Jan 182020
 

This was intended to be a Friday Five but then I went all in after work yesterday on putting the finishing touches on my cult & spiritual leaders Valentine minis which have been plaguing my brain since I first decided last year that I wanted to make them. Hopefully people like them, so look forward to that – should be posted on Etsy later today!

So anyway, here are five things that I have been putting off memorializing on this piece because I’ve had bloglock over the last few months – I think I still enjoy writing in here but I can’t be sure, and then there’s the lack of motivation because all of my energy is funneled elsewhere, so maybe the blog-era of my life is finally winding down? Here is where I perform a big, lazy shrug for no one to see.

  1. My Neglected Son–Wait, I Have a Son?

Several months ago, Chooch and I were on one of our nightly walks — you know, the ones where he oscillates between talking about school drama and new math (he had a math test the other day and practically swan-leapt out of the house, fucking weirdo) — when he so very casually mentioned that he had been interviewed by “some broad” at the teen center.

“For what? What about? Who was she? Where is this being published?” I asked in the spit-fire nature of an interrogating mom.

He shrugged. All I could glean from him was that it was something about the head of the teen center, Caitlin. And they wanted quotes from him because he’s “basically the face of the teen center.” Um, his words.

Well, on the first of January, I received an e-newsletter from the teen center – apparently he signed me up for this so now I can have evidence that I’m marginally involved in his teen center activities.

In the newsletter was this graphic:

CHECK OUT THAT QUOTE FROM RILEY, 13-YEAR-OLD 8TH GRADER…Yes, that is my son, putting his parents on blast for allegedly neglecting him and never being home. WOW JUST WOW OK SON. We get home at 6pm everyday, like most working parents, yet he stays at the teen center until 9pm anyway because he’s obsessed with being there! He even eats dinner there even though Henry makes dinner at home!? I called him out on this and he shrugged. “They took it out context,” he explained. “I also said that you guys aren’t home after school because you’re busy working hard.” YEAH, THAT SURELY SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING HE WOULD SAY.

So, that’s cool. One Saturday, Henry and I walked past the teen center while Chooch was in there and I said, “Should we go in there and officially announce ourselves as his parents so they know we exist?”

Henry considered this, then said, “Nah” so we continued eating our cookies from the bakery while walking home, and YES WE GOT COOKIES FOR CHOOCH TOO even though he is the one who abandons US but that’s fine. I’m not bitter.

Fucking teen center kidnapped my son.

2. Guy on Road

I was walking to the ATM the other night when I saw some commotion at this one intersection a block down from my house. Some guy was standing in the road directing traffic, and as I got closer, I noticed that another man was lying prostrate on the road with a small crowd of people around him, wailing, “I am in so much pain” and I’m not sure exactly what happened but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that he was trying to cross (AT THE CROSSWALK) and some OMG-IN-A-HURRY car came barreling up the hill and hit him. I HATE crossing the street here and I have to do it every morning on the walk to work (actually, I could walk on the other side of the street but then I would have to cross extra times and I am bad at crossing streets except that I just admitted to Henry that I have become better at jaywalking since working downtown because Pittsburgh is like the unofficial capital of jaywalking, not sure if we should be proud of that). Anyway, I can’t tell you how many people barely – BARELY – stop at the stop signs at this 3-way intersection and I have nearly been clipped numerous times after already establishing my right-of-way by making it to the middle of the walk. I usually have to do this really clumsy deer-run to the other side every morning because nothing makes me more nervous on my walks to the trolley than morning commuters because you know, they’re in a big hurry to turn the bend and sit in traffic at a red light.

Actually, there is something that makes me more nervous and that is having a brick fall on my head which recently happened – not the “falling on my head” part but bricks did in fact fall from the top of a building that I habitually pass by but luckily it happened late at night when no one was standing there. It was roped off by police tape for a few days and when I found out why, I did a cartoon *GULP*.

Anyway, back to the man. On my way back from the ATM, the whole rescue brigade was there by then and the street was lit up by emergency lights which is nothing new for Pioneer Avenue. I still don’t know exactly what happened, but I sure hope that guy didn’t die.

Unless he was a bad man. Then die, motherfucker. Get what you deserve.

Random Drew.

3. Geomi-Nim

I know I mentioned at one point that I had obtained a pet kitchen spider and named him “Geomi-Nim” which means “Mister Spider” in Korean but I don’t have a Korean keyboard on my work computer so I can’t type it properly. Well, he had a good long run (at least two months, I think?!) in four different locations in the kitchen, but I guess he ultimately either tired of me screaming Korean vocab at him and packed his shit and left, or he died. Because he’s been gone for a month now and hasn’t resurfaced, which makes me sad but Henry is just happy that he can use his container of sesame seeds again without being a literal homewrecker.

Anyway, here’s a picture I took Geomi-Nim in his third property. I miss him and his beautiful webs.

Also, I have no idea what gender he was because I refused to Google; look, having one mild-looking spider in my house is one thing, but I do not want my computer screen filled with threatening photos of spider species. Henry said that he thought spiders were genderless but I was like, “OK, explain then Charlotte, then” and he was like, “………that was a cartoon.”

4. ANGRY MEETING

Earlier in the week, we had a meeting to go over a new thing that is happening. During this, someone said, “But what about *boring work thing*?” and the person in charge of the meeting was like, “What are you talking about” and then I said, “Here is my idea for a work-around to *boring work thing*” and person in charge was like, “No that is dumb that won’t work” IN SO MANY WORDS so I was like, “OK” and went back to shutting down because this is my work life lately. Shrinking into the corners and hoping no one will look at me, lol.

About 10 minutes later, GLENN said, “Can’t we do *INSERT EXACTLY WHAT I HAD PROPOSED*” and person in charge was all, “Huh! Let’s test that out!” and I was sitting there with my mouth hanging open, thinking IS NO ONE REALLY GOING TO SAY ANYTHING so I did what I do best which is drop down to elementary school age, flap my arms in the arm, and whine, “THAT IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING I SAID THOUGH?!!?” and person in charge was like, “No, it wasn’t?” and I was searching the room with desperate eyes, willing someone to stand up for all that is right and take my side WHICH IS ALWAYS THE GOOD SIDE but no one did so instead of dropping it, I pressed on and said, “No, that’s the same thing I suggested and you said it wouldn’t work” and Lauren was like, “Maybe you said it a different way, I think” AND NO I DID NOT. Meanwhile, Glenn was over there wading in Smug Lagoon with a handful of old people butterscotch candies, looking so pleased with himself and I was like, “I WILL NEVER LET THIS GO” and true to my word, I spent the rest of the day fueled by that fire and made sure to tell everyone who would listen.

“I’M NOT SAYING I’M GOING TO LIGHT A FIRE OR ANYTHING, LORI, BUT MAYBE DON’T GO OVER NEAR GLENN’S DESK LATER,” I fumed, and Lori was all, “OMG you’re mad.” But Nate and Cathy consoled me afterward and both confirmed that I did, in fact, suggest the same thing, and Cathy, who always wants to give people the benefit of the doubt, said that maybe person in charge just understand fully at that time what the issue at hand truly was (she definitely didn’t, so I will agree with Cathy there). I usually don’t show my temper at work but this really set me off, primarily because it brought back some really bad, negative feelings from a former position I once held there and I didn’t like it. Bad memories. Stay in the past.

I mean, in what world does GLENN have a good idea, anyway!??!

I’m OK now though. I was invited to be a part of a brainstorming session for something else and the other people involved in this will not be so dismissive of my suggestions, so I am looking forward to that.

5. The Ring

Sometime back in 2003, Henry and I went to Salem, MA for a little vacation. This was still early into our relationship – we had been together for about 2 years at this point, I guess, and sometimes I look back on those times and think, “How did we make it to 2020?” Oh, I jest! Only a little. Anyway, while there, I bought this ring at one of the little witchy shops and I loved it, but then almost immediately after purchasing it, I accidentally wore it into the shower once and the soap/shampoo left the once-clear stone completely cloudy, so that you could no longer see the witchy design it was meant to magnify.

I complained about it a ton back then, off and on for at least 5 years I would bring it up, because I would still wear it sometimes in spite of the soap scum, which was in the underneath of the cabochon so I couldn’t reach it. I tried using a q-tip to scrub it but it was too big, I tried soaking it in jewelry cleaner, I tried witchy spells to cosmically cleanse it, but nothing worked! Henry. when asked for help, would  smoosh his mustache up while inspecting it and then shrug.

The other day, I wore it because like I said, I paid money for the thing so I’m still going to allow it to decorate my finger, you know? For some reason, I felt inspired to once again bring up my plight to Henry.

“Hmm, let me see that,” he said, taking the ring off of me. And then he got out one of his tool-things, popped the cabochon out from the prongs, polished its underside, and then put it back.

JUST LIKE THAT.

HE COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS 17 YEARS AGO?!!?!?

“I literally did not know that this was even a thing,” he said defensively, confused as to why I was yelling at him instead of thanking him.

So this leads me to believe that Henry just blocked me out for much of the early years, so should I be happy that he listens to me now, or pissed that he didn’t listen to me then? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

Actually, I think he just hadn’t learned to fear me yet in the beginning. He’s learned a lot over the years about my INNER WITCH.

And I think that’s all I got for this belated Friday Five. Today I will be focusing on Valentines, Korean-learning, and reading. I got two books from the library on Thursday! ALL BY MYSELF!

 

Jan 142020
 

My Korean study sesh was canceled for Saturday because Jiyong had to do real work instead of the weekly charity work she does on me, lol, so I suggested to Henry that since we didn’t have any obligations, we should HAVE A DATE DAY. Wow. But then the Teen Center was closed on Saturday and Chooch caught wind of our plans to go to a cafe (I’m trying to ease Henry into enjoying coffee, it’s his new years resolution as decided by me) and so he was like, “THAT SOUNDS GREAT, I’LL GO TOO.” Personally, I think it’s adorable that Chooch still wants to spend time with us so I wasn’t about to withhold an invitation.

However, Henry felt way more strongly about this than I did. “OK WELL THIS WENT FROM A DATE TO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TWO TO SIT THERE AND MAKE FUN OF ME.” And he was all butt-hurt about it but then it didn’t matter anyway because those two pissed around so much that afternoon and then went to get father/son hair cuts (lol), so by the time that was done, it was 3pm and Chooch and his friend Marky had made plans to go see Star Wars at 5 so there went my big plans for a date day.

Instead, Henry and I went jeans shopping and we did actually stop at a cafe on the way home, but it was just Crazy Mocha because I desperately wanted a chai latte. I recommended a pistachio latte for Henry, because he’s still not ready for straight coffee, and he can currently only stomach the stuff if it’s iced. Turns out it was 70 degrees on this random January day (awesome and not awesome all at once) so an iced latte was actually a pretty refreshing choice, and I guess he thought so too because he drank it without complaining, but who knows with him. He’s very different from me, whereas I would be bitching about it and probably would have hurled it against the side of a building within the first 30 seconds of deciding I didn’t like it.

In weekend K-drama news, I finally finished watching Third Charm which I started all the way back in the fall of 2018 when it was still on air, but DRAMA FEVER went away unexpectedly after I only watched one episode, so then like 6  months went by before Viki, the streaming service I currently use for my Korean TV needs, picked it up. The problem wasn’t that I lost momentum, but it was that…the show just didn’t appeal to me. HOWEVER, one of my favorite actors, Seo Kang Joon, is the lead in it and I felt like I had to see it through even though there was zero chemistry between him and the love interest. So I kept giving up on it for months at a time, before finally powering through the second half of the series. There was one episode near the end were bad things happen to every character and it’s just an hour-long montage of people ugly-crying and it did nothing for my mental condition. Anyway, now that show’s in  the bag so I can peacefully continue watching the other ones I have on my list without Third Charm on my mind.

For instance, I’m watching Melting Me Softly, and it’s wonderful! I love Ji Chang-wook so much so when it was announced that he had had a new drama, post-military discharge, I was on board. The premise is that the PD of a variety show and one of the girls who sometimes volunteers for the show’s challenges, agree to be frozen for 24 hours in the name of the science. This was in 1999, and then of course something goes awry, and 20 years later, they’re finally unfrozen. And, as with most k-dramas, there’s the evil CEO plot line, so it’s not all chuckles, but the chemistry between Ji Chang-wook and Won Jin-ah is terrific, and it’s got Choi Bomin from Golden Child in it and he is just a fucking joy.

In the episode I was watching on Saturday, they went to Pocheon Art Valley! I HAVE BEEN  THERE! I love when this happens!

Anyway, yeah. Melting Me Softy is a great k-drama but I’m not sure if it’s on Netflix. I think you can get Viki for free but there are a ton of ads you have to suffer through and it sucks because one time I forgot my log-in and had to watch a show as a guest and it was terrible, the amount of ads.

