Hello! I don’t really have anything exciting going on (“When do you?” asks everyone in the balcony in the back of my mind) but I have some downtime in between my v. busy morning of writing correspondence, exercising, making a breakfast smoothie (I can use a blender-thing now!) and watching NCT Dream fan cams from the Seattle show.

I have been trying to be responsible by staying home lately on weekends so that Henry can get this fucking subway sign done. I know, I can go out without him but that would require me to either go out alone or make plans with other people but every time I pick up my phone to text someone like, “Wanna hang out” I feel sooooo tired. So, then I don’t. I have some social-y things coming up this week and into May, so I’m good, lol.

Anyway, he’s made great progress on the new sign but this is at the expense of my livelihood so…

Here are some things:

• Speaking of subways! I found *more* old photos the other day, just when I think I have finally lassoed them all up into photo boxes. I swear my house is like Mary Poppins’ tapestry bag. Anyway, I found a set of photos from my second trip with my grandparents and Sharon. This was my second time in London, but I think it was probably the first time I ever took a subway in any city, ever. I remember that we hung back from the tour group and did our own thing while we were in London, so that must have been why we were using the tube.

Of course Sharon has a Harrods bag. And that’s my Pappap and me in the background!

• In other back-in-the-day vacation news, remember back in February when I found a Christmas card from one of the families we had met on my first trip with my grandparents and Sharon, and I felt inspired to look up the daughter who was around my age? Well, I found what I had hoped was her address, sent her a card with my email address and IG handle, and then nothing happened for nearly 2 mths. I figured either:
  • • I had it completely wrong;
    • she emailed me back but it was directed to one of the OTHER Erin Kellys;
    • or she just totally didn’t remember me.
  • But then last weekend, I got an IG notification that someone named Olivia had started following me, and it was her!! I also got a card in the mail from her several days after that and it is wild to reconnect with someone after 30+ years. I’m excited to catch up and for us to start a new phase of our old friendship!
• All of this vintage vacation stuff has me so anxious to travel again. I know we booked our flights for our August trip but this fucking coaster club is being sooooo slow with getting the final payment info together. We’ve already paid into it a bit and this isn’t a new group or anything so if they end up saying that the trip is not happening, I am going to expect a fucking refund and then scramble to try and plan our own itinerary using the same flights because I am 100% married to this region we’re supposed to be traveling to. This isn’t their first big international trip either so I’m hoping that they’re just waiting for all of the parks to finalize things with them. They have confirmed some of the hotels (the one in Gothenburg is brand new – I was watching a YouTube video of its sneak peek soft opening and it looks so fucking beautiful) and several of the rides we can expect ERTs for, so there’s that at least.
  • The really annoying thing about this is that most of the information is being provided in the Facebook event they created for it so I have to use my dummy account that was created in order for me to be able to create Instragram ads for my stupid card shops. It’s just so infuriating when shit is done via Facebook. And there are already people who are annoying me bigly with their comments so that’s great. I hope there are some chill people that will be a part of this group! I think there are around 60 people who registered?
    • I started looking for a small bag to buy that’s bigger than a fannypack but not a full-sized crossbody, because I want to be able to tuck my vacation journal into it so that I can jot things down while in the parks rather than wait and try to frantically scribble everything down afterward in the hotel. “Just use Notes on your phone, Erin!” some might say, but I am very analog when it comes to “jotting things down,” lol. Also, I will want to be saving my phone battery for pictures/videos. Anyway, I think I am going with a bag I found from Baboon to the Moon because I like that brand. I WILL KEEP YOU POSTED, in case you are heavily invested in bags.
• Chooch turns 17 on Tuesday! I’m sad that he hasn’t been cleared yet by his doctor to be more active because I would have planned a weekend amusement park trip, subway sign be damned. I asked him if there was anything at all that he would like to do and he said no so we just bought him a new/bigger TV and he’s happy. I guess now that I think about it, when I was his age I also didn’t really care about doing anything for my birthday but I was also depressed because of my Pappap dying and the most I would agree to was having my BFFs Lisa and Christy come over and we ate cake with my mom and brothers in the kitchen. It was all I needed, really! But as a mom, I of course always want to something big for Chooch’s birthday so I will just need to shut my mouth and accept the fact that he’s just not into birthdays like I am.. :(
• My record player broke a few years ago and I never replaced it, mostly because it was around the time that I got into Kpop and so my interests shifted. But lately, more and more Kpop groups are releasing vinyl and I feel like the attic would be a great spot for a record nook so now I’m going to start to prioritize that, I guess. I can’t even remember what my old one was other than it was actually old, like a real turntable from back in the day and not one of these newfangled ones that people are buying at UO because they look cool but then chew up the vinyl. So, you know, no Crosleys for me, thanks. But I’m also not in the market for something super audiophile-centric and $$$$ either. I just want something reliable without sacrificing quality. I don’t know why I just plopped down so many words about this, how boring.
• Onion “we are closing, this is our last day” Maiden magically “reopened” 2 weeks later for a 420 pop-up event. I’m just so tired of restaurants acting like they’re motherfucking bands, getting everyone all worked up because they’re “disbanding” only to come back with reunion shows. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a disgruntled old people but the veg/vegan scene is so fucking obnoxious. It makes me not even want to be supportive of it, just stock my freezer with mass-produced veggie patties and call it a day. I don’t know, I got a seitan sandwich from the pop-up and it was just OK so I’m officially not broken up over this. I will just continue to patronize vegan establishments in other cities when we travel because I’m over this idiocy here. Also, the ordering process for the pop-up was just as jacked up as we expected. It’s vegan food, not a Taylor Swift ticket purchasing event. Either make a decent quantity of your food or don’t do it at all, get over yourself. Every goddamn city we have traveled to has had vegan restaurants that don’t close their doors after two hours because they “sold out.” Just normal-ass restaurants that you walk into, sit down, order, eat. Boom. Here in Pgh, you’re better off going to a regular restaurant that has “vegan/vegetarian” options on the menu, I swear to god. As someone who has not eaten meat since 1996, I find this whole “scene” completely appalling and pretentious.

On that note, I need a snack. Goodbye.

