Jul 8 2018
KCON 2018: Night One
After the fun we had at last year’s KCON concerts, I vowed that we would get better seats next year. Not any of those insane packages or whatever, but just one level better.
And I was fully prepared to do just that but then ONE WEEK BEFORE KCON TICKETS WENT ON SALE, BTS TICKETS WENT ON SALE. I honestly didn’t think we would even be able to do both, assuming I could even get BTS tickets. But then by some stroke of Kpop fate, I scored 2 BTS tickets and since they were so high up and still face value, they were pretty reasonably priced. But, not free, which is what they would have had to have been for us to even consider getting KCON upgrades, haha.
So, we were back up in our P3 seats again this year (which is actually very close to where we’ll be sitting for BTS in the fall) and it was fine, more than fine, because I didn’t think we would even be able to go! I felt very grateful.
And, with the exception of G-Dragon, I don’t need to be down there by the stage getting showered in Kpop sweat – this lifestyle is way too rich for my blood at times and I’m more than context looking down from the arena heavens!
Before dropping us off at the Prudential Center like a good Papa H, we had dinner at Top’s Diner, which I found on Yelp and thought it was going to literally be a diner but then we walked in and it was totally pimped out inside! There was a really nice bar/lounge area, and then the rest of the dining area was like Upscale Diner themed.
We had a great waitress and I had a LOVELY Cuban coffee, oh mami, it was so fucking good and I wish I had one in front of me right now because that would certainly help me write this faster. I’ve never had a Cuban coffee before and I can’t believe I wasted so much time. Now I have to research cafes in Pittsburgh to see if I can a fix anywhere.
Anyway, I had a very decent veggie burger here but it was so hearty that I had to take half of it to go, which is good because I knew without a doubt that I would be hungry post-concert and the one thing our shitty hotel actually had was a mini fridge. Hard to believe. But, I guess the regulars need a place to keep their 40s cool.
Three cheers for Tops! I’ll have to remember this for the next time we’re in Newark, which unfortunately will be once a year if we continue going to KCON unless they finally find a way to actually move it to NYC.
Coleslaw was not great, though.
Doors were supposed to be at 6:30 so that’s when we got to the Prudential Center, but of course it was a typical clusterfuck of disorderly lines, confusion, and literally no signage to direction from staff members. Why, KCON, why you do dis? This is the 8th (I think?) annual KCON at this point and you would think by now they would have this down to a science. But instead everyone was asking each other which line they were in and the most popular answer was “no idea, dawg.”
Chooch and I got in the first line we could find an end to, and it was so fucked up because it snaked around so many times that we were actually starting out facing the opposite direction of where the entrance was.
I’ll spare you the nail-biting details, but we were in line for nearly an hour (the concert was slated to start at 7:30 so that wasn’t a heart-stopper or anything) and fucking RAN to our seats once we got inside, just narrowly making it on time. There were still a lot of people out there too once the concert started so that’s really shitty and uncool. I don’t know who’s at fault here, KCON of the Prudential Center staff, but that shit’s gotta change. Part of the benefit of having seats is that you don’t have to camp out to make sure you get a good spot, but even still, if we had arrived any later than we had, we would have missed part of the pre-show. We should have been able to roll up at like 7:15 and just go inside, it was so absurd.
Also, a big Fuck You to the people who bring actual backpacks into those places because that holds the line up so much! WHY DO YOU NEED SO MUCH STUFF?!
The highlight of the line was probably when Chooch saw some girl with some stackable Bambi plushes and he yelled, “I LOVE BAMBI!” at her. She smiled nervously. I guess it was like the time I rushed up to some broad at Riot Fest one year to scream, “I LOVE EMAROSA!” because she was wearing an Emarosa shirt. She was like, “Oh! You startled me.”
That’s…that’s what I do.
Here we are, getting ready for the show, lightsticks in hand!
Guys, day one had a stacked line-up:
- Straykids
- Heize
- PENTAGON!!!!!!!
- Red Velvet!
- SUPER JUNIOR!
I will try to summarize this as succinctly as possible because I know I can get super word-slutty. So I will give you a quick description of each group/artist and post a video for each one, cool? And it will be the official KCON videos, because trust me, mine are awful and I only recorded 30-60 seconds of each group for my own weird sentimental benefits.
Let’s KCON!
- Stray Kids: Prefacing this with “they were formed on a singing survival show” is kind of dumb because that’s how a ton of kpop groups are formed. But nevertheless, they were formed on a reality show called, well, Stray Kids. They’re on JYP Entertainment which is also home to two of our fave groups, Twice and Got7, so needless to say, this group is tight. I only knew two or three of their songs going into this and Chooch didn’t know any, but by the time they were done, we were both sold. It’s hard not feeding off the crowd’s energy and getting effing hyped, you know?! I love kpop fans so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o44vMCW81Bk
Except for the people behind us. The one, and I started noticing this about 30 minutes, sounded like puberty-pinnacle Peter Brady screaming at the Korean pop music show. At first I was like, “Haha, that’s cute, but I hope they stop doing that after this song.” NOPE. NEVER STOPPED. THEY SOUNDED LIKE A BROKEN FIRE ALARM. And then Chooch was getting mad because he said it smelled like someone behind him was shitting and I’m not saying it was the same person but I’m also not saying it wasn’t the same person.
Still, a minor complaint considering we were treated with such talent all night!
2. Heize: She is not only super fucking beautiful, but she is an extremely talented singer-songwriter. She even self-produces a lot of her own music. She was the only solo artist in the bill this year (last year it was Zion-T) so you know she has huge appeal in this market. And had these subtle, metallic shimmers in her hair that were so cool. I want to be like Heize. :(
3. Pentagon: Guys, I have gushed about them on here before and if there is one group from night one’s line-up that I would stress for anyone reading this to listen to, it’s these boys. I am rooting for them SO HARD. They WRITE THEIR OWN SONGS, and have even written songs for other groups, and they just want people to recognize them for this. When this song debuted last April, I was hooked from the start. Like, 15 seconds in, I knew I was going to watch it 785457 more times that day and learn all their names and read the lyrics and learn the dance (lol, try to anyway). My favorite is E’Dawn, and you probably already know which one he is, but if not, he’s the one that starts out alone on the outer stage with the conductor stick-thing. These guys are no one-hit wonders; they have a bunch of jams in their repertoire (I recommend “Runaway” and “Like This”) but here is a video of them performing my favorite, Chooch’s favorite, and everyone’s favorite:
4. Red Velvet: KCON skimped on the girl groups this year but the ones they gave us more than made up for it. Red Velvet are QUEENS, you guys. They were one of the first girl groups I really got into when I started doing kpop workouts (lol) and I remember being obsessed when I first saw the video for “Dumb Dumb” because it was sooooo quirky. I had some of their videos on at Blake & Haley’s baby shower last year and my friend Kara had to leave the room because she said they were creepy and I wouldn’t go that far but OK. Anyway, they’re on SM Entertainment, which is the #1 kpop agency, a freaking behemoth. Everything that comes out of SM is gold (*cough*SHINee*cough*) and it was such a huge deal to finally get to see these five girls. One of them, Wendy, is American, and when she sang a few lines from Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” the hairs on my arms stood up, hoisted themselves out of their follicles, and then walked away, a’quiver. SANG, GIRL, SANG. Sorry, but you get two videos for this one, and the first is when they treated us to Bad Boy with the second half all in English!
5. Super Junior! They were the headliners of the night one, and for good reason: they are fucking iconic in the kpop world! I already wrote about them about here, so I’ll spare you the reiteration. Chooch and I were so excited when they made their grand entrance, and I think it’s safe to say that the tens of thousands of other people there were just as hysterical over it as us! Here you go guys, bask in the legendary greatness that is SUJU:
Henry was so jealous that he missed this!
And as a bonus, here’s a medley they did of their three most popular jams!
In addition to all of this, each group also participated in fan engagements, and there were two special stages: one was a duet with Seulgi from Red Velvet and Yesung from Super Junior, and one was a shared stage with Stray Kids and Pentagon. The whole event just flows seamlessly from one stage to the next so sorry if you have to go to the bathroom, there is no down-time!
I think my favorite part of KCON is looking over and seeing Chooch going ham with his lightstick or capturing his favorite parts of songs on his phone, and smiling through the whole thing. Oh my god, what a great fucking night. And we still had five more groups to see the next night!
No commentsJul 6 2018
Friday Fiver
Today is Friday. Here are five things I’ve been happy about this week, I guess:
- This Korean art I bought in Insadong that Henry finally hung up for me before it ended up breaking from all the sitting around it did on the dining room table (“OMG just do it yourself” blah blah blah says my anti-fan club, lol):
2. Drinking Copious Amounts of Water
Yes, my waterjug-chug-a-lug’ing is going strong but I have had to answer to pretty much every single person who spies it on my desk (I mean, it does kind of stand out). Like YES I AM DRINKING THIS PLUS SOME EVERYDAY. I’ll tell you, when it’s in your face like that, it really isn’t very challenging and I sure do feel a lot better for it. Did you know that some hydration authorities say you should drink one ounce for every pound you weigh?!
3. Special Delivery from My Mom!
After work today, my mom stopped over with some stuff from Trax Farms (fun fact, you locals: I’m related to the Trax family). Like vegetables and stuff, and then a Jurassic World blanket for Chooch because HE GETS EVERYTHING. J/K. I didn’t also want a Jurassic World blanket. I want, I don’t know, a Taemin blanket probably. Anyway! My mom also brought over lunch meat (ugh Henry) and cheese. “OMG SHE GAVE US TOO? OH SHE IS SO NICE!” like this is an orphanage and now he gets to put a cheese-cap on his nightly porridge for a special treat. As he was dramatically gnashing on a slice of provolone, he said very seriously, “Colby is good, but provolone if my forever favorite.” Meanwhile, Henry was all butt-hurt, whining about how he buys cheese too, like he’s going to turn this into some competitive grocery shopping thing.
She also got us corn!! I love corn! Except that I won’t eat it on the cob, I make Henry scrape it off me so it falls onto a plate like puzzle pieces. I had braces for 8 years and grew accustomed to eating my corn this way, you guys. I was telling Carrie about this at work last week and she informed that there are kitchen tools for this very act; I looked on Amazon and she’s right! THEY’RE CALLED CORN STRIPPERS!!!!.
4. Speaking of Taemin!!
I was challenging myself to not post this video on here because I know my Kpop gushing is nauseating for most/all, but Taemin was on this Korean show called The Call, where artists are paired up and collaborate together. I watched this video in the car on the way home from Newark last week and it has been in my head EVERY DAY since. It’s a collab between Taemin and rapper BeWhy and it’s a real wig-snatcher. (Lol, I hate that saying.)
5. Halfway to Holiday World!
One thing that always pulls me out of a summer numbness (I was going to be cute and call it a Summer Number but then I was like, “hey that looks familiar, oh right, because ‘number’ is already a word” and now I’m dwelling on the fact that when you add an “er” to the end of “numb,” the “b” suddenly becomes unsilent. ENGLISH, WHY U DIS WAY?!) is going to amusement parks! I have Henry half-convinced that we should go to Holiday World in Indiana. I tried to get him to take us there a few years ago when we went to Indiana Beach because my reasoning was, “They are both in Indiana” and then he showed me a map of Indiana and I was still like, “Ok…so?” So now, years later, I’m back on my Holiday World kick and he seems mildly interested because the route we would take puts us near Jungle Jim’s, a huge grocery store near Cincinnati known for it’s huge selection of international goods. The last time we were there, I was more into Romania than Korea so I didn’t focus on any of the k-goodness.
