It’s not that I do it intentionally, but I do go through phases where I just don’t really see my friends very often. We still text, etc. but sometimes the good, old-fashioned face-time is lacking.

Lately though, I’ve been getting in some quality hangs and I’m starting to remember what it felt like before I suddenly developed “social anxiety” which I’m not even sure I really have, to be honest. I was going to make some comment at this juncture about how it’s really Henry keeping me under his thumb but who would even believe that? For real though, December has been rife with good people!

In addition to Vintage Snack Attack, here are some more casual hang-outs I would like to be remembering:

1. Indian Foods with Kara and Brian

Sometime ago, Brian and I randomly became friends via Facebook. We have quite a few mutual friends, so I guess it wasn’t all that random. But it was one of those deals where we friended each other and then never interacted. If we’re being honest, I thought he was too cool and popular for a lame-bag like me, so I would just occasionally like his posts but never comment, because I can’t hang with the big dogs.

I even struggle with the little dogs.

But then one day, Brian sent me a message and was like “PLEASE DON’T GET CREEPED OUT, BUT…” and already he had my interest because I love being creeped out. Anyway, he thinks that Henry might be his long-lost older brother because there is a resemblance that he just can’t un-see, and that is how the Facebook ice was broken. Plus, it turns out he has known my pal Kara for like, ever, so we decided that we all needed to go out to lunch. (We realized that we were both at Kara’s wedding in 2008 before we knew each other! Pittsburgh is small as fuck.)

Basically, what is happening here is that Brian is just going through me to become friends with Henry. And it’s cool. This is how it works. EVERYONE LOVES HENRY MORE THAN ME.

(That’s not a chip on my shoulder. That’s just a newly-formed dent from all the extreme KpopX arm moves.)

We were originally going to go to Zenith, but they were closed for a dumb private party, ugh. So Brian suggested Cafe Delhi in Carnegie because it’s really good and also because he can just walk to it. #selfish Turns out we all benefited from his selfishness though, because Cafe Delhi’s curry was like “Please fill a water park with this and let me intertube my way to obesity!” levels of greatness.

Brian took this picture of my Sophia ring (which I’m posting here without his permission because I do what I want on the Internet), which escalated fast to the point where he is basically my manager trying to launch my hand-modeling career.

Anyway, Brian was just as cool and funny in person and he seemed to not think I was a complete dud! Now I guess I have to let him meet Henry.

Also, it was wonderful spending time with Kara in a setting where we could actually talk without me fussing over a table full of gelatin or our kids running around in flames.

2. Brunch with Lisa, oui oui

I was super excited last Saturday when Lisa changed her mind at the last minute and said, “No, instead of you coming over here to hang out, let’s go out!” I love hanging out with Lisa even if it’s just lounging around her house with coffee, but we really don’t go out very often (I get it — I had a toddler once!) so this was like a big deal. We decided to go to Tartine for some French culture. I was happy because right away, our waitress complimented my sweater and not Lisa’s.

“Go ahead,” Lisa sighed, and I frantically posted about it on Facebook. This is kind of our thing — anytime someone likes something of mine and not Lisa’s, I blow it out of proportion, and I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, that seems very out of character for you, Leo Erin.”

One of my favorite stories is from when Lisa and I went to Eat n Park during one of her visits home when she was living in Colorado, and the waitress approved of my dessert but not Lisa’s:

July 2007

Lisa temporarily resides in Colorado so I was excited to get to see her Wednesday afternoon during her Pittsburgh visit. We walked down the street to Eat n Park for coffee and dessert, the perfect pre-work sugar fix.

Our waitress Barb was an older woman with the easy-to-talk-to charm of a seasoned server.

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Lisa immediately overshadowed me with her big smile and confident voice.

“I’ll have the chocolate cake!” Lisa cheerfully ordered.

Barb smiled and jotted it down.

“And I’ll have the blackberry pie with ice cream,” I ordered not as cheerfully, but I sort of smiled. Which is big for me.

Barb’s body shook with pleasure. “Yes! Good choice!” she sang as she scratched my order on her pad with a flourish. “That’s my favorite!”

I smirked at Lisa after Barb retreated. “She likes me better than you,” I chided.

“What makes your pie so much better than my chocolate cake? I mean, it’s chocolate cake!” Lisa’s visage melted into a befuddled glaze.

“Chocolate cake is a menu mainstay, Lisa. My pie is a seasonal delight.” This seemed to distract Lisa long enough for me to continue droning on about my life’s conundrums.

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It’s nice to have counseling ears across from me sometimes.

Barb returned with our desserts and the reminder than I am, and always will be, better than Lisa. She set down Lisa’s plate with an unremarkable motion, but then turned to me with the fanfare of a queen’s arrival as she gently placed my pie beneath my fat face and took a step back.

“Look at that pie, would you? Oh, I hope you will enjoy it. It really is the best!”

I hesitated before crushing into the crisp sugary crust, unsure if Barb was going to stand there and gawk. She smiled once more and carried on with her rounds of coffee refills.

Lisa was absently slapping her cake with the back of her fork, scowling at me. “Enjoy your freaking pie,” she mimicked.

During our meal, Barb came back later with our separate checks. She was delighted to tell me that my check was special. “Lookie here! There’s a number at the bottom to call and complete a real short survey. Then you write down the code they give you and bring this back next time for a two dollar discount!” She clapped her hands together and held them under her chin, waiting for me to call my mommy and thank her for birthing me so that I could one day experience the jubilation of getting an Eat n Park survey check.

I feigned happiness for the sake of Lisa’s plummeting self-worth. “It’s because I was smart enough to order the delicious pie and not the boring cake,” using my words to further wheedle away at her ordering inadequacies.

We continued to pick away at our desserts and imbibe (too much) coffee, when Lisa spilled her water all over the table. Barb came running over with her rag and we all tried to make light of Lisa’s fumbling fingers.

“At least it didn’t get on her pie,” Barb sighed.

#NEVERFORGET

Anyway, Lisa and I both enjoyed our French brunches (she has some kind of ham crepes, but I had the Tartine Poire, into which I really wish I could face-plant right this very moment) and I made some Drake-inspired comment about how we started at Denny’s now we here, which was probably only funny to me but Lisa politely laughed anyway.

Our waitress looked so much like Shelley Hennig from Teen Wolf (and ex-Days of Our Lives!) that I actually wondered if it really was her and we were being secretly filmed for some “celebs doing blue-collared jobs” reality show. Lisa of course didn’t know who that was because she’s an adult, so I showed her a picture on my phone and even she agreed that it was uncanny and Lisa and I usually don’t agree on things like that, so this was a big day.

Bertrand, the cutest restaurant owner of all time.

Lisa and I definitely need to do this more often. Or at least have Henry make us fancy French breakfast shit.

3. Pittsburgh Hangs w/ Jason

Jason was visiting from Cleveland and penciled us in for a Saturday evening hang sesh. He was already in Dormont, so Henry suggested that we just go to Tom’s Diner, because it was raining really hard and who wants to drive in that shit, right?

I don’t think we have ever had the pleasure of seeing Jason so many times in one year — three times in the span of a month is pretty good! I guess this makes up for last March when I was in Cleveland with Janna for the Howard Jones show and completely dropped the ball on meeting up with him.

What I really want to remember about this night is how WELL-BEHAVED Chooch was being! I mean, not that he’s a menace, usually, but sometimes he can get ornery if the attention isn’t on him (he must get that from Henry). Chooch is a chronic interrupter. Have you met me? This is my GREATEST PET PEEVE. I hate being interrupted. Shut your fucking mouth and wait your turn. Put it on my gravestone for Christ’s sake, I don’t fucking care!

This is one of the reasons Chooch and I fight so much, is because he can’t just wait his turn to speak. He is obsessed with hearing his own voice! So I’m always flipping out and he’s just like, “THIS CAN’T WAIT!” and guess what?! Not once in however-long-he’s-known-words has it ever been “important” or an “emergency.” So I get on edge sometimes when he’s with us and we’re hanging out with people who don’t have kids, because you just never know.

But he was a real pleasure on this night, in that booth at Tom’s Diner, and he ate all of his idiotic food and actually seemed enrapt in everything Jason was talking about and then it occurred to me: of course he was enrapt. Literally all we talked about the whole time was music and the music industry and the magazine and Warped Tour. Why wouldn’t he be enrapt!? He is my kid!

And then Jason asked him what he’s been listening to lately, which launched a conversation about Bring Me the Horizon and Twenty-One Pilots. I don’t think I ever really had anyone to talk to about music when I was a kid, so it’s cool that Chooch does.

God, Chooch has it all.

I didn’t subject Jason to any pictures this time, but Chooch followed Henry into the bathroom and snagged this gem:

I think my favorite part of Tom’s was when Jason reluctantly promised that he would give the entire Carly Rae Jepsen E.MO.TION record an honest spin.

Later, I realized that the reason Chooch was being so quiet and respectable is because he was sick. Whatever, I’ll take it!

Here’s hoping January brings some more quality hang-times.

I was home alone on Christmas Eve, feeling slightly under the weather.  Naturally this meant I felt compelled to exercise. I went to YouTube because there was a hip hop workout I did the other day and I wanted to see if that broad had any others. When I typed in her name, even though she’s Spanish, one of the first things that came up was SUPER FUN K-POP DANCE WORKOUT.

Oh shit, hold the phone, I screamed out loud to Trudy and my succulents. This was bound to be good. Plus, I went through a heavy k-pop/j-pop phase back in 1999-2002 when I used to get numerous foreign TV channels, like ZeeTV, included in my cable package (then they switched those to premium, good one, Comcast). My favorite programming was obviously the music videos, followed closely by the soap operas. But the music videos were like soap operas in and of themselves — especially the slow jams, so depressing and full of tragedy. I kept a blank tape in the VCR so I could record my favorite videos. Sometimes I would even opt to stay home when my friends were going out to the bar, because I was in so deep.