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Oh yeah, I forgot about how I pulled Chooch out of bed on Saturday morning so that he could go to the library with me and show me how to retrieve a book I ordered (“The Vegetarian” by Han Kang). Since I signed up for a reading challenge, I’m actually really amped about this. I’ve read three books so far, am halfway through a fourth (“Nocturnes” by Kazuo Ishiguro and just started a fifth (“Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli, don’t hate, I needed something light and teenagery!), so I think I will probably end up meeting my 30 book goal for 2020 which I know is not anything spectacular but for someone who has only just climbed back onto the Literacy Wagon, it’s a big deal.

But remember: I became a vegetarian in 1996 because it felt like a challenge to prove my family wrong; I’ve been an obsessive walker since 2012 because of the walking challenge at work; I drink a gallon of water a day since 2018 because Henry frowned and said, “Do you really need an entire jug of water?” when I hoisted one onto the counter of a gas station on the way home from KCON in Newark.

I guess it’s the Leo in me.

(roar)

So now, every time I return a book to the library, it feels like a game and I’ve just leveled the FUCK UP BITCHES.

On Sunday, we really did have our…family date day. Chooch wanted to go to the main library in Oakland and I was on board with that because that’s the best one. He wanted to look for Switch games and to get a new card (his third one, ugh) and then after that we went to Coffee Buddha so we could hang out and read our books like real cool people while Henry played Boggle on his phone (he’s learning all kinds of new three-letter words). Anyway, Henry got a nitro which I had a feeling he would be OK with, and I was right. We’re making progress, people.

We had pizza for dinner and it was OK, but then I was like, “Shit I better exercise again” and I heard Henry mumble to Chooch so I yelled, “WHAT DID YOU SAY” and he was like, “nothing” but then Chooch the narc said, “He said you exercise too much.” I took that as a compliment, thank you very much.

Honestly, that was the extent of my weekend, which was….comfortable. It was a comfortable weekend, and I liked it very much.

Jan 112020
 

I’m not a big resolution-type of gal but with a new year beginning, I did allow myself to think about what is missing from my life, improvements that can be made, etc. I already exercise every single day, so I got that covered. Eat healthier? Already been about that life. My water intake is so ridiculous that it’s a joke around the department (Erin and her water jug) so I think it’s safe to say I don’t need to focus on that. I’M JUST SO FUCKING PERFECT, AREN’T I.

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But then I was watching a YouTuber I like talk about books and I was like, “Man. That’s it. I should read more in 2020.” I read a depressing three books last year. Maybe only 1 the year before. And trust me, it’s not because I don’t enjoy reading but because I have myself so convinced that I don’t have time anymore. Well, that’s a crock.

My library card has long since expired and Chooch lost his recently but he still goes to the library a lot because he has his # memorized so he can at least still use the computers there (oh thank god).

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I figured out how to get one online but then I had to make Chooch walk to the library with me after work on Monday so that I could get a physical card. Not sure what the point was in signing up online because I had to do it all over again, show my ID, etc and the library card number was different than the one I got online, so…

Anyway, I also had a book with me so the librarian checked it out for me and commented on how the cover was unique and Chooch was annoyed because she was one of the librarians he hates, but she was plenty nice to me. Although, I can picture her having a bitchy side, for sure.

The book I got was suuuuper short, like 50 pages (The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami) so I was ready to return it by the next day, and I dragged Chooch with me because I wanted to use the self-checkout and was worried I’d screw it up somehow. Also, I didn’t want to go alone because I’m pathetic. Good thing I brought him because I was trying to scan my card with the barcode facing down, away from the scanner, and Chooch wrenched it from my hand, sighed, and did it for me. Then he scanned the new book I chose (“Mrs Everything” by Jennifer Weiner) and made a big production of handing it to me with a flourish while yelling, “Congratulations, you have a book.”

Thanks, brat.

In the meantime, I figured out how to get a book sent from one library to my local library, and then I got an email on Friday saying that it was in! So Chooch had to accompany me to the library once again this morning to show me where to go to get my requested book, and then he checked it out for me but I was mad because I think I should do it by myself, or else I’ll never learn!! Also, he knows my library card pin so that’s great. It’s only a matter of time before he somehow ends up with my card and then racks up $$$ in fees because that’s what he was prone to do on his own card.

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Also, I’m acutely aware that while I really do need the help/company, it’s probably not a good look to be accompanied by Chooch who consistently gets banned from the library due to his inability to keep his mouth shut and is notorious to the entire staff of librarians there, so…cool.

In order to help me stay on track, I started using my old Goodreads account again and asking friends for books recs (I primarily like horror and contemporary junk, I guess). I finished Mrs. Everything today and now I’m about to start The Vegetarian by Han Kang so hopefully I can keep carving out enough time every day to meet my goal! I’m definitely getting dumber as I age so hopefully getting back into my old reading habits will help stall the inevitable for a bit. Maybe?

Jan 032020
 

It’s a rainy day, I’m working late shift, and a T-ara playlist is blasting behind me on YouTube. Overall, not the worst Friday. Here are 5 things off the top of my head that I feel like memorializing on this damn thing:

  1. SPOILED FUCKING BRATS

Last week, Henry ordered some shit on Amazon and Chooch and I were bugging out because he usually only buys greeting card-making supplies (like double-sided tape and envelopes, boring and boringer) and end of the year shit to use up his FSA (like bandaids and thermometers, lame and lamer); but this time, the stuff was for us! Allegedly, one of the things was a case for Chooch’s Switch and nail polish for me! I couldn’t believe it because I had JUST announced that I loved the nail polish I saw an ad for on Instagram and Henry rarely takes note of these purposely-planned outbursts! However, when the packages arrived over the weekend, we were pissed because:

  • the Switch case was not the one Chooch showed Henry
  • the nail polish was not the cool one I saw on Instagram,  just some rando L’oreal one that I added to the cart years ago because it was one of my favorite shades that I couldn’t find in the store anymore.

So of course, Chooch and I ran our mouths about this because we’re bitch babies and Henry flipped out and ranted about how we’re fucking spoiled brats who don’t deserve anything and I know there are at least two people hate-reading this blog who have set down the voodoo doll long enough to applaud Henry for calling us out but here’s where they’re going to be RILL MAD: Several days later, it was New Years’s Eve and Henry called on his way home from work to say he was going to the store. He asked if we needed anything and Chooch screamed in the background, “Ooh, toy! Tell him to get me a toy!” so I said, “Chooch wants a toy. Get me one, too.”

AND HE DID!

To be fair, they were on sale for 75% off at Rite-Aid, but what a nice surprise! Chooch has played with that damn dinosaur a concerning amount for a 13-year-old, and I haven’t made any bows yet but I’m going to this weekend because then I’ll be a third of the way to competing my exercise costume!

(Literally, as I’m typing this, another fucking Amazon shipment came, this one was A HEATING PAD. Now we have THREE. Henry says it’s because I keep using them as heated blankets and breaking them, haha I would never.)

2. NYE

Did you guys do anything crazy on New Year’s Eve? We just hung at home, indulged Chooch by playing games which is honestly all he wants from us as parents, I swear, I got drunk off two glasses of wine and then made Henry exercise, and then we watched some of the end of the year kpop shows on YouTube. We put regular TV on for the ball drop, but it was anticlimactic as always and a far cry from the time I ran around outside wearing a pig mask, screaming HAPPY OINKIN’ NEW YEAR and causing Henry to lock me out of the house, haha.

3. When the Camellia Blooms

As you know, I primarily watch Korean dramas. I like being able to yell, “WE WERE THERE!” when I recognize scenery, I love the sound of the language and the moments when I’m able to understand without the aid of subtitles (rare, but it does happen!), I love the storylines (there is almost always a serial killer arc that comes out of nowhere even in the midst of the cutest rom coms), but mostly I just the acting/characters. I grow so attached to even the most remote supporting cast, more so than I do with American TV shows where I’m usually willing some of the main cast to die. Anyway, I am here to say that without a doubt, the best one I watched in 2019, IN MY OPINION, was “When the Camellia Blooms.” Holy shit, there are so many quality characters to latch on to with this one and I have been hounding Janna to watch it (JANNA DID YOU START WATCHING IT YET??). It’s on Netflix, guys, no excuses – go watch it! IF YOU CAN READ A BOOK, A MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, THE BACK OF A CEREAL BOX, then there is no reason why you can’t watch a TV show with subtitles. Just speaking to all the GLENNS out there.

Henry and I watched the final episode last week and I had to hide my face with a pillow because I was crying so hard—that’s not to say that this show is a sob fest! I just get really emotional. Please watch this show. It’s absolutely lovely and I need to add the town where it was filmed to my Korea 2021 trip, haha, knock on wood.

4. I’M A HOOT

I pride myself on the quality of my greeting cards and my customer service (I literally go too far above and beyond, it’s a problem), and whenever I get good reviews, I am so thrilled! Today, I got a really good one that made my EFFING DAY because I am stupidly giddy when I write the descriptions to my products:

THANK YOU, CUSTOMER LAUREN! It’s nice to be appreciated! And this is really the only time I put those writing “skills” to use anymore, so it’s good to know that people are reading it, as I sit here tip-tapping away in my brokedown Internet diary.

(Honestly though, the quality of my cards is really really really good!)

5. COOK ON

You know how people are always like “but ok, go off” on the Internet? Or maybe I just run with a certain e-crowd. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I was reading replies to something on Twitter on the way to work and someone was like “but ok, cook on.” I LATCHED ON TO THIS SO HARD. COOK ON! It sounds so great and it’s still kind of shitty without using swears or whatever which I guess that’s something I’m trying to dial back – my swears. So now I say this ALL THE TIME to Henry and Chooch and they are so tired of it that they literally grumble now and walk away while I’m yelling, “OK COOK ON!” after them. The other night, I said it to super haughtily to Henry and I swear he said “cook off” to me and I couldn’t stop laughing but then it turned out he only said “fuck off” which was way less funny and when I tried to give Chooch a recap of this convo the next morning, he scowled and said, “Yeah I know, I heard you last night. You were like, screaming about it and it wasn’t that funny.” WOW.

Anyway, the other day, out of the blue, I screamed, “OMG MY BLOG SIGN OFF CAN BE ‘COOK ON, MOTHERCHEFFERS!'”

“No,” Chooch said, never looking up from his Switch.

“……………………..” <—-that was Henry’s response when I ran it past him.

Whatever – those assholes are just jealous because I have such a colorful vernacular.

Well, on that note, COOK ON, MOTHERCHEFFERS!!!!

Dec 162019
 

As much as I love traveling and going on weekend road trips, it was really nice to stay home this past weekend and not have any obligations! Well, that’s not true – we had a family eye exam on Sunday except that when we got there, they were like, “Hello, we called you and left several voice mails because your insurance is denying your visit until after 12/23.”

First of all: insurance is so fucking dumb and annoying and I will never (want to) understand it. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I said to Henry, “OK don’t laugh, but what the fuck is a deductible and what does it mean when you’ve ‘met it'” and then THAT turned into a fucking snoozefest of a conversation, hoo boy.

And second of all: WHO LISTENS TO VOICE MAILS ANYMORE?! I know I surely don’t. And these rods* totally texted me twice too to confirm my appointment and I even texted back a “Y” like they instructed!!!

*(This was the first name that came to mind for some reason and now I’m laughing alone because eyeballs have rods! GOD, I crack myself up so much. I AM MY BIGGEST FAN!)

Ugh, OK fine. It was my fault. But yay! No eye exam until 12/something else now!

The weekend was nice and chill aside from that. Calvin came over Saturday morning to look at Trudy except the first thing he noticed was that his bin of toy cars (see also: Chooch’s old bin of toy cars) was gone. Henry put it in the basement until after Christmas and I said, “You know Calvin is going to have a cow over this” and Henry was like, “HE WILL NOT NOTICE.”

Yep.

Chooch and I have been labeling each other’s gifts in Hangul (Henry said he doesn’t care that he can’t read it but I think he secretly feels left out HAHAH) and this one killed me: it says to Erin from Taemin. I showed it to Jiyong and she was like, “he is so cute!” and I was like “I know Taemin is.”

Sigh.

Speaking of Jiyong, we had our weekly meet-up at Panera. I brought one of my Talk to Me In Korean workbooks with me and it’s a lot more productive this way because I always have a million questions (I sound like a toddler: “But why? Why though? Why is that way? Why?” and she’s just like “….IT’S JUST BECAUSE!”) and she challenges me to go further with each exercise too, OMG LIKE A TRAINER BUT FOR MY BRAIN. Guys, I’m going to be real honest here, I’m not sure I will ever reach a comfortable level with Korean but I am definitely learning a lot and my sight-reading is getting stronger. It’s just the part when she’s like, “Say something in Korean” and my tongue feels like it’s been cut into tentacles and tied together and then coated with peanut butter too.

