So this is old news by like 5 days, and I know I talk all kinds of smack on Pittsburgh (it’s my hometown, I’m allowed!), but sometimes this city can be so fucking amazing. Currently, one Andy Warhol Bridge (he was from Pittsburgh, in case you didn’t know) has been yarn-bombed and it is just the cutest/funnest/prettiest/coziest fucking thing to walk across right now.

Even better than walking all over Henry, and you KNOW how much fun that is for me.

The Knit the Bridge Project was created by the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh and the result ended up being the grandest example of yarn-bombing in the United States, which is cool in and of itself, but the best part is that once the installation comes down, all of the panels are going to be washed and donated to homeless shelters, nursing homes and animal shelters. If that doesn’t make your heart feel all cozy and swaddled, then seek help, I don’t know.

It was nice to see people taking their time across the bridge and SMILING.

One guy was even singing loudly, that’s how happy the bridge was making him.

(Actually, I think he was under the influence.)

The Law Firm is lurking somewhere in this picture.

Favorite.

I wish it could stay like this forever. You have until September 6th to come out and see it.

(Click here for photos of the actual assemblage!)

#20: Obligatory Bathroom Mirror Snap.

I generally would never take a picture like this, let alone post one on the Internet because OMG full body! And also, I’m not actually a teenager (I know, right!?). But the whole point of doing this challenge is well, to challenge myself. I’ve been forcing myself out of my comfort zone and even took a picture of my profile (see further below), which I HATE. But you know, get over it, Erin, right? I mean, God help me if I ever get married (haha, laughs, jokes, frivolty)—how will I be able to stand having my photo taken? I can’t wear an animal mask for EVERY SINGLE POSE.

(I mean, I guess I could….)

Anyway, this was the bathroom at Amel’s and I liked it.

#21: My handsome new boyfriend and me.

So last Sunday, my crew and I were en route to the park where we almost all broke up with each other as a family, when Kaitlin texted me a photo of one of the clown head helium tank covers and said, “This is at Trader Jack’s right now.” Of course I made her go and find out the price and then I made Henry make a giant loop around the city so we could go back in the opposite direction and claim my new trophy. Henry reaallllllly disliked Kaitlin in that moment, I think. Haha.

My hair is so unwashed in this photo.

#22: Sorry, Bloods. I’m a Cripp today.

(I’m still really into apples, btw. Trying to actually get my first tattoo covered with a glorious apple. We’ll see.)

#23: Blanket Burrito.

It’s August outside, Antarctica in the office.

#24: Profile

Ugh, I don’t know why this makes me so uncomfortable. I’m so weird about my photo. If you scroll through my Instagram prior to this challenge, you might see a few pictures of me but they are mostly me and Chooch together, because he’s my photographical security blanket. And then when I would feel brave enough to take photos of myself with the “good camera,” I always had to have a schtick: a Trix moustache. Heart lips. Frosting makeup.

Something that distracts (and detracts, even) from my face.

And I hate hate hate when someone else takes my picture. I guess I don’t really think I’m ugly, per se; I mean, I can walk down the street without getting called Rocky Dennis, but I’m not really what you would call conventionally pretty either. I feel that I have the kind of face that you really have to look at before maybe certain things fall into place and you might think, “OK, she’s alright”–this is on a good day– but then you have to be careful because if you look too long, it all starts to fall apart and you can really see that I just look like a turtle with a Jay Leno chin.

In other words, I don’t think Henry has to worry about Jonny Craig stealing me, haha.

#25: Busy Background.

I’ve been told, several times actually, that I look like a cartoon “in a good way,” whatever that means. I mean…OK? Joke’s on all those kawaii/Harajuku broads who have to go out of their way with wigs and strange makeup when I look animated naturally, I guess? Most of the time, I just don’t want anyone to look at me at all, so herein lies the real challenge of this 30 day thingie!

Also, I wish I could wear that shirt everyday for the rest of my life.

#26: Memento

Yesterday, I couldn’t choose which photo looked least awful, so I photoshopped my runner-up in this empty picture frame. Using my phone. On the goddamn trolley. So, don’t judge the sloppiness of it!

MORAL: All of this is to say that I’m finally ready to stop blaming my insecurities on “that awful job” I had a decade ago, or “the weight I gained from having a baby” or “being constantly criticized by my family.” Fuck that. I’m too old to keep carrying around those excuses. It’s time to stop caring, so thank you, A Beautiful Mess, for holding my hand in some strange way and helping me take the first tiny baby steps to standing a little bit taller. (Even Henry said he kind of noticed a difference, and Henry typically doesn’t notice SHITTTTT.)

But really—four more pictures and I’m donezo, woooooo!!

OK. I know that I mention Jonny Craig A LOT A LOT A LOT on my blog, on Facebook, in real life, in my dreams, while Henry is trying to get busy, but I feel like I have been doing kind of good with not spamming you guys with Jonny Craig videos.

BUT.

My boy Captain Midnite posted this one a little while ago on his Facebook and I’ve held off as long as I can and now I need to post it here because it’s a fucking compulsion, OK. A motherfucking compulsion.

Anyone wanna be my date to his show in Pittsburgh this October?

Because Henry’s being a bitch about it.

Oh, Brookline. It’s hard to believe that I have been living in this…colorful Pittsburgh town since 1999. There are times when I get all high and mighty and rant about how I can’t wait to get the fuck out of Brookline and how it’s so trashy and full of Yinzers. But the reality is that Brookline is not entirely trashy—there are some really nice streets with nice houses that do not have tires and rusty car parts decorating the yard. My friends Gina and Elissa live in Brookline and they are not trashy. Nor are they Yinzers. I just get so angry living here sometimes, on this particular block, and start casting aspersions every which way and now everyone probably thinks I live in a trailer park next to a swamp. I should probably stop doing that because it’s been long enough now since I moved out of Mommy’s big suburban sprawl that I shouldn’t have this judgey outlook on my crappy town anymore. I mean, yeah, we found a discarded syringe strewn in the grass alongside our house one day, but you know, it only happened that one time!

(Ugh.)

And recently, thanks to the two years Chooch spent in Catholic school, I learned that there is an entire ward of uppity rich assholes who also reside somewhere in Brookline, can you even imagine. Probably somewhere us poor people can’t access, I’m sure.

I think Brookline must have been really something back when all the old Irish people were my age.

To be honest, I’m pretty certain we will wind up staying in Brookline, even if the time comes where we can finally buy a house. It really is entertaining, and so fucking close to everything I need: the fucking trolley, both of our jobs, CVS, the post office, dive bars, hoppin’ breakfast spots where you can get any style potatoe (sic). But it’s the cast of characters that make it awesome, especially in summer when we can sit on the porch and know for a fact that we will be seeing our nearly-nude hyper-tanned ex-lawn cutter Joe or cop cars flying past en route to a drug den. (No more Robin, though; she moved a few summers ago and it was pretty much the worst day ever for me.) Brookline is like a gathering den for weird people. There was, what I thought to be anyway, a rumor about how when patients were discharged from one of the local mental hospitals, they were put on a bus and only given enough fare to make it to Brookline. My friend Bonecrusher confirmed a few years ago that this is actually kind of fact-based, because Brookline has several rehabilitation houses that take in people like that, and one of those houses is literally two houses up from me. I really lucked out.

