Oh SHOOT are you guys in for a treat (“You’re not,” says Henry). I found Vacations with Erin Vol. 3 in the attic (thankfully before the Man in the Attic came back for seconds, j/k I think one of my dogs chewed on this when I still lived at home) the other day when I was looking for old books to drop off at one of the Little Free Libraries down the street from me and so tonight I flipped open to a random page and started to read aloud to Henry, which is truly his favorite thing ever, listening to me fast-talk through super dramatic episodic capsules of my youth.

I landed on a page from when I was in Cordoba with my aunt Sharon in 1992 and she kept ditching me (I was 12!!!) for other people she liked better in our tour group. OK, here it goes:

***

[Sharon’s] back and she wants me to go on a stupid gay [EDITOR’S NOTE: sorry!! I was 12 and this was the 90s, I don’t use that word in that way anymore!!!!] carriage ride w/ her, Janet, Alisha, & Athena. NOT!! I wanted to go for a walk not a group gathering on a carriage. SHE can go, since she ♥s deciding things for the both of us. Well, I’m sick of her little ideas. She can go mingle by herself w/o me. ALone. She won’t even notice that I’m not there. I’d feel left out like I normally do when we’re w/ THEM. [EDITOR’S NOTE: I vaguely remember Alisha and Athena being in their early 20s and getting ALL OF THE ATTENTION everywhere we went and me, as a spoiled Leo, could not fucking handle the injustice of it all] Sharon would probably treat me like a child like she usually does when THEY’RE around. I wish she’d just leave. Good, there she goes. Everytime we’re gonna go somewhere by ourselves, we usually end ↑ in a group. I absolutely hate that. I wish Pappap & Grandma were here. Then I wouldn’t be so bored. I wish I could call them, but it would cost them too much. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Um, my Pappap was literally a millionaire, lol.] And I don’t wanna complain to them anyways. Hey, she’s back. Oh, she just went to the bathroom. You’d think she’d take the hint since I’m not talking to her. Why doesn’t she LEAVE? I could have stayed home & she wouldn’t have cared. She just uses me as a companion until like, the first day. Cuz then she makes frenz & totally drops me & acts like I’m just a mere child & she’s like my guardian or something [EDITOR’S NOTE: I mean, this was basically the nature of our relationship, so….] A babysitter – that’s it. Oh, now she’s trying to suck ↑.

Ugh. I was laying ↓ & she came over & said, “Are you mad at me? Tell the truth. Do you feel like I’m neglecting you?” She wanted the truth so I said, “Since day one” & she goes, “THEN TO HELL W/ THIS VACATION. I THINK THIS IS THE END OF YOU & I GOING ON VACATIONS TOGETHER.” She has quite a lot of nerve! She’s gone now but before she left she kept trying to suck ↑ by asking me if I wanted a churro. Ha! Yeah rite. Give it ↑. She’s trying to get me even fatter but I don’t know why. Aren’t I fat enuf?

Well, it’s only 10:00 but I might as well go to sleep now – what else is there to do in this dungeon cell?

—THE NEXT DAY—

Today we leave for Madrid. A six hour drive. Let’s see how long I last. Last nite I finally fell asleep after many distractions. First, the TV kept going ↑ in volume, & then Sharon’s makeup bag fell off the bathroom counter & it was SO loud. “Elvira” was on & it brought back memories of how Daddy used to make us watch her Halloween special every year. I don’t know what time Sharon came back. She was probably having so much—-

***

And then it continues on into VACATIONS WITH ERIN: VOL 4, which I do not have access to right now because it’s tucked away in a trunk and it hurts my back to open it so CLIFFHANGER. But yeah, that was a little peek into how fantastic it was to travel with me back then! (Somewhere, Henry is reading this, eyebrows a’quiver, thinking, “BACK THEN??”)