It’s still REALLY interesting though and I enjoy meeting with her a lot. Especially because I can talk to her about the dramas I’m watching!

Currently, Henry and I are both watching When the Camellia Blooms and it’s a contender for the best Korean drama I’ve seen yet. IT IS SO GOOD. The storyline, the characters, the acting. The acting in Korean dramas is typically super stellar, and I think that’s why I was even more disappointed with the last several American dramas I watched on Netflix. Korean dramas have raised the bar for me!

Anyway, I would highly recommend this one to anyone looking to try out a Korean drama for the first time. It’s just really wonderful. But, as they all do, it makes me want to go back in the worst way.

The rest of Saturday was just really calm and nice. Henry finished up some house projects and started cleaning the kitchen while I dreamed of more projects for him.

Saturday’s theme bled into Sunday. We’re hosting a very small Christmas not-party next Saturday because WENDY wanted me to and I literally cannot say no to Wendy. It’s not that I don’t want to have a party, but I do not have the emotional capacity lately to be at the center of a social event, even though throwing parties is so much fun for me. So I agreed to host something small and I kept the guest list pared down to just a handful of people who I talk to regularly, and as usual, I’m panicking that other friends will get mad at me over it but…maybe next year I’ll have something larger. That being said, Chooch and I scoured the Internet Sunday morning for simple, easy, inexpensive Xmas recipes for Henry to make, but we also found some cute shit that he and I might actually be able to do ourselves?!!? It’s basically a fancier Rice Krispies treat and I think it might cause frustration but the end result will be worth it, maybe?

Since we got rejected at the eye doctor, we went to the nearby Joann Fabrics because Henry needed to buy glue since every time he buys glue, it disappears (Chooch probably has 8 tubes of it spread around his room at this point). I bought more Christmas decorations since everything was on sale, but I don’t understand sales that much so I got bored after awhile and left Henry there and joined Chooch who was at Petsmart (we were in a shopping center). Turns out, it was the day that SANTA was there so the store was poppin’ off with dogs in their best Christmas sweaters and Chooch and I were dying. One lady had this huge stroller with FIVE CHIHUAHUAS (I have never had to write/type that word before so thank you, Google, for guiding the way) all in different festive attire and my heart just couldn’t take it.

Meanwhile, Chooch sent Janna a video of two hamsters having sex and Janna was like THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE DOING and we were like, “Aw, Janna is so naive.”

“I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE THIS JEALOUS OF SANTA,” Chooch cried as we peered through the glass of the room where Santa was posing with all the pets. “I changed my mind. THIS is what I want to be when I grow up.”

That’s good because we pretty much spent all of his college fund years ago, so see ya never, Carnegie Mellon!

These cats would NEVER allow Santa to get close enough for a picture, that’s for sure.

Went to Target – they had the Taemin version of the SuperM album! I should have bought it for Janna’s Christmas present.

Henry went to do laundry later that evening, so Chooch and I were left to our own devices. I was cleaning this one area of the house and found a bunch of old pictures that I brought home from when we were going through all that bullshit at my pappap’s house in 2016 which caused me to lose a bunch of hair (stress is cool!) so I made Chooch come over to look them with me but it just angered him because there were lots of pictures in there from one of my birthdays and I’m standing in my Pappap’s kitchen in front of a spread of new toys, and then there were pictures from one of the Christmases at his house where the tree and living room looked like the centerfold from a Better Homes & Garden holiday issue and the presents were literally spilling out from under the tree like the living room was being invaded.

“I HATE YOU,” Chooch said, flinging the pictures away from him. HAHAHA. I had such a precious childhood, lol.

Bored with being reminded that I was born with a silver spoon in mu mouth, Chooch went upstairs and got my photo albums from after I moved out and started walking down the path of near-poverty because, well, independence is expensive you guys. He likes these albums though because they’re full of pictures of my old cats (RIP: Marcy, Nicotina, Don, and Willie) but also pictures of me and my friends at the bar or one of my many house parties, but he always flips past those pages because they’re “boring” and I’m “annoying.”

However, we got to this one album that had pictures of the time my friend Wonka and I went to see the band Cold in Hershey, PA — we LOVED Cold and were basically groupies. On this particular date though, we had the privilege of sitting in the parking lot before the show with a couple other fans and the singer of Cold himself – SCOOTER WARD. Now, for all of the times I saw Cold, I could never really gather the courage to talk to him because he was, and this is so cliche but I don’t care, a god in my eyes. Cold’s music was so prominent during those really confusing years when you’re in your early 20s and just have no idea what the fuck you’re doing or who you even are. I wouldn’t go back to those years if you paid me, truly I wouldn’t, and sometimes I think back to that time and feel so amazed that I survived because I lived so recklessly and had zero value for my life. Honestly.

Chooch tried to flip past these pages too but I stopped him.

“Wait!” I yelled. “I have a story!” And then I told him about sitting in the parking lot, listening to Scooter Ward talk about his music, and how he gave us Starbursts. “He gave me an orange one and I still have it,” I said, and I could tell Chooch didn’t believe me. “It’s actually in the freezer somewhere, hold on, I’ll go find it.” And before Chooch could stop me, I was in the kitchen, rummaging through the freezer until I found it in the back:

I keep it in there because after the first year I had it, I noticed that it was starting to melt during the summer and I panicked, unlike a regular person who would have just thrown it out.

Or, you know, ate it at the time it was given to them.

“See? I knew I still had it!” I boasted proudly.

“Wow, you sure do,” Chooch said sourly, and then promptly almost puked.

Somehow that night, I got hung up on the idea of having hot chocolate bar at my not-party, instead of making a punch or sangria like I normally do. And that is how Chooch and I fell down the rabbit hole of hot cocoa bar DIY YouTube videos, which has since replaced “birthday party videos” as our favorite thing to mock-watch on YouTube. We were really diving deep into them last night.

“Basically, anytime she says it’s going to be super cute, it’s super not,” Chooch dryly said in response to this one totally basic white bitch whose whole video was how she made a hot cocoa bar for under $25 thanks to Dollar General (I’m sure it was sponsored). This one dumb bitch basically just set out her Keurig with Swiss Miss pods, filled a mason jar with crushed peppermint, and then lined up her FUCKING UGLY RAE DUNN MUGS and THAT WAS IT?! Bitch please, get off my YouTube.

Well, that was my weekend. Hope your’s was JUST DELIGHTFUL.

Dec 062019
 

…but five is “ise.”

My Cat Brian

I recently watched the second season of Mindhunter. Don’t even get me started on how much I disliked the first season! It took me forever to slag through because it was so boring and I FUCKING HATED “DEB” and kept waiting for her to go away because Henry, who watched the whole season without me, kept saying, ‘Oh don’t worry, she doesn’t last long” so then I thought MAYBE SHE WILL BE MURDERED and there was one scene in particular when she was in a bathtub and I was like YES, THIS IS IT! DROWN YOU DUMB BITCH! But then nothing happened and she ended up being in the whole season, so I’m not sure what show Henry was watching…

ANYWAY. The second season was better. But this here isn’t a TV show review, OK? I’m only mentioning this show because there was one scene with one of the character’s son—he’s like 7 and a budding serial killer, and his mom finds him standing on the periphery of a playground, glaring at some bitch on a swingset. The mom is all, “BRIAN, WE DON’T STARE” and later that night, I happened to look over at my cat Drew, who was sitting on the floor, GLARING at her sister Penelope in a very Brian-esque manner, so the next logical step was to start calling her Brian and everyone in my house hates this but I crack myself THE FUCK UP every time I scream, “BRIAN WE DON’T STARE!!!” at Drew.

Sometimes I call Penelope “Paige,” the girl on the swing, and this angers Chooch and Henry too because literally that girl was only in the scene for 3 seconds and we only know her name because her mom says, “Let’s go, Paige” but these are the things I latch on to.

I tried telling some of my co-workers about this because I couldn’t stop laughing to myself about it at work, but they were just like, “…………………….” similar to when I changed Drew’s name to Ursula’s Shoulder Pads.

Update on Henry’s Back

People keep asking me how Henry’s back is and I’m like, “Uh….*shrug*” But I can tell you that Manly Henry the Man-Man is wearing a Donald Duck bandaid on the delicate boo-boo that he recently received on his precious pinky finger.

It was pretty fucked up around here last Friday though when The Back Injury first happened because Chooch and I were like WHAT WILL WE DO FOR FOOD? I was getting ready to grab a basket and my hooded cloak before hitting the forest for some berry-picking, but then Chooch suggested Subway and I was like, “Yes, that sounds manageable” so we were going to go and do that but then Henry was like, “Well, I would like to eat dinner too….?” but he was afraid we’d fuck up his order so he made us order through the app so that he could be in control and prevent us from sabotaging his carefully crafted sandwich.

“What do I do when I get to Subway? Just say ‘give me’?” I asked Henry, wringing my hands. I don’t do things for myself very often.

But then something went wrong with the app-ordering, like a real life deus ex machina. “I’ll just go there. CHRIST,” Henry sighed,  rolling himself out of bed and slowly putting his pants on because whatever happened now required him to physically enter a Subway LOL oh the trials and tribs.

“I think I can handle lifting a bag of sandwiches,” he said in a tone t hat suggested he just had the wind knocked out of him.

I laughed so much.

But then he came back and my sandwich was fucked up so I guess: who’s laughing now, amirite.

Erin vs the United States

I was looking at a map of the US on my phone the other day, after being inspired by venturing out to Missouri for the first time, and I was surprised to see where it was located in relation to other states like Louisiana, Mississippi, whatever.

“Wow, maybe I should start looking at maps more often,” I murmured. “I didn’t realize we had come this far away from Pittsburgh.”

And Henry just glowered at me from beneath his angry caterpillar brows.

Also, today I realized that I was using the wrong abbreviation for Missouri since the weekend, which is fantastic since it was a part of one of my blog post titles. I kept using MO for some reason!? I think I need to go back to school, maybe audit a few 5th grade classes or something.

OK, maybe 3rd grade. You got me.

EDIT: Ok 2 weeks later and I just learned THAT I WAS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, IT IS “MO.” My brain is a bean.

DEB STRIKES AGAIN

I had to pause what I was watching because Chooch brought his traveling talk show into the room, and he interrupted himself to shout, “organic big-bush patchouli sex? Wow, what the hell are YOU watching, mom.”

I’ll tell you what I’m watching: a not-great TV show, son, that plays out like a Lifetime movie but with swears and sex because…Netflix. Anyway,  this show was recommended to me by a co-worker and the first season was aight because Jessica Biel was in it, not that I’m like a huge J-Biel fangirl, I only know her from 7th Heaven lol. But the story line season 1 was more compelling to me than season 2, and I have stalled out on the 5th episode.

COINCIDENTALLY, in this season, there is some bitch who looked familiar and instantly got under my skin. Henry was like, “hey is that—-” and I cried in pain, “DEB!!”

Yes, the same bitch who played the worst character on Mindhunter is back to ruin my television-watching experience yet again.

What a stupid bitch. She’s really annoying in this show too.

Also, can we talk about how I had the hugest crush on Bill Pullman in the 90s and while all of my friends were going to the movies numerous times to see “Casper” because of Devon Sawa, I was going for HOT DAD BILL PULLMAN.

But…has he always been this bad of an actor and I just was  too blind to notice or care? Because holy shit, it’s like he watched the episode of Friends where Joey divulges his “smell in the fart” acting technique and fucking ran with it.

It ain’t good, Bill.

Meanwhile, the Korean dramas I’m currently watching are like French-chef-kissing-his-fingers good. But ya’ll don’t care about that.

(Or is it Italian chefs who kiss their fingers?!)

The Face of the Teen Center

Chooch told us off-handedly last week that he was interviewed at the teen center.

“For what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Some lady was writing about it for something I guess.”

“Well, what did she ask you?”

“I dunno. Why I liked the teen center,” Chooch mumbled, and I could tell that I wasn’t going to get much more out of him than that because that kid is so oblivious at times. But then he said that he was the only one they interviewed because, “I’m basically the face of the teen center.”

OMG his ego. Where does he get it from.

Then the other day, we saw that the Teen Center used his picture again on Instagram (oh don’t worry, we signed a media release awhile ago).

WHY IS HE LIKE THIS. .Also that’s an old picture of him, but don’t worry – his current hair looks just as dumb as his Spring 2019 hair.

In other teen center news, two volunteers recently left (they’re all college kids so they eventually leave…right after the kids get attached to them).

“Wow,” I fake-cared for Chooch’s sake. “Are they having a volunteer-shortage now? Do you think I should volunteer?”

“OMG no! You HATE kids!” Chooch cried, as if I was actually serious. My time is valuable! I’m not wasting it in a basement full of screaming kids.

“Yeah, especially teens,” I pointed out.

So, that was short-lived.

