this picture has nothing to do with the titillating subject matter of this post but it’s from Sunday and the most recent picture I have of HENRY, the SUBJECT of this post

We were just sitting here when I saw the news about the US Air Force refueling plane going down in Iraq and I screamed, “HENRY, THAT COULD HAVE BEEN YOU!”

“No, it could never have been me because I was never flying on those planes,” Henry said, annoyed at my outburst yet DESPERATE to talk about his pre-AWOL SERVICE YEARS.

“Wait, you weren’t on those planes?” I cried, my mind racing through a brain rolodex 20+ years of FALSIFIED INFO.

And it was at this point that Henry, by explaining that he was ON THE GROUND doing mechanical work on the refueling planes, obliterated the Spielberg-caliber movie that my mind had scripted, directed, and produced over the last 2 decades wherein Henry was sky high in a refueling plane, laying on his side and grunting as he tried to feed a floppy fuel-tube out of an open door and into a hole of the ARMY PLANE it was flying alongside of.

Wow, I feel so stupid. Henry’s real job was way less exciting than I thought! He should have just let me believe it.

I don’t usually care about these WordPress writing prompts, but this one was intriguing to me because I did not have the answer. I actually had to text my mom and ask her if there is any significance to my middle name. It’s the one part of me that I have always really liked. I like how it feels to say it and I like that it’s just unique enough that it’s not a name you hear very often without sounding ridiculously forced and make believe. 

I also like that there is a story behind it, BECAUSE YOU SEE for the first several years of my life, it was spelled “Rachele.” I even had this darling (lol) silver cup that had my name engraved onto it: Erin Rachele. When I learned how to write my full name, this is how I would spell it. But then at some point, and I’m going to say it probably had to do with the time my step-dad decided to adopt me which was in either 1st or 2nd grade, my mom was looking at my birth certificate and realized that she had misspelled my middle name as Rachelle. So, then I had to train myself to start writing it the legally correct way even though it was the incorrect way, and this is something that is so on brand with my life in general, so I really actually love it, without a hint of sarcasm.

But now I know that it stemmed from my Pappap’s suggestion of “Rachel.” My mom said that at the time, Rachel felt too popular, so she added the extra “e” to the end to fancy it up a bit. Knowing that my Pappap was a part of the naming process makes me love it so much more. 

Me, probably before I knew – or cared – that my current middle name was wrong LOL. <3

This post is brought to you by the same person who also had a completely made-up, imaginary birthdate put onto her wedding certificate. 

The first Saturday of March was pretty great, not gonna lie. It was in the 70s here in Pittsburgh which definitely lent a hand to th eongoing battle against winter depression. March is so underrated as far as I’m concerned – maybe I’m biased because 2 of the 3 times we went to Korea happened to be in March so I can’t help but think of my favorite place on Earth while anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring. That sounds so corny—who am I, an author of books of inspirational quotes for purchase at Turnpike rest stops??

Anyway! We had a few plans for Saturday so it was nice to get out of the house. First, we had to pick up an order of seitan from Self-Reliant Seitan at the Bloomfield farmer’s market. I didn’t feel like getting out of the car but I was able to zoom in and take this picture to send to Chooch of Henry being creepy. “Ew, I just heard him do HYUCKHYUCKHYUCK laugh” I texted Chooch, who then sent back a “gross” in response.

Then we went straight to the Monroeville Mall for the ENHYPEN concert film. I love love love this trend because it’s fun to get to relive concerts that we went to but up close. Henry and I went to see ENHYPEN on this past tour in Long Island, but this was specifically their stadium performance in Tokyo – a huge deal for a Kpop group that’s only 4-5 years old.

This is the first time I’ve ever had a use for this Hipstamic filter! Anyway, that’s Jungwon, my bias in ENHYPEN. It was such a good time but I have some grievances to air:

• Henry kept falling asleep and denying it (he genuinely like ENHYPEN – I know there are people who can’t fathom that he actually enjoys this stuff but oh well, be miserable – so I’m chalking it up to old age) which was pissing me off because these tickets were $20 each since it was a “special event” I guess, so that’s an expensive nap, Old Man.
• The downside to liking these newer/younger groups is that the fans keep getting younger too so the theater was full of middle school girls, including the two behind us who:
  • never shut their fucking bitch mouths
  • kicked the backs of our seats like we were on an economy flight to pre-pubescent hell

I did have a moment where my quiet, internalized rage grew so powerful that I seriously thought I was going to have to get up and walk out rather than be THAT KAREN going viral on TikTok for fighting a 60 year old narcoleptic and two 11 year olds at a kpop movie in a near-defunct mall in the Zombie Capital of the World.

Viral video averted, we then went to the nearby Squatch Brewing for an afternoon beer and Henry ordered at the wrong part of the bar even though I pointed out the cordoned off section with the giant ORDER HERE sign hanging above it. He refused to move though so I left him alone at the bar and got a seat at a table the farthest from the bar because I didn’t want to be associated with him.

