Cyber friends, let’s take a break from the Riot Fest posts and look at the recent art I made. (Just pretend like I’m your favorite preschooler for a minute.)

(Also, it’s Monday and my week has gotten off to a difficult, albeit comical.)

My pal Lisa needed a wedding gift for her friends so she asked me to make a Cupcake Couple painting for them. I haven’t made one of these in a really long time, so that was fun!

I painted a portrait of my friend Angie and her cat, Bandit, a few weeks ago. <3

Lizzie Borden! This is a terrible picture, I just realized. I clearly need to change this photo on Etsy. And get my eyes examined ASAP.

When I was home sick last week, I was really restless so I started this serial killer parade, half-slumped over on the couch. I finished it yesterday. (l-r: Dahmer, Fish, Ramirez, BTK, Gacy.)

There’s also a new addition to the non compos cards catalog:

I have a bunch of customs lined up, including a portrait of Phish and one like the serial killer parade, but with wrestlers. I’m totally grateful that you guys have been keeping me busy. Thank you! And Henry thanks you too, because the only time I’m quiet is while I’m painting. If you want anything (CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!), let me know!

Also? I jokingly suggested that someone should request a nude portrait of Steve Buscemi, with a cactus-penis that has eyeball impaled on the thorns. And the more I pictured that, the more I wanted to paint it for real. So…I’ll be working on that too, in between the custom orders!

• If you have never been to Chicago, make sure you research the area your staying in. So when you come back the first night someones not jacked up against a police car outside your hotel room window.

• Make sure you take the proper clothing, ie: Boots, jacket so you don’t have to run out and buy them in a hurry.
• Find a way to and from the festival that doesn’t put your life in danger by seedy so called “Uber” drivers, only to find out on the last day you could have drove and parked 100 yards from where you needed to go.
• Learn to dodge and weave between people with minimal damage to you and others.
• Bring lots of cash, for the girlfriend that wants everything.
• Bring an appetite, the food is awesome.
• Do not be so quick to say “yes we can go” before you actually look in to what riot fest is.

BANDS I DISLIKED (hate is a pretty strong word)

Pianos Become the Teeth – not my style. Like I have a style.
La Dispute – they go along with the other one.

I didn’t dislike as much as Erin thought I did. Maybe it’s just more that I didn’t want to be there.

FAVORITE PARTS:
Seeing the Cure.

IF MY MOM ASKED WHAT IT WAS LIKE, I WOULD TELL HER:
Nothing. She wouldn’t understand.

WOULD I GO AGAIN NEXT YEAR:
I don’t know yet.

THOUGHTS ON ANTHONY GREEN:
I don’t have any.

WARPED TOUR VS RIOT FEST:
Neither.

BANDS I WANTED TO SEE BUT DIDN’T GET TO:
Cheap Trick.

To summarize, all and all it wasn’t a bad three days, the rain, mud and cold didn’t help me like Riot fest. Though knowing that Erin was the happiest shes been in awhile was well worth it. Will i do it again, too soon to say. I’m sure by January or whenever presale starts ill start getting hounded.

Even though Saturday was all sunshine and blue skies, Henry and I mustered up enough Smarts to make an early morning run back to Target to buy boots. Good call! Because while it never rained again that weekend, it also never warmed up enough for the mud to dry. There were sludgy, thick pits of mud all around the stages and I got great pleasure out of purposely stomping my way through them because I HAVE BOOTS NOW, MUD-BITCHES.

The mud was so dangerous in some spots that there was an actual struggle to unstuck my foot, and I wondered if Henry would cry for me like Atreyu for Artax if the mud ultimately enveloped my entire person.

Anyway, enough about the mud. Let’s talk about THE BANDS.

frnkiero & the Cellabration

• Just like the previous day, the goddamn gates didn’t open on time so we barely made it to the Rock Stage in time for frnkiero. This was one of the first of many mile-runs Henry and I made that day.
• If you’re up on your current music events, you might know that Frank Iero was in My Chemical Romance (RIP) and the Cellabration is his current project.
• There were three guys standing next to me. One was standing slightly in front of the others, and the other two were like FUCK YES THIS IS GREAT WOO!!! And then one of them leaned forward and yelled to their friend, “GOOD CALL ON THIS ONE, MAN!” And that guy smiled and nodded, as if to say, “Yeah, I know, right” and it made me smile to witness this beautiful example of one friend introducing his other friends to glorious new music. But just as quickly as I felt happy, I BECAME ENRAGED and thought aboutall of the times HENRY HAS NEVER THANKED ME FOR DOING SUCH THINGS.
  • And before you think smugly to yourself, “HAHA that’s because you don’t have any good music to share” LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE because there have many occasions when I have been like HERE LISTEN TO THIS to one of my poor friends and then they’re like “Wow, hey. That’s actually good” and I’m like “I KNOW, BECAUSE THAT’S NOT ME SINGING.”
    • Needless to say, Henry was not exactlywow’d by Frank’scellabrating.
      • Though, he DID like My Chemical Romance back in the day.
• You guys, while I really enjoyed this set and talked at length to Henry about how that was such a great way to start the day, I found something out today that, had I known this prior to 11:30AM that morning, would have changed everything: one of the other bands playing at the same time asFrankIero, was a band that I honestly didn’t even give a second thought and for some reason was one of the few bands I hadn’t heard of that I didn’t bother researching. And that band is the Pizza Underground, a parody band of the Velvet Underground that changesall of the lyricsto be pizza-related. Which OK, that in and of itself is pretty fucking fantastic, because pizza. And one of the members even drums on an empty pizza box. But guys,MACAULEYCAULKIN is in this band and I had no fucking idea until this morning and now I feel like I failed at Riot Fest.
  • BECAUSE I DID. F-, ERIN RACHELLE KELLY!

The sky was so goddamn beautiful on Saturday. Even Henry was like, “Yeah” when I said, “THE SKY IS SO BEAUTIFUL!”

RX BANDITS

• Somehow, I have managed to never see the Rx Bandits a single time in their 18 years of existence. I know. Henry was thankful that they played on the same stage as frnkiero, so after that set, we had about 30 minutes to causally mill about the area. I think maybe we got beer. It was noon by then, so it was OK.
• Made it back before they started and got a good spot in the front, but a little over to the side, which is my favorite place to be because you just never know what kind of crazy motherfuckers are going to be in the pit. I mean, my paranoia is off the charts when I’m in a crowd of people, and yours should be too. PEOPLE BE CRAZY.
• There were a lot of older people gathered around for Rx Bandits, so I thought that would make Henry unclench a little, but he was still frowning every time I turned around. So…
  • One of those older people was a man standing next to me, who was telling one of the security guys his idea for a zombie movie about zombies on crystal meth and then to me, he turned and screamed, “ISN’T THAT A GOOD IDEA?!” and I was like “Wow. I’m sure you don’t have any experience at all with crystal meth.”
• Rx Bandits were pretty dreamy, you guys. Why can’t Henry be like them.
  • The Sound of Animals Fighting ismore or less Rx Bandits and Anthony Green, so Anthony potentially could have performed THREE TIMES that weekend. JUST SAYING, RIOT FEST.
    • God, I might have died if that had happened though.

• Of course my favorite part though was when one of the Riot Fest staff delivered pizza to the line of security and then they all stood around, having a casual pizza party while Rx Bandits provided the soundtrack. I couldn’t stop laughing to myself about this and then later, Henry mentioned something about it and I was like “I KNOW I TOTALLY TOOK A PICTURE!” and he was like, “Yeah, I figured.”

THE DANDY WARHOLS

• Another band I’ve never seen live. Riot Fest, I’m having your babies.
• Their set started at 2:15 and this was one of the last times the main stage was this sparsely populated.
• To entice Henry, I said, “MAYBE THEY WILL PLAY THE VERONICA MARS SONG” because these are the termsin which you need to put music to get Henry mildly interested.
  • Of course they played THE VERONICA MARS SONG, but Henry just smirked.
  • Please check out the video at the end of this post for a peek at two tutu’d guys trying to get people to play fetch with them while THE VERONICA MARS SONG plays in the background.

By the afternoon, it was THIS CROWDED ^^^.

Can you imagine if the Wacky Worm had been there? The Wacky Worm + three days of amazing music might actually be the closest I’ll come to being raptured. Oh well.

