• I was having a, well, Moody Monday, but then Sandy texted me that she saw Downtown Jesus having a rest outside of CVS, and it made me smile. I love that my co-workers text me now with Downtown Jesus’s whereabouts! I almost landed in his lap Friday morning when I was leaving the trolley station, because as I rounded the corner to take the steps, he was all sprawled out at the bottom and I almost stepped right onto his crotch! I feel like he would have forgiven me. #WWDTJD
• • But then I think about voting tomorrow and I’m right back in a MOOD. A REAL BIG MOOD, AT THAT.
• There’s another movie being filmed in Pittsburgh for some reason and so on Friday, there was a flurry of activity because it was going on right down the street from work. I guess Ewan McGregor* is in it? He’s not Korean, so DON’T CARE. Anyway, I went outside that afternoon for my daily walk and there was a crowd gathered on the sidewalk up ahead so I was like “I GUESS I WILL CROSS THE STREET” but before I had a chance, some FUCKING POLICE MAN came over and shouted at me (some might even say he BERATED me and by “some” I mean “me” when I write my letter to the mayor) that I was not permitted to continue walking along the sidewalk and that I would have to CROSS THE STREET at which point I scowled at him and said that I was well aware but then he fucking ESCORTED ME and I was so mad about this – I am already standing on weak, wobbly legs and this fucking pushed me over the edge. I was on the phone with Henry at the time and felt invincible so I started loudlymouthing off about how this jerk-cop was being rude to me and that this movie is SO DISRUPTIVE TO THE CITY because I turn into a bratty 15-year-old in the face of authority and start talking super loud so that everyone will know that I am upset about a thing, and Henry was like, “Please don’t get arrested.” Then I ran into my friend Chris and told her what happened and we had a moment of hateful solidarity because she gets it, man.
• *(CORRECTION: IT IS SETH ROGAN. THANK YOU, CARRIE!)
• SPEAKING OF FEELING INVINCIBLE: I lost two more pounds recently (thx, Noom) and anytime that happens, I start to feel invincible, like I can stuff any kind of foods into my fat maw and I will just miraculously keep losing weight; luckily Noom has been helping me veer away from that kind of destructive thinking. But I’ll tell you what doesn’t help: a co-worker bringing in not one but TWO majestic platters of pre-holiday cookies and I want to fucking SWAN DIVE into them, you have no idea. I’ve inventoried each one like 4 times in an hour because I am forever fat and during one of my inspections, I noticed that there are also BUCKEYES in there. I’m crying. Homemade baked goods are always coming for me.
• • TODD IS GETTING COOKIES RIGHT NOW AND I AM JEL.
• • • Pfft. Dieting, amirite?
• • • I will probs have a Snickerdoodle eventually though because YOLO and ‘why so srs,’ etc. etc. etc.
• This Is Us jumped on the Hallyu bandwagon and I was left feeling pretty uncomfortable after watching the last episode. It just didn’t feel like an organic story arc and even referencing kpop felt cheap to me. I really like this show but that was a big no for me, like they just want to put their big American meathooks into the Korean craze like all the other dumb media here.
• Speaking of kpop!! (LOL, like I need a segue for that.) I’m pretty excited about some recent comebacks. One is the mighty EXO, and it’s a really huge deal in Kpopland because they haven’t been given a proper comeback in over a year which is almost unheard of in this industry. They are super super super big in South Korea too so I can only imagine how exciting it is over there right now! Anyway, below, I will share their new video and also a live music show performance of their second song which I think I like better than the main single, actually. Also, I saw their album yesterday at Target. TARGET!!
• • Maybe This Is Us will have one of their songs on their next episode. ㅎㅎㅎㅎ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwd8N6K-sLk

(Chanyeol is my favorite, in case you were wondering.)

• When I ask Henry if we are definitely going back to Korea next summer, he says things like, “probably” and “I don’t see why not” and that’s great and all, but the answer I am looking for is a big fat solid YES.
• • I want to go there and have birthday bingsoo. If I have to turn 40, let it be while I’m face-first in some fancy-ass Sulbing.
• Today when I left work, IT WAS DARK OUT AND THAT MADE ME MOODY AGAIN.
• Then I came home and everyone immediately started fighting over Chooch’s stupid Halloween candy. The accusations were flung and flying, you guys, I forgot how much I LOVE this time of year.
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  Chooch and Henry mostly fight because Henry is a fucking chocolate hog and eats like 85% of Chooch’s haul every year, and then Henry gets all defensive and uses the “I AM THE PROVIDER OF THE HOUSE AND LAST TIME I CHECKED I CAN DO WHAT I WANT” and I’m like “HOW ABOUT ADDING ‘THROWING OUT WRAPPERS’ TO THAT LIST OF THINGS YOU CAN DO, BIG GUY!” because that’s the role I play in this annual argument – I don’t care who eats what, just fucking throw your garbage away, assholes! There was an Almond Joy wrapper on the coffee table and Chooch was like I DON’T EVEN LIKE ALMOND JOY and Henry was like, “I DID NOT EAT THAT” so now I guess I have to interrogate the cats and Trudy the Mannequin, OK. (AND NO IT WASN’T ME BUT HAD I KNOWN THERE WAS AN ALMOND JOY, YES, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ME.)

• • BUT I WOULD HAVE THROWN THE WRAPPER AWAY BECAUSE I’M NOT A BARBARIAN.
• Chooch and I just walked to CVS and he was all excited because his favorite cashier JOHN was working and I was happy too that it wasn’t that weird meth lady who ruined my Halloween candy buying experience last week. So we got in line and I was like, “Oh well, we’re not going to get John” because he was still checking out the people in front of us when the younger guy at the next register said he could take us.
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  Chooch got all dramatic like it was life or death for John to check us out so I awkwardly said, “Oh. Um, he’s…waiting for John…” and the younger guy (WHO I LIKE TOO BECAUSE HE ALWAYS SAYS WITTY THINGS THAT HENRY NEVER RESPONDS TO BECAUSE HE PROBABLY DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THEM) said, “Ugh, whatever! Fine!” and John was all, “What? What’s going on?” and the other guy said, “Ugh, they’re waiting for YOU!” all theatrically and it was hilarious. John peeked around the people in front of us, and when he saw who it was, he happily exclaimed, “OH! HENRY!” which is what he jokingly calls Chooch because Chooch goes there all the time after school and uses Henry’s phone number for the CVS card lookup thing so now John just refers to him as Henry as a joke. Meanwhile, the lines got all screwed up because of this because since we weren’t moving over to the other guy’s register, people behind us thought they had to stay in our line for some reason so John’s line was growing while the other guy was like, begging people to come to his register. Way to go Chooch.

• • When the girl in front of us left, she stopped to say that she loves my cow print coat and asked me where I got it, but I couldn’t remember which Young Girl store it was: Contempo, Delia’s, or Wet Seal; but in any case, it was probably 20 years ago so it’s basically vintage at this point.
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    I always feel like I’m such a plain jane but then cold weather comes and everyone is like I LOVE YOUR COAT. Anyway, she was disappointed when I didn’t say “Forever21, last weekend!”

• • One time, Chooch told me, “I like John a lot, that’s why I would never steal from CVS” and I was like, “That’s great but how about just don’t steal from anywhere because it’s wrong!?!?” Dum dum.

Well guys, we had a bunch of card orders come in today so I guess I’m going to wrap up this moody blog post and annoy Henry while he does card stuff. Be back later in the week with a recap of the Emarosa show (!!!!), stuff from Saturday night, and probably more Chooch haunted house reviews.

    Dark View’s theme this year was carnival, although every other year was a creepy house. We were the first ones here on this cold day, and by first ones I mean the first people to actually get in line. We got popcorn while we waited for a good time to get in line. I sat by the fire trying to warm up which helped a lot. We walked in line, making us the first in line. Not long after, the line started to fill up and more people came. We were placed in a group with a guy named Eddie and mum and him talked about horror movies and Conneaut, it was awkward. Eddie had 2 girls with him, they looked like they were the same age as me, 12. The old man that was there last year told us a story about how someone owned this carnival and had many freaks, but you can’t call them that anymore. He mentioned that there was a fat man, a sasquatch, and elastigirl. He said that people from all around the world came to see he because they liked to see her stretch her….then he motioned around the chest area. He then continued by saying that at least it wasn’t an elastiboy. He let us go and we went into a small shed, and sat down. Oh! I forgot, there were two other people in our group as well. When we sat down, a video started playing in front of us, it was a fat guy about to take our picture, but he was allergic to ugly people, so he had a rough time. He also kept farting and sneezing on us, so it held back the picture. He took 4 photos in total, and one of the was a jump scare behind us, and I wasn’t phased at all. 

   Then, onward we went into a showroom where some guy was doing magic. He said that he was going to make a clown doll disappear, then reappear. By disappear he meant throw over a wall, and by reappear he meant a giant clown was going to pop out from behind a wall. Then we enter the room where the animals were kept in cages. There was a sasquatch and a tiger, the sasquatch was farting and the tiger was growling. The next room was really cool because it was a closet type room with many clothes and then a giant teddy bear that turned out to be a real person. After a while, we realized that our group must be good because they went a decent speed and weren’t annoying. After the carnival, was a graveyard and the clown, Fatso, told us to call the caretaker stupid. The caretaker sighed and made us follow him through a crypt and then down a trail which had a house with an old lady sitting on the porch. When she noticed us, she started talking about how her mother made the best pumpkin pie and they had picnics in Parkview. Then she told us not to run in the forest because the trees will grab you by the ankle and trip you. Then I looked behind us and saw that there was a scarecrow walking slowly towards us. I was scared and wanted to go, then the lady told us to go and watch out for the tree people.

    I quickly realized that the tree people were men dressed in a Ghillie Suit and they were creepy. Then there was a lady who did rituals or something and she wanted to save some girl who was going to get sacrificed by a demon. The lady asked if two of us would sacrifice ourselves, so I raised my hand and another lady in our group did, too. The woman said in order to avoid getting killed, we had to walk slowly, do not run, and do not look back. If we do, he will kill us. So we went in the front of the group and walked very slow. We avoided looking back, while we heard other members in our group get caught looking back. We didn’t know when we were allowed to look back and run, so we just kept walking slowly, until we reached a cabin. The cabin was a hunting cabin and the guy who was outside of it told us to hurry in. Apparently, there was a zombie outbreak and they were trying to get in, so we stayed inside. Then all of a sudden, the lights shut off, they must have cut off the power circuit. The guy told us to run and when the lights turned back on, a zombie appeared from the shadows and ate the hunter. We ran and made it to a foggy fence maze. There was a sniper tower flashing a light down on the maze. We kept going through the maze and we saw a guy, I looked down at his hands, and he was holding a chainsaw. I held my breath and knew better than to run from when we went to Hundred Acres Manor because he would chase me. So I just kept going and he followed us while his chainsaw revved. Mum screamed and pushed me into the guy. She ran full speed ahead, but the guy didn’t chase her, so we all ran and made it to the end.

My opinion of Darkview this year is very good because I liked the part where we had to be very quiet and move slowly. 

Big Papa eating his Big Papacorn. <—ERIN WROTE THIS.

Sorry November, I still have some Halloween-y things to cover up in here.

One of my favorite haunts, Castle Blood, has a no-scare matinee that they do on Sundays, where they keep the lights on, there are no overt scares, and kids of all ages can wear a costume and go trick-or-treating through the house. As you may know, this place has been on haunted house mainstay list since the mid-90s, and we started taking Chooch to the matinees when he was two (though he quickly graduated to the actual nighttime tour).

