Oh Honestly, Erin

1. Remember two years ago when I wrecked our 6mth old car in the cemetery – literally crashed into an ancient road marker – and I was so terrified of my MEAN SON being MEAN to me so I told him Henry did it and then Henry had to go along with it (“Yes, I am a big dumb idiot man, I crashed the car because I am stupid and reckless.”) which meant also telling everyone he worked with that he did it because one of his co-workers at the time was the best friend of his OTHER son who was living next door to us at the time and if HE knew the truth it was possible that something would slip and Chooch would find out? PANT PANT. The WEB OF LIES! The spiraling fibs! Are you following??!!

Well, last weekend I decided I couldn’t keep the secret any longer and texted Chooch to come downstairs for a family meeting. He was like NO I AM COMFORTABLE IN BED, WATCHING TV so I had to go upstairs and tell him and he was like “ok and? Is that all? You actually wanted me to get dressed and come downstairs for THAT?” Also, he said he doesn’t even remember any of this so that’s nice. Good for me. Got that off my chest.

THE PILLAR THING.

2. Henry and I had an argument tonight because one time 20 years ago we were on a haunted hayride and I said something hilarious and he didn’t laugh and then some older woman said a discount version of my joke and he laughed so hard he was practically choking. I brought it up just now because it is clearly something that still PISSES ME OFF and he claims this never happened so I said LET ME PULL OUT MY HAUNTED HOUSE JOURNAL FROM THAT YEAR because I am sure I wrote about it while crushing the pen in my hand, imagining it was…OTHER THINGS. “Oh ok like I believe ANYTHING you write in your JOURNALS!” he just scoffed and now we will spend the rest of the eve arguing about THAT remark so let me get round 2 started with this unflattering photo of him trying to look unbothered while eating JARRED HERRING at the neighbor’s house last week!!! 😡

(Lowkey I just took both of those stories straight from my Instagram captions because I am too L-Z to rewrite it for this landmine of broken grammar.)

3. Speaking of the neighbors! We just came back from having tea and snacks with Tamanna and her older son. Well, he just sits there and tries to his best to watch things on his phone to block us out, but she often needs his assistance with translations so he is a good kid and sticks around. Anyway, I was honest with her and told her that I am attempting to diet – not really DIET per se, but I am back to food journaling because the stress of life and the world in general lately has been unraveling all of my hard work over the last 10 years. So, I’m just trying to stay on track with my nutrition. However! While we were there, my stomach was rumbling pretty bad and I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling too great. Probably GAS, but she asked me if I wanted something for it. I was like, “Yes please” thinking she was going to come back with Tums or something, but instead she had a large jar of honey, right? BUT IT WASN’T HONEY. It was a mysterious blend of spices that she ground up herself from an ancient recipe, I don’t know, and she was like, “Take one spoonful then drink water, my daughter and I love this, we lost 5kg.” OH THIS IS SOME KIND OF NATURAL WEIGHT LOSS WITCHERY? Lemme at it! I took that spoonful down like a fucking CHAMP because WEIGHT LOSS YOU SAY? Anyway, it was P O T E N T as expected but also very very very interesting. There was definitely ginger in it, but also a bunch of more savory spices that I couldn’t place because I’m not one of them there cookers, you know?  Anyway, she said I should notice a difference tomorrow and if I want, I can come back for another spoonful. OK watch me be knockin’ on her door every day. She found a hook me, you guys!

4. I found a way to incorporate one of my favorite clown pictures into a piece of furniture and I am very excited about it!

