In the nearly four (4!!) decades I’ve been visiting Kennywood, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone to the arcade. Just not my thAng, you know?

But Chooch dragged me in there twice yesterday and turns out, it’s not so bad and they have a ton of old school arcade games that I used to play with my bro Ryan at the mall when we were wee lads & lasses.

Anyway, here are some pictures that I took while I was bored when Chooch was doing stuff for tickets under the guise of “winning mum a birthday present” like ok boy.

I used to be really good at Skee Ball! But now I suck and get super aggravated at even the thought of inserting a token. It made me kind of sad to think about how undesirable amusement park and arcades games are to me, even though my wallet is happy, because it’s probably one of the only childhood things that I’ve outgrown. I still love amusement parks, I still get obsessed to the point of traveling to other states and countries for bands, and I still love piling on accessories that make me look like a toy store window display.

But I just don’t care for games anymore! Of any kind! Video, arcade, card, board…however if you were to invite me over for some night tag or hide n seek, I’d be there.

Especially if there was a night cap of prank calls.

I won 15 tickets on this thing by accident. Ok bro.

In the back, some old shit is on display so that was cool and Chooch and I had some laughs imagining Henry riding on one of the old carousel horses or playing whatever that Peppy thing is.

Fun fact: the movie Adventureland was filmed at Kennywood and the arcade was in some of the scenes. I only saw that movie once when it first came out like 10 years ago so don’t ask me any questions about it.

We had to return to the arcade once Henry joined us later in the afternoon because I’m one of those mean moms who won’t give their son money for games LOL. Yeah that’s right, the first time we were in there, he just stared wistfully at all the games because he had no money haha.

Meanwhile some lady frantically chased down Chooch and panted, “WERE YOU JUST PLAYING THAT MACHINE OVER THERE? WELL HERE, BOY, YOU LEFT YOUR TICKETS!” and she dumped a long string of tickets into Chooch’s open palms, what a fucking ARCADE SAINT.

Henry was threw some quarters at me like I was working in a Texas strip club and I did super lucrative things like get fortunes and lottery numbers.

Anyway, those bastards didn’t even win me anything because Henry was all WHY DONT YOU SAVE THE TICKETS FOR THE NEXT TIME YOURE HERE AND THEN GET A BIGGER PRIZE and I already know how this will pan out but here, choose your own adventure:

A. Henry loses the ticket receipt

B. Chooch loses the ticket receipt

C. Chooch chooses a prize for himself

D. We don’t make it back to Kennywood this year to see which way this will go

E. Trump bans amusement parks

You know what I’m truly bad at now as an adult? I mean, aside from being an adult? Pinball. It makes me so anxious!

And this concludes the arcade interlude. I’ll be coming ’round the mountain with another Kennywood post later this week and maybe some songs that we can sing together as a round.

Today is the one-year-anniversary since I breathed the same air as G-Dragon at the Air Canada Center in Toronto, but it’s also my birthday! I turned 39 today and I know that the countdown to is very real to a lot of people, but I gotta tell you: I’m not scared ’bout it! My 20s were largely terrible (bad job, even…badder friends, less control over my mental health), but my 30s turned out to be pretty fucking great for the most part. I don’t fuck around with toxic people anymore; at age 30 I finally found a job that I actually value and do my best at; my relationship with Henry has improved over time (oh god please don’t say it’s aged like a fine wine, that’s so dumb!); being a mom to Chooch has been so much fun; and I just feel like I know myself better through this last almost-decade of my life. So I say, bring on the 40s! I’m ready for it.

This was a great birthday too. Henry pulled through and bought me the whole SHINee Story of Light collection because he’s the best Kpop boyfriend ever. It actually was delivered on Saturday and I was like CAN I JUST HAVE IT NOW?!?! because the box had a Choice Music sticker on it and hello that’s only the best Kpop shop in the US everyone knows that.

Then yesterday my friend Katrina sent me a picture of a roller skate purse she saw in the kids section at Target so I said to Henry, “Go buy me that” and he did.

Shit, I’m spoiled!

I took the day off work for my birthday and Chooch and I had grand plans to be a power riding team at Kennywood (more on that later this week!) but first Chooch was all COUGH COUGH AHEM COUGH until I realized that he had arranged the Hangul magnets on the fridge to spell out happy birthday AND HE GOT ME A CARD! That’s like a huge deal for kids, especially once they hit middle school because OMG other people have birthdays besides them?!

I started cracking up because while Chooch is legit gifted and brilliant in many ways, but is consistently stumped when it comes to addressing envelopes. “I googled it and everything but still didn’t know whose name to put!” he cried. How about THE PERSON YOU ARE GIVING THE CARD TO!? 🙄 Still, it was the best card—I love my at-times-remedial son!

So Chooch hangs out with this kid sometimes and is like enamored with his mom because she cooks and bakes and is basically the antithesis of me (she put one of her kids on blast for calling her a Crabby Patty, can you imagine if she was a fly on our wall?!) and I’m always like, “Wah, you like Wesley’s mom more than me!” because once she made him a grilled cheese and he was just excited to witness real housewife/stay at home mom antics I guess. So the inside of his card made me nearly burst into tears (um, and not teats like I originally typed, or twats which is what came out when I tried to type teats on purpose, writing is hard you guys). I guess the best part of my thirties was watching Chooch grow into such a cool, thoughtful, caring dude.

And going to Korea, duh.

I’m typing this now right before bed, exhausted and delirious from a day full of cracking up and riding my favorite rides at Kennywood. And Henry wasn’t a jerk all day! What more can I ask for?

(I mean, a lot of things obviously but I’m trying to pretend like I’m a mature 39-year-old broad here ok lol.)

I keep putting off recapping Warped Tour for a couple reasons: it was the last one ever and I needed to let the feels marinate for a bit before spooning it into the thought pot, I’m really blog-ambivalent these days, but mostly because there just isn’t really that much to say this time.

This sounds like we had a horrible time and I can assure you it wasn’t that. In fact, aside from early morning sniping, it was actually the first Warped Tour since Chooch started going with us that we got through the whole entire day without even the TINIEST quarrel. Give us a fucking ribbon at the Family Behavioral Fair, motherfuckers.

It just very much felt like we were going through the motions. For instance, the gate we normally enter through didn’t appear to be open this year so we had to get in a much-longer line for the main gate and I didn’t even feel the tiniest bit anxious about this because it didn’t matter to me when we got in. WHY, YOU ASK? GOOD QUESTION. Because there wasn’t one single band in the lineup that I was super-stoked to see.

!!!!

Granted I know that I have been out of the loop for a year or two but even the old bands on the list were like Zzzzzzzz for me.

SO WHY DID YOU BUY A TICKET, DUMMYTURKEY?! Great question! Because I still love the atmosphere and the vibes and I wanted to see it through to the end. GOD DONT YOU READ MY BLOG I ALREADY WROTE ABOUT THAT.

One thing I want to want to mention before I move on to other things is that for as huge of a festival that Warped Tour is, we have never really had a bad “waiting in line” experience. The credit probably goes to the venue, but they do such a stand-up job getting everyone inside the gates at a speedy, safe pace. (KCON/PRUDENTIAL CENTER SHOULD STUDY THIS PROCESS!)

The whole time we were in line though, I kept checking the Warped Tour socials for the “magic word” to get the first 200 people free shit at the Vans tent but I never saw one! So that was kind of a let-down. I had notifications turned on for the Warped Tour app and never received a single alert all day long which was strange…this was one of the reasons why it just didn’t feel right this year.

Chooch got to play games so he was happy. That was all he was looking forward to since the lineup was so “meh” this year.

This was us sitting in the pavilion (all these girls at Warped Tour with their perfectly matte faces while I’m over here looking like I could moisten a whole loaf of week-old bread with my face), waiting 35 minutes for the Maine to come on which never happened because I didn’t make the connection that for the first time ever, there was only one stage under the pavilion?! Usually, it’s the Journeys Left Foot and Journeys Right Foot, but this time they were separated so only one of the “foots” was under the pavilion and guess what guys it wasn’t the one that the Maine was playing on so my tradition of going to Warped Tour every year and never seeing the Maine continued. It’s good to end things with a perfect streak sometimes, you know?

Also, there was a fifteen minute delay on every stage but I thought it was only on three of the stages because I didn’t read the inflatable schedule correctly and basically, if I had any vested interest in seeing any particular band, I would have probably been met with disappointment.

It was just weird how this day started off with CHANGES and that just led to a strong feeling of disorientation for the rest of the day.

If you know what I mean.

Do you know what I mean?