The bars don’t play k-pop, you guys.

My all-time favorite was Lee Juno’s “Return of the King of Dance.” Years later, I found the CD on some Asian music webstore, and I was sorely disappointed when it arrived and I realized that that was the only good song on the whole disc.

OK, so back to Christmas Eve. When I saw this workout video on YouTube, I forgot all about the coughing fits I had been having all evening and immediately pressed play to be sucked into a world of shiny Korean choreography.

IT IS A GODDAMN DREAM.

And somehow, I’m actually able to do it! I am never able to do any dance-based exercise workouts. Don’t even come near me with Zumba. I will fall and break my face. But k-pop fitness? It’s like it was MADE FOR ME.

My gateway into this niche of the fitness industry was through YouTube user SarahKayPop. She puts together 35 minute compilations of various k-pop dances that are on YouTube, and she even throws in some of her own in there too, which she performs in her bedroom. Not intimate at all. But through Sarah, I found the official KpopX Fitness channel and it hasn’t just consumed me—it has carefully digested me and shit me out as a better, more Korean version of myself.  It is honestly the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, all I talk about at work, and how I end my days — pushing the coffee table out of the way and k-popping my fat face off.

I AM SO GOOD AT IT!

And I know this will come as a huge shock, but I’m following KpopX on Instagram now and have basically imprinted with their creator, #MaddyLim.

“Who’s that?” Henry mumbled last night during my post-dance routine of continuing to scour YouTube for the next day’s lineup while Henry watches with glazed eyes from the couch.

“THAT’S #MADDYLIM, THE CREATOR OF KPOPX!” I screamed. How did he not know this by now? But then he was laughing, which means that he was just trying to piss me off, which is really stupid considering my muscles are now inflated with gangnam style and cat ears.

I don’t have a huge floppy bow yet but Henry will make me one. He hasn’t said that he will yet, but come on.

One of my favorite moves requires one to put the hands together in the shape of a heart above the head and then lean forward while furiously shuffling the feet. It probably burns at least three Jollypong bag’s worth of calories. I tried to teach this move to Glenn on Monday morning but he wouldn’t get up from his desk, saying that it was “stupid” and telling me to “stop.”

I can’t explain how it makes me feel,  but I imagine rainbows squirting out of my feet and cartoon birds fluttering out of my armpits. So at least you know how it looks. I think that I need to set up some cardboard cutouts of toadstools around the room, though. And I should probably also get a nurse costume. (One of the instructors wears one, OK?!)

The other day at work, I went to the official KpopX website and learned that I can become a certified instructor online for only $189.99! Then I tried to order one of their official shirts, but shipping to the US is not available! WHAT WHY!? So now, just like when I didn’t get a Chiodos hoodie for Xmas 2007, I’ll have to make my own I guess.

And even though I’m not certified yet, I took liberties and taught Henry how to do this exhilarating and mildly perverse routine to Psy’s pony-play inspired hit “Daddy.” He was not filled with such wow like I was, though. I guess KpopX isn’t for everyone, surprisingly.

But so far, my favorite routine is to the crowd-pleasing banger “Hot Issue” by 4 Minute. I might know the moves by heart now, is all I’m saying. That song came on the other night when I was forcing Henry to fall asleep to a k-pop Spotify playlist and I nearly flipped him out of the bed, that’s how hyper I became. IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING JAM.

****

“You have a really addictive personality,” Amber² laughed after I gushed about KpopX on a boring Tuesday afternoon at work.

“Yeah,” Todd agreed. “You go from one thing to the next so fast! For example, you never talk about your plants anymore.”

YES I DO AND THEY’RE SUCCULENTS OK.

****

Henry came home from the store last night when I was in the middle of a “Big Bang” routine and I went ape shit on him for corrupting my zone.

“I’m sorry!” he yelled. “I didn’t think you would STILL be kpopping!” Bitch please, I was going on 75 minutes straight by then. Maybe call ahead next time.

I also really like the k-pop routines by Crazy Sock TV, in case you care.

Sorry Paul Eugene, but I’m putting a moratorium on the gospel aerobics. Jesus ain’t got shit on these k-pop bitches.

Chooch got his main present before Christmas (that bed thing), and while he was over the moon* about it, I was still worried about actual Christmas Day, in terms of “shit for him to open.”

*(Oh my god, what an old lady thing to say.)

He still had one more decent present left (a TV for his room), and several little things like CDs, a Five Nights At Freddy’s backpack from Hot Topic, and a Bluetooth speaker so that he can listen to Spotify in his room. So like, not super junky presents by any means, but I would have been breaking the good China over my mom’s face if there were any less than 30 gifts under the tree for me when I was a kid.

I WAS SPOILED, OK? I’m (mostly) reformed now so I have no problem admitting this.

Creepy-ass face, ugh.

But shit, you guys. Turns out my kid is actually pretty grateful. He seemed extremely appreciative of all the stuff, even the lame crap Henry picked out, and didn’t once peer under Trudy’s sweater and spit, “IS THAT ALL!?”

Not that I ever did that.

My family’s Christmas tree didn’t wear a sweater.

I’m not going to lie, I was really excited for him to open one present in particular:

I couldn’t resist wrapping up Doll! However, children are now born with a firm grasp on Reverse Psychology, so he has been acting like he and Doll are BFFs lately, but that will not deter me. I know deep down, he is still sickened by her charred face.

As evidenced when he tossed his backpack on top of her a few minutes later and mumbled, “I can’t look at your face anymore, Doll.” So the new plan is to stall my mission for a little bit until he starts to forget, and then BAM.

DOLL STRIKES AGAIN.

Thank god he has a good sense of humor, because he was just as excited to read the gift tags as he was opening the actual present. Since he doesn’t believe in Santa anymore, I get great joy out of making up random people for the “from” part of the gift tags.

It’s always an inside joke, too, and he thinks it’s so hilarious.

(OK SO DO I.)

For example, his TV was from Paul Eugene, the gospel aerobics instructor. And Donna gifted him Doll. He even got something from NHL player Shane Doan, an inside joke we share from the first hockey game I took Chooch to last year. Henry kept saying he didn’t get it and Chooch and I were like, “NO SHIT BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T THERE.” God, go back to ‘Nam, Henry.

Circa Survive, ya’ll. My kid has good taste in music.

In his stocking, he got a ticket for the Never Shout Never show on Valentine’s Day and several scratch offs, on which he won $30 — I never win on scratch offs!  Chooch is a huge lottery fanatic, so he was definitely not hating this Christmas.

Then Henry set up his TV, which comes with Roku, so basically we never see him anymore.

I honestly didn’t even know what else to get him, anyway. He’s at that weird age where he doesn’t play with toys anymore (RIP Imaginex sets) and I didn’t even see any board games that looked exciting when we were at Target. (And by “exciting” I mean “something that I could play without losing my temper”.)

“All I need is love,” Chooch said in a perfect Shirley Temple, and we all started cracking the fuck up.

Later on in the evening, we went to my dad’s house. Henry brought a carrot pecan pie he had baked that day and I brought a bottle of spiced wine. My dad and brothers had already eaten, so Henry and I just kind of sat there with growling stomachs, uncomfortably watching an Impractical Jokers marathon with my dad and brother Ryan.

Until Corey came barreling down the steps and asked, “IS THIS THE PIE!?” And then thankfully declared he was having a piece so then I had a piece too and it was better than any pumpkin or sweet potato pie I’ve ever had, tell that to that guy who thinks Patti Labelle’s shitty Walmart sweet potato pie is the greatest.

Because it ain’t got SHIT on Henry’s carrot pie, bitches.

Go cry to your mama about it.

Anyway, yes, that is how awkward and not-belonging I feel in my own dad’s house, that I don’t even feel like I can help myself to my own pie without Corey doing it first.

I guess when you only see your dad once or twice a year, that’s just how it goes.

Some visits are way better than others though, and we’ll tell stories and crack up. But this time, it just felt off and only reenforced my stigma of not being welcome anywhere.

It was hard not to think that this was the fifth anniversary of the last fight I had with my mom, the fight on Christmas that turned into 5 years of not speaking.

Five years and counting.

I try to be positive and enjoy the time I have with Henry and Chooch, but sometimes I just can’t help but wish I had a family that wanted to see me on Christmas.

Meanwhile, my dad had just noticed for the first time that I have tattoos on my fingers (five years later) and made some almost silent grunt of disapproval, but don’t worry — I caught it! About the time he started talking politics is when I started gathering my stuff to leave.

“What do you think about Trump? Oh, don’t tell me you’re voting for HILLARY!?”

NOPE, NOT DOING THIS ON XMAS.

Man, I love my dad but sometimes the vibe in his house is just really tense. I had a feeling he was stressed out about other things, and maybe OPENING THAT BOTTLE OF WINE would have helped, but I figured our 90-minute visit was toeing the line of overstaying our welcome, so we peaced out and went to Denny’s for dinner.

On the way inside, we passed a man leaving with an armful of take-out bags.

“Thank god for Denny’s!” he laughed merrily JUST LIKE SANTA.

Thank god for Denny’s indeed!

The vibe in Denny’s was less depressing than I anticipated. The waitstaff was exceptionally giddy and there was a decent crowd of wanderers, just like us. So, in a way, we finally found somewhere we belonged on Christmas.

Afterward, Henry mentioned that when he was at the nearby Toys R Us a few days ago, he saw a kitten behind it.