I had a RED ALE. It was actually very nice and refreshing.

Henry got a flight – did I mention in here that I’m over fights? Every time I get one, I end up feeling SO DRUNK and not great – I don’t know if it’s the mixing of different types of beers/alcohol levels?? I’m not a drinker in general so my tolerance is pretty low (even at home, I usually will pour myself the tiniest amount from a can/bottle and then give Henry the rest – sometimes I really just want a sip) so I truly have no idea what I’m talking about but I have noticed that now if I just order one full pour of one beer, I am totally OK for the rest of the day instead of coming home and collapsing in bed at 3PM with the spins (this happened several times after hanging out with my sister! I can’t do that shit anymore).

It was an OK place. Kind of out of the way for us so I can’t foresee going back anytime soon. But at least it earned me another stamp in my stupid book – I haven’t gotten a new one since December when I finally got my 20th! Now that I know this book doesn’t expire, I have had no fire under my ass to seek out new stamps. (I do want to get to 30 though because there’s a prize for that one too.)

In my ENHYPEN concert shirt :)

I took this on the way home because I liked how my nails looked #vanity

Not too much else to report from Saturday other than we watched another MATT JOHNSON movie because I’m on a giddy mission to becoming a MATT JOHNSON COMPLETIONIST. We watched Operation Avalanche and I’m not just saying this because I’m a ho for MAT JOHNSON but it was fucking incredible. Literally, this man’s brain makes him so freaking hot. He is a genius. The best part is that Henry is also strapped into the passenger seat for my wild descent into Matt Johnson madness and I love that for him, and for me. Get you a person who goes along with all of your obsessions and will basically be your GIRL TALK sounding board when you want to sit here and glaze a Canadian all day long for having high emotional intelligence and huge arms.

This is basically just a Nirvanna the Band / Matt Johnson fan site now. I just saw it in the theater for the THIRD TIME last night (after I said I didn’t want to go to the Waterfront on a Friday, that’s how you know this is Big Time Fixation) – I cannot recommend it enough. As I have already ranted: Go in cold, don’t watch trailers, don’t google. Then come home and binge everything they’ve done as Nirvanna the Band up until this point. Obsessed. Bought the poster. Dying to go back to Toronto.

There were these guys sitting at the bar near us beforehand and they ran into someone they knew who asked what they had come to see.  One of them giddily said, “Nirvanna, for the second time!” to which the other guy responded, “Nice! I saw it three times!” I could feel Henry tensing up next to me, knowing that what I actually heard in my deranged mind was “Paging Erin Buttinsky, Mrs. Buttinsky” which caused me to nearly fall out of my seat in my desperation to blurt out, “ITS OUR THIRD TIME TOO!!!” throwing three fingers wildly into the air like I was celebrating my third gold Olympic medal in the game of Obsessing Over Niche Things. (And fuck the White House invitation!)

The guys weren’t dude-bros so they didn’t mind my outburst and instead celebrated along with me for a second. (Maybe that’s me romanticizing the scene as usual.) “Yeah, Canadian pride!” one of them said to me and I felt like I was part of something.

When I get this fixated on random things, I start to wonder if I really am on the spectrum, somewhere, maybe riding it side-saddle down at one end. Because I will get these obsessions and then there is no room in my head and heart for anything else. Like, I’m at work wanting to spam my friends on Teams about this knowing full well that none of them will give a shit.

Anyway, if you catch me around town wearing thick headbands it’s because I belong to the Church of Matt Johnson now. Sorey. (Henry agreed that Matt Johnson can be my free pass, so Toronto here I come.)

I got it BAD. My NTBTSTM poster came today and Henry, supporter of all of my obsessions, tucked it preciously into its frame immediately, took a nap, woke up and made my dinner, went grocery shopping, came home and hung it in Chooch’s ex-room. I am so delighted! I can’t wait for Chooch to come home for spring break and see it LOL.

Another sign of Henry’s support: we originally had plans to see One Battle After Another at the Hollywood tomorrow night but Henry said, “OR. We can go see Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie again.” I think that’s what we’re going to do and I’m giddy about it! (Probably not tomorrow night thought because I loathe going to the Waterfront on a Friday night.)

In the meantime, I have spent most of my life these days consuming every Matt Johnson interview I can find on YouTube while gushing to Henry about how amazing I think he (Matt Johnson, not Henry) is and Henry calmly agrees with me every time.

I guess Henry’s got it bad too.

I don’t want to be the skunk at the garden party here, so I am going to do my best to scrounge up some positive things to blog about today while news alerts bombard my phone with casualty numbers in the war that Barron Trump is “too tall” to fight in.