I’m the type of person who totally loses her mind when there is even a tiny sprinkle of aberration in a schedule.

But can I just say again how weird it was to not be literally sprinting from stage to stage in an effort to see all of my scene-faves? A Warped Tour without Emarosa is bad enough but there really wasn’t any post-hardcore for my soul that day.

We did accidentally see a hardcore band called Sharptooth though and I was immediately sucked in because the screamer was a girl and she was fierce as fuck. After the first song, she plowed right into a fiery speech about #MeToo and the crowd was backing her so hard with energetic cheers, and all I could think was, “Can we claw-drop all of the Ronnie Radkes on this tour into the front row and make them listen to this hard truth?” What irony, you know? This band promoting safe spaces, speaking out against domestic/sex abuse, rape, the mental illness stigma, while so many shitty bands full of shitty motherfucking abusers were running rampant on in the same venue because Kevin Lyman doesn’t want to lose money by banning their asses from Warped Tour. This strong, outspoken female could have eaten Jonny Craig alive and made Ronnie Radke shit his pants.

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CAN YOU SEE WHY THIS WAS HARD FOR ME!? On one had, Warped Tour is supposed to be this safe haven for all walks of life, socially conscious with tons of really great (and I mean super fantastic) organizations there every summer spreading awareness for depression, suicide, LGBTQ, breast cancer. They have food drives at every city and a tent where you can get swabbed to be a bone marrow donor. (I almost wrote donater.)

But then it’s also a huge parking lot full of band dude debauchery, statutory transgressions and other things that go in on those tour buses that I don’t want to even think about because ew.

On that note though, I noticed a HUGE influx of families in attendance. This was usually not the case, so maybe it was all those grown-up punks wanting to revisit the scene for Warped’s swan song, but goddamn there were A LOT of children there. The first year we brought Chooch, it was 2013 and he was quite literally one of maybe three under-15 kids there, to the point where he was getting a lot of attention and double-takes (and a lot of free swag!). I remember getting a lot of shit from people who thought it was a bad idea for us to take him at that age (he was 7) but you have to consider the fact that Henry and I were already extremely experienced at this and Chooch was literally raised on this kind of music. I mean, he tell you the names of the singers of probably 15 bands that were there that year.

So this was another thing that made our last Warped Tour feel….sterile? Is that the word I want? Yes. Let’s go with sterile.

Also, Chooch is barely even a kid anymore! It’s weird that he won’t ever get to experience Warped Tour with his friends. We used to joke that once he was in high school and his friends finally started getting into this stuff, he would have already been to like 10 Warped Tours! But now I guess we’ll have to see what kind of thing makes a move on Warped’s demographic.

LOL, Henry put so much effort into his Warped Tour outfit.

He was so funny on the way there that morning. Traffic was super backed up as we got closer to the exit for Key Bank Pavilion (will always be StarLake to me) and he was like, “Oh hell no” so he morphed into Professional Driver Henry and cut in front of every car sitting in mile-long Warped Tour traffic, drove over DO NOT CROSS lines, and slid right into a small opening in the front of the line and then said “I literally do not give a fuck.” He just wanted this day to be over, guys. It was actually super impressive.

Full disclosure, I had never heard of the band Lighterburns before but when I saw this sign, I screamed, “YES, I DO AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT” and promptly whipped out my credit card and by that I mean I had to chase after Henry who was pretending not to hear me and then shake him down for money because like why would I bring my own stuff lol.

Yeah, you do.

Anyway, after that I felt I would be remiss to not check out their set so I went back to the small stage that the lesser-known bands are relegated to, and I really liked them! I wish they had been able to accumulate a bigger crowd, but Warped Tour is a crapshoot like that sometimes. Anyway, here is one of their videos, go support them because they’re fighting the good fight.

Hahahahahahaha, probably my favorite picture from that day!

Chooch is too cool for the big slip-n-slide now I guess, even though he practically got pruned skin from the amount of time he spent in it at his first Warped Tour!

Seasoned veteran at age 12.

Since there were no must-see bands for me, I was able to meander about leisurely and just soak up the vibes, which actually was the best way for me to have closure. It was nice to just listen to all the screaming, get in some prime people-watching, and check out all the merch, like Choonimals! We of course bought their special edition Warped Tour design and said a sad goodbye to Chad, who takes Choonimals on the road with Warped Tour every year.

“This sucks, I feel like this part of the Warped Tour tradition for us, buying a Choonimals shirt,” I said to Chad and he admitted that he has no idea what he’s going to do with his summers now, but assured us that Warped Tour would still be around in some capacity. It sounds like it just not going to be a cross-country tour anymore, but that they will still have events. Maybe something like a west coast and east coast festival? I probably wouldn’t road trip for it, because I can’t imagine any bands in the scene right now inspiring me to travel, so this probably was my last Warped Tour.

Chad gave us all high-fives and thanked us for supporting the brand all these years. I’m not going to lie, I AM TEARING UP RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE THIS. Go check out Choonimals, their shirts are top-notch and the designs are just really great. I guess I’ll be buying all my future Choonimals online from now on, sigh.

Truth is always making people stop and play their dumb games which is right up Chooch’s alley. He always gets free shit from them every year and this time he played some stupid ninja game and chose yellow sunglasses as his prize because they reminded him of the $230 pair of Gentle Monsters that we wouldn’t buy him in Korea, lol, keep dreaming, kid.

Gonna miss sitting on this hill. Gonna miss these tents. Gonna miss the sunburn and the how amazing it feels to take a shower after enduring the heat all day. Apparently, it was so hot that day that the local EMS was calling it a “mass casualty incident” and it was all over the news. I had no idea about any of this, but it explains why three different people at work the next day were like, “I was so worried about you, there was a mass casualty incident!” and I was like, “Wow, how weird that all of these people are using the same word for it.

Then I found out that the singer of Waterparks, Awsten Knight, saw the news crew and ran over to give a statement, but he said he was Kyle Fletchers from December’s Tragedy and this is so fucking hilarious to me to think of people watching this and wondering if their kids like that band. Henry thought it was stupid but NO HENRY, YOU ARE STUPID.

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Warped Tour apparently made him a new tour badge after that, hahaha. Oh, Awsten. We fucking missed Waterparks because of how the schedule was jacked all day and they were honestly one of only 4 bands I had any desire to see that day.

We stuck around long enough to 3Oh!3’s first three songs, because it felt symbolic since they were at the first Warped Tour that Henry and I attended together in 2008 (10 years ago! in case you can’t do math). They were largely unknown at the time and I remember thinking at first, “These guys are stupid” but half a song in, I was trying to get them to play at my imaginary prom. I remember exactly what stage they played on that year too, it was one of the ones under the pavilion, where the smaller bands performed back then. Katy Perry performed on that stage that year too and they both exploded into the mainstream right after that. It was nuts.

So even though we were all super fucking hot, tired, and hungry, we stuck around long enough to see some of their songs (“Oh, I know who they are now!” Chooch cried almost immediately after he kept insisting that he didn’t) and then we all decided to throw in the towel by 7pm. I mean, I certainly didn’t want to stick around for shitty Falling In Reverse and I gave no shits about any other band playing after that anyway.

I thought I would be OK, but I still found myself stalling, knowing that once we exited those gates, that was it. The Book of Warped Tour was closed. I know it probably sounds like we had a not-great time, but the fact is that it was just right. I didn’t have high expectations going in so I wasn’t let down. I knew the line-up and wasn’t shocked that there wasn’t anyone I was dying to see. I bought all the merch I needed. None of us fought. Chooch spun wheels and won things, Henry fell asleep.

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It was enough for me. And it made me appreciate my new lifestyle even more, because I just connect with the Warped Tour stuff anymore and that’s OK. Maybe if they would have recreated the 2008 lineup, or the 2012 one, I would have been more stoked. There was a post-hardcore void, and it’s obvious that the kids are moving away from that genre, so it was another reason for me to make peace with the end of an era.

But I will tell you one thing, later that night, I lost all control of myself and started sobbing into Henry’s chest because it finally hit me. I know that this wasn’t something I did in my childhood, but it still had that feeling to it! Like it was some weird delayed coming-of-age moment for me, lol, I don’t know. Warped Tour was a big part of my life for many years and I will cherish those memories forever. But now I can fully embrace this new season of life I’m getting into, without having one foot stubbornly stuck in the old one.

