Today we explored to a new-to-us neighborhood (문래) and it ended up being pretty excellent honestly. A little out of our comfort zone, but that’s part of traveling, right? Being able to read Hangul really comes in clutch.
Anyway we are about to go back out for dinner but I wanted to post this picture of Chooch because I spent all morning taking “senior portraits” of him with the “good camera” but then this picture I took with my phone in Mullae ended up being better than all of them. Isn’t that always the case!!
I only post when we’re on the train I guess, so here I am with another quick check-in on the KTX from Gyeongju back to Seoul. We did an overnight trip here and it was…chaotic and full of dramatic arguing as is our brand but also really fun and beautiful too. Gyeongju is famous for having Silla Dynasty burial mounds and they were breathtaking in person, I was actually in awe.
I have to talk about The Tree though as the main topic of this post. When we arrived yesterday, it was downpouring. Like, 100% rain all day. Long story short, we ended up switching plans around and instead of Gyeongju World, we headed back to this trendy little tourist area around the burial mounds called Hwangnam Dong. On our walk into it, there was this lone magnolia tree in front of some of the mounds and some people were getting their pictures taken there. I wanted one too so Chooch took one of me and Henry but I didn’t like it so I wanted a do-over but by then, there were more people waiting and I panicked so we left.
Henry and I woke up around 6am this morning because I wanted to go back out and see everything in the not-rain before going to Gyeongju World, and to also have him take my picture by the tree again but it was still just as frustrating!! Some guy came over and started taking pictures at the same time so I felt self-conscious and stepped away from the tree but then a couple with freaking paparazzi lenses showed up and did a full-blown fashion shoot and then another couple came and they started talking pictures FOR each other and I was like FUCK IT!!! so we left.
The terrible picture Henry took of me squinting into the sun.
Anyway, after walking around for a bit, we came back to the tree because we had to pass it to go back to our guest house anyway, and I was like “ok there is only one couple there, let’s wait.”
Yo. They were absolutely fucking ridiculous about this tree. The amount of pictures the boyfriend took of the girlfriend was absurd. With her jacket on. With it off. With it over her shoulder. With her back to the camera. With her side to the camera. Facing the camera. All the while, some man was flying a drone RIGHT OVER THE TREE.
Then the girl swapped places and started taking pictures or the boyfriend!!! THEN THEY STOOD TOGETHER UNDER THE TREE WHILE LOOKING THRU THE PICTURES.
THEN SHE WENT BACK AND STARTED POSING FOR MORE.
THEN ANOTHER COUPLE APPROACHED and I said WE HAVE MAGNOLIA TREES IN AMERICA WHO THE FUCK CARES and stormed off. And that is the end of my story about The Tree.
However, we had time to kill before catching our train so Chooch and I went back and walked around the main burial mound area where we stumbled across an even more popular tree.
I mean, this really is beautiful though. But not standing-in-a-line levels of beauty. Also I would die of anxiety having my picture taken in front of a literal queue.
It gave me chills, for real. But also, when the first mound was created 100s of years ago, I wonder if those people ever would have predicted that it would turn into a historical/tourist destination with a street lined with self-operated photo rooms, cafes, and pancakes in the shape of giant Korean coins and stuffed with melted cheese.
Yo! We’re on a KTX to Gyeongju right now so I have some downtime to check in with you, Blog. First of all, I can’t believe it’s Thursday already. I started getting the WE HAVE TO LEAVE SOON panic basically from the very first day here. This country has me by the heart. I don’t know that I will ever be able to explain it but the ensuing crash of depression once we get home is going to hit me hard so probably just best to avoid me for a while if you know me IRL, ugh.
Anyway, for today’s micro update, I will talk about yesterday morning’s scheduled activity! I thought it would be meaningful to make our own wedding bands while here in Seoul and I found someone offering a ring-making workshop on AirBnB Experiences which I neverlook at but something made me check it this time.
The workshop is held by a jeweler, 충호, in their studio in Hongdae (actually a bit outside of Hongdae I think). We were a half hour early because we just wanted to make sure we knew where the place was and were going to just continue walking around but she ended up showing up just then and unlocked the door for us so we got started right away!
First, she apologized for not speaking much English but she did a great job explaining the process to us and even though we couldn’t really have a conversation, the vibe was still pretty chill and casual. I mean, I was my usual spastic self though because I was worried about fucking up my ring but it was fine!