TELEVISION

• Here is where the scheduling started to get dicey. I wanted to see Television and City & Colour, but they were almost playing on top of each other. Television won out, because hello—Television. Pretty legendary band. Unfortunately, by the time we waded through the exponentially-thickening crowd, we got to enjoy* two entire songs before I looked at the time and realized we had approx. 15 minutes to make our way from the Rise Stage to the Rock Stage, and if you read my “Riot Feast” post, you might remember that I mentioned that these two stages are a good mile a part. Which is whatever, if you’re strolling along a path in the middle of the mountains. But when you’re trying to part an ocean of human bodies swimming upstream, that mile feels like for-ev-er.
  • *And by “enjoy,” I mean that I only vaguely remember standing there and looking at a group of grizzled Brits on a stage because my anxiety was still through the roof from all of the STRANGER DANGER I had after a thousand people touched me when I was pushing my way to the Rise Stage.
• I hope I get a Television do-over someday. :(
• “Marquee Moon” though:

SAOSIN

• But you guys: Saosin.
• Halfway to the Rock Stage, I checked the time on my phone and literally screamed, “FUCKKKK!!!!” and then I dropped my dead weight (i.e. Henry) and ran the rest of the way.
  • Henry claims he “wasn’t concerned” because I was wearing a bright orange Epitaph backpack so he always knew where I was in the crowd.
• Got a great leg workout as soon as I reached the sludge-like mud-pit making up the perimeter of the Rock Stage. I can only imagine how graceful I looked.
• Can we talk about Saosin for a second? Great. So this was my first encounter with Anthony Green, back in 2004. I never got to see them live though, because shortly after I started listening to them, Anthony left the band and went back home to form Circa Survive. Saosin went on to get a new singer (Cove Reber; I was “meh” about new Saosin) but then they kind of stagnated since 2010. ANYWAY, 2014 is the 10th anniversary of their EP with Anthony Green, and so they reunited to do a handful of shows last spring (NONE OF WHICH CAME TO PITTSBURGH). When I saw that they were playing Riot Fest, I gave Henry the most incredibly pathetic dog eyes I could muster, lower lip practically usurping my chin that’s how far down it hung. And that’s the thing about Henry, you guys. He might not like this shit, but he knows when things are A Big Deal.
• While waiting for them to come out, I made friends with the most delightful gay boy whose name I never asked for because who cares. I’m going to go ahead and guess that he was 20? 21? He was super adorable and his Aztec cardigan looked so nice and warm and he was drinking some sugary cocktail from a bright pink plastic cup and we expressed mutual sentiments about Anthony Green’s beautiful face even though I was mostly there because I love the music but PEER PRESSURE.
• And thenSaosin came out and everyone just went fucking nuts because whoever would have thought that Anthony would ever be on a stage with them again? There was nomudding this time around, but he did antagonize the FUCK out of the crowd which had security so goddamn pissed off. “I’ll give $3,000 to anyone who can make it up on stage. These guys are BORED down here,” Anthony said, waving his arm toward security. so there were bodies flying over the barricade left and right and one of the older security guys looked like he was about to ‘roid rage.
  • My favorite part was when some kid was pulled over the barricade and directed to go off to the side, but then he turned around real quick and faked like he was going to try and make a run for it but then started laughing and held up his hands in surrender. All of the security bros were cracking up, but their leader, the older one, looked like his head was going to pop off his shoulders. And then one of the other guys pointed at him and called him a pussy and I honestly thought they were all going to get fired right there. That security guy was PISSED.
  • Toward the end of the set, Anthony upped the ante to $10,000 to anyone who made it on stage and hugged him.
• “I WANT HIM TO SIT ON MY FACE!” my little gay friend turned around and screamed at me and I was all like “YEAH ME TOO I HOPE YOU WON’T STOP TALKING TO ME IF YOU FIND OUT I’M AN OLD LADY!”
• I was just a little to the right of whoever recorded this:

• The crowd EXPLODED during “Seven Years” and I was 25 again.
  • Taking on seven years
    the holy ghost had left alone
    Test my arms, kick like crazy
    I’ve been trying way too long — AHHHHHH!!!!!!!
• I was so fucking pumped during this set, that I was actually trembling by the time it was over and I was excited to find Henry so I could squeal in his. “OMFG WASN’T IT AMAZING!?!??!?!” I cried when I found him standing a million yards away where there zero threat of anyone contaminating him with sonic euphoria. He was like, “I don’t know. No.” And then, “Anthony is a psychopath.”
• If you’re a Saosin fan, some kind gentleman recorded their whole set and it’s on YouTube. I’ve already watched it 3 times. (I know, such a low number for an obsessive bitch!)

DIE ANTWOORD

• Right after Saosin’s set, we had to run over to the Roots Stage for Afghan Whigs, which is adjacent to the main Riot Stage, where Die Antwoord was still playing. I was happy that we got to hear the last two songs, because while I’m not OMG DIE ANTWOORD, I can definitely get behind their exceptionally weird appeal.
• Die Antwoord is something that HENRY actually knew about before me. And he doesn’t even remember. But it was a few years ago and I can’t remember if I was coming home from work or what, but he was like YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO!! and it was for Enter the Ninja. We thought it was some kind of joke, so years later, when I found out that they had become something of an international sensation, at first I was like “WTF?” but then “Yeah…I can see that.”
• The aforementioned “Enter the Ninja” was their closing song and everyone was just going nuts. I’m glad we got to be there for that. Afterward, as everyone left the stage, you could still hear Yolandi making these weird video-game sound effects. And while that was still wafting away into the ether, a verrrrrry different band was starting their set on the Roots Stage in front of us….

AFGHAN WHIGS

• I was really stoked to see the Afghan Whigs. I’m not a super fan by any means, but their Gentleman album definitely got played a lot by me during a certain time in my life. They also bring back fond memories of trading mixtapes with my pen pals in the 90s, which is how I heard of them in the first place.
• Even with the sun shining so brightly on Humboldt Park, Greg Dulli made the atmosphere feel decidedly dark and tense. I loved it.
• What I didn’t lovewasthethreemiddle aged people reliving their youth and racking up nostalgia points in front of me. It was clear that at one point in their lives, maybe when they were in college in the late 80s, they were allFUCKYESAFGHANWHIGS. But on this day in 2014, they were more interested in mildly rocking back and forth and volleying banal conversation between them.Theoneladyhadlongclearly-dyed red hair which she kept whipping into my face every time she turned with force to tell her bitch-friend something definitely un-Afghan Whigs related. BITCH GO HOME AND WATCH THE VIEW.
  • I absolutely can’t stand people who go to shows and then talk through the whole thing. Like, why. Stay home and listen to them on your fucking Bose speakers BECAUSE I KNOW YOU HAVE THOSE.
• They’re actually playing here tonight in Pittsburgh but I sadly already have tickets to a different show. Otherwise, I would totally go see them again.
• I just asked Henry what he thought of the Afghan Whigs and he mumbled “I don’t know.”
• Fun fact: About 10 years ago, I had a huge fight with Christina because she lives in Cincinnati and that’s where the Afghan Whigs are from but she was like, “I don’t know who that is” so I screamed, “THEN YOU’RE A FUCKING RETARD.” And then she cried and probably wrote a poem about it, which, now that I think about it, pretty much sums up our friendship.
  • Say Anything got sacrificed for this band, but I think I might be seeing them in December, so I don’t feel too guilty. I’M SORRY MAX BEMIS, UGH.

NOSTALGHIA

• On the way to Chicago, I had on the Riot Fest playlist on Spotify and there was one song that came on that made me feel like it was 1999 and I was a faux-goth all over again. I looked at my phone with a quickness and saw that it was Nostalghia. Then I quickly checked out the lineup and said, “Sorry Wu-Tang, I never liked you anyway” and that is how we ended up at one of the smaller stages, having some creepy bare-footed broad singing her strange blend of gypsy goth at us.
• I liked it when she screamed.
• This was one of the few times Henry said he liked something. Nostalghia booty shorts it is, then.

This is where I let Henry sit down for 10 minutes.

