I am back where I belong. An asylum. Specifically, Transallegheny Insane Asylum haunted house. This line wasn’t that long, but I bought time by playing a game on my phone, sort of like Scattergories. Janna, obviously had to go to the bathroom and I tricked her into going into the port-o-potty that was a trick.

It didn’t have a loud siren, though. Lats year, it was a prank and whenever you opened the door wide enough, a siren would sound and it would embarrass you. While waiting in line for the house, the people were looking for a group of 2 or 3, so we presented ourselves and we walked up to the entrance with a group of 4 other people. Immediately, when we were inside, we were going super slow, because the other people leading us were turtles through the whole thing. At some points, the dad, named Paul would stop to explain the certain rooms, because he worked there before, I guess. For example, in a closet room, we walked through clothes and Paul said, “This is where the old women were kept.”

When the guy at the beginning told us the rules, he clearly stated, “Do not stop, or run, because you might catch up to the group ahead of you,” then he said, “Do not stop because the group behind you can catch up to you.” Paul didn’t understand because he went slow the whole time instead of going a normal speed, you know walking pace.

My favorite part was when we were walking up a stairwell and his family started to yell at him about going too slow, but he said, “Gotta get your money’s worth.” He continued going super slow, despite what his family told him, he probably got spanked in the car by his wife.

We finally got to the rooms where the patients were kept. The first room we entered, the roommates were arguing about something, then started to pull each other’s hair and screamed at each other.

There was this one hall that had mannequins on each side, and I expected one of them to be a real person, and it was true. Then we had to hail to “him”, but we didn’t know who exactly we were hailing to, but I praised anyway. When we got to the demon’s lair, the walls were made of pallets. Mum was knocking hard on them and the people got mad and told us to, “Stop hitting the boards!

” She was as disobedient as Paul, she kept tapping the boards. The demon was a dog thing and it almost ate us, but it was still cute.

The spider nest was back again this year, and Paul had to stop to basically look at every string woven by the spiders, that was how slow he was going. Janna got really scared at some parts, like the part where we were walking through fog, then all of a sudden men on stilts were looking over and following us. She also got very scared by nothing, she doesn’t get scared by anything. We don’t know why she goes because she doesn’t care about the spooks.

Finally, as expected at the end, there was a chainsaw guy. He didn’t chase us, but he got very close to our feet and bodies. When it was time to leave, we had to find where dad parked.

We checked the spot he dropped us off in, but he was gone. We were freezing and I called him, but he didn’t tell us where he was. He kept saying he saw us, but he didn’t tell us his surroundings and where he was parked relative to where he dropped us off.

*******

EDITORS NOTE: Erin here. Like, a day after this dumb haunted house that PAUL ruined, I realized that perhaps his older daughter wasn’t actually calling him “Paul,” but the more sensible Pa. I mean, we were in West Virginia and they were all speaking with mountain drawls, so….

Meanwhile, Janna had recently rescued a tiny kitten from a tunnel on her way to work, two days prior to our attending this haunt. She has been trying to come up with the perfect name for him and I served her one on a silver platter decorated with maraschino apples: PAWL.

GET IT? Because we hated “Paul” and cats have paws, so PAWL?!

Omg I was so excited about this last night and she laughed real hard but didn’t actually confirm that this is the new official name of Tunnel Cat.

Chooch wasn’t laughing at all so I yelled DON’T YOU GET IT? And he mumbled, “yeah, I got your dumb joke.”

He is so jealous of my effortless humor.

In case any imaginary doctors out there are wondering about my health, I am still under the weather. Look, I know it’s just a cold. In fact, I’m certain  that’s all it is, but you would think I had tuberculosis the way I carry on about it.

I wanted to leave work early on Tuesday because I couldn’t keep my head up, and I’m certain Boss Amber would have been like, “byeeeeeee” if I had asked, but then I realized that even if I left early, I DON’T HAVE A HOUSEKEY because I STILL NEVER GOT ONE MADE because THE ONLY GOOD HOUSEKEY WAS LOST BY CHOOCH and all the other housekeys made since then SUCK and I 100% have NO LUCK GETTING THEM TO OPEN THE DOOR.

EVEN BLAKE STRUGGLES WITH IT WHEN HE HAS TO USE IT!

Spare me the suggestions, I know what I need to do! Just let me vent about it OK!? Ugh.

So then I thought, well, maybe I can leave a little bit before Chooch is done with school and text him to go straight home so that he will be there to open the door for me since he somehow has the magic touch and can persuade his fucking bastard key to unlock the door. But then I got caght up in something for work and ended up making it through the whole day and it’s a good thing too because when Henry and I got home at 6:00, Chooch was hanging out on  the front porch because he DIDN’T BRING HIS KEY WITH HIM. Don’t call CYS too hard on us though because he had literally just gotten home from the library, so no, he wasn’t out in the cold for THREE HOURS.

I did go home a few hours early yesterday though because Henry was home to open the door for me (look, I realize this sounds ludicrous, because it is, but this is just like…my life now) but then we had not one but THREE VISITORS!? Literally no one ever knocks on our door now that we’re not poor people with outstanding gas bills so usually if there is a knock, I can’t see a silhouette through the frosted glass because it’s some dummy looking for Chooch. But this time there were ADULT SHADOWS, you guys.

Don’t worry. It was just Blake (twice) and then my mom who stopped by to bring us charity deli goods. Then I told her that in my annual review at work that day, I was called “the special little unicorn of the department” and she promptly said, “GOODBYE” and left.

WOW.

(Seriously though, my mom knows how conceited these things make me and she probably had to vomit at least once out the window on her way home.)

This is such an exciting update!

Then we were told last night that if the weather today was shitty, we could work from home and I was like GOD ARE YOU THERE IT’S ME ERIN because I knew I wasn’t going to be feeling much better the next day (TODAY) and wow, call me motherfucking Miss Cleo because I woke up feeling like someone gutted my head and stuffed it like it was practice for next week’s thanksgiving turkey.

But, I still trudged on in to work (on the trolley, no less, THANKS HENRY) in freezing rain that wasn’t treacherous enough to warrant a WFH request and I was so whiny about it for about the first hour of my shift.

I kept imagining that I was at home with a hot washcloth covering my face but that just made it worse, like being on a diet and imagining yourself sensually eating a cake (like a good quality one, not some jacked up hillbilly supermarket sheet cake) in your underwear.

With the mailman.

Then! It was still raining/snowing (OMG IS THAT WHAT WINTERY MIX MEANS?? I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!) when it was time to take my break so I didn’t think going outside for a walk would be in my best interests. A normal sick person probably would have kicked back with a book or amusement park map but I decided that this would be a good time for me to walk up the full 40 flights of steps inside my building for the first time! Margie was like “that doesn’t seem like a great id—-” but I couldn’t hear her because I was already imprisoned inside the stair well.

Since I was already on the 10th floor, I didn’t want to cheat so I first walked down to the first floor, all the way back up to 40 (there was a creepy security camera up there and I thought Interpol was going to come out from the door and arrest me), then all the way back to 1 and back up to 10.