For instance, we have a new addition to our tenement-esque block: some middle aged man who lives in his small red truck which he parks on the road. I’ve been referring to him as Truck Dweller, and one day I caught him a having a conversation with Purple Pants! Purple Pants speaks to no one, so that’s how I know Truck Dweller is special. I see him every day when I leave the house for work, sitting in the back of his truck with his transistor radio. Sometimes, he knocks on the door of the house he parks in front of, so I guess he knows them well enough to ask for a cup of sugar, I don’t know.

Saturday was a really good day to be living in Brookline. First, there was some stupid race that ran past my house so we got to mock the walkers from our bedroom window. And from there, I encountered some new and old savory Brookline specimen, including Purple Pants and Tourette’s! I even compiled a video for you, mostly because I’m still obsessing over that Christopher Cross song I heard last Sunday while getting ice cream; it had been years since I heard it, you guys, so now I need to spread it over my blog like a gooey yeast infection!

But first, some things to note: There used to be these two fucking bitches working the counter at the Brookline post office and they made it the most unpleasant experience anytime I had to—GOD FORBID—ask them to slap a stamp on a package for me. I haven’t seen them in months. During the week now, there is a quiet, efficient man with salt and pepper hair who doesn’t mess around with small talk and that’s perfectly OK by me because I have nothing to say to these people other than “no” when they ask me if anything is fragile or perishable. I guess they save the ultra-happy guy for Saturdays. I had my phone in my purse recording for about 3 minutes while I was in there, and holy fuck did he laugh a lot!

“Let me guess….Erica?” he asked after he smoothed a stamp across the box I was TRYING to mail in peace.

“Wha—?” I started, unnerved as usual that someone was frivolously speaking to me.

“I was just trying to guess your name,” he explained, pointing to the “E.Kelly” scrawled in the return address on the package. “I feel like I’ve seen a lot of mail for Erica Kelly when I’m sorting,” he added, punctuating his stalkery statement with that boisterous laugh that kept making me feel like I was on some stupid hidden camera show. (Is that even a thing anymore?)

I told him it wasn’t my name, but he was still studying my return address.

“You’re getting a new mail carrier!” he shared. “He starts today, actually.” Now I was starting to feel like he was trying to keep me there longer so he could win at some reality game.

“Oh, really? That’s cool,” I said. What do you say to the prospect of a new mail carrier? Just get my mail to me at a decent hour, and don’t shred my Alternative Press when you shove it into the mail slot, that’s all I give a shit about.

“Don’t get too excited, he’s not that good.” And then that laugh again, which followed me out of the post office like the sound of a clown operating a rape kit.

Later that evening, we took Henry’s mom to dinner at Amel’s, which is kind of in Brookline. I don’t really know what it’s considered. But it’s close and has a neon light shish kebab splayed across the facade, which has always enticed me in the years I’ve lived mere minutes away. Yet this was my virginal Amel’s experience. The interior was dark, full of mismatched florals and incongruously modern light fixtures. I liked it.

And I totally had a crush on our waiter.

“He keeps coming over with his hands behind his back, like he’s HIDING SOMETHING,” Chooch practically screamed across the entire dining room.

Judy has been watching Chooch for us basically every goddamn day and all those two do is bicker. They were in the middle of a semantics disagreement when the waiter came over and interrupted. “We’re like oil and water,” Judy muttered to the waiter, whose name may have been Lee but who even cares? He reminded me of this guy from The Carrie Diaries, but with less-Rebel Without a Cause-y hair.

Anyway, god only knows why Judy would choose to spend one of her off-days with us. I GUESS SHE LOVES US, YOU GUYS. What a novel thought. Someone should teach my family about that.

Still, by the end of dinner (after a huge dessert debacle during which Chooch and I couldn’t decide on the same thing to share until Henry finally shouted, Jesus Christ, each of you just get your own thing!” probably because he knew he would be finishing off our scraps anyway, but the strawberry coconut cake I wanted ended up being all gone at which point Chooch laughed raucously at my sadness, only to have some chick come back to tell him that his stupid cake was unavailable too HAHAHA), Judy only half-joked that Henry take Chooch home before taking her home because she lives farther away and was basically saying, “I’ve had it with your son for the evening, please relieve me.”

Meanwhile, I had already been planning on walking home (maybe like a two mile walk, because I went the back way instead of walking the short way which is on a busy, sidewalk-free main road) because I essentially have a slight eating disorder now where after I eat something that doesn’t have Weight Watchers point on the side of the box, I panic and think that I’m going to gain two chins back, so I have to hurry up and do some form of physical activity STAT. Walking home definitely wouldn’t eradicate that blueberry cheesecake I ate, but I knew I would at least feel less slovenly. Chooch agreed to walk home with me, which is where we spotted Purple Pants!

Chooch never stopped talking the entire walk home, which took about 30 minutes I guess. We made it home before Henry,w ho of course had locked the deadbolt before we left the house that day, and I don’t have that key. Just the regular house key. So we got to sit on the porch and act like we meant to do that.

Janna came over later and the three of us walked to CVS to rent Evil Dead (it’s so convenient having a Red Box so close, especially now that I know how to use it!) and on the way back, I spotted Tourette’s approaching so I pretended to care about what Chooch was ranting about (the Dessert Debacle, apparently) just so I could capture a piece of Tourette’s. I’m sad he wasn’t randomly shouting, “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!” to the shrubbery, though.

That night, after we finished the movie, I took it upon myself to walk it back to the Red Box since the idea of that cheesecake was still Riverdancing around my love handles. On the way there, I passed an older man walking with a cane, and we exchanged pleasantries. Since I don’t walk with a cane, I ended up catching up to him on my way back home, so I crossed the street instead of having to awkwardly walk around him. What? I didn’t want him to feel bad that he can’t walk as fast as me!

So I returned home and was sitting on the porch with Henry and Janna when Cane Man finally made it to our block. As he was walking past our house, he stopped and asked if any of us had any cigarettes. We said no, and I was like, “He should ask Truck Dweller!” because the other day I saw Truck Dweller sitting in his truck with an entire cigar box full of cigarettes and I bet he rolled those sons of bitches himself, too.

“That was Truck Dweller,” Henry said, and I watched in disbelief as, sure as shit, the man with the cane walked a few more paces down the sidewalk and climbed into the small red pickup.

“OMG I SPOKE TO TRUCK DWELLER!!” I shouted giddily, and Henry told me to shut up.