Also, I want to eat at Hyde’s! But all this talk about going to Indiana has made me daydream about the quaint little burger joint we went to when we were in town for Indiana Beach–Mr. Happy Burger!!! I think I just recently referenced this on here because I get obsessed and then re-obsessed.
Anyway, I’ve been all up in Henry’s ears about how “and then we can go to Mr. Happy Burger too!” and he is like “NO!” and I am like, “WHY?!” and he is like, “LITERALLY FOR THE SAME REASON I TOLD YOU WE COULDN’T DO INDIANA BEACH AND HOLIDAY WORLD AT THE SAME TIME – THEY ARE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE STATE!” and then he has to re-show me a map of Indiana which I just blink at and say, “So?
”
We’ll see how far I get with this hackneyed scheme. Shooting for August. FINGERS CROSSED!!! I want to ride on holiday-themed rides and go hog-wild in Santa Claus, Indiana!
No commentsJul 5 2018
My Super Mild July 4th Recap
Do people still say “crunk”? I hope not. But if they do (and it’s probably soccer moms from Boise who just discovered Lil Jon and are trying to be ‘hip’), I’ll have them tell you that my July 4th was not crunk.
It wasn’t bunk, either, though.
It was…middle of the road.
Mild.
Perfectly alright.
It’s hard to get all patriotic when the current administration is making me embarrassed to be American, but that’s a writing I will save for my political thesis that I’m writing for one of my classes in the secret socialist college I’m attending in the basement of the Smiling Moose.
I HAVE ALREADY SAID TOO MUCH.
We didn’t have any plans for the day, a combination of being still broke from our KCON weekend and it being 98 degrees outside. If there wasn’t the promise of a swimming pool involved, I wasn’t going, I’ll tell you that much. But then Chooch ended up going to Kennywood with his second family: Blake, Haley, and Calvin. Henry and I opted out because, again, THAT HEAT, THO. Chooch and I have season passes. He’s gone twice already, which made the price of a season pass for him worth it, but I still haven’t gone AT ALL so I’m kind of panicked about that, like maybe I should just go tonight for an hour after work!? WHAT TO DO…..!
This meant that Henry and I had to spend the day together alone which was gross, j/k, it was OK. I was crabby in the morning because sometimes I get off on starting fights over the breakfast that didn’t make me because I purposely only asked him to make it in my head and then I get so outraged when HE DIDN’T READ MY MIND WHY ARE MEN THE WORST.
Henry: You have anger issues.
Me: I KNOW. ITS CALLED EXPLOSIVE ANGER DISORDER. I WAS DIAGNOSED.
Like how does he forget these things
But Henry was like, “No, this day isn’t going down like this” so he took extra measures to placate me, like by sitting with me and watching Korean dramas and then taking me for an ICE CREAM LUNCH.
When you’re adults, you can do that shit.
We went to Page Diary Mart which is a local softserve hot spot. Lately, all I ever really want is soft serve, so I appreciate when a place offers more than just the vanilla and chocolate staples. And Page’s is super well-known for their blueberry softserve which has real blueberries in it and doesn’t have that artificial taste to it, either, like those places that are like TRY OUR 50 DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF SOFTSERVE! but then they’re just adding some kind of weird syrup to it and it usually tastes synthetic.
Because it is.
I asked for rainbow sprinkles and it wasn’t until hours later when I really started to dwell on this.
“They gave me patriotic sprinkles when I asked for rainbow and I think that’s pretty brazen to assume I celebrate the 4th of July!” I shouted, to which Henry calmly replied, “Maybe that’s all the sprinkles they had.”
STOP WHITE-KNIGHTING EVERYONE, HENRY!!
Regardless, that cone was just what I needed on that grossly hot day, even though I had to eat it almost too fast to enjoy it.
Henry got the raspberry almond torte sundae and don’t you worry, I sure did help him eat this. Also, it looks like he’s smelling a fart in this picture.
JUST LIKE JOEY TRIBBIANI.
After our ice cream date (lol), I convinced Henry to park somewhere on the Southside, no not so we could have car sex and get murdered by a serial killer, but because I have this app called Job Spotter and it’s so dumb but basically you take pictures of hiring signs and the storefronts of the businesses looking for help and submit it to this app and you get points based on the quality of the picture, how many times it’s already been submitted, etc. Each point equals one cent which goes into your “wallet” and can be redeemed for an Amazon gift card at any time. I started using it sometime in May because it gives me something to do when I’m walking around and I’ve slowly accumulated $41 in my “wallet,” lol. The most points I ever got for one of my submissions was 109, and most are between 40-70 so you really have to submit a lot.
Anyway, I was like, “LET’S DO SOME JOB SPOTTER’ING” and Henry was like, “Oh great” because he’s embarrassed to be seen with me when I’m looking like a tourist taking the most boring pictures. It’s fun for me because people usually wait until I’m done and then look around to see what I was taking pictures of.
Anyway, I got a bunch of points on Carson Street and Henry was, “Was this really worth getting heat stroke, though?”
Um, yes. Dumb question.
Later, Henry and I walked to Eat n Park because it was TOO HOT TO BE IN THE KITCHEN according to Henry.
While we were there, The Sundays “Here’s Where the Story Ends” came on and some older woman at the booth behind us started singing along and I just had the biggest rush of FEELINGS because I can’t remember the last time I heard that song but it was definitely ages ago and ITS THAT LITTLE SOUVENIR, BLAH BLAH BLAH LA LA LA.
“You always hear songs here that bring back memories for you,” Henry said, and I couldn’t tell if he was just making an obvious observation or if he was like, “I AM SAYING THIS BECAUSE IT’S ANNOYING AND ALWAYS COMES WITH A STORY.”
Seriously though that Eat n Park plays the best music, which is great because their food is mediocre and their service is inconsistent, so it’s good that they have one thing going for them.
Rainbow on the way home!
And then I found this old Pocket Rocker tape on top of my refrigerator which seemed random at first but I think several years ago, OK probably 10, I went on this kick where I was yearning for a Pocket Rocker because it was one of my favorite childhood toys and I found one on eBay because of course eBay would have it and so I bought it without hesitating and it came with this sweet-ass Tiffany tape and also the Jets too if I remember correctly.
Henry thinks that the Pocket Rocker is “around somewhere” but he made no moves to find it so instead I made him watch an hour long block of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson videos. SHOULDA LOOKED FOR THAT FUCKING POCKET ROCKER WHEN I ASKED, HANK.
Me: Who did you like better, Tiffany or Debbie?
Henry: I don’t know.
He didn’t even THINK about it, though.
I was excited to hear “Could’ve Been for the first time since probably back when it was popular, back when girls sang with their own natural voices instead of forcing themselves to sound “different,” *cough cough HALSEY cough cough*. Oh, try-hards.
I personally liked Tiffany better because she seemed edgier, like a girl who was more likely to run away at 16 and date an older man. But then Debbie’s Electric Youth video came on and I was overcome with nostalgia because that shit was the jam. Remember when I was in 5th grade and played Zsa Zsa Gabor for an interview in Mrs. Madden’s class? Well, one of the other groups was my friend Amy who was Debbie Gibson and Brandy was the reporter interviewing her about her new Electric Youth perfume. Man, I wanted that perfume so bad and for a girl who pretty much had everything growing up, it was always the little shit like that my mom was always like, “Lol no” when I asked for it. AND THOSE ARE THE THINGS I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER.
Also, Elisabeth H. had a birthday party sleepover in 5th grade and I remember this vividly because I was laying underneath a pool table with, I BELIEVE JAIME McC., and I admitted that I had a crush on Scott S.* and she was like, “Ew why” and now I too am like, “Ew why.” Anyway, Elisabeth gave away cassingles (!!!!) as party favors and one of them was Electric Youth and that’s the one I wanted but instead I got Kylie Minogue’s “Locomotion.”
Ugh.
You better believe I paused the Debbie Gibson video marathon to tell Henry this story and he said, “I like how all of your stories start with something about you having a crush” and I think this is a bit hyperbolic, Henry, because it’s probably only every other one.
*(Fun fact: the last time I used the full name of one of my crushes on this blog, someone who used to work with him stumbled upon it 8 years later and left a comment that had subtle threatening vibes by saying he was going to send the link to him to see what he thought of it and by the time I realized what was going on, my stats had SPIKED hardcore and it was all traffic for that one blog post so I panicked and made it private and if you’re wondering if I’m still shook about it, the answer it this just happened last month so yes, lol.)
Somehow, someway, I was reminded of the Rainbow Brite movie through all of this (lol I know exactly why, it was because one of the Debbie Gibson videos, for a split second, sounded like the way Rainbow Brite sang the word ‘rainbow’ in the song THERE’S A RAINBOW INSIDE OF YOU) so god bless YouTube, we spent another 30 minutes listening to Rainbow Brite songs and Chooch at one point came in the room, shook his head and left.
“Don’t you remember this!?” I cried to Henry, who was like, “NO!!!” because this was probably the year he was in the Service, getting a Vicks VapoRub hand job by some Taiwanese prostitute at a back table in a bar in Japan and he will tell you fervently that this never happened THEN WHY DID HE TELL ME ABOUT IT ONCE 15 YEARS AGO DID HE THINK I WOULD FORGET?!
But really though, what a great day! Exhausting day overall though, because of the heatwave. At one point I said, “I think I have…sun disease. Heat burn…what’s it called?”
One of those things! We all looked like Drew by the end of the night:
ETA: Great, I let that Tiffany video play again when I went to get the link to put it in on here, and now Madonna’s “Live To Tell” is on and I’m sobbing out of nowhere?! 1980s Madonna was the Best Madonna.
Now I need to listen to This Used to Be My Playground because that shit to make me cry so hard as a kid like I suddenly had adult feelings and hadn’t just finished playing RBI with my brother Ryan on our basement Nintendo. (I used to always choose a Canadian team so both National Anthems would play and he would get so angry lol.)
1 commentJul 4 2018
KCON NY 2018: Highs & Lows
Waiting for Henry to Get Breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts Because We Ate in the “Hotel” Without Him selfie.
I’ve been putting off writing this post because I’ve got some beefaroni with KCON. It was still a good time, don’t get me wrong, but I think that we were spoiled last year so when they changed things up this year, it felt like having the rug pulled out from under our feet.
But first, here is a quick explanation of what KCON is in case you don’t know and are like, “OK but what is KCON.” This is what I do sometimes when I’m trying to redeem myself as a “blogger” – be informative like Wikipedia but with less fact-checking and more typos.
So, KCON is a big Korean-centric convention focusing on K-culture, K-beauty, K-beauty, and most importantly KPOP. Let’s be real, we go for the kpop. There are two KCONs in the US every summer: one in “New York” which is actually Newark but they have to pretend like it’s New York in order to get the big names to agree to come here. The other is later on in the summer in LA and that one is way better than the NY one but Henry is like, “LOL no” every time I suggest we should book a flight.