Some things I want to be rememberin’ JUST IN CASE:

1. Easter 2023

This was the first year in quite some time where we didn’t really do anything for Easter. :( Henry and I got home from Chicago the night before, so we technically could have had a picnic or something, but who wants to be preparing a picnic the day after a road trip? Probably not Henry. We still put together a basket for Chooch which he half-cared about, and then later we went for a cemetery stroll but Chooch didn’t want to go because of his “knee” but he’s been back in action with his after school carousin’ so how much longer are we gonna be playing the OW MY KNEE card, hmmm? We also went to Kung Fu for boba and brought the crybaby one home too. So annoying.

Then I literally spent the rest of Easter watching YouTube content of the Chicago 7Dream concert and crying, like legit leaking big fat wet tears down my fat cheeks because I have the post-show sads in a bad way, which is also why I still haven’t blogged about the experience. Even right now, my behind-eyes are burning.

2. Don’t Hire Chooch to Squirrel Sit

Before we left Thursday, I kept giving Chooch instructions on how to feed the squirrels. “And don’t put the peanuts out front, because they’ll be tempted to cross the street with them, you have to put them—”

“—in the backyard on that fence, yeah I know, and I am NOT leaving the house to feed them,” Chooch said in disgust, never once looking away from MINECRAFT – why is he playing this again?? He has been playing this game since he was like 5, I swear to god.

Friday seemed OK. He sent me pictures of the cats “not missing” me, evidently (yeah right, we are fucking besties) and then sent two pictures of the squirrels sitting in the backyard like gangsters, gnawing on their peanut shells.

But then on our way home Saturday, THIS EXCHANGE HAPPENED:

UM NO, THEY NEED TO BE FED MULTIPLE TIMES THROUGHOUT THE DAY! When I skip down the driveway with my pumpkin pail of peanuts, they start scurrying down from the trees in anticipation of 4th, 5th, maybe even 9th meal.

When they saw me on Sunday, they seemed PISSED Especially Girl Buddy, who is used to special treatment. :(

3. Bitch, You’re DNF’d

You guys, this was the very beginning of a mystery I picked up from the library, and I was so put off by the writing.

I even dramatically read it out loud to Henry in the car on the way home from Chicago and he was like, “I don’t understand those words.” If I’m reading literary fiction or a contemporary novel, fine. There is a time and a place. But this is not what I from a mystery so I DNF’d after a few chapters. Also, there was so indication that this was book #3 in a series but then I saw it listed as such on Goodreads, and I am definitely not trying to read a whole series written this way.

4. NCTFlair

I bought more pins for my NCT jacket! This is specifically NCT Dream, I guess. I’m so giddy about it because Chooch had already hated it when there were only two patches on it so now I’m going to wear it every time we leave the house together.

Renjun & Haechan <3

I mean, Drew is a fan.

5. Obigatory NCT Video

I may not be ready to recap my experience just yet, but I am always ready to share videos of NCT Dream, lol. Anyway, I still can’t believe I got to see a version of this in Chicago. I think I might have PTSD though. Please do yourself a favor and click through to YouTube to watch this. (Fun fact: it’s Henry’s favorite NCT performance – srsly, ask him!)

OK, sorry, this whole post was a cop-out but I am sad/depressed/stressed – this was another rough work week and I am just generally annoyed by everything and have a very short fuse, so honestly if I’m not over here navel-gazin’ about NCT, I’m just going to be typing out vitriolic hate posts that won’t do anyone any good.

Maybe I need to plan another party or something.

Anyway, have a great weekend. Eat a taco or something. Isn’t that a feel-good activity for normal Americans?

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!

Today was one of the least annoying days I’ve had in a bit.

Too lazy to blog for real but I will give you a little succinct update spotlighting the two points of good news:

1. After chooch got his MRI on Monday, the results were emailed to us and of course Henry and I were googling “how to become an orthopedic doctor in 5 minutes.” The results seemed…not great? I saw things like TEAR and DEEP FISSURE and EDEMA and other things that sounded like fancy ways to expand the syllables of OUCH. But today the surgeon called after reviewing and his explanation was basically BAD BONE BRUISE. I did not know that was a thing but I googled it and it sounds like a not great thing. But!! The upside is that he thinks it should heal on its own and recommends that Chooch continue to wear the brace for another 4 weeks and he’ll have a follow-up appointment at the end of March too. My big question for doc is WHEN CAN HE RIDE ROLLERCOASTERS AGAIN? Now? Is it now? Hmm? Did you say NOW??
2. Tickets for the Cure’s North American tour went on sale today.
   buy amoxicillin online petalk.com/files/psd/amoxicillin.html no prescription

   The verified fan thing was pretty messy but I did get us two seats and those two tickets combined still cost less than half of what I paid for one ticket to NCT Dream and even lesser than NCT 127 but let’s not talk about that. Let’s just be thankful that I got two reasonably priced tickets to see my favorite band of all time even though they said that their 2000 tour was going to be the last one and here we are, 23 years later and this will be my…7th time to see them? Don’t make me count. It’s relax-y time. Kara checked in with me today to make sure I was alive and more importantly, obtained tickets. Happy to confirm!

I told Henry I should find someone to take with me, someone who might actually propose to me. I think he said, “go ahead” which harkened back to the time I briefly dated this guy Erik and then some random guy named … Kevin? I dunno his name, I had literally just met him at a gas station and invited him over to party lol.

Ok so Kevin asked Erik if he could have me and Erik said BE MY GUEST.

The best/worst part is that I have this on VIDEO somewhere.

I’m writing this in bed and have to go now because the man who won’t marry me is snoring and I need to lodge my knee firmly into his ass.

Ending yet another blog post apropos of nothing, we are.

I don’t feel like counting today so let’s do freeform and not limit ourselves to just five things, k?

• I found out the other night that Henry has NEVER SEEN STEEL MAGNOLIAS. I am shook over this. I have been quoting from and referencing this movie ever since I saw it as a kid and he has not once in the 21 years we’ve been not-married has he once stopped me and asked, “Wait, what is that from? Oh, I have never seen that.” NOT ONCE!! Wel, until the other night. So, once! HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT WAS ABOUT. I rapid-fire listed off the entire cast to him and he was like, “No, this still doesn’t tell me anything” so then I made him watch trailers for it on YouTube and then an entire episode of Donahue (LOL) with Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly, and Julia Roberts (and later – Tom Skerritt!) which just made me remember how much I despised Phil Donahue as a kid. What an asshole he was, truly. But also, the audience members were FUCKING ME UP. They all looked like Barb from Stranger Things, basically. Even the men. Everyone looked like a mom back then.
  buy tadalafil online buy tadalafil generic

• Because I’m a big person, I can be real with you and say that after more than a decade of hating on Miley Cyrus’s music, I actually finally like one of her songs and Chooch pointed out that it’s probably only because she SORT OF sounds like Lady Gaga in it (“Flowers”) and I think he might be right. This song does give Lady Gaga vibes. But yeah, I like it so much that it’s the ONLY non-kpop workout routine I will do on the Give Me Five Thailand channel.  But yeah, I truly can’t believe I like a Miley Cyrus song. Who am I becoming. A 1990s mom in the Donahue audience.