• We’re at the point where all the stuff is being re-hung in the bathroom after Henry dragged out a simple wall-painting project into a month-long affair. I ordered a new plate thingie for the outlet today, and last night I added paint to the old Last Supper portrait I bought years ago at a flea market*, which actually kick-started the whole religious theme in the bathroom if I remember correctly. At one of my parties, my friend Amanda (Glenn’s wife) came downstairs after using the bathroom and said that as a person who was raised Catholic, my bathroom made her feel a certain type of way lol. I was listening to the Pens game while painting this and it was stressful and also I was sitting on the floor in a hunchback position and when I went to stand up, I was immediately reminded of my age.
  • *the pictures are missing from this post and I’m too tired/sick of this piece of shit blog to care but here’s what it looked like originally and what it looks like now (ignore the dusty frame – I’m going to paint that too before it gets rehung):

• I am so tempted to go see Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie again  –  I am still so obsessed! I watched the web series and am (not so) patiently waiting for the TV episodes to be brought back somewhere, and I have watch Blackberry, Matt Johnson’s biopic about the creation of the Blackberry, which I used to have before I switched to iPhone and boy howdy did I feel guilty sitting there watching it with an iPhone in my lap. Basically, I only want to watch things that Matt Johnson is either in or affiliated with. He is my new favorite person, second only to G-Dragon (my forever #1). I was watching one of the episodes of the web series last week with Henry when I legit started laughing so hard that I peed a little and had to go change but first I paused it and said through tearful wheezes, “HENRY I HAVE A CONFESSION I ONLY LAUGH THIS HARD WHEN I AM READING OLD BLOG POSTS THAT I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT YOU.” Henry frowned. Not sure if it was because of that egomaniacal admission or the fact that I openly announced that I peed my pants, or a little of both. But all of this is to say that it’s the only sliver of joy that’s been cutting through the doom and gloom of American news these days so THANK YOU Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol.
• I can’t remember if I mentioned this already but I co-signed the lease for Chooch’s new apartment. He’ll be moving in next September with two of his current roommates / friends. It’s his first non-campus residence so I’m super happy for him but depressed for me.  I also was given approx. 1 day’s notice to scramble together a $$$$ security deposit together see also: bye bye tax refund.
• Still going strong with Duolingo but I’m annoyed because this streak should be even greater and I will never ever forget losing TWO STREAKS in 2018 and 2019 when – IRONICALLY – traveling to Korea because of the DUMB TIME CHANGE. Both of those times, I had over a year streak. So if you want to get technically, and I do, my streak is probably closer to 3,000 days!!! U G H.

• Henry and I went to Duffy’s on Saturday to peruse the beers and saw Chris’s (Kara’s husband) collab with East End Brewing out in the wild so that was fun! Plus, I got two Mister Softee collabs with…I forget the brewery now. I tried one already – an IPA – and it was OK but you better believe I kept the label! Speaking of, I’ve been just slapping beer can labels that speak to me in an artistic sense into the back of a random notebook but now I’m wondering – SHOULD I GET A BLANK JOURNAL TO USE JUST FOR THIS? I mean, why not add ANOTHER journal to the mix, right?

• One of my favorite non-Kpop bands announced a rare tour and I am so stoked that, after loving The Black Queen and their amazing album Fever Daydream, I am finally going to see them live in May! Chooch said he doesn’t know a single one of their songs and I truly don’t know how that could be because he was living at home for most of my obsession with them and they provide THE SOUNDTRACK to “driving to haunted houses” every fall, so wtf, dear son?? I made Margie listen to one of their songs at work AND SHE LIKED IT. I take any win I can get these days as a washed-up trend setter, lol. Anyway, Henry is prepared for me to sob through this whole show.

• Todd asked me the other day what Henry’s last name is and then started calling me Erin Robbins. I was like, “WHOA, NO. I DID NOT TAKE HIS NAME!”  I told Todd that if I were to go through the rigmarole of legally changing my last name (and risk losing my right to vote?! no thanks), I’d change it to Appledale because years ago, and I mean years ago, we were on our way to Lakemont Park I believe and passed a sign for “Appledale Farms” and I have used that as my last name on social media ever since (even had a photography shop on Etsy called Appledale!). Todd said that at one time, that might have been a surprising insight into my life but knowing me as long as he has at this point, he’s like, “that makes sense.”
  • This made me recall a time when I won free tickets to a concert at Mr. Smalls on Instagram and when I went to the will call window, they were like, “Yeah, nice try but we don’t have an Erin Kelly on the list” and I was panicking but then when I pulled up the DM to prove that I was a winner, it occurred to me that they had me down as Erin Appledale and yes, yes they did. Crisis averted!
• Still waiting for BIGBANG to announce their comeback tour….I have NO KPOP CONCERTS lined up for 2026 and this feels so strange and unusual. I’m glad I have other concerts to look forward to but…Kpop concerts bring me so much joy and my heart feels so empty without it.

My life hasn’t felt boring at all lately until I sit down to write in this dumb thing and then I’m just like, OK all I want to do is go on and on about Nirvanna the Band the Show like I’m getting paid to endorse them, like Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol are the official sponsors of this piece of shit blog, like my blog posts have their movie trailers embedded in the middle. Another thing for people to complain about!

