This week felt like it was never going to end, OMG, I’m the first person ever to feel that way, I know. But now it’s Friday, I wore jeans to work, I had a seat to myself on the trolley – life’s alright. Here are five things that have been going on in my “alright” life, and none of them involve amusement parks but DON”T WORRY – I went to Kennywood on Sunday so that post will be coming up soon, hahahahahalolololugh.

1. Gifts from Gayle

It’s hard to believe that we already passed the one year mark since Gayle left The Law Firm but we all still talk about how we miss her. Me especially because she always brought me tokens of appreciation and it was clear she idol-worshiped me (right Gayle? Don’t deny it). Anyway, several co-workers saw her last week, and she gave them this blingin’ frog ring to bring back to me! (Please ignore my shitty nail polish job. It’s always so dark in our dumb house because Henry won’t put on his electrician belt and install an actual ceiling light in our living room so we have two swag lamps and one stupid floor lamp that is 90% useless so I’m painting my nails in the near-dark with eyes that don’t see well to begin with and wow I just typed a lot of words about my nails and the lighting issues in our house, I’m just that  kind of blogger, should I put ads on my site now too?)

People at work were a mixture of jealous and vomitous because let’s just say some people here don’t like it when I’m favored, haha.

2. Polenta & Envelopes

As a belated birthday thing, I went out to dinner last Saturday with Barb, Jeannie, Wendy and Summer. I let Twitter choose where we were going to go and my friend Lindsay recommended Girasole which is Italian so I figured that would be a safe bet for a collection of varying palates. I was excited because polenta was an option and if you are a LONG TIME READER you might remember when polenta and I went through an intense heavy-petting stage back in, oh, 2007 or 2008. I can’t remember how it started (maybe I should become a long time reader and find out) but Henry was churning out all kinds of polenta-y goodness for me and my co-workers (different job then) were like, “When will it end.”

So I ordered the polenta and, well, I was underwhelmed. I mean, it was delicious! But it wasn’t “writing home from my birthday dinner” levels of amaze, if you know what I mean. In fact, it tasted pretty much like the polenta Henry used to make, but when I told him that, he was like, “Wow,” because the way I said it made it sound like I was disappointed because it tasted like he cooked my dinner and not like I was complimenting him for cooking a dish on the same levels as some super-beloved Italian spot.

I think I just had order-remorse because Wendy and Barb both got pasta dishes that looked so great and Jeannie had a fish special which made me crave seafood, but whatever, I also had a peach bellini and a slice of fucking fantastic lemon cake so that made up for it.

Meanwhile, during dinner, the subject of my cards came up because I gave Summer one of my Hello Hanguk business cards so that the beautiful kpop idols on it could keep her distracted because that’s just what every 3-year-old wants to do, be stuck at a restaurant with her mom’s dumb friends. Barb said, “I think it’s so funny that you’re just now starting to offer envelopes with your cards” and I was like, “OMG that’s just a joke, I’ve always offered envelopes!” and now I’m wondering if other people think the same thing?!

The reason I put such faux-emphasis on the envelope portion of my Etsy listings is because when I first selling cards, I never mentioned that they came with an envelope because I felt that it was implied, but then I got several inquiries, like, “Does this card come with envelope or nah?” and it just became a schtick after that, purely for my own benefit of course. For example, “This educational card comes with an envelope, because the last time I tried to mail something in an eggshell, it never made it.” And on my Patty Hearst card: “Comes with an envelope that can be fashioned into a beret with some intermediate Origami skill and an unruly imagination.” It’s honestly my favorite part about creating Etsy listings!

3. Poor Lidding

Yesterday, when I was walking into work, I noticed that I had a wet spot on the thigh of my jeans, and then once I got to my desk, I realized it was because THE FOOD HENRY GAVE ME WAS LEAKING INSIDE MY WORK BAG!!!! I put the plastic bag down on my desk and pool of broth immediately formed, so then I had to cautiously carry the bag into the kitchen, drop it in the kitchen sink, and rinse all the containers off I WAS SO ANGRY! Goddamn you, Henry! Luckily, my container of watermelon was unscathed, but the culprit was the ramen he made me before I left for work so now there was no broth left and that’s when I realized that this happened because HE PUT THE WRONG LID ON IT! How did he make a mistake like this when he is supposed to be such a great house wife?! Oh, I was ranting and raving about this to everyone within earshot.

“I just had a lid situation the other day!” Margie the new-ish admin person said, trying to make me feel better I guess because my fragility is no secret around the office. “But I had no one to blame but myself.”

“Yeahhhhh,” I said thoughtfully. “That’s why I don’t do anything myself.”

And Margie laughed but Lauren, who was sitting behind her, knew it was true.

Also, my banana was in that fucking bag and I thought it was OK but halfway through it, I hit a spot where the broth had seeped through the peel and look, I love gochujang A LOT (so much that I screamed WHAT!?!?!?!?!? when Henry told me that we were out of it when he served me my gochujang-less dinner tonight; I think this is the first time we’re been out of the ‘jang since 2016!?) but apparently not on a banana. FUCK.

4. Emarosa, boy-ohs.

Emarosa’s back, baybays! Their new album hasn’t been released yet but they’re hitting the road this November and I’m so happy because it’s been a year since I saw them last which seems like a normal amount of time but not when we were spoiled with multiple Emarosa shows a year from 2015-2017! Anyway, tickets went on sale today and we got some and it’s kind of weird to be excited about western for a minute!

Conversely, a time recently when I was NOT excited about western music was the other day when I came home from work and suddenly our TV kicked over to YouTube and a fucking NICKELBACK VIDEO started playing. Henry was like, “It has to be Chooch” but he wasn’t home so were like WHY IS THIS HAPPENING but I knew it had to be him because he’s the ultimate troll of the household (OK I’m pretty good at it too). Later on, he strolled through the front door and casually said, “Did I hear Nickelback playing over here earlier?!” Turns out that little fucker was next door at Blake’s so he was within range of being able to control the TV and I hate him.

5. FBI Has Your Unabomber Card

That’s what the subject line of an email said the other night and I started panicking like OMG am I going to jail???

But then I realized it was an email from my friend Kristen who has a friend who bought serial killer cards from me in the past and had her neighbors over for dinner one night. The neighbors work for the FBI so the topic of serial killers came up and she showed them my cards AND TURNS OUT one of them worked on the Unabomber case back in the day and loved my Unabomber card and asked to keep it!

I was telling Aaron about this at work today and he was like, “So what you’re saying is that you’re on a federal watch list now. It was nice knowing you!” and I laughed but then I went back to my desk and texted Henry, “OMG AM I GOING TO BE ON A FEDERAL WATCH LIST NOW” and he was like, “…………probably not?”

But still, what a strange and funny story! Thank you for sharing, K!

Anyway, here’s a link to that card if you want one!

Me: Have you read my post about the Holiday World coasters?

Chooch: No, because I was there. So….

Did I tell you that we almost didn’t go to Holiday World? No, I mean even aside from Henry’s noncommittal. The forecast for that Saturday in Santa Claus, IN was all day showers/thunderstorms. I mean, all the way up until Friday, it looked like a  bad omen.

And we endured a storm once in Indiana so I know those are nothing to fuck around with.

So Henry was like, “Look, you gotta make the call here. Do you want to chance it?” I hesitated for a whole 5 seconds probably, but ultimately said that we had no choice because I fake-bragged about this at work so we had to go or I’d look dumb and Henry was like, “That is honestly the stupidest reasoning but whatever.”

So we did it, we made the dumb drive and guess what? Not a single drop of rain landed on my dense head all ding-dong day. I mean, it was as humid as the rainforest with the lid on, so we wet in other ways…

…but no severe weather threw a wrench (or a lightning bolt) in our day, woo!

Holiday World is split up into five areas based on holidays, plus a water park which we didn’t go to because maybe I’m in a minority here (and I definitely was there, too) but I think water parks are disgusting and I get so skeeved out just thinking about them. I haven’t been to one since I was 12 and have no plans to ever go to another. Anyway, the holiday sections are: Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July. I am genuinely upset that there was nothing for Easter, because I love pastels and bunnies and imagine the Zombie Jesus dark ride you could have up in that bitch.

The mind reels.

Let’s do a little photo tour of each section and I will tell you things along the way, like we’re on one of my lunch break walks together. Just hold your breath when we walk past the alleys – the stench of hot piss in the summer emanates.

HALLOWEEN

Ya gotta know this was my favorite area, boi.

Goblin Burgers did not have veggie burgers, but KRINGLE’S CAFE did, don’t worry about Chooch and me.

I love that all the game facades and food places were purple and orange, and the restrooms had a witch on the womens door and a vampire on the mens door and also while we’re on the topic of toilets can I just commend HW on their commode cleanliness? Public restrooms in general are a crapshoot (lol crapshoot) and amusement parks can be on their very own tier of grody. But these ones were remarkably stench-free and each stall even had toilet seat sanitizer that you could pump out onto a wad of toilet paper to give the seats a real good last minute rub-down.

Here’s Chooch with a sunburned face, despite the fact that there were free sunscreen stations located all over the park.

So you know how I made you guys have a coaster circle jerk with me in my last Holiday World post? Well, you might be surprised to know that I had any room left over in my short attention span to also obsessed over the swings.

First of all, they’re called the HALLOWSWINGS and second of all, I was already obsessed with them before we got there because I saw a picture on the HW website and it was one of my pre-HW talking points at work and Glenn was like, “Are you 5?”

BUT WOULD YOU LOOK?!

They are the prettiest swings I’ve ever seen at an amusement park!!

That detail! i want to go trick-or-treating just looking at it!

I knew that this park was small enough that we could probably ride everything and then leave in the early evening if we wanted to but when I saw the swings in person, I declared that we weren’t leaving that park until the sun went down because I needed to see it all lit up at night!

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Wouldja look at the smiling jack o’lantern on top of the swing?! I wish that was on top of my house. Actually, I wish this whole swing set was in my yard. Well, maybe my mom’s yard since it’s way bigger than mine. I’ll just visit.

Every day.

See that girl in the green shirt behind me? As soon as the swings lifted up, she started SCREECHING, and I do mean SHRIEKING HER FUCKING FACE OFF, about how she didn’t want to ride it anymore and she just kept screaming and screaming that my shoulders kept raising toward my ears and the ride operator, who was getting the people on the ride before us all hyped up, was super quiet and no one was cheering, and we all just patiently waited for the ride to end so this kid would stop making us feel like we were in a deleted scene from Final Destination Part 666. Her fear was contagious and I was starting to panic.

When the swings descended and came to a complete stop, I turned around and asked her if she was OK and she yelled, “YES” all huffily and then ran away. I walked past just as she reunited with her family and, while stamping her feet, she shouted, “I AM NEVER RIDING THAT AGAIN” and her family was pretty unsympathetic about it. But even Henry, who was waiting for us with all the other parents, lol, was like, “The fuck was wrong with that girl?!”

Also in Halloween land was the HW log flume ride called Frightful Falls, which wasn’t as long as our beloved Log Jammer (RIP) was BUT it did have a semi-thrilling pitch black tunnel right in the beginning and that made up for the lack of flume-duration. Chooch and I got Henry to go on it with us later in the night, after begging and nearly causing a scene, and he admitted that it was OK and then we bought the picture because anytime Henry will actually ride something with us, we need a souvenir.

But can I stop here and criticize HW on one thing real quick? No haunted house in Halloweenland, Holiday World? Really?

CHRISTMAS TOWN.

Sadly, the Christmas section didn’t have any rides aside from a handful of kiddie bullshit, but it did have a sweet Nativity scene and Kringle’s Cafe, home of the $10 black bean burger. (At least the drinks in Holiday World are free?)

Special fake burgers for me and Chooch, the special little liberal snowflakes who use reusable straws. God, we suck so bad!

OMG we sat across from a family who said prayers before digging into their food and ended it with two power fists in the air, which was kind of cool and made me want to start saying food-grace just so I could have some awesome jazz-handy ending.

While we were eating, SANTA HIMSELF walked past the window so Chooch knocked on it real hard but when Santa turned around, all he saw was me, so he waved joyfully and I shyly waved back. Thanks, Chooch.

Meanwhile, over in the attached Mrs. Claus’s Kitchen, I finally got my lips around a critically acclaimed—no not an elf dick—Holiday World frozen hot chocolate and even though it made me sick because I had just eaten a $10 black bean burger and fries, it was worth the wait. I mean, I’ve never had one from Serendipity but do they use Mrs. Claus’s secret recipe? DOUBT IT.

I was so smug that I remembered to bring a reusable straw but then FUNNY STORY there was a hole in the drawstring bag we had with us so by the end of the day, we lost 2 out 3 straws, yeah that’s us, literally littering with reusable straws.