I couldn’t breathe on account of BEING SICK but I did that shit with no break mostly because the stairwells are gross (Lauren and I saw a cockroach in there on Monday when we walked down from a meeting on 28) so no thanks steps, I won’t be sitting down on you.

Carrie told me if I wanted to sweat out my sickness, I should have just eaten spicy food and now I’m sad that I didn’t do that on my dumb break instead.

And that was today’s episode of Erin’s Poor Choices.

Oh and then guess what happened?! The weather actually turned bad and Henry was like “have fun taking the trolley home.

” I triple-hate him today. But then he bought our Dollywood tickets so now I’m semi-calm.

But, still stuffy and sniffly so goodbye.

PS this was the treasure I found at the end of my stair-climbing odyssey and yes it’s blurry because I was shaking lol. Walking up steps while congested is like, no joke.

And probably the opposite of drinking hot tea and honey.

I started to feel sick yesterday and whined about how I thought I had a fever and Henry was like YOU DONT HAVE A FEVER so then I made him take my temperature and guess who HAD A FEVER?

It wasn’t a big one but it was enough to make me feel like a slug so I spent most of last night writhing dramatically on the couch while watching theme park vlogs; I dragged Henry down into this with me – we’re really into the In The Loop YouTube channel.

My favorite vlogs are the ones with Legend and his girlfriend Molly. I LIKE HOW HER VOICE CRACKS and she seems like a nice person.

Oh! And I also like when Reese tags along in Clint’s videos. I have an open crush on Reese. Henry’s fine with it.

This In the Loop group is a freaking sausage party though, aside from the occasional appearance of wives/girlfriends. I briefly considered contacting them to see if they have any room for a girl correspondent or if that would rock the WHITE MALE boat too much, but then I realized that my amusement park reviews would be full of me screaming LOL LOOK AT THAT ASSHOLE’S HAIR (and then zooming in on Henry obviously) and likening thrill rides to Bathory’s Iron Maiden while the rest of them are like legit coaster nerds who say things like THAT IS A LABAMBA HYPER COASTER FROM ROMANIA WITH A JOJO SAWA ROLL AND -172 GRAVITY AIR TIME YEAH BOI.

I’m just like “There is a purple coaster. It has black cars and a bunch of douchebags in line. Let’s ride it.”

I am now also determined to go to DisneySea in Tokyo and I think Henry is half on board with it but we’ll see. One of us will likely have to get a second job lol.

But seriously, I wish I had jumped on that train a long time ago because my family literally plans trips around amusement parks (we’re going to Dollywood over Thanksgiving weekend!) and how amazing would it be if that was our actual job? Ugh I fucked up, man.

(I also berated Henry out of nowhere for not being a roller coaster engineer.

He took it stride.)

So that’s what I was doing again after work, watching theme park vlogs, until a few minutes ago when my friend sent me a message reminding me that the new Taemin video is out! I just watched it and it was like medicine being pelvic-thrusted into my system. NOW I WANT TO RIDE ROLLERCOASTERS WITH TAEMIN.

NEW LIFE GOAL, COME THRU.

We went to Castle Blood with my friend Lima. He wasn’t scared at all, but he never stopped talking in line, sort of like me. He was excited to go in, though, it was his first haunted house!

When we went in, we found out that the talismans were a spirit, a skull, and a staff. Castle Blood is a quest-type haunted house where we have objectives that need to be completed throughout the house. Immediately, I noticed that there were a whole bunch of new cast members. When we were presented with a puzzle, daddy was dazed and confused, but I understood most of them.

For example, in the new lab, there was a puzzle where we had to get a machine working to transform tissue in an organ. What we had to do to solve the puzzle was look around the room for what each letter is, for example A=⇑. The switches on the machine were labeled A.N.S.W.E.R.S. and we had to find out each letter. I ended up getting it, but I took too long, so it blew up…

In the fortune telling room, the gypsy told us that we were in grave danger! The spirits of the house didn’t like us being there and in order to protect our souls,  we needed a special item, the spirit! That was our first talisman collected! Now we were extra protected, with our weakest daddy having the Beads of Protection, and mum having the spirit, we were all safe! Well at least they were…

Later, we found out that when we die we will turn into zombies. We figured this out because we all had to pick up a skull and whatever it said under it, is what we are. Majority rules, so we were zombies. The librarian didn’t like that we were zombies, she preferred us to be ghosts, because she likes ghosts. She offered us a brain, because we needed one, but daddy needed one more so she gave it to him.

We entered the cemetery, the reaper told us to follow him, but we caught up to the next group, so we had to wait. Finally, we were able to go and the reaper told us to go up to the spider queen. She had many spider lings on her lap and she asked if we had anything for her.

I placed my foot on her stairs and she screamed at me and told me to take it off. Lima told her that he had something and she told him to give it to her. Instead of going up the stairs, he decided to just reach to her and hand it, but he got yelled at, too. He had to go up the stairs and give it to her, in return she gave him a spider.

Then, was the last puzzle, we were told to place a bunch of rocks in cauldrons so that the first one had 5, the second had 6, and the third one had “none”. In total, there were 15 stones. We put 5 in the first, 6 in the second, and had 4 left. We were stumped, then right when I was about to get it, mum put stones that spelled “none” in the third bucket. She got a stick, oh sorry I mean staff, and we were told to exit the cemetery and go back into the building. This was the part where we get our fangs! We showed that we got all of the talismans and we got our fangs! Lima put his in and he got his first picture at his first haunted house!

Sewickley Haunted Church is a cool haunted house because they really don’t care if they’re a church, all they care is if you don’t use profanity. We went in and mum was going way too slow, so I kept stepping on the back of her shoe, making it come off. The haunted house was actually jumpy because the walls were tarps, so people just jumped out from behind them. It was really creepy when we got into a large room with hanging objects and a girl singing the Lizzie Borden theme. Then it continued on in the next room, with her dad sitting at a table with an ax in his head. Other than that, though daddy got scared badly. He should’ve been the one holding the, “I peed a little,” sign.

Thanks for reading! Those were Castle Blood and Sewickly Haunted Church, I recommend these haunted houses, but for next year!

YES OR YES??

I won’t be voting until after work, but I am so fucking ready. I am also so fucking nauseous. Let’s do this, guys.

Not gonna lie, it sure doesn’t feel like Halloween. I’m still relatively numb and dead inside so my goal for today is HAPPY THOUGHTS and staying busy because you know what they say, life goes on muthafuckas.

I mean there was a show called that and everything. (Corky Forever.)

