This was originally posted in LiveJournal, March 4th, 2006 back when cell phones were less smart and more quaint. I was obsessed with pink Razrs thanks to being brainwashed by Us Weekly. I wanted to be like Paris Hilton, OK?! Don’t hate.

*****

Most of Wednesday afternoon was spent with me perched on the chair, leaning over the back and peering through the curtains of the front window, waiting for the UPS man to deliver my pink Razr. When it finally arrived, I barely held the door open long enough to thank the delivery man before slamming it shut in his face and tearing open the box with one of Henry’s off-limits box cutters. My hands shook with the anticipation of a teenage girl giving her first hand job as I plugged the charger into the wall and watched as the screen of my sparkling Razr lit up with a “Charging” notification. And then I sat there on the couch, phone cradled in my lap, glancing at the screen every three seconds with more fervor than I expended on that damn pregnancy test last August.

When it was finally charged, I turned it on and began adding pertinent info, like five of my 37 AIM screen names. I then sent out emails to my friends, announcing the arrival of my phone, spawning an onslaught of questions about battery life and other technical logistics, but the only answer I had to offer was that my ring tone was “All Cats Are Grey” by the Cure. Then I sat there with my phone in my hands and waited for it to ring. And it never did.

Henry and I went out to dinner when he came home from work, and I promptly turned off the phone. But once we were leaving, I hurriedly dug for it in my purse and flipped it open. I want to know if anyone called, I filled in Henry. “Did anyone call?” he asked. “No,” I said dejectedly. As we left Denny’s, I walked with my phone held out at arm’s length.

“What are you doing?” Henry asked.

“I want people to see that I have a pink Razr,” I said. Duh.

That night, Henry decided that he wanted to go out and get himself a cell phone, too. We went to Radio Shack where the cheap bastard scooped up an LG phone for $19.99. I kept holding my Razr up to his phone and snorting. This made him mad, and probably made his dick shrink a little out of inadequacy. Then we sat in the parking lot and acted like two people who had never seen cell phones before, pressing buttons and taking pictures of each other. I kept sending him pictures and connecting to the internet, causing Henry to freak out. “We got cell phones to save money, asshole! Your first bill is going to be $300 and I’m not helping you pay for it!”

Now he has me such a nervous wreck that when anyone calls me I freak out because I’m afraid to use any of my minutes. But I’ll throw down cash on ring and answer tones. Those things are important.

I programmed in Henry’s new number, with a voice command of “Ass boobie,” but every time I’d try and use it, I’d laugh too hard and it would say that the voice command couldn’t be found. With practice, I was able to use my serious voice and I can now bark out “Ass boobie” with the stone-faced austerity of a newscaster broadcasting live from the scene of a drive-by shooting.

Yesterday, when I was walking home from getting my hair done, I remembered that hey! I have a cell phone now and I think I’ll call my loving boyfriend. So we chatted for a lively two minutes until it came time for to cross the street and I remembered that I still can’t do much of anything while talking on a cell phone and yelled, “I HAVE TO GO OH MY GOD!” and then waved the phone wildly at my side while running across the busy street.

It was also unfortunate to have to say “Ass boobie” in public, because it was the only way I knew how to make the phone call him. I had to duck into the stoop of a store front, face the brick wall and pull my jacket up over the side of my face to give myself privacy. I was put in an awkward position again yesterday while on the phone with a Cingular representative. I was trying to get help with an answer tone that I downloaded but wasn’t working. I was using my regular phone for the call and the man I was speaking with told me to go ahead and call someone with the cell, just to establish a connection. I don’t know anyone’s phone number off by heart because I’m so used to having it programmed into whatever phone I’m using. The only programmed number in my cell phone was Henry’s. The only way I knew how to call him was to say “Ass boobie.” I didn’t want to say “ass boobie” with this dude on the other phone, so I began struggling, leaving streaks of perspiration all over the phone. I lied and said, “Haha, I can’t seem to get any of my friends to answer!” and the man was all, “Oh they don’t have to answer. As long as someone’s voice mail picks up, we’re fine.”

I felt so pressured and began to tell myself Think, Erin, think!. All I needed was one fucking phone number to call and naturally I couldn’t think of any. This went on for what felt like the entirety of a pap smear followed by the insertion of a catheter by the hands of an ill-tempered nurse with an alcohol problem complete with a grand finale of a “7th Heaven” marathon; I would mumble things like “Sorry I don’t have my address book programmed yet” (and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known how to call anyone from it!) among other flimsy excuses when the Cingular guy knew full well that the girl who was talking to was a friendless loser and probably wondered why she had even bothered getting a cell phone in the first place.

