Omg for this edition of Friday Fives, Henry is visiting to tell us about his fave reads of the year! Which* means he will tell me a botched title and then I will try to coax some descriptive words from him while he’s cooking shit for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner and then I’ll do all the typing too.

But sure let’s call it a guest post.

*(wtf I tried to spell this as ‘whitch’ THREE TIMES even though spellcheck was frantically trying to tell me I’m a big stoop.

)

Oh, just a heads up that Henry’s opinions are based off the audiobooks alone. He doesn’t have time to read physical books but he powers through the audio versions while working and I’m so happy that he has been doing this because it’s been so much fun having a built-in book club at home.

Fun fact: Henry’s favorite genre of book is THRILLER. (“Probably,” he added as an afterthought.)

1. Bunny – Mona Awad

“It bas a unique premise.”

2. Bear Town – Frederik Backman

“The story and characters were well-written.

”

See also: Henry has a voice crush on the narrator.

3. Nothing To See Here – Kevin Wilson

“It was a very interesting story….

and it had the same narrator as Bear Town.”

4. House In the Cerulean Sea – TJ Klune

“My favorite character was the antichrist kid.”

5. The Diviners Series – Libba Bray

“I just liked the story and the characters through all the books, I dunno.”

****

Well guys that was literally the most I could pull from his brain. He didn’t even want to do that much and I was screaming JUST GIVE ME ONE FUCKING SENTENCE FOR EACH BOOK THEN OMFG.

So there you have it. If you ever wanted to read like Henry, now you can. Merry Christmas.

Annyeong. I have been so scattered lately. Like, I’m running on nervous energy and Kombucha, mostly. Every time I sit down to one thing, I’m on to something else within minutes. I can’t tell if this is adult ADD or a manic bipolar upswing or just, well, Erin being Erin.

So today we’re free-forming it because I’ll be honest, the last several blog posts have been torturous for me to write because I cannot stay focused. I know what you’re thinking: But Erin, this piece is always a mess. And you’re right, it really is. So, never mind.

We’ll start with a picture of THIS BLOG’S AUTHOR in her Dance Gavin Dance Cocaine Cringefest sweatshirt. Jingle, jingle, who’s ready to mingle? No one. Thanks, OMICRON.

I’ll just walk around the city telling chickens that I’m pretty and I’d love for them to meet my wife.

FOOD, PART 1

First, let’s talk about food. I had some good foods lately, starting with my night out with Carrie and Megan at The Forge.

We started off with this CHEESE PLATTER and a round of BARTENDER’S CHOICE drinks. I told the waiter, who was killing me all night with his familiar face, that I liked floral notes, and he said, “Wow it just so happens that we make our own lavender syrup in house” and I was like, “Yes, that will do.” So I got a purple drink with vodka and lavender, which was a true delight and it was all I could do not to slurp that bitch down like a basic juice box.

Also, I do not drink much anymore so this went straight to my head and I ended up spending most of the dinner just silently nodding along with everything Carrie and Megan were saying because I was afraid I’d start scream-speaking because vodka.

Anyway, it was so nice to see these broads!! In case you don’t know, we are part of the same team at work and used to sit in a row with each other back in Normal Times, so it was fucking awesome to see them in real life after nearly two years (though I did see Megan last October when we did that shitty volunteering thing through work ugh).

I hate this picture of me SO MUCH because of my GLASSES but when I got someone else to take another one, that one ended up being WORSE because I was BLINKING and somehow the “live” option was turned off in my settings! I never turn that shit off!!

But the other gals look great so I am posting this.

Also, I’m wearing glasses almost exclusively until I can get an eye appointment because my contacts are just wrong. So very, very wrong.

Also x2, Henry drove Megan and I to the Forge that night for two reasons:

• we had taken the good car into the shop to get fixed (it’s back now, btw! you can’t even tell that “Henry” wrecked it! Also, the owner of the auto body place liked our car so much so that she went out and bought an identical one lol. Hyundai Kona FTW!) and I hate the old car because it shakes so if it breaks down, at least Henry is there lol;
• I literally cannot drive at night with glasses. I mean, I can barely do anything with glasses, so.

I yelled at Henry after we dropped Megan off because he was being rude and he was like, “I wasn’t being rude. You guys were talking so I just let you talk.” YES THAT’S BEING RUDE.

Anyway, I realized in the middle of the night that I didn’t actually know the waiter, he just looked like Ted from Schitt’s Creek.

Oh! I also had the vegan shawarma which was DIVINE.

FOOD, PART 2

Onion Maiden had limited quantities of their Seitanic Ritual platter: fried seitan cutlet that tasted like how I remember veal to taste, or was it pork, I can’t remember meats; corn; mashed ube & vegan gravy.

It was, in a word: DIVINE. Like, had me speaking in “backwards record,” it was so good. So good, that I’m trying to get Henry to make mashed ube for Christmas. We’ll see how that pans out. Lol.

Yeah, and then this effing vegan cheesecake that I stupidly agreed to “share” with Henry, ugh. That was a bad decision.

FOOD, PART 3

A Christmas pint pick-up from Sugar Spell!

Every single flavor is bangin’ as usual. The Yule Log one is probably my favorite, if you’re going to make me pick one, because there is just something so indulgent about Sugar Spell’s chocolate base. You would never believe it was vegan!!

Anyway, after we taste-tested every flavor, I realized that we didn’t get the PB&J one. I looked up the order to make sure I had it on there, and I did but I guess they accidentally gave me gingerbread instead. Which was fine! We weren’t shorted and I was just as happy with the gingerbread, but Mr. Warehouse Manager was like, “You need to tell them.” And I was like, “Yeah but it’s not an issue – they didn’t overcharge us or anything and it’s not like we can ‘return’ the gingerbread since we already ate some?” and he was like “BUT YOU NEED TO TELL THEM FOR INVENTORY PURPOSES!” God, leave it to Henry to even make ice cream boring.

(Yes! I told them! God!)

CHOOCH THINGS

Wow, parenthood has been RULL exciting over in these parts lately.

Let’s start with the fact that Chooch came home one night last week and casually said, “Oh yeah, my Spanish teacher was talking about this study abroad program and I want to do it. Thanks bye.”

But then also Chooch: I lost my student ID again. Have you seen my wallet? I can’t find my credit card. I missed the T. I forgot my face mask. I broke my Rubik’s Cube, can I return it? Can I have money, I spent all mine on Pokémon cards. Where is my work visor?

So…you tell me, am I stupid for entertaining this idea? The organization has been around since the 40s and they have a great Covid policy (all applicants & host families must provide proof of vaccination, for instance), it’s also fully-refundable if the trips need to be cancelled or postponded based on pandemic travel concerns. He can get a merit scholarship for it, and they’re also very generous with financial aid. So, I told him to go ahead and try for it. The trip he’s trying for is to Yucatan and it’s for 4 weeks next July. He can also get 4 college credits out of the deal and it’s something that will look nice and pretty on college applications, and he needs as much application padding as possible.

My favorite part of all of this was finding out how little Chooch knows about me, as evidenced when he texted me from school while filling out the application. “What is your occupation again? Stock broker?”

UM, NO??? I have no idea what would have EVER given him that idea? I have worked in the conflicts department of the same international law firm for nearly 12 years, but OK cook on with your stock broker fantasies, boy. He’s gonna wish I was brokering stocks when it comes time to pay for this shit and we can’t afford it lol.

I joined some Zoom meeting for this program the other night to get more information, and this is what happened in the chat:

Fuckin’ Army.

Meanwhile, there are several essays that need to be written in order to apply for financial aid. I was proofreading one of them and THANK GOD I did because this was an actual line from one of them: “I used to not care about people at all, but working at McDonald’s has taught me to be kinder to strangers.”

UM HELLO SOCIOPATH. And also, McDonald’s taught him that? Not his parents? OH OK.

I definitely rewrote that for him because ain’t no one trying to send an apathetic loner boy (which he isn’t!!) on an international trip with other students. For Christ’s sake. Cant wait until he starts his volunteer work!

Then Corey and I had this text exchange right after, lol:

#HollyJollyHenry

Here is a photo I took of Henry last weekend when we were Christmas shopping, ugh. He was so mad because this was set up right by the food court and although you can’t really tell,  there were a lot of people milling about so Henry was like TAKE THE PICTURE, OMG JUST TAKE IT. A few days later, the actual mall liked it on Instagram, lololololololol.

ME WITH GLASSES

Um, here I am with glasses. I probably haven’t worn these since Korea 2019, when I had The Eye Injury. I do not know what this face is but I know that I make it a lot.

THINGS I HAVE BEEN WATCHING

I have been watching the new season of Emily in Paris because sometimes a bitch just needs simple to watch while jogging in place on an imaginary treadmill, and Bonus Family which is a Swedish dramedy, plus about 7 other shows that I started and lost interest in pretty quickly. (See above re: adult ADD.) I randomly put on the first episode of The Originals the other day and I did not remember a single thing about it, so now I’m questioning if I even watched that show back when it was on because I thought I did?!?!

MY SUPERVISOR SMOTHERS ME

Making sure I’m getting all my stock things brokered. Also, that plate on the floor is a tea cup saucer, which I use to serve the cats their treats and then the plates stay on the floor for Henry and Chooch to accidentally kick like flat, breakable soccer balls.

IN OTHER NEWS…

• Henry finally hung this beautiful poster from the time Corey and I saw the Cure in Philly in 2008. Actually, I think I found this online and made Christina buy it for me LOL. The Cure corner is really coming along and it makes my heart swell every time I go upstairs!
• I’ve been rotating through “Alexa play [random country] pop music” every day in order to block out the sounds of the TERRORDOME next door. I swear to god those kids are devil dogs. It’s just incessant screaming and crying all day, every day. One day it sounded like they were actually burrowing inside the walls and I felt legit frightened.
• Emily was working on a marketing campaign for leeks on Emily In Paris and it made me want leeks so I texted Henry and told him I want leeks incorporated into our Xmas dinner menu and he was like, “I can do that” and for some reason that came off sounding super cocky, like OK CHEF BOYARDICK, calm down. Now I don’t even know if I want leeks anymore.
• We drove past some Irish club thing over the weekend called Daughters of Erin or something stupid like that and I said, “Imagine if I had daughters” and Henry very quickly said, “No.” Wow.
• One of my coworkers, Marlene, retired earlier this year but we have been emailing here and there. I got an email from her today telling me that I better take umbrellas for my Christmas pilgrimage to the Dead Zone, and it just made me simultaneously crack up and cry because I miss the office so much and since covid, two of my coworkers have retired and two more will be retiring at the end of the month. It just sucks that we can’t even give them a proper send-off, but have to make due with waving goodbye via an awkward video call where you can’t get a word in edgewise. But back to Marlene, she is always fascinated with the way I choose to spend my holidays, especially Christmas, so her email really made me laugh.  But yes, I miss the Before Times when we’d be in the office right now, giddy and slacking off, mowing down a line of Christmas cookies and having drinks in the old travel office. Working from home is awesome, but these are things I really miss.

