I am so obsessed with this. I am so glad G-Dragon is performing again because similar to the last time we had a dictator stinking up the White House, I am letting myself get lost in kpop delulu land again as a reprieve from all of the doom and extreme panic I feel and no one helps with that more than G-Dragon. Then add in Taeyang and this feels like such cozy comfort and nostalgia.

This song is a classic. I never tire of hearing Taeyang performing this and all these years later I am still so glad that I sold our 2017 Riot Fest tickets for one Taeyang concert ticket. It was worth every penny.

Can we talk about G-Dragon’s wardrobe changes? He looked like such a fucking prince. Of course BTS fans (the insane ones, I realize there are normal ones out there but sadly it’s the crazy ones that are the loudest) said that he looked like he just came in off the street, LOL. OK. Calm down, we know you’re mad that he performed at the same concert as your fave and the GP ate him up more because he’s a living legend.

Anyway, this was a charity concert in Paris benefiting sick children. Katy Perry headlined, and GD and Taeyang were in the middle of the lineup. However, when the concert was edited for the televised replay, the editors moved this performance to the end after seeing how insane the crowd reaction was. It’s really helping me decompress this week but I still am daydreaming hourly about Trump tumbling headfirst down a set of concrete steps while eating a Big Mac, landing with a broken neck  and choking to death while being ignored and stepped on by migrants and minorities of all walks of life trying to enter the unisex bathroom that his wide orange berth is blocking.

Somewhere nearby, Elon Musk melts inside an exploded Cyber Truck.

Fuck you, both.

G-Dragon for President.

I opened this up and then immediately had my daily hard cry and now I can’t remember what I wanted to say. These crying jags are really getting tiresome. Between desperately trying to ease into some sort of “new normal” and shaking with rage about EVERYTHING happening in this country and broken society, I just want to disappear for a while. Even if that just means sitting in a dark closet for a few hours.

Or a tent. A kids tent. The vinyl play tent kind. I had one of those in my first apartment but god only knows what became of it. I remember baking Jeff a pumpkin pie and making him eat inside the tent even though it was way undercooked and raw (this all so euphemism-y and it was so chaste actually).

Today I realized that I missed the anniversary of the day we adopted Drew and Penelope from Sandy’s friend’s parents’ basement (lol) by a week. So then I made the fatal error of going back in my blog and reading those posts from the first few days after we brought them home and I had to shut it down real quick. I knew I would be really sad about this for a long time but I didn’t think that my grief would be almost at the same level as it was over the summer after Drew died. I feel so stuck. We did talk about this in my session on Tuesday and I think we are going to revisit EMDR with this and try different positive reinforcements or whatever, I can’t remember now because my brain feels like it’s stuffed with faux fur.

When I woke up Monday morning, I was on the heels of some very real and vivid dreams about giant cardinals that were supposed to be her, and I just lay there in the dark crying, and my mind was spinning with all of these memories of her and suffice to say, the next two nights I slept on the couch because I was feeling super averse to the bedroom after that. I did sleep in bed last night though and it was OK.

It’s just weird because when my friends are like “how are you?” I just say I’m fine because it seems like saying, “I miss my fucking cat and I can’t stop crying” makes people feel uncomfortable, I don’t know. So instead, I’m like, “please watch this Kpop video I’m obsessed with” because I don’t know how else to really function right now, not to mention the high anxiety caused by Trump not just every single day but multiple times a day, basically hourly. If I could just punch him repeatedly in the face while kicking him in his shriveled carrot dick, it would solve a lot of issues in one fell swoop. Dare to dream.

OK I’M DONE.

MOVING ON.

When I was in elementary school, I was super into collecting stickers and had a ROBUST repertoire of sticker books. I remember specifically having a big, deep purple tote bag that was stuffed to seam-splitting proportions with some of the books and I loved sitting on the floor and taking out all of the books so I was surrounded by them, the fruits of my dedicated card shop and drug store scouring, gumball machine treasures, card pack freebies. Puffy stickers, scratch n sniff, holographic – I had no favorites, I loved them all. (I did have a special book just for Scratch-n-Sniffs though!)

Anyway, my therapist was like, “Is there anything you can do to get some of that old happiness back?” when I was telling her that I have taken to reading old blog posts from the past 8 or 9 years before bed so I can try to fall asleep with happy thoughts of when things were better and we were still all together as a family and we went on road trips and had both cats and I didn’t cry every day.

I didn’t really have a viable answer to that right away, short of going back to carrying around my security stuffed animal, Purple. But now then I started thinking about those stickers apropos of nothing and maybe I should collecting something simple like that again? Something that will give me joy when I find a thing I was looking for?

Like, maybe JUST STICKERS?! Let’s not overthink this, Erin.

My sticker book story has a really tragic ending though because as I got older and wasn’t collecting them anymore, I moved my treasured accumulation to the basement and at some point MY DAD THREW THEM ALL OUT without so much as a heads up. (It was probably during one of our many I WISH YOU WERE DEAD standoffs but still, it was MY property. And by the way, he also threw out my entire collection of Rainbow Brite dolls, Sprites, Starlite and all!

Dude, I can FEEL THAT YARN HAIR IN MY FINGERS like it was yesterday!

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM – IN THE TRASH. Can you even imagine?? All of my Babysitters Club books – gone. Sweet Secrets, too.

