Mar 122024
 

Some notable things that have happened recently:

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!

I don’t think I will ever forget this series. Jesus Christ. This was right up there with The Smile Has Left Your Eyes which also made me do the full-body sob sesh and traumatized me for many months.

Jan 092024
 

Here’s a picture of that kid who never hangs out with us anymore, + 5 random facts because it’s January and I am feeling it already. I hate hate hate hate hate winter so much.

  • I was obsessed with the reboot of Dark Shadows only because MICHAEL T WEISS was in it and if you don’t know, he played MIKE HORTON on Days of Our Lives. So of course I had to watch it. However, no one else in my family was interested in watching it and it also must have coincided with something that THEY (aka my dad and Ryan) watched, so I was relegated to the kitchen to watch it. We had a small kitchen TV on the counter, and I would pull up one of our heavy-ass wooden kitchen chairs to the counter and then open one of the drawers (there were four large drawers on the other side of the kitchen counter that were mostly junk drawers but also my mom kept cookbooks in there) to rest my legs on and then my legs would always end up falling asleep, but that’s the risk you take. Anyway, I truly thought I was so motherfucking cool and like, advanced for my age watching Dark Shadows because no one else in my grade did!! I’m only telling you this because just recently I was reminded of its existence and started watching videos about it on YouTube and now I want to watch the OG and the reboot again.

Image result for michael t weiss days of our lives

<3

  • I will always choose lemon, pistachio, matcha flavors over chocolate. I also love earl grey and cardamom flavored desserts. Henry brought home an earl grey scone from Potomac Station Coffee one of the days when I was still queasy after Christmas and it was delightful.
  • I have two older half-sisters, one older half-brother, and two younger half-brothers. I have zero full siblings.
  • When I was dating the guy before Henry, I was bored and created a stalker for him and he fell for it. One time he came over and was like I THINK SHE WAS FOLLOWING ME HERE and he was so concerned for my safety so then I inexplicably* used it to start a fight with him just because I thrived on fighting with him, to the point where I actually forgot during the fight that the stalker was actually me. I never told him it was me and wow that is pretty fucked up I guess LOL. Eh, oh well.
    • *lol inexplicably? More like “because I’m* a toxic-ass bitch.”
      • *was? nah, I am.
  • Wait now I’m on a memory roll about that guy and thinking about the time we went to this place called Hambones (RIP) for dinner with my friend Brian, and one thing you should know is that Brian and me in a restaurant was a….recipe (ugh sorry I had to do) for disaster because we would get so giddy and loud and embarrass everyone with us. Anyway, the ex was annoying me and being a big bitch boy as usual so when he said something about getting dessert, I snapped, “How about you get a glass of Shut the Fuck Up for a nightcap” and it wasn’t even that funny but Brian was like OH SHIT and then I burst out into my signature “Is she drunk or psychotic?” bray and then the ex literally started quietly crying (he cried a lot). Brian referenced this night for years. If anyone asked me what my toxic trait was back then, the only answer would be, “Me. Myself. It’s all of me.”

Hambone's reopened after paying over $13,000 in delinquent drink taxes ...

Wow. I think I need to get some sleep, lol.

Dec 122023
 

Let’s free-form the shit of this thing.

Last Wednesday night, Henry and I went to see the NCT Nation concert movie in Robinson.

This time, there were way more people and even another “kpop husband” was in the crowd.  So, NCT Nation was the whole entire NCT conglomerate doing one huge concert together, all of the sub-groups, etc. They did several shows in Korea and Japan and fuck, do I wish I could have attended one of those.

Did I cry during this? Pfft, you know it, Miss Betty. The way NCT fills my heart after a long day of work and general life dread…it’s like when you take a shot of Robitussin (Janna’s #1 subject) and you can feel it heating up as it cruises through your body. That’s how NCT makes me feel. Like they are hugging me from the inside.

….that….OK that’s a weird visual.

Anyway, this wasn’t part of the movie, but I have watched this video from their concert so many times and it never stops giving me goosebumps.

All I want Janna to get me for Christmas is proof that she has learned all 20 of their names lol. (Only 19 were at these concerts because Taeil was/is recovering from surgery after a motorcycle accident.)

Bill and Jessi were in town for my party this weekend and thank god because I was so fucking stressed out. I don’t know why. Maybe it was all of the other stress that I kept trying to push out of the way, finally found a way back to the forefront and woo boy was I was mess. But having them here helped because they are two of my favorite people in the world and it’s been a MINUTE since they were last in Pgh!

Late Saturday afternoon, we left Henry at home cooking and went to Frank & Shirley’s for a late lunch after Chooch came home from his game design class at Pitt. It was SO FUCKING nice to sit still, eat a grilled cheese, bullshit, and watch Jessi follow my example of dunking the grilled cheese in a puddle of Ketchup and realize that, “OK yeah that’s good.”

It’s the only way I’ve eaten grilled cheese since I was a wee lass!

And I told them about how I used to LOVE going there in high school because there was A CIGARETTE MACHINE and wow, that’s something that I hadn’t thought about in forever, putting tons of quarters in those machines and then setting up a display on the table of all the different brands I scored. I remember getting a pack of Pall Malls and one of my guy friends being like JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ERIN.

I have a picture of my cigarette collection somewhere. Maybe one day I will look for it and then post it here and you guys can be like, “Wow. You were so edgy. Brag some more about your dirty habit, Yellow Fingers.”

Here I am stalking Chooch at work last Thursday night. Turns out this was also the same night that the dumbass lost his wallet for approx. the 10th time in the last three years only this time, sadly it’s a goner for good. His luck hath run dry. Also, he had a tense conversation with a total BITCH of a middle aged broad with bleached hair looking like Real Housewives of Pgh reject because the sign on the Chipotle window said they’re open until 11 but that night they closed at 9. Like Chooch, a 17yo, has anything to do with that. He kept trying to walk around while her mouth was steady running.  Jesus Christ lady. Go look at the Ann Taylor website and calm down.

Drew, noticing that the Christmas decorations are back.

In other news, I have watched Queen Charlotte which I almost didn’t watch at all because she was one of my least faves from the Bridgerton series but then I got desperate for something to watch while walking in place (no, you have issues) and holy smutty fuck, no one told me that this was going to rip my stupid fucking heart out?? I don’t know if I’m just really at such a low point emotionally or if this really was that deeply sad, but I was full-body SOBBING. I can’t remember the last time I was so touched by an on-screen (and I guess moderately IRL depending on how historically accurate this was) romance/relationship. Jesus, I felt that, for Charlotte and George, and also Brimsley and Reynolds. I even started spontaneously sobbing in the shower about it.

At one point, Henry was sitting next to me and I was trying so hard to hold back my tears that I started choking and gagging, which made it worse and Henry was like, “OK as if I didn’t know you were crying.”

Damn, that hurt. A lot.

I also watched School Spirits which also felt like I was cutting, but on my psyche and not my skin?? I thought I had signed on for some light high school television but no, I got fully invested in every character and cried my contacts cloudy during THAT one too!!

Well, I’m going to go now. Coaster Kev from our trip (Chooch’s favorite of the 4 Kevins, in case you were wondering) just posted his Liseberg video and I would like to curl up under my blanket, maybe sip from kombucha, and relive the trip that I still haven’t finished writing about. #priorities

P.S. NCT DREAM CASUALLY MENTIONED IN AN INTERVIEW TO SOME AMERICAN MEDIA OUTLET LAST NIGHT THAT THEY PLAN ON TOURING AGAIN NEXT YEAR SO LORD HELP ME.

P.P.S. I have slowly been admitting to those around me that when I saw NCT Dream last April, it made me more emotional than when I saw the Cure those two times over the summer. I said what I said. That doesn’t mean The Cure has been dethroned!! But I think when I used to get emotional over the Cure, it was for different reasons. I was SO FULLY DEPRESSED (and suicidal, no use in hiding it) when I was REALLY getting into the Cure, so for a long time, when I would see them in concert, it felt like opening old wounds, most actually had never even started to close at all. So I would OF COURSE feel gutted and next-level emotional. But I am so far-removed from those years, from that dark part of my life, that I was eventually able to get to the point where I can listen to the Cure without laying in the fetal position on the floor with a bottle of Manischevitz.

But with NCT Dream, it’s different. It’s new. It feels more personal, like I know them, I care for them so much, I’m hugely protective and proud of them. So when I saw them last April, here for their first US tour, I was like out of my mind delulu. Like hysterical. And to this day, if I think about it, I start to cry because I feel so grateful to have been able to go and support them in person and see them on a stage so close up and watch them sing and dance to my favorite songs that have brightened my days for the last several years. It’s a different kind of emotional. I love being a Czennie <3

Nov 282023
 

Chooch was texting me from the library earlier and it made me remember that on Saturday, Janna’s sister asked him if he’s read “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” since it’s about coding and gaming and computer brainiacs. OFCChooch said no because every time I think that he’s finally been bitten by the book bug, he reads half of one, maybe a full book if we’re lucky, and then goes back to his old ways. Anyway, I was like, “I HAVE!” and then almost instantaneously, tears sprung to my eyeballs, like, ‘wow, am I really about to cry at this table in the middle of Eat n Park with Janna to my right bugging me for another Splenda??

Also from that Saturday time capsule, our server was like, “I HOPE I DON’T SPILL THIS HOT COFFEE ON HER” as I was holding my coffee cup DIRECTLY above Janna’s arm while the server was topping me off, and I muttered, “I hope you do,” for just Janna to hear because I was trying to be on my best behavior in front of her sister and brother-in-law, lol, Erin the Matured.

Speaking of maturing, I think I can sincerely say that I have done a lot of growing up lately. For instance, Henry had just finished folding a pile of shirts over the weekend. The old, immature, bratty Erin would have walked past and knocked the whole thing over.

But the new, aging-gracefully Erin walked by and only knocked off THE TOP SHIRT. That is major character development.

Henry, on the other hand, still reacted like a big Justin Timberbitch about it. #crymeariver

I posted that on Instagram and when he read it, he scoffed, “That’s only because you didn’t lean over far enough to get the whole stack.”

I mean…

Moving along.

We were supposed to go to Maryland on Sunday to stock up on some Korean alcohol at HMart but when I woke up, I was full out of motivation. None to be found. I made the unilateral decision to just go to Cleveland instead because some of the Asian markets there sell alcohol unlike dumb Pennsylvania but fml, even that was too much for me. I was so irritable and bitchy all morning and afternoon until we got home and then I was still irritable and bitchy. No PMS to blame it on either. That was all me, au naturale!

I bought this for Chooch aka Baby Is Hungry thinking he’d either eat one and forget about it or just fully hate it, but instead he’s addicted so hopefully I can find these in Pgh!

