I love Key. I love this song. I love this choreo. I love the 80s vibes. The only thing I love more than all of those things combined is SHINee.

SHINee’s back will be happening soon and I will be ready!! (Will I, though? I feel like I will just be ready to be a mess.)

In other news, Henry scheduled Chooch’s MRI but it’s not until March 13 so he took him to his pcp tonight and there basically has been no change since he went to the hospital on Friday so try referred him to an orthopedic doctor and hopefully that appointment can happen sooner rather than later.

Waiting for Chooch to come home.

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This has been a sucky week.

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Today is the anniversary of…that day, and my new thing these last several years has been to celebrate my Pappap instead of moping / feeling sad / being depressed. He was only part of my life for 16 years, so it’s really nuts for me to grasp the idea that I’ve been living life without him longer than with him now. Damn. I can only hope that I have even half that much of an impact on someone’s life one day!

Anyway, here are three photos featuring my Pappap over the years!

This had to be us at Kennywood. I wonder what ride it was?! Henry suggested Jack Rabbit at first but I honestly can’t imagine being game to ride a rollercoaster at that age – maybe, though?? The station looks too open though, so then Henry suggested the Little Dipper. It was open until 1984 and this photo was probably from 1983 so maybe! But…I doubt it.

This may have been pre-Erin Pappap! That’s him and my MOMMY in their Gillcrest pool, which was one of my favorite places of all time. My Pappap’s pool in the summer, absolutely nothing was better. I would give anything to go back to the mid-80s for one sunny July afternoon, honestly. My Pappap didn’t go in the pool much by the time I was born, but he could ALWAYS be found sawing logs in a lawn chair.

In fact, he had his own lawn chair that no one else dared use, and I will never ever ever ever forget us attempting to normalize a Pappap-less world by celebrating someone’s birthday or some summer holiday by having a cookout/pool party like we used to, and my dad laying back in The Lawn Chair and BREAKING IT, causing my aunt Sharon to completely melt down. It was baaaaad. She wouldn’t let anyone touch the chair, it just pretty much stayed out there like a wrecked relic, making us all miss better times.

When I say my family collectively handled my Pappap’s death poorly, with handsome amounts of dysfunction and enough trauma to last several lifetimes, I’m actually downplaying it. None of us mourned his death like healthy people. I was (am??) scarred for years and years afterward to the point where I used to not even be able to THINK of him without bursting into tears, let alone talk about him like a functioning human with normal emotional health.

It was really hard when Chooch was a baby too, because I spent so much time bobbing around in my feelings, wondering if my Pappap knew that Chooch was here, wishing that Chooch could know him, needing his stability in our life.

But…I think I reached a point where I feel that he would be proud of me, and that he would approve of how I have been living my life (well, maybe starting within the last 10 years, lol). And that makes it easier for me to think about him and smile at the memories instead of sob uncontrollably.

OK enough for the heavy hoo-haw, here’s a totally groovy shot of my grandparents and people I don’t know (actually, both of those men bookending the shot looked very familiar to me though and their names are on the tip of my tongue). Is this the 60s? Early 70s? Not sure, but grandma, your hair! Woof! My grandma had some AMAZING hairstyles over this years and this was not one of them. Nope.  Anyway, I feel like this was from a group vacation. Bahamas, perhaps. I think they used to go there a lot. I could ask my mom but I think she still gets upset when he comes up so I try not to talk about him too much with her. I don’t know. His death really fucked us up. You wanna talk about the glue holding a family together. We felt that.

Sorry, I didn’t intend this to get heavy! I am not sad or depressed today. I’m fine, and just wanted to share these but then the thoughts started and now here I am analyzing an irreparable situation that shouldn’t have went down the way it did, but here we are!

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When I came here to update the dumb blog just now, I accidentally clicked on my “about me” page and el yikes-etta that bitch is so obsolete. I should probably update it but who even cares. I keep hearing that “blogging is making a comeback” so maybe.

OMG speaking of blogging, I just flashed back to when I was an active participate on this website called BLOG FROG which was meant to be a community for bloggers to make friends but it was 99% mommy bloggers and when I tell you I didn’t fit in…

I still used to sign up for these things called “blog hops” though which was where you would join what was essentially a blog chain where you be put on a list and everyone on the list would go to everyone’s blog that day and leave a comment but it was SO APPARENT that most of the bitches weren’t even reading the blog posts and were just leaving stale comments such as “STOPPING BY FROM BLOGFROG” and that was so infuriating. It cracks me up and also pisses me off when I go back to past blog posts and stumble upon these generic-ass comments from MOMMY MARY IN MEMPHIS or whatever.

Most of them don’t even blog anymore!

BUT HERE I AM, OUT-BLOGGING THEM ALL.

Well, now that I got that fun memory purged from my system, may I present to you a series of photos from today? We are finally sort of not tied to home projects so it was nice to get out of the house for a bit. First, we went to SugarSpell to pick up our pints and also snagged a Love You to Death sundae to share as sort of a belated Valentine’s Day date thingie.

It was so delicious! Chocolate / coffee / vanilla scoops, chocolate fudge, chocolate dirt, whipped cream, and chocolate skull cakes from a bakery they recently partnered with. I love their sundaes so much but when I know that I’m going to have one, I usually make sure I skip a meal which is GREAT RIGHT, BUY MY FUTURE DIET BOOK CALLED “HOW TO FUCK UP YOUR BODY 87 DIFFERENT WAYS DON’T CONSULT A DOCTOR FIRST.”

43 and still having the food-strugs. It’s fine. I’m fine. LOL ugh.

Anyway, we ate the sundae in a grocery store parking lot before going to the nearby Burger King to grab an Impossible Whopper for our invalid son who was home and wouldn’t have come with us anyway even if he wasn’t on crutches. #ThatAge

That banana bread one might be my new bae.

RETROWAVE INTERMISSION:

We came home to feed Chooch and put the ice cream away, and I panicked because I hadn’t seen any of my Buddys since YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. You guys, there are at least 6 of them that live in the trees in our backyard and are there every single day, WHERE DID THEY GO?? There were three Mr Gray Guys out and about all day so that’s good but the Buddyless trees has been very concerning.