Well, Calvin has him beat now because he just broke onto the haunted house scene at the young ol’ age of 1! I was so excited when Blake and Haley said they wanted take him! He even dressed up like a little werepup! Here are some snaps from our afternoon in an old, haunted funeral home.

Here he is being completely unimpressed in the parlor!

The cool thing about the Castle Blood matinees is that they still do the whole story/adventure so even though the lights are on, you still get to solve the puzzles and barter for talisman so it’s a win for adults too (especially when Haley grabs a Snickers out of one of the candy bowls for you after your own so blatantly ignores your request).

Calvin was completely smitten with the psycho lab assistant.

We were just there two nights prior to this so Chooch knew all the answers to the puzzles. Our friend Chris was working in the lab that day and when we saw him afterward, he said, “I’m glad I caught you guys! Riley solved that puzzle in the lab faster than anyone has this whole season,” and Henry and I looked at each other, like, “Should we tell him?” Lol. To be fair though, he solved it the first night we were there too, but not as immediately as he did that day!

(I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, so props to my kid, even though we’re in constant competition with each other, ugh.)

Chooch was scared because he knew his new frenemy was coming up – a super surly spider queen who snapped at him for daring to put his foot on her throne.

Chooch adores Calvin, it’s pretty awesome.

GUYS, WE WON. And Chooch and Haley didn’t even fight once!

It was really fun and I’m glad we got to expose Calvin to the creepier side of Halloween at such a young age so that someday soon, he’ll hopefully be joining us on the annual haunted house hop. GOTTA START ‘EM YOUNG, GUYS.

Chooch will be back on here at some point with his recap of our nighttime Castle Blood tour; his friend Liam came with us and I was so excited to show up with a new recruit!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my Taemin videos on YouTube.

Man, this was one of the most apathetic Halloweens ever. I was trying to keep in good spirits because historically, this has always been my favorite holiday but it felt like no one was in  the mood. I mentioned this previously, but Chooch was just like *hands in the sky* as far as costume ideas went.

(Maybe he should have been the Cure’s “Edge of the Deep Green Sea” PROPS IF YOU GET THAT REFERENCE.)

Finally the night before, he texted me when I was still at work because of course I was late shift the night before Halloween and not home jerryrigging together some elaborate costume for him because he is TWELVE NOW AND I AM SUPPOSED TO NOT BE CARING ABOUT THIS SHIT ANYMORE. So he texts me and says he’s going to be One-Punch Man and: “I need yellow pants, a yellow jacket, a bald cap, and red boots and gloves.”

“Oh and a cape.”

UM, THE FUCK YOU DO.

By the time I came home from work, it was 8PM. Still no decision. I was like, “DON’T CARE DON’T CARE DON’T CARE” because I am retired.

But ugh, I felt bad for him because he was struggling and I know that this could potentially be his last time trick-or-treating, who knows, so I sat there and secretly brainstormed about relevant things, and “Hereditary” popped into my head because we watched that last month and loved it so I showed him a picture of Peter as King Paimon and he was like, “YES. YES, THAT IS THE WINNER.”

And it was so easy! All I had to do was pull Henry out of bed and send him to Burger King for a crown (“I can’t just walk in and ask for a crown,” he mumbled, trying to get out of it. “THEN ORDER AN ICED TEA, MOTHER FUCKER” I yelled, and he was on his way.) which we then spray painted gold (always have gold spray paint on hand, have you SEEN my house?).

Right before Chooch left the house yesterday for trick-or-treating, Henry bandaged his nose and I thickened his eyebrows and gave him a mole.

THAT WAS IT. BYE NOW.

This was almost as easy as the Kevin Bacon costume, and definitely cheaper! Plus, Chooch’s friend Trevor said it was an amazing idea for a costume, and this may have been the first time ever that someone Chooch’s actual age knew what he was supposed to be. So that was another win.

(Although I still think the one Top 40 song title idea I had for this year would have been good but BLAKE made me question it. MAYBE ANOTHER TIME.)

Since Chooch is way beyond the age where it’s acceptable for MOMMY to  tag along, this was my first year staying home and passing out candy since he was born, you guys. (I stayed home last year too but I didn’t pass out candy because I got drunk off soju instead and pouted.)

(And the only reason I still went with him two years ago was because he was Bullet with Butterfly Wings and could barely see where he was going, so he needed parental helpers with him.)

Sorry, I get distracted by thoughts.

Earlier that day, I had walked to CVS to get candy. There were signs that said some of the candy was Buy 1 Get 1 (in Korea, they call that 1+1 so that’s what I say in my head when I see dumb American BOGO signs) but the date said 10/27 so I decided not to chance it and only grabbed one, plus a bag of some other not-on-sale assortment. When I got in line, I noticed that there were more displays of the 1+1 candy, so I decided I would inquire about the validity once I got to the register.

And then I saw it was the weird, probable Meth-head lady who started several months ago and she has ZERO personality, like even less than me, so negative personality I guess, and she just makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

(Or, as Chooch’s neighbor friend would say, “uncomfy.”)

And she’s kind of dumb too. There, I said it.

But still, I pressed my luck and asked, “Is that buy one get one candy sale still good for today even though the date on it says 10/27?”

She looked at me like I was the one on the Meth.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I reiterated my question, this time making large gestures and using smaller words.

She seemed to understand now.

“Oh, no. That’s…..no, that’s not,” she slurred.

OK then.

So she started ringing up my candy.

“Oh, this one is buy one get one, so you can go get another if you want,” she said to me, in a tone that did not imply at ALL that we had previously discussed this.

I just looked at her and then slowly said, “Yeah, that’s what I was asking you.”

“Oh, I didn’t know what you were asking,” she said, staring at me blankly.

?!??!?! Isn’t this like Basic Cashier 101?!

There was a line behind me now so I quickly ducked out of line and grabbed another bag of candy from the big 1+1 display.

“Oh, it has to be the same kind,” she said BUT DOES IT THO?! It was the same price, from the same display, part of the same sale!?

Again, there was a line so I just sighed and grabbed a second bag of glow-in-the-dark-wrapper Kit Kats as quickly as possible because fuck it all, man. I hate shopping.

There is no big ending to this story, I was just thinking about it and how annoyed I was when some choosy girl picked one of the Kit Kits out of the bowl last night and I swear to god DISGUSTEDLY asked me what kind it was and I wanted to be like HEMLOCK but I just sweetly told her that it was regular with a special wrapper SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT, HONEY.

Because when that happened, it made me start thinking about my annoying time in CVS all over again and it’s just a vicious cycle!

Anyway, I was excited for like a second to hand out candy last night since it’s been so long since I last did this. I got my first customer before it was even 5:30, like slow down little ma’am, you know? But then she turned out to be Asian so I was like “HERE HAVE 5 SNICKERS AND AN INVITATION TO BE MY LITTLE SISTER.”

Sorry, that was creepy.

I quickly remembered that I’m not a huge fan of kids though so this was a good acting challenge for me. I thought I was doing SUPER good but Henry, who was being a couch spectator, sneered at me and said I sounded fake as hell, especially when some dumb kid fell on my porch and I asked him, apparently in Robot Staccato, if he was OK.

OK, I admit that portion of the night was pretty fucking awkward.

And I never once asked anyone who they were supposed to be because I didn’t care, not even a little.

The kids were few and far in between, but I performed a spirited variation of the Running Man while waiting.

“This is my ‘waiting for trick or treaters’ dance,” I said to Henry.

“Then you’re going to be doing that a lot,” Henry mumbled, because our street hardly ever gets trick-or-treaters.

I diligently paused my K-Drama every time I saw someone approaching – I had the front door open because it was warm last night. This was mostly fine except for this one time when I saw someone coming so I jumped up and grabbed the bowl just as the person had reached my porch and was straight peering into my house.

I opened the door and thrust the bowl at him, but he waved me off and said, “Oh I’m sorry, I have the wrong house. I’m looking for my aunt” and as he turned to leave, Henry said to me, “Why would you think that was a trick-or-treater? He was an adult. HE HAD A BEARD.”

I’M SORRY, MY EYES ARE BAD AND MY HOPES ARE HIGH.

I told some little bitch to take two and she took like 6 and I was starting to get angry when I realized two things:

1. I was STILL going to have like 90 pieces of candy left over;
2. She probably was below counting-age.

My last customers had very deep voices. I don’t know what they were dressed as, but they definitely had costumes on and they were very polite to me. I dumped fistfuls into their reusable Trader Joe’s shopping bags and as I came back in the house, Henry incredulously asked, “Were those guys your age?!”

I just shrugged. Who cares. They were in costume and said trick or treat, so they broke no HalloLaw in my book. YOU KNOW!?

Meanwhile, Henry was like where is our son, because it was past 7:30.

I joked and said he was probably at the Teen Center because that’s always the best guess. A few minutes later, Chooch came stumbling through the door around 8, like someone’s dad coming home from the war. It was super dramatic. He flung his sugar-swollen pillowcase over his shoulder and onto the chair and started jawing off about this house and that house, and taking a different route, and losing the neighbor kid on purpose because he didn’t want to get stuck with the kid’s weird stepdad, and now he had no one to hold him back, and then he went to the Teen Center—

“KNEW IT!” I cried.

“Well, my bandaids were coming off and I went there to get new ones!” he yelled in defense.

As usual, mostly no one knew who he was supposed to be, and he said a lot of people were concerned that his nose-injury was real.  He was proud of that.

He also went to Coco’s house! Remember the dog we helped catch over the summer and it was a super big deal even though Henry doesn’t believe that it was because he was too busy at home, sleeping? Well the owners of Coco recognized Chooch and in addition to his candy, they gave him a pencil and a ruler which I think they just randomly grabbed from a junk drawer so that Chooch would feel rewarded.

Well, it worked, because he was so excited to show us.

Who knew King Paimon was such a dork.

And then Chooch and I watched the finale of last season’s The Walking Dead (#omg) so all in all, not the worst Halloween.

Still, I hope Chooch marries someone who won’t get in my way when it comes to being a Halloween Costume Grandma, because I STILL HAVE IDEAS.

Not gonna lie, it sure doesn’t feel like Halloween. I’m still relatively numb and dead inside so my goal for today is HAPPY THOUGHTS and staying busy because you know what they say, life goes on muthafuckas.

I mean there was a show called that and everything. (Corky Forever.)

Lets start with this inspirational graffiti I took a picture of last week before some asshole walked into a synagogue and made an entire group of people feel otherwise:

Things to be excited about/happy thoughts/good moments/etc etc:

• I’m working on a Cure mini-Valentine set for my shop! It’s been on my back burner for too long so I’m forging ahead, finally.
• Taemin’s Japanese solo album!! He just did a bunch of huge concerts over there and watching fan videos from it on YouTube have been breathing actual life into me. I finally found more than just a 30 second snip of him performing my favorite song Rise. I swear, it’s a life goal for me to hear/see him perform this song live. I’d pay VIP prices just for that alone. Especially now this song just sucker punches my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGcf0dq74UY

And this! Taemin, you give us so much:

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A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

• Going to see Emarosa tomorrow night at Smiling Moose! That’s going to be weird. I’m so far removed from Western music/concerts and it’s been like a year and a half since I was last at Smiling Moose when it felt like that place my second home for a minute there. So funny how different my life is now.
• Margie, our new-ish admin person, told me last week that I remind her of Phoebe from Friends and I was like, “I WILL TAKE THAT AS A COMPLIMENT.” I think I was telling her about Trudy, our resident Xmas mannequin, which came up because my other work friend Nate was talking about this one lady on a different floor and I said, “Oh she likes me, we bonded when she gave me her mom’s wig.” Margie was like “??” and I said, “Oh it was for Trudy” and then I remembered she probably didn’t know Trudy, so I tacked on, “My mannequin” and Margie was still like “??” so I said, “She’s my Christmas tree” and then we reached the point where words didn’t work anymore so I just showed her pictures on my phone and she was like, “!!”