For NY, it’s a two-day ordeal at the Prudential Center in Newark. During the day, the convention fills up two parking lots and there are Korean food vendors, K-beauty stalls, kpop merch, booths giving away snacks, and tents set up for various panels to take place. At night, there is a big concert inside the Prudential Center, sponsored by MNET Music Countdown, which is an actual countdown show filmed weekly in Korea. Tickets for the concert are exorbitant, and it gets more and more expensive if you want to tack on additional perks, like getting to attend the red Carprt event, getting to participate in a Hi-Touch (more on that in a bit), and obviously getting to stand on the floor by the stage. We’re talking over a grand for this shit, though.
I took this picture when Henry was inside a bank using an ATM. It’s my favorite mirror ever. NO I DON’T HAVE BODY IMAGE ISSUES, YOU DO.
The convention is an additional $20 for both days and last year we walked away with so much swag and prizes that it was more than worth it for us. I know this is going to make me sound like a greedy little entitled bitch, BUT WE BARELY GOT ANYTHING THIS TIME. (We all did get a KCON totebag though.) Also, last year, anyone who registered for the convention portion of the weekend got several scratch offs for an opportunity at a Hi-Touch or to be in the audience for a Fan Engagement. What these things are additional perks that are guaranteed for those who pay for the platinum or gold tickets, but the rest of us plebes at least got a chance.
I ended up getting to go inside and stand in the audience for Up10tion’s fan engagement last year, and it was really cute because they played charades and answered some fan questions, etc. And then the Drama Fever tent was offering more changes if you posted pictures on Instagram using their hashtag and then spinning a wheel. By doing that, I won a HI-TOUCH for KNK!
Speaking of, here’s A BIG LOW: NO DRAMAFEVER BOOTH THIS YEAR?!
You can read about my experience with that here, but the gist is that a Kpop group will stand on a stage behind a table and then the hi-touch winners get to file past them, gently brushing their hands with your own hand. It sounds so ridiculous and I was like “hur hur, this is going to be so lame I can’t believe I’m doing this as a woman in her late 30s” but then it was my turn and I walked out of that room totally shook, and kept stuttering, “They were so beautiful” over and over for the rest of the weekend.
Well friends, KCON realized that they could make more money off of these events so now, in addition to the super-inflated ticket packages, they offered additional fan engagement packagaes, starting at $45. Some of them only came with A CHANCE of winning whatever, but the one thing they all had in common is that you couldn’t choose which group you wanted. So you potentially could be spending so much more money only to wind up with a fan engagement for a group you don’t even care about.
This is why people walk around the convention all day holding up signs for fan engagement trades.
So right there, that was one pretty big low for us. Not having that frantic, hand-quivering scratch-off moment was sad because it was such a fun part of KCON Last year. We paid $20 for a convention and they didn’t even give us, like, a sticker. Or a button. A peppermint would have been nice, too.
A highlight was that now they had the area around the Prudential Center more blocked off with security set up at every entrance so that we only had to have bags searched once instead of every single time we wanted to visit a different part of the convention (there are two big parking lots with only one way in, so you have to get your wristband scanned each time you enter). Last year, it was a big hassle, especially after we started to accumulate more stuff. So that was nice to be able to get in to the different sections with more ease.
The first thing we did was some clusterfuck of a photo zone, where you had to go to all four areas, take your picture, post them all on social media, and then go to some table and show the guy that you did it. Then he let you draw a ball out of a bucket for a chance at fan engagements.
IT TOOK FOREVER TO DO THIS BECAUSE EACH ONE HAD A LINE.
Also my hair looks like shit because the hairdryer in our “hotel” was broken so air-dried hair for me.
Anyway, we did not win. I was pretty irritated about this.
More lows: All the good stuff was crammed under a big tent in one of the lots. The Lotte booth, the McDonald’s booth, the Bibigo booth which was handing out amazing samples last year, the Melona booth, various kpop merch booths…all of these things were under the tent and the lines were outrageous and intermingled so you never knew what line you were in and you couldn’t move and it was enough to send even the most extroverted person into shut-in mode. Literally, I felt like so many people were breathing on me and I couldn’t handle it, especially when I was standing in line to spin the wheel at the Melona booth and some girl asked me which line was to purchase the Melona bars and the big mouth white girl behind me took it upon herself to bellow the answer into the back of my head and I was pretty much done at that point.
SIDE BAR: Other than that one girl though, everyone else was fine. It’s really nice getting to be surrounded by tons of people who share a love for all things Korea when you typically get mocked for it on a daily basis! And my general observation for the past two years is that people here aren’t jerks. You don’t get pushed or shoved or glared at. Everyone is polite and friendly and wanting to make friends with other stans of their favorite groups. So I would say “the attendees” is another high.
Last year, everything was more spread out. But that particular lot was mayhem because it also had the KCON stage (a small stage set up for artist interviews, dance performances, etc. throughout the day) so there was always a decent crowd for that and it bled right into the MASSIVE line for official KCON merch because they ONLY HAD ONE BOOTH. You guys, I stood in that line for AN HOUR later on in the day, because I kept thinking that the later I waited, the shorter the line would be, but NO it was ALWAYS THAT LONG.
We never even got any Bibigo samples because everything inside that fucking tent was such a cluster.
We did take some pictures at whatever this thing was, which was cool because I love Pentagon and Chooch loves GOT7.
Chooch won these light-up glasses from some State Farm lady while I was in line for a free makeup sample.
So many lines.
Melona bars are so good! Chooch spun the wheel and won a Melona toothbrush which is a toothbrush in a case that looks just like a melon Melona bar and I was so mad because he was all, “I hope we don’t win the toothbrush” but I WANTED to win the toothbrush, so when he won it I was like, “Yay, gimme!” but he all of a sudden changed his tune and decided this was a grand prize and then suggested THAT WE SHARE IT!?
Um ew, you can have it.
Right after this, Chooch and I were standing in line to enter a contest for Asiana Airlines and Chooch’s preteen ‘tude began to rub me the wrong way and then Henry meandered over and exacerbated the situation and I can’t even remember what the impetus was at this point but I exploded and we all had a Big Fight and then Henry was like I AM LEAVING AND NOT JUST TO GO BACK TO THE HOTEL* I AM GOING BACK TO PITTSBURGH.
*(LOL@HOTEL)
Somehow, this made Chooch and I resolve our blood feud with one knowing glance, and by doing so, we teamed up against Henry who suddenly became THE ENEMY. So while Henry stormed off to one of the exits, thinking Chooch and I were following him like we’re his puppies or something, we hung back and sat down on a wall, trying to figure out what to do.
Meanwhile, Henry texted me using regular text and not Kakao which was his way of illustrating the level of anger he was at because KAKAO IS JUST FOR FRIENDS.
“The Lyft will be here in 5 mon” his first text said.
And then: “min.”
LOL, what a loser.
“Let’s just stay,” Chooch said. “I want to go to the concert tonight. We can’t leave!” and then he flipped through the Convention program and said, “Here, let’s find something that you want to do” and that’s how we became Best Friends again and found ourselves under one of the tents in the lesser-populated areas, listening to three of my favorite YouTubers talk about meeting Kpop idols. And this was hilarious to me because I was never one who “had favorite YouTubers” until I became obsessed with Korea and now here I was, getting all emotional at seeing Jre, WhitneyBaeIRL, and HeyIt’sFei sitting at a table and talking to us.
Even Chooch was like *pulls out phone and records*.
Then we wrote on this big chalkboard wall because why wouldn’t we.
CAN YOU TELL WHICH ONE IS MINE.
About an hour went by and Chooch and I were starting to get The Hunger so I was trying to decide if I wanted to continue to stand creepily near WhitneyBaeIRL while debating asking for a picture, or if I wanted to go back to the ATM near the flattering mirrored poles because food was cash only and Henry Warbucks took it all with me.
Just then, Chooch exclaimed, “Haha, look!” and pointed across the parking lot where HENRY was sadly lumbering around alone, camerabag around his body in the ultimate dad-fashion. OMG he looked like such a perv, like he was there solely to satisfy his Korean kink (OMG Chooch used this word the other day and I was like, “WTF CHOOCH” and he said, “What, would you rather I say festish?” Whhhyyyyyyyy), and we had to lean against a fence because we were laughing so fucking hard.
“He just walked by Terry TV!” I screamed, choking on laughter, at the sight of Henry walking past a big YouTuber and being blissfully unaware about it. Then Henry spotted us and meandered on over and we were like, “WOW SHOULDN’T THAT LYFT HAVE BEEN HERE 60 MON AGO?”
LOL@mon.
Henry tried to act like he only came back because we “needed” him even though neither of us called or texted him to come back, so.
Then we ate BiBimBoppers (fried balls with bibimbap inside, super good but we only got two for !!
) and tteokbokki and I don’t know what Henry had, something on a stick. They were actually both still in their own respective lines (we split up accordingly to maximize efforts) when Super Junior took the KCON stage so I had to run over to that crazy lot alone just to see them.
By the time I got there, I had already missed most of it but it was cool to see them! In my head though I was like, “LOL, I was much closer to them in NYC.”
This particular tteokbokki was actually spicier than any of the kinds I had in actual Korea, and it was ALMOST too spicy even for me. Chooch couldn’t handle it and I couldn’t finish mine which is unheard of when it comes to my stomach and tteokbokki.
This was the only open space in this particular area and only because it was near the exit.
THEN PENTAGON CAME OUT ON THE KCON STAGE!! Out of all the groups in this year’s lineup, they were the ones I was most excited to see. I think they’re so fun and talented and exude a positive energy and mystique that draws me in and makes me want to learn more about then, which means watching videos called “4 minutes of Pentagon speaking in English” or “Pentagon showing their aegyo” or “Pentagon 2x dance compilation.”
Oh Kpop, you make it so hard to just be a part-time stan.
Papa H took this picture with the “good camera” which I didn’t know he was doing until I turned around and he had the look of “Gotta get these pics for my daughter” concentration on his face. Oh, Henry.
Heize came out after that and it was really interesting learning more about her because she low-key is an extremely talented singer-songwriter and she does a lot of self-producing as well. I know people tend to view Kpop as a super pre-manufactured industry and I can’t even get defensive about that because it really isn’t wrong, but there are some people who are true artists in every sense and take the reigns when it comes to the creative process. Pentagon is this way as well and it just makes me have mad respect. They even said that they want to be known as a group who writes their own songs, so now you guys know!
Another Big High was when we witnessed this kid dancing to Hyolyn’s Dally. I was like, “OMG THIS SONG RLY?” because the choreo is insanely provocative, complete with floor-humping, but yeah, he did that.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention this other Big High: while I was standing in the super long merch line (the girls behind me complimented me on my idol keychains and said they got excited when they saw that one is Jimin and I didn’t even mind that they were touching them that’s how happy I was to feel like I belonged somewhere), the kpop dance cover contest started up on the KCON stage. I was happy that I was at least able to see that from the slow-moving line I was in because it was entertaining.
And then, while one of the dance groups was dancing to BTS’s “Fake Love,” the song stopped playing and there was a split second of WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN but then some people in the audience STARTED SINGING so that the dancers could finish their routine and I’d have to remove the “Honestly” from my blog name if I sat here and told you that I didn’t cry. It was so touching and inspirational! This video is really worth watching.