We did end up seeing two later in the day PLUS A VISIT FROM MY BEST GIRL BUDDY who was outside screaming because she wanted food and then she climbed up the side of our house when I opened the backporch window and met me halfway as I hung out with a peanut. I fucking love her. We hung out in the backyard for a bit while she frantically ran around burying all the peanuts I gave her. My favorite thing is how gently she places her paw on my hand to steady herself when she stands up.

Ok anyway!!! Henry and I left again later in the afternoon to go for a stroll at Calvary cem because it was nearly 60 degrees! I was finally able to wear the sweater duster he bought me for Xmas and made him take pictures of me in it even though I have been feeling pretty disgusting body-image wise lately. I know I need to get over it. No one gives a shit what I look like and I shouldn’t either.

We always have a nice time at Calvary Cem. It’s one of the few cems left that isn’t overrun by annoying joggers, etc. since cemeteries became so popular during the pandemic. I am still so angry that my beloved Homewood Cemetery is SO FUCKING CROWDED every time we go there now. I almost suggested that we go there today but then stopped myself because we were having a nice day and I didn’t want to ruin that with ANGER.

I always get so mad at Henry for taking shitty pictures of me but then I have to remind myself that he is taking normal pictures of a shitty-faced person, lol.

This one would be my favorite if he hadn’t cut off part of my shoe!!

I dunno – he was taking practice shots but I thought my hair looked cool here so I kept it.

Here I am in the middle of saying something profound I’m sure, like later when I told Henry that his butt is a mausoleum and then lamented the fact that I don’t have a band (or any musical abilities) because I just knew in my heart that this would be a great song.

FALL VIBES IN FEB.

ACTION SHOT of me standing up / turning / trying not to lose my balance.

Yeah so anyway, I really love this duster. It is the most cozy and soft plus super …

what’s better than mid? Max. It is the max.

I’m glad Henry bought it for me after I sent it to him 27032740924820358340975 times on Instagram last fall and said GET ME THIS NOW OR FOR XMAS. He opted “FOR XMAS” which was fine but just so you know, NOW is always the best choice.

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sup internet people. this was supposed to be a friday five but then Chooch had a half day and went over to Carnegie Mellon University to play soccer which I knew was happening and he does this a lot so whatever. But then Henry called me around noon because he was on his way to pick Chooch up because he fell and heard something snap!? You KNOW I got Jello legs immediately and started heavily panting, “OMG OMG OMG” as my voice gradually increased octaves.

“This is why I’m the one going to get him!” Henry said, before saying those 2 words that all women are so desperate to hear: CALM DOWN.

We love that.

Anyway, they went to Children’s Hospital because he couldn’t walk. They were there until nearly 6, mostly just waiting because it was so crowded, which prompted Henry to angrily text me about how “most of these kids could have went to the regular doctor!!!” LOL poor Henry. My friends at work kept me sane so I wasn’t fully melting down at least. Especially since Chooch responded “no” to all of my SRS INQUIRIES:

• DO YOU THINK IT IS BROKEN;
• IS IT BLEEDING;
• ARE YOU CRYING

His x-ray came back clear but they want us to schedule an MRI in a few days after the swelling goes down. I would also like to point out that it took both Henry and Chooch 5 hours to tell me that it was specifically the knee that’s hurt. So now he has a knee immobilizer and crutches and is MISERABLE. I haven’t seen him yet this morning but I’m bracing myself for what the day has in store.

In other not-Friday Five news, I got my hair refreshed on Thursday. I felt so bad because I went there straight from work and was basically emotionally closed off by then. I can’t explain it but the 2023 work vibes have been complete ass. I hope something changes soon, either there or within my broken self, because I am so on edge and irritated every day.

Anyway, here is my dumb hair. I got more purple peek-a-boos, I dunno why, I don’t go anywhere for anyone to see it lol. Wait – I do have to go to the library today so I guess my security guard friend Robert will see it, lol.

I was chilling alone in my seat for a bit when one of the other stylists, whose station is right behind where I was sitting, came to get her shit and said, “Bye honey.” I dunno why I responded this way, but a torrent of enthusiasm shot off of my mouth-cannon as I yelled, “BYE!” She…wasn’t talking to me, it turns out. I didn’t realize another stylist was out of my view and that’s who she was talking to. It wasn’t that big of a deal but I was already in a fragile state and in the span of .0003 seconds went from feeling included to a complete stoop. I don’t know why I responded with so much eagerness, like an orphan being tossed an ounce of attention.

Oh well, I got over it (she says 25 years later after referencing this moment for the 87th time).

Drew waiting patiently for Chooch to come home from the hospital.

THERE HE IS, MY BROKEN BABY!!!!!!!! He was so mad that I was waiting at the door. I tried to make him hug me but he was like, “Please stop.” Then Henry was outside moving the car so Chooch had to ask me, Helpless Mother, to take him shoe off and it was a real ordeal. “YOU COULD MAYBE UNTIE IT FIRST??” he yelled as I tried to yank it off and then I was laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants, and now Henry was back in the house, just in time to help him up the steps because believe me when I tell you that BOTH of us would have landed our asses back in the hospital had it been me helping.

Then I found out that Henry consoled him in the hospital at one point by saying, “At least it’s not your mother sitting here with you.” OK WOW. I was laughing though because Megan kept telling me at work to seriously leave if I needed to but I knew that no one wished for my hysterical presence so the best thing I could do was stay home, work, and wait.

Oh, and Chooch got a deck of cards and a word search book from a candy striper while he was there so that was probably a really big deal for him because he’s like me and loves:

• attention
• free toy-stuffs

My new thing is trying to contain the squirrels to the backyard so that they have more coverage if the HAWK comes back. This means that now when I tap on the backporch window, they know it’s FEEDING TIME and start popping up in the tree branches. One even popped out from under our car and looked up at me with his arms at his chest, like, “who? me? food?” This one Buddy always takes a peanut and leans agains the base of his treehouse to eat it. Sometimes he’s even propped up by an elbow and it kills me. I blurted out, “HE LOOKS LIKE TOM SAWYER” and this comparison really did not sit well with Henry. He could not wrap his mind around why Tom Sawyer would be the first person to come to mind so I got RULL defensive and had to google TOM SAWYER to show him depictions of the boy sitting on logs, eating apples, etc.