Wow, that was fun. I like transcribing. Maybe I will do this more often and then you guys can feel just as tortured and violated as Henry does when I cry out VACATION JOURNAL STORY TIME! and he gets this really scared rabbit look in his eyes. His favorite part of tonight’s story time was when I got to the part where I found out Janet, a lady on our tour, says the word “decrepit” too and then I interrupted my reading to scream, “I USED TO SAY THAT WORD ALL THE TIME DO YOU KNOW WHY BECAUSE SCOTT D*MBAUGH SAID THAT WORD ONCE IN 7TH GRADE AND I WAS OBSESSED WITH HIM AND SO I STARTED SAYING IT TOO AND IT BECAME MY FAVORITE WORD” and then I went back to the reading the next line which was LITERALLY, “I thought me and Scott were the only ones who knew what that word meant! SIKE!”

LOL I WAS SO OBSESSED WITH HIM (I mean, he was the first person I stalked, so) THAT I EVEN NAME-DROPPED HIM IN MY VACATION JOURNAL WHEN I WAS THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY IN SPAIN. That is true, dedicated obsession. Also, I stuck an asterisk in his last name up there because I wrote about him once on here and one of his CO-WORKERS FOUND IT and told him!? AND THE BLOG POST INCLUDED A FUCKING PICTURE OF AN ASSIGNMENT THAT I KEPT WHEN HE WAS MY SCIENCE PARTNER IN 8TH GRADE BECAUSE I WANTED TO ALWAYS REMEMBER HIS HANDWRITING AND NOW HE KNOWS. That was cool. So cool. Really cool. I’m cool. Totally fucking cool. It’s cool.

Going to google him now TTYL.

I pulled Chooch away from his stupid “whatever it is he does on the computer with headphones on” for an entire 5 minutes BECAUSE I AM THE WORSTEST MOMMY IN THE WORLD. Literally he acted like I asked so much of him and honestly these teenage years are killing me dead, you guys. Killing me fucking deadzo. All I wanted was one good picture of us jumping across the street at the church for something I’m working on, not actually making him GO INSIDE THE CHURCH for MASS.

ALTHOUGH MAYBE THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO START HAPPENING.

I mean, look at that face! The Pet Shop Boys could have used it for the cover of the What Have I Done To Deserve This single.

What else fun Erin&Chooch stories do I have to share…oh! Here’s one. We were walking down the street the other day and his friend’s little brother was outside. I think he’s like 3 or 4 or who cares. Anyway, he called out, “It’s Riley and the Blond Girl!” and this cracked me up because I think only HNC and his wife know my name out of everyone who lives on this street and I have lived here almost the longest, so that’s cool, being this popular. But also, the Blond Girl and not Riley’s Mom? Kills me.

Oh here’s a weird one. Last Friday, the radio in my bedroom was playing “Electric Avenue” and I almost knocked on Chooch’s bedroom door to tell him that the song he likes was on the radio but then I stopped at the last minute and thought, “No. It’s not this song. It’s that other song” and I couldn’t even remember how it went in my head, except that the word “stride” was in it and I was like, “OH WELL, IT WILL COME TO ME LATER PROBABLY” and I went back downstairs. A few minutes later, LITERALLY JUST A FEW MINUTES LATER, LIKE TWO SONGS LATER PROBABLY, I had to run back up to my room for something AND THE SONG I COULDN’T REMEMBER WAS ON! It’s that “Nothing’s Gonna Break My Stride” song from the 80s, so this time I *did* knock on Chooch’s door and I told him the whole story and then finished it with, “And now that song is on!!!”

Chooch just looked at me, sneered, and said, “Well, I do actually like Electric Avenue too so nice try.”

SEE THIS IS WHAT I DEAL WITH and as I type this, it occurs to me that he only talks to me this way because he has spent his formative years listening to me talk to Henry that way, so….good job, Blond Girl.

Then over the weekend, the same radio station played both songs again, just in reverse order, three songs apart from each other AND I FUCKING FLIPPED OUT. Also, this same station plays American Pie (one of my most hated songs) nearly every day and for what purpose?!!? I don’t understand how a radio station that’s supposed to be playing a mixed bag of oldies and current hits continuously plays the same old songs when there are like millions to choose from – you’re a fucking variety station! Does someone need to give them the definition of variety?! I only keep the radio on because it comforts me to hear wafting away up there in the distance while I’m working (Henry always marvels at how you can barely hear it downstairs but the moment one of my jams comes on – like “In The Air Tonight” – I will stop everything and holler, “STFU MY JAM’S ON!”