Well, on that note, I’m out. Henry is rehanging more stuff in the bathroom and I need to go and supervise. Penelope, grab my hardhat.

I saw a Thread recently where someone was saying that scientists should get into the lab and find a way to harness the collective rage from women and turn it into sustainable energy.

I laughed.

I cried.

I screamed.

This is crazy, I had no idea I read so many books last month, especially it being a short month and I didn’t have much free time! Well, here they are, it was a pretty solid month!

1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Right off the bat, a 5-star read. The synopsis didn’t compel me to pick this one up, but it kept appearing on SO MANY best of the year lists that I eventually gave in. I will say- I did the audiobook for this one and it was brilliantly done. Sybil is one of my most memorable characters I have read in a good while, and what I aspire to be like when I’m old and out of fucks. This whole book is epistolary – Sybil write letters and sends email to everyone from her brother in France, her best friend/SIL, a young boy she mentors, a customer service agent at an ancestry company. Plus, unsent letters to an unknown recipient until the end. This was compelling, engaging, captivating – all the good “ing”s! I laughed and cried.

2. How to Fake a Haunting by Christa Carmen

….and then right to a 1 star read. This was absolutely abysmal. Hokey. Not scary. Confusing. I did actually laugh at loud several times, though I can promise you that wasn’t the author’s intent.

3. Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor

So mid. Two Harvard students that I gave no shits about invent an anti-ageing drug – it was very science-y, very little action, cardboard characters. This was like a dollar store version of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow so just skip this and read that.

4. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

This was SO WEIRD in the best way. Very Kevin Wilson-esque, zany, strange, hilarious. I had no idea where this was going but had a ton of fun getting there. (The UK cover is so much better than whatever this terrible version is.)

5. My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney

I generally enjoy Alice Feeney, but her last book was awful – like someone else wrote it, actually. And then around this same time, Henry and I watched His & Hers on Netflix which is adapted from one of her novels that we both read and liked, but neither of us remembered a single thing from the book as we watched the series, to the point where we both had to check our phones to see if we actually read it. So, I guess we enjoy her books but they’re not memorable? I would say that this one is going in that same category. I gave it a 4, had a fun time reading it, was sufficiently tricked by the twists, but will still probably forget the plot by this time next year. I think this is where I’m leaning with thrillers in general lately though. My standards are really high.

6. Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski

I started this thinking I was going to enjoy it, but then entirely too many characters are introduced – they each get their own rambling chapter – and it just turned into a mess. No one really had their own unique voice, I was confusing teens with adults, some kid dies and that’s at the center of the whole thing but even that plot point gets lost. I just wanted this to end, also the cover is so ugly and looks like a very specific Hipstamatic filter was used on it.

7. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi

I have enjoyed Fracassi’s horror in the past, but this was some banal Murder, She Wrote type shit.

8. If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia

A cozy romance set in a small town in autumn of 1997? A little bit fish-out-of-water? New beginnings? ADORABLE DOG that adds to the story? Kids that actually weren’t annoying? I am so picky with rom-coms but this one really did it for me and I expectedly sobbed my face off at the end. This was close to perfect.

9. Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

Yes. I LOL’d so much throughout this one and I will just say if my department ever forces us to go on team-building retreats, I’m out.

10. The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Too many timelines. Not scary. Someone’s Goodread’s review is the very succinct “Strongest emotion I felt reading this was ‘Girl, that’s your uncle  😭'” – CO-FUCKING-SIGN. Also, the whole time I was reading it, I thought the cover was a hand holding an umbrella. Now I see that’s not it at all.

11. Loved One by Aisha Muharrar

I REALLY ENJOYED THIS. It’s largely about grief, but there is a whole subplot where the main character is on a mission to retrieve personal items of her recently-deceased best friend at the request of his mom, so there are some genuinely light-hearted moments to help balance out the crippling agony you feel when the flashbacks happen. (I’m crying, LOL.)

12. The Ruins by Scott Smith

Why do people like this? It was so boring, stupid fucking characters. Monotonous. I didn’t enjoy even a second of this and should have DNFd it but kept thinking it was going to get better. Did NOT have to be this long, either.

13. Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen

SO UNIQUE! Historical fiction with a hilarious twist. This is set during a time when certain historical figures are back and living in present day. Harriet Tubman seeks out a hiphop producer in NYC to help her record an album, and the book is told from the producer’s POV. It was so funny but also beautiful and a very important work of fiction. The audiobook includes two tracks at the end! (My favorite character was DJ Quakes, AN ACTUAL QUAKER and his parts were so funny.)

I just wish this was a bit longer.

14. Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson

An interesting take on the vampire trope. While it didn’t become a favorite, it was still pretty entertaining. I liked that it was set in the 70s and I was really rooting for Duane Minor.

15. Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote

Five stars. This was so ambitious and the author pulled it off. It’s a biomythography, my first time reading one, and it actually blows my mind when I step aside and really think about the effort and creativity that went into this. The author has essentially taken her actual family history and then embellished upon it to create a “modern myth.” It makes sense then, how these characters jumped off the pages, knowing now that they were based on actual living members of Kim Coleman Foote’s family. It’s fascinating, sad, hopeful, and inspiring to read about the two families that settle down in New Jersey in the 1910s during the Great Migration. This was extremely difficult to read at times which is why everyone SHOULD read it. Yes, it’s fiction, but there is truth and history there too, and that is the stuff that needs to be remembered.

16. Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

A very difficult read as we’re following an older woman with Parkinson’s as she tries to prove that her daughter’s recent death wasn’t a suicide. We get flashbacks to their relationship, and the stress that Elena’s illness put on her daughter, who was also her primary caregiver. It’s so much more than just a mystery though, as it tackles big issues like abortion, chronic illness, motherhood, and a toxic mother-daughter relationship. Just, very grim. If you’re looking for a feel-good read, this ain’t it, Vanessa.

17. The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

You know, I gave this 4 stars on Goodreads but it’s closer to a 5. I went into this plot unknown and was blown away. It’s set in an orphanage in England, 1979, and follows one brother of a set of triplets, and also a mystery girl named Nancy who lives in a house with her parents but something feels off. The end goal of the children in the orphanage is to “get well” (they all think they’re in there because of a Bug) and leave for a Disney-esque place called Margate. I read it in almost one day, it was so hard to put down. Vincent forever. <3 (And Mother Night! I loved Mother Night.) (OK I just changed my review to 5 stars now that I’m thinking about this one again, it was so good.)

The other night, I was lying in bed and thinking about the small handful of movies that I have latched on to so hard that I saw them more them once at the theater (this applies only to new releases at the time, and not classics like Halloween, The Lost Boys, Suspiria, etc. which I have watched a thousand trillion times at home). Of course, I made Henry try to guess (and then also Chooch, via text, after midnight, who takes these guessing games VERY SERIOUSLY). Henry did better, but Chooch required so many clues that I was practically resorting to sending him pictures of the official movie posters.

I know you are just CHOMPING AT THE BIT to know, pens poised on your NOTES ABOUT ERIN scratch paper, anticipating the super hifalutin’ classic cinephile picks to come.

Well, brother, it ain’t that, lol.

The first one will take us back to 1995, throw on a flannel and daisy choker, curl your bangs to a crisp ‘cuz we’re going to see CASPER, motherfuckers.

Keri (ugh, why does she have to come up twice in a week) and I went to see this once and afterward, we looked at each other, a moment of mutual understanding: we were smitten and knew we had to see it again.

Here’s the thing though – Keri, like normal girls, was into it because of Devon Sawa.

Me? I had the hots for the dad – PLAYED BY BILL PULLMAN.

And yes, we went back to the theater to see it again. I even bought the soundtrack! No regrets.

Two years later, my favorite actor was the imitable John Cusack. Still fucking love him to this day. 1997 was a big year for him and it had me double-viewing TWO of his movies in the theater! Sadly, I believe all of these were seen with my then-boyfriend, Psycho Mike.

GROSS POINTE BLANK – amazing, no defense needed. Now I want to rewatch it soon because I haven’t seen it in YEARS.

And the last movie is the one that usually really throws people off because it doesn’t make sense to anyone who knows me, and that movie is CON AIR. LOL, aside from Mr. Cusack and Steve Buscemi, I can’t explain the grip this movie had on my figurative balls but I have watched it so many times over the years and it never gets old to me. It’s like my Die Hard, I guess, and Chooch just thinks this is the dumbest thing ever and refuses to watch it (his loss). It comes up so often in my life too! In fact, we were recently playing that stupid Hum the 80s and 90s Songs games during one of Chooch’s last college breaks and my song was LEANN RIMES HOW DO I LIVE and I was so mad that no one guessed it, and I was screaming IT WAS IN CON AIR!!!!

Ugh.

I also want to note that the second  time Mike and I went to the theater to see this (I remember it was the Whitehall theater which is no longer there!), my mom had given me some of her WATER PILLS because I was trying to lose weight so yes, give your 18 year old some of your prescription pills (this has been my whole life since 6th grade you guys, frantically trying to lose weight). Anyway, I spent the whole movie running to the bathroom to pee so I’ll let you decide if this actually counts as “seeing a movie twice in the theater” when I spent most of the time seeing the inside of the bathroom stall.

If I dig ouy my journal from 1997, I’m sure I will have an entry about how Mike and I fought on the way home from one of these viewings because, knowing him, he was accusing me of being a whore and fucking John Cusack.

