It was March of 2004. Christina and I had been e-friends for almost a year by then and I finally decided I would make the 4+ hour drive to Cincinnati to visit her. Henry made sure I had directions (printed out from MapQuest—it was 2004! No GPS, no smartphones. Not like I would have used that shit anyway. I’m directionally stubborn like a man), snacks, water and an encouraging “You can do this!” hug and a kiss. Meanwhile, I made sure I had the Important Stuff: MUSIC.

Again, this was 2004, so I didn’t have any mp3 players that plugged into my car or even a CD player that played mp3 CDs. The horror! This was “old-school” 80-minute mix CDs days. I filled a blank CD with a bunch of music that I had recently (legally) acquired but hadn’t really had a chance to listen to yet. My all-time favorite Metric song was on that CD (“Siamese Cities”), some tracks from Open Hand, Murder By Death, Armsbendback, Acceptance and even a yacht rock throwback (Ambrosia).

Even though Henry printed out a play-by-play list of directions and a map and explicitly told me, “Just stay on 70 west forever,” I still managed to get navigationally fucked. Why? Because I’m a fucking idiot and can’t follow directions. I can fly to Australia on my own without a hitch, but drive across Ohio on my own? That’s a real map for disaster. I was about 2 1/2 hours into the trip when I saw an exit sign that corresponded with the exit in the directions. It was same exit number*, and it even said “Cleveland / Cincinnati” like the directions said, except it said “77 N” instead of “I-270.” I panicked and took it, figuring that maybe 77 and 270 were the same road. Because why couldn’t that be possible? ROADS ARE CONFUSING. Still, I had that nagging sensation in my chest telling me to stop driving before I got too far into the unknown. I didn’t have a cell phone back then so I couldn’t call Henry for help every 3 minutes like I do nowadays.

ex: Henry: Tell me what you’re near. Me: A black woman in tall boots.

[* I found out later that it was actually the reverse of the exit number I needed. Driving dyslexia will get you every time.]

I took the next exit I came upon and it landed me in Kimbolton, OH which I also could not find on my map because hey, let’s go to Kimbolton said no one ever. I spotted a BP gas station and pulled over to get help. It may have actually been the very first, original BP it was that rustic. Print-outs in hand, I went inside and ask the older fellow behind the counter if he could show me where I was. Two girls behind me began to laugh. Like, the rude kind of snorting laugh that you do when you’re making fun of someone. I turned around and said, “Yeah I know – I’m retarded. It’s ok, you can laugh.” And then to really illustrate my sarcasm, I let out a dry, staccato ha ha. Instead, they took this opportunity to fucking whisper about me behind my back. I couldn’t believe that they would treat me like shit even after I offered to let them cut ahead of me and pay for whatever crap they were buying. Trying to ignore the demonic voice of Bobcat Goldthwait in my head, telling me to fuck their shit up, I sucked in my breath and asked the old man employee if he could help me get back onto 70. He held my map up to the light, and said, “This map looks like it was printed off that there Internet.” Seriously, he said this. I checked my LiveJournal and that is exactly what I wrote in 2004 so it must be true. I told him that it was and he informed me that it was useless. USELESS.

BLAME HENRY, 2004 EDITION.

Anyhow, when he saw where my final destination was, he exclaimed, “Well, why did you even get off 70 west!?” This made the fucking lot lizards behind me laugh even harder. Omigod guys, I know, right? What a dumb ass I am. Because I drive through Ohio every fucking day. The one girl was wearing two-day-old black eye liner and Wet n Wild fuchsia lipstick, which she probably purchased from the same streetwalker store where she bought her clothes. Her sidekick was pregnant I think, and wearing a belly shirt. Totally classy. I was completely envious of the stains on her clothing and the growth on her lip.

Sighing, I asked the old fuck if he could just tell me how to get back onto 70 west. He looked at me like I asked him to help me count to five and said, “Well, you go 10 miles south!” Well, shit son! Problem is that I had NO IDEA which way was south. Of course, I couldn’t ask him to point me in the right direction, because that would have just given those whores more unnecessary ammo. I pretended to understand, gathered up my useless MapQuest print-outs, and turned to leave.