This…is not making me feel any better, lol.

Maybe I don’t want to start collecting stickers again.

 Maybe I’ll just stick with collecting kpop biases lol.

My sister Amy and I have been staying vigilant with getting together more often over the last year or so and I am honestly loving it. I can’t remember if I ever really talked about it much on here but Amy didn’t come into my life until I was about 30, I think? She is my older sister and our mom was forced to put her up for adoption by our grandma. Anyway, despite having completely different upbringings, we keep discovering more and more uncanny similarities that make Henry actually guffaw (literally, it’s an inspired guffaw!) and Amy’s husband Dick frown in disappointment. Everything from us being brats about the dinners they make us to our refusal to put away our clothes that THEY have laundered for us. It’s just too good.

Anyway, Amy is also one of the catalysts behind my recent beer awakening. She and Dick enjoy going to breweries and yeah, I know I can go and either not drink or get a seltzer or a cider if available, but I wanted to hang with the big dogs, you know? So, every time, I would get a flight and end up saying, “That was OK but I never want to drink it again.” LOL. But now I can not only drink BUT ALSO ENJOY pretty much all types of beers except for stouts and porters! I’m also kind of a snob about it, but this should not come as a surprise to anyone.

We met up at Voodoo Brewing in Houston (PA, not TX!) and I was so stoked because my options have greatly expanded since I last went to a brewery. The girl working did not like me one bit. First of all, Henry and I were THE ONLY PEOPLE THERE so it’s not like it’s super chaotic and she was trying to serve 100 people like some glorified German bar maid. She just stood there and watched us as we looked at the options, never once asking if we needed help, offering suggestions, or I DON’T KNOW POINTING OUT THAT THERE WERE SEPARATE MENUS which I didn’t  know and only selected from the seasonal list which meant that I had just 3 from Voodoo and the other 3 from rando’ breweries and then when I was like, “Wait, what are those behind you?” and she monotoned that they were the ones that are always on tap, I asked, “Oh no, is it too late to change my picks?”

She said no, but she said it with an air of exasperation and annoyance. I said, “I’m sorry, did I screw this up?”

“No,” she said with a clipped edge. “This is just my last sheet of paper, that’s all.”

OK? AND? Use a napkin to write down Henry’s?? Also, why was that the last paper for flights when it was only 2:30pm?? That sounds like a Voodoo supply management problem not a me problem.

So far, we have established that I of course love my Belgians (the tripel-ier the better), IPAs (but not all – it takes a lot to WOW me though I do really have a taste for that stringent grapefruit rind essence), and THIS JUST IN, I have a crush on red ales now too.

I don’t like how Henry is leering at my beers.

LOLOLOL I posted this on Instagram too. I was only taking it for UnTapped purposes but this deserved to be enjoyed by all.

DON’T POINT AT ME.

My OG BESTIE CAT Marcy hated being pointed at. This just reminded me of that. She would growl and lunge at jutting phalanges and she was paws out / claws out all of the time, in case you were wondering. The only one she never maimed was Chooch and I still don’t know why because I don’t think she actually cared for him.

Amy and Dick are big football people and we are definitely not but we still always have so much to chat about and this is why I love hanging with them. I LOVE TO TALK. Amy and I were in tears at one point when Dick and Henry were comparing notes on us and I thought to myself, in that moment, “THIS is what I needed.” Real connection.

According to my Untapped app, the winners of the day for me were:

• Don’t Leave Me Edith – IPA
• Wynona’s Big Brown Ale – Brown Ale (this was Henry’s and I only had a sip which made me immediately regret not including it in my flight selection)
• Voodoo Love Child – Belgian Tripel
• White Magick of the Sun – Witbier

Next! We walked next door to Helltown Brewing and even though it was less trendy/flashy/artsy, the vibes were immaculate from the start. First off, it was way cozier and packed with friendly people – two of whom were Dick’s niece and her husband! We sat with them and they were wonderful, super down to earth and easy to chat with so I felt very human, like my old self.

Henry and I went to a haunted house last fall and Helltown actually had a little stand set up. I was like LET’S GET A BEER LIKE ADULTS, WE ARE EMPTY NESTERS and he immediately said, “YOU WILL NOT LIKE A SINGLE ONE OF THEIR OFFERINGS, WOMAN OF MINE” and I was like, “OK hold my future beer and let me be the judge of that.”

Jackass.

I got the Oktoberfest only because at that time, I was certain I wouldn’t like anything else (it was a small sampling of what they have – an IPA-heavy lineup). Anyway, we got one can to share and I liked it so much that I ended up drinking most of it.

So, I was pretty excited to come here and try some more! They actually have waaaay more of a selection than I thought.

Dick’s niece recommended the Mischievous Brown Ale to me and it was one of my favorites of the whole day.

I also really liked:

• Willow Hazy IPA
• Belgian Wit
• Red Eye Red Ale (WHO AM I)

LOL so…my whole flight basically.

But then Amy got a second flight for us to share and of that one, we got my favorite of the whole day – the Headless Wylie pumpkin/yam beer. FINALLY, a pumpkin beer that tasted like pumpkins to me! I was so impressed. And I also really liked Idle Hands – IPA. The other two were a lager and blonde / golden ale which were mid but drinkable. I for sure know what I like now though!