He still said it was a stretch and I said HE’S a stretch.

TELL ME YOU SEE IT TOO.

I have to go now. I have things to do today. Maybe.

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Do not mind the dirty floor – we haven’t gotten to that part of the attic refresh yet, lol. But yeah, I just wanted to dump some more progress pictures here! One of the final “bigger” projects was creating a snack bar out of an old TV that we got from some dude in Greentree (we got the smaller one that we’ve been using in the kitchen from him too).

I knew that I wanted to incorporate this bigger TV into the attic lounge (I haven’t settled on what to call this room yet – the game room? the lounge? Erin’s Dream Room? I mean, technically it’s meant to be an extension of Chooch’s room but I have a feeling I will be up there a lot lololol) and then it hit me – a mini snack bar!

Dude, Henry really excels at taking my ideas and making them tangible things. OK not always on the first pass, let’s be real. We have had many “YOU DIDN’T LISTEN TO ME!!!” moments when he goes rogue and does something completely out of left field because our psychic connection was on the fritz.

Or, you know, because he DIDN’T LISTEN TO ME.

But this time, he did good. Even down to the legs he bought for the TV! He bought them without consulting with me and they are actually perfect.

I have at least one photo that I want to hang on that blue wall, but I have to make a picture frame for it first. I don’t want to put TOO much there because the faux-fur portion of that corner and the TV need to take center stage. But that wall still needs at least one photo. It’s definitely going to be the one I took last May of Chooch riding Magnum at Cedar Point.

We used this super-textured silver sparkly cardstock for the interior. I wanted something cheap and easy to replace since this TV will be used way more than the one in the kitchen, which just serves as a cute vessel for our Echo, so we were able to line the inside with wallpaper from Gillcrest, knowing that it shouldn’t get too much wear.

I love how sparkly the inside of this one looks against the blue neon!

But yeah, this was just some old-ass brown 1980s box TV that Henry gutted and painted. I chose the blue/green combo because I really don’t have much of that in our house (the Korea coffee table is blue, green, and pink, but it’s a different blue, so there). I originally wanted to cover the top and sides with some kind of vinyl print but I couldn’t find anything that really popped out for me. Then when we were fur’ing the wall over there, I said, “Why don’t we just use faux fur on the TV too?” SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY “NO ERIN THAT’S TOO MUCH” and that’s exactly how I know it’s JUST RIGHT.

I’m really having so much fun playing around with this room, like a literal blank canvas. I wish this was my job, haha. (Honestly, though, I’m trying to convince to start a furniture refurb / home decor side business. I think he would be so good at it!)

I think Chooch is secretly stoked on how the TV turned out too even though he just continued to sit there, putting a puzzle together, while side-eyeing us as we got it set up & stocked.

Sorry for all the attic updates. It’s probs boring but unless I fucking die in this damn house, I would like to have these pictures and details for the future. You know, so when I’m rotting away in a white-walled nursing home, Chooch can say REMEMBER WHEN YOU MADE US LIVE IN PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE and I will say NO because probably by then I won’t even be able to remember what flavor of Jello was on my dinner tray the day before, and he will have to pull up pictures on his phone or whatever information transmitter we’re using in future times.

And this has been the latest attic update. OH! I also finished painting the closet door in the attic but that side of the room still has some miscellaneous items strewn about so I will wait until I can take a cleaner picture. I’m sure you just SIMPLY CANNOT WAIT.

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My Valentines Day was pretty quiet, boring, status quo…

THEN THIS HAPPENED:

I got the vapors. Literally had a hard time breathing. Couldn’t speak. Henry was like OK THAT’S ENOUGH STOP THE DRAMATICS. But no bitch really where’s my fainting couch.

Now I’m just sick to my stomach, preemptively fretting about the WILL I or WON’T I when it comes time to join the Ticketmaster Hunger Games. Trying to buy a ticket to see one of your favorite artists SHOULD NOT BE LIKE THIS.

But it is. And it will be.

I don’t know when tickets go on sale. I will definitely be trying to get a ticket though! Because it’s NCT DREAM YOU GUYS THE MOTHERFUCKING DREAMIES! I have never seen Renjun in real life before!!!!!

But here’s this adorable picture I took of them at SMTown in Seoul! This was when Jaemin was injured so he’s missing from the picture :(

Ugh I feel so stressed out already. I really want to see them, you guys!!

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We are so close to completing the attic space and getting our weekends back – I can almost taste it! I want to go out to a greasy spoon for grilled cheese and pie to celebrate.

Here are some things that went down over the weekend, and none of it was Superbowl-related, I bet you’re shocked.

We put a temporary table up there so Chooch can put together one of his little bitch ass puzzles while we’re actually doing work. (LOL ok the extent of my “work” is mostly standing around, arms akimbo, supervising Henry’s work and suggesting new fun projects, but I *was* actually doing something this weekend!)

Saturday morning, I woke up entirely too early (6:50!!) and met Jeannie and Wendy for breakfast at Upstreet We hadn’t had a breakfast club since over the summer, so were long overdue. It’s always nice hanging out with them outside of work and not….talking about work. Did not come up ONCE. They made fun of me as usual for opting to park in a lot two blocks away rather than park on  the street in front of the place (but to be fair, this diner used to be Pamela’s and at that time, street parking was extremely unicorn-ish to come by!) but I have no regrets because I got to feed a Mr. Gray Guy squirrel in the lot and also spotted a really beautiful dark brown/black squirrel that looked like he was made from velvet. I wanted to pet him so bad!

Anyway, while I do love me some Pamela’s, I’m not mad at Upstreet for filling the vacancy over that way. Their menu is an interesting fusion of Mediterranean/Turkish and classic American. I got the spinach feta omelet and it was easily one of the best I’ve ever had – filled with sundried tomatoes (I did panic at first because I thought it was pieces of ham lol) and topped with a melted mop of horseradish chive cheddar. The homefries were really good too! Just the right amount of greasiness.