I think I’m tapped out. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with a SPECIAL GUEST POST but only time will tell.

You guys know I’m like super tightly-wound, right? OK then this next part of the GENESIS night will sound super on brand: So, when I bought the tickets back in May, I opted for the mobile option because I paid $$$ for this shit and am constantly at war with the USPS to begin with. The last thing they need is to lose my GENESIS TICKETS, you know? Anyway, I added the tickets to my Apple wallet a few months ago and noticed that there was no barcode on them like in the past. But then a squirrel probably came to the window and distracted me, so I didn’t think about it again until a few days prior to the show.

“DOES THIS LOOK RIGHT?” I screamed to Henry, who just shrugged and said he was sure it was fine. It didn’t “look fine” to me so I frantically googled “TICKETMASTER MOBILE TICKETS WEIRD HELP” and only found information on how they USED TO LOOK.

You know, with a BARCODE.

To be safe, I made sure I was logged into the Ticketmaster app because the barcode appeared on my tickets there. Then I kept getting all these  intense emails from the venue about the entry process, and learned this was actually a paperless ticket event so I guess I didn’t even have the option to get regular tickets? And then there was the BAG POLICY which had me stressed out too so I tried to make Henry measure my wallet, but he was like, “Um, this is fine. They’re not going to confiscate your tiny wallet” and I was like, “BUT THEY POSTED DIMENSIONS! DOES MY WALLET FALL WITHIN THOSE DIMENSIONS!” and because Henry is a Man who voluntarily took Industrial Arts in high school, he was able to just look at it and say yes.

I hate him.

Even at dinner that night, I was low-key on edge about the ticket thing. When Corey was in the bathroom, I checked my TicketMaster app AND IT WOULDN’T OPEN BECAUSE IT SAID I HAD NO INTERNET CONNECTION. So I was frantically Kakao’ing with Henry who suggested that I restart my phone so I did AND THEN IT LOGGED ME OUT OF THE APP TOTALLY. I literally could not get in to access the tickets so now it was Apple wallet or GTFO.

My only consolation was remembering that it was going to me and about 8465 elderly people in the same boat, and Henry reassured me that there would probably be plenty of people there to help. Who even am I?? One pandemic and suddenly I’m a concert n00b.

I finally admitted my concerns to Corey when we started our walk from Bae Bae’s to PPG Paints Arena but if was also worried about this, he did a great job hiding it. The walk itself was nice and brisk – I knew I was going to cold in that denim jacket but getting a picture of MATCHING SIBLING JEAN JACKETS would be worth it so I only complained a little.

Eventually, we began encountering other GENESIS fans along the way. You could just tell. I mean, one middle aged guy was playing Invisible Touch on his phone and gave us a head nod. Another middle aged guy yelled to us, “I NEED A JOINT HAHAHAHA” as we were waiting to the cross the street and it was so obvious he was only saying it to us in hopes one of us would be like, “OMG HERE YOU GO FELLOW GENESIS FAN” lol.

Anyway!! We finally got to the arena and forget what I said about being so cold because now I was SWEATING in anticipation of someone banging the gong when I attempted to scan my DEFECTIVE tickets. I was on my tiptoes, craning my neck to see if anyone ahead of us had the same-looking tickets and while most people had the barcoded ones from the Ticketmaster app, I did see someone with one that looked like ours. Then we got closer, I saw that the scanner had two options: a spot to hold your phone under to scan the barcode, and a spot up above where you just tapped your phone if you had one of the SCARY NON-TICKET LOOKING TICKETS like we had.

It took all of .0002 seconds to get in and Corey was like, “Honestly, I wasn’t worried at all.” OK COOL THANKS, BRO, GLAD I COULD TAKE ON THE WHOLE BURDEN FOR THE BOTH OF US, LOL.  I was still buzzing after that but then we got in line for merch and my anxiety finally transformed into actual excitement. It’s not easy being me sometimes, you guys. It really isn’t.

Corey and I both snagged a t-shirt (duh) and I also bought an art poster which is my favorite thing to buy at shows and I get so excited when they’re available! I didn’t even care how much it cost. This is pretty likely the last chance we will get to see Genesis (Phil said as much himself) so I was sparing no expense!

This was taken right in front of our seats so you can see that we had plenty of people-free room! If it was a hockey game, we would have been right behind the glass and over a bit to the right of the goal. It was really comfortable! Corey, being a Tall Person, was grateful that he had adequate leg room.

I was so pleased with this picture because the lady who took it for us was really determined to get the right shot. “I got some of the stage in the background,” she said knowingly, and we were both so happy with it!

“Remember when we went to see The Cure and that person took that really awkward picture of us turning around in our seats?” I asked Corey when we sat back down. Of course he remembered, how could he forget? IT WAS SUCH A TERRIBLE PICTURE AND SO AWKWARD TO POSE FOR:

I sent this to Corey after I got home later that night and his response was: Glow Up of the Decade, lol.

We had about 30 minutes to people watch* before the show started and Corey continued to gush over his ample leg room. I looked around and said, “Yep, this is exactly how I pictured it when I bought the tickets, right down to the garbage can positioned right in front of us.”

“Really??” Corey exclaimed.

“No!” I laughed. But that fucking garbage can would prove to be a NUISANCE as the night went on.

*(In case you were wondering, the median demographic for Genesis was definitely 55-70. I knew even I’d be one of the younger people there but I was actually kind of surprised at how few “younger” people I even saw!)

The lights went out a little after 8:00PM and Corey and I were practically foaming at the mouths. I was flabbergasted at how many people were still casually milling about, THROWING AWAY THEIR BEERS IN THE TRASH DIRECTLY IN MY LINE OF VISION, and just taking their good ol’ time getting back to their seats. And you know this was annoying to me because I used the word FLABBERGASTED. I don’t just drop that word down lightly, mmkay Brenda.

Anyway, I truly do not have the words to write a proper review of this show because my emotions are still overwhelming me. First of all, Phil Collins is ill and the fact that he even found the strength and drive within himself to carry out these shows is beyond imagination to me. I mean, what a boss. However, it was extremely sad to see him looking frail, and remaining seated through the duration of the concert. He seemed to be struggling at times with his vocals as well, but just being under the same roof as him was an incredible honor.

I definitely let the tears roll on occasion, but it didn’t fully hit me until the next morning, when I just broke down and sobbed while making breakfast to my usual soundtrack of Tonight Tonight Tonight (seriously, I’m always “Alexa, play Tonight Tonight Tonight” and it’s miraculously one of the few times she will deliver without incident).

I didn’t really hate anyone at this show except for the people who kept walking off and onto the floor during the whole entire show. Like, you can’t wait until later to get another fucking beer? Because the last time I checked, fucking G E N E S I S is up there performing for YOU and you’re just gonna walk out to get another IC Light. Wow. Just, wow. My favorite part was when these dumb fucks would come back and proceed to stand in the open space between our section and the last row of seats on the floor and the ushers were too fucking old and ambivalent to tell them to go back to their seats, so then we’d be staring at the backs of drunk Yinzers for a minute before they regained their bearings and staggered to their seat.

But then there was a middle-aged man and his father in the last row of the floor section and they were so fucking adorable with their father-son air-drumming that it canceled out how angry all the in-and-out beer and bathroom break people had made me. (Honestly though, I know how much those floor seats cost and you better believe I’d be holding my pee until Genesis said “No for real this is it, look, we’re taking a bow” and the lights came on.

For me, the highlights were definitely Tonight Tonight Tonight (I have VIVID childhood memories soundtracked by that song) and Mama.

LOL my attempt at getting a picture of Phil’s son on drums. What a prodigy!

This one time, I was standing in line for a haunted house and decided to assign very specific laughs to my friends for us to perform as we ran through the haunt. My laugh was Tom Hulce’s shrill chortle from “Amadeus” (I WAS SO GOOD AT IT), I taught Janna how to emulate the toe-curling throat scrape of the Sleazy Furnace Guy who had recently made like three appearances at my house around that time and it was just A Whole Thing really, and because Christina is so creepy in general I appointed to them the coveted Phil Collins mirthless laugh/groan from “Mama.” So basically, the best one.

This song just hits every time.

SETLIST

1. Behind the Lines / Duke’s End
2. Turn It On Again
3. Mama (!!!)
4. Land of Confusion (Phil’s intro to this song referenced the current state of the world making this song relevant and there was a video of toilet paper falling from the sky and people marching with face masks on; also I was obsessed with / terrified of this music video when I was a kid, lol)
5. Home By the Sea (I was imagining Phil was shouting SIT DOWN to all of the PEOPLE LEAVING THE FLOOR OMFG SIT DOWN)
6. Second Home By the Sea
7. Fading Lights
8. The Cinema Show
9. Afterglow
10. That’s All
11. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
12. Follow You Follow Me
13. Duchess
14. No Son of Mine
15. Firth of Fifth
16. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
17. Domino
18. Throwing It All Away (Watching people throw their endless cans of beer away all night gave new meaning to this one)
19. Tonight Tonight Tonight (!!!)
20. Invisible Touch (PEOPLE WERE LEAVING DURING THIS SONG!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?)

ENCORE

1. I Can’t Dance
2. Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
3. The Carpet Crawlers

It was a wonderful show, you guys, and felt very symbolic that Corey and I got to see them together because it felt kind of therapeutic, five years after the 116 Gillcrest Trauma. Music really does heal, and Phil Collins / Genesis really helped scab over many of our emotional wounds, that is for fucking sure.

****

Henry and Chooch were sleeping by the time Corey dropped me off but I woke them and made them watch several video clips from the night (I took very few pictures and videos) and the very next day, Henry framed and hung my Genesis print because sometimes, he just knows the things that are important.

Action shot of The Hanging. (I actually took this to send to Chooch who was incessantly blowing up Henry’s phone about something stupid and I was like STOP BOTHERING HIM, HE IS DOING HIS CHORES. Kids, amirite.)