Then, the three of us (Chooch wanted to make one for himself too) had to choose the style and we all somehow chose the same so it’s like these are our family rings now lol. Except that Henry and I chose to have our engraved. My ring has his initials and our “marriage date” and his has mine. AWWW.
I was actually surprised that Chooch opted to do this with us rather than roam about Pokemon Go’ing.
I wonder if Chungho was happy to get rid of us though lol.
Chooch is currently sitting across from me on the train, spinning his ring on his finger like an old man gangster.
And yeah that’s the story of our wedding bands. Now I just have to get my replacement engagement ring lololol ugh.
I have a lot to say about this because it’s been 23 years in the making, but for now, as a placeholder: IT WORKED. WE DID IT. HENRY AND I GOT MARRIED TODAY (3/26/24) IN SEOUL!
I’m eternally grateful for my dear friend Jiyong and her husband signing as witnesses for us when we visited them in Jeonju on Monday, and for the Jongno District Office not requiring witnesses to be physically present.
I’m appreciative of my friends back home who endured my constant stressing and hand wringing over the logistics. “What if this doesn’t work? What if we go all the way there and they’re like NO and then I look like a dumb dumb, like, ‘ha, u thought.'”
I love that Chooch came along for the ride and I love that he was thoroughly put-out when he had to CROSS THE STREET to come over and take these pictures for us GOD FORBID we interrupted his Pokemon Go’ing that he was doing while waiting for us to complete our bureaucratic gymnastics.
I love that in spite of all the people over the years who hated us, spread rumors about us, stood in front of our house harassing us, cyber bullied us…ok this is really just two people lol…we stuck it out all these years. It was really rough at times but we made it work.
This feels like such a relief and it’s also still kind of surreal but don’t worry, within 30 seconds of the license being stamped, I was already telling him he was annoying me so really not much has changed. Back to the regularly-scheduled Henry beratings :)
Now I’m going to relax and fully enjoy the rest of my time in my favorite place in the world without this hanging over my head!
Good morning from the Yongsan train station! We’re currently sitting on the 505 waiting to depart for Jeonju where we will be spending the day with my friend Jiyong! I haven’t seen her since she moved back to Korea in 2021 and I’m so stoked for this!
I have so much to recap already but for now, here are some pictures from our last destination last night – the DDP. It’s one of my favorite places in Seoul and we will be going back at some point during the day but I wanted to see it at night when it’s at its most majestic.
DDP stands for the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and it has several futuristic, space-shaped buildings that has restaurants and galleries, shops, a museum, a space for exhibitions (there is an NCT127 one happening right now!!!)
Right before we exited the subway station to the DDP, we stopped at an Emart and as Henry paying, Chooch goes, “Look–there’s an NCT Dream T-money card” because my plight on this trip is that I couldn’t find a T-money card (to use for the subway) that spoke to me. They used to have vending machines full of cute options in some of the more popular / college stations but we couldn’t find any and the convenience stores didn’t have any I liked so I ended up going with some non-T-Money option called NAMANE or something, which can also be used as a debit card. I only went with that because they had Wiggle Wiggle designs, one of my favorite Korean brands.
Anyway, I thought Chooch was joking but then I saw it (it was Haechan!!) so Henry was like “Jesus Christ” and went back in and bought it hahaha.
I texted this to Janna because she can never tell which one Haechan is. When I said what I was doing, I heard Chooch whisper to Henry, “Oh that’s who that is?” Wow.
It was so good to be back here. The vibe is impeccable – so chill and cool and fun to run around looking at everything. This is also where Seoul Fashion Week was happening the first time we were here in 2018!! These steps are actually where the celebrities were walking when they were dropped off there!
I love that it’s so futuristic yet it is also the location of the Igansumun Floodgate of Seoul City Wall.
Henry’s gonna Henry.
P.S. this was supposed to have posted yesterday but my blog is a piece of shit.
It’s 6:03pm and we’re at our hotel – Shilla Stay in 서대문! We landed around 3pm and everything went smoothly – got to take the subway for the first time, Henry was only moderately embarrassing, etc etc. Oh it was annoying on our Delta flight here (Korean Air is so much better but the droll flight itself is best reserved for the vacation journal) because before we took off, one of the flight attendants said to Henry, “WOW, excellent job on the overhead bin!!” and you know that fucker is taking that compliment to the grave.