I was leaning toward shakshuka but I always get ordering anxiety with that because I’m afraid I’ll forget how to pronounce it. Jeannie offered to order it for me and maybe I will take her up on that if we go back there again!

Meanwhile, the joint was having issues with their credit card terminals (is that still what they’re called??? I used to be a telemarketer for a credit card terminal company back in the day lolol). Jeannie paid cash andt hen Wendy and I Venmo’d her, which was how we found out that Wendy has over 100 friends on Venmo because of course she does!

The rest of Saturday was spent working on smaller attic projects – Henry was working on the TV snack bar and I was working on a mural-ish for the closet door up there because I’m sorry, I can’t leave that door white!

Sunday: more of the same!

We took an afternoon BOBA BREAK though so that was nice because Sunday was a pretty nice day, weather-wise. We went to Tsaocaa in Squirrel Hill because they have purple rice as an add-in and I’m lowkey obsessed with it. First though, we went to Panda to procure some snacks for the TV snack bar that was slated to be finished by that night and you know me, I needed to have snacks on hand for photo prop purposes lol. I let Chooch get whatever he wanted and then we left Henry alone at the checkout to deal with the $70 total lololol. TO BE FAIR, he did buy actual produce and things for real meals, as well. We literally cannot go to an Asian market without Henry tossing some produce into a basket.

Then we went to Homewood Cem for a leisurely stroll while enjoying our boba except that Chooch pretended to have a stomachache so that he could stay in the car and watch Community, which he just discovered and is so annoyed that I already watched it in real time and yelled at me because I have to “act like such a hipster about everything.”

Yeah so.

Anyway, I went with osmanthus tea, boba, purple rice. I always get the least amount of SWEET levels, too. It was perfect.  It’s crazy how many boba options there are in Pgh, which usually has barely any options of anything except BREWERIES and SPORTS MEMORABILIA STORES. The first time I ever had boba was in the mid-90s at the Beehive on the Southside, except it was billed as BUBBLE TEA and that is 100% probably the only reason I felt inspired to order it, having no idea what the fuck I was in for. I mean, it probably was not the best boba, but I Had no idea what it was so the novelty was HIGH. I know I was scared at first and wasn’t sure I could get behind chewing a drink, and my friends who were with me were like “that is fully disgusting,” so maybe that’s why I liked it.

Look, I’m doing that hipster thing again lol.

But yeah, I had it that one time in the 90s and then I feel like it was probably at least a decade until I had it again because it kind of just…went away. Unless I just wasn’t running in the proper Chewy Bev circles.

Oh! The cemetery! There was something going on there, not sure if it was SANCTIONED BY THE CEM or not, but there was a huge crowd of super loud revelers congregating by one of the crypts, at least 50 of them and they appeared to be COSPLAYING, I don’t know?! But I was super annoyed because they were shouting and laughing and maybe this is just me being an old fucker, a cemetery hipster, but STFU AND GTFO of my cem, you nozzles. They were being so disruptive! Also, and I say this every time we go to this cem now, but I hate how “popular” cemeteries became as a direct result of the pandemic. Like all these annoying people suddenly realized that cemeteries were good places to go for walks while social distancing and now there are always hordes of douchebags at Homewood Cemetery every time we go there. Even on Christmas Day, in poor weather conditions, here’s all these jackasses jogging and riding bikes.

It really never used to be like this. I used to walk there all the time when Chooch was a baby and it would be us and the groundskeepers, farting around on their landscapingmobiles.

Came home and Henry really powered through the TV project and GOT HER DONE, BOYS. With just enough time left in the night to sit down with me and watch some Whitney & Timmy React to the Hills action. Henry is like REALLY INTO THIS.

So, not the most exciting weekend but super productive, with a much-needed breakfast with friends, and some pretty chill family time.

I also read a lot, but…duh

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I am going stir crazy over here in Pittsburgh, where there are no amusement parks open within a 5 hour radius until like April or May. I want so badly to go somewhere during spring break – not for like an entire week but maybe for TWO DAYS – but Henry keeps frowning at me because we have the big trip in August and I apparently am PUSHING IT and ASKING FOR TOO MUCH.

So to stay entertained, I’ve been perusing some of our past park recaps and…now I am even more anxious to put these winter mths behind us! Reposting one of the Toyko DisneySea blog posts from 2019 because this was the prettiest park I’ve ever been to in my whole dumb life.

Friends, foes, family, foresters: I am here to tell you that I have nothing bad to say about DisneySea. Honestly. It was the one day from our vacation where we didn’t fight ONE SINGLE TIME. The park opened, we walked in, and it was like the air was being pumped with happy gas because even though it was 100 degrees, we genuinely liked each other that day.

We’re not Disney people but this park had a huge impact on us! And this might sound like a cop-out, but there is really no way I can illustrate just how magical this place is, aside from sharing photos. So let’s peruse my collection together, shall we?

DisneySea is built next to the Tokyo Bay and has seven themed “ports of call” areas. I’ve heard that this park is billed as the Disney for adults, and even though there is a huge (and BEAUTIFUL) indoor kids area, I can definitely see how this is true. There is one area that made me feel like I was in Cape May and I loved it which is hilarious because when I was a kid, we always took a day trip to Cape May during our Wildwood family vacations, and I was always so miserable about that. I hated Cape May as a kid! All my grandma wanted to do was shop and all I could think about was how I missing out on prime time riding rides on the boardwalk. (Morey’s Piers ftw.)

I mentioned in my last Tokyo post that DisneySea doesn’t use an app for Fast Pass, so when the gates opened, we had to walk-run (there are friendly Disney employees everywhere reminding you politely not to run and I already knew this from watching videos so I speed-walked like a good girl because maybe you don’t know this about me BUT I HATE BEING YELLED AT even if it’s someone just kindly reminding me not to do something I’m doing, I will take this and escalate it in my head and get totally butt-hurt and then I will keep replaying the moment until I’m convinced that I was yelled at.

I’m insane and my issues are plentiful.