I made this face on purpose and Henry was annoyed.

I was hammered. Henry said I had the equivalent of 2 full beers, maybe 2.5 LOL.

HAHAHAHA.

I took this picture on purpose because Amy made Dick start talking to that guy down there about some football player and then he ended up being really cool and reminded me of my brother Ryan brother (Henry immediately co-signed when I mentioned this on the way home).

Stil fully daylight and I was practically sliding off my stool.

And then we made not-Ryan take our picture because it’s tradition.

I am so happy that this happened and can’t wait for next month!

(Normal people go out and it’s not some big PRAISE BE, SO GRATEFUL event but I am truly half dead inside because every iota of human contact I get is like, news alert, Erin made a connection with a person and now an ordinary trip to a brewery just became some major OMG U GUYS tale for the blog. I fucking hate myself lol.)

I got this text from Chooch the other day and it cracked me up so bad. His dining hall has an app I guess where everyone can request songs and then apparently you can thumbs up or thumbs down the requests (here you can see Chooch thumbs downed the Earth Wind & Fire song “because my friend requested it,” he said in his defense. Isn’t he so much like me??!! I would be Janna’s biggest thumbs downer if we were part of this dining hall experience).

Anyway, I was stoked to see the SVT song in question because that one IS SO GOOD. I kept sending him different performances of it and he refused to watch (not even the one from Glastonbury! Or maybe it was Lolla Berlin I can’t remember).

Then!! He texted me a picture of the laptop of the girl sitting next to him in one of his classes – she has not one but TWO pictures of T.O.P.’s Squid Game character Thanos and I was like TELL HER YOUR MOM LOVES BIGBANG.

“She doesn’t know who that is,” he said. “She only knows him from squid game” but then he said he didn’t even ask her so WHO KNOWS – this could have been my future kid-in-law but sure. Cool.

Other incidents I think I already logged here:

• Someone was writing STREAM SEVENTEEN LOVE FAME MONEY on white boards and he accused me of breaking into the dorm lol
• He had to critique someone’s essay in his English class and it was ABOUT THE GLOBALIZATION OF KPOP and he said his feedback was “you forgot to mention that bts only sings in English now” lol snap. Apparently it was moot though because she only had one source to cite and it turned out to be some high school kids paper so she had to pick a new topic.

Also speaking of “Thanos,” my old T.O.P. Valentine has been selling thanks to his renewed popularity!

That’s all for me, reporting from the tail end of the longest Monday ever.

I splurged in December and bought myself this precious coat from Unlogical Poem (one of my favorite online clothing shops if you just know) but because I’m a loser, I have only worn it out of the house once but it was just to Corey’s house for Christmas Eve and I can promise you not a soul there commented on the rustic beauty of this coat’s design.

My hair looked ok today (my face, eh, that’s another story, thanks Saturday afternoon beer fest) so when Henry and I decided to go for a walk* I said, “OK don’t panic but I want to wear my chicken coat and you can take pictures of me.” Henry was not a fan of this plan but I recently made him watch a tutorial on how to get dad’s ok at taking pictures and he followed it to a T!

* (the temperature was deceptive!!! It was so much colder than 36 degrees, I was crying at one point but then feared my tears would freeze to my contacts so I reeled it in

We went to Calvary Cem which is usually lacking foot traffic but of-fucking-course everyone and their mail carrier was out and about. Even bicyclists. So annoying.

You guys though this coat is my everything.

And I think it looks cute with my pink Vans!

“Now take one of me pretending to be cold even though I’m not pretending.” Honestly my hands were pinker than my shoes by the time we got back to the car, it was so bad. And for some reason, for as many times as we come to this particular cemetery, we always end up on the path that takes us the farthest away from the car so the walk back was brutal.

At the time I bought this, it was the only one of the site and then it was immediately marked “sold out.” I know I have seen other pieces of clothing on their site using this fabric but I think this particular coat was OOAK which makes even special-er.

(I WONDER IF G-DRAGON WOULD LIKE THIS.)

But yeah, if there are two things to note about me it’s that I love having cool coats and immature purses (some purchased from the kids section of Target, no shame in my purse game).

Checking in to say that this day was initially headed south on the back of a torpedo straight into the bowels of hell – Henry and I had walked to the library and I was struggling to get one of my books to scan out. Henry made some snide observation about how I “always have problems with that” which is actually sooooo hyperbolic because literally maybe only twice? Three times, tops?

“MMMMmmmm….???” Henry grunted in response, with an implied tone of U SURE BOUT DAT.

You guys. It was the sass for me. I big nope. I always hate white men so much and then Henry had to go and throw his hat in the shit-eating misogynist cishet ring? Ah hell no.

I felt the rage surging, nerves trembling to the beat of some gross 2000s NICKELBACK jock jam that was now, in my mind, relaxing the words coming out of Henry’s mustachioed maw.

I slammed the books down, grabbed my receipt and said I AM DONE. YOU CAN DEAL WITH THIS and left Henry behind to bag up my books as I stormed out of the library.

