The weather was way too nice on Sunday to sit around crying about my club foot, so we went to Jefferson Memorial for a family walk (Henry is not a fan of these). The subject of Bloody Mary came up and Chooch just kept pressing me for more and more information. I was like, “I don’t know! She’s some bitch who comes out of the mirror and scratches your face off! What more can I say!?” So then he took my phone and emailed Andrea, figuring she would have some sort of greater insight on the matter.

(Andrea, aren’t you pleased to know that you’re the go-to girl for these things?)

“Chooch look! It’s a woodpecker!” Henry cried, swiveling on his heels and pointing toward tree tops. I started to groan. “What?!” he snapped.

“Oh nothing, just acknowledging that you’re being a know-it-all as usual,” I said with a fake yawn.

“Sorry if I want my son to learn about things other than Bloody Mary and Minecraft!” Henry retaliated. Hey, I’m not the one who taught him about Minecraft.

Some older man was sitting in his car with the windows down, watching Chooch’s antics and laughing. I knew, just KNEW, that he was going to try and engage us with words as we walked past. I was right. He was saying something about how don’t we all wish we had that kind of energy, and I almost said, “I DO, but some motherfucker broke my entire will to live with a bowling ball yesterday!” Instead, I just smiled and told him to have a good day.

“That was weird that he was just sitting there!” I whispered (loudly) to Henry after we passed the car.

“Maybe he was parked next to his wife’s grave!” Henry snapped, all defensively. God, maybe they belong to the same beverage cult or something.

Henry didn’t notice this plane in the sky, or else Chooch and I would have choked on an ear sandwich about what kind of plane it is. You know, since Henry was in THE SERVICE and loves talking about PLANES.

Look at my poor, broken Big Green Glasses in the background. :( They’re missing an arm (is that what you call the part that goes behind the ear?) but I still wear them even though they’re lopsided and give me a headache.

Elsewhere, Henry and I have been on a roll with these pendants! I’m hoping to have a good stock built up for that Crafts in the Crypt show next month, and then who knows what. I really don’t want to get into selling these on Etsy. The greeting cards are one thing, but Etsy is a bitch to deal with. Henry was supposed to set something up LAST YEAR so I could sell shit on my own site, but that was project #879 that fell between the cracks.

If you’re interested in any beforehand, let me know and we’ll figure something out!

This is not the best picture, but the image is part of mural inside the Bayernhof Music Museum. When I was there last November with Corey and Kristy, the curator caught Corey and I giggling over it and said, “They’re SHOEING A HORSE,” with an exasperated sigh.

I mean, there IS a horse in the picture….

My friend Sean wanted a Frown of the Day pin, so we made him this fabulous Cafeteria Anger Frown. He put it on immediately and people at work were like, “OMG I WANT ONE!”

That’s a lie. No one said that.

Silly Willie* Silhouette.

(*Willie is actually short for Wilhemina. She’s Marcy’s daughter and has zero personality so I don’t talk about her much.)

My friend Brandy found this Chiodos shirt when she was thrifting and sent it to me! I almost died! It’s too small for me, but it fits Chooch perfectly and you better believe he rubbed it in when he wore it to school yesterday.  And apparently, after he taught his entire first grade class about Bloody Mary, he went on to teach them about Chiodos, too.

Thank god his teacher likes him. (He’s a joy to have in class, she said. HAHAHA.)

This is me, your host of Oh Honestly, Erin, modeling the Malachi pendant.

I gifted the rosary I stole from the hospital chapel to Apple Head. It was too small to fit over her big ass dome, so I had to help her step into it last night.

I think that’s about it. Except for another foot injury that happened on Sunday night, but I’m waiting for Chooch to write his part of it first. He’s as averse to guest-blogging as Henry is, though.

After Henry killed all chances of Saturday Night Intimacy when he murdered my foot with a bowling ball, we left Chooch with his Aunt Kelly and went to visit Henry’s mom Judy, who has been in the hospital since Thursday morning, recovering from a liver surgery. (She is OK, but has to stay in the hospital for a week, which sucks!)

As soon as we got to her room, she started questioning me about my foot (Henry had told her over the phone). You should know that Judy LOVES HER SON. I mean, you want to talk about Golden Boys? In her eyes, he can do no wrong. However, even Judy knew that Henry done FUCKED UP this time. I sat there with my arms crossed, shooting smug looks at Henry while his mom, the actual patient, fussed over my foot.