Well, on that note, here’s a photo of Paige & Brian. And now I’m going to go and watch some more of Korean dramas while Henry is busy cobbling together serial killer Christmas cards. Thanks, Mindhunter, for making Ed Kemper and Richard Speck le chic even though I’ve had them in my card catalog (lol) for years. You’re still not that great of show, though.

Oct 282019
 

I was just lamenting to Henry that this October has flown by so fast and didn’t even feel that autumn-y to me. Maybe it’s because we didn’t do many daylight October things, like going to the pumpkin patch or whatever the fuck LL Bean families do when they all dress in matching flannels and post pictures on Instagram with fame smiles that make it seem like their faces are going to melt like a box of Crayolas next to a kerosene heater as soon as the picture is taken.

But hey, speaking of kerosene heaters, I whine every fall/winter about how badly I want a kerosene heater because we always used them in my house when I was growing up and they’re so comforting to me; I miss those slosh-slosh sounds that would happen whenever I bumped into it (which was a lot because I have a balance problem). I googled and couldn’t really find any super adverse environmental effects but I am admittedly a Big Dumb when it comes to these things, although I try my very best.

Anyway, Henry finally bought one and suddenly, it’s like being back at my parents’ house again and I love it so much. However, I was really worried about the cats.

“Oh don’t worry. The first ones to burn themselves will be you and Chooch,” Henry said dryly. So far, the cats keep their distance, although Drew has learned that if she lays nearby, it will keep her toasty and she gets very concerned when we shut it off before leaving the house/going to bed (safety first!). She sits nearby and stares at it with sad eyes because her robot friend no longer has fire in his belly.

I think we’ve pretty much wrapped up the haunted house season too because we won’t be home this weekend, unless we can make it to one on Friday night. But I have to say, my heart wasn’t 100% in it this year. Aside from Castle Blood, there was no real standout haunt this year (most of them had their moments though) and I think I’m just being mopey because I miss the days of going with big groups of friends. Aside from Janna, none of my other friends really consider this fun, and none of Chooch’s friends are into it, and Blake and Haley are parents now, so it’s kind of missing that spark. Plus, they are so expensive, that it’s almost criminal!  $25-$30 for something that you’re going to spend most of the time standing in line for, and then 30 minutes (if you’re lucky) actually being inside. You could go  to an amusement park for around the same price, get the haunted house treatment AND ride roller coasters for around that same price.

Oh my god, am I getting old?

Regardless, Janna, Chooch and I went to Demon House last Sunday night because there’s always a Groupon for that so it only cost $26 for both Chooch and me, plus we got a free beverage ticket and the chance to ride on the most annoying shuttle bus full of screaming high schoolers. Janna was like, “That one girl behind me was SO RUDE” and I said, “Oh that was a grown ass lady behind you, and yes, she was a real cunt.”

We were the first ones off the bus, first to get our tickets, and the first group to go inside! I LOVE BEING FIRST! I WAS BORN TO BE FIRST!

Anyway, the house was fine. We went with an older couple who were very inoffensive and decent (I apologized to them in advance because we can be a bit much sometimes as a group), and we all got to have a tarot card reading before the actual haunt started. Mine was about how there is something deep in my heart that I want to do for myself and that I should put myself first for once and do the thing that needs to be done in order to make myself happy, and we all got a big laugh about this afterward because I always think of my own happiness above others, so…..

Actually, only before Henry’s happiness. I can be a fake philanthropist when I want to be. (I.e. when I want attention, oh snap.)

Details of the haunted house will be saved for my haunted house journal, but believe me when I tell you that you’re not missing much.

Afterward, we redeemed our free beverages. Chooch and I each got lukewarm hot chocolate but JANNA got apple cider that she acted like was a cuppa molten lava so we had to sit for an eternity and wait for her to daintily blow on it, but luckily Demon House was playing “Halloween,” so we sat in the little outdoor theater area and I thought Chooch was going to have a rage stroke when some bitch about his age strode in (OH SHIT, LAURIE STRODE) and casually said, “Oh! It’s ‘Friday the 13th’!” I had to grab his arm to keep him from popping up out of his seat and confronting her.

But really…HE HAD EVERY RIGHT.

So that was fun.

On the way home, I pulled over in Monongahela so that Janna could take pictures of this pizza place that she saw ON FACEBOOK (probably).  I mean, the decorations were cool though.

Chooch stayed in the car, completely oblivious to what was going on because he was watching crap on his phone, but when we got back in the car, he cried, “WERE YOU GETTING A HELP WANTED SIGN!?”

“Oh my god, you guys are still doing that?” Janna asked with just a smidge too much incredulity in her tone for my liking. By “doing that,” Janna is referring to the very lucrative money-making app Chooch and I use called Job Spotter where you submit pictures of help wanted signs for points and each point = a penny. Then you can cash out whenever you want for an Amazon gift card. Right now, I’m at $55 (I’ve already cashed in twice, and I’m also kind of lazy so I accumulate points slowly) and I’ve been thinking of cashing in again because I really want to buy the cats more toys (I’m pathetic) but now I think I also might want to invest in A WEIGHTED HULA HOOP because I accidentally found a YouTube channel for weighted hula hoop dance workouts and they look like something right up my alley.

Hey speaking of Korea (oh, we weren’t talking about Korea just now? Well, now we are), I received an email last week from a co-worker in our Melbourne office. All it said was, “Erin can you read Korean?” and I was like, “READ, yes. UNDERSTAND, not always, lol” and then I panicked because what if she wanted me to translate something boring, like something work-related, but instead she sent me a screenshot of a video and said, “Can you tell me what the name of this tea is? I’ve been obsessed with finding out” and THANK THE LORD, that was an easy one. So I quickly responded with not just the name, but also the website and became an instant hero, an overnight sensation, the department MVP.

I should have known that it was my friend Sandy who recommended my services!

This Jennifer Aniston resurgence (not that she ever went away, but you know what I mean) has been making my heart so happy. I was so excited to see her on Instagram and I haven’t started watching her new show yet but I will do so eventually, I promise, Jen. I was reading an article last week on the trolley about how she set a Guinness World Record for most Instagram followers accumulated in a certain amount of time or whatever (OK, I was glossing over the article) when I suddenly had this old memory pop into my head where Henry and I were at this couple’s house for NYE in 2005 and I remember this distinctly because I was pregnant, miserable, and also slightly concerned that these people actually wanted my not-yet-born baby. Anyway, Jennifer Aniston came up in conversation and I mentioned that I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world and I just loved her so much, when they both interrupted me with throat-noises of disagreement and one of them had the audacity to say—OUT LOUD—that she had a horse face?! I was so motherfucking pissed off, you guys, you have no idea. I had an actual argument with them over this was Henry, I don’t know, slept in a recliner with a paper plate of cheese and salami balancing in his chest probably, and apparently I’m still so mad about it that my eyes began to sting with RAGE-TEARS on the trolley that day at the very memory of this shitty moment and NOTICE that I did not , refer to these people as FRIENDS.

Well, this is all I care to share for today, Monday October 28, 2019.

Wrong! One more thing. Now that G-Dragon and T.O.P. are both out of the military, I hope we get another GD&TOP collab, even though T.O.P. has said he doesn’t want to make a comeback PLEASE COME BACK TO US.

Oct 252019
 

Well, this was supposed to be last Friday’s “Friday Five” thingie but I’m a scattered mess inside that head of mine. So let’s try this again for today, I guess. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve used a similar Friday 5 title in the past. Oh well.

THAT TIME I WAS A PAWN IN A GAME OF DENTAL CHESS

Remember when I missed my dentist appointment last year and panicked and then had to go and find a new dentist because I could never show my face there again? (Oh, you would have just called, apologized, and scheduled a new appointment? WELL AREN’T YOU RATIONAL AND BALANCED.)

Well, my new dentist (the one I think I have a crush on) referred me to a periodontist. Dentist #1 did x-rays two years ago so Dentist #2 said that we could probably get away with just using those rather than deal with insurance blah-blah, so I was like, “Fine I guess I will call Dentist #1 and get my records.” Dentist #1’s office was like, “Yeah you have to come in here and sign a release for that.” UGH.

So I went in there last week, hoping to sign the thing and flee, but as the receptionist was pulling up my records from the filing cabinet, a lady was sitting at a computer in the corner and apparently had been listening so she pulled my records on up the computer and exclaimed, “This xray is from two years ago! Why do you want this!?” and that’s when I realized that it was The Dentist so now I had to actual FACE HER and tell her that my new dentist had referred me to a periodontist and thought we could get away with using them and she was like, “WHO IS THE DENTIST” and I was like, “BITCH WHY” except that really, I meekly mumbled his name and then she asked me who the periodontist is and when I told her, she sucked in some air through her teeth and exchanged an “oh boy” look with the receptionist, prompting me to ask, “What? What? WHAT?” until she finally shrugged and said, “Well, I don’t like to talk bad…OK he’s just…not that GOOD” and I was like, “……” and then she was like, “Would you mind if I gave you my own referrals?” and I was like, “WTF is happening here” because the vibe got SO HEAVY AND ELECTRIC like everything else in the world had just stopped and now this strange dental dance was playing out in front of me.

I let her give me some referral cards and then of course this sent me into a spiral because WHAT IF I MAKE THE WRONG CHOICE and it was already so difficult to get a consultation to begin with and that appointment is coming up in two weeks and OMG I HATE ORAL ISSUES. Meanwhile, the receptionist was all, “So, why are you leaving us anyway?” and it turned into this super uncomfortable “it’s not you it’s me” routine and I was sweating and tugging at my collar.

Then I got home and it occurred to me that Dentist #1 is the reason I have to go to the periodontist in the first place because one of the procedures they performed on me was apparently inadequate and I have to have it done again. UGH.

IT’LL JUST TAKE 2 SECONDS

A few weeks ago (because that’s how behind I am at blogging!), we were just hanging out after work when someone knocked on the door. I fled immediately, as I do when there comes a knock upon the door. From my perch on the steps with our cat Drew, who also runs when she hears the sinister knocks of villains, I heard Henry saying, “I’m making dinner right now.” And then he repeated it. And then again. And again. And each time, whoever was at the door kept saying, “It’ll just take 2 seconds.” I was like, “Shit, who the fuck is at the door being so persistent, is Chooch selling cookie dough again?”

Turns out, it was some guy from Direct Energy and instead of just saying “No” or “I’m not interested,” he lead the guy on by making it sound like he just didn’t have time to talk to him right now, so when he finally shut the door on him, the guy CONTINUED TO STAND ON OUR PORCH and I know this because I could see his creepy silhouette and I was angry because I wanted to come back out of hiding and drink my coffee which was getting cold on the coffee table.

So Henry sighed, came back out of the kitchen, opened the door and said, “I’m cooking dinner” and the guy was like, “It’ll only take 2 seconds” and JUST LIKE THAT the whole weird door-to-door energy song and dance picked right back up. I was like JUST SAY NO, BRO and Henry finally got him to leave and I said, “Haley was outside on her porch the whole time, why didn’t he just go and give her his spiel?” So Henry then lectured me because the only reason these people come to our house is that I’m constantly coerced into signing up for things.

Then Henry acted SHOCKED when he CAME BACK an hour later, but he never told him NO! This time, Chooch was home and answered the door and the guy was like, “Your dad told me to come back after he made dinner” which was FALSE but ok so Chooch was like, “HEY HENRY GET DOWN HERE AND TALK TO THIS GUY” but Henry was like, “Not gonna.”

I’m in the kitchen washing dishes and I look out and see that the guy is still standing on the porch. I told Chooch, “Tell that guy to leave” and he was like, “NO HE’S NICE AND I FEEL BAD” so I told Chooch, “Look, just do what all of us adults do in these situations – lie. LIE THROUGH YOUR FUCKING TEETH, SONNY BOY. GOD WILL FORGIVE YOU.” Chooch told the guy that his dad wasn’t home and the guy repeated, “He told me to come back after dinner” like that’s an actual time on the clock, but Chooch was like, “OK cool but he’s not here, so…” The guy said, “OK buddy, I’ll just go and do something else and come back.” NO PLZ DON’T! (He didn’t. Yet.)

I’LL TURN THIS DAMN BUS AROUND

One day after school, Chooch super-casually me that there was an incident with the bus driver on the first day of Gifted. Chooch has gifted every Friday, but it’s off-site at the Gifted Center so the students from his school that attend that program get shuttled there on a school bus. “So, Trevor and I were just talking and apparently the bus driver thought it was ‘too loud’ so he pulled the bus over and yelled at us.” Chooch said that they made “HNGGGGGH” faces at each other and then apologized. But then, at the end of the day, the students from Chooch’s school were stranded because the bus driver never showed. They had to wait for a back-up bus to arrive and when they got back to their school, the principal off-handedly mentioned that the bus driver from that morning didn’t show up BECAUSE HE QUIT.

