Somehow, I’ve been a vegetarian since 1996 and have approximately zero vegetarian friends in this godforsaken city. This means that I’m usually the “pain” when it comes to going out to eat with my friends. Like the time original plans got botched with Jeannie, Wendy, and Barb and we ended up eating at some place called Carve instead of Proper (which has amazing artisan pizza but was super crowded), and I’m sure you can guess by the name what kind of food CARVE specialized in.

(I used past tense there because that shitty meat palace is closed now, LOLing all the way to the post office to drop off my PETA renewal.)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck eating a basic salad or some lame vegetable wrap, or even worse: not finding ANYTHING on the menu and having to ask if there’s a special meatless menu, which always winds up being some angel hair pasta afterthought.

Don’t mind me, walking down a puddle-lined street with a pleather suitcase of sighs.

Pittsburgh actually has a decent amount of vegan/vegetarian joints these days, and Henry is secure enough in his carniverous lifestyle to go green every now and then, and now Chooch is a vegetarian too but let me tell you: that don’t mean SHIT. Kid is just as picky as ever and pretty much hates everything and thinks all the creative faux-meat creations are “too spicy.” No matter what.

“Too spicy.”

Before my friend Alisha moved to Arkansas, I was kind of the bane of her dining existence. It was always, “Shit, Erin can’t eat here, though.” And then she would taunt me at times too, but that’s nothing—pretty much all my friends have done that to me every now and then.

In a funny turn of events, Alisha has actually recently become vegan! So when she came to Pittsburgh last weekend to visit, I was stoked to have someone to not eat meat with.

Plus, I hadn’t seen her since 2010!

She wanted to go to Onion Maiden and I was excited to give it a second try. The first time I went with Henry, I ordered a hot dog only because it had house-made vegan kimchi on it and I think that was a mistake because it wasn’t filling enough for a dinner entree. Henry just flat out wasn’t impressed with it at all, so he was like, “Ya’ll have fun with that” and then went to Tom’s Diner and probably got a gyro or something gross, who knows.

Alisha and I both got an appetizer to split:

• Alpha & Omega: smoked cashew rangoon
• Bunn 0))): enoki, cucumber, Korean mayo, hoisin

One guess which one I ordered.

Anyway, oh sweetly sweating seitan sacks, both appetizers were TO DIE FOR. I wanted to lay my head down on those sensual, steamed baos and take a sex dream-laden nap. I wanted to honk them, motorboat them, gently rub them over G-Dragon’s perfect face.

You know, all the normal things you want to do when a plate of precious steamed buns is placed before you.

For my entree, I had The Woods, which was an edible work of tasteful food pornography featuring lily flower, wood ear mushrooms (my favorite kind of mushroom except that Henry started using it too much and I was getting tired of them), tofu, ginger pesto (fuck yes), and kale. I ate the FUCK out of it.

Alisha had the Headbangers ball: tofu croquettes with lemongrass, black rice, ginger, cilantro chutney, slaw, and peanuts.

Oh shit, I also had a side of vegan kimchi which I had to eat with a fork and that just seemed wrong, so so so wrong. But I gotta get my Korean staples in whenever I can.

It was the perfect food to accompany 7 years worth of catching up. Onion Maiden redeemed themselves this go-around, and Alisha redeemed herself by issuing an unsolicited apology for being a meat-bully back in the day! It was unexpected and really sweet—I loved this night!

***

The next day was Vegfest on the Northside, basically a collection of vegan food trucks and various animal-friendly vendors, plus some live entertainment. This was its third year and I’ve got to be upfront with the bots reading this right now: I purposely avoided it the first two years because vegans and vegetarians can be super pretentious hipster pricks and even though I have probably been living that meat-free life for longer than a lot of them at these things, I never feel included. Maybe I’m not sanctimonious enough? Should I shame my burger-chomping friends more often? Wear patchouli?

There are a handful of vegan restaurants I’ve wanted to try for awhile but the vibes are strong and wrong, if you know what I mean. Forever an outsider, oh well.

But since Alisha was in town, she was going to be there with her friends Melissa and Corey, so Henry, Chooch and I took the trolley on over for a day of cruelty-free food-stuffing.

We got there about an hour after it started, and the lines were already NUTS. We were able to snag some vegan donuts and a veggie tart from Goat-something Bakery. I forget their name, but I cherished the fact that no one had seemed to notice that they existed since they were set up next to the Onion Maiden truck and a million people were too busy wiling away their day in that line.

I had the lemon lavender donut, natch, and it was too die for.

After sitting with Alisha & Co. at their table for awhile, we decided to attempt to get some actual meals. I had purposely skipped breakfast and I needed real food. I wanted a hearty lunch! Fucking feed me.

It was mayhem. Total pandemonium. People were walking into each other, food lines were intermingled, BABY STROLLERS WERE EVERY FUCKING WHERE. Every nerve in my body was sparking. This was my worst nightmare. People and lines.

Things standing in my way of food.

I wanted to cry.

I got in line for Blue Sparrow because they had a Korean foccacio I wanted (lol) but the line was actually doubled over on its self because there was nowhere else for it to snake. I had to stand stockstill, with my arms pressed into my sides, because there were people on my both sides of me and I didn’t want to bump flesh with strangers ugh. Some old dude ahead of me said that Blue Sparrow had to keep stopping taking orders because they couldn’t keep up. So we were essentially standing in a line that had nothing happening, no end in sight. Henry and Chooch walked past me eating the cold pizza they bought from some other vendor (the last two pieces, even!) and I looked at them with sad eyes and said, “I CAN’T DO THIS!”

“Then let’s go find something else,” Henry said. Because this was fucked. They weren’t satisfied with their pizza and I still hadn’t procured even a nibble of tofu, so we used our heads and walked a block down the street to El Burro, which has a vegan menu, and within 10 minutes, we had lunch.

We took it back to the park so we could still hang with Alisha and Co., who were on the prowl for dessert. We got in line for Wolf Teeth Donuts, who SOLD OUT while we were in line. And then I found out that Blue Sparrow had also sold out a few minutes after I left the line, so I would have wasted my fucking time if I hadn’t left.

Vendors were selling out left and right and we were so pissed and disappointed. You would have thought it was Vegfest’s first year, and that the city of Pittsburgh has never hosted a single food truck roundup for them to learn from.

I appreciate and support the meaning behind Vegfest. It was awesome seeing so many local people living a meatless life, all in one spot like that. Yes, a lot of them were annoying as fuck, but I tolerated them because it was for a good cause. I DID IT FOR THE ANIMALS YOU GUYS.

But I’m still mad about it. How are you going to advertise an event that’s supposed to last from 11-5 and then have most of your food vendors sell out within the first two hours? In the words of South Korean girl group Red Velvet: dumb dumb dumbdumbdumb dumb.

We had a good time chilling with Alisha at least!

Now I just gotta work on a plan to lure her back to Pittsburgh for good…

Usually when Henry and I road trip for a concert, it’s a whirlwind of checking into some crap hotel, struggling to find somewhere to eat, going to the show, waking up early & coming home. Never anytime time to explore, sightsee, or immerse ourselves in a new place.

Originally we were going to leave Saturday morning and get to Toronto in the evening, but Chris talked us into leaving a day earlier so that we could have time to explore and see the city. I am so glad we did this. Thank you for the push, Chris!

We woke up early on Saturday because I was REARIN’ to go. Henry had made the unilateral decision to use public transportation and at first I was on board with this, but then when it came time to step on the streetcar on Queen St, I FUCKING PANICKED.

“I don’t think I can do it!” I cried around the fist I was biting.

It doesn’t matter whose fist.

Stop asking about the fist.

Henry was all GODDAMMIT but then remembered that this was my Special Weekend so he swallowed some Prozac and read another chapter from the Tucking Thee Penis Betwixt Thee Legs manual. He declared that it was fine, this was all just fine, not a problem, he understands how anxious public transportation makes me. We walked another block and caught a different street car.

Of course, it was one of the old dingy ones and not the pretty ones we kept seeing rumbling gently down the street. Ugh.

A VIEW FROM THE WINDOW.

We were only on the street car for a few blocks when Henry chirped, “OK, let’s go” and lead me off the street car right into a subway station, ughhhhh!! Henry didn’t disclose that there was a second leg of this pub-transporting odyssey.

We barely had to wait at all for a train to come. I was still pretty leery of this whole procedure (hi, my name is Erin R. Kelly and I’m scared of the mundane) but I blindly followed Henry through the whooshing doors and proceeded to stand alone and scowl at him from across the train because what’s life if it’s not dramatic.

But you know what? It turns out that Toronto’s subway system is pretty fucking amazing, fast, convenient, and it helped us get to Koreatown, so I can’t hate it. I just can’t.

Altogether, it took us about 17 minutes to get to Koreatown from Leslieville using the street car and subway (this doesn’t include the walk from the airbnb to where we caught the street car, but you get the point. This blog post is boring because Henry is feeding me dry information). I would highly recommend it! It ended up being kind of fun and made me feel like I was on vacation and not just killing time by driving around in a strange city before a show which is what typically happens.

We took the subway to Christie Street. When we emerged from the subway station and rounded the corner, I was nearly felled by all the glorious hangul everywhere!

I kept making Henry stop so I could read signs. It was an excelsior learning experience! I know it seems trivial, but this was so exciting to me. I dream every night and every day of going to South Korea, and this was like a tiny little consolation.

However, it was only 9:30am and nothing was open yet. So we just strolled around and drooled over all of the menus posted outside of the restaurants. There were so many to choose from! So different from Pittsburgh.

Henry and I had a small spat because we were both hungry and I didn’t really think this part of the day through. So it was all, “YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HAD TO COME HERE SO GODDAMN EARLY!” and “WELL I DIDN’T SEE YOU SENDING AN ITINERARY TO THE PRINTING PRESS MOTHERFUCKER!” but then we walked to get ice cream and took the street car back to Koreatown for lunch, and everything was amazing after that because Ice Cream Saves.

But first—Kpop shopping!

There was an adorable card shop called Just You – Sarah & Tom that Henry was trying to keep me from seeing. He was rummaging in his cargo shorts for a BB gun to shoot my eyes out when my hands found the door handle and I was whisked away to Kpop Heaven.

A chorus of “Hello! Annyeong!” greeted us before the door had a close behind us. The most adorable Korean women were running the shop, demonstrating some of the knickknacks for us, fawning over my tattoos, talking to us about Kpop—-it was heavenly! Even Henry’s frown was no match for the joy brewing up in that bitch—it got its hooks into the corners of his mouth and tugged them right the fuck up.

ADMIT IT HENRY, YOU LOVED IT.

Especially when “TT” by Twice came on the store stereo and an impromptu dance party broke out.

I wanted to buy every Kpop album they had available but Henry was like DO YOU NOT WANT G-DRAGON MERCH THEN so I settled on two sticker packets for me and Chooch to share: BIGBANG and Twice.

Our favorites. <3

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After such an amazing experience, we were ready to eat. We chose Korea House, and it was motherfucking magic. I love the ambiance!

Being able to read the menu and know what most everything is was so rewarding. Learning Korean is a struggle for me, but I haven’t give up. And when I’m able to use it in situations like this, it just motivates me even more.

I ordered the bibim naengmyeon. Henry has made me versions of it at home and the first time I tried it, I was like, “OH FUCK NO.” Even though I knew it was a cold noodle dish, it was still very alarming and jolting the first time it was placed in front of me. But then something just clicked and it became one of my favorite things that Henry makes me.

When I ordered, I said the actual name of the dish. I didn’t point and I didn’t rely on the number. And the ajummah knew what I ordered! She didn’t make me feel dumb like the time I was at a Mexican restaurant and tried to order rojo sauce on my enchilada and the waitress kept asking “What?” in escalating volumes until I finally just whispered, “Red sauce” with my head hung in defeat.

While we were waiting for our food, the younger guy working there turned on the TV. I figured he was going to put on the news or some sport thing, but instead, he turned on a Jay Park YouTube playlist!

“This is just like being at home,” I giddily squealed to Henry, who was just like, “OH BOY.”

But he loved it. Korean food and kpop videos are life, you guys. Such life.