THE USED

• This band. This fucking band.Ican be doing so well and then I will hear “Blue and Yellow” or “I Caught Fire” or any fucking song by The Used and my heart feels like it’s bleeding literal tears. So my brain was like, “Erin, check the schedule. Find another band to see at that time.” And maybe I should have. I’ve seen The Used a shit ton of times, dating all the way back to the days when Bert stillpuked on stage. (And Henry hated them.)
  • I think this was the first band (among MANY) that Henry hated when we first got together, but this was also the first band that, years later, he admitted to finally liking. Sometimes the Henrys of the world can be swayed, you guys. It does happen.
• But, like a sucker, I trudged through the mud back to the Rock Stage, where Henry ditched me for quite some time because “the lines were long” for the porta potties which clearly means Henry was “shitting in the porta potty.” I was really mad that he left me all alone in the middle of a big scary crowd because these motherfuckers were ANNOYING AS FUCK. Seriously, we somehow picked the worst people in the world to stand near, but I couldn’t move until Henry came back because I was purposely standing right under a big flag-thing so he would be able to find his way back to me after giving his bowels the ol’ expunging.
• As soon as they started, it was like a foot to the gut. It was like my heart was the mom’s head from “Heavenly Creatures” and two dumb cunts (2005-era Erin and Christina) were murdering it with a brick. It was just like that.
• At one point, I turned around and planted my face in Henry’s stomach. “It hurts,” I said. “I know,” he answered and gave mesome kind of awkward “there there” head pat. But…I guess that’sto be expected when you lose your girl-virginity to The Used’s music.
  • It probably wouldn’t have hurt so bad if that Bandaid hadn’t recently been ripped off on my birthday with one innocent, well-meaning phone call. So fucking stupid.

• This will never be a good idea.
• There these dumb bitchesnexttousfor awhile who stood with their backs toward the stage and scream-talked the entire time,exceptwhenever Bert would yell, “WHERE ARE ALL THE HARDCORE USED FANS?!” they would all turn around and scream with their fists in the air. Henry was like, “Well, sometimes they were singing too, so they at least knew the words” and I was like “Oh, you WOULD defend them!” Fuck.
  • But then we moved to another open pocket within the huge crowd and the rest of the show was a much better experience, except of course for the fact that my heart was slowly breaking in two.
• Aside from the sadness, the only complaint I have is that Bert spent entirely too much time talking and trying to start sometype of a revolution.
  • But then they played “Box Full of Sharp Objects” and I was content.
• Afterward, I started to wonder: Do Bert and Gerard Way still hate each other? And if they do, does that mean the rest of the My Chemical Romance guys hate Bert? Did Bert and Frank Iero see each other at all that day, and if so, was it OK? And then the obvious parallels were drawn and I made myself stop thinking about broken, failed friendships. Because I didn’t come to Riot Fest to be sad, motherfuckers.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

• No, I apparently came to Riot Fest to be COLD. By the time Taking Back Sunday came on at 8:45pm, my toes were so cold that they hurt. I kept trying to get Henry to put his arms around me so I could warm up but he is pretty much the worst at knowing how to transform into a coat. God, how I hate him.
• We were standing way off to the side for TBS and there were zero assholes around us, so it was a nice way to end the second night. They played all the songs I wanted to hear and I was close enough that I could still see Adam Lazarra swinging his mic, which has become a pretty iconic image over the years. He’s so goddamn good.
• Flaming Lips were playing at the same time, and from what I could tell afterward from the pictures, not much has changed since the last time I saw them so I don’t think we missed much, other than the power going out on their stage. Yikes. But yeah, Wayne is still climbing into his giant hamster ball.

I took this at Coachella in 2004.

• During their set, I started to think about how Riot Fest was like 6 Degrees ofEisley: Say Anything was there, and MaxBemisis married to SherriDuPree, but then New Found Glory was also there and Chad Gilbert was ALSO married to Sherri for a minute but now he’s dating Hayley Williams, and Max and Chad have publicly bashed each otherandfor awhile there was a pretty big Team Sherri/Team Hayley divide until Sherri finally was like “OMG guys stop. We don’t hate each other.” And then Adam from Taking BackSundaywas engaged toCHAUNTELLEDuPree but left her for a waitress. (Who, to be fair, he wound up marrying and I believe they’re still together, and nowChauntelleis married to a nice man.)
  • I was clearly a little delirious at that point.
    • I tried to tell Henry about all of this, but he was like *snore.*
      • Which is probably what you are doing too, assuming you even made it this far.

  And now I will leave you with a little video recap of Day 2:
  

I started to feel pretty run down on Monday, but I took some vitamin C and crossed my fingers, which surprisingly does the trick more often than not. But by the end of the work day, my throat was feeling weird, I was making stupid mistakes, and I definitely did not have pep in my step, although I’m not sure I ever do on a good day, either. And then HENRY made me take the TROLLEY home, which ended up being stalled for over 20 minutes because a drunk person was on the tracks so that was 20 extra minutes I had to sit there and breathe in what everyone around me was breathing out.

#blamehenry #vintageiOS #great #ohgreat #reallyfuckinggreat

The next morning, I woke up at 5:33am with Marcy on my chest and my throat hosting the Devil’s bonfire. I probably shouldn’t have went to work at all, because I spent all day under two layers and a huge blanket and was still shivering. Then Henry texted me and said Chooch called him from school and said he was having a hard time breathing (also, he told the school he has asthma, which he totally doesn’t), so he got to go home early and all I could think was I WANT TO GO HOME TOO! And then my supervisor was all, “Yo, you made these two really bad mistakes” which I don’t even remember doing, so can we blame my sickness and pretend that I’m not actually stupid? I just wasn’t myself.

But stupidly, I was still going to go to work the next day! Until I texted Henry to see if he could take me because I felt too weak to walk to the trolley and he was like, “OMG STAY THE FUCK HOME THEN.” And then it turned out I had a little bit of a fever, and Chooch was still sick, so for only the second time in 4.5 years, I called off work.

That time Dr. Henry advised me what to do when Chooch & I were “wick.”

Our day went like this:

Morning: We quietly rested. For about an hour. Then we were bored. Even though I should have been laying down. I sat in front of the computer, wrapped in a blanket and shivering, and attempted to finish writing a blog post while Chooch played some dumb video game while seemingly coughing up an entire rib cage. Then my friend shared a Cure-bashing article with me on Facebook, so I spent a good hour blowing my nose and plotting that “author’s” demise. Surprisingly, I only called Henry once, but when he told me he couldn’t just stop working and come home, I hung up on which is what I do when I don’t like his answer. Obviously, this happens a lot. So then he decided to suck up:

Fuck you and your Maple Waze pumpkin secons, Henry.

Afternoon: Around noon, Chooch decided he was going to go lay down in his room and watch his stupid videos on his phone, so I was like “YAY TV” until I remembered that I get bored instantly with watching TV. I put on Netflix and for some reason “Heavenly Creatures” was the first thing that was suggested and I haven’t seen that movie since it came out in the nineties so I decided to watch it and remembered that it is mostly pretty boring, but it also made me realize that this is basically if me and Christina had met when we were 14. I drifted in and out during it and at one point, I was lost in a world where all I could hear was Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and that made me realize that I’ve heard that song THREE TIMES in ONE WEEK which seems like a joke, but somehow, it’s very real. I know what you’re thinking: where is she going that she keeps hearing this song? An aerobics class in 1982? No, just my bedroom. Some variety radio station which is right now at this moment playing the current Top 40 hit “Am I Wrong” by Nico & Vinz, apparently is being blackmailed by Laura Branigan. Luckily I came back to reality in time to SPOILER ALERT watch the one mom (“mum”–this was New Zealand) get her head bashed in by two brick-swinging teenagers. Good plan, guys. I called Henry during this shit show and he was like, “IT’S ONLY 1 O’CLOCK I CAN’T COME HOME YET” and it’s times like this I miss having a land-line with an old-school phone I can slam back into the cradle.

Then I started watching “The Innkeepers” and Chooch came down during this and was like FINE I WILL WATCH IT EVEN THOUGH FOR SOME REASON I DON’T LIKE HORROR MOVIES ANYMORE. What a boring, actionless movie. I vaguely remember seeing the previews and wanting to see it, but now I’m like, “OMG how was this even in the theaters?” There was only about a half hour left and still nothing had happened, so Chooch was like, “How much longer do we have to deal with this?” And then I was trying to explain to him how I knew certain things were going to happen because of context clues and he kept asking more and more questions so finally I was like, “Fuck it, I’m too sick to explain this. It’s because I’m psychic. I know all this shit because I’m fucking psychic.”

Earlier in the day, Chooch had pointed out that his heart was beating really fast. Like a good mom, I decided it would be a wise idea to follow up on this, so I asked him if it was still beating fast. He placed his hand on his chest, and with a shrug, he said, “No….now it’s not beating at all.” OMG WHY DOES HENRY LEAVE US ALONE TOGETHER. (Real time aside: Chooch and I are arguing over who has been sick longer. Oh wow, so he’s got half a day on me, but who had more of a fever? ME. That’s who.)