“BECAUSE OF YOU!?” I cried.

“I guess,” Chooch shrugged. “He was really mad that morning and was yelling about how we were going to have to spend all year together.”

“Exactly how loud were you talking?!”

“I don’t know, like this…” and then he demonstrated a raised-voiced conversation similar to a businessman trying to talk over top of a woman in the boardroom, but something tells me there is more to the story than that.

Anyway, a few weeks later, that bus driver came back and Chooch said that he and Trevor are “super quiet” around him now.

Why am I having Billy Madison visions?

Oh, here’s Penelope.

THE LIFE-CHANGING ESSAY

Well, here’s another tale about my son because, friendly reminder, I’m a mom.

The other night, Chooch and I were out on a walk when he mentioned that he has to write a three-page essay about a moment that changed his life. So I’m walking along, mind swimming with all sorts of instances involving me and my awesome ideas and super fun parenting, thinking that maybe he’ll choose the moment he went to the DMZ in Korea or the time the singer from Emarosa got him to crowd-surf at one of their shows when he was like 9, or the moment he realized he loves math.

“So I knew right away—” he started, and I’m like, “Oh here it is! This is going to be so profound!”

“–that it was the time I watched that episode of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ where Lily is a loud chewer because that’s when I realized that OMG I hate the sound of chewing! Honestly, there are times when I sit in the backseat during road trips and cry.”

Um.

OK.

But three pages though?

Anyway, he changed it to the moment he went from the general population opinion of “yay rollercoasters” to the coaster enthusiast battle-cry of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT’S AN RMC IBOX, GOTTA GET THAT COASTER CRED, HOLD MY SLUSHIE.”

So, we’ll see how that goes.

I get so excited when I’m watching a K-Drama and see a place I’ve been! Shout out to the DDP, what what.

HUBERT FTW

Last Saturday, we were en route to a haunted house and passed a spot where there used to be a mini-golf place, which got me thinking about how my ex, Psycho Mike, and I were obsessed with playing mini-golf this one summer, I think it was 1997 when I was 17/18. We liked it so much that we tried to go every mini-golf place we could find in the—-wait for—-Yellow Pages. Sometimes this would bite us in the ass because we’d drive all this way and it wasn’t a mini-golf place anymore, but you know, who has time to call ahead, amirite.

Then I remembered the time that I brought my old pet Pacman frog, Hubert, to play with us. I had a little portable aquarium for him and it was probably terrible to tote him around but I was a dumb kid who had no business raising a frog.

“Anyway,” I told Henry after taking a big breath because you’ve probably never heard me tell a story but I get really excited and start speed-talking. “Hubert ‘won’ and Mike got so pissed!”

Henry took his eyes off the road long enough to toss me a concerned frown.

“I KNOW RIGHT??” I screamed, but turns out, Henry was frowning about the part where I brought my frog to play mini-golf.

(Seriously though, Mike was SO ANGRY and I remember fighting about it for the rest of the night because that’s the kind of great fucking boy I was dating, and this is not a domestic violence joke but the truth: I probably for sure dodged a bullet by getting out of that relationship.)

Later that week, I felt inspired to dig around my old stuff to see if I still had the scorecard because, since mini golf was our game, I kept all that shit. And yep, still have it, stapled to a journal that he and I shared which honestly gave me PTSD-shakes when I opened it so I should probably burn it or drop-kick it off a bridge but: the environment, and also, I am a memorabilia packrat.

Don’t ask why I called myself “Bitch” other than I was 17 & dumb and also a pretty big bitch.

At work earlier this week, I was telling Todd this story because he LOVES Vintage Erin yarns.

“I have a picture of the scorecard for proof,” I said, scrolling through my camera roll.

“Oh, I believe you!” Todd laughed. “Taking a frog to play mini-golf definitely sounds like something you would do.” He then went on to say that he’s also not surprised that I was a mini-golf maniac, since there is always something I’m 100% gung-ho about.

And oh boy, was I gung-ho about mini-golf. Now I can barely stand it.

OMG I HOPE THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN WITH KOREA?!

Sep 132019
 

Sometimes when I don’t have five things to talk about on a Friday, I make them up.

But today I genuinely have five full things to share. OR DO I.

DREW & THE SOJU BOTTLE

My car Drew, love her, she’s real sweet & presh, habitually scratches my prized Devil rug on the back porch and it drives me insane. I was standing in the kitchen after work on Wednesday when she dove right into my rug with her dumb claws and I kept yelling her name over and over, imploring her to stop.

But she would not.

Why, you ask? Because cats are assholes, don’t ask me stupid questions.

In a flurry of panic, I grabbed the closest thing to me–an empty bottle of soju–and shook it at her.

No, I didn’t throw it, I just shook it. And not even aggressively either.

“What…did you think that was going to do?” Henry asked me slowly.

It was a moment of desperation, ok?!

EDDIE MONEY

Today at work, Todd emailed me and all it said was “RIP Eddie Money” with a link to one of his YouTube videos. I replied and said that I once, years ago, got in trouble for allegedly videotaping his free concert at the Pittsburgh Rib Fest.

“I knew you would have a story,” Todd emailed back.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE WAS IMPLYING but it’s true. It was 1999 or 2000, and Lisa and I went to the Rib Fest at IC Light Ampitheater in Station Square (my Pgh homies are like, “Dang girl, that WAS a long time ago”). Back then, even though I was already a vegetarian, I would always go to the rib fests because they would get killer classic rock bands to perform (like .38 Special and Bad Company!). When I saw that Eddie Money was performing that year, I was like, “LISA WE HAVE TO GO” and she was like, “Remind me why we’re friends again.”

Back then, I was super into taking my camcorder everywhere. I had been like this since 1995. You could say I was an OG Vlogger, but be thankful YouTube wasn’t around back then. Or any social media. (I know my friends are. Especially the ones I’m no longer friends with, lol.) Of course I had that damn thing with me at the rib fest, because I needed to get mullet footage, which was always the second best reason to go to the rib fest. Pittsburgh is a real treasure trove of mullets.

On our way out of the ampitheater, a gaggle of guards surrounded me and demanded that I hand over my camcorder.

I was totally blindsided by this. WHAT HAD I DONE? Did I accidentally record a government-sanctioned murder and now I was toting around high-profile evidence?

“You can’t film the concert,” one of the guards said, still reaching for my camcorder.

“I wasn’t filming the concert!” I cried defiantly. (Erin Rachelle Kelly, Hating Authority Since the 90s.)

But they kept demanding that I hand over the tape, and Lisa was hissing, “Just give them the tape!” like it was the keeper of a snuff film.

I kept swearing that I wasn’t filming Eddie Money, so one of the security guards said, “OK, play back part of it and show us,” and I very happily did so because I knew it was just going to show a bunch of drunk Yinzers swaying with me making some lame commentary behind the camera.

But no, when I hit play, it showed the literal 3 seconds of footage from when I casually pointed the camera at the stage, zoomed in on Eddie Money, and said, “We’re at an Eddie Money concert, you guys.”

The guards smirked at me and went back to demanding the tape, so now I had to go with a different tactic.

“MY GRANDFATHER’S BIRTHDAY PARTY IS ON THIS TAPE AND HE PASSED AWAY,” I cried.

I think making it personal really played to their emotions (one of the guards was a woman and she seemed sympathetic), plus I was like 19 or 20 and didn’t look like someone who was going to sell bootleg Eddie Money tapes on the black market, so they warned me not to do it again and then they let us leave.

Lisa was so embarrassed because this happened right in the middle of the entrance to the ampitheater so people were milling about and rubber-necking the whole time. BUT I’M SORRY I WASN’T GOING TO GIVE UP MY TAPE.

And yes, I still have it! MAYBE I WILL UPLOAD IT TO YOUTUBE!

If I ever find a way to play it.

THE SIDEWALK ATTACK

I went for a walk last night to burn off the annoyances of the day (it was my work-from-home late shift day but I was having problems logging on so I had to go into the office at the very last minute and I hadn’t washed my hair and I never go anywhere with unwashed hair and I just felt like a monster so I was like DON’T LOOK AT ME to all of my co-workers and it was just awful I hated yesterday very much). Anyway, I was walking along the sidewalk when suddenly, from the side of a wall next to me, some disgusting rodent-thing shot out at me and ran across my feet.

I jumped and yelped like a real DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, you guys. My heart was like thundahhhh against my ribs. Hoo boy.

“Well, what was it?!” Henry asked me, after I came bursting through the door yapping about how I was attacked.

“….an empty bag of potato chips,” I mumbled. I GUESS YOU COULD SAY IT WAS A REAL SNACK ATTACK.

“Wow. Too bad you didn’t have an empty bottle of soju to shake at it,” Henry deadpanned.

C U N T

I was talking to Margie at her desk the other day when someone from another department came out of the stairwell. Margie told him to have a good night and that she would see him tomorrow, but he said, “No, I’ll C U NEXT TUESDAY!”

I waited for him to turn the corner before pulling a super concerned face and hoarsely whispering, “OMG MARGIE HE CALLED YOU THE C-WORD!”

“He what!?!?” she cried incredulously.

“Yeah, he called you a…” and then I mouthed “cunt” because Work Erin is like SO PROPER AND WHOLESOME.

Oh, the layers I put on before leaving the house.

(I didn’t have time for any of them yesterday though so I was in rare form.)

Turns out, Margie has never heard the expression “c u next tuesday” but she knows it now. I felt good knowing that I enlightened her and now no one will ever be able to pull that one over on her again.

PUNCHFIAT

On one our walks, Chooch spotted a Fiat at a red light and said, “Oh my god, recently I was walking with Markie (little neighbor kid) and he did punchbuggy no punchbacks on me, but it was FIAT!” Chooch shook his head and scoffed, “He’s so stupid.”

I started to laugh at this and then said, “Wait…..that was me who said that!”

I remember it vividly because it was the day we were going to Kennywood and I was so excited because I never beat him at the punchbuggy game (I actually hate this game so damn much), so when I saw what I thought was a punchbuggy, I shouted it with such passion and slugged his upper arm.

I’m not stupid, I just have bad eyes!

****************

To conclude, here’s one of my current favorite songs and this video is relevant to this blog post because she’s basically me in the 90s following my friends around with a camcorder. (Somewhere out there is Janna thanking god that I’m out of the “I’M MAKING A DOCUMENTARY” phase. I’ll always terrorize my friends with words on this blog, though!)

Jul 132019
 

Chooch went camping yesterday with the teen center and Henry is working (when isn’t he anymore), so I’m sitting here alone on a Saturday morning getting way too intimate with my thoughts and I don’t like it! The morning started off great though – I lost some weight and decided to try on these old Mudd jeans that I have been hoarding since I was 20 because they were favorite jeans ever and also a tangible artifact of the Before I Got Fat era that I like to cling to because I just can’t ever let go of the past.

So I tried these jeans on, a juniors size 9 from 1999/2000 so god only knows what that would translate to now, and they were too big on me. Which makes sense, because I have some juniors jeans now that are 7s and too big, and in “regular lady” sizes, I’m a 4 and 6 depending on the brand.

All of this you would think should make me fall to my knees in happy tears, because yay all my hard is paying off (and it is HARD WORK – I exercise super religiously and the shit I do is maddening), but instead I’m just sitting here fixating on how I still feel like the giant in the room and how I still hate my legs and wearing shorts makes me feel so self-conscious and my underarms are still flabby (I make Henry watch me as I make my arm fat swing like a pendulum and he is so over me) and so on and so forth, like one of my elementary school teachers used to say.

My brain is trash. Absolute garbage. Henry is right – I will literally never be happy with myself, no matter what the scale or the tags on my clothes say. I’m fucking hopeless, lol.

But I will still exercise my fat face off today and tomorrow and the next day because I have a legit addiction.

Anyway, in other “vintage Erin clothing” news, I go through these phases every so often when I start mourning the loss of my favorite t-shirt. Let me tell you about it! So, when I was in high school, maybe this was 1996, Nick at Nite had this super-hyped marathon of Sid & Marty Kroft shows that they dubbed Puf-a-Palooza. I was OBSESSED because why wouldn’t I be. I wanted Sid & Marty Kroft to be my daddies, you guys. Their brains were…well, about as warped as mine! During the commercial breaks, ads would run for a commemorative, limited edition t-shirt, and this back in the day when you had to actually PICK UP A LANDLINE and call to order!  So I made my mom do it and I treasured that shirt:

This sadly isn’t a picture of my shirt, but one that I got from Google.

I don’t know why I never brought it with me when I moved out, if that was even the reason why I don’t have it now. So I texted my mom, urgently, and asked her if she knew where it could be. She said that she thought I still had some clothes in the attic and that she would look BUT IT HAS BEEN A WEEK NOW WHERE IS MY SHIRT.

