boobs

today at work i had the worst "ohmygod that did NOT just happen!" movie moment.

it was almost time to go home, so i was feeling antsy and ornery. i was sorting through a cart of crap when i came across a pair of little girls kneepads. they were shaped and decorated like easter eggs. of course, the first thing that popped into my mind was, "PASTIES!"

being a total asshole, i held them up to my chest (which doesn't need anything else drawing attention to it, if you know what i mean) and yelled for my friend heather to look while i squealed, "ooooooooooh!" that's when i turned to see the new manager-in-training standing next to me. i wish i could have seen the look on my face because it went something exactly like this:

: O

purely by reflex, i slapped my hand over my mouth like it was going to help shut me up, but it was already too late. i could tell he was trying not to laugh, and i walked away completely red in the face but trying SO HARD to stop laughing until he was gone. it was one of those moments when you know it's totally inappropriate and you need to stop laughing (like in school or church) but the fact that you have to supress it only makes you want to do it MORE. to make matters worse, he stayed in my section for a couple minutes checking prices, and i was seriously about to explode.

i can't believe he saw me with my pasties.

fun

i was playing around on youtube tonite and thought i would post some fun videos i found.

here is a clip from the 1957 movie "untamed youth." i wish people still knew how to dance like this! i wish it was still the "hip" thing for young people to do. i wish i wore a dress every day and all of them had pretty circle skirts to twirl around when i danced with my boy. i definitely believe i was born in the wrong era. it's so frustrating that i miss a time period that i was not even around for ; )




i used to LOVE this video when i was little :D




mtv's THE STATE is my favorite show ever ever ever. it has been off the air for years and supposedly it is finally coming out on dvd this july. a lot of the people from the show went on to do great things like "wet hot american summer," "reno: 911," "stella," etc. here is one of my favorite skits:




i grew up loving the monkees. the weird thing about the show is that some of it is so ridiculously goofy it seems like it must be geared towards a younger audience. but once you watch it as an adult you pick up some of the subtle jokes and humor and realize that a lot of the dialogue is obviously intended for an older crowd. as a five-year-old, i could not appreciate the fact that they had a guest appearance from frank zappa, nor could i pick up the sarcasm in the "interview." watching it now with mike nesmith and frank zappa impersonating each other, it's totally hilarious...plus, it will never get old watching "frank's" nose fall off.




and here's a monkees clip, for good measure :)
p.s. peter is my favorite monkee!





when we put together romantic getaway (a.k.a. horriblefest) this year, one of my favorite things to come out of it was wizzard sleeve's set. i wish i would have taken some video of it but i was too busy having my mind blown. here is someone else's video from some other show that is sorta like having a bad dream when you watch it. the end of the video is unnecessary but there weren't that many to choose from.





this guy is my friend. how no one thought sooner to have an act that features wearing nothing but some underwear and a bunny mask is beyond me, but i'm glad he got that shit down and now he is livin the life. nobunny is one of the greatest people i know. he is my main blog photo, after all!




i guess that's enough playing around for one nite.

everything happens for a reason

this is strange.

recently, i was going back through my written journal from last year. i have been keeping one since 1997 and i make sure to write in it daily before i go to sleep.

exactly one year ago today, i wrote: "i am lonely."

exactly one year ago tomorrow, i met josh.

(well, technically "re-met" i guess...but the first time didn't really count. ha. this was the start of us becoming inseparable. one of the first entries i wrote in this blog back in january tells the whole story of how we met, in case anyone is curious).

as i laid in bed with a heavy heart, notebook in hand, i had no way of knowing that he was about to come back into my life and be everything i was waiting for.



life is funny sometimes, dontcha think?