5. What do my fellow American friends reading this have planned for Thanksgiving? We go back and forth between sometimes having a “big”ish dinner to not giving a shit. This is one of the not giving a shit years. We were originally going to pre-order food from Onion Maiden, but true to fucking form, they had “issues” with their online ordering and then within 15 minutes the one thing that I wanted was sold out, which launched Henry into his THESE FUCKING ‘RESTAURANTS’ THESE DAYS rant which Onion Maiden ALWAYS has him pulling out the soapbox for, so we were like, “Fuck it, Zenith it is.” At least with Zenith, if you order during the window they provide, you know you’re going to have food on Thanksgiving Day. Henry said, “THIS IS IT, I AM DONE WITH ONION MAIDEN. IT WOULD BE LESS ANNOYING TO DRIVE TO COLUMBUS TO GET SEITAN REALM’S PRE-COOKED THANKSGIVING MEALS!!” I mean, also much more delicious too. But I’m happy that we get Zenith for Thanksgiving! The ol’ tried and true – and their cakes are the best so I’ll be content.

Chooch and I used to have a tradition of watching birthday party videos on YouTube and making fun of the kids. Maybe we will revive that trend this year. Who knows. He will probably tell us that morning that he has to work.

Dude, I have nothing else left in me. This Friday 5 is terrible but when aren’t they?!

Sorry, I needed that to rhyme because I have a disorder. I feel like I haven’t done a Friday Five in a while and today is Friday so what better day to resuscitate this dumb series?

1. I know you guys probably thought I’d still be obsessing over the Taemin comeback, and I am! I am. BUT. Just listen. Listen, Linda. WayV came out of leftfield with their best song yet, IMO and I haven’t been able to stop listening to and dissecting it. I even got JANNA obsessed with it. I think she’s mostly just happy that it’s the one NCT unit that doesn’t include Haechan so I can’t scream, “WHO’S THAT JANNA??” whenever Haechan has screen time. Anyway, this song does that thing that presses down on something in my brain that makes me nostalgic for something that I can’t explain?? It feels like my heart is breaking and you know, like a toothache, I have a love/hate with that feeling because I’m psycho. I will share both Chinese and English versions with you because I’m such a sweetheart.

Kun is such a bias wrecker for me in this song particularly. Jesus.

2. I talked to my landlord for the first time ever last week. Just to put that in perspective, I have rented this place since 1999 (ughhh) but his dad was the OG landlord (and an awesome one at that). But after he died, the son took over in 2007 and it’s been not great since. Anyway!! You know it’s dire straits if I actually initiate conversation with these types of people on my own, but I saw him hulking around last week because he’s apparently come into some money and is “sprucing up the properties.” Mm. Watch the rent go up, but anyway. I come flying out of the house and he’s like, “Oh Erin I’m glad you’re home—” and I cut him off and start firing off questions to him about the new neighbors because as I mentioned earlier, I am actually losing sleep over this situation and am so stressed out trying to help them get everything in order, these poor sweet people!!! UGH. Also, LOL I had no idea this guy even knew my name / who I am because Henry does all the dealings with him because he’s afraid I’ll lose my temper and get us evicted, but whatever. The whole point of this is that I got stuck talking to the dude for over 30 minutes and there were two occasions when he said really terrible things but I was too stunned by anger to open my mouth and speak up and have been dwelling on this for a week now and I really hate myself:

• • 1. He said that he gave the neighbor, Tamanna, a nickname. I’m thinking that it’s going to be something based on her personality or something related to the fact that she bakes a mean loaf of bread (Mean Loaf, maybe?) but NO. It’s TAMMY. “I told her that when you come to America, you can’t expect Americans to assimilate to YOU. We shouldn’t have to struggle to learn a long or difficult name. So – Tammy!” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Watch me NEVER call her Tammy. Watch me call her by her actual, beautiful name because fuck America, for real. OMG. FURTHERMORE HIS WIFE IS LITERALLY FROM CHINA. WHY IS HE LIKE THIS. HE DIDN’T CHANGE HER NAME TO MARY.
  • 2. Apparently, another Afghan (OH I’M SORRY, “AFGHANI” – because they’re objects, might as well call his wife ORIENTAL while we’re at, JESUS CHRIST) family was renting one of his other properties and don’t you know that when they moved out, they left it cleaner than it was when he bought it? AND HE BOUGHT IT FROM SOMEONE WITH OCD. Um, OK. Great story. But wait, he’s not done. “And it’s just crazy to think about it you know, since they came here after, what, living in a hut with dirt floors? But I guess they did what they could to keep the dirt floors clean too, probably.”  Yeah. I needed to swish my skull with acid after that chat.