She wanted me to go to the ER in the worst way, and now I kind of wish that I had, if only to watch Henry’s face blanche as I told all of the nurses and doctors about the abuse that had befallen me that day.

Son of the Year Henry ate Judy’s hospital dinner. Mmm, beef tips over noodles.

Before we left, I pulled Henry into the hospital chapel. I poked my head around the corner first to make sure there weren’t any sobbing family members or bereavement clubs going on, and then I began exploring while Henry stood off to the back, making disapproving sighs.

I signed the chapel prayer book (even though I kept calling it the guest book) and Henry was bracing himself. Jesus Christ, I didn’t write anything bad! Do you think THAT poorly of me, Henry?

Moments later, I swiped some chapel souvenirs. I have big plans for that cross. It involves pink spraypaint, a tiny plastic babydoll and the essence of Satan.

In the parking garage, Henry opened the car door for me. OH, HOW GALLANT.

The Crime: Domestic Abuse

The Perp: Blue-Collared 47-year-old male with an Amber Alert Mustache

The Scene of the Crime: Abby’s Birthday Party at the Playmor

Weapon: 14-Pound Bowling Ball

Saturday, February 9th, 2013. The Penguins were playing the Devils.  Kirk Cameron was speaking in Georgia about Christian marriage.  A club in Jersey was having a parade for Snooki’s kooka. We had two birthday parties to attend at two different bowling alleys.  It seemed like a pretty normal, low-key Saturday.

Until a sickening display of barbaric violence shook the Playmor bowling alley to its core.

At approximately 1:25pm, Henry’s blue-collar, calloused hands fumbled a pink 14-pound bowling ball and dropped it on an exact (some might say PREMEDITATED) trajectory to my precious left foot.

(Henry will argue that it was only 12-pounds, but please — let’s not listen to the VILLAIN of this story.)

What made it worse was that I didn’t even realize he had dropped it, so there was no anticipation, no toe-cracking preparedness. All I knew was that one minute everything was fine — an Emarosa song swimming in my ears, sparkly fairies twirling around my cherubic head — and then it wasn’t fine.

My Emarosa song scratched to a halt, the sparkly fairies fell to their death. And my foot, it felt ALL THE PAIN. Time stood still. Henry sounded like a miles-away dick-in-throat Barry White (“Oooooh myyyyyy Godddddd I’mmmm sooooo sorrryyyyyy! Pleassssse don’ttttt castratttttttte meeeeee!”); bowling pins crashing around me sounded like sheets of metal waving over my head; convents of nuns state-wide braced themselves for what Satan-approved words might come exploding out of my mouth.

But instead, I stood there in frozen silence. I was  too confused to really understand what was happening,  too overwhelmed with toe torture to field-kick Henry’s ballsack, too stunned to swear — props to me on that, since I was flanked by unlimited childrens’ birthday parties.

Not that it mattered, considering that the sound the bowling ball made upon impact was virtually onomatopoeia for: FUCKING OW OW MOTHERFUCKING OW, COCKSUCKER OUCH!.

Potty-mouthing aside, what I REALLY wanted to do was projectile vomit all over Henry’s son-of-a-bitchin’ mustache. Once the blinking neon PAIN, THIS IS TRUE PAIN signs faded out from my eyes, I was able to see Henry had a tangible sheath of AW FUCK clinging to his face, the official Saran Wrap of apologetic, frightened pussies. Bitch, you BEST be scared. There’s a reason I keep some of my old Darkchat friends around!

(For the black magick, duh.)

The first few minutes, I was too focused on pain management and muttering death threats at Henry to cry. But then my DICK HEAD son came over and motherfucking stomped on my poor damaged foot—the sound his shoe made against mine was the orchestral theme song for Evil Son From Hell. Moments later, my friend John, the dad of the birthday girl, came over to get our bowling game started and I blurted out, “HENRY DROPPED A BOWLING BALL ON MY FOOT” followed by an appearance of Pity Me tears.

Henry tried to be a Funny Man about it and said, “Well, I guess we’re done bowling, ha-ha” and seemed like he was prepared to return my bowling shoes.

“Um, I’m still going to bowl,” I snapped, and then asked him if he was capable of finding me a fucking ball without putting me in traction. And preferrably not one that’s 14 pounds, what the fuck.