(almost) one year

since mine and josh's one-year anniversary is this tuesday, we decided we would celebrate it this weekend when we were both free. we already had plans to go to detroit for the sold-out oblivians/gories show, and we figured we could just make a day of it and enjoy each other's company. i know, i know...a rock'n'roll show in detroit does not sound like the most romantic anniversary plans ever. BUT...we also hang out in cemeteries for fun and would rather spend our grocery money on records and zombie movies. so. there you have it.

we left early saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel. we were staying in a cute little town called monroe, michigan. we picked it randomly off a map because a) it looked about where we wanted to be that was close enough to the show yet far enough not to be staying in a boarded up crackhouse, and b) we saw a picture of this guy when we were doing a google search about the town and it seemed ridiculous enough to win our vote:



our hotel was decent (and cheap!) and had a very seventies exterior that i dug. you know how sometimes you just have the urge to stay in a hotel?



after checking in, we were off to see the motown museum. we tried, anyway. because detroit's highways are so fucked and it was confusing our gps, we SOMEHOW accidentally ended up on "the bridge to canada." i don't even remember being on a bridge, but i remembered seeing all the signs warning us that we were heading that way. by the time we realized we needed to turn around, we were already stuck in this giant parking lot thing. josh asked a gas station attendant how to get out, and he told us we needed to go to a toll booth and "get the right paperwork." we did, and once we had a slip of paper saying "re-entry to the us" (when did we leave?) we attempted to go through another toll booth, where we were promptly stopped and searched. it was very unnecessary. the attendant asked us all sorts of questions like "what do you do for work?" and "where were you born?" he insisted on taking my purse and emptying all the contents from it on the desk in front of him. meanwhile, i was totally frustrated at having gotten lost and stuck AND we only had an hour til the museum closed.

we finally got out of there (and i was SO ENRAGED!!) and made it to the museum. i hadn't realized that what is the museum today (and was the studio back in the fifties/sixties) was actually berry gordy's house that he turned into a studio. i was excited to see the 2-house museum but when we drove past we quickly realized we picked the wrong day to visit. there was a michael jackson party going on right on the front lawn of the motown museum. i spotted two impersonators, one of them wearing a surgical mask like he used to do. we parked and walked up only to find out that THEY CLOSED EARLY FOR THE DAY. all that trouble, we finally made it there in time, and we still couldn't go in. i can't wait until the day when this all seems hilarious. we took a few pictures of the outside, which was all we would have been allowed to do anyway since there is no photography allowed inside the museum. at least you guys can check out this party. there were ice cream trucks lined up along the curb and people sitting on their porches across the street blasting michael jackson and jackson five songs. heh.















in the evening, we went to the majestic theater to see the oblivians and the gories. the show was decent, but the choice in venue pretty much ruined the experience for me. at big shows, i don't feel like the band and the audience get to feed off each other as much because the place is too big and it gets too impersonal. it makes the whole atmosphere lose a little of the magic...for me, at least. i like to be right up front FEELING the energy, and when it is a big venue i feel so detached i might as well be watching it on tv from my couch at home. last night felt like i was watching the bands play from the inside of a cave rather than a club. the oblivians were good but it didn't compare to the other time i saw them (at a small bar in chicago a few years ago at the blackout). the gories were always just "ok" to me and that's how it was to see them live as well. eventually josh and i had to leave a little early because it was so hot inside and so crowded that i felt a panic attack coming on and i wanted to get outside before one happened. i heard today that they sold 1,000 tickets to the show, so that about sums it up. i saw the oblivians in a stuffy cave with 1,000 other people and it was just ok.

the best part of the show for me was the fact that i saw 230480938409 friends that i wasn't expecting to see! and i have no idea how they found short, little me in the sea of 998 other people. first we met up with some other cleveland people we knew were going, including my cousin beth and her friends. and then i ran into some feelers! and some daily voids! and some terrible twos! and john jackson! REALLY?!? i don't see john jackson for over a year even though he lives nearby and then i finally do in DETROIT? random! i love it! the best though was when a guy walked up to me and addressed me by my terminal boredom handle and introduced himself. haaaa. he also reminded me that we met on myspace about two years ago when i was admiring his sweet artwork. funny.

before we started home today, josh and i drove around downtown monroe and snapped some photos. the town really was cute. it's the kind of place where little old ladies will wave to you as they drive past in their cars (seriously!). and how can you not love a place that marks the site of their whipping post?



















we also found out that general custer was from monroe when we were googling the city. we passed a huge monument of him on horseback but i didn't get a picture because we were driving. here is a pretty little church where he got married. i love me some history!





i fell in love with this fountain that had big water lily sculptures inside:











happy (early) anniversary, boyfriend.

