My intro is just “fuck it all to hell.” On to the books.

1. Malice House (Malice Compendium, #1) by Megan Shepherd

A “meh”-ish 3 stars. It was fine.

2. Don’t Eat the Pie by Monique Asher

This cover is chef’s kiss. This and the plot itself gave me some ideas for future Pie Parties lol (Dear Henry, make the top crust of the pie say “All Hail Queen Erin”). But truly, this book was kind of a snooze. I didn’t latch on to a single character. I also didn’t even care about the whys and hows. That’s….not great. Kind of Rosemary’s Baby-esque but not very well executed.

3. Sleep Tight by J.H. Markert

*HIT THE BUZZER!* Next.

4. Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

YO 5 STARS. This was included in Spotify Premium and as soon as I started listening, my immediate reaction was, “Ugh, this is narrated from a child’s POV” and thought FOR SURE that the voice would drive me insane. Yet somehow, I withstood it and thank god because this one was actually chilling. The horror book I have been searching for! Perfect for October, creepy AF, also kind of funny at times. My ONLY gripe is that the way  the parents (especially the mom) talked to the kid. I think she was supposed to be 8 and they were slinging some Big Thinks around. I mean, I always patted myself on the back for talking to Chooch like I would talk to anyone else, totally eschewing baby talk, but this was reminiscent of watching Dawson’s Creek back in the day and screaming, “WE DO NOT TALK TO EACH OTHER LIKE THAT!” I thought that was kind of bizarre.

Actually, I just saw this in someone’s Goodreads review and it is very spot-on: “the author wrote the 8 year old like she was 4. meanwhile adults are having full on conversations with her like she is their co worker.”

However, the plot was just THAT GOOD that I didn’t let this drag the score down.

5. Gray After Dark by Noelle W. Ihli

I truly do not know how this absolute garbage disguised as a book has such a high average on Goodreads because it felt like it was written by a middle schooler. Repetitive. Boring. One dimensional characters. I appreciate that it was based on a true story but I think I would rather read a non-fiction account of it. Cringey. Poorly-written. The captors name one of the girls RUTHIE SUE? Get this cornball trash out of my face. Ugh I actually got so angry thinking about this drivel.

6. All This & More by Peng Shepherd

Really cool concept, reimagined Choose Your Own Adventure, but it got kind of boring and also confusing. I didn’t want to choose either option most of the time lol.

7. Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

This started off strong, but then I got bored. 3 stars but honestly his books are usually pretty mid to me.

8. Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl by Hyeseung Song

Loved it! Apparently, a memoir was just what I needed.

9. So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison

OK I am a big fan of Harrison’s writing and have given all of her books 4-5 stars. I love her modern takes on classic horror tropes. AND I LOVE VAMPIRES so this should have been an easy 5 for me. Henry and I listened to the audiobook on the way to Chicago for the Seventeen concert, and finished it on the way home so in that regard this book will always feel cozy and warm to me when I think about it. And Harrison’s writing was, as per usual, snappy and quick-witted. I love how she writes her dialogue and I love how her main characters always have a sort of “ugh what now” attitude about them. This one was no exception. I loved Sloane, but her BFF Naomi was so fucking grating. I get it – she was supposed to be loud and obnoxious, a total party monster but I hated hated hated the voice that the narrator gave her. It went right through me every time, especially since we had to listen to it with the volume up fairly loud to combat highway noise.

I would give the first half of the book 4 stars, maybe even 4.5. It was fun and kept us interested, and the when the vamps finally enter the picture, shit got fucking hysterical. But the second half was a slog. The pacing was weird, it felt like it stalled out. There were times when I couldn’t even remember what the plot was anymore  – was there a thing that they working up to, etc.? So I gave that half a 2.75.

3 stars overall and I will definitely still be reading her books, but you know, you can’t please everyone every time.

10. Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

LOL dude. 4 stars, one of the quirkiest and most fun haunted house books I’ve ever read! I love love love that it was set in a small Italian village, I loved the dysfunctional family dynamics, I loved hating the brother’s brother, I loved rooting for the main character every time her family treated her like a black sheep tag-along.

And then once the hauntings started happening, it was equal parts chilling and STILL FUNNY.