I decided to watch Hemlock Grove, because it was on my Netflix list, and what else did I have to do but half-lay on the couch, whimpering with my arm slung across my forehead? It pretty much immediately started with SEX AND BOOBS so I was like GO AWAY CHOOCH! and he was like I WANTED TO GO ON THE COMPUTER ANYWAY, BYE! So he watched his dumb YouTube videos on the computer with his headphones on and I tried to stay focused on the TV but it’s just not my thing. I thought at one point that maybe it would be nice to get dressed and go sit in the sun, but every time I stood up, my body was like NOPE.

I don’t do “sick” well. A few weeks ago, some of my co-workers were talking nearby about how babyish and helpless their husbands become when they’re sick and all I could think was, “Ha-ha, Henry doesn’t get that way at all. But that sounds familiar….OMG that’s ME when I’M sick! They’re describing ME!”

Then one of the characters on Hemlock Grove SPOILER ALERT turned into a werewolf and I cried to Chooch: WHY CAN’T YOU BE A WEREWOLF?! God, he’ll never be good enough. And then I became super giddy when I realized that one of the guys looked familiar to be because HE WAS ON DEGRASSI. So then I was going to see if Degrassi was on Netflix but I got distracted by my constant need to moan and essentially go down the list of onomatopoeia for “common cold.”

I’m pretty good at sound effects. Little known fact about me that my blog doesn’t convey.

EVENING: Man of the Year FINALLY waltzed through the door sometime after SIX O’CLOCK. That’s just madness. And because he was carrying a bag of Maple Waze pumpkin secons (which turned out to be maple glazed pumpkin cookies) and a box of cupcakes from Vanilla Pastry Studio, all is supposed to be forgiven? Kind of like when a husband cheats on his wife after work with a goat and then brings home some chocolate FOR NO REASON. I mean…it helps. Don’t get it twisted.

So we accosted him before he had a chance to even make it to the dining room. “Ugh, you both have those whiny eyes” he groaned as we started fighting over each other to tell him in high-pitched voices how sick we were. There was a lot of HELP US WE’RE DYING!!! exclamations going on and instead of taking our temperatures, that asshole looked at the TV and said, “Oh, you’re watching Hemlock Grove without me? That’s nice.” I WAIT FOR NO ONE.

“Did you give him any cough medicine?” Henry asked me.

“No,” I casually answered. “He said he didn’t want any.”

“OMG,” Henry sighed. “It doesn’t matter what he WANTS. You give it to him anyway!”

Sorry, I thought this was a Pro-Choice household.

“Did we get anything in the mail?” Henry casually asked, as if I wasn’t languishing on a bed of disease right before his eyes.

“I DON’T KNOW! YES! I CAN’T REMEMBER! GO FUCK YOURSELF!” I screamed. UGH stop making me have to THINK!

Then Marcy made her first appearance since breakfast, cautiously coming down the steps and peering into the dining room. “I know Marcy. I’d hide under the bed from the sick kids, too, if I could.”

Fuck you, Henry.

He didn’t even don his frilly apron and make us faux-chicken noodle soup. We gave him the easy way out and told him he could just order dinner from Giovanni’s which normally would have great but I couldn’t taste anything, so that made me even bitchier.

And then that sonofabitch went to bed at EIGHT THIRTY because he was SO TIRED. Are you fucking kidding? You come home and half-assedly tend to us for two hours and then oh my god, you’re suddenly SO TIRED now?

“I can’t wait until YOU get sick!” I shouted to him, which resulted in my head feeling like it was being curb-stomped. “We’re not going to give a shit!”

“You never do,” Henry shrugged. “And besides, I’m able to take care of myself.”

UGH I HATE HIM. SMUG MOTHERFUCKER!

****

Today I’m on late shift, so I got to have time this morning to get my bearings. I feel much better than I did the last couple of days, but still a little off. I don’t get sick very often, so when I do, please forgive me but THE WORLD IS ENDING. Chooch conveniently doesn’t have school today, so he’ll get an extra day to recuperate. He gets this awful cough several times during the school year and it usually results in him needing breathing treatments. Henry mentioned this last night and Chooch’s reaction was to pump his fist and cry, “Yes!”

And now I will end this with a sincere “You’re welcome” to everyone who did not have to deal with us yesterday.

Staying true to our chronic unpreparedness, Henry and I arrived at Humboldt Park Friday afternoon wearing newly-purchased raincoats from Target because we stupidly failed to account for a weather forecast that clearly stated 50 degrees and rain.

It started raining before we even made it to the main entrance. And then basically never let up. TGFRC.

The whole time we were walking to the entrance, my heart felt like it was going to explode. Henry kept telling me to slow down but I was like YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH! My god, I waited months for this day! I couldn’t wait a minute longer to be among my people. I was so giddy, it was scary.

The tickets said that the gates opened at 2pm but of course that was all a sack of lies. We were among the first 100 or so in line, so at least when they FINALLY opened up around 3pm, we pretty much had the run of the place until later in the day, when the less hardcore fans started showing up. There were already bands playing on 4 stages by time we collected our bearings and scoped out the layout. And admittedly had a fight because I was apparently looking at the map upside down and kept telling Henry he was wrong about everything. But then I realized that Circa Survive was playing on the Riot Stage (the main stage! Because they rule!) in less than a half hour, so I dragged him through mud and made him stand all the way in the front, which he hates. While we waited for Circa, we got to catch the last few Title Fight songs on the nearby Roots Stage, so that was nice.

It looked like this for a few hours until about a million more people showed up. Then it looked like this with about a million more people. And mud. Because the more people, the more mud, y’all. And guess what your girl was wearing?

TOMS.

Like an amateur! I don’t know what I was thinking. But I also wasn’t wearing socks so that was really great by the time the temperature dipped into the low 40s.

CIRCA SURVIVE

• This girl was standing in front of me while we were waiting for Circa to come on and she kept making intense eye contact with me and then raising her eyebrows and I was like WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, STOP. And of course, out of the estimated 160,000 fans in attendance that weekend, I saw her repeatedly.

• What a way to start off the weekend. A Circa Survive set in the cold, drizzling rain with a shit ton of people. It was fantastic and Anthony was stomping around the stage like your basic psychopath.
• During “The Difference Between Medicine and Poison Is the Dose,” Anthony jumped off the stage and started smearing mud on people’s faces and I was like OMG I WANTMUDDED BYANTHONY! But we were over too far. Even Henry KIND OF smiled when he saw what was going on. (Surprisingly, he actually watches even though he doesn’t like any of these bands. Although, he found some winners that weekend! We’ll get to that later.)
  • Here is a video that I pulled from Instagram from user elizabeth__edens. I was standing near the guy in the yellow rain poncho; too far away for Anthony to reach:

• I’m not sorry, Anthony Green is a fucking scene godfather at this point in the game. I have so much respect for him, it’s disgusting. (Henry wishes I had that much for him, haha.) Here is a man who kicked a drug addiction, married the woman who stood by his side through it all, created a beautiful family with her (two little boys and another baby on the way!), and somehow manages to juggle more than one musical project at a time with panache. AND HE’S A NICE GUY. Jonny Craig should take some pointers from him.
• I kept thinking, “I’m watching Circa Survive instead of being at work. My life ain’t so bad.”
  • Henry kept thinking, “I’m watching Circa Survive instead of being at work. My life fucking sucks.”
    • But we all know he would have internally been like FUCK YES if Anthony had rubbed mud into his grisly beard.

EMAROSA

• Immediately after Circa wrapped up, we had to run over to the Rise Stage, where Emarosa was going to start at 5:00. I had major heart palpitations while waiting, OMG. I love these fucking guys so much.
• As they usually do, Emarosa started their set with a long, dramatic lead-in until Bradley finally ran onto the stage and basically puked up his soul for all of us. I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off him, it was pretty pathetic.
• I don’t think I ever used the cat-with-heart-eyes emoji as much as I did during their set.

• Bradley Scott Walden > Jonny Craig.

• Some Jonny Craig sycophant tweeted that she stayed for one song and then had to walk away because “new Emarosa is just so terrible, like a joke. They should just quit.” And then of course Jonny retweeted her. I was still OMG JONNY CRAIG4L when Emarosa released their first single with Bradley, and even I was able to honestly admit that they struck gold with this new guy.
• They played A Hundred Crowns and I don’t think I took a single breath during it. Flawless.
• I asked Henry repeatedly, all weekend long, if he thought they were good and his answer every time was yes. HENRY SAID YES.