I guess it’s time to go back to playing Spotify at night, though because fuck that station, also the DJ in the morning is a real asshole IN MY OPINION.

Anyway, do you like our shirts!?! I made Chooch wear that one to coordinate with me. Mine is from Noo Works and his is from some alley boutique in Harajuku OMG wow we are cool people.

This was the “Winner” of all the pictures. It’s annoying because we can never jump in tandem.

Well, that’s all I got. I started watching “Feel Good” on Netflix and now I would rather drink my iced coffee (Henry bought himself an iced coffee maker for his birthday which is great because now he can use his birthday present to make me iced coffee, I love when I win other people’s birthdays) and watch that before passing out because it’s 875457 degrees in my house and I just exercised.

ETA: several hours I came up to go to bed and that fucking Break My Stride song was on again!!! Was it even played that much in the 80s?? WHY NOW?

I am super selfish every year on Henry’s birthday (yes, just that one day) because it always rubs in my face the fact that he is so much older than me and I know, anything can happen, but it still sends a torrent of morbid thoughts through my dumb head.

Add to that the fact that I went walking in Jefferson Memorial Friday morning and Sunday morning, and the same old man was sitting in front of what I assume was his wife’s grave, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. I just lost it when I saw him Sunday morning. Simultaneously the sweetest and saddest thing ever and it made me SORT OF CARE ABOUT HENRY ugh.

I guess I like him. I dunno. SHUT UP.

Anyway, back to Henry’s birthday, I guess.

Sigh. Unlike me, Henry never really wants to do anything big and bombastic. So we ate lunch at home and then went to Settlers Cabin for some hiking action.

Thank god Henry found one of his favorite things on the trail – A BENCH. He loves him a good bench. Especially at amusement parks.

Chooch was being super annoying and I told him to just go walk by himself. It was 90 degrees and my moist skin glaze was giving me BITCH POWER. I guess I should explain that it wasn’t that he was trying to talk to us about his life or anything like that, but that he was playing POKEMON GO and narrating the whole process which really gets under my skin for some reason I guess because it’s something that I AM NOT A PART OF.

But honestly, we had fun screaming, “HI BUDDY!” to all of the squirrels and then we saw a shit-ton of chipmunks which is endlessly interesting to me because Henry and I were just discussing not too long ago that we haven’t seen chipmunks…around town in years upon years. Like, I’m talking about the 90s maybe!

I thought that maybe we were both nuts but then Haley mentioned the same thing when she was over here several weeks ago and I was like IF HALEY HAS NOTICED THIS THEN IT MUST BE CREED. I finally felt inspired to google that shit after our hike and apparently it’s a true story and has to do with food supply, etc etc boring snore nature stuff.

Anyway, I declared that we shall call chipmunks “chingu” which is Korean for “friend,” so similar to Buddy but MAYBE COOLER? Sorry, Buddy.

Then we emerged into this clearing where the trail split and had no idea which way to go so we dumbly listened to Chooch and then got lost, which prompted Henry and Chooch to look at their respective maps on their phones and scream at each other and then Chooch was like, “THIS IS THE PATH HERE,” flashing his phone at Henry, to which Henry cried, “YOU’VE BEEN USING THE POKEMON GO MAP?!?!?!?!” But it’s OK that Chooch got us lost, you guys, because he found a fucking Pokestop in doing so.

Spoiler: we made it out of the woods.

THEN WE GOT ICE CREAM. I can’t remember the last time I had a good old fashioned soft serve?!

Birthday Boy got a FRUITY PEBBLE blizzard-type thing (it was called a snowstorm?) and I was jealous because I didn’t know that existed there and perhaps that’s what I would have also ordered. :(

Then I made him stand by this wall because matchy-matchy. Then later that night, Henry made us sing to him ugh:

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Later that night I was still stressing out about this dying thing. Panicked, I said to Henry, “I hope I die first. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t know HOW TO DO ANYTHING. YOU HAVE TO TEACH ME OMG UGHHHH!!!”