PHUCK YOU PHIL.

• I was talking to HNC’s squirrel-hating wife the other morning. Cross-driveway relations have been calm and peaceful lately probably because it’s still winter-ish so she’s not out there trying to crucify my Buddys for digging up her plants lol. Anyway, we were talking mostly about Chooch’s injury and I have to say, it’s nice of her to be concerned about him, actually. But anyway, she was then telling me about how her 18-year-old granddaughter went to Georgia recently for a concert and because I’m a judgmental bitch ass, I scoffed in my head, “Pfft, probably some lame country singer” but then she gestured toward me and said, “It was that NCT, actually” and e-friends, when I tell you that I made my screechy voice ricochet up and down the driveway and bounce off the houses like a tennis ball when I yelled, “OMG I LOVE NCT!” – I’m downplaying it a bit. I kind of had delayed embarrassment that settled onto my mind after I went back in the house.
  buy filitra online buy filitra generic

  You know the kind, where you suddenly an instant playback of what you did and the only correct reaction at that point is one of OH SHIT LOL? Yeah, it was that. Anyway! After my outburst, she goes, “Yeah I know” and that’s when I realized that she was gesturing at me when she said “NCT” because I was wearing my NCT sweatshirt. Love being so dense.

• Went to dinner at Scolio’s with some friends last week and had to boomerang our wine bottle, which I kept as a souvenir because…that’s just what I do. I keep things. Yo, when we were cleaning out the attic, I found a PENNY in a ziplock bag with a piece of paper from a hotel that said, “LUCKY PENNY FOUND IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SAUNA AT OUR HOTEL.” It was from 1989!!! Did I throw it away after finding it in a box in the attic? NO, I MOVED IT TO ANOTHER BOX!!!!

• Did you read my story about the drunk Yinzer Jennifer Coolidge?!!?
• This morning, I was trying to hand Chooch his crutches when he was getting out of the car at school and he was like, “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP, YOU’RE SO EMBARRASSING” so I said, “WELL I CAN’T JUST SIT IN THE CAR BECAUSE THEN I LOOK LIKE A DEADBEAT MOTHER” and his friend Zakk was just standing there like, “THIS IS WHY I KEEP MY EARBUDS IN.” Chooch-on-Crutches has got to be in Top 3 least favorite versions of Chooch.

• Henry won’t stop talking to me from the other room and I getting really mad. CAN’T HE SEE THAT I HAVE MY BLOGGING HAT ON.
• Today I saw someone spell broccoli  as”brochli” and I am to the point where I don’t know what to think anymore, come n’ get me, gaslighters, that I actually googled it before making fun of the spelling in case it was some new hybrid vegetable that they’re serving up at all those pretentious FARM TO TABLE establishments. No, just an idiotic spelling error. This same person also spelled potato as “potatoe,” so congrats on winning the Dan Quayle Vegetable Spelling Bee.

• My NCT Dream bias Renjun released this today and I am in love.
  buy orlistat online buy orlistat generic

• I just glanced over at Henry who is at the computer doing greeting card orders and he was full-body flailing to Aespa’s “Girls” but no, he does not like Kpop. I force this on him and he is miserable, he hates it so much.
  • OMG I just realized that he is trying to do the actual choreography, my face skin is flaming on his behalf.
• I had two different nightmares about the hawks this week. They have actually ruined my life.

Well, I think this is all I feel like writing right now. It was another long and frustrating week.

*sorry I needed the alliteration, I CLAIM POETIC LICENSE.

Since I have been sorting through boxes of my entire life’s history, I’ve been unearthing some really…interesting shit. I will say that the prospect of becoming a certified hoarder in my elder years has really terrified me into pitching a ton of stuff, mostly the boxes upon boxes of pen pals letters. Because let’s be real: when am I ever going to read those?? And when I die, Chooch will definitely just have all of my stuff 86’d anyway so might as well lessen the load now.

Anyway! I thought, wow, what a fun Friday Five it would be to share some of the handwritten notes I’ve unearthed recently. I actually had so many options, but I narrowed it down to these five for today and maybe I will do more in the future, LIKE A SERIES??

1. AARON LOVES ERIN

I have definitely posted about this on here before, but it was a very long time ago and I think I just transcribed it. But today you get the ACTUAL LETTER.

It’s like my dad always said: I have a personality only a prisoner could love.

2. A Postcard from my Grandma

1989! This would have been my first trip to Europe, but no mention of all the times I embarrassed my grandma by being a frumpy fatty. LOL, jk kind of. I don’t think I have ever noticed how my grandma’s handwriting fluctuated between lowercase and uppercase – I do that too for sure but not that harshly! The randomly capitalized “e”s are really intriguing to me. I wonder what that means, from a handwriting analysis standpoint? Any pros here wanna weigh in?

P.S. LOL @ how she accidentally signed the card with their names and had to scratch it out.

3. VANETTA ROCKS

You guys, when I found this card, I literally said, “AWWW” out loud. Vanetta was the teenaged daughter of the people who, many moons ago, lived next to Hot Naybor Chris except that it was so long ago  that he didn’t even live there yet! Her family had already been living on this block for some time before I moved in back in 1999 and they had at least 3 other kids (I want to say two younger girls and a boy). You know I hate me some children, but I really, truly enjoyed the presence of these kids. They were just…really good and sweet. Back then, neighbors used to actually talk to each other and we’d have small block parties from time to time. I can remember one of the girls (Kristen I feel like her name was?) having a birthday so I went out and got her a present which probably wasn’t anything wild but I fully remember her being so appreciative.

Really liked that family a lot. Now Vanetta – she was the oldest and I feel like perhaps she was a half-sibling to the rest? I think she had a different dad and she was very sweet but kind of troubled. She glommed on to me pretty quickly because I wasn’t that much older than her, but older enough for her to feel “cool” to be in my presence? I will admit that she could be kind of annoying and a pain to get rid of, but at the end of the day, I did really like her. Obviously you already know by the card above that I let her come to X-Fest with Wonka and me and she was OVER THE MOON about it.