And all of that was just to say, “Here, watch this 1:30 minute video I made!”

Sometimes, Brookline, I really fucking love you.

(And of course the irony to all of this is that I’m the fucking weirdo running around taking pictures and videos, not them.)

This morning, without realizing it, I began to think about my trolley driver. Not like think thinking, nothing racy or scandalous, just a casual thought popped into my head.

The last time I saw him was Thursday of last week. As I slapped my ConnectCard against the orange pad on the fare machine, he cheerfully boomed, “An hour and forty minutes, then I’m done!” I already know that Thursdays are his Fridays (I’m learning a lot about him from the quick sentences he’s able to push onto me as I step onto the trolley everyday at 12:47PM) so I figured he meant that in that amount of time, he would be done for the week. I smiled and mustered up enough faux-enthusiasm for the “yay” that has become my signature response to his jubilant greetings.

Yesterday, I had a different driver. He wasn’t mean like the guy who yelled at me once for trying to insert a flimsy, laundered dollar bill into the fare machine, but he was no Resurrected Bob Ross, either. We feigned polite smiles at each other and then I took my usual seat in the back, where I read a book the rest of the way into town.

It wasn’t until this morning that I thought about it, the different trolley driver and what my regular trolley driver said to me last week. An hour and forty minutes. What if he was counting down to his retirement? What if that was my last ride with the out-of-place mountain man and his unruly facial mane? What if I never had the same driver again, no one to act happy to see me everyday at 12:47 on the dot, no one to make me feel like I was more special than the other commuters who just got a generic “hello” or “how’s it going?” and nothing fancy and personal like the time I went back to riding the tolley after Henry had spoiled me with two entire weeks of having a personal chaffeur and the trolley driver, his face all lit up around his gnarly gray cheek-shrubbery, cried, “HEY! HOW YOU BEEN?! I thought maybe you bought yourself a motorcycle so you could ride to work in style!” And I was mostly embarrassed, but also a little smug that he was paying attention to me and not the hoodrat in booty shorts who had walked on right before me.

And what if now he was retired and I would never get to say goodbye and wish him luck? And why do I even care? Other than it has been nice to be greeted by a friendly, now-familiar face every day when I step onto that awful trolley and begin my daily descension into the depths of Hell.

Yesterday, the new-to-me trolley driver didn’t happily honk his horn once. It was the quietest commute to work I’ve ever had.

****

Today, I was trudging along Potomac Avenue toward the trolley platform when a gruff, yet amiable, voice yelled, “Hello! Hey! Hello!” I lifted my sunglasses onto the top of my head and scanned the line of cars stopped at the red light. And then I saw him looking out of the backseat window of a black Blazer. My trolley driver!

I waved back and yelled an uncertain hello, because what do you say to your trolley driver when you run into him out in public, as a civilian, without the trolley intertubed around him? It seemed so weird and unnatural, seeing him without his forearm resting on the steering wheel of his long, publicly-sponsored carriage.

“I’m on vacation!” he yelled, his untamed mountain ‘fro looking even more carefree than usual, like stationary storm clouds suctioned to his pate.

“Oh really?” I called back and immediately felt stupid. That is the most worthless answer ever and I do it all the time, and all it does is force people to say “yeah” and what a fucking waste of time I just perpetuated.

“Yeah, look at me!” he cried, waving his hands over his body to illustrate that he was free, oh-so-free of his PAT Transit-mandated polyester-blend. His vacation wardrobe consisted of a denim vest with nothing underneath. It was at least buttoned, though. His arms were covered in tattoos, and I suddenly felt kind of perverse and voyeuristic to be seeing him in anything other than his brown Port Authority uniform, so I looked away real quick, focused on the nondescript broad behind the wheel instead. “I’ll be back in two weeks! On…” he paused for a second to think. “…the 27th! You gonna be there?”

I nodded and smiled. “I’ll be there,” I said weakly, swallowing a grimace. Yeah, of course I’ll be there. It doesn’t seem like I’ll be not taking the trolley any time in the near future.

The light turned green and we said goodbye. I continued walking to the platform, happy to know that he was returning on the 27th and I could go back to being the kind of person that a stranger is excited to see. Maybe I should use this time to put more words into my Things to Say to the Trolley Driver repertoire, other than “yay” “hi” and “I know right” (usually my response when he says something about the weather). I even called Henry to giddily brag about my encounter, to which he responded, “You’re so weird.” I think that, after 12 years, Henry still has hopes that I’m calling to tell him something amazing.

As I sat on the trolley, driven by yet another foreign-to-me face bare of any significant hair design, I wondered why my trolley driver was sitting in the backseat of the Blazer when the passenger seat was empty.

I guess when your job is to cart people around all fucking day long, sitting in the backseat might actually be your vacation.

It’s been kind of a long time since I took “real” photos of Chooch. Not that I don’t love my iPhone snaps of him, since those are the most candid, but I just feel like my stupid “real” camera has been sitting here, collecting dust because it’s so goddamn easy to fall into photography-apathy when you have the convenience of a tiny camera phone that fits comfortably in your palm.

I guess it was at my birthday dinner last week when I looked at him, like REALLY looked at him, and realized that he has grown so much since the last time we had a little photo shoot thingie. (God, I think that was in Decemeber. I’m a slacker.) And he looked so handsome in his little castle dinner attire that I decided we needed to take photos ASAP.

Henry was happy because it didn’t involve 87 trips to Goodwill, looking for the perfect costume or tea cups or animal masks. It was just Chooch and a guitar. (Although, Chooch really wanted to paint lines on his face, a la his new idol Christopher Drew, but CVS didn’t have thick brown eye liners that weren’t less than $10 and I didn’t feel like digging through my crap at home. Seriously, Wet n Wild, where’s your damn thick brown liners?!) However, it did involve a very Erinlicious temper tantrum and a moment that Henry told me later almost ended our 12 year run. (He is SO DRAMATIC though.) We were in this park—the same park where we letterboxed back in 2009, actually—and I just lost my shit because I hate when I ask Henry for help and HE DOES NOT HELP ME so I started coldcucking his face with death threats, and we made it MAYBE 10 minutes in the car, driving in silence, before we both started cracking up and I said, “Hey let’s just go home and eat lunch and then do this thang for real in the cemetery” and he was all, “Oh ho ho ho, I love you, my pretty princess” and the rest of the day was just a regular ol’ jubilee, you hear me?

EXHALE.

This is the lone photo I was able to salvage from Take #1 in the park. I was all angry because there were so many people who kept trampling by while I was TRYING to murder Henry with my silver tongue, but Henry was like, “Yeah. This is a PARK, Erin.”

