My friend Patty had a birthday dinner on Saturday at Hokkaido Seafood Buffet. At first, I thought I was not going to be able to attend because of my tattoo appointment at 5, but luckily, it was an early dinner that started at 3! Old Folk Supper Time, get into it.

I know Patty from work. She’s friends with Gayle and when I did the whole serial killer desk thing two years ago for Halloween, Gayle made Patty come down to see it (Patty works on a different floor, hence the need for her to COME DOWN; try to keep up, you guys). And then Gayle made me and Patty be friends. It probably would have happened anyway, because we have a lot of mutual friends in the horror/haunted house community. Because we’re awesome. Duh.

Gayle was the only other person I knew who was attending the dinner (other than Henry, but he doesn’t count because we never talk to each other in public), so I was all panicked when we arrived before her and actually, god forbid, had to walk in and talk to people. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and ask, “Erin Kelly, what the fuck happened to you?” Because I was never this socially indigent before. Or was I?

We quickly said hello to Patty and then I raced to the end of the table before anyone could make eye contact with me, grabbing a chair two down from the last person sitting on our side so that Henry would have to sit next to a stranger. Then I claimed the chair on my other side for Gayle. I needed to be flanked with familiarty. It’s how people of my ilk survive. (Barely.)

I started doing that thing that I do, which is pretend like I’m not staring at people when I’m definitely staring at people, because I was mostly certain that I went to high school with the guy I made Henry sit next to, who was currently immersed in a conversation with Patty’s fiance Tim, so he didn’t notice me creeping the side of his head. Then Patty came over to talk to us and I whispered, “Hey, is that Dan—-” and she cut me off to holler, “HEY PALSO, IT’S ERIN KELLY!” So then Dan was all, “Ohemgee!” and we stood up and hugged like people do on the television while Henry just sat there and smirked because watching me do the whole paint-by-numbers social dance is hilarious to him.

So…that was really cool! I hadn’t seen Dan since 1998 at the rib fest! I mean, we’re Facebook friends, but does that even count for anything these days? Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to talk to him at all after that because, well, food. I was practically banging my knife and fork on the table, because NO ONE WAS GOING UP TO THE BUFFET. Finally, Gayle arrived and I kept asking her, “When can we go up? Can we go up now?” But she was in no hurry because she hates seafood. Then Henry was like, “Patty is up there now. Let’s do this.” And at first, I felt like an asshole because everyone else was still sitting at the table, but you know what? It’s a buffet and I came to eat my face off.

(Actually, I did NOT come to eat my face off. I kept a steady pace because I didn’t want to eat 19 plates of sushi and then sit in a chair for 3 hours getting tattooed. I’m sure my tattoo guy wouldn’t have appreciated that very much either.)

Buffets and I don’t get along. I know it’s hard to believe, what with my lifelong BMI-struggle, but I actually cannot eat that much in one sitting. And I have a hard time matching up the labels with the food below, so it’s basically me following Henry around like a puppy, asking, “What is this? Will I like it? Have I had this before?” Mostly, he steers me in the right direction, except that I’m pretty sure I accidentally ate chicken because he told me it was a biscuit. After my own instincts failed me on a spoonful of “mango salad” (which was savory and had shrimp in it), I mostly just stuck with sushi. I’m surprisingly OK with sushi.

On my way back to the table, I passed the dessert portion of the buffet and no one was there to supervise me, which is how I ended up plopping banana pudding on one of my sushi rolls because I didn’t know there were little bowls at the end of the buffet, perfect for spooning banana pudding into. But there was a sign on our table that threatened an $8 charge for unfinished food, and after already having straws thrown at me by the mean waitress, I wasn’t about to press my luck. I ate everything on my plate, pudding-sushi and all.

Then more people arrived and sat across from us, triggering my rusty social cues.

“I am going to ask this girl questions, BUT NOT UNTIL SHE HAS FOOD IN HER MOUTH,” I thought to myself, and that’s what I did, too. So the poor girl (Lauren; I actually remembered a name!!) had to hold up a hand while she finished chewing before she could tell me how she knows Patty. I am so awesome at eating food and talking to people in public places.

“Wow, you really do know how to use chop sticks,” Gayle said, clearly in shock as she watched my deft sushi capturing skills. At first I was really offended that this would come as such a shock to her, but then I remembered that I’m basically helpless with most things in life, so who could blame her.

Meanwhile, waitresses were standing in a row near our large party table, watching everyone with blantant suspicion. It brought back memories to this one time in 1999 when an ex-friend and I went to pick up her friends at a Chinese buffet. They weren’t done eating yet, so we went and sat with them at their booth, which obviously was a huge mistake and NOT MY IDEA. The waiter kept coming over and accusing my ex-friend and me of eating crab legs off of their plates. First of all, in 1999 I was still a very strict ovo-lacto vegetarian: no seafood for me. Second of all, ew: I barely knew the girls we had gone there to pick up so fuck if I’m eating anything off their stranger-danger plates. Meanwhile, my ex-friend was (is) a disgusting pig, but even she wasn’t eating their crab legs. The waiter kept poking his head around corners, pacing up and down parallel aisles, before finally coming back with the manager, who proceeded to ESCORT US OUT. It was humiliating. I felt like the biggest piece of white trash ever, like I might as well just go straight out back to the dumpsters and give blow jobs for meth.

It was really hard not to think about that night when every time I looked over at Dan, he had another fresh plate of crab legs. He was pounding those motherfuckers with panache. Even Henry was impressed.

Patty came back down to visit and she was telling her friends about my serial killer Valentines, so Gayle held up a finger and then pulled out a stack of my non compos business cards from her purse and began doling them out. Henry smirked at me because I literally NEVER have any of my business cards with me and it was hilarious that someone else did. Later, Gayle said, “She also takes beautiful pictures!” and I was like, “GAYLE I’M BLUSHING YOU CAN STOP NOW.” But really, how nice to have someone actually be proud of the things I do. What a foreign feeling.

After letting our stomachs settle for a few minutes while getting to know our table-neighbors (such lovely people, for real! Lauren’s boyfriend Robert has an incredible Hitchcock’s Birds tattoo on his arm that I am 100% jealous of), Gayle and I decided it was time to hit the dessert bar. There was a chocolate fountain that we wanted to try, but some old lady in a wheelchair and another old lady, not in a wheelchair, were idling in front of it, staring at it with cocked heads. I paced back and forth in buffet basketcase fashion, because GIVE ME CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN. Gayle reacted like a normal person by opting to see else was there instead of doing the pee jig and hissing about wanting to dip thing in the fountains, which is what I was doing. I kept making eye contact with Henry, who was sitting at the table, watching me intently. Because it is not often I stray and I’m sure he was bracing himself for an accident. I kept shrugging and making huffy pantomimes to illustrate that I wanted to use the chocolate fountain but two old bags were too busy looking at it.

Finally, Gayle went over to assist them.

“You have to put something on one of these skewers,” she was saying. “And then you stick it in the chocolate.” She was so patient! So calm! Not even a NOTE of condescension in her voice. I couldn’t believe it.