"its in our genetic profile to grill meat over an open flame. that's why we've lasted 2000 years." -josh

at the end of last week, josh and i went to see the strange boys at now that's class. they played on my radio show about two years ago...very talented and sweet dudes. we ended up having an impromptu pajama party and i only wish it would have been on a weekend so i could have stayed up and watched "battle royale" with them instead of having to pass out at 3am and get up for work a few hours later.

while we were at the show, a boy who was vaguely familiar sorta smiled at me, so i sorta smiled back. all nite long when he would walk by, he would sorta smile and i would sorta smile back. finally halfway through the nite he came up to me and asked, "erin?" and told me his name was andrew. it was one of those terribly awkward moments where i KNEW i should know him, but i couldn't figure out how or why. he saved me by quickly reminding me he was in the band the traditional fools, who are another lovely bunch of guys that stayed with me about a year and a half ago. they were one of the first bands to stay at my place when i moved here. i took them all to melt and bought them lunch, and they were so impressed with their grilled cheese sandwiches that they were taking pictures with their cameras. ha. so it was neat to see andrew again and even better than he had randomly hooked up with the strange boys and was driving around with them on tour when he got left outside canada with another band he was with. the reason i couldn't make the connection immediately was because i knew the strange boys were from austin, tx and the traditional fools were from california, so it never even dawned on me that they would know each other let alone both be in the same room with me in cleveland, ohio. regardless, it was a fun nite.

this weekend josh and i took it easy and hung out together. work gave me a meltdown on friday so we laid low at home. saturday we went out bummin' and hit up some thrift stores as well as the new big fun that opened in lakewood. came home and made shrimp/vegetable kabobs on the grill and sat outside on our tiny side porch eating dinner like hillbillies (barefoot and with beer in hand -- or in my case, fresh lemonade!) then we took the hillbilly to another level and i did the unthinkable -- gave josh a tattoo. let me remind you that i can't even hold a pencil straight to draw, let alone tattoo someone. i've never touched a tattoo gun in my life. yet for some reason my boyfriend thought it would be a good idea to let me tattoo "dirty feets" on his toes. i'll admit, it IS pretty funny (especially because of how awful of a job i did). but it was also TERRIBLE because i was so scared to do it and every time i put my foot on the pedal and heard the buzzing of the needle i freaked and told him i couldn't do it. also, there's the whole issue of my foot phobia. UGH!



then i decided it would be funny to get a fishbone tattooed on me. i randomly decided they were cute (and i figured that's exactly what my preexisting chococat tattoo would be dreaming about if he had thought bubbles). i guess i'll post a picture of my fishbone later because josh never uploaded it.

just now, we were watching a program on tv about people with ocd and there was a woman who had a miscarriage and was still upset about it 7 years later. probably, part of the reason she was still so upset about it was the fact that SHE WAS KEEPING THE REMAINS IN HER FREEZER IN A BROWN PAPER BAG. i did not realize hospitals gave patients the option to take their miscarriage remains home. and really? next to the tater tots that you serve your five-year-old son...? life is FUCKED.

open for business

on friday, i spent the last official day of my vacation baking peanut butter cookies for my boyfriend while he was at work and starting our etsy store. we looked at hot rods at a cruise-in (and gave all the old guys puppy dog eyes, in case they thought we looked so cute that they wanted to give us their black and white '57 chevy).

yesterday we went to my mind's eye and bought records. i got some awesome compilations:

-chop suey rock (50s/60s songs "about the orient," which just means ridiculous doowop songs with exaggerated impressions of asian accents)
-las vegas grind #6
-twistin rumble # 5

we also finished our etsy store for our new hobby/business, swamp rat photography. ever since josh and i met, we have been going on adventures and taking pictures in weird/creepy/abandoned/backwoods places. a few months ago while going through our pictures, we decided they were actually pretty neat looking and wondered if other people would think so. we started blowing up the pictures and putting them together with mats and frames. we had them out during our yardsale last weekend, and while we didn't sell any, we got A LOT of compliments. we figured we would try one more time and put them up somewhere that people might actually appreciate them. we added them to our brand new etsy store last nite, and by this morning we had already sold one! it was the coolest feeling. someone we don't even know (from maryland!) liked one of our photographs enough to want it for their own. that's so neat.

so if anybody is into the stuff we're into (dead people and destruction), maybe you will find something you like.