Eventually, the setting changes to NYC and the book lost a little bit of its charm for me then, but overall, 4 stars.

11. Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre

I hated this. One of the most boring domestic thrillers with two catty bitches fighting over one man who, aside from being a mega millionaire, was SUCH A BORING ASSHOLE. This was not good but I was in need of an audiobook to accompany me on my walks and this was the best I could do in a pinch.

12. We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone by Ronald Malfi

Short stories. The first one started the book off with a bang, I loved it so much and this is going to sound like I’m giving myself way more credit than I ever deserve, but it reminded me of those idiotic short stories I used to write on here back in the day before my job and life in general sapped every last ounce of creativity from my brain? Those days?

Yeah anyHOO. Some stories were poppin’, some were….droppin’. You know what I mean. There was one about a foster kid that tags along with a trio of kids from the neighborhood for trick-or-treating and that one was definitely the perfect nostalgic Halloween vibes that I needed, you know, on Halloween. But some were really drawn out with little pay off at the end.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE YOU WANT ME TO SAY.

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That’s all of the books I read in October.

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Literally can’t focus on much else today, ELECTION DAY, so I need to bulletpoint for therapy.

• I stayed up last night watching various livestreams of the Harris rallies. Some thoughts on the musical performances: Katy Perry – oh honey thanks for giving fodder to the MAGA set. I never liked her music but what in the actual fuck was that weird ass singing she was doing?? Of course this is the big star Pgh would get, sigh. Over in Philly, Ricky Martin was singing in a Dracula voice like he thought he was in Transylvania not Pennsylvania. Bon Jovi was somewhere and sounded like what happens when AI gets involved. I thought I was having a stroke while watching all of this! And the worst part is that I sat through all of this because I wanted to see Lady Gaga because I have a mild interest in her and all she did was sing some stupid America song from elementary school. But, at least she sounded good.
• I wish AOC would have been canvassing in my neighborhood because I bet she would love my interior design. I just get that feeling, you know? Like we’d girl-out over my sometimes questionable Party City decor.
• JAEHYUN ENLISTED IN THE MILITARY YESTERDAY AND I AM NOT OK. Let’s take a moment and enjoy his recent solo MV:

• Henry and I went to this JOKE OF A PLACE called House of 1000 Beers on Sunday to cruise the selection for more Belgians. OK first of all, honey, 1000 beers though? I don’t think so. There is absolutely NO WAY and I kept commenting on this while we were there and btw I felt immediately uncomfortable there too, it was an awkward set-up with people eating on one side and then a bar on the other side and the cook was LEERING AT ME from his little kitchen podium window thing and I kept muttering, “I hate it here, I want to leave” under my breath and then I was going to wait in the car but I didn’t want to leave the choices up to Henry because he is the worst at picking things that I will like, so I stuck it out but I bitched about it sporadically throughout the day. Like, we were watching TV later that night and I blurted out, totally kapchugi, “There is NO WAY that there were 1000 different beers there?!” and Henry just groaned because I was back on my “calling the BBB” kick again.
• Henry got an itch to clean out the closet-area at the top of the basement steps on Saturday because all he wanted to do was “hang up his one coat” but the hooks are completely usurped by my menagerie of coats and purses (I have a reallll fuckin’ problem). “Some of these coats probably don’t even need to be here, there is no way you wear all of these!” Henry huffed, but then after pawing through them, he mumbled, “OK maybe you do.” LOL.

This is only some of the pile! Here he is holding up the only two belongings of his that he wanted to hang up, lol. 

• Chooch texted me at 12:22PM with photo confirmation that he voted and I AM SO PROUD, I ACTUALLY STARTED CRYING. What a huge election to be a part of as a first-time voter. And he’s in that “young man” demo too, which makes it even better. (Yes, he voted straight Dem, let’s gooooo.)
• Henry came home from work and told me that his co-worker who is like a beer guru told him that he should have gone to a different place instead of HOUSE OF NOWHERE NEAR 1000 BEERS and he is actually the reason we went there in the first place?? But I guess Henry doesn’t talk to him often enough because this dude doesn’t go there anymore. Yeah, probably because of the false advertising! Anyway, Henry told him that I am a Belgian beer girlie now and the dude said, and I am so mad about this, that those are good STARTER BEERS. Did he mean to say, “Holy shit, your wife is HARDCORE, not liking beer and then bypassing all the sissy shit and going straight for the BELGIAN?? She is a KEEPER. She sounds like SHE IS NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS.”