Hold on, I’m texting her about it again…

Anyway, I was whining to Henry about it and he said it’s the first time he’s ever heard of this. WHAT. This was such a huge part of my life?! My HR Puf-n-stuf and Sigmund the Sea Monster plushies have been on a shelf in Chooch’s room since he was BORN?! Henry never wondered why I had those!? Or a boxed set Kroft collection on VHS?!

Wow, Henry. Why to keep up with my life.

Anyway, I want that shirt back. I looked online and every once in awhile one goes up on eBay but it’s always like, an XL and $500. I haven’t told my mom that though because if she finds it, she will definitely sell it, lol.

(She hasn’t responded to my text yet.)

The best part of that shirt was that it was a ringer tee and those are favorite kinds of t-shirts! 1970s forever!

In other news, Chooch and I had another Summer Breakfast Club meeting yesterday since it was my dreaded Friday late shit (and I really annoying one at that). We pre-planned to go to Pitaland for this one because even though we shop there regularly (Henry is like part-Syrian or something and needs to eat pita and yogurt to stay alive) we don’t eat at the cafe very often. Actually, it’s been like three years since Chooch and I last ate breakfast there, and every time we’re there I say to Henry, “Why don’t we ever eat here?” and he just shrugs.

We arrived right after they opened and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the morning deliveries and the soothing Middle Eastern music playing throughout the store. It was really relaxing. And then while waiting for our food, we mused about how everyone else has beautiful cash money and America has dirty green bills. So plain.

My cup of Arabic coffee was SUPERB, my friends.

I ordered the shankleesh and eggs and knew immediately that Chooch was suffering from order remorse.

He ordered the Fatteh without remembering what it was, and said it was “fine” but that the yogurt tasted “weird” a/k/a it tasted the way it was supposed to taste because it was real yogurt and not like, strawberry banana Dannon. So I sighed and said, “Do you want to switch?” and he happily took me up on my offer which was partially selfish on my end because I tried his and it was DIVINE. Chick peas and pine nuts swimming in warm, savory yogurt on a bed of crispy pita? Fuck yes.

I ate almost all of it and felt so full for the rest of the morning which usually doesn’t happen. I almost always leave breakfast feeling so unsatisfied and ready for second breakfast (unless I get pancakes, then I want to throw up) even though my stomach is like, “Girl, don’t do it.” So this was a great breakfast!

Then the Pitaland lady came over and gave us two giant, puffy pieces of freshly made, still warm pita and we were like, “BLESS!”

Another great breakfast meeting of the minds. It’s really nice to spend quality time together i.e. commiserate over all the ways Henry has pissed us off recently.

(I mean, he definitely didn’t piss me off last night when he finally booked our trip-within-a-trip flight to Tokyo!)

In other Chooch news, he was at the library last week when the power went out on the Boulevard. He wrote this about it on Instagram and I don’t know why, but it just cracked me up:

Me at the library: playing some good, quality Minecraft.

Power: I’m outta here.

Lady next to me: AW DAMMIT! I was on the last page of my Women in Religion essay for Carlow University and the deadline is tomorrow!

Me: that sounds fricking boring. *leaves*

“Who even ARE women in religion, anyway?” Chooch asked me later. “Mary….Jebediah. No, not Jebediah.”

Wow, perhaps we should have enforced CCD on the kid after all.

And to conclude this mish mash of thought sundry, I almost wasn’t around to even make this post because I ALMOST GOT HIT BY A CAR ON WEDNESDAY! I was crossing the street on the way to work, right in front of my building. I had the walk sign, and it wasn’t even counting down yet. To my left, traffic was stopped at a red light. But suddenly, when I was in the middle of the street, some fucking piece of shit in a muscle car decided that he couldn’t wait any longer for the light to turn green so he revved his engine and FLOORED IT, speeding through the intersection so fast that my hair actually blew forward. I had JUST stepped onto the other lane, so if he had done that .0001 seconds sooner, I would have been a goner. As it was, he very nearly clipped the back of me. It was so startling that I actually jumped in the middle of the street and screamed “OH MY GOD!!” and there were people on the sidewalk who were yelling and gasping, too. Some guy spat, “Yeah well, he ain’t going nowhere” because he immediately hit another red light, this time with other cars in front of him. So he did all of that to travel like, 200 feet.

I couldn’t stop shaking for about an hour after that. When I told Glenn, he looked super amused because he didn’t understand the GRAVITY of the situation. “This is why I think every street should have a pedestrian bridge!” I cried. “I don’t care if I have to walk all the way to the other end to cross, I will happily do so if it means a car won’t smash me!”

“And can we call them Erin Bridges?” Glenn asked dryly. THANKS FOR THE IDEA GLENN. I will make sure to suggest that in my next letter to the mayor!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s end this on a good note, with this sizzler from Baekhyun (there’s an official video as well but I love these live performances more):

One of the verbs that Jiyong has been making me study is in this song so I excitedly texted her “백현 says 원해 in his new song!” and she was proud of me lol.

Jul 102019
 

1992 in the house! (Or, in the pool.)

I was fortunate to have really great birthday parties during pretty my whole childhood, to the point where it became ingrained in me that birthdays were important, my birthday was important, and parties should be expected. Throughout the years, I have thrown birthday parties for a bunch of my friends because BIRTHDAYS ARE IMPORTANT! And obviously I have tried to give my kid memorable birthdays as well, whether it’s in the form of a party or a destination birthday (it will be hard to beat his Disney surprise!).

Because my birthday is in July, I almost always had pool parties at my Pappap’s house, only deviating from that two or three times when I opted to have my party at VIP in South Park because they had, wait for it, a pool and an outdoor skating rink. I requested T’Pau’s Heart & Soul as my birthday skate song every time.

And because I was a spoiled rich girl, there were also several occasions when I aged a year in Europe. (*blows on fingertips* lol) Henry LOVES when I bring up those birthdays. I had a very golden childhood, OK? I can’t help it!

But the best birthday memories were definitely the ones I had my Pappap’s house because he loved playing the role of Grillmaster and would brag to all of my friends about how great his grill-skills were. He was the best and while some girls would be embarrassed if their dad or whoever had the audacity to speak to their friends, I was always so proud because everyone loved my Pappap!

He died in the winter of 1996. My 16th birthday was that summer and while, if things had been different, I probably would have had the big blowout co-ed (omg lol) bash that we had been talking about, I fell into a depression and shoved away any attempt of acknowledging my birthday. Lisa tried to have a small dinner for me at Houlihan’s and I just couldn’t bring myself to it because it was my first birthday without my Pappap and I WANTED TO BE ALONE. #Chapter16ofErinsSobStory

I have a vague recollection of allowing Lisa and Christy to come over and eat birthday cake for my 17th birthday while standing in the kitchen and my brothers running around being jerks.

My 18th birthday was spent in Psycho Mike’s piece of shit 1980-something Omni with no A/C, driving around looking for places that was selling the new Bone Thugs-n-Harmony CD that came with the commemorative coin. We eventually found it but I’m pretty sure we also had a huge fight and I cried a lot, so happy 18th birthday to me.

(No, I don’t still have that coin.)

My royal 19th.

By the time I was about to turn 19, I was ready to give parties another go. I threw myself this ridiculous three-day long birthday party marathon, each night bringing different people to my townhouse in Payne Hill, and while it was incredibly fun in the moment, it culminated in a bipolar breakdown which saw me leaving my own party on the last night, in the wee hours of the morning, and driving with no direction while scream-crying to Foo Fighter’s Everlong.

So, that was that…

I spent my 21st birthday in the hospital because I was suicidal and some of my friends dragged me there kicking and screaming.

I spent my 30th birthday helping a friend move into a new apartment and need I remind you that my birthday is in July so yay heatstroke. I think Henry made me a grilled cheese for dinner that night. Happy 30th birthday to me.

And now my 40th birthday is coming up. Another milestone and I really didn’t want this to pass by with no celebration. However, I am tired of throwing myself parties and I’m not going to expect that any of my friends will do it–they’re busy and have their own shit to think about! And trust me, I’m lucky if I even get a fucking birthday CARD from Henry, hahahakillme. I know this is probably shocking, but I am a SUPER DRAMATIC LEO, especially when it comes to birthdays. I’m like, what did Prince say about his mother that one time – never satisfied.

So I decided last year that I was going to take matters in my own hands and that was when I declared that I would be spending my 40th birthday in Korea like I’m still that little spoiled brat who grew up in Jefferson Hills and not an only-just-barely-not-poor adult living in shitty Brookline.

I didn’t want to go into this with dread, like, “OMG I’m officially so old now” because 40 isn’t old, just like 30 wasn’t old. And now, after working hard to make this happen (thank you, tax refund, for all your help), I get to be in my favorite place, with my favorite people (Henry and Chooch, in case it wasn’t clear, lol), doing all kinds of fun things for like 12 days!

So far, the definitive set-in-stone required-a-reservation already-booked plans we have are:

  • attending a live recording of a Kpop countdown show on my actual birthday (SBS MTV’s The Show.)
  • visiting the DMZ/Joint Security Area
  • spending a night in the VIP room of G-Dragon’s Dolce Bita pension in Pocheon!

Other things we will be doing:

  • Lotte World amusement park!
  • A day trip to Jeonju, birthplace of bibimbap
  • Spending some time in Incheon, which is home to Korea’s largest Chinatown and a little boardwalk park called Wolmido (it has one of those crazy Disco Pang Pang rides)
  • Eating as much bingsu as possible
  • Getting giddy over the subway jingles

And so much more! I want to be more relaxed this time. Our first time there, I feel like all we did was run around like crazy people, trying to figure things out and see everything on my list, and of course we had fun, but wow – the stress levels were high on that one.

We’re staying in Hongdae this time, which is my absolute favorite neighborhood of Seoul. Buskers galore! It’s near Hongik University and there is a lot of youth and vibrancy in this area so hopefully some of it will get absorbed into my soon-to-be 40-year-old hag-skin, haha.

Yesterday in the work kitchen, Sandy asked me if we’re going to Korea every year now. Don’t I wish! This was an exception. We are not rich people!

So basically, my 40th birthday will only suck if I let it!

 

Jun 212019
 

This past week has somehow flown by even though it was pretty hectic and chaotic at work. But, I made it without any breakdowns and to reward myself, I will….exercise and write in my blog.

Wow. Livin’ large.

Since I’m mentally drained though, let’s just look at pictures from my phone from the last week+ plus whatever I deem newsworthy. (I know, I know, isn’t everything in my life newsworthy?!)

Oh and if you came here expecting an update on my NEIGHBORHOOD VIGILANTE PROJECT, forget it—those Pittsburgh cops are dicks and still haven’t replied to my email.

  1. Neighborhood Shakeup

A few months ago, new people moved in next to HNC&Co. You might remember that I hated the previous occupants because they never said hello to me and the husband took up the whole back driveway with all of his broken cars that he fixed in a perpetual loop. An older broad replaced that family and while she hasn’t really stirred the pot much, her son IS A FUCKING DICKHOLE. First of all, he used to park a DUMPTRUCK at the top of the driveway, which is shared by four families (two duplexes, it runs down the middle and all four garages face it). Now, this doesn’t affect Henry and me because we park in a lot across the street, but HNC and his wife have several cars down there, which were constantly getting blocked in. And Haley likes to briefly park at the top of the driveway when she comes home from the store because she has two kids ages 2 and below that she needs to get in the house, so she was going to leave a note on his dumptruck but Blake talked her out of it.

In addition to the dumptruck, this kid also has a horrible temper, a megaphone mouth, and a large fleshy backside that he LOVES TO SHOW. Honestly, I’ve seen his ass crack enough times that it helped me lose weight maybe even more than Jillian Michaels.

Eventually, the dumptruck disappeared, but he’s still over there screaming his face off in the front yard when he gets locked out of the house. Now he has some kind of Blazer, which he also keeps parked in top of the driveway. One day last week, I was upstairs after work and he was outside hollering like a derelict and I HAD HAD A BAD DAY AND JUST WANTED TO COME HOME, DRINK A CUP OF COFFEE IN QUIET, EAT MY FUCKING DINNER, AND EXERCISE. But now I had to listen to this caveboy yelling in his front yard so I came stomping downstairs, whipped open the front door and started yelling over my shoulder at Henry about how this kid was such a psycho asshole because I cook all my Beefs on a passive-aggressive setting. Psycho Asshole was lurching back to his Blazer-thing with long Yedi-like strides, barking indecipherable threats at me, so I slammed the door and Henry was like, “Great, now he’s going to kill us all.”

A few days later, HNC texted Henry a picture of Psycho Asshole’s Blazer. HNC DUCT-TAPED A WARNING ON IT that said “STOP BLOCKING THE DRIVEWAY” and advised Henry to let him know if he continued to park there when HNC wasn’t there. Great, now that kid might think it was me since we just made hateful eye contact a few days prior.