I was off on Monday and Chooch didn’t have school so I thought it would be nice to go to lunch but he made it sound like I was asking him to eat food I made myself while blindfolded in a hoader’s kitchen. Literally was so rude when I suggested it. So then I was like FORGET IT and he came downstairs and gaslit me as usual (“I never said I wasn’t going but fine you clearly don’t want to go…”) so then we comprised and decided to just walk to the local cafe instead which necessitated a secondary compromise when Chooch attempted to walk out into the 30 degree (F not C!) day in shorts and a T-shirt and refused to wear a coat but finally agreed on a hoodie.

Here’s a bunch of books that Chooch the Bibliohater didn’t care about.

Anyway, of course the cafe didn’t have the latte I wanted (FIG AND VANILLA, OFC THEY WERE OUT OF FIG) but I was like, “No, I will not be a brat. I will get this apple amaretto latte that will probably be too sweet but I will drink every last slurp of it” and then Chooch got the CHANDLER which was a maple pumpkin cheesecake iced latte and it was so much better than mine. He got RULL WEIRD when I opted “FOR HERE” instead of “TO GO” and I thought it was just because he didn’t want to spend extra time with me but it was really cold out there and I wasn’t looking forward to head back out immediately.

While we were sitting there having a non-convo (well, more like one-sided as I was trying to ask him questions about the recent iPhone update because there were things I didn’t understand as usual), I noticed a girl walk in out of the corner of my eye, and I interrupted myself to say, “Hey is that—” and Chooch very tersely said, “YES, AND PLZ DON’T.”

It was a girl from his school that I always tease him about because they are straight up frenemies from what I can tell or maybe it’s just on his side, I don’t know. Anyway, he somehow knew she was going to be there and that’s why he was in such a hurry to get his coffee and split, lol. She ended up sitting right behind him but now acknowledgement was made until we were leaving and she acted like she just noticed him, causing him to have a full blown public crisis, like it appeared that his internal organs were combusting and he was trying to smile through it? So then the two of us introduced ourselves and had brief small talk and as soon as we walked out, Chooch blurted out, “THAT WAS SO UNCOMFORTABLE AND I LOVE HOW THE TWO OF YOU ACTED LIKE YOU DON’T STALK EACH OTHER’S INSTAGRAM.”

Then we went to a new Halal market down the street and Chooch bought a can of beans apropos of nothing (fava, Egyptian-style, apparently) and the cashier was very nice and offered us a plate of chocolates after we paid.

In other news, I watched A Nearly Normal Family on Netflix (I swear to god I wasn’t even intentionally looking for Swedish things!) and it was bra. (THAT MEANS GOOD IN SWEDISH.) I think I really liked it because the music reminded me a lot of the music from The Killing and if you know anything about me, you’ll know that The Killing is one of my all-time most favorite TV series ever. I wish it had lasted more than 4 seasons but we are lucky we got that many IYKYK.

Image result for the killing

OK I have to go and supervise Henry while he does his chores.

Jun 012023
 

Last week, I heard a slight commotion outside as I was working. Looked out to see some asshole lounging at the end of HNC&Wife’s sidewalk. I thought maybe he had suffered an injury at first (those stupid city scooters are also flying by and I’m perpetually braced for an accident) but he seemed pretty calm. I assume that is his friend with him – he was pacing back and forth, looking down the street as if waiting for a ride. Who can be sure.

HNC’s wife was leaving her house during this time and called me immediately from her car to tell me to beware. She said she asked the kid on the ground if he needed help and he sniped, “I’m just CHILLIN’.”

“He has a real smart mouth,” HNC’s wife advised me, and honestly one of my biggest fears in the possibility of engagement with a shitty teen/young adult. I don’t trust them. So that was my cue to 100% stay on high alert.

They left after about 30 minutes of this. Kid in orange was walking fine, nary a limp, so I have no idea what all that was about. BUT I DIDN’T LIKE IT.

I preordered this NCT127 sweatshirt in December from the SM Shop and it finally arrived last week, just in time for the impending 80-90 degree days we have in store (aka right now).  Anyway, I got a Doyoung poca with it and if I’m not mistaken, I think this is my first Doyoung poca (photocard)!

Anyway, this sweatshirt was worth the weight. It’s so cozy and rich-feeling, lol.

Thank you, thank you.  Gifts are happily accepted.

Reading a new favorite (The Hundred-Year House) on the back porch with Penelope while Chooch and his friends took over the living room last Saturday instead of staying contained to the designated HANG OUT SPOT in the attic.

It’s fine.

At least we have an extra room.

Even if it’s barely being used.

This is usually where you can find both Drew and Penelope every day for three seasons of the year.

THAT IS WHY IT’S CALLED A THREE SEASON ROOM, DUH.

(I literally never heard that term until several years ago when someone referred to the back porch as such and I was like, “Wait…wha—? Ohhhhh.”

A vegan cinnamon roll franchise opened up in East Liberty and I made Henry go get some. He and I split a lemon one and a coconut cream pie one – both were delectable. Chooch got some kind of fancy berry one all for himself.

I want to go back ASAP.

I forget what it’s called already?? Cinnaholic, I think.

***

I just finished my nightly cardio and I am BEAT. It was something like 90 degrees today and I felt like I was going to pass out during my lunch break walk. Now I just want to spend the rest of the night sitting on the couch and staring dumbly at the TV.

TOMORROW IS FRIDAY. LET’S GOOOOOO.

May 232023
 

I don’t know what the fuck I inhaled the other week but I was a goddamn whirling dervish. Knee jerk reactions. Irrational responses. I try to be a kind person every day but sometimes, like the other week, I have no energy left in my mind to hold up the anger dam any longer and I…snap.

Look for me on a Netflix documentary one day, fam.

Anyway, on this one particular day, we’ll say it was a Wednesday, I was minding my own business, working from home, feeding the squirrels, sending extremely reasonable demands to Henry via text, when suddenly, a cleanup crew arrived on my street to remove the leftover shit in the vacant side of my duplex. I dunno what Blake was doing over there, but he and his family clearly left so much shit behind when they moved in March that it warranted my landlord to send an actual garbage truck and crew to clean it out.

I was fine with this until suddenly, MUSIC BEGAN TO BLAST. They must have set up a radio right on the other side of the wall near where my desk is set up, because it sounded like it was coming from my side of the house. You need to know this about me: I FUCKING HATE HATE HATE HATE HEARING SOMEONE ELSE’S BASS THUMPING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MY WALL. I mentioned this to Janna and she was like, “Oh yes, I know this about you.” It’s not a secret, sweetie, OK?! I hate it. I will literally Hulk out and start smashing shit against the wall in retaliation. You think I’m playing for the blog but I am telling the truth.

I allowed this to play for all of 3 seconds before I FLEW OUT  THE FRONT DOOR, leapt off my porch and yelled, “CAN YOU PLEASE TURN THAT MUSIC OFF I AM TRYING TO WORK IN THERE.”

I can only IMAGINE how I appeared to this crew of young guys who were just trying to make the most of a day spent cleaning trash out of some slob’s vacated house. There were three of them in the yard at this moment, one had JUST walked out of the house and was in the middle of crossing the yard, but he stopped DEAD IN HIS TRACKS. Another guy, who I determined to be the leader, immediately said, “Of course, I am so sorry!” and snapped his fingers at the man who was now frozen in the yard staring at this fucking asshole frenzied Karen with her arms akimbo in a sloppy hoodie and leggings looking more like she was busy changing diapers all day and not reviewing engagement letters while getting pulled in 17 different directions by people in her department.

I looked rough is all I’m saying. I know my face was beet red too because I could feel the flames fanning on the other side of my flesh.

“THANK YOU!” I said in a huff and slammed the door on my way back in.

About 30 minutes later, there was a tentative knock on my door. It was Leader Guy, looking nervous.

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but is it OK if we back this truck down the driveway?” he asked, wringing his hands. I noticed several of his minions were looking on, bracing for fall-out.

I said it was fine and then he said, “We’re going to be pretty noisy for a bit but we’ll try to make it fast.”

And then it was at this point where I was reminded that these guys were human JUST LIKE ME, just trying to do their jobs JUST LIKE ME, so I softened and said, “Hey look, sorry for being such a Karen earlier—” and he cut me off to say, “No no no, I totally get it! Thank you for being so cool about this!”

Um, OK but I was literally being the OPPOSITE of cool when I came out of my house in a red HOT rage earlier, but whatever. Truce!

Then! That following Friday, it happened again. Did I tell you, old blog frendo, that the guy ROB who had moved into the other side of HNC’s house last fall was also moving out right after Blake? OK well now I told you. Anyway, ROB hadn’t really bothered me much while he was living over there, but for some reason, he waited until the very last days of living there to start parking his large kidnapper van in our driveway. So now we had THREE kidnapper vans down there: his, and TWO of HNC’s (one of which is broken down and hasn’t moved since like 2015, I don’t even know anymore). Basically, our parking sitch in the back down there goes like this: Henry’s car, HNC van, HNC van in a row. Then I would park my car in front of one of HNC’s vans (the broken one) and HNC’s wife would park her car in front of HNC’s other van (which sometimes works). It’s…a whole thing. But then ROB was like, “No, I am going to park my gigantic tank in front of HNC’s broken van” so I have just been parking in the church lot like old times because the YOU WILL BE TOWED sign lost it’s power after a few mths and people started parking there overnight again.

I don’t really give a shit that much about the parking situation, but the thing that was pissing me off was that Rob didn’t even live there anymore when he started parking his van down back. Like, he and his girlfriend would come here in some shitty minivan and sort of move stuff around in the garage, and then he would pull the van up closer to the garage to, I guess, put stuff in it, but every single time, he would park it right in front of HNC’s van and then LEAVE.

FOR DAYS. SOMETIMES OVER A WEEK. Bro. You don’t live here anymore! This is not your long-term parking lot!

It just really started to grate on me, you know? I kept asking Henry to text HNC to see if he had any intel on when Rob was going to come back and take the van but also HELLO HNC CAN YOU PLEASE GET RID OF YOUR VANS TOO??

I can’t even explain how insane it is on this block with white men thinking they can fix broken cars. It’s like the Pioneer Ave Junkyard Collective. Come visit me sometime and I will give you a tour. And if your brakes are squealing or something….DON’T TELL LARRY OR HNC OR THEY WILL WANT TO FIX IT AND THEN SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR CAR BECAUSE IT LIVES HERE NOW.

Anyway, it was two Fridays ago and I was so excited because ROB was back and it looked like he was finally leaving with the van! He had pulled it up the driveway a bit so it was next to not-his garage while he was presumably moving more stuff. I saw him get in the van and it looked like he was pulling it forward, like he was going to leave, but then he BACKED IT UP INTO HENRY’S SPOT JUST AS HENRY WAS COMING HOME FROM WORK. So now Henry had to park his car across the street because not only did ROB steal his spot, but his idiot minivan was farther up, blocking up the entire driveway to begin with.

You guys, I don’t know what came over me, stress in general, my body begging for a release, but for the second time that week you could find your girl BALLET-LEAPING over the porch steps, only this time I kept going, rounding the corner and storming down the driveway. THE MINIVAN was the first thing I came upon and Rob’s girlfriend was sitting in the drivers seat. I must have really come up on her like a wildwoman because she gasped, clutched her chest, and exclaimed, “What? What? Did I back into something??” and I fucking roared a string of obscenities about Rob and his fucking van etc etc and she goes, “Ok! Ok! Geez, I’ll tell him! Geez!”

