Aug 132010
 

Before I left for work yesterday, it began to downpour. Because I never think very far ahead, I kicked off my shoes, grabbed the camera and ran outside with Chooch.

“I had a dream that you were taking me to my new classroom and you looked ugly,” Chooch said when we were on our way to buy him new clothes for school.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“What?! It was just a dream. God.” And then came a series of annoyed and exasperated grunts that he must have learned from Henry because I am never annoyed or exasperated.

Nearly every shirt he picked out has skulls on it.  And he’s clearly not afraid to make bold statements by wearing purple.  I wonder what scene-kid fashion will be like by the time he’s in high school. I wonder if there will be cool scene-ish four-year-olds in his pre-school class.

Henry came home from work during our photo shoot and proceeded to sit across the street in the parking lot like a creeper, probably finishing up his daily phone sex with his girlfriend. I didn’t even realize he was there until I came back inside and saw that he texted “you guys are idiots.” He’s just jealous that he’s too old to play in the rain; it’ll enrage his arthritis.

And then I had to leave for work, where I sat in air conditioning for the next five hours while squirming under wet hair and damp clothes. And when I get sick, of course I’ll act surprised.

May 192009
 

It was all Alisha’s fault. She tricked us into driving out to Sharon, PA by boasting of this really fucking awesome chocolate kingdom at Daffin’s and some Coney Island restaurant that had like, the best food ever, though she wasn’t sure if there were non-meat options for me but who cares about Erin anyway. I agreed because I thought maybe it would be fun to leave her there, in Sharon.

And so, with Henry driving and Blake sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, Alisha and I squeezed in the back of our modest Ford Focus with Master Chooch, who was thrilled for the human contact. I had him on one side, pulling my hair, and Alisha on the other, jamming her elbow between my ribs. I spent a good portion of the billion-hour road trip wailing, “HEENNNRRRY! They’re hurting me!”

After pulling over in the parking lot of some run down factory where I took pictures of Alisha and Blake lounging on a run-down tetanus-laden car, we arrived at Daffin’s Chocolate. The “kingdom” was really just a wimpy display of a decrepit castle tower with a giant turtle thrown in the center to provide a weak distraction of the fact that it was less kingdom, more trailer park. And it stunk real bad in there too, and not just because Henry’s old and losing control of his faculties.

Chooch ran around the shop like a fucking crack addict, causing old women to gape in horror (some of them still had stroke-face after getting a glimpse of the very-pierced Blake, and that always makes me laugh), so I had to pull him out before I ended up owing Daffin’s my life savings. (But not before grabbing a handful of complimentary postcards; if you want one, holla.)

daffins

Alisha’s much-hyped Coney Island was closed (I thought Henry was going to kill her) but LUCKILY I saved the day when I spotted a diner. Henry and Alisha tried to ruin everything by suggesting, with no basis, that it was closed. Well guess what motherfuckers it was open and it was awesome.

donnasdiner

So awesome, in fact, that it has two names.

dineroutside

A quaint brick and moss courtyard next to the diner. There was a river at the other end and I kept envisioning Chooch falling into it and promptly had Mommy Heart-Flips.

dinerinside

Thank god we were the only people there because Chooch was acting like a poster child for Ritalin. Blake eventually had to take him outside and then I remembered the river and had Mommy Heart-Flips again. I will not feel calm until I get that kid hooked up to a leash.

choochjelly12

Chooch likes to spoon jelly into his loud mouth. It could be worse. It could be shit.

tableThis retro pattern made me feel dizzy, and then I started thinking about my kidneys.  And then boomerangs. And then clown porn. What?

alishablake

Blake ordered every breakfast item on the menu and proceeded to stare longingly at the syrup carafe. For a long time. And Alisha spent the whole time looking like she was trying not to puke and maybe it’s just me, but I’m starting to develop a sickening paranoia about that. Do I really make her that nauseated? Probably it’s from all the LAUGHTER I provoke in her.

The women’s room was labeled “Dolls” which I thought was very charming. But then I became worried! Where would ALISHA pee??

Henry ordered wings and ate them like it was his last meal before succumbing to H1N1. The sauce-smear across his moustacioed lips was very attractive, like he had just went down on a barbequed street walker.

And then we left and spent another fifty billion hours driving aimlessly through Amish turf, where I started to write a script for a brand new television drama starring Henry’s eyebrows*, and became arrested by strong desires to relinquish the hold all these material things have upon me and join Team Amish, where I can don a bonnet, write with a quill and ink,  and have sex through a hole in a sheet. And sell my bathroom plaques to tourists from the Big City.

[*A few minutes later, we passed some weird building consisting of two side-by-side domes and Henry goes, “It’s a breast-stop, get it? A breast-stop” because it looked like boobs sort of (but not really) and it was really lame and no one laughed, but then I said, “That will be the first joke your eyebrows tell in their new show” and Alisha was trying so hard not to laugh that her face was all red and Blake was doing that high-pitched snort thing which means he thought it was REALLY FUNNY so fuck you, Henry.]

Edit: Srsly, I have 14 of these lame-o postcards and maybe you’re into collecting lame-o post cards, then you should tell me and I’ll send you one.

Dec 132007
 

Dear Diary,

I was outside enjoying the nice view of the parking lot and bus garage in the distance, when a shifty man wearing maroon track pants and a hockey jersey approached. He claimed that he worked here but left his security badge at home and could one of us let him in.

A flimsy excuse if ever there was.

I shook my head no, but Collin shrugged and said sure. I gave him a Very Stern Look, which he either didn’t see or ignored, and he let the homicidal wanderer into our ONCE SAFE place of employment. He couldn’t have, oh I don’t know, PATTED HIM DOWN first?

Now there’s some jilted ex-employee (or homeless cave dweller with a data processor rape fantasy which he’s trying to bring to fruition) roaming the halls of this building and I feel so unsafe. I can’t believe Collin would endanger his fellow co-workers like that. I told Kim immediately, hoping she would say, “Oh, well that’s grounds for termination” but she shrugged and said, “Hmm. Oh well. Next time, just let the guards handle it.” Then she went back to work. Just like that.

Well, I hope she’s his first victim. And while he’s garroting her, I’ll slip away into the night.

Later, I cautiously journeyed to one of the other areas of our floor to snatch Hershey Kisses from the secretary’s desk. (How do they make the hot cocoa ones taste so much like hot cocoa?! It really is quite remarkable.) I speed-walked back, craning my neck around cubicle walls before nervously rounding corners. At one point, my heart exploded when I heard jingling next to me, but then I realized it was just the change in my pocket.

It’s killing me that I’m blind to the stranger’s location. What if he’s taken a hostage upstairs? Or wiring a bomb in the kitchen? Or fucking a toilet paper roll in the bathroom? These are things I desperately need to know.

Just now, as I’m typing this, one of the cleaning people wheeled a giant garbage can down the hallway and I lurched back in my chair. Kim laughed at me, cruelly. She also suggested that I get medicated. “You have insurance now,” she reminded me.

All of this after I JUST had dialogue with Henry about my need for a butterfly knife.

Later,

Destined to be Murdered.