Anyway, our plan was to pass up Toy Story because it’s identical to the one in the US, grab a Tower of Terror fast pass, and then speedwalk to Journey to the Center of the Earth for stand-by. This plan worked wonderfully!

Mysterious Island was amazing!! The theming blew us all away.

I was prepared for Journey’s line to be outrageous but stand-by was about 30-45 minutes! That ride was goddamn amazing but my favorite part was when Henry ripped his shorts when he was getting into the car!

(Unfortunetely, his rip wasn’t as disastrous as it could have been, and even though it was large, it was still unnoticeable. Ugh.)

I will have a separate post to talk about the rides and food, so let’s just keep looking at the glorious scenery, shall we?

Seriously, would you look at this area? I think we just ooh’d and ahh’d over everything for the first 8 hours of the day.

 

I’m not sure where all the people went that we saw when the park opened, because it didn’t seem very crowded that day. Don’t get me wrong, some of the bigger rides had really long standby wait times as the day went on (Toy Story and the brand new Soaring were basically big no’s if you didn’t have a fast pass, and we didn’t want a fast pass for any of them), but we weren’t fighting our way through hoards of people on the paths or in the restaurants. It was actually pretty weird.

And whenever we did have to stand in line, it was pleasant because people in Japan are polite and orderly. It really was like being in an Utopian amusement park.

Even though we were able to ride all the rides we wanted to, this park could still easily be a 2-day park, because there is so much to see and eat. The facades were so detailed and the shops in each port of call had different merch. Also, we didn’t see any of the shows because that’s not important to us, but if we had been there for a second day, I definitely would have penciled that in because this park inspired me to care about these things!

…and then we found out where all the people were, lol. There’s a big pirate show that happens several times in the main entrance area and people seemed to just loiter there all day.  Also, it was August 1st when we were there, and that was the day when the new theme and merch came out, so I think the enthusiasts were there just for that. We walked past a lot of people who were hanging out in that area with like 8 bags of merch!

Meanwhile, all I cared about was getting my ears (the process of choosing a pair is painstaking but I went with Oswald and Chooch got Dumbo ears and then instantly had reGERTS because it was, again, 100 degrees that day and now he was essentially wearing a terry-cloth headband, good job, dingus.

Venice Vibes, Very.

Basically just an excuse to sit down.

I wanted to jump into this water so badly that day. Did I mention it was 100 degrees?

Did I mention we were also in Japan?

You think you know humidity in America, but you don’t.

LOOK AT THIS CHILDREN’S AREA!!! It was inside Ariel’s Castle and majorly air-conditioned. We definitely took our good ol’ time strolling through this piece.

And the gift shop was inside a whale!

Again, I’m not a Disneyphile but shit, I wanted to buy everything I saw.

Pompously phallic.

In all serious though, I couldn’t stop ogling the majesty of this castle. The detail was sickening!

Halfway to heatstroke.

If you looked at those tiny tiles close up, you’d find little Mickey ears, Flounders, and other assorted hidden Disney sundry.

I can’t imagine standing before this and not being totally enchanted.

One of our many “should we jump” contemplations. Also, note that Chooch is wearing his Pie Jesus friendship bracelet!

Some areas of DisneySea are under construction and from what I understand, it’s in preparation for next summer’s Olympics. Getting a bit of a face lift, I guess! Some of the coaster enthusiasts I follow on YouTube were super annoyed about this when they visited a week before us, but it didn’t take very much away from our visit. If Journey to the Center of the Earth had been outright closed, then my tune would be very different!

Henry, reapplying sunscreen.

LOOK AT THIS VIEW! Also, that water was making me hallucinate. Or was it the sun. I don’t know, but I was feeling delirious.

(Don’t worry! We stayed hydrated all day and guess what? It was easy to do so because food and beverage prices were CHEAP there! I was shocked. I mostly kept refilling an empty bottle at various water fountains, but I did get tempted several times to partake in flavored drinks because, Tokyo. There was some fizzy grapefruit sports drink that was SO REFRESHING.)

You know a park is legit when even your kid keeps stopping to take in the views. I’m a very GO-GO-GO type of person at amusement parks, but this place made me want to slow down and relax.

My kimono-thing was protecting my skin big-time, yo.

Obsessed with this tree.

The theme for August was Pirates Summer and we were there for the first day of it, so that was pretty cool! I purposely ordered a dessert at one of the restaurants just so I could get a collectible plate, so I guess I’m a Disney person now.

This fountain is iconic because it’s the first thing you see when you walk through the entrance. Also, we tried to get Henry to buy a pair of ears but he is too much of a lamer, I guess. Now no one will believe that he actually had a good time!

Some Instagram models were doing an amateur photoshoot here so then we had to do one too.

Did I ever tell you about how Chooch despises Chip and Dale because they’re so much more popular than Bambi when it comes to Disney merch and sometimes, from afar, he will think he sees something Bambi-themed only to get closer and see that it’s Chip and Dale. So when he saw this Chip, or Dale?, at DisneySea, he had a moment of rage. I wanted him to get in line for a picture but he was like Chip (or Dale?) can go fuck himself.

(Personally, I love Chip & Dale. I had one of their videos in the 80s and it was the kind that came in the giant padded case. I watched it all the time!)

The Aladdin area was so beautiful, I could have cried.

But Mermaid’s Lagoon had my heart. Those under-the-sea aesthetics really snatched me, you guys.

I wanted Chooch to make friends with all these children but he was like, “I just want to touch the water, not make power moves.”

I’m such a Disney fraud that I didn’t even know who Duffy was until I started researching this park.

SHIT YOU GUYS. JUST OMG THESE LOOKS. If DisneySea was a kpop group, then Mermaid’s Lagoon would be the visuals.

Although the Arabian area wasn’t exactly horse face, either.

DisneySea at night is a big fat mood. My heart was actually fluttering.

We stayed until the park closed and yes, we were fucking BEAT but it was worth every second we were crucified by the sun.

****

Once we were off Disney-soil, Chooch and Henry were free to argue over directions and fare machines again, so that was fun.