Determined to be a hero, I bowled TWO FRAMES with an almost- broken foot, icing it in between turns.

Henry and I simultaneously realized that this was not the first time he tried to keep me down by handicapping me. He started to laugh about it but was abruptly silenced when I cupped his balls with a hand made of barbed wire, using nothing more than the power of my glaring eyes. I don’t know Henry, your mangled foot fetish seems pretty wanton at this point.

At least this time wasn’t soundtracked by the sickening crisp of cartilege breaking.

Henry’s “Please don’t call the cops/Jonny Craig is an angelic singer/I’ll clean the whole fucking house/WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY!?” look of Desperate Remorse.

————–

Right after Abby’s birthday party ended, we had to head straight to another bowling alley for Chooch’s cousin Zac’s birthday party. I made a beeline for Henry’s sister and whined, “Guess what your brother did!?”

Kelly offered an appropriate level of sympathy.

“Are we going to bowl here too?” I asked Henry as I shrugged off my coat.

“No, my finger hurts,” he said.

OH. WELL SHIT. Wouldn’t want him to be in ANY PAIN.

————–

Much later that night, I finally mustered up the courage to peel off my sock and inspect Henry’s ruthless damage. I already knew nothing was broken, as evidenced by my ability to wiggle my toes without agony catapulting me through the roof, but they looked looked like they went skinny-dipping in a blueberry pie.  Shit goddamn motherfuck it hurt so bad that I can’t believe the damage wasn’t greater. It was practically a My Left Foot sequel.

Chooch has been reading some of the Walking Dead comics on his Kindle to get his fix. That seemed like the longest mid-season hiatus ever, OMG.

We were on our way to the petting zoo when my life changed forever.

“You girls want a free keychain?” An old man in suspenders and a trucker cap was hunched over arthritically beneath a tent, dangling a beaded keychain. He could have been dribbling an atomic bomb and I would have approached him; the declaration of something being “free” gets me every time. Plus, he was only wearing suspenders and a trucker cap, remember. I love eldernudes.

The keychain wasn’t yet in my hand when Alisha became painfully aware of what was really happening.

“Oh OK, yeah. No thanks,” she said haughtily, veering abruptly away from the tent.

He was church people. Inside the small tent, other church people had stuffed innocent fair-goers into folding chairs and were working Jesus-spells upon their wallets. I turned around and found that Alisha had already been swallowed to safety by the 4H tent.

“Would you like to learn the meaning behind the keychain?” the old man asked in a voice quaking with age.

No, I didn’t really want to. But I still found myself saying, “Yes, please.” Old people. The men ones especially. They goddamn get me every time! Plus, he was from the Living Word Evangelical Free Church, and I didn’t think I’d ever had my Evangelical cherry popped. Hey Mormons, you don’t own me, OK?

So I stood there under this low tent, sweat rolling down my back, feigning interest in these plastic beads that are supposed to represent various parts of Jesus’s anatomy or something, I don’t know. He went slowly through each colored bead, taking the time to explain things like “purity” because it doesn’t take much more than a cursory glance to see that I’m missing that in my life.

I had a feeling the black bead was going to represent “sin,” so when he gripped it between his thumb and forefinger I interrupted him with an obnoxious “Ooooh, ooooh!” hand raise, and he reluctantly let me guess. And I was right! Obviously that’s something I know a lot about.

“Do you have religion in your life?” he asked, eying me up behind his dirty bi-focals.

I can’t remember the exact lie I blurted out, but I know it was strung together with anxious stutters and guilty eye-flickering, like it was God himself in front of me and not some half-crippled liver-spotted church recruiter.

“Well, do you believe you’re going to Heaven?” he asked.

“Um, I hope so?”

“You better KNOW so!” and his laugh was served on a bed of gooey death-phlegm.

He gave me some literature and showed me a picture of a waterfall. “Would you jump off that for $1000?” he asked.

“I mean, I’m a sucker, but no. No, I don’t think I would,” I said, hoping it was the right answer and that I wasn’t going to have to listen to him read aloud from the Bible while shoving snakes in my face.

“I wouldn’t either!” And he laughed that sick, hospice laugh again and clapped me on the arm with his bony hand. It stung a bit. “Well, I’mma let you catch up with your friend. It was very nice talking with you and I hope you enjoy your day at the fair!”