GOD YES.

The only problem is that I am in a constant war with noodles. It doesn’t matter what the cuisine is. Have you seen me eat spaghetti? By the end, I look like I just went down on a can of slutty tomato sauce. Fork, spoon, chopsticks, my motherfucking phalanges — I AM A MESS WITH NOODLES.

When Henry makes me noodles at home, he cuts them for me (because I’m 5), and in the YouTube videos I watch of people eating food in S.Korea (my life is so full), I often see them using kitchen shears, which is a relief to know that the noodle experts need some help sometimes too.

But the waiter didn’t bring me any noodle scissors. I tried to use my chopsticks to cut them, but then I gave up for a while and just focused on eating the banchan—American restaurants really need to get on the ball with offering complimentary sides for the table. Holy shit, it was a veritable rainbow of pickled delights.

By the time I started working on the noodles, two Korean guys were seated next to us and my noodle-eating stage fright set in. Right before they walked in, I had felt a surge of bravery and started to shovel a huge mound of noodles into my waiting maw via chopsticks, and then immediately realized I hadn’t thought this through. I was frozen, a mile of noodle-drapes hanging out of my mouth, cheeks blown out like a chipmunk, sweat springing up along my hairline—I was seconds away from choking. I kept trying to inhale and suck back the strands of cold strangulation to no avail.

I was only making it worse.

Noodles were flipping and flapping around, splashing my eyeballs and Henry with gochujang,

“Oh my god, what are you doing!?” he hissed. I was in tears, noodles hanging in shame from my mouth like their mom had just caught them watching deep throat porn. I couldn’t breathe because every slight inhale was causing more noodle to slide down my gullet. I just wanted to enjoy my lunch without danger of asphyxiation.”Do you want me to ask for shears?” Henry asked.

I shook my head violently, and in a moment of panic, I reached up with my hands and began tugging the noodles out of my mouth with my fingers, LIKE A BARBARIAN.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Henry said, and walked over to the counter to ask the waiter to put me out of my misery.

He returned with shears, cut my fucking noodles like a good dad, and then life went on.

Meanwhile, one of the guys at the table next to us also ordered a noodle dish, and he was given shears with his meal without asking!

Speaking of asking, I heard him ask for more bap and I knew that he was asking for a side of rice!

I LOVE KNOWING THINGS.

After lunch, I celebrated not choking to death by buying some G-Dragon pins across the street at Mr. Pen. We also went to a large market but their candy aisle was kind of a letdown, surprisingly. Sorry, co-workers. I mean, I still bought candy, but not as much as I intended.

After a sufficient Korea immersion, we took the subway back to Leslieville because I promised Henry we could “rest” for awhile, but all that really meant was that I wanted to change clothes, send Chooch some messages since I had wifi at the airbnb, and get coffee before heading back out for dinner.

I’m not one of those people who take vacations to relax, clearly. MORE LATER!  TORONTO IS SPLOOGING CONTENT ALL UP ON THIS HO.

In a fit of giddiness Saturday morning, I asked Chooch to take a picture of me in the shirt I bought at the G-Dragon concert last week, because I love it so much. 

He took several, but I liked this one the best because I’m looking over at Henry who was in the middle of saying (lovingly) that I’m so dumb and we were all laughing about how it must feel for Chooch to have a sixteen-year-old as a mom…but when I saw this picture, I realized it’s a perfectly accurate depiction of me lately: just, happy. Laughing. Feeling excited about little things. 

Are things perfect? Am I suddenly stress-free? Fuck no. But everything in the nucleus is stable and that’s all I can ask for. 

This weekend was full of good things and I smiled a lot. Until we watched Game of Thrones and I got upset that (NOT REALLY A SPOILER BECAUSE GAME OF THRONES) horses died. 

“I just feel so bad for the horses, though,” I cried. 

“I mean, you know it’s not real though, right?” Henry asked hesitantly, because one cannot ever be too sure with me. 

“I know, but….still.” 

Ugh Sunday nights are depressing in a myriad of ways. I should have bought more than one G-Dragon shirt for extra smiling power. 

One of the things that was recommended to us by Chronica before our Toronto trip was an ice cream joint called Sweet Jesus. They could have stopped right there and I would have been sold on the name alone. My Grandma Kelly was always saying “Sweet Jesus!” when I was a kid, so this place appealed to me on a personal level already!

But then they mentioned that Sweet Jesus has a butter tart soft serve, and I had to for sure check this out.

They had a small walk-up window shop right down the street from where we were staying in Leslieville, but if you don’t know this about me yet, I am hugely particular and wanted to go to the main location that I saw in all of the YouTube videos I had been watching on Toronto ice cream places, and this is why we got rid of cable because we’re basically YouTube (and DramaFever) exclusive now.

So basically we got rid of regular TV in favor of vloggers.

Hmm.

Anyway, Henry thought this was absurd because we walked past the Leslieville Sweet Jesus at least 78979 times that weekend, but he knows better than to try to silence my chaotic world in order for me to listen to reason.

On Saturday, we woke up early to go to Koreatown and by doing so, nothing was open yet. God, I’m so smart! So Henry started looking up other options, and he noted that the Sweet Jesus I wanted to go to opened at 11, so I decided that we could always just pregame our Korean lunch with a little softserve. I mean, that’s what vacation is for, right?

(Pfft fuck that noise, I’d do this on a regular day at home too because I’m an adult and no one controls my life BUT ME. And also the government, I guess.)

Henry started looking up streetcar info, but I suggested that we just walk because he said it was only 48 minutes away by foot and fuck, I walk so much more than that in a day, so why not? WHY NOT EARN THAT MOTHERFUCKING SINFUL SOFTSERVE.

Plus, this allowed us to walk through Little Italy (where I had my water/hobo piss splashing accident; see the coffee post) and Chinatown, which was really fun and made me feel like we were really making the most of our time there.

So when you ask me if I thought Sweet Jesus was worth a 48-minute walk, I will say yes, and that’s why.

As for the actual ice cream though, I thought it was fine!

They sadly didn’t have the butter tart toppings though, so maybe it’s a seasonal thing. This threw me for a loop and I was having ordering panic.

I wound up getting the red velvet option because I always snatch up that red velvet shizz.

The 90s yo-girl in me appreciated that the sizes came in Biggie and Smallz. We both got a Smallz, even though they came in plain white cups and not the pretty blue ones with the cool design. Of course I dwelled on this! But I was inspecting the orders of the people in front of us and there was no way I was going to be able to down a Biggie.

Not without some warm-up.

#ColdFellatio

Henry ordered the lemon / coconut cream pie variety.

Henry was “not impressed” by the experience at all, but I think it’s mostly because I made him walk for 48 minutes and the finish line didn’t include an orgasm. He was annoyed that all the good stuff was just a coating and once it was gone, all that was left was ice cream, but I pointed out that this is true of soft serve pretty much….everywhere. I mean, the sprinkles only go so far, Hank!

As for me, I appreciated that the soft serve was more of the rich custard variety. I thought it was fine all on its own, and the toppings were just gilding the lily, really. LOL, j/k — dump on those extra fucking calories, I’m on vacation!

I think it’s good that we went so early in the day because some of the YouTube videos I have seen have mentioned that this place gets packed.

There were only three people ahead of us at 11:30am though! Soft serve brunch, how you doin’?

I liked mine though. I’m not sure this would be an old standby for me if I lived in Toronto, but the novelty of it was just good enough for tourist purposes. It was definitely Instagram-friendly, and isn’t that what everything is based on these days? And I for sure inhaled it, and you probably would too, maybe even AS IF IT’S YOUR LAST, OH SHIT KPOP SEGUE IN THE HOUSE:

Up next: KOREATOWN!!!!

It’s been awhile since I took some legit pics of my son-thing so I figured I should do the right thing and pull him out into the backyard, kicking and screaming.

When you spend too much time with your doll and start dressing alike.

That’s all for this issue, chingu.

One of the biggest differences between Henry and me, perhaps even greater than the age difference, is my crippling dependence on coffee and his extreme dislike of that beautiful brown broth-babe in the buxom mugs and….and…SORRY WHO TURNED ON THE COFFEE PORN?

I mean, just look at his grimace up there!

While we were in Toronto, I wanted to try and hit up as many cafes as possible without going into cardiac arrest. I had a half-assed list that I had prepared from various vlogs I had peeped and also my nemesis Yelp, but some of them were off-the-cuff.

Of course there was the obligatory Tim Horton’s stop on Friday, right before we got into Toronto, when I was having major coffee-craves and starting to picture visualettes of me cracking open Henry’s jugular and gulping on that to tide me over.

Friday evening, we were walking around Leslieville when I realized it was time for my third serving (I’d usually be on my fourth by now but I had beer with dinner instead because Henry wants to have couples beer bellies and pressures me to drink).

This is all fascinating stuff, isn’t it? Like a super personal inspection of my pathetic life? Can you tell that I’m just stalling because I’m not ready to write about the G-Dragon concert?

Ugh, the agony that is my life. It’s not easy being a sixteen-year-old zipped up inside the flesh-bag of an adult working professional.

OK, so Friday evening we stopped at Tango Palace, which I already mentioned on Friday’s liveblog but my OCD nature demands that I mention it again because everything needs to be organized or I’ll lay awake at night with a fluttering heart rate.

Which will probably be more from caffeine intake than actual prescribed OCD symptoms.

So, back to Tango Palace. I just had a plain cup of coffee because I hadn’t had a PLAIN CUP OF COFFEE ALL DAY and it’s not all about frozen mochas and halfcaf skinny soy lattes or whatever it is that the cool kids order so confidently while I’m in the bathroom reciting my order out loud in front of a mirror even though I’m going to end up stuttering it anyway when it’s show time because PRESSURE.

Yeah, so…it felt great to just walk up to the counter and say, “JUST COFFEE.”

Henry got nothing and then proceeded to sit at the table and pout.

I mean, it was just a plain cup of coffee so there’s not much to report on but the ambiance of that joint was supreme. I also noted that in addition to the barista being friendly, everyone in the place seemed like regular people, and by regular I mean that no one was dangling bangles of pretension and coffee snobbery from handlebar moustaches. It was a nice, cozy vibe and I’m glad I got my coffee in a mug instead of to-go. Sometimes it’s nice to just take a break and talk your boyfriend’s face off about an upcoming concert that you’re super stoked for, you know? As opposed to talking off the side of his face while you’re walking around being obvious tourists.

I don’t have a picture of it, but in the back of the cafe, there were two mannequins laying on top of a ceiling-thing. I was happy they were there.

Saturday morning, I tried to use the Keurig in our airbnb and wound up practically flooding the kitchen. Henry came out of the bathroom and actually thought it was from his shower, but nope — just me struggling with a Keurig when all I know how to use these days is a French press. Needless to say, I didn’t drink much of my busted coffee, so the first thing I did when we got to Koreatown that morning was stop at a small cafe called Hodo Kwaja, where I ordered a beautiful, refreshing 얼음 커피.

God, that’s iced coffee, OK.

When the friendly ahjumma handed it to me, she said, “You try first and tell me if it’s OK,” and then she gestured to the row of sugar packets and creamers.

I tried it and said, “It’s perfect” BECAUSE IT WAS.

I felt like singing a Bruno Mars jam to it.

Maybe I was just punchdrunk from being in Koreatown, but it was a wonderful way to the start the morning. Plus, Henry got a bag of walnut cakes with pat (red bean) filling and they were just delightful. Love you, Korea.

About an hour later, we were in the midst of a longer-than-it-was-worth walk to Sweet Jesus. We walked through Little Italy on the way and passed Voodoo Child, which was on my list! However, this happened right after I stepped on a loose pavement tile thing, which resulted in the cold, dirty water which had been collecting underneath it to splash onto my leg, and my mind immediately went to: IS THIS WATER OR IS THIS HOBO PEE and in my mind I felt I looked like I had just been sneezed on by Morla, but if you ask Henry, he’ll tell you I looked like less like a filthy Atreyu and more like I had one tiny dirt fleck on my shin.

Needless to say, we didn’t go to Voodoo Child after that because I was too busy limping under the weight of the filth I was now carrying on my leg.

