“Do you know anyone from Kansas?”
“No, I don’t think so…”
“Well, YOU DO NOW!”

***

My dear friend Alyson was in town on Friday. A blues band from Wichita, Kansas—Moreland & Arbuckle—were playing some shows in Pennsylvania and Alyson happens to not only be a fan of this band, but also friends with this band. So she decided to drive down from New Hampshire to follow them, which benefitted me since one of their shows was in Pittsburgh. There was not enough time to hang out before their show, but she stopped over when it was over, just in time to feed Chooch chocolates and then bodyslam him right before he went to bed. (He had honestly been pacing all night, asking when the hell she was coming over. It was adorable & annoying all at once.)

Chocolates from the one and only Bobby Blitz Ellsworth‘s wife’s Chocolaterie! I have read so much about this chocolate from Alyson’s LiveJournal, so it was extremely welcome in my slobbering mouth. Chooch and I were practically clawing each other over it.

After a brief visit at my house, I followed Alyson back to her hotel, where we drank beautiful wines made by her friends Peter and Josh (a Fox Run Cabernet Franc and Lamoreaux Landing semi dry Riesling, respectively), ate more chocolate, and learned self-defense moves with 2/3 of the band, Kendall and Dustin. And then there was 3AM handwriting analysis. Some people do drugs in hotel rooms; Alyson does signature scrutiny. And this is why she is certainly, unequivocally one of the coolest kids in my book.

Do.Not.Fucking.Ask. what is up with my Sloth-like appearance. I hadn’t been feeling well that day and by this point, it was like 2AM and….yeah, I have no excuse. IT IS WHAT IT IS, OK.

It’s not easy to put into words when a night is that great. Before our New England road trip last June, I hadn’t seen Alyson since August of 2008. And now here I was, hanging out with her for the second time in less than a year. I think that counts as one of those blessings that you people talk about.

I rolled into bed around 4:30 that morning, much to Henry’s delight, and proceeded to be a royal, sleep-deprived bitch all of Saturday because I just can’t hang anymore, you guys. Henry kept begging me to take a nap. But I am too stubborn for naps.

***

The funny thing about me and Alyson is that, on the surface, it doesn’t appear we have much in common. But the interests we do share, we share in a big way. One of the first common denomonators that presented itself back in 2005 was The Cure. Sure, a lot of people “like” The Cure, so that shouldn’t have been a big deal. But Alyson and I both fucking adore The Cure so much that I know when I say that sometimes it feels like my heart is inching its way up to my throat when I listen to them, she will be emphatically nodding in agreement, hundreds of miles away.

For years, we’ve had an inside joke regarding a former member of The Cure, Laurence “Lol” Tolhurst. So I made her this little painting to commemorate our friendship with a proverbial wink.

Sometimes, the unlikeliest of friendships form; life is beautiful that way. Alyson has stuck with me through drama with mutual friends, great distances and personality differences. Thank you, Alyson, for your loyal friendship (and gifts of wine and chocolate, obviously)!

Two years ago, I made a whole series of these little cards to help promote my dumb blog. Why? WHY NOT. Did it work? Probably not. But at least the same 3 people are still reading! Still, they’re fun to casually leave behind on the trolley and church confessionals, so I made some new ones. Besides, it’s a fun way to be pushy and whiny about wanting people to read my haphazardly-strewn words.

These reviews may or may not be based on real enemies/people and events.

If anyone would like a stack, email me at butgavincantdance@gmail.

com and I will hook you up like this is some half-assed street team or something.

Another goddamn snowy Sunday.

Today, I’m sharing this song with you in memory of a very special boy. Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, maybe listen to it anyway, because you never know—it might make someone up above smile.

And also? Tell someone that they matter. Because, you just never know. xo.

Two years ago, when I was trying to be friends with Christina again (I know, which time, right?) she came to visit and brought this mildly deformed doll that her sister found in a box of normal dolls she bought from the thrift shop and told Christina, “I don’t want this in my house. Give it to Erin.” Because people know me. You may remember Fetus Doll from this photo shoot a few years ago.

Anyway, Christina and I quit each other for the 87th time last year, but Fetus still hangs out in the family room with us, propped up on the chaise lounge thingie next to some weird jester thing and Alf. The fact that I didn’t melt him down into a barbed dildo and sent him back to Christina with 18 pages of death threats says a lot about how mature I am now. And also illustrates that I just don’t really care enough anymore.