Le sigh.

We went back later and JUST CAUGHT SANTA and his handler with 5 minutes to spare before photos with Santa was over, but it was really awkward because we rolled up on them while they were talking and Santa wasn’t even sitting in his Santa Throne, and I had my camera out like could it be any more clear that I wanted a picture, but instead, he just stood there and drilled us on our thoughts of like every ride there and it dawned on me that perhaps photos weren’t free and they were all packed up for the day, so every time there was a pregnant pause, I would try to thank them for their time, but then Santa would ask, “Now, which seat did you sit on when you rode Thunderbird? Inside or outside? OH NO YOU GOTTA RIDE IT AGAIN AND SIT ON THE OUTSIDE, THAT’S THE BEST SEAT” and the glitter in his beard was making  my eyes crossed and I was perspiring so badly and Henry was just loafing on the other side of the candy shop, looking at cases of cupcakes and candy apples, avoiding my hostage eyes.

Finally, Santa dismissed us and Henry was like, “Did you get a picture?”

Fuck off, Henry.

4TH OF JULY BORO.

I mean, I’m not patriotic, but I guess we were in a state where they give a shit about this stuff, so sure, let’s 4th of July it up.

I was excited about this section for one thing: THEY HAVE A CALYPSO THERE. Granted, they call theirs the Firecracker, but it’s a Calypso nonetheless and when I was a little, it was my favorite ride at Kennywood but no one believes me that it was there because all of my friends were abducted by aliens at some point and I swear they have no MEMORY when it comes to our childhood.

I look like such an herb in this picture but I love it because I can tell you without a doubt that I was saying something disparaging about Henry here, and it probably had something to do with when we were in a CVS parking lot that morning and saw a guy wearing an NRA shirt so Chooch and I were going off about how the NRA is run by the devil and just as Henry started to chime him, I cut him off and said in the Eeyore-voice I use when I’m pretending to be Henry, “Not all NRA members are baaaaad.” Chooch almost threw up in the car from laughing so hard after I said this, so we kept yelling it randomly throughout the day, in lieu of “wooo”s and “yeah”s on all of the rides.

The first time we rode this ride, the ride operator was talking about high school soccer teams to anyone who would listen, and the second time, a different ride operator said, “I like your Dance Gavin Dance shirt” as checked to make sure our seatbelts were fastened, so then we had a brief post-hardcore convo while he checked the cars around ours and in my head, I screamed, “HOLIDAY WORLD IS THE PLACE FOR ME.”

But really, Indiana probably is not the place for me.

Oh yeah, every time we got off a ride, the operator would wish a happy whatever-holiday-section we were in, so that was fun to say, “HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO YOU  TOO!”

Henry thought that sign said “Fucking a Country” and I couldn’t stop laughing and now I think that’s what they should name the movie about Trump’s “presidency.”

The carousel was small and not as grand as I wanted it to be but I got to ride on a rabbit and that was enough to keep me satiated.

OMG I was wrong – Henry rode not four but FIVE rides at Holiday World!

I mean, of course it would be called this.

We rode the train just so Henry could have something to ride.

It was filled with nursery rhyme scenes so I think it actually was part of kiddie land and not 4th of July Boro.

Henry was disgusted that Peter Pumpkin Eater couldn’t think of anything rougher to do to his dumb wife.

Yeah boy, free beverage all day long! What a novel idea! And before you think we walked around burping up Pepsi all day, we’re actually not a soft drink family at all so we were happy to see that water, Gatorade, and iced tea were also options. They had a great diet peach green tea on tap so I drank that when I wanted something more than water, but we all mostly just drank water and it was amazing not having to spend $3 for bottled water (which I always refill at water fountains but still….)

Paper cups too, thank god.

OK, I read about this Udderly Blue Ice Cream online and I was positive that I wasn’t going to like it because I tend to shy away from anything blue raspberry and even the wild cherry sounded too artificial for my liking, so while we were in line I changed my mind and decided to not get anything.

Chooch got a cup of the twist and Henry got a cup of just the cherry, and after one tiny bite of that I was like, “Oh here, let me help you eat that” and then I tried the blue raspberry in Chooch’s twist and WHOA NELLY (I only say that out of respect for the 80s classic Labyrinth which I still can’t spell on my own without Googling 25 years later, I’m so great) that shit was actually pretty fucking divine. Both flavors were deep and not overly sweet and sugary, if that makes any sense. I could have easily sucked back a bowl all on my own.

I made Henry get sprinkles on his and he was like, “Why, this isn’t yours” LOL everything is mine, dumbass.

THANKSGIVING PLANET

We probably spent most of our time in the Thanksgiving section because Chooch and I had both imprinted on the Voyage and probably the only time we fought all day when we were competing over who liked it better and I was about to dig up a fucking diamond and propose to that goddamn thing just to prove a point, ugh.

In this section, you could eat an actual Thanksgiving dinner at the Plymouth cafe, which I’m sure was super-congealed and freezer section-y, but I appreciated that they offered a vegetarian version which was four sides and cornbread.

We didn’t eat there, though Henry kept looking in the window every time we walked past.

What is: something Henry uses up every day after one conversation with me.

Oh shit, Holiday World had a dark ride and it was Thanksgiving-themed! It was called Gobbler Getaway and it was a shooting darkride.

I was too fixated on shooting to win so I actually didn’t pay any attention  to the scenes, which is dumb. I should have went on a second time just to enjoy the experience, but I had the high-score and I didn’t want one of those assholes to beat it the second time.

Also, aside from when there was Cleanup Project on the Voyage, this was probably the longest line we stood in, and that was around 20 minutes.

Worth it though.

Also  in this area, we saw that scuzzy couple that was making out behind us that morning in Subway (god, do you even read my blog posts?! I know, they’re like a puzzle, but still) but they were definitely not making out now and in fact, they looked like they were on the verge of a breakup and for some reason, this was very satisfying to me.

Of course the Tilt-a-Whirl would be called the Turkey Whirl!

I think it’s pretty funny that I was so certain we would probably leave the park early in the evening, but then we ended up shutting that bitch down. It was like being a kid again, running around in that darkened park, trying to get one more ride in on each coaster while Henry casually strolled in our wake, carrying the bags and our drinks, letting us be the fucking freaks that we are.

I can’t get over how fun this little park is and I highly recommend it to any amusement park enthusiast because it’s quirky as fuck and has an arsenal of secret weapons in the shape of some pretty beastly wooden coasters. Just beware that there doesn’t seem to be much else than pizza parlors in the area so if you’re planning on eating dinner outside of the park, you might end up at Jenk’s Pizza 20 minutes before they close and have to be the asshole who makes the two teenagers working there stay a bit later in order to make your family a pizza with a ton of black olives on it.

This was when Henry asked, “Is this unsweetened tea?” even though there was a big sign under the pitcher that said, “TRY OUR SWEET TEA.” Chooch and I were dying. So now those teenagers were like, “Wow this fucking family is making us stay late and the dad is also dumb as hell.”

The pizza was fucking good though.

Then Henry casually slapped down a tip on the counter and said in a deeper-than-usual voice, “Have a good night guys” and Chooch and I were trying not to pee.

We had a blast at Holiday World, and we all got along which is the most important part. Also, the hotel I booked for us wasn’t a sex-shack so we were able to get a good night’s sleep afterward. It was all-around a pretty perfect day.

Sometimes when I need to get my mind to stop reeling, I watch live performances of Taemin and I feel so recharged after. The last week has been a whirlwind of emotions that have finally started to drop on my head like bricks so I’mTAEMIN’ING IT UP IN HERE.

I could watch this a million times and never tire of it. Not only is that song beautiful, but the dancing is fucking exquisite. Taemin is a gift to us all.

I know a lot of people don’t like watching these videos because they’re not in English but this video has subtitles so if you’re gonna dive into some Taemin, now’s a good time!

I’ll be back tomorrow (probably) with the rest of my Holiday World panderings, hoo boy!

Crows Nest and Thunderbird, in the Thanksgiving section of Holiday World.

I was running on Holiday World-adrenaline for a week after we returned from Indiana. I can’t remember the last time I fell so hard in love with a little family amusement park like this one, but the coaster cupid got me good, straight through the heart, with this one.

Does it sound hokey on paper? A park divided into sections based on holidays? Sure does sound hokey. But it works, it really works. And when you got off a ride in Thanksgiving town, it might seem weird at first to be wished a Happy Thanksgiving, but before you know it, you’re casually saying it back to people without second thought!

Even Henry, who was Father Frowntown all summer regarding this park, was not immune to its hunky-dory midwest charms. Once we trained ourselves to ignore the fact that we were a family of Democrats awash in a dirty sea of Trump Train passengers, things were fine, we were fine, it was all just fine.

(To be fair though, I saw not one MAGA hat all day, so there’s that.)

And not to be a sell-out, but those coasters were fucking worth it.

Let’s talk about them!

THE RAVEN

The very first coaster we came upon was the Raven, located near the entrance of HALLOWEEN which clearly was my favorite area out of all the holidays, hello.

It looked like the line was going to be outrageous for this but it actually moved along quite speedily and Chooch and I were buckled in in no time.

(Henry wussed out and while he was waiting for us, he ran into Discount Vin Diesel and they talked about, in Henry’s words, “Nothing special, just the fact that we were in the same place.” Wow, that was your bi-annual guest contribution from Henry.)

Anyway, oh shit people, this coaster was so unexpectedly outrageous! It’s always the best riding a coaster for the first time, and this was right up there because we didn’t realize how fast it was going to be, and there were so many banks! It was rough as hell, but I was ready to ride it again almost immediately.

But first, we ran over to the Legend, also in Halloween land, because I wasn’t sure what the crowd sitch was going to be like and I needed to make sure we rode everything at least once.

Our last ride of the night on the Raven was lit fam (I hate myself). We hadn’t been on the front seat yet so we waited the extra handful of minutes but it was entertaining because the ride operators were dancing and getting the crowd totally hyped, Raven: After Hours-style. It made me miss the days when Kennywood was like that. Maybe it is during the peak season, but we generally go on days when we know it will be less crowded and those kids running the rides are just bored, jaded, and miserable. Like my friend Chris said, not the kinds of Kennywood employees that Rick Sebak would have ever interviewed for his epic, classic documentary, Kennywood Memories. 

I totally screamed at those boys behind us to shut the fuck up because they were “ca-cawing” so fucking loud up the first hill that it sounded like a raven was laying eggs inside my fucking skull and I get it, I’m an obnoxious maniac on rides too, but these kids were just demonic.

LEGEND

I know you guys probably pieced this together, but this was Sleepy Hollow themed and even though there wasn’t anything blatantly related to this along the course, it was still fun to imagine that we were being chased by the headless horseman, especially when the parting words at the station were, “Don’t look behind you” and there was a perfectly-placed howl that came at the top of the first lift hill.

We sat in the back for our inaugural ride and my seat belt was down too low so the metal part dug into my thigh for the entire ride which was rough enough without that extra torture! I honestly couldn’t enjoy the ride because of this and kept putting off riding it again, but eventually we did later that day. This time we sat in the second row and my seatbelt was properly placed across my lap, so I was able to really enjoy this maniacal coaster for everything it was: a spine-shatterer but so goddamn good! This one also has a ton of banks which I love on a wooden coaster, and TUNNELS!

I love tunnels!!

We finally got Henry to ride it (Chooch and I sat in the front seat that time) and Henry was pretty wrecked afterward. It took him out for the count so aside from the train, Gobbler Getaway (a dark ride) and Frightful Falls, he didn’t ride anything else all day. Lol. Sucks to be henry.

The best ride we had on this one was at night — it was pitch black and made the whole headless horseman fantasy seem even more real, like something was just going to snatch us out of our seats at any moment. Also, we rode it in the front seat for that and it was magic.

I somehow didn’t get any photos of this one, so here’s snap I grabbed off the Internet, credit goes to Coaster 101:

THE VOYAGE

The first time we rode Voyage (which Chooch has taken to pronounce the French way), the line for the front seat wasn’t too long so we claimed our spots. But then someone puked or peed, bled out, had a baby, something that caused them to temporarily suspend operations due to a “cleanup project.” Lol. We got to watch as the car was moved out of the station and then some Holiday World guy who drew the short straw snapped on rubber gloves and got to work with a rag and a spray bottle. This whole scene only racked on about 10 minutes to our wait time, maybe not even not that much.

But then when we were next in line, some guy with a fast pass stole the front seat and I was mad at first but then realized he was disabled and almost died from a melted heart when he looked over and thanked Chooch and me genuinely. So then I wasn’t mad anymore.

Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, since it’s in Thanksgiving town, it’s supposed to be like the Mayflower’s voyage, so when the ride operator set us off into the sunset, she ended her spiel with “Set sail!” I didn’t pick up on it right away, but Chooch pointed it out later and I cried, “I LOVE HOLIDAY WORLD!”

Such committment!

Look at that hill! We were practically peeing our pants on the way up, but I didn’t want to be involved in another cleanup project so I held it in. This ride was, to use Henry-vernacular*, ROCKIN’.

*(Henacular?)

This out-and-back whips you so hard around bends and does that beautiful “whoosh” into tunnels, oh my god, I can’t praise this coaster enough. I want to take it on a picnic in some fairy tale forest somewhere.

We couldn’t drag Henry on it, but Chooch and I must have set sail at least 8 times that day, the best being right before the park closed, when we literally SPRINTED from the Legend to the Thanksgiving section, praying that we made it in time, and WE DID!

We snagged the front seat again and holy shit, that was hands down the highlight of the whole entire day for me, cruising (more Henacular) through the pitch black forest, unable to see what was coming next, and just screaming our sweaty faces off. IT WAS SO PURE!

One of the things I’ll never forget about the Voyage was when we were waiting in line and saw some broad wearing some black mesh shirt thing was getting off the ride and not only were most of her boobs popping out, but we definitely both saw some nippage. I hope this wasn’t Chooch’s “coming of age” moment, but he has definitely referenced her more than once since we’ve been home…

Thunderbird

This was the only steel coaster in the park (aside from the kid coaster) and you might think this would have been our favorite but you would be wrong. I mean, it was a great coaster – one of those launched wingriders (lol, I totally looked that up, I have no idea what I’m talking about), but sometime in my 30s I became terrified of steel coasters so I wasn’t able to fully enjoy it until we were rolling back into the station. Then I was like, “WOW THAT WAS GREAT!” That first launch though, holy fuck, it felt like it was never going to end, and then it goes straight upside down and the rest of it was just me fearing for my life and praying I didn’t lose a leg. Especially when we flew into a hole in the roof of a barn. That was scary.

This ride was also not crowded, so we were able to ride it three times without waiting hardly at all, except for the one time we decided to get the front seat after Santa recommended it to us (true story). That was the most terrifying ride of them all.

Since Henry didn’t ride anything, he stood on terra firma and played photographer which was cool because I’m going through this weird mortality crisis where I worry that I don’t allow myself to be in enough photos because I hate my face so much (I have issues stacked on neuroses infused with complexes), so I’m trying to loosen up. Anyway, I love these photos because they illustrate exactly how scared-rabbit I was on this ride. Like Chooch is up there living his best life while I’m praying to some fake rosary made out of the rocks in my head.

My favorites in order were:

1. Voyage (hands down, this ride is killer.)
2. Legend (even though it left its mark on my thighs, like I was in some shitty made-for-TV remake of The Entity)
3. Raven (just classic as far as wooden coaster goes)
4. Thunderbird (those wooden beasts just shone too brightly, keeping this one in their shadows)

Wow wasn’t my review informative? “I liked these roller coasters because they went up high hills and had tunnels and speed!”

I’ll be back with more pictures and a general summation of this park and how much of an impact it made on us – a total blindside!

Oh, it was fraught with adversity.

My obsession with Holiday World started about five or six years ago when we were planning a small road trip around a visit with our pals Bill and Jessi in Michigan. I started looking up amusement parks around that area and found two in Indiana that seemed promising: Holiday World and Indiana Beach. I remember it was a big to-do because I wanted to go to both parks and didn’t understand what the problem was, no matter how many times Henry showed me on a map that they were on opposing sides of the state from each other.

SO WHAT!?

Henry just wasn’t as committed as me I guess, and in the end he made me choose one.

In his own gruff dad-words: ONE OR THE OTHER!

I ended up choosing Indiana Beach because they had several rides and y’all know that dark rides are my absolute favorite things in amusement parks. A pox on those that don’t have any, I say!

Something made me jump back on the Holiday World train sometime in late April.

“We’ll see,” Henry said, utilizing his favorite cop-out response.

“But we never go anywhere!” I cried.

“We literally just came back from Korea?!” Henry cried while foraging in our backyard for that night’s dandelion dinner because Korea left as poor people.

(It didn’t really but that’s how Henry acted because it gave him an easy way out of having to do anything for the unforeseeable future.)

My begging and pleading went on for MONTHS culminating in him flipping out and yelling, “SOMETIMES I FORGET THAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY AS OLD AS YOU ARE!” in the middle of Target when I was pouting.

I even took this one particular Friday off work because it was getting down to the wire and I couldn’t get that asshole to confirm but if we were going to go, it was going to have to be on that weekend and finally I was like FUCK YOU and booked the hotel and then the rest of that week was really tense and silent in our house, lol, not really but Henry wasn’t pleased with me at all.

At one point, just me and Chooch were going to go but I hoped that my bluff wouldn’t come true because I definitely didn’t want to make that 7 hour drive myself. HOW WOULD I LIVE BLOG?!

After I booked the hotel though, I started to tell work people about it because I thought maybe if I vocalized my desires, they would be more apt to come true so I was all, “YEAH WE’RE GOING TO HOLIDAY WORLD THIS WEEKEND NO BIG DEAL” and blew on my finger nails a few times like I was a 1950s greaser who just called some nerd Coke Bottle Eyes at the soda shop.

Glenn was like, “That sounds dumb” but Lauren and Margie were all in. Especially when I told them that there was the promise of FROZEN HOT CHOCOLATE WITH SANTA IN MRS. CLAUS’S KITCHEN.

I walked past them one time last week and casually called over my shoulder, “Oh, and all soft drinks are FREE at Holiday World. Sunscreen too” and then I fake-yawned and continued on to my desk.

But then the day before I admitted to Lauren that I wasn’t actually sure if we were going for real because I still hadn’t gotten Henry to say the y-word (“yes,” come on guys, I shouldn’t have to spell out everything for you, get a clue) but that I had taken the following day off a month prior.

“Did you take that day off specifically for this, without knowing for sure–” and then she started cracking up when I sadly nodded.

So then Friday came. I knew Henry didn’t take the day off because god forbid he ever takes days off work, but sometimes he can get out of there semi-early depending on other people. I fucking paced around Brookline ALL DAY and then Chooch and I argued because I didn’t feel that he cared enough about this trip, and he was like, “But it’s just….Indiana—I mean, no I’m really excited! I want to go! Yay, Holiday World!” but his forced enthusiasm wasn’t foolin’ nobody. NOBODY.

Finally, that d-bag Henry came waltzing in the house around 3:00 and I was like LET’S GO but then he had to take a stupid shower first and pack and I was tapping holes into the floor with my foot.

It was around 3:30 when we finally left the house and I was like, “OK we’re doing this, we’re finally leaving” and Henry was surprisingly in a good mood so that made me feel ominous, you know? Like was something going to happen? (This isn’t foreshadowing, nothing happened, but I am a very superstitious and paranoid person so I was ON EDGE all weekend.)

The funny part is that part of my deal was that if we went to Holiday World, I would drive part way. Originally, I said I would drive for the first part because I can’t drive well at night (see: eyes that can’t see) and Henry was like, “Deal” but then I was like, “Well, I’ll just drive to Columbus and then you can drive after that because I get confused around Columbus” and he sighed heavily but still agreed.

(When I was friends with my ex-bff who lived in shitty Cinci, I would always make her take the Greyhound to Columbus and then I would pick her up there and make her drive the rest of the way to Cinci because following directions on a highway is not my strongsuit. On my very first time ever visiting her, I got the exit number screwed up and got lost like 2 hours into the trip, lost my temper, and came home. Turns out my head scrambled the exit number and instead of taking, say for example, Exit 81 I took Exit 18 and it didn’t occur to me at all that it was awfully soon into the drive to be “almost there” and then I stopped at a gas station and got in a fight with some trashy bitch in Marietta, OH and I have the rest blacked out but I think I wrote about it on LiveJournal so maybe I’ll go and look that up on a rainy day which could be any day since all it’s done here in Pittsburgh this summer is rain and will you just get back to the story, Erin?!)

I was prepared to get in the drivers seat when we were leaving but Henry said he would drive for a little bit because he’s a big tough man and everyone knows women should just shut up and get in the passenger seat. He was going to switch off with me once we got to West Virginia but HILARIOUSLY it started storming so hard that it was hazardous and everyone was crawling along the highway with their flashers on and by the time it stopped, we were nearly to Columbus, and Henry was like, “WOW YOU SURE GOT OUT OF THAT ONE” and I just smiled cutely because we all knew I wasn’t going to do any driving, come on now, I have shit to do.

It was around 7 at this point (yes, that rain took a major chunk out of our travel time) so we stopped in some podunk town for dinner. We were going to eat some joint called Clay’s which was an ice cream parlour and family restaurant, but there was a bit of a wait. I put in my name and we sat on a wooden bench with some of the locals who knew we were outlanders, but then Henry realized there was a Loving Hut nearby so we left and he was mad at me for not telling the lady to take our name off the list like he suddenly is the authority on restaurant couth.

Got to Loving Hut and originally sat down near a fucking screaming toddler whose ear-piercing screeches were ricocheting in my head, and I almost left because I was on the verge of flipping a table (its mom just sat there and scrolled through her phone, like hello maybe your idiot kid is screaming because it wants you to look at it) but then Henry asked a waitress if she could clean off an empty but dirty table on the other side of a wall so ALL WAS WELL.

I usually try to just eat at local establishments when we travel but the call of Loving was just too strong. We used to have a Loving Hut in Pittsburgh but it closed and I’m not sure if it’s reopening somewhere else or just gonezo forever, but it’s a vegetarian joint that even Hank the Meat-Tank can stand so we were all happy. (Even Korea has Loving Huts!)

I want to go back in time and tear that sandwich apart with my gnashing maw all over again it was so good. (Vegan BBQ with coleslaw, ugh more please). I don’t know what Henry got but he nearly licked the plate clean while Chooch complained because he didn’t like the sauce on his burger bun – that kid is so averse to condiments, it makes me sad.

We were sooooo off-schedule by then. Our original ETA was 10:30pm but we had only made it to Cinci by 10, and Santa Claus was still 3 hours from there. But the bright side of running late was that we got to see fireworks over top of an otherwise bland city.

Chooch fell asleep sometime after this and I was burdened with the task of making sure Henry didn’t fall alseep at the wheel even though I was tired too but SOLIDARITY. The drive from Cinci to Louisville wasn’t too bad (we drove past the Vent Museum!) but holy shit it was all black nothingness once we hit Indiana. And then we somehow got rerouted so the GPS added 45 minutes to the drive time and I started crying out of anger while Henry was threatening the GPS robot lady, but then somehow it recalculated and shaved off a bunch of time so we celebrated.

We rolled up to the super basic (but clean and not crawling with sex workers like the last place Henry booked in Newark) Motel 6 or 8 or whatever number they use sometime after midnight which was actually after 1am for us but time rolled back an hour when we crossed over into the central time zone somewhere in Indiana. There was some family in a banged-up minivan who got there at the same time as us and the dad was like, “HAHA you guys look as thrilled as us” because we were just dragging at that point. He had on shorts and a wife-beater and as the elevator door closed on us, Chooch said, “He looked like a discount Vin Diesel” and I couldn’t stop laughing at that because he kind of did look like that.

We crashed and then woke up bright and early to get ready for HOLIDAY WORLD! First we went to Subway for a light breakfast (I get sick if I go to amusement parks with too much food in my gut) and we were in line with a young alternatrash couple that were super skinny probably from drugs and the dude had TERRIBLE face tattoos, which was basically my prelude to a day full of more face tattoos, so many face tattoos, Indiana must run specials on them. And they weren’t on people who looked cool and edgy, like guys in bands or tattoo artists, guys who can pull that shit off because it’s part of their lifestyle as a musician or artist, you know? No, these were the kinds that screamed, “I just finished beating my girlfriend and gave myself this shoddy prison face tattoo.” Every single guy I saw in that park who had one just looked so fucking trashy and heroin-y and I can guess that they all had at least one Kid Rock CD in their car at that moment.

But that didn’t affect our glorious time at Holiday World!

We got there right when it opened at 10am and expected it to be relatively crowded because it was a Saturday and we try to avoid going to amusement parks on weekends. I was fully prepared to have to do a lot of waiting in lines but it was gloriously sparse!

The Raven was the first ride we rode! It was a wicked coaster and unexpectedly fun – Chooch and I sat in the back and got our asses (and necks) kicked on it.