You can see, reflected upon Chooch’s face, the utter disdain felt by all. Henry even accidentally made Chooch cry (he supposedly hurt his back when he was lifting him up onto a log, but I think Chooch was just feeding off of our Amityville-caliber hatred for each other) at the precise moment a mom and her four kids walked past us, which is like, OK, whatever, but considering that my shrill motherfuckering mere moments before likely echoed through the valley, this entire brood was probably like, “OMG I hope our nice afternoon in the park doesn’t end with us having to call 911 on this lunatic woman.”

Thankfully, we were all in much better moods by the time we ate lunch and arrived at our favorite cemetery.

If you read Chooch’s guest post from Friday, then you already know he is REALLY INTO THE SUMMER SET all of a sudden. The funny thing is that they were at Warped Tour but we didn’t see them there and he didn’t realize that he liked them until one afternoon last week. So now it’s my fault that we didn’t see them at Warped Tour, of course, and I’m like, “WTF kid, they’re not my priority.” But anyway, Henry took him out to buy their latest CD and it’s OK, I don’t mind it. It’s pretty catchy pop-rock, I guess. I’m just thankful it’s not like, Miley Cyrus or something horrible. He sits in the backseat, poring over the liner notes, and singing along.

It makes my heart swell. PLEASE BE IN A BAND WHEN YOU GROW UP, CHOOCH, OMG PLZ. I would 157% support that.

Our neighbor Toya gave Chooch this old kids’ guitar when she was moving out.

He doesn’t actually know how to play it, and now it needs restrung, but he has expressed interest in learning so I’m all over this. ALL OVER IT. I won’t lie—there is a huge part of me that is praying (and I don’t pray!) that Warped Tour sticks around long enough for Chooch to make it on one of those stages OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE. I would be the proudest mom in the entire world. I’m totally not above riding on my son’s coattails.

But, you know. I’m trying not to be some big, asshole-y stage mom about it. Just like I’m letting him like the bands he wants to like, even though they’re not bands I’d necessarily be excited to see.

To see him get excited is enough for me!

How Chooch does an arm party.

We were at Hot Topic on Saturday and when I saw this cat-head bow tie, I bought it STAT.

We did one wardrobe/location change but it was hot and we were all getting on each other’s nerves again so I pronounced this photo shoot dead. And then we got ice cream, but of course first we had to fight about WHERE we were getting ice cream. Yay, Sunday!

(Seriously, it’s hard to enjoy your orange cream cone and the soul-soothing tones of Christopher Cross’s seminal hit “Ride Like the Wind” when your company is sitting across from you arguing. GOD, GET SOME COUNSELING HENRY AND CHOOCH. See? My life is far from perfect, my friends. But that’s kind of how I like it.)

Today at the mall, some broad was all, “Yo can you hold the front of the stroller so that I can ride down the escalator?” She was asking ME to do this because she clearly doesn’t know that I fail at helping people.

Rather than get into some winded discourse about my escalator phobia (I almost perished on one in Atlantic City when I was 4!), I waved her off to Henry, who is always glad to help a Civilian because that was one of the things he learned in the SERVICE, right after how to emulate Erik Estrada.

Meanwhile, Chooch was yelling, “MOMMY ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE A PICTURE FOR YOUR BLOG?

” as I was taking a picture for my blog. Goddammit, things are beginning to get trickier.

#13: Saturday with one of my favorite movies.

#14: Red ruffle.

#15: Waiting for the trolley. :(

#16: Listening to all of the music!

#17: Meeting of the Foot Fetishists

#18: This is my Thinking Face.

#19: Handsome tea-drinking face

this is all my favorite bands

[nevershoutnever}  {thesummerset I like boomerang} I’m a boomerang yeah yeah {wecameasromans I like ghost} i like  this song it’s boomerang!!! :) i like lightning in a bottle but i cant sing it in front of grandma because it has the f*** word in it im catching lightning in a bottle don’t give a f*** about tomorrow yeah i’m dancing in the backseat we don’t need gravity here in the afterglow yeah were rolling with the thunder!!! :)

what are your favorite bands? :o

Here are some photos of things that happened this summer that don’t involve amusement parks and Warped Tour, which is actually not all that we do around here, contrary to popular belief! :)

This gentleman on the trolley was pouring the contents of an Old English into an empty jug of iced tea. Like you do on the trolley.

THIS IS NOT ICED TEA, YOU GUYS.

It’s looking like I’ll be riding the trolley to work for the rest of forever because things at Henry’s job got totally whack. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to riding the trolley, even though I have the same resurrected Bob Ross driver everyday who pretends to be all happy to see me. There was a good two week stretch when Henry was able to take me to work, and when I returned to my 12:47 trolley ride, the driver jovially exclaimed, “HEY! LONG TIME! Thought maybe you bought yourself a motorcycle to ride to work in style!”

My god. I’m a fucking regular. :(

I won’t see him today though. He’s off on Fridays. (I know this because every Thursday he cries, “HAPPY FRIDAY! TODAY IS MY FRIDAY! I’M OFF TOMORROW!”)

This cat ear ring was only like $3.

This hair band was decidedly more expensive than $3 and came from England, but it was totally worth it.

I still have to get my actual lenses put into these. THEY ARE THE PERFECT SIZE FOR ME!

Here’s some leftover birthday pictures:

Chooch with Kara’s baby Theo, who was only 9 days old and already living it up at Pamela’s for breakfast! (Chooch hates when we meet people at Pamela’s because it means we have to walk there, oh no.) This was on my birthday. Later that day, Janna and I went to Tillie’s for dinner (and I turned the light off on her in the bathroom, which was my favorite part of the day because I love torturing her), and then we met Laura at a movie theater in North Versailles to see The Conjuring which was fucking fantastic and I’m still thinking about it. Laura cried and prayed to her rosary through the whole thing! I’m glad I got to see three of my favorite people on my birthday, but in some sick and twisted way, I kind of missed spending my day with my friends at work like last year because they are so good at making me feel special!

This pretty scarf was left in an unmarked gift bag on my desk last week. I asked my boss Sue if it was from her, and she said no, but then a week later, she was all, “OK fine, that scarf was from me.” Duh! I love it so much!

And my sweet friend Kendahl sent me some beautiful nail polish!

Of course my birthday card from Chooch features a cat. But what I didn’t know until later is that he chose this card because he wanted it to remind me of the time a few weeks ago when Marcy woke me up at 5AM by PEEING ON ME IN MY BED because she was angry at being locked in our bedroom all night (we had the a/c on so we kept the door shut). Marcy, in all of her 16 years, has only peed outside of litter box one other time, and that was when she was about 2 years old and I yelled at her for doing something diabolical I’m sure (probably had something to do with Speck), and she literally stalked back over to where I was sitting, squatted near my feet and peed on the floor while GROWLING AT ME.

So, thanks Chooch.

Henry said Chooch was like, “Let’s get Mommy things that she hates,” which apparently included a Taylor Swift card, so thanks for stepping in, Henry. (But can we all just stop for a second and be amazed at how much like me Chooch really is? I love finding out what people hate and inundating them with it!)