Warped Tour, you will forever have a place in my heart. <3

Wow, just wow, I have been a mental mess. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to have conversations because my mind and mouth are suffering from an extreme disconnect, like get these two into a mediation stat, you know? This afternoon, I went over to talk to our new-ish admin person, Margie, about something and I could not for the life of me form a sentence. She was looking at me, like, “THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY TO ME, DEAR” and it was like we were lounging uncomfortably in the Black Lodge and I was showing her how sometimes my arms bend back. (Props if you get that reference.) The whole time, the coherent Erin that I hold hostage in my head was screaming “COME ON USE YOUR WORDS, ERIN. YOU CAN DO THIS.” And then I yelled at the admin lady for not immediately knowing what I was trying to say. YOU’VE BEEN HERE LONG ENOUGH NOW, MARGIE.

Also, I’ve been getting headaches lately, should I see a doctor don’t answer that I’m terrified of doctors and won’t go anyway HAHAHAlolUgh.

Anyway, here’s some five things for you to chew on.

1. When I was in middle school, I read a Lucille Ball biography and the only thing that stuck with me was that she had rheumatoid arthritis and to this day, I think that’s what I have anytime I have even the slightest twinge (or “twingle” as I originally typed) of pain. I literally can’t remember anything else that was in that book.

2. One of the IT guys at work yesterday was talking to me and out of the blue he blurted out, “Where’d you get that picture of Tony Stewart?” and I was like “WHO?” and then I realized he was talking about the painting of Tony Stewart that I’ve had on my desk for three years. “Oh, that thing? I painted it,” I said, and he was all “OMG!!1111” which made me laugh because I literally painted it as a joke one day when I was being my usual asshole self and latching on to an ESPN alert I received telling me that TONY STEWART KILLED A MAN. And then Henry got all White Knight-y about it so I took that to mean Henry loves Tony Stewart, so I painted him a picture of Tony one day while he was at the store and THEN HE DIDN’T WANT IT because he doesn’t appreciate me or my “art” so I took it to work and it has been on my desk ever since and now people who don’t know me think I like Nascar. Anyway, I told the IT guy that I painted it as a joke and he was like “OK crazy” and left.

SUB-THOUGHT: After this Tony Stewart revelation happened yesterday, my friend Alisha sent me a screenshot of her Facebook memory for that day because this is what my friends do now that I’m not on Facebook, send me screenshots, and this particular memory was from like 9 years ago when I did Blogathon, which was when people sponsored me to blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours for charity. (Hold up while I google Hashimoto’s Disease to see if I have that because people are talking about that on YouTube right now.) (I’m back, I think I probably don’t have that.) Anyway, Alisha came over during two Blogathons and let me torture her because she is a good friend so I decided to look up old pictures from Blogathon to send her in case she needed a trigger in her day, and the first one I found was a picture of a book page and without even looking I knew exactly that it was because I had become obsessed with the word MISCEGENATION and played the Dictionary.com pronunciation of it over and over and then found a way to make it my ringtone. So last night, after work, I randomly put my phone up to Henry’s ear and played the Dictionary.com soundbyte and he was like, “FUCK THAT WORD, FUCK IT RIGHT IN ITS ASS.” Dude barely remembers anything but HE WILL NEVER FORGET THAT WORD! Thanks for letting me share my obsessions.

3. You guys, if you ever wake up one day and think, “You know, my English-speaking self is really craving a good Korean drama to binge,” PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND WATCH “ARE YOU HUMAN TOO.” Henry and I are shook. We’re actually watching it in real-time (it’s still currently being aired in Korea) so we go through withdrawals after we finish the two new episodes that come out every week. Henry texted me Monday morning and said, “NEW EPISODE TODAY” and I was like, “Yeah no shit, I get alerts too, Henry.” God he always has to co-opt everything I love. But honestly, I feel actual heartache while I’m watching this show, which is about a robot, because the robot is the most perfect, sweetest thing of all time and I want a robot just like him OK FINE I JUST WANT SEO KANG JOON THE ACTOR WHO PLAYS HIM. YOU GOT ME. I keep trying to entice Lauren to watch it so I’ll have someone at work to talk about it with. Here is the trailer, get into it!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuVQXkx7eEE&t=5s

4. “It’s like someone poured a bunch of fat into a garbage bag and said, ‘OK, here’s Erin Kelly!'” I said sourly on my nightly walk with Henry today, because I am having A VERY BAD BODY DYSMORPHIC DAY and have been slinging my tagline “3-6-5-So-Fat*” much to Henry’s chagrin. Honestly, I am so trigger-prone lately. I saw a post on Instagram that was all “I’m not saying that thigh gaps are something to strive for BUT OMG LOOK AT MY THIGH GAP” and I was like, “Go fuck yourself. IN YOUR THIGH GAP. LITERALLY.” It sent me on a spiral and then I’m YouTubing crash diets and Henry’s all, “Look, I’m not a doctor but this military diet seems dangerous” and I’m like “I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU, NOW GO BOIL ME A FUCKING EGG WHILE I EAT THESE FIVE SALTINE CRACKERS, MOTHERFUCKER.”

*There’s a song called 365 Fresh so listen to it and then hear in your head me singing the words 365SoFat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gPQenyj1nI

• *Also on our walk I decided that the solution to all my problems is that I need to get into a good old-fashioned fist fight and Henry quickly and adamantly  opposed this. I wanted to start with the guy at the red light revving his Small Weener Car engine what a cocky motherfucker. I HATE GUYS WHO DO THAT.

5. It’s looking like we might be getting another department on our floor so some of us were talking about what that could mean and Amber was like YOU MIGHT HAVE TO TAKE DOWN THE GLENNS, and by that she means the various posterboards hanging up, displaying all of my Glenn-artistry when I used to print out sheets of his employee photo and turn it into recent dead celebs which I have since stopped doing since the end of 2016 because we lost so many Greats that year that it was just becoming too depressing. So then I had the idea that I could turn each individual Glenn into jewelry because Henry and I were just talking about how we (read: he) should start making pendants again. “AND THEN I CAN SELL THEM AT THE TABLE BY THE KITCHEN JUST LIKE GAYLE USED TO DO WITH HER BEAD JEWELRY!” Lauren, Amber, and Margie were like, “Wow. That is a great idea” but their facial muscles weren’t forming the appropriate gleeful expression that mine were. I filled in Glenn and said, “I’ll give you one for free, but you have to pay for any others you want” and then I walked away before he could kill my joy.

And this has been the Friday Fiver. Maybe this weekend I will do some shots and write the next great American novel but really it will just be a 2,000 word post about Warped Tour BOY WON’T YOU FEEL FOOLED.

Also the formatting on this is all out of wack but I assure you, I might have brain issues lately but I DO know how to count.

Remember in school when people would sign yearbooks with “R/M/A” and it was supposed to mean “remember me always” but everyone knew it really meant “rip my ass”? I am so close to waking Henry up right now to see if that was a thing when he was in school, back when there were one-room school houses with a wood-stove in the back and he walked over the river and through the woods, past the farmer in the dell, cardboard flapping under his feet and then sent a smoke signal to let his mommy know he made it ok. But I don’t think acronyms were invented yet back then.

Just something that’s been on my mind, guys.

Here is a song I like because there is one part, a split-second part, that reminds me of a song by a western pop singer that I really like and like I swear to god I will PayPal you like $5 maybe if you can guess it. #likelikelike Henry couldn’t. Chooch did right away.

On that note, time for my gin bath. Also, I broke my calf muscle today.

One of my stupid resolutions is always to “MAKE MORE PLANS” and “DO MORE THINGS” but fuck it, man, sometimes I just want to walk into a planless weekend and see what happens, you know what I’m saying? No expectations. And nothing is really all that enticing to me lately either, if we’re being honest. I knew that Picklesburgh was underway (the above picture is from my lunch break walk on Friday — the closest I got to that fuckarow of Yinzers) and while I appreciate the concept because I do love me some pickles and bizarre foods, my hatred of bridges* and crowds of people made it easy for me to say “baby bye bye bye” to that idea because CROWDS OF PEOPLE ON BRIDGES.

*(I make myself walk across a bridge once a week or so just to try and combat my fears. It helps a little bit but when I’m walking across a bridge, there are only like 20 other people also on the bridge. Not a horde.)

And to be honest, when I woke up on Saturday, I felt extremely unmotivated and dead inside. Nothing new, really, but the “fun Erin” was in there somewhere, cheering me on and telling me not to give up. I told her to shove her pom-poms up her ass and went back to watching Roommate.

Chooch is like, Mr. Brookline this summer and is never home anymore, so it was just me and the cats Saturday morning. But then Henry came home from work and I was like I WANT TO GO SHOPPING so we did that and I bought some new clothes and felt better about life and the weather was nice and Henry was being attentive. THIS IS ALL I WANT FROM LIFE.