First food of Korea: subway kimbap!
View from our room. You can see the Blue House in the background! (Where the President lives except I believe this current one has opted not to live there.)
Well, we’re all going to freshen up and then go out and explore! We’ve never seen much of this area aside from the major tourist attractions so bye for nowwww!
A bunch of us law firm lovers of Barb got together at DiBlasio’s (a certified Barb approved restauran) for a memorial dinner. I was even part of the “party planning committee” lol: Wendy was in charge of reservations/restaurant-related logistics, Jeannie handled the official email invite and kept track of RSVPs, I was on decoration duty, and Aaron…oversaw this I guess lol.
I made prayer cards since that apparently is my fall-back if I ever decide to leave the law firm. The nuns at the church where we had my aunt Sharon’s memorial service went ape shit over my DIY prayer cards and kept asking, “where did you have these made??” My…dining room? Lol.
Sue even took some extra prayer cards to give to some of Barb’s friends <3
Anyway, I made a regular version with like, Mary on it or something but then I made a Barb-version using this picture that Tyler took of her YEARS ago at work:
I was lowkey nervous that some people might find it inappropriate but they collectively proved me wrong!
The attendees were, in addition the Party Planning Committee: Sue, Rachel (who wanted to talk about college things since she had twins who are also waiting to hear back and I was like I AM SO STRESSED CAN WE NOT), Nate, Lucas, Ethan, Lauren, Amber and Tracey who I haven’t talked to in years because she left our dept for another dept years and years ago, so that was really nice and I forgot how effing funny she is.
Anyway, I was sitting with Tracey and all of the directors of our dept and totally felt like the kid who snuck over to the Grown Up Table at Christmas, lol.
But yeah, it was reallllly nice sharing Barb stories, reminiscing about the dept in general (I love hearing stories from the Pre-EK days too and there was plenty of that last night!), laughing uproariously a multitude of times (our table definitely had the most fun!), and eating good food at a place Barb loved.
And it was also nice to talk about my marriage plans for next week which actually relieved some stress, especially at the end of the night when everyone was hugging me (ugh but also aw) and telling me they were excited for me, that things would work out, to post lots on Instagram, etc. I have felt kind of lonely & insane during this not-wedding planning process because there’s a part of me that feels stupid talking about it, I know it’s dumb but I am so bothered by the fact that it has taken this many years and I’m kind of embarrassed? So anytime I get excited about something, I sort of just sit on it. But these last few weeks my friends at work (not work friends – just friends) have made me feel really special and seen. These people are like family to me, honestly and actually. But I am so sad and upset that Barb isn’t here for this. She was one of the biggest advocators of the “Get Erin Hitched” movement! It’s just that I have made so many amazing friendships through work and Barb was at the heart of it all. Barb was one of the people who interviewed me for that job! And she was the reason I stuck it out in the beginning when I wasn’t sure if I liked it, if anyone liked me, if I would ever fit in. There are layers of emotions and issues here that I still need to work through. Losing Barb was one of the worst things ever and the ensuing grief has proven to be more complex than I imagine.
In the parking lot, Sue returned some of the paintings I made for Barb over the years which were found during the house-cleaning process. It was bittersweet. I’m happy to have them back and to keep them in Barb’s honor but also just sad and depressed about it. It still doesn’t feel real?! Like, today I had the urge to text her and tell her some of the things we gossiped about last night and then, with my hand hovering over my phone, I said, “Oh. Right.” Grief is so weird.
One of my best childhood friends was named Spring and one of our middle school teachers called her “Vern” as a cutesy little nod to Vernal Equinox and now I always think of that every time, in addition to a picture I have of him faux-wrestling her / trying to get her to smile for the camera and he has his hands clamped over her face?!!? LITERALLY THAT PICTURE JUST POPPED INTO MY MIND AND I AM GOING TO LOOK FOR IT RIGHT NOW AND INCLUDE IT HERE BECAUSE OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE ANYONE THOUGHT THIS WAS “OK” LIKE HE IS AN ADULT MAN FULLY MAN-HANDLING A CHILD?!
Deep breaths, Erin.
But no seriously, does Spring ever think about this, I wonder?!!? Like, “Wow, I was a child and being blatantly groped by a teacher, cool cool cool.”
Anyway, it’s spring and true to Pgh form, there is snow on the ground, lol.