(Honestly though, imagine you’re just calming sitting in your car playing Wordle or doom-scrolling thru Twitter and suddenly I pop up at your window, shrieking like a mad lady with absolutely no build up or provocation. Here I am, 갑자기!)

I stormed back up the driveway just as Henry was walking across the street looking nervous AF because he said he could tell something was HAPPENING and that I had just flipped out. IS MY MANIA THAT OBVIOUS?? COOL.

So now Henry and I are both in the house and my heart is racing because I honestly can’t explain what possessed me to do that. Like, it’s a van, yo. In a fucking driveway. It’s not bothering anyone. It’s not worth yelling about?? Potentially getting SHOT OVER?? People get shot for far less!

I guess the girlfriend relayed my message because I could hear ROB getting BACK into his van to move it out of Henry’s spot and back in front of HNC’s broken van, all the while shouting, “FUCK YOU!” at my house. So now I’m shouting passive aggressive shit back out the window, like, “OK YOU FUCKING WEIRDO” and Henry is nervously laughing with absolute fear in his eyes because is this going to turn into his moment to decide if he’s man enough to protect me?!

Especially when THERE WAS A KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR and he was just about to say, “Don’t—” but it was too late because by this point I was chomping at the bit for a fight so I marched over to the door and flung it open to see a totally strung out and shaking Rob pacing on my sidewalk. “WHAT???” I yelled and he was like, “I’M ALLOWED TO PARK BACK UNTIL THE 19TH JUST SO YOU KNOW” and I was like “I DON’T CARE, IT SHOULDN’T BE BACK  THERE AT ALL, YOU DON’T LIVE THERE” and he was stomping furiously through the yard, into the minivan that whisked him away from THE HORRORS OF PIONEER. I literally heard his girlfriend telling some guy who had pulled in front of their house probably for a drug deal while blasting a religious sermon on his radio that “yeah, we’re moving, Rob is sick of the bullshit on this street.”

WELL MAYBE DON’T MOVE BACK (TWICE!!!) TO THE SAME STREET YOUR EX-WIFE WHO HAS A PFA AGAINST YOU LIVES ON? AND ALSO MAYBE DON’T OWE MONEY TO YOUR NEIGHBORS?? (He apparently owes LARRY money, from what HNC says. HNC is the TMZ of Pioneer.)

So, that happened. And then I couldn’t calm down. Like, he pulled away and I instantly felt like SHIT. The adrenaline wore off and I sat at my desk with my head in my hands and regretted every single moment of that interaction. Yes, it’s annoying that he’s parking there, but that didn’t give me the right to fly off the handle when there had literally been NO OTHER CONVERSATION between us about this van. It’s not like, “Well, I asked him nicely 6 times so now I guess it’s time to threaten to shove shit up his ass” oh wait, that’s HNC’s wife’s go-to.

I just didn’t feel good about this, and it honestly ruined my whole weekend because I don’t like being a bitch anymore. It does nothing for me. I don’t feel “cool,” I don’t feel “tough.” I just felt like an asshole. I felt small and embarrassed. I don’t know this guy! I don’t know his life, I don’t know if he’s going through rough times, I don’t know if he’s the type of guy to come back with a fucking shotgun.

So yeah, I was awash in a sea of regertz. Not only is it just shitty to treat people that way, but it’s also, frankly, unsafe.

People.

Get.

Shot.

For.

Far.

Less.

You know? I wasn’t being smart and I’m truly lucky that it didn’t end in tragedy.

And then the 19th came and went and his van was still fucking back there so I got mad all over again. LOL.

Just kidding. I mean, not really, but it was more like, “OK I’m now officially validated,” you know what I mean? Was I going to fucking call and have it towed? Yeah, no. Because again, at the end of the end, who fucking cares.

Earlier this evening, Henry said, “Look, Rob’s back and he moved his van!” I looked outside and saw that he had pulled it across the street in the church parking lot and was standing over there talking to his girlfriend, who was sitting in her parked minivan.

“Do you think I should go over there and apologize?” I asked Henry, but before he could answer, I had already abandoned my dinner and was crossing the street.

You guys, being a bigger person sucks. It felt like I was walking the fucking plank or something, but I did it – I went over there and I said, “Hey, I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted the other day. I was being an asshole and it wasn’t cool, you didn’t deserve that.” Of course, talking to Rob is an exercise in futility and there was not much emotion coming from him, and frankly, I’m not even sure if he remembered what happened, but his girlfriend did, because I also apologized to her face too and she said, “That really means a lot – god bless you, sweetie” which you know, kind of ruined the moment, but still.

And then I got stuck over there for a solid 15 minutes listening to Rob talk about how he used to work for the OG landlord since he was 13 (current landlord is that guy’s son and he is not great, Patty) and other Pioneer sundry, until a tow truck arrived because apparently the transmission on Rob’s van is bad and that is why he was keeping it in the driveway, because he was waiting to have the money to get it towed. HOO BOY, KICK ME IN THE ASS AND CALL ME AN ASSHOLE.

The moral of this story is that I lost control, but I got it back. These last few weeks were really emotionally draining and made me remember that madness is the most life-sucking out of all the emotions and I will happily go back to working on my anger management skills. Admitting that you’re wrong really sucks, especially when it involves an explosive situation, but owning it really made me a great wave of relief. I am ready to move on. How did I used to be like this all of the time?? Being a bitch is not a good look on me, I know that. I felt so fucking ugly after both of those screaming episodes.

Oh, one final thing – the guy I yelled at about the radio? Didn’t know it then but EVIDENTLY!!! he is the landlord’s son and he’s moving into Rob’s vacated side of HNC’s house. GREAT FIRST IMPRESSION HE HAS OF ME. Very fucking excited about that.

Wait, one more final thing – today also happens to be 143 Day in Pennsylvania, a day to commemorate Mister Rogers by spreading kindness. Mister Rogers used the code 143 to mean “I love you,” and it ALSO just so happens that Stray Kids have a song called Case 143 so let’s end this tense and uncomfy blog post on a high note! I already posted the official MV for this song when it came out, but here’s the performance video!

 

 

Mar 202023
 

Not stoked about starting a brand new workweek, but here we are. Grinnin’ and bearin’ it! SMILE THRU IT. FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT. ETC ETC.

I don’t have anything pressing to discuss on here but sometimes the sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard can be therapeutic to me, like I’m self-soothing. So, let’s pretend like we’re on a hike somewhere beautiful and I’m just yapping away and you’re nodding “mmhhhmmm” to the beat of our boots hitting the ground and probably not really even listening to me but that is OK because I live with Henry, so I am used to not being listened to.

Speaking of hiking, my latest work-related stress dream was that I was on vacation, just coming back from a hike and I guess I had stopped in the restroom of the…resort? I was staying at. I remember being SO SWEATY, my face was all red and disgusting, my eyebrows had dripped off, etc. I did not want to be seen by anyone, probably why I popped into the lobby restroom in the first place. But when I came out of the stall, one of my co-workers who has been…punting a lot of extra work my way lately, was WAITING FOR ME WITH MORE WORK. And she was like pissed off at me for being on vacation!? Also, please note that she was waiting for me INSIDE THE RESTROOM, didn’t even have the decency to wait outside!

I woke up and was SO PISSED OFF. Grrrr. I REALLY GROWLED AS I TYPED THAT!!!!!!

In other news, I am still obsessed with watching all the Ke Huy Quan awards footage. I knew that Everything Everywhere All At Once was getting a lot of attention (and deservedly so, that movie was awesome, the themes were powerful, and I laughed and CRIED so much) but then because all of that Selena/Haley bullshit beef going on a few weeks ago, I started getting all kinds of Selena-related stuff in my YouTube feed, and one of those things was this year’s SAG Awards (she was a presenter, so I guess the algorithm thought I would be interested). I wasn’t paying attention and suddenly, Oh, OK, the SAG Awards is playing in its entirety. And you know, Henry and I sat there and watched the whole fucking thing? And Ke Huy Quan pulled on this bitch’s heartstrings so much that I haven’t been able to stop watching every clip I can find of him during the press circuit for EEAAO and the award season. He is a treasure. I am so happy that he won so many best supporting actor awards for his role in this movie, especially the Oscar!

ONTO THE NEXT TOPIC:

I found a good frame at Goodwill over the weekend for one of my favorite photos that I took last year! This is Chooch on the Magnum XL 200 at Cedar Point from May 2022. I knew I wanted to frame it for the attic and now it’s right where it belongs.

This wrecked copy of Girls Gone Wild has been chilling on a sidewalk in Brookline for at least a week now. Further down is the actual tape, all pulled out from the case.

#SEXYCOEDS #THETHINGSISEEONMYWALKS

Dude you guys. Somehow I got subscribed to the Pgh Reddit feed and I got an alert last Thursday that a vegan food truck was going to be slinging vegan fish sandwiches on Friday. In Lawrenceville. So Henry not only had to go to one of his least favorite areas where a bunch of his least favorite people would be crowding (vegans lol) but he also had to do this IN THE RAIN, LOL.

I was so excited though! My sign-off to group chat at work was, “HENRY WENT TO GET VEGAN FISH SANDWICHES SO NOW I NEED TO STAND AT THE DOOR AND WAIT FOR HIM LIKE HE’S A SAILOR RETURNING FROM THE SEA” and my work friends were like, “omg stop.”

Anyway, I’m sad to report that it was…just OK. Wait, let me explain. It tasted delicious. BUT. It also tasted like something I could have just made at home because it was very clearly just freezer section faux fish filets. Like, we have a bag of them in our freezer right now. And also, I added a slice of vegan cheddar to it so that really upped the taste quotient. The coleslaw was good BUT A VERY PALTRY PORTION.

The upside is that this food truck donates a portion of its proceeds to animal charity AND it’s a pay-what-you-can situation. Henry made the suggested amount because I have taught him over the years to not be a tight wad.

Chooch and his friend signed up for some bake sale a few weeks ago, which meant that Henry got stuck baking cupcakes. It made me laugh because I used to sign up for food fests all the time at work when we worked in the office and Henry would get stuck cooking or baking for that shit too. Anyway, at least Chooch and his friend, an elusive one at that and also the one that I think has been Chooch’s bff since he started high school and they worked together at McDonald’s but Chooch would never let me meet him because he is ashamed of me / scared that his friends will like me more than him because I’m the best and so fucking cool, etc etc.

Yeah, so that kid came over for the first time and was like OOOH LET’S LOOK AT ALL OF THESE PICTURES OF YOU, RILEY! and Chooch was seriously squirming. Then he was annoyed because his friend thought our house was cool and NO TEENAGER IS SUPPOSED TO THINK THIS WAY, OK.