• I am still not over DramaFever abandoning us, but thankfully YG Future Strategy Office is on Netflix (it’s an Office-like show about Seungri from BIGBANG running YG Entertainment’s new agency and it’s extremely over-the-top and hilarious. (Probably not for anyone who doesn’t know who Seungri is. Or YG. Or BIGBANG. Or Kpop. Or South Korea.) I also started watching some new shows on Viki and that platform is fine (they have Running Man at least, which DramaFever had lost the licensing for!) but I still have no way of finishing the shows I was already watching on DF, like “Devilish Joy,” “Third Charm,” and “The Bride of the Water God” so if anyone is reading this who has any K-Drama intel, please help! I need my Seo Kang Joon fix.

• We had a huge Halloween blowout last night because I said again, for the second year, that I am fucking RETIRED as Halloween Costume Idea Come-Upper but then it was All Hallows Eve and Chooch was like a mass of undulating question marks and every idea he had required going to the Halloween store/overnighting shit from Amazon/heavy duty construction/$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and I was like, “THIS IS WHY I STARTED PRODDING YOU ABOUT THIS IN JULY.” I gave him two pop culture/Top 40 song references to use and he was going to go with one of them but then Blake told him no one would get it so I got mad and screamed JUST FORGET IT but then I thought of something easy and Chooch was like, “Love it” and it only requires two easily acquired things and this is the story of how I got to spend the rest of my evening watching “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes” (really great k-drama I’m watching on Viki!) and a documentary on YouTube about some unintentionally creepy roadside theme park in Oregon that was built entirely by one family. It was a good night free of cutting cardboard boxes and hot-gluing felt. Halloween just doesn’t feel like Halloween anymore! Take me back to the 80s please.

• ^^^^^^^^This is like the best metaphor of Janna’s friendship with me.
• This isn’t a happy thought at all but Some People’s President was in my city yesterday, even though he was asked repeatedly not to come, and I had the extreme displeasure of being out on my lunch break walk (I was late shift yesterday so I took my break at 4) when the motorcycle cops started screaming at people like the jackasses they are (seriously, every motorcycle cop, man—why are such assholes?!), blocking intersections in preparation for the Douche Parade, so I figured, eh, why not, I’ve got time. I hung out on the sidewalk across from the Greyhound Station, and there weren’t very many other people to greet the Great Orange Racist, that’s for sure. I was on the phone with Henry and he was nervous because my temper and extreme disdain for authority can get out of control (I’m all mouth, don’t worry), and I’m like, “Hey man, will I go to jail if I flip him off” and Henry was just like, “Please god, be careful” so then I just opted for the mature “thumbs down” instead which was fine but not the greatest carrier for my vitriolic message, but whatever. So there was just a very small throng of people booing and thumbs-downing, with some people cheering too, let’s be real THERE ARE TWO SIDES AFTER ALL, AS BEWILDERING AS IT MAY BE, and as that fucking dreary procession oozed past me, I felt so angry and helpless. There was an older businesswoman standing next to me who was also exercising her right to demonstrate her feelings, and some fucking pudding-faced MAGA hat-wearing pot stirrer approached her and asked why she wasn’t supporting Trump and at the same time, even thought he didn’t ask me, we both said, “Because we’re not racist.”  He kept trying to provoke her and said said, “Sir, I’m not doing this with you. Have a good day” and marched off and then I walked back to work among people who were saying things like, “I don’t want him in my city” and it felt good to be a part of that but I didn’t realize how sick to my stomach it was going to make me, knowing that I was that close to such a complete and utter piece of shit.  I can honestly say that I have never actually hated anyone in my life, in spite of my tendency to overuse that word, until now. I hate him.

• But!!!!!!!! Then I saw Downtown Jesus cruisin’ on foot in the middle of the street afterward and it made me feel oddly calm.

• I’m off work today (I use my floating holiday for Halloween every year, lol) and patrolled Brookline Boulevard – it’s my favorite in October because a lot of the storefronts are decorated and even Maureen at the post office was in good spirits and made sure I took some candy from the bowl on the counter. My Mexican boyfriend cheerfully yelled Hola! to me from behind his taco cart, and the broad at 802 Coffee was sporting a witch hat while she made my overpriced latte. And today is one of the only sincerely perfectly-fall days we’ve had here all October – bright blue skies, yellow leaves, and 60 degrees. It’s like an autumn paradise out there — for now, anyway. It’s supposed to rain later, probably right when Trick or Treating starts because why not.

I took a Snickers. Thanks, Maureen! Thanks also for scanning in my envelope without 20 questions or telling me about your latest family drama.

This is how the front of Brookline & Sinker (har har) is decorated. This bar is the diviest of all dives on Brookline Blvd. It’s where recently some guy tried to rob it with a machete. WHAT IS IT WITH THIS CITY AND MACHETES?! Jason Voorhees would be so fucking proud.

NO FILTER ON THIS BEAUTE.

Me, today. I stole Chooch’s Lucipurr shirt.

Well guys, that’s about all the happiness I have to share for this week. I have to conserve my energy so that when Henry comes home, I can resume jumping around him while chanting TAKE US TO DOLLYWOOD which is my current strategy to get him to TAKE US TO DOLLYWOOD.

I don’t have anything profound to say about the tragic and senseless events that the Jewish community and my city suffered at the hands of yet another hateful domestic terrorist. It’s not shocking, because nothing is shocking anymore: schools, concerts, churches, movie theaters – we are running out of places where we are safe.

And then it happened in my own city. In a beautiful neighborhood called Squirrel Hill that Mr.

Rogers literally called his own. Where Jack takes a young Kate to an Alanis Morrisette signing at Jerry’s Records on This Is Us (except that wasn’t the real Jerry’s Records they showed BUT STILL).

It’s where I sometimes meet friends for breakfast and get delicious bread at the Asian bakeries, try to guess who lives in the big fairy tale-esque houses, and pass by Tree of Life synagogue on the way to one of our favorite cemeteries.

And now it’s on the map because some evil madman slaughtered a group of people for what? Being different? Believing in something different? Our whole city was attacked.

Fuck, it is still so raw. Today on the trolley, a small group of strangers opened up to each other about it and it felt bonding just being there to witness people coming together, like last week when a small clump of us were waiting to cross the street and witnessed some young guy, in a stupid hurry, run into oncoming traffic and cut in front of a turning bus so tightly that he had to BEND HIS BODY to keep from getting clipped by the bus. The bus driver laid on the horn and we all stood there for a split second, holding our breath, hoping that we didn’t just witness a Faces of Death scene, but then we all exhaled and laughed when we realized he made it.

And I mean laughed, because we had so much anxiety to release. And it was really cool, like we were a club now, after sharing this near-trauma together.

That’s how it felt on the trolley too. That human connection that I usually shirk, but today I needed it.

Pittsburgh is a beautiful melting pot. Yeah, I complain about living here, but for being a little-big city, it’s got the best mix of people, you guys. And there is no room for racism, bigotry, prejudice, homophobia, misogyny – not in this city.

I’m heartbroken, angry, panicked, and frustrated. We have got to be better. We have got to beat the racists, misogynists, xenophobes, bullies – all of them. We have to put anti-Semitism back in the past. We have to get rid of this country’s volatile figurehead and all of the hateful rhetoric and smug, blatant White Nationalism that comes with him. He is stoking a very dangerous fire. Evil people feel way too invincible in this current social and political climate, but this is not “their time.” It will never be “their time.”

I’m going to vote my fucking face off next week and I hope you will too. Shit won’t change over night but at least it’s a start.

Ohh Fright Farm, how I’ve missed you so. The great spooks, the amazing actors, and how could I forget? The hay ride! On a cold October night, my mum and I brought Janna with us to go to Rich’s Fright Farm. When we got in the parking lot, it was still light out and it was as cold as ever, so cold I could see my own breath. The line was very short, but of course Janna had to go to the bathroom. We got our tickets before she came back, so we decided to go wait in the line to get into the farm. She noticed us and started walking towards us, so we jumped in the bush, hoping to scare her as she walked by.  She of course spotted us, and our plan was foiled.

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On the bright side though, we were placed into group 2, so we got to enter the hay ride next! Of course we would have to wait, in the cold, cold atmosphere. The fire pits didn’t help my legs at all, my legs were the coldest part of my body. We waited for about an hour. In that hour we actually went into the gift shop, looked at an expensive Varsity jacket and sat on a bench for 50 minutes while listening to spooky music. Finally! The score board said 1! Group 1 was entering now, the group was awfully large for one group, even though a hay ride has limited space, we were still placed on. Janna, mum, and I were the only of Group 2 placed on the Group 1 ride. Despite that fact that I love hayrides, the hayride sucked. We were cramped and immobile, so we couldn’t turn around to see anything, all we could do was see what we missed as we drove away.

On the other hand, we were the first to enter the actual house! It was so fun because we had no one to catch up to and we were going too quick for anyone to catch up to us. My favorite part was when we were walking through a dark creepy room and my mom walked straight into a window! She hit her forehead really hard and then as a reflex, punched the window with her fist, making it feel even worse. Other than that though, when we were walking outside in the garden, the was a chainsaw guy and mum got so scared that she untied my shoe with her foot, pushed me into the chainsaw, then I countered and pushed her back. Janna and mum would not wait for me to tie my shoe, so I waited. They got rid of the slide which sucked, but I guess it was because people were getting hurt from it. When we walked down the stairs which replaced the slide, it led us to a carnival room. Before we entered we had to grab 3-D glasses because of the popping colors.

Lastly, we walked away from the house and into another line, but obviously the line was empty, since we were the first people! This section was called Paranoia, a blind maze. The idea of Paranoia is you wear a blindfold, while you hold onto a rope that leads you through the maze. This time though, the people were allowed to touch you, so I was getting tickled with a feather, and also horns were blowing in our ears. At points the rope would change into a fence, then into a gate, then into a pipe, so it was hard to follow. The people following us told us to duck right when Janna was about to hit her eye. She faced the same injury as mum.

Fright Farm was very good this year and the spooks were amazing! Obviously, my favorite part was when Janna and mum hit their heads!

Part 3 is really just my excuse to keep dragging this subject out (amusement parks are my life force, OK?). So let’s just free-form this, pretend like you’re at my house drinking some French press coffee that we ordered Henry to make for us while I’m clicking through slides of vacation pictures and you’re probably not bound and gagged on my couch but who knows what mood I’m in that day.

THERE IS A SKELETON EATING THAT COOKIE.

Also, Henry stood in line at the Cookie Nook for like 30 minutes waiting for my latte and Chooch’s hot chocolate while Chooch and I hung out and were entertained by a spooky band and adorable dogs padding past us in costume:

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Henry did NOT get any gator bites, but Chooch and I DID get some of the best black bean burgers we’ve ever had in our lives. Chooch was so excited that he started reading it off the menu to the lady in front of me who had the same hair color and jacket as me, so was like, “OK HONEY THANKS FOR THE 411.” Honestly though how hard is it for places to be like, “hey you, substitute this black bean patty on any burger if that’s what you want, no judgment.” I got the mushroom swiss option and sang “Baby Come To Me” when it was finally in my hands. Henry was pouting because he wanted HOT SAUSAGE but that was at a DIFFERENT food place so we were like, “We have our food now and you are no longer needed, we hereby dismiss you” but he was like, “JUST FORGET IT, I’LL GET IT LATER” and then sat there miserably while Chooch and I created a symphony with our chewing mouth-sounds.