Last Saturday, Chooch and Harland, long-since over their Storm Trooper feud, had a play date. We let Kara and Theo come over too. Kara and I were sitting on the couch talking and Kara, drifting asleep on the heels of another one of my horribly-relayed stories (that’s why I have a blog, ’cause I don’t speak good, you guyses), happened to glance over in the direction of the chair.

“What the fuck is that?!” she cried. I mean, god only knows in this house. But it ended up being Fetus.  Needing a better look, she walked over and picked it up, much to the delight of Theo:

Preeeeety sure that Theo and I are going to get along just fine.

Theo started crying later, which I’m positive is directly correlated with Henry’s return home.

Marcy, having flashbacks of another certain screaming half-person in her house.

So Henry tried to be all “goo goo ga ga” with Theo and Chooch started laughing hysterically. I mean, this was SHUT THE DOOR levels of hilarity for Chooch, and he cried out in a voice strangulated by laughter, “You’re the worst baby entertainer ever!” By this point, Chooch had gotten himself so worked up that his face was beet red from laughing and he was legitimately crying. It was funny/scary because I saw so much of my own bipolarity in him at that moment, and Kara took that as her cue to start bundling her kids up so they could leave before Chooch laughed himself sick.

Later that evening, Kristy came over with carefully selected beer for my picky palate (Lancaster Brewing Strawberry Wheat, FTW!

), and somewhere in between accidentally teaching Chooch the word “onomonapeia” and repeatedly chucking Henry with barbs about THE SERVICE, Kristy too noticed Fetus.

So Fetus came out to play again.

There was a lot of discussion about anatomy after that, so really it was a pretty educational day for all involved.

Fetus just wants to be loved.

Watching TV with his big brother, Chooch.

HUGS!!

Maybe I should let people come to my house more often. Fetus really flourishes around company.

Henry’s nieces are so pretty and deserve a repost.

*From February 2012*

A few years ago, I bought a 1980’s prom dress off eBay but it doesn’t fit over my rack; it finally occurred to me that I should just dress up Sam and Steph in that and my all-purpose tutu. So I spent yesterday doing just that.

;

I figured Green Man’s Tunnel would be a good location, because it’s grunge-y and abandoned, and hello – The Green Man lives there. Steph’s boyfriend Kian came with us and he really triggered that small “Mom” alarm that’s hidden inside me by doing the sorts of dangerous things that teenaged boys are born to do. Every once in awhile, he would say things like, “Hey, I have an idea” and I would find that I was spontaneously bracing myself.

He was, however, the most polite teenage boy I think I have ever met, and even carried all my shit for me. Good pick, Steph!

Meanwhile, Henry wouldn’t come anywhere near the tunnel with us because he thought the police were going to show up. So he just walked up and down the road looking like a walking sandwich-board for Megan’s Law. I was a little pissed because he’s my designated lens holder.

I lost sight of him eventually and became convinced that he was fishing in the creek across the street.

After I took the first few shots by the creek, I realized Henry was creeping in the background and had to yell at him to leave, which made him hate his life even more.

God, I really needed that.

Way back in 2005, Henry, Janna and I used to sometimes frequent the Valarena Roller Rink. Somehow, we missed the memo that the Neville Rollerdrome was alive and kicking, which is a shame considering it’s approximately 45 minutes less of a drive than Valarena.

But now the Rollerdrome has new owners and I dislike the atmosphere of that rink, so I suggested that we give the ol’ Valarena another try because I don’t want to give these other assholes any more of my money. Henry didn’t seem very pleased about this, because it’s about an hour away, but he quietly donned his Whipping Boy status and drove Chooch and me out to Apollo, PA, which means nothing to anyone. I was pretty excited about it because from what I remembered about the Valarena, they had the perfect roller rink snack room pizza.

We arrived ten minutes before the skate session started and were made to stand outside in the cold winter rain.

The McNichol-locks are BACK, you guys!

Chooch was sick last week and still a little sniffly, so Henry took him back to the car while I held our spots in line. Not like it was super-crowded, but there of course had to be some dumb bitch’s birthday party that day so a small crowd had formed within the next several minutes. There are several steps to get inside the rink, which is right near a road, so the line formed an l-shape, with several people standing on the steps and then everyone else lined up on the sidewalk along the road. An older “uncle”-type arrived with two teenage girls and some younger child of unidentifiable gender, and instead of standing in the back of the line, they encroached on my bubble at the bottom of the steps and before long, one of the bitch-teenagers was standing next to me and trying to get her footing on the step in front of us, which I had intentionally not stepped on because my face would have been planted inside the ass of the mom-type in front of me.