• Hey speaking of, Henry, Scared of Irritating a Woman Voter, brought home a DELIRIUM NOEL GIFT SET for me last night so now I have a Delirium glass! Don’t worry I still complained because it’s not the OG glass with the curvy stem.

• Oh and nbd but this happened in the scene before the beer was poured:

And now, we wait 😬

What I wouldn’t give to be in Korea right now though fr fr. Watching Seventeen vlogs as a distraction but I know eventually the election shit is going to be put on. I can’t resist.

In my latest two therapy seshes we covered the Psycho Mike stuff, did I mention this? And I have to say, I didn’t realize that I needed to talk to a professional about this at this stage in my life but I feel EMPOWERED now. Like I didn’t realize what a big deal it was that I recognized at that young age that I was being treated abusively and took a stand and vowed to never let myself be treated like that again. “Sometimes aggressively so” I admitted when saying that I have worn the pants in every subsequent relationship and when I told Henry afterward he was like, “Wow can I talk to her for a few minutes?” LOL piss off and get back to the kitchen. You little bitch.

I don’t know why my bulletpoints disappeared and now that I have been drinking, IDGAF.

• I went for a walk around town to get the rest of my steps and because I can’t keep pacing around the house moaning. I was on the street behind my house when a man in a pickup truck blew through a stop sign as I was waiting to cross the street. In a calm and monotone voice, I called out, “Wow, don’t stop.” HE GOT THRU THE LITTLE INTERSECTION AND STOPPED HIS TRUCK LOL AND SAID, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” so I repeated it with the same hearty dose of sarcasm and he just drove away. Henry was BIG FROWN ENERGY about this when I came back home and told him lololol.

 

Relatedly, in therapy today we also talked about how I have a huge problem with men and authority and she was like, “OK that makes sense” while adding to her notes that I would like to read some day.

Hey I’m going to peace out from this blog post for now. If anything exciting happens later during my live election coverage viewing, I shall update this bitch. I guess.

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I’m so ready to vote. I was already fired up but after encountering an aggressive grassroots MAGA brigade when all I wanted to do was go for a nice afternoon walk and enjoy a sunny fall day but a fleet of small-dick energy pickup trucks decorated with massive and putrid TRUMP flags and driven by white power fisting redneck men had other plans for me.

It felt like harassment. I was telling a canvasser about this yesterday and he said very calmly, “That’s because it was. That is their whole agenda, their entire platform.”

Bullying. Hate. Misogyny. Guns guns guns.

I was angry that I started to spiral out and then I thought I was going to have a heart attack (#drama) so Henry and I had to switch to a side street but I could still hear the horns blasting and the ACTUAL hootin’ and hollarin’ so we ended up just going back home.

Stress.

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OK I have put this off for nearly two weeks now, but on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, Henry and I drove to Chicago (Rosemont, specifically) to see night 1 of the Seventeen US Tour.

I was popping off internally. Not that the rest of the groups I stan don’t mean as much to me, but SVT….hits different. And of course, there is that connection that I fabricated between them and my cat, Bambi. So when she died, it catapulted them up in the love bracket inside my heart (Henry continuously gets knocked down, haha). I knew that the emotions were going to be strong with this one.

We stayed about 20 minutes away from Allstate Arena this time so we have to drive and park there which was annoying because we always stay in a hotel right across from the arena but this time there was an issue where Henry accidentally booked two nights and when he tried to call  them and get rid of one of the nights, they said NO so he had to cancel the entire reservation. Look, I don’t work in the hotel industry but that seemed really stupid to me. It was about 4:30 by this point, and I was getting so worked up seeing all the Carats roaming around the hotel parking lot and lobby so I said, “LET’S GOOOOOOOOO.” There was early merch going on so I thought it would be a good idea to get that out of the way, because when we went to see ATEEZ, THEY SOLD OLD OF MERCH by the end of the night and I had to buy my shirt from Amazon (it seemed legit though!).