ON THE SCIENCE OF SHOE’ING:

I had to call in Henry the other day for shoe untying assistance.

“I don’t understand how you tie your shoes!” Henry cried, because he’s a little bitch, like just do what you were called in here to do and save the tears for your mommy, you know? Not only that but he was red in the face from the grueling task of navigating the labyrinthine knot I had absentmindedly created with the lace. And I’ll tell you how: I was 100% reading something on phone instead of paying attention to which part of the lace I was tugging, IT HAPPENS OH WELL.

“I guess I just don’t understand how knots work,” I said in my best babydoll voice, shrugging innocently.

Not much else is going on but next weekend is pretty stacked (well, I have one social engagement for all three days, and that is an Erin R. Kelly definition of “stacked” considering I’m essentially a shut-in) so things are starting to pick up now that spring is officially here! My motivation is rising! My desire to leave the house has increased! I have a small block of stress knocked off my shoulders since today was MOVING DAY for the scream queens next door (god help us for what will move in next though)! I want to say things are looking up, but I know better than to tempt fate.

So for now, I will pretend that we have reached the apex of our hike or whatever it was that I told you to imagine we were doing and now we are on our way back down so it’s your turn to tell me things. Go ahead. JK IT’S TIME FOR ME TO LISTEN TO AN AUDIOBOOK LOL LEOS ARE THE WORST.

Jan 052023
 

I left my brain somewhere between 2022 and 2023, I think. Literally feels empty up in there.

On that note, here is a dump of photos from my phone, thoughts salvaged from my hollow head, and some things I’ve been enjoying as of late like this Kdrama, The Glory:

Yooooo. This made me a legit Song Hye Kyo fan, honestly. She is incredible in this. It’s about a woman who was VICIOUSLY bullied by a group of classmates in night school. They show it in flashbacks and it is graphic and extremely disturbing so major trigger warning there.

Anyway, she drops out of school and buses her time FOR YEARS, plotting her revenge.

As an adult, she is very cold and guarded, but she crosses paths with a young doctor and a middle aged housekeeper, and the relationships she develops with them are so fun to watch and provide a tiny bit of levity but this show is a HEAVY DRAMA/PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER.

I especially loved it because unlike most Kdramas, this was only 8 episodes long and each episode was between 45-55 minutes which is perfect.

I watched the last one today and was screaming at the end but thankfully, there is a Part 2 coming in March!

Chooch took this picture of Girl Buddy lounging in a pine tree at the corner of our block. I love her so much. We had a nice talk on Monday when she came to the porch for walnoot time.

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Color palette for the attic game room – yes, we finally got to the point where paint samples could be purchased! 90% or the stuff is out of the attic now, either tossed, donated, or stored away elsewhere for now. It was mostly books, CDs, old computer shit, and tons of Chooch’s baby stuff.

Oh and basically my entire middle school and high school career in the form of notes.

I’m really excited to get started on this for real! I need a project / something to “design.”

I took down all the Christmas decorations on Sunday (well, the temporary ones, anyway lol) and then bought this cutie sweetie Valentine heart garland thingie at Target. I love Valentine’s Day decorations sooo much. (Hate the actual day though because, you know, Henry is so unromantic. We had JUST come home from Target and I was already balancing precariously on a chair, trying to hang this in the Cure corner. I’m pretty sure I still had my jacket on, even.

I love it!

Chooch and Henry were like, “Mmm, great – more decor for us to get tangled in.”

I just barely snagged this photo of the sisters sort of sitting together. I think they’re still pouting because I moved most of their cat houses around the house in preparation for the Christmas party and never moved them back, but they seem to really love sitting inside this new table, so I guess it’s a reasonable trade-off for them.

On Sunday, I reached for the stars and added purple rice to my purple potato boba and at first sip, I sputtered, “OK THAT WAS A CHOICE” but then I felt compelled to go in for another sip. And then another, and then another. Yeah, turns out I was into it and will 100% choose this as an add-in again.

Is NewJeans my new favorite girl group?? OMG I THINK MAYBE? It’s a very close tie with Aespa and STAYC though, but every single New Jeans release has been an undeniable bop. This is their latest and it is in my head constantly. Also, I love how all of these newer girl groups have super distinct dance styles, and that NewJeans is so slinky and 90s-vibin’.

Another fave is Stray Kids’ Case 143 which I didn’t immediately love, but it’s been a slow-burn on my brain (is that where my brain went!?!?) and is in my head quite often. I shared it with Nate and Lauren today, and they both loved it also, but then hours later, Nate told me he couldn’t get it out of his head (much like when I sent him the Ame Bibabi classic, Chin Up High, which became an accidental department obsession that we randomly quote to each other out of context) and Lauren of course loved the visuals and the fact that she now knows what “no cap” means ever since we had a whole-ass GenZ slang conversation in group chat several weeks ago, which is still alarming to me when I think about it, knowing that we let Glenn loose on the streets with words like “bussin'” in his arsenal).

Anyway, Henry loves this song and will randomly sing the 143 part to the cats. Also, I had no idea that 143 meant I love you in olden lighthouse days and that Mister Rogers even did an entire episode about it!?

I’m so glad we went to see Stray Kids last year!!! While we’re talking about them, Chooch was so pissed several weeks ago when I was watching one of the Korean music award shows and he didn’t know who they were! He was guessing every boy group he could think of and I was like, “DANG, DANG, DANG.” Then I said, “Watch this” as I muted it and called Henry into the room.

“Henry, can you tell who this without hearing the song?” I asked, shooting Chooch a smug look while he folded his arms across his chest and responded with a “There’s no way” facial expression.

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Henry looked at the TV for about 1.

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5 seconds before saying, “Stray Kids,” popping a prune in his mouth, and cockily strolling out of the room.

KPOP DAD, people. KPOP DAD.

Over the weekend, we were in the car and Henry casually whispered, “Fuck em all, fuck em by” apropos of nothing.

Dec 192022
 

I’m off work today because I had time to use up and I’m bored and restless so let’s do a free-form memory dump. OK? OK.

Firs I want to talk about the Christmas dinner I had with some work friends! Debby and Marlene retired last year, so Megan and I occasionally meet up with them for dinner because keeping in touch is so important. There are quite a few people I have lost touch with over the years from past jobs.  I HATED my job at MSA so bad, but I miss Collin, Bob, and Bill very much. I am still moderately in touch with Bill at least, mostly through his wife Natasha whom I had also become friends with. They used to come to all of my parties and were/are just such great people (and Bill is an amazing baker who, FUN FACT, baked the smash cake for Chooch’s first birthday to match the monster invitations that Henry and I had made!) but then they moved to Arkansas (whomp whomp). But!! Now they livein Harrisburg, which isn’t too terribly far away so perhaps we’ll make a road trip out that way and make them go to Vegetable Hunter with us.

ANYWAY. It was my turn to come up with a venue for our Christmas dinner. I gave three options and they one we all decided on was Zarra’s in Oakland. None of us had ever been there and all I knew was that it’s in the location of the old Electric Banana club.

I made reservations because you can never be too sure but you guys, we were the only people there. Like, the entire effing night. Just our table!! Well, there were two old guys at the table by the door when we arrived, but still.

This place reminded me like a cross between The Zenith and the Bayernhof? I personally loved it but…I’m not so sure about Debby and Marlene, lol. It did feel a bit like it was a front for…something? And our waitress was a young college girl who was TOO CHATTY and talked to us for a solid ten minutes about how she’s a camp counselor, going into great detail, and we were really just trying to order our food.

Also, our salads came after our meals because “he” whoever “he” was, had to go and buy tomatoes?

Also x2, we had to request a bread basket because we were fucking starving and why wasn’t it already provided to us?

Also x3, the waitress went through a painstaking process of telling us “how to eat the bread” (which we had to wait for as well because “he” was slicing it)  with the oil she provided (le duh) and then said, “It’s like sex in your mouth” which was not something that went over well with some, lol.

Also x4, Michael Buble was BLASTING on the sound system which was located right behind Debby and we egged her on about turning it down herself, so she tried to but turned the wrong knob and ended up shutting the whole thing off, but then it randomly turned back on and our waitress ended up turning it down for us and said that she thinks “Johnny is going deaf,” the same Johnny that she also said might be in the mob, the same Johnny who evidently was one of the old men sitting at the front table when we walked in.

We heard a lot about Johnny that night.

I actually hate this picture of me so much, but what can you do?!!? Megan took some cute selfies of all of us after dinner that were so much better than this one which was taken before we had even ordered. I should have waited until we were at least one bottle in before asking for a photo op!

Weirdness of the restaurant aside, I thought the food was delicious. Megan and I both got JUDY’S FAMOUS RICOTTA NOODLES. I got mine with eggplant and practically licked the plate clean.

Our waitress (I want to say her name was Chloe, and she reminded me SO MUCH of Blake’s wife Haley but with blond hair; it was actually quite uncanny to me – it was the way she talked and her facial expressions, so similar) flat out quit coming back to our table halfway through, replaced by a man. At this point in the dinner, I hadn’t learned yet that the owner was the old man we saw earlier, so I blurted out, “ARE YOU JOHNNY??” and he said, “No, I’m Donny, his son.”

Nice guy! He did a good job putting up with our chaos.

After we ate and exchanged treat bags, we roamed around taking pictures of all the stuff, and each other, and each other with all the stuff.  I mean, there was no one there to stop us…

The DUMBWAITER that the waitress referred to several times, with Electric Banana relics in it! It wasn’t until several days later that I found out that JUDY AND JOHNNY ZARRA were actually the proprietors of Electric Banana as well! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

Anyway, it was a really nice evening with some amazing ladies. I’m already pressuring Henry to go back with me because it was SO WEIRD there plus the food was good.

Moving on….

Oh yeah, I failed to properly wrap up my Tennessee blog recaps because I forgot to tell you that after we left Dollywood that Sunday night, we went down the street to Rocky Top Mountain Coaster, which if you recall, we tried to do the night before and you couldn’t even get into the parking lot, that’s how crowded it was.

When we went Sunday night? There was one other couple ahead of us.

I’m not going to waste too many words on this but I just want to say for the record that mountain coasters are overhyped, not for me, and actually kind of confusing? First of all, I had some young mountain boy mumbling the instructions to me and actually felt scared and ill-prepared.

There were so many lift hills. It felt like every time you built up any speed and momentum, there was a sign that would tell you to brake for the lift hill, so I would do that but then a recording kept coming up saying NOT TO DO THAT and I was having a major crisis over this. BRAKE OR NO BRAKE?!!?

Anyway, when we were all done and met up in the…station,  I dunno, Chooch said that those announcements were specifically directed toward me because I wasn’t doing it right (I dunno how he would know when he was in front of me, but cook on little bitch-chef) and I got REALLY DEFENSIVE and borderline flipped over so Henry had to try to diffuse the situation by saying it wasn’t true and that it was a recording that was meant to play on repeat but Chooch claims that it was a real person one of those times that had to make the announcement because of me.

NEVER AGAIN.