Anyway, hey Marsha. What’s up Peg. I see you over there, Jimbo. Welcome to a Tuesday dumping of thoughts and feelings, I guess. I have been wickedly mean to Henry the last few days, totally annoyed by pretty much everyone in general. I know it’s stress, but c’mon Erin. Go sit in a corner, etc.
Oh, here’s one thing that REALLY irritated me last night!
My brother texted the below and then it took a solid minute before the image was also sent so I was sitting here stewing in wet anxiety, wondering who in my family died or had a surprise surgery scheduled.
But no, just a restaurant closing:
Granted, it’s the most special restaurant to me personally, having literally grown up there and spent so much time with my Pappap and his friends there, but Corey’s lead definitely took some of the sadness away, that’s for sure. Because instead, I just felt relief that no one was dying or had died or was about die on an operating table.
And then I was just pissed off because that was a long minute of worrying about what he had to tell me! Then a bunch of texts from other friends followed too so by then I was like, “yeah I know, oh well.”
This place was so special for a time, but really went downhill.
I was just texting with my friend Lisa about it because there was this one night – I want to say the summer before senior year so probably 1996 – where there was a shitload of us that took over the back room there. It was honestly one of the best nights of my life, but probably the same could not be said for the servers and other patrons, haha. I have video footage of this somewhere and hopefully someday I will get it transferred to the computer so I can relive it because it was seriously such a blast!
And all the after-church dinners Christy and I would have there with my Pappap. The servers (who were pals with my Pappap) called Christy and me the Bobbsy Twins because we always ordered the same thing, but it was just a cheeseburger and fries which, you know for an elementary school-aged kid, isn’t really wild and unusual??
It’s nuts because aside from the luncheon we had there after my Pappap’s funeral, I can’t think of any times that I was there with my immediate family growing up. It was always me and my Pappap. Always.
My mom texted me last night and said it was the first restaurant they took me to as a baby, so I guess I was there with my mom at least once back then, lol.
And now I’ll interrupt this I’M ANNOYED ABOUT EVERTHING shit show to post a clip of my faves, Pam and Kevin, riding the train at Farup Somerland.
In other ANNOYED WITH EVERYTHING news, I had asked a costume-making friend for help fancying up a basic tulle skirt that I want to wear for pictures in Korea. Their response was not excited as I had hoped, but more pragmatic and left me feeling discouraged with my ideas. So, I kind of just dropped it and bought the skirt anyway, figuring “oh well, this is nothing special, just me finally getting married after waiting for 23 years, who cares how plain I look.”
Look, I’m being a pill about this, I know, and guess what I don’t care.
Anyway, the skirt arrived and I thought it was so cute, it’s so comfortable and “my style” which is to say: not a wedding dress. So, I was feeling good about it staying the way it is, but then I remembered that we have a bunch of wood stars left over from the wall (not really wood, but like a chipboard material?) and I had this moment of empowerment where I rose up and said, “You know what, fuck this. I don’t need anyone’s help. I’m going to fucking embellish this skirt myself!”
And then I immediately delegated the task to Henry:
I mean, the skirt has a tulle overlay, so it seemed like a no-brainer to just glue some tie tacks to the backs of the stars, and they’re light-weight so I don’t imagine they will pull the fabric very much. Boom, done. And for the price of glitter, tie tacks, and whatever those stars cost last year. And I don’t even have to pay for the labor!
Also, last night, I was KaTalking with my friend Jiyong about next week and she has calmed my nerves down A LOT. I’m so happy to see her after 3 years, in her hometown no less! At the end of our chat, she told me to let her know if she can help with anything and I said, “Maybe you can help me with the locations of kpop idol birthday billboards??” and she was like “haha ok ok I’ll try” and was then probably instantly reminded that she’s friends with a grown-ass Kpop stan. ;D
I woke up this morning totally in a fit having just had my annual Psycho Mike nightmare. These honestly come out of the blue, 갑자기, unprovoked and apropos of nothing other than what appears to be decades-long untreated and unresolved issues. It’s crazy because the last several times we saw each other – the last being right after my 21st bday I believe and if I remember correctly, I was even telling him about how I thought I “kinda” liked Henry – we were on good terms. Not exactly friends but we had made enough amends that if we were to ever run into each other, it would have been fine. But then these nightmares started, and I don’t know if it’s because he has never acknowledged the fact that he straight up abused me, I mean – I’m not armchair shrink but I have to believe that’s what is going on here. Anyway, this last one was a real doozy, I was trying to lock him out but all of doors were screen doors and I kept screaming for Janna to call the police but she wasn’t and I just really thought “this is it, he’s going to kill me this time.”