Lets start with this inspirational graffiti I took a picture of last week before some asshole walked into a synagogue and made an entire group of people feel otherwise:

Things to be excited about/happy thoughts/good moments/etc etc:

• I’m working on a Cure mini-Valentine set for my shop! It’s been on my back burner for too long so I’m forging ahead, finally.
• Taemin’s Japanese solo album!! He just did a bunch of huge concerts over there and watching fan videos from it on YouTube have been breathing actual life into me. I finally found more than just a 30 second snip of him performing my favorite song Rise. I swear, it’s a life goal for me to hear/see him perform this song live. I’d pay VIP prices just for that alone. Especially now this song just sucker punches my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGcf0dq74UY

And this! Taemin, you give us so much:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

• Going to see Emarosa tomorrow night at Smiling Moose! That’s going to be weird. I’m so far removed from Western music/concerts and it’s been like a year and a half since I was last at Smiling Moose when it felt like that place my second home for a minute there. So funny how different my life is now.
• Margie, our new-ish admin person, told me last week that I remind her of Phoebe from Friends and I was like, “I WILL TAKE THAT AS A COMPLIMENT.” I think I was telling her about Trudy, our resident Xmas mannequin, which came up because my other work friend Nate was talking about this one lady on a different floor and I said, “Oh she likes me, we bonded when she gave me her mom’s wig.” Margie was like “??” and I said, “Oh it was for Trudy” and then I remembered she probably didn’t know Trudy, so I tacked on, “My mannequin” and Margie was still like “??” so I said, “She’s my Christmas tree” and then we reached the point where words didn’t work anymore so I just showed her pictures on my phone and she was like, “!!”

• I am still not over DramaFever abandoning us, but thankfully YG Future Strategy Office is on Netflix (it’s an Office-like show about Seungri from BIGBANG running YG Entertainment’s new agency and it’s extremely over-the-top and hilarious. (Probably not for anyone who doesn’t know who Seungri is. Or YG. Or BIGBANG. Or Kpop. Or South Korea.) I also started watching some new shows on Viki and that platform is fine (they have Running Man at least, which DramaFever had lost the licensing for!) but I still have no way of finishing the shows I was already watching on DF, like “Devilish Joy,” “Third Charm,” and “The Bride of the Water God” so if anyone is reading this who has any K-Drama intel, please help! I need my Seo Kang Joon fix.

• We had a huge Halloween blowout last night because I said again, for the second year, that I am fucking RETIRED as Halloween Costume Idea Come-Upper but then it was All Hallows Eve and Chooch was like a mass of undulating question marks and every idea he had required going to the Halloween store/overnighting shit from Amazon/heavy duty construction/$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and I was like, “THIS IS WHY I STARTED PRODDING YOU ABOUT THIS IN JULY.” I gave him two pop culture/Top 40 song references to use and he was going to go with one of them but then Blake told him no one would get it so I got mad and screamed JUST FORGET IT but then I thought of something easy and Chooch was like, “Love it” and it only requires two easily acquired things and this is the story of how I got to spend the rest of my evening watching “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes” (really great k-drama I’m watching on Viki!) and a documentary on YouTube about some unintentionally creepy roadside theme park in Oregon that was built entirely by one family. It was a good night free of cutting cardboard boxes and hot-gluing felt. Halloween just doesn’t feel like Halloween anymore! Take me back to the 80s please.

• ^^^^^^^^This is like the best metaphor of Janna’s friendship with me.
• This isn’t a happy thought at all but Some People’s President was in my city yesterday, even though he was asked repeatedly not to come, and I had the extreme displeasure of being out on my lunch break walk (I was late shift yesterday so I took my break at 4) when the motorcycle cops started screaming at people like the jackasses they are (seriously, every motorcycle cop, man—why are such assholes?!), blocking intersections in preparation for the Douche Parade, so I figured, eh, why not, I’ve got time. I hung out on the sidewalk across from the Greyhound Station, and there weren’t very many other people to greet the Great Orange Racist, that’s for sure. I was on the phone with Henry and he was nervous because my temper and extreme disdain for authority can get out of control (I’m all mouth, don’t worry), and I’m like, “Hey man, will I go to jail if I flip him off” and Henry was just like, “Please god, be careful” so then I just opted for the mature “thumbs down” instead which was fine but not the greatest carrier for my vitriolic message, but whatever. So there was just a very small throng of people booing and thumbs-downing, with some people cheering too, let’s be real THERE ARE TWO SIDES AFTER ALL, AS BEWILDERING AS IT MAY BE, and as that fucking dreary procession oozed past me, I felt so angry and helpless. There was an older businesswoman standing next to me who was also exercising her right to demonstrate her feelings, and some fucking pudding-faced MAGA hat-wearing pot stirrer approached her and asked why she wasn’t supporting Trump and at the same time, even thought he didn’t ask me, we both said, “Because we’re not racist.”  He kept trying to provoke her and said said, “Sir, I’m not doing this with you. Have a good day” and marched off and then I walked back to work among people who were saying things like, “I don’t want him in my city” and it felt good to be a part of that but I didn’t realize how sick to my stomach it was going to make me, knowing that I was that close to such a complete and utter piece of shit.  I can honestly say that I have never actually hated anyone in my life, in spite of my tendency to overuse that word, until now. I hate him.

• But!!!!!!!! Then I saw Downtown Jesus cruisin’ on foot in the middle of the street afterward and it made me feel oddly calm.

• I’m off work today (I use my floating holiday for Halloween every year, lol) and patrolled Brookline Boulevard – it’s my favorite in October because a lot of the storefronts are decorated and even Maureen at the post office was in good spirits and made sure I took some candy from the bowl on the counter. My Mexican boyfriend cheerfully yelled Hola! to me from behind his taco cart, and the broad at 802 Coffee was sporting a witch hat while she made my overpriced latte. And today is one of the only sincerely perfectly-fall days we’ve had here all October – bright blue skies, yellow leaves, and 60 degrees. It’s like an autumn paradise out there — for now, anyway. It’s supposed to rain later, probably right when Trick or Treating starts because why not.

I took a Snickers. Thanks, Maureen! Thanks also for scanning in my envelope without 20 questions or telling me about your latest family drama.

This is how the front of Brookline & Sinker (har har) is decorated. This bar is the diviest of all dives on Brookline Blvd. It’s where recently some guy tried to rob it with a machete. WHAT IS IT WITH THIS CITY AND MACHETES?! Jason Voorhees would be so fucking proud.

NO FILTER ON THIS BEAUTE.

Me, today. I stole Chooch’s Lucipurr shirt.

Well guys, that’s about all the happiness I have to share for this week. I have to conserve my energy so that when Henry comes home, I can resume jumping around him while chanting TAKE US TO DOLLYWOOD which is my current strategy to get him to TAKE US TO DOLLYWOOD.

I don’t have anything profound to say about the tragic and senseless events that the Jewish community and my city suffered at the hands of yet another hateful domestic terrorist. It’s not shocking, because nothing is shocking anymore: schools, concerts, churches, movie theaters – we are running out of places where we are safe.

And then it happened in my own city. In a beautiful neighborhood called Squirrel Hill that Mr.

Rogers literally called his own. Where Jack takes a young Kate to an Alanis Morrisette signing at Jerry’s Records on This Is Us (except that wasn’t the real Jerry’s Records they showed BUT STILL).

It’s where I sometimes meet friends for breakfast and get delicious bread at the Asian bakeries, try to guess who lives in the big fairy tale-esque houses, and pass by Tree of Life synagogue on the way to one of our favorite cemeteries.

And now it’s on the map because some evil madman slaughtered a group of people for what? Being different? Believing in something different? Our whole city was attacked.