Her family ended up moving to Florida and I was so sad to see them go, but Vanetta stayed here with her dad, except that she ended up living in A MOTEL down the street for a while!? I’m not sure whatever happened to her but I would like to find out. I don’t know her last name, not sure that I ever did. Wherever she is, I sure hope she is doing well.

OH! One other funny Vanetta thing is that she was one of the first people to find out about me and Henry when she was coming over to knock on my door one day just as he was leaving and it was SO OBVIOUS that we were TRYSTING because he was leaving with wet hair after showering here. I just remember her looking at him, and then looking at me, and then looking back at him – you could hear the wheels grinding in her head!

OH! One last funny thing is that I’m pretty sure I threw out the referenced picture in that card because OMG EW I LOOKED FAT. Ugh, I hate myself bigly.

4. OLIVIA

OK OK OK, so the first time my grandparents took me to Europe, there was another girl my age on the same trip with her parents! Her name was Olivia and we became BEST FRIENDS. I can remember her parents & my grandparents scheduling phone calls for the two of us periodically after returning home from the trip. I would be so excited, waiting for the phone to ring at my Pappap’s house, thinking that it was so amazing a telephone could connect me to this girl from the west coast. Honestly, these phone calls probably only happened once or twice, lol. Sadly, my friendship with Olivia did not last very long but I bet if social media or at the very least cell phones had been prevalent at the time, maybe we’d still know each other at least at arm’s length?!

Props to her parents for including my beloved stuffed animal in the salutation, lol.

1

I FORGOT HOW COOL SHE WAS! Very Blossom-esque. Actually, perhaps she was a year or two older than me.

I was…not a cute child. LOL.

5. You guys, it’s gon’ get dark…

I actually just found this tonight when I was looking for something else and it knocked the wind out of me a little bit. So…apologies that this is about to get fucking dark, but this letter is from THE SHITTY MEAT COMPANY owner’s son, Eric. Now, you might remember that Eric sexually harassed me here and there during my 4-year tenure at this shitty job. A lot of it was suggestive, or inappropriate comments (like, “Would you fuck Stacy Dash?” Literally, the fact that I remember this one like it was yesterday….), almost threatening (“I’m going to come to your house tonight and have sex with you”), to downright blatant physical assault (RUNNING INTO MY OFFICE AND GRABBING MY CROTCH WHILE I WAS AT THE FILING CABINET, FILING INVOICES).

This was from 2000-2004. I was so young. So green. The world wasn’t what it is now. I worked at a family-owned company with no HR. Was this what the professional scene was like? Who knew!?!

Some things you need to know about Eric is that – AND I AM NOT EXCUSING HIS BEJHAVIOR – he was VERY emotionally undeveloped. This guy was in his 30s and literally had the maturity of a middle schooler. He was helpless, extremely unintelligent, just fucking clueless. His mother basically did all of his school work for him so that he could coast through high school and it showed. It really showed. On the other side of that letter up there, he spelled “imagine” as “amagin” and “celebrity” and “celiberty.” That….that was Eric.

So, the reason I have these letters is because, a few mths before everything came to a head at that place, resulting in me and Carol to walk out and me win a settlement after having a mediation with the EEOC (oh, looking back at it now, after #MeToo changed the climate of this shit, the sum I received was PATHETIC), Eric’s parents made him check into a rehab facility several hours away. He was an alcoholic and I *think* cocaine was his drug of choice? I’m not sure. But this man was so unstable and toxic.

His dad came into my office one day and asked, LOL nay – instructed, me to write Eric a letter. “It will make him feel better,” Joe said. And because I was FUCKING YOUNG AND STUPID AND THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE MY BOSS WAS TELLING ME TO DO SOMETHING NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION, I STILL HAD TO DO IT EVEN IF IT WASN’T EVEN WORK-RELATED, I wrote the fucker a letter.

You guys, the day Carol and I quit, we had a screaming match with Joe. I said the shittiest things to him about Eric. It was 4 years coming. So much pent-up vitriol.

A few days after we quit, Eric had left the second rehab facility that he had begged to be transferred to because it was in Florida and it was more of a work-release type of situation where he was able to leave and he had a curfew?! I remember thinking that this sounded like an awful idea, and of course he ended up getting in trouble for breaking curfew too much and I’m sure other things happened that I can’t remember because I truly have SO MUCH of that time blocked out in my mind, but long story short, he either left or got kicked out and his MOMMY had to fly down there to bring him home, and a day later, he was speeding down Rt 837, hit a tree head on and died.

Fucking died.

A few days after I had a screaming match about him with his dad.

When I say that this happened in 2004 and I am still deep in my feelings about it to the point where I sometimes get so choked up that I can’t speak and have to just wave a hand in the air and change the subject, I am not kidding.

Yeah, so this letter. Ouch. The other one was signed FRIENDS FOREVER.

FRIENDS FOREVER, you guys. This man was so oblivious to the fact that I fucking hated him…yet at the same time, I had so much pity for him as well. His parents let him become that man. They did him no favors.

So wow – on that dark note! I’m about to go chug a glass of wine, me’thinks. Should this be a series?? NOTES FROM THE PAST? You tell me.

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.

Billy, we got some straight up JAMS to listen to together today. During my work day, I tend to put on “retro synth” playlists on YouTube. Most of it is instrumental which is good for me because I need to con-cen-trate on what I’m doing or I will get yelled at.

Probably not, but maybe. You never know. A passive aggressive call-out, at the very least.

Anyway, I need to have background music on to block out the perpetually shrieking children next door, but if I play kpop, then I get way too into plus my ears will start subconsciously perking up every time I hear a word that I recognize and then I feel compelled to look up the lyrics to see if I was correct, and it’s just a whole thing that will deter me from the work at hand for a solid 10 or 20 or sometimes longer if I’m at that point inspired to get up and see if Give Me Five Thailand also has a cardio workout to the subject song.

See what I mean? I can’t Kpop and review engagement letters at the same time.

But synth is wonderful because it puts me in a very relaxed, comfortable zone. HOWEVER, every so often, a song with vocals will pop on that stops me dead. Here are some of the recent ones that I have been fully fucking with.

And this last one especially made me call out HENRY BRING ME MY ROLLER SKATES. It has become a sensation at work, too! Even GLENN liked it!