It was so much more satisfying than the slice of cheese pizza I had earlier for lunch, which was good enough that it lured a man over to hungrily ask us where we procured such a RARE FOOD. He asked me and of course I didn’t know because Chooch and I left Henry to order our food alone while we rode the COSMOTRON which is basically just the Music Express, but inside a dark building.

This was one of the few times I was annoyed all day because when Chooch and I were getting in line, some hoolikids (THAT IS A YOUNGER VERSION OF HOOLIGAN IN CASE YOU DON’T HAVE MY DICTIONARY ON HAND) cut in front of us and instead of pulling them back, their jackass mom was like, “OH SORRY EXCUSE ME” and she cut too?! I mean, I get that you had to wait for your “Hubs” to dole out tickets but last time I checked, there’s no RESERVATIONS for the Cosmotron. So fucking rude. But I have learned to choose my battles and I wasn’t about to start kicking up shit in a short line for some moderate thrill ride and Chooch was like THANK GOD.

Of course, they were the last motherfuckers that got to go inside for the next ride cycle, so that was annoying.

Also, I was annoyed because when it was finally our turn, the GoGos “Vacation” was playing in there and I was really getting in an 80s mood, you know? And with the nostalgic way the park was decorated, the music really amplified those vintage feels. But then as soon as the ride started, the “ride DJ” switched it to that annoying Taio Cruz “Dynamite” song and I was extremely disappointed. Sure, all the elementary school kids were like woo hoo and throwing their germy hands into the air, but I yearned for the enthusiastic ride operators at Everland who made their own song and dance for one of their thrill rides and it was amazing and now I am spoiled forever and nothing will ever live up to that.

Creepy Chooch on the Round-Up.

While Chooch was riding this, Mr. I DGAF Where You Assholes Go finally found us after sending me a text that said “where r u.” DON’T SEND US AWAY BECAUSE WE’RE ANNOYING YOU AND THEN ACT SURPRISED WHEN WE LEAVE AND HAVE FUN WITHOUT YOU BECAUSE WE DON’T NEED YOU.

(Until it’s time for food, of course. Then please come find us.)

I was taking pictures of the Round-Up in action and some elderly Knoebels employee came over and said, “It’s more fun ON the ride” and then winked at me because all the old guys at Knoebels lover me because to them I still look young and fresh EVEN THOUGH I AM GRAYING AND WRINKLING. The old man I bought our Flying Turns picture from was so chatty with me and Chooch was getting annoyed because he hates it when people talk to me so he kept coming over to interrupt. God Chooch, let me have my moment to shine, ok? No one notices me anymore!!

One of the things we did after Henry told us to get lost was go on Gasoline Alley, the antique car ride. Kennywood used to have something similar called the Turnpike but removed it in order to put in a stupid small-scale coaster similar to Knoebel’s Impulse. It was closed all season, so that was awesome. Good job, Kennywood.

Anyway, I’ve been on some weak versions of this ride, but the one at Knoebels has a decently long track so you get to be out there for a substantial amount of time AND during October they put up some “haunted” scenes which come to life at night but then it costs extra and the line is outrageous and if we’re being honest, we are there to ride the Phoenix a million zillion times, you know?

But during the day, DOGS ARE ALLOWED ON THIS RIDE! How fucking precious is that?  Good lord, Knoebels, you do so many things right. There were two black pugs in line with us and I could practically see Chooch’s ghost leaving his body, he was so dead at the cuteness of this whole situation.

Psychedelic, man.

Here’s Henry, benchin’ it, which is what he did most of the day while we rode things. God only knows how many times he dozed off, too.

If you do go to Knoebels, don’t balk at the Haunted Mansion costing extra – it’s worth it. It’ll make you feel like a kid again. It’s a great old dark ride and it makes me yearn for Kennywood’s Le Cachot, which burnt down sometime in the 90s and was SHAMEFULLY never rebuilt. We used to call it “lick a shit” because, you know, kids.

I wish someone would build an amusement park with just all old shit in it, none of these big steel coasters or swinging pendulums. And you get a discount if you wear a fanny pack or your group wears matching outfits.

Knoebels at night is where it’s at, bitches!

US LOOKING ADORBS.

Chandeliers at the black bean burger place.

The Phoenix at night was the best, I can’t even get over it.

Here we are in the front row for the best ride of the night! Total darkness and complete disorientation! The line was still short too especially now that Gasoline Alley was doing the haunted thing. Most people seemed to be in line for that and the train, which also did haunted scenery, etc. That line was long all day.

It started drizzling a bit around 7:30 but it wasn’t too terribly bad, certainly nothing to deter us from continuing to churn our innards on rides like the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Paratroopers.

(Chooch and I hated a girl in front of us in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl and I realized that’s when Chooch and I are the most in sync, when we’re rolling our eyes at each other and mutually hating a person. This is almost ALWAYS in line for a ride.)

Get yourself someone who scowls at you the way I scowl at Henry…?

Guys, everything was fine while we were in this line and then the MOMENT it was our turn to ride, it started to rain harder. “Oh it won’t matter because we literally have an umbrella over our heads,” I told Chooch, but then the ride started and the rain instantly pelted us from the side and it was NOT PLEASANT. I had to pull my head over my head and ride with my head down to keep from drowning, essentially. We kept screaming, “SHUT IT DOWN! LET US OFF THIS! THE RAIN HURTS!” But that fat ass operator just kept us up there, and now I think I know what cars must feel like when they’re pushed through a car wash, I AM SO SORRY TO ALL THE CARS I’VE DROWNED BEFORE!

Henry was like, “Hyuk hyuk hyuk” when we stamped over to where he had sought refuge from the rain. There was not a single part of our clothing that wasn’t soaked all the way through.

Did you know that Knoebels has one of the largest carousels IN THE WORLD? I didn’t know that either until last week when I accidentally saw it on Wiki and if it’s on Wiki, it’s TRUE. Another true story is that carousels provide amazing shelter during a rainstorm.

The carousel organ music was changed to GHOSTBUSTERS for the Hallofestivities!

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We hid out here for a bit and were originally in line, but then I realized that the rain had slowed down…so because we’re knucklechucks, we still went on the Phoenix one more time. The rain had slowed to a drizzle so we thought it would be fine. This time we decided to ride in the last seat and of course there was some man in front of us who immediately started talking to me and I was nice enough but internally, I’m like, “Man, I have no energy for this right now” and then he said, “Is that your son? I can tell, he looks JUST LIKE YOU” and suddenly I was like, “I WILL TALK TO YOU FOREVER.” Do you know how many times in Chooch’s 12 years I’ve had to endure all of the “HE LOOKS JUST LIKE HENRY” comments? Nauseating. So when the rare occasion arises where someone actually says otherwise, well, hello new BFF.

Then that guy’s sons and nephew got in line too and we somehow became part of their family temporarily and they were asking us our advice on Gasoline Alley, if it’s worth the extra money and wait in the line, and I admitted that we had never ridden it at night for the Halloween thing but the nephew whispered to me, “SAY NO. SAY IT’S NOT WORTH IT” and he seemed like the kind of kid I could tolerate, so I said, “No. It’s dumb. Not worth it” but then this made one of the sons upset and he was like, “NO, DAD! I WANT TO DO IT!” and then the dad was looking at me like, “ARE YOU SURE” and I was really in the hot seat now, but he called Grandma to see what was going on and Grandma had already bought the tickets so that solved that. Whew.

I hate conflict.

Anyway, when it was our turn to take our last ride, we emerged from the tunnel (which they spook-out for Halloween!) and I immediately realized that OH SHIT IT WAS RAINING HARDER so that was a super painful ride on the Phoenix because I was choking on rain drops and also it felt like I was getting a bunch of cold paper cuts on my cheeks THAT IS HOW PAINFUL THE RAIN IS WHEN YOU’RE FLYING OVER PHOENIX TRACKS.

Still, totally worth it.

We bided our time in the Fascination arcade after that because it was really pouring at this point. Chooch had no qualms with this plan.

WALK AWAY, BITCH BOY.

Buying an apple dumpling in the rain, our last hurrah before leaving the park, drenched and cold, that night. Henry was like, “WE ARE ALL GOING TO GET SICK” and I was like, “WORTH IT” but I secretly hoped that we wouldn’t actually get sick and we didn’t! Because Knoebels wouldn’t do us dirty like that.

My new challenge is convincing Henry that he wants to go to Dollywood for Thanksgiving!!

Hey guys hey: let’s take a break from the amusement park spam and watch some fun/creepy/haunting Kpop videos, because I am so fucking deep into the Hallospirit and that is all I want to be doing is splooging the black and orange and purple and green all over this screen and yes that rhymed because welcome to my new career as Hallopoet. I couldn’t be anymore in my zone right now even if I stepped into a pantsuit made from jack’o’lantern flesh and candy corn.

1. Twice – TT

This was the very first Twice video I ever watched and I haven’t looked back since. A gaggle of cute girls, a catchy song, a haunted house, AND Halloween costumes? Yup. I’m snatched.

2. SHINee – Lucifer

You came to PLAY when you name your song after the motherfucking Devil, you guys. Fun fact: this song actually plays in the background of an episode of that American show Lucifer, which I have never watched, but maybe you watch it and now you know that you inadvertently listened to kpop so you might as well just surrender and watch the whole video.

3. BIGBANG – Monster

Sorry BIGBANG, you guys still look great even as monsters. G-Dragon and those icon devil horns tho, oh god I miss him please come back from the military now. They’ve had for you like 8 months, that’s enough.

4. EXO – Wolf

Off the top of my head, there are three EXO vids that fit this Hallotheme (sorry I can’t stop, I’m running on lots of caffeine and very little sleep), like one from sub-group EXO-K that starts with creepy chanting. But I went for Wolf because it makes me want to binge-watch Teen Wolf (especially since I never watched the last season because we cut cable and THAT MEANT NO MORE MTV…), but also I love the dance formations in this choreo, and the howling! I might blast this on repeat on Halloween to spike up the treat-or-treating mood, even though we never get any trick-or-treaters anymore. WHAT IS HAPPENING!?

5. Twice – Like Ooh Ahh

I know, I know, Twice, twice?! But look, they’ve got that playful horror aesthetic down to a science. I love this video because it’s teeming with zombies but it’s like, hard to even remember they’re there because Twice is so cute.

6. Red Velvet – Peekaboo

Guys, they’re hunting and killing pizza delivery boys in this video. Does it get more scary? DON’T KILL THE BOYS THAT BRING US THE PIZZA! Even aside from this, the song itself has a creepy feel to it, and any time I think of “peekaboo” it’s always in a horror context, like some ax murderer is looking at me through the other side of a peep hole or waiting for me in the backseat of my car.

7. Vixx – Voodoo Doll

Vixx is notorious for having a “horror sexy” concept, and I had a field day going through all their MVs for a good one  to share here today. So many to choose from! Stan Vixx, you guys – they are so good and moderately underrated as far as Kpop goes.

8. Block B – Jackpot

Are you afraid of clowns? Don’t worry, this video doesn’t have any creepy carnival visuals at all.