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Trying to stay optimistic! Focusing on the positive! < insert more canned self-help blurbs here >

• TAEYANG AND GDRAGON DOING THE VIBE CHALLENGE TOGTEHER AND ENDING IT WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING GOOD BOY DANCE ARE YOU KIDDING THIS WAS LIKE 88 SHOTS OF SERATONIN STRAIGHT TO THE DOME. L E G E N D S. K I N G S.

• The new season of “You” dropping on Netflix.
• NCT Dream coming back when I was really needing them. Renjun’s sweet voice, sigh. I think Henry was worried that I was going to get more interior design ideas from this video hahaha…I mean…

• Having a breakfast & 2 dinners with frands on the horizon. Working from home is normal for me by now but I have to remember to keep pushing myself to leave the house and walking to the post office or going to Target with Henry doesn’t count. Lol ugh.
• My cats and squirrels always be cheering me up! I have been trying to keep the squirrels in the backyard because of the HAWK(s) so now if I tap on the window of the backporch, they come running. It’s the most hilarious and adorable thing. Bring a squirrel mom is a career path that I never foresaw myself walking down but I’m glad life made that turn for me.
• Having January behind me! Woo, made it! Let’s do this FEBRUDREARY.
• Less than a month until our first road trip of 2023! Just an overnighted but who cares get me outta here.
• Remember the DOUG skit from The State? I just said “outta here” like him.
• Now I’m thinking about Goodfellas DOUG again.
• Knowing that we’re about the cross the finish line of the attic refresh! Just have to paint the table and then Chooch can have some dumb friends over!
• This Maniac Mansion shadow box art I bought for the game room! Chooch was like “ok I don’t know what that is, so” and I screamed, “it is the best video game of all time!” to which Chooch made some smarmy comment about how I obviously haven’t played any video games in a long time because that’s not true and I screamed, “I don’t need to play any other video game ever for the rest of my life because I already played the best one and beat it.”

Well, stick a fork in me, guys.

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I know that Chooch doesn’t have much time left at home before he’s off to college (well, unless he stays local which remains to be seen I guess) but I REALLY wanted to get him his own hang out space to enjoy for the rest of his high school days. We’ve really made a lot of progress since the weekend and I’m getting so stoked for him to be able to finally use it! (Probably definitely for sure more stoked than he is, lol ugh boys.)

We (“we” – oh how the sides hurt from the lols) tackled the faux fur wall over the weekend and I’m really pleased with how it turned out! Praise be to Father Henry for being such a trooper and hanging this shit while having sneezing fits as the wall literally shed into his face.

He burned himself on the glue gun and stabbed himself with a razor in the process but man, the end result was worth it, I think!

Some people, maybe: “Henry how’d you get those burns and cuts? You musta been building something BIG MANLY over the weekend like a LOG CABIN.

”

Henry: *disappears into a bush of frowns*

There is a chimney/bricks on the other side of this corner and apparently it had been leaking at some point, which we didn’t know because we never go in the attic really before now. The plaster was crumbling around the ceiling, so Henry had to knock even more of it down to fix it, but again – we don’t own the house and it just wasn’t worth all the effort he was putting into it. So, once he determined that there was no longer a leak (I mean, I guess lol), I suggested that we just cover that part of the wall with faux fur.

Then I came out of fake art hibernation and painted this pizza to hang there because I knew that the wall needed ONE FUN PIECE OF OUTSIDER ART but I didn’t feel like looking for something to buy online and I needed it NOW NOW NOW anyway, so I painted this pizza myself.

It’s actually quite large!

Durrr, Erin’s Dumb Art is back.

I put minimal effort into this, literally painted it on my lap while rewatching The Hills, season 1 last night.

This corner isn’t finished! We are in the process of getting an old box TV prepped to be the SNACK VESSEL for the room, and it will live in this corner too. I also need to get a fun novelty rug for that area and then it will be photo zone-ready. My brother already asked to have his updated realtor headshots taken there haha.

Anyway, the only big thing left is the table, which Henry is picking up tomorrow and then we just have to paint it. Other than that, I have to paint the closet door and then start hanging stuff on that yellow wall up there., probably get some plants…and then it will be pretty close to completion!

Who wants to come over for a pizza party!?

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The only peoples in this house who don’t piss me off everyday!

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I am happy to report that about 90% of the shit stowed away in the attic has been sorted / pitched / donated / neatly stored. It feels SO GOOD, like the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders. I finally, after 35 years, felt it was the right time to throw out the boxes of penpal letters I’ve been, let’s face it, HOARDING. I did keep some from various prisoners, strictly for the LOLs, and I considered keeping the ones from ALISHA OLMSTEAD but after she SNUBBED me on Facebook several years when I sent her a message like HI WE WERE PENPALS ALL THROUGH MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL AND HAD A WRITING CLUB TOGETHER AND MADE SLAM BOOKS FOR EACH OTHER HOW COULD YOU FORGET ME I felt there was no reason to hang on to those, since most of them were probably just her gushing over JONATHAN BRANDIS AND CHRISTIAN BALE anyway. (Newsies and Ladybugs were here favorite movies, lol ok.)

I even threw out photos of bad times, bad people. Typically, I would keep everything like this because I am a memory pack rat, but pictures of Psycho Mike got ripped up, a picture of me at McCoys sandwiched by two QUEEN CUNTS who I wouldn’t care at all if I found out they were dead sorry but that’s real talk also got thrown out but now I wished I had ceremonially set it aflame first. Oh well.

A card from Christina – bye bye.

A weird ass letter written to a still in utero Chooch from a crazy lady from Philly who I knew from LJ – balled up and slam-dunked into the garbage bag.

It was cathartic. Like being reborn. I am ready for this new era.

Anyway, there were tons of things from my past that were unearthed and definitely are staying, some of these things I’m even going to keep out instead of hiding away in a box.
I found this peeled apart Polaroid of my best doggo Dazee and me from what appears to be 1995. First of all, LOVE THAT LOOK ON ME LOL. I’m pretty sure I also lined my lips like a fool back then too. Also, I went through a weird red hair phase – not ginger but like maroon somehow??

I just know that my mom HATED it haha.