I was reading the comments and it’s all, “They didn’t even know the words though” and let me tell you something, I know very little of the Korean parts to even my FAVORITE, most-played Kpop songs. I’m not a big singer to begin with (I always do the monotone humming with random screamed words) and even if someone was like, “THINK FAST, FINISH THIS LYRIC TO A SUPER POPULAR SONG BY YOUR FAVORITE BAND THE CURE!” I would be like, “……………………………um……………………………” So it bothers me that there were so many negative comments attempting to overshadow what was a really beautiful moment shared by the Kpop community.
Then we saw my SUPER FAVORITE KOREAN YOUTUBER JOAN KIM at the Innisfree tent and we wanted a picture but got there too late and the Korean guys behind us were like super sad that they missed an opportunity but I was just as happy to snap a paparazzi shot from where I was standing and be done with it. Seriously though, watching Joan’s videos ended up sculpted a good bit of our Korea itinerary much to Henry’s chagrin, haha. He was NOT stoked to see her, yet he was the one that pointed her out earlier. “LOOK WHO IT IS” he said, trying to act like he didn’t care, but he sure did notice, didn’t he!?
It was about 4pm by this point, so we decided to skip the last 2 hours of the convention, go back to the “hotel” to freshen up, and then got some dinner before Chooch and I headed back to the Prudential Center for the concert. STAY TUNED FOR THAT RECAP! IT WAS SO GOOD! AHHH!!!
Here’s a special treat for those who made it to the end! Henry is going to tell you what he did when he bluffed and said he was GOING BACK TO PITTSBURGH (I wish you could have heard me say that just now in the voice I use to mock him).
I can’t remember exactly how the whole situation started, I’m sure I did not exacerbate the situation at all.
All I remember is walking away pissed off and ready to leave, which I did right out the gate and didn’t look back once. Once out of the gate, I brought up the Lyft app to get a ride back to the hotel, where I could get the car and drive back to Pittsburgh, instead I decided to go get something to eat instead since I was hungry, pretty sure that is why Erin blew up for absolutely no reason, hunger does that to her. After eating I went back in to the convention and walked around not looking for anybody in particular, especially the ones I came with. After a while we happened to run in to each other, actually they were creeping on a You Tuber and didn’t see me. Then tried to play it off like they were not worried about being left in Newark alone. I wouldn’t do that to Chooch. Wouldn’t do it Erin either, I love her too much!! Maybe next time Ill actually leave and teach her a lesson.
LOL ok, none of this is true and I just asked him where he allegedly ate and he said he ate “in a store”, so what, a Slim Jim and Zagnut?
No commentsJul 3 2018
What is Love
Henry sat here and watched all nineteen minutes of this with me without complaining or looking at his phone even once and the question is: is it because he loves me, or Taemin?!?
“Nineteen minutes out of my life,” he just murmured but he obviously felt obligated to say that lest anyone realize he’s way deep in this Kpop lifestyle.
No commentsJul 2 2018
Stories of Snacks & Water
Boy, is this going to be an interesting blog post. It’s about SNACKS (three separate snack-related stories!) and WATER as the title suggests. Am I doing this blog-thing right or what?
- Birthday Snacks
We have one birthday celebration every month here in my department which is mostly just an excuse to get a sugar high while pretending to like each other. (J/K we’re all friends here.) I’m one of the birthday babies for this month so the new admin lady, Margie, emailed me and the two other people I’m forced to share the limelight with this month to see if we have any preferences for birthday treats. One of the other recipients on this email is GLENN because he had the audacity to be born in July too (he’s not cool enough to be a Leo like me, though), so I replied and said that I like cookies and brownies, and that Glenn doesn’t get an opinion. Margie thanked me profusely for teaching her something new (that Glenn doesn’t count). I’m sure he will eat the cookies and brownies and like it.
I’m always happy to help a new co-worker learn the ropes.
2. You Can’t Sit At Our Snack Table
One of the many great things about the head of our department is that she spoils us, and I mean totally pampers us, with a snack table. Now, I’m not talking about pretzel sticks and Saltines, OK. She makes us feel like royalty with a spread that may include fancy Cheez-Its (those Duo things that have two flavors in each bag!), Fig Bars (like the hipster, Whole Foods version of Fig Newtons and so insanely good), good granola bars, fruit cups, single-serving bags of Chips Ahoy and Teddy Grahams, etc. Legit snacks. Snacks that serve as status symbols in elementary school lunch boxes.
All of the snacks sit on a table by the door to our department, and facing that table is Debby, who has taken on the role of Snack Sentry because this table sits right outside of a conference room that anyone from the firm can use, so we often have “visitors” on our floor. (See also: the guys that come down from other departments to poop in our mens room.)
Remember when that guy came down here and thieved a bagel and I was like HE IS SO LUCKY THAT DEBBY WASN’T HERE TO SEE THAT? Well, last week, another guy came down and wasn’t so lucky.
Allegedly, he had come to our floor to see someone who was not in their office at the moment, so on his way back out, he hovered over the snack table and treated it like a buffet, taking AT LEAST TWO THINGS.
“Oh hello, who are you?” Debby asked sweetly, but I have been working here for 8 years and knew that she was currently weaving a web with that honey dripping from her mouth.
“Blank from Blippity-Boo,” the man answered. (LET’S NOT GET FIRED, ERIN.)
“Oh hello, Blank from Blippity-Boo. Just so you know, those snacks are just for our department,” Debby answered, calm and calculated.
Now Blank was approaching her. Where was this going to go!?
“I was just down here to see [someone],” Blank said.
“OK, but those snacks are still just for our department,” Debby reiterated.
By this point, our whole quadrant was pin-droppingly silent, hands pulled back from keyboards, waiting with bated breath. I was half-slid under my desk in case this guy pulled out a potato gun or something, who knows. He may have been down this snack-standoff road before.
And then, completely unpredictably, HE ASKED HER IF SHE WANTED HIM TO PAY FOR THE SNACKS.
This guy REALLY wanted those snacks.
“No, I just want you to put them back,” Debby said calmly, which is where we differ because I would have taken the money. Also, I would have definitely just let him take the snacks and then told on him later.
And so the guy returned the snacks to the table (sadly, I never did see what his choices were) and then mumbled, “Please tell [person] I was here to see her” and then we all waited until we heard the ding of the elevator before laughing our faces off at our desks and then Debby was worried she was going to get in trouble for being snack-stingy but someone’s gotta put the smack down on snack scavengers from other floors, amirite?
Also I think this is hilarious because I used to be such a little freaking candy pilferer at one of my old jobs but at least I waited until all the daylight people went home before raiding other spaces.
Snack Table Epilogue: This morning, one of the IT guys was on our floor helping Debby with her laptop and then he went over to get some vittles from that vixen of a snack table, and I braced myself because I like this IT guy a lot and didn’t want him to get yelled at, but Debby let it slide and told me later that she figured he’s been on our floor enough times that it was OK. I mean, he’s always down here fixing our computers so I would say if he wants a pack of peanut butter crackers, let the man eat, you know?
3. Snacks from the Sea
Before I left for KCON, I promised my work buddies that I would get some new K-snacks for the Pumpkin of International Horrors because we were going to stop at H-Mart on the way home. However, I forgot that H-Mart, of all Asian markets, is really lacking in the candy aisle. Most of the options were things that I have already brought in or things that were just too astronomically-priced (I have a price-cap on how much I’ll spend on that fucking pumpkin, OK).
One of the things I grabbed was what I thought was a bag of some sort of melon candy but then I got already back home to Pittsburgh and realized that I grabbed a bag that was in the wrong spot because what I actually bought was….
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN.
Look, I love kelp. I love how it tightly bear-hugs rolls of kimbap. Dried laver sheets are my go-to snack. But the common factor here is: dried and savory. This kelp jelly was sweet and it’s not even that the flavor was horribly offensive, because it was very subtle (just a hint of sea, like the tag-line boasts up there), but it was the fact that the vehicle in which it was delivered was JELLY. It just felt wrong.
I brought them to work anyway and only told Lauren the secret flavor. She emailed me later and said she decided to try one and was OK until she got halfway through and couldn’t stop imagining that she was chewing on the ocean floor and had to spit it out.
I left one on Glenn’s desk while he was at lunch and the next day he was like, “THAT GREEN CANDY WAS DISGUSTING” except that it was less capslock-y and more monotone because Glenn’s volume doesn’t really ever vary.
So then I gave one to Todd but told him that it was one of the good chewy peanut things I also bought, and he was like, “But why is it green though” and I was like, “Because Korea, just eat it!” He was not a fan.
Lloyd loves them though! He said it reminds him of the kelp candy he used to eat as a kid where it was literally just dried kelp, already naturally salted, and then candied. The texture was brittle and dry, and THAT sounds like a kelp candy I could get down with it.
Speaking of Hmart, we grabbed some Korean pastries from the Tous les Jours bakery by the exit (basically a Korean twist on French pastries, cakes, macaron, etc and I miss those effing milk buns so much and all of the things stuffed with red bean, ugh) and G-Dragon was playing!
4. The Jug
Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows the struggle, especially when you’re doing so well and then you just plateau seemingly out of nowhere. For me, this almost always happens in summer, which is crazy because winter is so often associated with rich, hearty comfort foods, but what it boils down to for me is that I just don’t drink enough water. I always thought this was a myth when I was younger, like how important could water possibly be (there are still openings in my online nutrition classes, just Paypal me 00).
But if I’m diligently logging the water I drink, I start to see results. However, I suck at that. For some reason, when we were coming home from Newark last week, I bought the biggest jug of water the gas station had in its cooler, in spite of Henry’s, “Really. REALLY?!”s and Chooch’s daring ribs of, “Lol, you’ll never drink all of that.”
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED MOTHERFUCKERS.
I did drink all of it, I’ll have you know. And then Saturday morning, I decided to try that again, because weekends are when I’m especially awful at drinking water, like I could go the whole day without drinking even a cup and would never notice until at the end of the night when I’m pissing for the first time and it’s dark orange.
So, Presidential Piss.
Yesterday, I was watching an episode of Why Not the Dancer when I started screaming because there was a scene where Taemin takes a break from working on his choreo and starts to chug-a-jug. “YOU GUYS IT’S JUST LIKE ME!” I cried and Henry was like, “That’s nice” and Chooch was seething because I had the audacity to lure him away from the computer just to show him that.
I MADE THIS:
Henry was like, “Oh wow, and it moves.”
Anyway, it’s in the 90s this week in Pittsburgh so I decided that I was going to take the jug to work with me because I need to stay hydrated. Henry was like, “Have fun with that, nerd” because I apparently look dumb lugging around this jug with me. As soon as I got to work, I was on the elevator with some girl from another floor. I could sense her side-eyeing me, judging me and my water jug that I had resting on my hip like a plastic gas station toddler, when she finally spoke.
“So, does that actually help you drink more water?” she asked, and at first I couldn’t tell if she was snarkin’ on my tactics, but it turns out she was genuinely curious and said, “Maybe I’ll try that, I really need to do SOMETHING” after we had a really nice convo about the Hydration Struggle. It was awesome! I texted Henry and he was like, “OMG.”
Here I am with my spirit animal Taemin in the background. #BigJugClub
Wendy saw the H2O vessel on my desk and yelled, “ARE YOU DRINKING OUT OF THAT?! I hate you.” And Sue seemed genuinely concerned that I might drown, to which I told her that becomes a real danger when I’m in the car and Henry is driving all jerkily.