A bunch of other things happened, but that will be another post.

In the late afternoon, we pub-transported it back to our airbnb, changed clothes, didn’t rest like I promised Henry we would, and then hoofed it to Hailed Coffee, which was about a 15 minute walk from our pad in Leslieville.

This place was on my list because “hailed” is Arabic for cardamon, which is added to this joint’s signature coffees. My heart bleeds for cardamom, so we had to go. Plus, they sell an array of dates! Henry and I love dates! The kinds you eat, not go on.

God forbid.

I ordered the Hailed Cappucino and urged Henry to scoop up some dates, but he was being a big coffee-hating bitch baby and opted to stare sadly out the window instead.

[I just had to take a time out because Catherine was telling Lori about the time Jeannie let me cut her hair one night on late shift and Glenn was all, “Why would anyone let you near them with scissors” and then Lori said one time she had a Vietnamese lady dry cut her hair, and she pantomimed the motion of the blade sailing across a fistful of hair and I had SHIVERS. Like, the good kind. Because I am obsessed with the sound of dry hair being shorn. Oh when that sharp blade crunches down….BRING SOME HOME TO ERIN. And now Glenn and Todd are horrified.]

But um…back to the coffee! I think Hailed was my favorite of all the coffee I had in Toronto. There is just something special about cardamom and also, why don’t I order cappuccinos more often!? 90’s coffee culture is BACK.

I just wish we had gotten some dates to go with this bangin’ mug.

Much later in the evening, we were about to begin our walk back to the airbnb from somewhere stupidly far away. Henry had been complaining about having a headache all day and then suddenly realized he hadn’t had any iced tea. Because it’s OK for him to be addicted to tea but my coffee craze is a burden, OK cool. We were in Chinatown for the second time that day (we get around, guys), and decided to stop into Icha for some iced tea. I got classic milk tea because I’m more Asian than Henry. He got…something else, I don’t know. I quit paying attention to him once my bubble tea was placed in my mitts. I vaguely recall the tea blend being brewed in front of him in some weird mad scientist-looking orb thing.

They’re apparently known for their craft teas. I would highly recommend this joint if you’re looking for something non-coffee at some point, and the people working that night were so friendly and helpful! There is nothing worse than walking into a new place and making a rash decision because you’re so nervous about what you’re looking at.

OK, there are like a million things worse than that but it never feels like it when  you’re frozen in that moment!

He said he liked his tea, in case you were wondering. Hold on, I’m going to text him and find out what it was.

*crickets*

“I just got an iced oolong.” That’s his final answer.

The next morning, a/k/a Sunday, a/k/a my birthday, a/k/a G-DRAGON DAY, we left the airbnb first thing in the morning and walked the short distance to Boxcar Social.

The aesthetics of this place spoke to me in ways that lovers are just not capable.  However, I was nervous at first because the barista seemed like maybe he was going to be snobby, but he was fantastic and super helpful when Henry was perusing the tea menu (he finally found a way to enjoy cafes with me, or at least make it more tolerable for himself). I hate when you go to a coffee place and feel confident enough to ask, “Say, what’s good up in here?” and they just dump a bucket of shrugs on you.

A little guidance please!

I got a soy latte and it was divine.

Henry settled on whatever this fluffy pink thing is and I derived great pleasure from watching his thick, rough man-hands lift that delicate glass by the stem toward his bristling, tea-thirsty moustache, leaving behind a soft brushing of foam on the bristle-tips.

Who hit play on that coffee porn again?

I kept hoping one of these owls would transform into David Bowie. :(

I loved it here. They even do coffee flights! Just not when we were there. :(

This was the only cafe we stopped at on Sunday because the rest of the day mostly consisted of standing in one line after another inside the Air Canada Center. However, I did have an iced coffee that Henry fetched for me at some basic bakery down the street from our airbnb while I stayed back to have my obligatory “everything sucks on my birthday and no one loves me” tantrum even though the day was absolutely fine and I had no reason to feel this way but all y’all bipolars out there can feel me, I’m sure. Henry also came back with a butter tart which I made a point of not sharing with him because it was MY BIRTHDAY NOT HIS. And then suddenly I felt fine! Hey blood sugar, I see you.

I think my main take-away is that people in Canada just truly are nice. I never felt out-of-place anywhere we went, like I wasn’t vegan enough to eat at Hogtown Vegan, hipster enough to sit at the bar at Disgraceland, or trendy enough to order anything more than basic coffee at a pretty cafe. I don’t know where Pittsburgh gets off being so exclusionary, but that’s definitely how I feel in my own city — like I don’t fit in anywhere, and that deters me from going to a lot of places.  I didn’t get that feeling once in Toronto. Toronto, please adopt me.

So now you know where I got my coffee fixes at while we were in Toronto. I can’t wait to go back because we never made it to Strange Love and that was #1 on my dumb stupid no-good list.

Our next trip is a quick stop in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, so if any non-bot is reading this and feels like telling me where to go (AND DON’T SAY TO HELL), I welcome any recommendation!

Back in May, when I was still FB-abled, Castle Blood shared an event from some local paranormal group called Ghosts N’at. Turns out, they had visited the Castle and did a walk-thru to determine if it was a conduit for paranormal activity. They found enough evidence to host an investigation tour open to the public.

First of all: Do I believe in ghosts? Yes.

Do I believe that Castle Blood, which is quite literally an abandoned funeral parlor that came back to life as a haunted house (the Halloween kind, not the Amityville kind), is haunted? Yes, because my friends own it and have had real experiences and I believe them because FRIENDS BELIEVE FRIENDS WHO HAVE SUPERNATURAL ENCOUNTERS.

Everyone knows that, god!

Do I believe that these paranormal groups are legit? I mean….

The last (and OK—only) ghost hunt I ever did was in 2011 and I think I believed. I didn’t feel like I was getting scammed, I felt like I walked away with lots of questions that couldn’t be explained, a certain level of unease, and definitely memories that will last forever. But with that one, I think it was more visceral than anything else. When you’re in an abandoned school in January, obviously with no heat, in the middle of the night with strangers, then yeah — you’re gonna feel some things, hear some ghostly whispers, and see some fucking shit because you’re shambling about dark corridors with nothing but a head lamp.

All of this is to say I sent Wendy the Facebook event and she was like LETS DO IT. And so that’s how we how ended up standing outside of Castle Blood in Monessen on a Saturday night in July, getting bit by mosquitoes* while waiting for a bunch of JONNY COME LATELYS – OH YEAH I SAID IT.

*(But not Wendy because she sprayed herself generously with Off! and made sure to remind me of that every time I reached down to swat a mosquito off my leg, ugh.)

We were put into groups based on the colored wristbands we were given and of course the late people were dumped on us. Wendy called that one!

Eventually, everyone arrived and the two leaders of the group, Brett and TJ, came out to give us a quick run-down of the group and then my friend Ricky (a/k/a Gravely MacCabre of Castle Blood fame) took the stage to talk about the history of the house, which is 100 years old and a historic landmark of Monesson. When Ricky bought the house a few years back, he told us that he for sure felt a presence inside, even during the day, when he and his crew were working on cleaning it up and getting it ready for haunt season.

After the spiels were wrapped up, Brett said we were free to mill about, use the portajohn, have a seat, etc, and that we would get started in about 15 minutes. I thought Wendy was going to explode. The instructions very clearly stated that everyone needed to arrive by 6:50 in order to register, and that the action would be starting at 7:00. Wendy was actually EARLY — this is major — and for what?!

Meanwhile, she called me out on my immediate crush on Brett because I’m so obvious and predictable.

“Let me guess….you have a crush on him and you already checked his hand for a ring,” she taunted.

UGH.

WHAT DO GHOSTS AND ERIN HAVE IN COMMON?

THEY’RE BOTH TRANSPARENT.

I snagged this photo from the group’s Instagram. I’m so interested in what Brett is saying, shhhh!

There were four rooms being investigated on this night: the viewing room, the embalming room, the parlour, and the upstairs dining room. My group with the orange wristbands started in the viewing room with Kenny, who we were told was the real enthusiastic and passionate investigator of the group, and that he gets “real creative” and “thinks out of the box.”

For some reason, I was kind of intimidated of him. Like, I felt that I needed to sit up real straight on the church pew or he was going to start accusing me of chasing away the ghosts with my bad posture. He started in with his introduction but was shortly interrupted by TJ’s wife, who popped in to say, “You lost some of your group!” and behind her shuffled in THE LATE FAMILY.

UGH.

THEM AGAIN!

Apparently, they were in the Castle Blood gift shop when our group departed, and they obviously bought something too because the dad was holding a bag that rustled loudly the entire time!!!

Kenny encouraged us to take pictures while he set up all of his EVP crap and whatnot. Beneath the coffin, he had some toys laid out (LOL FUNERAL PUN) in case there were kid ghosts around.

He also had this laser grid projected onto the wall, so we had to sit very still in order to not make it move. At first I was like, is he trying to trap a ghost in a laser grid? But then he explained it was so that we would know if a spirit was in the room, moving it, because that’s the first thing a ghost is going to go to? If I’m a ghost, I’m entering someone’s body and destroying shit. But yeah, let’s just bump this here laser flashlight to spook some people.

First, we introduced ourselves to whatever ghosts might be watching us from the rafters or from behind the eyes of a babydoll. That was fun.
“Hi spirit, I’m Erin.” I felt like such a tool, but it was even worse when he forced us to go down the line and ask questions for the EVP reading. I AM NOT GOOD AT INQUISITIONS unless Henry is on the other end of it.

Or Christina.

When it was my turn, I was like, uh, are you scared? I don’t know what to ask a ghost?! Were you murdered?!

We played the EVP recording back and there was no result. After an eternity of Kenny trying to get the spirits to play with the toys, he decided that maybe it was an adult, so he poured it a shot a whiskey, and THEN SUDDENLY the girl at the end of the pew next to the whiskey FELT SOMETHING COLD TOUCHING HER ARM and her boyfriend was all, I FEEL IT TOO! And then the guy next to me got in on the action and said he felt a cold breeze. I was like, “Bro, I think that was just from when Kenny walked past us?” and then the prop candlelabras (it IS a haunted house, after all) started shaking and TJ’s wife was all THOSE ARE SHAKING AND NO ONE WAS WALKING NEAR THEM! And then THE LASER STARTED GOING WONKY and everyone was all, OMG GHOSTS ARE REAL WE BELIEVE! But Wendy and I were just like, “Wait, are we being set up here?”

I mean, it was a lot of shit happening at once. And then just like that, Kenny’s walkie talkie went off because it was time to change rooms. Kbye.

The next room was what Castle Blood refers to as the Farewell Room, the last room of the tour before you spill out into the gift shop. But back in the day, this was the embalming room. Our investigators of this room were Tim and Patty, a married couple who I thought I wasn’t going to like but they turned out to be pretty cool. We also did an EVP reading there, after Patty said that the first group had a ton of activity and one of the ladies was contacted by her dead daughter or something, I can’t remember. So that right there opened the door for expectation.

This was around the time Wendy and I realized that we two of the only n00bs on this hunt—it seemed like almost everyone else had done at least one other investigation with Ghosts n’at. 

One of the questions during the EVP session was “Is there anyone here in this room that you know?” because now people were eager to find out if their deceased loved ones were hovering above. I won’t pretend like my Pappap didn’t cross my mind once or 5 billion times but I’m also not going to force it. If these things are real and true and he wanted to make contact, he would.

Anyway, I’ll try to keep this brief: we used this thing called the Phasmagram or something, which was some program on a laptop, connected to some weird glowing gadget that looked like a Lensbaby. (That’s a type of camera lens, you guys, get with it.) The EVP session didn’t provide much other than what sounded like a voice saying either Stacey or Casey, and something that made the guy next to me think his dad was there. The Phasmagram was cool — it made the “voices” all distorted and wah-wah-sounding. The guy next to me was convinced at this point that he heard his dad’s voice and was all, “DAD?!” and then started crying and had to leave the room so then I started crying and his girlfriend was all, “Yeah, his dad just died on Tuesday.”

OH MY GOD.