A few weeks ago, my friend Octavia told me she was sending me something for my birthday that required lots of wall space and that Henry would hate it. Henry, thinking for sure it was going to be some grand-scale Jonny Craig collage, was getting ready to prepare a wall in the corner of the basement. But instead, these amazing circus posters came in the mail and Henry breathed a great sigh of relief. Octavia “borrowed” these from light poles in Norway ten years ago and thank god for that because they are incredible! They will have a good home here with me, so thank you again Octavia!

And my boss Joy got me an apple cozy! When I opened it, I immediately screamed, “OMG IT’S AN APPLE COZY!” and she was like, “You KNEW??” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost bought myself one!

I think books make such personal gifts, and this one from Sandy made me tear up a little because it’s the book that inspired one of my favorite Cure songs.

Barb, Gina, Elissa and Gayle hooked me up with so much fun jewelry:

Just my kind of JEWELRY!!!! Barb is so afraid I’m going to poke myself in the eye with the bird cage ring she got me. The tail really is sharp, but I think it’s more Henry who should be afraid.

Wendy and Evonne eating from their Beetlejuice bowls at Savoy a few weeks ago. That was a fun dinner! (Although, any weeknight dinner that doesn’t involve a Law Firm microwave and a Lean Cuisine is a fun dinner!) A little too rich for my Weight Watchers-trained stomach though, so I got kind of sick afterward.

This is kind of birthday-related! A few years ago, Gina and Elissa got me this pretty coffee cup but like a dummy, I chipped it one day while washing it, so it just kind of sat on the kitchen window sill for a long time. But now that I’m on some weird fake green-thumb kick, one of my co-workers gave me a spider plant thingie in a red Solo cup and I immediately thought of a new purpose for my pretty-but-chipped cup. So I brought it into work and Amber2 helped me re-pot it. (And by now you should know that means she did everything herself while I stood there and watched.)

LOOK HOW PRETTY! (Don’t worry, there’s a fake spider in it now too.)

Chooch and Downton Bunny at Tom’s Diner. I’m going to be so sad when he goes back to school and we can’t have leisurely mornings anymore. :(

We had some Jimmy Buffett Buffet at work in July so I made Henry bake these lemon brownies with blueberry lemon lavender frosting. I thought they were super good, but Henry was all, “SOMETHING WAS OFF ABOUT THEM, WAH.”

Ciao for now.

I was at a Pierce the Veil concert last March in Lancaster, PA, when Wendy emailed me and said, “Don’t make plans for August 3rd.” She saw some vague advertisement for a movie screening called A Blood Red Sky and immediately bought tickets for us.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know but it looks cool!” she replied. And that was good enough for me!

All we knew was that it was a film by some dude associated with Paranormal State. I don’t really watch those paranormal shows, so I still wasn’t sure who this Chad dude was. We figured it was some kind of compilation of paranormal evidence too intense for TV? So he turned it into a movie? I don’t know!

We didn’t find out until the day before where the screening was (the basement ballroom of the Omni William Penn downtown), or even what time we were supposed to show up.

I’m not good at guesstimating, but I want to say there were only chairs set up for about 150 people. No wonder all the cities were selling out! And it seemed like most of the people there were really into Paranormal State.

Like, there were a lot of people wearing Tap Out hoodies who probably had Disturbed’s complete discography out in their glove compartment. So you know, a lot of amateur ghost hunters up in that ballroom.

I was excited because we got there early enough to watch a short documentary Chad produced on exorcisms. Did you know that Pittsburgh has the most annual cases of demonic possession!? I DID NOT KNOW THIS. I’m not sure has fact-based this is, considering I can’t find anything in my trusty Information Tome a/k/a the Internet.

(OMG remember Encyclopedias? How weird were those.)

Whatever. We had to sit through an unbearably long and gushy speech by Chad, explaining his motives behind this multi-city screening (basically, he wants our monies so that he can try to get this movie in theaters), before he finally turned off the lights and played the damn thing.

And it ended up being totally not at all what we expected.

It wasn’t even scary.

And it wasn’t even really about the paranormal, even though it did center around a haunted castle in England.

How can I even explain this.

Chad thinks that all these crazy events that have been taking place over the last two years (birds falling dead from the sky in Arkansas, some Chinese river turning red, etc) were caused by the world’s population being so fixated on Armageddon in the months leading up to 12/21/12. Without going into great detail, because honestly I don’t even really know how to explain it, Chad decided to perform a series of experiments on his research team to prove that our minds can control more than we think, which brings us to the theme of A Blood Red Sky: if we all come together and think positively, our minds can change the motherfucking world, you guys. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. WE ARE THE WORLD! WE ARE THE CHILDREN!

I mean, OK. I get it. Kudos to this guy for having the balls to try and get a message like this out there. Do I think he’s going to change the world? No. Is this a new concept? No. (See: The Secret, which I still have not read.) Did it give me something to think about? Coincidentally, I already had been. In fact, I even had a draft blog post typed up which I wound up thinking was too corny to post.

A few years back, I started up what I have been calling the Proactive Happiness Project*. This was basically born when I finally woke up (in all aspects) and realized that sometimes you just can’t sit there and wait for fun and happiness to find you, you have to make it happen yourself. Again, not a new concept. Is my life perfect? Fuck no. But do I feel the need to whine and complain about every single thing that doesn’t go my way, like I used to? Fuck no. There are chunks of this blog that I can’t even bring myself to go back and read because I don’t want to get mired down with negativity and depression. My god, how did people even read this thing back then?!

*(Actually, I just totally made that up right now. What I actually call it is STOP BEING AN EEYORE, YOU STUPID BITCH.)

But then one day I caught myself as I was crying in bed for what I can only imagine was no reason. Chooch was still really little, and we were all supposed to go somewhere probably but I got into one of my moods and decided to make the day hell for all parties involved. And I realized, “This is Chooch’s life, too. This is his childhood I’m affecting. What a fucking asshole I am.” I started to think about Chooch becoming an adult and having all these memories of his mom fucking up his day, fucking up his summer, making him miss out on being a kid. So that is why we’re constantly doing stuff and going places and just basically being together. I don’t want to waste his time, too. I want him to look back on his childhood and sum it up with one resounding word: FUN.

I’ve noticed a trend where bloggers have been getting lambasted for “having perfect lives” and “being fake.” And it makes me wonder if anyone thinks that about me, but then I just laugh because, come on.

