My name is Erin and I'm based in Tempe, Arizona with satellite Erins open in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Hong Kong.

My husband, Randy, and I were married in 2009 after nine years of living together. Randy is brilliant and hilarious and yesterday he reorganized our "Hoarders" level pantry in like two hours so apparently he also has some sort of magical powers. When you come over he's invariably going to coax you into the garage so he can pierce your eardrums by revving the engine on his sandrail and then he's going to set off a bunch of fireworks in the backyard until the cops come. I could get someone to back that up for me but everyone who's ever been here is either deaf or in jail.

Randy's older than I am and has three grown children, all married, all likewise brilliant and hilarious, and all frustratingly attractive. They live close by so we see each other a lot. My parents also live close by, as does my brother and his wife and their two kids. We tend to swap a lot of Tupperware. 

Randy and I have a vaguely Australian Shepherd-ish animal named Jake. When Jake was a puppy he gloriusly leapt from a fourth floor window and lived. Jake is-- and I don't think I'm overstating here-- the fattest mammal that has lived or will live on this or any other planet capable of sustaining life in our universe. Jake has recently started eating while prone. He eats his carefully measured food lying on his side and then he licks the empty bowl so hard that he actually manages to lick it away from himself, and then he licks the air in front of his bowl until he falls asleep.

His favorite hobby is cheese, but he also enjoys cheese.

In 2010, I was diagnosed with melanoma. It was removed FROM MY EAR with Mohs surgery, a procedure I've detailed here. Since then I've had several other dysplastic nevi biopsied; combine all of that with the basal cell carcinoma I had removed in college and it's just a big spf 80 party over here.

I have a masters degree in English because I was too smart to study law or medicine. After working for years in a corporate cubicle as a technical writer, I started doing freelance writing work from home. I use the word "work" loosely since there hasn't been a lot of that lately. To compensate, I make and sell sock zombies. I sell them on Etsy, at various craft shows, and in retail stores around the country. You probably don't need one? But you might need three. You can follow Sock Zombie on Twitter and on Facebook. You can follow ME (and presumably I can follow you back) on Facebook, Google+, tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, and Foursquare. If you know of any other mostly useless social platforms, by all means let me know.

OTHER WRITING

The Very Best Weblog Writing Ever By Anyone Anywhere in the Whole Wide World, Vol. 1, 2006

Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas, 2008

I'm the Foursquare Mayor of this Goddamn Safeway, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, 2010