“Does it have to be fruit?” the lady in the wheelchair asked. “Or can it also be a marshmallow?”

My skin felt like fire ants were using it as an Electric Slide dance floor. I took a jetpack ride to my alternate reality where I released the kickstand of the lady’s wheelchair and gave her one mighty push back down to hibachi town. But instead, I just stood there holding my tongue (and my plate of bland consolation cake-sponges) while the old broad held out a skewered banana just out of reach of the chocolate waterfall. Seriously! She just kept holding it there like she was waiting for the chocolate to somehow defy physics and splash itself onto her stupid rotting banana.

Finally, I cried uncle and retreated back to the table, just as Gayle was explaining to them that they needed to actually put the stick into the chocolate in order to get the chocolate onto their food.

^&*(^&*(%^$$#$#@#@!!!!

I sat down in a pout and started to rant to Henry about the chocolate fountain.

“It’s like they’re chocolate fountain tourists and I just can’t.”

Henry said, “Oh, I was wondering why that lady was just standing there watching the fountain.” There was a small wall separating the buffet from the restaurant-area, so Henry couldn’t see the chocolate fountain-dunce in the wheelchair. This and the fact that Gayle was the accidental fountain expert was highly amusing to me and I couldn’t stop savoring my new inside joke with myself.

In an easy effort to finish my meal off in a disgusting manner, I served myself a scoop of “wood ear soup.” Yes, this was supposed to be a dessert; I mean, it was right by the tapioca and jello squares. I knew without even trying it that it was going to be another failed Asian attempt at “sweet.” And it was! It was like placing paper-thin sheaths of cartilage in my mouth; some kind of texture in between “crunchy” and “chewy” and my lower jaw actually just quivered a tiny bit at the memory of my molars bearing down on this junk. Everyone at our end of the table was following along with my wood ear soap opera, and Lauren’s sister Erica said, “I’m pretty sure wood ear is a type of mushroom…”

(Meanwhile, another of Patty’s friends had arrived and was having his goatee stroked by Gayle. It was THAT kind of a party, you guys.)

That red thing tasted familiar. Not sweet at all, and weird. I have no other English words for it, but it was ultimately just a really uncomfortable after-dinner option in a bowl. Finally, I broke down and googled “wood ear soup” and learned that the red thing tasted familiar because it is a red date and one time a few months ago, I made Henry buy an entire package of those things from Oriental Market even though he said I wouldn’t like it.

“And did you like it?” Gayle asked.

“No,” I said, and then Gayle laughed really hard in front of everyone which is what I pay her for.

Anyway, Google also taught me that “wood ear soup” is a real thing that people willingly eat. There are recipes for this shit. It calls for wood ear mushrooms, red dates and a blowtorch just to make certain that you have no tastebuds going into this.

I couldn’t get anyone else to go up there and try it, and Henry wouldn’t finish mine, which made me panic because was I going to get charged an extra $8 for not licking that bowl clean? Everyone said I was probably fine. And I believed them. They made me feel strong, which was how I found the strength to help some little girl get soap from the automatic soap dispenser in the restroom.

(This is how it happened: Her: *holding hands under automatic soap dispenser; nothing squirting out*

Me, in an annoyed tone: “Yeah, maybe try the other one…?”

Her: *tries other one; classic hand-washing success story*)

Then it was time for Henry and I to leave (totally dined and dashed and felt terrible about it; we were having a good time!) which created an awkward tizzy of “DID YOU HAVE LUNCH OR DINNER?!!?” interrogations from the meanest waitress I have ever encountered. (The same one who chucked straws at us.) Honestly, it made the whole experience even better.

Anyway, after we left, I realized that I’m Facebook friends with someone else who was there, but had no fucking idea because I have never seen her in real life. (We’re friends because of zombie and horror events, and I’m pretty sure she has bought cards from me.)

As usual, I didn’t eat my money’s worth at the buffet, so halfway though my tattoo session, I was so hungry that even the subtle stench of my own burnt flesh was making my stomach growl. Henry, on the other hand, was sick from his 45 plates of meat so I spent the rest of the night “accidentally” punching his stomach.

GOOD TIMES. Happy birthday, Patty!! Sorry I missed the cake. (Which she brought with her, so it probably didn’t have mushrooms or squid broth in it. But, you never know. I don’t know Patty that well.)

Spent the afternoon taking engagement pictures for my friends Chris and Monica. It was extremely cold, but totally worth it because they’re awesome!

More later!

July 2008

July 2013

I pretty much spent the whole day sitting: Sitting at Chooch’s piano lesson. Sitting at my friend Patty’s birthday dinner. Sitting for nearly 3 hours getting my tattoo finished. Sitting at the computer editing photos. I think that tomorrow will be a day full of moving.

I hate sitting!!

OMG, it’s Friday and I have some shit to get off my chest. TGFB (thank God for blogging?).

FIVE:

My friend Alex is hosting another Pittsburgh Guest Blogging thingie on April 1st and I stupidly signed up for it and now I’m all stressed out because I have no idea what to write, as usual. What should I write about!? My hopes and dreams? Places in Brookline where you MIGHT not find a discarded hypodermic needle? That time I robbed graves? Who even knows. I looked at the list of participants and naturally I only know 1% of the list because I’m a blogging recluse, and that gives me this weird Internet stage fright. Part of me is saying, “Try to be a normal person, Erin. Write something without swearing, Erin. MAKE SENSE FOR ONCE, ERIN.”

So, I’m going to leave it up to you: what should I ramble on about for my guest post on some poor man’s blog? Please, someone tell me before I ask Craigslist or call a party line.

FOUR:

ANDREA had to go and get me all worked up the other night by instigating my hatred for Alaska. She might be the worst BFF I’ve ever had! Now I’m all stressed out again. I feel like the climax of my life is going to be where Henry drugs me and when I wake up, he finally proposes to me then and in the same breath he’s all like, “SURPRISE YOU’RE IN ALASKA!” and then I fall off some disgusting Alaskan cliff into a sea of sickening glaciers because, why wouldn’t I?  That’s my life.

THREE:

Something happened to Chooch’s finger at some point yesterday. I know this because as soon as I got in the car last night after work, Chooch was basically passed out on the backseat from loss of imaginary blood, whining, “OW MY FINGER” every time the car hit a pot hole. (Which is a lot. This is Pittsburgh.) I didn’t bother to ask what happened because HI I HAVE MY OWN PROBLEMS.

He came downstairs at 11:00PM while Henry and I were watching The Returned (which is a FRENCH TV show so there could be nudity at any given moment) and started whining about needing another Bandaid and I ignored him because Henry was there so…get the fuck up and bandage your son, motherfucker.

This morning, it was apparently still an issue? WTF happened to my kid’s finger?! Apparently not all that much. According to Henry, it’s only a hangnail wound. But you would have thought the entire thing had been blown off by a grenade the way he was carrying on every time his finger touched the water this morning! And then the whole way to school, he was making this anguished face and dry-crying, which is so annoying to me because obviously I’m the only person who can pull that off, and I kept begging him to stop looking like that in case god forbid someone sitting in traffic mistook it as abuse. So I kept trying to put my arm around him to comfort him (OVER A FUCKING HANG NAIL) and he was all, “OW! GET OFF ME! OW!” So I snapped and said, “For Christ’s sake, there is no way that hurts that bad! I get paper cuts almost everyday and I don’t run around acting like that….oh. Never mind.”