So this went on, this push and pull of line domination, before the door was finally unlocked and I texted Henry and Chooch to come back. Henry got in the back of the line because he’s a dumbass, but Chooch joined me on the steps and greeted me by calling me a racist. WTF?

Since Chooch doesn’t care about planting his face in some strange mom-type’s ass, I placed him in front of me so that we were in the lead again.

I honestly can’t stand people trying to elbow their way to the front. And Creepy Uncle just stood by and let this happen because he’s an asshole too.

So now I’m already fuming and we haven’t paid yet, which is never the way you want to start things. And then HENRY was still outside when it was our turn at the skate rental counter (yes, the bitch-teenagers tried to worm their way in front of me here too; I’m surprised they didn’t just mount the counter) so I had to guess a size for Chooch because neither of us knew what size he wears! Ugh, we are so dependent on Henry, it’s sickening.

And apparently I don’t know my own size either, which I realized as soon as Henry finally paid and entered the rink. I tore the too-big skates off my feet, thrust them at him and hissed, “GET ME A SMALLER SIZE.” And then Chooch needed a bigger size so he hurled his skates at Henry, too. Henry tried to shoot us a threatening stare and failed.

The rink was way more awful than I remembered—it wasn’t that beautiful wood floor that I had grown accustomed to at the Rollerdrome, but some kind of ugly seafoam painted cement with tons of nicks throughout. (There’s roller hockey that happens here, so I guess that’s why the floor isn’t wood. SEE WHAT I DID THERE? I used my brain.) Which was a shame, because those skates, the correctly-sized ones, were perfection as far as rentals go! The tongues were all soft and pillowy and the wheels spun with recently-oiled efficiency. I strongly considered stealing them, even though the skate rental broad held my boots as collateral.

I took a couple warm-up laps and immediately found something to hate about every single person there. At the Valarena, parents can walk on the rink in their shoes and no one gives a damn. So not only did I have to contend with skating-impaired children and obnoxious roller bladers, I now had to be mindful of dawdling moms meandering about the rink like they’re at Wal-Mart looking for discounted Hostess cakes. Also, the rink is SMALL. Probably only half the size of Rollerdrome. I kept doing that super cute thing I do where I turn my nose up and make stank-face because OMG I’m too good for this place. (34 years I’ve been trying to outgrow this horrible personality flaw.) Henry noticed my scowl and immediately got all huffy with me for not being completely enamored with this redneck roller warehouse and then got REALLY huffy when I yelled over top of Journey’s Wheels in the Sky that “I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!” within 10 minutes of lacing-up.

I was pouting alone on the uncomfortable carpeted bench, so I didn’t get to see what happened next, but Henry told me that this kid I originally thought was just a really short 4-year-old but turned out to be a teenaged midget had speed-skated past Chooch and pushed him, so now Chooch was pissed off too and wanted to leave because that place sucked. I was really angry about this, not because some diminutive jerk pushed my kid, but because some broad got on the mic as soon as the session started to remind everyone that there was to be NO SPEED SKATING.

Later, I saw the rink ref (the same broad who was renting skates) squat down to hug him, so it was all crystal clear from that point on.

These place was teeming with townie-ism.

My other big beef with this joint is that there is a doorway leading straight from the snack room to the rink, so recently-caffeinated children can whiz right on out to the skate floor without looking. When we were standing outside before the rink opened, I heard some man talking about the time he was knocked over by some kid skating out of the snack room and ended up breaking his arm, but I didn’t think anything of it until I saw it almost happen 87 times that afternoon. I guess I never noticed the dangers of this doorway when we used to go there for adult skate back in the day, because there were only ever about 10 people there on those nights.

Oh! And then we got to play this fucked-up game called Crazy Skate where a siren would play several times during a song and everyone would have to switch directions, which is a really fun game to play with a floorful of people who can’t skate for shit, where “really fun” is German for DANGER DANGER. There was this gawky lady with 1980s ginger feathered hair and a dopey, blank expression clomping around the entire time in the wrong direction and it never failed that she would be right up in my business every time the siren sounded and I spun around.

HATED HER.

The pizza wasn’t as good as I remembered, but that’s probably because the snack room was infested with non-skating parents and birthday party brats, so we couldn’t sit at a table. Instead, we sat on stools in front of the prize counter, basically in everyone’s way, and one of the bitch-teenagers was in my direct line of vision the whole time.

Bitch-teenager in white shirt at 12 o’clock. (That’s 12 o’clock, right?)

There was a crowd of kids watching Chooch and if I were him, I’d have had to run into the bathroom and dry heave.

