Pierce the Veil – where do I even begin?? First of all, being back at Star Lake was so weird and disorienting since it was an actual concert and not Warped Tour (with Warped Tour, we’d spend most of our time in a huge section of the parking lot that was fenced off for the two main stages and very little time under the actual pavilion). I immediately went to the bathroom and of course chose a stall with a door that wouldn’t lock so I had to lean forward and hold it with an outstretched arm while I was peeing and it felt like I was going to pop my arm out of socket so that was a very Erin start to the evening. But then, after Henry paid $22!!!!!!!!! for a beer, we found our seats and settled in. Henry was happy because I specifically bought an aisle seat but then I sat in it instead of giving it to him, haha.

I’ve been getting Reddit notifications about people complaining about how shitty the crowds have been at whatever PTV date they attended, and I am relieved to say that I only saw this stuff AFTER our date so that it didn’t cause me any unnecessary stress prior to the show, and that the crowd in our section at least was very tame and maintained good concert etiquette.  Did I think the super tiny couple in front of me was annoying? You fucking bet your aunt Betty’s britches I did BUT that was just me being me, lol. They weren’t actually doing anything that I couldn’t just ignore if I needed to. I was just fixated on the fact that the boyfriend, in his MCR letterman jacket and the bizarre way of dancing, looked like he was cast as an sock hop attendee in a Happy Days episode. He and his babe were going to pop a squat at the mom and pop soda shop afterward for a motherfucking egg cream, gee whiz.

The upside was that they were both super short so I could easily just…not look at them if I didn’t want to. But Chachi kept turning around to record himself with the stage in the background.

Anyway, Daisy Grenade opened and they were fine. Upbeat girl power pop rock from NY.

Then Sleeping with Sirens came on and I even though I used to love them, I will be honest and say that I haven’t seen the best performances of theirs over the years. They still have the same singer (Kellin Quinn) but the rest of the band has changed so much that I didn’t even know NICK MARTIN was in it now! So that was a fun throw back for me. There was a time when I feel like I was seeing Nick everywhere.

It only took about 20 seconds for me  to get totally swept up in feelings though. Henry sat through the whole thing and scrolled though his phone. At one point, he was looking at the ground through his camera viewfinder??

What a total Herb.

In case one day this video is gone, here’s the caption:

A HENRY&ERIN MEMORY: Back when Henry still had me in the Proposal Waiting Room (9 years in and my number still wouldn’t be called for another 13 years unbeknownst to me) and I was at the height of my delusional Imaginary Never-Wedding planning, this song came out and I became OBSESSED with having a full choreographed contemporary “first dance” to it (I was also super into SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE back then too). I used to listen to it on repeat while walking a nearby high school track AND OPENLY WEEP because I wanted to get married so badly lol.

Last night, I looked over lovingly at Henry when Sleeping With Sirens was performing this song, and he was….sitting down & scrolling through Instagram.

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Anyway, turns out that SWS still has the ability to make me emotional; get it, Kellin.

And then finally – PIERCE THE VEIL! Before I get into that, I just want to say that Chooch was texting me before they came out, saying things like, “let me know if they play Fast Times at Clairemont High or Even When I’m Not With You” and “Wasn’t ‘If I’m James Dean…’ your alarm?” and I was swooning at the fact that he remembers this from…15 years ago??

F I F T E E N

Y E A R S

A G O

F M L

But wow, what an unexpected departure from the “wow” and “mm cool” responses that I usually get from him! It’s like he actually cared that I was at the PTV concert!

And then something else unexpected happened when the lights went out for PTV:

H E N R Y

S T O O D

U P

Can you even believe it?? Henry NEVER stands at concerts if there is an empty seat directly behind him! Does Henry….like PTV now? According to him, he never said he didn’t like them but I believe this to be a bald-faced lie.

BRB going to wake Henry from his nap to see if he wants to go see them again tomorrow night in Cleveland LOL.

We were pretty far back – actually it was the farthest back I have ever been for PTV; I have been “stage-hugging” close in the past but for this one, I wanted to be comfortable and I wasn’t disappointed in the seats at all – so I don’t have much to share on here media-wise. JUST THAT I FELT SO MUCH JOY. Not that I was ever “young” during my time as a PTV fan, but that night really did make me feel like I was in high school. I was already in my mid-20s when I first heard of them but it really does feel like I grew up with them. Just like, nothing else mattered but the music being played in front of us that night. It was incredible and I am so glad that I bit the bullet and got us tickets for this show, especially now that Henry has turned a new leaf and appreciates them like I always have! I called him two days later when he was on his way home from work and he legit answered by saying, “You interrupted ‘Pass the Nirvana,’ what do you want??”

You know I texted Chooch immediately and said, “Apparently your dad listens to PTV on his own time now.”

SETLIST (& no, they didn’t play the songs Chooch asked about, sadly)

El Rey / Jose Alfredo Jimenez used as their intro music

1. Death of an Executioner
2. Bulls in the Bronx
3. Pass the Nirvana
4. I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket
5. I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous
6. Where Is My Mind? (Pixies cover) (Snippet which segued seamlessly into….)
7. Floral & Fading
8. Circles
9. Yeah Boy and Doll Face (FML SRSLY)
10. She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty (Partial) (WTAF??? I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD HEAR THIS LIVE AGAIN)
11. Today I Saw the Whole World (acoustic)
12. Wonderless
13. May These Noises Startle You in Your Sleep Tonight
14. Hell Above
15. Caraphernelia
16. Emergency Contact
17. Bulletproof Love
18. Disasterology
19. Hold On Till May
20. King for a Day (with Kellin Quinn)

I guess I’ll share this one since evidently, it’s Henry’s favorite! (I love this song but hate the video, FYI.)

[Sadly, a few days before this concert, Dave Shapiro and several others from the music industry were killed in a plane crash. Vic especially seemed maudlin when the show first started, but they all seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd and pushed through. I can’t imagine how difficult and painful it has been for them to continue this tour when they are mourning the loss of such a close friend. Ugh.]

Sunday was such a glorious day! In therapy this week, I was saying that I know it might not always be healthy to do this but I can never help but compare the present to the past and this was one of the few times recently that it worked to my benefit – last Memorial Day Weekend (2024) was so bad. Chooch was in DC visiting his Mexico study abroad roommate so I was sad about that because we would typically do a family coaster roadtrip and then I remember (vividly!) having massive body image freakouts that weekend. We had planned to get some flowers for the yard and went to a nearby cemetery first where I had a major mental breakdown over how I felt inside my skin. I flipped out and said, “We need to go home NOW.” And that really set the tone for the whole weekend. I spent the whole weekend frantically searching for miracle diets, and then there was a huge storm that Sunday and our power was out all night and I was so miserable. The only good memory I have is that Bambi was still alive then. But yeah, it was such a bad “inside my head” weekend that I actually tried to block it out for a while there.

But this past weekend was the total opposite and gave me hope that maybe “life goes on” isn’t such a corny saying after all.

Most of Sunday was chill, just hanging out, reading, going for walks. But then around 4:30 we left for the Pierce the Veil concert and I was so giddy. You guys, I haven’t seen them since 2017 – a combination of many things: PTV having a sizeable gap between albums so they weren’t touring, Covid, me diving headfirst into Kpop. I actually think I only missed one of their Pgh shows during that interim though, maybe two. I almost missed this one too! I knew they were coming, I still follow them on Insta. But I saw the venue and wasn’t too inspired. (Star Lake, an outdoor pavilion that’s about 45 minutes outside of Pgh.) It’s always a disaster trying to leave there because there is only one exit so Henry was ultra-grumbly about having to go here again after such a long reprieve. I’m a passenger princess so what do I care?

We stopped at Sheetz and got an IPA to share in the parking lot since we had some time to kill and I was IN FULL ERIN FORM by then. As soon as I saw all of my fellow PTV fans, I was so stoked and felt like it was mid-2000s again. Do you have any favorite bands where you can remember exactly the first time you heard them? My Pierce the Veil origin moment is a perma part of my memories. It was 2007 and I was driving home from visiting Christina in Cincinatti. Back then, I used to make mix CDs of all of the recommended bands in Alt Press magazine. On this particular mix, I had both PTV and Dance Gavin Dance, among others. When I say I almost record-scratched the car (I think this was the Nissan Sentra era, hated that fucking lemon so much) off the highway when “Currents Convulsive” came on….and I had NO IDEA what it was either because I was driving and couldn’t look at my track list until the next time I stopped!