OMG *tearing up*

I love this wall! Every framed picture is a print from various concerts. I love collecting these! I have a ton of other ones too but I kept all of these ones together because they are the same size. So now every day, I get to walk past this and smile at the memory of seeing Genesis.

I saw Genesis! <3

If I had better blogging habits, I could have written this after I got home from the show and called the blog post TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT, but alas, I am an ambivalent fake-writer and here we are, an entire week later.

Quick back story: I have loved Phil Collins and Genesis since I was in the single digits of age, although I’m certain I probably could differentiate between Genesis and the works of a solo Phil until I was a teen in the 90s. My grandparents always had the radio on in their kitchen and being the early 80s, you were bound to hear “Sussudio,” “In the Air Tonight,” “Invisible Touch,” etc etc. I particularly loved “Easy Lover,” the Philip Bailey and Phil Collins collab. I saw Phil Collins in the mid-90s when I was a teenager (with my friend-at-the-time Keri, who ALWAYS HAD A HEADACHE), and much later in life, I had the pleasure of attending a Mike and the Mechanics show, but I never had the opportunity to see Genesis.

I didn’t even know my brother Corey was a fan until we were mired down with the task of cleaning out my Pappap’s house in 2016 and I got the kitchen stereo to work again. Naturally, I tuned it right to a lite FM station and we were giddy, scrubbing floors and chucking piles of magazines and newspapers into plastic bins to a soundtrack of the BEST soft rock from the 80s. Of course, we heard tons of Phil and Genesis during our laborious days and nights in that house. Giddily making Instavids backed by Phil, Prince, and Mr. Mister was one of the few bright spots during a very, very dark year for us. I even made out with a bunch of Phil and Genesis albums from my aunts’ record collections, and Corey had a custom Phil Collins birthday cake made for me that year:

An Impromptu Birthday Dinner

Then last spring, Corey texted me a HUGE ALERT that Genesis was coming to town. and for the first time since 2019, I found myself having a nervous stomach and The Sweats while waiting in Ticketmaster’s bullshit virtual queue. I got us two tickets in the first row of one of the sections near the floor, which I tried to plan strategically not knowing how the state of Covid would be come December (turns out, worse than last spring) and these seats would put us in a position where we wouldn’t be fully surrounded by people. Then came the months and months of waiting, wondering if the concert would get canceled, praying that Phil, who is already in poor health, would be OK. Believe me, if he had decided to cancel the tour, I would have been bummed, sure, but also I would have been relieved because is this even safe for him!?!? Protect Phil Collins!!

Finally, Genesis Day arrived and I did a pee-jig by the front window, waiting for Corey to pick me up. When he rolled up into the driveway, I barely even said goodbye to Henry before flying out the door like a spaz. As soon as I flung the passenger door open and popped my head inside, I noted that Corey was wearing his jean jacket.

“OMG SHOULD I WEAR MY JEAN JACKET TOO??” I screeched, and he yelled, “YES!” in the tone of LE DUH.

So I crashed back into the house and wheezed to Henry, “COREY IS WEARING HIS JEAN JACKET SO I HAVE TO WEAR MINE TOO.”

“You’re an idiot,” Henry mumbled, as I maniacally traded my fluffy blue coat for denim.

I knew I would probably be cold since the plan was to eat Bae Bae’s and walk to PPG Paints Arena from there, but it would be worth it for the MEM’RIES, I just knew it.

Corey has never been to Bae Bae’s before, and it’s been a hot minute since I was last there, to be honest, so I was happy to be back. And even happier at their mask policy and the fact that the dining area was nearly empty. Thank you. I’m back to being SUPER SKEEVED OUT by eating in restaurants, and if we’re being honest, I guess I never really stopped being skeeved out, vaxxed or not.

During our dinner, Corey was raging because nearly every song that came on was a Top 40 “hit” that he absolutely hated, and I lamented the fact that a Korean restaurant was playing basic white people tunes, to begin with. Now granted, Bae Bae’s is very much Korean American fusion, but I do approve of it because I feel like it’s a good gateway to ease vanilla palates into the wild & crazy world of, I dunno, pickled and ferememted banchan. I mean, they don’t have the proper name for their “glass noodles” on the menu, and the first time I went there and called it by its God-given name of JAPCHAE, the guy behind the counter did a double-take, like, “You know?”

In most traditional Korean restaurants I’ve been to, they play actual Korean music! Granted, that’s predominantly Kpop though lol so I’m sure that’s not appealing to everyone.

ANYWAY! The whole reason I’m bringing this up is to tell you that I cosigned all of the verbal hate mail Corey was spitting to these dumb western artists, ALL BUT ONE:

CHARLIE PUTH. I was unaware that Corey hates him so much, but I have a complete guilt-free obsession with C.Puth. Sorry, little bro! We did agree though that Phil Collins is one of the few musicians that you can say you like to pretty anyone and no one is going to try and make you feel shit for it. Like, even in high school, when everyone is trying SO EFFING HARD to be the most, I never got dogged for my unwavering and blatant love for Phil. (I got DRAGGED when I went through a disco phase in middle school years before that shit made a comeback and became “cool” again, lol.) I think that most humans are in rare solidarity when it comes to the legendary status of Mr. Collins. I’m sure there’s the rare breed out there that “OMG can’t stand” In the Air Tonight, but I thankfully do not know them.

In fact, after Chooch was The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” for Halloween when he was in 3rd or 4th grade, he suggested “being ‘In the Air Tonight'” for the next Halloween and I was like, “HOW THE HELL—-OK. LET’S DO IT” but then he moved on to something else by then, sadly.

But I digress….

Meanwhile, going to a concert together definitely had Corey and I feeling nostalgic for the time we road-tripped to Philly in 2008 to see the Cure, so we reminisced about that a lot during the evening and then the next day, I realized that we also ate out of take-out containers at a restaurant during that trip, just like we did at Bae Bae’s!

(This was an all-cereal joint called Cereality and I honestly can’t believe it’s not still around, even though my choice of “every chocolate cereal and then top it with Whoppers” made me so sick on the drive home.)

OK I’m ending this here. I had a long evening of being annoyed by the MALES in my house and I would like very much to just spend the rest of the night reading a book. I’ll be back tomorrow for Part 2, sound good? Good.

OK remember last week when I was being SO COOL and decided to talk about the last half of the books I read in November first?

Well, you’re never going to believe this but it’s time to talk about  the first half now. Wow, who could ever even see that coming?

1. Halloween Fiend – C.V. Hunt

This is a novella about a small town held hostage by some creepy monster that comes around every night to claim the sacrifices that each resident leaves for it on their porch: cats, Guinea pigs, etc. So right away, I hated this book.

But then every year on Halloween, an actual townsperson is chosen through a lottery to be sacrificed to the monster.

There was this one dumb bitch who gleefully presented a cat as a sacrifice every night and then watched from the window as it was devoured, and I really wanted to get dead. Stupid effing bitch.

It was a fast read but also kind of dumb. I don’t know, this is the first book I read in November coming off a shitty month of October reads and I was feeling pretty jaded.

2. Mary Jane – Jessica Anya Blau

…but then came Mary Jane, a book I was not expecting to fall so hard for.

Mary Jane is a 15-year-old (I think) girl with extremely conservative parents who takes up a summer job nannying the 5-year-old (I think) daughter of a psychiatrist and his eccentric midlife-crising wife. Their family is VERY unconventional, affectionate, progressive, and also extremely scattered and unstructured. Mary Jane quickly finds herself not just nannying the little girl, but organizing the home and lives of the parents as well. She even starts cooking their dinners for them every evening when she discovers that most of the food in their fridge is spoiled and that they eat out for basically ever meal.

Things heat up when the dad’s super famous patient and his equally-famous wife come to live with them for the summer. Mary Jane starts learning A LOT about life, is convinced that she’s a sex addict, and really finds her own voice for the first time in her life, amidst all the dysfunction and chaos.

I saw a lot of reviews about how terrible it was that Mary Jane was put in this situation, how she had to be the adult while the actual adults where trashing the house, cheating on each other, smoking pot, how Mary Jane’s actual parents didn’t react the way that they should have upon finding out what their daughter was actually up to all summer, but I thought it was a very emotional and endearing coming of age story. I love found family tropes so much and this one had me so invested, that I wanted these people to be real and I was rooting so hard for Mary Jane and everyone under that roof. I sobbed when this book ended! It was such a beautiful story and I laughed out loud so many times too (the sex addict part is hilarious).

I’ll be reading more from Jessica Anya Blau, that’s for sure.

3. Dear Laura- Gemma Amor

This is a novella about a girl – OMG LAURA, MAYBE? – whose boyfriend is kidnapped when they are both in high school and then the kidnapper starts sending Laura a letter every year on her birthday saying they he will tell her the location of her boyfriend’s body but she has to give him something first. It starts out as a pair of her unwashed underwear and gets progressively worse. Every other chapter goes back to present day, which finds a middle-aged Laura trekking through the wilderness.

There was a lot of hype around this book in the horror book circles but it didn’t hold up for me.

It wasn’t terrible but I also was neither shocked nor awed. By the end, I’m pretty sure my reaction was to close the book and say, “ok” and then promptly wring its memory from my brain to make room for better things.

The cover is fantastic though.

4. The Burning Girls – C.J. Tudor

My first CJ Tudor novel and will definitely not be my last. I was shocked at how much I really liked this, from the conversational and often humorous writing to the fleshed-out characters and believable, easy dialogue. There is a great mother/daughter dynamic going on here that felt very realistic and while the plot was a bit over the top (when aren’t they though, in thrillers) I loved the small British town setting and the mystery. Also, I kept picturing the daughter as a young Winona Ryder, for sure.

A certain point late into this story had me like OMG! which doesn’t happen very often with thrillers (I’ve been getting stuck with so many duds lately!). It was just wildly entertaining from start to finish, and the creepiness was extremely well done. Also, this book cover gives me sick tattoo vibes, bruh.

5. Under the Whispering Door – T.J. Klune

It pains me to say this and if my blog had an actual readership I am sure I would get some hate for this opinion, but I absolutely fucking HATED this book and could NOT wait to finish it. First, I started to read the physical copy and literally couldn’t get through the first chapter. It was so boring and dry but I refused to accept this, having loved Klune’s previous book, House In the Cerulean Sea. While this isn’t a sequel, I expected to still love it because of Klune’s descriptive writing and ability to craft unforgettable and lovable characters – even the curmudgeonly ones.