This is bigly inspiring me to want to have a party.

OK, it’s Friday night. An exceptionally annoying work week is officially behind me. Your girl is about to drink some wine and make a playlist for a party I will probably never actually move forward with because I am lazy and constantly distracted but at least I’ll have a sick playlist.

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.

Happy Friday. I have a lot of heaviness on my mind today so I thought instead of being a downer, I will do a Friday Five featuring songs from YouTube workout videos that….live rent-free in my head. Ugh, I can’t believe I used that. But yeah, something different! Mixin’ it up! This is also for my own selfish benefit because I am constantly having to Shazam these while working out because I can never remember!

Anyway, if you’re into FitTube then you’ll probably know some of these because all those FitTubers use the same royalty-free songs. #IYKYK

BUT SOME OF THEM ARE SO CATCHY, they should make a compilation of them called I Can’t Believe This Isn’t Top 40.

1. We Can Be Fearless – Tomas Skyldeberg

2. Not Like Them – DJ Mayson

3. No Sugar Coated Love (Feat. Jowen) [Slct Remix] – Tape Machines

4.  One That Keeps Me – Larry Paz 

Fun fact – this is apparently the husband of Jo from GrowWithJo which is where I got most of these jams from. Her channel is good for when I need a filler workout but don’t want to get too crazy with it, and she always uses great music that keeps me engaged!

5. Perfectly Opposite – Carla the Great (Deek Cloud remix)

This was the only video I could find for this one and it’s not great, but the song is so good, and I wanted desperately to include it.

There was one that I really wanted to include but I can’t find it now in order to Shazam it and I’m tired of playing workout videos in the background while I’m non-workout working so perhaps we’ll do a part 2 someday.

OK bye bye.

Here are some things that have happened lately.

• Um, you guys? I found out the other night that Henry had not only never played, but never HEARD OF the classic Nintendo game Dr. Mario?? That was literally one of my favorite Nintendo games ever, even more than Tetris. I used to lay in bed at night and see the pills dropping down in the blank space in front of my eyes, like counting sheep except that it filled me anxiety and kept me awake. Then I was inspired to play the Dr.Mario theme on YouTube and didn’t realize that was Henry was silently observing me as I zoned out and punched the air to the beat with my head and fist. I texted my brother Ryan to see if Henry not knowing of this game was a deal-breaker, but Ryan couldn’t get past the part where I was listening to the theme on a loop.

• A bunch of us met up after work on Friday at Buca di Beppo and it was so great seeing some people who I haven’t seen since the idiot pandemic (like New Dad Lloyd, who asked me of all people for parenting advice!) and also meeting for the first time in person one of the people hired during the pandemic. It’s nuts how much I took that place and those people for granted. I have such a greater appreciation for my work friends now, for sure. And I was cracking up because at one point Jill asked, “Whose children’s toy is this?” thinking that my phone case was an actual toy lol. And then I had left my purse at another table so people were confused because it looked like “totally an Erin Kelly purse” but they thought it must have been someone else’s since I wasn’t sitting near it. Then Sue was petting my blue faux fur coat which I also had abandoned elsewhere and I yelled out, “That’s mine too!” and she just shook her head. LOL. Anyway, we had a really decent turn out but I didn’t take any pictures because I was too busy getting lost in my white sangrias and bullshitting, but there is a group photo of everyone floating around somewhere which I am desperate to get my hands on because I’m obsessed with group pictures (literally when Aaron announced that we were taking one, I almost pushed Regina out of the booth so I could get a good spot, lol).
• As I mentioned in my last post, I started watching The Walking Dead again. My friend Carrie can attest to the number of times I have fallen off the TWD Wagon only to pick it back up again. I mostly have no clue what is going on anymore and Aaron, who I used to really like, is really getting on my nerves in these last several episodes, but I will always be there for the core characters: Carol, Daryl, Maggie, and yes of course Negan because has there EVER been another character that was SO HATEABLE yet went through the most humanizing growth?! I mean, obviously we will never get over what he did to GLENN (ugh if I ever need to cry on cue, this is in my repertoire), but holy fuck the charisma. Even Henry, who has never watched an entire season, is drawn to the screen when it’s a Negan scene. As hot and cold as I’ve been with this series over the years, I’m going to be gutted when I get to the final episode because it holds such sentimental value for me. It was one of the first shows that Chooch and I watched together – it was our Sunday night tradition! Lights out, blanket on, TWD time. We would actually get so upset if we weren’t going to be home for a new episode and I would have to stay off Twitter and Facebook until we were able to watch it because that was like THE SHOW that everyone LOVED to spoil back when it was in its prime.
• Chooch came flying downstairs the other night and said in his standard HUFFYSULKYBITCHBOY tone that he was looking for a place to ride bikes in the woods with like, ramps or whatever and couldn’t find anything so he asked if he could make one somewhere.

“No, because we don’t own land,” Henry answered matter-of-factly.

“Ok, well can we own land?” Chooch asked, like wow what an easy solution. He is so annoying.

• Stripes going in up in the attic! Henry, “Not a Professional Painter,” had to jerry-rig this plank-like thing to stand on and it was making me extremely nervous.

Pretty much the entire weekend was spent painting that damn room. Chooch and I even sort of helped for a minute!

• We took a boba break on Sunday though. This was our first time trying Love Tea and I think it’s my current favorite because they have a cheese cap option and that is my motherfucking jam.

• THAT FUCKING HAWK WAS BACK YESTERDAY!!!!!! I hate him so much! He was in one of the trees in the backyard so I was out there trying to make sure all my squirrels stayed still – one of the Buddys was so close to the branch that motherfucker was perched on and my heart was racing. I came back in the house and screamed for Henry to help – I remembered that a hawk deterrent is a mirrored surfaces, so I grabbed a mirror off the wall and gave it to Henry much in the same vein as someone would toss Daryl his crossbow, and Henry proceeded to shine it at the stupid ass hawk from the back porch. WE HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE AND DO IT I cried, so Henry sighed and put on his shoes, then went in the backyard and within 3 minutes of ricocheting the sunlight into the hawk’s face, we got the asshole to fly away! BUT THEN HOURS LATER, I opened the front door and he was PERCHED ON A TELEPHONE WIRE IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE STRAIGHT LEERING DOWN AT ME. We had a major stare-off while I made sure none of the squirrels picked that moment to venture up to the front yard, and then I finally wore him down so he flew away. Blake apparently was watching from his window and texted Henry “wow that thing was HUGE.” DID YOU TELL HIM I’M PREPARED TO FIGHT IT??? I asked Henry. I just hate how my life is like “going ok,” “going ok,” “going ok,” and then – HAWK. He is literally destroying my sanity and making me so stressed out. My body was racked with anxious tremors all day on Sunday. “Do you hate him too?” I asked Henry. “No,” he said simply. “I WANT YOU TO HATE HIM TOO!” I cried, tantrum on the horizon. “Ok, I hate him too,” Henry sighed.