I walked home a healthy distance in front of him. Then I had to wait on the porch because I didn’t have a key :(

When Man let me in the house, I proceeded to storm past him to the kitchen so I could make my lunch and while in the throes of CHEF HELL, every single thing was setting me off and I was slamming pans and then I couldn’t get my container of vegan cheese to fit in the drawer I always keep it in in the fridge so I THREW IT ON THE FLOOR AND LEFT IT THERE while screaming about how I hate men and how Henry should be happy because as usual HIS KIND are in charge so ITS HIS WORLD and then I saw if I had a knife I would have stabbed him in the library.

All the while he was folding laundry at the dining room table. I finished COOKING MY LUNCH (literally I just heat up a pita in a pan and put vegan cheese and Tofurky deli slices on it so when I say COOKING that is pretty much the extent of that. If you want to picture me braising things, flipping patties of indiscernible origins over a high flame, and having flour on my cheeks, that’s fine too though.

While I was eating my pita, Henry quietly walked into the kitchen and put away the container of vegan cheese I had left to die on the floor hahaha.

Anyway, I’m ok now. Henry apologized. I am still a woman on the edge though. Literally I cry everyday whether the origin of the tears are RAGE or SORROW or sometimes a COMBO MEAL of both with a side of accelerated heart rate.

I know some people were UP IN ARMS when the craft conglomerate MICHAELS did an early release of Halloween decor last year right before summer and it was OMG in a retro summer palette. But shooooo, I was into it. I love orange and pink as complementary colors, and I loved the 1960s mini-skirt floral print that was used on some of the decor too. LIKE THIS COFFIN SHELF, for instance. I had been bitching about we need to have more knick knack shelves because I am hoarder-adjacent. I love souvenirs and things like that! I can’t help it.

It’s so perfect for my needs and aesthetic. I love death-stuff but also colors. And vintage floral!

Henry was stoked to see that I moved this Pal’s Styrofoam cup from the top of the fridge where it had been living for approx. 3 years to the shelf. I just really wanted a memento from Pal’s OK?? It was a very sentimental part of one of our past road trips and I refused to let Henry throw it out!! Originally, I wanted to turn it into Art somehow but Styrofoam is weird to work with and also, isn’t this Art enough on its own?

Speaking of that hyperlink, this is such a sad glimpse into my life currently but I have putting myself to sleep at night by reading old road trip liveblogs and then dozing off on a pillow of nostalgia. I’m so sad that those days are likely over, at least for the three of us, because this summer coming up will be his last summer home from school since Drexel does Co-Ops. I have been on this kick lately where I daydream about him graduating and eventually having a family and then we all drive off into the sunset together on crazy road trips, destination: random amusement parks.

I don’t know if you can tell, but I am struggling over here lol. I’m not as weepy as I thought I would be but I definitely feel like he took half of my heart with him to Philly. I never really considered myself the type of person who identified solely as a “mom,” but I think it’s more that in addition to being my son he was/is MY BEST FRIEND. I miss hassling Henry together, getting on each others’ nerves, arguing over the last word, having stupid adventures and inside jokes.

It’s stupid (it’s not stupid) but this cup is kind of a symbol of that.

Random lighters! I used to be a HEAVY SMOKER in my late teens right up until I got pregnant at 25. I am so grateful to pregnancy making me flat out averse to cigarettes for obvious reasons. But I still have these two remnants of my past nicotine-clouded life (and two cigarette cases!!!). Also, my second cat was named Nicotina – that was how idiotic of a smoker I was.

Anyway, I bought that first lighter at a smokers (and also bondage lol) den on the South Side called Slackers. And the Robert Smith one was an eBay purchase back when all I did was scour eBay for Cure memorabilia. (Never forget when I threw myself down prostrate on my mom’s kitchen floor because I wanted her to give me like $5000 to purchase a ROBERT SMITH AND LYDIA LUNCH SHARED JOURNAL and I was even prepared to sell my car but it was in MY MOM’S NAME and she said NO.)

The infamous bottle of Bela Lugosi’s grave dirt that I had saved on Etsy because I wanted to purchase it for my friend Alyson who’s LJ name is “gravedirt” and then Henry the Goof saw it and thought it was something I wanted and got it for me for Christmas. I was so confused. IT WAS ON YOUR WISHLIST he said. And I was like YES FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Joke’s on me ‘cuz I just assumed bro never looked at that shit. It still cracks me up when I look at it because THE ONE time Henry tries to “do the right thing” things go awry.

Anyway, I used to keep this on my desk at work for years and it was a great conversation starter.

(And conversation killer.)

Um, this frog…I honestly can’t remember where he’s from?!?! He could have been purchased from some shop of handmade wares while on some grand vacation.

Or…Pier One.

In either case, I’ve had him since high school so he has been a consistent part of my home decor for possibly 30 years. Yikes. An heirloom.

(OMG DO YOU THINK THE PALS CUP WILL BE AN HEIRLOOM ONE DAY TOO.)

Oh, this one makes me cry for several reasons.

1. I bought this on our last day in Korea last year, from a halmoni who hand embroiders them. That is her name on it too – Hoon Jae. She was so sweet and I am kicking myself for not buying more. I love it so much that I won’t even take it out of the organza bag because I want to keep it clean and protected forever.

2. It used to sit on my home desk and Bambi would always jump up, sniff it out, and start chewing on the bag. I miss her so much that if I could go back in time, I would just let this be hers only. Bambi’s halmoni hanky.

Well, that’s it for this edition of Things Around My House.