Fuck, it is still so raw. Today on the trolley, a small group of strangers opened up to each other about it and it felt bonding just being there to witness people coming together, like last week when a small clump of us were waiting to cross the street and witnessed some young guy, in a stupid hurry, run into oncoming traffic and cut in front of a turning bus so tightly that he had to BEND HIS BODY to keep from getting clipped by the bus. The bus driver laid on the horn and we all stood there for a split second, holding our breath, hoping that we didn’t just witness a Faces of Death scene, but then we all exhaled and laughed when we realized he made it.

And I mean laughed, because we had so much anxiety to release. And it was really cool, like we were a club now, after sharing this near-trauma together.

That’s how it felt on the trolley too. That human connection that I usually shirk, but today I needed it.

Pittsburgh is a beautiful melting pot. Yeah, I complain about living here, but for being a little-big city, it’s got the best mix of people, you guys. And there is no room for racism, bigotry, prejudice, homophobia, misogyny – not in this city.

I’m heartbroken, angry, panicked, and frustrated. We have got to be better. We have got to beat the racists, misogynists, xenophobes, bullies – all of them. We have to put anti-Semitism back in the past. We have to get rid of this country’s volatile figurehead and all of the hateful rhetoric and smug, blatant White Nationalism that comes with him. He is stoking a very dangerous fire. Evil people feel way too invincible in this current social and political climate, but this is not “their time.” It will never be “their time.”

I’m going to vote my fucking face off next week and I hope you will too. Shit won’t change over night but at least it’s a start.

This is, at least for me, always the fastest-moving month of the year and I hate that! Once October is over, the winter panic sets in. I hate winter. December-February can suck a hobo dick, man. And then choke.

We’re currently en route to Knoebel’s for their Halloween event thingie and instead of live-blogging I figured I’d just do an October Thus Far photo dump.

BUCKLE UP, BLOGARINOS.

• I rarely get excited about western music anymore but Emarosa is finally making a comeback! They announced this limited edition vinyl bundle last week, only 50 being made, and you know I snatched that right up. I might be All Kpop All the Time these days, but when I was organizing my dresser drawers the other day (I AM LIVIN’ IT UP ON THIS STAYCATION), I realized that like 1/3 of my T-shirts were Emarosa. Groupie, I guess.

• I was complaining the other day about how awful Instagram’s translation option is because anytime I translate from korean on there it is a MESS of words. For instance, when it was Hangeul Day, I wrote my caption in Korean and the translation said it was, literally, “Bunch of things, bunch of things.” THE FUCK, IG? People were probably like, “Yeah her Korean really seems to be coming along.” But then I had a validating moment when Bam Bam from the Kpop group Got7 posted a picture of himself with a bird and the caption was, in Korean, “ahgase” which means “baby bird.” That’s what they call their fans, like how BIGBANG fans are VIP and BTS fans are Army, etc. Instagram translated it to SON OF A BITCH. Really?! Even Bam Bam was like “why Instagram??” And that made me feel like I was part of a club you know? Well, now you do.

• My mom came over last Friday night which was really nice because she usually just drops off cookies and cheese (the best things) and leaves but this time she stayed and hung out, yay! We don’t talk much about my grandparents house anymore since the 2016 trauma but she mentioned that the new owner is flipping it and has essentially gutted the whole thing, so it no longer has that goth aesthetic as seen in the photo above. I am crushed by this. I spent most of my childhood in that house and it really shaped who I am today (honestly, when my coworkers were looking at pictures of the interior, two of them were like, “Wow, things are really starting to make sense now” lol). Anyway, Val said that every time it storms, she hopes my aunt Sharon (R.I.P.) strikes it with lightning and I agree – if there was ever a time for that house to be haunted, let it be now.
• Speaking of haunted houses, we binged The Haunting of Hill House last weekend and I really enjoyed it but more so from a family drama aspect. Parts of it were scary but I read something about how it’s scarier than Hereditary and I emphatically disagree, although there was one scene in episode 8 that made me jump real high (I was walking in place and home alone when it was on lol) and when Henry watched it later, he had a small jolt and that motherfucker NEVER gets scared. There were several parts of that house that reminded me a little of my pappap’s house so it was super heavy on my mind all weekend.
• Remember how the phantom phone call thing happened on Monday? I attributed that to Haunting of Hill House FOR SURE but then also, Henry called to tell me that we had an order of padded envelopes on the way, and I was like “ok? Cool story” but HE NEVER ORDERED THEM. There was a scene in Haunting of Hill House where they were talking about them though and his phone heard and ordered them on Amazon. Logical explanation but still I can’t help but believe that we’re being haunted just from watching that show!!

• And then Henry came home from the Asian market on Sunday with a bag of these things that ended up being water chestnut seeds but look like they could be door knockers from Hill House!!!

• In non-haunted news, my BIGBANG shower curtain is here and I love putting my makeup on at the bathroom mirror and seeing G-Dragon’s intense gaze in the reflection. <3
• Speaking of BIGBANG, I’m wearing my Made shirt to Knoebel’s today and I felt totally inspired and happy as soon as I put it on, yay fall weather! (My face is still dopey AF though.)

• I appreciate that Henry tries to help me look like less of a derelict by pointing out typos on my blog because god knows there are APLENTY (who has time to proofread?!) but I was so offended when he mistook korean slang for a typo. What a motherfucker.

• I had to take the trolley on my last day going into the office before October Staycation began and since it was my late shift, I was riding with all the mid-morning assholes who have no boundaries and give zero fucks about their music blaring out of their headphones, their screeching babies, or their dirty laundry phone calls. I couldn’t handle it and got off several stops early which meant walking across the Smithfield St Bridge but even though I have a pretty crippling fear of bridges I try to make myself walk across one every so often during my lunch break walks (I live in Pittsburgh; there are plenty to choose from) so that was fear-conquering exercise for that week. The bridge is really pretty at least!

• Downtown Jesus Update: I saw him coming out of 7/11 with a Slim Jim in his mouth and this delighted me to NO END. I have people at work on Downtown Jesus watch now too. Sandy said he was loitering in front to the parking garage exit and she had to tell the parking attendant to maybe ask him to move; Nate texted me because he saw him inside the Wood St trolley station, and Joy came over to my desk to tell me that he asked for a light!! HE SMOKES?! “Did he sound weird?” I asked hungrily. “No, he sounded normal. But he didn’t say thanks!” Not very Jesus-y!! I wonder where he came from (I mean, aside from Bethlehem) because he seems to be relatively new to the downtown unsavories scene.

• Here’s a random picture of Henry looking like a tourist while we killed time during Chooch’s weekly piano lesson.
• YOU GUYS THE WORST THING HAPPENED TO ME. So Tuesday night I was like, “I am going to watch some k-dramas, bitches” to the cats but every time I clicked on the Drama Fever icon it kicked me back out to the Roku menu screen. I figured it was some Roku problem so I went to bed. But the next day, I opened Twitter and one of the Korean journalists I follow tweeted an article from Variety saying that DramaFever shut down all its servers forever, with NO NOTICE. Literally they were like “Thanks for 9 years, peace.” I guess they’re issuing refunds too but I am fucking devastated. When I say that 90% of the TV I watch is Korean drama, I am not exaggerating, and we watch ALL OF IT on DF, and gladly paid for it too. It was worth it to us! I guess it has something to do with them being owned by Warner Bros and AT&T recently buying it and the cost of Kdrama licenses skyrocketing due to sudden popularity, I don’t know it was hard to read the words through my actual tears. I called Henry screaming about it and even he was like, “THAT SUCKS” because I don’t care what anyone thinks Henry is super into this shit too and it even brought us closer together! Aw my heart, my heart, 내 마음!
• Speaking of DramaFever, I think it’s pretty coincidental that this just happened because they were originally one of the sponsors of that shitty K-Expo thing we went to in NYC but pulled out of it and then all the people who paid a billion dollars for the good tickets were supposed to get a year subscription to DramaFever for free and WELP THERE’S ANOTHER THING THAT PEOPLE ARENT GONNA GET FROM KEXPO.