I didn’t realize this was Girl Buddy at first until after the picture was taken and then she climbed down the wall head-first like Dracula and met me in the driveway for a peanut because she saw that I was on my way to the backyard with my trick-or-treat pumpkin pail of peanuts. I am entirely too attached to this squirrel.

Well, I think that’s all for today. I was also going to tell you about how Chooch and I were on the radio last week but I’m not motivated enough so maybe later this week.

See ya wouldn’t wanna be ya.

 

Nov 142022
 

Here we have a collection of things that have been happening.

I’m in a bitter battle with a HAWK. We had a showdown two Fridays ago. Let me set the scene: I was sitting at my desk, dutifully doing my job, when I heard a weird animal cry. The squirrels will do a chitter every now and then, but this wasn’t that. This sounded like a distress call. I got up and went to look out my front window just as A HAWK came swooping down from across the street, straight at my window, at which point he dropped down at the last second to the area under my window. “OH FUCK NO!” I roared in my guttural battle voice and I went barreling out of the front door like one motherfucking pissed off Kool-Aid Guy.

The hawk looked at me like, “the fuck is this?” and he flew a few houses down and landed in Jackie’s (Jackie the Witch, if you’re Chooch) yard. I stomped my ass over there, hollering “Go! Get out of here!!” to this piece of shit predator. Some dumb old man (a random one, not Henry) interrupted my full-body SHOOING and STAMPING and asked me what was going on. I didn’t want to be like SQUIRRELS!!! so instead I cried, “PEOPLE LET THEIR SMALL DOGS AND CATS RUN AROUND OUT HERE AND I DON’T WANT THIS HAWK TO GET THEM.” This seemed more reasonable and less “I am the neighborhood squirrel protection society president.”

“He must be hungry!” the man laughed, rooting in his pocket for his ancient cell phone to take pictures of this stupid asshole bitch bird. “WELL HE CAN STARVE BECAUSE HES NOT FEASTING ON MY BLOCK!!” I hissed in response, but it was more like a wail in the key of Sally Struthers.

Oh, this man was PISSING me off. I just wanted him to fuck off so I could continue stalking the hawk who was now perched menacingly on a light pole across the street, but he was just doo-wah-diddling about, smiling at the dumb thing and struggling to work his phone.

My squirrels were DISTRAUGHT and I never want to have to see my favorite Girl Buddy cry and shake the way she was as she hid between HNC’s garbage cans.

This bitch fucked with the WRONG CRAZY LADY. I bought this ugly fake owl thing because hawks are stupid and supposedly will think it’s real and go somewhere else, and I’m about to hang several disco balls in the back porch because they hate…dance parties? Sike, I guess they hate reflective things.

COME AT ME NOW, BITCH BEAK.

(Henry, somewhere in the background, reminding me for the 87th time that they’re federally protected while Chooch is like “I swear to god if you end up in the emergency room…” This is my new life, in case you have been wondering what I’ve been up to. My Google searches are all variations of HOW TO FIGHT A HAWK at this point.)

I am now in the market for chain mail, a potato gun (to hopefully get it hooked on veggies) and a SHIELD. When I say that this has consumed my life…I mean, you read this dumb thing so you know how I am.

(Also: how do I get crows to live at my house. They came out at one point to help and all that was missing was KIM CARNES “I NEED A HERO” playing in the background.)

Henry and Chooch got me this kombucha when they were at the store together (I’m sure that was fun) simply because it has a squirrel on the bottle. I am a kombucha addict though so I would have drink/drank/drunken this even if it had a hawk on the bottle.

J/K, I have standards.

Chooch has been working at Dunkin’ for several weeks now and has still not been trained, lol, ok cook on Dunkin’. No wonder their coffee drinks taste different from one location to the next. No one even showed him how to work the register but he said it was similar to McDonald’s so he just started using it. At least we know that Chooch can persevere when left to his own devices.

Also! This is the kind of Dunkin’ that’s split with Baskin Robbins so I might be asking him to bring me a milkshake home at some point, even though I recently started Noom again. Did I tell you that, Blog Diary? It’s not a big deal but after so much traveling and eating amusement park food all summer, my jeans were starting to get a little tight. I have to go all in when it comes to “dieting” – I know, in the Year of Our Lord 2022 we should be celebrating our bodies and not dieting but look, my weight directly affects my mental well-being – so I can’t just “eyeball” it or whatever. I need to be honest with my food logging and you know what holds me the most accountable? Knowing that I paid for the goddamn program and hoo boy do I hate wasting money. So yeah, when I’m doing Noom, I am DOING NOOM. Plus, I like Noom because it’s realistic and doesn’t restrict or deprive you. It relied heavily on the psychological part of weight loss and teaches you how to identify and combat (or compromise with) triggers.

I’m doing it in tandem with my beloved Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution and I’m already getting my muscle definition and waist back!

Oh and the best part about Noom is that it teaches (and ENCOURAGES) you to treat yourself so I was able to share this pumpkin cinnabun sundae from Sugar Spell Scoops with Henry yesterday without feeling like a failure. <3

This was not sponsored, lol. I just really swear by Noom! If you want to try it, I can send you a referral link thing!

I was thinking about when we saw some of Seoul Fashion Week the first time we went to Korea and looked it up on YouTube just for fun and found myself in the background of someone’s video LOL.

I’m positive people mock me behind my back. “Did you know that Erin Kelly has been to Korea?! *huge eye roll*” I can’t help that it’s pretty much all I want to talk about 24/7. It was never a “vacation” to me. It was like a legit pilgrimage, and I have never in my life felt this way about a place before, like I had been there extensively in another life or timeline. For instance, before we ever went there, I would (and still do) watch vlog and vlog on YouTube of people living in Seoul, or travel vloggers taking a train to Jeonju. I’d watch K-drama and variety shows and feel this really crazy sense of familiarity in my heart?? And I know it’s some special weird-ass thing because I have been doing research for our summer coaster trip (NOT in Korea, sadly) and while I am VERY EXCITED AND STOKED for this, everything obviously looks so, well, foreign, to me and I am very interested in everything I’m watching and reading into, but it doesn’t feel the same? It doesn’t feel like a warm, cinnamon-and-persimmon scented embrace?!

I don’t know what it means. But both times I left South Korea, I quite frankly felt I was going to die. OK that was dramatic, I just felt like someone cut into my chest, removed half of my heart, and left it in Seoul.

:D

You guys, I recently found out that Chooch not actually did academic shit in Mexico, but he did it well! Yay, Chooch!

Oh yeah speaking of Noom!! They color-code foods: green / yellow / orange f/k/a red but that made people feel like red meant STOP DON’T EAT or BAD BAD BAD but really it just means that it’s the most calorie dense food and should still be enjoyed, but just in moderation. I accidentally discovered that Kemps froyo (green food) and Olipop Root Beer (yellow food) makes the best “diet” root beer float! Of course after discovering this, every store Henry has gone to since then has not had Olipop in the root beer flavor, sigh. 

The childs, enjoying one of the last warm days on the porch :(

What else have I been up to?! Here are some shows I watched:

  • Watcher (loved it)
  • Midnight Club (liked it)
  • Derry Girls final season (mildly disappointing, but love the show overall)
  • The current season of The Crown (almost finished, thoroughly depressing, Diana Forever)

OMG I have to go. NCT127’s Killing Voice (which I have seen 87x) just came on YouTube so now I need to go and watch this and smile like a deranged person.

Oct 032022
 

It is COZY TOWN up in here these days and I’m alright with that even though I do really miss wearing shorts everyday. I’m not opposed to the shorts-n-hoodie look but it’s just a bit too nippy for my wussy legs to handle the exposure. As it is, I’ve been walking around the house with a throw wrapped around me like a toga, trying not to think about how it’s only going to get worse.

Anyway, it’s Monday and I’m feeling free-flowy, so let’s just talk about things that have been going on, etc. etc. tra la la la.

Such as, my new drawer pull! OK back up. So when we re-did the kitchen, we got this counter thingie from IKEA. Because it’s IKEA, it didn’t come with cabinet knobs or a drawer pull for the middle drawer. We took care of the cabinet knobs quickly by using the same style we used on our wall cabinets, adding pictures of Michael Jackson, Boy George, and Rick Astley to them, because of course.

But that motherfucking drawer. I knew I wanted to use something ridiculous as a drawer pull, and I kept looking on eBay for various 1980s relics. Nothing felt right though so we had to live with opening a cabinet first in order to pull open the drawer. Chooch flipped his shit a few weeks ago. “I’M SO SICK OF THIS DRAWER WHY CAN’T ANYTHING IN THIS HOUSE BE NORMAL” so I sidled up next to him and said, “I’m so glad you brought this up, Sonny Boy, because look what MOTHER just purchased on eBay!” and then I showed him this BANGIN’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Burger King kids meal toy.

“I don’t know what that is,” he mumbled, brushing past me to return to his lair.

Henry attached it to the drawer the other day and  I am so satisfied with it and my chintzy-ass fucking house that I don’t own. (LOL OK fine that’s a lie, I am decidedly not satisfied with this house as a whole, that’s for sure.)

I had dinner with Marlene, Megan, and Debby the other night at Bonfire, which I had never been to before and was pleasantly surprised when I walked in and was greeted by Chooch’s old piano teacher, Cheryl! I had a really nice chat with her, and was finally able to address the elephant in the room: her name change, which Chooch had randomly told me about years ago but I was never sure if he was trolling me or not, so as she was walking me over to my reserved table, I blurted out, “So I’ve been meaning to ask you, DID YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME TO LAVENDAR?” and when she confirmed, I said, “OK I wasn’t sure if I could trust my kid or not, so I’m sorry that I have been still calling you Cheryl for 80 years,” and for some reason she thought the “80 years” part was really funny so I think I’m forgiven.

Then I got to introduce her to my crazy work pals once they arrived. I miss the days of Chooch’s piano lessons, but I’m glad she’s back in Pittsburgh!

Anyway, she wasn’t our server though – we had someone named Amanda and I had a mild crush on her because she was very no-nonsense and firm with us which appealed to me. I like to be verbally rough-housed in restaurants sometimes. I mean, THERE’S A TIME AND A PLACE, etc.

It literally took us an hour to order, so I’m sure Amanda was motherfuckering us up and down in the kitchen. I had the mushroom and kale flatbread and let me just say that I have never actually had a flatbread that I felt writing home about but if I had a pen and paper and a stamp and envelope with me, this would have been the one. It was actually so wonderful that I am still thinking about it a little and wish that I hadn’t let Henry have my leftovers as payment for dropping me off and picking me up although it’s a good thing because I had too much to drink and actually had the spins that night :/

It was nice getting to witness Debby and Marlene’s sibling-esque banter again though! They both retired in 2021 and are living their best lives now. I took over some of the stuff that Debby was responsible for and let me just tell you, I am, on my best days, the dime store Debby knock-off. And on my worst days, aka today, I’m barely a Goodwill bin Debby. Sigh.