Finally, the Cingular man (probably overcome with pity) interrupted my witch hunt for a number to call and said, “OK here, call this number. It’s a restaurant down the street from me and it’ll be a free call for you. Just hang up once someone answers.” Then while he and I were both waiting for tech support to do their thing, I attempted to make jokes but he wasn’t laughing. There was no saving this conversation, so I kept quiet for the rest of the call.

I’ve since learned myself other ways to place calls with my phone. I guess it’s like how they say if you push a kid in water, he’ll learn to swim.

Today in the car, I was trying to figure out how to access my voice mail and Henry was like, “Um, it’s the same as any cell phone,” and he reached over to show me. Then he paused thoughtfully and asked, rather accusingly, “Don’t you know how to do anything with your phone?” Sure I do, I assured him, as I sent him a text message. I could see the dollar signs spinning in his eyes.

I give it two more days before the novelty wears off.

Marcy not caring about my Razr

You know how when you have a lot on your mind, and then you try to write/type and it just comes out a total mess? That’s what it’s been like for me all week (some may argue that it’s been years longer than just a week though), so I really have no business even writing in this thing today, but at the same time, I need to hear that methodical tap-tapping on the keyboard.

So you know what that means? Bulletpoints, bitches. Because I don’t have the mental stamina to finish the Palace of Gold story or start anything else that requires cohesive thought, really.

• Henry went against everything he believes in by publicly admitting that he loves me last week on Facebook. It was sweet at first because I had had a series of really bad days at work and he was trying to cheer me up, but then all these people were like, “Did you hack into Henry’s account?” and it made me realize that our relationship must honestly appear loveless to outsiders. Oh well, haha.
• Speaking of Henry, pie party enthusiasm finally kicked in for him Monday night and he actually started searching for a second pie to bake. (I already picked the first one for him.) I’m not going to say what either pie is because I’m a firm believer in the science of jinxing, and I really don’t want these pies to fail! In addition to that, he finished assembling the pie pedestals and he made little chalkboard tags so all of the pies will be identifiable. (I should mention that while I think Pinterest is dumb, Henry LOVES Pinterest. Literally every time I look at his phone, if he’s not playing Candy Crush, he’s scrolling through Pinterest.)
• Tonight is the Penguins’ home opener! Barb asked me if I wanted to go with her tonight, but of course I have the most inconvenient shift in the history of the Law Firm, and I didn’t want to call off or request a half day with no notice. Look at me, actually giving a shit about a job that doesn’t give a shit about me. (Do you know how many times I’ve called off work in the 3.5 years I’ve worked here? Twice.)
• Speaking of work, some secretary basically told me last week that I don’t know how to do my job, which, you know, is basically something that I think to myself 99% of my time here, but thanks for driving that insecurity home, Honest Secretary.
• Maybe I will live-blog a few hockey games this season, if Sandy nags me enough. ;)
• I am so thankful that I have a job, I really am, but there are some days when I’m sitting here telling the same secretary for the 87th time how to fix the same user error that she’s had 87 times, and I just want to cry because what am I doing? I feel like my brain is going to atrophy. Why can’t my days be filled with music (listening to and talking about and laying in the middle of Warped Tour everyday all summer forever) and designing weird shit on Photoshop and having people HEAR my ideas. Maybe even some writing if I have to.
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  And then I remind myself that it’s OK, I will just keep on keeping on so that I can go to concerts and Warped Tour and amusement parks and feel alive, and all of these days of feeling listless and dull will just make my heart feel that much brighter when these things happens. It’s OK. Just smile through it. Fucking smile, motherfuckers. Even when it feels impossible.

• At least I have Simpsons: Tapped Out.
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  Thanks, Brandy! I made Janna and Corey download it too because I needed more donuts. Janna’s Springfield looks super dumb though.