Ugh but man, my old bedroom, how I miss thee. Also, you can blame my mom for my persistent itch to spray-paint every piece of furniture that crosses my threshold. She started it by spray-painting my bedroom set purple and yello!

I’m not kidding when I say that in one fell swoop, I pulled four of the most life-changing books out of a box. These four books are forever favorites, I can look at each of them and be transported to very specific eras of my most formative years, right down to where I was when I was reading some of them.

For instance, I still lived in South Park when I read Wait Until Helen Comes and it terrified me. Both Ghost Story and the Sins of Rachel Ellis were books I found in my Pappap’s house, presumably either my mom’s or aunt’s when they were young: Rachel Ellis is probably why I ended up with an old guy, and I have a VERY SPECIFIC MEMORY of reading part of Ghost Story when I was in high school, sitting in the living room which we rarely used, home alone on a bright, sunny summer day, and getting full-body chills because this book scared me so much. Peter Straub quickly became one of my faves after that and I have always wanted to re-read this one but am so worried that I won’t like it as much now that I’m older and rarely affected by a horror novel.

And The Westing Game taught me to put bourbon on a toothache. Literally one of the greatest books of all time. I suggested that Chooch read it for a book report in grade school and as much as he wanted to NAYSAY, he admitted that it was fucking fantastic. Just one of the best books ever and all kids should experience it.

Then Henry found a leftover invitation from Chooch’s 1st birthday!! 

View this post on Instagram

Henry and I worked so hard on those and I don’t regret it at all. Best Son only turned one once, after all!

We are so close to being done with the attic space.

I will share more photos of the progress later this week but for now, here’s Drew timidly venturing up there for the first time since this overhaul began and seeing THE DEADLY DISCO BALL OMG.

On that note, I have to go. I finished my rewatch of Laguna Beach (I can honestly say that I appreciate Kristin so much more now that I’m an adult LOL as if I wasn’t already a grown up whenever this show originally aired too but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) and am now onto my first ever rewatch of the Hills, as well as the Whitey Port reaction videos (hat tip to Megan for suggesting those!).

Man, I miss this era of TV a lot a lot a lot.

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Saturday night. Sitting on a heating pad because I hurt my back exercising. Made some progress in the attic before that. Will it ever get done? Who can be sure.

Today was actually pretty annoying. I’m pms’ing a little and have less patience than usual.

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Billy, we got some straight up JAMS to listen to together today. During my work day, I tend to put on “retro synth” playlists on YouTube. Most of it is instrumental which is good for me because I need to con-cen-trate on what I’m doing or I will get yelled at.

Probably not, but maybe. You never know. A passive aggressive call-out, at the very least.

Anyway, I need to have background music on to block out the perpetually shrieking children next door, but if I play kpop, then I get way too into plus my ears will start subconsciously perking up every time I hear a word that I recognize and then I feel compelled to look up the lyrics to see if I was correct, and it’s just a whole thing that will deter me from the work at hand for a solid 10 or 20 or sometimes longer if I’m at that point inspired to get up and see if Give Me Five Thailand also has a cardio workout to the subject song.

See what I mean? I can’t Kpop and review engagement letters at the same time.

But synth is wonderful because it puts me in a very relaxed, comfortable zone. HOWEVER, every so often, a song with vocals will pop on that stops me dead. Here are some of the recent ones that I have been fully fucking with.

And this last one especially made me call out HENRY BRING ME MY ROLLER SKATES. It has become a sensation at work, too! Even GLENN liked it!

This is bigly inspiring me to want to have a party.

OK, it’s Friday night. An exceptionally annoying work week is officially behind me. Your girl is about to drink some wine and make a playlist for a party I will probably never actually move forward with because I am lazy and constantly distracted but at least I’ll have a sick playlist.

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January was such a fantastic reading month for me. I can’t even get over it. It reinstated my bibliophile status, I think. Revived my love for BOOKSBOOKSBOOKS. Basically, I quit listening to Booktube. I pulled from various Best of 2022 lists from reliable sources like Time, etc. I think where I was being led astray with Booktube is that I was watching these channels because I liked the personalities, but then I started to realize eventually that my tastes just didn’t align with most of them. Like, I love Kayla from Booksandlala but what she considers horror and I what I consider horror are very different.  I have also found that I gravitate more towards literary fiction and less towards the magical realism shit that she is obsessed with.

Anyway, who cares. Here are the books I read in January, all 14 of them! They were mostly all 4 and 5 stars, maybe one or two 3-3.5 in there.

1. Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting – Clare Pooley

Right off the bat – five star read. This book has humor, humanity, and the found family trope that I love so hard. Most of it takes place on a train / subway where a group of passengers become forced to interact with each other after one of them nearly chokes to death.  It mostly centers around Iona, a sort of “washed-up” socialite whose current employer at a magazine is beginning to find her to be irrelevant. Iona has a very strong, abrasive personality that makes the other passengers either despise her or admire her. I adored her. I adored all of them. I am crying right now as I remember how fucking precious this book is and how much it almost made me miss taking the T to work because now I want to actually strike up conversations with the regulars who I used to see every day and assign monikers to based on their fashion choices or whatever.

Well, anyway, this book made my heart grow a size or four. Then I’m sure I had the sound of a child screaming and it immediately shrunk again.

2. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

Baby, believe the hype. Solid five stars and I am still thinking about it and getting choked up. I have read from  this author once before and genuinely liked it so I was excited to get into this one. However, and I don’t think this is just me because I read other raving reviews that agree, this book starts out slow. Like, not BAD, but knowing that this was on so many Best of 2022 lists, I was confused and really wondering if I was missing something. But then before I had a chance to DNF out of spite (I WON’T LIKE YOUR FAVORITE BOOK, AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME), it hooked me. I can’t explain it, because this book is basically about two childhood friends who meet again when they’re in college (different colleges, same city) and decide to make a video game together.

The characters, their relationships, the blurred lines, their history…it was all so perfectly executed. There is a HUGE TRIGGER WARNING – I don’t want to spoil this book for anyone so you might want to look it up but there is a big traumatic thing that happens, and it wrecked me. I mean, I felt like I was being scooped raw by a melon baller, the pain was real. This will definitely end up being one of the best books I read this year, no cap or whatever Those Kids say.

