did you get??” And when Lee found out George got the coveted Juggalo Glenn, he whined, “George always gets the good Glenns!

”

I added a bunch more Glenns to the mix today, including Rainbow Brite Glenn, Swoop-era Bieber Glenn, Furry Glenn, and “Carrie” Glenn.

Today, Glenn’s prize capsule contained a fortune.

“Wow. How deep,” he mumbled after reading it, but really I think he was disappointed that he didn’t get a Himself.

;

Finally, we got the approval to decorate for Halloween again this year! I’ve known since last October what I was going to do this year.

Last year’s was so graphic and murder-y, so I decided to go a different route: clowns. It seems like most of the department are coulrophobic! And it just so happens I have a few clowns in my collection.

Henry and I had a huge fight about the fabric. I’m sorry but fabric stores are gross! I didn’t want to be there at all, and I threw a massive fit about how ridiculous it was that I couldn’t find striped fabric.

“You only looked in one rack!” Henry cried, whic prompted me to scathe, “Oh, don’t you talk to me that way!

” and storm out of the store. Sunday was a fabulous day!

(Obviously, I sent him back out for the fabric.)

(The randomly jutting clown shoe scares Brad.)

So, one of the first components I began working on last week was defacing pictures of Glenn.

Watching me turn Glenn into a Juggalo, Lee asked, “What started your beef with Glenn, anyway?”

This gave me pause. You know, I can’t be certain exactly what happened, but I know that he sassed me one time. And for that, he will forever be my joke-pony.

Anyway, the seedling of my idea was to get a bunch of those prize machine capsules and fill it with candy and a picture of Glenn (collect them all!).

Crooked Cop Glenn!

Stripper Glenn!

I also made a bunch of department-centric fortunes. My favorite is: Never underestimate the power of a Barb Riley Nastygram.

So I did all of these things, ordered those plastic vending capsules in bulk, and then thought to myself, “WTF am I putting these in?” Certainly not just a random bowl. So I made a beachball-sized paper mache clown head (with Henry’s help—I’m not allowed to use the hand mixer). It took all weekend and was one of the most frustrating projects of my life (hi, I hate crafts, remember?), but I am so in love with him now! My babe!

It’s surprising to me how many people either hesitated or flat out refused to put their hand in his mouth, like I am so untrustworthy! Barb is so thrilled she gets to stare at the back of his bald head all day.

And what goes along with carnivals and circuses? Side show freaks!

Carey as the Tattooed Lady! A Fiji Mermaid!

Midget pacifier-sucking Brad! Bloody circus peanuts!

Ringmaster A-ron!

Chris and Lee, Ultimate Law Firm Bromance! (Lee is so angry and traumatized about this.)

;

Moustache and beard lollipops!

Fiji Mermaid up close!

Barb the Contortionist!

Random babies in a bottle!

So, this is why I haven’t been writing much on here lately: I’ve got a one-track mind!

Mostly, it’s been received very positively. I mean, it’s fun! It’s interactive! It’s mean-spirited toward Glenn (who secretly loves it)! Even some people who don’t usually talk to me have stopped to appreciate it. I just hope that the few anti-fun people here don’t get upset and complain.

But if last year’s Murder Desk was allowed to carry on throughout the entire month, I don’t see why this one can’t, too.

I still have some more things to do, but one thing’s for sure: all the clown haters sure do love me right now.

I was looking for a picture of myself when I dressed as a clown for my third Halloween, and ended up finding this picture, too. I have something like three photos in total of my birth dad who died right before my third birthday, and of course there’d be a clown in one.

Now I’m all sad.

We have really been scoring at the thrift stores lately. Last week, Henry found an elephant table and sent me a picture of it. I was in a meeting at the time though, and by the time I got back to him to say, “Fuck yeah, I want that!” he had already left.

So I made him go back. You can’t pass up a goddamn elephant table, Jesus Christ.

The original table featured an elephant-colored elephant, which is fine for some, but I knew that if that table was ever going to belong in my house, it would have to be pink. So we pinked the fuck out of it and now have the best accent table of all time, which will be perfect in the clown room of my imaginary house.