Also, in my dream we had a KID TOGETHER and oh lord, I can’t even imagine how catastrophic that would have been IRL.
Just realllly started my day off on a sour note. I even looked him up and was startled to see that he lives in a town not far from me so now I feel like I can never go there again.
All of this is to say that my day did get better, though! I had a brunch with Sandy, Nate, Amber and Lauren today at Sally Ann’s and they pulled out some bachelorette accoutrements much to my surprise (I thought Sandy was joking when we scheduled this back in January and she said, “ooh bachelorette brunch!” and Nate piped in that he’d bring the “pecker banner” which THANKFULLY did not happen, although they considered inviting Mitch as a stripper.)!
Sandy had Blame Henry and Team Henry sashes made!
And a ton of Henry Head Confetti!
I texted Henry and his review of this madness was:
And Sandy gifted me with these ducks which is a KOREAN WEDDING TRADITION SO NOW I FEEL A LITTLE MORE LEGIT!
As much as I feel weird and silly to want to make a big deal about these 20+ years in the making nuptials (so I have been trying to be lowkey about it), it’s nice to be reminded that my friends are here for it and want to celebrate it with us. Now, let’s just see if it actually happens, considering the amount of times I’ve called it off in the last week alone haha.
Chooch actually joined Henry and me at the cemetery today, but only because it was some Pokemon Go event and I guess that still exists?! So it was actually him that suggested we go for a walk which was wild but you better believe I took him up on it.
Here he is, about to walk past one of his Pokemon Go friends? Enemies? How does that work? I don’t know, but the cemetery was rife with mindless walkers today.
Anyway, I have had not a damn thing to “talk” about on her that isn’t completely negative, so please just enjoy some photos of a nice early spring day in March while I go back to panicking about our trip/mission/expedition/elopement whatever you want to call it.
It’s me, here I am.
This is one of my favorite sections of Homewood Cemetery because it gives me Wonderland vibes a little bit.
Meanwhile, Chooch was being super argumentative and snarky so I yelled I CAN’T BELIEVE I RAISED SOMEONE SO BITCHY AND SURLY and Chooch goes REALLY? I CAN.
Earlier in the day, I did a trial run to make sure I can actually walk in the CHILD-SIZED boots I got on clearance at Target because I thought they would look cute with my not-wedding dress, and they are fine, thankfully!
I haven’t painted in so many years at this point but I wanted to paint a portrait of Barb to bring to her memorial dinner next week and I think I am ok with how it turned out. She was always so supportive of my art and writing, so encouraging and always cheering me on. I just felt inspired to do one more for her.
The background is wallpaper from my Pappap’s house and it just needs to be cut and properly framed – the portrait itself is painted on acrylic paper and backed with thick, sturdy cardboard to give it more depth once it’s framed.
Ugh. Grief is the absolute worst. This helped me process a little handful of it though. Still driving myself nuts with the “what if”s, though I guess that’s to be expected.
Tonight, I’ve been watching clips from super old episodes of Running Man (Korean variety show) and that has been very therapeutic but also bittersweet because I want to go back to when I first got into these things and relive it all over again (another part of my life that Barb supported!!!!).
Last week, I got this super official TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT email from Etsy. Apparently, Mattel did not like that some of my serial killer cards had KEN AND BARBIE in the listing name. Look, I’m not the one who named the Canadian serial killer couple “The Ken and Barbie Killers.” And apparently it’s OK to completely crib the official Barbie font and use it on Etsy products, but the names of actual people are considered infringement. MMmm. So now I have to just re-list the items using like, K*n and B*rbie or Ben and Karbie, who the fuck cares. It just made me laugh because we do such a large amount of trademark and patent work at the firm where I work so being on the other end of it was wild.
OK, not “wild” but “mildly interesting,” maybe.
I know that this incident isn’t Etsy’s fault per se, but Etsy in general has just been so shitty these last few years and I really need to take my ball and find a new playground. I’m just so lazy and to be honest, I haven’t even made anything new for Etsy in probably two years. We just keep selling the same old stock. I keep saying that I want to phase out the true crime stuff and just focus on general pop culture and expand my Kpop shop to include a bigger variety of items, but bitch, when. Where. How. I say I don’t have time but then all I’m doing is going for walks, reading books, and watching YouTube videos while complaining about being bored. Rut, I’m in you.