I took some family’s picture here and then the mom was all, “here I’ll take yours too” and I reluctantly agreed but I hate having my picture taken so bad so that’s why it looks like I have 87 fire-sticks up my ass.

Henry was going to wear a gray shirt that I hate because every time he wears it, he’s in a bad mood, so then he changed into a different gray shirt. The man loves grays and browns, I don’t think he’ll change up his wardrobe at this point.

I’m going to stop here and get into the real meaty portions of Holiday World in my next post because SPOILER ALERT we had such a great time there and I can’t stop thinking about those majestic wooden coasters.

Today was the first day of school and I was like boo hoo, sike naw I was like BYEEEE.

Honestly though, it’s the same feeling every year: How do I have a kid in [whatever] grade?!

It’s funny how we parents always act so shocked and awed that our child is aging like come on really fam?

I’m just mostly sad that this means summer is over—I know the calendar and that equinox thing says otherwise but the first day of school always feels like the kiss of death for summer even though I still had to go to work pretty much every day.

Oh and fun story, we waited until last night to go school clothes shopping. I worked until 7:30 so we went to the mall straight after and I hate mall-shopping but I REALLY hate not going home straight after work so I was acting pissier than a bag of hornets all night especially when the dumb bitch at Journeys was too busy talking to her bitch friends who weren’t even BUYING SHOES totally ignored us and then when she finally was all, “Oh do you need help” they didn’t have Chooch’s size and Henry was like WELP LET’S GO instead of having Chooch find a different pair?!

Also I refuse to spend anything over $100 on this kid because have you seen the way his shoes look after a month?! He has these fat Barney Rubble feet that blow out the sides of shoes and I just can’t stand it.

(HE GETS THE FEET ISSUE FROM FAT-FOOT FATHER HANK.)

Finally found a lot of green ADIDAS at Foot Locker and then I instantly got happy because there were three teenagers in there talking to each other in Korean and Henry was like “OMG you are so weird” (to me, not to the Koreans) but then we went to the Vans store and while Henry was paying for some shirts, the mall closed! It was only 9pm!! Is this normal, asking for someone who doesn’t shop in malls in often.

“This wouldn’t happen in Korea,” i said sourly.

“Yeah, they would have just opened an hour ago,” Henry said and I was like shut up because now I was back to being angry.

Luckily we managed to scrape up somewhat of a starter wardrobe for my SEVENTH GRADER YEAH THATS RIGHT HE’S IN SEVENTH GRADE NOW.

That didn’t warrant CAPSLOCK but I’m in a fucking mood tonight. (It was a “two calls to the help desk” type of Friday Night Late Shift, is all I’m saying.)

He originally didn’t want to get these shorts because he didn’t like the color but I said, “These look like something Blake would wear” and Chooch said, “I love them.”

I pretended like I was going to cry when Chooch left for school this morning but really I watched the new BTS video several times and then made an Aileen Wuornos birthday card, then I went to the post office where Maureen, my postal clerk nemesis, was too busy bitching to me about her relative houseguests to give me the usual third degree about what was in my international packages. Thank you, Maureen’s nieces.

Also, Maureen is sick of these idiots asking her for change, this isn’t a goddamn bank.

So, that’s that. Chooch had a good first day back and I’m hoping this year goes smoothly. Please Sweet Heavenly Angel-Baby Taemin let this year go smoothly. *prayer hands*

Yesterday was a really depressing day but then I saw this trailer FOR A G-DRAGON DOCUMENTARY ON YOUTUBE RED and I felt saved, you know what I mean? G-Dragon always pulls through when I least expect it.

I sent this to my group at work today and Glenn was mad because it’s not Friday and I’m only allowed to send them Kpop-related videos on Friday but this couldn’t wait!!

Anyway, just my semi-regular reminder to cherish those little things in life because it makes it a little easier when we have to face the big bad things.

I AM SO GOOD AT THESE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Lately, I have been feeling 진짜 inspired to add new designs to my Kpop card shop. I am such a bad Etsyer but I don’t always have the time or energy that I need to devote to my shops. (Somehow I recently surpassed the “50 Sales” milestone for Hello Hanguk without doing much promoting at all! #blessed) But then my secret weapon known as MANIA kicks in and I get on a roll. The last several days, I’ve been staying up way too late making these because I’m determined to get at least one set of mini Valentines done before the end of 2018 instead of, you know, three weeks before Valentine’s Day like I did last year. I AM SO GOOD AT THIS!

For example: I spent two days KCON in June and passed out ONE BUSINESS CARD and by “passed out” I mean that my kid tossed one on a retaining wall outside of the Prudential Center.

Anyway, I made some new Valentines for the upcoming third set I’m working on (please see set #1 and set #2 here!) and also some designs for a note card set. I’m such a huge advocate of note card sets because it’s always nice to send a friend a card for no reason.

LIKE THIS (G)I-DLE “LATATA” CARD!

We all get caught up in life and I know for sure that I can be bad at keeping up with friendships. Wouldn’t it be nice to send this to someone in the actual mail instead of sending a sterile text? If I ever make any local Kpop friends, I’m going to send them this card. TRY AND STOP ME.

This is a play on (G)i-dle’s song “Latata.” I wanted to make a card with them on it because I’ve really been into them lately, but I couldn’t think of anything good and then this hit me late last night. I woke up Henry to show him and he tried to mask a smile with a frown, so that’s how I know it’s a pretty good one.

Guys, you’re about to get some Kpop tea: This card is bittersweet because today it was just confirmed that E’Dawn (along with Yan An) is taking an indefinite hiatus from Pentagon due to “unspecified reasons” which everyone knows means he’s being punished for having the audacity to be in a relationship with Hyuna! I’m really upset and frustrated over this not just because E’Dawn is my favorite in Pentagon, but because it’s just so…just so…UNJUST. I hope that this blows over and he comes back.

And here’s all of Pentagon with a line from their fantastic song Shine. This will be part of the Valentine set but it could also be used as an everyday reminded that, “Hey, friend, you’re pretty effing boss, ain’t nobody like you.” We all need those reminders that we’re unique individuals.

And while we’re on the Pentagon topic…here is a Hui / Third Wheel card. Hui and E’Dawn have a side project with Hyuna called Triple H and when it was announced that E’Dawn and Hyuna are dating, the third wheel memes came out strong.

When Henry and I first got together, I was friends with this girl who was ALWAYS HANGING AROUND. One day, my friend Brian said to Henry, “Didn’t anyone tell you that when you date Erin, you date Christine Haney too?” And Henry laughed because he didn’t yet know that IT WAS TRUE. Anyway, I have a feeling that Hui is not the psycho brand of third wheel though and that Triple H can bounce back and continue to make super retro music. Sigh.

“Love Scenario” is such a sweet jam, and now you can use it to tell someone how much they mean to you. Why save this just for Valentine’s Day – give it to your kpop-loving partner on just a regular old Tuesday to let them know you’re thinking of them!

Hopefully you don’t need to send a follow-up “Killing Me” card!

Not many people make a better brooding face than T.O.P. from BIGBANG, sigh. Anyway, let your BFF, partner, spouse, mom, barber, grocery store bagger know that they’re at the top of your list. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, or any old calendar day to make someone you love smile.

I mean, unless they’re not into Kpop. Then they’ll probably think this card is missing a word.

(I’ve been making cards since 2009 and have yet to make any with missing words, but there is always tomorrow.)

For the person you have more than just a 4Minute crush on.

Seriously though, who else misses this group?! (Fun fact about me: Hot Issue was the first Kpop song I ever bought from iTunes and it was my alarm song for nearly a year!)

Shameless KpopX Fitness shoutout:

Life offers us so many opportunities to say sorry (sorry sorry sorry) and sometimes apologizing to someone is so much easier in writing! This Super Junior “Sorry Sorry” card is the perfect vehicle to carry your atonement. Or maybe you just simply want to say “Sorry you didn’t get BTS tickets” or “Sorry your plant died.”

The premise for this card design has been in my head for months and months and I’m so relieved I finally made time to get this one done! It was another “Wake up Henry to show him” card and he was not thrilled.

I had a slew of really dramatic, terrible birthdays when I was younger. Turns out, the common denominator was that I was just hanging out with some crappy people and also, I didn’t have KPOP in my life yet! This Monsta X birthday card is perfect to show anyone in your monbebe tribe that your wish is for them to have a smooth-sailing birthday, no drama, no stress. And if they’re anything like me, they won’t be able to help but sing-read this card out loud when they see it!

Honestly, listen to this song and then tell me it’s not all you hear when you look at this card!)

Remember back in the day when Aaliyah coined the old adage that “Age ain’t nuthin’ but a numba”? It’s true. And I think any BTS stan will stay forever young as long as they’ve got kpop in their hearts. So give this card to your friends who might be less than stoked about their next birthday (my next birthday will be the big 4-0 you guys, help) because the charming visages of those bangtan beauts is enough to distract any of us from the cold hard reality of growing older.

The inside says “even though it’s your birthday” and it comes with an envelope so you can slide in some anti-aging beauty samples if you really want to make ’em feel great.

It’s no secret that I am obsessed with Hyolyn. I would go as far as to say she’s my ultimate girl kpop bias and she has blessed us with the best summer jams this year! “Tasty sexy hashtag” is a line from her most recent single, Bae, and it was too good not to turn into a card.

This will be part of the upcoming third set of mini Kpop Valentines but I’ll also be listing it as a full-sized single card too.

It’s always nice to get mail from friends, so next time you’re thinking of giving your favorite Shawol a Ring Ding Dong, send them this cute card instead! It features all five members of SHINee because SHINee will always be five. The bright faces of Onew, Jonghyun, Taemin, Minho, and Key paired with these fun Saved By the Bell-esque colors will be sure to put a smile on anyone’s face! (UNLESS THEY ARE HEARTLESS JERKS.)

“Hello” was my first favorite SHINee song, and I have no shame.

The inside is blank, a wide open field for your ink-flowers to flourish!

(P.S. Do you know how hard it is to not just make Taemin cards all day long? I even briefly considered getting into enamel pin-making because the Taemin/SHINee options are lacking.)

Henry didn’t get this one because he doesn’t care about NCT 127, but this card features member Ten.

Get it? I think you’re a …. Ten?

Because his name is Ten?

Valentines are meant to be like dad jokes times Ten, OK?!

Before I get into the real reason we were in Santa Claus, Indiana, I want to talk about the delightful time we spent at the Santa Claus Museum before departing for Pittsburgh yesterday morning.

Yes, the museum was open on Sundays, much to Henry’s dismay!

I thought it was pretty strange that a random town in Indiana was named after Santa, but luckily, I learned immediately at the museum that it was originally called Santa Fee, but when it was time to, I don’t know, do something postal-related, I can’t remember now (I’m the worst at museum-ing!), they realized that there was a town called Santa Fe also in Indiana (WHICH SANTA FE CAME FIRST!? Who has time to google, not me — I want to get through this blog post and finish watching the Taemin Off-Sick concert!! HE WEARS A SWEATER VEST WITH NOTHING UNDER IT DURING ONE SONG, AND HIS PANTS HAVE SUSPENDERS AND HE HAS SOME WEIRD SWEATER COOZY ON HIS ONE FOREARM – ONLY LEE TAEMIN CAN MAKE THIS DORK-STYLE SIZZLE).

Anyway, back to the Sante Fee vs. Santa Fe debacle. There was a town hall meeting to come up with a new name and during that meeting, a strong gust of wind blew the door open and some child-broad yelled, “SANTA CLAUS?!” So that’s how that happened.

A likely story.

But first, we had to snoop around this creepy Santa statue which is allegedly the oldest in the world but then I also read that it’s the only tribute statue to Santa, so…It was still very cool! When we were walking over to it, we saw an older couple that was standing in line in front of us for our first ride on the Voyage at Holiday World the day before!

SPOILER ALERT: We were in Santa Claus for an amusement park.

Such secrets.

(It wasn’t a secret. But we almost didn’t go so I was trying to refrain from being all FOUR MORE DAYS UNTIL HOLIDAY WORLD except at work. Those poor people had to hear about it a lot. The new admin lady is learning so much about me whether she wants to or not.)

‘Sup Santa.

So the museum was actually a museum for the TOWN and not Santa in general, which was fine. I appreciate learning the history of a quaint little town every now and then.

I love that they keep old letters to Santa on display.

LIKE THIS ONE.

One of my favorites was from some polite bitch who was like I don’t want anything for Xmas but peace and whatnot and then she conveniently left a PS:

But then the one below it, OUCH MY STUPID HEART.

