My mom texted me last week, asking me to send her a picture of my wheelchair.

“Which one?” I asked, and I swear I wasn’t even being an asshole.

“You have more than one??” she replied like she hasn’t been to my house before!

I thought that perhaps recounting how I acquired each one would be a nice stroll down memory lane and also because I don’t have anything better to talk about and need a distraction from Trump’s dangerous bullshit.

MY FIRST WHEELCHAIR was procured way back in 2012.  I was at Zenith (these types of stories always start with that) when the broad I was with pointed it out. It was dangling from the ceiling and I knew I had to have it – and it was only $40!!! I called Henry STRAIGHTaway and he was like, “Wha—why?” I mean, why not?? I had to haggle with him for a bit but finally he was like FINE (honestly the only reason I even called him was because I knew it wouldn’t fit in the car and I needed him to arrange some type of pick-up, lol.

I really love this one a lot. I mean, you know what they say: you always love your first vintage wheelchair the most.

MY SECOND WHEELCHAIR was gifted to me like, a week later by my friend Wendy who randomly found one at some house recycle place thing and was like DO YOU WANT THIS and then I got spoiled, like “wow am I going to get wheelchairs all the time now?

!”

I like this one a lot because it’s easily transported for photoshoot purposes!

MY THIRD WHEELCHAIR was acquired at a local antique shop in 2016 because it was my birthday and I wanted a present goddammit. This was also the same day / place I got my Mouse Attack sign!

I love this wheelchair a lot (I mean, I obv. love all of them) but it’s the one I baby the most because the seat is like super fragile-looking lattice. So I usually discourage people from sitting in it, though I have made exceptions for like, holiday portraits or whatever.

MY FOURTH WHEELCHAIR was a Christmas gift by our very own HENRY J., you guys!

He apparently had gone and inspected numerous w-chairs that he found via Craigslist, etc. But this one was the best, and without even seeing the others, I have to agree! It has a very medieval feel about it but I know it is not nearly that old.

It’s a real bad boy, the daddy of the pack.

I love these so much, and the semi-haunted vibe they give to my house. I hope that it doesn’t come off as me mocking disabled people because I’m not like “woo hoo paralysis is cool” I fucking swear to god. I just love these old pieces of history and imagining the people they served.

THANK YOU for letting me talk about my wheelbabies and distracting me from the news.

2 comments

Henry and I started having these dumb cemetery picnics back in 2005, during the Christmas when I was pregnant and my family abandoned me, lol. This sounds like an episode of Teen Mom but I promise you I was 25. Anyway, it was kind of cute and I was happy that we were doing our thing on the holiday instead of relying on other people to invite us over and feed us like we’re a joint charity case, so it became something that we kept doing even when things were better and drama-free – we’d always carve out some time in the afternoon for a quick sandwich at the cem before heading over to my grandma’s house or whatever. And the last several years, we found out that this one amazing bakery called Pink Box is open on Christmas Day so we started going to a different cemetery that’s down the street from Pink Box and I gotta tell you, it’s a really delicious tradition to have!

This year though it snowed really bad on Christmas Day and to be honest, I was content hanging at home where it was warm and cozy. We waited until the weekend and had our belated picnic on a much warmer day (I mean, it was like 30 degree probably so not “warm” but better than a snowstorm, I guess). This meant that in addition to Pink Box buns, we were also able to hit up the neighboring Allegro Hearth Bakery for some plant-based sandwiches to go with our desserts!

Kofta melt. It was sooooo good.

One of the many bad things about Covid is that there’s been such an uptick of people strolling through the cemeteries. We used to hardly ever run into other people there, especially in winter, but there were motherfuckers sled-riding there that day, for Christ’s sake. I was so indignant and enraged about this but I mean…we were there to eat sandwiches and buns so….I guess we’re just as motherfucker-y as the sledding motherfuckers.

I mean, if you think just because your kid is 14, you can stop screaming basic common sense things at him like DON’T STEP ON THE ICY POND, DIP SHIT, you would be sadly mistaken. We seriously screamed it 3x each until Henry was like, “Fuck him then.