I don’t think I have anything else to say right now. I’m hawk-stressed.

Hey from Pittsburgh. Today was actually quite action-packed as far as neighborhood dramzzzz goes but I will save that for maybe tomorrow because your girl’s gonna need more brain power as this will require some backstory for your reading pleasure.

So, for today, I’m just checking in with some quick updates:

• CLIFF THE PLUMBER showed up at our house yesterday morning and was like THIS IS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING which translates into THIS IS WORSE THAN I IMAGINED. He had a NOT HAPPY look on his face and kept sighing heavily. I mean, we have been telling the slum lord for YEARS that this was going to happen but he chose to ignore it and only SOMETIMES would actually send someone to do a quick fix. Then it would inevitably start leaking again and the ceiling would once again dal apart, rinse, repeat.
  buy bactroban online www.phamatech.com/wp-admin_6.0-bad/includes/php/bactroban.html no prescription

  Henry even patched the ceiling several times himself over the years. Anyway, CLIFF is coming back tomorrow morning to hopefully fix it for real. He said the pipe was so old that he could SQUEEZE it. My favorite part though was when he started to go upstairs and mumbled, “This is….interesting” because of the cloud LED ceiling I guess and then as he was leaving the house, he called out over his shoulder, toward the corner of the living room where all the cat houses are, “goodbye cats, I know you’re in there somewhere”. And then as he was walking out the door, “This…is a fun house.”

• Henry always does this awful choke/hiccup thing that makes Chooch and me immediately groan and then mock him. Over the weekend, I finished my latest piece of performative art called Henry’s Choking, causing him to say he hopes that’s how he dies and then he stormed off LOLOLOLOL
• Chooch made me do Heardle the other day because it was someone I liked and he figured I would get it immediately. I did not get it immediately. In fact, I did not get it at all and it didn’t even sound remotely familiar to me. “It’s someone you like! I distinctly remember you talking about him in the car one time.” This still told me nothing. Anyway, it ended up being Frank Ocean?! I was like, “Um, I liked Frank Ocean for like a millisecond before he got popular?! I definitely have never talked about him and I certainly wouldn’t have ever guessed this because I don’t remember a single one of his songs?!” THEN A FEW DAYS LATER he was doing Heardle again. He played the first second and I immediately said, “Oh, that’s Carribean Queen by Billy Ocean.” Of course I was right, and then Chooch snapped his fingers, “THAT’S who you were talking about in the car! BILLY Ocean.” Yes, that checks out. Anyway, the amount of times I get Heardle in the first guess drives Chooch up a wall. To be fair, this only works if the song is pre-2000s.
• In more Heardle news, he was making me do today’s Heardle and I was like, “I truly do not know” and for some reason I asked, “Is it Hoobastank?
  buy amoxicillin online www.phamatech.com/wp-admin_6.0-bad/includes/php/amoxicillin.html no prescription

  ” He goes, “Is that the band Bill really likes?” This made me pause because you might not know Bill but I know Bill and Hoobastank is 100% not a band he would like.

  buy vibramycin online www.phamatech.com/wp-admin_6.0-bad/includes/php/vibramycin.html no prescription

  So I shot Chooch with a series of question marks and he expanded upon this by saying, “Yeah because remember when we were at his house over the summer playing that game and he got so excited about the Hoobastank shirt?” UM YES BECAUSE IT WAS A JOKE?! I texted Bill later to tell him that now Chooch associates him with Hoobastank and he was like, ‘OK please fix that though.”

• I finally framed the french fry bag that I brought home from Mr. Happy Burger last year! Only because I recently found it stuffed into a pocket of my travel backpack, LOL oops. Anyway, I love the orange and green so much! Coincidentally, we just bought paint samples in those same colors the other day but not because we’re pairing them together. I love the garishness of this gross 1970s color palette but only in small increments – even I have my limit!

• I will end with a MV for Monday! I love B.I. so much!

A short one because this has been the opposite of a short week.

1. The Corey Show

My bro Corey and I are avid Michael Myers simps and so obviously had to go to the theater to see the new Halloween which is also allegedly the last of the franchise (hmph we’ll see). We went to the Hollywood Theater to see it which is honestly my favorite place to see horror movies – it’s cheap, old, and has a balcony. And a creepy basement bathroom! Plus, we can walk there from my house.

Anyway, two highlights:

• The theme song from The Lost Boys (“Cry Little Sister”) was playing in the lobby when we got there and that song always gets me the mood for some good-ass horror.
• Corey being so giddy because of the fact that very first spoken word of Halloween Ends was his name, lol.

Um, other than that, I don’t have many positive things to say. I went in with low expectations and somehow failed to set the bar low enough because this was bad. I tried so hard during and immediately after to find some redeeming qualities, but I really couldn’t. And then the more I sat with it throughout the week, the angrier I got and finally I was able to say, “No, you know what? Fuck that trash movie. I hated it.”

Can’t believe JLC signed off on that shit.

2. Jo’s

It doesn’t truly feel like Halloween in Brookline until Jo’s Salon swaps out their window display for scarecrows and pumpkins. Maybe this weekend and I’ll do a walking tour of the Blvd and take pictures of the other storefronts because it’s moderately festive up in this ‘hood.

3. Meanwhile…

…in my crib, this is really the most I’ve done for Halloween, lol. I mean come on though guys. My house is like one big gaudy year-round decoration as it is – you wouldn’t even be able to notice if I actually decorated for holidays. I mean, we eat off melamine Halloween plates all year round as it is.

OK also I’m lazy, there I said it! I DON’T FEEL LIKE DECORATING because then I have to put it all away at some point and that’s annoying.

4. Mmm….cookies.

We let the kids decorate Halloween cookies during our weekly Babysitting Prison Sentence (j/k – we asked for this!) and it actually went surprisingly well. Calvin and Lily worked harmoniously and Milo was…well, a one-year-old fisting sprinkles.