Chooch was diligently working to piece together this puzzle which ended up missing a bunch of edge pieces and he was in a fit of extreme outrage over this but before the rage happened, some super annoying midwest family came in and the young daughter screamed, “MAMA IS THAT REALLY SANTA” while peering at pictures of some old town Santa in a cabinet. Chooch spun around so fast with the most disgusted look on his face and I was like OH GOD IS HE GOING TO END THIS BITCH’S CHILDHOOD RIGHT NOW but then he turned back around and focused all of his energy on that stupid puzzle that I would have had pieced together in like two minutes, but let’s not make this a competition.

Then the mom was hovering while I was reading the letters to Santa so I stepped aside and she swooped in and started taking pictures of every single one.

The other appealing thing about this town is that some dude back in the day was like, “I have a lot of money so I’m going to retired and build Santa Claus Land” and that’s what he did but then it was only mildly successful and something happened, I can’t remember, and now it’s Holiday World.

OH! There was a wall in the hallway that had a bunch of framed celebrities’ headshots with signed dollar bills in each one and it turns out that some townie back in the 80s decided to write to famous people and ask for their autographed pictures and they included a dollar to also be signed and these celebrities like Johnny Carson and Danny DeVito actually complied?! I thought only soap opera actors did that shit.

Chooch was like, “I DON’T KNOW WHO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE” so I pointed to Charlton Heston and started mouthing off about the NRA and Henry gave me the NOT HERE, NOT NOW moustache bristle so then I mumbled, “He was Moses.”

GUYS, IF I WRITE TO G-DRAGON IN THE MILITARY AND INCLUDE A 1000 WON BILL, HE WILL SIGN IT AND SEND ME A GLORIOUS PHOTO OF HIS PERFECT FACE.

THEN WE WENT TO THE FAKE POST OFFICE.

AND CHOOCH WROTE A LETTER TO SANTA.

(Even though the lady in the museum didn’t ask him if he had written his letter yet, but she practically pounced on the kids in the annoying family about it because they were younger OK #AGEISM.)

This fucker really asked Santa for V-Bucks. I RUE THE DAY FORTNIGHT CAME INTO OUR LIVES. I literally start to shake when he starts begging and whining for V-Bucks. He wanted this “special” they were having the other day and then told me it was TWENTY-FIVE REAL DOLLARS to get a bunch of FAKE DOLLARS to buy FAKE GOODS for his VIDEO GAME CHARACTER?! Um, no. This is the dumbest thing ever, Santa don’t you dare get him V-Bucks.

Get me a gift certificate for Choice Music.

Then the annoying family came in and took over so I was like OK LET’S WRAP THIS UP because I just couldn’t handle the mom with her neon pink Loony Toons shirt and fanny pack.

I don’t know if it was actually Loony Toons but it was neon pink and something a mom would wear in the early nineties and I needed to get away from her.

(Ironically, I was wearing a Hypercolor shirt BUT IT WAS FOR THE BAND HANDS LIKE HOUSES so don’t lump me in. Don’t you fucking dare do it.)

This old-ass creepy church was also on the property so we poked around.

Oh god, it smelled SO OLD in there, and I felt like I was for sure inhaling asbestos and ancient sins. I can’t believe they let people go in there. The floorboards were whack in some spots and I felt like rafters could have started falling in on us at any moment and not just because we heathens yo.

The museum was free but there was a suggested donation of $5 for families so I made Henry cough it up and then I only signed Chooch’s and my name in the guest book, hahahahaha.

Afterward, we went down the street to Santa’s Candy Castle which I mentioned in my liveblog (DID YOU READ IT?! I can’t remember what I wrote but it was probably not important). This was originally part of Santa Claus Land – oh hey, the candy castle’s website has a history page! Here, just read this. 

I just love shit like this. I didn’t even want any candy, I just wanted to see the building. But then I saw that they sold salt water taffy so I bought a bag for work just to be a dick because everyone goes to the beach and brings back legit salt water taffy. WELL HERE’S A SACK OF TAFFY FROM SANTA CLAUS, INDIANA!

Glenn was not impressed.

Overall, Santa Claus, Indiana is a quirky little town and even though I couldn’t imagine living there, it was a fun little road trip and I hope that one day Chooch will be like, “KIDS WE’RE GOING TO SANTA CLAUS” and his partner will be like, “WTF WHY.”

Guys, our trip to Holiday World was everything I wanted it to be and more but we will get to that another day.

Right now, we just checked out of our OK hotel (I booked it and it was way better than the sex shack Henry holed us up in in Newark) but it was hard to leave because we had inadvertently become invested in a movie on the Hallmark Channel (Bridal Wave, lol). I mean, I can guess how it ends but STILL.

So now it’s 8:43am and we’re on our way to the Santa Claus Museum, because we are in Santa Claus, IN after all.

We just drove past a house surrounded by corn fields that had a ROOMS FOR RENT sign and now I wish we had stayed there. Also, I just told Henry I’m Live-blogging and he flipped me off.

8:52am:

Obligatory.

9:42am: We just left the Santa Claus Museum and Santa’s Candy Castle and both were worth the pit stop in case you were considering driving past with no regrets.

Oldest Santa statue in the world!

I think I will post about the museum separately because I have a lot of pictures and there was a family there that I hated.

But Santa’s Candy was legit. It smelled wonderful and the employees were so nice! The guy who rang us up reminded me of Hank from Breaking Bad. He just kind of looked like him, OK?!

We bought a small bag of Krispie Kreme Jelly Bellys there and I only ate like 10 of them and feel so fucking sick.

11:26am: TIME JUMPED AHEAD I GUESS. Stupid time zones. We just stopped at a Pilot and it destroyed my good mood because I hate gross gas stations and this one was awful and the “coffee station” was dilapidated and there were flies all over it SO THAT WAS A SOLID NOPE.

REMINDER THAT I HAVE NOT HAD ANY COFFEE TODAY.

11:40am:

Me: I could NOT live in Indiana.

Henry: That’s obvious. Places are limited where you could live.

But seriously WHERE ARE ALL THE CAFES. I have to get coffee at MCDONALD’S.

Chooch just screamed, “Peach ice cream!” because we just passed some barn-shaped grocery store with a huge peach ice cream sign so now I’m mocking him and screaming PEACH ICE CREAM is my new brand. Also, if you think Henry didn’t just completely overcomplicate an order of one small coffee with cream and sweetener, then do you even know Henry? That was the most awkward McDonald’s drive-thru ordering I’ve witnessed in a long time.

Also I only ordered a small because if I find a better place I AM STOPPING.

Or – telling Henry to stop.

12:08pm: Driving through Louisville and I just can’t stop feeling disgusted that they have some sports arena called the KFC Yum! Center.

12:20pm: Henry just made some off-hand comment about how the time hasn’t changed yet and I started screaming about how that there time done BEEN changed for A WHILE now and he would know that if HE READ MY LIVE BLOG.

12:50pm: Oh I forgot – when we stopped at Pilot, there was a RED CARPET INN across the street so Chooch and I were dry-heaving. And then inside Pilot, an announcement came on that SHOWER #4 WAS READY and Chooch was all “ew people take showers here?!” And we had to explain to him that Truck Driver Life but then I added, “If I was staying at that Red Carpet Inn, I’d rather take showers here” and Chooch almost puked from laughing so hard and then the cashier asked Henry if he needed a bag and he said NO because he thought we were still standing there and would help him carry the stuff but of course we had already walked outside and he came out to the parking lot with an armful of items and started bitching at us for bailing like this was so unexpected.

2:31pm: WHY DO RESTAURANTS CLOSE AFTER LUNCH. Every fucking place I’ve found on Yelp for this shitty area outside of Cincinnati closes at 2 or 3 so now I guess we are going to Hyde’s which is fine but I have eaten here before and I wanted to try something different! Ugh! I AM HUNGRY THO SO SOMEONE JUST STUFF A GRILLED CHEESE IN MY FAT FACE ALREADY.

Also I have chocolate stains all over my shirt and shorts from the dumb protein bar I ate for breakfast. Ugh.

2:48pm: We’re at Hyde’s and I came so close to sitting at a booth with OLIVER NORTH.

GAG!! (In case you don’t know, I HATE OLIVER NORTH.)

Also, Chooch beat me and submitted the Hyde’s help wanted sign to Job Spotter and got 97 points for it! THAT’S NINETY SEVEN CENTS!!

Well, Henry and I just had a mild disagreement over the Cole slaw here (I think it’s too sweet, he thinks it’s just right) and for some reason, Chooch thought this was SO HILARIOUS that he spewed a mouthful of iced tea all over the booth and Henry was like GOODBYE and left us lol.

Update: Henry’s back. He was just hiding in the bathroom. The only guy that was sitting near us got up and left.

I just had to send Chooch outside to take deep breaths and now he’s making friends with a gaggle or elder-broads.

Now he’s back and blaming Henry for making him crack up and he really just said, “I’m just trying to live a normal life.”

3:00pm: Waitress just asked me “Do you want more coffee ma’am” and I’m like yeah but I also need you to stop calling me ma’am.

I just wistfully said, “Ugh now I want to watch Short Circuit” and Henry asked why. “Um, because of this SONG?!”

(Bee Gee’s More Than a Woman is playing right now.)

Why does he never KNOW.

3:25pm: Some broad just said she wanted two slices of coconut pie to go so the waitress repeated “Ok 2 coconuts to go” so Henry scoffed and said, “I have two coconuts to go” and gestured at Chooch and me. WOW FUNNY GUY.

3:43pm: I got mad at Chooch and told him he can go get reborn elsewhere and I don’t even know that that means but it felt like the ULTIMATE SLAM at the time.

3:54pm: Here in Henry’s Mecca, aka Jungle Jim’s:

4:57pm: Just left Jungle Jim’s and Henry has that fresh-from-the-market glow. I like it there to a point but then I remember that I’m surrounded by assholes and getting rammed into with shopping carts and I’m over it. Especially when some kids were like “Mom look, exotic KitKats! Are they real?!” And Mom came over with her resting bitch fest and said, “Ew I don’t know.

Those are WEIRD” and of course she was super skinny and had that quintessential short soccer mom hair

YOU’RE weird, Mom!

They had cherimoya which I begged for because if you didn’t know that is my FAVORITE fruit but Henry was like, “NOT FOR $10 A PIECE!” Ugh. I did get a sapote though which I haven’t had since my friend Kevin sent me one five or six years ago and I have dreamt of them ever since!

5:53pm: Just stopped at another Pilot. I went into the bathroom and the only available stall had a bunch of poop in it so I said NOPE I’LL WAIT FOR ANOTHER and then a girl came in and was like “There a mess in there?” And I said “Yes it’s pretty gross” so we stood there silently for about 30 seconds listening to someone pee in the taken stall, and then the girl said, “Like is it just not flushed?” And I said “I mean I didn’t really inspect it. I just saw a ton of poop and left” so she went in, lifted up her leg AND FLUSHED IT WITH HER FOOT. She had on flip flops! It could have flipped and flopped into the muddy commode!

Anyway, it flushed and she was like THERE U GO and I muttered thanks and then reluctantly went in even though I didn’t want to use that stall and furthermore I didn’t even really have to pee that bad!!

Oh, the crisis.

Back out in the store, Henry and Chooch filled me on their own bathroom story about the guy who may or not have been living in one of the stalls and another stall was playing rap music. When I told Henry my story and got to the part about the girl using her flip flopped foot to flush, he said, “I saw a guy come out of the bathroom in bare feet yesterday” and I scanned my brain to play back all the places we were at yesterday and I screamed, “EW AT HOLIDAY WORLD?!”

That park had some very questionable clientele.

Chooch got the Giordano’s Deep Dish limited edition Lays and it doesn’t taste like it at all and now the car smells kind of like puke because of it.

7:00pm: Current Sitch – Henry is not speaking to me because I snapped at him for not immediately knowing what I was talking about when I mentioned the Log Jammer’s spillway.

7:36pm: HENRY JUST TOLD ME TO CALM DOWN BECAUSE I AM FURIOUS WITH THE SHEETZ APP RIGHT NOW. OH I’M SORRY, AM I BEING TOO MUCH “EMOTIONAL WOMAN” FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?

8:24pm: I finally ate my coveted, signature Sheetz veggie wrap so I feel better now however Henry started “thinking out loud” about whether Ruby Tuesday’s still has their lettuce wedge salad and I snapped out and yelled SHUT UP NO ONE CARES.

Also, we managed to lose not one but TWO of the three reusable straws we brought with us so I feel pretty defeated because we didn’t just throw them out by accident but we literally LITTERED. There was a hole in the stupid Journeys drawstring bag we had with us at Holiday World ugh.

Also x2 one of my relatives was mocking those of us concerned with the environment and sardonically promised not to use straws and I am just so fucking sick of conservative cabbagefucks acting like it’s so cool to be environmentally deviant. You’re right, let’s all just dump buckets of oil into the nearest body of water for funsies and show the world who owns it. Rah rah rah.