I thought maybe getting the audio would help get me into the story but I think it actually made me hate the main character even more?

I knew going into this that it was a book about death. The primary setting is a tea shop run by a man who assists the recently deceased into, I dunno, Heaven I guess. There’s a grim reaper whose character was one of the better parts of the book, and the ghost grandfather and dog of the year owner. Then we have the main character, an ego-centric lawyer who dies young of a heart attack and refuses to accept his fate.

It was so heavy-handed. Conversations between two characters that dragged out for entire chapters, ALL OF THE DEATH TALK, and the fact that we rarely left the cafe just made it feel very claustrophobic and stifling. It was so long and repetitive and also we get it, Klune: you love the word “cerulean.”

But honestly, get over yourself.

Really hated this book a lot.

6. Skinship – Yoon Choi

Oof, I went from one book about death to another book full of short stories about death but this one was so much better. Each story was a glimpse into the Korean American experience. It ran the gamut of many emotions, but depressing was the big winner here. It was often frustrating to read about these intimate struggles with cultural differences, the act of “settling,” the sacrifice some of these characters made in order to come to America for a “better life.”

For me, picking up this book was a no-brainer because I am perpetually on the hunt for Korean literature and for more doorways into Korean culture and history. But I truly think that if you enjoy reading short stories about strained, complicated, and complex interfamilial relationships, then this collection might be something of interest to you.

And also, can we admire that exquisite cover together for a sec? Dang.

I was so excited when I went to bed Sunday night because I knew that it was MY LAST SLEEP BEFORE THE GENESIS SHOW! I was also nervous because it was the first concert I’d be attending since 2019 and the thought of being around so many people, even in a mask/vaxxed/boostered, made me feel icky.

But then Monday morning happened. Something you should know about my mornings lately is that they are like walking on the hot coals of Hell because Chooch is SUCH A JERK these days and Morning Chooch and Morning MOMMY do not get along. Literally at all.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: how much interaction do you even have with him now that you don’t have to drive him to school anymore? Well, funny you should bring that up, IMAGINARY BLOG READER IN MY HEAD, because on that day, I did end up driving him to school.

AND HERE’S WHY:

His alarm never fucking wakes him up, so I have to set my alarm for 5:50am to make sure his ass gets out of bed. This in and of itself is fucking ridiculous and makes me so angry especially on days that I’m off, OF WHICH MONDAY WAS ONE! Then I have to set a BACK-UP alarm for 6:10 to make sure that he hasn’t fallen asleep on the couch before leaving. Because that’s a thing that happens.

Anyway! Back to this particular morning. I woke him up and went back to bed. I wasn’t sleeping, just laying there with my BFF Drew who likes to hop into my bed in the early AM hours and attack me. I could hear Chooch getting all of his stuff together in his room and I called out from my room, “Are you wearing the new hoodie I got you?”

Because this is the universal uniform of 15 year old boys. Hoodies. I never see them in anything else and it really annoys me because Chooch has a closetful of nice, long-sleeved shirts and flannels but he won’t wear them BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE HOODS. So I keep buying him new hoodies to try and deter him from wearing the SAME TWO over and over.

My query was met with a SNIP-SNAPPY, “WHAT HOODIE?” You know that tone, too, if you’ve ever been a teenager…? That degrading way they literally SPIT their retorts from their mouths with a flick of their forked tongues. Ugh, monsters, all of them.

So I had to calmly remind him that I had recently purchased him THREE hoodies from Pac Sun, two of which he had already worn the previous week. And the only one he hadn’t worn yet was the purple one.

“PURPLE???” he hissed, like this was some fake ass color I made up on the spot because I’m just your basic delulu mother.

So now I was pissed. I have no patience for this shit and his tone lights a flame inside my bloodstream.

Ignore him, I could hear Henry saying clear from the Faygo Factory. I attempted to take Papa H’s stupid advice and tried to go back to sleep but my whole body was buzzing with FURY VIBRATO. I couldn’t let it go. I needed to have the last word. He was already on his way to the T, but I texted him something about how I’m so happy that I spend all this money on his clothes when he doesn’t wear them and he was like “OMG.”

And then: “GREAT I DON’T HAVE MY MASK AND I MISSED THE T.”

Except, imagine it more like this:

Groiup;

Freayt

Great 

Now i 

dont hav m

mas\k

You have to be familiar with Chooch’s brand of “hurried teenager with fat fingers” texting to translate this so allow me to help:

Great now I don’t have my mask

Oh actually here’s a great example hot off the press:

Because he apparently did in fact change into the PURPLE hoodie and by doing so, he left his face mask in the pocket of his original hoodie from that morning. And now he couldn’t get on the T because you’re still required to wear masks and I just lost it. I don’t know why I got so mad because ACTUALLY THIS WAS MY FAULT but I will NEVER SAY THAT OUT LOUD so instead I went psycho in my replies to him and told him to just start walking back to the house and I would DRIVE HIM even though our car is in the shop because of um, HENRY’S ACCIDENT, and I had to drive our OTHER CAR which is FINE but not GREAT and also I haven’t driven it in so long that I forgot where things were and then I was doubly mad because I PASSED CHOOCH on my way to where he was walking from, thinking he would take my psychic cues and wait for me at the gas station at the end of our street, but instead he kept walking and I didn’t see him and he didn’t see me so when I went to call him I accidentally called Henry and immediately disconnected so I could call Chooch, but then Henry kept beeping in and I was screaming FUCK OFF!!!! while sitting in my idling car in the gas station parking lot at 6:30 wearing glasses and no makeup and no bra.

PAUSING FOR A BREATH.

So now, here I am, back at our house sitting in the driveway with CHOOCH THE OFFENDER while swearing because Tourette’s was slowly and I mean slow-slow-slowly, like the actual slowest, walking down the sidewalk behind our car. And waiting for him to pass meant that A BIG DUMB TRUCK got in front of us and I was like I AM NOT DRIVING BEHIND THIS FUCKER so I veered to the left at the light and went a different way, after Chooch was like, “Just take me to 7-11, I’ll ride to school with Zakk” and I was like, “OH NO HUNNY I AM IN THE CAR NOW, AND WE ARE SEEING THIS THRU TO THE MOTHERFUCKING ENDDDDDDDD.”

And then, “HOW DO YOU GET THIS FUCKING RADIO OFF OF AM?!?!?!?!”

Chooch fixed the radio for me and then we drove in silence, except for the 87 times I slammed the steering wheel over every littlest traffic infraction from my fellow drivers, and screamed, “OH THIS IS JUST GREAT.”

And then as Chooch was getting out of the car, I yelled after him: AND THANKS FOR RUINING MY GENESIS DAY!!!!

Then stupid Henry was calling again so I directed all of my hatred onto him and of course he knew what was going on because Chooch the Betrayer texted him.

Back at home, my perfect cats who I love more than ANYONE ELSE IN MY HOUSE calmed me down and then we fed the squirrels together and you know, everything was fine after that really and I eventually texted Chooch an apology for “getting mad” but not for being the ROOT CAUSE OF THE MASK-FORGETTING that morning, lololol.

I guess I’m just an ultra fan girl forever but I get so emotional for a variety of reasons when I think of BIGBANG that I often have to avoid listening to them. They are my ult bias group, the group that really shoved me hard down the rabbit hole of not just Kpop, but Korean variety shows, dramas, food, and South Korean culture in general. Maybe it sounds hyperbolic and we all know I can be super extra with the exaggerations, but I really feel like my life changed for the best at the end of 2016. I was really feeling my lowest, and I thank BIGBANG every day for breathing new life and excitement into me.

(Just the other day, I told Henry that I feel like Kpop has turned me into the best version of myself and I could tell he wanted to say something stupid at first but then he sighed and said that he actually agrees, lol.)

Anyway, I’m just sitting here totally marinating in my feels, watching live BIGBANG performances on YouTube, wishing good vibes to Taeyang and his newborn baby, hoping G Dragon and TOP are happy, thankful that Daesung has found a new outlet through vlogging, and PRAYING that Seungri gets justice and stays safe. Because even though I don’t know these people in real life and will definitely never meet them, they are living legends that saved me and made me have fun again, inspired me to learn a new language and travel to a country that was barely even on my radar before but now feels more like home to me than Pittsburgh.

I think about meeting 승리의 아빠 하고 지디의 아빠 and I feel like I was blessed, I’m not even kidding lol. Those were amazing encounters for me and I think about them so often. I have to actually stop myself from talking about my BIGBANG feels constantly when I’m having conversations with people but it is REALLY hard. I just want to share my love for them all the time but I can tell that I sound like a fucking crazy lady (so then I talk about the squirrels instead, OMG I need help – I have so much stuff going on that I could talk about yet I’m just like HI GUYS SQUIRREL UPDATE or I THINK HENRY BOUGHT ME AN NCT LIGHT STICK FOR XMAS! Like who gives a shit, Erin?!).

Well, before I reach the point of no return, this is the performance I was watching tonight and remembering how it was my first experience with Korean end of the year awards shows and how I have yet to see another group blow it out of the water like BIGBANG did. Those live vocals. That stage presence. Their visuals. THIS TALENT. Sorry blog, for being all wistful and emo but my cats are getting tired of me crying into their fur and saying things like, “I liked G Dragon best with green hair.”

Stop crying, Erin. Stop that.

Oh also apparently people are learning about light sticks because of the *** concert and I just need to point out that, ahem, BIGBANG was the first Kpop group to have their own lightsticks, so who paved the way?

Literally came here just to post the video yet here we are, 2000 words later. Go to bed, Erin.

Guess what, Linda? We’re doing something different. We’re gonna talk about the books I read in second half of November first. Wow, this is…really ground-breaking. Much excite.

November was a decent book-reading month for me, better than October if I recall. I had at least two solid “NEW FAVORITES, FIVE STARS, WOULD READ AGAIN” selections that had me super exciting and oh, would you look, they’re actually IN THIS POST.

7. Witch Please – Ann Aguirre

This was cute but not that memorable.

The main couple was fine but the conflict was kind of “Eh.” Basically the girl is a witch and was told by her grandmother that if witches marry non-witches, they lose their power. And of course our main girl has INSTALOVE with a human baker man and it’s all, “OH NO DON’T LET GRAM FIND OUT” but honestly, the tension wasn’t there for me, it didn’t really feel “high stakes,” the chemistry wasn’t palpable. I thought there were entirely too many female characters and I could NOT keep them all sorted in my head.