I just remember thinking that the singer’s voice sounded so familiar to me and it turned out that I had listened to Vic Fuente’s original band, Before Today, on PureVolume. I was so into PureVolume back in the day and it’s even how I knew of Panic! At the Disco before they even released anything other demos. Not a humble brag, just a fact! I was constantly on the prowl for new music back then (OK, that never changed lol).

The demographic of PTV fans seemed to still be sort of young. Maybe more young adult now as opposed to teenagers back when I was still regularly going to their shows. Henry even commented, “Why does it seem like I have gotten older but the fan base has stayed the same age?” LOL I mean, Henry was always old in comparison though. Even I was!

I will say, I supremely miss the scene kid era. I only saw ONE person who could have passed for a scene kid. Bring back scene kids! I feel like the music genre back then was referred to as “scene music” and now everyone just calls it emo but to me, emo is like, I dunno, midwestern sad boy rock like Appleseed Cast and Braid and Sunny Day Real Estate. Things have changed a lot when I wasn’t paying attention to American shit, I guess.

There was a merch truck in the parking lot, so I decided to grab my shirt there before we went into the venue. There were two girls behind me, probably mid-20s, and one was a kpop stan. I was going to turn around and try to make friends but she was talking waaaay too much about J-Hope and sorry but I don’t really want to deal with Army so I kept to myself. I swear though, the whole Warped Tour scene is such a natural gateway into Kpop land, I can’t explain it but it makes so much sense. It was like a natural progression for me to go from this to kpop, and I’m trying to make more room for both in my life because after this night, and my Johnnie Guilbert deep-dive, I realize now that I still have a blackened section of my heart and I have been depriving it of attention for 10 years now!

Standing in this line, in the dusty parking lot, brought back so many memories of Warped Tour. I’m tearing up all over again – those were the best days of my life. Henry and I even chatted about it a bit on the drive to Star Lake, how it was the ONE DAY a year where we did NOT argue at all. I was so blissed out for the entire day, start to finish, that it was nearly impossible to burst by bubble. I honestly can’t think of a single bad Warped-related memory, except for the time I went to Warped in Cincinatti with Christina and her sister Cynthia and MISSED CHIODOS because Cynthia was the one driving and we were at her mercy, so when she decided to stop at Walgreens for NO GOOD REASON, there was nothing we could do to stop this and I felt so out of control and anxious. Then she decided she wanted TO LEAVE EARLY so I missed PARAMORE. To this day, I still have never seen Paramore, and that would have been the era I wanted to see them the most. I don’t care too much for their mainstream radio bullshit.

But literally every Warped Tour after that was heaven for me. I loved the exhaustion, the sun burn, the music hangover, the joy of following Warped’s progression around the country all summer via social media, watching all of the YouTube content, getting obsessed with new bands. It was my Christmas in July. And Pierce the Veil was always the angel on top of the Christmas tree, every time they were a part of the lineup.

Getting inside was smooth sailing because some nice Star Lake staff member zoomed over in his golf cart to tell us that once we got our merch to NOT get in the line closest to us because it was packed in comparison to one of the other entrances behind us. He wasn’t wrong! We walked right in.

Henry bought a $22 (ughughughugh) beer to share and we found our seats where we proceeded to people watch and reminisce about old scene stuff. This season of life is so weird. I’m still trying to acclimate!

Anyway, I will end this here and save all the band talk for the next post, OMG CAN YOU STAND THE WAIT. Another OHE concert recap, how blessed are you.

I have been sitting with this one for a few days now. I listened to it when it first came out over the weekend but have REALLY listened to it more the last day or so and it has broken me. I knew that Jonghyun was somehow going to be featured on it but didn’t know the full details and hoped that it wasn’t going to be some weird, cold, tacky AI recreation of his voice.

But then I learned that this was something Jonghyun had been writing and composing for SHINee before his death. His family allowed SHINee to use it and Jonghyun’s guide vocals were incorporated into the chorus and also the bridge, which he hadn’t had a chance to write the lyrics for, so they kept his “scatting” in that part and, paired with the rest of SHINee dancing together in a circle, it just really sent me. I was crying (and still am lol) so hard that I was choking.

I think what I love the most about this song is that since it was written pre-2018, it has that nostalgic feel to it that makes me remember why I began to love Kpop so much to begin with. It’s light, airy, summery, totally SHINee-coded. I have been trying to spread the word about this because as usual, SM is doing a pisspoor job promoting it so it’s not getting the traction and attention that it deserves, especially not with the new gen Kpop fans who just haven’t learned about SHINee.

My love for SHINee is so stupid strong. I really hope that they come to the US some day!

Anyway, I have lots more fun Memorial Day weekend to recap once I stop crying over this haha.

Two weekends ago, Henry and I were having a conversation about the new Pope and I got super in my feelings about my Catholic past. I was VERY into it (not like, in culty way) and I actually enjoyed going to CCD every Sunday because to me, learning the Bible stories felt like history. It was entertaining, and also there were donuts in the basement afterward. When we got to the level of Sunday School where tests became a thing, I fucking aced them all. I’m telling you, I ate that shit up like Eve with apple juice dripping down her chin.

And even as a TEENAGER, I looked forward to going to church on Saturday evenings with my Pappap. I mean, 1. I was with my favorite person in the whole world, and 2. we would always go out to dinner afterward haha. My BFF (& Chooch’s godmother) Christy’s family also went to the same church so sometimes Christy would join us for dinner afterward and then sleep over my house and we’d completely unravel all of the church’ing by watching R RATED MOVIES OMG. My favorite was when we would go this Italian restaurant that was called ‘something di Napoli” but we all affectionally called it Naples and my Pappap of course was friends with the owner and the best servers so we got special treatment but the reason I liked it was because I had a HUGE CRUSH on one of the bus boys lol.

ANYWAY! This trip down a dirt lane in my mind’s Jerusalem resulted in me fondly telling Henry about my favorite priest at that Church – Father Salberg. He was AMAZING. He made church interesting and fun, and his sense of humor was incredible. Like a toned-down Robin Williams, if Robin Williams looked like GOD because he is totally how I pictured God to look – barrel-chested, an avuncularly booming voice, huuuuuge beard. This guy was a life-sized hug standing on the altar every week and I looked forward to Communion and then standing in line to shake his hand after mass.

I was surprised to find myself tearing up while I was telling Henry my Father Salberg mems. I started to Google him and, sadly, found his Obituary from 2018. I started to cry (???) but also was kind of shocked to see that my church wasn’t even referenced in any of the bios I found online about him. I remember vividly that he was also a priest at a state pen, and the years he did that overlapped the years he would have been a priest at my church. I think that he must have been doing both at once, and now that I realllly think about it, he may have actually just been an interim priest at my church because I do remember having other priests there and none of them came even close to matching his charisma. This actually is even more telling now that I realize he wasn’t there for more than a year or two, but still had such an impact on me. I will tell you right now, had he still been the acting priest at Nativity when my Pappap died, maybe things would have been different for me. Maybe I’d have actually had someone to talk to. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself going down a very dark path.

When I saw that Father Salberg is buried in a cemetery about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, I wanted to go. So that is what we did on Sunday, drove to Butler and had actually a nice afternoon at a brewery (more on that later!) and then a walk through Father Salberg’s cemetery.

“This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Henry said when we got out of the car. I was just about to say that I didn’t necessarily need to find his grave, just wanted to be there, when Henry said, “Wait—-is that it??” Literally 15 seconds into our walk, Henry spotted it! We actually kept walking through because a man was tending to a nearby grave, but then on the way back he was still there, planting flowers. So, I figured I’d just snap a quick photo for my memories and right as I did so, the man’s dog started barking so then it looked like I was taking a picture of him and his dog and I mean, I typically always feel like a creep, but even more so in this moment, haha.

This man was top notch. Remembering all of this almost made me feel inspired to go back to church but I don’t feel like trying them all on to find the one that fits. I have shit to do, etc.