Marlene and Debby caught me on my way back from my refill and Marlene was like, “THIRSTY MUCH” but then they were all GOOD FOR YOU without a shred of sarcasm when I explained what was going on and that was nice.
I was talking to Nate before I left for the day and he too commented on the size of my jug, which was back on my hip like I had just retrieved it from daycare. “How did you get anything done today!?” and the idea of wearing a diaper honestly did cross my mind at one point.
“I guess I didn’t think anyone would really notice,” I said to Henry after work.
“Really? You’re drinking out of something that’s bigger than your head.”
I could tell that he literally meant my head, too, and not my ego.
No commentsJun 30 2018
NYC in Photos
If you read that trainwreck of a liveblog from last week, you know that we had some free time last Friday and actually got our shit together in enough time to take the train from Newark to Penn Station. We’re getting a little better at these things. I mean, we’re still bumbling tourists, but we got on a train heading in the right direction, so that was cool, and we all ended up sitting separately which served as a perfectly-timed reprieve after spending all day in the car together. BYYYYEEEE BITCHES.
For an entire 30 minutes, anyway. Sigh.
Chooch of course made friends with the people he sat with. I did NOT make friends with the guy next to me. I’m not sure where Henry was sitting and never bothered asking him how his ride was because, Henry.
Aside from going to Central Park so Chooch could catch idiotic Pokemon and then running into Super Junior (!!!!), we mostly just walked around and looked at things, flipped off Trump Tower, sang the NO YOU AREN’T GETTING ANY DESIGNER CLOTHING song to Chooch while walking down Fifth Avenue, and had a highly anticipated food-related hunger blow-out. So basically, it was the Oh Honestlys in [insert literally any city, ever].
Because we’re in the middle of a heat wave and I have spent way too much outside, my brain is goo so I’m just going to post a shit ton of photos I took with my phone and call it a day*, because I already reported all the exciting things. The rest was just us literally walking and walking and walking like we do in cities. Let’s just say that even after spending 7 hours in the car that day, I still managed to get 23,000 steps.
*(I just finished writing this whole thing and came back up here to say, “lol, nice try Erin, this piece of shit post is still over 1,100 words.”)
Here’s Chooch, as close as he’s gonna get to Hamilton. (He’s obsessed with Hamilton, I mean, who isn’t, I guess). This was right before we saw Super Junior! The same sidewalk!!!
Chooch in Times Square. I thought he would be overwhelmed, but he was like, “Well, we were in Seoul, so….” #SeoulFTW #SorryNYC
I just kept taking pictures. That’s what you’re supposed to do there, right?
I always hear that Times Square often plays kpop stuff on the screens there but I didn’t notice anything on this particular day.
Those Minnie Mouses back there next to the texting Statue of Liberty were actually old ladies. Henry was obsessed with them.
Every time Chooch saw an adult shop, lingerie store, or anything relating to women, he would scream, “OH, HE LOOKED!” and Henry was just like, “FUNNY HOW YOU’RE THE ONE WHO ALWAYS SEES THESE THINGS FIRST, THOUGH” and it is pretty funny, actually. What a fun game! Anyway, Chooch nearly fell into a garbage can in his urgent attempt to catch Henry looking at the giant Aerie ads up there.
We had fun telling Chooch he couldn’t go in the Lego store, lol. That place is like the equivalent of a hardware store to me.
Obligatory pictures.
OMG we were dying over Henry squatting to tie his shoe because it brought back memories of him squatting down in front of my pink backpack in Busan Station, so we were in tears and Henry was like, “IT’S NOT FUNNY*” as he pushed past us. Chooch and I have so much fun together at Henry’s expense.
*(Honestly, it’s definitely not that funny to anyone else but Chooch and me, like the time Janna hit her head getting off the train at Kennywood and I had to run to the bathroom while I was trying to tell Barb about it the next day at work because I thought I was going to pee my pants. I guess I was just born with extra funny bones. #birthdefect)
This was taken while some guy was yelling, “THERE’S A FUCKIN’ FENCE THERE!!” when his wife suggested walking a certain way and just in case you think I’m being all subtle here because it was actually me and Henry, let me remind you that I AM NOT HIS WIFE NOR WILL I EVER BE because I’m holding out for a hero Korean.
Another great “Overheard in NYC” convo was when we were waiting to cross the street and some broad was scream-talking into her cell phone about some guy who’s engaged to a girl “AND EVERYONE KNOWS HE’S GAY” and I wanted to hear more about this but the light changed.
KOREATOWN!! Of course we had to go to Koreatown. Unfortunately, it was reaching prime time on a Friday night and every restaurant had a long wait.
<3 G-Dragon <3
You would never see anything like this in stupid backward Pittsburgh.
Anyway, around this time, Chooch and I were reaching the Hunger Apex and it was Big Trouble In Little Korea for real, trying to find a place on a Friday night that was family friendly, and then Henry was like, “HERE LET’S EAT AT THIS PIZZA PLACE THAT’S SMALLER THAN OUR KITCHEN AND POTENTIALLY HAS ROACHES” and I was like, “You can go fuck yourself, Hank” and then it was all, “THEN LET’S JUST GO BACK TO NEWARK, THIS IS FUCKED!!!” and Chooch was like, “YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M SO HUNGRY THAT I ATE MY HUNGER AND NOW I’M NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE, THANKS FOR BEING SHITTY PARENTS” but then right before Henry had a chance to make good on his bluff of going back into Penn Station, I looked on Yelp and found some pizza place around the corner called NY Pizza Suprema and was like, “IT’S HERE OR A VENDING MACHINE, MOTHERFUCKERS” and since I picked it, it ended up being some award-winning joint that Anthony Bourdain (rip) has visited.
But we had no idea about that until after we sat down with our pizza.
It thankfully wasn’t too crowded, though it definitely wasn’t quiet, so we were able to quickly order and appease the hunger demons.
The one on the left is vegan (lol, I eat cheese, but I wanted to see if it was any good and it actually was super fucking good) and the one on the right was Hot Honey, which was fucking fantastic and oh, how I wish I had an entire pie in front of me right now. It literally had some local hot honey drizzled on top of hearty clumps of ricotta and the best specks of mushrooms I’ve ever had on a pizza. It was just what I didn’t know I needed.
There’s a picture of Anthony Bourdain hanging up there. :(
Chooch and Henry both got sicilian slices and I’m happy to report that everyone was extremely satisfied and we were magically transformed back into a happy family. Thank you, NY Pizza Suprema.
Henry, earlier that day: “We can go if we get to Newark early enough because I don’t want to be in NYC at night.” Lol ok.
And then we got back on the train to Broad Station. We all got to sit together this time, which was fine I guess since we were on speaking terms again. It was fun watching all of the weirdos trying to interact with people.
Then we went back to our “hotel,” which was even BETTER AT NIGHT, you can probably imagine. What a great town Newark is.
No commentsJun 28 2018
Chooch Catch-Up: Central Park Edition
Let’s catch up with Chooch! I asked him some questions and then made him do all the typing because I typed all day at work and I AM DONE TYPING FOR THE DAY.
Latest Injury: Well, my latest injury happened on the 26th of June. A little backstory, I was with my friends, lets call them Kyle and Joe, when we decided to ride our bikes and scooters up to the boulevard. After riding up there, we hung out at the Cannon. I noticed my other friend, Bob with his two other brothers, wearing their helmets and dressed all nice, riding their bikes past the cannon. I called for them and they said they were heading for the park to go for a hike. We all tagged along, we started from a group of 3, then doubling to 6. Upon getting to the trail entrance, we split ourselves up into two troops. I was in Troop 1, with Kyle and Bob. We set our rides on the outside of the trail then continued forward. After hiking for a while, we made it to a clearing filled with weeds and tall grasses. We followed a path up a steep hill and we, Troop 1 was far ahead. So, we decided to hide from the opposing troop. I hid behind a tree, as the others did, but I felt like I wasn’t hidden as well. I jumped down deeper into the woods, then felt a pain in my foot. I fell to the ground and called out in pain. Everyone doubted at first, but they soon came to understand that I wasn’t lying. Troop 2 caught up and noticed me holding in the tears. I showed them all the bottom of my shoe, and they all saw it, too. The bottom of a glass shard pierced through. After unlacing my shoe we all saw the glass poking out. I took my sock off, and the oldest kid there said to tie it around the wound to put pressure. As they tried to get the glass out of my shoe, one of my friends called their dad to see if they could come get us, but we were in the middle of the woods, not really knowing where to go. His dad refused, so we just put my shoe back on, then tried to find our way out. I was in a Summer Program before, and we took this trail to get to the local park. We took it often and I kind of remember some of the areas we walked through. We made our way out to the park, and luckily the park had a Rec Center. So I made my way there, stumbling on every 10 steps. I opened the door and told the lady working there. She gave me a band-aid and had me apply some antibiotics on the cut. I threw away my sock and put my shoe back on. I grabbed my scooter from Kyle, then noticed that my other friend, Joe ditched us and went home. Kyle and I started to head home, too. We said goodbye to Bob and his brothers, then rode off into the busy Boulevard streets.
Current Favorite Song: My current favorite song is Empty by Boyinaband & Jaiden.
Current Favorite KPOP Song: My current favorite Kpop song is Energetic by Wanna One.
Favorite Memory From KCON Weekend: My favorite memory from Kcon Weekend is when I peed all over the Hotel Hallway floor! XD
What If Henry Was Into Fishing, Would You Go With Him, Ew Gross: Ha Ha! No! Maybe. Depends on if I like him at that time, and if we put the fish back.
Most-Missed Part of 6th Grade: Nothing. Maybe, my Math teacher I won’t have next year.
Least-Missed Part of 6th Grade: Ms. ~OH I’M SORRY! DR. Smith.
Favorite Thing You Ate In Korea: Tteokbokki! I loved the spiciness that was in there. It was just so tasty in my mouth! Especially the twig-um and the Tteok Kkochi (Tteokbokki on a skewer)!
If You Could Be Any Character On How I Met Your Mother, Who Would It Be and Why? I would be Barney because I love his sense of humor and personality. He is just my favorite character in general. I also liked how he would just stop listening in the middle of a conversation! Just like me!
Closing Thoughts, Advice To The Readers, Freeform: Audience, have a nice day, or night, and do something cool! Like walk around your block and pet some dogs! Adios!
No commentsJun 27 2018
Super Random Super Junior
Picture it: New York City, 2018. It was a whirlwind day of driving to Newark from Pittsburgh, which should have only taken about 6 hours but when does it ever work out that way, you know?
We had tossed around the idea of possibly taking the train into NYC from Newark if we got in early enough because honestly what the hell is there to possibly do in Newark on a Friday night that’s family friendly? I mean I’m sure there is something but I didn’t care enough to look because I wanted to take a train somewhere lol.
#kidgoals
The LiveBlog from Friday already told you that we did indeed make it into Newark early enough for a quick foray into NYC to be worthwhile. It only cost about $20 for round trip tickets for the three of us so that was a delightful surprise.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I will have a post just for that portion of the evening but today I am here to talk about the happiest of all accidents.