FAILURE

• Gah, you guys. I love Failure, but they broke up in 1997 and I was too busy being a yo-girl then to know they existed until I went through a pretty heavy phase in my early 20s where I was obsessed with Ken Andrews. So, the closest I ever came to seeing Failure was when Ken’s other band, Year of the Rabbit, opened for A Perfect Circle in 2003. But fuck, Failure’s “Fantastic Planet” was (and still is!) such a solid album. I used to call Henry “Sergeant Politeness” all of the time, after one of their songs. (With a heavy dose of sarcasm, of course.)

• The huge problem with festivals is that it’s impossible to see every band because there are so many stages. (Riot Fest had SEVEN.) And of course the universe was against me in putting Failure up against Emarosa. Luckily, there was enough overlap that I was able to bolt back to the main stage from the Rise stage in time to see/hear the last three songs, once of which was The Nurse Who Loved Me, which is my all-time favorite Failure song.
• Unfortunately, since their set already started and they were playing on the main stage, the above picture illustrates how close we were able to get, haha. I mean, we could have attempted to fight our way through the crowd of two stages (the Roots stage is just out of sight on the lefthand side of that photo, so a lot of that crowd was actually waiting for the next band that was about to take that stage), but I just wanted to be able to focus on the music and not elbowing my way though a wet, miserable crowd.

• Here is a picture of what my feet looked like during Failure. What kind of shitty blogger would I be if I didn’t include gratuitous shoe shots.

FROM INDIAN LAKES

• It was a happy accident that we got to catch this set. After Failure, I checked the schedule and deemed that it was a safe time to get food, because there were no must-sees. So I grabbed a Thai tofu wrap and then wandered over to the Revolt Stage while Henry was busy finding something for himself to eat. (He has to take care of me first.) I had heard of From Indian Lakes, but not heard them, you know? So I didn’t even know who was playing until I consulted my app.

• I was feeling them right from the start, but then they played this song, and I was like FUCK YES:

PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH

• I’ve liked these guys for some time now but this was my first time seeing them (although, I’ve seen their bassist and drummer play with United Nations) and they blew me away. The style of post-hardcore that they play has quickly become one of my favorites, the lyric-delivery is emotional but somehow even more urgent (like with Touche Amore and La Dispute, the latter of which I would get to see the next day and thought my heart was going to explode). I would put them high up on my Riot Fest highlight reel, and I’m even more stoked to see them open for Circa Survive in December.
• Henry was like, “meh.” He haaaaaaaaates this genre of music so bad, you have no idea. Which is why he is not going to the aforementioned show in December. WHICH IS IN PHILLY WHICH MEANS I’M GOING WITH TERRI AND CHRISTIAN!!

MASTODON

• I sacrificed Mastodon for Pianos Become the Teeth, and I stand by that decision. However, we made it to the Rise Stage in time to catch the tail end of their set on the nearby Rebel Stage. It was really raining hard by then and for some reason, three separate groups of people approached me to get directions to other stages/inquire who was playing next on the Rise Stage, all of which I shockingly knew the answers to because this is my wheelhouse, you guys. So it was OK that people were seemingly mistaking me for an official Riot Fest attendant. Maybe I have a future career, after all.

One of the two ferris wheels.

Mud.

OF MICE & MEN

• I’ve seen these guys so many times at Warped Tour, so I could have easily swapped them out for someone else, but truth be told, there wasn’t anyone else playing at that time that I really cared about. And besides, these guys inflate my soul and make me feel like I can do ANYTHING. BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN ME.
• Henry was miserable at this point. It was like 8:00 and fucking colder than Sarah Palin’s heart.
  • He made it to the second song before mumbling about going to “stand over there.” I didn’t even look to see where he was pointing, because his exodus meant that I was free to move closer to the stage, woo!

• Admittedly, this is not a band whose albums I rush out to buy when they’re released. Actually, I rarely even listen to them at home. But I goddamn love them live. Austin Carlile is so charismatic and he just makes me feel so pumped and like I’m 16 again, and that who gives a fuck if my TOMS get even more ruined, I’m going to fucking jump around in this mud with everyone else.

• Henry said he thinks Austin Carlile seems like a dick, so we fought about that later.
• This was a great end to the first day.

It was 8:30 by the time OM&M were over. I think the only two bands remaining that night were Jane’s Addition and Rise Against, but I’m not into either of them enough to endure any more time in the freezing rain. I honestly think it was briefly snowing at one point, and I promise there is no hyperbole usage there.

We passed some of the zombies from the haunted house on the way out. Then we took Uber back to the hotel and spent the next hour trying to warm up.

Here is a little video compilation from Day One. WATCH IT OR NOT, I DON’T CARE!

*In case one day when I’m 72, I have a pressing need to remember exactly what I did during the weekend of September 20th, 2014. You never know. Except that you do.

We spent the entire weekend hanging out with Chooch, which was really needed after being away from him for 4 days. We’re never away from him for that long! God, we’re pathetic.

Selfishly, I suggested we go to Oakland because I’ve been craving arepas ever since I got pregnant.

Sike. Ever since Riot Fest, haha. Conflict Kitchen is focused on Venezuelan cuisine right now so…

Too bad their arepas were basically bland mush compared to the golden beauty I choked back in Chicago.

The plantains were on point, though.

Chooch and I rode the carousel while Henry pouted at a nearby table because he couldn’t find anything he wanted to eat. I know you guys know that I’m a huge spoiled brat, but sometimes Henry gets so ridiculously impossible to please that he makes me look like Tiny Tim Cratchet.

All humble and happy with nothing.

For real.

Meanwhile, Chooch and I had our own struggles: mounting our respective carousel creatives. I wound up on a dolphin even though that would have been my LAST CHOICE but I was too afraid to try to get on anything taller after all of the times I have notoriously gotten stuck mid-mount. And Chooch almost fell off of one so I was trying to hold him up but I have no upper body strength and we both kept sinking closer to the ground until I finally just dropped him.

Don’t worry, he survived.

After our merry-go-round hijinx (the girl operating it shook her head at us & laughed when we passed her on the way out), some girl took pictures of Chooch petting a dog and then we went to a nearby playground where we played hide n seek and I looked like I was peeking behind our car but really I was just squatting in the best hiding spot of all time. Suck it, Chooch.

Henry was still pouting. Then he pushed an empty swing because he didn’t have enough strength to push a real person since he couldn’t find anything he wanted to eat. #violin

And Chooch sweat a lot.

The next day we went to Harland’s fifth birthday, where I stupidly kicked a soccer ball while wearing TOMS and proceeded to break my foot and then I awkwardly helped a little kid slide down the pavilion wall and onto the grass below which was REALLY EXHAUSTING and I acted like a basic hero for a good three hours after, because when’s the last time I actually lent one of those helping hand things.

Henry didn’t have anyone to play with.

I know Chooch is mine by the way he eats cake.

After Harland’s party, me, Chooch and Janna went to our first haunted house of the season, Hundred Acres Manor! It was just cool enough for Chooch to wear the hoodie I bought him, which you’ll hear about in a rap song that I might post later this week, even though Henry will probably leave me if I do it.

And I was able to get all of my custom orders done in between all of this, so now I feel like the hugest weight has been lifted….and replaced with a run-ragged, sick feeling. Haha.

Blog title is self-explanatory, I guess.

• The other night, HENRY made me take the trolley home from work because once he picked Chooch from school, he had to take him back to work with him because [insert boring Faygo saga that I wasn’t listening to]. By the time I came home, I was starving and couldn’t wait another minute for Henry so I decided to do that cooking thing. We had leftover vegetarian baked beans in a bowl in the fridge, so I decided to go old school and make some veggie dogs to go with it. My first obstacle was trying to pry one of the veggie dogs from the frozen lump of fake meat I pulled from the freezer. I tried a sharp knife even though I’m technically not allowed to handle knives; I tried slamming it on the counter; I tried breaking it over my knee, black belt-style; I tried loosening it with my hot, fat tears of frustrating. Finally I just ran it under hot water until the whole block was soggy enough for me to free a meatless link. UGH, COOKING IS HARD WORK! After all that struggle, I decided to take a short-cut and instead of heating the veggie dog and baked beans separately, I plopped the dog in the pool of beans and put the whole thing in the microwave together. PRO TIP: Don’t do this. I wound up with a bowl of baked beans that were freezing cold on one side, piping hot on the other, and one decidedly frozen-in-the-middle veggie dog. At this point, I was ready to eat my hair, so I just sat down and ate it, as is. It was disgusting. Two minutes after I finished it, Henry and Chooch came home and I got the “WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST WAIT!?!?” lecture. And then instead of commending me on at least trying to do something for myself, he called me an idiot. :(
• So Glenn and his wife had a girl two weeks ago! I had like 4 separate group texts going on with various work-friends because it was a Really Big Deal! The other day, Michele asked me if Glenn was talking about the new baby a lot (sadly, NOT named Erin) and I just laughed. Glenn is still Glenn: a non-talker. Last night, Bridget and I were both on late shift and she asked me if Glenn at least has pictures of the baby on his desk. I hadn’t noticed, so when I went back  to my desk, I stopped to check, and no.
  buy avana online blackmenheal.org/wp-includes/SimplePie/Content/Type/php/avana.html no prescription

  No pictures. Yet, he still has the dead bug that Catherine left him. On a napkin. I guess that’s as personal as his effects get.