Except the quasi-pregnant girl was blocking the door. I politely said “Excuse me” and she totally looked the other way. Bitch, best not ignore me! At this point, I had accumulated approximately 25 and a half things to be angry about, and I began envisioning myself ripping her fucking greasy hair out of her ugly fucking head. Instead, the miniscule shard of rationality that I store in the back of my brain surfaced and reminded me that there were two of them, and only one of me. And if we’re sharing secrets, they were really rough looking. I didn’t want my last role in life being some hackneyed-toothed hillbilly’s punching bag, so I took the bitch way out and literally ducked and squeezed between her bloated gut and the door.

Then I went back to my car and indulged myself in a total crybaby sobfest.

Sniffling like a bitch behind the wheel, I managed to find my way back to 70, and decided to take the exit for 70 east and just go the fuck home. I was scared and disoriented, not to mention BORED (driving alone is hard!) I took it out on my snack selection. At one point I even wailed out loud, “Soy Crisps don’t taste so good when I’m driving!”

Eventually, I focused on my music and it was a familial band of Texans called Eisley that got me to calm down. To this day, when I listen to Eisley, I think of that drive and laugh. And then promptly relax. I’m so picky with girl singers, so the fact that I still like Eisley 9 years later really speaks volumes. I can listen to those girls sing all day long. The video at the top of this post is one of my favorite songs ever from them.

Epilogue: A few weeks later, Christina took a Greyhound to Pittsburgh and then we drove back to Cincinnati together. We made a pitstop: A certain decrepit BP station in Kimbolton, Ohio. Those bitches weren’t there though. AND HOW LUCKY THEY WERE.

Chooch painted a close-up of our cat Marcy’s fur for me. I’m really glad he didn’t have me guess what it was supposed to be.

I was kind of on edge yesterday, but really – how can I be in a bad mood when I live with a kid who pulls impromptu faces like this? He’s my motherfucking Valium, you guys.

(Except for when he’s causing me to need motherfucking Valium.)

Oh, sure—this pile of fruit looks beautiful, doesn’t it? Too bad being aesthetically-pleasing to the eyeballs don’t mean SHIT if the tongue’s not getting flavor-fucked.

We have officially run out of Weird Fruit at the Appledale household. Henry went grocery-shopping over the weekend but came home with nothing that I haven’t already eaten, nothing that only grows in a riverbed of wombat dung, nothing that requires watching a YouTube video to learn how to eat it.

Just strawberries (yawn), blueberries (seriously, Henry?), pears (and not even exotic pears, but regular pears  that even orphans probably eat), apples (oh OK, 2011!), kiwis (Jesus Christ, Henry, I outgrew kiwis in the 90s), mangoes (overrated) and cherries, which I’m actually happy about because apparently when I settled for a Blue Collar Life with a man whose fruit palate is clearly as calloused as his hands, I settled for a life where a bag of fucking cherries is considered a “splurge.”

Even the blackberries Henry dumped into my fruit salad tasted like nothing more than petty Pittsburgh produce. I mean, what went through Henry’s mind when he was at the grocery store? “Oh, here are some plain oranges that plain Americans eat. I bet Erin will love that because her standards are so plain.

” IS THAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT, HENRY!? Bitch, please! He might as well just go buy me fruit from Wal-Mart.

My fruit purveyor Andrea called my current fruit menu “pedestrian,” and while she was probably mocking me I don’t care because this fruit is fucking PEDESTRIAN. I will stop short of calling it jejune, because that word sounds too fancy for what this fruit really is.

Oh my god, I miss the days of lychee and longans and jackfruit!

Persimmon and cherimoya! Eating that fruit made me feel important, like the guts of that cherimoya was really some kind of indulgent fruit-oyster that plain people weren’t allowed to share with me. But this everyday shit? There are elderfucks in nursing homes eating the same fruit as me right this very moment, except that theirs is suspended in green Jello and sadness.

Oh, I just can’t stand it.

You know my brain is all jacked up when I break out the bullet points. January can blow me.  

• Yesterday, Chooch paused as he was putting on his gloves and thoughtfully said, “I wish that there were gloves that you could wear and still be able to feel the fur of a cat when you pet it.” In that split second, I saw into the future: Chooch, 47-years-old, living in my garage with 18 cats and 24 bookshelves stuffed with every Goodwill cat book he ever made us purchase, going on his 87th prototype for said gloves.
  • At least his ridiculous cat love means he likely won’t grow up to be a serial killer.
• Henry and I kind of had a fight yesterday, but then we both started laughing. I’ve totally lost my edge.
• Today, there was a food fest at work. Today was also the day that I fit into a pair of pants that have been too tight for the last year. That totally made it easy for me to just say no to the food and cuddle up to my fruit salad.
  • The fact that I’m not feeling very “festive” at work lately also helped.
•  