WEIRD-O!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade swampratphotography.etsy.com

i got an uncontrollable urge makes me scream and shout it

HOLY CRAP!!

my trip to new york city and the mummies show that i STILL can't believe happened was an amazing time. that was probably the best show i've ever seen!! i have lots of pictures i took and videos i posted on youtube, and although it doesn't even compare to actually being at the show it will have to suffice. it was SO GREAT.

beth, greg the bunny and i got to nyc on wednesday afternoon. we arrived at the apartment of mags (jeff) and his wife frankie (beth). they took us to a good pizza joint called amore's, then to a record store where i found an amos milburn record. we hung out for like a minute (which wasn't nearly enough time to hang, and i wished we were staying longer!) and then headed to brooklyn to see the show.

i didn't even get my butt spanked like the last time i was at southpaw (teengenerate/reatards a few years ago). the mummies were so damn good i am STILL reeling (and rocking). fuck. i don't even know what to say. i'll just let the videos and pictures do the talking for me. after the show we went and got more pizza because the place was so good and they had like 50 different kinds to choose from (and i wanted to choose them ALL). the slices are huge. the second time i got a white pizza with big piles of ricotta cheese - yum!



then we passed out in the basement/music den that mags turned into a guest bedroom for the nite. he has lots of old posters and fliers from when the dead boys played shows and it was sorta like a little punk rock museum. it was awesome of mags and frankie to put us up for the nite!
fun fact: this is where the computer is, making it the place mags camps out every tuesday nite to listen to hot trash. loyal listeners rule!













we woke up way early and caught a plane back to cleveland. my head is still spinning and it's killing me to think this was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, the only time i will get to see that band who has technically been broken up since about '91 or so. still, it was worth every penny and every second spent in smelly airports.

here are some black and white photos, and a link to my myspace blog with a billion more pictures.

















watch these and tell me it doesn't look like THE BEST FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD:







(there's more if you go to my account on youtube)

where's my umbrella drink?

as of this moment, i am officially ON VACATION. i don't have to step foot in that place for 9 glorious days. during that time, i plan to:

-hug my cats more often
-sleep in!
-spend josh's day off with him (we are deciding between the zoo and flea markets in amish country)
-catch up on reading the bazillion books i've been bringing home
-look for a new job
-hang out with my mom
-go to new york city! and hang with mags and frankie! AND SEE THE MUMMIES!!!
-clean the house (so i can show josh how much more i get done when i'm not at work, so that i can one day talk him into letting me quit. mawhaha!)

the other nite josh put together our new grill to make hamburgers for dinner. he came running in the house excitedly and told me, "now we're like a REAL couple, because we have a grill!" i couldn't help but laugh at him, and i told him that although it was a cute sentiment, i still thought we were a real couple before the arrival of the grill.

"yeah, i know, but...more of one," he insisted.

i love that kid. our one-year anniversary is rapidly approaching (at the end of june). i want to do something special but i don't know what. it falls on a tuesday, which sucks because we will both come home from work and then have to go do my radio show that nite. i'm still in awe that i have this amazing boy and a wonderful relationship and i never thought it would happen at all. i thought i would just go on having a crush from afar while he went on not noticing me. turns out we were just waiting for the right time to find each other.

pain in the bigneck fest

if the name of the fest is any indication as to the experience josh and i had while in buffalo, then the name should actually be changed to PAIN IN THE BIG ASS FEST. which is not to say we had a bad time, but we did run into a few snags here and there. or "EVERYWHERE!" as josh so kindly put it. let me fastforward to last weekend...

josh and i have known about this trip for months and we made arrangements to stay with a friend of his since we didn't have the money to get a hotel all weekend. on friday morning, josh got a text from his friend saying he wasn't going to be in town. sorry! UM, SERIOUSLY??? i have less than 8 hours to figure out what we're going to do or the whole trip is off? sweet. i snuck around at work, texting furiously and trying not to get caught so that i could try to find another place for us to stay. in the end, my friend scott saved the day. he was paying back a favor since the blowtops have slept and eaten dinner here for the past five years any time they were in cleveland. all set. good deal.