This is all a boring and pointless lead up to tell you that last night, I added a fourth movie to this list, and it is arguably the best movie on the list:

YES, we went to see it again! I am so obsessed with this movie, the lore, Matt Johnson, Toronto (always obsessed with Toronto though, one of my fave cities ever) that I have been watching interviews, the web series, guest spots, anything I can find ever since seeing it last week and especially now that we know some behind the scenes stuff, I felt compelled to go see it again. When I mentioned this to Henry the other night, he was like YEAH I’D GO SEE IT AGAIN! Luckily, AMC was still showing it this week.

My takeaways:

• It was just as delightful the second time around and especially fun looking for the things we missed on our initial watch.
• I’m glad we saw it in a little independent theater for our first watch though because it’s a charming film and the venue mattered, in my opinion. This is a movie meant to be seen in an art house / indie theater, preferably with a crowd of college-aged film nerds. The crowd last night was fine and there was LOLing but it wasn’t as festive-feeling and contagious as the night at the Harris Theater.
• I would dump Henry for Matt Johnson, let’s go, eh. Sore-y, Henry.
• I want to go back to Toronto STAT.
• All of my framed posters at home are concert/festival related but I’m about to make this the first movie poster adorning my walls.
• The second time around was obviously stripped of the shock value, but it made it feel like we were part of an inside joke.

I can’t recommend this movie enough, but I also can’t recommend it to everyone because I KNOW there are people who would be like “wtf why did you make me watch that, it was dumb.” But damn, the humor in this might not be for you but it is 100% for me, like just thinking about some of it, I’m on the verge of crazy-tears. It re-wired my brain or something, I was so bored and this invigorated me, electrocuted my mind with happiness. I don’t have the words! Also, if you can, don’t watch the trailer, don’t WIKI it, don’t LOOK ANYTHING UP. Just go see it. That’s how we initially went into it and it was the right move. We had NO FUCKING CLUE what we were watching, and it literally felt like – as a hat tip to the movie – lightning in a bottle. Just pure joy and excitement, like we really witnessed THAT.

If anything, now I just feel sad knowing that I can never see it again for the first time, and also because RIP Orbitz.

Canada was the better team, in every way. Sid will always be golden, especially here in Pittsburgh.

Fuck Trump, Fuck Kash Patel, and fuck every single man on Team USA who made us, once again, a laughingstock on the world stage. God forbid normal Americans get 2 weeks to enjoy the Olympics in peace without that motherfucker making it all about himself, being insulting, name-calling, spreading misogyny and hate.

That game was so hard to watch that I had to go on an aggressive walk afterward. I was fuming, and that was before all the locker room bullshit. I hated that team going into this and now I’m just like “fuck hockey” in general. Heated Rivalry did all that hard carrying to get new fans tuning into NHL games, all for Tkafucks and their cohort to put a sour taste in everyone’s mouth while sucking up to “Dad.”

I’m so pissed too because I had been only on the periphery of hockey (just the Pens) for the last handful of years, then just when I allow myself to re-debut as a crazy fan again (honestly, I didn’t miss the stress that’s for sure), one of the first things I learn is how grossly MAGA so many of these men are. It just makes it really hard and honestly, it takes the fun out of it.

Canada, I’m sorry.  You deserved gold. Hockey is still your sport. Fuck Matthew Tkachuk.

That’s all I have for today. Still stewing.

I found an old journal from 2004 in my room and I started flipping through the pages, which was a real choice because I am embarrassed and infuriated in equal parts. A quick summary of the the timeline this particular journal encompasses – I was going through the mentally draining and traumatic mediation process with my former employer, I was starting classes at Pitt, I was struggling to find a job, I voted for the first time (and said “I have never cared more about an election as I do this one” – 2016 / 2020 / 2024 Erin has entered the chat), and I was mad that my friends didn’t take my “writing” seriously. Which leads me to the reason for this post –

Apparently, someone wrote about me on LiveJournal and referred to me as a “humorist” which was such a compliment! I was riding high on this when my “friend” Keri called and I excitedly told her this, to which she said, “OKAYYYYYYY. Are you sure she was talking about you?”

I rant about this for a bit, and when I get the indignance out of my system, I go on to write that someday, Henry will make me “my own website” so I can leave LJ and “grow my readership” but that I wasn’t ready yet because I didn’t want to – wait for it – PULL A DAVID CARUSO U KNOW LIKE HOW HE OVERESTIMATED HIS POPULARITY AND LEFT NYPD BLUE TOO EARLY ONLY TO HAVE A DISAPPOINTING FILM CAREER.

DAVID.

FUCKING.

CARUSO.

If I hadn’t included the explanation in my journal I’d have 100% been googling “David Caruso who” right now in the year 2026.

Also, while 2004 was apparently “too soon” for me to “jump the LiveJournal ship,” 2007 wasn’t much better because I lost pretty much 95% of my “readership” which was devastating to me in some past timeline where I still thought I wanted to “write” but is actually so fucking funny to 2026 Erin that I had to “let’s just stop, drop everything” and come here to laugh about it alone to the OHE void.