• I caught Henry looking at house listings on his phone the other night! ALL ON HIS OWN! Maybe that  means we’re getting closer to officially looking, I don’t know.
• Chooch was accused of punching one of his classmates in the mouth two Fridays ago. This classmate also has the distinction of being our next door neighbor. Instead of coming straight to us, his mom (who has lived next door to us for like, 10 years – she’s Hot Naybor Chris’s stepdaughter-ish thing!) went to the vice principal the following Tuesday. We only heard about it because Chooch had a dentist appointment that day, so the VP told Henry when he went to the office to sign out  Chooch. However, their teacher knew nothing about it even though the kid was supposedly bleeding. You know who else didn’t know about it? Chooch. And I know he wasn’t lying, because I KNOW when my kid is lying. He lies just like me! We both start nervously laughing and then become belligerently defensive. And he did neither of those things, just sat there acting thoroughly confused. Meanwhile, the kid he apparently punched is a fucking Neanderthal Yinzer-bully who calls people “homos,” so if Chooch did punch him in some alternate-reality where he’s not preoccupied watching kitten videos on YouTube, then I’d give him a high-fucking-five and a goddamn donut.
  • I am so 110% over conflict right now, you have no idea. I’m too young for this chest-pain bullshit!
•  I listened to a lot of Eisley over the weekend. I forgot the soothing effect those sirens have on me.
• Weekends mean so much more to me now that everything is falling apart. They also go by so much faster.
• I realized the other day that the biggest difference between Now and Then is that Now I have an amazing support system. Then I had a bunch of bitches who wanted to see me fail.
•          I miss my Pappap so fucking much.
• What is the weirdest fruit you’ve ever eaten? My fruit salads have been pretty boring lately and I need some suggestions.  Henry bought a pepino melon and I guess I was supposed to be more excited about that, but come on — my melon fetish was so 2004. (This is not a metaphor for my sex life.) At least he “splurged” and bought a bag of cherries. Usually his canned response to cherries is: “Not for THAT price!” (Nor is this a metaphor for my drug habit.)
• This is what I look like now:
• I need a fucking adventure. Who’s with me?

Went to Goodwill in search of a cake pedestal for tomorrow’s photo shoot & weren’t in there for more than 30 seconds (maybe even less) before Cat Lady Chooch spotted a book about cats. He almost knocked some broad over when he lunged to grab it. I have no idea how he even saw it on the bookshelf amongst 61719304 other books.

This is Henry’s face while I listen to new Jonny Craig songs on my phone, holla.

However, he’s not even trying to put up a fight about going to see Jonny Craig in March*.

Either he has lost his will to fight, is cheating on me, or is banking on Jonny OD’ing before then.

*OMG JONNY CRAIG IS COMING TO PITTSBURGH IN MARCH!!!

I GET TO SEE JONNY THREE DAYS AFTER SEEING PIERCE THE VEIL, WHATTTTT!

Janna and I took Chooch to the Mattress Factory when he was around 9 months old. There were acres of dangerously sharp metal installations just waiting to lacerate his precious motherfucking baby skin, but Janna watched out for both of us.

Thank god.

Me: “I was thinking again about having another baby.

”

Henry, hesitantly: “Ok?”

Me: “But considering you’d be like, 50 when the baby is born, well, that’s just not fair to the baby. So I have a proposition for you.”

Henry: “……..”

Me: “You should let me have the baby with someone else.”

Henry: “How is that a proposition? What do I get out of it?”

Me: “You get to still be with me.”

Henry: “Can I have money instead?”

Considering my Baby Daddy is going to be filthy rich with old money, I don’t see why not.

Found this picture from 2 Easters ago and decided to re-share it because it’s my picture and I can do that OKAY?! I mean, happy Wednesday.

My job is wonderful and gives us the day off for Martin Luther King Day, so since Chooch didn’t have school and Henry came home from work early, we went to the Carnegie Museum.  Henry spent most of time acting like he personally dug up the dinosaur bones.

OMG my favorite part! FRUIT! #4 is a sapodilla, which my friend Kevin recently flaunted at me on Facebook because he lives in Miami and can easily acquire these elusive temptresses that supposedly taste of brown sugar and root beer and why can’t they be in my mouth right now!?

#8 is a cherimoya (though the museum has it listed as its alias, the custard apple), which is currently my favorite fruit and deserves its own blog post, but I have not had the mental braun to do anything about that lately. This happens every January.