“TAKE US THERE!” I battle-cried, to which Henry started wording about how “there’s no way it’s still there” and “it’s getting late” and “I want to go home and dream about my days in the SERVICE.” But of course, Chooch and I got our way and Henry drove the whole 10 yards to Toys R Us, where I seriously immediately saw the glow of the cat’s eyes from under a pine tree as soon as the headlights hit it.

So we made Henry park the car and then Chooch and I spent a good 25 minutes on our hands and knees, meowing and bargaining with this feral cat to come to us, which turned into another 20 minutes of us climbing through bramble as the cat backed away onto a hillside.

We determined that what we needed was CAT FOOD, so we made Henry drive us down the street to Walgreens, where he then bought three cans of it to appease the queen and prince of cats. (That’s me and Chooch in case you’re struggling to keep up, Barb.) But by the time we made it back to the Toys R Us parking lot, the cat was gone. That didn’t stop Chooch and me from spending an additional 25 minutes clucking our tongues, whispering “here kittykittykitty,” and looking up cat summoning spells on a Black Magick for Dummies website.

“JUST LEAVE THE CAT FOOD AND WE WILL COME BACK TOMORROW AND CHECK!” Henry yelled from his post inside the idling car. “For Christ’s sake.”

This could have been our Christmas miracle. Thanks a lot, feral cat.

Maybe next year, we’ll just go away for Christmas.

Ooooh, or have a cat PJ party!

(That carrot pie, tho. Good lord.)

Mouth lined with crumbs? Check.

Later that night, my dad asked if Chooch’s neck tattoo was real. Yes, I had a guy I met in prison come over and do it at the house, dad.

Chooch is down to one good pair of jeans because he trashes them so quickly. This is not that pair.

That pair was home in a laundry basket, caked with mud.

Yes, we fought about this on Christmas. You know how tightly-wound I get when it comes to my dumb pictures!

We had a fight about his hair, too.

We all felt this way.

Throwback to 2011.

Practicing his freestyle.

Who knows how many more years Chooch is going to exasperatedly give me. Gotta milk the “Because I’m your mom and it’s all I want for Xmas!” canned response as much as I can

It had been a minute since I was last at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, so I was pretty stoked. The Grog Shop has provided some great times for me and also is where I was first introduced to Strongbow in 2009. That was a gamechanger.

This is where Craig Owens was playing his acoustic set on December 16th, and it had all the promises of being intimate and beautiful.

Henry, Nikki, Robbie and I got there before doors opened. We had been standing for a bit in line when we realized some older lady was going around with a notepad, interviewing the people in line in front of us. I mumbled to my group, “Oh god, let’s not make eye contact. This lady looks—HI YES I WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT CRAIG OWENS!” My  tune changed as soon as she approached us because I LOVE TO HEAR MYSELF TALK.

Not really.

OK SOMETIMES.

She was kind of creepy, I’m not going to lie. She said she goes to all of his shows and does this, makes a list of why all of the kids are there, and then she gives it to him at the end of the night. She made it sound like they are tight, and who knows—perhaps they are. But she was still kind of annoying.

I made some past-tense comment about Chiodos and she snapped, “He’s still in Chiodos. They’re still together.”

Oh. OK.

(I really don’t think they are. But she clearly knows it all.)

Then she said something about how she wants him to play “3 AM” but she knows he won’t because he doesn’t plat Chiodos songs at his solo shows, which made me raise my eyebrows because he certainly has in the past.

“Isn’t it interesting to hear a man’s POV of a one-night stand?” she asked us in regard to the meaning behind “3 AM” and we all just  nervously laughed until she finally moved along.

The doors opened around 7 and we traded in our toys for meet-n-greet wrist bands and then I pushed away imaginary people on my mad dash to claim us seats at the bar. Henry gave me that “why are you running?” smirk.

BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS IN A HURRY? How is he not accustomed to this by now. I hate him.

And then I found out that they didn’t have Strongbow and sighed a sigh to end all sighs. They had some kind of cherry cider though so I got that and it was beautiful. Henry was the DD so he just sat there nursing his water while the rest of us went to town. That’s what you get for being a dad, Henry.

The first band to play was a local group of seemingly high school-age kids (I think they might have been slightly older but we’ve already established a few blog posts back that my eyes are third-rate) called Trusting Obscurity. They had a girl singer and I will give them an A for effort: they had enthusiasm and moxie.

But they weren’t really for me. Or Robbie. Or Nikki.

(I didn’t ask Henry though because he doesn’t have opinions.)

They were mostly alt-rock, did a decent Paramore cover (“That’s What You Get”) and a questionable Fall Out Boy one (“Sugar, We’re Going Down”) and then a mixed bag of originals. I thought the girl had a pleasing voice, kind of husky, but their set was kind of long and I was getting antsy. And then they did some bastardized reggae banger and here’s a fact about me: I don’t like reggae. SORRY MARLEYS.

I just can’t with the reggae.

Me and Sober Hank.

From the moment the second band started playing, my eyes dilated with pure hearts. whenskiesaregray were the perfect blend of hardcore and emo, reminiscent of The Saddest Landscape and Pianos Become the Teeth, and I thought I was going to catapult off my bar stool. I was so into it, that it was making my ribcage hurt.

It was like someone handed them an Erin Will Love You starter kit and they followed it step-by-step:

Their set was over entirely too fast.

We were talking about how none of us were very fond of the first band.

“Yeah, that first band played way too long,” I cider-shouted just as the singer walked by.

She might have heard. I don’t know.

About whenskiesaregray, Robbie said, “They reminded me of that one genre…you know, like The Number 12 Looks Like You and…”

“Circle Takes the Square!” I added, because I always have to add. If you’re not adding, you’re subtracting, OK?! Get on my math level.

“But what’s that genre called?” Robbie asked, and Henry at this point had the glazed-over eyes that he probably had all throughout high school too.

“Grindcore!” I remembered a minute or so later, and Robbie was like, “Yeah!” and Henry looked like he was having really bad flashbacks to the days when I was really into grindcore. (For example: THE LOCUST.)

Too Close To Touch was next and they were your basic post-hardcore type of band and in a perfect world, I would have been all over them. I don’t know if I was just way too excited for Craig or if I was losing consciousness from inhaling the French whore perfume of this one aging, over-dressed scene queen who kept sauntering past, but I don’t really remember much of their set. Plus, I was on my second drink — a real life beer — and another fact about me is that I drink so infrequently these days that two ciders/beers is going to more than do the trick.

I think it was right after this band when we Facetimed with Chooch and Nikki got really excited and came running over to say hi to him; Robbie, you better watch out! I know that Chooch was fine back home with Judy, but I still hate it when we’re apart for too long.

Until we reunite and start arguing three minutes later.

Before Craig came on, we all got up and found good spots near the stage. Robbie and Nikki went straight for the middle of the crowd, but I dragged Henry over to the right and we parked ourselves right between French hooker and her friend, Other French hooker.

I was prepared for them to start screaming like Japanese girls at a Corey Feldman concert, but when Craig came out and started playing, they stood there, motionless and with stony faces.

Very weird.

OK, here is where I eat crow. I had really lost interest after the last time I went to one of Craig’s acoustic shows. It was boring, I thought it was weird that he kept doing Hulk Hogan-esque “I can’t hear you!” motions with his hands, and I was irritated that we drove through a snowstorm (true story, published in 2011) to essentially hear a roomful of teenage girls sing the songs instead of Craig. I was really worried it was going to be that way again. But nope. Craig came out, strapped on that guitar, and sang his fucking face off.

The ratio of Craig Singing : Fans Singing was exactly proportionate to what you want if you paid to hear one of your favorite singers sing his songs. I was OK with the singalongs. The vibes were positive. Craig seemed absolutely jubilant. His voice was on point.

And the setlist was diverse and spanned his career perfectly: from Chiodos to D.R.U.G.S, to Cinematic Sunrise to his recent collaboration with Before Their Eyes:

He and Pete teased the new song that we got to hear earlier that day at the Alternative Press office, but then at the last minute they stopped playing it, laughed, and went on to another song. I felt kind of smug because we had been lucky enough to hear that song multiple times in one sitting and it is a glorious jam!

He ended the show the same way he had the other times I had seen him solo: by jumping into the middle of the crowd and closing it down with “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute…” which will always be my favorite Chiodos song.

(Because Craig doesn’t perform Chiodos songs when he’s out on his own.)

Afterward, we ran over to the merch tables, where a line was forming for the meet and greet. Even though we had already met him earlier, my stomach was churning. But I at least wanted him to sign the tour screenprint that I bought, because why not.

“Look, that lady’s giving him the list she was writing in line,” I laughed, and we all watched as she basked in the attention Craig was giving her. “Jesus, that’s going to be me one day, isn’t it?

” I groaned rhetorically. Ugh, she was SUCH A MOM.

We were pretty close to the front, so before I was fully ready, it was our turn. Nikki and Robbie went first and Nikki, true to her word, asked Craig if he’s ever met Justin Bieber. (She’s a pretty big Belieber.) I know you’re dying to know the answer: Craig has not ever met Justin Bieber.

When it was my turn, I just gushed endlessly about he’s been like, an icon in my family for years and my kid has quite literally grown up listening to him (I showed him this picture on my phone, even though we gave Chiodos a copy of it at the 2013 Warped Tour), and he made all the right “I’m interested in what you’re saying” facial expressions and hand gestures. Nikki took this picture so here, I have proof that I’m not always invisible:

He signed my screenprint and said that he was really happy I bought one, that there were only 100 made (I got #3!) and that no two are exactly the same and again, I blew my chance to mention Loma Prieta, Hotel Books, or any of the other 6 unique topics I had on the tip of my tongue instead of opting for the typical fan-gushing. I am the actual worst at talking to musicians.