Also x3 before I fed my face, I snapped out on Chooch because I am SO SICK OF HIM ASKING FOR V-BUCKS FOR THAT STUPID FORTNITE GAME and I yelled about how I’m not spending $25 for some in-game purchase that won’t even yield something tangible that he can hold in his hand but is only just some virtual accessory for his stupid character and school starts on Friday and we haven’t even bought him new shoes yet so NO I’M NOT FUNNELING MY HARD-EARNED MONEY INTO THE MAW OF A FUCKING VIDEO GAME. And wow did I ever feel like a REAL MOM after that rant.

8:56pm: Two of my friends announced that they’re going to be moms and it was so nice to see GOOD NEWS today – I’m so happy for them!

9:24pm: WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA. Oh thank god.

9:47pm: Chooch was just on the phone with his neighbor-pal who is extremely geographically challenged. “I wasn’t in CHICAGO, Jayden! No that’s in ILLINOIS. I was in INDIANA!” On the way there Friday night, he was like, “No Jayden I’m not there yet. No, I’m not coming home tonight! BECAUSE IT TAKES 7 HOURS TO GET THERE, WHY WOULD I COME HOME THE SAME NIGHT?

!” He gets so aggravated talking to him haha.

10:58pm: Hi friends I have been home since 10:15 and I am ready to crash and dream about the incredible coasters we rode at Holiday World – Chooch and I are obsessed! I would include Henry in that statement but he’s a bitch and only rode ONE OF THEM, ONCE. He’s so disappointing.

At some point today we will be in Indiana, and I promised to do part of the driving so I won’t be able to liveblog. So instead, I guess have a Friday Five featuring things I’m currently into or thoughts that are glomming onto my brain. It’s a Friday free-for-all.

1. Jonghyun Pins & Making Friends

I saw this Jonghyun tribute pin a few weeks on Instagram and immediately bought one. In some small way, it makes me feel comforted to have it, you know? Anyway, I noted that the seller is also from Pittsburgh so I got really excited and messaged her that I am also from Pittsburgh, hoping that she would read the invisible words that trailed after which said in desperate font PLEASE BE MY FRIEND. She did not pick up on this though and simply replied with, “haha small world! Enjoy the pin!” So I was like HENRY WHAT SHOULD I DO because my social skills are about as dried up as the remnants of my dead plants that I still haven’t thrown away. Henry of course was no help because he doesn’t care about making friends so I waited a few days and messaged her again with a hopefully-not-psycho-sounding suggestion of meeting up for coffee & Kpop talk sometime and she was like “Cool! I’m actually leaving to go back to college soon but I’ll let you know when I’m back in town again” and I don’t know why I’m surprised that she is probably nearly 20 years younger than me, sigh.

But then, while I think about how nice it would be to have a friend here in the city who shares my interests, does it really matter all THAT much? I like all my friends here whether they like the same shit as me or not. And I think it’s kind of cool that all of my friends are so different from me when it comes to interests and hobbies.

2. The new Hands Like Houses single

I can’t tell you how many alerts I get about new music from bands I used to love, and I’m like “I’ll check that out later” and do I?! NO! Just like when friends are like “You should watch [insert American Tv show]” and do I? NO! Because I have reached a point where I almost despise hearing the English language, how messed up is that?! I made it through one episode of Sharp Objects and it was fine but I never went back because it felt strange to not be reading subtitles or hearing that certain Korean dialect that has become more familiar to me than my own language. Anyway, my point is, when I saw Hands Like Houses had a new video, I actually did watch it right away and, not surprisingly, I loved it because I have loved everything that HLH has ever done. Some of the reasons I love them is because:

• They sound like no other band
• Trenton manages to keep his Australian accent while singing and I LOVE that
• They’re from Canberra which is where I went to see the Cure for the first time!
• One of the guys in the band bears such a strong resemblance to a young Tim Curry and has always looked so overcome with joy every time I’ve seen him on stage and it just makes me so happy!

https://youtu.be/BUp03PaFIkU

3. Cats Are Movin’ On Up

Remember sometime last winter when Chooch constructed a shoddy cat condo out of a bunch of cardboard boxes? And we had to beg Henry not to throw it away every Garbage Day? Well, that thing was so busted after awhile that even I was starting to turn against it. And then, the actual cat tower we had BROKE which really isn’t that shocking because it was nearly 20 years old. I bought it for my Original 4 Cats when I was going on the aforementioned Canberra, Australia trip because I was trying to make them less sad that I was leaving (they didn’t care at all in reality) so it ended up just sitting in the basement for years until we got Drew and Penelope and wondered if they would use it. Drew ended up loving it! Penelope notsomuch. So when it broke two weeks ago, Drew was like WHY DO YOU HATE ME.

I talked Henry into buying this fancy cat tower from Chewy and he did but ONLY because he had a coupon for it, he is such a tightwad. When it was delivered last week, Chooch and I begged Henry to assemble it straight away and he was like DO YOU NOT WANT DINNER THEN and I was like OH LOL I MEANT AFTER YOU MAKE DINNER.

At first, Drew was hesitant but now she is like “I can’t believe you guys had me loafing in that cat shanty when this palace was out there all along.”

Even Penelope plays on it! (though it’s harder for her to get on it since she is a jumping dunce).

And made a special Jimin VIP room! Henry was like WHY IS JIMIN IN THERE because he has no imagination and doesn’t believe in cat tower interior design. Cool. Cool cool cool, Henry.

(Hive five to anyone who read that in Melissa Joan Hart’s voice. CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL VIBES!)

4. Pittsburgh Jesus

A few months ago, I was walking past the Steel Plaza trolley entrance when I looked over and I swear to god I saw Jesus Christ himself emerging from the little park area next to it. He was illuminated by rays of sunlight, even. This was Jesus, for sure, and not even the emblazoned-on-a-grilled-cheese version.

But then my eyes adjusted to the blinding light and I realized it was just a homeless guy.

I suppose this is something I could have sent a Greetings from Erin’s Lunch Break about but the truth is that I haven’t SENT A SINGLE ONE because I lost all motivation and also because I spend almost all of my lunch breaks on the phone with my therapist (lol, his name is Henry) because I am a crazy person who needs help and Henry lets me yell.

Anyway! I saw him again one time when I was leaving work after one of my late shifts and as I got in the car I hoarsely whispered to Henry, “There he is! The guy I thought was Jesus!” and Henry was like, “….that fat black guy?”

Ugh no behind him!

Luckily, I saw him again the other day and had the perfect opportunity to snap a pic because he was just casually standing on the steps right by my building.

Honestly, I felt blessed.(FRIDAY FIVE INTERLUDE: We just left Loving Hut somewhere outside of Columbus and we are ragging on Henry to the point where Chooch just barfed up a mouthful of Strawberry Smoothie To Go and I just screamed because Pawn Shop is closed and I had fake-convinced myself that I wanted to stop there after we ate, and Henry just called us assholes.)

5. COCO where’d you GOGO

Hey guys Chooch and I helped a guy find his lost dog while we were on our nightly neighborhood walk the other night. Just another day being hometown heroes, no biggie.

We first saw Coco leering back at us from the end of the sidewalk we were walking down. I got scared and turned around at first because you never know what you’re gonna get with a leashless dog! But then she ran around the corner and we were like LETS SEE WHERE SHE WENT and then some older man was all COCO! COCO! Ugh Peg left the GATE open! I’m going to YELL at her!

We were like SIR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A DOG CUZ WE SAW ONE and he was like YES WHERE and Chooch put on his Dog Detective hat and pointed the way. We kind of stood there helplessly for a while and then I was like “This is awkward, Kid. Let’s split.”

But when we walked up to the next street, we saw some teenage girl slowly chasing a dog through her yard, yelling things to a man on the porch like “It has a harness on!” And I was like THAT MUST BE COCO so I had her and Chooch Lee an eye on her while I ran through the alley to find the man who looked like Harry Potter’s uncle, and I frantically yelled, “Mister we found your dog!” And he asked his neighbor lady if he could hop in her car and they took off to the street I pointed to and I ran back through the alley to find that Chooch and the girl were still blocking Coco but then right when the car rolled up, she bolted deeper into the bowels of Brookline and the girl screamed PAP, GET HER! So now the girl’s pap was party of the search party and the owner got out of the car with the leash while the neighbor lady (who I thought was Peg at first and wondered if she had already gotten yelled at but turns out she was just a nice neighbor who was helping Harry Potter’s uncle who was in NO SHAPE to be trying to lasso Coco on his own) crept slowly after Coco in her car while the rest of us walk-ran in order to not spook Coco into running faster.

OH FRIENDS it was a whole ordeal. But we finally cornered her and the girl was able to grab onto Coco’s harness while Harry Potter’s uncle clobbered over to us with the leash, panting and on the verge of a coronary.

We all bid each other a jovial adieu and then Chooch and I ran home and walked Henry up to tell him that we were hometown heroes once again and he mumbled “I’m so sure” and then fell back asleep.

Last night during our walk, I pointed things out to Henry like the bush where the girl was first trying to catch Coco and the alley where I ran down to tell the owner I found her and Henry was straight sneering on the backseat of a bus to Frown Town.

“It was a really big deal, Henry. You had to be there,” I huffed.

“I doubt it,” he muttered.

“If Brookline had a newsletter, it would have been in there!” I yelled haughtily, but by then his bus had reached its miserable stop at the corner of Scowl Street in Frown Town so he was no longer listening.

And that’s all for this week’s Friday Five! It’s 9:04pm and we’re still in Ohio, to the point where I’m not convinced that Henry hasn’t turned around at some point without me knowing and we’re actually headed back to Pittsburgh.

I was talking to Henry about this girl I used to play tennis with back in high school and how she went on to be the second runner-up on one season of Survivor, and this turned into us talking about our high school days because in case you didn’t know, Henry and I went to the same high school, only like FOURTEEN YEARS apart, lol.

So we got on the topic of which teacher was what coach and he mentioned Mr. Meehleib being the golf coach or something, and Meehleib is not a very common name so I screamed, “MR. MEEHLEIB?! DID HE ALSO TEACH  MATH?!” and Henry was like, “I don’t know, I guess. He had glasses and really—”

“—CURLY HAIR!” I yelled excitedly. So I guess Mr. Meeleib was a high school teacher back in Henry’s days, but when I knew him, he was my third grade math teacher and also the only male teacher at Gill Hall Elementary back then, aside from the principal and the gym teacher, dumbass Mr. Schantz who insisted on making us climb ropes and I was always one of the only kids who couldn’t do it, even before I got fat!

Another reason why Mr. Meehleib is significant to my life is because I got my first ever E in his class! (Do you remember when the grading scale used to actually go from A-E? No? WELL THEN MAYBE I’M JUST REALLY FUCKING OLD.

) I don’t know what happened to me that year, because I was actually very smart leading up to this (tested for the gifted program and everything!) but then we reached the chapter in the math book on COUNTING CHANGE and my friends, I don’t know what it was about the way my brain is wired, but I just couldn’t do it. Mr. Meehleib even had a toy register and we had to line up and take turns pretending like we were cashiers and counting change, and every time it was my turn, I would be on the verge of tears because I just wasn’t getting it. I would freeze up and he would get pretty pissed at me, if I remember correctly, so then I REALLY couldn’t do it.

Mr. Meehleib, being the only male teacher, paddled Rick F.

and Mike S. one time so I was like WILL I GET PADDLED FOR SHORTING HIM A NICKEL?!

(They got paddled because they were disruptive d-bags not because they couldn’t accommodate an imaginary customer trying to break a $5, BUT STILL.)

My friend Lauren struggled with it too and now  that I think about it, Lauren also couldn’t climb the ropes in gym so WAS LAUREN DRAGGING ME DOWN OR WAS I DRAGGING LAUREN DOWN?!

Anyway, welcome to my first big fat E! I will never forget it! I cried about it for days and no one in my family even cared because they were like, “It’s one E.

You’ll bounce back” but all I could think about was how I clearly had NO FUTURE because how would I ever get a job in a grocery store?!

I was telling Henry all of this last night, like totally pouring my heart out, and I realized that shit, this must have been a BIG DEAL to me back then because I have been clearly been holding it in all these years so now I’m telling you too, Blog, in an effort to be more transparent about my secret dumbness.

“You know that story about the time my dad walked in on me in the garage teaching a Praying Mantis how to count change when I was in 4th grade?” I asked Henry.

“Um, no?!” he responded, as if I haven’t brought this up at least 3 dozen times during the course of our loving relationship.