We had a nice little stroll. I made Henry take pictures of me in my new Johnnie Guilbert shirt to send to Chooch who was like, “What.” And then “Ugh.”

I got new Vans! My therapist suggested buying myself something new, like cute shoes or something, to make myself feel better because my self-esteem and vanity have been taking blows lately. I was like immediately *buying shoes, doctor’s orders, it’s prescribed*

It was a beautiful cemetery (Calvary/Northside Cem in Butler) and an even more beautiful day.

We also listened to Johnnie Guilbert and Pierce the Veil exclusively on this day trip and it was crazy nostalgic. I will say that the day didn’t start off great, I was being me (read: difficult/pouty/volatile) but everything turned out ok in the end.  It did make me miss my Pappap an awful lot though.

1. Accidentally Emo Again

OK guys I mentioned the other day that I fell down the rabbit hole thanks to WE WENT TO COACHELLA videos brainwashing me into subbing to Jake Webber. And I mentioned that I was also like Wait hold the phone is his friend Johnnie Guilbert from the Warped Tour / Bryan Stars YouTube days? Confirmed. So then I started watching videos from Johnnie’s channel too because he’s funny to me OK I have immature emo boy humor. I’ve seen his gf in some of the videos and one time he was wearing a CHRISSY from Stranger Things shirt and said, “I’m wearing my girlfriend.” I thought, “Yeah, she does look like Chrissy from Stranger Things.” Days went by and then I stumbled across her Instagram and said to Henry, “Oh his gf has a lot of followers too. She looks like she’s a model, I guess?” Then a few minutes later, “Oh, she’s an actor too.” Then another minute later, “OMG HIS GF LITERALLY IS CHRISSY FROM STRANGER THINGS.”

Anyway, I bit the bullet and listened to some of Johnnie’s songs on Spotify today and almost immediately sighed and said out loud, “Great. I’m a fan.”

I would have flipped out over this in like 2010 but it scratches that latent emo itch, I swear to god, I feel like I’m waiting in line to get into Warped Tour right now. No, it gives me that same giddy feeling from like, 2004 when Christina and I discovered From First To Last.

2. New Furniture to “ruin” or “beautify” depending on what camp you’re in

We bit the bullet and finallllllly bought a new dresser from Ikea (I don’t know why we keep buying shit there) and a wardrobe. There is a big reason why there are barely any pictures of our bedroom and it’s because there are clothes everywhere. I am a fucking clotheshorse, I can’t be stopped. But Henry and I both have our own broken dressers and they don’t match and are ugly (see also: they’re just wood, oh no). Anyway, Henry brought the new dresser/wardrobe combo home today and I’m giddily thinking up refurb ideas for it. I definitely want it painted a light pink to match the pink accent wall of our bedroom (the rest of the walls are hunter green) but I’m deciding on if I want to use wallpaper on the drawers or whatever. Need embellishment inspo.

Meanwhile, Henry is like, “Why can’t we leave it as-is?” I mean, that’s probably what he’s writing in his diary or the Mother’s Day Card he’s giving to his mom. “SOS mom, she’s making me inhale paint fumes again.” He doesn’t dare say this to my face.

I also have a plan for our OG beverage buffet which presently lives in the attic lounge. I think having projects will help me.

3. Pope Shit

In group chat yesterday, everyone was going on and on about the pope shit like this whole rigmarole was news to them? Like it hasn’t happened two other times in our lifetime?? I stayed quiet on the subject because I was about to drag out my cross and get super righteous up in Teams, so I instead turned my frustration on Henry.

“DON’T YOU REMEMBER ME FORCING CHRISTINA* TO WATCH THE WHOLE POPE BENEDICT DECISION WHEN THEY WERE VISITING SPRING OF 2005 AND I WAS OBSESSED WITH EWTN???” (That’s the ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK, FOR YOU HEATHENS.)

“Yes,” Henry sighed. “How could I forget.

Oh, I just went poking around in LiveJournal to see if I actually wrote about that part of their visit and that was a time travel I didn’t need.

I do want to add that I was very concerned to learn that the new Pope is AMERICAN and started panicking that Trump pulled some strings, but now I’m ok after doing some non-fake news’ing and learning that the Pope is actually against everything Trump and Vance the Pope Killer stand for, so fingers crossed that it stays this way and that he does good things.

*(Two C-word mentions in one post; one more and they might pop out of a Mexican jumping bean.)

4. Catching Co-Workers in My Emo Web

I was telling Nate about #1 of this Friday Five (hopefully your memory isn’t so jacked that you don’t have to SCROLL UP for a refresher, but if so, now is the time to do that). I told him I need a YouTube detox and then went to lunch. In that period of time, Nate had done his own Johnnie Guilbert research so I came back to a Teams message from him alerting me to the fact that Johnnie’s girlfriend is not only Chrissy from Stranger Things, but the daughter of Casper van Dien. What a wild ride that was. Hope you were wearing your seatbelt for that.

5. Excuse me, but did you mean Dazee?

I have been pretty bitter in general lately about family stuff (OK that’s always) but my brother texted me and mentioned our old dog Dazee but called her Daisy because ofc he did. This seriously gets under my skin so much because Dazee was my dog. I was the one who went with our mom to pick her up and no one else knew about her yet. I named her Dazee. But he consistently refers to her as Daisy to this day and makes me feel so disrespected, like I was completely written out of family history after I moved out. I even corrected him by replying with “*Dazee” and he said “lol.”

She was my fucking dog.

I have so much anger in general haha. Ha.

__________________________________________

Let’s end this with some CHRISSY, WAKE UP:

Seeing Cold last week has set me adrift on a path of nostalgia. Granted, that path is laden with cigarette butts, scraps of stepped-on and worn-off denim from the bottoms of too-long jeans, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade bottle caps. So, tread carefully, etc.

This particular show marked the first time in 15 years that I had seen them. They were here a few times since then but it was a combination of having moved away from this scene and also not wanting to willingly put myself in an emotionally vulnerable spot, because there is something about this band that breaks me slowly. Scooter Ward is just….ugh. His voice and lyrics were the soundtrack to some of the most volatile years of my life (hey, early 20s, I see you).

But when I saw that they would be performing 13 Ways To Bleed on Stage in its entirety (as well as A Different Kind of Pain), I was like, “OK, let’s go. I can do this.” And then the day of,  that changed to “I can’t do this, I can’t do this.” LOL. Obviously, I did it. Albeit with a face slick with tears.

Instead of saying the same stuff I always say (“Ow, my heart” “Ooof” “This song, ugh”), I thought I would instead share some pictures I found in an old album from the time I saw them at Nick’s Fat City, 9/5/11. Less than a week before 9/11, so hard to even imagine that now.

My friend Wonka – he was my best concert buddy and co-Cold groupie back then – arrived at Nick’s Fat City super early. This was back when we were young and had the stamina required for arriving hours before doors in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the band. That’s Wonka in the middle, the rest were guys we befriended. I remember clearly going across the street at one point to get beverages at a store and freaking out over a…energy drink? called BALLZ. I’m pretty sure we all bought one.

The guy on the far right was on the street team for one of the opening bands, I believe. And the kid on the left, I’m pretty sure his name is Josh, ended up staying in touch with Wonka and me for a hot minute and I even gave him my ticket for Jane’s Addiction shortly after this because I ended up not being to go, so Wonka took him in place, lol. It’s so weird how this is a memory that my brain decided to keep.

Here I am flanked by Kelly and Scooter from Cold! This picture is so bad and I am thankful that whoever took it, took it with the sun behind us because I was such a hot mess back then. Thankful that you can barely see my face here.

Jeremy!

I TOTALLY forgot that my brother Ryan was also there with his friends! That’s Ryan standing down there in the green sweatshirt next to our new friend Josh. Ryan actually commented on this Instagram reel I posted after last week’s show saying that he contemplated on going!

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Ugh, Scooter. I believe this was the second time I saw them after first stumbling upon their stage at X-Fest earlier that summer. Wonka was with me there too and we were both ENRAPTURED. Like, WHO IS THIS? Stopped us dead in our tracks. Actually, now as I’m writing this I’m not sure if that is accurate – it could have been we already knew the song “Just Got Wicked” and intentionally checked them out based on that? I’m sure I have the hard facts written down in a journal somewhere for some Future Person to discover years after I expire.