The lighting was terrible in this corner. I tried to take a group picture of Nikki and Robbie with Craig using the flash, but it was even worse. I wish we could go back and have a do-over!

You know what they say, you guys: those who meet Craig Owens together, stay together.

What a fucking epic day. I’ve been going to so many shows by myself lately, and it felt really great to have a crew there that night. Even Henry said, “Yeah. It was good” when normally his highest praise is “it wasn’t bad.” Henry actually said the g-word!

Going to work the next day sucked, but it was totally worth the exhaustion. Cleveland, you’re so close, yet so far away.

2 comments

   
It occurred to me yesterday as we were in the middle of eating that this was the 10th Cemetery Xmas Picnic for us! It started in 2005, when I was pregnant with Chooch and my family was being a bag of dicks and not speaking to me. Henry and I had nowhere else to go for Xmas so I yelled LET’S JUST EAT WITH DEAD PEOPLE THEN since no one living gave a shit about us.

So that’s what we did. 

I specifically remember buying Moonpies at CoGos on the way. Really fucking festive. 

And even when we do have a place to go on Xmas, we always hit up the good old cem first. It’s definitely been met with a lot of weird reactions over the years, but it’s our norm, you know? I mean, we’re just eating sandwiches and potato salad, not roasting babies over open graves and drinking goats blood. 

Just so you know. 

We keep it clean. 

 This year, we were able to sit for more than 5 minutes without the threat of hemorrhoids or frost bite!  Except it started to drizzle a little bit. 
    
It’s funny how traditions start. I wonder if Chooch will continue it when he has his own family…

 Sorry, Chooch’s Future Wife. 
Lol. 

  
We didn’t have time to make cards this year, so you get this charming photo of Trudy and Henry’s mom Judy, who is way more welcoming of our mannequin roommate than probably my own mom would be.   

Currently, Henry is ranting about batteries and now he and Chooch are arguing over PINs because they’re trying to set up Chooch’s new TV and I’m just over here blocking it all out with Real Friends playing loudly. Also, I sarcastically was like, “Hey where’s MY present?” And Chooch defensively sputtered, “Well, DADDY—” which made Henry cry, “Yeah it’s always MY fault!”

Oh, Xmas. 

I hope everyone has a beautiful day, whether you’re participating in Christmas frivolity or this is just your average December 25th. 

Henry, Chooch, and I will salute you from our annual cemetery picnic!

At the last minute Monday morning, I bought a ticket to see Polyphia that night at the Smiling Moose. I saw them last year when they opened for Dance Gavin Dance and my heart immediately opened for them. I was never a big fan of prog, but I guess people change. People usually tell me I’m way off base when I make musical comparisons, but maybe my mind is just DIFFERENT ok? So if you asked me, I would tell you that Polyphia reminds me of the grandchildren of Chuck Mangione and Eric Johnson. Do with that what you will.

I’m still picky with this genre though. For instance, we saw Chon—another instrumental band in the same vein and they are actually taking Polyphia on tour with them next year—and while they were audibly pleasant, I was kind of bored.

Polyphia, however, did not bore me when I saw them last year.

Henry likes neither Chon not Polyphia, so this was another solo show for your girl ERK.

When I got to the Smiling Moose after work that night, there were strange vibes from the get-go. I wasn’t drinking that night because I really don’t want to rely on alcohol to help me get past my social anxiety, so that made it even worse because instead of killing time at the bar, I went right on upstairs where Save Us From the Archon were setting up and several small clusters of people were hanging out. Everyone always stops and stares at the girl who walks in alone.

Every time.

And it will never stop being incredibly uncomfortable for me. But…it’s either deal with it or miss a lot of great bands.

It got easier once more people arrived. Like this super tall guy who definitely commanded everyone’s attention so that I could go back to being a wallflower.

I thought he was going to stand in front of me the whole time, but was pleasantly surprised that he had enough concert couth to reposition himself in this one wall pocket near the side of the stage. Hats off to you, guy.

Once SUFTA started playing, my nerves were effectively shushed. This was my third time seeing them, and since they’re a local band, they typically inspire a lot of enthusiasm from the audience. I was really into it until halfway through when these two motherfuckers arrived and stood right in front of me. Look, I get it — these things are bound to happen, but they stood so close in front of me that my breath was making the fuzz sway on the back on the one guy’s peacoat.

And there were plenty of other open areas they could have stood.

AND THEN THEY TALKED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING.

They moved all the way up to the front after SUFTA. They were apparently friends with them and probably thought they were so badass coming to a show straight from their accounting jobs. Fuck those guys.

Whatever, SUFTA was insane as always and made my brain move around like a Rubik’s cube so I can’t be too mad.

In between sets, more people showed up and the front of the stage began to get more crowded. I watched as two docile, unassuming types took stage and got behind their respective drums and guitar.

“Hi guys,” said the guitarist in a fumbly kind of tone. “Our singer couldn’t make it tonight so um, we’re just going to an instrumental set for you.”

To myself, I’m thinking that this makes sense, given SUFTA and Polyphia are both instrumental. So the two guys start playing and it’s admittedly pretty heavy. I mean, my face wasn’t being melted off, but it was definitely more metal than the other bands.

Things were progressing nicely, people were moving around a bit, and then the breakdowns started.

This “oh shit” feeling come over me as the air in the room became pregnant with palpable doom. Amid the rustling in the crowd, I watched as a guy at the front of the stage turned around and charged right at me. “Fuck,” I sighed, bracing myself. But right before impact, he switched directions as though ricocheting off something invisible, and slammed into some guy who was big enough to absorb it without breaking a bone. And thus, the hardcore dancing started.

Moshing doesn’t bother me, but hardcore dancing is fucking obnoxious and dangerous. The Smiling Moose is extremely small, capacity is maybe 150? I’m no capacity expert, so that’s probably way off, but it is approximately the size of my downstairs. The room is as wide as the stage, which isn’t very wide at all. I always stand in the same spot at these shows — right near the front and against a wall. There was a line of us against this wall with no body-buffer on the other side of us. It was the wall, us, and then a bit of an empty space which is where all of the violent dance-spasms were performed.

This is all to say that I had nowhere to go and no one to shield me from the flailing limbs and flying fists.

“I DON’T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!” I cried to myself, determined not to let them smell my fear. For the most part, these bros were doing an OK job of not body-slamming me, but there were quite a few sweaty backs I had to forcefully push back into the crowd, a couple of which knocked me off balance but  my friend Wall caught me every time. The kid behind me, bless his heart, protectively placed his hands on my arm a few time, like that was going to do anything to help. I probably would have been better off if Chooch had been behind me!

This went on in spurts. I watched as one of them grabbed the small, young guy in front of me and tossed him onto the floor and that poor guy had a very strong “ANTI-BRUTALITY” aura about him so I felt pretty bad for him. No actual fights broke out at least, even though there were some tense moments when I wasn’t sure.

But it would always end with jovial back-slaps and smiles and I just don’t get it, guys.

To each their own, but trying to not break a bone is not my idea of enjoying myself at a show.

For the last song, they called up “Dave” who was going to “help out” on vocals for the set-closer. Dave hadn’t even grabbed the mic yet and I was already gulping. If I had done my due diligence, I would have known that this was a local hardcore metal band called Delusions of Grandeur and I would have known to get in the back, maybe even all the way back to the bathroom, in a stall, crouched down with my head covered.

As soon as Dave emitted his first caterwaul, the meatheads got all riled up again and my “protector” declared that he was about to go fullblown windmill on this one.

And so he did.

And I had nowhere to go.

So I stood my ground, dodging fists and shoving bodies off of me, and then I got punched pretty hard in the arm and thought, “DO NOT CRY! DO NOT CRY! DON’T YOU DARE CRY!” So then I turned my fear into anger and stood my ground, prepared to throw down (I HAVE A TEMPER AND HIDDEN MUSCLES, OK?) while thinking, “I AM TOO OLD FOR THIS!” just as some bald-headed aging hardcore kid came rushing toward the stage from the back and added his own brand of nosebleed-waiting-to-happen dance moved. And this guy was easily Henry’s age.

But I did it! I endured their set without getting slaughtered and no one pulled my hair, which probably actually would have made me cry.

I hate having my hair pulled.

Just don’t touch my hair ever.

I briefly exchanged words with the drummer afterward as he was trying to push all of their gear into one of the wall pockets and I just couldn’t get over how this fucking nerdy little guy was in a band that incited such terror and aggression.

And then, for whatever reason, Polyphia ended up playing next, swapping spots with the fourth band in the line up and I had no problem with this, because my night was essentially done after being pummeled by flying flesh bags.

But Polyphia’s set was peaceful, beautiful, and worth the danger. I was glad that I fought to keep my spot because they are majestic to watch.

This guy especially:

I can’t remember the last time I saw such a perfect human being in person, but his face literally took my breath my away and I AM NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL. He was like some kind of angel and I had to keep rolling my tongue back into my mouth.

Peril aside, I left there loving Polyphia even more. There set was really short, adding to the weird vibes theme of the night. Everything about this night was off! But there was peace for Polyphia’s set and my adrenaline had finally reached A Normal Day levels by the time I left The Smiling Moose. And by “left,” I mean “pushed people out of my way, tried not to fall down the steps, and then burst through the door to reach that place where I was no longer surrounded by assholes.”

“There goes one of my assailants,” I texted Henry while waiting on a side street for him to pick me up. When I got in the car, smudged mascara and hair askew, Henry and Chooch just rolled their eyes at me. I felt like a new person.

A person who had just been picked up FROM PRISON.