This is how we came to stand in a line outside of the arena for over an hour, Carat-watching, collecting free stuff (I usually don’t go early to these concerts anymore so I miss out on all the freebies!), and just being generally giddy (well, one of us was). Carats are special people, you guys. Legit the only toxic fandom I have encountered to date has been BTS Army. But being around 10,000s of Carats in this weird stage of still-grieving-my-cat/bff was beyond soothing. I can’t explain it. But seeing all the people dressed up in outfits from various music videos, hearing the two Carats behind me go from strangers to friends by the time we made it to the merch truck (Miriam and Catherine – they talked for an entire hour before finally introducing themselves and I was dying), hearing Carats cheering on people doing dance challenges in the parking lot—it healed parts of me in ways that time and therapy can’t.

These girls were walking around with Joshua and (now I can’t remember who else they had) cardboard cutouts for photo ops. I wanted Henry to get his picture taken with them but he STAUNCHLY refused.

I did get him to hold the banner though.

Here’s Henry pairing my lightstick, lol. If you have never been to a kpop concert, every group has their lightstick and you can pair it to bluetooth once you get to the venue so that it will coordinate with the music. You have to put in your actual seat # too. I don’t always have the patience to do this but Henry handled it for me this time :)

(I heard Taylor Swift does something similar now after finding out that Kpop is like this, and that’s gross to me but if she can swing the vote in Kamala’s favor, I will never say another disparaging thing about her Napoleon Dynamite twinning or boring music.)

My favorite part of the day was when we got all the way to the front of the merch line only to find out that 90% of everything was SOLD OUT. Every single t-shirt, hoodie, etc. GONE. They only had little accessories left, things I would never buy. I just wanted a shirt. When I got up there, the lady apologized and said that everything was going to be restocked at the merch booths inside, which, OK cool, but honestly they couldn’t send anyone around to make this announcement to the people standing in line? That line went back even FARTHER at this point from where it ended when we got there but OK just let those people stand there for hours.

So fucked up!

At this point, it was after 6PM so we got in one of the many lines to get inside. The doors were just starting to open but you know how venues, after decades of holding concerts, still can’t figure out an easy and painless entry system. It never fails to be a clusterfuck. But we did get in by 6:45 I would say. It was really windy the whole time we were in that parking lot, and I hadn’t realized just how close it is to the airport until I saw REALLY LOW planes passing over the arena on their way to landing, and I started having all kinds of disaster thoughts.

OK OK OK, let’s speed this up: we got inside the venue, which is way too small for Kpop concerts IMO, it’s a crowd-crush sitch waiting to happen in those walkways.

Found our seats first:

They weren’t great – we were in the 200s section because literally it was all we could get the day the tickets went on sale before the prices doubled. I fucking hate you, Ticketmaster. I just felt grateful that we got seats at all though and didn’t have to try to deal with resellers. I just don’t trust anyone.

After finding our seats, we fought the crowds downstairs and eventually found the end of one of the merch lines. It was outrageous and I was so scared that for the first time ever, I was going to miss the beginning of a concert. But we made it to the table, I got my Rosemont-specific shirt, and we ran back upstairs to our seats. My heart was RACING.

Almost exactly at 7:30, it started and I was SHOOK. The emotions! The excitement! The awe! Seventeen has been a group that I have known since getting into Kpop. They were rookies back then and my fave Kpop dance aerobics channel, SarahKpop, had a few routines to their songs. It’s how I first heard their famously popular (and notorious!) “Aju Nice” and I was so excited to hear it in person!

Bambi’s bias, The 8 / Xu Minghao <3

Obviously, I wish that I could have seen OT13, but Jeonghan has just recently enlisted in mandatory miliary service which I feel like I don’t have to explain anymore now that BTS made the entire world aware of this, and Jun is in China filming a TV show.

I wanted to see them in 2022 when they were in Newark, but we had already registered for Coastin’ by the Ocean in Wildwood and couldn’t swing it. I would take Kpop over coasters any day of the week though, just let that be known.