I gave him an extra maternal hug when we got to the school, making sure the principal saw, too, because I didn’t maim my kid’s fingertip, OK?!

A short reprieve from incessant bitching. Thank god for teeth to brush.

TWO:

My friend Wendy is a Stella & Dot…consultant? Stylist? She sells jewelry. It’s a pretty fun line—if not severely lacking in rings with teeth and Jonny Craig’s face beneath resin—and I’ve been promising her that I would host a party, so I’m finally doing that in two weeks. Today at work, we sat down in her office to create the Facebook event thing, which she wrote and I kept saying, “Please don’t write that…everyone is going to know I didn’t write this….”‘redefine her style sessions’? What does that even mean!?” At least the event name is “Henry’s Stella and Dot Trunk Show” and she listened to me when, after she typed the line “my friend Wendy,” I told her to put quotes around the word “friend.”

It was really hard for me to sit there and watch Wendy create this event on my behalf because I’m such a control freak (only over weird things though; nothing important). My style is just a little more biting and derisive than hers; the way she wrote it made it sound like I was actually being nice to my friends and excited to see them, like “come on by and share some laughs!” WTF. I don’t want to share my laughs. Those are mine. Get your own. I kept thinking, “OK, here’s where I would have said something terrible about Janna. And right here is where I would have used some outdated LOLspeak and an obscure pop culture reference. OK, she emasculated Henry at least.”

I kind of wanted to write the party info as a free-style gangsta rap about how there are 99 ways to wear a scarf and around a dead man’s dick might be one.

I’m afraid this could be the gateway into harder hostess parties, like I might wake up one day and crave crudités and Tupperware towers. And you know what comes next. Reading cookbooks. Gross.

ONE:

CARROT CAKE M&M’S. Big ups to my friends Monica and Chris for the hook-up. Henry and I couldn’t find them anywhere but then Monica was all, “They’re on my dining room table, duh.” She bought an extra bag and gave it to Chris to bring to work for me and I ate almost half the bag right away. IT TASTES JUST LIKE CARROT CAKE. The M&Ms. Not the bag. So now I’m desperate to buy all of the bags before they go away since they’re just an Easter novelty, waiting to go back to heaven with Jesus. :(

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when they’re gone, that’s how empty my life is right now.

Apologies for the capslock abuse, my people. I’m losing my mind. You know how I know for sure? I ALMOST TYPED “LOOSING.”

Here are three Instavids of Henry and Chooch, because I have nothing else to do right now and I guess because these videos make me smile.

Because I love them. There, I said it.

Trying to fake like he hates Emarosa in the car today, BUT LOOK AT HIM SMILING.

The jig is up, Henry. You like Emarosa and now everyone knows.

I got to work from home last night because we were supposed to get bad weather (were we, though? I just went home because that’s what I was told to do) and this is what I had to deal with. Yes Chooch, you’re beautiful. Now go lay down.

Olive Garden commercials make him shake it.

It was all because Tonic’s one wonderful hit “If You Could Only See” came on the radio last night as Henry and I were getting ready for bed.

“This song reminds me of when I went to get my GED,” I sighed nostalgically. (Which I originally spelled “nostalgicly.” Surprisingly, “Is ‘nostalgicly’ a word?” was not one of the questions on the test.) And even though Henry has heard my stories ten-fold by this point, he laid there silently while I told him about the boy I met at the McKeesport YWCA, and how we spent our GED testing breaks together in an alcove. (TALKING! We were just talking.) His name was Adam, this beautiful Mulatto boy who enjoyed building computers, which my 18-year-old self thought was pretty nerdy but his face made up for it.

The GED testing was split up into two sessions, so I got to see Adam once more, and this time, as we sat in the alcove after we finished the test (first ones to finish, whaddup), he asked me for my phone number. Right after I gave it to him, Psycho Mike arrived to pick me up.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Adam asked, as we watched from above as Mike entered the building.

“Yes,” I sighed sadly. (Mike and I had a really awful relationship that thankfully would expire a few months later.)

“Damn,” Adam said. “I was hoping you were going to say he was your brother.”

***

“And then he never called me!” I cried to Henry. “He could have been The One!”

“Maybe he didn’t call because you had A BOYFRIEND,” Henry spat.

Yeah, let’s go with that. But I seriously think about him every time I hear that fucking Tonic song. Even though I don’t remember his last name. (And I honestly only remembered his first name this morning.)

Taking the GED test was really an experience. And by “experience,” I mean CULTURE SHOCK. Before testing started on the first night, people were bitching to each other about how they needed to get home to feed their kids and take care of other Real Life things, when my only priority was going to the Plaza Café for grilled blueberry muffins and coleslaw with Psycho Mike and then renting an Argento movie next door at Firehouse Videos. And I remember slowly slouching down in my seat at the realization that these people likely dropped out of high school for actual, uncontrollable circumstances (I didn’t have to be a seasoned stereotyper to deduce that I was basically the only spoiled suburban bitch in that joint) while my reason was “because I felt like it and I wanted to see if my family would give a shit.”

Spoiler alert: They did not.

“Yeah, but would it have really changed anything if you had graduated high school?” Henry asked. And that was a good point, because graduating high school wouldn’t change the fact that my grandfather died when I was 16, and believe me, things would have been a lot different if he had still been alive. For instance, I definitely would have finished school and I 100% would have gone off to college right away, got swept up in the wrong crowd and likely wound up becoming a raging fan of Dave Matthews and OAR. (This is what I associate with college, apparently.)

And that’s something I think about a lot, not how dull my music preferences might be, but would I have still met Henry? If I had gone to college, I probably wouldn’t have been an office manager for a meat company when I was 20, so where would I have met him? The Army Navy Store? And then what about Chooch?!

This was all too much to think about before bed, so I changed the subject to having another baby, because THAT’S not a heavy conversation or anything. But before Henry could answer, I said, “But what if it wasn’t yours? Would you still stay with me and raise it as your own?”

Henry made a YOU’RE FUCKING JOKING scowl, but I elaborated. “No! I was beaten and raped by a ghost, and that’s how I got pregnant!” Henry started to roll over, a sign that he was peacing out of the conversation, but I kept pressing the issue, until he finally said, “THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!”

“TELL THAT TO THE WOMAN BARBARA HERSHEY PORTRAYED IN THE ENTITY!” I yelled back, nearly in tears from laughing. Then, trying to reel him back in with affection, I put my hands on his chest and screamed, “OMG IS THAT YOUR REAL NIPPLE?”

“No, it’s my fake one,” Henry said dourly. It felt like it was in the middle of his chest! It was dark and I couldn’t see! I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t growing things I was unaware of.

We were quiet for a few minutes. Henry was actually probably already asleep, because he’s like a magician when it comes to sleep. I tried to stop it, but I could feel the giggles convalescing inside me, deep within the pit of my belly, so I silently shook for awhile, taking the entire bed along for the ride to Giddyville. Henry’s one eye opened slowly. “What?” he sighed.