No one gets eliminated from Limbo. Seriously. I’m surprised they didn’t give all the kids trophies too. Also, I was really excited to tweet that I was placing my bet on the midget to win at Limbo, but then he didn’t even participate! He just sat against the wall, texting all the bitches in the dwarfetishism community.

Afterward, Henry was in the snack room ordering Chooch a drink (there was this whole fight about a drink earlier which I tuned out because it didn’t involve me) and Chooch and I were sulking on the bench, when a couple skate was announced. As Chooch and I took the floor, he started laughing hysterically.

“Daddy just pushed some broad!” he wheezed.

By the time I was able to look over, I saw Henry polluting the doorway of the snack room, but I didn’t see any downed bitch. Sadness! After couple skate was over, Henry skated out and tried to play like nothing happen so I started pressing him for info.

“I didn’t PUSH anyone. Some lady started to fall and I tried to catch her but it was too late,” he barked and then sighed wearily. This was starting to sound suspiciously more and more like a certain case of Henry vs. Wheelchair Lady at the Ted Nugent Show.

Later, he pointed out the lady who fell and it was the fucking dopey bitch from the 80s.

“Oh,” I waved a hand in the air, dismissing the whole thing. “She’s a fucking nuisance. It was only a matter of time before she fell, so she deserved it.”

Meanwhile, the rink ref was scrubbing vomit or some other type of bodily fluid off the floor by the bathroom, and then an area of the rink had to be cordoned off with tiny orange cones because supposedly water was leaking in from the side door, but I’m not entirely convinced there hadn’t been a murder in that spot.

This scary old Russian man was the only good skater there, without being a flashy dick about it. (And also, not flashing his dick about it.) Also, this is one of the few times the rink ref was not found with a sponge or towel in her hand.

So, the pros are:

• decent pizza
• buttery skates

Cons:

• the entire population of small-town Apollo goes there so we reeked of Outsider.
• far away
• shittastically dangerous skate floor
• too small to contain my greatness
• that unfortunately-placed snack room door
• it’s just gross
• people bleed there
• midgets

Next up, we’re going to revisit the Valley Skate Center, which has the most majestic skate floor you could imagine BUT has really shitty people working there, no order on the rink, comically terrible rental skates (which wouldn’t be a problem if I just BOUGHT MY OWN SKATES, I know!), not to mention the last time we were there, I caused a scene.

But if we go to that one and it still doesn’t “feel just right,” then I think it’s pretty clear that I need to just build my own rink. Or settle for the Rollerdrome. (I know: wow, what problems, right? But sometimes it’s easier to dwell on these insignificant little things rather than cry myself to sleep every night over Real Life.)

Hey, do you guys watch The Following? I do. And the one thing that has me totally excited about Season Two is how Joe Carroll is disguised as Henry!

I mean, seriously: WHICH IS THE REAL JOE CARROLL?!

Upon further inspection, Henry could totally be Andy from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure for Halloween next year.

Ummm…that’s all I’ve got for today. #blogapathy

Saw this list of 21 Songs To Help You Wake Up From Those Morning Snooze Marathons
circulating around this morning and while I’m mostly nodding in agreement, I can’t help but think they REALLY dropped the ball by not including this seminal Was Not Was hit:

(Yes, this is totally my current rise & shine go-to. WHAT’S YOURS?)

OK, so we had a poor roller skating experience this afternoon, which I will opine about at nauseating length later this week, OH DON’T YOU WORRY, and Philip Seymour Hoffman died and the weather was cold and rainy and everyone was all FOOTBALL. But in spite of all that, I’d rather spotlight the high point of the day because weekends should rule no matter what. Unless an emergency amputation is scheduled.

So anyway, we went to Dairy Queen after skating and holy fuck, no one told me they have red velvet Blizzards now. Well, they do.

Chooch and I do what we excel at and ditched Henry at the counter. We walked around to the side of the store and I spotted a table that only sat 2, so of course Chooch & I giggled like the motherfuckers we are and Henry had to sit alone.

He acted like he was only upset about having to sit elsewhere because it meant the Dairy Queen girl was going to have to deliver our Blizzards to two separate tables, like suddenly he gives a shit about people. Chooch and I were laughing so hard, we almost projectiled soft serve across the room.

That was definitely the best part of my Sunday. If you’re having a bad day, ostracize the Henry Figure in your life and eat ice cream. And might I add: Red velvet Blizzards are the SHIT. Now if I can only get Lays to seriously consider my entry for red velvet potato chips.