” Parenting! We’re great at it!

Then I took this dumb picture of us MOMENTS BEFORE CHOOCH CHUCKED AN ICE-ENCRUSTED AT MY FUCKING EYEBALL AND RUINED THE WHOLE FAMILY BONDING EFFORT. In his defense, he was trying to hit Henry (which would have been fine, lol) but he missed and woooo boy did that sucker sting. I think it hurt even worse because it caught me so off guard and maybe I had a lot of pent up stress and tears in me and it unleashed a wave of emotion and possibly bi-polar enhanced histrionics which, looking back on it now, even I can admit was over the top and uncalled for.

First I was really pissed and then I just started sobbing uncontrollably to the point where Henry was like “um, there there” and cautiously put his arm around me which Chooch was like “….

” and the dead people were like “Oooh, action!

”

“WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME SO MUCH?!” I screeched, scaring off any bird that hadn’t been chased away by the vocal power of my initial outburst.

I was stalking back to the car, sensing that Henry and Chooch were mouthing shit to each other behind my back LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO, when I suddenly felt inspired to hit the dumb kid so I turned around and slapped his arm but only ended up hurting my hand in  the process and then we both started laughing and I screamed I HATE YOU while still laughing but also crying too and I noticed that there were two people who had been walking behind us for this whole shit show AND I DID NOT EVEN CARE.

Anyway, I was fine but I made sure to complain about my eye hurting all day even though it really didn’t.

And that’s the story about how sometimes you don’t need extended family to create drama on a holiday when you’re perfectly capable of stoking those flames yourself. The end. I’ll take a bow now.

1 comment

[CONTEST IS OVER! ANSWERS ARE NOW LISTED!]

I guess because I love to abuse myself, I decided that in lieu of just typing out the titles of my favorite books that I read in 2020, I would decorate cookies in the “likeness” (used very loosely in this context) of their covers. Because you know me and kitchen stuff. We go hand in ha—no, that’s  not the right saying.

WE’RE LIKE OIL AND WATER.

Yes, that’s the one.

It seemed like a great idea until I remembered that I hate baking and suddenly found myself extremely exhausted just thinking about googling “Sugar cookie recipe” so Henry, who is only sometimes good at reading my mind and thankfully this was one of the few times, asked, “Oh for God’s sake, do you want me to make the cookies??”

Yes! Yes, I do!

So he baked the cookies and then I was like NOW WHAT so then he got all the icing ready for me too. But don’t worry, all of the actual decorating was done by me, no cheating. And I am CLEARLY not getting into the cookie icing biz any time ever! What a fucking pain in the ass! But after three separate icing sessions starting on Friday, I finished the last cookie today and am now ready for whatever because after three days of Chooch popping in to criticize and ridicule my progress, I’m pretty numb.

Because some of them (all of them?) are so bad, I thought it would be fun to just share them here at first with no corresponding book title to see who can get the most correct guesses. I’ll come back later in the week and update this with the answers! Maybe there will be a prize?! Like a surprise grab bag from me to you!? Full of Bit-o-Honeys and Whoopie cushions?!!?* oh em gee it’s like 2012 Blogging Erin is back.

*(It will be better than that, I promise.)

HINT: Not all of these books were published in 2020.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Iain Reid

Pro Tip: The audiobook makes the ending EVEN BETTER and also, this is is way better than the Netflix adaptation which has mostly a completely different ending. Henry & I buddy-read/listened to this together, and some of it was in a cemetery which made it even more tense and atmospheric. This one got a lot of very mixed reviews and I know some people were like “I FIGURED IT OUT RIGHT AWAY” and like, OK, good for you. It’s still an excellent fucking book and it made me have legit chills and then when I finished it, I started furiously googling for explanations and reviews. Henry and I talked about it for quite some time after finishing it!