Oh shit, P.S.!! That crow that looks ancient was gifted to me this past Christmas by my brother Ryan! He was like, “I dunno, it just seemed like something you would like” and boy howdy, do I ever. I have a big appreciation for crows because we are on the same side when it comes TO GETTING THE HAWK TO FUCK RIGHT OFF.

….straight from my head to here.

We’re in the middle of a cold nap here in Pittsburgh and my motivation and drive are both definitely frozen along with our pipes. It’s days like these when I am extra grateful to be working from home but I am so lonely and feel on the verge of cabin fever.

I had a therapy sesh yesterday and we were technically supposed to be gathering more information for our next EMDR session which is going to focus on my childhood and growing up as the stepkid in our household, not feeling like I belong, etc. You know, typical shit. But then I started ranting about how I’m 45 and still in a sick cycle with dieting and food phobia and weight obsession and it all can be pinned on ONE PERSON in my life – my fucking grandmother. It’s so much a part of me that sometimes I don’t even realize how much it controls my life, how many times I have canceled lunch plans with friends because my food-fear and obsession with weighing myself is unhinged. I told my therapist that, unless we’re away, I legit weigh myself every morning and that stupid number can and does set the tone for the day. It can be the difference between having a pleasant day with Henry or blaming everything on him (accusing him of sabotaging me, not caring how I feel, not holding me accountable, etc.). I can be a downright monster. I have ruined entire days, road trips, holidays, you name it – all because I’m afraid of just letting myself live my life and eat the things I want to eat and not care about how I look or, god forbid, admit that NO ONE ELSE FUCKING CARES EITHER. LITERALLY NO ONE IS GAPING AT ME WHEN I WALK INTO A ROOM AND EVEN IF THEY WERE, THAT’S ON THEM NOT ME, RIGHT.

Yeah, easier said than done.

You guys, I can vividly recount numerous times, too many to detail individually, where Henry and I (I have tried not to do this anytime Chooch was with us, he already knows I’m psycho) would get as far as being seated in a restaurant, maybe even putting in our drink order, when I suddenly cannot stand being in there for one second longer, I’m panicking over the menu and what fits into my diet, everything is closing in around me, that one person might have glanced at me I’m not sure, and next thing Henry knows, I’m abruptly absconding from the establishment. Except maybe less “absconding” and more “causing a scene in my chaotic haste to get outside.”

Also, I have spent almost my whole existence feeling like the ugliest girl in the world thanks to my grandma, please refer to this post for background and actual handwritten evidence from my vacation journal:

Some Things Sunday

Also, when my therapist asked me if I have specific memories to use during EMDR, I was shouted, “OH BOY DO IT!” Again, I refer you to the above (I did tell my therapist and she made a face which I knew to mean, “Jesus Christ”) and also the times my grandma would make my underarm fat swing while making disappointed clucks.

Oh and also when she had my mom put me on Slim Fast when I was in, wait for it, 6th grade so that I wouldn’t ruin my aunt Susie’s upcoming wedding by being a fugly blimp in a junior bridesmaid dress and boy did I have news for her when I did end up losing weight but still had BAD HAIR AND BRACES.

Boo hoo, Erin. Right? Get over it.

You don’t think I have been trying!? It has nearly ruined my relationship with Henry and sometimes I feel like I have been holding myself back so much in life because of this stupid control my grandma has over me even from the grave.

(Yes, I was sad when my grandma died. No, I did not cry nor did I mourn.  I even tried to reject bereavement leave when my manager at the time tried to get me to take time off. I truly didn’t want it.)

Life is so weird. My childhood had way more joy in it than not (mostly thanks to my pappap) but these are some of the bad things that stand out more in my mind sometimes. When people are like, “You’re lucky that you grew up rich”* and I’m like, “Yeah but was I really lucky though?” Lol look at the neuroses I inherited!

*(Literally no one has ever said that except for Chooch, lol.)

Anyway, I’m going to end this here, eat some low-calorie soup and then do Kpop cardio later in an effort to burn it all off because I am still fully stuck in the cycle!

Hey-o, I read 157 books in 2024. Goodreads tells me that I gave 14 of those a 5-star rating but looking at that list, I’m not sure how strongly I feel about some of those. I pared them down to 5 that I would confidently recommend to friends and would happily buy a hardback copy for my own collection some day if I ever have room for books ugh.

I just really, sincerely loved this book with my whole heart. Great dialogue, bright characters, a compelling plot. I was tense and also laughing out loud more times than I could keep track of. I would recommend this to either someone who doesn’t read books regularly because it’s a freaking easy read and page-turner, someone in a reading slump, and someone who liked picturing young Bruce Willis as a main character because that is where my mind immediately went from the very start of this book. Blue-collar Bruce Willis trying to save his daughter.

This one broke me.

A horror novel that is actually scary because it’s based on real life events in Jim Crowe Florida. Haunting. Brutal. It will rip your heart out. Recommended only to people who can handle painful and heavy narrative. It is a horror novel but the scariest parts are the things that the living do to the living. This book will live in my head forever.

A sprawling, vivid, surreal Korean tale, and another one that was painful and hard to read at times because of the brutality – especially toward women.