3. Chooch had me read some of his draft college essays and….Jesus. Thank god this kid is such a math and computer whiz because….just because. The one essay had something to do with, I can’t remember, it doesn’t matter. But it began with something about how before he started high school, he never thought about computer science, he never thought about anything. HE. NEVER. THOUGHT. ABOUT. ANYTHING. This was in an essay. An essay that COLLEGES ARE GOING TO READ and be like, “Well, we don’t want someone who doesn’t think. Next.” I knew what he was trying to say, that he never thought about any future career path at that point because he goes on to talk about a class he took in 9th grade that shifted everything for him, so he was on the right track but OMG I’m not rewriting his essays for him, don’t get it twisted, but I am certainly pointing things out and saying, “Let’s uh, rethink this sentence here, shall we?”

Then there was one about his time in Mexico. “Really? You had ‘though-provoking discussions about socio-political issues’?” I screamed incredulously.

“Yeah,” he said. And then, “Well, I didn’t. But Julian [his roommate] did. And I was there. So.”

Then in the same essay he mentioned going to a playground and playing soccer with a group of younger boys who only spoke Spanish and there was a broken slide there. “What’s the point of mentioning the broken slide? Did you fix it for them or something?” and he goes, “No….but do you think I should say that??”

OMG.

He also used “tantalizing” in one of them and I made him change it so fast before my body cringed so hard that it caved in on itself. “You didn’t use ‘scintillating’ in here anywhere, too, did you?” I asked, feeling fully assaulted. Ugh.

4. We were over the neighbors’ one night last week and, please remember that we are either sitting there in silence smiling at our hands as they rest in our laps or we’re struggling to use Google Translate in Conversation mode. It’s…so difficult but worth it when we’re able to establish a groove. This is usually only when the 13-year-old boy is around though because what I’m learning, I THINK, is that Turkish is his main language, but Dari is his mom’s main language, so he is better at Google translate than she is since Dari isn’t on there and she has to default to Turkish. If he is across the room, he knows before she even finishes speaking into the phone that it’s going to be wrong, and he’ll cluck his tongue and come over to do it for her. It’s adorable, really. Anyway!! This one particular night, we were sitting there, and the 10-year-old boy came downstairs. He grabbed the remote from the 13yo (we gave them Chooch’s old smart TV because I dunno what this agency is doing – like please give this family some creature comforts, you know? I know a TV isn’t technically a necessity but come on. Anyway! He grabs the remote and changes whatever his brother was watching on YouTube and I wasn’t paying attention until I realized, “Hark! Is that….KOREAN that I hear?” You guys, the way the Korean language makes me feel, it’s inexplicable. I imagine it’s how some people are so drawn to French. Korean is my French, boy. It makes my ear drums and heart feel like they’re wrapped up in the warmest, fluffiest blankest on Christmas Eve. Just so comfortable and familiar. OK, so that happens and then I go, “STRAY KIDS?” and Henry and I exchange a HA! look because STRAY KIDS. The kid looks at me and goes, “Stray Kids.” And I ask, “DO YOU LIKE STRAY KIDS??” and he legit gives me this look like, “Duh, who doesn’t??” so then I showed him videos on my phone from when Henry and I went to see them in 2022! Then I pushed it too far by asking if he also likes NCT. He looked at me blankly so I showed him a picture and he quickly waved them off and said, “No.” Wow, ok, so I have work to do. Challenge accepted. I will mold this child into a NCTzen before you know it, don’t fret.

5. We got a new storm door put on last week after years of not having one because it was like 206 years old and was so broken that Henry eventually just ripped it off like A MAD MAN. It will be nice in the spring and summer to keep the door open like old times. I’m hoping that by then, my cats will have adjusted to it because right now, they are living in fear of The Door.