How perfect can my life be when the man for whom I bore a child won’t marry me? When the house I rent is just a nicer term for “Pit of Despair”? Body image issues. Low self esteem. Social anxiety. Crippling dependancy. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. We all have shit going on in our lives. There just comes a time when we need to choose the path we want to take: do you want to be one of those people who air all their laundry on the Internet or do you want to be the person giving people something to smile about? For years, I felt like I was that negative, air-sucking asshole who exhausted everyone around her. Because it was all about my problems and my drama and my unemployment and my money problems. 2012 was a shit year for me. I gained a ton of weight. I lost two cats. I had drama drama drama like you wouldn’t believe, some of which I did choose to write about, not because I wanted attention or sympathy, but because it was a part of my life and I don’t want to pretend like only good shit happens to me. So I wrote about it. But then I moved on. I never would have moved on in the past. I’d have sat here and dwelled and fixated and stewed until I made myself sick with rage and agrivated everyone around me.

I could do all of those things above, or I could stuff a unicorn mask on my kid and go take his picture. Or I can go spend the day at an amusement park or go roller skating or have a picnic in the cemetery with Henry. And why wouldn’t I choose one of those things!? Emotional bandaids? Maybe. But it’s not like I’m running away from my problems—I deal with them, I vent to Henry and my friends, I write about it in my diary, and then I let it go. That is the biggest lesson I’ve had to learn—how to let things go. Move on. Make peace. Whatever—just get it done. (I still haven’t mastered this yet when it comes to my family issues. But I’m trying.)

It took me years to understand that while we might not be in control of death or natural disasters or freak accidents, we are (mostly) in control of our happiness (barring any kind of major mental illness which might require a little more than just amateur reverse psychology). Am I a fucking ball of sunshine every goddamn day? No. I have bad days. I still mourn losses, feel anger when watching the news, stress-sob at work and want to stab people on the trolley. I still dislike talking to strangers and avoid eye contact at all costs. I’m certainly not sitting Indian-style on my office floor, making daisy-chain crowns for my preciously positive head every goddamn night, so don’t get it twisted. But I’m more willing to make an effort to turn my bad attitude around instead of feeding it chicken wings after midnight.

Making an effort to smile winds up feeling a lot better than sitting around scowling all the livelong day. Listening to “Call Me, Maybe” on repeat is a lot better than listening to suicidal thoughts. Making plans to get the fuck out of the house is a lot better than laying in bed feeling sorry for myself. I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT YOU GUYS! Without having to sit in the dark with ghosts!! And if a huge douchebag like me can make little changes here and there, then probably you can too.

Does the negativity still creep up on me? For fucking sure. Especially at work. There are days when I try not to leave my office-thing because there are so many black clouds hanging over the department and those things are like fucking leeches. If enough people complain to me about how bad of a day they’re having, the next thing I know, I’m motherfucking my job up and down and I really have no idea why. It’s contagious. And I’m part of the problem, too.

Prior to A Blood Red Sky, I had already been thinking a lot about this whole positivity thing because my birthday was coming up. Birthdays used to bring out the WORST in me. I would be so depressed, I’d convince myself that no one gave a shit, I would push people away and just generally become the most difficult brat to be around. But then I realized I was wasting time.

And the thought of wasting time makes me panic. So maybe it seems a little weird that a grown ass broad goes so hog-wild for her birthday (I honestly try to extend the celebrating for as long as I can and I’m not ashamed to admit that–CELEBRATE MY LIFE WITH ME OK!?), but now you know why. I have years upon years to make up for.

And for the last three years, my new system has been working and now I don’t even think about my approaching birthday and cry anymore. I feel like I have reasons to get out of bed now, things to look forward to, music to listen to, a kid to laugh at. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to waste any more of my life. There’s a reason for all the Stay Posi t-shirts out there. Maybe if we all wear one, we can save the world. Or at the very least, look like scene kids.

(Pro Tip: The Stay Posi t-shirts may need layered with several WE WILL GET THRU THIS, HAND OVER THE RAZORBLADE sweatshirts during those long, dreary winter months.)

Chooch & I, pre-birthday dinner. (His Lollipop Guild smirk cracks me up!)

I remember reading somewhere in my blog-travels that people should cease having birthday parties once they become grown-ups, like literally just stop cold turkey straight out of high school I guess. And that drinks at a bar with other grown-ups is an acceptable form of celebrating ones day of birth.

I have to politely disagree. In fact, I started writing this whole quasi-rant about birthdays last week which I might still post (especially after the film screening that Wendy and I went to Saturday night, because it all kind of ties together), but the gist of it is, why is it so obnoxious to celebrate ourselves once a fucking year. I spent many, many birthdays alone, pouting, feeling sorry for myself, etc etc. The 20s are hard years, you guys! But now, I choose to spend my birthday with as many friends as I can round up because that is what makes me happy. It’s not alllll about the attention or the presents (I mean, it kind of is—I can always use a Hot Topic gift card!—but not totally), it’s about being with my people, my homies, my FOLLOWERS. It’s all very Kumbaya, really.

Also, I’m a Leo with the emotional age of a 12-year-old, so birthdays are important to me, you guys! Even OTHER PEOPLE’S birthdays! Can you imagine!? I care about things sometimes that don’t have anything to do with me, OMG.

But really, I’m not even kidding: If my house wasn’t a pit of despair, I would totally have birthday sleepovers and make everyone watch “Paperhouse” and “April Fool’s Day.” Probably “St. Elmo’s Fire” too.

This year, I decided (kind of last minute) that I wanted to have dinner at this restaurant called Shakespeare’s, because the website falsely alluded of tackiness. It turns out that it wasn’t tacky at all (though there WERE dragonhead door handles and suits of armor), but actually a really nice restaurant on a golf course.

Since it wasn’t a milestone birthday of any sort, I tried not to go overboard with it because god forbid Henry should have to ask for the banquet hall. That might be too wedding reception-esque for him, and we all know he’s allergic to the W-word. The only thing Henry had to do other than making reservations was order my fucking cake. I asked him to do this a month ago, before I even had birthday plans, and he was all, “OMG YOU MAKE ME DO EVERYTHING!” Excuse me for wanting to someone else to actually take the reins for once, my god! I always have to plan my parties, which is fine, but a little help would be nice. And ordering my own birthday cake made me feel sad and pathetic. I figured he would have asked Kaitlin to FINALLY make me that Jonny Craig cake I’ve been loudly hinting around about for the last two years, but then I found out last week that he still hadn’t gotten off his birthday cake La-Z-Boy.

“Can’t you just ask Kaitlin yourself?” he asked. Yes, 6 days before my birthday dinner and while she’s on vacation in California. That works, Henry.

Saturday, I begged him to admit that he was bluffing. “No, I really didn’t get a cake. I thought about it…”

THE THOUGHT DOESN’T COUNT THIS TIME, YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I mean, it’s just a cake! You don’t even have to bake it! Here, how about this: Find a fucking bakery or I’m going to find Chooch a new father.

By Sunday, we had a fullblown about it and I uninvited him to my dinner 18 different times, gave him a list of things to fuck himself with, and then made sure to remind him of all the ex-boyfriends I have who would have ordered me a fucking cake, which just happens to be ALL OF THEM.