“Nothing,” I squealed as a mouthful of laughs tried to launch themselves out of my face-cannon. And then it was all over. I sprayed Henry in the face with my uncorked vim & vigor, my stomach aching from the exertion. And I laughed and laughed and laughed, tears streaming down my face, while Henry just stared at me and asked me again, in his Papa H tone, what was so funny. (He gets paranoid.)

“I’m just thinking about getting impregnated by a ghost!” I cried, curling up into a fetal position to keep from peeing my pants.

This inspired Henry to expound once more on the physical improbabilities of this situation ever occurring, because he’s a mirth-murderer.

I forget what I said, but he thought I said something about “boozing,” so then I started scream-laughing all over again.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Henry mumbled.

“Yeah, but now I’m picturing myself at the bar with your fake nipple!” I wheezed.

If everything happens for a reason, then dropping out of high school was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

And after all that, I still dreamt of Jonny Craig.

)

It’s been awhile since I barked DIY orders at Henry. In fact, I think the Beverage Buffet is the last thing he made (the half-finished jewelry armoire in the basement doesn’t count, sorry dear). So over the weekend, I decided that it was time to move the marquee sign from a dream to a reality. I saw it on some broad’s blog a few months ago, some marquee sign she made for Christmas, but it was all Pinterest-y and cute, and you know, Christmas-y. All of the things I dislike. But I liked the notion of having an obnoxious marquee sign in my house.

The steps looked easy (for Henry) and it seemed inexpensive. But I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I don’t fully understand the value of a dollar sometimes, all of the time.

Like, maybe if I had chosen the phrase “Hi” or stuck with initials it would have been an inexpensive project. But instead, I chose my catchphrase “Get stoked” and when you consider that the letters cost $3 a piece and then the bulb-lights I wanted to use from Target are like $12 for a string and we’re probably going to need like 4 or 5 boxes, you have one clenched-up Henry.

We actually fought each other silently with just our eyes in the middle of the craft store on Saturday, which resulted in me breaking down first and hissing, “JUST FORGET IT!” and storming out. I could hear the pitter-patter of Chooch’s feet on the tile floor as he chased after me, god bless him; soon he will be immune to my tantrums and will refuse to give me attention, JUST LIKE HIS FATHER.

I sat in the car with my arms crossed, sighing heavily and dramatically, accusing Henry of ruining my life.

“I didn’t say we couldn’t buy the letters,” he calmly explained as he navigated the car through the parking lot. “You’re the one that ran out like a baby.”

“FINE THEN JUST GO BACK AND GET THEM!” I yelled.

“No,” he said defiantly. Oh, this is rich, I thought, and then started screaming some more until he yanked the steering wheel to the right and screeched back into the parking lot. He slammed the car door, stalked into Pat Catan’s, and returned in five minutes with a giant bag full of large letters. ERIN WINS AGAIN.

(No, those weren’t the letters. BUT MAYBE FOR THE NEXT SIGN…..)

I actually helped out a little and primed the letters! Now we just need to spraypaint them with my color of choice (and glitter, obviously; my Liberace gene always has to weigh in), find a piece of plywood large enough to hold the letters, and then take out a small home loan to buy the rest of the lights, haha, right Henry?

And then watch somberly as our house goes down in flames.

I will keep the Internet posted as Henry progresses. Marquee sign or GTFO, right Henry? (I’m sure we know which he would choose.)

———————-

And now I will act like a kindergartner and show you my latest art-things!

First, we have Tentacular:

These colors are therapeutic. So is striping tentacles with “The Following” on in the background.

This painting measures 12″x5.5″ and is perfect for people who love oceanic things, stripes, or are perhaps looking for immersion therapy to help cure a tentacle phobia. And it can be all yours for a one-time fee!

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Sorry. Wrong commercial.

****

Snacks Part 2!

Remember that terrible Korn song from the 90s that taught us about how wearing ADIDAS
-brand attire meant that we were dreaming all day about sex?

Well, I think they misheard because it’s actually All Day I Dream About Snacks. I mean, who doesn’t? Like right now I might be eating an apple at work but I’m thinking about how I’m going to stick my face in a bag of freshly popped popcorn as soon as I get home tonight. And while I’m eating that, I’ll probably be thinking about PIE.

Because SNACKS.

Anyway. This painting is the second in the SNACKS series; it measures 5×7″ and it’s on canvas, not stretched skin. I will probably wrap it with a bow before mailing it to you. I mean, assuming you are buying it. You ARE buying it, aren’t you??

***

Fudge Nipple Sundae!

The obvious dessert after a long, hot summer’s day of stalking victims. Hang this boob-capped sundae painting on your wall & channel the spirit of Jeffrey Dahmer.

#2 in the “From the Cannibal Kitchen” series.

(Clearly, I’m off my description-writing game.)

***

Somnambulant Birds <---SOLD! Woo!

Because I just really love to paint odd birds.

This pastel piece of paint-thing is varnished and shipped by carrier pigeon. J/K. I use USPS, but sometimes I wonder if avian delivery would be more efficient.

Sometimes, Chooch and I give Henry a break and venture off on our own, except that by “on our own,” I mean “definitely with a chaperone.” Originally, Chooch and I (+ our chaperone Janna) were going to go to see The Secret of NIMH at the Hollywood Theater, because that was one of my favorite childhood movies of all time but no way does it still make me cry, OK? But then I saw that the sun was going to be out all day and I didn’t want to be in a dark theater during that, and it’s all about me anyway so I didn’t really ask Chooch and Janna if that was OK.

Instead, we went to Oakland because I thought it would be fun to show Chooch the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning, which is part of the University of Pittsburgh. (Maybe some people reading this aren’t from here, I don’t know! God.) I’d call it my alma mater, but I didn’t actually graduate and I’m not a liar.

On the drive there, I jokingly said I had to quit college because I became a mom*.

“To who?” Chooch asked, and then within a minute of me posting that exchange on Facebook, someone corrected Chooch’s grammar. Thank god for the Internet. But you know, I guess that’s my fault for typing my conversations verbatim, instead of editing to make my 7-year-old sound like a pretentious grammar douche and not, you know, a 7-year-old. He’s got the rest of his life to learn how to talk like Mr. Belvedere.

*(Anyway, this isn’t true. I quit because I was bored, frustrated and realized that college definitely wasn’t for me. I mean, it didn’t do much to help me, because luk att how turrible i still write-z0rz.)

As soon as I parked the car, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet which was devastating because the plan was to eat lunch there afterward and I’m not going to lie, I was already starving.

When you walk into the Cathedral, it’s like being swallowed by a gothic cavern. There’s this amazing Great Hall that would make Hogwarts’s figurative weener shrink; you set foot in it and it’s like being transported back in time. The Cathedral of Learning was my favorite thing about Pitt. It had been about 6 years since I had gone back, so the novelty of it was definitely there.

You know what else was there? Chooch’s Grand Canyon-esque echo. Just what everyone there wanted: my kid’s ever-running mouth in primitive surround sound.