It’s really concerning sometimes how freaking skittish these two are! Well, Drew way more so than Penelope. I think Penelope has already acclimated to it but Drew just stares at it in fear regardless if the main door is open or not. SHE KNOWS THAT THERE IS ANOTHER DOOR BEHIND IT NOW AND SHE DOESN’T LIKE IT.

Well, that’s all for me. I have to go back to watching NCT content on YouTube now while asking Henry, “Is it done yet? Is it done yet?” re: my upgraded Seoul Subway Sign.

Woo the end of another week! Now for a whiplash weekend and then right back on the hamster wheel.

Well, here are five things.

1. This time next week, I will be crying into my hands and also probably drowning on my tears because I will also be screaming at the same time WHY BECAUSE I WILL BE AT THE NCT DREAM CONCERT, THAT’S WHY. Ugh, I’m so excited for this! This is the Dreamies’ first North American tour and I honestly was starting to think that SM was never going to send them here! The closest they have ever been was in 2019 when they performed at some boy scout event in WEST VIRGINIA?! And guess where I was? IN KOREA.

I got this patch and I have to put it on my jean jacket before I leave for Chicago!!!!! I even set an alert on my phone for Thursday to make sure I don’t forget my Haechan pendant because I forgot it when I went to see NCT127 (Haechan is in both groups in case you’re not fully immersed in this scene and did not know!) last fall!

Kpop brings so much joy to my life. I spend all week being a grown up with a serious job (except for when it’s not serious like when we’re talking about lamb cakes, cults, and DOUG in group chat) so please just step off and let me be a teenager when I’m off the clock. It’s literally my survival mode, lol.

2. Dude, Robert Smith was going OFF on Ticketmaster the week that the Cure tickets went on sale. He was like, “TM, I’M WATCHING YOU” and called them out on every shady fucking thing they did after he explicitly told them how it was going to be. I love him so much for trying. It still wasn’t a perfect system and it was still extremely stressful, but he really really really tried to prevent price gouging  and even forced Ticketmaster to issue partial refunds for some shifty fee that they tried to slide in without him noticing. Or something – I didn’t really understand it and was honestly so tired of Ticketmaster and everything related to it at this point because I had to fight for NCT Dream tickets and Cure tickets within like, 5 days of each other and I was already stressed out about actual Life Things so this just really skyrocketed my blood pressure.

3. Speaking of tickets and stress, Henry officially booked our flights tonight for our upcoming trip in August and I’m excited but also feel sick because we are not rich people and it felt like straight up hemorrhaging money. It’s also making me nervous because the last time we attempted an international trip, the whole world went on lockdown literally two weeks before our departure date. So, while I want to run laps around the house and scream about how I can’t wait, I’m just sitting here with a blanket wrapped around me, thinking about the myriad ways this trip could get canceled. That’s yo’ girl, miss brightside!

4a. A few weeks ago, I saw a “TIP” on YouTube about how TOASTING oatmeal before adding milk/water makes it taste better. I CAN DO THAT, I thought. So I tried it one day, with some cinnamon sprinkled in there too, and I smugly showed Heney when he tentatively entered the kitchen to see what I was doing. “Just be careful, because that can burn really fast, especially with how you like to cook with the highest heat,” Henry warned me and I got SO PISSED, like go sit down, homedad, and let me do my kitchen thang. I watched the YouTube video, I know what I’m doing! Anyway, I had a good streak of success – like 3 or 4 whole times of cooking toasted oatmeal (I’m not really sure I could taste the difference to be honest), but then today, it happened. It finally happened. Henry’s premonition came true and I fucking BURNT my oatmeal. I mean, it was pretty noticeable too, like half of it looked charred. I still added the almond milk and other hot cereal accoutrements, because I didn’t feel like starting over. And let me tell you – toasted? I can’t tell. Burnt? Um, yeah, I could taste the difference, lol. It was so fucking sad. Also, I feel like burnt oatmeal is some sort of very obvious metaphor for my life.