And then there was Chooch who came down, put one squirt of icing on a cookie, and left.

“When I’m done, I’m going to look all around your house,” Calvin declared, as if this was his first time here?!

5. The Black Queen

In October, I always play the shit out of the Black Queen. The dark, moody synth is the perfect soundtrack for driving to haunted houses, especially when they’re out in the boonies.

This past week, I turned two people into new fans, on two separate occasions: Nate at work (we had been Jabbering extensively about Mick Smiley) and my brother Corey, who went on to listen to more and then replied, “I AM A FAN.”

I love when that happens!

Anyway, this isn’t my FAVORITE song by them, but it is the one I always send to people to introduce them to Greg Puciato’s sultry vocals without kneeing them in the balls with a Dillinger Escape Plan track, lol.

I can listen to this in the middle of a summer heat wave and suddenly it’s autumn vibes, fullstop. This is one of the few good takeaways from a failed friendship with a girl from Philly who I thought was so fucking cool and someone who spoke my language (we loved so many of the same bands and even went to an Armor For Sleep reunion show together in Philly back in 2015). She recommended the Black Queen to me back then and I was hooked. I guess she wasn’t hooked on me, though, lol.

There. Five things. On a Friday.

Love you lots like tater tots.

(Wow, old school sign off.)

Hi. Let’s get it.

1. Chooch: Driving my car and driving me crazy.

After Chooch turned 16, I thought he would be hounding us to drive but, aside from casually pissng around with the online permit practice test while standing in line for roller coasters, he kind of just dropped it. Something happened at the pie party though, maybe SOMEONE ASKED HIM IF HE HAD HIS LICENSE YET, because he started pressuring us bigly to teach him to drive. I couldn’t take it anymore, so last Saturday I screamed, “CLEAN YOUR ROOM AND THEN WE’LL SEE.” Then I forgot to actually check to see if any cleaning was done, lol, but I took him to Jefferson Memorial for some “bad weather” driving practice. He said he needs 5 hours experience of driving in bad weather, so I guess tooling around the cemetery, dodging squirrels in the rain, counts.

He actually did OK, although my right foot was cramping from all the times I practically standing up in the passenger seat to stomp on the imaginary brake. I’m sure Henry was a nervous wreck  – we left him at home because he had chores to do – because he is A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER and probably felt like I stole something from him by taking Chooch without him.

It’s kind of cool though because this is where I learned how to drive too – my friend Lisa taught me in her family’s Jeep.  My parents refused to take any part in this process because I was a “bad seed” and could not “be trusted” so I actually didn’t even get my license until about a month before I turned 19 and again, it was my friend Lisa who took me to the DMV in Uniontown to take my test – twice, lol. I liked that this is where Chooch is learning how to drive now too, ALMOST 30 YEARS LATER, ugh.

So he was all ready to go and take his permit test but Idiot Henry can’t find where he put Chooch’s social security card, so he had to go and request a new one on Monday. I had to laugh (HA HA) because when the guy at the social security office looked up Chooch’s info, HENRY WASN’T LISTED AS HIS DAD LOLOLOL. The guy was like, “Oh, that’s usually what happens when the parents are married” and instead of giving Henry a hard time about, somehow let the request go through.

But yeah GOOD JOB NOT MARRYING YOUR SON’S MOTHER, ASSHOLE.

Anyway, every day this week, Chooch has stormed into the house after school, barking, “DID MY SS CARD COME YET” in lieu of the HELLO that I deserve. It actually came today, which surprised me because that was less than a week! So now Chooch thinks he’s going to the DMV after school but his fate rests in Henry’s hands, as usual. We’ll see if Henry gets home from work in time, or if he will remain on Chooch’s shit list.

2. HATER HATER TALK TALK

I got a surprise shirt in the mail yesterday! Henry and Chooch immediately confirmed that they don’t care enough about me for it to have been from them, so I asked Instagram and I should have known it was my NCT bestie, Veronica!! We have been going ham lately over this NCT127 tour. She just went to the LA date last night and I watched some of her Instavids (trying to avoid it though because I want the setlist to be a surprise!) and immediately started sobbing. I haven’t been this stoked for a concert since probably the last time I saw the Cure!!

I don’t have a lot of friends with common interests so when I do get one, I cling tightly!

3. 28 Reasons Why I Love this Song

OK I’m not actually listing 28 reasons because I’m too distracted as usual but Seulgi’s solo debut is more than I ever could have wanted. The way this song and her beastly choreo give off stong Taemin vibes to me….This has been in my head ever since it came out the other day. (She’s, IMO, the best part of Red Velvet and I’m so glad she finally got her own solo!)

4. Red Jeans

I dunno what made me think about it, other than the fact that I was going through old pictures from when I was in high school, but I started thinking of my signature scent back in the day – Versace Red Jeans. I thought that it had been retired, but when I googled it, I found it on Amazon! I added it to the cart just for funsies and then it arrived a few days later because Henry saw it and actually experienced of moment of goodwill, and contrary to what was previously stated in #2 of today’s Friday Five, actually bought it for me.

OMG that first spritz TOOK ME BAAAAACK TO…..

5. This one October night in 1997

I’m always inspired to look back through old haunted house journals this time of the year and this one night in particular remains one of the best haunted house hopping nights of my life. It was me, Lisa, Angie, Angie’s bf-at-the-time Mike, Lisa’s little Youth Group friend Darren, and a family friend of Lisa’s – Bill. I just remember going all over the place in Lisa’s minivan (not the van that I learned how to drive in!) and then my Psycho Mike ( :/ ) meeting us later at Home Cookin’.

Fun fact about Darren (middle): He grew up to be the screamer in a successful Christian metal band!

Ugh Psycho Mike. I have a vivid recollection of him extremely dick-ish this night because he hated Lisa (for no other reason than she was my friend and he wanted nothing more than to isolate me from everything and everyone, you know, classic abuser behavior). Somehow, we ended up hanging out in my grandparent’s yard (their yard was huge so no one even knew we were there) until like 3am, completely sober but using our natural reserves to act like complete giddy morons.

This was when I was at the height of my Jacki Sorenson aerobic obsession and would use every opportunity to break out into one of the many routines I had memorized.

And then I apparently hurt myself in doing so, lol.