On my bill, I scribbled, YOU ARE SO AWESOME AMANDA in the scrawl of a town wino, and I wonder if she could pick up on THE FLIRTY UNDERTONES.

(Did I mention that the cheese on my flatbread was like FONDUE? Holy shit.)

Drew, chillin’ with Buddy. Everything was fine until I said, “Drew, do you wanna let Buddy in the house and you can share your toys with him?

Speaking of Buddy, Girl Buddy was visiting the other day and I had my hand out with walnOOts in it and before I had a chance to hand her one, she came over and, in an attempt to help herself from serving platter of a palm, she BIT MY FINGER. Well, “bit” is hyperbolic. But my fingertip went into her mouth! We made eye contact immediately and it was as if she realized what she was doing, that my fingertip was not FUDZ (that’s their word that they share with the cats for “food,”) and she released me with no damage done. Henry was like a fountain of frowns though.

I got this Suspiria shirt recently and it’s perfect to wear to haunted houses <3 Suzy Bannion forever. (I used to always spell her last name as Banyan and truthfully, I like that so much better, but whatever. It’s not *my* movie.)

We also worked on the new carouselfie wall this weekend. I decided months ago that I lowkey hated the first version of it. I hated the wall color and those stupid flowers were so, well, stupid.  I bounced around several different ideas but then you know what? I went with my old tried and true: stripes. I fucking love a striped accent wall. Yeah, we have a lot of them in this piece, but oh well! (OK really only five, that’s not THAT many.)

I picked two colors at Home Depot almost immediately and then as Henry was taping off the wall later that day, he realized that my project had very quickly become “his” project. “It’s because you’re so good at painting stripes, sweetheart,” I mumbled while watching NCT content, probably.

Then I was like, “Oh and btw, now ‘we’ need to repaint the picture frames too.” LOL. I’m sorry, but now that the wall was changed to pink and green, the frames clashed! I chose solid white and he was actually happy about that. Like, when do I ever choose white for anything?? But in this case, I think it was the best bet, YOU KNOW?

The final touch was a strip of pink neon. We’re not done hanging frames yet, but you get the picture! The best part is that now that they’re spaced closer together, there’s room for more. And you know I have a lot of carouselfies planned for next year!

I like having themed areas, I dunno. Organized chaos, and all that.

In non-NCT127 KPOP news, I am beyond stoked that EXID is back!! I thought that they had disbanded for some reason but then they came out of nowhere with this banger and I am so pleased. They will always remind me of my early days in the KPOP scene, and Hani is one of my all-time favorite girl idols. I love her so much. And I just saw in the comments that they funded this comeback themselves?! Literal queens.

Well, that’s about all I had on my mind so I will see my way out now.

Jul 142022
 

I made it through June, which ended way better than it began minus some trailer park-ish drama. Now summer really feels like it’s here and I’m thriving – until the end of my month when my bday rolls around and I will succumb to one-day depression maybe probably depending on how well I’m being paid attention to. I think it should be fine though because we’ll be visiting my long-time friend in Cure obsession & Tolhursting alone, ALYSON!

In an effort to break up the amusement park posts, here’s a photo dump from the last week or so.

Vans Crew! I was stupidly excited when I realized that I was wearing the same shoes as Henry’s grandkids, Calvin and Lily, so we needed a photo, stat. Obviously Henry was not invited to participate.

I got this cute Richard Simmons talking figure at The Rocket in Ypsilanti last weekend & he looks hot AF on my kitchen shelf of 1980s figureheads.

All of these cars belong to HNC, yes even the one that’s behind an entirely different house up there, and this does not include the car that he actually drives every day. (He doesn’t drive any of the other ones! And the one in the forefront is his wife’s and how that one is up on blocks suddenly?!

I don’t get it. Chooch’s nemesis Larry is the same exact way – his whole driveway looks like a junkyard!! Just an FYI for anyone new here, we actually live in the city and not like some rural area where this is more accepted!!

When we came home at one point on Sunday, we couldn’t pull our own car down the driveway because HNC had his one driveable car pulled down there too because he was WORKING ON IT!? I see a lot of dumb shit around here but I am just actually rendered speechless by this.

Here is me at work last week! It was a day that definitely drained some / a lot of the novelty out of the whole “BACK IN THE CITY” sensation thanks to sleazy ass motherfuckers on the street being sleazy ass motherfuckers. I have been trying to avoid this one part of town since I’ve been back because the pandemic really turned it into some Mad Max type of bullshit, but I had to get to the Heinz History Center’s gift shop that day to get Chooch’s homestay some local gifts, thus forcing me to walk a way I have been avoided. And, as though on cue, some Jonny Craig-looking motherfucker with a face full of prison tattoos called out to me, “HEY TAKE ME HOME WITH YOU” and threw his body into some repulsive throat-sloughing laugh.

Then he said something else and my ears did me a favor by going into survival mode and closing off so I thankfully avoided hearing what came next.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

I never get hit on by any savory types!!!

This week at work, I treated myself to a strawberry matcha latte from Adda. Worth it.

Ugh you guys. On that note, it’s been a really weird week adjusting to a Chooch-less house. I know this month will blow past, summer mths always do, and obviously I’m so glad that he wanted to do this and that we were able to help make it happen (his academic scholarship only went so far, people!) but it’s been disorienting, and I have been off my game big time, especially at work I feel like.

Also, two nights ago my left eye started burning and when I took my contact out, it unleashed a whole ass world of hurt upon me. The pain flooded in so fast and hard that I couldn’t keep my eye open, like my eyelid was like, “LET ME DO MY JOB” and kept forcing my eye shut, like closing a curtain on the veritable fucking acid bath going on behind it. Holy fuck, I have no idea what happened, but it hurt SO BAD that I could barely sleep all night. My eye was watering so hard that my whole left side of my face was like a 1980s art deco penthouse water feature. The pain was medieval, like an eyelash-sized sword slashing my prized orbital parts and I was actually terrified that somehow I had ripped my eyeball maybe?!!?

Holy shit, I was miserable. Obviously I wore my glasses all day yesterday and then it felt like I had allergies, like really hardcore hay fever. I was a dripping, sneezing, eye-squirting mess all day. I actually thought I was being punished for something. Then! Because I hadn’t slept hardly at all that night, the last hour of work was excruciating because I was so exhausted that I kept doing “eyes rolling back” and “snoring-while-awake” routine. You guys, I was SO TIRED that I TOOK A NAP after work. Granted it was for less than an hour and then I woke up panicked about my step-count, because WHAT IS MY LIFE, but yeah – that’s how bad this whole thing was and Henry kept asking, “NOW do you want to go to the doctor?” and I’m like, “NO! IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A WEEK SINCE I HAD TO GO TO LABCORP FOR A WELLNESS CHECK AND GET BLOOD DRAWN!” Bitch, I can only handle so much HEALTH CARE in my life, and there is still A BRUISE AND BAND-AID RESIDUE in the crook of my right arm from THE BLOODLETTING because I am too scared to wash/scrub it off since that area MIGHT STILL BE TENDER FROM THE NEEDLE. I cannot GO TO ANOTHER MEDICAL THING while I still have REMNANTS FROM THE LAST MEDICAL THING on my person!!!!

Anyway, my eye was fine all day until around 6:00 and then it got weird again but not nearly like it was the other night and it’s not even red this time so fingers crossed that it’s just some allergic reaction to who knows what because nothing has changed in my house and I fucking swear to god if I’m suddenly allergic to the squirrels….

OK bye.

Feb 192022
 

That feeling when you wait all week for the weekend and then it’s just a freezing cold snowy day so why bother doing anything, you know? Ugh my spring anticipation is off the charts. I keep seeing these big fat ass robins around my porch and they are bringing me hope. We were also teased with two mild days earlier in the week which was like walking out into a dopamine wonderland.

We were going to get Korean food for lunch today but I am so unmotivated. Maybe?

In other It’s My Life So That’s What I Write About news, a Verizon salesman came to our house last week. Of course, henry was upstairs when dude knocked and I have a firm Anti-Door-Opening Policy, so I fled with the cats upstairs and panted, “Henry! Someone! Door! Knocking!” I then proceeded to eat my dinner (oatmeal, my winter smoothie bowl transition) on the steps with Penelope, both of us cowering in fear.

But yeah, just a Verizon guy, trying to get us to switch from Xfinity. I knew that Henry wanted to do this anyway at some point but I still figured he’d be like “go away.” Except that he talked to the dude for like a solid 15 minutes.

“That guy was really cool,” Henry said later. “He used to be a journalist in Afghanistan!” Henry was fixated on this. So much so that he told the guy to come back the next day and he’d sign up. Why he didn’t just do it then, I have no idea.

Of course, the dude didn’t come back the next day at the designated time. Henry paced back and forth by the window like a fisherman’s wife watching for the ship, until 7:00pm came and went. “I guess he’s not coming,” Henry sighed, and then left to go to Lowe’s.

OF COURSE thee came a knock upon the door (shout out to Janna who was helping me film a video in English class and couldn’t remember her line of “someone is knocking” and blurted out “there came a knock upon the door” instead like some Dickensian savant) thirty minutes after Henry left. It was his Verizon Buddy’s partner, making good on the promise to return. Now I was saddled with this responsibility of signing up for Verizon!!! FML. I shouldn’t have answered but the guy was knocking so jovially and I knew, presumably, that it wasn’t going to be a villain, so I put my Big Girl Pants on and dealt with it.

Long story short, I was entertained for nearly 20 minutes by the tweedle dee and tweedle dum of Verizon. It was like amateur mic night and my front porch was the little known comedy club The Brookline Bellylaugher. Super nice guys though! And they were like desperately trying to edge closer into my house to get a better look, it was hilarious. Every time one of them would finish giving me some VERIZON IS BETTER THAN XFINITY factoid, they’d interrupt themselves to say, “OMG that thing is so cool!!” and then I’d have to turn around and try to figure out what they were pointing at. They both really loved the Mouse Attack sign.

If I wasn’t home alone in the middle of a pandemic, I would have certainly invited them in. But also, it was 8pm in February in the middle of COVID uncertainty, so I stayed inside the house and they stood back on the porch, and this is how we conducted our business. I signed up and completely screwed up the deal Henry was going to get, but it’s fine! These are things you have to expect when you leave the most helpless member of the household in charge of decision-making.

Luckily, Henry came home while they were still sitting in their car so he stopped them, like, “ho ho ho! Here I am, you promised me a $200 gift thingie, let’s talk about this.”

Anyway, everything is all ironed out I guess. The Verizon tech dude came to my house on Tuesday to do the installation and he too was like *POPPING EYEBALLS* as he walked through the house to the computer. The thing he liked the best was the Seoul subway sign, in case you were wondering.

Poor Taemin got bumped around a lot, but we are now Verizon internet customers, after more than a decade of Henry desperately wanting to switch but being unable to because I was in BAD STANDING with Verizon from a bunch of years ago when I had a landline through them and racked up a HUGE phone bill when I was in Australia and never paid it because I switched some fly-by-night service and that’s a whole other story that I barely remember now because what’s a landline, wow.