I was so fucking emotional by then that I was buying everything they were selling. It was 100 degrees in that tiny room and I had goosebumps like whoa.

Fucking Phasmagram thing. (I think that’s what it was called, I can’t remember. Sue me.)

The third room was the parlor with Brett! Absolutely nothing happened here except for me realizing that one of the ladies in our group LOVED ASKING EVP QUESTIONS. She was even interrupting Brett at times, like it was a race to throw her questions out there when no one else was really participating. The one girl who was a part of the Late Family was too bust sitting with her eyes closed, holding dowsing rods.

I was starting to peace out at this point. The EVP session was a bust, which I guess is kind of reassuring because if it were a scam, they probably would have planned for something to happen to every group in every room, right? The best part was when TJ appeared in the doorway and scared Brett.

Then we had to take a mandatory break, and Wendy and I were both like, “WE DON’T NEED A CIGARETTE OR A PEE BREAK, CAN WE JUST GET THIS INVESTIGATION OVER WITH?!”

The last room was upstairs with TJ. I got bad vibes from him, and Wendy did as well, as soon as we arrived there and before we even knew he was one of the leaders of the group. So the story behind this room, the “dining room,” is that it’s the room where Castle Blood has all of their fresh meat start out in, and most of them end up quitting because they get an uncomfortable feeling of being watched by some unseen presence. I can get behind that. I totally believe in those oppressive feelings of GET THE FUCK OUT. I get them occasionally at cemeteries, even the ones I frequent often and am most familiar with. Some days it just feels like it’s not right for me to be there.

Anyway, in the room, we used some contraption called the spirit box, which was something that TJ built and then connected to an app of some sort, because that’s how all ghosts communicate in the digital age – through apps. They won’t be left behind!

TJ said all night, with the three other groups, it sounded like a German family was fighting with each other. So he turned this thing on and it sounded like garbled anger. Every time TJ would ask it a question, it sounded like the voices would say “shhhh!” and then start talking softer. THEN THE FLASHLIGHT HE PUT ON THE FLOOR GOT BRIGHTER AND HOW DID THAT HAPPEN WHEN IT WAS THE TYPE OF FLASHLIGHT THAT NEEDS PRESSURE APPLIED TO A BUTTON ON THE SIDE?! I admit that I jumped when that happened but Wendy had 7 explanations for it and she’s probably right that it can be explained away.

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Meanwhile, the guy whose dad died walked up to TJ and tried to hand him his phone. “Here, I have this translation app. Let’s use it and see what they’re saying.”

Awkward pause.

The phone is offered again.

“Um, nah, I’m good. Thanks, man,” TJ stuttered. “Um, I don’t even think it’s German, really, but uh, you know, jibberish.”

“It sounds like it’s backwards,” I offered, and some other guy piggy-backed off that to point out that sometimes apps are coded backward or something nerdy like that, and TJ got SUPER WEIRD and completely cut him off to say, “OK! Let’s do an EVP session now.”

I don’t know. It struck me as super odd. Like he was thrown off by our offers and suggestions?

He started the EVP session with a really important question: Do ghosts poop?

OK fine, it was mildly funny.

The highlight of the EVP session was when it sounded like some man was laughing when TJ asked, “Was that you that made the flashlight brighter?” OK FINE THAT WAS CREEPY! But other than that, nothing really significant. And the Inquisitive Lady’s “did you have any pets here?” question was surprisingly not answered. JUST LIKE NONE OF THEM WERE BECAUSE HER QUESTIONS WERE LAME.

OK fine, I would have liked to have known if any animals had ever lived in that house too. Ugh.

Wendy and I were able to come up with logical explanations for most of what we experienced, but we’re not saying that we think we were scammed. I certainly don’t feel like it. I believe that this group is passionate about what they do and that they wanted us to have a good experience. Did I feel like there were any presences with us in those rooms? No. Would I spend a night there alone? Nope, go fuck yourself.

And that was it. Chooch accosted us when we exited the house, and that was probably the scariest part of the night — no, I take that back. The scariest part was when I made Henry drop me off at the end of Brookline Blvd on the way home because there was only 30 minutes left before midnight and I was in the middle of a Weekend Warrior FitBit challenge with Octavia and needed to get them steps, them steps, them motherfucking steps, even if it meant walking down the bar-lined streets of Brookline after hours on a Saturday. But don’t worry, Chooch came with me and he had my ghost-hunting flashlight because everyone knows a flashlight in the eyes is the best defense against drunks.

It’s amazing how much I have to say about two and a half days in Toronto. We saw some shit, eh. We ate some food, we rode some pub-tranz, we pounded some pavement. I was initially going to just start with Saturday and recount the day’s events, but there’s just too much for one measly blog post. 

So let’s break it down. We’ll start off light, with a collection of street art we saw during our time on Maple Leaf turf. The street art was top notch. And since Chooch wasn’t there, Henry had to be my mural stand-in. He was not very happy about it BUT GUESS WHOSE BIRTHDAY WEEKEND IT WAS THATS RIGHT NOT HENRY’S. 

This was somewhere on Bloor, and I was half-tanked on a beer that I forced down at a dive bar called Disgraceland which I liked a whole lot. (The bar, not the beer.)

This picture has a weird glow to it because it was across from some amazing home decor place that had the coolest illuminated facade. While I was making Henry pose for this, he said some girl was walking by the window of the store behind me, laughing at his discomfort. #InstagramHusband

Hey-o, this was somewhere in Dovercourt. I’m so good at knowing where everything is! Jk, my photos are geotagged. Thanks, Apple. 

This was a taco joint in Koreatown. I know right?!? Apparently it’s not just Korean things in Koreatown. :(

(I’ll write more about Koreatown later. I had my best/most awkward meal there.)

I wonder what the landlord would say if I let someone spray up the side of our dumb duplex….

I already posted these last two on my live blog but TOO BAD FOR YOUR EYEBALLS BC HERE THEY ARE AGAIN.

This is one of my favorite parts about being in a new city: finding art all around us. 

That the one thing I will say about Newark too–we didn’t get to spend much time in the city because KCON took up most of our time, but their street art was on point. 

I’m glad that we were on foot for so much of our time in Toronto because it made it easier to appreciate all the little nuances and personality of each section of town. 

I asked Henry if he has anything to say about the murals I forced him to stand in front of; he said no. 

6:29am: We’re on our way out of Toronto and I am so sad! I would totally live here. I feel like this was one of the few times where we came somewhere specifically for a concert but managed to make the most of our time here. This is the first time we’ve been on our car since we got here on Friday! Fuck cars! Toronto’s public transportation is way better than Pittsburgh’s (I mean obviously). 
I am going to have such terrible withdrawal from this weekend. :(

Meanwhile, Halsey’s voice really grates on me sometimes.

6:38am: we just drove past a movie theater and I haven’t heard of one single movie being played. That’s how infrequently I watch TV these days. At first I was kind of horrified that I’m so out of the loop, but now I think I’m glad for it. 

7:35am: “How did the sun get in front of us? It was behind us when we left…” – Pondering, with Head-Scratching Hank

I had to suck it up and get a latte from Starbucks. It’s fine. 

Henry just sneezed and I didn’t say bless you because in Korea, blessing people for sneezing isn’t a thing and I love that because it’s so stupid! Why do we make such a big deal out of sneezing?! Literally, someone got dust in their dumb nose and we’re interrupting our lives to give them a blessing that doesn’t mean shit because none of us are the fucking Pope no matter what the snakes under your bed tell you. 

8:17am: Just drove through Niagara – it costs $22 to park here! We’ve both been to the Falls numerous times so we were like FUCK THAT (THUNDERING WATERFALL) NOISE and also Chooch would probably murder us if we went without him. Sigh. I’m mostly only interested in the Clifton Hill tourist trap area but none of that kitschy shit is open yet anyway so WHO CARES. UGH. 

And now henry is yelling at the GPS which is my favorite part of road trips. #eyerollemoji

8:29am: Came back to US via the Rainbow Bridge this time and it was a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. The Border Patrol guy was so nice and even joked with us and it took maybe 25 seconds to pass. Thanks, G-Dragon. <3

9:21am: Henry needed to pretend like he was earning a Boy Scout badge so we ended up stopping at the US side of the falls where we only paid $3 to park and an additional $2.50 (total) to go on the observation deck and take the elevator down to water. It was terrifying. My legs were shaking but not nearly as bad as they were shaking last night when G-Dragon was within literal feet of me. That will forever be the way I measure my leg-shake-age from now on. On a scale of one to GD. 

10:15am: Stopped at Uncle Joe’s Diner in Hamburg, NY even though one of the Yelp reviews was all ITS TOO FLASHY BOOOOO! We didn’t eat breakfast so I don’t give a shit if they say us next to Liberace in a fucking disco ball, ok, just fucking feed my face. 

10:42am: Oh my sweetly spanked Mussolini, this is the first wrap in about 13 previous wraps that was served to me as advertised. Thank you, Flashy Joe’s. 

Meanwhile I just started crying again because I never thought I’d be that close to g-dragon and henry just sighed, “Great, now the waitress is going to think something is wrong.”

11:22am: AHHH we just drove past a sign for Chatauqua Lake and I’m regaling Henry with stories from when my friend Kim and I went with our friend Liz and her family to their cabin there in 1992 and it spawned so many memories and inside jokes like U Nork and Smrobably and freaking out over Panavision and me listening to my Damn I Wish I Was Lover cassingle constantly on my yellow Aiwa Walkman. 

GOOD FUCKING TIMES. 

Our friend Kelli was supposed to go too but she had chicken pox and WE WERE ALL MAD AT HER ANYWAY SO WHO CARES. 

Oh middle school. 

1:01pm: We’re right outside of Mercer whatever that means. I’ve been AWOL for awhile because I’ve been making Henry rehash every last second of last night’s show like ahhhhhhh. He’s being a good sport about it. He’s excited because he saw three people there that we saw in a card shop in Koreatown on Saturday. (I only spotted one.) Henry is a gold medalist in people-watching. 

2:39pm: Almost home! In Dormont! (That means like 5 more minutes, FYI) Chooch is at the doctor’s office while his grandma is having her weekly therapy and he just called us from the bathroom acting like he was in a hostage situation. “Please come get me!” Lol. We also found out that Janna completely spoiled him rotten all weekend! He’s such a brat. We owe her big time for watching him. HAT TIPS ALL AROUND FOR JANNA!

Oh, and this happened too;

Janna said Chooch chose the podcast. His interests are very diverse. 

Ok I’m ending this now because I want to go in my house, flop on the couch, and start sobbing again about how magical my birthday was. I have the best boyfriend/non-husband. 

Today is not only just my birthday, but it’s also the day I get to see G-Dragon, like—be under the same roof as G-Dragon! I’m going to be a mess and super annoying all day so be grateful that I’m Henry’s super annoying messy problem and not yours. 

I tried to talk henry into going to the airport with me yesterday to wait for him but he was all, “THATS WHAT KIDS DO.” He did go as far as looking up flight arrivals though but all the ones coming in from NY had already happened for the day. So then all day and night I was on G-Dragon Watch, which angered henry because WHY WOULD G-DRAGON BE GETTING OUT OF AN ECONOLINE VAN? And WHY WOULD G-DRAGON BE BUYING A BANANASPLIT FROM THAT ICE CREAM TRUCK? And WHY WOULD THAT SHADOW BE G-DRAGONS WHEN IT BELONGS TO SOME REGULAR GUY TRYING TO PASS YOU ON SIDEWALK BC YOURE IN ANOTHER G-DRAGON DAZE?!

This is Henry’s life. All of my ex-boyfriends are rejoicing. 

I’ve been up since 6am because I’m just too excited to sleep! I can’t remember the last time it was like this for me. Gotta cling to those little joys, you guys! I hope everyone has a wonderful day today—I’m sprinkling my G-Dragon energy out there for all to enjoy!

OMG WE’RE ON OUR WAY, G-DRAGON! Today is definitely a live-blogging occasion. 