Anyway, there are actually so many more pictures from other Cold shows that I found too, like I was their traveling historian or something, Jesus.

I know I said I wasn’t to recap this most show BUT there are some things I want to remember:

• Scooter is the only OG member which makes me sad
• BUT they have an amazing bassist – Lindsay Manfredi. I guess she joined four years after the last time I saw them, so she’s been with them now for about 10 years. Just “new-to-me”! I loved that she came out in this adorable back dress with a white peter pan collar for the first set, and then when they came back out to dive into the 13 Ways…set, she was wearing a black mechanic’s pantsuit with the Cold spider patches on the arms. She was so cool!
• AND their drummer used to be in this band called Lifer who COINCIDENTALLY was touring with them when we went to that 9/2001 show (Wonka and I also went to the Hershey, PA stop on that tour).l I had become obsessed with Lifer but then they broke up after one/some of them left to start BREAKING BENJAMIN. LOL remember that band??
• There was some middle aged broad and her husband standing in front of me and they were HAMMERED before the show even started. I am so sorry that I missed this, but when I was in the bathroom, Henry said she had gone up to the bar to get another drink (she was knocking back mixed drinks) and on her way back, she somehow FELL INTO THE VIP BOOTH?! Henry said she knocked everything off the table (luckily  nothing got on the people sitting there), landed UNDER THE TABLE, stood up and said OH SHIT and then shambled back to the bar to get a new drink. Then a few minutes after that, she was back in front of me telling some other middle aged lady who reminded me of my squirrel hating neighbor that she had just gotten out of the hospital that Friday afternoon. Drink up, baby. Cheers.
• Cold had the misfortune of touring with Weezer one year. It was just…bad. The Weezer fans were really shitty to  them and I want to say that they ended up dropping off the tour. But in  the meantime, they had befriended Rivers Cuomo and did a song with them called Stupid Girl and it remains my least favorite Cold song to this day. Anyway, it’s off the third album which was not being performed that night, yet some dodo in the front row kept screaming it like it was fucking Freebird. Scooter, who paused in between certain songs to tell stories about the song’s origins, kept having to pause to say, “No, we’re not going to play Stupid Girl, stop asking.” Then at one point, after maybe the 7th time, he stopped and was like, “Look, we’re not playing that fucking song OK?” and we were all cracking up. Scooter goes, “I gotta shut this shit down, this is starting to feel like a fucking folk show.” It felt so good to have that comic relief during a night of so many heavy songs though!
• The crying gave me a headache, but it was a perfect night.

Last Tuesday evening, Henry and I went to Crafthouse to see one of my old favorite bands, Cold. I was wavering on buying tickets for this because I knew it was going to be an emotional rollercoaster – it had been FIFTEEN YEARS almost exactly since I last saw them. Two mths before I started working at The Law Firm, actually! Sometimes it’s hard to believe that there were pre-Law Firm times in my life.

I finally sucked it up though and bought us tickets and I am so glad that I did. Yeah, it’s a drag to do these things on work nights at this age, but really it was so worth it.

I had to laugh though because as we were standing outside waiting for the doors to open, the people behind us were talking about health insurance. “The conversations happening in line now are wayyyyy different from when we used to go to see Cold back in the day,” I laughed and Henry did too but I don’t know why because he was old back then too??

Once we got inside and settled into a table, I started giggling which always makes Henry scared.

“I just realized that I didn’t change out of my NCT shoes,” I cracked up, raising my legs up and wiggling my feet. Henry groaned.

“AND I HAVE MY G-DRAGON LIGHTSTICK ON MY PURSE!” I pointed out. “And my Seventeen credit card!”

I had to get a picture of the full trifecta and Henry mumbled, “You’re so dumb.”

I am really leaning into the Empty Nester Lifestyle. I mean, not that this isn’t something we would have done with Chooch still in the house, because obviously we were still going to concerts back then too but it just feels…different somehow? Like, fresh? Like almost as though we ARE DATING? I dunno man, it’s weird.

Also, it felt kind of wild being around this certain demographic again. Cold is hard rock (actually they were even considered nu-metal adjacent there for a time) and I haven’t been in this scene in A LONG FUCKING TIME. I mean, this was my pre-Chooch life, really. This predated the Warped Tour and screamo and post-hardcore season of my life.

I have to say, on one hand I felt very comfortable and confident in this environment, it felt natural and familiar, I felt like my old out-going self. And it’s probably the only type of man that still CHECKS ME OUT, lol. I came back from the background and bragged to Henry about that. He just frowned.

But on the other hand, looking around at the majority of these people – especially the women – I am very thankful that I got out of this scene. I was always getting drunk back then off gross things like Smirnoff Ice and chain-smoking Camel Wides. I can only imagine how gross my voice would be today, how old I would look, how FUCKED my health would be in general. Hard Rock Erin was not it.

Literally, though, this one “rode hard & put away wet” woman came falling into the bathroom and Skeletor’d, “DO YINZ KNOW IF I CAN VAPE IN HERE??” Calm down, sis. Also, NO????

I took this to send to Chooch. He lowkey hates that his parents go out together I think, lol.

That guy’s face, though lol.

I just want to say that this was only our second time at Crafthouse and both times we had wonderful servers. I enjoyed my food a lot more this time – I went with the margherita flatbread and it was just right. Also, I Like Beer Now^TM and their selection is pretty good. Henry and I both had two different IPAs and both were good. Specifically, I had an Aslin Clear Nights and an Appalachian Brewing Co. Hop Offering. I don’t remember what Henry had because he refuses to update Untapped.

Good music aside, I just want to say that I really enjoyed this night so much. It was a tough decision to come out, but I’m glad I did and that Dumb Henry was with me. JUST LIKE OLD TIMES when it felt like we were seeing Cold several times a year for a while there. But be prepared for the show recap because it’s going to be so stupid-emo.

I promise I won’t do this every year, but this is our FIRST anniversary as a married couple and I am feeling nice about that today and was in my feels looking through pictures from our Korean Marriage Mission.  So, here are some (the only, actually) pictures of me and Henry from that trip! Most of the pictures were of Chooch, or of all three of us. Not too many of just me and Henry together probably because he IS SO ANNOYING to take pictures with.

(Henry. Yes, you are.)

In Gyeongju!

Our handmade wedding bands that we made in Hongdae!

LOL us with our marriage license; Chooch was SO PUT OUT that we asked him to CROSS THE STREET and come over to us to take this picture. He gave literally zero fucks about this whole thing because his life did not change at all.

I loved loved loved this place. 

Buddhist Food in Insadong!

Cheonggyecheon <3

We actually came here to take Chooch’s senior pictures, but he snapped some of us too, grudgingly.

I love this picture so much, thanks Chooch! I should probably get this framed.

Henry’s dumb face lol.

One of the BEST places to walk and a great place to watch the sun set. 

I hope that we get to go back to Korea again someday. I feel more alive there than I have anywhere else in my life and the fact that Henry was willing to marry me there means so much more than any traditional wedding we could have had here. It was no frills. Just us, in jeans. I actually couldn’t imagine doing this any other way and would not change a thing.

(OK, maybe I’d have eaten more salt bread. Lol.)

Ugh, I’m crying as usual.

I woke up today to a gift bag full of Totally Erin gifts:

I was cracking up because these could easily pass for a middle schooler’s birthday presents.

Speaking of…Henry said that he talked to his mom today. She said something along the lines of how it’s too bad he didn’t meet me before “that other one” and married me first. Henry was like, “Mom, I’d have gone to jail.” I mean, considering I was IN MIDDLE SCHOOL when he was marrying “that other one.”

So, then she said that he could have “waited for me” and I screamed, “EW, SHE WAS SUGGESTING THAT YOU GROOM ME?!”

That was such a sobering moment on The First Anniversary of Ruby & Hoover’s Marriage Fit for an LJ Post.

Anyway, baby’s first Enhypen album!

The moment the lights went out in the Chicago Theater, I knew I was cooked. Done for. Stick a fork in me, sir.