• Chooch will be writing a review about this I’m sure but I wanted to talk about how Chooch and I went to Rich’s Fright Farm with Janna on Wednesday night (love when haunts are open on weeknights!) and I walked/ran straight into a piece of plexiglass because I thought it was the way out of the room and for a good two seconds I had no idea what happened but went into fight or flight mode because I thought maybe I was being attacked so as a reflex I punched the plexiglass and then, in addition to the motherhonkin’ goose egg thy immediately sprung from my forehead, I thought I also had a broken knuckle. Janna was like OMG YOU BETTER WATCH YOU DONT HAVE A CONCUSSION because she at least cared unlike Chooch who was like “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?” but I ignored him and instead asked, “Is my nose bleeding?” You guys, I fucking slammed my face GOOD. Like ring-of-cartoon-blue-jays-around-my-head good. I was trying to hide my bump with my hair which only made it harder to walk through the haunted house especially when we got to the clown section and had to wear 3D glasses while the floor beneath us was shifting. I don’t know how I didn’t continue injuring myself. But yeah, so far it was the best haunt of the season!

Well guys, I want to harass Henry a bit before we get to Knoebel’s so ciao for now!

Oh PS here’s the new IU jam. She is such a queen!

https://youtu.be/nM0xDI5R50E

When Chooch and I went to our first KCON in 2017, I only knew a tiny bit about NCT 127, but their performance was really entertaining. It didn’t snatch me enough that I felt inspired to get myself a bias and learn all their names (stage and Korean), but I gotta say: Every time NCT 127 has a comeback, I like them more and more. It’s that slow burn.

Then, when they announced a few weeks ago that they were going to be performing on Jimmy Kimmel, I thought, “Oh shit. It’s real. It’s happening. Kpop is coming for America, guys, get ready to hard stan.”

My friend Veronica was able to watch their performance through a fence and she sent me videos on Instagram, and I was super grateful. Henry at one point looked over at me and said, “Oh my god, are you crying?” Look Henry, I felt proud of those boys. God, step off.

Then they went to the AMAs and some other American shows where:

• They were asked the uncomfortable question of “did you bring dates?” (HELLO AMERICA, DATING IS VERBOTEN FOR KPOP IDOLS.)

https://twitter.com/3dollachains/status/1049836558168326145?s=21

• Some broad told Mark his English was really good (SHE EVEN KNEW THAT MARK IS CANADIAN THO.)

https://twitter.com/haspuwu/status/1049706173568565249?s=21

• And some asshole spelled their name wrong:

But nevertheless, it was good to see another Korean group getting some western spotlight. Even at the BTS concert last week, RM asked, “You guys gonna watch NCT 127 on Kimmel, right?” and I thought that was really sweet because no matter how strong those fan wars can be, these Korean groups love and support each other and that’s so pure, you guys. So pure.

Anyway, in honor of NCT 127’s big American debut, here is their new video! They actually released an English version of it the other day, but my preference is this one because, the Korean language is what I love the most about Kpop, after all. (Although this version is missing the instantly iconic line “I been working with the cheese that’s the queso.”

https://youtu.be/Gif0E6jYakM

NCT 127 is only one part of the whole NCT concept — there are several sub-groups, some with entirely different members, and my head nearly cracked open when I first tried to learn it all, so perhaps that’s a story for my next Kpop boy group roundup!

October 9th is Hangeul Day and I would be remiss if I didn’t take some time to gush about my love for this simplistic, yet so elegant, alphabet. Learning to read and write it was one of the best things I ever could have done to better myself; it was literally like unlocking a code.

Hanguel was created in the 15th century by Sejong the Great and there is a beautiful statue in his honor in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Plaza. Beneath the statue is a large underground museum dedicated to Hangeul, and I was so happy that we got to the see this when we were there last spring.

If only I had this much love and devotion for other languages, maybe I wouldn’t have had to copy off Mark S. during the national Latin exam in high school, lol.

Hangeul is brilliant in its simplicity and the way the letters are grouped into syllabic blocks in order to form words rather than just in a straight line is so aesthetically pleasing to me. Being surrounded it when we were in Korea honestly made me feel like I had heart eyes for real.  So in honor of this stylistic alphabetic heart throb, here are some photos from our trip that I’m not ashamed to admit I look at pretty much every day like my life depends on it.

I would fist pump the air every time I’d sound something out and get it right but Henry was never impressed. JEALOUS MUCH, HANGEUL-LESS HANK?

One of my favorite moments in Korea was when we were on the subway and that particular car didn’t have the stops in English (almost everything in Seoul is also in English, like signs and menus) so Henry reluctantly had to ask me to pay attention because he didn’t know which stop was ours.

Yesssssss.

This is one of my favorite pictures! It’s from Hongdae which also happens to be one of my favorite neighborhoods of Seoul. (I am so ready to go back. I’m off work next week SHOULD I JUST BUY A PLANE TICKET AND GO OK I WILL.)

(J/k Henry. Sigh.)

I just really love Hangeul so much. 진짜 한글을 사랑해요! 진짜 진짜!

This Wednesday, we went to Hundred Acres Manor with Janna. We were very lucky because we were the first in line, exceptions of the V.I.P pass people. (It is every time, first Kennywood, now Hundred Acres Manor.).

When we entered, the whole beginning was the same as every year, we get an intro of how SPOOKY the manor is, then we enter a lift, which proceeds to drop all the way to the bottom. When we exit, we walk through a long SPOOKY dungeon-esque passage way, which is the same each year as well.

At one point, we caught up to the group in front of us, we were inside an old London area, with men trying to sell us water with rat diseases. While the group in front of us were going super slow, the group behind us caught up, too. These people were not annoying at all, if anything they didn’t even speak from what I heard.

As we walked through the nicely decorated old London, we entered through a cult graveyard and worship church. The members of the cult asked us who our sacrifice was, I said my mom was a good candidate, but Janna and my mom thought otherwise. THEY THOUGHT I WAS! 

Personally, I don’t want to get sacrificed, but apparently everyone else does. ):

In the cult chapter, we saw a ton of dog shrines. I thought that these demon dogs were very cute and fluffy. The ground was dirt, and since it recently rained, it was very muddy. I never got to change my school shoes, so I got my shoes pretty muddy. The people in front of us all of sudden disappeared, and I heard a chainsaw rev.

I told mum and Janna that I heard a chainsaw man, and mum got scared. The kid in the group behind us apparently worked there and it was his night off, so he decided to come visit, he said, “Trust me, it’s not happening yet,” and my mom believed him! Janna and I didn’t, though because we could smell the smoke.