LOL just kidding I want so much more.

At some point, Chooch came home with a FUCKING KAZOO that he found at Blake’s and NO ONE STOPPED HIM FROM TAKING IT, THANKS GUYS. He’s been annoying us with it ever since.

“Big Daddy’s going,” Chooch said out of the blue.

“Who’s Big Daddy!?” Henry and I asked in unison.

“Me,” he answered in a tone that implied we should have known that, and then scooted off into the sunset on his stupid scooter, kazoo in his pocket. That kid! He started hanging out at the Teen Center last week, a place that he formerly referred to as THE CULT. He texted me the other day and was like, “GUESS WHERE I AM, THE TEEN CENTER. THEY GOT ME!” But his friend Liam hangs out there and it seems like a really good place for kids, plus they provide snacks and stuff and that’s what it really boils down to. The other day, the snacks were Korean! He was so excited that he took a picture and posted it on Instagram.

“THEY HAD MILKIS!” he told me later, all excited. So random!

If he’s not at the teen center, then he’s at the library. One day, I was like, “Don’t forget your library card” and he goes, “Oh, I have it memorized. Yeah, I’m THAT kid.”

Getting a little off topic here but I love when we take our nightly strolls and he tells me about all the shit he did during the day. He has…some childhood.

Speaking of walks, he didn’t want to go to the cem with Henry and me later on that Saturday, which was FINE, go be your own person, Chooch.

:(

So then Henry and I pretended like we were on a date LOLOLOL.

Me: We need to have more skinship.

Henry: *tries to hold my hand*

Me: Ew don’t touch me!

It was a super nice day and Henry even listened to me when I talked to him about my struggles learning Korean and he was like, “Hey, I can barely speak* English, so…” I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse because hey, my boyfriend’s dumbz0rz.

*(Look, I’m one to talk. I can barely write English anymore.)

Then I played my favorite game called “What If I Walked Liked This?” where I do all kinds of weird walks to see if Henry gets embarrassed but he never does. I was getting super athletic with that day’s walk repertoire but then I had visions of landing wrong and breaking my ankle so I stopped doing that and went back to walking gingerly.

I’ve been playing this game since childhood and I never tire of the fun except that my aging body doesn’t allow me to do the “squatting rabbit” hop-walk for as long as I once could, le sigh.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out together at home and it was good, you know? Those guys really are my best friends but don’t tell them I said that.

Sunday morning started out with an egg white omelete and an early birthday present from my pal Maya – hanguel magnets! I’m still 11 and write my name all over notepads during work meetings or on restaurant placement (usually with variations of “Erin rulz”) so when I opened this package, I had my name spelled out on the fridge within 30 seconds. What a perfect way to merge my megolamania and K-love into one!

And then Chooch straight up screamed into his kazoo which had me flipping through the Yellow Pages a/k/a Yelp for a good orphanage or fire station to leave him. When we dropped him off at his piano lesson, he greeted Cheryl with a hearty kazoo-blow but she said she liked it because Chooch’s charms still work on her after all these years.

I wanted to walk around and look for help wanted signs for that stupod Job Spotter app I have (I have $50 in Amazon rewards so far!) and Henry was like, “This sucks, I hate doing this” only because he knows that eventually I’m going to find a mural for him to stand in front of. Pittsburgh surprisingly has a lot of street art. He doesn’t give me much time so I basically have to keep walking while I’m taking the picture. Look how happy he is in all of his drab colors! Tans and grays for days.

Then I got him to go inside the East Liberty Presbyterian Church with me! I’ve always wanted to go inside but never have, even after driving past it every day for two years when I worked at that old job with Eleanore and Tina (lol). I’d sit at red lights and admire it every day.

Usually Henry is like “N-O! THAT SPELLS NO!” when I’m like, “Go inside this spiritual thing” because he’s scared of church stuff. If I had to label myself as something under the God spectrum, I’d say I identify most with atheism. However, I used to be extremely religious as a kid (I eventually realized it was because I was treating it more of a history lesson, if that makes sense) and I actually do believe in the devil even though OMG you can’t have one without the other.

But man, the day my pappap died, I was done with God.

Hoo-boy, I could do some talking about that, but this is not the blog post for that. All I’m trying to say here is that I LOVE ME A GOOD CHURCH.

I’m known to openly weep in churches, I know that’s hard to believe because I’m so rotten.

Turns out this particular church is super progressive so that made me even happier that we were killing time there.

YES! The amount of time and energy some people expend bitching and worrying about another person’s gender makes me want to lose my mind.

After Chooch’s piano lesson, we went to nearby Mellon Park for a Caribbean festival! I follow this one guy on Instagram who makes vegan Puerto Rican cuisine, but only sells his food at various street markets and festivals, so I haven’t been able to catch him because going to things like that always sound a great idea until we get there and hipsters are mowing me down to get in line for kombucha. But then he posted a picture of BREADFRUIT and you know me and my strange fruit/vegetable palate. I needed this, and I was prepared to fight the Yinzeriest of all hipsters for a spot in line.

We parked across the street at Bakery Square, and Chooch was immediately distracted by a foosball table set up on the sidewalk because apparently he plays this at the cult, I mean, THE TEEN CENTER, and is like SO GOOD AT IT, you guys.

“I’m really good at foosball too,” Henry bragged, and Chooch and I were like, “OK yeah sure.”

“I played it all the time when I was in THE SERVICE!” Henry barked, like it suddenly put him on another foosball level because he had a crew-cut while playing it? “I PLAYED IT FOR FOUR YEARS!”

“You liar, you weren’t even in the SERVICE for four years because you went AWOL after three!” I laughed.

“IT WAS THREE YEARS AND EIGHT MONTHS AND I DIDN’T GO AWOL!” he cried all defensively. Oh god, this just doesn’t get old.

No one played foosball that day though.

The festival had only been going for about 90 minutes when we rolled up and luckily it wasn’t overly crowded yet. There were only about 8 people in line for the coveted SaludPgh stall, and I was happy about this. I hate waiting in line for food. Almost no food is worth waiting for me in my opinion. I GUESS I’M NOT A FOODIE. DELETE MY AUXILIARY FOOD BLOG. CANCEL MY FOOD REVIEW PODCAST.

Anyway, the guy behind SaludPgh is really nice and more importantly, awesome at making food. I didn’t know what most of things were on his menu and I truly didn’t care because I was there to give my palate some Puerto Rican culture. I love ethnic food so much, and even more so when it’s vegan.

Here’s what we got:

• picadillo/”beef” & ackee/plantain pastelillos – both of these were delicious but I think I liked the picadillo better. j/k I want both of them in my maw again.
• potato stuffing which was sweet and smoky, extremely hearty and satisfying, and I could see this being a good addition to any holiday dinner table or summer cookout. WHAT I’M SAYING IS THAT WE SHOULD BE CELEBRATING WITH THIS STUFFING.
• quimbombo! This is what I came for and that breadfruit was insanely good, kind of like a yam-ish….? But less dense/carb-y. WOW, MY FOOD BLOG IS REALLY GOING TO BE MISSED. Also, I’ve had a crush on okra since middle school. Hopefully his co-worker doesn’t find this and send it to him.
• arroz con gandules – I barely got to eat any of this because turns out Chooch imprinted on pigeon peas
• vegan pepper steak – even Henry was like, “You can barely tell this isn’t real meat” and I was just like, “Yeah” because I can’t remember what meat tastes like. This was very good and moist! When do I get to have this again?!

The verdict? A+, vegan Puerto Rican food is bomb. Pastelillos aside, everything else on that tray only cost $10 and it took three of us to finish it (Henry got his own $15 meat tray at some other booth for carnivores and I’ll just tell you now that Chooch’s and my tray was way more satisfying and varied and CHEAPER than Henry’s. And you better believe Henry bitched about that too, haha. Come over to our side, Henry! Dance under a shower of soy with us! Wear “animals are ppl too!” bracelets with us! Sacrifice a privileged white male under the full moon with us!

Chooch discovering a love for pastelillos. Look, this kid is the pickiest little bitch at the Picky Eater ball, but he was chowing on everything in that tray. I think Chooch found his favorite ethnic cuisine.

Later that evening, we went to Las Palmas in Beechview so I could get candy for work and then we stopped at that paletas joint again to try more flavs. I got red currant this time, Henry got chili mango, and Chooch went with the ice cream version of the walnut paleta I had last week.