My bias Seungkwan <3 Jeonghan also shares this status, but after this show, Hoshi is 100% my bias wrecker. Like, 10000%.

Hoshi <3

Minghao <3

The chaos that was their “Oh My!” performance. I love the duality of Kpop groups. I love that they can come out so sultry and edgy, so fierce, then suddenly they’re being their true dorky selves and having a dance off with people dressed as blow-up animals. How can you not love this!? How could anyone not find this entertaining??

(And I’m crying now lol.)

(Janna if you are reading this you better watch this video!!)

The costume people came out again unexpectedly during “God of Music”!

I also have to say that this was BY FAR the loudest Kpop (or any) concert I have ever attended. There were times when it felt like the ecstatic shrieking around me had pierced through my skull and continued to ricochet inside my head like rubber bouncy balls. It was PAINFUL. The most ear-and-head pain I think I have ever experienced and I was legit scared for my life several times, lol. Even Henry was like, “HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT IS HAPPENING.”

For reference, I have been to a BTS concert and this by far exceeded those levels of fanaticism. The girl behind me simultaneously sounded like a Beatles-mania-era teenage girl and also an adult man. I don’t know how she was doing it but her shrill shrieks were morphing into guttural roars and it was concerning. I kept tossing glances over my shoulder because I was curious as to what was going on behind me!

The whole show was one giant highlight reel for me but I have to mention that I walked away with “March” as my new favorite song – previously it had been one of those tracks that I never paid much attention to when it would come on but after seeing them perform it (it was a surprise, too!) something clicked in my brain and I have listened to it on repeat on my walks every day since then.

Henry was bitter that the hiphop group performed Water and not Lalali, cry about it, Henry!

I FUCKING DIED that the performance group (minus Jun) did Lilili Yabbay! (And Rain, which is my favorite song off their latest album, in case you cared to know.)

Henry just asked me how it’s going, recapping this night, and I let my wet eyeballs answer that.

The encore though! I have never seen anyone understand the encore assignment as well as Seventeen does. The crowd engagement! The energy! The unhinged hilarity! My whole fucking face hurt from smiling and laughing – it was everything that I needed to help fill that Bambi-shaped hole in my heart (crying again). And when I’m able to share this experience with someone who also enjoys it, understands it, stans the group (yes, I mean Henry if you can believe that) it makes it even better. We dissected the night on the entire drive back to Pittsburgh the next day and we are still rehashing it! He said his favorite part was the encore and I know you’re thinking, “Yeah, because that meant the concert was almost over and he was stoked on that” but it’s because it seriously is complete pandemonium! SO JOYOUS AND PURE!

Part of their encore is never-ending Aju Nice where every time you think it’s over, the chorus kicks back up and Seungkwan LOVES to go into the crowd and let fans sing the high note, so Carats at the barricade will hold signs that say “Can I Aju Nice??” It is epic and well-known in the Kpop world – they even did this at Glastonbury and Lollapalooza Berlin and the non-kpop fans in the crowd evidently ate it up.

They also did a dance-off during the encore and the energy was so strong. I can’t believe we were there. I can’t believe I got see neverending Aju Nice!!!!

I gotta wrap this up before I start posting videos from the whole entire concert.

SET LIST:

Act 1

VCR

1. Fear
2. Fearless
3. Maestro

MENT

4. Ash
5. Crush (I fucking died)

VCR

Act 2

6. Water (Hip-Hop Unit)
7. Monster (Hip-Hop Unit)
8. Rain (Performance Unit)
9. Lilili Yabbay (Performance Unit)
10. Candy (Vocal Unit)
11. Cheers to Youth (Vocal Unit) – linking the actual MV here because it’s so fucking precious and uplifting

VCR

Act 3

12. Oh My!
13. Snap Shoot
14. GOD OF MUSIC!!

Ment

15. Home

VCR

16. Love, Money, Fame (debut of the English version)

MENT

17. March
18. Super (fucking iconic)

ENCORE

19. Adore U
20. ‘Bout You

MENT

21. Campfire (they made everyone sit for this – but let it be known that Henry was already sitting because he never stood once until it was time to leave #old)
22. NEVERENDING VERY NICE!
23. Hit (extended)
24. CALL CALL CALL!
25. Snap Shoot (extended)
26. Holiday (extended)

This entire nearly 30-minute encore will live – AS THE KIDS SAY – rent free in my head for the rest of my life. I hope that when I’m old and a near-vegetable in a nursing home, this is still playing vividly behind my eyes. I am so forever grateful that I found Kpop that one fateful Xmas Eve 2015.