We were just casually strolling down a street toward Times Square, Chooch rambling on about how we’re so mean for not trying to get him a ticket to Hamilton, me trying to avoid falling into potholes or puddles of puke (I almost always walk with my head down because I’m so clumsy), when Henry clamped his meat-hand down on my shoulder and said, “LOOK.”
I was annoyed for a second and bristled visibly at being man-handled, but then my tune changed drastically as my eyes finally focused on what Henry saw.
FREAKING KPOP ICONS SUPER JUNIOR.
Real quick, a condensed history to give you some perspective on how cool this was: Super Junior is one of the biggest Kpop groups in the world. They’re one of the SM Entertainment godfathers, debuting back in 2005 and they’ve been heavily credited for helping spread the Hallyu Wave. From wiki:
Super Junior have earned thirteen music awards from the Mnet Asian Music Awards, sixteen from the Golden Disc Awards, and are the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards after jtL in 2003.[4] In 2012, they were nominated for “Best Asian Act” in MTV Europe Music Awards.[5] In 2015, they won the “International Artist” and “Best Fandom” in the Teen Choice Awards.[6]
They currently have seven members in their lineup, but one of them (Heechul, my favorite) doesn’t perform with them anymore due to health issues, but he does appear on a ton of variety shows and he’s awesome. I think two members are currently in the military, 2 are inactive, and two other original members have permanently left the group. It’s really hard to keep up if you’re not a super fan (or an ELF, which is what their fandom is called. Duh.).
So yeah, back to this surreptitious run-in with SUJU!
The first one I saw was Siwon, looking totally unapproachable and regal in his black suit. I started trembling immediately and just kept murmuring, “Oh my god, holy shit” over and over, because OMG HOLY SHIT SUPER JUNIOR IS STANDING ON THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF ME AND THERE IS NO BARRICADE SEPARATING US.
Honestly, this is what I wanted to happen when we were strolling about Toronto last summer before the G-Dragon concert but I think I thought about it too hard and it broke the Fate Fairy’s wand.
In the striped shirt over there is Eunhyuk WHO JUST FILMED A DANCING REALITY SHOW WITH ..:::TAEMIN:::.. IN LA, UGHHHHH. And the guy in the suit with his back toward to the camera is the most handsomest one, Donghae. I didn’t even notice him until moments later when he took off his jacket and speed-walked past me, taking my BREATH WITH HIM.
Also, I guess I don’t feel too creepy salivating over these guys because they’re all in their 30s like me and not questionably underage like some of the boy groups out there, lol.
The girl in the yellow pants is Leslie Grace, who sings on Lo Siento with them. I never heard of her, but she is apparently an American tropical singer. She made a special appearance the next night at KCON to perform Lo Siento with them and it was really exciting! I figured they would probably just have one of the girls from Red Velvet fill her spot.
Ugh this dumb broad had the worst photobombing timing ever — this was the best photo I could get of Donghae and he is seriously the best handsome one, in my opinion. I already thought so (ask Henry, he’ll roll his eyes) but good Lord seeing him that close, as he walked past me, it made my knees buckle. What a perfectly gorgeous man, it’s almost unfair.
I replayed this moment over and over again in my head.
Here’s a picture of his whole face so you can see his flawless visage:
Since this was America, the throng of fans was pretty scant, with us being the only non-Asians. But we all kept a respectful distance. One young Asian girl had this huge-ass paparazzi camera though so that was pretty funny.
Look at all the people walking by, oblivious to their proximity to Korean greatness!
Here is the portion of the event where my hands were shaking so bad that I slid my camera options to square format. The guy over there in the yellow on the left, you see the sliver of him holding the birthday gift bag? That’s the leader of SUJU, LeeTeuk. I unfortunately didn’t notice him at the time, so this is the best picture I could get.
I also missed Yesung, which sucks because he is so fucking adorable.
HOWEVER!!!
I did manage to work up the courage to ask Shindong, who was standing alone at the moment, for a picture and he was so nice to us! I wasn’t sure if this was breaking any rules or what, because I didn’t notice any of the other gawkers and oglers asking for pictures, but I saw the opportunity and had to pounce on the now-or-never moment. If he was talking to someone, I wouldn’t have asked. But he was just chilling there, so I took a deep breath and just went for it and he was so nice! “Picture? Sure!” he said and I was like, “Is this is a dream.
”
I pushed Chooch over there because he is my proxy when it comes to posing with celebs, monuments, landmarks, statues, Welcome to [State] signs….But look at Chooch’s face! Even he knows how unexpectedly magical this moment was! Shindong was so nice and I stupidly said thank you to him in English instead of Korean because my brain was causing my motor functions to run backward at that time and honestly, I’m lucky I was even able to say it in English and not some make-believe Alien jibberish. Also, I didn’t drop my phone either, which is a miracle because my hands were shaking so badly. I couldn’t get my nervous system to shut the fuck up for a good solid three hours after this happened, and I just kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe we saw Super Junior. I can’t believe Shindong put his hand on Chooch’s shoulder.” And then it was “SHINDONG PUT HIS HAND ON CHOOCH’S SHOULDER. SHINDOG IS FRIENDS WITH TAEMIN. SHINDONG HAS PROBABLY DEFINITELY TOUCHED TAEMIN 100S OF TIMES. CHOOCH LET ME RUB MY FACE ON YOUR SHOULDER” and you can guess how well that went over.
Also, before I close this chapter, can we just talk about how adorable it is that Henry is the one who recognized them first? Henry unabashedly loves Super Junior though and I think he was honestly a little sad that he wasn’t going to the concert the next night.
Here is their recent music video for Lo Siento with Leslie Grace, in case anyone cares.
Jun 26 2018
If a star vanishes, will everything be forgotten?
OK, I know it kind of seem like TRL up in here more often than not, but I really like sharing music with anyone who might happen to stumble across, and I really really really want to share this new one from SHINee that was released yesterday (and yes, I made Henry and Chooch listen to it a thousand times in the car on the way home from Newark; good thing they like SHINee). So the deal with SHINee, if you haven’t been keeping up or noticed any of the 4684154 times I mentioned it on here like a lovelorn broken record, is that one of their members, Jonghyun, passed away last December. As a SHINee and Kpop fan in general, it was really hard to accept and it took me a good long while to mourn. Me and millions of other people. (Every day, I wear a ring with a sound wave of his voice engraved on it.)
After some time passed, there was of course the big question of “What will happen to SHINee?” They held their heads up and kept their commitments by following through with their scheduled concerts in Japan two months later, but even then it was unclear if they were going to continue on as a four-piece. They all have such pivotal roles in the group, and imagining them as four instead of five was heart-breaking.
In the end, they did decide to stay together. Their comeback was split into three separate EPs, each released about two weeks from each other, with two videos for each one and numerous music countdown and variety show appearances. It has been SO GOOD to see them smile, and watch them perform their new songs, even though Jonghyun is sorely missed. There are all kinds of fan theories regarding their video for Good Evening, and all the Jonghyun symbolism it may or may not contain. I like to believe the theories are true and that SHINee found ways to subtly include Jonghyun in their new chapter.
This latest EP which was released yesterday and for god’s sake, their first single is a song they wrote for Jonghyun and I can’t tell you how the huge the lump is in my throat every time I watch this video. It’s sad, but also joyous and hopeful, because they’re telling him that they miss him but they’re going to stay together and continue on as five, because they know that he will always be with them. OW OW OW. It’s like that saying about how the dead don’t want us to stop living, and it’s true. Life has to go on, as much as we miss those who are gone, and I am so glad that they were given the opportunity to sing this song for him. And yes, this song was written by them, not some Hit Factory conveyor belt.
As if this wasn’t heart-stabbingly beautiful enough on its own, the album ends with a special track featuring Jonghyun’s vocals, and even though the song is very upbeat, it was still SO HARD to listen to it. But of course I did, approximately 87 times.
So, even if you have never clicked on a single one of the videos I post on here, please let this be the first and last one. Because it’s super special and they worked hard.
SHINee forever. <3
Here are the translated lyrics:
Can you feel it? We’re connected
By our hearts that are transparent like invisible string
When I stand again on the road we walked on together
There are five overlapping hands, tears and memories
It’s so clear, I don’t want to forget, I can’t forget
The pretty words you left behind become a poem, become a song
Our voices are flying, we know it’ll reach you wherever you are
If a star vanishes, will everything be forgotten?
I’m holding the precious you in my arms
I want to fill the pages of this story that isn’t over yet
Until the very end
I’ll say that I miss you
But it won’t fill up my empty heart tonight
We’re facing each other, we’re still the same
We’re still the boys who are dreaming
The pretty words you left behind become a poem, become a song
Our voices are flying, we know it’ll reach you wherever you are
If a star vanishes, will everything be forgotten?
I’m holding the precious you in my arms
I want to fill the pages of this story that isn’t over yet
Until the very end
May 25, 2008*
Boys shining brightly
Like green waves of spring
That time will spread and flow forever
The pretty words you left behind become a poem, become a song
Our voices are flying, we know it’ll reach you wherever you are
If a star vanishes, will everything be forgotten?
I’m holding the precious you in my arms
I want to fill the pages of this story that isn’t over yet
Until the very end
*SHINee’s debut date
No commentsJun 25 2018
A Live Account From the Road: Newark to Pittsburgh
Because I need something to do and talking to Henry doesn’t count.
8:21am: We just left that sleazeshack of a “hotel” that Henry put us in all weekend and I am so glad to never go back. It was definitely a pay-by-the-hour dump and I had to sleep with headphones on every night because the people above us sounded like what I would probably sound like to downstairs neighbors while doing Kpop cardio. Thankfully Chooch and I had already fallen asleep when this happened but Henry said those people were up there having sex for like an hour and a half and now he has fuel for his fantasies because, as he said this morning, “I don’t know WHAT they were doing!” Ugh Newark sucks so bad. We have to come back here in September for BTS and my plan is to leave after the concert and start driving home and get a hotel somewhere even farther out of the city.
When we left our room, I slammed the door super hard and Chooch was cracking up but Henry was like “THOSE PEOPLE WERE UPSTAIRS NOT ON THIS FLOOR!” And I was like “EVERYONE HERE IS A MOTHERFUCKER THO!” Literally starting at 6am it was just a fucking cacophony of room doors slamming, so fuck you, Red Carpet residents. Also, the “breakfast room” LOLOLOLOL was below us and we could hear every single chair scraping against the floor as it was pulled from the tables.
Henry made it through the lobby before us and tossed the room key through the slot of the BULLETPROOF GLASS surrounding the desk, YES IT WAS THAT KIND OF LODGING, so he missed the grand finale of me yelling THIS IS THE WORST “HOTEL” EVER to the lady at the desk, at which point Chooch lost it and started laughing so hard that he dropped his suitcase and then couldn’t get it upright in order to wheel it out the door, and then dropped it again, so I had to wait for him and my SMOOTH EXIT was totally ruined.
The new SHINee ep was released today though so I’m content in the car, listening to that thing of beauty.
10:17am: We stopped at H-Mart and Henry was in grocery-mode which I hate because he turns into MEAN DAD who says NO!!! every time Chooch and I come back to the cart with amazing finds. But I did get a pair of TAEMIN SOCKS and my favorite Korean pastry things from Tous les Jours which I always want to call Tour duJour because I can never remember it.