And, in case you wanted to know, here were my fave bands that I was listening to in 2004/

One more picture:

Apparently, the house on the left was on fire which prompted me to sketch this in case Future Erin was reading this and miraculously didn’t still have the save view from her window as though she escaped this street in an alternate timeline but I do want to add that THAT TREE IS NO LONGER THERE! It was cut down a few years ago and I almost had a heart attack, I was so upset about it.

Felled Trees & Competitive Vaccinations, a/k/a things that have upset me this past week.

Some things I’m thinking about today:

CARDAMOM BUNS

• Pittsburgh having no good places to get good cardamom cinnamon rolls (spoiled by Scandinavia).

THE BLACK QUEEN

• The Black Queen is touring for the 10th anniversary of Fever Daydream and I got tickets for the Cleveland date in May!

NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE

• Thanks to Chooch, I am fully obsessed with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol now. I can’t remember that last time I was THIS STOKED on a movie, maybe not since THE PUFFY CHAIR and if you knew me in my mumblecore era, you know that I wanted to wrap myself up in that movie and take it to bed with me. Nirvanna: The Band, The Show, The Movie is doing this same thing to me. I get easily swept up in music but it takes A LOT for me to practically want to join a street team for a fucking movie. This one just really got into that sweet spot of my brain and has been suckling away on my head juices ever since. It’s so niche. It’s such an odd vibe. It is NOT going to hit for everyone. But the jokes landed for me. Even without knowing anything about these guys and their web series from back in the day – I freaking CARED and was so invested.

GO TEAM CANADA

• Olympic hockey has me so stressed out. I am dreading the mens gold medal game tomorrow. I truly dislike the USA team (the Tkachucks can get Tkafucked) and want Team Canada to win so badly because as a Pittsburgher, I’m morally obligated to root for Sidney Crosby and also I just love their team more in general. I thought I would have a hard time rooting for American athletes this time around but so many of them were speaking up and out and I loved that, it was inspirational and made me feel like maybe the rest of the world will hate us less hearing from these athletes that they love their country but not the administration. That helped me retain some semblance of patriotism for the sake of the Olympics.

KID ROCK, INEXPLICABLY

• In the wake of all the Superbowl half time hullaballoo, Chooch was sending me reels making fun of the ToiletPaperUSA redneckpalooza which inspired me to tell him one of the many FUN FACTS about me which he definitely does not consider “fun” nor anything worthy of the definition “fact.” I’m pretty sure his response was just “wow” so I will share it with my ghost friends here on OHE. But all of this KID ROCK bullshit (literally, when has Kid Rock ever been in the news this much, it’s so fucking weird) sparked a shameful memory in me and I felt like I needed to confide in Chooch who clearly did not think this was anything that major….

  It was 1998. I was 18/19 and clearly struggling to find my identity as we all are at that age, sheesh! I was hanging out with guys who honestly fit the bill of date rapists but my red flag reader was not yet fully charged so all I thought was that they were cool and they listened to bands like KORN and LIMP BIZKIT so I did too by association. I actually genuinely liked Korn for a few years, I’m not too cool for school and can be honest about this.

  That autumn, I had gone to this tattoo shop out in Butler, PA (also known as the place where DONALD TRUMP SQUIRTED KETCHUP ON HIS EAR) and befriended (albeit briefly) the tattoo artist / owner and the piercer. They had invited me to the upcoming KORN FAMILY VALUES tour at the Civic Arena but for some reason, I was busy and couldn’t go (I didn’t have a job then so god only knows what my plans were).

  Anyway, when I told Chooch this, I was like, ‘I WAS SO CLOSE TO SEEING KID ROCK BUT LUCKILY I DODGED THAT BULLET, IT DIDN’T EVEN FAKE-GRAZE MY EAR’ but then out of curiosity, I looked up the tour info to see who else was there – AND KID ROCK WAS NOT IN THE LINEUP! I was telling Henry this and he goes, “Yeah, but he was at that one festival we went to in Wisconsin a long time ago” and, panic-stricken, I cried, “WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY SEE HIM THOUGH DID WE??” Henry laughed and said no. W H E W.

That was my Kid Rock story.

Well, that’s all for me today. Back to micromanaging Henry’s bathroom painting project. One of the paint colors is Pink Pout and every time I have complained or whined about something today, Henry has muttered, “You picked the right paint color” LOL. I pouted so hard in the cemetery today that I did my signature teenage brat fast-walking/stamping back to the car while Henry continued his casual gait yards behind me. (I’m also pms’ing so please leave your HENRY IS A SAINT comments to yourself. – Management.)

*I can only type in Pittsburghese

In a continuing effort to not be old people rotting on the couch, Henry and I went downtown after work last night to see “Nirvanna: The Band, The Show, The Movie” which comes highly recommended by the imitable, hard-to-impress Chooch. The weather wasn’t too bad so we opted to just take the T downtown, and it was a very uneventful ride. However, we did NARROWLY miss having a bunch of Disney on Ice attendees jamming onto the same T as us – they came unprepared and were n00bs at the fare booth so they had to wait for the next one. See ya, suckers!