• I would like to thank Chooch for making me a fan of Never Shout Never. I’ve listened to them every morning this week on my own accord! Even the older songs that I used to think were dumb just sound better to me. Maybe because I’m not as jaded? (You’d never know that though based on the negative tone of this post, OMG I just went back and skimmed it and I sound like a brat.) I sing all of the songs really loud while skipping in circles around Marcy. Which she loves, you know. At least it’s uplifting, you guys:

• Gayle randomly gave me a Smokey the Bear pin which I will now proceed to wear every day, watch me. It’s going to be my new signature…thing. “Yeah, you know…Erin Rachelle Kelly. The girl with the Jay Leno chin and the Smokey the Bear pin.”
• Earlier today, I made coffee at work and then afterward the “Add water” alert came on the Keurig and you know what? I DID NOT ADD WATER. I was like “Fuck you, I’m always adding water! I want to be the lazy motherfucker for once!” And then I took my Goonies mug and LEFT THE KITCHEN. Take that, whoever made coffee after me. Which was probably me, now that I think about it. Fuck.
• Hey, the Pittsburgh Pirates are doing things. And the STEELERS aren’t, which fills me with glee because I hate them so much. Although Henry always reminds me how wonderful football season is because it means most of the city is either at the game, at home watching the game, at a bar watching the game, so we are able to go out in public without suffering the crowds. And I do appreciate that.
• Remember last year when Gayle brought me that chocolate meteor with an apple center? Actually, it would be kind of weird if you remembered something like that.
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  But anyway, she brought in two different kinds the other day and told me to choose one. TWO DIFFERENT KINDS! And I chose neither. Can you believe it? Weight Watchers is teaching me self-control, I guess.

• Here, let me just take care of Throwback Thursday while I’m at it. I found an old wallet/pocketbook thingie from high school and I mean, who doesn’t carry around photos of their 4-year-old self? I also had a photo of an inmate pen pal, a folded-up magazine page featuring an interview with Layzie Bone from Bone Thugs n Harmony, and a shit ton of pager numbers written on receipts and tattoo parlor business cards.

• I’ve been trying to go back and edit some old posts, because when I say I don’t proofread before publishing these things, I mean it. Call it laziness, call it your basic blasé mindset, but most of the time when I write on here, I’m just trying to get DONE. The only time I pause to proofread is when I’m writing something for someone else. Funny, right? That I would care less about the stuff on my own site. I wish I still had some of that zeal like I used to, where I was almost militant about triple-reading every single paragraph. But now, I do it when I get around to it (which is oftentimes not at all), or if Henry actually reads something for once and catches a typo. Anyway, my point is that some (OK, most) of these blog posts I’ve been editing are so embarrassing. You’d never know I went to college for this bullshit.
• Tomorrow is going to be a scary day for two people that I love very dearly and that pisses me off. Bad things/good people. You know the story. I predict that I’m going to be doing the hare krishna chant a lot tomorrow morning. Get stoked, Marcy.
• It’s supposed to be 81 degrees with RAIN ALL DAY on Sunday. If this happens, it will go down in history as the first pie party with poor weather. I keep checking the forcast every hour and I’m so stressed about it, you would think it was my wedding day. I mean, I might as well treat it as such SINCE I AM PROBABLY NEVER GOING TO HAVE A REAL WEDDING DAY.
• I fucking promise you that I’m not even in a bad mood today. My fingers are possessed. These are not my words.
• But….since I’m being such a brat, I might as well end with a bratty visual that I texted Henry earlier today with a super sweet “hate you” attached:

• My distractions aren’t working. Tell me things.

Me: “Jonny Craig played here last night and I didn’t go on purpose.”

Chooch: “That’s good. You shouldn’t.”

Even still, I’m obsessed with his new solo album, OMG.

Ugh, I’d still let him put a ring on my finger, though.

Meanwhile, Chooch is in the middle of a quarrel with Henry and he just yelled, “I WISH CHRISTOFER DREW WAS MY DAD! HE WOULD TEACH ME MUSIC!!” (That would be pretty awkward for me if Chooch’s dad was Christofer Drew considering he’s only like…22 I think? So he’d have been some unmentionable age at the time of Chooch’s conception OMG vomit.)

Prior to Chooch’s outburst, Henry was only used to having someone scream, “I WISH [insert scene guy’s name] WAS MY BOYFRIEND AND NOT YOU”! Chooch is adding a whole new layer to Henry’s complex.

Christ. The names that get dropped in this house are so fucked up.

Little Christofer Drew

Ever since I went to the Palace of Gold, a Hare Krishna compound in the hills of West Virginia, I’ve been promising my brother Corey that I would take him there. And then Janna wanted to go too, and I had all of these wonderfully dark visions of her getting “taken” by the Hare Krishnas and spending the next eternity singing and selling books at some tiny county airport in Idaho. Spoiler alert: That didn’t happen. :(

But goddamn if we didn’t have the best day ever anyway!