josh and i left after work on friday and made it to buffalo without any problems. right away i ran into people i knew: aaron, scott and dave from the blowtops, kickbart who runs bigneck records, bill from cococoma, etc. bill showed me pictures of his and lisa's baby (congratulations!) and i told him i was excited to see his new band, a/v murder. before the night was through, we would see about 8 bands, the highlights being the terrible twos, av/murder and the last blowtops show ever.

we slept at scott's house and he has a huge, goofy puppy that is as big as me. i slept like shit because 1) we were laying on an air mattress on a hardwood floor, 2) the window was open all night and it was so cold in the room that when i woke up in the morning i found both josh and i had been sleeping with the covers over our faces to keep our noses from falling off, and 3)the big, happy dog kept running in and trying to jump in between us on the air mattress to cuddle. we had nothing to do saturday until the show started at night, so we decided to go exploring. we checked out a big cemetery by scott's house where rick james is supposedly buried, but we didn't find his grave.





next we decided to go to niagra falls because it was two days before the new law would go into effect, stating that you need a passport to cross the border. we figured we might as well go now while we were 20 minutes away. scott and aaron advised us to park on the american side at the national park and walk across the bridge to canada because you would get "hassled less" this way. haha, UNTRUE. the border guard we had was a total BITCH. she asked for our birth certificates and we said we didn't have any. she asked why. we told her we didn't know we had to. she responded, "you can't just walk in here and pretend like you don't know that you need them. it says it everywhere." unfortunately, there was no pretending involved as we don't cross borders often or find ourselves around canada on saturday afternoons. next i found out that i was accidentally carrying a concealed weapon, as i forgot that there was a little bottle of pepper spray attached to my keyring. she called border patrol officers to escort us to another office, where we had to fill out paperwork saying that they took my pepperspray and destroyed it. ANNOYING. by the time we got inside canada, i was fuming so hard at the way that lady talked to us that i couldn't even enjoy myself. josh tried to cheer me up by taking a picture of me by the falls and sending a text to my mom that said, "think she should try the barrel trick?"





we walked around and looked at things and wished we had more money with us. we went inside the criminal hall of fame wax museum, which was filled with serial killers and mobsters. it was pretty cool, especially when we learned you could take all the pictures you wanted inside.













tell me these pictures of john wayne gacy dressed as pogo the clown aren't the creepiest things ever!!!







i LOVE the jeffrey dahmer scene!











we stopped back at scott's house to take a nap before the show, but i still couldn't sleep. we went to a gas station and almost got into a car accident when a girl backed out of her parking space and almost plowed into the side of our car. it would have been AWFUL. our cars BRUSHED each other. she FLOORED IT IN REVERSE. ugh. i shudder to think about how bad it could have been. i almost peed my pants waiting for the impact to happen, which it (thankfully) never did. by the time we got to the show that night i was feeling terrible from lack of sleep and some sort of cold. i spent most of the night trying in vain to keep my eyes open. i couldn't even socialize with anyone because i felt so awful i didn't even want to be there. it sucked. but i did manange to see some good bands, like the fatal figures (new band featuring ex-blowtops members), homostupids, burndowns, and 2 reunion sets by the baseball furies. i passed out on the couch at scott's and finally got a few hours of sleep before we got up early to go back to cleveland. i didn't get many pictures of bands playing all weekend, but i blame that on my feeling like shit and not being as into the shows as i normally would have been.

we were about 20 minutes into the drive on the way home when we decided to stop at a rest area to get cheeseburgers from mcdonals. that's when i looked at my back tire and told josh it was flat. it didn't FEEL like it was flat, but it was about 2 second away from blowing. so there we were on a sunday morning, 3 hours from home with very little money and no idea what to do. to top it all off, i was still in my pajamas because i figured we would be going right home. we tried calling my dad to see what he suggested we do. my phone went dead because my battery died. then josh called using his and HIS phone died. was this a bad movie, or what??? to make a long story short: one good samaritan, one nerve-wracking trip to walmart on a donut and 3 extra hours added to the trip, and we were finally back home. and let me tell you, home never felt so damn good.