“Well anyway, that’s why I was teaching the Praying Mantis how to count change, because I was practicing” and Henry was just like, “ohmygod.”

Wow, I feel so much better now. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, Blog!

FUN FACT: I only had one job where I needed to use a cash register and it was at Everything’s $1 at Century III Mall when I was in high school. On my first day, I went on my break and never came back. And no, it wasn’t because I couldn’t handle counting change, it was because I hate people.

Kind of like the Bible, you know? Before Henry and After Henry.

The last ride that Chooch and I went on before Henry came and pooped on my birthday* was Aero 360. When we were in line, we kept thinking that we saw Henry, but it was just other middle-aged men in non-descript shirts and varying shades of brown and gray. Then some girl behind us was talking about how she was on the Jack Rabbit earlier and it stopped right before the double dip. (Foreshadowing!)

*(J/K Henry was actually kind of OK, I guess because it was my birthday and he knows I’m fucking fragile these days.)

Henry rolled up to the Aero360 right as it was our turn to ride, so were like, “HENRY! WATCH US!” because we’re weirdos who like it when our people watch us go on rides. One time, we were like JANNA TAKE OUR PICTURE!!! while we were riding the Swing Shot but she fucking failed us.

Anyway, I used to like the Aero360 a lot but now I’m just like, “It’s fine.”

After that, we made Henry buy us ice cream cones at Golden Nugget! Truhdishun!!

We made Henry ride THE TURTLE….

….and pose by the corn dog pagoda thing…..

…and go in Noah’s Ark! Henry hates going in Noah’s Ark with us because we act like the biggest raging assholes in Kennywood inside that fucking bible boat.

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Guys, I’m so excited. The Volcano (formerly known as the Enterprise) was shut down nearly every time we went to Kennywood, to the point where last year was actually the first time Chooch had the opportunity to ride it. I found out through the Kennywood grapevine that it was because they were having a hard time finding a part for it, but then they did and now everything is right in Kennywoodland again! I love the ride, and always have, even though they gave it a dumb name so it would “fit in” better in a themed area that only last like three years.

But the whole reason I took this picture is because I recently mentioned this in a blog post and wanted to be able to show you what I was referring to! SO GO BACK AND REFRESH YOUR MEMORY about the time that ride nearly took off my foot.

And also I took this picture because I had just regained some semblance of equilibrium after stupidly lifting my years-long ban on the Pirate Ship thanks to Chooch’s peer-pressuring and I was killing time while sitting on a wall swallowing back vomit and waiting for Henry to come back from the super-long way to getting me water, which turns out was purposely at Auntie Anne’s because that selfish bastard wanted pretzels.

Also, right after I took this picture, two girls probably in their early 20s walked by and one of them was wearing a BTS hoodie and I was desperate to talk to her but also didn’t want to look desperate to talk to her, so instead I watched her walk away and then I spent the rest of the day wondering if I just let my possible new-BFF slip through my stupid fingers. Ugh making friends is hard.

I needed to go on a baby ride after the Pirate Ship made me nearly give up the ghost, so I dragged Chooch and Henry on Garfield’s Nightmare which is the lamest ride in the park (a darkride that used to be cool until it was rebranded into Garfield). Henry tried to get out of it but I was like IT IS MY BIRTHDAY, GET YOUR ASS IN THIS BOAT.

And it’s 3D! Henry is so stoked!

Still stoked!

Getting loaded waffles is our new tradition. MINE IS SPECULOOS. This was also my dinner. And my make-believe birthday cake since I didn’t get a cake this year.

:(

Henry was supposed to have a G-Dragon cake made for me but I guess his love for me isn’t strong enough.

Chooch suddenly thinks the Auto Racer tide is “so lame.” Well it’s my birthday so shut your face and get your ass in the car, boy.

There was a brief moment in the afternoon when the park started to get crowded (we blamed Henry because it happened after he arrived) but then by early evening, it cleared out again and we have no idea where everyone went but it was glorious. If I ever had to wait more than 20 minutes for anything at Kennywood, I think I would riot because I’m so accustomed to going on off-days.

(We’re supposed to be going again next Tuesday so I probably just jinxed myself.)

Kennywood definitely isn’t cutting edge when it comes to amusement parks, but it has a nice collection of wooden coasters and in case you ever go to some dive bar’s trivia night and they have an Oh Honestly Erin category, WOODEN COASTERS ARE MY FAVORITES. My top 3 are:

• T-Express in Everland (It’s just the best)
• The Phoenix in Knoebels
• Ravine Flyer II in Waldemeer

OK so none of those are in Kennywood, but the ones here in K-Wood will always be close to my heart no matter what because they are pure nostalgia and always leave me with a raw and scratchy throat the next day because I AM A SCREAMER.

We made Henry ride the Racer alone. Every time I tried to take his picture, his ginger guardian would turn and watch me with disappointment. Like, wow, lady. Worry about your own dumb family.

We call this one Henry Rides Alone. This was right before his ginger guardian plucked a strand of his hair to keep in her Stalker Chest. I was just wistfully wondering why I’ve never kept a Stalker Chest but then I remembered the time my brother Ryan and I were obsessed with GARY, the guy who was building a backporch on our house during the summer of 1994 and we collected his cigarette butts and beer cans after he left one day and hid them under the couch, for what reason, I have no idea—I GUESS YOU WILL HAVE TO CLICK THAT LINK UP THERE— but then our dad found our psycho stash and was like WHAT IS THIS and when we told him it was Gary’s, he believed us because hello, everyone knew we were weirdos.

Henry’s stupid train won and Chooch and I tried to shrug it off like we didn’t care but I was internalizing the urge to break bricks over my knee if we’re being honest.

1. Chooch’s hair
2. It was THIS empty!

We rode the Swingshot for the second time that day, excited that now Henry was there to watch us. (We really are like little children.

) I begged Henry to ride it too but he was like, “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHOSE BIRTHDAY IT IS, I AM NOT RIDING THAT THING.” We rode it with this one little boy who kept screaming, “It’s Mary Poppins yall!” and a couple in their 30s who I thought were going to be annoying at first because they were kind of trashy (guys have you read my children’s book, See Erin Judge?) but the lady actually ended up being super cool and after the ride ended, her man-thing peaced out but she was like I WONDER IF I CAN JUST STAY ON because there was NO LINE so she was like, “Do you guys want to just stay on with me?” and this was after I just spent a minute giving birth mid-air to a doom-baby but I said, “YEAH SURE OK WE WILL RIDE THIS TWICE IN A ROW, NO BIG DEAL, I’M NOT SCARED YOU’RE SCARED” and then the laissez faire teenage ride attendants were like, “Bitches, yall can do what you want, we don’t give a fuck” and Henry was mouthing the words, “WTF are you doing” but I just laughed and waved him off, because he wouldn’t understand, this was real daredevil shit right here.

And then we were catapulted into the air for round 2 and I couldn’t even try to be brave because my fight-or-flight inclination to scream off the contents of my Living Will into the ether smashed any ounce of stoicism that I might have had inside me.

Once the ride was over, I was so fucking relieved to see that there were people in line this time. “OH WELL GUESS WE CAN’T GO FOR THE THREEPEAT, SEE YA LATER, LADY” and I ran out of there, haha, just kidding, I fucking slowly stumbled out with actual knocking knees.

HOW DID STANLEY DO THIS 80 TIMES IN A ROW?

Alone At Kennywood, Part 2: Serendipitous Stanley

Henry just shook his head when we rejoined him and said, “Why do you ride that?! You don’t look like you enjoy it AT ALL!”

I DO A LOT OF THINGS I DON’T LIKE FOR NO REAL REASON, OK HENRY? It’s call sado-masochism and also I clearly hate myself.

Ugh, we ran into those dumb kissers again.

I can’t remember the last time I rode the carousel at Kennywood but I felt inspired to on this day. We just missed getting on and while we were standing in line, the ride attendant came barreling over and slammed the gate shut. I was like WHAT IS HAPPENING and apparently the ride wasn’t supposed to start yet?! Like he was still going around and making sure everyone was ready and the gate was wide open so basically if it hasn’t started moving right as the people in front of us got to the entrance and stopped, we all could have been stepping on the platform as it started moving and that sucker went from a standstill to MOVING in no time.

The ride attendant was like totally pale-faced after this happened and had to get the ride operator to shut it down while he finished making sure everyone was OK which they were but there were only about seven people on the damn thing so the lady in front of us turned to me and said, “He could have at least let us on!” I KNOW RIGHT, STRANGER?!

Of course, I accidentally wound up having a crush on that ride attendant afterward and Henry was like, “I’m not surprised.”

OK fine, I’m going to admit something to you, blog: I AM AFRAID OF CAROUSELS. I’m weird about heights/disembarking things and I always panic when it’s time to unstraddle whatever animal I chose so sometimes I will actually pick either the stationary horses or the old people seats. Nevertheless, every so often I get the urge to feed my fears.

And thank god because what a stupid family selfie I was able to collect on this thing.

We did not ride the swings. I can’t remember the last time I rode these ones, to be honest! I have been on ones in other parks though but, because I am a sentimental d-bag, I have lost so much love for Kennywood’s swings since it moved locations.

And it wasn’t even recently! It moved to this current location, like, a LONG time ago but I am such a baby about it still.

I hate change!

Kangaroos is fucking underrated. I always get super excited to ride this and vocalize that excitement maniacally and then I realize, “HEY, NO ONE ELSE IS SCREAMING.” Come on guys, it’s the Kangaroo, get fucking crazy!

Also, the ride attendant from the carousel was working this ride by that time and I kept shouting to Henry, who was standing on the other side of the gate with all the other grandparents, “HENRY LOOK! IT’S MY BOYFRIEND! MY BOYFRIEND IS HERE NOW!” and Chooch was like, “OMG please stop.”

We didn’t ride the Music Express because the Pirate Ship ruined me.

And then we finally got to ride the Jack Rabbit—oh, I didn’t tell you? We tried to ride it previously after Henry got there and made it all the way to the front of the line before an announcement came on that said they were experiencing technical difficulties and while everyone was welcome to stay in line, they were going to have to temporarily suspend operations.

Guys, I have never seen so much mechanical failure in all the years I’ve attended Kennywood, and it only got worse because later that week, Thomas the Tank Engine derailed twice, the Phantom’s Revenge got stuck and passengers had to be walked down the steps, and THE FUCKING BRAKES STOPPED WORKING ON THE PIRATE SHIP AND PEOPLE GOT STUCK ON IT FOR 10-15 MINUTES. Yes, WHILE IT WAS MOVING. It was on the news and obviously people were like puking and stuff. Kennywood, you are fucking drunk this season.

We left the park around 8 because we pretty much did everything we wanted to do and I feel like I might have been pouting when we left but it’s also possible that I’m mixing this up with pretty much any other time we’ve gone to Kennywood.

You guys rioted* when my other serial killer notecard set didn’t include Jeffrey Dahmer, so here is the much-anticipated second series with 8 more vicious bastards to terrorize mail recipients, including the ever-popular Jeffrey Dahmer.

*(OK literally just one person was like “No Dahmer?” on Instagram. But hey this is proof that I consider your feedback!

)

Each card features 1970s wallpaper backgrounds and famous quotes from each killer, or as I like to alternately call these: Things Not to Say on a First Date.

Or job interview.

Or ever, probably.

These cards are the A2 size, smaller than the single cards I sell in this shop. 8 envelopes are included for free. I was going to charge extra for them but my boyfriend showed me the definition of “dick move” and it said “Charging extra for envelopes.”

This set includes: Jeffrey Dahmer, Carl Panzram, Charles Manson, BTK/Dennis Rader, Gary Ridgway/Green River Killer, Henry Lee Lucas, Richard Speck, and Andrei Chikatilo (somehow I realized that in the 10 years I’ve been making these cards, I don’t have a single Chikatilo design, like America’s the only country with deranged killers).

I wanted to give the second series more of a retro feel, whereas the first set is more of a “granny’s stationary drawer” feel. I had so much perusing various 1970s wallpaper designs, that’s for sure. (Much less fun looking up killer quotes, though.)

Gary Ridgway.

Henry Lee Lucas.

BTK.

I think we can all use that “head dropping” excuse though, right? I was definitely dropped on my head as a kid and also as a teenager when Jared and Damien were trying to drag me over to the window of our 8th grade homeroom because my mega-crush was outside and I was like DONT MAKE ME TALK TO HIM and one of them DROPPED ME ON MY HEAD because I was not going willingly and I saw animated bluebirds for real, you guys.

Granted, I haven’t killed anyone or even tortured or bound anyone yet but at least if I decide to, I know I have a SOLID EXCUSE.

J/K please don’t report me. 