***

The next day, I was telling my work friends about the night’s events which had turned into “I had to push some people off me and I got punched” to “I ALMOST DIED YOU GUYS!” Then we all watched this video together and Amber2 delightfully read out loud a sampling of the lyrics.

“Maybe it’s time for you to hang it up,” Glenn mumbled.

“YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” I cried.

At first, I was like, “I like heavy shit but this just isn’t for me.” But the more I watch this video, the more I actually like it.

Just next time, I’ll stand far away. Or outside. Someone can Periscope that shit for me.

Tonight I’m going to take you way back to this one time when Henry and I began dating; he was all excited because he had the day off work and wanted to hang out with me. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and recall the word “dating” from this post because it was basically just like a really long one-night stand in the beginning. He just kept calling!

Just putting this out there: Henry was WAY more into me than I was into him. I mean, I guess I liked that he was buying me Michael Myers figurines but I was still like bro, stop sweating me. Calm down. 

Seriously. 

Ok so back to Henry having the day off of work. He was looking forward to having me sass him all day, but at the last minute I decided to go to Kennywood with Janna and my pal Brian instead, but I was 22 and did whatever the fuck I wanted with complex and utter disregard for all others. Totally not like 2015 Erin at all.

Henry was basically devastated, universe crumbled, as you can imagine, getting brutally blown off by some super young chick who he actually thought he was going to domesticate (guys, he doesn’t even try anymore). He kept calling me on my Nokia cellphone (again, this was a long time ago) and was all drunk (probably off Michelob #bluecollar) and whiny, which made me so disgusted, so I quit answering. Go to bed, old man! You know? I’m sure I did a ton of eye rolling and emasculated him to pieces with my friends. For sport. 

I would never do that now.

So Henry and I are having our typical bedtime convo tonight, which always involves me talking and him falling, when I remembered this incident and said, “Can you imagine if social media was around back then? You’d be constantly refreshing Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to track my every move at Kennywood WITHOUT YOU!” And then I pantomimed him pushing his glasses up and scrolling through his phone with a sad face and wiping away invisible tears, until I was laughing so hard that I had real life salty wets to brush off my face. 

I’m sure you can imagine the look on Henry’s face before he rolled over and went back to sleep. 

*Shout out to Carly  Rae Jepsen

For most of my adult life, I’ve been struggling with the whole glasses and contacts issue. Basically, I’m just a huge cry baby about going to the eye doctor and don’t even get my started on the strict criteria I have for eye glasses. I’ve gone round and round with numerous eye doctors and then when I realized that 1-800-Contacts was suddenly allowing me to order new contacts without an updated eye exam, I was like “IN YR FACE EYE DOCTORS!”

Except that during the last batch of contacts I was wearing, I started to feel like maybe my prescription had changed. My left eye was kind of struggling, so I decided that I wouldn’t order new contacts without getting a check up first. This is what BEING AN ADULT feels like I guess. Kind of boring.

So I put in my last pair of 2-week contacts back in….September. And then I just kept putting it off and putting it off until two weeks ago when I practically stumbled into work and so that everyone knew I wasn’t actually drunk, I admitted that I was having some sight issues.

“STILL?!” Amber2 exclaimed. We’ve talked about this subject quite a few times in the past. I always say I’m going to make an appointment and then I just end up ordering new contacts instead. And Amber is also a big advocate for eye glasses and has even offered to go with me on our lunch break to look at frames. Because I’m picky, they have to be gargantuan. Like, you should be able to fit your entire legs in them and pull them on like pants. That’s how big I need them to be. Maybe even just a large square that I can hold up over my face when I need to see. (So like, forever.)

I tested other methods of ocular enhancement, such as squinting through a bottle of severed fingers. No bueno.

And surprisingly, the follicle monocle didn’t activate the ol’ 20/20 either.

Yesterday was the breaking point. We came back from our group’s holiday lunch (I closed a door on Gayle and then she got stuck in the restaurant—that was my highlight), and Amber2 caught me slumped down at my desk, engaging in my daily AM I GOING BLIND???? squint-a-thon.

“THAT’S IT! Make an appointment right now!” And thank god for her and—I can’t believe I’m typing this—Glenn, because they essentially walked me through it. Glenn especially. He’s been on board with this since last week when he was walking toward me and I thought he was a stranger because he looked so blurry so I started to sink down behind my computer so that Stranger wouldn’t ask me a question — all strangers on our floor ask me questions! Like, “Where is the bathroom?” And I’m like “Down there!” while crossing my arms and pointing. But yeah, this time it was just Glenn and he was like, “You REALLY need to get your eyes checked! Good Lord.”

So after our lunch, he was trying to guide me through the insurance process of the eye exam.

“GO TO PEOPLESOFT AND PRINT OUT YOUR INSURANCE INFO IF YOU DONT HAVE THE CARD!” he barked and I was like “Yikes! Yessir!”

And that is how I ended up with an appointment after work at a place that claims on their website that they take my insurance but apparently only certain branches in the SOUTH do???  Don’t worry, they said they’re used to this and gave me all kinds of shit to send to the insurance company for reimbursement so I guess Wendy will have to help me with that.

I need to also mention that Henry and I had a huge fight when he came to pick me up from work because traffic had him angry and he YELLED AT ME and I was like, “OH NO YOU DIDN’T JUST YELL AT ME WHEN I’M ALREADY STRESSED OUT WE ARE SO OVER!” and then after three minutes of me pouting and staring wistfully out the window, he softly said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you” and then I berated him for a little while and all was well.

Anyway, as soon as I walked in to America’s Best, I was greeted by Randall (Randolph? I couldn’t see his name tag very well, lol), a congenial older man who signed me in.

“IM FREAKING OUT!” I cried because I have no filter when I’m nervous. My anxiety levels were through the roof and I literally felt my knees buckle when I walked in.

Randall was super nice and told me I wasn’t going to die, that I probably wouldn’t even bleed, and then my exam started, which went exactly as I expected: not knowing which one was better or worse! I was getting really frustrated and then I started to cry and the doctor was like “Hey kid, your eyes are actually healthy, don’t worry” but apparently my left eye either has a slightly swollen cornea (from the contacts) or IS JUST LAZY ALL OF A SUDDEN???

because no matter which corrective lens he put in front of it, he couldn’t get me past 20/40. Nothing about me is lazy! I TAKE THE STAIRS, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!

But at least I have new contacts in now (not the ones I need, but the best they could give me until mine come in next week) and I got a lengthy lecture about getting glasses. I KNOW OK?! God. I’ll get glasses as soon as someone can put my prescription in a welder’s mask.

The moral of this story is that my coworkers are bullies.

[We’re going to blame all of my typos on my SUPPOSED LAZY EYE, now, ok?]

We tried so hard to keep it a secret, but Robbie pretty much figured out right away that me, Henry and Nikki were taking him to Cleveland last Wednesday for the Craig Owens show. Henry and I weren’t sure if it was going to work out at all, since it was in the middle of the week, but Nikki super slickly went behind Robbie’s back and asked his boss to give him the day off. Once that happened, Henry bought the tickets and then we tried to come up with a plausible explanation as to why we were going to Cleveland on a random Wednesday, but stupid Bandsintown alerted Robbie that Craig Owens was playing that night, so he knew. It’s a lot easier to pull one over on our gullible 9-year-old, so I sometimes forget that everyone else wouldn’t just go along with a mysterious road trip without doing some serious investigating on their end.

Robbie loves Craig Owens even more than I do, so we thought it would be the perfect birthday/Christmas gift for him. Especially when our friend Jason mentioned that he could possibly get us access to the video session that was going to filmed earlier that day in the Alternative Press office. That meant we had to leave early on Wednesday, which really set off the alarms in Robbie’s head. Nikki said he was practically bullying her into telling him what was going on.

Surprises are so delightful!

We left an hour later than originally planned because Henry is the worst. Do you know how hard it was to sit in my house waiting for Henry to come home, when there were all these awkward vibes because everything was so suspicious?

< insert boring drive to Cleveland here. >

We arrived in Cleveland sometime after 1 and Nikki woke up from a nap.

“I had a dream that I asked Craig Owens how tall he is and he said he’s 5’10”,” she said. We all agreed that we felt like he was taller than that, so Robbie quickly googled and announced that Craig is, indeed, 6’2″. I wonder if Craig ever thinks about all the rando conversations his fans probably have about him on a daily basis. I mean, even Henry has talked about Craig’s hair A LOT over the years. He’s kind of obsessed with it and will always be the first one to notice if it’s changed since the last time. His only takeaway from the D.R.U.G.S. show we saw in 2011 was that “Craig’s hair is darker.”

We had just enough time to grab coffee and a quick poke through my favorite store of all time, Flower Child:

I had just ended a conversation with the owner about how much I love her shop and how I cried real tears when I was there a month ago and it was closed, when Henry got a text from Jason that said, “Get here NOW.” Henry barked, “Let’s go!” and whisked us out of the shop, which probably looked like we were the clumsiest shoplifters EVER. I can only imagine how suspicious we looked, tearing out of a shop that we had just entered a minute before, but I was too excited to be embarrassed.

“Where are we going?” Robbie asked nervously.

“We have to meet our friend Jason real quick. I have a case of root beer for him,” Henry stuttered.

I mean, that was partially true! Jason is a true root beer connoisseur and especially likes it bottled. So Henry brought a case of root beer from the Faygo Factory for him. This is why Jason likes Henry better than me. Well, that and because Henry doesn’t bring up Jonny Craig every single time we hang out with Jason.

And Robbie knew something was about to happen. He met Jason last year when we were in town for a Chiodos show at House of Blues; Jason met us at Melt for a quick hello and Robbie remembered that he was affiliated with Alternative Press, so even though there is no signage outside of the building that houses the office, it didn’t matter.