And he sent me off with my keychain which was probably made by the collective fingers of a scared and abused Bible camp, and my God brochure, which I used to jot down all the mean things Alisha said to me throughout the day. For instance: when I wanted to get my caricature done and she said they probably couldn’t make my head any bigger than it already is. I acted mad, but it’s actually kind of true.

I found Alisha inside the 4H tent, pretending to have a heart by cooing at goats.

“I’m religious now,” I panted with excitement.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

***

A few hours later, I was waiting outside the restrooms for Alisha, who was inside a stall adjusting her prosthetic leg. There was a tractor-pull going on in the field behind the restrooms, and I was trying to peer around a pole to see it better.

“Why do you always look so creepy?

” Alisha said, exiting the bathroom behind me. “It looks like you’re trying to pole dance.”

“I was just trying to see what’s going on behind the fence!” I explained defensively.

“Well, why don’t we actually over there and watch so you can stop looking like a creep,” Alisha suggested. She’s always trying to make sure I don’t get mistaken for a prostitute, that’s why I like her.

The stands were full so we found a patch of grass surrounded on three sides by a collection of exposed ass cracks.

“I’ve never seen a tractor pull before,” I said, full of the excited naivete of someone who had just left the porn shop for the farm.

“Trust me, it’s not that exciting,” Alisha warned.

“I’ll be the judge of that!” I yelled.

It was not that exciting.

Sitting there with a cigarette in her hand, Alisha got real serious. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked. I love secrets, but no one ever really tells me any, something about me telling the Internet or something?

“I don’t like blond people,” she said quietly. I waited for her to follow up by saying she’s left a towheaded body count from Arkansas to Pittsburgh. “I just don’t trust them.” There was a young blond guy standing off to her left, and she pointed at him. “Mostly guys though.”

Alisha delved deeper, telling me personal experiences which have shaped her distaste of blond men.

I considered this. On cue, a blond douchebag in an Abercrombie shirt, wrists adorned with hemp, walked past in sandals. In my mind, I ran through a list all the blond guys I know. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Most blond guys are cocky.”

I thought about it some more. “To be honest though, I’m thinking of past cast members from The Real World.” Like that Ryan dickhead who’s on the current New Orleans season, what a prick, am I right?

Alisha sighed. “I love how I share something personal with you and you ruin it with your stupid Real World references.”

She was just bitter that I got an awesome keychain and she didn’t.

Good job, Nurse. You motherfucker.

, originally uploaded by appledale.

This was taken in December 2011 at a Mexican restaurant a few months before my friend Kate suggested doing a Frown of the Day for Henry.

This is a special frown in that it is a PARTIAL. Look at that lip, it’s torn between mirth and disgust!

Taking a cue from my blog buddy Danielle who shared 5 things she’s currently loving over the weekend, here are my right-now fave fives. (I would have done mine yesterday, but I was too busy watching the Superbowl. /jokes.)

1. Clowns

I love clowns and I love collecting clowns! I recently snatched up this vintage paper mache mask from eBay and I pause to look at it 87 times a day. Chooch watched me hang it and said exasperatedly, “God. What is with you and clowns?!”

I JUST LIKE THEM OK?!

2. Planning Adventures

One of my strategies for making it through winter is planning adventures, short road trips, stupid tours to take. Just get me out of here, you know? Janna and I are going to Mansfield, Ohio at some point to check out the Biblewalk at the Living Bible Museum. It looks like it has the potential to be triple the uncomfortable fun which was experience at Christ in the Smokies, and I can’t wait! There’s also a small funeral home museum in Ohio that’s on the list.

And of course, just thinking of all the amusment park trips over the horizon is making me completely giddy. Seriously — sometimes you gotta trick yourself into being happy! It works. Mostly.

3. Making Creepy Crafts

My friends at Castle Blood are opening up the Castle on March 30 for an all-day shopping spectacular called Crafts in the Crypt and they gave me a vendor table. I haven’t actually done anything like this before, so I’m pretty nervous. [A few years ago, a local boutique called Wildcard offered me gallery space for my own fucking art show, but I had to decline because I was poor (for real; as in: ‘do this or eat’ poor) and they wanted my photographs to be the main focus. Printing photographs isn’t very cheap.]