2. My Year of Meats – Ruth Ozeki

I think this is the oldest book on my list. It was published in the late 90s and I just randomly came across it, I think when I was compiling my TBR for Asian Readathon? As a vegetarian, this was definitely not something that sat well with me, since we’re literally following a woman on the production team of a reality show that details the meat industry and how important meat is for the American family. The whole purpose of the show is to get Japanese people on board with consuming more meat, as the meat industry is trying to break into Japan. Our main character starts to see the hidden horrors of slaughterhouses and the industry in general, such as inhumane treatment of livestock and the grotesque and harmful side effects of added hormones. Ugh, I just found it so engaging and compelling, and I LOVED the characters.

3. Girl, Woman, Other – Bernadine Evaristo

This book does so much. It was a solid five star for me, so fucking smartly written, you will fall in love with every character, gasp with excitement when you start to see various connections, and honestly if you don’t lose yourself in the lives of these characters, are you even reading it?

4. The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld

I cannot even describe how wonderful this book is and also, I just did a shoddy review of it last weekend and don’t feel like rehashing it again, lol. Just go read this book please. IT IS EXQUISITE.

5. Beartown – Fredrik Backman

Henry is currently listening to the audiobook and therefore felt that he deserved to eat this cookie, and he did so with a certain smugness that I did not appreciate. Anyway, I also recently wrote about this book too so I will just say that, even though the subject matter was difficult, heavy and maddening, it still felt like a comfort read to me because it’s set in a cozy small town where everyone knows each other and you just get that warm sense of familiarity while reading it, like you know all these people too, and maybe it’s just me but I really cared about a lot of them except for Kevin who can kindly go fuck himself.

6. We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry

My #1 favorite of the year was We Ride Upon Sticks. It was just so witty, fast-paced, irreverent, quirky, flush with 80s references, and the writing was TOTALLY MY STYLE.

7. The Great Believers – Rebecca Makkai

I was on some very strange 1980s AIDS kick for a while and this book ripped my heart out. I promise you that my face was swollen from all the crying I did but I read it at a time where I really needed that – you know how sometimes a good fucking cry can just feel so cleansing? That’s what this book did for me. I’m getting misty just thinking about how much Yale (the character, not the university!) means to me.

This is supposed to be a “lite” version of A Little Life, which I keep putting off reading because I’m afraid it will kill me.

8. In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado

This is the one non-fiction that made the cut and it is a gem, an actual slice of the author’s soul, bound and presented to the undeserving us. Please read this. It’s beautiful, scary, painful, funny, creative, surprising – I promise it’s unlike any memoir you’ve ever read and it still visits me in my dreams, months later.

9. Luster – Raven Leilani

I had no idea what I was even getting into when I picked this one up but how is this a debut novel?? Raven Leilani can WRITE, yo. You will laugh, feel uncomfortable, learn some shit, feel your hatred of men increase a bit, all the while rooting for the damn girl to get her shit together and succeed. Also, this made Obama’s top 20 list of the year and it is a certain brand of glee to imagine him reading it!

I do think  this is a terrible book cover though (I mean, yeah, my cookie version of it is shit, but the actual cover didn’t give me much to work with! The UK version is much better but isn’t that usually the case?).

10. The Devil All the Time – Donald Ray Pollock

Um, this book fucked me up. It’s gritty and violent but there are also some incredibly bizarre and hilarious vignettes in here too which made me think about those dumb short stories I used to write and I actually felt inspired to start writing again for like 5 seconds until I got distracted by a new Kpop video. Henry and I buddy-read this together because we wanted to watch the Netflix adaptation and I am so glad we read it first. The movie was good but, as it is in most cases, the book is superior.

11. Bunny – Mona Awad

I read this is in the beginning of 2020 and while I was reading it, I kept thinking, “YES! THIS IS WHAT I MISSED ABOUT READING!” – that feeling of “I don’t want to put this book down, OMG what is going to happen, that was a perfect description!” It was just FUN. WEIRD. BIZARRO. I want it to be a movie but also don’t want someone manhandling it and snuffing out the magic within these pages.

But I will say, it’s probably not for everyone. People seem to either love it or hate it.

12. The Ghost Notebooks – Ben Dolnick

Chooch cracks up every time he sees this and I want to smash it into his face, if I’m being Honest Mother up in here.