The jig was up!

“Don’t freak out,” I whispered over my shoulder as Jason keyed us through the AP door and led us into a back room where cameras were set up and Craig Owens was sitting on a stool, strumming his guitar and warming up.

Robbie’s face looked like this pretty much the whole time: somewhere frozen between a smile and a stroke.

Jason got chairs for us and basically bent over backward to make sure we were comfortable—he is such a stand-up guy! As if he hadn’t already done enough for us, now he was trying to give us more things. We promised him that we were fine, and after reminding us to turn off our phones, he retreated back to his office, because deadlines.

I accidentally took this blurry photo as I was tucking my phone away:

Jason warned me that the chair he gave me was kind of broken, which didn’t stop me from leaning back in it, and further and further back until I realized I was falling. I caught myself before anyone noticed and made sure to lean forward for the rest of the afternoon because I didn’t want to be That Person who disrupted filming.

Ugh, that would be so typical of me!

Craig performed two songs with his friend Pete: one was a song that was so brand new, Pete was having difficulties because they literally had just written the music for it the night before. Craig said it will be released sometime in 2016 as part of his new, top secret project. TOTALLY PIQUED.

The second song was off the new Before Their Eyes album which he produced. Both song were fantastic, but that first one was a stunner. Those two songs were being filmed for Periscope, but we got to hear the first one several more times when he was asked to play it again but with a more detailed introduction other than just, “This is…a song” which is how he had originally introduced it, ha! I love Craig.

When he finished performing the songs, he walked back over to where we were sitting so that he could join his friend (NICOLE RORK who is an exceptional photographer and I was low-key fangirling when I saw her there) and come up with some facts for the 10 Things You Didn’t Know segment that he had also agreed to film.

“Did it sound OK, guys?” he asked us, and we were all like, “HHHHHHHNNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHH YES.”

OK, Henry was way calmer than that.

I don’t want to give anything else away since these video segments haven’t been posted on Alternative Press’s website yet, but I just have to say that Craig is ridiculously interesting, multi-faceted, and extremely intelligent. Listening to him answer questions was riveting. All the behind-the-scenes minutiae was actually fascinating and I’m so humbled that we got to take it all in.

After about an hour of filming, he walked over to us and held out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Craig,” he said with a friendly smile and not the forced kind that Henry always adopts.

I’m sure internally, we were all like, “WE KNOWWW OMG!” but I feel like we kept it together and somehow managed to introduce ourselves without causing a nose bleed or biting off our tongues. He asked us how the drive from Pittsburgh was and Henry gave his stock answer, “Fine. Fine” while I blurted out, “BORING” and I think Robbie was just giggling at this point. Thankfully, Nikki was there to break the ice by telling Craig about her recent dream about him and his height.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tall!” he laughed. “Actually, all of the Chiodos guys are like, over 6 feet tall,” he added, and we were all like, “Oh wow,” with batted eyelashes and flirty giggles because CRAIG OWENS.

Somehow I was able to muster the courage and enough of my voice to thank Craig for allowing us to sit in on that. Thank you, Craig Owens, for being a true gentleman and so gracious to your fans.

(I love that there’s a Cure issue two above Robbie’s head in this picture!)

Before walking out to the parking lot with us to get the root beer, Jason asked again if we needed anything. “Any magazines? Anything at all? No, you’re good?” he asked, and we assured him that he had already done so much for us. Seriously, thank you Santa Pettigrew!

We were about to leave when Craig passed us in the parking lot. Thank god Nikki had the good sense to ask him if we could take his picture with Robbie. He very jovially agreed, at which point we all just stood there.

“Erin, take the picture,” Henry hissed. SORRY! I was in a Craig Owens daydream bubble. Henry’s burly tone snapped me out of it and I was somehow able to take the picture without fumbling for my phone.

We told him we’d see him later that night, and with a big smile, he said, “I hope you’re wearing your singalong pants!” I laughed along with everyone else, but I couldn’t help but feel a tiny pull of paranoia.

“Do you think he said that on purpose?!” Nikki whispered on the way back to the car, knowing that Craig and I had a…disagreement on Twitter four years ago because I wrote a bitchy blog post about how I went to his solo show and he let the audience sing most of his songs while he just stood there and held out his microphone. Look, my cat had just died and I was really emotionally fragile OK?! Nothing could have made me happy on that night.

But this particular night was about to be so much better. And we determined later that he probably didn’t mean anything by his singalong pants remark, thank god!

Afterward, we had about 90 minutes to kill before the actual show. We drove to Coventry in search of food, since none of us had eaten anything since breakfast, not like it mattered, because it probably would have gotten puked up anyway. (I mean, except Henry’s. Nothing fazes Henry.)

Big Fun is next to Tommy’s, so we popped over at dinner, hoping to find some toys to buy for the show. Anyone who brought a new toy or stuffed animal to the show got a meet and greet wristband. Even though we already had our time with him that afternoon, we wanted to do our part in helping out underprivileged children. Except Henry. He was like, “I don’t need no meet n greet bracelet, fuck off!”

Saul Berenson is big fun.

We wound up just going to a nearby Target, where I bought Candy Land, and Nikki bought a Mr. Potato Head and an exorbitantly-priced stuffed pony, which Robbie picked out with complete disregard to the price tag.

“Oh wow, that sucks,” I said when she told us how much it ended up costing her. “Mine was on sale for $4.”

“Mine was on sale for $4!” Nikki mimicked, and we all laughed. But then we all agreed that it was nice to do something charitable but Henry wouldn’t know what that’s like.

Doors to the Grog Shop weren’t open, so we stood in line where I thought about all the things I should have said to Craig.

**********

Things I Wish I Had Said To Craig:

• OMG I’m super stoked for the new Hotel Books that you produced!
• I love Lomo Prieta too! I saw them open for Pianos Become the Teeth last spring and they blew my mind!
• [SOMETHING ABOUT JONNY CRAIG!!!!]
• Do you like Artifex Pereo????
• What is your stance on the whole Blue Swan music movement and would you ever consider working with any of the bands in that genre?????
• WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOREIGN HORROR MOVIE!?!?
• And in response to his ironic Juggalo tattoo inside his lip: HENRY WORKS IN A FAYGO FACTORY!

We bought Chooch a loft bed thing from IKEA and are spending today assembling it while Chooch is at Judy’s, so like a pre-Xmas surprise I guess.

If you’ve ever had to work with me on anything before, you probably know that I’m fragile and prefer to collapse in a listless heap on a fainting couch rather than actually involve my hands in any actual labor. But the IKEA instructions said that Henry needed a helper:

“Considering you’re the second person, I’d be better off doing this alone,” Henry sighed, four new gray hairs sprouting along his temple.

Mostly I have just been sitting here, except for when I stand up to perform kickboxing moves to Icarus the Owl or Henry forces me to help him carry parts up from the living room to alleviate all the trips he would have to take on his own.

“Do you enjoy doing these things?” I asked him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled almost inaudibly. Then he dropped the 50-page instruction booklet next to me and I just let it sit there until he picked it up himself.  

“A real man would have cut down a tree and built his own loft bed,” I pointed out as Henry used one of the wussy IKEA-approved tools to tighten a bolt or nut or acorn. His response was to just stare at me with steely orbitals of ire.

“WHY U TRYNA GET ON MY LEVEL?!” I cried overzealously when he got down on the floor. He grimaced at me in response.

Later, he dropped a piece of the frame and I screamed, and I mean SCREAMED, “Nice one!” He’s trying to blame me for it, something about how it was one of the pieces I brought upstairs and I allegedly leaned it against the wall with the rounded end on the ground, OH OK professional bed builder.

I wish you guys would have been here when he declared, “I know one thing’s for sure: it is fucking hot in here” and I screamed, “TAKE IT OFF!” while firing up the instavid but he went in the bathroom so I couldn’t record him stripping.

Now he’s bitching at me because I’m supposed to be holding this thing but instead I’m standing here blogging on my phone.

“It’s cold. I want to make coffee,” I groaned.

“JUST HOLD THIS FOR A SECOND AND THEN IDGAF WHAT YOU FUCKING DO AFTER THAT, YOU CAN LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK I DONT CARE! I KNOW YOURE NOT MUCH HELP BUT I NEED YOU TO JUST TRY FOR A SECOND.”

Wow just wow.

Then after half-heartedly holding a thing while Henry screwed some stuff into it, I was dismissed.

“K, I’m gonna go make coffee. Do you want anything, bae?” I asked, not able to finish without cracking up.

“Yeah, water,” he growled in his hushed action-hero tone.

“SERIOUSLY?! I was just kidding! Ugh, God!” I yelled, and he gave me A Look overtop of his glasses. So I guess now I have to get him water. This is fucking ridiculous.

I made the mistake of coming back upstairs and he asked me WHILE I HAD CRACKERS IN MY HAND to move things for him?! So I moved one of the four things while mouthing off and then quit so he had to GOD FORBID lift a fucking finger and do the rest himself. Cry him a river, ladies and gentlemen!

First mistake of the day: Henry realized he put a piece on backward and is swearing like he just lost a limb in ‘Nam. “Cant you just take it off?” I asked and he considered this before calmly saying, “Yes, I can take it off.” So now he is taking it off and I wonder why this was worth yelling about but then I remember that not everyone is as calm and even-keeled as me.

Henry’s a fucking IKEA savage.

Ron Swanson would definitely not approve of this.

But most importantly, I have coffee now.

Henry just took that piece off and now is all confused so I suggested that he just call the IKEA hotline and he is very offended.

“IM GONNA TELL YOU WHAT!!!!” Henry snapped at me.