Andrei Chikatilo

This one just makes me laugh, but also it makes me wish that some group of people would want to buy my brains when I die.

Charles Manson, le duh.

Has there ever been a more relevant sentiment uttered by a cult leader? Everybody out here trying to out-crazy each other, man.

Anyway, this note card is blank inside and if you’re like me and work in a city, it could easily be filled up with the nutso things you see during your lunch break strolls through downtown alleys. For example, one time some dude walked to the nearby Army Navy store, bought a machete, and then used it to chop a dude’s hand RIGHT ACROSS FROM WHERE I WORK. No one died or anything, but there was a crime scene with blood so you better believe I went out there and took pictures of it. After I was sure that it wasn’t Jason Voorhees, that is. Turns out it was an isolated incident and the two guys knew each other and were fighting over a broad. A tale as old as time. Or at least as old as 2014. 

Jeffrey Dahmer.

Richard Speck

Fun fact about me: I had a cat named Nicotina but I started calling her Speck one day, one of those instances* where you see one of your pets and just blurt out a new name for them, because Richard Speck happened to be on my mind for some reason, and then that name stuck to the point where my son was born several years later and that was the only name he ever knew for her.

*(I also called her Breakfast Nook and Pickles.)

***

These sets come with envelopes, perfect for slipping in a handwritten excuse signed by a parent. Any parent. I’m a parent* and can sign it for you if you want.

*(I know, right?!)

They can also be purchased individually, so just send me a convo if, say, you only want the Gary Ridgway one or something. I will accommodate!

In other greeting card news, I’m working on some new Kpop cards for my Hello Hanguk shop and hope to have a THIRD set of mini-Valentines ready for 2019, and also some Christmas card sets. I have not had very much time to give these shops the proper attention that they deserve, but I’m trying to be more mindful of carving out time. So if there are any killers or Kpop groups/idols you want to see featured on some cards, let me know!

Yeah boi, it’s Friday (I was going to type Friyay just to be a douchebag but I was afraid you’d think I was serious as I type this while wearing a BUT FIRST COFFEE ringer tee) so let’s pull some five things out a hat and call it a day.

1. My Broken Calf

Remember sometime last week when I was like “I broke my calf”? No? YOU MEAN YOU DON’T READ ALL THESE POSTS? Don’t worry, I don’t either – that’s why they’re so jacked up! Anyway, I hurt my calf somehow, not because I’m a lunatic when it comes to exercising, oh no. It was one of those things where I was like, “Maybe it just needs to stretch it out or something” and then I kept doing all the things I normally do because I’m a fucking fool. I spent a whole week trying to hide my limp at work, and I almost had to roll myself out of several rides at Kennywood because my calf was so taut. Anyway, I thought I was healed (why, I don’t know, because I certainly hadn’t rested it at all) but then Saturday night, Chooch and I were waiting to cross the street and then some lady was like “Even though I have the right of way and you guys don’t have the walk sign, I’m going to be a sweetheart and let you cross while I hold up traffic” which she communicated by waving us along. It was one of those things where we were both delayed in our reactions, so when Chooch and I went to step off the curb, she started to turn into us, and this went on three times until the car behind her started to blow on the horn so I screamed RUNNNN and we ran across the street but when I pushed off with my left foot, I tweaked that son-of-a-bitchin’ muscle all over again and it’s a wonder I made it to the other side of the road, like the gimpiest Punchline Chicken ever.

Nevertheless, I continued walking – we were walking to the Dormont post office to drop off some Hello Hanguk cards – and it didn’t feel great but oh well.

This has nothing to do with my calf, but on our way to the post office, keep in mind it’s night time, Henry said, “Oh hey look” and pointed to a window of a shop we were walking past. When I turned to look, I was FACE TO FACE with a mannequin head, but like, the kind from the 50s or 60s that have makeup on. I don’t know why it shocked me so much, but I screamed SO LOUD, the type of scream I would usually reserve for when I’m being an asshole at a haunted house, and THAT actually scared Henry and Chooch. My heart was actually racing, lol.

OK back to my calf.

The next day I think I limped all around town, but I swear it felt OK that night, so I shoved the coffee table out of the way to prepare for Kpop Family Cardio Night, and approximately 10 seconds into the firsts song, my calf was like, “Oh hunny, no” and that is how I ended up crumbled into a heap of writhing Fat Girl on the floor while Henry said things like, “I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN” and “GOOD FOR YOU” and “WHEN WILL YOU LEARN” and “WHEN I WAS IN THE SERVICE, THIS HAPPENED TO EDDIE WHEN HE WAS FLEEING FROM THE PANAMANIAN FAMILY AFTER ACCIDENTALLY MURDERING THEIR PET DUCK.”

When Henry said he was going to go to CVS  to get me an ace bandage, I asked him if he was walking and when he said yes, I said, “OK I’LL COME TOO!” He was just like, “Are you kidding me?!” but then sighed deeply and we embarked on the slowest walk to CVS because I literally couldn’t put any pressure on my left leg. First, I tried hopping there on my right leg but that gets tiring after awhile. Then I tried to get Henry to carry me and he was like, “What do I look like, a fork lift” but then I realized that if I walked in a sideways shuffle, I could walk without yelping in pain!

While we were in CVS, “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons Project came on and I always get super somber when I hear that because it brings back weird memories of my birth dad that I’m not even sure are real?! So now I had a broken calf and weird maybe-memories making me look like someone who had jumped out of an asylum window and stopped at CVS for an ace bandage and candy bar.

Anyway, here’s a picture of Penelope looking totally concerned as Henry wraps my leg. Also, ignore the table in the background. That’s Henry’s fake-Hallmark factory.

Me, after he wrapped my ankle: “I’M CURED!”

Me, after I took it off before bed: *takes a step and collapses*

2. Stupid Lunch Date With Stupid Henry

Henry and I had Saturday afternoon to ourselves because Chooch went to some nerd convention at the library. First, we went to two asian markets that we’ve never shopped at before asian markets are the premiere places to get amazing produce, if you didn’t know. More on that later though. We decided to also go on a lunch date, I guess that’s what that was, and this is how we learned that every restaurant we wanted to try in Bloomfield was closes early and if there’s one thing I despise, it’s a restaurant that closes early. The one place has a big open window and one of the workers was sitting near it, so when we walked past, I yelled ASSHOLE! except that it was more of a whisper-scream and Henry thought this was like, so funny, and wouldn’t stop laughing about it and that just made me more mad.

Anyway, we ended up at Station, which is not somewhere I had ever considered eating at before because I was always under the impression that it was super non-veg friendly, but the menu posted outside said that they had VEGAN SLOPPY JOES. I was like, “I’m in” and that was that.

Since it was an odd hour (after 2pm), it was just us, another couple, and some lonely guy at the bar. I love empty restaurants like no other, you guys. You have no idea the anxiety I get right before walking into a restaurant. I always feel like Pee Wee walking into that biker bar, except that I can promise you I’m not going to win over the skeptics by doing the Big Shoe dance to Tequila on the bar.

I felt super comfortable here, we had a great waitress, my sloppy joe was on a delicious roll, and the FRIES WERE AMONG THE BEST FRIES I HAVE HAD. Like, every fry was a Good One! I didn’t have to exchange any with Henry!

And then we shared a lavender pound cake for lunch-dessert! And we got along! I think Henry and I have an OK relationship, you guys. It would be even better if he would just commit to taking us to Holiday World for god’s sake.

3. My Favorite Song of the Week

YG is killing it this year.  This is hands down my favorite thing that Ikon has released and I’m really stoked for them. YG Entertainment will always be #1 in my heart and getting to see their building when we were in Korea was a dream! There’s a shitload of talent inside those walls.

4. Good Goddamn Vegetables!

One of the things I love about Pittsburgh (and there are not many things I love about this city) is that we have so many amazing ethnic markets. I have become obsessed with breadfruit ever since we had it at the Caribbean festival a few weeks ago and I found out that an asian market in Wilkinsburg sells it. We also got cassava and barrata, which I was practically peeing my pants over. Look, when your diet consists of like 90% fruits and vegetables, you’d be excited to add some new shit to the repertoire as well. When Henry was checking out, the older asian woman asked, “Do you know these?” and when we said yes, she happily said, “Oh! That’s good!” I felt so proud! Then I posted a picture on Instagram of some our newly acquired vegetables and this caused confusion and disgust because:

• This is America!
• Vegetables are broccoli and carrots!
• Probably from a bag!
• From the back of a freezer!

But whatever, veggie-haters, I was in heaven! And this is the exotic bowl I feasted on that weekend:

Granted, gochujang makes everything taste good, but the cassava and barrata were great additions to Henry’s Korean noodle bowl, and then he fried some plantains and breadfruit with some rice syrup for dessert and I was like, “Pappap, thank you for sending this man to take care of me.” Honestly, I would still be eating food bought from gas stations if I hadn’t meant him, probably.

Also, I don’t have a sesame seed problem, sesame seeds have an Erin problem.

Speaking of asian markets, the second one we went to was a Korean market and the two ladies working there were so sweet and helpful and gave us both a free Binch (a type of cookie) when we were checking out. And I got my 바나나 우유 fix and while it was velvety and delicious, it just wasted the same as sipping it from a cute little barrel in Korea. :(

On the train to Busan!

5. A Week of Train Derailments

Speaking of trains, Pittsburgh was CURSED last week. First, that stupid Thomas the Tank Engine train at Kennywood derailed twice on two separate days. Then on Sunday, a REAL train derailed and seven cars landed on the Station Square trolley tracks and I have not been able to shake the fact that this could have been so fucking tragic and devastating had it happened at any other time — but thank god, NO ONE WAS HURT. The train cars that fell were carrying household products, things like Listerine and cat food, but nothing toxic, and NO ONE happened to be standing there and no trolleys were passing by at that moment.

From triblive.com

From wpxi.com

I get chills every time I look at these pictures or even think about it happening. What a nightmare. Of course, Monday’s commute was absolutely jacked because the alternate route was also affected at first and the Port Authority had to scramble and employ the use of shuttle buses. I was getting mad because Janna was complaining about it and I was like THEY ARE DOING THE BEST THAT THEY CAN, THIS IS NOT THEIR FAULT and you know that’s something, when I stick up for the Port Authority! But really, they are like the local heroes of the week. I read that a ton of their of their employees came to work on their day off to help with the shuttle buses, and whoever runs their Twitter account is spunky AF. They posted a picture of the trolley tracks after all of the train cars had been removed and their caption was “Gotta be honest. Station Square Station, you look like you’ve been hit by a train.”

COME ON, THAT’S FUNNY!

My commute is a little bit longer now while they work on repairing all the tracks and power lines that were demolished, but I can’t be too mad because at least I don’t have to take a bus, and AT LEAST NO ONE WAS HURT.

*shudder*

***

Well, I intended this to be more riveting, but my days have been mostly: work, begging Henry to take me to Holiday World*, Korean dramas, and making fun of the church carnival which started on Wednesday. What a summer.

*(The other night, Henry lost it and said, “I love you but you are REALLY GETTING ON MY NERVES.” Wow. This was a separate outburst from the time last weekend at Target when he told me that he sometimes can’t believe I’m as old as I am, and this may or may not have been because I was publicly pouting about wanting to go to Holiday World. Look, when something is on my radar, I WILL FIXATE AND FOCUS until I get on my own nerves.)

***

OMG WAIT! I have an extra story for you, the hidden track of Friday Five, if you will.

Hidden Track: The DGD Interaction

Yesterday when I was about to go back in my building after my lunch break walk, I noticed a young guy leaning against the wall and he was wearing a Dance Gavin Dance shirt! I was just about to hang up with Henry when I blurted out, “Some guy is wearing a DGD shirt—I MUST TALK TO HIM, BYE” and I’m sure Henry was so glad he wasn’t there to witness me faking like I know how to talk to other humans. But I honestly had to say something because unless I’m at a show (and I’m rarely at shows anymore), I never see anyone just causally strolling around town with a DGD shirt on.

So I go up to this guy who is scrolling through his phone, and I urgently say, “I just had to tell you that DGD is one of my favorite bands, and I never see anyone wearing their shirts.”

Instead of being creeped out by this scene-elder invading his space, he smiled and said, “Well, I have to tell you that no one ever tells me they like them too!” and then we talked about how they’re not coming to Pittsburgh on their upcoming tour, and he said, “Where have you seen them, Mr Smalls?” and I was glad he answered his question for me because I was starting to blank and I realized that it’s been SO LONG since I’ve actually listened to DGD (or anything English for that matter) that if he started asking me detailed questions I would probably have to run away. I even forgot at that moment what my favorite album and song were!

I haven’t even bought their latest record yet! I’m awful! Maybe I will do that tomorrow.