Anyway, HNC calls him “Baby Huey” which kills me and said that Baby Huey’s mom said he has “anger issues.” YEAH NO SHIT. But, apparently they’re moving at the end of the month so I’m really happy about this and now Janna wants to try to move in there but I told her to wait because Blake and Haley are apparently moving soon too and I just want to die because they have been the best neighbors I’ve ever had, wahhhhh.

So, that’s my neighborhood update that you never asked for.

2. SURPRISE MAIL!

One day last week, Henry received a package and the above text exchange ensued.

Dude is constantly getting packages in the mail and it’s always dumb shit like ink for the printer or envelopes for our card shop.

But then a few days later, I was working from home when a package arrived that was actually for me!

Maya got me a burrito blanket! I really wanted one of these too! I actually sent Henry the link a few months ago and said, “Buy this for me” but of course he didn’t – I should have said, “Buy this for Blake” and then he probably would have.

I was born to be a cat chaise. 

3. One of My Purest Pleasures In Life…

…is getting into bed at night with a sheet mask on my face and then when it’s time to take it off, slapping it across Sleeping Henry’s bare back, or sometimes his face depending on how I feel. He only wakes up sometimes.

Chooch recently got into sheet masking so maybe I should clue him into the secret final step of sheet masks.

4. SONG OF THE DAY

Monsta X released a new song today, a collab with French Montana, and at first I was leery because all of these collabs with western artists never seem to add anything magical to the songs, but I am so happy to report that this one WORKS. But my favorite part is that it gives off STRONG Charlie Puth vibes. You know how much I love Charlie Puth – sometimes when I’m working from home, I play “Attention” on repeat real loud, reminding the neighborhood that I sometimes listen to things other than Kpop.

(Chooch just called out from the other room, “Is this the new Monsta X song? It doesn’t even sound like Kpop. It sounds like…The Weeknd.”)

 

We had Father’s Day dinner at an Indian restaurant because Chooch is obsessed with Indian food now and if his obsessions are anything like my obsessions, we’ll probably be going to India one day soon. Also, he criticized Henry throughout the entire meal. On Father’s Day. 

5. Summer Breakfast Club: Guest Clubber Edition!

Kara and her crew, Harland & Theo, joined Chooch and me for breakfast yesterday at Pamela’s and it was awesome! It’s been a hot minute since we all got to hang out together and we had a great time.

I really love Summer Breakfast Club because Chooch is always running around during the summer and I barely see him so it’s nice to have something that both of us enjoy doing (eating breakfast, I guess). We always walk to breakfast so it gives us time to have good talks (usually making fun of Henry and/or Korea memories) while getting in some morning exercise and just good, old fashioned quality time. Plus, it’s something that Henry’s not a part of so I feel smug about that because my end game is obviously to always be the favored parent, come on now.

It’s nice to have a morning once a week where we can sit down and bullshit over food (on this day it was an omelet that had an egg shell in it, so that was cool) before I have to log on and start working from home.

I proposed to Chooch on our nightly walk down the Blvd tonight that we eat at THE NO NAME CAFE next week for SBC, because that’s where Psycho Asshole’s MOM WORKS – we actually saw her in there when we walked past and Chooch went, “Why is she sitting on the other side of the counter?” and I was like, “Uh because she works there?” and he acted all surprised which goes to show you how well he listens to me because I have fucking told him this before and also I wrote about it once on here, so way to read Mom’s blog, asshole! Anyway, Chooch thought that this was a terrible idea but I think I talked him into it, so next week’s breakfast should be a real adventure. I’M GOING TO TALK TO THAT LADY.

Ok, well, that’s five things. Well, four things and a video.

May 232019
 

Hi guys have I ever told you about how I consistently get emails intended for other Erin R Kellys with similar email addresses as mine? No? WELL BUCKLE UP, BABY. Because you’re in for a ride that’s not exactly wild, but wearing seat belts is the law, so.

The first time this happened, that I can remember was way back in 2013 when I happened to glance at my phone while at work and the first thing my eyes rested upon was the threat of getting fucked in the asshole by a gerbil.

I was scared, yo! Like, shit, what fucking Catholic school mom did I piss off this time, you know? But then I read the email more carefully and realized that it was sent to the wrong Erin R Kelly gmail address – mine is erinr(dot)kelly and this one had the (dot) someplace else, or not at all, I can’t remember. But I do remember being confused, because when I signed up with Gmail all those decades ago, I was under the impression that those (dots), you know, mattered maybe.

Anyway, this first email mix-up turned into a popcorn-eating excuse for me and some of my coworkers. You can read about it here. I wonder how maybe jobs Marcus has been fired from since then.

The Erin Kelly that received Marcus’s emails is, I believe, from Las Vegas. I has also gotten reports from a Robotics teacher that her son is a real motherfucker in class, which is surprising considering that Erin Kelly is also a member of some parent organization so she’s at least somewhat involved in her kid’s life, I guess.

Another Erin Kelly lives somewhere around Boston and while I haven’t received anything for her in some time (because she got married and maybe changed her email address? I found her on Facebook, OK? I get bored sometimes), I used to get things like hotel receipts, rental car confirmations, and shipping notifications when she returned an item to Rent the Runway.

Again, some variation of my email address with different (dot) placement.

And then there is my LEAST FAVORITE Erin R Kelly. This one lives in Florida and I think she might be a house flipper because I get so many Home Depot receipts emailed to me. I have tried to contact Home Depot about this because this bitch needs the receipts for taxes, I don’t know? But Home Depot gives no fucks so why should I? I also know that she drives a Toyota Tundra and recently had it serviced at Toyota of Melbourne.

Usually, I just delete this shit because whatever, but a few months ago, I started to repeatedly get notifications that my Rapid Cash loan payment was almost due, due, past due…First I started to panic and thought someone took a loan out in my name but then I noticed that the email address was the Erinrkelly sans (dots). You guys, I actually called this place and explained the whole situation to some account manager because look, what if Other Erin R Kelly didn’t know her loan payment was due?! Anyway, it took a good while to get this broad to pick up what I was putting down and then she was like, “Oh my god, that is so awesome of you to call us about this!” I MEAN, I MAY BE A HORRIBLE PERSON AT TIMES BUT I DO HAVE CATHOLIC GUILT OK.

Anyway, she said they would call the actual Customer Erin Kelly and have her change her email address. Like wtf people, watch what you’re typing!

Then, on Tuesday, I happened to glance at my phone at work and saw something about a consent form and I was like, “What the hell is this now…” and here, some mom was sending a consent form to the dumb Florida Erin Kelly so that he daughter can stay in dumb Florida Erin Kelly’s room on some cruise.

WOW OK CHAPERONE ERIN KELLY.

Pfft, we are so fucking different.

So I email this bitch and tell her that I am not the correct Erin Kelly, the email address is wrong. SO SHE SENDS IT TO ME AGAIN. The fuck. Why do I have to do everyone’s leg work?! I scrolled the end of the email and saw that the email address was provided to this mom by some travel agent named Jeni.

So I email Jeni and I’m all, “Hi Jeni, your ice creams are so splendid, oh and also you gave some mom the wrong email address for Erin Kelly. Please fix.”

She emailed me the next day and was SO APOLOGETIC and said she would take care of it and make the consent forms made it to the proper Erin Kelly and so I filed that away in my ERIN R KELLY – RESOLVED drawer.

“That was really nice of you to take the time to send that email, though!” our Chicago visitor Vicki said when I was complaining about this to her and Glenn at work. I mean, obviously I’m a fucking sweetheart but at the time it allows me a chance to get huffy via email. I love getting huffy.

THE SAME DAY, I got another email, this one I think may be intended for I Took Out a Loan Erin R Kelly, because it’s the email with NO DOTS just like the Rapid Cash one. Anyway, the email had a link to a MUSIC VIDEO:

I mean. I won’t post the video here because that’s someone’s intellectual property and who even knows, right? But I will say it’s a REAL DOOZY of a rap song. And the “humming in the hooks” actually could have been provided by this here Erin R Kelly because it was pretty not great. Here are some stills from the video, which starts out semi-Biblical, takes a turn by flaunting guns, and then has a weird sideways clips of two girls….grinding upright on a bed and please Lord let one of them be Erin R Kelly, lol.

I played it in the car when Henry drove me home from work that day, like, played it LOUD, and Henry was like, “Um…do we have to listen to the whole thing?”

I let Nate and Todd watch it. Todd immediately was like, “Dude…I don’t even know what to say. That guy needs to hang it up.” And Nate had to take a break halfway through and come to my desk to talk to me about what he had just witnessed.

Then I sent it to Janna whose main takeaway was, “One of those guys has ‘RIP’ under his name!!!!” Lol.

I mean, this video really runs the gamut from “Man cheerfully getting Baptized” to “Fuck the Police” (agreed) to “Vampire Facial Time.” My favorite part was the ultra poetic “snitches get stitches.” I’m so proud to have my name affiliated with this.

After telling Nate about all of the other instances of WRONG ERIN R KELLY, he came up with the smartest solution: I just need to change my name. That would solve my problem of being called “Kelly” in work emails a minimum of twice of day. He’s going to start a Go Fund Me.

May 172019
 

It’s Friday, you guys, which means I’m that closer to the next amusement park trip! However you have to get through the work week, amirite?

Anyway, here’s some stuff – well, five to be exact since it’s FRIDAY – that went down this week. Can’t promise it’s going to be exciting or informative, but I’ll throw in some photos that may or may not enhance the narrative.

1. RING THE BELL

Not a shocking secret about me but I live across the street from a church and I don’t ever remember the church bells ever ringing but suddenly, for the last several weeks, the church bells have awoken and are here to fucking announce every goddamn hour of the day from 8am to 9pm and it is fucking obnoxious, this relentless throbbing-tinny hourly countdown. I don’t know if they got a new priest over there who was like “Well shoot y’all this church has got BELLS? Let’s dust those Heaven-horns off!” I’d like for him to dust the NOVELTY off because this shit is wack and after last Sunday, I can’t hear them ding-donging without bracing for a dragon to come forth and torch my town.

I’m going to report this for a noise violation or whatever you call it.

Random picture that Henry found on his phone from the trick eye museum in Korea. 

2. Happy Broken Family

You guys know how Henry’s son Blake and his fam live right next door to us? Well, you can imagine how often Chooch is flitting back and forth between the two houses—he is obsessed with his big brother Blake. Well, yesterday he came back in the house and said, “Something weird happened. The shirtless Italian guy with the dog who lives next to Blake saw me coming out of Blake’s house and said, ‘So is that uh…..um….your….uncle?’ and I said, ‘No, it’s my brother’s house’ and he said, ‘Oh, and your other dad lives next door?’ I said yes, but thought it was weird that he called you my ‘other dad,'” Chooch said to Henry with a shrug.

I thought this was unusual as well, but then Henry said, “He probably thought you were talking about Calvin when you said it was your brother’s house.” Calvin is Blake’s son, Chooch’s nephew. So he thinks Blake is Chooch’s dad! I AM FUCKING DYING AT THE THOUGHT OF THIS, Chooch having “both dads” living right next door to each other!

This morning when I left for work, Calvin was at the window playing with his cars so I was waving to him when I noticed that Italian Guy’s Shirted Brother was outside with the dog, watching me. We waved and said good morning to each other and as soon as I was far enough down the sidewalk, I started laughing all over again because those guys must think , “Wow, those people really get along great for a broken family!”

3. LA ANNUAL STICKING OF LA FINGER

Ugh, why do I put myself through this every year? Oh yeah, for better insurance rates or something, I think? Anyway, my appointment for the wellness screening was at 10:06am on Tuesday, and I had chosen to fast. I was running around the department like a crazy person that morning, crying to everyone who would listen and repeating, “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” over and over. “It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer is running the place,” Glenn said, having already gone up for this screening. “Blood everywhere!” I screamed at him to shut up and I know it was a joke but now I was picturing blood dripping down the windows of the 28th floor and was starting to get that ol’ familiar nervous knee-knocking.

Finally, Amber saw me cowering at my desk when she was en route to her appointment, which was about 40 minutes earlier than mine, and said, “Oh for god’s sake, just go up with me now” YES, LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH.

I was so spastic that I was actually trying to pull the pen out of the lady’s hand while she was using it to point out the spots I needed to fill in on the consent form. Like, I was aware that I was doing it and it was coming across as super rude, but I literally could not let go of the pen. It was so embarrassing. What is wrong with me.

DON’T ANSWER THAT.

First, some broad called me over to weigh me and measure my waist, etc. I was like, “IS THAT AN OK NUMBER??” about my waist size and she said, “Yes, all your numbers are good!” So that made me feel better. Then she was having a coughing fit and trying to talk to me about it but I was like, “Look, this is about me and my numbers,  not your damn windpipe, alright.”