7:47am: We’re officially on our way to Toronto and Henry has  already called someone an a-hole and a dickwad because he’s so fucking PG-13 (and no it wasn’t me!). Oh wait, he just called me a smart ass and said it’s not too late for him to just drop me off at work. Ugh. (It’s true though – we’re going to pass downtown here in about 30 seconds. GOODBYE WORK FRIENDS!! I hope someone moves my face ahead one day on the calendar!)

When we were getting ready to leave, Henry found this in his suitcase:

Well-played, Chooch! 

Henry got some hipster trail mix that has mulberries in it. I haven’t thought about mulberries since I was a kid and my brother Ryan and I found mysterious berries on a tree in the backyard and ate the FUCK out of them, causing my mom to panic because she didn’t know what they were. Turns out they were mulberries and we lived to tell the tale! I used to call them “mmmmmmmmmul-hhahahahahahaaha-berries” in a weird throaty voice, who knows why. Also, I was like 13 when we were eating maybe-poison berries so I guess I should have known better? Henry said this isn’t surprising to him at all. 

8:24am: Hi me again. We just stopped at Sheetz because I was about to bite henry if I didn’t get coffee asap. He tried to explain to me what the “spill kit” is next to the gas pumps because I have literally never noticed it before – apparently its kitty litter-esque stuff to throw down on gas spills? I never would have guessed that. “Yeah you would just panic and leave if you spilled gas,” Henry sighed, and then I went into Sheetz and ordered my coffee and breakfast and paid for it without waiting for henry because I couldn’t stand there for another fucking second without my morning medicine. Henry acted all sad when he finally came in and saw that I was already waiting for my order. “You paid already?” YEAH HENRY I DONT ALWAYS NEED YOU OK?!

No wait come back, j/k!!

9:32am: just spent the last 30 minutes talking about teeth and now my entire mouth feels so sensitive ugh. I’m very obsessed with teeth & have recurring nightmares of losing mine. Ughhhh. 

10:34am: It wouldn’t be a road trip if we didn’t stop at Target to buy all the things we forgot to bring. 

Seriously though there are mulberries in our trail mix. 

10:42am: I was super sad to say goodbye to Chooch, btw. I told him last night that I’m going to miss him so much and in typical Chooch fashion, he said, “I’ll miss you too, but….we live together and see each other every day. Sometimes I need a break.”

WOW. 

I still hugged him this morning like Elmyra from Tiny Toons hugging a squirrel. 

11:13am: Once we cross the border, i gotta dip into airplane mode until we get to a place with wifi, so if I go silent for awhile let’s hope it’s for cellular reasons and not because I was arrested at the border because someone turned me into a drug mule in my sleep. 

On that note! Here’s a G-Dragon video that you should definitely watch and appreciate his porcelain beauty (fun fact: the word that’s being beeped out is the Korean word for bastard):

11:35am: It’s way past time for my second coffee injection and Henry is NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY. I keep growling and he’s just like, “Ok scary dog, calm down.” I’m about to rip his beard off and turn it into a motherfucking merkin. 

11:54am: Hi guys we just stopped at a rest area in “some stupid place in NY” according to Henry’s atlas, and we got to cross the highway on a walkway! I LOVE THESE KINDS! Here are some exciting photos:

Henry was less stoked about walking through this thing than I was. 

Yeah boi!!

Anyway wow what a cluster of a rest area. Henry cried because he couldn’t get a pretzel (“THERE WERE TWO LINES MERGED INTO ONE! PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS!”) but I got an iced latte at some kiosk serving “ITALY’S FAVORITE COFFEE” (LaVasomething) so I just calmly giggled at Henry’s irrational madness and waved him off with a Parade Queen hand. OH SILLY HENRY. 

I also got to see some girl trip and I like things like that. What a wonderful rest stop experience. 

12:23pm: Passing Buffalo. I haven’t been here since 2008, when I met shitty Jonny Craig. 

12:29pm: 

Crossing the Peace Bridge to the border! 

See you later, friendos! I’ll keep all my updates in Notes so I can barrage this thing with them later! Hopefully we don’t get stopped and searched at the Border! Henry asked why would we and I was like because you look like you just came down from the mountains for the first time in 18 years after writing a Manifesto? I mean le duh?

Me: WHAT IF THEY DRAW THEIR GUNS

Henry: WHY? WHY WOULD THEY????

12:53pm: WELL WE GOT PULLED OVER BC THE GUY WAS ASKING QUESTIONS AND HENRY STUTTERED WITH EVERY ANSWER. He asked how we know each other and I’ll tell you why he asked that ITS BECAUSE WE’RE NOT MARRIED AND NOW WE HAVE TO DO AN ID CHECK BECAUSE HE THINKS HENRY KIDNAPPED ME. 

He asked why we’re visiting and henry was all, “oh um uh uh conc—-leisure….leisure concert.” ?????

The guy asked who’s playing and henry was like G-DRAGON in the most unnatural voice ever and how was this man in the fucking SERVICE?! 

1:05pm Thank god we didn’t have to wait very long before someone came over and took our YELLOW SLIP. he asked why we were visiting and we went through another round of A CONCERT. 

Who you seeing?

G-DRAGON. 

And then a knowing head nod but DO YOU REALLY KNOW?

So he sent us inside for an ID check and there was no one else there shockingly so we strode right up to the counter and went through the THIRD G-Dragon exchange with the guy at the counter who ran a background check on us and asked “is there anything I’m going to find?” and I said no but my head was swirling with uncertainties. I DONT KNOW IS THERE?! There are parts of my life I can’t remember! God only knows what I may have done!

1:30pm: Everything’s in kilometers and I just don’t know. 

1;52pm Obligatory Tim Hortons stop. The restroom faucet didn’t recognize my American hands and we struggled. Then henry got a handful of change back and we struggled some more. 

Back in the car. I made him change the 90s r&b station because I’m not ’bout that life anymore. So the very next station that came up is playing POPULAR ROMANIAN DANCES! I’m way more Korean now than I am Romanian but I was like STOP THE SEARCH! THIS IS THE STATION!

Meanwhile one of those Great Lakes is next to us and I keep getting creeped out. 

2:14pm: We just crossed over some large bridge into Burlington (I guess?). I took a huge whiff and cried, “Aw it smells like a water ride! It smells like the Log Jammer!”

“That’s a sewer,” Henry calmly inserted. 

3:04pm: In Toronto, mostly!

My first impression is one of unease. Every building is glass! It’s so much glass! It’s a city of glass!

5:05pm: Just finished dinner at The Peasant Table with my friend Chris (not of Chronica fame) whom I haven’t seen since the last time the Cure was nominated for a Grammy (2001 you dum-dums)!

6:23pm: Ugh Chris left to go back home to St. Catharines – it sucked saying goodbye after finally seeing each other after 15ish years! I was afraid it might be awkward because I’m so socially backward now but it was like we hang out all the time, plus we talked about Marcy [RIP] because he knew her. 

#teardrop

Now we’re relaxing for a bit in our airbnb that Chronica recommended to us and our host Mark is great — I mean, I guess he is! Henry has talked to him like three times already and I keep missing him so he probably thinks I’m some stuck/up hoebag. 

But yeah anyway after dinner we got ice cream at Ed’s even though I wanted Sweet Jesus but the one in this area is just a window and I want to go to the one I saw in some asshole vlogger’s video because it seems more Instagram-worthy and yes I AM THAT TACKY. Ed’s was supposed to be famous but it was just so-so. I had the Leslieville Honey and it was alright. 

Henry ordering poorly (cherry sorbet, dumb). 

We strolled around for a bit and I saw a million places I wanted to go into but I’m trying not to buy things because the Kpop lifestyle has broken me (although there IS a swag lamp I’m considering going back for). I also learned that pedestrians can push a button and THEN POINT AT CARS TO STOP DRIVING so that they can cross the street — how can this work?! But we pushed the button and surivived!

STOP. JUST STOP. 

We had a really great talk with Chris about the state of America and it’s always interesting to hear things from a non-American perspective. Chris also explained Canadian monies and gas prices to Henry. Ugh, such adulting. 

Henry felt threatened by Chris’s beard though. 

8:25pm: OK UPDATE. We rested for a bit and then came out to explore. I made henry pose for pictures which typically Chooch would be sourced out for. He wasn’t thrilled, but he obliged because GUESS WHOSE BIRTHDAY WEEKEND IT IS. 

I had to cross the street and wait for a bus to load before being able to take the above picture but I was motivated.  

I think this nose belongs to a bar with no name? Never mind—Henry just googled “Leslieville nose” and found out but I’m too tired to type it though—/ it’s Italian small plate comfort food.  

We stopped so I could medicate with coffee at Tango Palace and now I know what’s missing from our back porch: a huge, protruding statue. 

Henry doesn’t drink coffee so he was super unimpressed.

Henry said he couldn’t imagine why everyone keeps looking at me and then remembered I’m a Ladychild with flashy-yet-juvenile accoutrements. In this case: my shiny ray gun purse. I mean they certainly aren’t admiring my face. 

Then we stopped st some drug store to buy a brush because it’s rule to have to stop at least twice in a trip to buy shit we left at home, and henry was so smug because he was able to pay in coins thanks to Chris’s tutorial. 

Right after, we walked past some people speaking Korean and I started to cry. Henry had the “oh for gods sake” lip-twist. 

We’re currently sitting at Hi Lo, a bar that’s totally my speed—kind of divey but not gross. Henry is trying to determine if our drinks were expensive. Except that now I’m complaining because I’m hungry again and henry is all, “We should have went somewhere that has food but you picked this place” and I defensively said “yeah because I liked the lights???” I FELT LIKE I WAS BEING ACCUSED OF SOMETHING OK. 

I’m drinking a KW Craft Cider and it’s probably the plainest-tasting cider I’ve ever had but the ambiance of this place balances it out so I won’t get all haughty on Yelp. 

8:41pm: LOLOLOLOL DRUNK A LITTLE. YOU GUYS SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT IM NOT ON FB ANYMORE. 

8:51pm: OH SHIT WE’RE AT KABOOM CHICKEN – come at me, kimchi fries!!

9:01pm: ok I’m in tears. This is religion. Gochujang mayo. Kimchi. This is everything. 

Henry got k-popcorn chicken!!! KPOP-corn chicken!! DYING. THIS PLACE IS THE LIMIT.  I kept rolling  my eyes back and henry was like bitch plz. 

9:48pm: We’re back at Mark’s pad and I am fucking tired and half-drunk. I think I need to sign off. Tomorrow is Koreatown+additional exploring! I even brought my real camera! 

The countdown is HEATING UP. We leave tomorrow morning for Toronto! Today, I said to Henry, “I feel so nervous and excited! How about you?”

“The same,” he said.

“REALLY, YOU FEEL NERVOUS & EXCITED TOO?”

“No, I mean I feel the same way I always feel,” he sighed.

Ugh. I thought we were bonding.

The other night, I was walking around Brookline, when this email came through:

OMGGGG it’s so real now. My legs turned to jello and I had to sit down on a bench.

“did you tell the homeless person to move first?” Glenn deadpanned the next day as I told the story of Receiving the Email. I drag my work friends down with me. The amount of people who told me to have fun this weekend as they walked past my desk was touching and also kind of hilarious because I guess this is what happens when you’re loud and relentless about your obsessions.

Sigh.

In an effort to distract myself, here are some non-G-dragon related thangs:

• I received an alert today from some news site, NY Times or something, can’t remember, that said something about how kohlrabi is bypassing kale as the new “it” vegetable and I legit wailed, “what why?! I’ve been eating kohlrabi for years!” From her office, Lori laughed and said, “Poor Erin. It’s hard being ahead of the curve.” God next thing you know, ttkeokbokki will be the new “it” festival food, ugh! (Actually, that would be amazing.)
• I don’t know my blood type.

• I was late shift today so Chooch and I got to hang out a bit this morning. We’ve been getting along so well lately! (NOT A JOKE.)