But Jesus, I am so glad I picked this up because the pay-off was huge. I don’t know who I would recommend this to and am honestly not sure if I would have even considered it if I weren’t already into Korean culture. But there is something about Korean novels – IYKYK. If you’re looking for an epic novel that will transport you to someplace violently magical chockful of trigger warnings, then give this one a shot lol.

In a nutshell, this is an epic family drama spanning several generations. 

I was completely invested in every generational POV, my favorite being the one set in the late 90s. There’s also a little bit of magical realism in this which caught me off guard. I think I would recommend this to anyone, really. It’s just that solid.

I was still very freshly mourning the death of my cat Drew when I read this.  It was irreverent and LOL funny, exactly what I needed to keep me from cannon-balling off a parking garage in Chicago. Such a sad sack of a protagonist and I wanted nothing but the best for him. The writing was fresh and smart – would have made me jealous if I still even slightly considered myself a “writer.” Let me just say that I don’t follow many authors on Instagram but I immediately started following Gene Kwak after I read this. Funny, awkward, painful, and uncomfortable encounters; a VERY WTF swimming pool scene; a mother/son road trip; an underlying theme of identity crisis – this book has it all. Ricky is a character I won’t soon forget.  I don’t know who I would specifically recommend this to. You, I guess.

Your turn! Lay your 5 star reads on me.

My mom brought a bagful of photos over to Corey’s in Christmas Eve. I already had copies of most of them because I took all of the photos from my grandparents’ house when we were cleaning it out and they most have had doubles printed of everything to share between houses. I come from a very photo-happy family.

As such, I was letting Corey and Ryan take whatever they wanted but when I came across this shot of Ryan and me with our grandma on the BELOVED DARKRIDE La Cachot, I snatched it up with a quickness. I have never seen this picture before! And for some reason, we don’t have many pictures from our visits to Kennywood which is wild to me.

This ride definitely shaped my love for dark rides; it was a personal favorite of mine as a child and I still get so stoked when we go to an amusement park that has an authentic, vintage dark ride and not these new-fangled shooting rides which I hate. I want something with black lights, hokey K-Mart-esque Halloween masks, Pretzel cars, and the stench of damp basements and moth balls.

I don’t know if this was a Yinzer thing but my friend Keri always called it Lickashit.

They tore down the building in 1998 – for years I thought it was because that it had caught fire but evidently, the plan was always to tear it down because the building was so old and it was deteriorating, I guess (per the below video) and in the process of tearing it down, there was also a fire. IMO, removing this was the beginning of a slew of bad and questionable decisions made by Kennywood. I guess it doesn’t matter who owns the park, dumb moves are still bound to be made. This is making me feel extremely bitter.

(Apparently, you have to watch this video on YouTube.)

But yeah, that’s all I’ve got for this snowy, bitchy Sunday. Back to hypnosis via Enhypen videos.

We I needed to get the fuck out of the house – January is so suffocating. I can’t breathe. Cold. Gray. Wet. Ugh.

So we picked up some buns at Pink Box and then did a quick walking tour at the cemetery before the gates closed.

“TAKE PICTURES OF ME,” I demanded. “I HAVE NO BLOG CONTENT.” Seriously, what am I supposed to be recapping? Every day is the same. Work was annoying and stressful. I got mad about something. Made a shitty lunch. Drank too much coffee. Exercised. Ate soup. Watched k-content. Bed.

Snooze alert.

No commentary or captions other than: it’s us at the cemetery. The end.

Henry bought me a Taemin lightstick for the concert next month. It arrived on Monday and I had to DROP EVERYTHING to search for batteries and then take photos.

I am so ready but also OMG I AM NOT READY!This is Lee Taemin we’re talking about here. Lee Taemin.

DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS.

Every time I have a kpop concert the pipeline I think about making freebies and I never do it because I’m lazy but this time I really going to try to get something done because it’s such a special event and my fellow Taemints / Taemates (I like Taemints better but I guess since he left SM he had to change his fan name) we’re psychologically damaged trying to get tickets for this so I want to contribute to the mutual Taemin love that I know is going to be flowing in full force.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it here but it’s at the Chicago Theater and that place looks so majestic. I asked my work friend Vicki if it’s haunted and she said she wasn’t sure but it has to be. So I’m excited for Taemin, this theater, and getting to stay in actual Chicago proper and not out by the airport like we usually do because the concerts are usually always in the arena out that way. And it is such a sad and boring area but don’t worry, we will be there 3 weeks later for the NCT127 concert lol fucking Chicago man. But still, better than Newark obviously!! Just so tired of that drive.

But still – CHICAGO. Love that damn city. With the exception of the time we went to see ATEEZ in August (and this was nothing to do with ATEEZ and everything to do with me being sincerely suicidal no sugarcoating), I have made so many beautiful memories there. I hope Taemin loves it too. <3

Weekends in January, man. Cold, dreary, gray, boring. But still somehow zip by just as fast as any other weekend, god-fucking-dammit. This past weekend for us was calm and quiet. Henry wanted to make more kimchi (I have been having withdrawals) so we went to our fave Asian market in the Strip (WFH, in case you care) and I was constantly in everyone’s way as usual. It’s like I’m planted in grocery stores as an obstacle for shoppers who actually know what they’re doing.