Prior to this we went to Dunkin’ Donuts and got stuck talking to an old townie with no teeth I MEAN HE WAS A NICE GUY but I don’t want to discuss how much the local teachers get paid, you know? (Apparently 100,000 after 5 years and the nurse gets $90,000 “for WHAT? To take temperatures? Put on band-aids? Send kids home? Pffft!”)
11:19am: Still mad about this hotel bullshit. You know what now I don’t care that Chooch pissed himself from laughing so hard in front of the vending machine on the first floor (and I mean HE PISSED HIMSELF) or that he spilled his Gatorade all over his bed. It’s probably the least-worst stains that place has seen.
11:55am: I’m just gonna put this out here even though it will get me in trouble with a lot of people (j/k only three people will read this) but Sheetz is better than Wawa.
12:40pm: Henry is trying to make conversation by asking me how many songs NCT127 sang last night and I was like WHY DO YOU CARE but I answered him anyway and then said, “Plus ‘Whiplash’ for the special stage….you don’t know what special stages are though” BECAUSE HE DOESNT GO TO THE CONCERT PORTION.
Ugh that fuckin’ Peachy Boi lol.
1:12pm: At the Midway Diner in….Midway, PA? I dunno. But they have a veggie burger so that’s cool and Chooch is pissed because he doesn’t have any PokeBalls and SO MANY THINGS ARE SPAWNING. Now I know how it feels to be everyone else when I’m talking about aegyo and unnies and All Kills.
2:03pm: Lunch was mediocre at Trainor’s Midway Diner but at least it wasn’t walk-out levels of awful like TOM’S KITCHEN (see last LiveBlog!). However, I do have some feelings:
Trump might judge a restaurant by how it looks on the outside (according to his latest crybaby tweet) but I judge based on the ketchup they use. #HeinzOrGTFO amirite?
They had a veggie burger so that was wonderful! But the cole slaw had no flavor. They had shoo fly pie! But it was terrible, and not even served warm with whipped cream!!
They had a…diverse reading library. My favorite is Fishwrapper Stories. So hard to find.
BUT THIS BANQUET HALL. I WANT TO HAVE A BANQUET THERE!!
Claw machine selfie.
2:29pm: Somewhere near Hershey and at this point it feels like we’re traveling backward. I’m making them listen to Hope FM which is rife with powerful contemporary worship jams and Henry just yelled WHY ISNT SPOTIFY ON and then I was mocking him saying that we won’t be able to see Hershey Park from the road, he doesn’t care WHAT the sign says, and now Chooch is laughing himself to pants-pissing status again.
2:53pm: Just drove past this sign followed by three strip clubs in succession.
3:26pm: In Rutter’s gas station and it took Henry FOREVER in the bathroom so Chooch had a fashion show:
When henry finally came out Chooch was like FINALLY, WE HEARD YOU FLUSH LIKE A MILLION TIMES and Henry said it kept doing it automatically and I was like “It knew it had to work hard” and then Chooch was laughing so hard that he felt inspired to try to jump on my back in the middle of the store. Henry was so mad and said WHY DO I BRING YOU WITH ME.
Then he sulked because we left him at the register and when the lady asked him if he wanted a bag he allegedly said, “I guess so, everyone left me.” LOLOLOL.
Now he’s mad because I got the gigantic jug of water that Chooch is holding in the picture above and I had to ask him to open it for me because I have no strength in my hands from laughing so much. DOES THAT HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO?
5:03pm: We’re having a family meeting about how henry isn’t a part of the Chooch & Erin Club because he fails to see how funny, fun, cute, hilarious and interesting we are and chooses instead to reject us and Chooch piped up from the backseat, “Yeah, we’re really funny” and Henry has disagreed profusely and I said “Well, this is why we don’t get along then” and he countered with “90% of what you do goes against me!!” LOL YEAH IT REALLY DOES THOUGH HAHAHA.
6:16pm: Water jug progress:
Also, we’re not home yet.
7:19pm: In Pittsburgh! We should be home in like 10 minutes. Man, I am not usually happy to be in Pittsburgh but Newark is one of the few cities that make me seriously appreciate this joint. Sorry Newark but you kind of suck, a lot.
No commentsJun 24 2018
Sunday Family Portraits
Chooch and I decided to be the founding members of the Anti-Henry Club but then Henry made us feel bad (ie threatened to starve us) so we let him in, Ugh.
Anyway, KCON night 2 is about to start so ciao for now!!
No commentsJun 22 2018
Live Blogging to KCON 2018
7:08am: You’re live-blogging. Great. – Henry under his breath. Well we just left the house but first we have to stop and get new tires put on the car because Henry didn’t think to do this any other time this week ok cool. And he only brought a bottle of water for himself and I flipped out so he said I could just have his and I was like YOU ALREADY DRANK FROM IT SO HOW WILL I KNOW HOW MUCH TO CALCULATE?? because I track my water intake on Fitbit and now we’re fighting about me not being to eyeball that there are approx. 4 ounces gone now from the bottle. Fuck off Henry.
7:11am: “I’m hungry” – Chooch. “I’m thirsty” – me. “The kids have already started” – Henry.
7:30am: UGH TIRE CHANGE STUFF.
“Want me to make you coffee?” Henry just asked and I’m ready to eviscerate him.
7:44am: LEAVING NOW THAT TOOK FOREVER. “It did not!” henry barked. “If we had went to Pep Boys we’d still be there and they’d be trying to sell me everything!”
8:26am: Stopped at Sheetz for a fast breakfast and fucking coffee, man. Here is my traditional gas station bathroom selfie. If I look miserable ITS BC I AM. J/k I’m just old & tired.
Some instrumental version of Gary Numan’s “Cars” was playing in Sheetz and it disagreed with me because I need to hear Gary’s voice, Sheetz. Gary’s voice or GTFO.
8:49am: Speaking of voices, friendly PSA that G-Dragon’s voice in “Cafe” is still one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard in my life, carry on.
8:51am: Speaking of voices Part 2, yesterday I told Henry that Taemin’s voice reminds me of an opulent, ridiculously expensive rich old lady’s shawl from the 1920s. It’s definitely mauve with various elements of silk, crushed velvet and lace. Delicate, but will keep you warm while making you feel pretty.
9:35am: We’re in Evansburg PA whatever that means. Henry said something about stopping to get Dave Mallo Cups on the way back and I swear he said we were stopping at the Gay Palace and I got sooooo excited without even knowing what it was. Also, here is Chooch in the span of 30 seconds:
9:49am: Henry gets so mad when I imitate him because I make him sound like someone from The Hills Have Eyes, drunk off moonshine, whose parents are siblings. “I DONT TALK LIKE THAT! STOP MAKING ME SOUND LIKE THAT! IM GOING TO START TALKING LIKE THAT IN PUBLIC JUST TO EMBARRASS YOU!”
10:04am: Chris just texted me because she’s talking about Kpop with one of the students on the tour in DC she’s guiding (BECAUSE SHE IS A TOUR GUIDE IN CASE YOU DIDNT KNOW) and now that girl and I are Instagram friends thanks to Chris! I need all the Kpop friends I can get!
10:12am: OK I just put on “Love” by Taemin to try and get Henry to understand my elegant, vintage shawl analogy and he still doesn’t get it so I will leave this here and you can tell me if his voice makes you feel like you’re being gently hugged by luxurious French fabric from the 1920s.
No, watch this one instead! This song makes me weep.
10:55am: Just left the second Sheetz of the trip. I drank half a gallon of water and it took me a while to pee. Here is selfie #2 where I look happier because I’m more awake and caffeinated and over the anger caused by the early-morning tire-change.
12:47pm: ANGER HAS RETURNED. Well you see first henry made me use a restroom in a gas station where three of the four stalls were jam-packed with poop and now he has us at a shitty elderly people restaurant that has no meatless options on the menu, not even a grilled cheese, but he won’t leave. Wow.
Fuck this hick place we left and now Henry is so angry because he can’t eat all of the bloody meat. Sorry, I’m not wasting my time and money at a shitty place in a shitty town. Why is it so hard for him to understand that?! “I hate doing this,” he mumbled when we walked out and I’m like, “Why? I have no fucking problems with it. Grow a pair, Henry.” God he’s so spineless sometimes.
For the record, he told me to find somewhere to eat and I found a place that was literally a minute away from the shitty gas station and he drove past once and couldn’t find it and was like OH WELL IT DOESNT EXIST LETS GET BACK ON THE HIGHWAY SO THAT I CAN FIND MORW WAYS TO RUIN YOUR LIFE.
The restaurant was called ARROWHEAD and it has a LIFESIZE NATIVE AMERICAN DOLL BEHIND GLASS and that sounds amazing but I guess it would gone over Henry’s “fun quota” for the day so here we are, hungry and not speaking to each other.
1:43pm: Henry just fed us lunch from a rest stop vending machine. Mmm, Sour Cream & Chives Baked Lays. Really hit the spot. NO, IT DIDN’T. Also I think it’s hilarious that we’re driving through the Poconos, a destination for LOVERS, when Henry and I hate each other lol.
1:56pm: OK now we’re in the drive-thru at Burger King in some town because at least they have veggie burgers and now we’re just in a hurry to get to where we’re going but when the lady asked Henry if he wanted anything else, he said “Yes two cheeseburgers” and I was like “WHOA WHOA WHOA WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU CAN EAT TOO?!”
3:14pm: Somewhere near Newark. Henry and I are sort of talking now. But once we get to the hotel, all bets are off because I’m certain he booked some bed bug box because that’s what he’s known for.
3:20pm OMG you guys it’s not even a Red Roof Inn but a Red CARPET Inn. RED WITH BLOOD STAINS. This place is a dump!! “IT’S ALL I COULD FIND!!!” Henry yelled. Apparently there’s a lot going on in Newark this weekend. !???!
OK fine the actual room is not bad at all. It’s actually kind of big and more importantly – clean.
Chooch and I are watching Henry fetch our bags while singing jingles in a Bullwinkle voice.
LOLOLOL he just yelled YOURE MESSING WITH THE WRONG PERSON.
3:53pm: OMG our Lyft driver has very broken English and is telling us jokes and making us do puzzles on a calculator.
4:09pm: Attempting to go to NYC for a little bit since Newark is a shit town with nothing to do. Henry is asking tourist-y questions so I won’t stand near him.
5:02pm: In Penn Station. We all sat separately on the train and it was heavenly. Chooch made friends with th ppl he sat with of course. Also, Seoul Station is a billion times better.
6:43pm: Sitting in Central Park after Chooch dragged us all around catching Pokémon, so lame. You know what’s not lame though? ACCIDENTALLY RUNNING INTO SUPER JUNIOR NEAR TIMES SQUARE AND CHOOCH GETTING HIS PICTURE TAKEN WITH SHINDONG AND MY HANDS MIGHT STILL BE SHAKING BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE HE’S BEEN TO TAEMIN???!!!!
9:06pm: We had Korea flashbacks as Henry dragged us all around Manhattan for the last two and a half hours, looking for food. Finally, we settled on NY Pizza Suprema and are happily sitting down.
9:55pm: We’re on the train going back to Newark and it smells like a continuous wet fart on here. There people in front of us are talking about going to KCON tomorrow so now Chooch wants to loudly mention it in an effort to make friends but I’m too tired for socializing so I was like plz no.