He stayed upstairs for another hour and I assumed he was sulking; meanwhile, I searched for bakeries that are open on Sundays and don’t suck, when I remembered that my favorite cupcakery in the city is in fact open on Sundays and I like cupcakes better than cake anyway! So when Henry came downstairs, I barked at him to go to Vanilla Pastry Studio.

Apparently, he had the same idea. “I know. That’s why I’m dressed,” he mumbled. (Usually on Sunday mornings he’s just in his UNDERWEAR EWWWWW.) So then we laughed about it and he apologized, which is all I wanted anyway, for him to admit that he sucks at life.

But now that I think about it, I don’t remember ever re-inviting him to my birthday party….

So this place ended up being about 45 minutes away from Pittsburgh, which I thought for sure my friends would bitch about, and maybe they did behind my back, but look! People came! And I didn’t have to sit by Henry! (I did miss Chooch, though, but it’s too hard for us to share attention when we’re right next to each other. It was better this way. And he really did a great job entertaining that section of the table, from what I hear.)

Henry’s mom came with us and she spent the whole time talking about people we don’t know and cooing over the scenery.

“I want to move out here,” she cried as we drove down the main street of some small, totally quaint town that I would bore me in about 3 hours.

“Then you better do it soon,” Henry said dryly.

I always get super on edge before a party of any kind, even my pie parties, so I was pretty much like, “Can you all kindly STFU please?!” It was looking like we were going to be late, so I was completely stressed out. Everyone pretty much arrived at the same time though, so we all walked in together and it was fine because they didn’t even have our stupid table ready anyway.

“Isn’t that the point of a reservation?” Gina asked rhetorically AND I HOPE THE GUY IN THE TIE HEARD HER.

Barb was stoked because she’s obsessed with Game of Thrones and this place was very reminiscent of it, I guess. I do not watch that show, nor am I even a big Shakespeare fan, so it’s kind of unclear why I was so insistent upon celebrating my 34 years here.

Deciding what to order was hard work, you guys. Henry’s mom was memorizing her menu across from Gina, which made her nervous.

“I feel like I just finished a test early but everyone else is still working,” Gina said, picking up her menu to fit in.

LOOK! PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING AT ONE OF MY PARTIES! This is so much better than when people yawn, which is what typically happens. (i.e. GLENN YAWNING AT THE ROLLER RINK.)

Chooch antagonized Barb from across the table all night. At least he didn’t scream, “YOU INVITED BARB?!” like he did at his fifth birthday party. (An outcry that has become legendary.)

Elissa and Gina were sweet enough to come to my dinner straight from a weekend of debauchery in Cleveland.

Janna and Chooch basically talked about Minecraft the whole night. I kept overhearing snippets and my mind would melt a little each time. Good job, Janna!!

Wonka a/k/a Shawn is one of my favorite people ever but we don’t get to hang out nearly enough (the fact that he lived in Texas for way too long didn’t help). This my first time meeting his girlfriend Jess and she is totally sweet and adorable (we bonded over our mutual pink/purple/blue hair highlights). Definitely looking forward to getting to know her!

Shawn also happens to be one of Marcy’s worst victims:

My front steps were stained with blood for months after that maiming.

Why does Henry look so paranoid in all of my Shakespearean feast photos? Or maybe that’s just his “bracing for the check” face. And poor Wendy—she had to hang out with me two nights in a row! Probably explains her tired smile.

Bill and Natasha arrived while we were all still loitering in the entry way under the watchful stares of the hostess and manager, waiting for the table to be prepared. In lieu of a simple hello, Chooch spat, “Oh, great. Thanks for talking while we were trying to watch the Walking Dead!” Which is something that happened back on Easter and that’s apparently how he identifies Bill and Natasha now. That kid is such a dick sometimes.

Laura & Mike, as seen by Janna’s iPhone. I’m so glad these two came! Plus, they sat across from Shawn and Jess, and I think that was the best accidental pairing of all time, because every time I glanced down the table, the four of them seemed embroiled in conversation. I like it when my friends get along!

Kara even came out with her 2-week-old baby, Theo. That is a good friend! Theo was much quieter than Chooch, who sat with his arms folded and said, “Blah blah blah” while everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. God forbid someone else should have a birthday!

And I loved my non-tacky dinner! I got some sort of salmon thing only because it came with a maple strawberry glaze and I’m on a maple kick ever since Parker’s Maple Barn’s maple coffee last June, which I was telling everyone about and then realized that I hadn’t actually had anything else maple-y since then, so I guess it’s not that great of a kick. More of an idea of a kick? I don’t know. But that glaze was motherfucking delightful.

Henry of course has been bitching about his sirloin ever since that night so I’m 7,697,908,709 times more glad now that I didn’t have to sit next to him and hear his complaints in real time. Jesus. Like it matters anyway if he liked it or not, it wasn’t HIS birthday dinner!

In order to make the prospect of having to drive great distances for my birthday dinner, I told my friends that they didn’t even have to get me presents. And I almost meant it too! I must be getting old, for real, because all I could think about was how I would rather have nice company than gifts. WHO AM I?! I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE. God, age 34 has been so fucking weird so far.

Anyway, Shawn and his girlfriend Jess got me this beautful wooden birdcage thingie with some kind of cedar things inside, which lead me, Barb, Judy, Gina and Elissa to believe that perhaps this was some sort of candle holder.

“But it’s wood,” someone pointed out, I forget who now.

“You could just fill it with doll heads,” Gina suggested because she knows. I was overjoyed at this suggestion so now I’m going to the flea market this weekend to collect some more heads.

Barb wasn’t satisfied, though, and yelled down the table to Shawn, who answered that it was a torture chamber for moths.

That made sense to me, but Barb thought he was joking. I asked him later to confirm, and that was indeed his intended purpose for the wooden cage. “That’s why I even put those cedar chips in there!”

I told Shawn and Jess about Gina’s doll head idea and they were on board with that as well, but maybe I’ll try to lure some moths in there anyway for good measure.

The cupcakes turned out to be better than serving an entire cake, I think. And I like that the waitresses brought them out on big serving platters and let me pick mine first because I rule, and then everyone else got to fight each other for their desired flavor. Well played, Shakespeare’s Restaurant.

Chooch was all pissed because Barb got a chocolate one, so she was nice enough (smart enough?) to give him hers and choose another, only to find out he swapped the chocolate one for whatever Henry had chosen.

“He’s just like his mother,” Henry mumbled.

Barb said that Chooch looked like a young Frank Sinatra. Then to me she whispered, “That’s a compliment”— like I don’t know who Frank Sinatra is! I’m flattered that Barb thinks I was born yesterday, though.

For some reason, it wasn’t clear to me that this was the women’s room and I was very hesitant to enter. Everyone who had gone before me had come back speaking of the nipple-chilling temps in there, but I was unable to fully understand until I sat on the frigid commode myself.