The audio tour for the Nationality Rooms isn’t free, but the rooms are open to the public regardless so we just took our own tour, renegade-style. Whatever that means. I’m on my fifth cup of coffee. This was just as well, because Chooch’s attention span did not allow us to stay in any one room for more than 3 minutes. (Except once, and it wasn’t even a nationality room; just a regular classroom as non-descript as Henry’s wardrobe.)

Chooch’s attempt at college math. In his head, this made sense.

A ceiling in one of the rooms, the nationality of which I do not recall because I quit caring after the fourth room when I noticed that Chooch was no longer carrying his phone and Bunny (I didn’t even notice that he brought that damn thing!) so we had to backtrack and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s backtracking.

(I just imagined myself having to backtrack in Alaska and I think I’m done with this day now.)

Chooch made a beeline for the blackboard in every room and immediately left his mark. In a lot of the rooms, there was the same writing in Chinese characters, so Janna and I started saying, “Looks like Chinese Chooch was here” and of course Chooch didn’t get it which made it even more fun to say.

We kept trying to get him to look at the shit in each room, but he was under the chalk’s spell. So basically it was for the best that I left my wallet at home and couldn’t pay for the audio tour.

 “Guys, come on.” Sometimes I really have no idea where he gets his independence, but that kid walked around like he owned the place.

Don’t worry, Chalkboard NARCS & Religious Zealots, I erased it.

Sadly, being a non-traditional student (and part-time to boot) didn’t leave me with too many fond memories, though a painting of Copernicus in the Polish room recalled a time when I made Janna enroll in the same Magic, Medicine and Science class, because see above where: I really have no idea where my kid gets his independence. This was back in 2004, Jesus Christ—TEN YEARS AGO. (See? I don’t need no college degree.) Anyway, that class was a piece of shit and our instructor was some young broad named Holly who hated us because we sat in the back of the class with some lady we befriended and we would literally sit there and write shit to each other in our notebooks while Holly and her class pets would go off on tangents about Plato’s Cave.

Anyway, one of the things Holly would make us do was read a million pages of super-dry Galileo bullshit from our overpriced text book and then write an outline, except that she called it some fancy word steeped in academia because “outline” was too pedestrian. Turns out I was a natural at these bullshit papers, and you know who wasn’t? Janna. On the first one we got back, Holly had scribbled angrily in red marker about how Janna had PLAGIARIZED and to this day, this is the best thing that ever happened to me in college. Not making the Dean’s List. Not having my Creative Non-Writing instructor tell me I was her favorite student (hahaha). Not watching my College Algebra teacher repeatedly Windex herself in the face instead of the overhead projector.

No, it was Janna being accused of plagiarizing her HOMEWORK. That was the best fucking day.

Having to PeeSoBad in the Italian room.

 Seriously, this kid. I tell him, “Go stand there so I can take your picture” and he does something Chooch-y every time.

Ladies Room Selfie. Yeah, that’s right. When Henry’s not around, Chooch loafs in the ladies room.

Haha. “Loafs.”

We walked past the room where I had an English Comp class and that made me think about the time Christina was visiting from Cincinnati during the spring of ’05 and she decided to come with me and hang out on campus while I had class. I specifically told her what time class was over and I made sure she had the room number memorized so I EXPECTED her to be waiting outside the door like a good fucking puppy at exactly 3:30.

Of course, she was nowhere to be found, and this was before either of us had a cell phone (I was notoriously anti-cell phone; she was just notoriously poor) so I marched all over the fucking Cathedral, breaking out into a sweat and eventually having to stop into the bathroom to pee because hide and seek has historically always revved up my bladder. Finally, I ran into her as she meandered out of a stairwell, no big deal.

“Oh, was class over early?” she asked casually, BECAUSE THAT BITCH THOUGHT SHE WAS EARLY. Do you know why she thought she was early? Because she never set her watch ahead for daylight savings time and she was actually an hour late because she was too busy lounging outside in the grass, watching people JOUST.

I was only That Mad because everything Christina did made me That Mad.

Thoroughly interested in reading about this giant tome of sheet music. Thank god.

I’d love to see how he sits in his actual 2nd grade class.

I found the aforementioned College Algebra classroom from 2006. “This is where I used to sit while you were in my belly, I mean, sitting next to me in your unhatched pod,” I sighed with maternal warmth to Chooch, who was 100% not interested.

Like so many dummies, I was forced to take remedial college math courses because my cumulative high school math average was not cutting it. (Somehow in high school, they kept putting me in advanced math classes even though I kept telling my guidance counselor that I was bad, just plain no good at math.) But I didn’t hate college math because I had the best instructor ever. Joanne was the fucking shit and quite literally gave me so many “a-ha!” moments from which I definitely would have benefited in high school. Her classes were the only ones I enjoyed going to and actually spoke to the other students. (I’m still friends with one of them IRL, actually. You know, as opposed to just in Toon Town.)

On the first day of that class, we had to go around the room and introduce ourselves. When it was my turn, I blurted out, “AND I JUST FOUND OUT I’M PREGNANT!” Totally taboo to make such a public declaration so soon into the pregnancy but I was so excited. This class was full of older, non-traditional students, so no one really shirked away from me like the younger students did in my geology class, but that might have been because my pregnant, bloated belly got stuck behind a desk one day, and that was when the professor had to go and get me a desk that had a detachable chair. That was a really awesome memory.

Anyway, this particular math class was split in two, but most of us ended up together during the spring semester too, and those sneaky brats, along with Joanne, had a fucking baby shower for me during class one day! (Much to  the chagrin of the men in that class.)

I still get all teared up when I think about it. OK, sorry Janna the Plagiarist, but maybe that’s my favorite college memory.

Report if you see bullying to the chancellor’s office, is what that is supposed to say, but Chooch kept saying “chandelier.” This was after he tried to force his way into said “chandelier’s” office. Thank god it was Sunday.

And locked.

Like real life college students, we were starving and thirsty, so Janna suggested that we go to the basement and see if the vending machines took credit cards but they only took Panther Cards, which are the dumb college card things and Chooch was like, “YOU WENT HERE SO WHERE IS YOUR PANTHER CARD? USE YOUR DAMN PANTHER CARD!” But Mean Henry would never let me put money on my Panther Card because what…I’d use it to buy Adderall? Who knows. And even if I did have one back then, hello, I haven’t been a student since 2008; go get your own Panther Card, Doogie.

Look at me, giving my kid a taste of true college life! Spread your wings, Chooch!

Even though we were ready to collapse with hunger and thirst, we’d have been remiss to leave without taking Chooch to the 36th floor to take in the nauseating view.

Man. What a great afternoon.

****

When we went home to retrieve my wallet, Henry was lounging about like the goddamn Sultan of Brookline.

“I can’t believe you didn’t check in on us, not even once!” I cried.

“I knew where you were,” he said casually, so now I’m convinced he’s having me tailed.

I’ve got nothing important to say (like, when do I ever?), but I wanted to post these pictures because it was nice to be outside for a little bit even the weathermen lied and it was definitely not in the 50s. Still, we decided to be nice owners and let our animal burn off some energy before putting him back in his cage.