The rest of the night was spent watching Taemin videos because my friend Veronica and I were messaging each other on IG about our favorites and then I screamed REALLY LOUD when Taemin ripped open his blazer in a video that I’ve seen a million times and Blake & Haley are now thinking about moving out from next door and I think one of my cats is moving out with them.

It was a great weekend and I was sad to see it end, but also happy that I was able to allow myself to have a good weekend. I’m trying not to be so hard on myself but shit, these last several months have been rough. But things aren’t so bad when you live with your besties, you know?

Drew and Penelope asked me to please take a break from posting about singers that I’ll never meet and give them the stage for once so here’s some pictures of them from over the weekend I guess.

Yawn.

Drew, being the Creep of the House on a Friday Night.

I can’t remember the last time they sat so close to each other!

Henry is the only one that the cats will lay on (unless it’s bedtime, then Penelope is making things as uncomfortable as possible for us….

there’s always that one cat, and she is it for us!). I think it’s because they know that he didn’t want cats. [Let me clarify: Henry likes cats but he didn’t really want to get another one after Marcy died (I didn’t either but you knew that), let alone TWO new cats; yet here we are!] Also, his belly must be super cozy for them.

Penelope, super pissed that Drew is on her man.

Well, now you’re up to speed on what the cats look like: the same.

I’m the most scared of any horror movie relating to possessions and the Devil so this dance was really great for me to watch alone before I go to bed.

(Henry won’t watch those kinds of movies AT ALL, what a crybaby.)

The dancing is such a huge reason why I got into Kpop. I took jazz for a year in elementary school and literally the only thing I could master was “step-ball-change” and it’s amazing that I’m able to even do Kpop cardio without tripping and falling – I mean, I legit punched myself and ripped some skin off my thumb yesterday while kickboxing lol such coordination.

This has been a random Sunday night post. Sweet dreams.

P.S. I still think Taemin is the best dancer.

Well guys, my last Warped Tour ever happened last Monday and even though I barely even have my pinky finger still dipped in that scene, it was extremely hard to say goodbye. Not ready to write about that yet as I’m still processing my feelings (#sodramatic #soErin) but I do want tell you about one of the standouts moments of the day for me!

It was in the low nineties that day so I decided to fuck trying to look good and just threw on shorts and my KpopX Fitness shirt because it’s one of the few white tank tops that I own and I wanted to stay as cool as possible. When we were waiting in line to get in, people were complimenting each other on their shirts because you know, you wear your favorite band shirt to Warped Tour and that’s how you make new friends. Henry joked that no one was going to care about my shirt because who wears a Kpop shirt to Warped Tour?

Hey, if I wasn’t so concerned about dying of heat stroke, I’d have worn my black G-Dragon tour shirt and given zero fucks about who cared!

Anyway, halfway through the day, Chooch and Henry were passed out on the hill and I decided to take that opportunity to walk around and soak up the Warped Tour atmosphere for one last time when I realized that With Confidence was about to come on the small Owly.fm stage.

I was in the middle of texting Henry to let him know what stage I was at when someone tapped my arm. Alarms immediately went off (see last post re: paranoid schizophrenia) because OMG HUMAN CONTACT. I quickly turned and saw a total stranger standing there because why would it be someone I actually knew, I have never run into anyone I know at Warped Tour because all of my friends are grown-ups.

So now I’m looking at this young guy-stranger, waiting for him to ask for a cigarette or directions because he thinks I’m Key Bank Pavilion staff, but instead he pointed at my shirt and asked, “What’s KpopX Fitness?”

This….was not what I was expecting to be asked. What was this guy’s agenda?! Was he going to try and sell me a Bible?! The Hare Krishnas usually love targeting people at Warped Tour.

“Do you know what kpop is?” I began, and he quickly waved me off.

“Yes, I know what kpop is, but what is kpop fitness?” he pressed.

So I explained it to him and he asked me how long I’ve been into that so now I’m to the point where alarms are still going off but now the paranoia police have arrived at the scene and I figured he was going to say, “WOW THAT LONG? THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL SO FAT?” but no, he then asked me what my favorite one was.

“Routine?” I asked. “Or kpop group?” I was still thoroughly ‘noided out, wondering what direction this conversation was headed, if he was in the process of pick-pocketing me or what.

When he said kpop group, I answered “BIGBANG” with no hesitation and asked him if he was into kpop too.

At this point, I was sure he was going to bullshit me with some vague answer or say BTS because everyone knows BTS now, but he said, “Mine is 2NE1 but lately I’ve been really into Black Pink.”

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Were there cameras on me? Was this guy real? Were we really talking about my favorite thing in the middle of my old favorite thing?!

“Oh OK! So you’re a YG guy then!” I said, my attitude totally changing and my real life personality oozing out from behind my perma-walls. This rarely happens anymore. It’s usually Stiff, Blank Erin all the way these days unless I’m with Henry and Chooch. It felt good and free to be myself in that moment!

“I just bought a CL shirt yesterday, she’s my bae,” he said and I was like OK THIS GUY IS THE REAL DEAL. So we talked about how CL is going to be in an American movie that’s coming out later this year, and how our friends make fun of us for liking Kpop, and I told him about running into Super Junior on the streets of NYC (“HOLY SHIT, that doesn’t happen!” he said, and I was like, “I know, that’s what I was trying to tell my friends!”), and how we both fell in love with Kpop in spite of our metal/hardcore loyalties.

And then With Confidence started their set, so we said goodbye and he ran back over to his friends while I stood alone in the crowd, smiling to myself while raindrops started to fall, fully appreciating the symbolism of this whole scene that just played out. The door might be closing on my Warped Tour chapter, but now I have a brand new world to immerse myself in and new connections to make.

That’s pretty exciting.

When I found Henry and Chooch later, I excitedly told them about how I made new friend.

“What’s his name?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.

“Then you didn’t make a friend!” he sneered.

UGH SHUT UP HENRY YES I DID.

Can we pretend like we’re besties on a telephone call? OK great! I’ll let you talk in a minute (x87).

This week has been extremely draining. It all started Monday with Warped Tour which was exhausting for a myriad of reasons (it was so hot that day that there were mass casualty plans in effect, apparently) and I just never really regained any of my mental stamina after that. I’ve just been in some frustrating post-Warped Tour fugue state that I’m hoping to finally shake today.

This week wasn’t bad at all by any means though. There were so many awesome comebacks in the Kpop world — they do things a bit differently over there and release several small albums a year, each one paired with a comeback which means: at least one new music video, fan engagements, promotions (making their rounds on all of the weekly music countdown shows), and if we’re lucky – appearances on variety shows!

This week has given us new Triple H (Henry’s review of this was “How has Hyuna not gotten kicked out of Korea by now?” Lol #provocative), Chungha, Ashley, Hyolyn, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: The Great Seungri, BIGBANG’s maknae! His first solo comeback in 5 years is happening right now and you better believe I woke up before the alarm to watch his video and it’s safe to say that it was worth the wait! It’s so different from everything else out there right now and the video is just crammed with that Seungri charm. I love him! I miss BIGBANG so much (the other 4 members are in the army) so this made my heart swell. Thank you, Seungri. You did well!

Here, watch this. HEY, YOU ANSWERED THE PHONE WHEN I CALLED SO JUST FUCKING WATCH THIS WITH ME NOW, UGH:

I just want to share all of the videos on here but I will abstain. I should probably just start a separate music blog at some point so you guys don’t have to have this stuff shoved in your faces anymore; 11 years of post-hardcore, screamo, and sadboy music, and now this!

What else has been happening this week…Oh! I had an annoying trolley experience yesterday after a fairly decent streak of non-issues. But then yesterday, some delusional dad had his kid on the trolley IN SOME TYPE OF OBNOXIOUS TRICYCLE THING.

WITH A BELL.

THE OBNOXIOUS TRICYCLE THING HAD A BELL.

Now, I’m of the mindset that children shouldn’t be allowed on the trolley at all, so you can imagine how incensed I was when that little fucker started RINGING HIS BELL. It was the really loud, alarming kind that’s like TRRRRRRRRRRRING! TRRRRRRRRRRRRING! all metallically. I found myself sitting there, all tense and clenched, bracing for the next ring which actually made the base of my skull ache. It sounded worse than the sound of the imaginary rotary phone that rang when I called you.

Halfway to work, some dumb bitch got on the trolley and sat across from Dipshit Dad and Tricycle Tot.

“OH THAT’S A GREAT BIKE YOU HAVE,” she croaked in a typical Yinzer accent around 50 years of nicotine buildup. “WHY DON’T YOU RING THAT BELL” and to the imaginary friends in my head (not you, the other ones), I asked, “Is there a camera on me? Is my whole fucking life just one episode of Punked now?! AM I MAKING ASHTON KUTCHER RELEVANT AGAIN?!”