And there he was, hiding behind a glass barrier. I ran for my freaking life, which was a terrible idea because everyone knows that running will only make them chase after you. I turned every corner as fast as I could until I stopped and hit a corner, he stopped at the corner across from me and let me leave. Mum hated that kid after he lied to our faces.

The quarantine area has returned for the following year! It was better last year, though. This year nothing happened. It was all alien animatronics and no live people. It was very disappointing.  After about 5 minutes of walking through nothing of importance, was another room with a chainsaw guy. He was wearing a pig mask and my mum ran for her life just like I did before. He chased her down many hallways, until she hit a corner and hurt her shoulder very bad. All of a sudden, another chainsaw guy appeared. Now she was cornered, with a wounded shoulder and dust particles from the air of the chainsaw. She was finally let free, as they would miss their other victims.

As we continued on, the actor from the next room chased the group in front of us, so we were left alone, until the person came back and jumped through the door, scaring my mum more than half to death. That scared her more than the chainsaw guys.

Soon after though, was a voodoo hut, which was moving on water! It was also very dense with smoke in the room. My eyes were burning up and I was coughing, but the voodoo witch just tried to SPOOK me. My mom didn’t believe it was moving because she thought she was losing her mind after the things she went through before.

We exited the haunted house and had to get the picture (as seen above) inside the pumpkin to remember this day. Some rando was standing at the convenience stand, so my mom asked him to take a picture. He took multiple, but when he gave my mom her phone back, he said that she got a notification about Navy Seals. It was just CNN. So I called him, “Nosy.”

In conclusion, Hundred Acres Manor is very uneventful until the end. (ALSO JANNA THOUGHT SHE WAS SAFE…. for now)-

Me: Should I liveblog?

Henry: No.

That means yes! So here I am! What a whirlwind weekend with super highs and abysmal lows! But that will come later, on another day. Today is all about “what happens in the car, gets outed on the Internet.” Because we’re such an exciting family.

Right now it’s 8:37am and we’re only about 5 miles away from the Holland Hotel that we just checked out of, sitting in Monday morning traffic. This is already so exciting! And now Chooch is screaming at Henry for talking while chewing which is his latest pet peeve and he hones in on it even if Henry is like two rooms away.

Here is this cool Bowie mural that I wanted to get a better picture of but we’re stuck in traffic:

8:50am: I miss BTS. :(

9:32am: I haven’t eaten anything since the ice cream we got yesterday at 3pm, just saying. I AM NOT IN MY RIGHT MIND. Henry was like, “You look really skinny in those jeans” – yeah because I have barely eaten at all this weekend so way to encourage my quasi-anorexia, idiot.

10:10am: just stopped at the same Wawa we always stop & fight at when leaving NJ, and we almost made it out of there incident-free but Chooch stepped on the back of my shoe and it came off and this is the 37394th time this happened this weekend and I was in NO MOOD. But at least I got a hard-boiled egg and cottage cheese lol omg so sad.

10:34am: Driving through Bethlehem, PA and I screamed, “IT LOOKS LIKE OCTOBER HERE, AW!!” because finally, changing leaves! Henry mocked me saying “aw” and I shot him dead with my eyes because fuck you for taking away the first joyous moment I’ve had on this dumb Monday.

11:04am: Made a pitstop at Vegan Treats in Bethlehem because it’s been on my fat girl bucket list for years and we never have time to swing by when we’re out this way.

They’re supposed to be like The Best vegan bakery in all creation and they have made cakes for lots of bands I like so I was excited!

The cakes were super cute and expensive but we expected that much. The girl working there was very nice and didn’t have that “you’re not vegan enough for me” attitude that I hate about lots of punk vegans. So I didn’t feel uncomfortable.

Chooch was inexplicably pouting, literally the only kid who would ever be unhappy in a bakery is mine, I’m so proud. But then Henry gave him the car keys so he could go and get his phone which is what it all boiled down to! KIDS THESE DAYS, I CANT STAND THEM.

We picked a good time to stop though because all the cakes were Halloween themed!

We ultimately chose one red velvet, confetti, black coconut ash cheesecake, and a peanut butter bomb which is supposed to be one of their most popular items.

$35 for these four things and a cookie. Pretty much what we expected. Was it worth it? Not even a little bit.

As most vegan baked goods are, these were wayyyyyy too overly sweet. I took one tiny bite out of each one and it was more than enough. Maybe the donuts are better? I generally really like vegan donuts so maybe.

If you’re ever looking for a really amazing vegan cake, just go to Zenith in Pittsburgh. They’re just bundt cakes, nothing flashy, but when the product itself is amazing on its own, why gild the lily?

12:03pm: At Sheetz waiting for Henry to shit lol.

Everyone stares at us here.

Henry was excited because he had just enough cash for our drinks but as the lady was ringing him up, Chooch came sprinting back with a final hour bag of chips and Henry yelled GODDAMMIT NOW I HAVE TO USE THE CARD CHOOCH. It was glorious, and the cashier was happy to be a part of it.

Also Henry said there was a girl in there wearing a BTS shirt and I wanted to talk to her but I guess she went into the bathroom and I wasn’t sure how extreme that would be to follow her and talk to her through the stall so we just left.

Bye Sheetz.

12:08pm: Henry threw out what he had left of the Wawa iced tea in order to open up a spot in the drink holder for his Sheetz iced tea. “Wawa’s iced tea isn’t that great anyway,” he said to himself, justifying his actions. Wow. I’m shocked to hear him say that because we always have the Sheetz vs Wawa argument on these NJ/NY trips and he always white knights Wawa. Always. I’m sorry, but I think Sheetz is better all-around!!!!!!! I AM GOING TO GET A SHEETZ TATTOO TO PROVE IT!!!!

1:03pm: At another Sheetz because we’re real road warriors. I don’t know what that means. But I do know that it’s October 1st and I can’t wait to get home and start going to haunted houses!!

Anyway thank god for Sheetz MTO wraps and nutrition facts on the website. Logging food has never been my strong point.

1:36pm: Trying to get Henry to tell me stories about when he was dishonorably discharged from the SERVICE but he claims that didn’t happen. Are there polygraph apps out there because I think he’s lying. “And I didn’t go AWOL either, stop making shit up,” he just mumbled before asking me to put different music on because we’ve been listening to BTS b-sides for the last hour and Henry only likes the popular mainstream stuff that other Americans enjoy because morning TV shows & Top 40 radio stations tell them to.

2:38pm: Sorry I was off the grid for a while dealing with Etsy shipping bullshit — you have ONE JOB, postal workers!! ONE JOB! Ugh shipping is such a headache and if I ever just shut down all of my shops you’ll know it’s because I can’t deal with postal heartburn anymore. (Or because the Feds found me.)

Anyway, my favorite part of road trips is when Henry tries to teach other motorists how to merge by yelling in a car with closed windows.

Also x2 the last time we were coming home from New Jersey, my water jug lifestyle was born! Still proudly jug-guzzling three mths later. (My coworkers can attest to this. I now how people from the other department on our floor checking in to see how much more I have left to go, ha.)

3:28pm: Operation How Many Sheetz Can We Stop At is going strong.