P.S. Henry also read it and loved it, but he claims he didn’t cry. I mean, I SOBBED.

3. The Hero of This Book – Elizabeth McCracken

Sweet and oftentimes LOL funny, is this a memoir or fiction? Either way – it was a lovely read. 4 stars.

4. Vladimir – Julia May Jonas

This was a TRIP. The writing was so fresh, the characters beautifully-flawed. I laughed out loud numerous and could clearly hear the protagonist in my head, but my favorite part was the fact that Chooch had to pick this up from the library for me haha.

Anyway, 4.5 stars. Loved it and if this was Jonas’s debut novel, then I cannot fucking wait to read the next one.

5. Twenty Years Later – Charlie Donlea

This was recommended to me by my friend Eve – THANK YOU! What a unique thriller! Part of the plot revolves around an unsolved murder, the suspect of which is presumed dead after being in the WTC on the morning of 9/11. The other part follows a TV personality in present day, who resurrects this cold case while also trying to hide from her own unsavory past. I needed a good thriller, and this was it. 4 stars! Didn’t see the twist coming. (Either one!)

6. The Book of Goose – Yiyun Li

What an elegantly written, intriguing story of a childhood friendship between two girls living in rural postwar France. Honestly, Fabienne was a bit of a cunt and I wanted Agnes to haul back and clock her. But yeah, if you’re in the mood for something beautiful and literary, try this one – it’s another 4 star for me, fam.

7. Bad Dolls – Rachel Harrison

You know I tend to SORRY NEXT when it comes to short story collections, but I had to exception for Rachel Harrison, I just love her so. There were 4 stories in, one was a 3-star, 2 were 4-stars, and one 5-star about a bachelorette weekend. One of the 4-star stories was a SUPER RELATABLE tale about a savage diet app that actually had me wishing it was real because sometimes a bitch be desperate.

This was a fantastic, quick read and just what I needed  – something fun that I could listen to while taking my frigid winter morning walks. 4.5 stars overall (is that how averages work!?!?).

8. Perfect – L.A. Kessler

This one was also an audiobook, and I chose it in a whim through Scribd. I just needed something to listen to for when I walk and nothing was really looking too compelling to me. I haven’t heard of this author or this book before. It was fine! It was entertaining for sure but, and maybe this was because of the narrator, it kind of had a Christopher Pike feel to it, especially the scenes were people are killed. It’s like, “Oh OK, this person is dead now, moving right along.” Like I would have read this SO HARD in 9th grade and thought it was the coolest book ever.

It was actually pretty creepy, I’ll give it that much. Will I read the rest of the trilogy, probably not, doc.

9. Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club – Roselle Lim

I was so close to DNF’ing this. I just could not connect with it and picking it up had become a real drag. But, just when I was telling myself, “Finish this chapter and then call it,” something changed. I can’t pinpoint it, it probably was a me-problem, something with my attitude, but I was suddenly ON BOARD and then the rest of the book was just a sheer delight (ok that’s not true, it had some sincere sad moments and the main character’s strained relationship with her mom stressed me out bigly). I also loved the tiny sprinkling of magical realism that was involved in that Sophie, a professional matchmaker, could see ribbons attached to peoples’ hearts and knew when there was a love connection by the way ribbons would react when two people were near each other.

Sophie moves into a new apartment building and immediately targets a group of elderly men, called the Old Ducks, as potential clients. Each Old Duck is adorable, even the one who is super grouchy. ESPECIALLY the one who is super grouchy – I actually pictured him as Glenn throughout the entire book. The Old Ducks and the FOOD were the real stars of this book.

4 stars, glad I gave it a chance! (I think this is another one that Eve suggested, so thank you, friend!)

10. All This Could Be Different – Sarah Thankam Mathews

Solid four stars, but dayum did it give me anxiety. There is A LOT going on here but in general, books about young adults out in the real world, trying to stay afloat and not perish financially, emotionally, and mortally, really makes me sweat. Our main character S is actually not very likeable but hoo boy did I feel for her. Her parents are back in India after her father takes the fall for a crime, leaving S behind in America as a teenager. Now she is out of college, being strung along by a boss who promises to sponsor her for citizenship, living rent-free in an apartment above the racist property manager who makes her life hell (this is where I was REALLY secondhand misery), becomes obsessed with and eventually starts a relationship with a girl she sees in a hardware store, but in the midst of all of this she is also developing beautiful precious friendships with some people who become her family. Love me a found family saga!!!

I can’t explain this book as well as it deserves, but I really fucking loved it and couldn’t wait to pick it back up every time I put it down.

11. Britt-Marie Was Here – Fredrik Backman 

My least favorite Backman book, but still better than most books I’ve read – that should tell you something. He has definitely become one of my favorite authors at this point. The way he crafts his characters! The dialogue! The SUPER DIFFICULT BUT LOVEABLE protagonists. The way he makes you want to live in a small town! From the telephone check-ins Britt-Marie forces upon a girl at the unemployment office to the begrudging companionship to finds in a rat, to the character in  wheelchair known solely as “Somebody,” to SAMI <3. This book gave me so much to think about, so much to love. 4.5 stars.

12. Signal Fires – Dani Shapiro 

Five stars, and I’m not ready to talk about this, I’m sorry. It got me good. Tears, lots. I love you, Ben Wilf.

;(

13. The Me You Love in the Dark – Skottie Young / Jorge Corona (art)

Finally, a graphic novel/comic that I actually liked! The story was decent but the art was excellent. Artist moves into a haunted house, becomes close to the ghost that haunts it. 3.75 stars.

14. Kindred – Octavia Butler

I want to read more classics this year and this was an excellent start. I don’t really think it needs much introduction, and I’m just sorry it took me so long to read it because it was brilliant. This book is obviously a classic for a reason, extremely intense, emotional and throught-provoking. I wish I had been required to read it in high school, to be honest. Solid 5 stars, everyone should read this once in their lifetime.

***

k, bye!

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