“GO AHEAD, TELL ME!!!” I sassed right back because Henry is like the funniest thing ever when he’s angry.

“Pick that side up and turn it,” Henry instructed.

“Which way?”

“that way.”

“WHICH way?”

“THAT way.”

“WHICH WAY?!?!”

“THAT WAY!!!!!!!” Henry shouted, having to drop his end of the plank so that he could point since I’m not fluent in head motions.

Oh for Christ’s sake, if there had been a video of us trying to lift this huge piece onto the top of the frame, I’d have to retire from the Internet because it was fucking chaos and off-the-charts in annoyance levels. It was just me screaming like Pee Wee Herman and Henry yelling “I HAVE THE WEIGHT OF IT, YOURE JUST GUIDING IT!” And then when I asked if I could let go, it was all, “FOR CHRISTS SAKE, DO NOT LET GO!!”

But I thought he had the weight of it?!?!

“That’s ok. I don’t need my back anyway,” he just muttered as I fled the scene.

I helped pick that thing up, no big deal.

It’s about 3 hours in and I excused myself to walk to CVS and buy a bag of Christmas bows to eventually stick all over the thing if it ever gets done. That has been the only thing I could handle today, plus I needed some air after I MAYBE POSSIBLY inhaled asbestos, which caused Henry to get all up in arms because he is evidently the resident asbestos expert and claims there’s “no way” that I “swallowed asbestos” so now I really hope that I did.

I wore my crochet TOMS on my walk because I forgot that it’s winter so now I’m pretty sure I have the flu.

But in any case, I’m back and ready to (not) help Henry. He just dropped something that sent things scattering across the floor and when I screamed WHAT DID YOU DO HENRY he snidely said, “Nothing.” Ugh fuck off.

Henry has spent the last hour without a hammer because he somehow “lost it.” Every five minutes or so he mumbles, “This would be a lot easier with a hammer” so I said, “It’s right there” and then when he turned around excitedly, I yelled, “MADE YOU LOOK!!” Oh shit, he fell for it. The oldest trick in the book!

“When I find it, I’m going to hit with you it,” he snapped. TAKE NOTE, INTERNET. If I ever disappear, it’s because Henry is a short-fused brute.

BRUTE WITH A LADDER.

Also, we just learned that we have to get a new light fixture now because the ceiling fan is in the way. We really put a lot of thought into this.

I was mocking Henry and ended it with a full-fledged theatrical vocal gag and, around the pencil he has between his lips, Henry said, “The only time I want to hear you make that sound is…..when you’re choking on water.”

OH GOOD ONE.

Henry’s face when he told me to move and I said no.

Well, we took a 30-minute break to run the van back to Henry’s work and for me to listen to Dance Gavin Dance songs super loud in the car, but don’t worry—we’re back at it! Supposedly he’s “almost done” and then I get the burdensome task of trying to rearrange all the crap in this junkyard of a bedroom.

If we had done this last Sunday like I originally wanted, we’d be done by now. JUST A THOUGHT.

Talking to himself while thumbing through the instructions and making me hold a thing while I’m blogging with one hand because SKILLS.

“Ew, there’s a spider on this!” I cried.

“Yeah, it’s been there,” Henry calmly answered.

“EW DID IT COME WITH THE BED?!” I asked, like IKEA was like “Thanks for choosing IKEA here’s a Swedish spider.”

“No, hand me the screwdriver,” Henry muttered.

An hour later and Henry is working on the drawers and I’m on “clean-up” duty which really sucks but look at what I did all on my own!!!

Here’s the view from inside, IM JEALOUS:

But then I climbed the ladder to make his bed and never mind. Not jealous. Omg heights.

Meanwhile, Henry is in our bedroom putting the drawers together while I finish decorating. THIS IS CALLED WORKING INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER.

Henry: why do you keep taking pictures of me.

Me: because this is going on my blog…?

Like why does he even ask I don’t get it.

HENRY WATCH YOUR HEAD, BAE.

“It’s a good thing Lisa and I canceled our plans today,” I mused. I was supposed to go to her house this afternoon so she could help me out on the Jamberrys that have laid around my house for like a year because I’m Erin Rachelle Kelly and I can’t dooooooooo it.

Henry grumbled, “I’m sure I could have done it without you.”

EW!!! NO CHILL!!!

Although I will say that Henry looks kind of cute with his baseball cap on backward. Ugh.

“I can’t wait for you to read this,” I giggled.

“Yeah. And I can’t wait to be mad at you all over again.”

YESSSSSS this is the part I’ve been waiting for! To stuff Doll in a drawer! We’re done! Now Henry can go bring Chooch  home and I can start drawing up the FREE NINE-YEAR-OLD craigslist ad in case he doesn’t act grateful enough!

Henry just called me from the car to see if I wanted him to get me food and now we’re fighting over who ate less today on account of IKEA sucking. He only ate an egg sandwich and caramel creams so I hung up on him before he could figure out that he won.

And now, seven hours later:

Well guys, Chooch is home and I would say that it’s a success!

Today, Chooch found a temporary tattoo and was just about to put it somewhere dumb, like his arm, when I stopped him and screamed, “NO PUT IT ON YOUR NECK!” Neck tattoos are my favorites. I have been trying for fourteen years to trick Henry into getting something awesome on his neck, but he won’t budge. (Hands are my second choice, but he won’t go for that, no; no can do.) Because I’m Chooch’s “bae lord,” he happily adhered a deformed monkey to the side of his neck.

(Side note: He has now taken to calling Henry “Papa Bae,” and it is slowly killing Henry.)

Anyway, Chooch looks hardcore as fuck now! We went outside and took some pictures because Henry was in the kitchen baking some kind of healthy version of snickerdoodles, i.e. bland non-cookies, and he’s mean to us when he bakes.

It was cold out there today.

Meanwhile, Blake gave Chooch his guitar, so he is currently YouTubing tutorials and just seeing that beautiful guitar in his lap is making my vision even more obscured than usual by all of the hearts. If this kid doesn’t grow up to be in a band, then I’m doing it all wrong.

Chooch + Doll 4L.

And on that note:

Life (and an annoyingly half-broken blog) really got the best of me for a second there. Today, I’m relaxing with a chilled glass of bulletpoints.

• In 10th grade, there was one night where I managed to simultaneous piss off all of my friends in one fell swoop. They wanted me to go ice skating with them but I declined – there was a UNCF telethon on BET that night, hosted by the one and only Lou Rawls. I watched every single second of that telethon, even through performances by washed up songstresses like Patty Austin. My attention was fixated despite my step dad’s heckling and my mom’s pleas to turn it. “Why do you have to watch the whole thing?” they asked. I even shed some tears here and there. Finally, they left me alone and I was able to call in my pledge of $20 in private. I’ll never forget the day my mom received her billing statement. Ironically, that’s twenty dollars more than she contributed to my college fund.
• There is an attorney at The Law Firm whose last name is similar to one of my favorite soft rockers, Gino Vannelli. His name came up a few weeks ago and then that night, one of his songs came on some yacht rock Spotify playlist I was forcing Henry to listen to at bedtime, which is my favorite  thing to do: force Henry to listen to things and give him lengthy explanations about what each song means to me and every single childhood memory is attached to it. It’s been a while since I heard a G.Vann song and I have to tell you, I wasn’t expecting to burst into tears. But I did. Anything that reminds me of sitting at the counter in my Pappap’s kitchen is going to launch searing daggers of ouchy nostagia into my heart without warning.
  • The next evening after work, Chooch and I got in fight so I fled to my bedroom where I ate dinner alone and put Gino on Spotify to help booster my pity party to the next level. Then I tweeted something along the lines of “Those Gino Vannelli vibes, tho” and some broad retweeted it. I went to her twitter and found that her entire timeline is full of Gino Vannelli tweets, so I guess she makes it her business to troll Twitter and RT every mention of him. There’s always someone.
  • “Living Inside Myself” was one of the main reasons I begged my Pappap to order me the Time Life Body Talk CD compilations when I was a teenager. It was one of those subscriptions where they would send you a new double CD each month and it was glorious. Then my Pappap died and my grandma canceled it so I never got to complete the collection. I’M NOT GRINDING MY TEETH RIGHT NOW OR ANYTHING.

• Chooch’s piano teacher Cheryl has moved to Asheville, WhateverCarolina to take massage therapy classes, so Chooch’s piano is temporarily on hold until June. We were both super sad and I basically acted like she was dying when I picked him up from the lesson and she was like, “NO DON’T START!” because she was trying to keep a celebratory tone but here comes Emo Erin, ready to rain her salty drops of sadness all over the party. She gave Chooch some things to work on in her absence though and surprisingly, he seems to be practicing way more than he ever has. And he’s getting scarily good and figuring out how to play things by ear. Like after he heard “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” on the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, he had taught himself how to play it that same night and what a treat that was, him flipping back and forth between that song and the Halloween/Michael Myers theme. It was like a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown.
• Two weeks ago (I’m so behind on bullet-points!), Amber2 pointed out that someone in the Firm was giving away a shower seat and gray wig on our Classifieds. “I find this bizarre,” she said, while my fingers were fumbling to reply to the seller before anyone else had a chance to take the gray wig from me. Amber just laughed and said she should have known better than to say that to me. By the next day, I still didn’t have a response from the seller. Nate said, “Maybe she doesn’t want to separate them?” like when people are giving away kittens by the pair or none at all. Finally I was like, “I AM GOING TO EMAIL THIS LADY” and it’s a good thing I did because she never got notification that I responded to her ad via the Classifieds page! So then she called me and asked me if I wanted to know what the wig looked like, and I didn’t really care because a wig is a wig to me, but I was like, “Sure?” so she described it and then said she was going to include the wig shampoo and conditioner and asked me, “How do you normally wash your wigs?” and I was like “…..” but then thankfully she was like, “Blahblahblah?” and I was like, “Yes, just like that. That is exactly how I have been known to wash my wigs.” And then the next day, the wig was waiting for me!
  • Trudy has to age sometime, you know?