NO SHOES IN THE PALACE.

Janna was asking me about the peacock stained glass before the tour started, and I was like, “Oh, you will learn about the significance of the peacock during the tour.”

The tour was much shorter this time around, mostly because we had the most apathetic, exhausted tour guide in the joint, and all she said about the peacocks was that there four stained glass windows in their likeness. Thanks, we can count.  Corey and I could have been more blatant with our clandestine photo-taking and she probably wouldn’t have cared.

I’m not going to reiterate facts, but if you’re interested, perhaps my post from last year’s tour will enlighten you. Although it is likely mostly just full of smack-talk for the other people in the tour group. You know how I do.

Luckily, there were three middle-aged Indian men on the tour with us, and the one would occasional offer me extra information about the things that the guide was glossing over. They were really kind and I was relieved because when we first walked in, I thought for sure they were going to write us off as ignorant crackers. I mean, not that we aren’t. But it was nice of them to give us a chance.

I mostly tried to not make eye contact with Corey because I knew he’d make me lose it and then we would end up doing our weird gang-laughter in the middle of the echo-y marbled halls of the palace.

I noticed the grounds seemed to be in the same state of disarray as they were last year, so I guess they don’t get as many post-tour donations as they’d like to. I feel like organizing a 5K for them. What? Everyone else has a 5K! Why not the Palace of Gold?!

Let’s run for Krishna, you guys! Or from. Maybe that will be more fun. Running from Krishna and chubby little Butter Thieves in the backwoods of West Virginia. I’m going to organize this. I’ll let you know when you can sign up.

The rose garden is so fucking creepy to me. I’m sure it’s something that is universally considered to be beautiful (it’s won awards, after all!), but it just seems like a really bad scene to me.

I took this picture just for Chooch, who hates butterflies. Always thinking of my son. What a great mom I am.

I got stuck on rose thorns right after this and Janna had to rescue me. Also, if I look drunk, it’s because I was DRUNK ON LIFE. (Seriously, I really look that dopey most of the time, though.)

We laughed like total hyenas for like 10 straight minutes because of this picture.

Corey took this when I wasn’t paying attention and I’m not sure what was going on, other than I was fixing my shoe and probably being eaten by rose bushes, but I love it. Also, I was wearing two different sets of stripes and polka-dot pants because I can. It enhances the fun.

Krishna kat.

OMG here’s Swami Jannamanama emerging from the Hare Krishna bathroom stall! She didn’t appreciate that I immediately posted this on Instagram but I was like, “What? It’s not like you’re nude.”

Up next: Awkward cafeteria dining, peer pressure rose water, and those giant statue things again. Meanwhile, I’m going to try and get Corey to guest post about his experience!

Henry: “Where are the car keys?”

Me, in my patented teenaged ‘duh’ tone: “Um, in the new car key dish! God.”

Henry: “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know we had a ‘new car key dish’.”

Bitch, better get learnt then.

Before the show on Saturday, we ate at Jioio’s in Latrobe. According to Henry, he and I were going to eat there one time during the Dark Years, which was a time pre-Chooch where Henry and I fought 24:7 and I have it mostly blacked out. (I should specify that when I say “Henry and I fought,” I obviously mean “I fought.” I don’t know what I was so belligerent about back then! I guess it was just a matter of me being waaay less self-regulated, mentally and emotionally. I hadn’t yet learned about “control,” I guess. Anyway, if you go by Henry’s story, we apparently walked into Jioio’s for dinner and I threw a fit so we left.

So this was my first time eating there! And aside from my baked cod being way overcooked, everything else was great. The pizza almost reminded me of real pizza I’ve had in Italy, and I wished that I had ordered my own instead of sneaking small bites of Chooch’s. Our waitress was wonderful, but the best part was hands down the CUTE BUSBOYS WHOA LORDY.

Chooch said he hated his pizza because it tasted like there was honey in it, yet he ate half of it with barely a breath in between. Kids are so fucking weird. I don’t remember picky when I was a kid. Which is probably why I was so fat.

Speaking of being a fat kid, somehow the topic of Slim Fast came up the other night when Henry and I were getting ready for bed, and I mentioned that I got bags of their popcorn in my Easter basket when I was eleven.

“That’s fucked up,” Henry said, honestly disgusted.