• It me.
• Gayle asked me if I’m going to buy a dragon beanie baby to throw onstage Sunday and I was like NO GAYLE NO ONE DOES THAT AND BESIDES, GDRAGON IS TOO FRAGILE UGH!
  • However, now I kind of want to buy a dragon beanie baby for myself. Do they exist? What’s a Google?
  • Lol at “non-G-Dragon related things.” I tried.
• Taeyang (from Bigbang) is doing his first solo US tour and I’m going to see him in Chicago! I got my ticket the other day (just one, because they’re expensive and it was either go alone or don’t go at all) and I’m really excited! Todd and Glenn were extremely relieved that I got a ticket.
• Remember when I posted the Guacamole Song on here last week? Well, I shared it with some peeps at work and it turned into a thing. Some people were like, “Thanks a lot, Erin” and other people were like, “THIS IS BORING” and walked away at the “form the orange” but then that same person danced to the entire song last Friday in Lori’s office, for all to see, so I GUESS IT’S NOT SO BORING NOW, IS IT CATHERINE. Also, the “peel the tomato” part was a huge source of contention for some people in the office.
  • God, last Friday was pretty fantastic for a work day. It’s been a long time since we were all that giddy! I’d like to think it’s because it was jeans day, and it was jeans day because I fought for it to be jeans day! YOU’RE WELCOME.

• My Facebook hiatus is going strong! It’s been about a month and a half and I have no desire to resurrect it. I think we could all use a little social media detox here and there and even though I’m still using Instagram, I have noticed that I am definitely on my phone much less. I’m sure I’ll come back eventually, but with more restraints and limits, because I have photos there that I can’t access currently, which is something my idiot self didn’t consider. The only downside to not being on Facebook is that a lot of my friends thought that I unfriended them and that is 100% not the case at all! Nate just came over to my desk yesterday to ask me about it because he was like, “But why would she unfriend me? She just gave me a lychee today!” :(
• Oh shit, there’s this sandwich shop that Chooch and I have eaten at several times in the next town over called Parker’s, but they’re moving to Brookline! It’s actually about the same walking distance but more convenient because we don’t have any cross any big roads now, phew. Anyway, this has been in the works for MONTHS now, and actually when I first noticed that something was moving into this empty restaurant, there was no info whatsoever other than a bunch of newspapers taped to the windows, with coffee cups and “P”s drawn on it. I was like THAT LOOKS LIKE THE PARKER’S ‘P’ and sure enough, they eventually announced on Instagram that they were moving into larger digs. But it’s been months and months of no new developments, until last week when the storefront was painted and “Parker’s” is now boldly displayed in white paint. THEN TONIGHT, Chooch and I were on our nightly stroll (it’s our thing now and I love it because he rambles on and on and I love it when he tells me shit) and we noticed that there were two spots where the newspaper was peeled back, purposely it seemed, to provide tiny rectangular peepholes. Of course we shoved our way over to get a closer look and the inside looks SO FUCKING CUTE I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL IT OPENS. Henry’s not allowed to go with us though. He wouldn’t understand the appeal….
  • ….which is the Parker’s proprietor Luke, whom I have a crush on, lol.

The release of the Warped Tour lineup is one of the most anticipated days of the year for me (see also: Someone Needs Friends, a Life, and Hobbies). But I have to be honest, this year’s lineup left much to be desired for me. I was really stoked for Dance Gavin Dance of course, but there was nothing else that really grabbed me, and Warped Tour is not really something you go to just to see thy one band you love play a 30 minute set.

But then last month, I gave the lineup another once-over. I’m. It sure if more bands were added by then or what, but I suddenly saw a bunch of small bands that I somehow missed the first time I looked at it, and the excitement snapped back and hit me like a buckle-laden Ehrbarkeit*.

*(I was reading about German bricklayers, as one does. Sue me.)

It’s been almost two weeks now since our glorious full-day romp under the blazing sun to the surround-sound tune of competing screams and machine-gun drumming, but I would be remiss not to recap the bands we saw because one day when I’m Henry’s age, I’m going to have a muddled mind and need help remembering if we saw Boston Manor or Boston Manners.  Who knows?!

And maybe someone will walk away with a new jam or two after reading this, which is is always my greatest hope. I wish sharing music was my job!

Here’s a rundown of bands we saw (some just partial sets):

• Eternal Boy
• American Authors
• Lakeshore
• Boston Manor
• Microwave
• Silent Planet
• New Year’s Day
• Our Last Night
• Jule Vera
• Hands Like Houses
• Movements
• Courage My Love
• Andy Black
• Attila (NOT BY CHOICE)
• Dance Gavin Dance

Eternal Boy:

Pittsburgh pop-punk veterans. They used to be known as SpacePimps but recently gave themselves a brand makeover. One of the guys, Rishi, is the man responsible for the Pittsburgh-based pop punk Four Chord Festival. I went to the last one and saw Eternal Boy for the first time and was surprised how much I liked them. So I made it a point to check them out again at Warped. They were the first band to play on the Full Sail stage so we got our pop-punk on right away.

They kept talking about their new album Awkward Face, and I was like, “WOW THAT’S SO ME AND YOU, CHOOCH. WE ALWAYS MAKE AWKWARD FACES. HERE, MAKE AN AWKWARD FACE AND I’LL TAKE A PICTURE” and Chooch finally snapped and said, “Oh my GOD, they’re saying Awkward PHASE, not FACE!” and his tone was a glimpse into the future, where I suddenly am phased out and not cool anymore. Ugh.

Anyway, they weren’t as exciting as I remembered them to be, so we moseyed on over to the Journeys Right Foot stage to check out….

American Authors

I mean, I’m not a giant fan, but I know that one song, you know, That Song that is played on the radio and was in a bunch of movies two years ago (probably?). I couldn’t remember the song though and kept telling Henry and Chooch, “No seriously, they have one really popular song and you’ll know it when you hear it, I swear” and they probably thought I meant popular in the Alternative Press sense and not Top 40 radio.

But then finally, for their last song, they invited some peeps on stage from Save Ferris and when the opening notes wafted off into the amphitheater, Chooch was all, “OMG THIS SONG? THIS IS THEIR SONG!?” and even Henry was like, “Oh wow, this song, OK.”

Anyway, it’s this song:

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Which segues perfectly into…

BOSTON MANOR

YEAH BOI. This is the shit I was looking for on this day. Boston Manor is a pop-punk (sort of? but not?) band from Blackpool, England and they’ve been on my “must-see” list for quite some time now. They did NOT disappoint. Energy? Check. Passionate screams? Check. Poignant lyrics? Triple check all the way to Vans tent for a bandanna to sop up your tears. I was so pumped! Even Chooch was like, “I like them! But I’m going to walk around now. Come on, Daddy” because Chooch is what you’d call…a kid? Possibly with ADHD? Who’s not easily impressed? Whatever, let them leave.

Side story: During Boston Manor’s set, there were two older women in front of me. One of them spotted one of the guys from Bad Omens off to the side of the stage. They were performing next, so the whole band was milling about, and these old broads were flipping their shit. They had legit point-and-shoot cameras which they pulled out of their fannypacks, and they were practically stepping on each other trying to take pictures of these guys. I thought this was a bit odd, not that these old ladies couldn’t be down with Separations, but this band is not big at all so it’s not like they were trying to sneak a pic of, I don’t know, Barry Manilow or something.

But then a younger girl wearing steampunk goggles strutted over, and it turns out she was with the old bitches. They were frantically trying to pantomime to her over top of Boston Manor that the guys from Bad Omens were behind the barrier, and she did that snotty girl thing where was like, “WHAT????” with a disgusted look on her face, like the “why are you talking to me in public?” kind of look.

(See also: the Bitch from Milky Way look.)

But then she understood what was going on and became downright FRANTIC. She started looking all around and then marched over to the side of the stage, where she was able to get the attention of one of the Bad Omens guys (I know nothing about this band, although I’m listening to them right now for research, and they kind of sound like Bring Me the Horizon — newer, not old). He came over and let her under the yellow caution tape, where she gave him a bundle of bananas from her backpack and he gave her an appreciate embrace.

So, that happened.

But Boston Manor!! So fucking good.

Lakeshore

We came across Lakeshore randomly as we passed by the Hard Rock stage, and they were pleasant enough to get me to stop. This was also around the time Henry discovered free Slurpees, so we were a bit distracted. But we did chill out for most of their set and at one point, I said something about how they sounded familiar, like something I would have listened to in 2008 or 2010, and Henry said he was thinking the same thing, actually wondering if we had seen them before around that time, and then we were all HAHAHAHA at our symbiotic relationship. How can I put this delicately without sounding like I’m hating on them, because I’m totally not….they had a bland yet pleasing sound that makes it perfect to have on in the background, and it’s interesting enough that you will eventually ask yourself, “I like this—who is it?” and then you realize, “Oh it’s Lakeshore, why can’t I ever remember that??”

Does that make sense?

I thought they were a good fit for Warped Tour, a good palate cleanser — not too pop punk, not too screamo.

Anyway, Chooch was determined to get the singer’s autograph afterward, even though he totally didn’t care about the music at all, because this was around the time he realized that there were areas in the official Warped Tour to get bands’ signatures. So like collecting the signatures of all the characters at Disney World, except in a more violent and dirty environment.

By the time the singer got to the merch booth, Chooch realized that Lakeshore didn’t have a page in the program (only some of the bands did), so he got the dude to just sign the front. He also got their set list. I was like, “Why didn’t the guy just sign the set list?” and Chooch had no answer for me. Henry and I were too busy chilling in the lawn when this was going down. Chooch does shit on his own now, you guys.

Microwave

I was devastated when we missed Microwave at Riot Fest last year (someone was playing at the same time, but I can’t remember who). I got to see the singer do an acoustic set, and that was cool, but I really had started to grow fond of Microwave around that time and was hyped to see them. Finally got my chance at Warped and I was…pretty disappointed. Maybe it was just a bad atmosphere and somewhere like the Smiling Moose would be better?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW2x_Ojh3EE/?taken-by=ohhonestlyconcerts

Henry was not impressed at all, and I was like, “But no really—-they’re a great band! I swear!” Ugh. They didn’t sound bad, per se, but they just didn’t have that spark that captivated me. I won’t give up on you, Microwave! Next time you’re in Pittsburgh, it’s on.

Silent Planet

They were playing on one of the big Monster stages in the parking lot and Chooch actually expressed interest in checking them out. However, when we got over to their stage, that’s when we saw that Gwar was doing a meet-n-greet, so we got in line for that and Silent Planet became background noise. Sorry, Silent Planet! You seemed good when I was paying attention! Good and screamy!

Jule Vera

Chooch has been clamoring to see this band again ever since he saw them open for Never Shout Never in 2016. Plus, they just put out a new album so we were both stoked to hear some of the new songs live. They unfortunately were playing on the Journeys stage,  but it was luckily still early enough in the day that it wasn’t too crowded in front of the stage — the pit is so small under that amphitheater and it makes it really hard to get up close for some of the bigger bands, which kills me.

I made Henry buy Chooch earplugs since we were so close to the speakers, which are all a billion times more loud on those stages. And also because I wanted to know what it feels like to be a parent who’s on top of things.

(It didn’t feel like anything special really.)

Jule Vera was fun to watch, as usual. Maybe Warped Tour isn’t the best venue for this but I was sad when they didn’t do their crazy collective drum solo, which is incredible to watch. It’s what sold me the night we saw them at Mr. Small’s, and when Henry and I saw them last year at Riot Fest, even he was impressed. And he is not usually moved in the slightest when it comes to bands of any sort. Still, they had a great set and Ainsley’s vocals were on point as usual.

I turned around before they were over, and spotted sleeping in one of the seats behind us, head back and mouth open. HOW?! It was so fucking loud down there!

After they were done, Chooch and Henry ran (OK, Chooch ran and Henry meandered) up the hill to Jule Vera’s merch booth so that he could get them to sign his Warped program. He had already talked to them at the beginning of the day when they were setting up their booth but he didn’t have his program yet, god forbid. While that was happening, I walked over to the other side of the amphitheater for….

Hands Like Houses

These guys are on my forever Can’t Miss list. They are just so beautifully Australian and I especially love the guy up there on the left, whom I have been adoringly referring to as The Tim Curry Guy for the last five or six years because he looks like if Tim Curry was in a band in the 70s ok?! So if you’ve been around for previous Warped Tour posts, chances are you’re already acquainted with these bros from Canberra (which is where I met The Cure in 2000, so these Aussies are dear to my heart).