Yeah Bitch Boy, clean that windshield.

Also I think this is the original Sheetz in Altoona and we usually fight here too.

3:41pm: Henry tried to act cool by leaving us at Sheetz and we were like “DONT CARE HUNNY.” Anyway I had my afternoon snack of “banana and hard-boiled egg” – how jealous are you? If anything, my stomach has shrunk since starting this dumb thing a week ago.

3:53pm: MUCH MOUNTAIN.

That’s a creepy American flag in the middle. Makes me feel uncomfortable every time I see it because I can only imagine the strange trump-supporting forest-dweller that stuck it there. Probably raccoon skins and empty moonshine jugs nearby.

4:59pm: Supposedly one more hour till we’re home barring anymore SHEETZ STOPS. This weekend has been a real—

https://youtu.be/900X9fDFLc4

Also I got excited because Chooch told me he changed Henry’s Instagram password the last time he was on his phone but then he said he was just kidding ugh I wanted to post a BTS video from his account because I’m an asshole regularly but even moreso when I’m bored in the car.

5:11pm: NEWS ALERT I just stole Henry’s phone and tossed it in the backseat to Chooch who is now attempting to post my video of Astro from yesterday’s failed kpop expo!!!

5:19pm: DAMMIT he deleted it during the last Sheetz stop but at least I have a screenshot.

5:58pm: WE’RE HOME! GOING TO SMOTHER THE CATS WITH HUGS! BYE!

PS came home to a DEAD MOUSE on the floor thanks PENELOPE. But also my BIGBANG shower curtain is here!

Hello pigeons. (Is that insulting? I vaguely remember that there was some rap group that had a response to TLC’s No Scrubs called No Pigeons. So maybe I’ll take back that term of endearment.)

Anyway. We got up at 5am this morning in an attempt to leave the house by 6 for Newark.

I didn’t liveblog because I was tired – I had a hard time going to sleep last night and actually thought I was having a heart attack but I think it was just a panic attack from being so worked up the last few days.

So this weekend is very much needed like medicine.

The drive was largely boring and uneventful.

Here’s an obligatory truck stop selfie from some gas station that had religious people handing out brochures.

I got an email from the Prudential Center saying that merch would be set up at 9am and I wanted to try to get a light stick since they have been impossible to order beforehand because everything related to BTS is near-impossible to get anymore ugh popularity. It was a madhouse there and we originally were briefly in a two-hour long line just to have our pictures taken in front of that banner up there. UM HELL NO. We managed to grab a lightstick (all T-shirts and face signs were already sold out ugh, eBay here I come) and then went to check in to the hotel that’s NOT a Red Carpet Inn this time thank GOD. Just a basic Best Western but it’s clean and the guy at the desk was super friendly and normal so that was a good sign that this place was ok.

Until he asked us if we were excited for the Penn State game and Henry and I exchanged terrified looks like HOW TO ANSWER HOW TO ANSWER. Because we’re not a football household.

But on the plus side, now when Todd jokingly asks me what I thought of the game at work I can tell him that I actually knew they were playing.

Oh wait I think he asks me about Pitt all the time, never mind.

SAME STATE THOUGH.

Oh yeah, here’s Henry with a photo card of his bias Jimin that came with the light stick.

He was really starting to feel sad that he wasn’t attending the concert that night.

Chooch and I changed into our concert attire before heading out for a late lunch. I’m a dumb ass who chose to start a diet four days before going away for the weekend so that’s awesome. We’ll be in NYC for a Korean culture expo so I chose that as my fuck all day which means Chooch and Henry got stuck eating at a place called Art of Salad today LOLOL.

Chooch actually really enjoyed his custom salad but Henry had to finish that and also my smoothie bowl which was really good but just too much!

Henry really looks like a salad guy doesn’t he?

OK I have to go to bed. We’re getting up early again tomorrow and tomorrow will end with another kpop concert which is going to be interesting considering BTS took my voice with them.

(IT WAS SO GOOD. I DON’T KNOW HOW I WILL EVER RECAP IT!!)

What a week, huh? I worked from home yesterday and was off today so I was able to watch all of the Kavanaugh hearing in real time and to say that it fired me up is an understatement. When Henry came home from work today, I was curled up on the couch with a kid’s unicorn cape-blanket wrapped around me, crying and watching for the fiftieth time Senator Flake being cornered in an elevator by two sexual assault survivors.

“You need to turn this off!” Henry fathered, because he has had a first row seat watching my sanity wane.

We went for a walk last night and I ranted the whole way about how men always win and women always lose, and we’re so emotional and hysterical and we should just shut up and “it wasn’t full-blown rape so she should get over it, right boys?” and blah blah blah when we came upon a car that was parked on the sidewalk, THE WHOLE SIDEWALK, so we had to step into the street to walk around it, and as I stepped off the curb, I twisted my ankle enough to be enraged even more so I shouted and I do mean SHRIEKED, “I just hurt my ankle because I had to step off the curb!” and then when we got to the other side of the car and stepped back onto the sidewalk, there was a couple standing there looking at me with wide eyes, so I whispered to Henry, “Is that their car?” and he nodded, probably hoping that we could just gulp and quietly walk away….

…but NO, instead I was even more angry now and so I yelled to everyone and no one at once, “WELL THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE PARKED ON THE SIDEWALK!!!!!” and Henry was just like, “ohmygod” but you know what he didn’t say? He didn’t say, “Calm down.”

Thank you for not telling me to CALM DOWN, Henry.  OTHER MEN PROBABLY WOULD. Because if there’s one thing we learned from the Kavanaugh hearing, it’s that it’s OK for white privileged men to fly off the handle and shout in a shrill, hysterical tone because HE IS JUST DEFENDING HIMSELF SO HE IS ALLOWED TO BE PASSIONATE but if a woman does that, she is UNHINGED, TOO EMOTIONAL, UNFIT FOR THE JOB.

I’ve been thinking so much about high school, about the party at my house one spring date when a “friend” had me pinned against the laundry room wall and then later followed me into my bedroom and shit started to get real one-sided and grope-y (#boyswillbeboys right?) until two of my other guy friends figured out was going on and literally threw him out of my house, and I realize now that I was very lucky to have had guy friends back then who actually gave a shit, knew boundaries, wrong from right, and had respect for women.

I am doing everything in my power to make sure that my son is that kind of friend to women, too. That kind of friend to all people.

To the people out there who don’t think Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations are “that bad” or “not really sexual assault,” let me tell you something. In the fall of my senior year of high school, I started dating this guy from a different high school. He never raped me. He never sexually assaulted me. But what he did do, on multiple occasions, was get extremely angry at me over small things and instinctively go for my neck.

Every time, his hands would go around my neck.

I can’t give you dates for each of these incidents. The most I can give you is that one time it happened toward the end of our relationship when we were 19 and I was living in my first apartment. He was waiting there for me to come home from work and had been going through my stuff. He found, in a box of old notes and stuff, a picture of me from a haunted house called Phantoms in the Park. I remember this picture clearly, because my friend Lisa took it: it was me and two of the guys who ran the haunt, in the fake “elevator.” One of them has his arm around me, and the other one was pretending like was going to kiss my cheek.