(Blog Post Interlude: Henry, being the respectful Kpop Dad that he is, was standing at first and then realized that the girl behind him was v. smol, so he apologized and remained seated for the whole concert. Sure, call him courteous, praise his nunchi, but I believe this was his excuse to sit and drink his beer while admiring Taemin’s abs in comfort.)

Taemin opened with Deja Vu and my heart was palpitating at dangerous levels. Taemin.

LEE TAEMIN.

!!!!

UNDER THE SAME ROOF AS ME!

This is from the Bangkok stop because I couldn’t find any good quality videos from Chicago, but this is a classic example of going from “liking a song” to “FUCKING OBSESSING OVER A SONG” after seeing it performed live. It expanded its real estate in my heart.

I have been struggling with how to effectively encapsulate the swirling feelings of this night into a blog post, but if you have ever seen one of your God Tier artists, you know how it is. It’s impossible. You just have to know that I was hyper-aware of the riotous thumping of my heart the whole entire night. The mask may have been stifling my maniacal screaming, but I was IN DEEP. I could not take my eyes off of him (except for when the broad in front of me would start to lean out of the aisle, forcing me to have to move into the aisle too – she was pissing me off so much because she HAD SO MUCH ROOM between her and the girl to her right and if she would have just fucking stood within the area of her actual seat, I would have had the perfect view that I paid for BUT WHATEVER. That was the only less than perfect part of the whole night.)

I just want to post ever live video from the concert that I can find but that would be ridiculous so I will just keep watching those on my own time and tell you that this one of the best nights of my life. Taemin is art in motion. I know he is not a machine but D A N G, I wish he would have performed for another 2 hours. It felt so short.

Set 1:

• • Intro video
• Deja Vu
• Guilty
• Advice
  • Ment 1
• Goodbye
• IDEA
• Heaven

Set 2: Ballads

• • VCR (Henry went and bought my shirt during this!)
• I’m Crying
• Clockwork (!!!!!!!!!! I never thought I would hear this live!!!!)
• Not Over You
  • Ment 2 (with snippets of a cappella fan-requested songs, including LOVE!!!!, Flame of Love, Pretty Boy – he gave Kai a shout out here, welcoming him back from the military!)
• The Unknown Sea
• Blue

Set 3:

• • VCR
  • Dance break with dancer intros (I thought this was so cool of him to give them props!)
• G.O.A.T.
• The Rizzness (!!!)
• Sexy In the Air
  • Ment 4
• Move (!!!!! LEGENDARY)
• Want
• Criminal (I died)
• Horizon

Fan-led Singalong organized by ChiWols – The Unknown Sea

ENCORE:

• Danger
• Crush
  • Ment 5
• Hypnosis
  • Ment 6
• Say Less

I started crying as I typed that last song, haha.

These pictures are trash because they’re basically just screenshots from my videos but I don’t care.

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I go to concerts fairly often but this was the first time in quite some time when I actually had friends texting me the next day, and messaging me when I got back to work, asking me how it was because they knew what a major deal this was for me, and that made it even more special.

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OH LORD HELP ME.

I was texting Chooch like a maniac during the VCRs and when we got back to the hotel.

“Yeah, but did he even glance* at you?” he asked because he is such a little bastard lol.

*(I tried so hard to get VIP for the opportunity to “make eye contact” with Taemin, literally that was how one of the perks was described, and Chooch thought it was the funniest thing ever that 1. I was willing to pay $250 for this perk and that 2. VIP packages sold out in seconds.)

Songs I would have given up my blood to hear live:

• Love (he did sing a verse!)
• Rise
• Nemo
• Press Your Number
• Artistic Groove

But honestly, he could have sung nursery rhymes to us all night and I would have been happy.

And then the lights came on. I did not want to leave. :(

All I remember after this was walking back to the hotel in a daze, then being body-slammed by adrenaline and unable to fall asleep. I just lay there in bed, watching the video snippets I took on my phone, “Friends” playing on the hotel TV as is hotel tradition for us, feeling this insane mix of euphoria and a deep aching, which of course would grow legs by the next day and turn into full-fledged post-show depression.

On the drive home (which was actually pleasant, no fighting!) I just kept whispering, “I can’t believe we saw Taemin. He is so perfect. DID YOU SEE HOW PERFECT HE IS??”

My favorite part about him is his divine duality – when he is performing, he is this dark, sultry angel telling a story with every move he makes. right down to the intentional flexing of his fingers. No move is wasted, even the slightest twitch of his elbow matters. But then the music stops and he is LEE TAEMIN-AH, exuding precious innocence, being a dork, mocking us and himself – I can’t stand him, lol!

https://youtube.com/shorts/XagzXPxNNmA?si=U6itZm5AxZtNbmSu

Ugh, it was so good. Taemin is a living legend and if you don’t know him by now, why?!

Back at the start of the pandemic, I had somehow come across retrowave playlists on YouTube. Actually, I’m pretty sure the algorithm did its thang and my obsessive listening to the Black Queen organically planted me in the lap of this beautiful synth movement. I tend to not listen to Kpop while I’m working because it distracts me (I will start to try and translate what I’m hearing and then I need to stop what I’m doing to check if I’m correct, or I want to get up and jump around, or I will start daydreaming about Korea, etc etc etc) but there is something magical about retrowave because it’s soothing, nostalgic and it puts me in the right zone for working.

HOWEVER.

I accidentally began to associate this with Drew. I guess it’s natural since she was always with me while I was working, and I’d say things to her like, “OMG IT’S OUR JAM!” and try to make her dance lol.

Some of this stuff hits on a very emotional level to begin with – it itches the nostalgic side of my brain, you know? But, after she died, all of it became like that to me and I have not been able to listen to any of it since then. Which is sad because this was my happy place during the work week. Now, I’ve been struggling to find something else. Norwegian pop. Russian pop. Afrobeats. Romanian Club Hits.

But nothing hits like retrowave.

Then a few months ago, I saw that Ollie Wride was coming to PITTSBURGH on his US tour. Ollie Wride is one of the PRESTIGE singers in this genre. His voice sounds like he’s soundtracked the 80s high school coming-of-age movie from your dreams. He did a song with FM 84 several years ago and that song is basically at the top of the retrowave leaderboard of my heart. Probably the one I have listened to the most, and the first time that I really stopped and started looking more into these singers and bands. I found a version that was recording for a livestream during COVID and at that moment, I swore that I had to see Ollie Wride live if ever presented with the opportunity:

Please watch this and tell me it doesn’t plant you firmly into a pair of Jellies during the spring of 1987.

When I hear this song now though, I imagine Drew here with me, sitting on my work laptop because she liked the warmth. I am so broken over this, just the most pathetic sad sack.

Anyway, my likeminded retrowave friends Shawn and Jess were down to join us at this show so I felt good about it, like this could be a healthy step in the healing process. It’s either face it head-on or keep sitting here crying alone like a fucking maniac.

Shawn and I were dying because the show was held at the Crafthouse, which is a small venue across the street from a bar we used to be regulars at back in the early 00s, plus we were best concert buds back then too so this was such a fun “reliving our youth” moment.

And so, on Sunday evening, Henry and I arrived at the Crafthouse a bit before doors opened because we wanted to secure a good table. However, due to technical issues, the doors were delayed by about 45 minutes. We stood outside with a handful of other early birds and chatted about retrowave, darkwave and then bands I didn’t care about and then A LOT of stuff about the college where three of the people work and that stuff bored me so I lulled off into a happy place in my head – j/k the place in my head was where I retreat so that I can scream into a psychic pillow and start thinking about all the ways my life is being inconvenienced by things not starting on time. This is…who I am, you guys. I am working on it, and will probably talk about it tomorrow in therapy lol.

I do want to put out these things for remembering though:

• one of the guys mentioned Kraftwerk so I RAISED MY HAND and said, “My doorbell plays a Kraftwerk song.” Henry said later, “Yeah, I knew that was coming.”
• someone mentioned king gizzard and the lizard wizard and Henry and I chuckled to ourselves because Chooch likes that band too.
• I got to give The Black Queen a much-deserved promotion and was actually surprised that these guys hadn’t heard of them and simultaneously shocked that I wasn’t mansplained or talked over. The one guy even showed me his phone later and said, “Is this them? Cool, I’m adding them now – thanks!”