• While in Chicago last weekend, we Skyped with Chooch. (He has Skype on xbox so he can do it right on the TV.) As soon as it connected, our first image of Chooch was of him standing there, in nothing but underwear, arms spread out and stretching a blanket across his back. “WHAT ARE YOU, BUFFALO BILL?!” I cried, like he knew what I was talking about, but still—it was scary! Meanwhile, Henry’s mom Judy was sitting on the couch behind him, taking this all in, probably thinking she was in an episode of the Jetsons: “HOW IS MY SON TALKING TO ME THROUGH THE TELEVISION!? WELL, I’LL BE!”

• Hey, speaking of Buffalo Bill! I got a custom request for a serial killer wedding card the other night. The guy said it was for his singer, but when I initially read it, I thought it said “sister,” so I didn’t think anything of it. But Henry gets all of the non compos cards stuff sent to his phone, too, and he read it correctly and then called me the next morning from work and said, “Did you happen to look at that guy’s name? I think it’s GG Allin’s brother.” And by golly, I think he’s right. I posted about it on Facebook and my friend Octavia was like, “This is really cool but just the thought of GG Allin makes my belly hurt” and I was like “I know right, am I supposed to poop on the card before I mail it?” But in all seriousness, I’m always happy to be connected in any way to bands/music industry. Back when my Somnambulant shop was really thriving (2007-2009), I sold a couple paintings to a girl who worked at Dischord Records and I embarrassingly fan-girled on her.
  • On a side-note, it was weird-timing because we had just seen Billy Bragg at Riot Fest, and while he was one of the few good things that I was able to take from my relationship with Psycho Mike, it was still kind of painful to see him singing in front of me;  GG Allin was also someone that Mike was really into (I wasn’t though), so there’s been a lot of heavy, dark nostalgia hanging over me this week.
  • But yeah, I’m excited (albeit pretty pressured) to make this card for Merle!
• Nice Amber¹ brought me back this adorable candy clown yesterday on her break! No way can I ever eat it; he’s too cute! Also, props to Amber for being a super FB-sleuth and finding out that Glenn is on there! Although, he only has like 17 friends and appears to use it even less than Henry uses his. However, Amber also found that Glenn participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and I was so giddy over this that I seriously almost peed my pants at work. Good job, Amber!!

• Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about how our trashy neighbor screamed in my face but then the next day, our nice neighbor came over and made me feel so much better about life? Well, I saw her the other morning when I was coming back from taking Chooch to school and she said, “I can’t get over how much you and [Chooch] look alike. He’s always making these faces at me and I just want to pinch his cheeks because he’s so cute and now I feel like I want to do that to you, too. But…that would be weird.”This neighbor can stay on my street forever.

• How weird would it be if I bought an extra Emarosa album and had a giveaway on here for it? THAT’S HOW MUCH I BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL ALL LOVE THIS ALBUM, YOU GUYS UGHHHHH. I just want everyone to own it.
  buy zydena online blackmenheal.org/wp-includes/SimplePie/Content/Type/php/zydena.html no prescription

  What if I have a giveaway with that and also other things, too? Like a painting? And I have an extra BFF brain necklace set that I bought last year and the seller forgot to engrave it so she told me to just keep that set and  then she sent me a new one because she is awesome and makes really cute things and one of you should have this because it’s honestly just sitting in a drawer in my coffee table, sad that it doesn’t have a pair of BFFs to wear it.

• Man, we were at Goodwill a few weeks ago looking for old baby dolls (for a friend) and I totally regret not buying this book. #bowlcuts4everyone

• Last spring, my friend Alex started a project with me and several other awesome Pittsburgh bloggers and it’s finally come to fruition, so I’m excited to share that on here very soon!
• Chris (yes, the same one who ABANDONED us at the Law Firm) came over the other night and within minutes, Chooch poached her. She is his friend, now. They played Minecraft together, you guys, so it’s all over. And then last night he sighed and said, “I just want Chris to come over again.” GOD, GET YOUR OWN FRIENDS!!!!!! Meanwhile, Henry was just happy that someone was here distracting me and Chooch so he was able to sneak off and go to bed at some super early, old person hour.
  buy augmentin online blackmenheal.org/wp-includes/SimplePie/Content/Type/php/augmentin.html no prescription

• I have so much to get done this weekend and all I want to do is sit under a blanket and watch horror movies. Also, since when are post-mortem photographs so expensive!?!? Prices have gone way up since I last bought one, damn.

Have a seriously delightful weekend, my little ladylocks and mancakes.

The aptly-named “Riot Feast” food vendor list.

When we go to Warped Tour, I usually smuggle in some granola bars because:

1. Food there is exorbitantly-priced

2. There are basically no options for vegetarians. It’s burgers and chicken strips or GTFO.

I was pretty worried about the food sitch at Riot Fest, since we’ve never gone to it before. But apparently, this year’s Riot Fest was the biggest one yet, so I don’t think a lot of people really knew what they were in for it. Which was: food trucks for daaaaays. It was the best of the county fair and local staples all lined up on one street and even the options for vegetarians and vegans were downright staggering. There was so much for even me to eat that I was sad I ran out of time!

We honestly had no time at all to do any tourist-y things in Chicago (it was literally: get up, stand in line, watch amazing bands for 10 hours, go back to the hotel and crash), so it was really awesome to still get to eat like we were vacationing in the city. And we could see the city skyline from Humboldt Park, so there was that, too.

Riot Fest didn’t start until 2pm on Friday, so we only ate once that day. Henry had some sickening duck sausage contraption and I had a fucking fat Thai-tofu wrap. This bitch was goddamn rotund, all distended from the gluttonous amounts of tofu and vegetables rammed into that sturdy wrap. It was cold and raining when I got it, and I ate it like a hobo in a snowstorm: double-fisted, jacket sleeves half-covering my hands, hood pulled up over my face, like I hadn’t eaten since that day 6 weeks ago when someone threw a can of anchovies at my forehead. I kept talking about how good it was, but really I’m not sure if I was even able to recognize tastes and flavors at that point of the day, because the weather was so miserable and we were exhausted and overwhelmed by hordes of people. But I sure as fuck felt 1000% better after that was able to quickly go back to dictating which stage we needed to slip-and-slide to through the mud.

The thought of drinking coffee at Warped Tour makes my belly ache. But last weekend at Riot Fest, the temperature fluctuated between 40-65 degrees. Coffee was welcome. Especially on Friday when it was so cold and wet that I’m not sure it wasn’t actually snowing at one point, but the line for Dark Matter was Cedar Point-levels of long. We actually couldn’t even find where it ended because there were so many people everywhere, that food lines just kind of snaked around in no real order and then disappeared into the masses. So I did my standard JUST FORGET IT!!! foot-stamp and went back to shivering beneath my flimsy, lightly-lined windbreaker. It was OK though, because I hit it up the next day before a line formed and it was delicious. Coffee is such an efficient attitude-adjuster. Henry can attest to that.

The only gripe I have is that Dark Matter apparently teamed up with the band Mastodon to make a limited edition blend that’s aged in bourbon whiskey barrels. Mastodon was playing Friday night, so I feel like this would have been an obvious thing to have available. But I know that I will be ordering a bag online, at least!

THIS CHEESE, YOU GUYS. THIS CHEESE WAS EVERYTHING. The menu:

Queijio de Coalho Brazilian-style Grilled Cheese on a Stick:
Original w/ black rum maple syrup
Hatch Chile w/ hot pepper jelly
Garlic w/ mojo de ajo
Smoked Bacon w/ pineapple chipotle

The Hatch Chile was my favorite. Also, I liked it better when I thought their name was Drunkow.