And then Henry made a friend. I guess her parents haven’t warned her of the dangers of urban lumberjacks.

#frownoftheday

That hair.

Well, I’m going to peace out because I ate 20 too many birthday cake M&Ms, then used spraypaint in the basement, and now I feel like I might need walk the ol’ fingers down the throat. (#casualbulimic)*

Hope your weekend is just really fucking swell, you guys.

*(FACETIOUSNESS. Though I should hope I’m no one’s role model.)

Every damn day.

• Today, I feel alive. I can’t think of a better way to describe it; but the sun was out and it was balmy AND FRIDAY ON TOP OF ALL THAT. Plus everyone at work was in a super good mood because basically everyone had Really Exciting Plans after work. You know, everyone except us late shift people. But whatever, at least I got a free lunch today.
• I got a free lunch today! Some of us went to Penn Ave Fish Company with the two Australians and the department boss ended up coming along too and she generously picked up the tab. It was exciting for me because I ordered a salmon sandwich, and when the waitress asked me how I wanted it done, I knew to say “medium” because that’s how Henry answers that question on my behalf. Then my co-worker Cheryl was asked the same question and was like, “What do you mean? I want it cooked” and then proceeded to talk for another 5 minutes about how she’s never been asked that and I was internally gloating because duh.
• I watched the first episode of season 2 of Hannibal today and realized that I somehow missed the last episode of season 1 because I was pretty fucking lost. <–I’M SO INTERESTING!
  • You know what else I watched this week? (OMG TV TALK!) I watched “Those Who Kill” which apparently has received abysmal reviews but I actually really liked it and not just because it was filmed in Pittsburgh, which I hadn’t even heard about until recently when I saw an article where Chloe Sevigny was raving about Pittsburgh. “I had no idea she was here!” I cried to Henry. “Yeah, I can’t believe she didn’t call you,” he mumbled. And then I asked him if he knew she was an intern for Sassy back in the day and he was like, “Why the fuck would I know that?” And I can’t believe I just typed so many sentences about her because honestly, I don’t really care about her either way. But I thought that show was good, so if you want to see what my dumb city looks like, you should watch it. It’s on A&E Monday nights after Bates Motel, word.

Every damn night.

•  For some reason, a lot of people at work this week asked me what I’m doing for St. Patrick’s Day. Because of my dumb name, I guess. (I’m not even Irish!) I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because of the time my step-dad threw a fork at me on St. Patrick’s Day. But instead of getting into some awkward yarn about abuse, I just told everyone that I was scarred from all the years of being made fun of for Erin Go “Bra.” (Except for Barb; she got the real story. It happened so long ago that I actually laugh when I tell it now but Barb had this horrified expression on her face. For some reason, that made me laugh harder.)

My Stern Profile (& Eyebrow Piercing Scar)

•  Every morning, I check the weather before Chooch and I step out into the shitty winter world. Yesterday’s weather didn’t seem too bone-chilling, so I told Chooch he could ditch the hat and gloves for once. And then we started walking and OMGCOLD. Our cheeks were red by the time we made it to school and I said, “I swear when I checked the weather, it said it was like 29 degrees!” “THAT WAS PROBABLY THE HIGH!” Chooch yelled at me. God, then check the weather yourself next time!!!
• Speaking of Chooch, I got him to agree to do a bi-monthly “Consulting Chooch” guest post, where he will answer questions and give life advice.
•   Last night, Henry and I were watching the hockey game when I shouted, “I KNOW WHAT I’M PAINTING NEXT! A sundae.” Henry mumbled, “Ok.” I went on to say, “But instead of a cherry, there’s going to be A NIPPLE on top!” Henry groaned. “No! It’s going to be black person’s nipple, with some of the skin still around it so it looks like chocolate syrup,” I added, actually crying at this point. “You’re disgusting,” Henry spat.
  • After painting an ice cream cone with teeth in it to add to the eyeball-laden cherry pie and my upcoming Fudge Nipple Sundae, I decided that this particular series of paintings should be called “From the Kitchen of Jeffrey Dahmer.” I’m pretty stoked on it.

Chooch finally got to bring home the “Self-Portrait” he did at school last fall and that motherfucker went right into a frame. I MEAN, LOOK AT IT. It’s so weird, so Chooch.

• The other night, my eyes accidentally looked at a headline that said Kim Kardashian is the Marilyn Monroe of our time. Am I dead?
• Sunday afternoon, Chooch came over to the couch and casually asked, “So…you watching the Oscars tonight? I heard Ellen is hosting again.” Um…no, and also, who are you? I guess people were chatting about it on Minecraft? I didn’t have to watch the Oscars anyway, because 3/4 of my Facebook feed and also my CNN notifications (WTF?) alerted me to everything I “missed.”
  • Like all that Idina Whatsherfuck bullshit. I started to wonder if the reason I just don’t get that whole Frozen/”Let It Go” fad is because I don’t have a kid, but then I remembered I have a kid. So…
• I was excited today at lunch to finally get a chance to ask the Boy Australian about being in a band (he was very vague about it though) and then I asked him if he knows Hands Like Houses BECAUSE THEY ARE FROM CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA SO HE MUST, RIGHT? No, he hasn’t heard of them. The scene kid in me says we can’t be friends, but the quasi-grown-up in me says to maybe give him another chance. He seems nice enough. I like the Girl One too! She is really cute and laughs a lot. I wonder if she goes into the bathroom and blogs about all the dumb things she hears Barb say all day long, though.
• Henry cleaned out my closet the other night (literally, I mean. I still have tons of metaphorical skeletons in my psychic closet, don’t worry) and kept texting me pictures of all the embarrassing shit he was finding, because my closet is essentially my childhood bedroom stuffed into a bunch of boxes. Like a petition I started in 8th grades when Jason Jones wouldn’t go out with me because “skaters don’t date wiggers” and I was like “OMG I am not a wigger” even though I totally was, I just used different names for it because that word is so fucking offensive. Meanwhile, Jason was really just trying to find a nice way of saying, “I don’t want to date you because you’re fat and have braces, but worst of all, YOU ARE REALLY FUCKING OBNOXIOUS.” Because I really was. Not anymore, though, right guys?
  • One night, Jason came up in conversation and I was telling Henry about how he left my school to go to [Insert Pittsburgh All Boys School] but I couldn’t find him on Facebook, and Henry was all, “Uh, did you try searching for “Jason Jones/[Insert Pittsburgh All Boys School]” AND BINGO, I FOUND HIM. Henry is the best stalker-partner. Anyway, BULLET DODGED for real. He’s weird-looking now. I think he probably was back then, too, honestly.

LOOK WHAT ELSE HENRY FOUND! A creepy nude painting that my death row pen pal Greg made for me in 2004! Henry was just as disgruntled about it this time around too, because “STOP GIVING PRISONERS PICTURES OF US!” I don’t know if I should be scared or 100% flattered that Greg had to imagine me naked in order to paint this. Don’t answer that.

• I feel like I should end on that note. How do you come back from that? You don’t.