9. SHINee – Married to the Music

SHINee’s back…on this list again. This song has such a light, uplifting feel but then the video is like, going to a deranged dinner party and having your head chopped off. You know, typical.

10. G-Dragon – She’s Gone

Last but certainly not least, I gotta include my ult-bias G-Dragon, Mr. Kwon Jiyong, here on this list. He could chase me through a maze any day! I mean, I’d prefer he didn’t kill me at the end, but we could role play if that’s what he wants. I’m flexible.

So, there you go – some Kpop videos that stray away from the bubblegum aegyo (that means “super cutesy” in Korean you guys, get on my level) just in time to vibe with your October mood.

OBLIGATORY “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, KPOP FANS” DISCLAIMER: These were just the first 10 that came to mind, not ranked in anyway, and I am sorry if I left off one of your faves!

Me: what was your favorite part of Knoebels?

Chooch, no hesitation: Petting a Corgi!!

*********

Ok, that might be true, but Chooch was also super into collecting dropped ride tickets in an effort to get enough to force Henry to ride something (if you actually READ MY LAST POST you’ll remember that I mentioned you can buy tickets to ride shit if you know you won’t ride enough to get a full ride-all-day wristband’s worth) and playing this old-fashioned arcade game called Fascination, but we’ll get to both of those after looking at some beautiful “Autumn at the Amusement Park” snaps.

*fun fact: it took me seven tries to spell Knoebels correctly and I WORK WITH A KNOEBEL. What if I got some type of brain damage after my haunted house injury last week?!

Lol j/k I’ve been dumb since way before that.

We had to wait for a hillbilly family to get their pictures taken here first, because they CUT IN FRONT OF US. That’s one thing you should know about this park: it is shockingly WHITE. And I’m talking about the kind of white that also has a red neck. Basically, it was like being at Holiday World again, except more camouflage and less face tattoos. But the scenery at Knoebels is much more charming because you got those Pennsylvania mountains, etc etc. (Honestly, I put “etc” because I don’t know what else.) I was suddenly tree-obsessed and kept saying things, “Let’s go over this way so I can get a picture of those trees” and “I like those trees” and “That is a pretty tree” and “Should my next boyfriend be a tree?” and “I bet I could get a nice big elm to marry me, fuck you, Henry.”

See? Obsessed.

Knoebels also has a creek-thing with numerous little fairy-tale bridges to help you cross so that you don’t get your camo pants soggy.

ISN’T IT PRESH!? CAN’T YOU HEAR IT BABBLING?

I couldn’t get over what a gorgeous fall day it was. The weather forecast all week had a CLOUD WITH RAIN and said it was going to be like 45 degrees so I was ultra-sad but determined to still go and not complain because then Henry would do that annoying, “YOU’RE NEVER HAPPY” jiggity-jig and I hate that.

We didn’t even need our jackets for most of the day, which Henry loved because I kept dumping mine in his arms before racing to get in another ride line.  There is really nothing like riding roller coasters on a crisp autumn day, you guys.

OMG get me a minivan, a Pinterest account, and a Starbucks giftcard, I am officially a basic white bitch.

More of those stud-muffin trees, yeah, boy.

Chooch and I, in tandem, exclaimed that the “dog pounder” was a horrible name for a game…for so many reasons. He still played it though. And lost.

OK, now onto the riveting tale of HOW WE GOT HENRY TO RIDE A RIDE.

Chooch found two discarded ride tickets earlier in the day and decided to keep them just in case. I think it was like 50 cents worth, so there wasn’t anything they could be used for.

But then later we were in line for the Haunted Mansion and that ride actually isn’t included in the ride-all-day admission. I could probably just look up why but I’m gonna act like I know it all and say it’s because it’s a super classic pretzel-car dark ride and they use that extra cash to maintain it while also keeping the crowds at bay because I’ll tell you what, for as much as I love dark rides, I’m not paying to ride that bitch more than once.

And that’s some Erin Rachelle Real Talk, ok?

Chooch and I had exactly the amount of tickets we needed for a haunted joyride ($2.50 worth, I think?). I kept thinking we didn’t have enough and counted them over and over like I had a counting compulsion. Chooch finally was like, “LOOK I COUNTED THEM AND WE’RE GOOD, OK?!”

Meanwhile, Chooch found two more 50 cent tickets and scooped them up like they were bread crumbs and he was a boxcar kid scavenging for vittles. He held them with both hands and cheered openly, causing people in line to look at us and if there is one thing I hate it’s people looking at me.

“MAYBE I CAN FIND ENOUGH FOR DAD TO RIDE THE PHOENIX!” he cried, and some people gave us pity-smiles, like we were visiting from the poor house and sad ol’ dad was slapping around in his cardboard shoes, stinking of a gin bath and dreaming of having enough change to ride a rollie-coaster.

While in line, I noticed that the aforementioned Hillbilly Family was also in line for this ride and then I looked a bit too long and ended up witnessing Hillbilly Patriarch kissing his Hillbilly Maybe-Wife and I felt very uncomfortable.

It was not an attractive kiss.

It was the kind of kiss that could lead to baby Duck Dynasties.

Then Chooch found another 50 cent ticket and by this point he was acting like Charlie fucking Bucket. This one was slightly ripped, so we weren’t sure if it would be accepted, but I have to be honest here, I was secretly excited about Chooch being a ticket magnet.

We were in the second row of the serpentine queue at this point, with one more corner to turn before we were on the homestretch. This is when I noticed that there was another red 50 cent ticket, just outside of the line, nestled under a bed of leaves at the base of a tree trunk. I silently pointed it out to Chooch, who stupidly reacted, causing the people standing in that part of the line to follow our gaze and notice the ticket. I saw some old bitch point at it to her companion, but they couldn’t reach it. Several other people tried too but it was just out of arm’s reach.

I WAS GETTING NERVOUS ABOUT THIS NOW.

I didn’t want anyone to get it before we looped around and made it to that part of the line but at the same time, I feared that we wouldn’t be able to reach it either, even though I know in my heart that Chooch and I wanted that fucking ticket more than anyone else.

YES, WE HAD RIDE-ALL-DAY WRISTBANDS. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!!

I knew what I had to do and I hated that this was my only option.

I texted Henry.

I could see him from where we were standing in line and this made me even more angry because he was literally MOSEYING around with his hands casually clasped behind his back, looking at all of the food.

“OMG HE IS SO ANNOYING!” Chooch screeched.

Finally, Henry checked his dumbass phone and slowly meandered over to us, which was infuriating because could he not tell from the urgency of my texts that this was SERIOUS?! The line was moving fast and we needed him to come over to us so we could point out the ticket before it was our turn to go in the mansion!!!!

So here he comes, all dum-diddle-dee-dee, and we are frantically trying to explain to him why we need this ticket (WHY DOES IT MATTER?! JUST DO WHAT WE SAY!) and he was smirking.

SMIRKING, you guys.

Oh, I wanted to punch his dumb head.

And then, even with our excelsior directions, he couldn’t see the ticket. I was about to catapult myself out of the line and just get it my own damn self but then he finally walked over to the tree and like, laughed to himself?! Because this was FUNNY to him!?

Ugh, whatever. He finally picked it and Chooch and I tried to cheer quietly so as not to draw attention to our cheapskate selves but I think it was too late because have you even seen Chooch and I trying to perform covert operations? Yeah. We’re like elephants in a small box.

Whatever that means.

BUT NOW WE HAD $2!!!!!

And this is how we finagled Henry onto one whole ride at Knoebels! Look at how thrilled he was! THE RED LIGHTS CAME ON WHILE WE WERE STANDING THERE!

Chooch got all Parent Trap and said, “You guys can ride together in the back.” Now Henry was even more thrilled because you know how much I get on his nerves on a regular day, on solid ground, in the house, doing nothing. Now imagine me sitting beside him on a roller coaster. HOOOOO BOY WHATTA RIDE.

(Apparently, it cost to ride the Phoenix, so Henry still had to buy ‘s worth of tickets, haha.

Also, the ticket person at the Phoenix took the ripped ticket with zero fucks, but Chooch and I still ran ahead in case there was an issue because we didn’t want to be associated with Henry’s cheap ticket-pilfering ass.)

Henry buying his $1 worth of tix lol

Anyway, that doucher barely even smiled once through that whole roller-course, what a joyless dick! Meanwhile, I was slapping his arm and doing that Bobcat Goldthwait choke-giggle thing that I do when my giddy levels are reaching a boiling point. Ugh, I love when I’m having that much fun! The memories of that moments help me get through trolley commutes and random small-talk a little bit easier, you know?

The “Fascination” Fascination

One of the things that Henry does to  kill time at Knoebels while we’re being normal kids and riding things is hunker down inside the Fascination shelter. Fascination is some kind of old-fashioned arcade game that’s a cross between skeeball and Bingo, I guess that’s the best way to explain it. You get one ball to roll, and whichever hole it goes into, the corresponding spot on the screen will light up, so you keep doing it over and over until someone gets a full line, which makes their seat light up and a buzzer goes off, GAME OVER FOR THE REST OF THE LOSERS.

I had never heard of it until the first time we went to Knoebels because very few places have it anymore. Henry tried to insist that Kennywood used to have one but I googled that shit and he is WRONG. Apparently, Indiana Beach has it but I can’t remember Henry spending all of our money there when we went in 2014…

Anyway, Chooch didn’t remember this at all from the last several times we were there, even though I have pictures of him playing it. THIS IS WHY I KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING LIKE A NOSTALGIC PSYCHOPATH. I have photo-proof for almost every disagreement I have with Henry and Chooch.

A Fascination token and my signature shitty manicure.

Henry briefly taught Chooch the rules and then they went hogwild spending my future Korea cash while I sat in at a table that was out of order because I didn’t want to play. The hilarious thing about Fascination is that everyone in the room who is playing is involved in that round, similar to how Bingo works – you’re playing against the room. And some dude sits at an elevated desk and narrates what’s happening like he’s employed by fucking ESPN or something. It just cracks me up, especially when they do the special game called Cover All which is where, you know, you have to cover it all. So instead of getting the one line of 5, you have to get every light to light up.

So he calls it like a fucking horserace, like, “Table 19 only needs 5 more, now Table 36 only needs 5 more too, they’re neck-and-neck!” And then of course this makes everyone super frantic.

Oh! And before the next game starts, you have to slide a token in the slot above your table number and then when the game starts, everyone’s tokens fall in. Henry and Chooch made me hand them tokens after every game and it was really annoying because Chooch especially was being super demanding and impatient about it so I kept getting nervous and dropping them.

But then, Chooch won his first game and the color commentator mentioned that it was “the hardest line to get” so Chooch was like WHATS UP NOW MOTHERFUCKERS, COME AT ME. And that was it, we lost him to the seedy world of Fascination.

LOOK AT HIS FACE. He has that Gambler’s Glaze to his eyes. I felt scared. He kept winning, and was the runner-up for one of the Cover Alls he played (he actually got his last ball in a split second after the winner and he was PISSED. I worried that he was going to light the place up with his psychic fury).

Family Fascination Selfie!

We ended up going back there toward the end of the night because it started raining and Chooch was like, “OH DARN, RAIN. OH WELL, I KNOW JUST THE PLACE TO TAKE REFUGE” and then ran there like a fiend. He won several more games and then spent an eternity trying to figure out what to cash in his tickets on (sadly, he didn’t have enough for ‘lamp’ or ‘crockpot’). Finally, I talked him into this cute Halloween cat stuffed animal which he gave to Calvin when we came home, and then he “splurged” and “did him” by getting A RECORDER after I begged him to get anything but A RECORDER. What a jerk!