Now I will live vicariously through the rest of the Carats on Instagram who are attending the rest of the dates on this tour!

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I was getting ready for bed last night when my friend Patty messaged me on Instagram and said that she had gone to Facebook to wish her friend Jeff a happy birthday and saw that he had died earlier in the year. This is significant because Jeff was my boyfriend from 1998-2001 until I dumped him for Henry at Dave Navarro concert at Metropol.

We definitely didn’t part on the best terms, but we eventually made peace with each other (he even stopped over a few mths later to give me a CD of his DJing, shook Henry’s hand and everything) and stayed e-friends ever since. That didn’t amount to more than an occasional Instagram like, though.

There was one time at least 10 years ago, if not more, where he messaged me and said that he had been going to AA meetings at the church across from my house and that we should get coffee sometime.

We never met up for coffee, but this is how I found out he was an alcoholic and after Googling his obit last night, severe health complications related to his decades-long struggle is what ultimately took his life last January.

Right before Barb died, actually. This year just keeps doling it out, doesn’t it?

I don’t really know what this emotion is that I’m feeling. Shock? Sadness? Guilt? I was SUCH A CUNT to this man. He deserved so much better than me and I can say this now without any reservation – I treated him like an absolute dog. I cheated on him habitually. I lied to him. I fucked with him. But worst of all, I was just straight-up abusive to him.

We met in Darkchat (of course) in the fall of 1998. His name on there was Samhain, so I called him Sammy. He was in the process of moving to Pgh for art school and was looking to make some friends. We met in the parking lot of Pier 1 (RIP) in Pleasant Hills and went to the theater across the street to see John Carpenter’s Vampires. I remember my friend Cinn, also from Darkchat (Jesus Christ I was/am such a fucking dork) was worried about this and was also in the parking lot for observance purposes and deemed him, immediately, a non-threat.

Cinn loved him and called him Sammy even after I ultimately switched to “Jeff.”

The worst part is that now I can see what a truly sweet and kind guy he was, when back then I made fun of those traits and found him “weak.” I was so wrong and bad for him.

I wish that we had just started as friends and stayed that way, instead of designing the entire meet-up as a “date.” I feel like I knew from the beginning that the compatibility wasn’t there, but then he kind of leaned on me as a crutch since he was shy and new to the city and honestly he couldn’t have picked a worse person for this assignment because not only was I an absolute agent of chaos, but my friends were motherfuckers to him too. (With the exception of Janna and Cinn.) He used to go home to Uniontown every weekend and I was SUDDENLY SINGLE on those weekends, having house parties, going out, just being completely disrespectful of his feelings.

Janna and I went to lunch today and she pointed out that I was a kid and I agree with that, I was immature and literally only cared about myself and am truly a completely different person now but it doesn’t make me any less disgusted with myself. I have no idea what Jeff was going through all of these years. I wish I could have apologized to him.

Easter at my Grandma’s house, 2001 prob.

On Instagram, Jeff mostly posted pictures of the food he cooked (he liked to cook, even back then) and his dog, who was referenced numerous times in the obituary and for some reason, maybe because I am a sucker for animals, the fact that he left behind his cherished best friend is what has made me crumble. It also said that his parents are now caring for the dog (Kenny) so thank god.

His last IG post was from Xmas 2023, and Kenny was featured in that image carousel.

And then reading the messages on the memorial page broke me too because the echoing sentiment was that he was so kind, docile, pure-hearted, etc. And he was! He was all of these fucking things and I was the fucking Devil.

Barb’s birthday was 10/29. Carol’s birthday was 10/31. Jeff’s birthday was also 10/31. All three of these people, once prominent fixtures in my life, are dead instead of celebrating birthdays this week. I feel so fucking weird.

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