Henry calmly replied, “I’ve tried.”

Overall, I think it was an OK day but then, it wasn’t my birthday lol.

I was going to live-blog this day but then I didn’t and now I wish I did.

After we bailed on Six Flags, we drove to Buffalo (maybe the outskirts?) to a vegan junk food joint called Big Mood.

Checking out local vegan places is my favorite thing to do when we go on road trips!

Big Mood’s dining room is open but we opted to order online and take the food to a park because it was such a beautiful day. After we placed the order, we had 20 minutes to kill so we decided to walk around the area, which had some pretty impressive motherwhomping mansions. As usual, we didn’t wait for Henry so he had to hustle to catch up. He’s used to it.

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We stopped briefly to ogle two bunnies in one of the yards. Henry and I continued walking but of course, Chooch lingered a bit longer. Next thing we knew, he was being interrogated by a man in a car. All I heard was Chooch nervously say, “No, I was just looking at the rabbits. Rabbits. The rabbits in the yard.” And then he ran to catch up with us.

“WTF was that?” I asked, and Chooch said it was the HOMEOWNER who just happened to be coming home AT THAT EXACT TIME, rolling up beside Chooch on the sidewalk to slap him with an authoritative, “Can I help you?”

Leave it to Chooch to make rabbit-watching look suspicious. It would have been better if this happened when Chooch was pulling the waistband of his jeans away from his body to demonstrate to us how big they are (see that previous post where I recommend that he wear a belt and he acted like this was the dumbest suggestion of all time), because to a casual observer who took us for burglars, it looked like Chooch was showing us all the goods he stole and stashed in his pants.

We left that street (it wasn’t even a gated community or anything so dude needs to step off) and rejoined the riffraff on a main street. There was a buffalo statue in front of a building and I said to Chooch, “Go stand by that buffalo.” What follows is real life dialogue from that moment, which is 100% accurate because my phone had been accidentally recording for over 5 minutes after Chooch got yelled at.

C: No

Me: Yeah.

C: No.

Me: Henry, go stand by the buffalo.

C: Yeah, you.

H: I…stood by something today already.

C: I ALREADY STOOD BY TWO THINGS! YOU!

H: You stand by it.

C: No. You didn’t stand by anything.

H: I stood by the…..[indistinguishable murmuring].

C: OK COOL (this is our go-to, ‘fuck you, we’re done talking’ sign-off)

H: *says something provoking that I can’t make out*

C: I literally….It’s your turn. I got the fountain picture. Go.

M: You two are both assholes.

H: I’ll do it.

C: Yeah, now you’ll do it. (As we already walked past it!!)

H: Well, now she’s doing that thing she does where she pouts.

M: That’s not what I’m doing.

It was 100% what I was doing.

Then Chooch found some dried out seed pods from a tree and we talked about that for a while.

Got our food!! I got this Sante Fe chicken sandwich and adored the fact that they call their fake chicken patties “zero clucks.” We drove for a while until we found a good place to sit at a park (on bleachers with like a constant swarm of people milling past us so of course I was like THESE PPL ARE MAKING ME NERVOUS and Henry and Chooch just rolled their eyes because oh look, Erin’s being Erin). Oh man, this sandwich was delicious and FILLING.

Stupidly, we wanted to venture out to the American side of the Falls after this, forgetting that it was a holiday weekend on the tail-end of a pandemic so….yeah. That place a  mad house and we weren’t willing to pay $30 to park so we figured it was time to call it a day and start the drive back home, which was fun for Henry because at this point, Chooch and I were fucking SLAP HAPPY. The only thing Henry hates more than Chooch and I fighting is Chooch and I laughing so hard we are either puking (Chooch) or pants-peeing (me).