Anyway, we finally got to go inside around 6:20. We were in the third group that went in but there were VIPs who were already inside so all the good tables were taken. Then I was like, “NOPE” when we chose a table and a group with A BABY sat down at the next one. I just didn’t want to sit next to a baby, maybe I’M A MONSTER. So, we switched tables and it was much better.

I was excited to drink IPAs, who am I.

We were the coolest table in the house, except for maybe the one table that had a guy wearing a fitted leather jacket with SYNTH RIDER spelled out in studs on the back. I told Henry to get out the Bedazzler and do that to my pleather jacket.

I dunno what to say about my dumb pose other than I had two beers at this point and that is so many beers for me.

Henry went to the bathroom at one point and when he came back, I said I had to go too and asked him where it was. He told me and then said, “And say hello to your friend Bethany on the way there. She’s leaning against the wall.”

“Bethany??” I asked.

“Yeah, she said to me ‘your Erin’s husband Henry, aren’t you?’ and said she recognized me from Instagram.” That’s Henry’s most favorite thing to hear, btw. “Erin’s Instagram.” “Erin’s blog.” LOL.

Anyway, it was my friend Bethany from Balloon Ride Fantasy! I haven’t seen her since pre-pandemic when we met up for Korean food at Nakwon Garden (she used to live in Korea years ago as an English teacher!). She was there for the second opener, Vacances and came over to sit with us for a bit before Ollie Wride and it was so nice to catch up with her!

Speaking of openers, I’m not used to this because kpop concerts don’t have openers and it’s actually…nice lol. But that night, there were two and the other was Caleb Kopta. It was OK. I made eye contact with him a few times and tried to brag that we imprinted.  Henry was like, “That’s nice.” I did really like Vacances though and would be up to see them again since they’re local!

And then it was time for OLLIE WRIDE. “Sorry, Henry,” I said as I bolted for the floor by the stage. Jess quickly joined me and it was so nice to have a friend at a show with me! (Sorry again, Henry lol.)

I just want to say that Ollie Wride’s live vocals are immaculate. The high notes were done HIT, y’all. Sheesh. And the energy he brought onto that stage with him.

This jacket didn’t stay on long!

These pictures are so awkward because I was snapping them while recording but what can you do?! It was also amazing to be AT THE FRONT OF THE STAGE like in my other lifetime of going to shows. I’m always like, “no it’s fine, I don’t mind being back far” but then the show starts and I’m like SEE YA and I run to the front. It’s the FOMO in me, I’m a true Leo. And also not cool enough to just casually slink against a wall in the back and watch while texting. I can’t pull off that amount of effortlessly cool.

I don’t have the set list but I can tell you that he performed Back To Life and that was the first time during the night when I thought to myself, “Am I going to be OK? I’m OK…right?” I mean, I was screaming along and doing when Henry called my “happy sort of dance thing” because apparently, he was spying on me from the table like a creeper. And I can tell you for certain that I was very happy that night. Henry wasn’t being dumb, we had good beer, I was with two of my amazing friends, saw another friend….talked to strangers, even! If I can only make this a habit, maybe I’d feel less lonely on every other day.

Earlier in the night, I had made an offhanded remark about how I’m not outgoing and Jess stopped me.

“Yes, you are,” she said firmly.

“No, I’m not really,” I said, face scrunched.

“You are definitely outgoing, come on!” she argued. And you know what? I am fucking outgoing. I just let situations and people stifle me and I think it’s because I’m just too tired to fight it. But Jess is right, at my core, I am an extrovert and I am going to work on making that dominant trait again. (I’m also very obnoxious too which goes hand-in-hand with me being an extrovert so toning that down is a bridge I’ll cross when I get to it I guess.)

OK, the last song was, of course, Running In the Night which is when I did fully break. This fucking song.

I would have paid so much more just to hear this one song. But the entire night was so sublime. He performed Victoria too! And his band was incredible to watch, too. This night. Man.

We rejoined Henry at our table afterward. Most of the crowd had cleared out but we stayed and chatted some more, no one in any hurry to leave.

“Hey, there’s Ollie!” Shawn pointed over my shoulder, where Ollie was one table away with a tiny group of people. “He’s signing stuff! Go ask him to sign your record!” he urged. I didn’t even hesitate. I grabbed my record, purchased as soon as we arrived because I do not wait for merch, and waited my turn.

“What’s your name?” Ollie asked me when it was my turn.

“Erin,” I said, and then, “Can I tell you something weird?”

“Sure!” he said as he was signing my record.

“I associate your music with my cat,” I started, to which he said, “Oh, I have animals, too.”

“She died.”

He stopped signing.

“And tonight was really healing for me. Thank you,” I said as I was on the verge of tears all over again.

And he fucking hugged me.

“You got an Ollie Wride hug!” Shawn squealed (lol) when I came back to the table! And apparently, I hadn’t stopped recording after the last song, so there is a 20 minute long video of the ceiling of the Crafthouse with us chatting post-show. Sadly, I was a bit out of range for my phone to pick up my convo with Ollie but you can hear a hushed, “Aw!” from my table when he hugged me.

Unfortunately, you can also hear how fucking annoying I am talking about kpop scandals for 10 minutes straight but whatever – I’ll be keeping that ceiling rafter video for posterity!

I know everyone is so sick of hearing my cry and lament about my dead cat but I am really trying here. Tonight was a big step for me. I feel so emotional but in a good way because not only did I get to spend time with good friends, but I got to catch up with Bethany and also experience the fantastic Ollie Wride as the cherry on top. I’m really glad I didn’t pass this up. When I saw ten tour announcement last summer, I was scared because of what retro wave has become to me, but – safety in numbers. And I needed to rip the Band-Aid off so I can eventually go back to enjoying this amazing genre of music that used to be such a comfort to me.

And then maybe this can happen:

OK BYE I’M CRYING LOL.

My Pappap’s death defined me for YEARS. It happened so abruptly, a few short hours after I had just left his house where he had been sitting on his worn spot of the couch, watching TV and making work calls. Business as usual.

Then BAM – he was gone. Aneurysm. Didn’t even make it to the hospital.

I don’t want to say I’m over it but you know, almost 30 years later and I think it’s safe to say that I can look at photos of him and feel joy rather than grief. Because he was the greatest man I have known and loved. The father I didn’t have. My safe space.

These things are being rehashed in therapy. I didn’t realize how much unprocessed trauma I have in relation to his death. The residual grief that rears its head in odd places and times. Drew’s death over the summer was so similar to his and it opened something inside of me and now I have been grieving them both this whole time, trying to make sense of it. My Pappap’s untimely death was the #1 worst thing that ever happened to me, hands down, no contest. And Drew’s death is a close second. Maybe that will help illustrate why I have been such a shell of myself this last months. The triggers have been so real.

He was the only one in my family who ever showed me true unconditional love. He’s the reason why when I think of my childhood, I feel like I’m bursting with happiness and not dwelling on the bad things that were happening at my own house where I felt like an intruder, like I didn’t belong. I never felt like that at my Pappap’s. Which is why his house is my “happy place” that I think of to calm down when we’re doing EMDR in therapy. Except that after he died, my grandma and Sharon slowly ruined that for me.

If there is one thing I wish, it’s that he and Chooch would have had a chance to know each other. “If you think I was spoiled, I guarantee it would have been next level with Chooch and my Pappap,” I said to Henry, who mono-grunted in response.

He did everything for me, and gave everything to me.

When he died, NO ONE WOULD TALK ABOUT IT. I was dying on the inside. I needed my family more than anything then and everyone just shut down. Nothing was ever the same again and I am not being dramatic. You want to talk about an empire falling. This was exactly that. My family never bounced back. I have like, no relationship with any of them except for my brother Corey. It is so fucking sad.

While today is the anniversary of his death, I’m not sad per se. I mean, I shed a few quiet tears, but I think I am just more….introspective today. Just thinking about everything he taught me, how he was actually my saving grace, my role model, and the type of selfless and giving person that I still aspire to me. I hope that one day, I can be that for someone. (CHOOCH PLEASE GIVE ME GRANDKIDS SOME DAY, I WANT TO HAVE THAT CHANCE.)