In “weekend news,” I was washing the dishes on Saturday (yes, we’re old-school pioneer folk up in here, only manual dish washing for us) when my hand slipped on the sponge I was using to rigorously exfoliate a fork, and one of the tines got me good on the meaty part of my palm below my thumb. It fucking HURTS still. It broke skin and I whined about it sporadically over the course of the weekend, to which Henry would give me the “it can’t be that bad” sneer at which point I will reiterate that it broke my motherfucking precious-baby skin, OK. Let’s not be cunty about someone else’s silverware wound.
The weird part is that this happened a week before the yearly anniversary of my St. Forktrick’s Day injury from the 90s, long-time readers of OHE or unfortunate decades-long acquaintances of mine right remember as the day my dad chucked a fork at me while I was setting the table and mouthing off to him and it hit my knuckle and then my mom had to take me to the doctor to make sure it wasn’t broken. FUN TIMES IN KELLYLAND.
Speaking of the 90s, I made the fatal mistake of stopping on One Day last week while scrolling through Netflix. I was looking for a series with SHORT episodes, none of this movie-length bullshit, and after seeing One Day come up a fistful of times, I finally hovered over the synopsis. Seeing that it took place in the late 80s and through the 90s was appealing to me so I put it on, thinking it would be fluff, something mindless to watch while jogging in place or doing Duolingo. You know how it is, gotta multitask while watching TV, I don’t have ADD, you have ADD.
And you know, for the most part, I don’t want to call it FLUFF because there was definite depth and substance there, but I was enjoying it, vibing with the cast, applauding the music choices, totally feeling the nostalgia. The whole premise is that each episode is one day (July 15th) of each year for 20 years, showing how the characters evolve, come in and out of contact, some episodes they don’t have scenes together at all and/or it’s only focused on one of them.
(Maybe it would have been a bit on the nose, but the fact that they never once used Billy Bragg’s St. Swithin’s Day felt like a big missed opportunity.)
But then after work yesterday, I put on the penultimate episode, and you guys if you haven’t seen it / heard about it / read the book, this isn’t a spoiler per se but maybe just say see ya next Tuesday and peace out here because, just because….
….there is a thing that happens in that episode that I wasn’t prepared for, maybe I sort of started to wonder if something was going to happen but then it did and it still knocked the wind out of me and the way I started ugly-crying INSTANTANEOUSLY is kind of ridiculous, and even Henry who saw this happen in passing, having not watched a single episode, was like, “Yikes.” Then he left to go to Dunkin’ for After Work Coffee and while he was gone I was like, “Well, I might as well just watch the last episode and get it over with, it can’t even worse.”
IT GOT WORSE.
You guys, I can’t remember the last time television made me feel that broken inside. Gutted. Panicked.
Henry came home and I was now full-blown WAILING. Penelope was in my lap and drenched in my tears and slobber.
“IT GOT WORSE!” I cried, hiccupping on my uncontrollable sorrow.
Henry was like the IRL version of the eyeball / looking emoji. “Jesus,” he muttered, putting down my coffee and patting my head.
I was crying so hard that I almost threw up. Sorry, that’s gross, but you need to know how serious this was, OK. Maybe I just watched this at the wrong time (right time??) in my life where I am so tightly wound and corked up that I needed something like this to break the dam. I don’t know. But I cried like I was losing my Pappap or Marcy all over again. Just, inexplicable.
Then it was over, my face was swollen, I couldn’t calm down. Now I needed to talk about it. So I ran to Chooch’s room (like, why would I think was a good idea, hey sociopathic son, console mommy with your biting sarcasm and abrasiveness) and cried, “Don’t watch One Day, it ruined my life!”
“Cool, I wasn’t planning to, shut my door, bye.”
So now I’m like WHO DO I KNOW WHO MIGHT HAVE WATCHED THIS, MEGAN so I start blowing up Megan’s phone and she did watch it and was like, “I take it you did too?” based on my “UGHHHHHHHHH” I guess, very intuitive. Then she told me that there was also a movie adapted from this book in 2011!!!