• Spotify told me that these were my top genres of 2015 and I’m like, duh:  
• I went to dinner last week with my Original Work Mom, Carol and it was wonderful! I haven’t seen her in a pretty long time, which is sad because we shared an office at the meat place for 4 years. She and I walked out of that place together and while it was such a shitty, traumatic day for us both, I feel like it’s something that will always keep us bonded together. Of course, we did a lot of reminiscing—some good, mostly bad—about that horrible company and it left me feeling some type of way, for sure.
  • Instead of being doom and gloom about it and crediting it for the stutter it left me with and the near-crippling fear of getting another job, which sent Henry and me into a financial pit that we have only recently begun to claw our way out from, I like to think about the good things that came from it:
    • Getting to work with Carol for four years was wonderful. She is my friend/Chooch’s godfather Brian’s mom, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that from 200-2004, she was more of a mom and support system to me than my actual mom. She was also one of the first people who I confided in about Henry, and she was definitely on board with me dating him.
    • Which leads me to: meeting Henry, obviously. Whoever would have thought that 14 years later…you know. Life is fucking weird and awesome.
      • Even though I’m mad at Henry right now because he has been ignoring my texts all day because apparently I’m not important like Faygo.
• Prettttty sure I’m food-phobic. All this holiday bullshit has me panicking about overeating, or you know, just eating in general. I skipped the Law Firm’s holiday party because I was petrified of being around all the cookies. And luckily, I wasn’t around for our department’s holiday party because I was in Cleveland, so that alleviated some forever-fat anxiety. I probably should talk to someone* about this instead of having secret heart palpitations.
  • *Like a therapist on Twitter or Instagram, maybe.
• Today, Todd was trying to guess what kind of music I liked in high school and his first guess was NO DOUBT which was actually so offensive to me that it made my stomach hurt. Then I made him listen to Chiodos and he said he was super nervous at first because he was bracing himself for a lot of screaming, but that it ended up not being too bad.
• I made Henry leave on some Carpenters special that WQED was airing during one of their telethon things, mostly as a joke because I never gave a shit about the Carpenters one way or another, but then I was suddenly really into this stupid special because they make me feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that I’m having an out-of-body, time-traveling experience* where I’m standing in my grandparents’ backyard in the 60s, wearing a purple sundress, and it’s springtime and I can’t see my face. So then I started torturing myself by listening to them all last week and I had no idea that they sang “When I Fall In Love” because I always thought it was originally by Celine Dion (thanks to the “Sleepless In Seattle” cassette in my Pappap’s Cadillac) so then on Sunday night, when Henry was trying to go to sleep, I played basically every version that Spotify has, even the Doris Day one, and when I got bored with that, I asked him what he wanted to listen to and he mumbled into his pillow, “Anything but Doris Day.” That story seemed a lot more exciting before I started typing.
  • See also: Marty Balin’s “Hearts.”
• I hope that little things like this never stop making me squeal like a teenager:
• In relation to the above bullet, I have been extremely regressing lately, and this entails fluctuating precariously between extreme giddiness and a morose listlessness that finds me doing nothing more but laying around, with my arm splayed across my forehead, listening to emocore.
• Seeing Craig Owens on Wednesday totally reignited my love for Chiodos. I haven’t been able to stop smiling!
  • Except for when I’m being emocore. Which happens at the drop of a hat.
• I bought this Skinny Dip phone case last summer, months before I finally upgraded my phone. Priorities. Even Glenn said it’s “cute.” I’m not sure if he meant it or not.
• It occurred to me recently that I’m the same age that Henry was when we started dating: he was 36 and I was 22. He seemed SO OLD to me back then, but I don’t feel like I’m old now that I’m the same age.

Ew, on that gross note, I’m going to go and, I dunno, listen to more emocore probably. Sorry, co-workers.

Gayle forgot my birthday. Because I’m Erin Rachelle Kelly, I basically turned this into a huge scandal at work and made sure everyone* knew that Gayle was horrible and generally the worst.

*(OK, like 4 people. I’m pretty sure most everyone else tunes me out. I know I would if I could.)

Gayle’s self-appointed penance was to gift me with an unbirthday present on the 30th of every month, starting last August.  Wendy and Henry were absolutely appalled that I would let Gayle lavish me with gifts for no reason.

NO REASON?! Oh there’s reason.  Each gift is a ring on the ladder back up to my good graces.

Don’t worry, everyone on Team Erin Is Spoiled – Gayle is only spending a buck or two on each unbirthday gift; but I gotta tell you—she’s been doing a great job. I’ve loved all of my unbirthday gifts, but there has been one so far that really caused a commotion at work due to the fact that it’s CREEPY AND JARRING AS FUCK:

Gayle found this doll at a flea market and promptly deaded it up. A lot of my co-workers were alarmed by this, but I knew that it was going to get along just fine in my house. Because before I even brought it home, I knew that it was going to help me harass the fuck out of my kid.

I mean, it’s not that Chooch is a crybaby, per se, but does get scared pretty easily. So that night, I waited for Chooch to fall asleep and then I placed Doll on his pillow so that when he woke up, GOOD MORNING HERE’S DOLL, STRAIGHT OUTTA THE COAL MINE.

He wasn’t pleased with me at all, and promptly delivered Doll back to my room. And that’s how the game started. We just keep hiding it in each others’ room, and sometimes Henry even gets involved and hides Doll in places I can’t reach, and then Chooch gets all angry and starts screaming me when he wakes up and sees Doll staring down at him from the corner of his ceiling and I’m just like, “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS THINK IT’S ME!? DADDY DOES SHIT TOO” and then Chooch just scoffs and says, “Yeah, like Daddy knows how to have fun.”

I hid Doll halfway under his bed one day when he was downstairs and then posted this picture on Chooch’s Instagram:

I love my BaByDoLl!!!!

A photo posted by Riley (@butt_jam) on Dec 6, 2015 at 7:26am PST

He was SO ANGRY. Fuck, it feels good to be a parent sometimes.

One night last week, Chooch found Doll in his room but left her on his dresser. Before he had a chance to hide her in my room, I snatched her and stuffed her inside his backpack. Later that night, he went upstairs and noticed that Doll was gone. First, he was pissed because it was his turn to hide Doll, but then that was quickly replaced with Fear when he couldn’t find Doll as quickly as he had previously.

We were sitting together on the couch that night; he was making me watch Christmas with the Cranks on Netflix and it was starting to get pretty late. As in: Bedtime late. Every couple of minutes, he would say, “No seriously, tell me where you put Doll.” And I would just ignore him because I was too busy CRYING because that idiotic movie had some supposedly “feel good” moments and I kept yelling, “THIS IS WHY I HATE XMAS MOVIES, IDIOT!”

So then because I was crying, Chooch started to cry. That’s how we are, we feed off each others’ tears. I’m almost positive that he was faking it at first. He is so fucking good at fake-crying and I have no idea where he gets that because it’s certainly not from his mom whose family always told her that she should get a role on Days of Our Lives because she could turn on the tears with all the best sociopaths. So I’m crying because of Christmas movies, and he’s crying for fun, but then suddenly he’s CLUTCHING MY ARM and earnestly begging me to tell him where Doll is. There was panic in his eyes. I momentarily felt sorry for him and considered telling him, but no. This was fun.

A little psychological torture never hurt anyone.

(That’s probably inaccurate.)

I guess it was because it was almost time for him to go to bed and the thought that Doll was out there somewhere was seriously making him crack.

He stormed off up the steps and I could hear him slamming drawers and gurgling on his tears. And then, as he came tearing back down the steps, I jumped out and scared him. Internet, if there had been a sharp object within arms reach of him, I probably wouldn’t be typing this right now, as I lay in a hole, surrounded by that fresh new-coffin scent.

Which, you know, I wouldn’t able to smell on account of BEING DEAD.

My original end-game for Doll In Backpack was that he would get to school and find her when he was putting shit in his locker, and then he would even more shocked and startled because school would be the last place he’s expect Doll to pop up. But after watching him have what appeared to be some type of emotional breakdown, I was afraid that this would totally push him over the edge and then I would be getting a phone call from the school and CPS.

And I really loathe phone calls.

So instead,  I waited until morning and coaxed him into opening his backpack before he left the house. He was looking for his pencil case anyway, and I kept saying, “HMMM MAYBE CHECK YOUR BACKPACK” and he was like, “No, I checked  yesterday and it wasn’t there.”

“Well, check again. I think Daddy put the pencil case in there,” I said in the strained tone of a person hiding a thing.

So Chooch unzipped one of the front pouches.

“No. Like, look in the main part,” I stressed again.

“I know it’s not in there because I already checked last night!” he said stubbornly and I was about to just rip the fucking thing open myself, but then he finally opened it himself and was SO FUCKING PISSED when his fingers closed around Doll’s burnt locks. I actually have a video of his discovery but god forbid I post it here since he SWEARS and my child is supposed to be PERFECT since I’m a mom who blogs.

Doll has been laying low for the last week because I have several plans for her on the horizon, and you know what fortune cookies and people who are into idioms say: Out of sight, out of mind.

This is more fun than when he was three and I had an app that would put ghosts in pictures, so he was convinced that a little Victorian ghost girl was haunting him because he just happened to be IN EVERY PICTURE I took of him, and only him.

Thank you, Gayle! This is truly the gift that keeps on giving.