These pictures are also making me remember that I had to wear my hair in a ponytail every day around this time because I was in the process of growing out a REALLY BAD HAIR CUT. OK here’s what happened: I was with Lisa and our friend Kim. Kim had (probably still does) extremely long and straight hair. Like, LONG. We were in Century Square (probably to go to PHAR-MOR which I hated but Lisa and Kim always wanted to go there ugh) when Kim decided to stop into Fantastic Sam’s to get her hair trimmed. Now, a place like that isn’t going to fuck up a trim when the hair is long and straight so good for Kim. But something made me, the queen of layers (back then: THE RACHEL GREEN), decide to also get a hair cut.

Oh, chingu, the way they slaughtered my layers. It was a hot mess, before people were saying “hot mess.”

You can bet I had the delicious notes of Red Jean wafting in my wake on both of these occasions: fun night and bad haircut day. (I had to pause and sniff my wrist just now. Yessss. 90s Erin is BACK!)

OK, signing off. Henry just texted me and said that Chooch passed his permit test so I guess this weekend will be full of “CAN YOU LET ME DRIVE NOW??” begging. Pray for us.

Yo when was the last time we sat down and had a good old fashioned Friday Fiver? Legit can’t remember. But if someone asks you this tomorrow, you can say, “Hey guy, it was just yesterday!”

1. The Witch of Pioneer

Have I mentioned lately how much I truly hate HNC’s wife? She is actually the most miserable person I have ever known, maybe even more so than Henry’s ex-wife! Anyway, on Wednesday I was sitting here working, just minding my own business. I work at a desk in the dining room, right next to the window that faces her side of the house. So I get to hear her out there putzing around in the driveway, screaming at HNC, threatening neighbors with baseball bats because they parks too close to the entrance of our shared driveway which INCOVENIENCES HER (never mind the fact that her one daughter can come over and park at the top of the driveway, effectively blocking us in, because Mummy is Queen of Pioneer). Anyway, yesterday she came out of the house with her white trash daughter on speaker phone. She was out there fucking around with her stupid porch plants when suddenly she starts getting more and more worked up. I couldn’t tell what was happening, but then I heard her say “people who live outside of the country…” and my ears perked up thinking she was about to go on some MAGA anti-foreigner rant but then she ended it with, “HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE FEEDING WILDLIFE.” OK, so she was talking about the countrySIDE…but wait, what?? NO, SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT ME.

“THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ME! I PUT SO MUCH MONEY IN THESE PLANTS JUST FOR THEM TO BE DESTROYED. FUCKING SQUIRRELS!!!”

I’m assuming by “they” she is referring to us. Because we are the only people who feed the squirrels. /sarcasm. Do you know how many houses in our neighborhood have those cute little squirrel feeder picnic tables!? A LOT. WE ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO ENJOY THE SQUIRRELS.

She is the odd one! She is the hateful bitch who finds no joy in anything!

So then I was like “OK two can play at this game” and I called Henry and started screaming to HIM by the open window about how THEY have no respect for US because they have turned our shared driveway into a fucking LOT OF BROKE DOWN CARS. “THE CARS! THE FUCKING CARS!” I screamed in a replica of her nasty Yinzer voice.

I was so ridiculously stressed out over this that it actually ruined my entire Thursday as well. Like, I kept picturing myself fighting her, I don’t give a shit that she’s in her 60s.

Fuck that bitch so hard. I hope a squirrel attacks her.

2. Chooch’s Mexico Gallery Wall

Just posting this because writing about HNC’s cunt wife got my heart rate up and I needed a happy visual. How can this not make you happy?? Look at those colors!

3. A Super Social Tuesday

This past Tuesday, I had plans with some people from my old team to have dinner after work. But then MARGIE scheduled our department casual lunch on the SAME DAY so then Wendy was like, “Oh good, we can have an in-person meeting that day too” and then the admin people of the whole entire Pgh office were like RSVP FOR SOCIAL HOUR TUESDAY AFTERNOON!

I was really stressed about this day because we have recently switched to a hoteling situation so most of the desks were stripped down to just one monitor. I cannot work like that!  I have a very particular, Type A set-up! So my plan, which was very clunky and stupid, was to come in from half the day, attend the meeting, have a piece of pizza at CASUAL LUNCH, go home and work, then come back for dinner.

Really dumb, amirite?

When I got to work on Tuesday, I immediately went to Margie’s desk and pouted about the new sitch and she was like, “Just sit in that office right there – it has two monitors and it’s not assigned to anyone” so just like that, my biggest problem of the day was solved and then I was able to be moderately normal (by my standards at least) for the rest of the day.

It was really nice getting to see so many of work friends on one day! I opted out of the office Social Hour though, claiming that I was people’d out but really it was because I was nervous of being around more food and then going to dinner, love this weird fear of food that controls my life. But it’s easier to blame social anxiety because that feels more acceptable and reasonable than saying I’m scared or food omg hold me.

Then I went to dinner with Amber, Lauren, Megan, Carrie and Wendi! It wasn’t the original dinner plans for that night but it was just as lovely! I was fucking starving by then though, having only had a small bowl of cereal and literally the smallest, driest piece of pizza I could find for lunch. Carrie and I shared a burrata salad and ravioli and I BEASTED my halves. Carrie also treated Megan and me to a bottle of wine for our recent bdays and I was feeling GOOD, MY PEOPLE.

I am really lucky to work with friends. That is all.

4. Nooworks #1 Fan Girl

Nooworks released a new print on Sunday night and I had to buy a shirt because LOOK AT IT. THE DESIGN. THE COLORS. It was like it was made for me. I love Nooworks so much. #NotSponsored but #IWishItWas.

5. Pie Party Prep

You guys the first pie party since 2017 is happening this Sunday. The weather is supposed to be absolute TRASH too, of course. We’ll still go through with it though – the pavilion is big and has a roof, after all! I think it rained at another pie party once too and while it wasn’t ideal, the pies didn’t care.

Henry did a trial-run on one of his pie prospects last weekend and it tasted so good, so there’s that. My only responsibility up to now was working on the play list. It’s up to over 8 hours and the party is only 6 hours long so I think I can cross that off the to do list now.

I dunno man, this was a lousy Friday Five but I’m beat, says Erin from 1975. We’re going to the pass holder Fright Fest sneak peek tonight at Kennywood and that’s all my mind can focus on right now. Perhaps one day things in my brain will change and I will be able to to tell you how I got my blogging groove back, says Erin from 1998.