Sunday morning started out all normal-like. Henry went to Paris Baguette to get us coffee and breakfast pastries, and then we set off for the Riot Fest parking lot. We got there around 10:30 and then started our mile walk to Douglass Park. Literally right as we made it to the block where the line usually forms, we noticed people walking back toward us.

“WHY ARE PEOPLE WALKING THIS WAY??” Henry asked the universe with trepidation. I opened up Instagram and there it was at the top of my feed: GATE OPENING DELAY. The announcement said that due to the overnight rain, they needed to “remediate the moistness” in the park and this because the new slogan for Riot Fest 2026. REMEDIATE THE MOISTNESS. They said that gates had been pushed back to 2PM – this is the exact same thing that happened when we went for one day in 2023 – our friend Vicki had JUST dropped us off after we had breakfast with her, and as she drove away into the horizon, people were doubling back from the gates, acting as Riot Fest Town Criers: “DELAYED GATES! PUSHED BACK TO 2PM!”

So we were in the exact same situation as then, where we were kind of stranded there, not having a back-up plan. So we walked to the nearest train station, took the pink line to actually the SAME neighborhood we went to when this happened in 2023, and found a bar to chill at while it poured down rain outside.

I don’t know if it’s therapy, older age, or just being in a good place right now but I was completely unbothered by this. I just blindly followed Henry without getting all Type A about it and having to be in control, and even though the place we ended up (Vintage) was basically understaffed and out of nearly everything on the menu*,  I was like, “I don’t care, I’m in Chicago, Pierce the Veil is tonight, I’m content.”

*(The first pizza we ordered was out of whatever the main ingredient was, so we opted for just the white pizza and then we saw Reeve leave the bar, cross the street, and enter some Italian market across the street. Then she came back and told us, “OK we’re also out of mozzarella. I even tried to get some over at the market across the street but they’re out too.” WTF? And then she made some disparaging comment about how they’re always out of everything and it’s so annoying. She was so real for that. We ended up getting the pretzel and it was fine, but then when another table ordered it, she said they were out so I guess we got the last one?? THEN it turned into, “WE DON’T HAVE FOOD, JUST DRINKS.” It was actually crazy, especially because it was really starting to fill up for the dumb Bears game. I felt awful for her because this was clearly the manager’s fault, not hers, so I hope she wasn’t getting shit for it!!)

Also? Serving beer in Mason jars is a choice. It was kind of awkward to drink out of without a straw??? I don’t even know what I had—I think it was a Leinenkugel Oktoberfest or something because OFC they didn’t have my first choice, LOL.

At one point, I needed to go to the bathroom and for absolutely no reason, I thought I was supposed to walk through a door that had a huge lock on it. I mean, it opened!

….into some electrical closet.

The actual bathroom was downstairs and down a maze of hallways. So, just as creepy, actually, especially when some random man was sitting inside a photo booth with the curtain pulled open, looking at his phone. Just…a really strange bar basement is all I’m saying.

I came back up to our table and told Henry about the not-bathroom door. Later, he also went to use the bathroom and when he came back, he cried, “WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT WAS THE BATHROOM?” after getting an up-close look at it. I DUNNO, BECAUSE I HAD DOWNED ONE WHOLE ENTIRE BEER AND SAW A DOOR THAT I WANTED TO BE FOR THE BATHROOM?!

After killing as much time as possible (and pretending to tolerate the football game) we asked for our check.

“I’d want the check, too!” Reeve called over her shoulder as she retreated to get our check. It was so funny, she was so cute. I made Henry leave her a big tip and wrote “Reeve out here holding it down!” on the check. I know you guys probably think I’m so bitchy and live for moments when I can Karen-Hulk out, but I am actually the polar opposite and love to leave glowing and positive reviews when it’s deserved! And while that bar itself needs a major upper management adjustment, Reeve was seriously doing the work of 4 people and doing it with such good humor, that someone like me COULD NEVER. I’d have quit within 30 minutes of my shift and that’s being generous.

Waiting for the pink line to take us back to Douglass Park with a shit ton of other Riot Festers. Is that…wait….yes, it is. It’s a picture of HENRY SMILING! I’m not kidding, we sincerely had such a great time the ENTIRE weekend. If we were going to fight at all at Riot Fest, this would have been the day because it was actually so miserable weather-wise but nope. We knew it was going to be gross and wet and muddy but we made the most of it and I think this could be me growing up? A different version of me would have thrown 87 fits before even walking through the gates of Riot Fest that day and probably would have screamed, “JUST FORGET IT LET’S JUST GO HOME” at least 50 times before even leaving the hotel that morning.

Do you know what I think some of it is? The panic of running out of time. I am hyper-aware of being older, of Henry being older, of time passing so quickly, that I am doing extra behavioral maintenance on myself these days. I don’t want to waste even a single minute of any day being a brat. And you know, to a certain extent, we can control our minds and emotions if we try hard enough. It’s exhausting but it can be done! I definitely still let myself have “MOMENTS” but these days I am mostly treating every day like it’s so precious and I just want to make good memories. It is working, as long as I also allow myself to have the REAL MOMENTS too where I am like, “LOOK I FEEL LIKE SHIT AND DON’T WANT TO DO THAT NOW, GET OUT OF MY FACE, I’M HAVING FEELINGS.”

It also helps that Henry seems to actually enjoy doing all of this stuff now where in the past, he would have maybe been more stick-in-the-muddy about it, which is funny to bring mud into it since mud was going to be the strong theme of our third day in Douglass Park, LOL.

On that note! Actual Riot Fest Day 3 recap forthcoming!

(Thank you for letting me psychoanalyze myself at the end here, I sort of spiraled out, oh well, that’s what I do.)

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