Over the course of the weekend, we had each of the top three. Surprisingly, Henry didn’t get the smoked bacon one for himself, unless that’s what he was doing one of the 8298374892759093245 times he slipped away to “pee.”

Ugh, I wish I was eating this damn stick-cheese right now. I CAN STILL TASTE IT IF I SQUEEZE MY EYES SHUT TIGHT ENOUGH.

I also buried my face into an arepa on Saturday, which is like a savory corn cake and mozzarella, cooked on a griddle. I miss arepas. I want more arepas. Fuck the pie party, let’s have an arepas affair. (Thank god Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen is focused on Venezuela right now because I’m going to eat the ever-loving shit out of some arepas this weekend.)

At some point on Saturday, I also inhaled a bowl of sweet coconut rice loaded with fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, so I was in a pretty mild mood. (Henry thanks you, food trucks.)

(And this is not to mention all the STRONGBOW I chugged all weekend too. Strongbow is my favorite cider in the whole entire world, and pretty much nothing was going to bring me down with that shit in my system. Not even the $7 Henry had to continually hand over for beverage tickets.)

On Sunday, I finally grabbed a grilled cheese from the Cheesie’s truck I had my eye on all weekend. I got the only one that didn’t have MEAT on it, the Caprese. A grilled cheese is no longer a grilled cheese once you start desecrating it with meat, I’m sorry. Those sandwiches need to have another name. (No offense to my carnivore bros out there.) It didn’t matter though because my Caprese was wonderful and it came with a small tub of pesto mayo, of which I made sure to scrape clean and I didn’t give a fuck who was looking. Pesto is the shit.

I also had more stick-cheese, and also a roasted red pepper and goat cheese tamale from Dia De Los Tamales, which was so good that I wish I had ordered more than one. I’m such a food-ordering fuck-up. At some point, we also ordered some baos from Wow Bao (mine was vegetable wheat, Henry’s was who cares) and they too, like everything else lined up in that park, were a mini riot fest for the mouth.

I think Henry ordered something from Big Pork, but I was way too involved in my own masticating to give his stuffed maw even a glance. I wanted him to get a Chubby Wiener just so I could tell Facebook that Henry was eating a chubby wiener but he “wasn’t in the mood for a hot dog” and I was like “Who said anything about a hot dog?”

Oh and we split a peach and bourbon hand pie from Blue Sky Bakery! I liked it but Henry wasn’t impressed, probably because it cost $4 and was really small. Every time we walked past their cart that weekend, I swear their menu kept growing and I wanted to eat it all. But….bands > food.

Oh, but we didn’t gain a single pound*. I estimated that we probably only sat down for a total of 30 minutes a day (and by “day,” I mean a Riot Fest day, which was approx. 10:30am-10:00pm; Friday was only about 12:30-9:00, though). The rest of the time was all walking, standing, running (for me), bouncing (for me). I found out afterward that it was about a mile’s distance from the Rise Stage to the Rock Stage. Contrary to the map below, there was no way to cut across the park other than following the road along the perimeter.

Which, by the way, didn’t connect into a full circle. All the water was fenced off and the road going through the middle wasn’t accessible. It was also nearly impossible to cut through the grassy areas to get to each stage, because there were ridiculously-placed VIP sections blocked off and as the days on, the population around each stage had become so dense that the only way to cut through was to put your head down and charge. It’s a miracle that Henry and I never became separated. Can you imagine? I would probably still be in Humboldt Park, laying behind a porta-potty in the fetal position.

I wish I had worn my pedometer, because it would have been interesting to see how many miles we walked each day. Saturday especially had us going from the Rise Stage to the Rock Stage more times than I would have preferred. (And one of those times, I ran most of the way because during Television’s set on the Rise Stage, I realized we were cutting it close for Saosin on the Rock Stage and I needed to BE UP FRONT FOR THAT SHIT.

So, I ran.

Henry did not run. But I was wearing a bright orange Epitaph backpack so he said he knew where I was at all times. Like I’m his child.

Thank god for accidental exercise.

*(There was a funnel cake truck there that probably would have made this statement untrue had I caved and indulged in one. Each one basically had the contents of an entire dessert cart balancing on a bed of funnel cake. AND I SAW BRADLEY SCOTT WALDEN FROM EMAROSA IN LINE FOR ONE ON SATURDAY AND ALMOST HAD A HEART ATTACK!!!!!)

That’s a lot of people. 

You know that feeling you get after you go to a really fucking amazing show, that sinking pit you fall into once the adrenaline and euphoria wears off? That emotionally-crippling post-show depression? If you give even a tiny turd about music, you know what I’m talking about.

This is the hardest and farthest I’ve fallen post-show. All three days of Riot Fest were like a fucking fairy tale for me; and I mean all of the good parts, no poison apples or trolls under bridges.  It hit me really hard this morning. I came into work and slammed my purse down, sighing heavily. Glenn asked me in his standard non-caring monotone, “What’s wrong.” I HAVE POST-SHOW DEPRESSION, I cried. “OK. You can still listen to their music, you know” was his dumb, non-helpful advice.

OMG THAT’S NOT THE POINT UGH. You don’t think I haven’t been obsessively YouTubing Riot Fest performances, GLENN?!

I have so much to write about. The bands, obviously. But just the whole atmosphere, the sketchy Uber rides, the FOOD OMG THE FUCKING FOOD — there is so much I want to tell you guys! I’ve been on the verge of exploding every day at work because I want to talktalktalk about it so much but no one carescarescares!

But before I even get started, there’s something totally painful that I need to do: I need to thank Henry on this space. Because aside from buying the tickets (literally the only thing I did), Henry took care of every last minutia to make this past weekend a reality for me. Even though he hates this shit and hates spending money and hates crowds of music fans and hates standing around all day, Henry did all of this for me and I am pretty overwhelmed by it all. I mean, not that Henry doesn’t normally do anything for me, but this was something that I honestly thought he was going to say “Fuck no!” to. I mean, when I asked him three months ago if we could go, I actually laughed a little bit because it didn’t seem like something he would ever say yes to.

It just meant so much to me. I’m a pretty lucky broad. And even though Henry frowned a lot (like in this picture, where he was frowning because we matched), we barely fought at all (and the few times we did, it was because I missed my last feeding), he admitted on the way home that he had “a little” fun. It’s going to be hard to top Riot Fest.

I mean, unless WE GO AGAIN NEXT YEAR?!?! HENRY?!!??!

Chooch, out of the blue: I have lots of pet peeves. Like….booger pickers and hackers.

Chris: What if the booger pickers are picking their boogers in private? Is that OK?

Chooch: Then the cats win.

Chris: I think we’re having two different conversations.

Right after Henry and I returned home from Chicago on Monday, Chooch lost a tooth.

Not a big deal; this was like the 6th or 7th one to add to my salt shaker of baby teeth. (I collect his teeth in a salt shaker full of fake blood because that’s what the gypsy told me to do 9 years ago after selling me fertility potion.)

Chooch placed the tooth under his pillow and then Henry promptly forgot to swap it out with money, so Tuesday morning started with Chooch stomping out of his room, fists at his sides, bitching about how the dumbass Tooth Fairy didn’t leave him any money. I was like, “Fuck. Think Erin, think.” So I told him that was because Monday was Labor Day for the Tooth Fairies and that they were all off work, duh. I’m really off my game lately when it comes to Creative Lies, but Chooch didn’t say anything to that, not even “Wait, there’s more than one Tooth Fairy?” so I chalked it up to Good Parenting. And also Chooch’s inability to give a shit about things in the morning.

But then he came home from school with another tooth that had fallen out. His teacher put it in an envelope and in pencil, noted the exact time it fell out, like we’re some tightly-clenched scrapbooking assholes or something.

Chooch was just happy that now he was about to get twice as much money.

Except that Dildo Henry shat in his tutu again and didn’t pull through. He claims that Chooch “started to wake up” when he tried to make the switch. So I was like, “Well, where is the cash? I’ll do it myself” and then Henry was all, “In my pocket.

” Which wouldn’t have been a big deal if he wasn’t already at work when this conversation played out.

And then my series of texts, surprisingly not in CAPSLOCK, went like this:

Nice.

Real great.

And of course I’m the one who has to deal with it once again. Thanks.

And you say nothing. Thanks.