Dumb Henry thought the movie started at 7PM, so we got there around 6:30PM and the Harris Theater people were confused, and all like, “Yes? Can we help you?” and that is how we found out that it didn’t start until 7:30. We ended up walking to Market Square to kill time at The Space Bar.

It was OK. Gimmicky and Instagrammable, nice bartender, but I wasn’t really WOW’d by it, possibly because as usual I had order remorse.

OK what the actual fuck with this picture though?? I swear when I took it last night, it was a normal picture. Then I looked at it later and it had morphed into Foreigner’s Double Vision. Sadly, I HADN’T EVEN HAD A SIP OF IT YET, LITERALLY NO LIQUOR WAS IN MY SYSTEM when I snapped what looked like the 5th cocktail of a Thursday night bender.

But yeah, it was the Yogo Zogo and served legitimately like a boba, in a sealed plastic cup and all. It was good (I mean, it had yogurt soju which is one of my favorite soju flavors) but I dunno, for $15 I should have got something more Space Bar-ish I guess.

It did the trick though because I was fully buzzed.

The…bathMOON.

Sufficiently inebriated, we made our way back to the Harris where I proceeded to ask the concession stand person, “WHERE DO WE GO” like it would have been so hard to figure out but sometimes when I’m in public, it’s like I’m an alien here on secondment. I truly should not be allowed to leave the house, in all honesty.

I would like to add here that I didn’t watch the trailer for this. I just looked up a short synopsis and thought, “This is probably not something I’d go see on my own volition” but Chooch’s enthusiasm was very convincing.

The theater gradually filled up a good bit for a Thursday night in a downtown that generally has little after-6PM activity. I have to say, this may have been the most fun I have had in a theater, laughing with strangers?! The audience really elevated an already hilarious movie and I am so glad that I listened to Chooch and went to see it in the theater because it was exponentially more fun than watching it at home. I’m just saying, when your college-aged kid deigns to give you their recommendations, TAKE IT.

There was one part where I was simultaneously laughing and crying to the point that I started to shake and I was concerned I was having a nervous breakdown; it was so alarming. Maybe I just had that much stress built up and all the laughing was cleansing my head, I don’t know but I felt GREAT when we left!

Also, what a great little theater. I am ashamed to say that, even working downtown in the office for 10 years, I have only been to this theater ONE TIME and it was WHEN I WAS PREGNANT, so…2005 or 2006? Janna and I had gone there to see a Neil Gaiman movie (MirrorMask–I remember NOTHING about this except that Janna and I got on the wrong T coming home so Henry had to pick us up at one of the stations and then I accidentally slammed Janna’s hand in the car door when we got back to my house). The amount of times I’d look at the flyers in the window and say, “Oh, I should see that after work…” and THEN NEVER DID IT is actually so annoying.

Then we had to wait for-fucking-ever for the T to come (as usual, fuck you Pgh) and then the same fucking Disney on Ice families that missed the inbound T earlier WERE ON THE SAME ONE AS US ON THE WAY BACK AND IT WAS ABSOLUTE HELL. Yinzers would never survive in other countries that have SUBWAY SILENCE etiquette. Also, the cast of The Pitt could have really done some bigly accent studying on that T, Jesus Christ.

Overall, though? I AM SO GLAD WE WENT! And I’m even more glad that Chooch thinks I’m cool enough to give movie recommendations to.

Plus! We got to be serenaded on the walk home from the T.

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We were watching something where people were at a BBQ place in Buffalo and they got an order of hush puppies so I cried out in victory, “Hush puppies! I could get hush puppies if we ever went where.” Because you, vegetarians don’t typically fare well at bbq joints.

And just like that, a hidden memory was unlocked about the time in 1998 or 1999 when my then-friend Cinn and I went to some business in Forest Hills for a job interview (we both got it and on the day we were about to start, I was like, “Surprise! I quit” before even leaving the house hahahah, oh my lady of leisure days). On our way out of Forest Hills afterward, we stopped at a Long John Silvers because we both wanted hush puppies. I had no money on me but Cinn had a handful of Susan B Anthony coins for some fucking reason and that is how we paid for our hush puppies.

I told Henry this story and his only takeaway was, “Where was there a Long John Silvers out that way?” and even though I explicitly painted its location onto the imaginary map I was drawing in the air with my finger, he refused to take my word for it and had to do his own mental mapping before arriving at the same point as me, a full 10 minutes later.

Anyway, then we took the hush puppies back to my apartment and don’t quote me but I’m pretty sure it was the same day we took this dumb picture and I also have a vague memory of Cinn teasing my beloved cat Marcy with a hush puppy.

By the way has a hush puppy ever gotten so many shout outs in one blog post??