The writing wasn’t bad by any means, but I think it just wasn’t really for me. It was a lot better than the other witch-centric romance I read in October though. I can’t even remember the name of that one, it was so, so, so, so bad except for the whole talking cat thing.

Basically, this was fine, light, and mildly entertaining, I never even once considered DNFing, but the only thing this book left me with was a painful craving for cinnamon rolls.

8. Nice Girls – Catherine Dang

This was…fine. I really *was* wondering, “What did you do?” (as the book’s tag line asks) a lot of times while reading it because all you know is that the main girl, MARY (hey Mary), gets expelled from Cornell for fighting an underclassman and you know what? This book was kind of stupid, now that I think about it. Mary is kind of despicable and it’s hard to root for her, or even pity her to be honest.

And then the climax of the book just is so fucking over the top and also felt very rushed, while at the same time, I was doing the “let’s wrap shit up” toe-tap. I don’t feel like saying anything else. It wasn’t the worst book but it started out good enough that it made me have high hopes for it but then it just kind of spirals out.

9. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife – Ashley Winstead

OK Brenda, this is in my Top 10 best books I read this year. Hear me out: Dawson’s Creek: The College Years BUT SINISTER. I was really hesitant to pick this up because it’s in the “dark academia” genre and I am famous for striking out with these types of books. Some of them can be SO PRETENTIOUS like, OK I get it. You’re a scholar. And now so are all of your characters. But this shit is dry and boring and NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS.

(Looking at you, We Were Villains, or whatever the fuck that idiotic Shakespeare college book was called, god I hated that book.)

And  then some of the Booktubers I follow kept raving about this but they are also REALLY into that genre so I was doubly-nervous because I always hate those types of books that they love, but they were doing such a great job at selling it, so I requested it from the library. And then…I picked it up, and couldn’t put it back down. I mean, I did put it down, many times. I can’t read a book in one sitting – have you even seen my nervous energy? It’s palpable and I think if you look close enough, you can see the wavy air around me.

But yeah, this book is FANTASTIC. Believable dialogue. Realistic characters. An unordered timeline that references things that haven’t happened yet and will make you frantic to find out things like, “Wait, how did he break his arm??”

Like most dark academia books, there’s a murder. In this one, there are 7 friends but one doesn’t make it out of college. And the present day chapters follow the 6 remaining friends as they attend their 10 year reunion and are forced to face the truth of what happened to their murdered friend. Every time I thought for sure I knew what happened and why and who, etc etc., I’d get to the next chapter and new information would be revealed, discrediting my theory.

It was FUN. Just a solid, entertaining, fun romp of a CW-style whodunnit that you could easily picture the cast of Dawson’s Creek or Gossip Girl starring in. It was scandalous and sad, and it made me genuinely wish I had a friend group like that while also being thankful that I DON’T have a friend group like that.

I made Janna read it immediately after and she also loved it and Janna is smarter than me so that should count for something. Go read this. Per Janna’s multi-degree recommendation.

(MOVIE! MOVIE! MOVIE!)

10. This Thing Between Us – Gus Moreno

Oh, what a weird, bizarre little horror book. It was a wild ride, had a mash-up of supernatural, haunted house, Pet Sematary vibes. I loved also that it put a sinister spin on a device modeled after Amazon Echo / Alexa. Those scenes were both frustrating (I call our own Alexa a ‘cunt’ constantly because she’s just a fucking moron, I swear to god) and also chilling.

So basically, this dude’s wife is killed in a freak accident on her way to the subway and it sends her husband (who narrates this story), into a spiral. Weird shit is happening in their apartment (I actually jumped a few times, ngl) and he eventually is like “eff this noise” and moves to an isolated cabin.

There is a REALLY CREEPY scene in a diner, some real fucked up shit involving a dog (if you’re an animal lover like me, consider this a trigger warning), just a lot of anxiety-inducing scenes. I loved the voice of the protagonist and really just wanted everything to be ok for the poor guy. Like, Jesus Christ, let this guy move on with his life, you know?

This is translated from Spanish, I believe. A real solid horror novel, if you ask me. Better than most of that shit I read in October, le sigh. (El sigh?)

11. Cackle – Rachel Harrison

First thing’s first: This book is considered “horror” – forget that. It’s not horror. If you pick this up expecting to be pulling your blanket up around your chin while shuddering in the dark with a flashlight, it’s not gon’ happen. That being said, this was another one of the best books I read this year. I think I have discovered somewhere along my bipolar, identity crisis reading journey that my style is “Gilmore Girls-meets-[insert literally anything here].” Which makes sense because the writing for Gilmore Girls, the snappy, try-to-keep-up dialogue, the pure and witty conversations between friends and family, was everything to me during the time that show was on the air. The small town appeal had me, the person who always says I would never want to live in a small town, dreaming about Stars Hollow.

Cackle is all of this, with a sprinkle of magical realism and a hearty helping of GIRL POWER. I loved this book so much that I have been getting violently indignant every time I see a “meh” review. It’s mostly from people going into this expecting horror. This was some bad, terrible, detrimental marketing. Go into this thinking of a newly single woman learning to love herself. Also, go into this for the character of RALPH. He was my favorite. That’s all I’ll say.

No wait, I’ll say this too: I hate when people use “cozy” to describe anything that’s not like, a thicc blanket or drinking a hot spiked bev in front of a fire pit. But this book, OK fine, it was fucking COZY. It made me FEEL COZY without being an afghan or an Irish coffee in front of flames.

I need this to be a movie. Or a TV series.

TV SERIES.

12. Rock Paper Scissors – Alice Feeney

Am I dumb? What did I just read? This book was boring and confusing.

I really liked “Sometimes I Lie” by this author but the twists in this one fell flat for me and I didn’t give a single shit about any of the characters. The writing itself was fine, it was just the, well, the actual story lol.

I think the book cover smashed it out of the park though.

Have I mentioned lately how bizarre it is to not have Chooch around because he’s a workaholic? Granted, I know deep down that even if he didn’t have a job, he’d just be out with his friends and doing everything in his power to avoid being seen in public with his PARENTS (*shudder*) but it has definitely been a bit of an adjustment for me. Luckily, Henry usually says, “Sure. Whatever. Fine” when I suggest Not Date options to him.

For instance, last Tuesday, we walked to the Hollywood Theater in Dormont to see the new Ghostbusters movie. Chooch actually wasn’t working that night, but he had already seen this several weeks ago with his friend Haojie and also he has some mentorship that he does on Tuesdays with the Carnegie Science Center so he wouldn’t have been able to go with us anyway.

I don’t understand why more people don’t take advantage of the old-timey goodness that is the Hollywood, but as usual we were the only people in attendance that night. We claimed my favorite seats in the balcony and everything was fine until 5 minutes into the movie when two people sat somewhere behind us. That whole fucking empty theater, and they also choose the balcony. Cool. Cool cool cool.

Now, before you think, “OMG get a life, you’re not the only person in the world, Queen Erin” let me just add that there was LOUD CRUNCHING accompanying the arrival of our new theater friends. I sneaked a peek at one point and they were a good 5 rows behind but it was the most obnoxious popcorn chomping I have ever witnessed. The only thing that was stopping me from flipping out was imagining that it was Buddy behind me, eating peanuts. (The Buddys a/k/a squirrels eat their peanuts so voraciously that we can hear them crunching from inside the house and because they’re animals and not PEOPLE, it is the most adorable thing.)

“Thank god they got a small,” Henry whispered once the popcorn-palooza died down. You know it’s bad when Henry of the Hard Hearing can pick up on the theater mastication.

We had several minutes of peace.

But then…

The crinkling of a wrapper happened.

And NEVER STOPPED. Literally for the rest of the movie, my ears were buffeted by the sound of someone unwrapping and rewrapping their entire self in cellophane. I have no idea what was going on back there but I ALMOST got up and found a new, quiet seat in the solitude of the empty main theater floor but I didn’t want to CAUSE A SCENE because I’m not sure I could have done this WITHOUT MAKING “YOU DISGUST ME!!!” sounds as I stalked past them.

I have absolutely no idea what the crinkle culprit was because I couldn’t see every time I turned around to glare in their general vicinity.

UGH. They almost ruined the movie for me but overall, I did enjoy it a lot and I cried much harder than I imagined I would, which is hilarious because I will cry just from THINKING about sentimental commercials so I really underestimated the voraciousness of my tear ducts I guess.

Oh, and Henry actually stayed awake through the whole movie AND his breathing didn’t annoy me but that’s probably just because I couldn’t hear it over the candy apple wrapping assembly line behind me.

On Saturday, I wanted CAKE for lunch and Henry was like, “Cool, same.” So we went to Butterwood, which is a fancy bakery with super unique and decadent flavors that I always forget about because we’re not in that area very much anymore now that Chooch doesn’t take piano lessons anymore (but speaking of, he actually dusted off his keyboard over the weekend and was jamming for a good hour in his room!). First, we went to Black Forge for fancy seasonal lattes (mine had matcha, pistachio, and cardamom in it, and Henry’s had cinnamon and cookie dough or something, who cares). “Let’s live it up,” I said and Henry said in a strangulated voice, “Anything you want, I’m afraid to say no to you, my love.”

We got two things to eat there like fancy people with tiny forks. Henry had an uppity sweet potato pie and I had some kind of black sesame orange cake thing that was SO RICH and DENSE, hoo boy, I loved it but it put me in a dessert fog for real. You can expect flavors like FIG and ROSEMARY and OLIVE OIL and LAVENDAR and EARL GREY up in this piece, which is totally my style. I love cakes and things that aren’t overwhelmingly sweet. (Which is probably why I’m also a big fan of Asian desserts too. Red bean FTW.)

Henry and his Tiny Fork.

“Can we please go now?”

Then we walked around Lawrenceville for a while because I always have to “Walk it Off” when I eat heavy stuff like this. Some annual Cookie Tour was going on where you go to all of the designated COOKIE STOPS along Butler St and collect the cookies. I always forget that this is a thing but we couldn’t imagine accumulating a bag full of cookies after just pounding down our rich day desserts. I’m not sure how much this event costs but I bet it’s worth it.

I was unreasonably mad that we hadn’t planned for this but Henry said we can do it next year and I was like, “WE WILL PROBABLY FORGET ABOUT IT LIKE WE ALWAYS DO!” God!

Anyway, we also got some magical almond, rose and strawberry cake; a blueberry & fig handpie (Henry of the Blueberry-Hating Tribe picked this one for some inexplicable reason, I guess just so he’d have a reason to complain later); and a brownie for Son. What’s his name again? Oh yeah, Chooch.