Because clearly this was on par with, oh I don’t know, teen pregnancies and drug use. God, I just didn’t want to deal with this. PARENTING, UGH.

“I think he knows there’s no tooth fairy, he’s just playing along,” Henry calmly texted back.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR THINKING, HENRY!

So I tiptoed into Chooch’s room, perched on the edge of his bed, and woke him by gingerly shaking him by his shoulder. A slumbering Chooch is best approached with caution and finesse, because he’s a real bag of bees in the morning.

“Chooch,” I whispered hoarsely. “I have to tell you something.”

“WHAT,” he mumbled, shrugging my hand from his shoulder.

“It’s really bad,” I continued, because I’m great this shit. “Daddy and I have been lying to you for a long time.”

This got him to open one eye.

“ABOUT WHAT,” he barked.

“The Tooth Fairy,” I whispered, trying to sound really serious. “She’s not real.”

“OK,” Chooch mumbled, shaking his head in an “AND?” motion. “Do I still get money?”

“No, because daddy screwed up,” I said. “Blame daddy.”

Now Chooch was beginning to sit up in anger. He flipped over his pillow to confirm that I wasn’t lying, and just as his nostrils began to flare, I blurted out, “BUT HE SAID HE’S GOING TO BUY YOU POKEMON CARDS!”

“THE KINDS IN THE METAL TIN?!” he countered. Because those ones are more expensive. He’s not a dummy.

I was all, “Yeah sure, OK” and then Chooch was like, “OK bye, I’m walking to school by myself” which is when it occurred to me that OMG he’s old now. Thanks a lot, Tooth Fairy.

Almost home from Chicago. Brought lots of dried mud with us.

No liveblogging this go-around because I’m emotionally drained and too busy jawing off to Henry about all of my favorite parts of the last three days (like, everything) and you guys, he admitted that he had a little bit of fun!

This weekend started with Circa Survive and ended with The Cure.

My head is still spinning. This made up for all the unicorns I asked for and never got. I have the best boyfriend ever and I guess I’ll let him be my #mcm.

#blessed <--no really, for real this time.

“Thinking About How Bad My Day is Going to Suck” frown.

“Waiting For Uber to Take Me to Hell” frown.

“Didn’t We Just See Circa Survive in July?” frown.

“8 Minutes ’til Emarosa” frown.

“Don’t Take My Cheese Fries, It’s All I’ve Got” frown.

“Not Understanding How People Like Bands Like Pianos Become The Teeth” frown.

“I’m Cold & Wet & Standing with this Annoying Person & I Hope My Mustache Doesn’t Get Frizzy” frown.

“Still Hate of Mice & Men” frown.

“Just Started Day 2 & I’m Already Frowning Because Day 1 Taught Me How Much This Will Suck” frown.

“I Paid $7 For This Beer; The Numbing Sensation I Feel Is Priceless” half-frown.
“Waiting for Rx Bandits; They’re Going To Suck” frown.
***********
This is a collection of Henry-frowns from the first two days of Riot Fest. I’m sure many more will be inspired today!

Flashback Friday to when we went to Coachella in 2004 to see The Cure and it was 113 degrees all weekend (no joke), Henry put us up in a prostitute and feral cat-inhabited motel* in San Bernadino, and I had rage blackouts like you wouldn’t believe. But…I got to see The Cure.

Somehow, Henry and I are still together 10 years later and are about to see The Cure this Sunday in Chicago and I am absolutely bubbling over with giddiness!

*(I know, it’s amazing that I wasn’t down with this.)

6:54PM: Hi. Henry and I are on our way to Chicago for RIOT FEST, wooo! Supposedly, South Bend, IN is our final destination for tonight, which seems so far away. BECAUSE IT IS. I can’t promise that this live blog installment will be very…lively. But I will give it the old college try! (Which, to me, means half-ass your way through a few semesters and then quit.) Anyway, you know the drill: keep checking back for updates or just wait until tomorrow and binge on the stupidity at once.

7:07pm: We have never been away from Chooch for more than over night so this is kind of sucks but he doesn’t seem to care. I told him I’m going to Skype him during The Cure on Sunday and he was physically repulsed by this notion because he HATES The Cure. (I still don’t know why, other than because I love them so much.

) Anyway, Henry’s mom Judy is staying at our house and she’s super pissed because her idiot son waited until TUESDAY NIGHT to ask her to babysit for us for FOUR DAYS. So yeah, I’d be pretty fucking pissed too. Good one, Son of the Year.

7:16pm: CONFESSION! Today I deleted a blog comment and I very rarely do that. But I was having a stressful morning at work and I just happened to check my phone at the exact moment some douche-sausage commented on my I Hate Jonny Craig post from last spring and said that I was clearly boring as fuck (I mean, duh) and that I’m a bitch for spreading made up stories about Jonny and who cares that Jonny tweeted terrible things about women? You’re right, guy. Who cares about that? I mean, other than self-respecting women. So yeah, I was like “I hope Jonny gives your gf herpes in the back of his van” and then deleted his typo-riddled comment because I’m a boring-as-fuck bitch.

8:02pm: Today Sandy found out that one of the guys in our Australia office is the frontman of a METALCORE BAND and I have been obsessed ever since because I watched one of their videos and they are LEGIT. So I emailed him (don’t worry, we have a rapport from when I was working late shift all the time and I would have to email him to tell him that a RUSH was waiting for him, OMG do it now) and gushed for multiple sentences about how much I love his band and please don’t think I’m a creep but I just liked your band on Facebook and here’s a list of some bands I like too and I go to Warped Tour and please some to Pittsburgh because HAHAHAHA YOU HAVE A CRAZY-EYED FAN HERE! Anyway, I didn’t hear back before I left because of that time zone hoo-ha, but don’t worry because I’ve spent the last hour scrolling through the last year’s worth of Facebook updates on their page and THEY OPENED FOR IWRESTLEDABEARONCE LAST WINTER!!! I LOVE THAT BAND! And they have beanies for sale so I’m buying Henry one and Sandy just texted me and said he could probably just interoffice mail one to me and I can’t stop laughing. I HAVE HAD TOO MUCH COFFEE. We’re at a rest stop now, bye

8:29pm: just ate pizza at a rest stop in Ohio. Henry is mad because I took a picture of him, as if this isn’t his norm.

9:08pm: We’re listening to the Riot Fest Spotify station and out of 100 bands, it’s The Used that keeps playing over and over because the universe loves grinding salt into my wounded heart. Fuck off.

9:21pm: I just jumped through all these hoops to show Henry that The Used gives a nod to their old song “Buried Myself Alive” in their new(ish) song “Cry” and after all that, he was completely underwhelmed and just said, “Ok. Yeah, I get it.” FUCK.

10:05pm: Somewhere near Toledo. I heard Henry rustling something and I frantically asked, “What is that!

?” “Energy,” he calmly answered. “I WANT AN ENERGY!!!” I cried. But then it turned out to be one of those energy shots. I don’t know what I thought it was going to be. But now he’s mocking me. “I want an energy!” he keeps saying in a whiny voice.

10:42om: Apparently, Toledo has an airport.

11:04pm: Oh great I just saw something on Facebook about some notorious school shooter breaking out of prison in Ohio and I’m freaking out. Henry is trying to explain that this happened on the other side of the state but all I can see is HE IS WANDERING FREE IN OHIO AND WE ARE IN OHIO.

12:17am: Oh don’t worry. We’re still driving. :(

12:18am: I just asked Henry if he was touching his weener and he very defensively cried NO I’M SCRATCHING MY LEG as if we all don’t touch our weeners every now and then and constantly.

12:21am: A cop car with its lights on just sped past us on the other side of the highway and I screamed, “OMG! Maybe they found that kid! The one who escaped from prison!” And Henry yelled, “THAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STATE!” Except that we’re in Indiana now.

12:47am: oh thank Christ we just arrived at our shady hotel in South Bend. If I don’t post again, I’m either passed out from exhaustion or chloroform.

12:53am: Henry’s all excited because the last checking him in asked to take a picture of his ring finger tattoo.

I’m like IDGAF about anything but a bed. Show me the fucking bed.

1:07am: This place actually isn’t a shit hole like I thought it would be! But apparently I’m not supposed to get used to this because the place were staying for the next three nights is apparently going to be a real shack. (Yet hopefully a step up from the HOSTEL Henry originally wanted to stay in. People, can you imagine me, Erin Rachelle Kelly, in a hostel? I didn’t think so. Also, I think Henry is too old for hostels. Unless he’s the murderer running it.)