This was probably my least favorite time seeing them though because I HATE THAT AMPHITHEATER. I know, you get it by now. And there was douchey fuck boy who came barreling through the crowd halfway through their set, pushing me and several other girls out of the way, and bro’d out with his sweaty pits exposed for all to smell. Eventually he bull-dozed his way further into the crowd and I was free to breathe again.

After HLH, this happened:

And Chooch even asked them for a picture all on his own! I guess when he was in line before, it was a signing only, so he snagged them later on when no one else was around.

Movements

Ughhhh! I have been dying to see these guys again ever since Chooch and I saw them a year in Cleveland with Pierce the Veil. I hate comparing them to La Dispute simply because they have that spoken word element, but there are so few bands like this in our scene right now so the comparison is inevitable. Post-hardcore, emo-revival — I don’t care what you call them, just go listen. They are like a breath of fresh air and make me feel like I’m young again, and that everything is worth fighting for, DON’T GIVE UP.

Ugh!!!!!!!!

Henry said they “weren’t bad” which is a solid B in Professor Henry’s Warped Tour Band Grade Book.

I think this is a good song of theirs to share, in light of Chester Bennington’s recent suicide and the topic of depression being on the table again, and it should never be taken off the table because while these things don’t go away, they can be managed and overcome—I struggle with it quietly but never silently, and sometimes the struggle gets loud. And it’s OK to get loud. (Sorry, Henry.)

Please support Movements. This band is going to be huge. They’re going to touch a lot of lives. I love them.

Courage My Love

I can’t tell you how long I have been trying to see this band, but we always pass each other like ships in the night. The singer, Mercedes, used to date Craig Owens (BadxChannels, ex-Chiodos), which is how I first heard of them. I miss them every time they’re at Warped Tour or in town though! This time I made sure they were on my list, and we even got to the Full Sail stage before they started.

Henry thought they were ‘just alright” but I really enjoyed it. Warped Tour is such a fucking sausage party, and it’s definitely been slammed for that in the past, so it’s always nice to see some solid females on these stages. Some of them are just not our speed at all (Chooch and I absolutely couldn’t stand this one British band on the Skullcandy stage with a girl singer, I can’t remember their name but they were ska and just super screechy and annoying). OK I just looked it up for the sake of my fake journalistic tendencies, and they’re called Sonic Boom Six.

MORE LIKE SONIC BOOM SUX, AMIRITE?! OH SNAP.

But no, Courage My Love was beautiful and had a pleasing aesthetic, and a girl drummer who also sings! Tyler from Sworn In came over and sang on one of their songs, and I was observing him afterward, standing in the back corner of the stage, watching Mercedes adoringly to the point where I wondered if they were dating, but after creeping on her Instagram, it appears she’s dating some Canadian guy?

:(

I wanted it to be a Warped Tour romance.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW2xqEwhOb3/?taken-by=ohhonestlyconcerts

Afterward, Chooch ran to their merch booth because he had to get her to sign his damn program (I don’t think they were in it though so she signed the front). While he was waiting for Mercedes to come over, I noticed that the singer – Henry – from Boston Manor was just chilling in the middle of the lot, so I coaxed Chooch into getting him to sign his program, because Boston Manor had a page in it. Not-Our-Henry seemed totally stoked to sign this for Chooch. “Your set was awesome,” Chooch said, and Cooler-Than-Our-Henry said, “Aw, thanks buddy!” and he sounded SO HAPPY. Little does he know that I was the one who stood there during their whole set, giving them my undivided attention, while Chooch decided he needed to patrol the grounds for free shit.

But whatever.

What a nice guy! I wanted to buy something from their booth but I was trying to conserve money for our upcoming G-Dragon trip. Ugh, I just want to buy all the records though!!

Meanwhile, Chooch got to meet Mercedes and was all red-faced and nervous about it:

I told him we should start a scrapbook for all his concert memories and he glared at me. Then I glared at myself because what a mom thing to suggest.

Dance Gavin Dance

Finally, the band of the hour! Except that first we had to endure an entire Attila set. They were playing on the other stage and we got to the dumb amphitheater early because we wanted to get a good (enough) spot for DGD since Chooch has never seen them. Suffice to say, this was the furthest back I’ve ever been at a DGD show and I was so sad about it.

But first: an Attila rant. This band is just so shitty, like a next generation Limp Bizkit. All their songs are filled with “suck my fuck”s and the amount of little white girls throwing their fists in their air during these vapid, meaningless hardcore party songs made me feel sick to my stomach, because Fronzilla is the biggest sexist piece of shit motherfucker to walk the grounds of Warped Tour and he deserves zero fame and credibility. This music is what little suburban rich kids listen to in Daddy’s Hummer to feel like a bad ass. Even Chooch was like, “This shit is awful.” I wish Kevin Lyman would stop inviting this worthless band back to Warped Tour, but I guess at the end of the day, it’s all about that cash money.

Also, never forget the time Fronz was on MTV’s Made. 

The meanest thing about Warped Tour is that you only get to see your favorite bands perform for 30 minutes. IT’S CRUEL  And Chooch and I were sharing the role of Goldilocks, trying in vain to find the spot in the amphitheater that was “just right.” This resulted in us getting separated from Henry who was sitting in a seat way up front but in an area where Chooch couldn’t see at all. It was excruciating. I wanted this to be on one of the Monster stages so fucking badly, where we could snuggle into a spot on the side of the stage and feed off the energy of the crowd. Their was no energy to be fed in this scenario! The crowd was weak. People were milling about in front of us the whole time. I wanted to be standing.

But, at the end of the day, Chooch was able to see everything and since it was his first DGD experience, this was all that mattered. When you’re a kid, it’s important to be able to see! And good thing too, because he was dying over Tilian’s slick dance moves.

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So far away! Boo, hiss!

Here is the video for their newest song, please enjoy it thoroughly. It’s got that 1980s yacht rock slow jam sax:

*********

And this concludes my 2017 Warped Tour experience! I’m sad that I missed Beartooth, Separations, Counterparts, Blessthefall, and Being As An Ocean. That’s the downside of Warped Tour: too many great bands playing simultaneously!

The only thing Warped Tour was missing was Emarosa. Sigh – it just didn’t feel like Warped Tour without them, after being spoiled with two consecutive years of them!

Hope someone out there found a band or two to explore. There were a lot of great ones this year!

Hey guys, here I am with another edition of “This Was My Weekend In Excruciating Detail”! I can’t wait for the day these posts are actually beneficial to my life. YOU NEVER KNOW. I might need an alibi at some point. Or to fill in the gaps of my deteriorating memory.

Usually I start my weekend recaps with Saturday, but this time, let’s rewind a bit more and start with our Friday night dinner at Zenith, because nothing kicks off a weekend quite like eating out at one of your favorite restaurants! It was a million degrees out on Friday and Henry didn’t want to cook, so we all benefited from this. My favorite part is that Henry was actually the one who suggested Zenith, even though no one believes that a carnivorous mountain dweller like Henry would ever enjoy a meal chaste of meat. But he loves this shit! He loves tempeh and seitan and whatever other soy-based meat substitutes are floating around out there, but don’t revoke his BIG MANLY MAN card because he doesn’t like tofu and that’s a fact. He’s great at cooking with it, but boyfriend won’t put that jiggly curd anywhere past his mustache.

(Henry likes vegetarian restaurants so much, that he’s actually been looking up veg-friendly places to eat this weekend in Toronto. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY.)

Chooch and I both ordered the seitan French dip, which made Henry sad because that’s apparently the whole reason he wanted to go there, because he happened to see it listed on their weekly menu beforehand, but now that Chooch and I both ordered it, he felt it was breaking some cardinal restaurant rule to have the whole table order the same thing, so he got the Moroccan stew instead. (Elaine, the owner, could tell by his tone that something was wrong when he ordered the stew; “You were going to order the french dip,” she guessed. GOD SHE’S GOOD!) He also got the tropical rice salad which was fucking fabulous and I got a cup of the potato dill soup and relished the fact that I was eating potato soup without straining it for bacon with a fork.

Chooch ordered a piece of the peach strawberry vegan cake to share with me, and Henry got a piece of the chocolate banana cake to go. One of the guys brought a second piece over too and said, “And here’s an extra chocolate for mom” right as I was saying that the peach strawberry was my favorite of all the cakes I’ve ever eaten there, so he said, “Oh….maybe I should have brought you that instead…” and at first he was going to swap it out, but then ended up telling us to keep the two pieces of chocolate and he brought another piece of the peach cake over too!

“Jesus, we walked out of there with almost an entire cake,” Henry laughed. God, Zenith—you freaking spoil us. Best veg restaurant in the city, you guys!

Part Time (Veg) Lover.

Saturday started out slow and casual. Henry had to work, so Chooch and I were on our own. (WELL I GUESS WE’RE GONNA HAVE TO TAKE CONTROL, ON OUR OWN….what? Bobby Brown? On Our Own? Ugh, never mind.) We walked to Cafe Noir and I was Responsible in that I looked up at the sky and saw DARK CLOUDS so I brought along an UMBRELLA. And then it RAINED so we had to USE THE UMBRELLA. This is parenting, my friends. See also: being a person who understands how weather works.

We didn’t get a chance to save anything this time. You can only be heroes so often or then it gets old and no one will give you accolades because oh wow, you saved a thing. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re hero, right? Ugh, so rude.

Most of the day was spent chilling because it was storming off and on. Chooch has been binge-watching How I Met Your Mother so Henry and I sat through some episodes with him and it’s not like I forgot so soon how cruel and heart-wrenching this show is, so I was crying all over again at some of the parts, ugh. Also, when Henry and I watched this show (probably the last TV series we watched in real time, i.e. not on Netflix or whatever), I didn’t realize how wildly inappropriate it is until I had my 11-year-old son sitting next to me, so that’s been real great. And he’s already on the last season so I can’t be all, “SORRY MISTER, YOU’LL HAVE TO RESUME THIS WHEN YOU’RE 18.” I mean, come on. Kids know everything these days anyway. Ugh.

Then later that night, Wendy and I went on a ghost hunt at Castle Blood! That will obviously get its own post, but while we were doing that, Henry and Chooch went to visit the Calvin Family (a/k/a Blake, Haley, and Calvin) and Chooch apparently had a grand old time because on the way home later that night, Chooch piped up from the backseat, “I was going to tell you something, but nevermind, you’ll be mad. OK fine, Blake let me use his bow!”

I was like, “OK that’s cool, whatever,” because I was still all a’buzz from ghosts n’ stuff, but then a few minutes later, he cried, “OK, I feel like I’m lying if I don’t tell you this, but I also SHOT A BB GUN!” and then way he said it, with so much anguish, reminded me of the scene from Goonies when Chunk is tied to the chair and telling the Fratellis his sob story. That’s my dramatic kid.

I should mention that Chooch was supposed to hang out with Blake a week ago, but decided he needed to go to his friend Wesley’s instead, so he told Blake to come over later. Well guess what? Blake’s a dad now, dude, and “come over later” basically means that New Parent has extra time to get comfortable and not want to leave the house again. So that’s what happened, and Chooch actually cried real tears and told us that we weren’t allowed to say Blake’s name in our house.

I mean, it was hilarious but also sad because this is the first time Chooch has let his emotions out since Calvin was born and we all knew there was going to be jealousy there. Hopefully this is the beginning of him working through that and accepting the fact that he has to share his big brother now and he’s going to come to second to Calvin. I think eventually, it will be fine and Chooch will probably end up wanting to see his nephew more than his brother, anyway!

My side vs Their side

This brings us to Sunday, a day I love to hate.

Sunday morning, we got to see Chris and Monica for a little bit while I took some headshots of Chris (with my camera, not Blake’s BB gun) for her travel guide résumé. It’s always great to see those two, but we all agreed that we’re due for a longer hang-out soon.

Then it was Asian market time! Chooch opted out so he went over one of his neighbor friends’ houses instead, because we’re at that age now where he will take any option that’s not “shopping with parents.” :(

I was so happy because our favorite market (WFH  Oriental, if you care) finally carries the BIGBANG Nongfu Spring iced tea! I messaged Chooch and he told me to get all of the jasmine grapefruit. I got three.