The installation also conveniently happened right smack in the middle of a training call I was on, so I had to keep saying, “Dawn? Hey, Dawn? The Verizon guy is here again, can you give me a few minutes?” and I truthfully don’t think she gave a shit either way lol.

I forgot that I took this picture last Saturday when Henry and I were in Brownsville (which apparently was a big deal and numerous people on Instagram were like WHY WERE YOU IN BROWNSVILLE because I guess Pittsburghers aren’t allowed to be there who knows). There was an abandoned church that I wanted to have my picture taken in front of because I liked the door (you never know with me) and one of the windows was broken so we could see this creepy basement scene.

I also forgot to post this from last weekend! It’s my new necklace from The Idol Collective. I love her jewelry and pins sooo much. I found her years ago when I was looking for BIGBANG enamel pins because at the time, she specialized in Kpop pieces but has since branched out to other things and I just love it all.

Look at this boo babe!! He’s OOAK. I set a reminder on my phone so when her most recent shop update went live, I could swoop in and snag him. I love being A WINNER.

What else happened this week….

We were watching some kid do an unboxing of NCT albums while talking about her biases.

Henry: Wow. Who *isn’t* her bias?” Me: I mean it’s really hard to not have like 10 NCT biases. Henry: I don’t have any. So it’s really easy, actually.

Shut up Henry. Everyone knows his bias is Jungwoo.

Henry: He’s not my bias, though! You just assigned him to me because that’s your way of getting to have an extra bias! Through me!

This might be partially true. Here are my NCT biases even though you didn’t ask:

  • NCT127: Jaehyun. It used to be Haechan and Jaehyun was my bias wrecker, but then I decided to make Jaehyun my official NCT127 bias, and you’ll see why in a second. (Because you care.)

Compilation of #JAEHYUN Magazine Interview Translation ♡ / Twitter

  • NCT Dream: Renjun. Bias wrecker: Jaemin

Watch: NCT DREAM&#39;s Renjun Wows With Gorgeous Cover Of Troye Sivan&#39;s “Fools” | Soompi

JAEMIN / NANA / 재민 / 나나 | Nct, Nct group, Nct dream jaemin

  • WAYV: Xiaojun

230 XIAOJUN ideas | nct, nct 127, nct dream

  • Overall NCT Universe bias: Haechan and Ten

160 Nct ─ haechan. ideas | nct, nct dream, nct 127

Haechan was the first person in the NCT Universe who I really really really liked and latched on to. He has the most unique voice out of any of them. Honestly, he is so underrated as a vocalist in general.

WAYV: TEN’s photo teasers for NCT 2020 – KSTATION TV

Ten is a fucking dancing beast, and he is one of my most charismatic and fun to watch of all the members! Since he’s also a member of Super M, I got to see him in person back in 2019, where he also performed two solo songs and it was so fucking dreamy. He is one of the most mesmerizing dancers in the whole damn world. Also, he hates fruit to the point of being actually afraid of them which is hilarious to me.

There, now you know my NCT biases. I mean, there are 23 members overall! How can you have just one!?!?

In non-Kpop news, we finally got confirmation yesterday from the study abroad program that Chooch received *almost* a full academic scholarship for the summer program in Yucatan this July so what we actually to pay is minimal, thank god. We would have tried to make it work regardless because this will be a great experience for him and something that he can include on his college applications (do not want to think about this at all right now).

I asked Henry today if he thinks Chooch will be OK without us for 4 weeks.

“I mean, he’s never been away from us for that long! What if he can’t sleep at night because he misses us so much?” and the response I received from Henry was a silent “COME THE FUCK ON NOW” smirk. OK fine. Maybe it’s me who won’t be able to sleep hahaha ughhh.

Anyway, it’s amazing that he qualified for anything because this is the thing I mentioned a few mths ago where one of his essays sounded like it was written by a sociopath.

More Chooch news: he showed me a slideshow presentation he did for school wherein he eschewed capitalization and used comic sans. “It was an ironic stylization choice,” he shrugged. And the other day when everyone was ballistic because the Wordle word was so fucking aggravating? He got it on THE SECOND TRY. I know this because I was sitting right next to him before we left for school and I was so fucking pissed.

I started having sporadic electrocutions in one of my knees last week and I am totally fixated and wigging out, much to Henry’s chagrin because I always pull him into the WebMD abyss with me. Me: Feel my knees! Do I need more fat in them? Should I be doing cartilage stuff?

Henry: Yeah. Let me know how that goes, doing ‘cartilage stuff.’

Ugh, I hope it’s OK. It only happens sometimes, like I’m not in constant pain but I’m also super babying both knees now to the point where I am afraid to kneel, squat, etc.

Me: What if I have to get a cast?? I can’t use crutches!!! I’ve tried!!!

Henry: WTF, now your leg is suddenly broken? Why would a doctor put you in a cast??

Too late, I’m spinning out. It’s bone cancer. My knee cap is popping off. I have water on the knee. (Fun fact, when I was 10, I was convinced that I had this affliction after reading about it in the Merck medical journal that I kept on my night stand and then I went on vacation with my grandparents right after and proceeded to write about it ad nauseum in my vacation journal and it was not meant to be taken lightly but when my grandma read it, she was like, “OH HONESTLY ERIN” and then laughed herself to tears.

OK but 30(ish) years later, here I am! With a knee ailment! A veritable swimming pool atop my knee! Probably! Who’s laughing now, Grandma?!

I was going to end this with an NCT Dream video but you guy(s) are probably sick of that so I’ll give you a break. (For now!)

Jan 242022
 

I HATE WINTER. I HATE IT I HATE IT. I don’t trust people who like this shitty, depressing, bleak season. Not even taking spycam pics of Henry and HNC shoveling together has cheered me up.

It makes me feel very disoriented too, on top of everything else. Like, I know for sure it has been a big contributor to the shitty feelings I’ve been having about myself lately which is why I’m trying to just purge the thoughts on here and then hope for a better day. There’s a thing I like to tell myself that I totally made up on my own and it’s called THIS TOO SHALL PASS. Literally coined that phrase. You heard it here first folks. Like & subscribe for a chance to win an embroidery of that shit.

I also hate winter because when it snows like this, or drops below 25 degrees, my daily walks get completely hijacked. And we all know I am a person of perpetual routine so even that small change is enough to knock my mental orbit off course.

So I have been doing lots of walking workouts and also walking/jogging in place while watching Netflix but then I can never find anything that holds my attention!

Here are some things I liked recently, so please help me find new shows:

  • Archive 81
  • Maid

Lol ok aside from kdramas, I think that’s it! I need shows that are less than an hour per episode to watch before work while steady jogging, and kdramas are usually like 90 minutes an episode – I need to watch those at night under a blanket on the couch!

I started to watch The Serpent but wasn’t feeling it.

Ugh.

I want to watch Anxious People but have to watch it with Henry since we both read the book.

I need a good, solid CW show like In the Dark.

in other EVERYTHING SUCKS news, Henry slipped on ice and hurt his dumb shoulder AND BUTT lol which sucks for me because he was almost done with the ceiling project but now that’s on hold until he’s able to hold his arm above his head again. Ugh to the max!!!

So, life currently is just: wake up, eat breakfast, find a way to numb the mind while accumulating at least 6,000 steps before it’s time to log on to work at 9, work, dinner, exercise, kdrama or rollercoaster videos.

Sigh.

I was determined to leave the house on Sunday, even if it was just a trip to Target, but then it SNOWED ALL DAY.

So as of this writing, it’s been over a week since I’ve been out in civilization. No wait!!! I went to the library on Saturday. But my security guard friend Robert wasn’t there so I just popped in, grab my holds, self-checked out and that was that. I like when Robert is there because he says nice things like ITS ALWAYS GOOD TO SEE YOU, ERIN and it makes me feel SEEN you know? I have lived in Brookline since 1999 but never became a townie so Robert is the only one ’round these parts who knows me by name.

I wish I was the type of person who could just lean into winter weather and veg out on the couch with some wine and Kardashians (I dunno is that still a popular show for normal ppl??) and not give a shit about anything other that maximizing the cozy levels. But I can literally only do that if I have a fever :( (I mean, minus the Kardashian part.)

DON’T YOU FEEL LIKE U R STUCK ON THE PHONE WITH ME RIGHT NOW.

Oh!! Here’s a good thing that you have to pretend to care about to make me feel good: NCT127 won the Daesang award at the 2022 Seoul Music Awards, and that is the TOP AWARD. I am so proud of them!! I spent most of the weekend with their videos etc on in the background and I feel so inspired and motivated to whip out my credit card and buy the best ticket if they ever fucking announce a North American tour. I told Henry and he just nodded and whispered, “I know.” He won’t/can’t stop me either!! Imagining the possibility of seeing them this year actually fills me old school butterflies and it is great to be reminded that I still have some youth left in me.

Ideally, I wish SM would send the entire NCT conglomerate on tour so we could get all the subgroups on one stage, omg I would pay so much hard-earned money on that.

OK, I have to go and help Henry package the piles of Valentines that are currently accumulating on the dining room table. I’ll try to conjure more content for the rest of the week. I might have to tap into one of my alter egos, though, lol ugh oof.

Nov 082021
 

As someone who really enjoyed the process of getting ready for work every morning, I have really been at odds with this never-ending WFH sitch. I know I have whined about this a million times since 2020 at this point but to summarize: I am ultra-grateful that I work at a place where our safety and health comes first and we have the capability of efficiently and seamlessly doing our jobs from home. I really do like that, I swear.

But I miss all of my clothes! I mean I suppose I could still wear them “to work” even though I’m not leaving the house but it’s not the same and also not conducive to my hourly five-minute jogging in place.

I keep telling Henry that he needs to start taking me on dates so I can wear my nice clothes (while he alternates between two flannels lol but who cares what he’s wearing when all of my clothes are so cute) or else I’m going to find other people to go on dates with. That definitely has not lit any fires under his ass lol.

Anyway, I was off on Monday and felt momentarily motivated to organize my closet but then within the first 2 minutes I spotted one of my favorite blouses that I definitely have not worn since probably 2019 at this point and then I also found a pair of jeans that I took to Korea in 2018 and thought I lost but no, they were balled up and punched into the back of a shelf on top of closet. So instead of organizing, I declared to the cats that it was PHOTOSHOOT TIME, starring Horsey shirt from F21 and guest-starring a striped thermal from H&M that I bought last year and have worn zero times.

Enjoy. Or don’t enjoy. It’s a free country. Um, I will also pepper this bitchin’ stew with some fun-ish facts about me, things that have been on my mind, dot dot dot?

  • Instead of butter, I spray popcorn with Pam. I picked that habit up as a child from my aunt Sharon and grandma, because they were always trying to cut calories (I still have a fondness for Melba toast crackers because of my grandma and also have a pretty chunky fear of food, lol). I’m sure I probably have tumors from this but I’m too afraid to google “does Pam cause cancer” so…Mmm, buttered aerosol!