So this bitch keeps making the kid ding the damn bell and I’m like internalizing seizures three seats away to the point where I got off FOUR STOPS EARLY AND WALKED ACROSS A FUCKING BRIDGE just to get away from the insanity. I called Henry and he was like, “WHAT? WHAT’S WRONG!” and then I started screaming about how bad my day was going and he was like, “Oh.”

MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE JUST CALLED YOU INSTEAD.

And I had my big water jug in my bag for all of this so my shoulder felt terrific.

Oh, how’s my jug, you’re wondering? Let’s talk about that! I’m still chugging that  물* hard, y’all.

*(Korean for “water.” Thanks for not laughing at my pronunciation.) 

Today is our precious maknae Taemin’s birthday and I would be remiss if I didn’t take some time out of my dumb day to honor him because he has brought a great surplus of joy into my life. (Just watching video compilations of him laughing has been known to greatly improve my mood!) Technically, his birthday is over, but it’s still July 18 here in America so let the celebration continue, I say!

Today, I wore my Taemin socks to work! Carrie thought they were cute. Glenn said I need help.

In case you didn’t know, Taemin is my #2 bias (he’s been doing a great job at filling the void in my heart while G-Dragon is in the military) and he’s in my second favorite Kpop group, SHINee. He was just a baby when they debuted in 2008!

But he somehow grew up to be so dreamy! (That’s literally what Amber called him when I made my group watch a Taemin solo video in honor of his special day, lol, I think she may have been being sarcastic though…..)

I was in a great mood all day! Then I came home and saw that Henry actually went to the store and bought ingredients to bake the Korean cream cake I sent him a recipe for, begging for him to bake it for Taemin’s birthday.

“JUST WHAT I WANT TO DO, WORK ALL DAY, COME HOME AND MAKE YOU DINNER, THEN BAKE A CAKE!” Henry yelled.

So I made my own dinner to help him out! (Cereal and peanut butter toast lol.)

Look at him! Isn’t he the greatest Kpop ahjussi or what!? Oh, the fun we have.

I can’t believe he actually did this for me, I mean, for Taemin. He didn’t even get too surly about it—did I finally break him!?

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“Now what?” Henry asked after I blew out the candles. Um, obviously we’re gonna eat the damn thing! It turned out really good, too! Henry is the best housewife, you guys. I mean, what CAN’T he do.

(I’ll answer so you don’t have to: PROPOSE.)

Henry took some pieces over for Blake and Haley. “Did you tell him it’s for Taemin’s birthday?” I asked hungrily.

“Yes, Erin,” he sighed.

“Yeah but, did you specifically say Taemin, or just ‘some Korean guy’?” I pressed on.

“I said Taemin,” Henry said through the web of slumber over his face.

“Well did Blake even wish him a happy birthday?!” I cried, and Henry was like, “*no comment*”

6v6 is the emoticon that represents Taemin; all the members of SHINee have one.

Idol worship is so weird, I know, but it sure does make life fun. It’s nice to have things to celebrate. What a fun Wednesday night!

After a casual dinner at the Village Diner in South Orange and ice cream at Carvel’s…OK wait, I have to stop here and elaborate on Carvel’s for a quick sec. Here in Pittsburgh, I’m so used to getting gigantic scoops at all of our ice cream parlors, so when I ordered my Kit Kat ice cream, I asked for just one scoop in my sugar cone and what the old broad behind the counter gave me was the equivalent of Baby’s First Ice Cream Cone. I mean, when you say “one scoop” in Newark, they take it to heart and flick off any extra curls that might be try’na crown that dome of frozen dessert. Such a puny little ball of ice cream, the girth was barely enough to keep it from slipping inside of the cone. I was SO SAD and SO UNSATISFIED by the time I finished it but in hindsight this was probably a good thing because I’m the Queen of Eating Until Sick.

We should have went to Cold Stone which was next door to the Village Diner but who wants to go somewhere that’s also in their hometown!? Before we go back to Newark in September (ughhh) I’m going to spend at least a week researching ice cream places because this is just dumb.

Anyway, Henry dropped us off at the Prudential Center after that and this time we found that the lines were more organized but it still took FOREVER to get inside and somehow we picked the slowest-moving line as usual! I spent most of the time internalizing the fact that the barcodes on our ticket print-outs were smudged but spoiler alert – we got in.

The best part of the line-standing experience was that one of the staff-ladies (I actually remembered her from last year when I was in line for one of the fan engagements!) was so sweet and helped this lost girl reunite with her friends, who had her ticket. She even went inside the Prudential Center and came out with a megaphone! Then while she was up on a railing with her megaphone, she pointed out a burly tattooed biker dad in line,  and said, “And shout out to all the parents out there who brought you guys here today. Yeah, I saw them, saving your spots in the hi-touch lines while ya’ll were out there running around doing stuff and then you came back and STILL complained! Don’t bite the hands that feed you, kids!” Chooch looked at me and said, “Yeah, I’M doing this for YOU.”

Lol, get over yourself Chooch. You’re deep in this k-game too.

Even being in a shorter line this time, we were somehow even LATER getting inside. I thought for sure we were going to miss the preshow, but we JUST made it to our seats, and happily, the annoying warbler wasn’t behind us this time!

During the preshow, the two winners of the Asiana tickets to Korea came out on stage with their big fake Publisher Clearinghouse-esque checks and I was so happy because they were both Korean guys in their early 20s. The girls that won last year were white and annoying, so it warmed my heart to see two guys who both said they were excited to go to Korea and see relatives that they haven’t seen in decades.

And, of course, eat.

Someone in the crowd screamed, “Are you single?!” when the first guy was introducing himself. He said no, but the when the second guy introduced himself, he tacked on, “…and I AM single.” Everyone was cracking up and Chooch nudged me like, “go get ’em.” Lol.

The host asked them what they were most looking forward to eating in Korea, and the first guy said, “Well, it’s something that I see in all of the Korean dramas….Subway.”

It couldn’t have been any funnier if it was scripted! Danny Lim, the preshow host, was like, “You guys could take my job!”

Then the show started! This was the lineup for Night Two:

1. Golden Child
2. Fromis_9
3. EXID
4. NCT127
5. Wanna One

Chooch was oddly fixated on Golden Child all weekend (“Is that Golden Child? Is this Golden Child? Put on Golden Child.”) but I was most excited for EXID and NCT127. As per usual, all groups delivered! Let’s get started with a quick recap because KCON is already two weeks out at this point and I need to stop procrastinating or like, quit my job so I have more time.

(JUST KIDDING, JOB, I LOVE YOU.)

• Golden Child: All I knew about them preceding KCON was that they were on Weekly Idol once with Weki Meki and they were competing to see which group had the most flexible member?! They’re a young, rookie group – it hasn’t even been a year since their debut, and I only knew one of their songs which is total bubblegum pop so I was not expecting them to come out so strong like this!

They were fun! Chooch really imprinted on them though and said that they were one of his favorites of KCON. Big praise from Kpop critic Chooch!

• Fromis_9: When this girl group was originally announced, I was underwhelmed. But then sometime after that, they had a comeback with DKDK and I was like, “OK I GET IT, I AM CERTIFIABLY CAPTIVATED BY THEIR CHARMS. Plus, their video features a giant cat!? I gave them some love on here a month ago, so we’ll skip the formalities and get right to the video:

THEIR DRESSES! These girls are like the posterchildren for what I think the general conception of Kpop is: frilly, cheesy, feel-good bubblegum pop. That’s not a bad thing to have in your life here and there, you know? It’s good to chip some of the ice off the ol’ heart sometimes!

Before I get to EXID, I want to talk about the special stage for this night, which featured a solo performance by LE of EXID and 3 members of NCT performing Whiplash, which I didn’t realize until after the fact, but that was the first time they performed that song live! Also this video isn’t one of the official KCON videos so it adds some hysteric audience flavor, if you know what I mean.

• EXID: When I first got into kpop through kpop cardio, I listened to girl groups almost exclusively. My favorite routines back then were to songs by 4Minute, 2NE1, Red Velvet, Girl’s Generation, Orange Caramel, and EXID, so when I started listening to kpop outside of those workouts, those were the groups I gravitated to. I especially loved the song Up & Down by EXID, and then when I saw the video for it, I was like, “SOLD.” It was so weird and just my style: super fun, bright colors, animal masks, with bizarre things slipped in, like a thumbtack on a tongue. I was so excited when EXID was announced for KCON because I’ve loved everything about then since that Up & Down video. They’re actually a five-member group but their leader has been sitting things out for the last year and a half while recovering from hyperthyroidism. She recently announced though that she’s been learning the new choreo and hopes to comeback very soon!