“If I even hear you WHISPER into that fucking thing in the car, it’s going out the window,” I hissed in his ear with my nails dug into the back of his neck HAHA WHAT I WOULDN’T DO THAT TO MY KID OMG WHY DID I JUST TYPE THAT.

Meanwhile, Henry had this creeper hovering over him for at least five rounds and never felt his presence. He sadly didn’t bring Henry any luck because he didn’t win a single fucking game.

“Thanks for showing me Fascination,” Chooch said to Henry as we walked back to the car later that night, and it was the most sincere I think I have ever heard that damn kid. WOW, JUST WOW.

If you think this is my last Knoebels post, YOU IS A FOO. But the next one(s) will probably mostly just be pictures because I have so many! Amusement park pictures are my favorite things. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and scroll through my old Flickr albums of amusement parks and then fall asleep with a dopey smile on my crappy face. I am so precious.

Before I say goodbye, I would be a failure if I didn’t end this post with FASCINATION STREET, my favorite Cure song. I used to watch this video over and over when i was 19, wishing I could reach through the TV and touch Robert’s perfectly-pale face.

It’s been a minute since we were last at Knoebels (like, 4 year’s worth of minutes!) so I started hounding Henry about going there again, probably while we were on our way from Holiday World in August, ha! Look, I really like amusement parks, OK? Especially the small, quirky ones and Knoebels for sure fits that bill.

The last time we were there was for their Hallofun event thingie, similar to what so many other parks do anymore: make the park spooky and continue to grab that cash into autumn. But what I like about Knoebels is that they don’t go for the high tech animatronic tricks or the low-brow gore – they are old school, like the way your church decorated for Halloween in the 70s and 80s and as you’re strolling about the park’s perfectly-foliaged paths on a clear autumn day, you sort of feel like Laurie Strode walking home from school, except that Michael Myers isn’t watching from behind a hedge.

And you’re probably wearing normal jeans, too.

I’m doing that thing again, aren’t I. That thing where I ramble and make no sense because I’m so excited to share pictures of another fucking amusement park. Le sigh.

What I’m trying to say is that stepping into Knoebels is like stepping back in time. I mean, my phone barely works there so it’s REALLY taking it back to some other decade.

Another reason why I love this place is, obviously, THE RIDES. Two outstanding wooden coasters, one small steel coaster, one wooden bobsled coaster, two dark rides, one of the biggest carousel’s in the world, and a handful of carnival midway stomach-churners.

But back to those wooden coasters…The Phoenix in particular is what made me want to go back so badly, especially after visiting Holiday World and getting bit by that coaster bug. Because for as great as those coasters were, I just kept thinking about how much I missed the Phoenix. I could barely even remember what it was like to ride it, other than that it gave me the extreme giggles. And really, isn’t that all you need to remember?

So I made Henry leave the house around 7:30 Saturday morning, even though he argued that it only takes 3 and a half hours to get there and the park doesn’t open until 12. But I guess he forgot that he has to stop to piss every 30 minutes, and then took a wrong turn, so yeah, it was a little after noon when we rolled up in Elysburg, PA. My work friends kept asking me, “Where is Knoebels?” and I was like, “Um, that way” and probably pointed the wrong way. But then I looked at  map finally because I had this great idea that we should also go to Philly the next day before coming home, because it’s “right by Philly and I want to go to Big Gay Ice Cream again” was my compelling argument, and Henry said, “KNOEBELS IS NOT ‘RIGHT NEAR’ PHILLY” and I was like, “Yes, it is, are you dum—-*looks at map*—-oh, it’s really not that close to Philly.”

I always forget that Pennsylvania has a northern part too.

Knoebels is one of the last free parks in America, which means any fucking Joe can waltz right on in and perhaps he only wants to take a whirl on the Paratroopers, he can just go up to one of the many ticket booths and buy whatever amount of tickets he needs. Rides range from like to .

50, I think? So if you know you’re not going to ride a lot, then skip the wristband and just get a book of tickets.

Henry LOVES this concept because it means he’s not a big fat waste of money like he normally is at amusement parks.

Another perk? DOGS ARE WELCOME. There were more dogs there on Saturday than babies probably and it was so goddamn precious, especially when they were in costume! Chooch wished he had more hands so he could pet more than 2 dogs at a time.

Chooch and I got wristbanded by an old man who asked me if my knuckle tattoos were prison tattoos and then looked at Chooch and said, “Did your mom kill a man?” What an early highlight!

Now that we had our wristbands, I ran straight to the Phoenix except that I couldn’t remember where it was because I hadn’t been there in five years, so a lot of zig-zagging was involved.

They turned the Phoenix’s tunnel into a jack o’ lantern! Chooch and I were endlessly excited about this!

We made it to the Phoenix before too much of a line had formed.Henry had us convinced that it was going to be SO CROWDED THERE and guess what? Well, it was, but not very many people were actually riding anything other than the train and antique cars so we never stood in line for more than 10 minutes except for the Flying Turns which was about 30 minutes because that’s still fairly new and a novelty.

Oh shit, you guys. Chooch and I grabbed the backseat for our inaugural ride and as we cruised through that tunnel, I was instantly reminded why I love this ride. It is fucking CHARMING and somehow extremely entertaining in spite of its simplicity – there’s nothing fancy about this track but there are so many humps that deliver major giggle-inducing airtime. Plus, it’s a lot smoother than I remember!

And it won the Golden Ticket Award for the world’s best wooden coaster of 2018!

I wanted to get all the coasters ridden ASAP in case Henry’s baseless prediction of it “getting so crowded” came true. Flying Turns was supposedly a 45 minute wait but I wanted to just get it done since we were right there and who knows, the line could get even longer! However, they had all three cars running, so the line moved steadily and we ended up only waiting about 30 minutes, as previously spoiled. And miraculously, no one in line with us was annoying.

They have the area around the line all decorated creepy-cutely so that kept us entertained.

My genius son didn’t get this one:

So, because this ride relies on gravity, all riders need to get weighed prior to boarding because each seat can’t exceed 400 pounds. You and your riding partner stand on a big metal square and get weighed with little fanfare — no one can see the results but the ride operators so it’s not a big deal, but I remember 4 years ago, standing in that line and PANICKING because I didn’t want to get weighed. I was telling Chooch about that because he didn’t remember riding it and I mentioned that I was around 40 pounds heavier then, and he was like, “REALLY?!” and I stopped for a second to let that sink in, but yeah, I’m 35-40 pounds lighter now than I was in 2014 and that’s really hard for me to wrap my head around because in my mind, I’m forever-fat.

Anyway, this is the world’s ONLY wooden bobsled coaster and it’s ridiculously fun! Also, a little precarious and I imagine all those anti-science people out there will think it’s God’s Will that keeps the cars from flipping over and nothing that has anything to do with physics, but OK. The rest of us know what’s up.

Here’s a quick video from some theme park Youtuber to give you an idea of what a cool ride this is:

I highly recommend the trip to Knoebels if you’re a coaster aficionado or desperate to feel like a Winter Olympian without putting forth any effort whatsoever.

Next up was Twister! Which we got lost trying to find! Knoebels is not the easiest to navigate, but I kind of like that because it makes it feel like something new every time, like a labyrinth with moving walls.

Anyway, look at that burly beast back there. He is a beaut, that one. I love the walk up the ramp where dead bodies hang from the rafters – it reminds me so much of the way my mom used to decorate our front yard when I was a kid.

I mean, for Halloween.

Not for some witchy sacrificial offering. OR WAS IT.

(She did just text me about the Mon City Witch Festival, so….)

Look at the skeletons!

In theory, Twister should whip Phoenix’s ass because it’s so much bigger, but this is a classic example of how bigger ain’t always better, baby. Don’t get me wrong, this coaster is fucking faster and, you know, twisty, but it lacks the personality and flair that the smaller Phoenix has in spades. We actually only rode this twice that day, which is kind of bonkers when I think about it now, but we were so preoccupied on riding the Phoenix until our eyes popped out.

Waiting for last seat on Twister.

The ride operators kept screaming FORTNITE and that was annoying but Chooch felt like they were sending him a signal.

Yeah, for a Dork Club meeting.

The last coaster we had to scratch off the list was Impulse, which is the newish steel coaster that wasn’t there yet during our last trip. It’s similar to Kennywood’s Sky Rocket except it doesn’t have the powered launch.

Here, you can see part of it:

(And dogs!)

The ride operator there at that time was dressed like a mad scientist and he was so funny in a dad-joke way. I always appreciate a good, entertaining ride operator. Papa H took pictures of us being adorable on it:

Overall, I’d give it a 4/10. I’m just not that into steel coasters anymore and this one was only thrilling for that first drop, and then the rest was just upside-down bullshit, but the real slow kinds of corkscrews and rolls, you know? I don’t like that. So, we only went on this one once, but again, the wait time was only about 5 minutes.

I’ll be back with more Knoebels photos because they are a’plenty!

(PS I lied – there is also a kiddie coaster but it’s not amazing like the Wacky Worm so I easily forgot about it. #kiddiecoastersnob)

A collection of things from the drive home from Knoebel’s.

• We ate breakfast at the Friendlys next to our hotel and I think this place is extremely overrated and I never feel satisfied, but Mom’s Dutch Kitchen up the road is closed forever so our options are Friendlys or gas station. Anyway, during breakfast, Henry flung syrup onto his shirt which resulted in a berating from Chooch and me, because we are hyper-critical of his actions. But then my next sip of water was too boisterous and I spilled it onto my crotch so Henry felt vindicated.
• Before we left Friendlys, Chooch won a plastic orb from the claw machine and inside was a coupon for a free Fortnite sweatshirt but on the back, someone had written their number because you have to text them to redeem it?! This sounds creepy. It’s probably a bunch of 6th grade girls who bought bulk sweatshirts from the local craft shack and puffy painted “Fortnite” on them. Good luck, Chooch.

(We know it’s Fortnite because the sign inside the claw machine said so, AND SIGNS DONT LIE.)

• At least driving through Pennsylvania in the fall is super pretty so that makes it less boring…sort of?

• Not too long ago I read some Buzzfeed-esque list of the best roadside attraction for each state and they listed some hamburger joint for PA, because it was one of those places that has an “eat this oversized food item” challenge. I was so mad! PA has so many cool roadside attractions, like a freaking HOUSE SHAPED LIKE A SHOE, FOR GOD’S SAKE, and this was what made the list as the best?! Do your fucking research, dumbo list-writer.

• oh wow so now apparently Henry won’t just give us pieces of his highly coveted Sheetz cookies. Now we have to barter with him?! We have to give him some of our snacks?! This is bullshit. I don’t like it when Henry revolts. Also, I get packs of hard-boiled eggs (don’t care if you think it’s gross) from Sheetz to eat as a snack instead of chips or whatever other nonsense (pieces of Henry’s cookie doesn’t count as calories Ok??!!) and this time when I was ordering my latte, the order screen said WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD HARD BOILED EGGS TO YOUR ORDER like it knows me?! Why yes, Sheetz order screen, yes I would! Henry was like “You probably still have to take them from the cooler” because he wants to over complicate everything and just couldn’t imagine that they would give me hard boiled eggs with my latte but guess what motherfucker, they did. Two perfectly boiled eggs in a little soup container, so fuck off.
• Now we’re laughing at Henry to the point of tears because he tries so hard to act cool but it always backfires.