  • I am off work today (it always gets to this part of the year and I’m racing to use my PTO) so I walked to Mediterra in Mt, Lebanon to get one of their exquisite pumpkin spice lattes. I had to wait at the bar area because it was shockingly bumpin’ for 10:15am on a Tuesday. I was only half-paying attention to the barista guy. He asked me if I was the to-go PSL, and that he had tow more drinks to make but then mine was up. I thought that was considerate of him to tell me, and then I went back to scrolling through Instagram. When he was done with my latte, he set it down without the lid on and said, “Because I wanted you to see that I gave you a heart because I care” and I AM SURE HE SAYS THIS TO EVERYONE but it was literally all it took to get me to have an instant crush because my self-worth is…where is it? Down there somewhere. You might be stepping on it. Anyway, so now I will be going to this place a lot. I called Henry immediately to tell him. “And he was totally my type!” I said breathily. “Korean?” Henry asked sarcastically and I said, “No. Actually, I don’t really know if he was cute because he was wearing a mask. But he was like, mid-20s. And looked like he might like Balance and Composure. So…”

  • When I was little, my dad was friends with this dude who had a daughter around my age named MANDY and MANDY was like TRES PERFECTIQUE. (Fun fact within a fun fact: I do not know French.) Anyway, I just remember that she was like blond and skinny and pretty and popular and I was fat and fat and fat and fat and sometimes we would get invited over to go swimming which was, woo hoo, so great for me, especially since she had an older brother who got to see me jiggling in my swimsuit. The one thing about MANDY in a list of SO MANY GREAT THINGS ABOUT MANDY (I accidentally typed “mandu” just then which is a Korean dumpling and far superior to MANDY) was that she was a Tamburitzen. I had no idea WTF a Tamburitzen was but her mother used to brag about her performances all the fucking time like OK we get it, MANDY is the Gen X MARSHA BRADY. Jesus Fucking Christ. ANYWAY, I just recently saw something about how the Mattress Factory – my favorite local art museum – hosted some kind of event in which the TAMBURITZENS performed and apparently even after all  these years, I am still triggered. BRB going to google MANDY.

  • Did you know that before Henry and I were officially dating, I was still with my current boyfriend Jeff and all this shit went down where I was reunited with my bio dad’s mother and aunt for the first time since he died when I was 3 and they told me all this shit I didn’t know about him and I was having a fucking identity crisis having grown up not knowing my birth dad’s family at all, and I called Jeff all upset whose response was something super sweet like, “Well, if you’re going  to be all upset about this stuff tonight, let’s just go out another time” OR SOMETHING SMILARLY CALLOUS so I went to the cemetery and sat next to my dad’s grave and didn’t know who else to call so I called Henry (OMG on my NOKIA cell phone #2001) and he came to the cemetery with a bottle of water knowing that I was probably crying and dehydrated and then I took a sip of water and it went down the wrong pipe and I started choking and he essentially saved me, almost killed me, and then saved me again all in the span of like 5 minutes and I guess that’s when I knew he was the one lol. OH MEMORIES.

  • Hey speaking of identity crises, can I take a second to bitch about HOW FRUSTRATING it is when people outside of my department at work call me “Kelly” in emails? I mean, I know it’s an easy mistake for people like me with two first names but it’s still annoying. However, there is this one lady who is a part of our sister department in Melbourne AND SHE HAS CONSISTENTLY referred to me as “Kelly” for as long as she has been here, which has been at least five years at this point. It is so fucking insulting!!! And just when I thought she couldn’t offend me any deeper, she copied me on email recently where she referred to me as KELLY ERIN. KELLY ERIN!!!!! I just really fucking can’t. It kills me. How hard is it to know the names of your COWORKERS?!?! We were even in the same GROUP in the department until recently.

  • My all time favorite grilled cheese is on pumpernickel bread with artichoke hearts and dill Havarti. I call it the “Adult Grilled Cheese.” My second favorite is gouda or cheddar and raspberry jam on any type of bread.  I haven’t had either of these in YEARS though!

  • I’m not afraid of clowns because I spent a shit ton of my childhood at my grandparents’ house where my grandma had an entire room full of clowns and she would sometimes pay me to dust in there. I suppose this could have gone either way, though! The two clown paintings in the background are actually from the Gillcrest Clown Room!

  • This one time in 2002 when I worked at the REALLY SUPER TERRIBLE MEAT PLACE that left me a stutter and social anxiety, one of the drivers had apparently stolen money or something, I can’t remember the full details now, but DETECTIVES got involved and I had to sit in a conference room with them for THREE HOURS getting grilled (and the one detective was a super huge prick, I’m sure you’re shocked) because I was responsible for checking in drivers and also one of the salesmen was also getting interrogated with me and after all of that, one of the owners came in and asked the salesman if he wanted lunch from Lotus Garden but DID NOT ASK ME and that is so on brand for the way I was treated there for 4 years. FUCK YOU, WEISS MEATS. Also, I was one of only 2 women who worked there and was referred to universally as The Girl, so I guess being called “Kelly” at my present job isn’t the worst thing in the world BUT STILL.

  • OMG I am perusing LiveJournal entries from 2002 and apparently there was some salesman from the Pennysaver who used to come into Weiss Meats to do ad stuff with them and it turned out that we liked some of the same bands (I was really into hard rock and OMG nu metal back then) and he would sometimes borrow CDs from me but APPARENTLY on this one day as he was leaving, he said, “THANKS, KEL” and I was so angry. He really liked this band called Primer 55 and they were so shitty.

  • OK speaking of shitty bands, this is about to be the BIGGEST SECRET I WILL EVER TELL ON THIS BLOG, OK. I *liked* Nickelback for a hot minute AND EVEN BOUGHT A SHIRT AND HAD THEM SIGN IT when I saw them open for THREE DOORS DOWN in 2001. I ACTUALLY TALKED TO THAT CHAD DUDE AND HE WAS SUCH A CUNT. I KNOW THIS IS A SHOCKING REVELATION. But he was so impatient to sign my shit and move me along so he could get to the bitchin’ metal babe in a tube top behind me. OMG I don’t know what is happening in my head right now but everything is tying together because I just remembered that I WAS WEARING THAT NICKELBACK SHIRT the day referenced in an earlier FUN FAT where I went to meet my birth dad’s mom and then almost drowned on bottle water at Jefferson Memorial. Um, don’t worry. I donated that shirt to Goodwill a really long time ago, lol.

  • Speaking of NICkelback and EMBARRASSING LIKES, Con Air starring NIColas Cage was on TV the other night and I furiously shushed Henry who had the audacity to try and converse with me while I was watching that while painting my nails. “I’ll never understand how this is one of your favorite movies,” he mumbled to which I mumbled that I was going through a heavy John Cusack phase in the 90s, bro and also do I even need a reason and alsox2, I have never NOT CRIED AT THE END and trust me, I cried at the end last week too. You can ask Chooch who was standing there looking uber concerned because we were about to leave for a walk but I held up a hand and cried, “WAIT. I HAVE TO WATCH THE END FIRST” and he was like, “Wait…you actually like this movie?” OMFG houseful of Con Air haters.

  • I also really liked A Perfect Circle and Cold back then too but I have no shame or regrets with those musical choices at all, in fact, this just inspired me to bark, “HEY ALEXA, PLAY A PERFECT CIRCLE. YOU DUMB CUNT.”

  • Hey speaking of Echo/Alexa, Henry tried to program it so that Alexa (or whoever the dude is that talks on our kitchen Echo Show now) will call me a cunt in response, but THEY GOTTA STAY G-RATED APPARENTLY, SORRY HENRY.

  • Sometime in middle school, I found a copy of “Ghost Story” by Peter Straub in my grandparent’s basement and read it over the summer. I remember sitting in the rarely-used living room of my parent’s house and having legit goosebumps in broad daylight because that book scared me so much. I always say it’s one of the scariest books I’ve ever read but I have always been too afraid to re-read it in case it doesn’t hold up.

(Isn’t this fun?? It makes me feel like I’m having lunch with a real life friend and just chatting about life, or you know, sitting on a therapist’s couch.)

  • Since I’m on a 2002 LiveJournal entry kick, here is a riveting tale of PIZZA DAY at Weiss Meats:

Every Friday, my other boss, Elliott, runs up to me all excitedly and says ‘Pizza today!’ which means that I have to don a stupid baseball cap and trudge on down to the cutting room to see what the meat cutters want on their pizzas. Today was no different. Except I forgot to wear the hat, and the Federal Inspector, Dave, was down there. So i asked him if he could go in for me and get their orders. He said ‘C’mon, Erin, it’s me. You think I really care if you go in their with your hair exposed?’ Ha. Federal Inspectors have the easiest job. So I get the orders and John, the foreman, gives me $50. I was like ‘What’s this for? You know Elliott always pays.’ He insisted that I take it because HE wanted to pay. Why is beyond me. But then Pete, another meat cutter, pulled out $60 and said ‘No, I’LL pay.’ The two of them argued it out, and Pete won. Apparently no one wants Elliott doing them any favors. What do I care though? I still didn’t have to pay.

I go back upstairs to the offices and show Elliott the list, so he can calculate how many pizzas to get. This is really fun to watch. Not really. We then must decide where to get the pizza. Italian Village is the fastest, but they ‘really like Firinzi’s.’ Elliott tells me to get it from the latter and that he’ll have someone go and pick it up, so it’lll be faster. Aaron, Elliott’s son, says that HE will call. Which is fine by me, because I hate talking to that Italian woman.

Just when I think everything is over with, Eric comes upstairs with a menu for One Eyed Willie’s and starts getting orders. Joe and Elliott run into the kitchen, panicked, saying ‘The girl already got orders for pizza! What’s going on?’ They were quite literally ricocheting off walls. Eric explained that some people wanted to order from One Eyed Willie’s and that it had nothing to do with the pizza. Mass confusion subsides.

Until an hour later, when Elliott becomes antsy for his pizza, that is. I asked him who was going to pick it up, in which he replies ‘Yanno, I have no idea.’ So then erupts the search for Aaron. When Aaron is found, they find out that the pizza, is, in fact, being delivered.

Fifteen minuted later, pizza arrives. Everyone’s happy. My head hurts.

  • I only bought this splendid popcorn carrier from Everland in Korea because I immediately envisioned it having a second life as a purse.

  • Apparently on November 6, 2002, “I was so pissed off last night because I thought I taped Felicity, but my stupid Tony Little Gazelle tape was in there instead.” Wow,  talk about telling me it’s 2002 without telling me, U NO. (Oh great, here I go on my Scott Speedman kick again.)

Well, this post is spiraling. I’m going to go and try to enjoy the rest of my day off, I guess, now that I have thoroughly depressed myself with skimming LiveJournal posts from 2002. I can honestly say that my life is a million times better at 42 than 23. Y-y-y-y-yikes. Also, how the fuck did Henry and I make it this long?? After reading some of that shit, I truthfully have no idea but thank god, man.