Henry had to get gas, leaving us hyenas in the car. Henry’s phone was connected so when he paid for the gas, the text message from the bank popped up on the car screen with a prompt to reply, so I hit the microphone icon and frantically tried to scream FUCK YOU as Henry’s reply to the bank’s text, but it kept coming out like FWAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOHOHOHOUIWUQUP, launching Chooch and me down a laughing spiral for a good hour, making me feel like I popped blood vessels in my eyes; Henry, meanwhile, didn’t laugh once, but did try to kick us out of the car once.

Then we went to the NY Tourist Center which was fanc-ay!

The lighting in the bathroom was excelsiur.

I tried to hide from Henry while he was going to the bathroom but somehow, when I was still outside running to a different entrance to use for a sneak attack, Henry and Chooch managed to leave the bathroom and even proceeded to “fake leave” me behind, nearly running me over in the process when I came flying out of the building. All of this happened after I started to lurch at a man coming out of the bathroom who was definitely not Henry and then I had to play it off like I had just tripped on my way to look blankly at the vending machine.

Went to Six Flags, had more fun at a tourist center. Sounds just like us!

I was even a super sweetie and drove the last hour so Henry could sleep

***

The next day, I mentioned something about the drive home and Henry said, “You mean when you were doing 85?”

I paused. “Well…the speed limit was 70, so.”

“You were doing 85!” Henry reiterated, his tone flecked with slightly more hysteria this time.

“Oh my god, were you spying on me?”I cried, and you can imagine the incredulity.

“My eyes would automatically fly open every time the car lurched forward,” he said, and by now I was bored of the conversation and only like talking about myself when it doesn’t involve someone accusing me of doing something wrong, THANK YOU V. MUCH. Luckily, it’s easy to flip the switch on Henry. You usually just have to point out the window and yell, “OH LOOK AT THAT PLANE” and then he’ll be all concerned with trying to identify it. This also works with birds, cars, 1970s porn plots…

Then Henry and I went for a walk at the Homewood Cemetery on actual Memorial Day and saw this zombie ground hog, which was basically the highlight of the whole weekend for me:

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Yaaaaaaaa, it’s Friday and I spent all of my energy power-walking in the cemetery, working, crying over The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (I’m like 5 years behind on that hype-wagon), more power-walking, and then exercising so here are five songs that I have really been liking lately.

CIX – Cinema

Chooch and I saw them at a living taping of The Show in Korea and I desperately hope that we get to see them again!

AB6IX – Close

The vibe of this video, though.

Olivia Rodrigo – Good 4 U

BTS fans hate her so I love her.

SHINee – I Want You

Not a new song but one that always makes me want to go run through a meadow or whatever.

Chiodos – The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined

I put on one of Chooch’s old (suuuuuper old – it was an XS!!!) Chiodos shirts yesterday and felt overcome with nostalgia so naturally I had to cue up some of my fave Chiodos songs while wearing it. Man, I miss that scene SO MUCH sometimes, but I don’t miss the person I was back then AT ALL.

(Yes, it’s signed! So it doesn’t get worn much.)

BONUS: Chuck Mangione – Feels So Good

I got a Chuck Mangione pin in the mail yesterday (for another dumb kitchen project, stay tuned or tune out) and it prompted me to go into full-fledge dance party mode when Chooch had the audacity to say that he didn’t know who Chuck MANJONE (his failed pronunciation) was. I was doing a REALLY GOOD horn impression too and Chooch shouted, “THIS IS SO ANNOYING, I’M MOVING OUT” and the cats were like, “TAKE US WITH YOU.

”

You know what didn’t feel so good though? This whole work week.

On that note, I’m OUTTA HERE.

I thought I missed going places over the last year but now that we’re going places again I just want to stay home with the cats and squirrels.