An interesting story about this song is that when EXID debuted it on the music countdown shows, it apparently flopped. But then someone posted a video that just focused on Hani (my EXID bias) and it went viral, so they got a second chance and it dominated the charts after that!

I screamed like a little girl for them! “Lady” is SUCH a 90s throwback, major TLC vibes for me and I just want to go back in time and not toss all of my yo-girl outfits because every time I hear this song, I want to put on my Cross Colours bodysuit and Karl Kani jeans and walk around downtown.

• NCT 127: Well, you guys I had so much shit written on here for NCT and Wanna One and thought that I published this on Saturday but for some reason I came on here today, saw that it was still a draft, and everything I wrote after EXID was gone OH WAIT I KNOW WHY BECAUSE WORDPRESS IS A PIECE OF SHIT. So, sorry if the rest of this post comes off as uninspired (lol, like that would be any different than anything else on here!) but I just came home from Warped Tour and instead of relaxing I’m apparently now going to spend the rest of my night writing a bunch of words that no one will read anyway but my blogging OCD will not let me leave this alone. SO HERE WE GO. NCT 127 are poised to be the Next Big Thing in Kpop Crossover, I really do believe this. Chooch and I saw them last year too and they just blew us away with their dance formations, visuals, and bass-laden bops. So we were really looking forward to them (Chooch’s eardrums notsomuch though!). First though, here is a really artsy and aesthetically-pleasing video to introduce you to all of the members:

They played my favorite Cherry Bomb but I already posted that last year, so instead, here’s their strong into and new’ish song “Touch,” which shows their more playful side:

• Wanna One: When we were in Korea, I definitely noticed that Wanna One was just as big as BTS and EXO, if not even more popular at the moment. You couldn’t walk a block without hearing one of their songs blasting out of a store, or seeing candy bars with their faces emblazoned on the wrappers in convenience stores, or notice huge Wanna One billboards in the subway stations. They are the product of a music survival show called Produce 101 (GET IT? WANNA ONE?! Season One produced a girl group called IOI, GET IT?!) and the unique thing about this show is that the groups have a short lifespan of about a year. It’s basically to help them get their name out there in the industry and all of the girls from IOI have gone on to other projects so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Wanna One is nearing the end of their contract so Chooch and I felt lucky that we got to see them. I hope that they all have successful careers post-Wanna One! Here is my favorite song by them and I love the dance move they do when they sing “do you feel the same” – I dare you to not be won over by their beautiful suited bodies, catchy songs, and imprint-worthy Kang Daniel.

After Wanna One, all of the groups came out for the “freeing of the confetti” and we all screamed out throats raw to show them how much America loves them.

And that’s a wrap for KCON 2018. I can’t tell you enough how happy kpop makes me and I’m so grateful that KCON exists so that we get an opportunity to see so many great artists all in one weekend. It’s hard to feel alone when I’m with tens of thousands of other people who love this scene as much as I do!

Then Henry was mad because he wanted us to take a Lyft back to the creepy hotel but I was like, “YOU SAID YOU WOULD COME GET US I DON’T UNDERSTAND” and he was all, “OK BUT IF I LOSE MY PARKING SPOT YOU’RE DEAD” maybe he didn’t say “you’re dead” but it was some similar empty threat, and then there he was, obediently waiting for us after the concert and we excitedly told him every single detail of the night and I could tell he was sad that he missed it. Maybe if KCON wasn’t so fucking expensive, Henry could actually go to the concert too! (Henry really does like kpop, sorry to shatter any misconceptions. He apparently now stans MAMAMOO because all of their videos were playing one night and he got sucked in because that’s how kpop works.)

Dear e-diary,

Remember how I wanted to walk to the new-ish paleteria in Beechview on Friday to get some refreshing paletas, but then I ended up puking all day instead? Well, you’ll be happy to know that my own person doctor, Henry, diagnosed me with a 24-hour stomach bug and I felt A-OK when I woke up on Saturday! Which meant a Mexican popsicle celebration, naturally.

Here is a short review.

It was something like 90 degrees on Saturday and humid as the air between Trump’s ears, but I insisted that Henry and Chooch walk, not drive, to Alquisiras, where we would then be rewarded with an array of delightful Mexican flavors in frozen form. Chooch brought his scooter and I hate that thing so much but whatever.

It’s only about a 20 minute walk to Beechview, but if you take the longer way it’s all level. Henry argued with me about this and I was like, “Look motherfucker, if you want to be walking up steep ass motherfucking Pittsburgh hills*, be my guest, but I’ll take the nice leisurely route and get there 5 minutes after you.” He can’t bear to be without me, and Chooch was like OH, I’M NOT LUGGING THIS SCOOTER UP A HILL, so it was MY WAY OR NO WAY.

*(Hey, San Fran, I’ll see you out there with your steep-ass fucking streets but Pittsburgh has the country’s** steepest street of all time, so stop hogging our limelight.)

**(Some people claim it’s the steepest in the world, but I think I read there is street in New Zealand that actually holds that record.)

There were so many paletas to choose from and it was a legit struggle. I kept going back and forth between walnut, chili mango, and red currant, but I eventually asked Walnut to mouth-prom because I love nuts, man. It was SO GOOD too but now I’ll just have to go back and try all the other flavors and I can’t really be mad about that.

Chooch got strawberries and cream and was clearly so ready for this picture.

Henry was like, “I’ll just stick with ice cream because I’m square.” He chose pistachio (always a good choice) but then whined later that he wished he had gotten a paleta instead so I guess we have to bring him back with us next weekend, ugh.

Prince of posing in front of murals.

Other things happened on Saturday too, but the one thing that stands out the most is that Henry proved that HE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW ME AT ALL. We were getting ready for bed that night, totally exhausted from a really good Kpop Kardio hour and lots of subtitle-reading (we started watching Roommate because a new episode of Are You Human Too hadn’t yet been released and we needed our Seo Kang Joon fix and by “we” and “our” you know I mean “Henry” and “his.”). We had the a/c on in our room but it was still kind of muggy in there and I was complaining about how I was too hot.

“Well, you’re under the covers.

Take the covers off,” he suggested like I hadn’t already considered this!?

“Yeah, I can do that a little bit but you know I how I have to have my feet covered at all times,” I said.

“……no?” Henry answered with hesitation in his voice.

“Yes you do!” I cried. “Like, everyone knows that about me.” And when Henry didn’t answer, probably because he was flipping through the Rolodex of Erin’s Issues in his head, I tried to help him by dropping clues. “You know, because I don’t want to get my feet lopped off…”

“WHAT?!” he yelled. “By who!?”

“The man with the sickle!” I yelled back, like how was this news to him?! I’m sure I even mentioned this on LiveJournal before and I KNOW I have discussed this with some of my work friends too.

“Oh my god,” Henry sighed. “I don’t even want to know.”

I was so offended that this wasn’t one of those super important facts that he seared into his brain, but I still gave him the run-down about how ever since I was in second grade and we moved into our new house on Gillcrest, I was always terrified to look out of my bedroom window at night because it faced the backyard which was surrounded by woods and our neighbors’ tennis court that was always illuminated just enough at night to make the shadows come to life in ones mind, and I would sneak peeks out the window and swear that someone would be out there, creeping around in the backyard, waiting for me to fall asleep with my feet outside of the blanket so he could lop them off with his sickle and run away with them in a sack slung over his shoulder.

“It’s the same reason why I would always stand at my door, run and leap into my bed at night, so I wouldn’t be standing close enough for the man under my bed to grab my ankles,” I told Henry.

I think he was sleeping by then though.

But yeah, nearly 39 years old and I will never succumb to the man with the sickle! YOU’LL NEVER GET MY FEET, MOTHERFUCKER. Take Henry’s.

Let me give you a run-down on how my day is going: it’s 4:30PM and I only have 1,015 steps.

And no, it’s not because I’m on a plane to Seoul.

Today is my work-from-home late shift day which I always get giddy about the night before. I get to sleep in! (I never do though.) I can go out for breakfast! (Usually just stay home and have a bagel.) I can exercise my face off! (This is actually realistic.) Now that it’s summer and Chooch is around, I thought it would be fun to walk to the paleteria in Beechview and go hog-wild on some exotic popsicles while supporting our local Mexicans (#FuckICE #NotThePopsicleKindsThough).