In other news, paper mâché sucks. But I said I was going to do this, so now I must see it through.

Scored a new member for the Wheelchair Gang today at Goodwill!

I can’t believe someone would give away such an evil specimen.

I’m so pleased with him! I’ve named him Mauricio. He’s fit in seamlessly with Malachai and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Baby.

Can’t wait for them to come alive and gut the neighborhood with melon ballers!

Scored these “baby’s” as well.

In other OHE happenings, I’ve been off work for the last two days and it has been lovely. I spent yesterday catching up with my oldest friend Christy (she’s the one you’d want to go to for confirmation on all the Adolescent Erin tales, and also the one who tried to warn me about getting involved with Psycho Mike, god bless her), and then Seri and I spent 87 hours in the car just to get psychologically tortured at Ghoul Mansion in Sharon, PA. More on that later (and also my annual Castle Blood review)!

Today was spent scouring various stores for components of my Halloween desk decor – I’m really excited about it this year and can’t wait to start putting it together on Monday! Henry is helping me make a large paper mâché clown head today so hopefully that ends successfully and with little blood shed.

I’ve also been spending my time off catching up on season 2 of The Killing which has quickly become my new obsession and possibly in the Top 5 of my favorite TV shows, so naturally it was canceled.

On top of all that, I’m pretty sure I’m getting sick. Yay!

“I have terrible news!” I cried into the phone yesterday morning, the fat boy of all tears rolling down my cheek. Henry didn’t respond, probably because he gets this call 87 times a week. “MY BIG GREEN GLASSES BROKE!” I wailed after he said nothing.

“Oh, you big idiot,” he spat. “That’s no big surprise, the way you treat those things. You sleep with them, sleep on them*, they’re on the bathroom floor, in the bathroom sink…” He continued to spout off how abusive I am to my eye glasses – well, SORRY I wasn’t in the SERVICE and didn’t learn how to swaddle them in the American flag for protection, HENRY.

(*This isn’t a lie – just the other morning, I had to pull them out from under my back when I woke up.)

I bought my babies from Zenni Optical a little over two years ago. The prescription was totally fucked. (I had to lie about that pupil measurement thing because  Zenni Optical kept saying those frames weren’t available for people of my pupillary distance. God, can any of my measurements be socially standard!?) Here’s a list of the side effects I experienced during the first week of wearing my Big Green Glasses:

• Unless I’m sitting stalk-still, it appears that I’m peering out of a fish bowl. Everything is curved. I can’t remember if convex or concave is the word I’m looking for, and to be honest, I’m too busy thinking of when I’m going to get to the cemetery today to worry too much about dictionary.com’ing that shit.
• Saturday morning, I had the brilliant idea of writing in my blog while glassed. Thought it would be good practice, train my eyes to be more like those of goldfish. It was worse than trying to type without any visual aid at all! Every time I attempted to glance down at the keyboard, I’d recoil in horror because the fingers tapping along the keys looked like they belonged to tiny (not yet dead)  Jon Benet Ramsey hands. EVERYTHING IS MINIATURIZED IF I LOOK DOWN, WHAT THE FUCK.
• Sunday morning was the food test. If I could EAT with the green monstrosity perched on my nose bridge, I could be convinced to keep trying these frustrating exercises. A simple bowl of cereal – Honey Bunches of Oats, if you need to know for your case study – was all I was trying to conquer. Thanks to my inability to look down, my chin, cleavage, and the person I keep chained under the computer desk all thanked me for the lovely breakfast.

I should note also that these were the first glasses I had since…2003? Perhaps even earlier. And after I totally forced my eyeballs to adapt to the new fucked up fishbowl lenses, I wore the shit out of these things! Sometimes I even wore them ALL DAY. (Only once to work though, and I was made fun of by Chris, who totally doesn’t even remember. BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET.)

“How did you break them?” Henry asked me when he came home from work yesterday.

“I woke up and put them on and they were CROOOOOOOO-HOOO-HOOO-HOOO-KEDDDDDD!” I cried. (That’s “crooked” for those can’t read Whiny Type.)