Something something like my mother she’s never satisfied etc etc. – Prince

I originally was v. Gung-ho about Going Somewhere, maybe not for the whole weekend but at least for a day. Originally, we were going to go to King’s Island, then that changed to Six Flags America in Maryland then we tacked on King’s Dominion making it a whole weekend event, but then the weather forecast changed to All Rain All the Time for that part of the country so we started looking at other nearby parks where the skies promised to be dry and I STUPIDLY said hey what about Six Flags Darien Lake and this seemed ok because we bought season passes since there are some other Six Flags we will be hitting up this summer and this one is the closest so even if the park turned out to suck at least we weren’t too far from home and we could just piss around in Buffalo *PAUSE TO BREATHE*

But when I woke up Sunday morning, I was full of excuses (and vitriol) of why I didn’t want to go. I was also extremely tired and PMSing, and the rainy Pittsburgh morning made me want to stay in bed forever.

I eventually came around (“FINE WE CAN GO BUT IF IT’S LAME WE’RE LEAVING” I yelled and so Henry and Chooch obediently stepped into their shoes and off we went.

The drive to Darien Lake is only about 3 and a half hours, most of which Chooch slept and I read (Anna K Away – it was OK!

) while Henry drove and probably recalled better days when he was in THE SERVICE and getting RESPECT from FEMALES.

We stopped at our favorite rest stop in that area – the one that appears sometime after leaving Erie and entering NY, where the walkway crosses the highway and this is actually so exciting to me which might inspire you to snap, “Wow, why don’t you go read a book or something” at which point I will tell you that I have already read over 70 so far in 2021, go fuck yer mum (sorry I just finished a British novel and that was used a lot and now I can’t stop saying it all day long to the annoying birds who heckle my cats like it’s their motherfucking J-O-B).

Lessee, did anything exciting happen here…Chooch got an iced coffee from Cinnabun, I encouraged Henry to treat himself to a cuppa soft pretzel nuggets from his beloved Auntie Anne’s (their pretzels are super fucking doughgasmic so I can’t really hate on him too much about this) and I got a chocolate chip cookie from Lavazza which was my lunch, lol. Oh and some dumb preteen boy was yelling about the BTS McDonald’s meal which inspired a big GO FUCK YER MUM mood for me.

Back in the car, Henry liked to occasionally point things out, like, “My tooth hurts” (no one cares) and “There’s so-and-so’s Family Restaurant.”

Me: wouldn’t it be funny if we had a family restaurant?

Henry: how would it be a family restaurant, I’d be the only one working there.

YES THATS WHY IT WOULD BE FUNNY.

We arrived at Six Flags around 12:30 and….wow. Um. Wow, just wow. I did not have high expectations for this place but it was even worse than I expected, lol.

But we had already discussed the possibility of just going there to get our passes, checking it out, and then leaving if it was weak since it wasn’t technically a waste of money (see above where I shouted: FINE WE CAN GO BUT IF IT’S LAME WE’RE LEAVING.)

Yeah, we lasted about two hours and in those two hours, we only rode two rides. The park wasn’t crowded AT ALL but every coaster was running only one train, and even though most parks have relaxed their covid restrictions by now, this place was still sending socially-distanced trains on every coaster and not letting anyone in the station except for the people waiting to board the next ride. So the queues were wack and the only coaster we really wanted to ride (Ride of Steel) was a 90 minute wait with one train running, and that was only when it wasn’t breaking down, lol. Great ops, Darien Lake!

We waited about 35 minutes to ride Predator. It wasn’t great but also not the worst woodie I’ve ever been on, but Henry and Chooch basically think it should be set aflame.

Honestly, I barely even bothered to take many pictures and I sure as shit didn’t care about editing the ones I did take. So enjoy Hatless Henry (one of my least favorite Henrys), a lamp post, Swings, and a wooden coaster that desperately needs the RMC-treatment.

He always has to stop to tie his shoes. Also, he complained about needing a belt all day but the last time I told him he needed a belt, he bitched about how he doesn’t like wearing belts, so I’m going back on Parental Hiatus. Wear suspenders for all I care.