This guy was literally the glue that held us together. He gave me such a strong love for travel, too and the desire to do everything possible to give Chooch experiences as he was growing up.

He wasn’t even ashamed of me when I got fat, braces, and fugly-ass bangs!

You know, another thing is that my Pappap was a very wealthy business owner so I had a very comfortable childhood and we all enjoyed a rich lifestyle up until he died, when money was mishandled, the business ran into the ground. But because of how he raised me, I was able to go my own way and live my own life without handouts. Henry and I struggled financially for YEARS but we worked hard, paid off debts, tried (still trying) to be smart(er) with our finances and while we aren’t rich and will likely never be higher than middle class, I appreciate everything that we have earned over the years and I get those values from my Pappap. I bounced back when the only other option was to do nothing and sink. I have been really sitting with these thoughts a lot lately, I guess it’s that season of life, and more than ever do I appreciate everything I learned from my Pappap. I don’t take things for granted, I didn’t stay spoiled (well….lol), and I don’t expect ANYONE to do anything for me. I have strong work ethics and I take pride in my work.

Because of my Pappap. The greatest man I have ever known.

I was telling my therapist last week that I keep finding myself in this mortality spiral where I sit on the couch and my life flashes before my eyes like one of those stupid flip-page illustration books but it’s mostly my time as a mom, Chooch through the years, Bambi and then no more Bambi, and I start to panic about how time is just fucking Days of Our Lives’ing through my fingers and how much time do I have left with Henry and will Chooch have a happy life on his own without us and before I know it, I can’t breathe and I’m so sad that it’s crippling. Like right now I’m typing this and just flat out ugly-crying and choking on mucus, it’s fucking pathetic. I know that, to an extent, this is normal. It’s like a rite of passage for moms, right? I guess some of the more emotionally attuned dads too.

But I feel so stuck on a loop and like instead of enjoying whatever time I have left, I’m wasting it by wondering HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE LEFT.

The other day, I was looking out of the backporch windows at the crows and the squirrels and even though it’s so gross and cold out, there was some crazy split-second glimmer of a vibe, an essence in the air, that made the thought “spring will be here soon” ticker across my stupid brain, and then I BURST INTO TEARS. Thinking about a spring without Chooch. Opening up the backporch for just one cat, not two. Probably having even more gray hair. Henry limping. EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT. WE ARE ALL SO OLD.

(OMG if you could see how hard I am crying right now, I actually just took a step outside of my body and am cracking up at how fucking hysterical I am being. Do I need drugs?! WHAT DO I NEED.)

(THIS HAS GOT TO BE A MIDLIFE CRISIS.)

I just finished this one book that I had mixed feelings on for almost the whole thing until the very end when it just BLASTED me with grief and emotions, a mom at her son’s wedding, not knowing her husband would die in a handful of years, adjusting to life alone, etc etc and I was like SCREAMING INTERNALLY while giving my eyeballs full reign to just dump the tears out, who cares anymore. If you ever see me and I’m NOT crying at this point in my life, check my pulse because I might be dead.

I miss having Chooch around so much, yes we text every day and yes he still annoys me with his random displays of incompetency and his frustrating, surly one-word answers. But then he will open up about life in Philly and allow me tiny glimpses and I am like I LOVE HIM SO MUCH and then I feel so happy but also somehow more sad.

Yesterday in group chat, some people were sharing photos of their babies and grandbabies for Valentine’s Day and I was so bereft that I no longer fit into these conversations, being in some cold, parental limbo. I had nothing to contribute and then it made me remember this old Valentine’s picture of Chooch and I was too sad to share it then but I will share it now because I miss having a baby. I just miss HIM as a baby.

:( 2008

In an overwhelming fit of “I NEED TO DO SOMETHING TO SHOW HIM I LOVE HIM” I sent Chooch a Saxby gift card for Valentine’s Day, for which he thanked me (even used an exclamation mark!) and then promptly bought his coffee with Henry’s debit card, lol. Little signs of “some things will never change” and I am grateful for that.

I finished the aforementioned book this afternoon and left the house for the first time in over week, finally feeling better, to walk it back to the library. On my way there, the Las Palmas taco cart was BLASTING Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and I actually laughed out loud, more like a sarcastic bark though, at the universe’s sick, totally on-the-nose joke. Really? THAT song? I had to pause before entering the library because I could feel my eyes started to sear with sorrow AGAIN. I am basically just walking around like an unhinged woman on the edge these days, it’s so pathetic. Can I go one day without crying, please.

My therapist told me to start writing this stuff down and I guess that’s what this blog is now, a page for FEELINGS AND CHAOS. It’s so annoying. I’M so annoying. Hopefully one day I will reenter the land of the living. Because whatever this is, it AIN’T IT.

The other day in group chat, I had a long-dormant memory unlocked when the subject of Girl Scout Cookie sales came up, and then Navanny shared with us that he funded his high school trip to NY by selling $1500 worth of full-sized candy bars.

It was at this moment that pea-brain sprung to life and began churning. Now, I don’t remember exact details and I think I actually gave false info to group chat when I was first regaling them with my triggered memory, but when I was in 1oth grade, I had lofty entrepreneurial aspirations and when a building down the street went up for sale, my immediate thought as a 15-year-old high school student was to buy it and turn it into a cafe.

I told group chat that it was a pizza place that had closed and went up for sale, but now that I’m thinking of this, it can’t be true because I’m pretty sure that pizza place didn’t close until much later, so it must have been something attached to it, or next to it. I think it’s a salon now, actually.

ANYWAY-V, all I remember next is finding a local candy shop that had agreed to give (???) me a bunch of chocolate roses for me to sell as a fundraiser. GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT I TOLD THESE PEOPLE I WAS RAISING MONEY FOR.

So many questions.

Like, did I just cold call these people? Or were they advertising that their edible wares were available for fundraisers? How did I get them? Did Lisa drive me to pick it up?? I vaguely remember this being on the South Side and, being “edgy kids,” Lisa and I did hang out there quite often so maybe I saw a sign in their window?!

But still, did they just GIVE THIS TO ME?

Hilarious also that I thought, thanks to my slippery grasp* on the American dollar, that I would be able to sell like 100 pieces of chocolate and then suddenly have enough money to buy/rent a commercial building.

*(Henry wants to point out that my grasp is still just as lubricated in the present day.)

Some other spotty pieces to this story include me getting “in trouble” for soliciting my non-school sanctioned fundraising wares on school grounds. I feel like my friend Shawn Steele bought one for sure because he always did what I told him, and maybe my other friend V who did not grow up to become a member of BTS, sorry. But other than that, who knows who was buying these from me. Apparently, not enough people because the other spotty bits coming back to me involve the candy place being like HELLO KNOCK KNOCK OUR CUT IS WHERE? and my Pappap having to pay them the difference.

You would think that this would be the part of the story where I got grounded or had a “value of the dollar” lesson, but no. I never suffered the consequences back then and just went back to my old tried-and-true: inflating the cost of school lunch and then only buying a Zebra Cake and iced tea, and pocketing the rest of my Pappap’s change.

(When I told Henry this, he was like, “Do you really think your Pappap thought school lunch was that much money and wasn’t, you know, just GIVING YOU the extra money??” But I mean, when he puts it like that, it makes me look less lucrative and savvy.)

Obviously I never opened my own cafe at the tender age of 15 but I will tell you that that area is still, to this day, severely lacking in cafes!!! There is a Starbucks, a Coffee Tree Roasters, and several Dunkins. No Erin-branded cafes. I probably spent all that money on CDs, lol.

What would I even have called my cafe, back then, I wonder? In 10th grade, I was super into gangsta rap and Bone Thugs n Harmony. Mo’ Murda, Mo Mocha? Puttin’ the CAP in Cappucino? Cafe Crossroads?

Ugh, I don’t have the energy for this.

Today I am going to talk about some of my latest obsessions because if there is one thing synonymous with Erin Rachelle Kelly it’s “obsessions.”

1. Marching band jackets

G-Dragon recently performed at Taeyang’s concert in Korea and he was wearing this DARLING and REGAL cropped  marching band-esque jacket which probably cost something akin to a down payment on a house.