It was a haunted house. I wasn’t alone with these guys. At least two of my friends were there.

But he saw this picture and assumed that I was cheating on him. So he confronted me as soon as I came home and by “confronted me” I mean that he slammed me against the front door of my apartment and held me there with his hand against my throat.

I couldn’t breathe and thought I was going to die.

He eventually let go and then made like he was going to punch me, but he punched the door next to my head instead, and then left.

No, I didn’t call the police. It didn’t seem like this was something “bad enough” to warrant police involvement.

I did call his mom though because, as is anyone in an abusive relationship, I was mind-controlled and manipulated into feeling guilty and I stupidly worried about him and wanted to let him mom that he was presumably on his way home and very upset.

She blamed me.

She said that I provoked him to be like this. That he didn’t have any problems until he met me.

It was my fault. I really started to believe that.

When Dr. Ford talked about Brett Kavanaugh covering her mouth with his hand, I was triggered. I have always been sensitive about my neck/throat since then, but it wasn’t until later in my 20s when I looked back on this and realized just how fucked up it was. And that’s when I started having nightmares that I was dating him again, running from him, hiding from him. I have talked to Henry about this but it’s not something that I walk around telling everyone.

As hard as it was to listen to Dr. Ford’s account of what happened to her that night, I heard her. She deserved to be heard by everyone in this country. Every survivor deserves to be heard.

What I’m getting at is that you don’t “get over” things like this. You might not think about them every day, but maybe you flinch when someone comes at you fast, or maybe you feel like you’re going to have a panic-attack when you have to walk back to your car alone late at night. Maybe you have trust issues or nightmares or crippling anxiety. But one thing is for sure: it stays with you, it will always be with you. And this horror story of an administration is exacerbating a lot of painful memories for a lot of fucking people.

I am not a hugger, but I want to wrap my arms around everyone out there who has experienced any sort of abuse or assault. So many of my friends have been posting their stories on twitter and to all of them, I am sorry.  I’m sick to my stomach and stressed the fuck out at how quickly our voices are muffled and our stories are dismissed.

November is coming.

It’s been a while since I did a good, wholesome work update so here I am to regale your day with two Law Firm stories.

1. Bob Ross the Processor, or Bob (p)Ross(essor)

Remember sometime last winter or spring when Amber decided that we needed a pet for our group and she bought us a Bob Ross chia pet and then somehow it became my responsibilty to grow him except that I had no means of measuring water or seeds and I had three different people telling me what to do so that the end result was a terra cotta head with fur on it and by fur I do mean mold? Yeah, that’s what happened to Bobby.

And he just sat on a windowsill for months behind Cathy, and we all made jokes about how we hoped he wasn’t going to  make us sick with his poison coif. Then, a few weeks ago, my mom bought Chooch a chia pet that’s a zombie arm protruding from the earth, and I was stunned to see that it sprouted hearty green growths in the span of one weekend. I noted that the packet of chia seeds wasn’t empty so I asked Henry if he would perform surgery if I brought Bob home and he mumbled something about how he doesn’t know why I even bother asking him when I’m just going to make him do it anyway and that is how Bob Ross ended up on my back porch for a week, being reborn.

Also!? Henry fucked up and didn’t slather the seeds on all the way so Bob ended up having a bald spot on the back of his head. I was worried about this because I felt like my co-workers would use this as a way of still holding the Failure of Bob Ross against me. We didn’t have any seeds yet, but we DID have regular chia seeds, the kinds that you sprinkle on yogurt or whatever for health benefits, so he used some of that AND IT WORKED? I guess I don’t know why I didn’t think it would work, like maybe the Chia Pet chia seeds are special, but yeah, you guys, if you have some type of terra cotta object and a bag of chia seeds for your effing smoothie, you can make a chia whatever-your-object-is.

Of course, this brought up the terrifying question of, “OMG DOES IT DO THAT IN MY STOMACH!?” But Henry said no.

So now, Bob with the Good Hair is back in our office and everyone is super excited about it.

Yesterday though, we had a fleet of Suits walk through the department and Lauren said one of them lingered long enough to say, “huh. Interesting.” She was too nervous to turn around to see what was happening but she knew it had to be something of mine because I have my international candy shop on the counter behind her desk and a collection of religious Glenns. But Todd and Glenn were watching and said he was looking at Bob. When I saw Lauren later that day she said she was about to be super pissed if she got in trouble for something behind her when it’s all my stuff lolol and that reminded me of the time I decorated people’s offices for Halloween and Patrick got in trouble from Facilities because I used erasable markers to write on his glass wall but NEWS FLASH that shit doesn’t wipe off of frosted glass. Just in case you were ever wondering. Now there’s an office on our floor that had the alphabet written on the glass door, a la Stranger Things, forever.

2. Amputee Hootenanny

It all started the other day when I misread “Automation Anywhere” as “Amputation Anywhere.” At first it made my limbs tingle, but then I remembered one of my old sock puppet LiveJournals: “AmputatedLeg.”

Yeah, it was literally just me writing a diary from the POV of an amputated leg named Sam. I couldn’t stop laughing alone at  my desk so I stupidly went over to tell Glenn about it, and his face became the perfect intersection of Amused and Horrified.

“Seek help,” he said as I walked away, doubled over in laughter.

Back at my desk, I decided to look up  that old journal and relive old times, except that it came up as SUSPENDED. What?? Why?! I thought maybe it was because of inactivity but the fake journal I had for Janna (pelvic_exam) is still there and that one was WAY worse.

Luckily, I still have the icon I  made for that Sam’s journal, so that’s a relief.

Today, Glenn asked me if I found my missing leg, because of course went over to cry about the journal suspension when I found out about it. I told him that I didn’t, and Todd was like, “What are you talking about” so I had to explain it to him and he was just like, *blank stare for days*.

“All I remember is that his name was Sam and he was dating a drug addict named Rita,” I sighed.

It was a dark journal.

“Oh OK, so Rita was also an amputated leg?” Todd asked, trying to pretend like he was in a normal conversation.

“No, she was a whole person,” I scoffed, like come on Todd. Le duh.

“Of course she was,” Glenn muttered at his desk.

Todd asked if I could email LiveJournal to get them to lift the suspension, and this just added a new layer to things.

“Well, the thing is, I’m not sure which email address I used to register that journal,” I started slowly.

“So just use all of them until you find the right one,” Todd shrugged.

“Yeah…..” I started slowly. “The thing is, back then, I had like over 100 email addresses.

”

Glenn turned around for this one and Todd practically screamed, “What? Why!?”

“Well, remember back when Gmail was a new thing, you had to like, be invited to use it? Someone would have to  give you a code?”

Todd said he remembered that.

“So, it was like a game for me to see how many I could accumulate,” I admitted, and Glenn grumbled, “Of course it was.”

Later on, I was telling Henry this. “Remember when I had all those email addresses?!” I cried giddily.

“Uh, yeah. You didn’t tell them what they were, did you?

” he asked, just a hint of trepidation in his tone.

“LOL god no. Remember how I had a whole STD email series?”

Henry just sighed.

I mean, in my defense, I didn’t have a kid yet and I was unemployed. So….