10:23pm: In a car with Jorge our Lyft driver, whose name henry pronounce as GEORGE.
he’s ok but then he mumbled something about the weather and Chooch snorted.
ETA: this ended abruptly but Jorge got us back to the hotel safely and we all pretty much immediately went to sleep although I had to use Chooch’s headphones because whoever is in the room upstairs used the floor as a trampoline all night and I hope they check out today because I hate them. This morning they were moving furniture, I guess. ANYWAY TODAY IS DAY ONE OF KCON! bye!!
No commentsJun 21 2018
work stories
I have two lacerations (some might call them “just cuts”) on my right hand from a soju cap so that pretty much sums up my weekend. Anyway, that’s NEITHER HERE NOR THERE because today’s lowly anticipated blog post is about the latest exciting law firm happenings. I mean, the ones that I can share without getting fired, anyway.
THE LIGHTNING BUG
Debby found a lightning bug on her desk and I was like, “aw yay a lightning bug” and then she was like, “Should I take my shoe off and kill it?” and I cried, “NOOOOO!” but then thankfully Nate came out of his office, scooped the poor bug up into a napkin, and released it outside like a true superhero.
I seriously had a heart-palp over this whole thing.
DOWN IN THE UNDERGROUND
(Huge bonus points to you if you heard David Bowie singing in your head when you read that.)
Before I went outside for my daily walk yesterday, I grabbed an umbrella from the Extra Umbrella Stash in a drawer behind Marlene’s desk. I just found out a year ago that this stash exists and then I got yelled at for telling other people without first making them do a Trust Fall, but all of the umbrellas are still accounted for, so I guess my work friends are trustworthy after all.
Even Todd!
Anyway, I grabbed an umbrella because according to my phone, it was probably going to rain at some point while I was out there, but the unfortunate part of the weather app is that it didn’t tell me that it wouldn’t matter if I had EIGHT umbrellas, it was going to be THAT kind of a rainfall.
And of course it started five minutes after I left the office. It came down so fast and hard, as though the sky literally split in half and God employing every industrial strength hose he could find in Heaven to give us a good tough reminder that he could flood us into extinction if WE DON’T STOP PUTTING KIDS IN CAGES.
I mean, it was raining hard, ya’ll.
I ducked into a parking garage for refuge and figured I’d just walk around in there for a bit to at least continue getting steps. I was on the phone with Henry during this, in case you need to check in and verify my story so far.
After about a minute, some older man in a red polo came over and asked me if I needed directions and I was like, “Nope, just hiding from the rain” and he was all “*hearty chuckle*” but then he asked me again, a few minutes later, if I needed help finding my car and I was like, “STILL NO, BUDDY” so I kept walking further underground to get away from him but then some guy was getting out of his car and following me and we were the only people down there on that level and I LOST CELL SERVICE–I thought for sure I was going to die, so I ran into the nearest stairwell and ran all the way back up to the first level where I bumped right into Red Polo Man again.
“Which building are you trying to get to?” he asked, so I told him and he frowned.
“Hmm, well, you can’t get all the way there underground, but you could get to the Gateway buildings across the street if you wanted to.”
“UNDERGROUND?!” I asked incredulously. I was totally perking up at this prospect.
“Yeah, if you go down a level, it’ll take you right under the street to those buildings over there,” he said, pointing out of the garage to the Gateway buildings across the street, which wasn’t getting me any closer to my office but hello, I wanted to walk underground, so I asked him for directions again and set off down the stairs and through a revolving door, which put me into this fucking creepy hallway:
There was some type of power fan that was on, filling the hallway with a loud blowing noise, and of course the only other people in there were questionable-looking men, so I thought for sure I was going to be on the news that night. Luckily, no one bothered me and I made it all the way through the winding walkway and through another set of doors, buy Red Polo Shirt’s directions didn’t go any further than “follow the hallway to the end” so I was like, “DOODOODOO WHICH WAY DO I GO, WHICH WAY DO I GO.
” Every door had DANGER WARNING ALARM NOT FOR REGULAR PEOPLE written all over them and I was freaking the fuck out, man. Freaking the FUCK out.
Well, I’m a mole person, now. This is where I live, I thought to myself, shutting down and accepting defeat after 30 seconds because that’s my limit of resourcefulness.
But then some older lady in McDonald’s attire came from somewhere, a sewer maybe, I wasn’t watching, and I cried, “I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO.”
“You trying to go outside?” she asked in some type of European accent that I became obsessed with immediately. I nodded like a cartoon puppy being asked if he wants to go for a walk, and she said, “That’s where I’m going, gotta catch my bus, so you can follow me” and she put me onto an elevator WHICH I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT TO USE BECAUSE THERE WASN’T A SIGN THAT TOLD ME TO.
She pushed the button for the lobby and said, “They don’t make it easy to figure out how to get out of here,” and I wish I had recorded her saying that because no one is going to believe that this was so difficult.
The elevator dropped us off in the lobby of Gateway 3 and even then, I wouldn’t have known which way to go! Thank god for my new guardian.
By the time I got back to work, my clothes were soaked all the way through and I felt like shit for the rest of the afternoon.
But then Debby told me that she thinks you can also get to one of the trolley stations from under that parking garage so now I want to go back and explore this further.
#BAGELWATCH
Yesterday, Carrie ordered a bunch of bagels from Au Bon Pain and put them on the snack table. A little bit later, I emailed Glenn and Todd and told them that there were bagels there, because I wasn’t sure if they knew.
Todd replied and said he saw them but wasn’t sure if they were for a meeting or something, and I was like, “OK this is a valid quandary,” so I verified with Carrie that yes, they were there for the taking. She said she didn’t want to put them in the kitchen because then that left them vulnerable to non-departmental people who also use the kitchen on our floor.
Several other people started emailing me about the bagels because I apparently am The One Who Knows About the Bagels, and I was starting to think that maybe an email needed to be sent because the people on the other side of the floor might not ever see them, but just then, Debby suggested to Carrie that she should send an email so I was like OH THANK GOD because I hate sending departmental emails. One time, one of the ladies in another department on our floor came back from a meeting and brought extra sandwiches back with her and said, “Hey can you send out an email to your department and let them know these sandwiches are up for grabs?” and I re-wrote that fucking email for 15 minutes like it was a goddamn resignation letter and not just, “Hi Tracy says to help yourselves to the sandwiches by the kitchen.” By the time I was done, it basically just said “sandwiches. kitchen. get ’em.”
The first time I ever sent an email to the department was about the printer being down AND I SPELLED IT “PRINT” INSTEAD OF “PRINTER” IN THE SUBJECT LINE AND WANTED TO QUIT. Yes, that was 8 years ago and it still clearly keeps me up at night, FIGHT ME.
Anyway, Carrie was like, “Sue didn’t tell me to send an email but FINE I WILL SEND ONE” because she too knows the annoyances of sending all-department emails especially when you start getting snarky replies sent to you and it’s like ISN’T ‘DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER’ IMPLIED?!
Meanwhile, Todd was hashtagging this as #bagelwatch in his correspondence to me. He didn’t want to be the first one to get a bagel, and Carrie was like, “DON’T YOU DARE TAKE HIM ONE!” so instead I just emailed him and said, “COLLEEN JUST GOT A BAGEL. COLLEEN BROKE THE BAGEL SEAL. ALL CLEAR TO GET A BAGEL.”
By afternoon, the bagel situation had just about died down but then I happened to catch a glimpse of some STRANGER from another floor helping himself to one of our bagels! He even gave it a hearty smear of cream cheese like it ain’t no thang, like he wasn’t stealing the property of another department, like that wasn’t someone’s lunch he was scarfing, and then he took it into the conference room on our floor and ate it while talking on the phone and looking out the window!
I have no idea who that thief was but he is so freaking lucky that Debby wasn’t at her desk when that happened because she is the Guardian of the Snack Table and she has no qualms about telling passers-by to drop the Twinkie and back away from the table.
#bagelwatch indeed.
****
Well guys, that’s all for today. We leave tomorrow morning for KCON! It’s in Newark again (boo) but I’ll probably liveblog on the way there because I have been feeling so nostalgic for road trips lately!
P.S. Semi-work-related: Wendy and I had lunch at Villa Reale with BARB today and she said she’s impressed that I’m still obsessed with k-everything and that this might be the longest I’ve ever been obsessed with something and Wendy quickly interjected to say, “No–Jonny Craig” and then they both admitted that Taemin is super beautiful, the most gorgeous man in the whole world, even (well, second to Tom Jones, if you ask Barb).
Jun 20 2018
Weekend Highlight: Calvin’s First Birthday!
It’s so hard to believe that it’s been a year already since Henry’s grandson Calvin was born! It’s been a lot of fun watching him grow and now he’s a regular walking machine!
Blake and Haley had a birthday party for him last Saturday at South Park and they really went all out–it was such a cute set-up. They wanted everyone to sign the frame around that picture of Calvin up there and of course Chooch was like, “I WANT TO BE FIRST” and then proceeded to write BAMBI super big on it, like WTF WHY?! I was so angry and then Blake and Haley saw it and were equally as angry and Chooch was like, “YOU SAID TO SIGN MY NAME AND MY NAME IS BAMBI.”
Why is my kid so freaking weird sometimes?
Wait.
Don’t answer that.
Anyway, I diffused the situation by having him write in small letter “You’re cuter than” on top of the “Bambi,” and then “Love, Riley” beneath it. YOU’RE WELCOME.
Speaking of “you’re,” one of Haley’s friends signed it “You’re favorite aunt” instead of “Your” and so then Chooch got booted out of the hot seat. Whew.
You guys, these were the cutest cookies and they were goddamn delicious. I’ll be getting all my future party cookies from Give Mia Cookie now, I guess. We’ve had their regular bakery cookies and brownies before, and those are equally as delicious. If you’re local to Pittsburgh, give this place all of your business!
I love when a cookie meets my aesthetic and taste requirements.
Blake and Haley are the sweetest, most natural parents. I can’t believe I’ve known Blake since he was 8 and now here he is, being the coolest dad ever. AND HALEY IS PREGNANT AGAIN! She officially announced it last month so I’m OK to blab about it now. It was so hard not saying anything because I love spreading good news.
And here he is, the cutest little maknae of the family! It’s been a lot of fun having them living next door to us too. Henry will text Blake and be like, “Can Calvin come out and play?” He was sad last night because Blake was like, “NO HE’S DRINKING HIS MILK AND GOING TO BED, GO WATCH THE NEWS OR SOMETHING, DAD.”
We were kind of holding our breath when Calvin was born because we thought Chooch would have a lot of resentment since he’s so attached to Blake, but he actually takes his uncle role very seriously and Calvin freaking lights up when he sees him.
I bought Calvin some Korean children’s books so that we can learn together, haha. After I bought them, I realized that I’m the only one who will be able to read them to him because there isn’t any romanization in them (thank god, though, really) and I’m not a huge fan of reading books BUT I WILL DO IT FOR CALVIN. My goal is for him to someday be able to read the “I Love My Mom” book to Haley in Korean.
Anyway, it was a really nice afternoon and my mom even came! She got him this hip hop ABC book, lol. Calvin is going to be so well-rounded.
I’m excited for when he can ride things at Kennywood, go to haunted houses, and choose a Kpop bias. You know, things I’m interested in. Maybe after three more birthdays.
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