yesterday in our psychology class, some kid that thinks he is rockabilly admitted to everyone that when he was little he liked to ride down the steps in a laundry basket because it made him feel good.

i can't believe how busy things have been lately. this is the first time in days that i have had a few hours to sit down and do nothing. some nites i haven't gotten more than 2 hours of sleep at a time, and it's really catching up with me and making me feel old. ha. but i can't complain.

i've actually been hanging out with people instead of being all anti-social. spent a few nites with my brother at johncap's new house, which is no longer his house at the time of this writing. anyway, met some new friends, one of which is my new "best friend." he is a nice straightedge kid named jesse and we've been hanging out a lot lately. he tells me funny stories about monkeys and tiger army and farmers. i can't explain. ha. but we have so much fun. had some hangout time with billie, one of my most favorites girls in the world. saw my cousin josh who surprised us by being in town instead of doing stupid things in the military somewhere else. it was great to see him again because it's been almost 2 years. also our california friend james is in town, and that kid is simply wonderful. things have been good.

while i'm talking about hanging out with people...the very recent past has found kevin and i talking and hanging out again. if you know me or have been reading this diary for any decent amount of time, i don't need to explain why this is significant. and even if you don't know anything about it, all you would have to do is look through a few old entries to get a pretty good idea as to what went on. anyway, after dating off and on for somewhere around 4 years, and then not hanging out for 2 years, and not even speaking for the last 1, it's a big deal to me that we are on good terms again. i have missed being friends with that kid SO MUCH. he is a bit different, but then again, so am i. it's impossible not to have grown. we went out for food one nite for his birthday and he came to my "birthday party" last nite (more on that later). both times went way better than i expected. for the first time ever, i feel like we finally understand each other and why things happened, and i feel like there are no hard feelings between either one of us for anything that went on. sure, there might still be things that hurt a little bit to think about, but we don't hold them against each other anymore and that is great. i feel like this resolve has finally put me at ease. it has been controlling my life in so many ways for the last two years.

the other day at a party i saw my brother mike drunk for the first time ever. haha i was traumatized. he kept saying, "erin, hug me. tell me you're having fun. no, really. hug me for real and tell me you're having a good time." then he kept trying to pick me up, and he kept pulling my hair or whispering in my ear because i told him it was creepy. it was funny, but weird. i also saw kevin drunk for the first time ever last nite at my "birthday party," and he fell off a chair into my arms, practically. that was the highlight of the nite, it was so fucking hilarious. when i drove his drunk ass home because he couldn't operate a car, he was so excited for me to hear every single cd in his car that no song stayed on for longer than 30 seconds. he would announce, "now here's the song" and then let me hear a few seconds of it before he found another that was THE song. haha it was pretty entertaining. drunk people are funny.

while today is billie joe's birthday (33, yowza!), mine was on monday. i turned 23. i was sad about my birthday this year for whatever reason, but my friends and family still made me smile big smiles. especially when they gave me good presents! haha. i loved waking up to find a text message from my brother chris that said, "happy birthday asswipe." that made me smile all day long. it was a very elvish birthday, and i don't mean the woodland creature variety. my family got me my talking napoleon dynamite watch. amazing. my new best friend jesse gave me this INCREDIBLE piece of "junk" that his mom wanted to get rid of...will you look at THAT?! haha holy crap. i don't know if you can tell from that picture or not, but it's HUGE. it's almost up to my chest. beth gave me a bunch of silly stuff, including a book called "naughty naughty kiefer" that she edited herself. it is supposed to be a children's book about a bad cat named kiefer, but she cut out pictures of kiefer sutherland to put over the cat's head on all the pages. it's soo funny. she also gave me a book of pinup girl pictures, which is amazing. her boyfriend tim gave me a rubberducky that is BEETHOVEN! haha. it rules, and so do the rest of the line, which you can find at celebriducks.com. the james brown and snoop dogg ones are especially great. a boy gave me the elvis '68 comeback special. he held my hand and watched it with me. amy gave me "the grudge" so i can hear that awful noise and pee my pants all the time. angie and dana gave me a bunch of elvis stuff, and also the oc boxed set! ohhh those sweet gals! johnny gave me a copy of the movie "angus," which i did see in theaters in like 7th grade but i don't remember one bit. it was so nice of everyone. aw!

so instead of having a party this year, i decided that i wanted to check out the first 90's nite at the pirates cove and i told all my friends to go so that i could turn it into my birthday party. it pretty much ruled. even though nothing spectacular happened, just being there with a bunch of friends and having fun without giving any fucks about what everyone thought of how stupid we were acting...haha it was the greatest. lacey and johnny were nice enough to sit there FOREVER before we realized that it wasn't in the pirates cove at all but in some new place upstairs called "rockstar." beth and amy came and brought CA james, who came into town the other day but i hadn't seen yet. i have missed him! andrew showed up and rocked the fuck out. kevin came, solo, which was really nice of him and meant a lot to me. i went with angie, dana and the mailman. tim showed up. also saw meghan, dale and courtney, who i don't know came especially for my birthday but it was still great to see everyone. i LOVED IT when they played "everlong" by the foo fighters and "banditos" by the refreshments. me and andrew torn up the dancefloor like FOOLS. it was great. angie requested things that i wanted just for me, like some stone temple pilots, "lucas with the lid off" and "california love" by tupac. ha. it was also great when they played rancid, new kids on the block, and motorhead (huh??). i like 90s nite sooo much better than 80s nite. THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who came last nite and to everyone who was so nice to me on my birthday this year. i have been so busy worrying about other things lately that for a second there i forgot just how much my friends mean to me and how miserable i would be without them in my life. you guys are amazing!

last week beth and i did our doowop show on hot trash for valentines day. my brother mike came with us. next week CA james is coming with us. we can have guests on our show now. want to come with us? do tell!

i think i've gone on for long enough. before i go, here is finally a picture of the fucking FABULOUS elvis lamp that my brother garbage-picked for me for christmas. ha. the glasses were not included and were my own touch.

xoxo