4b. Related: Henry said I should cook only with a wok since I love the highest heat setting.

5. Today, a new RMC (MY FAVE COASTER MANUFACTURER) coaster opened at Fun Spot Atlanta and I am SO PISSED that Chooch had to go and fuck up his knee because next week is spring break and we could have potentially gone there to ride it!!!! Henry pointed out that, no we couldn’t, because we have to go see NCT Dream but HELLO we could have just gone to see them IN ATLANTA. Two birds, etc etc. GOOD JOB, CHOOCH. Anyway, I spent all day watching on ride videos from all the coaster enthusiasts on YouTube and my FOMO is next level.

OK, that’s all I have. I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you (lol, you) about how I finally met one of my most OG LiveJournal friends last Sunday! Also tomorrow, Kara is coming over to dye Easter eggs because we’re children and I haven’t hung out with her fully since waaaay before 2020 – the Pie Party 2022 doesn’t count because I barely got to talk to her so I’m excited for Henry to dump snacks on a plate and be our bitch for the evening like old times!

sup internet people. this was supposed to be a friday five but then Chooch had a half day and went over to Carnegie Mellon University to play soccer which I knew was happening and he does this a lot so whatever. But then Henry called me around noon because he was on his way to pick Chooch up because he fell and heard something snap!? You KNOW I got Jello legs immediately and started heavily panting, “OMG OMG OMG” as my voice gradually increased octaves.

“This is why I’m the one going to get him!” Henry said, before saying those 2 words that all women are so desperate to hear: CALM DOWN.

We love that.

Anyway, they went to Children’s Hospital because he couldn’t walk. They were there until nearly 6, mostly just waiting because it was so crowded, which prompted Henry to angrily text me about how “most of these kids could have went to the regular doctor!!!” LOL poor Henry. My friends at work kept me sane so I wasn’t fully melting down at least. Especially since Chooch responded “no” to all of my SRS INQUIRIES:

• DO YOU THINK IT IS BROKEN;
• IS IT BLEEDING;
• ARE YOU CRYING

His x-ray came back clear but they want us to schedule an MRI in a few days after the swelling goes down. I would also like to point out that it took both Henry and Chooch 5 hours to tell me that it was specifically the knee that’s hurt. So now he has a knee immobilizer and crutches and is MISERABLE. I haven’t seen him yet this morning but I’m bracing myself for what the day has in store.

In other not-Friday Five news, I got my hair refreshed on Thursday. I felt so bad because I went there straight from work and was basically emotionally closed off by then. I can’t explain it but the 2023 work vibes have been complete ass. I hope something changes soon, either there or within my broken self, because I am so on edge and irritated every day.

Anyway, here is my dumb hair. I got more purple peek-a-boos, I dunno why, I don’t go anywhere for anyone to see it lol. Wait – I do have to go to the library today so I guess my security guard friend Robert will see it, lol.

I was chilling alone in my seat for a bit when one of the other stylists, whose station is right behind where I was sitting, came to get her shit and said, “Bye honey.” I dunno why I responded this way, but a torrent of enthusiasm shot off of my mouth-cannon as I yelled, “BYE!” She…wasn’t talking to me, it turns out. I didn’t realize another stylist was out of my view and that’s who she was talking to. It wasn’t that big of a deal but I was already in a fragile state and in the span of .0003 seconds went from feeling included to a complete stoop. I don’t know why I responded with so much eagerness, like an orphan being tossed an ounce of attention.

Oh well, I got over it (she says 25 years later after referencing this moment for the 87th time).

Drew waiting patiently for Chooch to come home from the hospital.

THERE HE IS, MY BROKEN BABY!!!!!!!! He was so mad that I was waiting at the door. I tried to make him hug me but he was like, “Please stop.” Then Henry was outside moving the car so Chooch had to ask me, Helpless Mother, to take him shoe off and it was a real ordeal. “YOU COULD MAYBE UNTIE IT FIRST??” he yelled as I tried to yank it off and then I was laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants, and now Henry was back in the house, just in time to help him up the steps because believe me when I tell you that BOTH of us would have landed our asses back in the hospital had it been me helping.