 I really like doing these weekly bullet point posts, you guys. IT HELPS ME GET SOME SHIT OFF MY CHEST.

This song recalls a time when my closet may have contained quite a bit of crushed velvet. I still love it so much.

The song. And crushed velvet.

Thinking about calling off work and finding a foggy forest to run in.

Marcy was supposed to go to the vet tonight—she goes once every other month to get an antibiotic shot for her tumor-thing :(—but Henry said that she was hiding under our bed so he had to reschedule so she wouldn’t get stressed out. He said she was hanging out downstairs all night and he hadn’t even brought out her carrier yet. HOW DOES SHE KNOW THESE THINGS. When I used to make her grooming appointments, she would GLARE at me while I was on the phone and then stalk off to stew somewhere alone. I mean, glaring at me is not unusual for her, but still. Cats are fucking smart.

Here she is sun-bathing. (Can you imagine if I had a legit projector and made everyone come over to watch slides of Marcy licking herself and sleeping? That would be fantastic.)

It’s weird only having one cat. Marcy is totally up our asses now which never would have happened before. She follows me around everywhere in the mornings and even shows an inkling of interest in Chooch. Again, never would have happened before.

Granted, she’s not exactly rubbing against my ankles in a purring fit. But she’s not ignoring me like she typically would, either! I think she’s just trying to make me even more attached to her so when she dies, it’ll hurt me even more. She always has an agenda. ALWAYS. God, why do I keep falling for it.

Meanwhile, one of the choices Chooch had for his science project was to survey his family members  regarding their music preferences, whcih of course filled me with glee. Chooch, always contrary, was all, “I don’t want to do that one,” because god forbid Mommy is ever fucking happy. But I just kept whining until he yelled FINE and was just going to put down “rock” for both Henry and me; actually, he wanted to put country for Henry and Henry was all, “I don’t know why you two are laughing like that; it’s not THAT funny when people like country music.”

(Newsflash: Henry went through a country music phase and LOOOOVED Martina McBride, apparently. Thank god that was before my time.)

I think Chooch should have listed “nu-metal & Ted Nugent” for Henry, but whatever. I’m not the stupid surveyor.

Chooch was royally irritated when I kept rattling off one genre after another sub-genre. He wrote down the first five I spat at him, but I WASN’T EVEN FINISHED! Ugh, I like talking about music and I nearly choked on my saliva at the opportunity. Thanks for kicking my soapbox out from under me, Chooch.

And then of course, Marcy: silence.

Sorry, this can’t wait until tomorrow. Jonny Craig has a new band and they just posted and excuse me but now I need to go outside and run around in the 9 degree night with no coat on, bye.

Hopefully I’m not being too annoying with my painting updates; it’s such a fine line and sometimes I get too excited to share things like a Kindergartner to notice if I’m being ridiculous or not…I think I should probably just err on the side of caution and assume that I am.

Once all this horrendous winter weather subsides, I will probably be way less prolific, so there’s always hope for the future.

“Storming Calzones.” (This one is no longer available, but I wanted to share it because it makes me LOL.)

Custom “Bat Room” sign.

I can’t explain it, but making these little guys is extremely soothing for me.

Strangely, during the grand opening of this little boutique in Pittsburgh called Wildcard, all of my bathroom plaques sold out. I don’t know exactly why they’re so popular, but I really enjoy making them so it’s a good thing!

I also enjoy painting mixtapes.

The other night, I was going through all my inactive listings on Etsy, because there are a handful of pieces that I still have laying around. I saw some old favorites and decided to offer made-to-order versions of them, like Bunch O Balloons:

And Sigmund!

I’m on a “Raining [Objects]” kick, obvi.

Look, I know I’m not churning out masterpieces here, but it’s fun and it makes Chooch smile (well, depending on his mood). I like making colorful things (and then fucking it up with something gross, as Henry laments).

But these ones aren’t gross. For now, anyway. I’m still on my gross food kick.

**************

In other news, I finally updated my “about” page after 7 years. Of course, it’s only public on the mobile site because I don’t know how to get the link on my sidebar, but you should be able to access it by clicking here.

I’m the only one awake in my house right now, so instead of sullenly staring out the window at the SNOW, I figured I could spin some yarns about the shit we did yesterday. Because how will you ever sleep not knowing every detail about my lame life.

Chooch has his piano lessons every Saturday at noon. It used to be at 11 but then Cheryl moved it back an hour and I rejoiced because sometimes it’s nice to lay around like a sloth on Saturday mornings. I know my kid’s attention span, so I’m kind of surprised that he not only makes it through the hour long lessons without his brain exploding, but that he actually seems to enjoy it (and he even practices on his own!). He’s getting comfortable enough with Cheryl now that he gets kind of argumentative with her. Because he knows everything, you know. Like, I sit there and try to read my book*, but then I get distracted by the arguing. She was like, “Here, you play this song and I’ll sing along” so that happened but Chooch for some reason got really irritated by her singing (she sings like a normal person, not a dwarf swallowing pine cones like that Passenger guy) so he made this disgruntled noise and said, “Or, how about I play this AND I sing.” He’s such a goddamn dick sometime.

Then she made the mistake of telling him he’s a natural talent, so I’m sure we’ll be hearing all about that until the end of time.

*(I’ve been on the same page of “Broke Down Horses” for weeks, it seems. This book is so boring, it’s no wonder it’s been sitting around my house, unread, since 2009. I really liked Jeannette Walls’ other book, “Glass Castle,” so I’m pretty disappointed. I’m on page 70. Should I just quit? I mean, I quit everything else!)

After the lesson, our chauffeur Henry picked us up and we ate lunch at Station Street Hot Dogs which I love because they have veggie versions of pretty much everything (and it’s Kevin Sousa’s, my Pittsburgh chef-crush). My favorite is the Devil Dog, which is loaded with egg salad and potato chips (a fucking picnic in your palm!), but yesterday I opted for the veggie chili dog because it has cheese curd on it and I woke up yesterday really wanted to roll some balls of cheese curd around my mouth. (Not actually.)

I forgot that I dislike onions.

Anyway, after we ordered at the counter, the cashier asked Henry what name to use for the order.

“Henry,” he said, of course.

“Eric?” she repeated.

AND HE WAS LIKE SURE. So then the hot dog maker called “Eric?” when our order was done and Henry was like “That’s us” and fetched our hot dogs like a good Eric. It wasn’t that funny, BUT IT WAS THAT FUNNY. I had to spin around on my stool so no one would see me cracking up alone, because why wouldn’t Henry correct that lady when she misheard his name? (Asks the girl who eats tomatoes & walks extra laps in the cemetery because speaking up is hard work.)

“It’s not that funny,” Henry mumbled when he slid my hot dog over to me.

Henry’s Hot Dog Hole. I was going to start calling him Eric all day, but Eric’s Hot Dog Hole just doesn’t satisfy my psychotic need to alliterate everything.

Then we came home. Then we went to the craft store so I could get shit for my fake art. Then we went to my new favorite cookie place, Give Mia Cookie, and then and then and then! We acted like we had never seen or eaten a cookie before and tried to get Henry to buy it all. Seriously, if you live in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, or if you live elsewhere in Pittsburgh and don’t have a bridge-crossing stick up your ass, go buy some cookies from this place!