I mostly just look at the fruit, the drinks, and the snacks of course. They didn’t have my favorite Kit Kats this time (they’re like, wheat biscuits?? I don’t know, I don’t read Japanese, only Korean) but I did snag the milk tea ones again and a new-to-me French Mont Blanc variety which is right up there with the wheat biscuit one now. So delightful. I am not on a mission to have real Mont Blanc after googling it because I am not up on my French desserts but anything chestnut is a greenlight on my dessert highway.

That….actually stopped making sense to me as I was typing it.

Wait also here is some great history on how this French dessert became popular in Japan! 

Because I always have to circle back to Korea, this reminds me of how tiramisu is curiously popular over there. Like, nearly every cafe has some rendition of it and there are even bakeries devoted entirely to tiramisu. As someone who grew up eating homemade and rum-drenched tiramisu made by our family friend from Italy, I can appreciate this!

The only other thing that comes to mind about Saturday is that I, after 40+ years of eating my popcorn this way, suddenly wondered if liberally spraying it with Pam butter spray was a detriment to my health and decided to Google it. According to REDDIT EXPERTS, I should be ok. This is good news because I sincerely don’t think I can break that habit now. My aunt Sharon put me on this path when I was super little and she would make legit popcorn on THE STOVE and then spritz it with Pam.

Then Sunday afternoon, I was like “enough is enough, I gotta spend time outside breathing in the air” so Henry and I went to the cemetery where Barb is buried. Of course because of all the snow, we were unable to see the exact burial site but we did spend some time walking around and I hope she could sense that. I am still not fully finished processing her death – between her and Bambi, within 6 mths, it has been so confusing and traumatizing. I didn’t mention this in the Chingumas post but when I was in the kitchen chatting with Glenn and Sean, Sean goes, “Is Barb Riley coming?”

Glenn and I exchanged nervous glances and I whispered, “Barb passed away last year.”

Sean was like, “NO. Are you being for real? And no one told me??” I felt awful. Just awful.

When I say that these people I work with / have worked with are like family, I mean it. Losing such a prominent mom-figure has been rough on a lot of us, even though she had left the firm so long ago.

I’m big allergic to snow, but look at me. I survived.

Then we went to Crazy Horse Coffee where I had a flat white and we split banana bread. It was nice.  But then I got bored so we came home.

I’m watching Lovely Runner and thought it was funny that one of the characters was wearing a Cincinnati t-shirt because 1. random 2. I was just talking about Cincinnati on the way home from the cafe and also fun fact, I still have to sing the “C-I-N-C-I-N-A-T-T-I” song from the Babes in Toyland remake in my head to be able to spell it.

(Henry just walked out of the room humming the Going Seventeen theme song, pop off Kpop Dad.)

In other extraordinary weekend news, I forgot that the band Cold started following me several years ago when I posted on instagram that I still have a Starburst that their singer gave me in 2000 and then this happened:

I was so excited and sent it to chooch and he thought for a second it was Coldplay and was like “but why.”

I truly don’t think there was anything else of note to write about here. I made some new Kpop cards for Etsy and Henry did a trial run of pendants that were trying to make in an effort to expand our inventory.

Being at an age where time feels so precious I hate saying that I can’t wait for winter to be over but I truly hate it so much. I miss the simple things like being able to comfortably go for walks in the morning, you know? The simple things.

Anyway. That was my weekend. Boring but cozy I guess.

Happy random Monday in January. I have been obsessed with the BooSeokSoon comeback since last week and that has been keeping me properly infected with joy during these cold, gray days.

In case anyone is actually reading this and cares, BooSeokSoon (BSS) is a sub-unit of Seventeen – Boo Seungkwan, Lee Seokmin (DK), and Kwon Soonyoung (Hoshi). They are basically the nation’s cheerleaders if we’re being honest. One of their older songs, Fighting, was the official song that played for Team Korea during the last Summer Olympics. It’s like THAT.

They’ve been making the rounds on all of the music shows but so far this one is my favorite because I love Seungkwan’s weird little yodel in the beginning lol:

Hopefully this cheers you up if you were having a bad day!

And in case you were wondering Henry’s stance on BSS, he stans. So, I bought him a BSS hat for Christmas :)

Wow. Pop off, Kpop Dad.

Henry actually likes Seventeen in general so much that he has rejected my invitation to start stanning Enhypen and Zerobaseone. He’s a devoted Carat and sends me Seventeen reels all day long.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today, a gross Monday in January that started off with an 8AM dentist appointment, UGH what was I thinking when I scheduled that?? Less than an hour after I walked home, I looked out the window and it was a white-out out there so I’m really glad I didn’t get caught in that, sheesh.

Wow, that title was lame even for me. Please accept my apologies.

Anyway, I read these books in December while counting down the end of a shitty year.

1. Eight Hundred Grapes – Laura Dave

I was double-fisting the Laura Dave to kick off December. I remember really enjoying her novel “The Last Thing He Told Me” and saw that she has a new one out, so I started to read that AND THEN I saw that the audio for this one was available on Hoopla. It’s an older one and I thought it was just OK. Probably just because it was giving the TV show Brothers & Sisters vibes because of the family vineyard story line. It was a lot of family drama, small town characters, runaway bride with little pay off. Also, I made the mistake of reading a review where someone pointed out that she writes in fragments a lot of the time and then I couldn’t stop noticing that, like she learned how to write from LiveJournal in 2001. Not the worst book but I would only recommend as maybe an option for a flight or train ride, I don’t know. This is not my profession.