MAYBE NEXT TIME COME WITH US, BRO.

Honestly, BIGBANG endorsement aside, this tea is so fantastic. When our favorite WFH cashier rang us up, she laughed when she got to the (NINE?!) bottles of Nongfu Spring and said, “Oh, all the teenagers come in and buy this!”

“THAT’S MY FAVORITE BAND!” I cried and she seemed a combination of shocked and impressed, but if you ask Henry he’ll just say she was taken aback by my oozing dumbness.

Also, remember when Daesung was my original bias? GOD THAT SEEMS LIKE FOREVER AGO. (Lol, last December.)

While we were at the store, some younger white couple came in and I could hear them from multiple aisles away as they openly and loudly mocked all the products , said things like, “EW GROSS!” and just basically reinforced the idea that white people are culturally ignorant and racist, whether we want to admit it or not. I was all up in arms over this. I have grown to love this culture so very much, and I hate that these assholes came into one of these markets and made fun of it.

But go ahead, laugh your asses off while we’re over here eating juicy lychees and Japanese purple yams that are so freaking soft they practically melt in the mouth, while you’re eating basic bitch kale from Giant Eagle, you dumb white couple. They must have gotten lost on their way to Primantis.

I bought sweet corn popsicles at the second Asian market we went to. “Good luck with those,” Henry scoffed. Turns out I didn’t need “luck” because they are motherfucking delightful, a real bastardization of creamed corn straight into summer treat form. Fuck yes. Like a sweet, frozen Thanksgiving side dish on a stick.

Later, Henry and I walked to Cafe Noir. Henry has been accompanying me on my walks (sometimes) because he’s afraid of losing me (maybe but probably not) and I’ve really been enjoying it! I get to point things out, like, “This is where Chooch and I busted a bunch of hoodlums smoking pot” and “This is where we found the moth” and “THERE’S THE TATTOO PLACE DO YOU SEE SARAH MILLER INSIDE I DON’T WANT TO LOOK!” Seriously, I’m obsessed with that broad. I want her to tattoo me so badly, that I don’t even care what it is. Anyway, I decided to get a Cannonball because Chris texted me that morning after I recommended Cafe Noir to her and Monica, to tell me that she got the Cannonball. Of course, I ordered it before I asked her if she liked it, and I ended up having major ordering remorse.

“It’s not Cafe Noir’s fault, I just don’t really like carbonated water,” I said with a grimace, trying not to spit out the mouthful of Cannonball that was floating in limbo behind my tongue, but also really wanting to spit it out at the same time. WHAT TO DO.

“Seriously? Then why would would order a drink that has SAN PELLEGRINI IN IT?” Henry cried, the human embodiment of SMH.

I just….I just don’t know what goes through my head sometimes, you guys.

Came home and found this in a drawer and got mad about being misquoted ALL OVER AGAIN. EVEN AFTER TEN YEARS! I get mad on Sundays. Nine out ten holes in our walls are punched on Sundays.

Probably.

Then Chooch decided he was ready to dye his hair again after a nearly two year hiatus. He was originally going to go with ice blue, so we had to bleach it first. The blue didn’t take (it was a shitty brand) but it ended up being OK he decided he wants to keep his hair blond for a while.

Now he reminds me of David from the Lost Boys, which is weird because he’s actually wearing a Lost Boys shirt today that has David on it and I bought a 30-year-anniversary Lost Boys pin set, all without thinking about the connection. Lost Boys is life, though.

I pulled this shirt out of the back of my dresser drawer. MEMORIES! I haven’t ridden the Wacky Worm in like three years! At some point, I realized that I went on four walks that day, and started to wonder how many people call me the CRAZY BROOKLINE WALKER or THAT GIRL WHO ALWAYS WALKS IN GREEN SHORTS.

OMG I’m the new PURPLE PANTS!

GREEN SHORTS!

I don’t know, I think this color really works on him, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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Capped off Sunday with some Running Man and Game of Thrones and Chooch got grounded for not coming home before it got dark, HAHA good job dummy. (Except that Henry was over it by Monday so Chooch went back to walking all over him. Ah, family dynamics!)

And that’s all for my weekend.

The last thing I think of every night before I fall asleep is, “I can’t wait to have coffee in the morning.”

(Well, that and “Please don’t lop off my feet with your rusty scythe, Mr. Closet Monster.”)

Unless I’m on late shift, I don’t have my first cup of coffee until I get to work, and immediately afterward starts my daylong wonderfing of “when will I have my next coffee?” because I try to have restraint.

I drink too much coffee. I don’t have a problem admitting that. Out of all the “too muches” in my life, it’s probably the least detrimental.

My usual routine is to make coffee using the office Keurig. I have one of those pods that holds actual grounds so I never have to buy a box of k-cups again (anything for you, environment!). I really like going to Nicholas Coffee in Market Square for some fancy-ass bags of coffee but it’s temporarily CLOSED on account of the adjacent restaurant catching fire for like, the third time this year.

Ugh!

So I brought in a box of Maxim instant coffee that I bought specifically after watching a video from Henry’s favorite Korean cooking lady on iced coffee.

(Gold star alert: I found it at the Korean market in the Strip because I could read the box! Granted, it also says “Maxim” in English but I saw the Hangeul first!)

I was expecting this to be disgusting because, you know, instant coffee like what is this 1993. But no! It’s delicious! And now I don’t have to fuck around with refilling the water in that damn Keurig when the person who uses it before me inevitably walks away with the ADD MORE WATER light flashing.

I’m sure I will eventually buy a bag of fancy coffee but it’s nice to know that I have a super convenient alternative that doesn’t taste like shit.

MY LIFE IS SO EXCITING.

I also have been drinking this delightful coffee milk tea in the afternoons. Everyone was all “oh ho ho ho, you have fun with that!” Because I have struck out with this brand of bagged-beverage before.

But holy shit, this shit is great too! It’s so good that I talked Amber and Glenn into trying it too and they both agreed that it was good and that they would probably drinking again (Glenn begrudgingly so).

It literally does taste like tea and coffee, in one cup, with a dash of cream. It is so good! I don’t know why or how it works, but it just does. Additionally, if you drink it anytime other than 3:15, you won’t actually die like I thought!

But I do have a small growth—I mean, what, no, I’m fine. It’s fine. Coffee tea milk is fine!

**********

In “outside-of-the-office” coffee news, I have been searching for new places to get my iced lattes, which I tend to get once or twice a week as a gift for making it halfway through the day without (royally) screwing anything up at work or if Henry says no to me about something and I need to pair my pout with some espresso.

Typically, I go to Crazy Mocha (there are several around town) for a lavender latte but I’m growing tired of the same girl asking me every time, “Have you ever had this mixed with vanilla?” like it’s my first rodeo with lavender and hello, why doesn’t she know me by now?! I order the same freaking thing every time. UGH I AM SO FORGETTABLE. The other locations don’t always have the lavender syrup so I don’t fuck with them anymore.

Occasionally I will go to Coffee Tree Roasters to get a maple latte, and I love their goddamn lattes, but — and this is embarrassing — the door to their building confuses me and my anxiety over the impending exit starts to build before I even order my stupid drink and then I always end up making a commotion when I’m trying to leave.

Unfailingly!!

So that’s a situation I try to avoid.

If I’m really looking to splurge, I’ll walk to Colony Cafe in the Strip because they have one of the best lattes in town BUT they’re kind of pricey—$5-something and then I always leave a tip because the people there are so goddamn nice, plus it’s a cat cafe (not a good one like you see in Korea and Japan, though. The cats are in a separate upstairs area and you have to reserve a block of time to chill with them, which is probably a good thing because then I’m not going back to work, like, “Look at the new fur pants I bought down the street at Burlington, guys!”

All of this is to say that I needed to change shit up a bit, so I used Yelp (ugh for days) and found a place called Gasoline Street Coffee Company that I had never heard of, probably because it’s on a different side of the city and not as convenient as the Starbucks inside our building, so why would anyone from work go there unless they’re psycho over stupid shit like me.

I had to use Google maps to help me get there because I don’t know street names and the only directions I can follow are things that involve landmarks, like, “Turn left where your stalker works and then make a hard right at the corner where the Dunkin’ Donuts protester stands with his middle fingers up.” While I was following the moving blue dot on my phone, Henry called.

“I can’t talk to you right now, I’m on a mission,” I said in my secret agent voice.

“OK, bye,” he said, and then HUNG UP. He didn’t even ask me what my mission was?!

You may be shocked to know that I followed my map accordingly and found the damn place. It’s located in an area I have never been on foot before (for my Pittsburgh peeps, it’s over by the First Avenue T station) so I had to walk beneath overpasses and it was pretty daunting. There was some construction going on nearby too so I kept expecting to get jack-hammered or hit by a rogue chunk of asphalt. You don’t know my fears.

Except that now you do. God, why can’t I be more mysterious!?

Since I was on late shift and taking my break much later in the day, I rolled up to this spot about 40 minutes before their 5pm closing time. The decor is old gas station/repurposed licence plate chic, and I feel like that trend peaked in the late 90s, right? But it didn’t feel too hipster-y, so I was willing to embrace the outdated-ness as vintage.

There was one man sitting in a balcony-thing, reading a paper. Other than that, the place was dead. The coffee counter was located halfway up a ramp, to the side, and it was so awkwardly situated that I had to practically stand on tiptoes to see over top of the counter. When the guy asked me for my order, I told him it was my first time there and he said, “Oh take your time” and started to walk away.

“No, I mean, what do you recommend?” I called after him.

He had next to no personality and was clearly lacking any drop of desire to engage in my wishy-washy coffee needs. I was hoping he would say something like, “Well, if I were YOU, I would get a cortado because we use blah blah blah beans and then blah it and add some blah” or maybe he would gesture to the Specialty Drinks portion of the chalkboard behind him and give some smooth sales pitch about matcha.

But instead, with a sigh, he started naming things like, “Coffee, tea, lemonade” like OK I get it, bro. So I interrupted him and just ordered my go-to iced latte.

THEY DIDN’T HAVE SOY so I got it with coconut milk instead. Then I had to stand on the ramp, on an angle, while he made the damn thing and it was kind of like standing in line for an elevated ride at an amusement park but WITH LESS THRILL.

It was fine. It was reasonably priced. But it was just a latte.

^^^Just a latte.

Of course, now that I had a real menu in front of me and I was back on a level surface, I was able to take my time and really give it a good perusal and now I wish I had ordered the Chocolate Orange, whaaaat!? I guess I will have to go back someday, maybe this week.  I can’t commit to anything right now though.

Also last week, I was in the Strip and decided to stop at Prestogeorge, which I have never been to for some reason. They’re located far enough away from my work that I really had to quicken my pace, so I was full-blown sweating by the time I got there.

I ordered an iced cinnamon latte and it was super refreshing and lovely, but the best part about this place was that the people working there were very down-to-earth and didn’t have a single drop of barista snob in them. For as much as I love coffee, I usually stick with straight-up hot coffee, lattes, cold brews, and macchiatos (the real kinds), so sometimes when I feel like trying something different, it can be daunting! I have had so many baristas make me feel stupid. So if I can walk into a place and join in a conversation about Pink Floyd’s The Wall and then only pay $4 for a latte AND a lemon fig bar thing instead of the NINE DOLLARS it would cost me at Crazy Mocha, then you’ve got yourself a new regular customer.

Except that I can’t be TOO regular of a customer because it’s a far walk and sometimes I have other parts of town to visit on my aimless lunch break walks YOU DON’T KNOW MY LIFE.

Also, the ladies at Prestogeorge loved my birdcage ring and I love it when people love my jewelry because for someone who hates small talk, I sure wear a lot of conversational pieces.

OK, and that has been 1700+ words on the coffee I drink at work. I am truly such an interesting person. Sign-ups to be my friend are hanging on the glass window behind the milk crate that my favorite homeless guy sits on. If you have any questions, I’ll  just be over here drinking my second cup of Maxim coffee.