Or, you know, Riley.

Then that night we watched SINGLE ALL THE WAY and Chooch kept coming downstairs to spy on it and I was like, “YOU CAN JUST WATCH IT WITH US YOU KNOW” but apparently he likes watching movies on his “own time” so that he can pause whenever he wants. See also: Generation ADD.

The next day was B-O-R-I-N-G and also super frustrating because I was having a bad attitude day and literally everything was setting me off. I told Henry to pick somewhere to go for a walk and I didn’t like a single one of the THREE PLACES he chose and I threw several fits and then finally we were driving through the North Side because I declared that I wanted, nay–NEEDED, a cookie (I think my sugar levels must have been low because I was ready to jump out of the moving car) and while we were doing so, I yelled, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST PARK THE FUCKING CAR AND WE CAN WALK HERE?!?!” because there is a very cute city park by the Aviary and I used to walk over there a lot on my lunch breaks back when we still worked in the office.

I was almost immediately cured because there were a bunch of squirrels frolicking around and they RESPONDED POSITIVELY to us but of course we left our travel bag of peanuts in the car.

I’m pretty sure I told Henry that I hated him 8984578 times that day but he took it all in stride because, well, 20 years of my verbal and emotional abuse and a little “I hate you” doesn’t have much impact anymore.

Then we got cookies at Happy Day Dessert Factory (chocolate chip and PB) and I have to admit that these were some fucking bangin’ cookies and totally worth all the aggravation that the day had dumped on me.

Well, now I have to go and breathe into a paper bag because I’m going to see Genesis tonight with my bro Corey and I am having absolute anxiety attacks because I’m so excited but also nervous because it’s my first concert since the pandemic and being around all these people makes me scared even though I’m vaxxed and boostered and the venue “strongly recommends” mask-wearing. Our seats are in the very first row of the non-floor seats so at least we won’t be totally surrounded by people…?

Last Sunday was much better than this Sunday so please excuse me while I look at pictures and remember the good times.

(Nothing terrible happened today, but I’m just having a bad mental health day and being ultra melodramatic about it boo hoo hoo.)

Drew is so excited that all the Christmas shit is strewn about the house again.

The first part of Sunday was actually quite aggravating. I had to go into the office to get my laptop. LOOOOONG ASS story short, I have always connected remotely a different way than most of my coworkers because I already had a bangin’ home computer set up with two monitors and couldn’t fathom trying to work off the tiny laptop they provide. I knew that there were ways to hook it up so that I could still work from my two monitors at home, but it seemed dumb and like A Hassle to deal with that when it was already so easy for me to do it the old way. I even asked the IT guys once if I should, and they were like, “IF IT AIN’T BROKE…” Anyway, then we got new laptops and whenever they swapped mine out on my desk at work, everything got all fucked up for me at home. I lose connection approx. 87x a minutes and if you know me, you probably think I am being hyperbolic, but in this case, I’m really not.

So we went to get my laptop so that Henry could try to set it up and the only good thing that came of it was that I had this cutie chocolate set waiting for me on my desk.

Everything else sucked. I had to call the help desk and MIKE or whoever I spoke with was basically like NO YOU CANNOT USE YOUR TWO HOME MONITORS OH WELL TOO BAD SO SAD and I was like FUCCKKKKK and even made Henry talk to him and it was just pointless. So I had to take the laptop BACK to work in order to be able to connect remotely as before.

This is still an on-going saga, btw, but the whole point was that I wanted to share the picture of the chocolate lol. While Henry was half-strangulated with computer cords, I shoved a piece of the chocolate in his mouth. He froze and asked, “Why was your hand wet?”

“Oh,” I shrugged. “That was just my spit.”

LOL.

(/end boring help desk issues.)

Then we both needed to walk that shit off (Henry was just as stressed as I was over this bullshit) so we went to Allegheny Cemetery. Henry took this dumb selfie when I gave him my phone to take a picture of me acting like a hooligan.

Me, acting like a hooligan.

Um, also I just noticed that the size of these pictures is dumb which means HENRY changed it before taking the pictures and I hate when he does that! This is the same size of picture his dumb phone takes!!

I think we spent most of the walk bitching about IT departments and me responding to everything Henry said with, “Your butt.”

It was actually a really nice, leisurely walk though.

Henry remembered that this Korean food truck, The Boonseek, was parked near the cemetery that day at a brewery (don’t care about the brewery part so I can’t tell you the name of it, so sorry) so we drove on over.

The Boonseek specializes in a Korean version of what we know as corndogs, but you guys, as with all Korean street food, it is so so so so so much better. You can get these all over the place in Korea from street vendors so it really tugged at my heart seeing them again, you know?

I was so happy that there were non-meat options! I got the Cheese Seeker and an order of kimbap for Chooch, and Henry got the original Boon Seeker (sausage and cheese) and bulgogi mandu.

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. I need to eat this at least once a week, honestly. I love how Korean street food is sweet and savory at the same time. The breading is sugary, the ketchup is sweet, the mustard is tangy, and the cheese is SO CHEESY – I should have taken a picture of the cheese-pull. Combine all this with the satisfying crunch of fried breading and I dare you to not roll your eyes back into your head in taste-ecstasy. Good lord.

We were soooo full after this but also very very very content. Henry had one of these in Busan and said that this one was actually better! I love supporting local Korean food people. My inner hipster wants to be annoyed that dumb people are finally figuring out that Korean food/music/film/culture is amazing but I’m also really glad for this too because now it just makes it  more accessible for fanatics like me.

If only we can get an H-MART!!!.

Henry took this picture later that night. As soon as I sit down on the couch, Penelope comes over and plops down and evidently her bones turn to liquid.

Well, that’s all I have to say about last Sunday. It was fun spending time with Henry while CHOOCH was at work but now I’m dwelling on my work-from-home issues again so I guess blogging today is actually making my already dumb day worse. Woo!

You might be wondering what’s so great about Six Flags Over Georgia that would have driving like 10 hours to attend their “Holiday in the Park” event. I’m going to be real honest here: unless you’re a coaster enthusiast, I would not recommend going out of your way for this park because at the end of the day, it really is just a standard Six Flags joint. So like, DC Comic bullshit coming out of its asshole. And if you’re going SPECIFICALLY for Christmas festivities, you’d be better off just walking down the Christmas aisle at your local craft store because they don’t really bend over backward in this regard. Yeah, they have some lights, a Christmas tree, some cute Santa bullshit. But this ain’t Dollywood.

And their holiday snacks was basically three S’mores stations.

That being said, with low holiday expectations and knowing that Six Flags in general was not going to be wow’ing us with an array of seasonal amenities, we had a wonderful time here! Specifically, I should note, we went solely for the coasters. For me, it was because I wanted to get another RMC under my belt and they have one called Twisted Cyclone that I had been eying up for some time now!

And boy, Brenda, it did NOT disappoint. We got in line for it as soon as Six Flags opened the gates and I was shocked that this bad boy actually opened on time with the park. RMCs are notorious for opening late, having maintenance issues, issues. But nope, we only stood in line for about 20 minutes until the park officially opened at noon and then the station opened to us riffraff! Just wanted to note that while we were in line, Chooch was trolling people on Facebook marketplace selling Pokemon cards and golf carts (this was his latest obsession that day, buying a golf cart and reading laws to see if he could drive it to work, omg) by suggesting ridiculously low counter-offers along with sob stories about how he’s such a good boy but his dad won’t spend any money on him. So, that was fun.

The coaster manufacturing company of my dreams, RMC, revamped the original Georgia Cyclone back in 2018, added their signature bangin’ tracks, threw in some inversions, and that’s basically the BIRTH STORY of Twisted Cyclone. Yooooo, I really liked it! Usually, when you ride an RMC first thing during the day, it could be a bit sluggish but this bad boy was HAULING. Chooch rode in the back with some old dude who was like, “IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME ON THIS” and Chooch probably just grunted in response, but if I were him, I’d have said, “YES BUT THIS IS MY SEVENTH RMC OVERALL” but that’s just me, I guess!

Speaking of Chooch, here he is later on in the day when he was like, “I am not waiting for you guys” and grabbed an empty seat on the train before ours. MR. INDEPENDENT. BYE, BITCH.

We rode this several more times at night and WOO BOY was it running like a fucking bull. This isn’t the longest or the best RMC but it’s definitely AN RMC: if you know, you know! Relentless, forceful, maniacal, it takes you for a RIDE. I never rode Georgia Cyclone but I can’t imagine that it was better than Twisted Cyclone. I honestly had no complaints.

Look at it back there!

I bet Henry was staring dreamily at that plane in the sky while I was taking this picture.

And you’d think, all that being said, that it would have been my favorite ride in the park….but….

…they have a B&M hyper.

…it’s called Goliath.

…but after one ride, I was calling it Daddy.

First of all, all of our rides on this were either a walk-on or a station wait. The ops were incredible and the Goliath crew was very on top of things when it came to scoping out cell phones in the hands of the riders. One time when we were in line for the front row (with the two most hilarious and TV-ready 3rd grade boys behind us), we watched two back-to-back trains get stopped on the lift hill because of cell phones.

PEOPLE: DO NOT TAKE YOUR FUCKING PHONES ON ROLLER COASTERS.

Also big shout to the Georgia Scorcher crew who were fucking hilarious and entertaining. Especially on our second ride that night when we FINALLY talked Henry into riding it. It’s a stand-up coaster and he was not too interested in having his balls crushed, but he did it for us lol. Anyway, it broke down right as it was starting to go up the lift hill. Luckily, we were in the back row so our end of the train had just barely left the station. The two young ride ops did a really great job walking up the tracks to ensure everyone that it was fine and to doublecheck all of the restraints. There were three teen boys in front of us and one of them was wigging the fuck out and then I was starting to feed off his anxiety so it helped when one of the ride ops stood next to Henry and said, “You did this. You made it break” and I was like, “OMG DID HE REALLY??”, distracted by my sudden glee that Henry did a bad, but he was just joking. :( Anyway, I wish I had gotten that guy’s name because he was definitely my favorite ride op of the whole damn day.  I EVEN MENTIONED HIM WHEN I TOOK THE SIX FLAGS LATER THAT WEEK.