The wait for this ride was over an hour and I was like, “Look I am not waiting an hour to ride this” and Chooch was like “preach” so we got in line for one of the other few coasters that was actually running: Motocoaster. It’s basically a baby-launch coaster on a wildmouse-esque track that looked like it was dropped off by a traveling carnival that was passing through. The line seemed pretty reasonable to me but the amount of people who came over, peeped the line, then said, “Aw hell nah” was concerning. I guess this ride usually is a walk-on? The dad in front of us was complaining to his kid that this “was going to be like, a 20 minute wait!” and finally coerced his kid to agree to get out of line. Then, 10 minutes after we got in line, the fucking ride broke down! So there was a mass exodus of people leaving the line, and Chooch was like, “This is dumb let’s go” but I HAD A FEELING so I convinced him to stick it out. Meanwhile, there were these two park regulars behind the family behind us, and one of the guys said, “Look, this happens a lot. They’ll send a guy out, he’ll look underneath it, hit the reset button, send a test car, then it’ll be fine.”

SOOTHSAYER, HE WAS! It was just like in Rollercoaster Tycoon where the maintenance man is dropped down from the sky, fiddles some wrenches, and then voila, ride is back in action. It actually saved us a bunch of time since so many people got out of line! And we got front row!

I made the universal “TAKE PICTURES OF US” sign with my hands before we got on, which Henry dreads. Chooch said this ride was NOT FUN AT ALL yet the SMILE ON HIS FACE in every picture says OTHERWISE.

Look at my meaty thigh lol.

Anyway, we had enough after this and started to make our way back to the entrance. I knew this was one of the smaller Six Flags, but I had no idea it was THIS SMALL. Kennywood feels bigger! Is it? I don’t feel like researching. Look it up and tell me.

Before we left, I got a magnet from the really shitty selection at their lame-ass gift shop (there was a very sweet old lady working there though) and then I made Henry  take pictures of Chooch and me by this fountain which was basically the only pleasant area.

(Darien Lake’s mask rule is that vaccinated people can go mask-free but since Chooch still has one more shot to go – tonight, actually! – I kept mine on my person out of solidarity.)

It took Henry 7348278357034679-3567 attempts to take a picture of me looking even semi-human and finally I just gave up because I’m not getting plastic surgery so I just need to finally, after 41 years, accept my turtle-ish visage.

Surprisingly, none of us were really in a bad mood. I think because the bar was already set so low and we got what we came for – the passes – which we will use later this year at Six Flags Great Adventure, and also the ones in Maryland and hopefully Atlanta because even though that one is also supposed to a shit-show, they have an RMC and I NEED TO STUFF MY ASS INTO IT LIKE IT’S MY NEW FETISH.

We rearranged the back porch a bit and now it’s even cozier – I never imagined that my old, trusty chaise lounge would have a second life back there but it’s the perfect spot for it!

The wheelchair Henry got me for Xmas is soooo awesome but it was way too obtrusive to stay in bye living room. I kept clipping my shins off of it every time I exercised. But once we moved some stuff around on the porch, it was like it was made to fit back there.

I just love this view!!!

I decided that this is going to be the official FAMILY MEETING ROOM so I called Chooch down for a FAMILY MEETING then realized I had nothing to say.

Another development is that we moved my old Pier 1 wavy shelf back there. It used to be an awful catch-all on the upstairs landing but we took it down and replaced it with the neon-lipped CURE SPOT. I knew I wanted to keep it so I decided to (have Henry) paint it and afterward I realized that I subconsciously chose colors that matched the furniture in my teenage bedroom lol I’ll never grow up.

Penelope is NOT SO SURE about this.

Anyway, I styled it with some of my favorite things and hopefully it stays steady stylin’ and doesn’t turn into an open-air hoarder’s closet like before, yikes.

This Warped Tour book I made has been hidden on another shelf for so long that I forgot it existed! So now it gets to SHINE, bitches, SHINE.

Chooch used to gnaw on this Keith Haring top when he was a baby :/

See also: Chooch’s baby teeth in a lightbulb.

I still have way too much “stuff” in this house but…at least it’s somewhat organized now I guess. I mean, if Henry would ever get his shit out of the third floor, my collections of vacation journals and clowns and cameras and framed concert posters would have an entire extra room in which to spread!

Well, on that note, I’m going to bed – BYEEEEE