So, I started searching eBay for marching band jackets which sent me on a spiral Saturday night.

I found one from some high school in California that is also apparently RON HOWARD’S alma mater, I guess. I said the size out loud which was very foreign to me (36L).

“Is that a big size?” Henry asked.

“I dunno! I wasn’t in band. Well, I was but I quit before I got that far because I chose tennis. Which I also quit. Because all I do is quit. I’m like the opposite of DJ Khalid.”

2. FUNERAL CAKES

I’m back on my Romania kick – we are tentatively planning our belated honeymoon Transylvania tour for hopefully sometime late summer. To prepare, I have been trying to read some books that take place in Romania. In the one I just read set during the 1970s Communist-era, there was a reference to something called COLIVA and the footnote said that it was food prepared for and associated with funerals in Romania.

In a nutshell, it’s described as a “sweet pudding made from boiled wheat” and it’s traditionally feasted upon during ST LUCY’S DAY celebrations. Now, this is appealing to me as well because as saints go, St. Lucy is one of the coolest. I was talking about this in group chat and Glenn was acting like I had made her up? He was like, “if you say so” when I said she’s the saint that holds eye balls on a platter, as if this hasn’t been something depicted in artwork for centuries?

IF YOU SAY SO?

I was really mad for like 1/3 of the day when he said that. YES, I DO SAY SO, GLENN.

Look, it’s a statue of St Lucy that was made BECAUSE I SAID SO:

Anyway, we’re now going to start celebrating St. Lucy’s Day in our household because I want to eat coliva but I want to EAT IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS, if you know what I mean. I already added a reminder in my phone.

3. Being a beer snob

I don’t know who this new Erin is but I am very confused by her. I spent my whole teenage and adult life up until recently despising beer so much and now I am obsessed with trying all the different kinds. I look forward to the weekend because sometimes we go to the beer distributor and build our own 6 packs which is exciting and fun for me (see also: life is meaningless with Chooch in college, so on and so forth).

Sometimes I made Henry watch beer videos on YouTube.

“What if all of a sudden I became a brewer? And I was real serious and wore a lab coat? NO –  I WORE A MARCHING BAND JACKET.”

Full circle.

Anyway, I think for our ANNIVERSARY lololololololololol we are going to Cooperstown, NY to visit Ommegang Brewery which specializes in BELGIAN BEER and are also a sub from one of my fave Belgian brewers, Duval. I mean, this is assuming that I’m still into beer by the end of March. You know me and whims and how they blow freely with the breeze.

This was the beer that got me on the ol’ Google Horn. I mean, the can alone is ADORBS and I actually still have it sitting in the kitchen because I can’t bear to pitch it and I want to do art with it.

Which will inevitably require metalcutting tools which means I will be delegating the art to Henry.

4. CLIVE PEARSE

This is a blast-from-the-past obsession from a younger Erin with greener infatuations, but remember a few years ago when I posted about finding this AUTOGRAPHED HEADSHOT OF SOME BRITISH TV/RADIO PERSONALITY when we were cleaning out a closet or something?

Well, that was in 2018 and this bitchin’ piece of history has been floating from one junk drawer to the next before eventually finding a home between the pages of a notebook. BUT DRIFT NO LONGER, SWEET CLIVE PEARSE – you finally have a home:

Why am I seriously such a loser.

There is a dumb story behind nearly everything in my house but no one ever asks when they come here and boy, are they missing out.

On that note, I just yelled, “WHAT ARE YOU GETTING ME FOR VALENTINE’S DAY, YOU CUNT?” to Henry and now I shall close my laptop and try to find something productive to do. Like, search for more marching band jackets. Janna if you’re reading this and you still have your band jacket, give me it.

I know some people were UP IN ARMS when the craft conglomerate MICHAELS did an early release of Halloween decor last year right before summer and it was OMG in a retro summer palette. But shooooo, I was into it. I love orange and pink as complementary colors, and I loved the 1960s mini-skirt floral print that was used on some of the decor too. LIKE THIS COFFIN SHELF, for instance. I had been bitching about we need to have more knick knack shelves because I am hoarder-adjacent. I love souvenirs and things like that! I can’t help it.

It’s so perfect for my needs and aesthetic. I love death-stuff but also colors. And vintage floral!

Henry was stoked to see that I moved this Pal’s Styrofoam cup from the top of the fridge where it had been living for approx. 3 years to the shelf. I just really wanted a memento from Pal’s OK?? It was a very sentimental part of one of our past road trips and I refused to let Henry throw it out!! Originally, I wanted to turn it into Art somehow but Styrofoam is weird to work with and also, isn’t this Art enough on its own?

Speaking of that hyperlink, this is such a sad glimpse into my life currently but I have putting myself to sleep at night by reading old road trip liveblogs and then dozing off on a pillow of nostalgia. I’m so sad that those days are likely over, at least for the three of us, because this summer coming up will be his last summer home from school since Drexel does Co-Ops. I have been on this kick lately where I daydream about him graduating and eventually having a family and then we all drive off into the sunset together on crazy road trips, destination: random amusement parks.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I am struggling over here lol. I’m not as weepy as I thought I would be but I definitely feel like he took half of my heart with him to Philly. I never really considered myself the type of person who identified solely as a “mom,” but I think it’s more that in addition to being my son he was/is MY BEST FRIEND. I miss hassling Henry together, getting on each others’ nerves, arguing over the last word, having stupid adventures and inside jokes.

It’s stupid (it’s not stupid) but this cup is kind of a symbol of that.

Random lighters! I used to be a HEAVY SMOKER in my late teens right up until I got pregnant at 25. I am so grateful to pregnancy making me flat out averse to cigarettes for obvious reasons. But I still have these two remnants of my past nicotine-clouded life (and two cigarette cases!!!). Also, my second cat was named Nicotina – that was how idiotic of a smoker I was.

Anyway, I bought that first lighter at a smokers (and also bondage lol) den on the South Side called Slackers. And the Robert Smith one was an eBay purchase back when all I did was scour eBay for Cure memorabilia. (Never forget when I threw myself down prostrate on my mom’s kitchen floor because I wanted her to give me like $5000 to purchase a ROBERT SMITH AND LYDIA LUNCH SHARED JOURNAL and I was even prepared to sell my car but it was in MY MOM’S NAME and she said NO.)

The infamous bottle of Bela Lugosi’s grave dirt that I had saved on Etsy because I wanted to purchase it for my friend Alyson who’s LJ name is “gravedirt” and then Henry the Goof saw it and thought it was something I wanted and got it for me for Christmas. I was so confused. IT WAS ON YOUR WISHLIST he said. And I was like YES FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Joke’s on me ‘cuz I just assumed bro never looked at that shit. It still cracks me up when I look at it because THE ONE time Henry tries to “do the right thing” things go awry.

Anyway, I used to keep this on my desk at work for years and it was a great conversation starter.

(And conversation killer.)

Um, this frog…I honestly can’t remember where he’s from?!?! He could have been purchased from some shop of handmade wares while on some grand vacation.

Or…Pier One.

In either case, I’ve had him since high school so he has been a consistent part of my home decor for possibly 30 years. Yikes. An heirloom.

(OMG DO YOU THINK THE PALS CUP WILL BE AN HEIRLOOM ONE DAY TOO.)

Oh, this one makes me cry for several reasons.

1. I bought this on our last day in Korea last year, from a halmoni who hand embroiders them. That is her name on it too – Hoon Jae. She was so sweet and I am kicking myself for not buying more. I love it so much that I won’t even take it out of the organza bag because I want to keep it clean and protected forever.

2. It used to sit on my home desk and Bambi would always jump up, sniff it out, and start chewing on the bag. I miss her so much that if I could go back in time, I would just let this be hers only. Bambi’s halmoni hanky.

Well, that’s it for this edition of Things Around My House.

Oh shit, P.S.!! That crow that looks ancient was gifted to me this past Christmas by my brother Ryan! He was like, “I dunno, it just seemed like something you would like” and boy howdy, do I ever. I have a big appreciation for crows because we are on the same side when it comes TO GETTING THE HAWK TO FUCK RIGHT OFF.