The Riddler’s Mindbender was retracked and painted for 2021 and I will admit, it looked bangin’. I LOVE green and purple as a color scheme. The coaster itself was OK. It’s a good family coaster, and a perfect introduction to LOOPS for little kids. I was mad because some twat mom in a Gatlinburg zip-up hoodie CUT IN LINE with her children. Aside from that and some young kids beating the system by waiting for their friends to get to the front of the line and then running up the Fast Lane entrance and begging the ride ops to let them join their group, line jumping wasn’t too bad that day. It also was hardly crowded either so there was really no point in even bothering to cut. But you know, some cunts in Gatlinburg gear just gotta cheat the system.

OMG Monster Mansion was SO CUTE. But it was also the longest line we stood in (nearly an hour!) because the ops were slow as fuck, but also because some douchebag white dad decided to be cute and rock the boat as soon as he and his family got on the ride. I missed this whole part, but Henry said the ride op was yelling at him to stop and he was still doing it as the boat entered the mansion. Fast forward a few minutes later and the RIDE WAS SHUT DOWN. We opted to stay in line because we were nearly to the front, and Henry was like, “I bet it was because that asshole tipped his boat.” After about 15 minutes, the boats started to come back out and SURE ENOUGH that guy was looking RULL SHEEPISH as his boat crept out of the tunnel.

By now, a bunch of other Six Flags employees had congregated down on the platform, including a supervisor named JASMINE who was so nice (I’m basing this on the fact that I was spying on her talking to the young guys running the ride and she just seemed like a fucking joy if I’m being honest, OK? Jasmine for president). It sounded like the one ride op was telling her that the guy made his boat tip but they ended up just letting him go!?!? I would have totally flexed my power had I been in a sitch like that as a supervisor. Like, excuse me, Papa Red Neck, allow me to escort you back to your pickup truck with the glove compartment full of Beer Nuts and Slim-Jims.

I’m just saying, when presented with a power play, I’m taking it.

But yeah, this ride was adorbs and also kind of dark?? I mean, yeah, it’s a dark ride after all, but I mean, it was all bubbly and goofy and then took a dark turn.

I really loved it – it was way better and more themed than I anticipated for Six Flags!

We rode a mine train. It was your typical mine train.

But gotta get that credit.

OMG OK I don’t typically care much for flying coasters (Carowinds has a particularly nasty one that I was not fond of at all during my birthday coaster trip last summer) but this one was fantastico! The only downside was that we were in line for the back row and when we went to get on it with the two people in front of us, I had nowhere to sit because that particular train had a broken seat and Chooch, who was already strapped into his seat, just casually shrugged at me like OH WELL YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE. The young couple who were also in our row looked so sorry for me, but the WORST PART was when the gates reopened so I could do the walk of shame and get back into the queue.

It was FINE. I ended up riding with three women family members and sure, they spoke to each other in Spanish the whole time we waited to leave the station, but I still felt more included by them than my rude-ass child.

This Gerstlauer was just alright. Thank god it was practically a walk-on because I truly did not want to be waiting any longer than 8 minutes for it.

I loved this wooded area by the carousel!

Not pictured, but we also rode Batman, which is a clone but still one of the better B&M inverts and it was also A WALK-ON ARE YOU KIDDING ME. I didn’t realize it until we left but we dumbly only rode it once and now I wish I could go back in time and ride it at least once more at night. But it was in an area that I honestly forgot all about.

Georgia Scorcher was a really fun stand-up coaster! I honestly never thought I would like these types until Chooch and I rode Green Lantern at Great Adventure (after standing in line for at least 90 minutes, ugh) but turns out, I think they’re really fun! This one was great because of the aforementioned crew and also because it was practically a walk-on  both times we rode it (once in the front, once in the back with lame-o Henry).

The park has three other coasters but they weren’t running for the Holiday in the Park event, which I knew going into this so I wasn’t devastated or anything. The main point was to secure that seventh RMC credit and ride Goliath multiple times!

Another positive I want to point out: we were in one of the gift shops near the front of the park, looking Six Flags Over Georgia-specific magnets. All I kept seeing were dumb DC super hero ones which I’m sure is shocking to know that I have no interest in those. So Henry asked one of the employees which turned into two employees going out of their way to help. The one lady called over to one of the other gift shops, while another lady was like, “I WILL GO CHECK THE ONE OVER THERE” and Henry was all, “Oh no, that’s OK! I can go over and look” but turns out she was offering because the shop was actually CLOSED so we wouldn’t be able to go over there ourselves. Meanwhile, the first lady confirmed that they had some at another shop and then gave us super detailed directions to get there.

Once we got to that gift shop, the young guy working the register was also so friendly and helpful! I was not expecting such superior customer service from Six Flags gift shop people, and you can bet I included this in my feedback survey too! People are so quick to leave bad feedback when something goes wrong and I get that, but I also think it’s so important to highlight the positives too. Working out in public during a pandemic has got to be terrifying at times and I can imagine that it must be exhausting to have to be nice to people all the livelong day. But these people seemed like they truly took pride in their jobs and that just made our experience even better. So props to the gift shop people at Six Flags Over Georgia!

The only downside I will point out, and this is basically for Six Flags and other theme parks in general, is that the food is soooo $$$$. For Chooch and me  to get one slice of cheese pizza and garlic knots (two of them, if I remember correctly), it came to something like $25. Like bro, you can get an entire large pizza with at least one topping for that price. The service was very slow, but the pizza WAS good, I can’t lie about that. I wish it wasn’t so gucci because I’d have actually liked to get another slice. But at least we had Slutty Vegan to look forward to post-park gallivanting!

All in all, I have no REGERTZ about forcing Henry to drive us 11 hours to Atlanta-ish because we had a grand ol’ time and even mostly got along! I will now leave you with some various photos of the holiday lights from around the park.

The shop on the right is where the nice ladies who were v. concerned about finding us a Six Flags magnet worked. (I did get a nice one, too, btw!)

This  tree was not very spectacular, but it was still festive and made me smile, because ooooh lights.

Oh! Apparently, they do have holiday shows here but we don’t care about that nonsense so I cannot tell you either way if they were bad or good.

BABY.

And that’s all I have to say about Six Flags Over Georgia. Final review: PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

Mr. Sometimes I Like My Family has been yammering about wanting to see the Festival of Lights at Oglebay this season. We had gone once when he was much younger, actually it was the night after our beloved cat Speck had passed away, so that trip was more of a means to comfort him (not distract though – he brought a framed picture of her with him) and less of a “Yay we’re a family that loves the Christmas season, let’s chug some egg nog and jingle some bells.”

Anyway, we kept trying to plan for this on a weeknight when it’s less crowded but idiot Chooch and his idiot j-o-b kept fucking up plans. We finally were able to go on Wednesday, and left as soon as I logged off from my idiot j-o-b.

(JUST KIDDING, JOB, I LOVE YOU. PLEASE DON’T CAN ME. I NEED YOU BIGLY.)

We stopped at Sheetz for MADE-TO-ORDER dinner which is always fun because who doesn’t like building sandwiches from a screen at a glorified gas station. Henry got a cookie and I made him give me half so he was being a bitch boy about that. Then Chooch was watching videos on his phone in the backseat WITHOUT HEADPHONES which I hate so we fought like cats and dogs until Henry made us stop.

“Well, he’s being annoying!” I shouted at the same time he was also stringing together a bitchy, disparaging sentence about me. Then he fell asleep because aw, boo hoo, widdle baby so tired, get up early for him school, workie workie at McD’s, wah.

Oglebay is about an hour or so away from Pittsburgh, in West Virginia. I guess it’s like a resort or something but my only run-ins with the place involved Girl Scouts and learning about nature shit. They have a little zoo there. That’s the only thing I have ever cared about. Apparently you can ski there? I learned this because every time I asked, “are we there yet” Henry would mumble some words about how we “hadn’t gone up the mountain yet” and I said, “oh ok calm down mountain man, I wasn’t aware of any imminent incline in terrain” and he snapped, “wow how do you think people ski at Oglebay??? It’s on a mountain!!”

I didn’t know people skied there. Maybe that’s where the disconnect lies.

Then we argued because according to Oglebay’s website, they advised AGAINST following GPS and instead provided their own written directions to use and it was apparently my responsibility to read him the directions. I started to but it was boring so I just glazed over some of it lol. He wasn’t a fan of my navigational decision making skills so he started mouthing off but obviously we made it there just fine or I wouldn’t be sitting here writing about it now would I????

Once we started “going up the infamous mountain” which was definitely just more of a hill, I started incessantly chanting, “Chooch, wake up. Chooch, wake up. Chooch, wake up” which is the equivalent to sticking your hand in a wasp’s nest, let me tell you. So now he’s in the backseat bitching, and I’m like, “No, YOU stfu!” and Henry is like, “I AM GOING TO DRIVE THIS CAR OFF THE MOUNTAIN” and then I’m like, “IT’S NOT A MOUNTAIN!!!”

Wow, and now you were basically just along for the ride. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Yeah, so….we made it to Oglebay and it was, you know. Pretty lame. We paid the suggested donation of $25 and then Henry spent pretty much the whole time counting all the ways we could have bypassed the entrance gate while still seeing all of the lights. He should start a YouTube channel. Hank’s Hacks: How To Have White Collar Fun on a Blue Collar Salary.

I got really mad because there was some dumb AMURRIKKKKA light display and the people in the truck in front of us PULLED OVER to get a longer patriotic gaze at the dumb thing and I started raging about how they were probably sobbing into their trucker hats while chanting the pledge of allegiance.

Then we pulled over at some welcome center thing and looked at fake light-up flowers. That was pretty cool.

I was dying because “You’re a Mean One” started playing from the Christmas tree as soon as Henry approached it LOLOLOL.

We made fun of Henry A LOT that night. It was so much fun. Worth the suggested donation of $25.

Chooch was so gung-ho about SEEING THE LIGHTS and then he barely even cared. I told him he had to write a report about it on my blog and he was like “you have a blog?”

I like how it looks like I’M HAVING AN IDEA.

Chooch was so put out when I asked him to take this idiotic picture.

Then we got ICE CREAM. It was OK, but very expensive, I felt like. It wasn’t even, like, designer ice cream or artisanal or whatever the fuck they call the fancy FARM TO TABLE trendy hipster stuff. But it was OK. The guy at the ice cream counter legit hated us though. I can’t tell you why exactly but it was a vibe that he was sending with extra stamps to make sure it was properly delivered.

Well, that about concludes our feeble attempt at Family Fun Night Looking at Xmas Lights. It was pretty lame but we had fun laughing at Henry and acting like basic city assholes in the NOT-MOUNTAIN of West Virginia.