“Because you sleep on them,” Henry interrupted while I was still relaying the tragic events.

“So I tried to bend the one arm back up—-” I continued sadly.

“You’re supposed to heat it up first,” Henry interrupted again.

“OH LIKE I KNOW THAT!” I yelled. God, I didn’t take any eye glass survivor courses in high school like you Henry, OK? I was too busy being COOL.

Ugh!

I took this picture the NIGHT BEFORE THE MURDER. I distinctly remember saying out loud, “Hey Big Green Glasses, I haven’t photographed you in awhile!” and take a second during my obsessive viewing of the TV show The Killing (which you can see in the reflection!) to take a photo of those sexy green goggles.And they were only $9!! NINE DOLLARS.

If only I knew that would be the last time I would ever wear them.

Of course, Zenni Optical doesn’t have them anymore. So now I have to scour the Internet, looking for a comparable replacement, even though I know in my heart, there will NEVER be a replacement.

Unless I can find these:

(I’ve been obsessed with Brett Somers and her bitchin’ Coke bottles for most of my life.)

Please, help me in my quest! I’m helpless!

Until then, I will be turning my Big Green Glasses into some sort of commemorative art. RIP, babe.

“I have a present for you!” Gayle announced on Monday. I instantly perked up. “I’m not above buying your love!” she teased.

“That’s how I became friends with this one,” I said, thumbing at Barb’s desk over my shoulder. “You don’t think that came naturally, do you?”

Gayle laughed really loud.

I wasn’t joking.

But Gayle had forgotten to bring my present on Monday, and then she forgot yesterday, too! But by then, I already knew it was a chocolate-covered Granny Smith apple. If you’ve been following my apple journey over the last year, you know I’m not a big fan of green apples, but hey — it’s the thought that counts, right?

“Um, how am I going to cut it?” I asked Gayle, because this sounded like a job for my enemy, Knife.

“Oh, don’t worry—I’ll cut it for you,” Gayle said. Suddenly, this present was sounding better and better.

Today, I came to work and was met with a giant orb of chocolate on my desk, the size of one of The Situation’s testicles after a scoreless night at Karma.

Every person who passed my desk today did a double take. Some even backtracked to inspect it closer. Amber1 stole it twice.

Finally around 6:00, I could stare at this chunk of confectionary Heaven no longer, and shuffled back to Gayle’s desk with it cradled in my palms. I batted my eyes at her, which she took as her cue to get to cuttin’.

She even cut all the seeds out for me, and made the slices into bite-sized pieces so I wouldn’t choke!

I snatched up a piece while Gayle was methodically slicing and was not prepared for the defibrillating jolt to my tongue as each taste bud blossomed in a beautiful rebirth. Suddenly, Granny Smith apples weren’t so bad.

Unfortunately, while Gayle and I were standing outside of the kitchen, one of the evil ladies from the Travel Office came slinking out of her cave and instantly sniffed out my golden apple. In an uncharacteristic fit of generosity, I offered her a slice, even though Barb is certain she’s a devil worshiper. I secretly hoped she would decline, but she TOOK ONE. 

Hopefully Heaven doesn’t drop a load of frogs on my house tonight.

I shared a slice with everyone on late shift, then took what was left back to my desk, where I sat in a very un-ladylike position, jaws engaged in some nasty Tantric chewing.

“How is it?” Chris asked, after spending all day looking at it even though he doesn’t like chocolate.

“Mmmmmmpgh,” I choked around a retainer of chewy caramel, eyes closed, slowly nodding.

“That was the best response ever,” he laughed, probably wishing he liked chocolate so he could know what God’s post-sex snack tastes like.

Look at how thick that chocolate coating is!

“Wow, you were really hungry,” A-ron said, noting that 3/4 of the apple had been demolished when he passed by my desk on his way out.

“I didn’t eat it all myself! I shared it with everyone!” I cried in defense.

“You gonna go to Wendy’s later, too?” he teased and I just whimpered in defeat.

I feel like I must have chocolate all over my face. (And I know for certain I have some on my pants.)