Then I found out that Henry consoled him in the hospital at one point by saying, “At least it’s not your mother sitting here with you.” OK WOW. I was laughing though because Megan kept telling me at work to seriously leave if I needed to but I knew that no one wished for my hysterical presence so the best thing I could do was stay home, work, and wait.

Oh, and Chooch got a deck of cards and a word search book from a candy striper while he was there so that was probably a really big deal for him because he’s like me and loves:

• attention
• free toy-stuffs

My new thing is trying to contain the squirrels to the backyard so that they have more coverage if the HAWK comes back. This means that now when I tap on the backporch window, they know it’s FEEDING TIME and start popping up in the tree branches. One even popped out from under our car and looked up at me with his arms at his chest, like, “who? me? food?” This one Buddy always takes a peanut and leans agains the base of his treehouse to eat it. Sometimes he’s even propped up by an elbow and it kills me. I blurted out, “HE LOOKS LIKE TOM SAWYER” and this comparison really did not sit well with Henry. He could not wrap his mind around why Tom Sawyer would be the first person to come to mind so I got RULL defensive and had to google TOM SAWYER to show him depictions of the boy sitting on logs, eating apples, etc.

He still said it was a stretch and I said HE’S a stretch.

TELL ME YOU SEE IT TOO.

I have to go now. I have things to do today. Maybe.

No more moping. Here are five things that are bringing me the happies this week:

• Rewatching Laguna Beach and watching the Back to the Beach podcast videos with Kristin and Stephen on YouTube. I was so into this shit when it first aired on MTV. I mean, I had already graduated out of the show’s key demographic years prior, but did I care? Do I care? Pfft. Anyway, I hated Kristin so much back then, but I have grown to genuinely appreciate her over the years and the Back to the Beach episode that Lauren Conrad guested on was more than I ever could have hoped for. To hear them both apologize for the way they slut-shamed each back then? ICONIC. WE LOVE TO SEE IT. But yeah, that really hit, and it truly felt so sincere. Also, in one of episodes, Trey was using some small handheld thing and I had to call Henry into the room and cry, “WHY CANT I REMEMBER WHAT THATS CALLED” and he calmly said, “Palm Pilot.” Holy shit it’s so weird to think that Palm Pilots are obsolete now. Also, I do not miss low-rise jeans. Nope. Also interesting to note is that when Chooch asked me what I was watching, he was absolutely clueless. “The fuck is a Laguna Beach?” I was like YOU KNOW – LC? LAUREN CONRAD?? I wear her clothes from Kohls??? Nope, not a single iota of recognition flickered behind boy-child Gen Zer’s eyes.
• LOO PLANTS! Why did it take me so long to put plants in the bathroom? I have no idea. I had this hanging planter with nothing in it that was sitting all empty and dejected on the backporch so I put a pothos cutting in it (LOL OK OK OK calm down, Henry did it) and then ordered this gorgeous sacred heart rhinestone patch to glue on it, you know, to help it feel more at home in the holy shitter.

Isn’t it adorable???

• I did one of the best Paul Eugene workouts last night you guys and I want you to do it too!! I love Paul Eugene so much; I smile through all of his workouts!

• Butterscotch candies, just like grandma eats. I have stress-sucking on them all week long, and it brings little gleeks of joy into my mouth.
• NCT127’s new music video which was released today, on 127 day! (GET IT, BECAUSE IT’S JANUARY 27TH?!!? This was one of my favorite songs on their last album, and I love that they made this video themselves! The only downside is that Haechan isn’t in it because this was filmed during the second leg of their recent US tour (I think this was actually filmed in Atlanta, at least parts of it). Haechan stayed in Korea because he was having heart palpitations and had to go to the hospital! I am so glad that SM allowed him to hang back and get the rest he deserves. These idols are so overworked, it’s scary.