Looks like I’ll be making Henry a pot of mushroom soup for Valentine’s Day.

There was some lady there who kept trying to insist that Chooch stick around for all the family photos she was taking of her totally out-of-control children. You know it’s bad when even Chooch is like, “Um, this is awkward.”

It was practically blizzarding by the time we left.

The rest of the weekend was spent amassing tea cups from Goodwill, working on the totally classy 1970s Porn Stars card series, barking orders at Henry, and eating sushi and watching “Sinister” with Laura. And then promptly having nightmares. (Because of the movie, not Laura.)

I’ve been neglecting this blog, I know. I’ve just been so preoccupied with designing new greeting cards and getting things together for a photo shoot idea that Chooch and I have for this weekend, and I think I might start painting monsters again for a creepy craft show I’m going to be vending at in March. Keeping busy: the best way to beat the Winter Sads.

We were just scouring Goodwill for photo shoot props, when Chooch dragged this huge blue bunny rabbit over to me and in his typical high-octave, shouted, “MOMMY! I HAVE A GREAT IDEA! For the next photo shoot, we can tape a KNIFE to his hand and pretend like he’s trying to MURDER ME!

”

There were unlimited old people all around us in every direction, dropping their jaws like dominos, so I adopted a hoarse whisper and throat-slashing motion to get Chooch to can it.

“WHAT?? THAT ONE TIME YOU DRESSED ME AS A RABBIT AND PUT BLOOD ALL OVER ME!!”

This opened the door for a nice conversation about how sometimes, the things that are normal to us are things that other people don’t understand or think is “weird.” And also made me realize that I really go for the rabbit theme a lot.

But other than that, I really enjoyed the hairy eyeballin’ I got from all the elderlies.

It was either write about my kid or my long-standing, vitriolic Katy Perry-surpassing hatred for Lance Armstrong, but the vein in my head has thrummed enough this week so you get a Chooch report instead.

Chooch is totally into the weird fruits we’ve been buying. OK, he’s definitely not at all into the weird fruits we’ve been buying. He acted like the tiny piece of dragonfruit we gave him had tiny needle-covered elves inside.

I’ll tell you what he’s really into. You know those videos that people post on YouTube that are literally nothing more than just them playing video games?

Chooch loves those. In fact, there is one guy who posts videos of himself playing Minecraft that Chooch loves so much, he asked Henry if he could post a video response telling the guy that he makes good videos.

He’s also really into watching Slender Man spotting videos, but he stands really far away from the computer when doing so.

If I had do a guest post, it would probably go like this:

today I watched Minecraft videos while dum daddy fell asleep on the couch in his underwear watching criminal minds but then i woke up him after I screamed and cried while watching a Slender Man video. And then I played Happy Wheels and jacked up the computer even more while daddy answered personal ads on his phone.

It’s all he wants to talk about when I get home from work! I can’t take it! I don’t want to hear about Minecraft. He doesn’t even PLAY Minecraft!

But if he makes a You Tube video response, I’ll totally post it for you guys. And then put it in the “To Show Future GF” file post haste.

Last night, part of his homework required him to draw his family. I was angry because Henry looked exactly like Henry (a cross between a hobo serial killer and Andy from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure), but I looked all frumpy and ugly. I called Chooch out on this and he said, “Well, I WAS gonna draw you EMO,” like I should be happy he went with ugly instead.

OMG and last week his teacher told him he has swag.

I am so ready for this three day weekend.

My Jonny Craig doll has been pretty lonely so Chooch suggested that I have a Vic Fuentes (Pierce the Veil) doll made. So I went straight to Maya, who can pretty much make ANYTHING because she’s a creative genius. And damn, she is FAST! I think this whole process only took a little over a week once I got some pictures sent to her.

She even gave him a little nose ring, OMG!

The first time I saw Pierce the Veil, Vic was wearing a Jaws t-shirt, which Maya replicated into a tiny baby size (even embroidered teeth on him!).  I can’t wait to get him in the mail and squeeze him! (Although, Chooch totally thinks that it’s HIS doll.)

I can see Chooch and I are going to be doing a lot of sibling-esque fighting over Vic.

It is so fucking good to have not just these guys, but the sport itself, back on my TV again.

P1010030, originally uploaded by appledale.

This is my most-viewed photo of all time on Flickr, for some reason. Henry, reenacting Andrew Borden after getting 40 whacks from his daughter Lizzie.

Interesting.