• caboose is such a weird word. We just saw a train going around a mountain and it was gross.

• more gross things: SNOW.

Henry said it’s because we’re ON TOP OF THE SUMMIT DUR-DE-DEE-DEE.

• omg henry is going on about how claw machines work and we’re not listening because we’ve heard him “brag” about this “knowledge” so many times. So many times. I think that’s what he actually did in the SERVICE: he was the military arcade claw machine mechanic.

• Henry just told us he’s stopping at Pat Catans (craft store) on the way home and we’re rioting because he always takes so long there! He had the audacity to tell us he’s just gonna “run in and run out” and I yelled OH IVE HEARD THAT BEFORE YOU NEVER JUST ‘RUN IN & OUT. He is such a fucking SAHM when it comes to craft stores, you have no idea.
• Then we drove past an ADULT STORE and Chooch and I both pointed to it at the same time and made jeering noises at Henry because that’s our thing – insinuating that Henry is an exotic dancer addict and he recently told me that he hates when we do that so THEN IT MUST BE TRUE.

• this song just came on and I felt inspired to dance on the hood of the car (I didn’t though because the car is moving)

https://youtu.be/J1L3nDC4mEk

DO YOU FEEL THE SAAAAAAAME?!

• We drove past another adult video store (this strip of highway is seedy AF) and Henry admitted that he’s been to that and we’re screaming. He’s acting like it’s no big deal, I think he thought it would be easier to just admit it, but now we’re like WHAT DID U BUY and he said he didn’t buy anything so I screamed OMG YOU STOLE? YOURE A SMUT STEALER! And Chooch is hiccuping now from laughing so hard while Henry is frowning his way to the nut house.

• well guess who went to Pat Catans and took his good old fucking time? OH THERE WAS NO RUNNING IN AND RUNNING OUT. That’s ok because it afforded us time to steal the phone that he so stupidly left in the car and post a picture of some 1980s metal harlots on his Instagram. Chooch didn’t have time to finish the hashtag before Screamin Hank came back and caused a scene in the Pat Catans parking lot and then Chooch puked out the car window because he made himself sick from laughing.

• Me, as we drove past a closed-down Gander Mountain: I’m surprised a place like that would go out of business. Isn’t it like a …conservative safe house?

Henry: *frowns for days*

• Came home and saw that Penelope left one of her toy mice on my bed so I went to pick her up and tease her with it BUT IT WAS A REAL BABY MOUSE ONG FUCK YOU PENELOPE. So now our comforter is in a garbage can ready to be set on fire and I guess I’m going out to buy a new comforter today. FEELS GREAT TO BE HOME.

UPDATE: bought that new comforter I was eyeing up at Target, thanks Penelope!!

I guess Peenlop is living up to her full name: Penelope Ann Killer.

This is, at least for me, always the fastest-moving month of the year and I hate that! Once October is over, the winter panic sets in. I hate winter. December-February can suck a hobo dick, man. And then choke.

We’re currently en route to Knoebel’s for their Halloween event thingie and instead of live-blogging I figured I’d just do an October Thus Far photo dump.

BUCKLE UP, BLOGARINOS.

• I rarely get excited about western music anymore but Emarosa is finally making a comeback! They announced this limited edition vinyl bundle last week, only 50 being made, and you know I snatched that right up. I might be All Kpop All the Time these days, but when I was organizing my dresser drawers the other day (I AM LIVIN’ IT UP ON THIS STAYCATION), I realized that like 1/3 of my T-shirts were Emarosa. Groupie, I guess.

• I was complaining the other day about how awful Instagram’s translation option is because anytime I translate from korean on there it is a MESS of words. For instance, when it was Hangeul Day, I wrote my caption in Korean and the translation said it was, literally, “Bunch of things, bunch of things.” THE FUCK, IG? People were probably like, “Yeah her Korean really seems to be coming along.” But then I had a validating moment when Bam Bam from the Kpop group Got7 posted a picture of himself with a bird and the caption was, in Korean, “ahgase” which means “baby bird.” That’s what they call their fans, like how BIGBANG fans are VIP and BTS fans are Army, etc. Instagram translated it to SON OF A BITCH. Really?! Even Bam Bam was like “why Instagram??” And that made me feel like I was part of a club you know? Well, now you do.

• My mom came over last Friday night which was really nice because she usually just drops off cookies and cheese (the best things) and leaves but this time she stayed and hung out, yay! We don’t talk much about my grandparents house anymore since the 2016 trauma but she mentioned that the new owner is flipping it and has essentially gutted the whole thing, so it no longer has that goth aesthetic as seen in the photo above. I am crushed by this. I spent most of my childhood in that house and it really shaped who I am today (honestly, when my coworkers were looking at pictures of the interior, two of them were like, “Wow, things are really starting to make sense now” lol). Anyway, Val said that every time it storms, she hopes my aunt Sharon (R.I.P.) strikes it with lightning and I agree – if there was ever a time for that house to be haunted, let it be now.
• Speaking of haunted houses, we binged The Haunting of Hill House last weekend and I really enjoyed it but more so from a family drama aspect. Parts of it were scary but I read something about how it’s scarier than Hereditary and I emphatically disagree, although there was one scene in episode 8 that made me jump real high (I was walking in place and home alone when it was on lol) and when Henry watched it later, he had a small jolt and that motherfucker NEVER gets scared. There were several parts of that house that reminded me a little of my pappap’s house so it was super heavy on my mind all weekend.
• Remember how the phantom phone call thing happened on Monday? I attributed that to Haunting of Hill House FOR SURE but then also, Henry called to tell me that we had an order of padded envelopes on the way, and I was like “ok? Cool story” but HE NEVER ORDERED THEM. There was a scene in Haunting of Hill House where they were talking about them though and his phone heard and ordered them on Amazon. Logical explanation but still I can’t help but believe that we’re being haunted just from watching that show!!

• And then Henry came home from the Asian market on Sunday with a bag of these things that ended up being water chestnut seeds but look like they could be door knockers from Hill House!!!

• In non-haunted news, my BIGBANG shower curtain is here and I love putting my makeup on at the bathroom mirror and seeing G-Dragon’s intense gaze in the reflection. <3
• Speaking of BIGBANG, I’m wearing my Made shirt to Knoebel’s today and I felt totally inspired and happy as soon as I put it on, yay fall weather! (My face is still dopey AF though.)

• I appreciate that Henry tries to help me look like less of a derelict by pointing out typos on my blog because god knows there are APLENTY (who has time to proofread?!) but I was so offended when he mistook korean slang for a typo. What a motherfucker.

• I had to take the trolley on my last day going into the office before October Staycation began and since it was my late shift, I was riding with all the mid-morning assholes who have no boundaries and give zero fucks about their music blaring out of their headphones, their screeching babies, or their dirty laundry phone calls. I couldn’t handle it and got off several stops early which meant walking across the Smithfield St Bridge but even though I have a pretty crippling fear of bridges I try to make myself walk across one every so often during my lunch break walks (I live in Pittsburgh; there are plenty to choose from) so that was fear-conquering exercise for that week. The bridge is really pretty at least!

• Downtown Jesus Update: I saw him coming out of 7/11 with a Slim Jim in his mouth and this delighted me to NO END. I have people at work on Downtown Jesus watch now too. Sandy said he was loitering in front to the parking garage exit and she had to tell the parking attendant to maybe ask him to move; Nate texted me because he saw him inside the Wood St trolley station, and Joy came over to my desk to tell me that he asked for a light!! HE SMOKES?! “Did he sound weird?” I asked hungrily. “No, he sounded normal. But he didn’t say thanks!” Not very Jesus-y!! I wonder where he came from (I mean, aside from Bethlehem) because he seems to be relatively new to the downtown unsavories scene.

• Here’s a random picture of Henry looking like a tourist while we killed time during Chooch’s weekly piano lesson.
• YOU GUYS THE WORST THING HAPPENED TO ME. So Tuesday night I was like, “I am going to watch some k-dramas, bitches” to the cats but every time I clicked on the Drama Fever icon it kicked me back out to the Roku menu screen. I figured it was some Roku problem so I went to bed. But the next day, I opened Twitter and one of the Korean journalists I follow tweeted an article from Variety saying that DramaFever shut down all its servers forever, with NO NOTICE. Literally they were like “Thanks for 9 years, peace.” I guess they’re issuing refunds too but I am fucking devastated. When I say that 90% of the TV I watch is Korean drama, I am not exaggerating, and we watch ALL OF IT on DF, and gladly paid for it too. It was worth it to us! I guess it has something to do with them being owned by Warner Bros and AT&T recently buying it and the cost of Kdrama licenses skyrocketing due to sudden popularity, I don’t know it was hard to read the words through my actual tears. I called Henry screaming about it and even he was like, “THAT SUCKS” because I don’t care what anyone thinks Henry is super into this shit too and it even brought us closer together! Aw my heart, my heart, 내 마음!
• Speaking of DramaFever, I think it’s pretty coincidental that this just happened because they were originally one of the sponsors of that shitty K-Expo thing we went to in NYC but pulled out of it and then all the people who paid a billion dollars for the good tickets were supposed to get a year subscription to DramaFever for free and WELP THERE’S ANOTHER THING THAT PEOPLE ARENT GONNA GET FROM KEXPO.

• Chooch will be writing a review about this I’m sure but I wanted to talk about how Chooch and I went to Rich’s Fright Farm with Janna on Wednesday night (love when haunts are open on weeknights!) and I walked/ran straight into a piece of plexiglass because I thought it was the way out of the room and for a good two seconds I had no idea what happened but went into fight or flight mode because I thought maybe I was being attacked so as a reflex I punched the plexiglass and then, in addition to the motherhonkin’ goose egg thy immediately sprung from my forehead, I thought I also had a broken knuckle. Janna was like OMG YOU BETTER WATCH YOU DONT HAVE A CONCUSSION because she at least cared unlike Chooch who was like “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?” but I ignored him and instead asked, “Is my nose bleeding?” You guys, I fucking slammed my face GOOD. Like ring-of-cartoon-blue-jays-around-my-head good. I was trying to hide my bump with my hair which only made it harder to walk through the haunted house especially when we got to the clown section and had to wear 3D glasses while the floor beneath us was shifting. I don’t know how I didn’t continue injuring myself. But yeah, so far it was the best haunt of the season!

Well guys, I want to harass Henry a bit before we get to Knoebel’s so ciao for now!

Oh PS here’s the new IU jam. She is such a queen!

https://youtu.be/nM0xDI5R50E

Crawford School of Terror

Crawford School of Terror is regarding a girl named Margaret who has a crush on her teacher, but he is dating another teacher in the building. Margaret gets jealous and kills the teacher he is dating. Now she haunts the school and targets anyone in the school.

To start, we, and by “we”, I mean my mom and me, walked down the steps into the gym which is where we get in line. Right of the bat I noticed a big black box in the relative corner of the gymnasium. We bought our tickets and walked into the line the crew members told us to enter. An older couple walked into the black box and all we heard was high-pitched screaming. We expected it to be very scary and jumpy in there, but it didn’t feel as nerve-racking as it was in line… We walked through the vast darkness of the “maze” while avoiding the sides because that is where the people jump at you and scream.