2. The Night We Lost Him – Laura Dave

This is the new one and it was better – way more mystery vibes. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a thriller. I was very invested in this for the first half and then it did lose steam for me. I couldn’t connect well with the main character and as such it turned into a “figure it out or don’t, I don’t really care” type of read for a bit but I was back into it by the end and glad that I stuck it out.

3. Heads Will Roll – Josh Winning

Even after re-reading the synopsis, I couldn’t remember actually reading this book at first?! But now I remember and it was decent – better than his other book, Burn the Negative. It has a “summer camp for adults who need to detox from social media” kind of plot, but of course there’s a killer in the woods gunning for all of them. Now that I’m remembering this book, I can confirm that there were times when I was genuinely creeped out by the imagery but I did think all of the characters were extremely corny and written as caricatures. And when we finally find out why the main character was “cancelled,” it was kind of anticlimactic.

4. A Good Happy Girl – Marissa Higgins

I gave this a 2. This whole unhinged and confused single girl in her 20s trope is wearing on me. Also, I’m 45 and not single (albeit unhinged and confused) so I am definitely not the target audience here but I have liked books from this niche genre in the past. This one is mostly about a depressed woman trying to fill a void by being the third wheel in a lesbian couple’s marriage and it is so uncomfortable and actually gross a lot of the time, to be honest, and I have a pretty high tolerance for reading about kinks, etc. I should have known from the cover, tbh.

5. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books – Kirsten Miller

Entertaining and with a message! I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The characters were rich and real, I was rooting for the good guys so hard, swearing at the racist bigots, and laughing out loud at the absolute havoc this little library was creating around town. This one I do recommend.

6. Heartstopper Vol. 5 – Alice Oseman

The Netflix show has kind of gotten on my nerves, but this book series is still so solid. I  think it would have been semi-life changing if it had been available when I was a kid.

7. Mr. Fox – Helen Oyeyemi

4.5. God, I love Helen Oyeyemi with my whole heart. The things she does with the English language is ABSURD. SORCERY. Sometimes I think she is an absolute psychopath. I can’t explain it – you just have to read one of her books to understand and godspeed if you do. The first time I read a book by her, I thought I hated it until it occurred to me that I just hated how stupid it made me feel, but not in a dark academia sense. You have to go into her books with the understanding that it will stretch your brain like laffy taffy, it will make you yell WHAT AM I READING, and it will be so rewarding in the end. As someone who admittedly spends too much time doom-scrolling, every Oyeyemi book is like a reset for my mind. It reminds me that at one time, I was kind of smart. I was good at English. I liked to read challenging things.

8. Perfume & Pain – Anna Dorn

Unlike that “A Good Happy Girl’ trash I read earlier in the month (which comes up as “readers also enjoyed” for this book on Goodreads LOL), this one did it for me enough that I gave it a 3. I had fun reading it, I rooted for Astrid and wanted so badly for her to get her life back on track. I loved the cast of characters she had orbiting her. Plus, the cover speaks to me. This would have been a good vacation book.

9. Rental House – Weike Wang

This is the second book of Wang’s that I’ve read and they both have a similar disassociated kind of vibe going on with the main character. Keru was pretty unlikable (I mean, even the dog prefers the husband over her) but I still just wanted good things for her. There really isn’t much of a plot to talk about – it starts with a married couple sharing a rental house with both sets of parents during the pandemic – Keru’s Chinese parents come for the first half and Nate’s white / American parents come the second half and the atmosphere is very different for both but the universal sense of OVERBEARING INLAWS is the same.

The second half of the book finds the couple several years later renting another vacation house and having strange interactions with a family of three in the house next door and then an unexpected family visitor. It was actually pretty stressful. I don’t know that I would actively recommend this to anyone but I did give it a 4.

10. The Midnight Feast – Lucy Foley

Truthfully, I could not follow along with this. Between mixing up the characters and a general ambivalence toward the story itself, I have realized that it’s time to put Foley on my DNR list because all of her books up until now have been major wastes of time for me. I even tried the audio and that was somehow worse. Hated it.

11. Greta & Valdin – Rebecca K. Reilly 

A boring book about two siblings who are roommates and the brother is obsessed with his ex-boyfriend who is also the brother of some guy married to his uncle or something?! You know it’s going to be bad when the book starts with a literal WHO’S WHO and some of the characters inexplicably have the same name.

The only parts I liked was when Romania was referenced here and there.

12. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance – Alison Espach

So….I only read this because I’m waiting for the library to get her new book The Wedding People which has been very buzzworthy of late and some of my friends have rated it highly. Now I’m nervous because I lowkey hated this book. I gave it 1 star for the sheer amount of times I rolled my eyes. It’s narrated by the younger sister of the girl who “disappeared,” and it starts in elementary school and works its way up to present day. The elementary school era of the book seems to drag on for-fucking-ever for apparent reason other than to build a foundation for the readers to see that the sisters have a close (?) relationship. Or used to. It honest to god just drones on and on though and is cheesy and aggravating, to be quite frank. To the point that when  the “disappearance” happens, I was so simultaneously relieved and also underwhelmed. Sure, it was sad but like…

I don’t know. I think this year (2024) burnt me out.

Bye.