There was literally even a blast of cold air when I opened the door to the throne, like I was being duped into a future of hanging from a meat hook in a walk-in freezer.

Oh, but how the regal mirrors made up for the uncomfortable temperature!

On my actual birthday, Janna and I went to dinner and then I turned the light out on her when she went into the bathroom. I was telling everyone that it was the highlight of my birthday, and the reaction I got was one of, “You poor, sad, pathetic girl.” What?? I enjoy fucking with Janna! It’s my role in this world.

Can we all just stop and observe the fact that Henry is about to ejaculate from a camera?

Basically, I made all my friends drive far away to a fake castle just so I could have my stupid picture taken with a suit of armor.

My Leno chin even came out to party.

Elissa and Gina brought Chooch a belated birthday gift (they know how to win his affections), which included some cat stickers. Chooch put one on his shirt (as pictured above) and now I wish I could get it to stay there permanently because everyone was all, “OMG Chooch’s shirt is so cool.” Find a way, Henry.

So much to love about this picture: Shawn’s party hat horns, Mike ogling Shawn’s party hat horns, Chooch desperately trying to photobomb Shawn’s party hat horns.

I tried this new thing this year called “Not Nagging People,” so once I sent out the Facebook invitation, I posted ONE message closer to the date just to remind people that I needed a head count, and then left it at that at. Of course, there were people who ended up not seeing the invitation at all until after the fact when I began posting pictures from the dinner on Facebook so now I just feel sad that I wasn’t more of an RSVP Hitler like I typically am. I just can’t win.

That was fun you guys. Thanks to everyone who came out and ate birthday foods with me! Because at the end of the day, this really was just an elaborate excuse to hang out with my peeps!

Chooch has been singing* “Happy” by Never Shout Never in the car for the past week now and it’s the cutest fucking thing MAYBE IT MEANS HE WILL BE A SINGER/SONGWRITER FINGERS CROSSED. Two weeks ago at the Exchange down the street, he bought the EP that this song is a part of, which is the first CD he expressed interest in owning himself. Yes, I know—compact discs! How archaic! I would actually like to steer him toward vinyl at some point, to be honest.

*(He struggles with the word “reminisce” though and I have to try not to laugh.)

I’m starting to think Christopher Drew is his Jonny Craig.

But in all seriousness, the fact that he is suddenly so interested in non-radio bands is making me so happy. We pretty much spent all morning talking about music and I was kind of like, “Is this really happening!? PARENTING RULES.” When he was in utero, I would play music constantly and talk to him about what he was hearing. We’d be driving to the cemetery and I would be explaining to him about how Anthony Green left Saosin to form Circa Survive because he loved playing music with Colin Frangicetto, or I would play Matthew Good’s “While We Were Hunting Rabbits” and tell him about how sad it made me. And of course all of the Cure that played constantly, with me saying, “This is your daddy singing. Your daddy is Robert Smith.” Basically, all of the things that would make Henry roll his eyes or zone out, I would tell the developing fetus in my uterus because he had nowhere to run.

And now, seven years later, he’s really starting to get it.

He’s beginning to know band members’ names (yes, other than Jonny Craig and Robert Smith) and he’s starting to ask me questions, even!  Seven is a super good age.

I’ve been having so much fun with this kid, even though we had a fight on Saturday and I told him he was going to have to sit under the table and eat alone at my birthday dinner the next night, to which he scream-cried, “I DON’T EVEN WANT TO GO TO YOUR STUPID CASTLE DINNER AT ALL!!!” and then Henry had to send us to our rooms.

Hey, I never said shit was perfect around here. But we’ll just keep listening to this song until we’re convinced it is.

#6: Hand/Eye Coordination

#7: Me and my girl Mary.

#8: Mutual Admiration.

#9: Losing Steam

#10: 34! Woo!

#11: Peppermint Grill.

#12: Wet Hair, Don’t Care.

I’m not even halfway done with this, how can that even be possible?! Things are bound to get weird as I run out of ideas.

****

In other news, hope everyone has a great weekend! Tomorrow night, Wendy and I are going to see A Blood Red Sky but we don’t know where it’s at or what time, only that she bought the tickets last March and told me not to make plans on August 3rd. I still am not very clear on what this even is? (As I was typing this, she called me and it appears that this is being held at a legit location and not some dirty guy’s basement. Damn.)

And then I’m having a birthday dinner Sunday night at some Shakespeare joint which I thought was going to be a tacky establishment (because my goal is “tacky”) but some people at work have said, “No it’s actually pretty nice there.”

Bubble status: burst.

Oh well. At least I can satisfy Sunday’s self-portrait when I cozy up to a suit of armor before dinner.

Is our skin to keep the world out or our bodies in?

OK, I tried to hold out as long as I could, but I have to post about this song because it has been coursing through my brain for the last 2 weeks.

I first heard about Hands Like Houses two winters ago, when it was announced that Jonny Craig had recorded guest vocals on a song from their upcoming album. I mean, magic words: JONNY CRAIG.

Of course I ran off to listen to it and I promptly had a music orgasm. I remember thinking that the singer sounded a bit like Brendan Urie (Panic! At the Disco), and then when I found out the band is from Canberra, Australia, I was officially on board. Have to give love to the Canberrians! That’s where I saw the Cure perform in 2000 and the people in that city were so unbelievably nice to me—one of the radio stations there kept playing my story over and over, so when I would go to various places around town, people would say, “Are you that American?!” So bizarre. But I have had affectations for that city ever since, so I definitely wanted to support Hands Like Houses.

Their debut album was released a year later in the States. I liked it enough, but it wasn’t like, “HOLY SHIT YES.” It didn’t have that instantaneous effect on me that some music does. But for some reason, I started listening to it a lot more over the last year, really listening to it, hearing the nuances that have that heart-tugging quality that I missed the first time around. And finally one day, I realized that this band was starting to fill the void that Emarosa left in my heart. (Fun fact: I tweeted that a few weeks ago and Emarosa replied to me, promising that new music is on the way! DYING. Bradley Walden from Squid the Whale has replaced Jonny. I’m pretty stoked to hear the outcome.)

Anyway, Hands Like Houses released their sophomore album a few weeks ago and I was smitten at first listen. The song that I shared at the beginning of this post was my instant favorite—I was editing Warped Tour photos when it first came on and it made me stop dead.  I love it when music has that ability.

These guys killed it at Warped Tour. Henry even bought me a Hands Like Houses tank, and he never buys me SHIT at Warped Tour. I think he’s just happy because it’s a band that has no screaming and no Jonny Craig (except that one song). I’m already crying for them to come back to Pittsburgh.

DON’T MAKE ME COME TO AUSTRALIA AGAIN, YOU GUYS!!

/end sixteen-year-old girl diary entry