After eating too many cookies (and brownies; they brought out a tray of fresh brownies right as Henry was about to pay and Chooch and I screamed, “BUT, BROWNIES!!!” so then we got brownies too because Henry still is moderately affected by our adorable spoiled brat syndrome), we went right down the street to the South Park Skating Rink, a place I haven’t been in honestly like 20 years, what the fuck—how did I get old? It was my friend John’s daughter Abby’s birthday party, and I was really nervous about this because you might remember when we went to her party last year at the bowling alley and Henry tried to murder me with a bowling ball. I didn’t even want to think about the horrible “accidents” he could cause on an ice rink.

Thinking about it.

As we walked into the skate rink, I smiled and said dreamily, “Wow, I got in so many fights in this place.”

“Why?” Chooch asked.

“Because your mom’s a brat,” Henry sighed. MORE LIKE BECAUSE MOMMY WAS A THUG, YO.

My relationship with ice skating is shoddy at best. I spent almost every winter weekend in 9th and 10th grade at this rink, but I sure as shit wasn’t skating. I was flirting, y’all. (I actually had a personality back then.) Sometimes I would go through the motions of slapping skates to my feet, but I never made it much further than the baby rink. It always hurt my ankles and I was never very good at it. I was one of those wall-clingers that I make fun of at the roller rink.

But I wanted to try it again because I didn’t want to just stand around like a doof. But I should have known that it was going to be a failure from the get-go when they skate people kept giving me awful skates that were made for giants and gave my Princess Complex a reason to come out roaring like a bear, and Henry just looooves when that happens in public, because who doesn’t like to be seen with a 34-year-old spoiled fucking brat?

Finally, I let the skates win and dejectedly followed Henry and Chooch out to the baby rink. This was Chooch’s first time ice skating and he was walking around like he was wearing penny loafers, no big deal. He went around the baby rink once and was like, “OK, I got this” and left for the big rink while I was still paralyzed on the first square foot of ice I stepped on inside the baby rink. Henry had to help me back out.

Even after that, I was still going to try to skate on the big rink, especially after seeing Chooch fearlessly step onto it. But I never made it. I stood at the rink-opening, contemplating it, but visions of falling and having Henry skate over my neck kept ice-dancing through my head so I stomped back inside and ripped off the skates.

With just the tiniest smidge of attitude, I said to the skate rental boy, “I’ll stick with roller skating.” Then I slid the skates at him in a huff, forgetting I had to wait there for him to return my fucking shoes to me.

Oh, the joy of sliding my green-striped feet back into my TOMS. None of the other parents were skating, so fuck it, right?

I went back outside to watch Henry forget that he’s a warehouse manager and not Johnny Weir, but he didn’t last much longer either, stating “foot problems” as the reason, when we all know it’s because his hemorrhoids were probably becoming enflamed. So we were standing there, watching the kids skate, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned around just in time to see a white puffy coat and a flash of blond hair whizz past me, and immediately I recognized her as someone I went to high school with.

Now, normal Erin fashion would be to form a face-curtain with my hair and then spend the remaining time at the party trying to wedge myself inside Henry’s armpit. But instead, I left Henry without a word and marched over to where the girl was standing, because this was one of my best childhood friends of all time.

Turns out she had recently moved back to Pittsburgh and her son is in Abby’s class, so they were here for the same party. So fucking random. I think the last time I talked to her, we were 19 or so. We had slowly grown apart during high school, not because of any certain drama or anything, but we just went different directions. And it probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to reconnect with a lost friend in the age of Facebook, but she isn’t on Facebook. God, that must be nice!

So I totally ditched Henry and talked to Spring for the rest of the party. Henry didn’t mind though because he and John were talking about boring man things, like Home Depot sales and NCIS probably.

“Are you still artsy?” Spring asked me, and it made me laugh because back then all I ever did was write and draw and now I still do, but just in very different ways, I guess. So I don’t know if I really consider myself “artsy.” I do tech support at a law firm, for Christ’s sake. That’s about as un-artsy as it gets. But I appreciate that this is how I was remembered.

And then the subject of my family came up, which is always a party foul. I guess her mom runs into my dad sometimes, so Spring knows a little about what’s been going on, and so we talked about how my mom is not the woman she used to be and how everything went to hell after my pappap died.

“He was the glue that held your family together,” Spring said knowingly. And then she went on to talk about how wonderful my mom was to her when we were growing up, and it made me so goddamn sad, because my mom used to be the fucking shit. I can’t tell you how many times she helped out my friends, how generous she was, and how much fun we used to have with her. She wasn’t “Mrs. Kelly” to anyone, she was Val. But you know what I realized though, after thinking about this all last night? She still sucked at being a mom, even back then when she still had most of her sanity. She was just good at throwing her money around and rejecting responsibility, which obviously was amazingly cool and fascinating in the eyes of a teenager. But sometimes I needed her to be a mom. Like when I was heart broken but she said I didn’t know what a problem was. Or when I was legitimately sick and she kept laughing and saying I was a hypochondriac. Or when my pappap died and I needed to mourn with her but she had completely shut down.

Family drama out of the way, we spent the rest of the party reminiscing about all the time we spent in the “haunted” woods behind my house (for real though, it could be haunted), roller-skating in my basement, and how Spring stepped on a yellow jacket nest at my dad’s campground.

“Did you ever legally change your name to Emerald?” Spring laughed. I totally forgot about that! It was my poetry pen name. You know how I make fake art now? Well in high school, I wrote fake poems. I even trained two teachers to call me Emerald in class! (Granted, one was a gym teacher…)

Emerald Appledale…now to find a Pudgy Mom porno to star in.

We kept trying to tell our respective sons about how we were best friends when we were their age, but they didn’t give a shit.

Eventually, everyone went back inside to the party room to have pizza. I was getting anxious because it seemed like every child was going for the cheese pizza and I started wringing my hands because what if they ran out of cheese and I had to pick off sausage?! So I got up and stood in line with the kids.

“I just want to make sure all the kids get a piece first,” John said as I was doing the Nervous Jig in line.

“John, I AM a kid,” I argued.

“This is true,” he said, handing me a plate. And that is how I got to eat pizza before any of the grown-ups.

Later, he was telling me and Henry about how his teenaged daughter was driving him nuts.

“It only gets worse,” Henry counseled, subtly jabbing a thumb toward me.

As the party started to disperse, Chooch and John’s son Gavin were running around. John and I had both told them multiple times not to run around up there, but god forbid kids should listen. So Chooch got up and started running, causing Gavin to immediately get the itch to chase him. However, Gavin was running in his socks and inevitably slipped, banging his head off the concrete floor. OMG we are like a black cloud at their parties! Two years ago at Gavin’s party, Chooch and Gavin were running around and Chooch accidentally pushed him down a hill. Henry, as mentioned earlier, almost killed me at Abby’s party last year. And now this.

I really thought we were going to make it out of there without incident! It’s a miracle that still invite us to their parties.