“What? I was happy about it!” I laughed. And people wonder why my defense mechanism is self-deprecation.

I wonder what the last 25 years of my life would have been like if I hadn’t spent every single day obsessing over my weight.

Hey, speaking of being fat! We went out for our weekend ice cream Sunday night and it was wildly disappointing. First of all, I wanted to go back to Tasty Creme because the last time we were there, Henry waited until after I got my ice cream cone to point out that they had a toasted coconut topping, which sounded fucking precious. I HAD TO HAVE THIS SUNDAY NIGHT. It was all I could think about.

Except that dumb Henry read the sign wrong and it was actually a toasted coconut dip. Like the chocolate dips they do, but coconut. I was immediately dismayed but ordered it anyway because I felt pressured. Then I was like, “UGH I SHOULD HAVE GOT STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE” because I wanted to get that the night before at Jioio’s but our waitress brought our check over without asking if we wanted dessert, which I ALWAYS interpret as “YOU DON’T NEED DESSERT, CHUNKS.” So Henry ordered that instead of what he actually wanted, and then we swapped, because that coconut dip was actually disgusting.

I’m not just saying that because I’m still pouting about it either. It was gross. It even LOOKED gross. So Henry had to eat that and he was so annoyed about it and I was like, “What’s your problem and why aren’t you used to this by now? Be a fucking man and take one for the team.”

Sometimes I just don’t know about him.

And he had to eat most of my strawberry shortcake too, because I started to get sick about the fifth bite. And there was a super annoying family sitting at the other picnic table and something about them was just screaming, “WE ARE ON THE LAM!!!” to me.

The end.

After work on Friday, Girl-Chris and I headed over to that one bridge, where a full-blown rubber duck celebration was underway. There were vendors set up all across the bridge and one of the KISS FM DJs had a stage set up so people could do interpretive rubber duck dances to Mackelmore and Fergie.

By the time we got out of work, there was only about an hour left of the party, but the bridge was still packed. I was a little bit, OK a lot, freaked out though, because Amber2 had stopped back to the office after being down there with her husband and apparently they saw some random, unattended orange backpack on the bridge, and then a little while later a cop wouldn’t let them through and said there was a BOMB WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKK.

I didn’t actually hear Amber2 telling this story, but Chris relayed it to me right before we left the office and my legs got all gelatinous. Chris said she looked online and didn’t see any mention of a bomb scare, and I don’t know what I was expecting when we emerged from the Law Firm (a bomb squad parade, I guess), but everyone was just milling about casually, laughing and smiling. No pandemonium. No mob scene. So we went to the bridge and it was a blast without actually involving a blast!

There was one point though where Chris said, “Look at that backpack!” and I was like, “OMG WHAT WHERE?!” but before I fell to my knees and covered my head with my purse, I saw that it was just some guy wearing a duck backpack. My bowels dropped a little in that split second though, Jesus Christ, Chris!

We stood in line for official duck merch, but the stuff the Toonseum was selling, like the above Night of the Living Dead spoof, was way better. Unfortunately, they had packed up their booth and split by the time we made it back with smaller bills.

Pittsburgh Pottery was there and I bought some of their non-duck-related pottered things, like a small bowl featuring what appears to be a man projectile vomiting blood, and also a CLOWN RING from some chatty lady who loved my iPhone case. Ugh, small talk. Worth it though because that ring is cute as shit.

I generally dislike crowds and bridges and things that are popular and well, basically anything involving having fun with strangers. But I’m glad that I went because it was really kind of exciting to see something like this here, in boring old Pittsburgh. It’s making people so happy!

As the party fizzled out around 10, the duck made its move to the Point, where it will be moored (I JUST LEARNED THIS WORD BECAUSE OF THE DUCK) until October 20th, I think. (Who has time for fact-checking these days?) Chris and I decided to walk along the river and follow it to the Point. Along the way, we discovered a hobo beach beneath one of the overpasses, so that was exciting.

In spite of all of the buzz and legit joy this over-sized duck has brought my city, I’ve noticed that there are rubber duck-haters on Facebook. Of course there are. People are “sick of it,” and it’s “making Facebook so annoying!” Yeah, THAT’s what’s making Facebook annoying.

IT’S A GIANT RUBBER DUCK. ON THE RIVER. IT’S CUTE! IT’S NOVEL! IT WON’T BE HERE FOREVER! Find some  joy in your life, Jesus. Go post some more Some eCards while the rest of us have fun with the rubber duck.