But then I woke up with a stomach bug and spent all morning puking/sleeping/puking/whining/sleeping/shivering/crying/puking/shaking – you get the idea. And then I had to log on to work where I was met with several disasters from the night before and then I cried some more and had to run upstairs and puke up the piece of bread I stupidly ate in an effort to calm my stomach.

Chooch was like, “Hey mum, I feel really bad and all, but um, I’m going to go the library, don’t die.”

Can I pause here to say that I don’t understand why, if he calls me “mum,” he doesn’t call Henry “dud.”

Well, I typed all of this will feeble fingers just to say that all I have the mental endurance for right now is sharing some pictures of my cats who are the worst because they didn’t care about me AT ALL when I was vomiting and then I started crying because I miss my cat Marcy who, even though she hated me, would always sit outside of the bathroom while I puked and I’m sure it was mostly just because she wanted to be as close as possible to see me suffering/ensure that her wicked spell was working, but the point is, she was THERE and then I imagined holding her and for a split second I could FEEL her in my arms and then I just started bawling in bed and texted Henry, “I miss Marcy” and he said he knew exactly why.

Stop acting like you know things, Hank.

But yeah, here are pictures of Drew and Penelope from the other night when they were on Fly Watch and Drew was doing all these fancy circus-quality high jumps and flips in the air in an attempt to catch one, and then all Penelope did was clumsily bat a fly out of the air, smash it under her paw, and then eat it.

Drew was so mad.

Sometimes you just have to go the rudimentary route, you know.

This was after Penelope feasted on her game.

Pouting, lol.

Well that’s all for me. The one bright side is that this happened while I was at home and not sitting behind Carrie at work. YOU’RE WELCOME CARRIE. Aren’t I thoughtful co-worker?!

#vomit

P.S. Back when I was on LiveJournal i knew someone who always put “vomit” spelled backwards in asterisks and now I feel compelled to bring that back.

*timov*

WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT OF THAT THO?!

Even though my feelings toward the scene are less than favorable these days, the sadness of this being the last Warped Tour has finally started to set in and I started to cry about it last night, haha. Seriously, to just get through one day without being so stupidly sentimental!

It’s weird to think of a Warped-less summer when it’s been such a big part of my life for over 10 years. The first one I went to was in 2000 and it was pretty terrible, to be honest. It was in a much smaller venue and I only really cared about seeing AFI, and to be fair, it was actually legitimate punk bands that played back then.

And hilariously, I have never really been into punk.

Then I was supposed to meet Christina at the Columbus, OH date in 2005 but we had a fight or I was suicidal or just having a non-life-threatening mood swing, who knows – 2005 was a disastrous year for me. So I didn’t go and she took her sister instead, I think. The next year, I went with her to the one in her hometown of Cincinnati and it was OK. I was still blogging on LiveJournal back then but all I wrote about was how the engine blew in my fucking car on the way home, so that tells you a lot about how I feel about that particular Warped Tour, lol.

It wasn’t until the next year, 2008, when it started to really feel like Christmas in July for me. I think Christina was supposed to come here for that one but we had a fight or god only knows, so Henry ended up going with me at the last minute and you guys, we had SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER. OK, I’ll rephrase that: I HAD SO MUCH FUN WATCHING HENRY SCOWL AT SCENE KIDS. And ever since that day there was a decree that we would go to every Warped Tour together and you bet your pretty god-given ass that he tries to get out of it every year.

Especially since Chooch started going with us. Then it became, “Why do I still have to go to this? Why can’t I just you guys off at the kids drop-off zone? This is so dumb.” But it’s a FAMILY TRADITION, you guys. And next Monday will be the very last one.

Even though it’s changed so much over the years (hate me all you want, but I miss the neon years of 2007-2011, where the scene queens’ cat-eyes melted down their sweaty faces and their cotton candy hair sizzled and frizzled under the sun. I miss only being able to see one eye on every scene kid with side-swooped fringe bangs. But most of all, I miss the glory days of Pierce the Veil, Chiodos, Emarosa, and Armor for Sleep.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite Warped Tour photos here. I OWN THIS SPACE SO WHY NOT. I mean, I hope that’s OK! Let’s look at them together. We’ll start with 2008 because in my heart, that’s when the magic of Warped Tour truly started for me. *tear*

First let’s start with my collection of commemorative holographic tickets! Henry hates that I pay extra for this every year lol. I don’t have one for 2007 or 2008 which makes me feel like they probably hadn’t started doing that yet, and curiously 2013 doesn’t have one either. I thought maybe I lost it but then I obsessively googled (me, obsessively doing something on the Internet? lol) and I don’t think there was one that year.

And see that one round? FUNNY NOT FUNNG STORY I bought the special Xmas presale bundle for that year’s Warped. It came with socks (haha) and an ornament, which ended up being that round thing up there. The collectors ticket was supposed to be mailed later on, closer to summer. Except when my ticket came IT WAS A NORMAL ONE. I flipped out and started sending emails at which point I was told they had “run out” of the special tickets but anyone who didn’t get one could just bring that ornament (which actually was flat and the same thickness as the tickets are) to use as the “skip the line” but I was like THAT IS NOT WHY I PAY EXTRA FOR THESE TICKETS IT IS LITERALLY BECAUSE I LIKE HAVING THE TICKET so they were like “stop crying child and contact us after Warped Tour. We will see if we have any extras for you” and I was like “DONT THINK I WILL FORGET.”

I didn’t forget. I emailed as soon as Warped Tour was done and was like WHERE IS MY EXTRA TICKET and no one ever responded. WOW.

So of course every time I look at these tickets, that’s the first thing I think about and I feel SICK because I probably have OCD ok. Send one of the Pretty Little Liars to steal my medical records, why don’t you.

2008 Snaps, taken with my Blackberry Curve, I think lol:

My first time seeing Pierce the Veil <3

Blake came to Warped Tour with us that year and it was a bucketload of fun. I’m talking an entire gin-filled bathtub of fun.

2009 Pics:

RIP Scene Queens. :(

2010 Pho-Toes:

I think was when I started bringing my DSLR but I was still posting super small pictures back then so what did it even matter, lol.

I have this picture of Vic Fuentes framed on my wall <3

PAHAHAHAHA Jonny Shitbag Craig.

2011 Picalicktures:

Henry’s brethren. I interviewed Henry about Warped Tour that year and you can read that here if you want, lol. 

Austin Carlile, formerly of Of Mice & Men. Their sets always gave me life.

2012 Photographs:

Lol.

This was the year Henry wrote his own Warped Tour blog post!

2013 Visual Relics:

The year Chooch started going with us!

2014 Still Life:

Chooch got sick on this day, unrelated to Warped Tour. He ended up having an ear infection (I think? I CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF ALL OF HIS AILMENTS) and about two hours in, the fever set in. He didn’t want to leave until he got to see his favorite band, The Summer Set, so we had to stay until around 5:00 or 6:00.

They took copious breaks.

Chooch with The Summer Set, delirious but smiling!

2015 Mementos:

Hands Like Houses <3

Chooch and Lynn Gunn from PVRIS! Chooch had recently fallen off his bike or something, again I DON’T KEEP AN ACCIDENT AND AILMENT LOG just haunted house journals and this piece of shit diary, and went to Warped Tour looking totally hardcore with his scraped chin.

Wardrobe change.

One of my favorite Warped Tour moments of all time, I’ll never get over this.

2016 Images:

Man, I’m going to miss that ol’ granddaddy Inflatable. It was tradition to run straight for it as soon as we made it through the gates, even though you could buy the schedule for like $1 or two. Henry always did that while I Gumped my way to the inflatable to scan it for all my favorite bands in a panic because so much heartbreak happened here! This is you would be faced with DECISIONS when there were inevitable overlaps with the bands you wanted to see. WHO WOULD GET SACRIFICED?!

Ugh, my stomach hurts just thinking about all the hard choices I had to make while standing in front of that damn thing.

Chooch always does a wardrobe change at Warped Tour. God forbid we buy him a shirt there and he waits until the next day to wear it. Here he is with Bradley, who was once again responsible for making this the best day ever. 

2017 Frozen Visions:

Chooch is in love with Jule Vera.

Henry giving directions, his favorite pasttime!

One of Chooch’s teachers was so excited that he met Gwar. I can’t imagine any of the teachers at his old Catholic school being excited about that unless we met “excited” in the sense that they were excited to help him purge his sins.

***

I could go on and on but no one has time for that so I will end it here and try not to think too much about how this coming Monday will be my last chance to make Warped memories. I thought I was OK with this but MAYBE I’M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE!?