Ho ho hello, just checking in with a friendly ad from our sponsor because she made two new Christmas cards for the 2021 season (peep the other new ones here) and she wanted to share them on here in case any depraved readers suddenly realize that their friends and family would LOVE receiving a card with Charles Manson’s mug on it.

1. OPEN SLAY SEASON

Imagine this killer couple dashing through the snow, etc etc etc LAUGHING ALL THE WAY. What a terrifying image. Implant that into the minds of your friends and family this Christmas with this super light-hearted and holly jolly spirited holiday card! And then when they have nightmares, ta da: it’s the gift that keeps on giving!

Comes with an envelope, not redeemable for a carriage ride.

2. Manson Family PJs

I mean, in a way, they really did get to spend holidays in matching…PJs. They were just from prison and not Target. Send this to your INFLUENCER friend who makes their family wear matching footed pajamas & pose for Instagram pictures every Christmas morning with motherwhompin’ cinnamon buns in their mouths while you’re in a stained Bon Jovi t-shirt from the 80s and ripped leggings eating a Poptart.

Comes with an envelope that can later be used as a Helter Skelter bookmark.

3. Heaven’s Gate 

Gotta buy your own purple shroud though.

Have you watched the Heaven’s Gate documentary yet on HBO? I don’t think I have HBO anymore which is a bummer so I have not watched it but I keep seeing shit about it everywhere which made me think about how I have Heaven’s Gate birthday cards and Valentines, but NO CHRISTMAS CARDS. Wow. I am truly the worst.

Anyway, if you don’t know anything about this cult, I’m sure this card is making you think “huh” (I mean, assuming you haven’t x’d out of this junk pile of a web diary yet), I highly recommend googling that shit because it’s pretty wild. You know, as most cults are.

4. Serial Carolers

The ultimate holiday card for your fellow murderinos! This vintage-esque design features Ed Kemper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos, and Dennis Rader (BTK) all bundled up and crooning some Christmas cheer. Well, except BTK – he’s the token surly non-singer.

One time in middle school, Laura Long had a Christmas party and made us all go caroling and I just stood in the back half-assedly mouthing the words. Caroling is for suckers. I get it, BTK.

This card is blank inside so you can fill it with lyrics to NKOTB’s “Funky, Funky Christmas” or whatever. I feel like Aileen might have had that cassingle. Lol, OK maybe not.

This currently my favorite card that I’ve ever made.

5. Ed Kemper Naughty List 

What a festive card! Who doesn’t love thinking about decapitated coeds when opening up Christmas cards?

Comes with an envelope. Be careful what you put inside though if you’re sending this to a prison pen pal. Not that I have any experience with penitentiary mail getting rejected.

6. Don’t Kiss Henry Lee’s Mommy

Nothing spreads Christmas cheer quite like the hint of matricide! Henry Lee Lucas should have used this as his motive for murdering his mom because it sounds way better than “She hit me on the head with a broom.”

Perfect for any true crime enthusiast in your life! Or your mother-in-law!

7. Robert Hansen the Worst Alaskan

I mean, who hasn’t used the “Oh shit, I forgot to dig up your present out of the woods of Alaska” to buy themselves some more time? I just used this excuse last month when I met up with a friend and totally forgot that her birthday had just passed and she was like, “Mmmhmmm” but look – maybe she doesn’t know my life as well as she thinks she does OK!?

Anyway, let the creep-o mug of Robert Hanson, the Butcher Baker of Anchorage, really drive this sentiment home. What a charming Christmas card! I’m sure it will be displayed front and center on the fireplace mantle.

Comes with an envelope. You could actually bury their gift and turn it into a real life scavenger hunt. Tuck in a map and some clues!

Fun fact about me: I am terrified of Alaska so this asshole might actually be the scariest serial killer in my opinion.

8. Son of Sam’s Xmas Jam

This is one of my original cards going back to the beginning of non compos cards, but I revamped the design last year. Trufax: when I started making these cards 10+ years ago, I barely knew how to use Photoshop. Truthfully, I’m still not much more than a novice, but I have gotten A LITTLE better over the years and I’m trying to polish up some of the most turd-iest designs in the shop.

This card was inspired by my desire to sign people’s yearbooks with the line “In their blood and from the gutter,” a sentiment straight from one of David Berkowitz’s letters to the popo. But people in high school already knew I was a weirdo and my luck, I’d have gotten called to the social worker’s office (again).

But now I’ve managed to incorporate it in a holiday card, and that’s pretty freakin’ redeeming.

Let Son of Sam, one of America’s most notorious killers, spread yuletime cheer to your loved ones; watch in amazement as their faces become awash with smiles that say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”

But you have!

Envelope included!

Ho Ho Ho and all that shit.

9. Ian Brady & Myra Hindley, Santa’s Elves

Hey man, what’s synonymous with Santa and his elves? If you said Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, then BOY have I got a Christmas card for you!

Fun fact about these two brutes: anytime I post their cards on Instagram, I get reported for violence.

10. Santa’s Geindeer

This was my favorite card from 2021!

Better think twice before investigating that CLICK CLICK CLICK you hear on your roof, is all I’m saying.
I couldn’t resist making this dumb card, even though Henry was like, “OK, ha. Ha…” Look, it took me a long time make this and I still have a headache from staring at the computer screen and that stupid “Up On the Housetop” song got stuck in my head and I got really agitated because I spent my whole life thinking it was “Up on the Rooftop” until my kid was in kindergarten and had to sing that for the holiday assembly and I was like WHAAAT THEY’RE GETTING THE WORDS ALL FUCKED UP” and then everyone on Facebook was like, “No. You are wrong and everyone else is right” and I felt so attacked because I’m one of those people who rarely gets corrected because most people in my inner circle are too afraid to call me out when I’m wrong so when it actually happens (I mean, it’s rare, because I’m pretty fucking perfect), I will dwell on it for days (lol, years) and then Google things like HOW DO WITCHES HURT PEOPLE and TOOLS FOR CUTTING THE BRAKE CABLE and also WHERE IS THE BRAKE CABLE.

Yeah, so! The inside of this card is blank. You can write anything you want inside, like your own lyrics to that dumb carol, for example.

Come with an envelope made of paper and not stretched skin, which is probably what Ed Gein mailed his Christmas cards in.

**********

As always, I’m happy to fulfill any custom requests, so if you have a favorite (?) serial killer that you would like to see a Christmas card themed around, hit me up! And check out the rest of the shop for birthday cards, Valentines, Golden Girls stuff—it’s a real shit show over at non compos.

And because I feel it necessary to leave a disclaimer every now and then: I do not condone murder or suicide pacts. I do not engage in “idol worship” of serial killers. I think they’re the scourge of society and the reason I started making these cards was because I do have an interest in true crime & the psychology of it, and it started as a “tongue-in-cheek” fuck you to the mainstream greeting card industry. I joined a Christmas card exchange thingie one year over on LiveJournal and I wanted to send something that I made myself, something that would make people groan. And 14 years later, I’m still going at it! (Henry’s sitting next to me bitching about how, “…and I still don’t have health insurance and my boss treats me like shit and I have to buy supplies out of my own pocket…” WOW. Sounds like someone is getting ready to picket.)

Currently sitting in the Hollywood Theater with Henry waiting for Ghostbusters to start but I had to post the new Mino video because this song is a JIMMY JAM.

Several years ago, we started a “tradition” of going away to an amusement park for the extended Thanksgiving weekend. In 2018, it was Dollywood. 2019 took us to Silver Dollar City in Missouri on Henry’s broken back (lol). Last year was the PIONEER AVENUE WHACKY SHACK in Brookline. This year though, I thought it would be OK to try and resume our tradition so I chose Six Flags Over Georgia specifically because they have an RMC and my latest bucket list thingie is to ride all of the RMCs in  the world, lol. DARE TO DREAM.

I will do a proper recap here shortly but I’m feeling super wistful and emo today, as I sit here thinking about family things and getting old – you know, standard DOOM&GLOOM stuff, so I wanted to just post all of the pictures we took together/of each other. Believe me, we bicker A LOT as a family but at the end of the day: goddamn we have some Fun Times.

This was right after the gates opened so everyone was still in an OK mood. Actually now that I think about it, I don’t think we really fought at all on this day. Chooch just rolled his eyes a lot and Henry annoyed us with his “I WAS DRAGGED TO TOO MANY CONCERTS” poor hearing (although sometimes I really do think he doesn’t hear us “on purpose.”).

When you don’t understand the assignment.

I dunno why but I like it when Henry wears his hat backward, lol.

Here I am trying to force Chooch to wave.

I dunno what was happening to my hair here, but Chooch was annoyed because he had already started walking away when I screamed, “WAIT TAKE ANOTHER ONE BECAUSE I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH SIDE IS MY GOOD SIDE!”

Evidently – neither!

I’m pretty sure Henry and Chooch wore these outfits all weekend and I’m sure they will argue that they changed the t-shirts underneath at least but still. They actually make me mad with their fashion ambivalence.

In line for the idiotic mine ride.

When teenagers are forced to hang out with their parents and they catch themselves POSSIBLY laughing at their mother’s AMAZING COMEDIC PROWESS.

LOL WHEN THE SMILE DOESN’T REACH YOUR EYES. Also, Henry was made because the flash woke him up, I think.

And of course we had to get our obligatory carouselfie! (It’s actually not “obligatory” – there were several parks this year where I was like JUST FORGET IT and Chooch and Henry were like thank fucking god.)

We had to actually fasten the seatbelts on this one which was weird. Usually if there are seatbelts, no one but small children use them but there was AN ANNOUNCEMENT before the carousel started spinning. Actually, I’m terrified of falling off/getting stuck on a carousel horse so this is kind of good for me, I guess. I wish all carousel horses came with one of those guys from Victorian ages that kneel down and make a step out of their hands so that princesses like me could more easily dismount the fucking thing.

What did they call those people? Stepping stools? Foot guys? Henrys?

Here I am scowling at Henry as usual.

And here’s Santa and his apprentice. I was so adamant about getting this shot!

And then here’s this ultra-flattering shot of Henry practicing his Jolly Santa Belly pose, lol.

This was us waiting for a night ride in the front row on Twisted Cyclone. I dunno what I was saying, something super inspirational and cross-stitch worthy, I’m sure. You can tell by Henry’s face.

Well, Tom, that’s all the pictures I have of us from Six Flags Over Georgia, but don’t you worry your pretty little rosary over it because I still have other shit I need to say about this place, maybe tomorrow if I feel tippy-typey.