She sent me back to the fake triage area and I was supposed to be the next person to get called back for the actual fingerstick portion of the traveling blood bath, but the next available screener was adamant about taking Amber first even  though Amber tried to defer her spot to me. Turns out,  this was a blessing because the screener I got was A-MAZ-ING. She had two thick bleached strands of hair framing her face, and I could picture her being a total badass in the 70s. She looked at my form and said, “Oh, my birthday is the day after yours! Well, with about a 20 year difference,” she laughed.

“Yeah! Leos are the best!” I exclaimed and we spent nearly the whole time talking about how amazing our zodiac is and I was really on the verge of asking her if she wanted to hang out sometime but thought maybe that would be inappropriate since she was in the process of stroking blood out of the pad of my middle finger.

Guess what you guys?! This was the best screening I’ve had to date.

“All of my numbers are in the ‘desirable’ range!” I bragged to Henry via Kakao.

“That’s good,” he replied and I was annoyed that he didn’t seem more stoked about this. He didn’t even use any emojis!!!

That’s fine, I guess I’ll just take my hotly desired blood elsewhere.

 

4. CHOOCH THE RUTHLESS

Call me old fashioned, but I’m a firm believer in the dying art of sending thank you cards. YES, SOMETIMES I FORGET TO DO THIS MYSELF, because life is a trainwreck sometimes, but I thought it would be nice for Chooch to send Thank Yous to the people who came to his recent birthday dinner in order to teach him some etiquette (meanwhile Henry’s over there desperately trying to teach him to use double negatives).

The thing with Chooch is that he may be naturally brilliant in so many things, but when it comes to shit like correspondence, he has no clue. He will put his own name on the envelopes of cards being given to other people! HE DID THAT TO MY MOTHER’S DAY CARD….

LAST YEAR!

Anyway, I noticed that he was writing all of his messages on the left side of the card, leaving the main side all blank and weird-looking. So I suggested, in a nice, non-pageant-mom-y way, that perhaps he could draw a picture on the sides that he left blank, so they would look less weird. So of course he drew a clown on Haley’s and Wendy’s because they hate clowns (Wendy’s also featured Meghan Trainor) and then for Janna’s, after insulting her on one side, he drew a picture of her mom beating her and this is funny because we have this joke all the back from 2014 where Janna’s mom beat her for using her car when she went to Nemacolin Castle with Corey and me. Her mom originally said she could use the car, but then forgot about it I guess because once we arrived at the castle for the tour, her mom called and was like WHERE IS MY CAR and Janna was like MOM, YOU SAID and Corey and I were AW SHIT, JANNA’S GON’ GET IT! But Janna insisted that everything was fine once she hung up with her mom.

Later that night when we went back to Janna’s to get our cars, Corey joked that if we waited long enough, maybe we would see the silhouette of Janna getting whipped by her mom and Henry to this day still doesn’t think this is a funny story but Corey and I would cry-laugh every time it came up.

Uh, anyway, this card was a nice homage to old times.

5. JANNA’S BIG DEAL BIRTHDAY

I took Janna out to dinner for her birthday on Wednesday. She originally said she wanted to go somewhere with good desserts so I was like, “Maybe something Italian then?” and she was like “I COULD DO ITALIAN” so then I spent ALL THIS TIME on that app that I loathe (#UghYelp) only for her to suggest The Abbey hours later. THE ABBEY IS NOT ITALIAN. But I wasn’t mad though because that let me off the hook of searching for the perfect birthday dinner venue which I am not great at because we all know I’m such a megalomaniac (see above re: LEOS RULE).

Then Janna wanted to sit outside and I was like “Ugh fine it’s your birthday” but I am not a fresco diner! I prefer sitting inside almost always, especially at The Abbey because it’s an old funeral home! Instead, I did what any mature girl would do and pouted and whined about being cold and then said NO FORGET IT every time Janna offered to lend me her sweater. I am a great dinner companion.

I got the vegan mushroom and spinach ravioli and seitan meatballs and I have to say, the ravioli were FANTASTICO but I have had better-prepared seitan in my travels. It was OK – I liked that it was almond-encrusted but it was very tough and even though the almonds tasted good, it made the whole thing extremely dry. Another annoyance was that my salted lemon tart was so fucking small that I actually thought it was a mistake. It was $6!! And the size of a shot glass! I AM A CHEAP PERSON AND ALSO A FOREVER FAT WHO WANTS BIG DESSERTS.

I mean, it tasted wonderful but I WANTED MORE.

Also, it was really hard to cut through the pastry because it was SO SMALL AND DENSE. I was afraid I was going to send it sailing across the patio with one wrong move of the knife.

Janna got food too.

Afterward, she hung out at my hell house for a few hours and Chooch was in rare form, looking for his wallet while in “meth addict” character and I had ONE BEER at dinner so I was like scream-laughing over this, and kpop videos were blasting on the TV, and Janna was yelling, “Come on, Chooch, stop it!” while Henry quietly sat at the computer and it was a total throwback to high school when I used to have friends over and my brothers would be going batshit with butcher knives and the dogs would be barking and my mom would be quietly laying on the couch watching figure skating, blocking us all out, and it was just a flurry of pandemonium, or as we Kellys called it: “a normal night.”

I had one beer at dinner was so CRUNK (yeah I said it) even by the time we got back to my house that my every movement was exaggerated and amplified, and Henry immediately was like, “Wow you had a beer, I can tell. You always get an attitude when you drink a beer.”

A beer.

That’s me!

Anyway, we made Janna sit through a bunch of Kpop stuff and when the NCT127 appearance on James Corden came on, she asked, “Which one is my bias?” and I said, “Well jeez Janna, NONE OF THEM BECAUSE THIS ISN’T BTS!” (I made her choose a BTS bias a few years ago and she chose Taehyung.)

Yep, just a normal night.

Apr 122019
 

Oh damn, end of the week already. Well, let’s get this Friday Five thang started. I know, I can’t  believe I’m still blogging, either. Stick a fork in it, Erin!

Random “look it’s spring in the city” picture. 

  1. WTF Lunch and Apple Slumming

Typing this takes guts, because I’m about to admit something that goes against my every belief. You guys know that I am an apple snob, a forbidden fruit aficionado, a pomme princess, only permitting those designer hybrids to touch my palate…

…but on Wednesday…

I ATE A BASIC RED DELICIOUS.

Literally, the Walmart brand of apples.

And…it was surprisingly OK! Perhaps I’m becoming less apple hipster-ish now that I’m nearing 40, or maybe Red Delicious apples aren’t as 1950s Housewife Vanilla as I remember, or maybe I was just really hungry because we had a meeting that day and boxed lunches were provided, but us handful of vegetarians got a pretty unusual option. I actually thought the veg box I grabbed was an accident, the one defective box in the bunch, but after talking to Maggie–another meat-free department co-worker–I confirmed that our option was actually intentional. In the year 2019, this catering company couldn’t think of anything better to fulfill a vegetarian order than a sandwich roll loaded with one piece of lettuce, a ziplock bag with two tomato slices, and another (leaking) ziplock filled with some weird marinated cauliflower shit that I think was meant to be put inside the bun?! I ate less than half and threw the rest out because WTF was that.

Maggie said she took the lettuce off, saved the bun, and made a PB&J in her office with it after the meeting. Ugh, maybe I should stock up on some Uncrustables for these situations.

Seeing that I wasn’t eating my sandwich, Todd tried to offer me his apple but he had a GREEN ONE and I was like, “EW TODD ARE YOU KIDDING ME I DON’T EAT GREEN APPLES!” Ugh! Nice try.

So yeah, that Red Delicious that I was given in my lunch box was a welcome source of sustenance at that point! I forgot how OK-tasting those classic fruit-balls really are.

Meanwhile, Lauren was sitting next to me and her choice was like, roast beef or something and that sandwich was fucking LOADED.

I sound like a bitchbaby, but I’m really appreciative that there even WAS an option provided for us veg-lifers, but come on, catering people. It’s 2019! Surely not all of your clientele eats meat. Do better!

2. Still Crying Over Jonghyun

I mentioned earlier this week that it was the late Jonghyun’s birthday.  I wore some of my Jonghyun memorial pins on Monday in his honor and tried hard to just be a nice person to everyone I encountered (with the exception of Henry, haha) all week, even strangers on the street. I even tried real hard not to scowl at the abortion protesters who have set up shop again in front of Planned Parenthood.

I was doing OK until last night. I kept seeing this “Classical Musicians React to Jonghyun” in my YouTube feed but I kept scrolling past because I knew it would upset me. But then after Henry went to bed last night, I ended up putting it on because I’m a glutton, and before I knew it, I was straight sobbing. And not just “fake Instagram crying” but like, full-body weeping, entire face wet, choking on eye-spit, violent nose-blowing, now-my-stomach-hurts C-R-Y-I-N-G. Not only were they saying really complimentary things about Jonghyun as an artist, musician, vocalist, and lyricist, they were genuinely moved and some were visibly overcome with emotion. They talked about how it’s a shame that he left the world so soon, but how lucky we are that he gave us so much of himself.

When Jonghyun died, it hit me harder than when I lost any other celebrity or musician I loved, and it felt even more shocking than when Bowie or Prince died. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I felt very emotionally-connected to this one and it affected me on what feels like an extremely personal and intimate level. Maybe it’s because Kpop idols in general let people into their lives more than most, what with all the fan events, reality shows, and variety appearances they make. It makes it feel like we know them as people, we see their personalities and their know their quirks–granted, I know that a lot of this is for show and they still have their private versions of themselves, but I can’t deny that I feel like I know a lot of these idols on a deeper level than any Western artist, for better or worse.

So, even though it’s been a year and a half since his passing, it still feels so raw. I woke Henry up last night and buried my tear-soaked face into his chest and he just murmured, “Why do you do this to yourself?”

“I feel like my whole entire body is one gigantic heart AND IT’S BROKEN,” I wailed, and then I threw away my sorrow-streaked contacts and passed out.

Anyway, that reaction video was really great and you should watch it.

You should also watch this wonderful live performance of Tell Me What To Do because Jonghyun was still alive then and Taemin is wearing a see-through shirt:

3. Props To My Non-Secret Son Not-Named Clive

I mentioned in another post recently that Chooch was chosen as Student of the Month at the Teen Center and he got to choose the dinner menu (isn’t it awesome that they feed the kids there?!). He asked for tteokbokki but they went above and beyond and planned an entire Korean night! He texted me this picture on Wednesday:

I freaking love the Teen Center, you guys. Almost so much that I’d consider donating household junk to be used for craft projects, or volunteering….Henry.

Additionally, he came home from school today with his A-filled report card! I try not to be that mom who brags about her kid all the time (and trust me, he’s not perfect!) but man, sometimes I feel spoiled because as far as his school-work and grades go, Henry and I are able to be pretty hands-off. He just naturally knows what he needs to do and he gets that shit done on his own, PRAISE BE. Helicopter-parenting is not my style, so thank you Chooch!

Oh wait, one more Chooch update – he’s been binge’ing Jane the Virgin and now he says “Oh my god” exactly like Jane, which is also how my EX-BFF used to say it, so that’s been pretty annoying.

4. Henry’s Fucking Face Instrument

You know those old-timey guys that peddle their music-mobiles down the cobblestone road, tooting all the horns, smashing the cymbals, stroking the washboard, blowing their whistles? It sounds like one of them lives inside Henry’s nose. His nasal bells and whistles get worse with age, I swear. Chooch and I are constantly groaning and complaining about it and then Henry will bark, “FINE I JUST WON’T BREATHE THEN, I GUESS!” and then we’re like, “Yay!” but he always goes on breathing.

At least his beard is growing back so he doesn’t look so much like  a 1950s science teacher now.

5. Current Favorite Kpop Jam!

And no, it’s not the new BTS which just came out today and is good but also kind of underwhelming and features too much English; however, my expectations were pretty low to begin with because it features Halsey and I really don’t like her at all and every time they collab with another American artist, I lose a feather from the Korean wings I made out of the household junk that I could have donated to the Teen Center, BUT maybe I’m maturing and as mentioned above, becoming less hipster-y in my old age, because she actually didn’t bother me! I thought it was well done, and her voice really works well with theirs, and also she didn’t overpower the song or steal any of the limelight like NICKI MINAJ did in the shitty American remix of “Idol,” and it’s weird because I actually like Nicki but she really had no business being on that song at all and added NOTHING to it. In “Boy With Luv,” though, I thought Halsey’s vocals were tasteful and subdued. I approve.

But I digress! My current favorite jam is this real tooth-rotter from a rookie girl group, Everglow. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first but then two of my favorite kpop cardio YouTubers uploaded a routine for it and I was really feeling it.

Then I saw a comment somewhere that said they thought they were saying, “You go to Walmart everyday” and now that’s all I can hear too but it’s still the fucking jam.

OK gotta go, I have two Bon Bon Chocolat workouts with my name on it!