She said she liked the movie a bit better but I looked it up and ANNE HATHAWAY was in it which made Henry laugh because over the weekend, we kept seeing previews for some dumb romcom she’s in and I said, “You know, I’m just going to say it, I don’t like Anne Hathaway” and Henry was like, “OK” and I said, “I didn’t want to offend you since you’re obsessed with her.”
“I’m not…?” Henry slowly said, questioningly.
“Yeah, because of Princess Diaries,” I reminded him, and he was like, “OMG SO WHAT, I LIKED THE PRINCESS DIARIES!”
Dude, so defensive, calm down.
But back to me. Yeah, this really triggered me to the point where I started reading things and watching YouTube videos to continue the torture and now I’m wondering if I should just really drive it home by reading the book, too?? I don’t like getting too MUSHY on here but I kept imagining that I was Dex and Henry was Emma, OK?? God, I tell you way too much.
I was so exhausted from all of the crying that I passed out around 11:30, slept straight through the night and literally felt like I was recovering from an illness when I woke up this morning. I felt so heavy and swollen.
Both Henry and Megan tentatively asked me how I was doing this morning, lol. STILL WRECKED but thanks for asking!
Checking in from the tail end of the weekend! It’s been an OK one but the weather was so shitty. It rained ALL DAY yesterday but I was still able to take a few walks because I’m a psycho, and then Henry and I did some shopping for our trip which he keeps referring to as “vacation” and I correct him every time because this is in no way a “vacation,” this is a “MISSION.”
I can’t even put into words about how stressed I am about this. “Oh, let’s elope, it will be less stressful than planning a wedding.” Remember when you said that, Erin? Remember?
We leave in less than two weeks. I’m freaking out, man.
I did get one thing off of my to-do list that has been weighing on me: some of us arranged to have a memorial dinner for Barb, for past and present law firm people to come and share stories and laughs in Barb’s honor. Jeannie assigned herself the task of sending out the email and keeping track of the RSVPs, Wendy was in charge of locking down the reservations, Aaron is the….token bro? And I assigned myself the task of “decorations,” if you will. I knew that I wanted to make prayer cards since there wasn’t an actual funeral service or visitation, and I thought I’d also make a photo board to display photos of Barb around the office. But then in secret I thought, “What if I try to paint a portrait of Barb?” I haven’t painted in years. Truthfully, I never thought I would again. And the notion of “coming out of retirement” had been weighing heavily on me for weeks but I FINALLY pulled out the paints yesterday and committed to at least TRYING.
It was pretty gnarly at first. I asked Chooch if he knew who it was supposed to be and he said, “Barb, right?” So that was good, but then I stupidly asked, “Does it look bad though?” and he goes, “I mean I thought that was just your style…?”
LOL, bro.
Anyway, I worked on it some more today and I think I’m OK with how it turned out! The dinner is next week so to be continued…
The weather today wasn’t any better, just a different form of “wet.”
“I didn’t know it was supposed to snow today!” I cried, and Henry was like, “It was all over the weather forecast, so…”
Not the one on my phone! It just had the squiggle lines which I think means “WIND.” I don’t know.
We thought there was supposed to be a long enough reprieve to run out for some Yinz coffee and take a cem stroll, but SURPRISE! SNOW SQUALL!
I got this coat on major end of the season sale from Dolls Kill (it’s Delia*s brand!!) and didn’t think I’d have a chance to wear it this year but, Pittsburgh weather yo.
This is my “Drink Yinz Coffee” ad, before the snow.
And then, the snow.
Mausoleum Selfie.
This dick.
Then we came home and I watched some more One Day episodes which I have been pleasantly surprised how much I like it.
And now it’s almost time to put another weekend to bed and start a new work week. Hamster Wheel City. :/
Chooch and Henry were just in the kitchen half-arguing about something probably when Chooch stormed out and yelled, “WHY DO YOU DO THAT?! You just evacuated the whole kitchen!” And then to me he goes, “We were mid-conversation and he just shoved one of those crackers in his mouth while talking!” Here is the part where Chooch took the liberty to imitate Henry talking with his mouth full before retreated back to his lair.
Chooch cannot be in the same room while Henry chews. To be honest, it’s hard for me as well.
I’m going to miss these interactions when he’s in college, savor every moment, etc.
In other news I have been so stressed that I worry I’m going to crack my teeth so this was a nice, much-needed laugh, thank you Strained Relationship Between Chooch & Henry.
I don’t really have anything else to say. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not!