For this show, I’m going to have a bunch of my serial killer cards, some paintings & pendants that are leftover from my Somnambulant days (and maybe some new paintings; we’ll see), Appledale prints now that we have a fantastic printer, and new pendants like the ones below.

Whether I sell anything or not, it’s been fun working with Henry on this shit, even though he gets totally annoyed at my frustration and impatience over drying glue. (IT TAKES TOO LONG!)

4. Pee Wee!

Boy, do I love Pee Wee Herman. He’s one of the few infatuations that have carried over from my childhood. (OK, that’s a lie, considering I’m basically still living my childhood.) His Big Adventure is one of the only movies I can (and do) freely quote, and the best part is that now my kid can too! There’s going to be a Pee Wee festival next September in Kentucky called Pee Wee Over Louisville and we are totally there. I’m hoping to meet my long-time LiveJournal friend Michelle there, too. PEE WEE LOVE FOR EVERYONE.

I bought this giant 19×23 print for Chooch a few weeks ago and it finally came today. It’s his favorite part of the movie!

5. Henry & Chooch

No matter how much they annoy me, I really love my little unconventional, imperfect, weird family. The daily dialogue we share is pretty ridiculous and never boring. And thank god.

HONORARY MENTION:

Religious programming. I love it. I love just having it on for background noise but then ASSHOLE HEATHEN HENRY always snatches the remote and puts something stupid on, like Criminal Minds.  One time, Christina was visiting and had to call her mom. I had EWTN on so loud that she had to take the phone outside because she couldn’t hear her mom over top of the clanging church bells.

 I don’t watch EWTN as much as I used to, but I had it on long enough the other night to catch this gem:

I even downloaded the Vine app specifically so I could share this with the 0 people who I follow on there.

Later, I discovered that there is an EWTN Spanish channel but ASSHOLE HEATHEN MEXICAN-HATING HENRY won’t let me order it.
OK, your turn!

Not to be one of those moms who totally brag about their kids, but OMG I have to brag about how well Chooch has been doing in school. 4.0, bitches! He’s been getting a 100% in spelling and grammar on every report card, which has me incredibly relieved because hello, you know who his father is, right? The Dunce of Two To Too Your/You’re Street. (I can’t wait to see how many typos I make in this post now after I wrote that.)

He is really proficient at reading and, since he has a Kindle Fire now, I thought it would be pretty fun to set up an email address for him so he can write back and forth with some of our friends. It has been a huge source of amusement for me so far. Naturally, Chooch’s responses are hyper-succinct, almost Henry-esque in their abruptness. But, he is 6 after all. And I’ve watched him type before. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to go anywhere beyond “I’m good thanks. Love Riley.”

Andrea was smart and sent him a picture of her cat Vince, and he wouldn’t stop talking about that when he and Henry picked me up from work last night. He replied and told her that he wants her to visit “on March.” He says that about months. It’s always “on” a month. Never “in.”

He replied to Jessa something to the effect of, “MY MOM TOLD ME YOU HAVE CATS. SEND ME PICTURES.” He knows to use all caps when making demands.

I gave him Janna’s email address and he immediately sent her an email saying “When can I come over your house?” So they went back and forth about this, with Janna telling him he’s welcome anytime, but that she should talk about it with me first. He didn’t like that, so he emailed back, “How about Sat Feb 1?”

I guess he’s not THAT smart, because Saturday is February SECOND. God, Chooch. Learn to use the stupid cat calendar Dumb Daddy got you for Christmas.

Janna and I were texting each other about this, and I said to me, “Janna wants to know if you want to go over her house on Sunday” and he said, “What the hell, you’re talking about me behind my back!?”

He hasn’t replied to me at all today. And I even sent him a precious picture of me and Marcy watching “Homeland”!

Laying in bed just now, I thought to myself, “I think in my last post, I used ‘prologue’ instead of ‘epilogue’.”

And then of course I couldn’t rest until I made sure. And I was right. But who even cares? That totally could have waited until the morning, but no—I had to check RIGHT NOW, and for what? For another reason to delay bedtime.

I just can’t get my mind to shut off and stop thinking about the same things, over and over. And then when I do finally fall asleep, my dreams have been so vivid and upsetting that I wake up completely restless and exhausted.

And then I spend the rest of the day feeling disoriented and emotionally frustrated.

Something is off; I can’t figure it out and it is driving me fucking nuts.

I do not like this winter very much at all.