After the short maze, was an empty line in which we went through immediately. The person at the front of the line lead us into the teacher’s lounge, where we watched an overview of the Crawford School and also learned about Margaret’s doings. We were sorted into a group with the old couple who were in front of us and continued up the stairwell of many stairs. As we approached the very top of the stairwell, we were met by a creepy zombie-ish thing. This creature opened a door for us and we walked into the classrooms. For the most part, the beginning was the same as last year, there was a dark creepy room with a child sitting at a desk rocking back and forth. I expected her to jump up and scream, but she just sat there and kept rocking.

Then, we were sent to the principle’s office and he threw his book at the wall and screamed, “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS VISITING ME!!!” He told us to leave immediately or else. He gestured towards an open cabinet that lead into a bathroom. The bathroom was very small and cramped, so I opened a stall door, and there you have it! An open stall that went into another room, a bathroom, again… This time though, a girl was staring at herself in the mirror and cried, “LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO ME!!!” There was blood writing on the mirror and the girl was all bloody as well.

Returning from prior years, was a hallway full of lockers. I remembered this part and dashed down the hall, not stopping to the loud sparks of the lights. At the same time though, we were light years away from the couple behind us, so now we were alone.

*RING* *RING*  It is lunch time!!! The lunch menu for today is human flesh and brains! But not for me! I almost got sacrificed for the food! I escaped through the freezer and entered a hole in the wall. There was someone around the corner of the hole who scared us. There was another hall, it was boring and uneventful, until we saw into the next room. Inside was a pig man chopping up meat. Human meat? Mum was scared and tried to push me, but I told her to face her fears. We stood there for about a minute and a half, until I shoved mum inside. The pig man scraped his cleaver against a metal frame, which caused sparks to fly out.

Finally, we exited the building and I could feel the change in temperature as soon as we stepped out. Crawford School of Terror was amazing and I recommend it to anyone in our near the Connellsville area. Although, the real scary part was when Henry forgot how to drive and turned right into a one-way street. Not only a street, but a HIGHWAY!

The Scream Factory

As soon as we pulled into the creepy, abandoned factory, I realized that this was going to be a fun and quick haunted house. My reasoning is that there was no line and the factory looked real creepy. The one staff member walked over to us and following him was a small, white dog. In the line, I saw in the distance Michael Myers! At first, I was scared, but then I realized he seemed nice. He showed us where to go to enter the haunted house and then ran ahead to go in to get ready. As soon as we walked in, it was decorated very nicely with smoke and boards that blocked up entry ways. The first person that came out was Michael when we walked through a door. I asked him, “What do you think about the new Halloween movie that is coming out?” and he said, “I love it!”

We departed and I said goodbye! My mum’s favorite room was the next one. It was a dinner table with human limbs lying on plates and in bowls. The people in the room asked if we wanted to have dinner and I replied, “No, I already ate.” Michael was waiting for us in a stairwell and he stabbed the air with his knife. We followed him again and I tried not to lose him because he could protect us. My mum and I learned that no room was left non-decorated. Even the rooms with no actors were decorated.

Eventually, we started to get sick so we had to visit the hospital. The doctor was standing like a crab on the operation table. He warned us to leave because he will try to eat us, but we were too late because he started to follow us. It was getting towards the end and we were standing in a stair well. The doctor guy was telling us that we should go, or we would die. We saw him. A chainsaw guy, trying to get the chainsaw started. We ran for our lives and everyone was following us, but the chainsaw guy. I guess he couldn’t get the thing working.

When we were finally out of the haunted house, Michael approached us and asked if I wanted to get a picture with him. Of course I said, “Yes!” because he was pretty much my best friend.

As a wrap, that was Scream Factory and I recommend it if you want a quick scare!

I had a different post in mind for today but then my cat Drew and I just spent the last hour being terrorized by a thousand-legger / whatever those quick-moving basement bugs are called, and I am honestly afraid to take my eyes off the floor for very long because WE LOST SIGHT OF IT AND IF IT CRAWLS ON ME I WILL HAVE TO SET MYSELF ALIGHT. It ran across Drew’s back leg at one point she nearly jumped through the ceiling while I screamed like I was in the ultimate haunted house, and Penelope slept through it all.

OMFG WHY DID I JUST GOOGLE-IMAGE THOUSAND LEGGER NOW I’M CONVINCED I HAVE 78 OF THEM CRAWLING ON ME, POINT ME TO THE NEAREST GASOLINE CAN, I’M TOAST.

I mean, what I came here to say is: here is another Halloween costume memory. This one is from 2016 when Chooch had the brilliant-to-him idea of being a bullet with butterfly wings, a la Smashing Pumpkins, and pretty much no one got it, just like the year before.

Enjoyyyyyy! I’ll just be over here holding a blow torch and flipping over furniture until I find that fucker, otherwise I will never be able to sit down on my couch again, OMG CHILLS.

*****************************

I can’t remember the exact moment that Chooch’s costume lightbulb went on above his brainy head, but it was definitely fairly soon after Halloween 2015. He was going through a Smashing Pumpkins phase, and casually decided that he was going to be a bullet with butterfly wings for Halloween.

At first, I laughed really hard and gave it my Great Costume stamp of approval. Also, what a novel concept – knowing what he was going to be with ample time to construct the costume.

Had this ever happened before?!

NO.

But then reality set in and I remembered that perhaps not many people would understand it, you know, since it’s not 1995/1996. So Henry and I tried to subtly change his mind, and really—how shitty of us. I’m glad that Chooch was committed to his idea and didn’t let us sway him.

Flash forward 8 months. It’s a week before Halloween and Henry still hasn’t started working on the bullet. I kept saying things like, “This isn’t going to be finished in time, is it?” to which his response was supposed to be, “OF COURSE IT WILL BE, ERIN!” and not, “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

Spoiler alert: Henry worked a miracle and got it done! At the last minute though, he scrapped the paper mache bullet tip he made because it looked too dildo-esque, and instead opted for a large balloon (the punching kind) which he spray-painted silver.

It looked much better!

We waited until the day before to get the wings. We try to be as DIY as possible when it comes to costumes, but I was willing to splurge on the wings because I just wanted this to be done. So we went to Party City after Chooch’s piano lesson on Sunday.

SIDE STORY, unrelated to Halloween:

For as long as I can remember, I do this thing where I walk into a store or restaurant ahead of Henry and pull the door shut on him. It’s like my thing, and it pisses him off so much.

And our visit to Party City was no different. I walked in ahead of him and, without so much as a glance behind my shoulder, I shoved the door shut behind me. I mean full-force, as aggressively as possible, I gave that fucking door a Hulk slam.

I heard Henry say, “Erin!” but it sounded further away than it should have. So I slowly turned around and realized that there was a small woman behind me, looking totally stunned from having a GLASS DOOR SLAMMED SHUT ON HER. Fucking Henry had let her go ahead of him and then stood back to see how it would play out, what a motherfucker!

So then I was put in this terrible social situation where I had to profusely apologize to a stranger while trying to explain to her why that happened, how it’s just what I do, until I heard the words I was saying and realized I was making it so much worse.

SO MUCH WORSE.

Oh, Henry loved every moment of it.

I mean, it was bound to happen eventually.

Anyway, Chooch got his wings but not the pair I wanted him to get but whatever, DON’T LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER.

****

This year was Chooch’s last Halloween parade at school. I was kind of sad about it, but it isn’t how it was when I was a kid. The classroom parties aren’t shit because there are so many restrictions, and so many costumes are against school policy. So basically the parents gather around outside the school just to watch a 15 minute parade, where only some of the students are in costume because HALLOWEEN IS DYING, ISN’T IT?? Oh I just can’t stand it.

But, speaking of school policy, Chooch could 100% not dress up as a bullet at school. I mean, I didn’t need the rules and regulations paper that was sent home last week to remind me of that. So in my effort to find him an alternative costume that still involved his wings (they were $20 and I intended on getting as much use out of them as possible!), I found this lame social butterfly get-up, which I’m sure has been done to death at hipster Halloween parties, but it was a hit with the elementary set.

So easy! And I can say that because I threw a huge temper tantrum Sunday night and went to bed at 8:30 on purpose so that Henry had to print all of the social media icons out, LOL I win.

Chooch loved it! Especially when he got to rip the musically icon off his shirt afterward and give it to his crush. Ugh.

Meanwhile, this just served as yet another reminder that I will never fit in with other parents.

Oh! AND I GOT TO SEE HOT GYM TEACHER. Totally worth rubbing elbows with basic moms.

****

Later that evening, Henry came home from work and finally finished the damn bullet costume. I’m not exaggerating – it was 5 minutes to trick or treat o’clock and Henry was hot gluing one last thing to it.  Fucking amazing.

Originally, Chooch and Dimajio were going to go together but then Dimajio had to go over his cousin’s or something, I don’t know. I don’t keep track of kids. It was just as well, because Henry and I had to tag along with Chooch anyway because he can never Chooch a costume that doesn’t require handlers. We had to tie his shoes, make sure he didn’t fall down steps, get candy for him if it was in a bowl on the ground which required him to bend, fluff his wings, make sure he didn’t bust the balloon-top of the bullet….

It’s a tiring, thankless job.

It always puts us in the SMALL TALK crosshairs with other adults! That’s my least favorite part!

After a quick photo with the neighbor kid, we tentatively made our way down the street. I kept hissing things like, “This was a terrible idea” and “We should just go back to the house and he can wear the pig mask instead, we’ll think of something.” I was just so worried that he would get made fun of or just be completely disappointed that no one understood his costume.

But Henry assured me it would be fine and to stop whining before I gave Chooch a complex.

And it was fine! Papa H Knows Best, everyone! He didn’t get made fun of at all, and there were actually A LOT of adults who were like, “OH I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.”

It helped that he was also wearing a Smashing Pumpkins shirt and was carrying a portable speaker that was playing the song on a loop.

Even one of my mom nemeses started cracking up and said, “I get it. I love it.”

So he was pretty damn proud of himself.

One guy was like, “Let me guess….Iron Butterfly?”

“Close! It’s a music reference but you got the wrong band,” Henry laughed.

This was actually a fun game! We were like a traveling quiz show.

“He’s a bullet….but I don’t know what the wings are for!” one old lady grunted to another old lady after Chooch left their porch, and I just started cracking up.

People were actually excited for him to finally get to their house so they could try to guess what he was supposed to be! “These are the best kinds of costumes,” one lady said in between sips of beer. “We want to have to figure it out!”

At one house, I told the people that we had tried to talk him out of this costume idea but he was insistent.

“Well, good for you!” the one mom said to Chooch. And she’s right—good for him! I never would have had the confidence to pull something like that off when I was his age, no matter how badly I wanted it. Chooch is my fucking role model.

He got a few people who said “this is the best costume I’ve seen tonight” and one guy gave him a knowing nod and declared Chooch the winner of Halloween.

I’m pretty proud of him for coming up with this and sticking with it. Even though we had to constantly adjust his wings and do damage control. Perhaps Henry could have SPENT MORE TIME working on the LOGISTICS of the damn bullet.

A photo of Henry making sure Chooch doesn’t perish inside his bullet. 

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A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

But….next year, I’m handing him scissors and a sheet and telling him to go to fucking town.

************

We walked down the street to Eat n Park afterward for dinner*. “I Missed Again” by Phil Collins was playing, so of course I had to loudly announce this, as is my forever-custom when I walk into an establishment that’s full of the sweet note-blossoms that churns forth from Sir Collins candied-throat.

“Oooh! I should go as a Phil Collins song next year! ‘In the Air Tonight’ maybe?!” Chooch shouted excitedly, to which Henry and I were like:

*(And yes, I pulled the door shut on Henry when we walked in. “You’ll never learn your lesson,” he sighed.)