Anyway, I think that I actually gave this book a 4, but when I was scrolling through my Goodreads list to get my favorites, I saw this one and immediately knew I wanted to include it. It was just so good, and I can’t really explain why, but it sort of felt like I was sitting with the main character as he was telling me, personally, about the time he moved to some small town in New York with his wife to live in some old ass house-cum-museum for an obscure writer because she got a job as basically a docent I guess? Anyway, it’s a slow burn, very conversationally written, emotional, tense, funny at times.

It’s one I need to read again.

13. Nothing To See Here – Kevin Wilson

First of all, this author has the same name as this mysterious guy I met over the phone in high school so that’s something. But anyway,  this book was so wonderful! Perfectly flamboyant characters with just the right amount of magical realism sprinkled on top of an endearing plot? I was all in.

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Just leave your answers in a comment. I’m privatizing them for now so people can’t steal each others’ answers!

UPDATE: HERE ARE THE ANSWERS

Here are the cookies I was actually moderately proud of:

Chooch was like, “can we please start eating these cookies now” so I made him eat the one he hated the most.

Plus, my #1 book of the year, which was probably the easiest one to make!

If I wasn’t making cookies, my list would have been an even 20 and these are the ones that would have made the final cut:

• Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 – Cho Nam-Joo
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
• Death of Vivek Oji – Akwaeke Emezi
• Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams
• The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
• The Diviners – Libba Bray
• Sadie – Courtney Summers (THE AUDIOBOOK THO OMG.)

Anyway – congratulations to Janna who correctly guessed 6, woo hoo!

11 comments

We made it to December!! I have to hurry up and get this recap done because I want to do a 2020 FAVORITES list and two of my favorites actually came from my December reads!! Gonna try to bust this out into one post!! Let’s go, Lucy!

1. Watch Over Me – Nina LaCour

Talk about starting the month off on a bad note. This book was pretty awful. Boring. Cold. Flat characters. The reviews I read were gushing over how no one writes sad girls like Nina LaCour, queen or emo and loneliness, etc etc. I got none of that. I got “try hard,” “disjointed,” “boring,” “what a gorgeous cover wasted on an empty book. I felt nothing and at times I even forgot what was happening. Hard pass.

2.  The Black Flamingo – Dean Atta

Fuck yes – I love me some good coming of age / coming out books, add in some drag and I am there for it, Mary. I feel the most emotions when reading about marginalized people finding comfort in their skin and a community where they can spread their wings and really fucking fly. This was an exceptional journey through Michael’s life, starting from his joy of Barbies as a child to flourishing in drag as a young adult. Also, it’s written in verse so if you like Elizabeth Acevedo, why haven’t you picked this one up yet?

I feel like this should be required reading in school. Honestly, if I were a teacher, I’d want my students to read books like this.

3. The Graveyard Apartment – Mariko Koike 

Japanese horror movies are my favorites, so I figured I would enjoy this book. Typical with Japanese (and Korean) horror/thrillers, this one was slow and quiet. Basically, a young family moves to a new, luxury apartment complex across from a cemetery, but there are only a handful of other units occupied. It seems it’s because people just don’t want to live across from a cemetery, but then some spooky shit starts happening and our fam is eventually like “OK, UNCLE. WE’RE CALLING IT. UNCLE” and they decide it’s time to find new digs BUT WILL THE COMPLEX LET THEM LEAVE?!!?

There were some chilling moments but nothing that TRULY scared me. However, I really felt attached to the main family (the dog too!!) and rooted for them so hard to win at the end. And speaking of the end – I genuinely liked it but I wonder if that’s an unpopular opinion…

4. Real Life – Brandon Taylor

I had high hopes for this book because it seemed like something I would like based on the fact that I’m obsessed with books in the vein of The Great Believers, but ultimately it was just kind of a drag. We follow the main character, a gay Black grad student, who has some pretty dysfunctional and toxic relationships with a group of friends, and I just didn’t care about him nor did I care about any of his friends, and he becomes involved with one of the guys in his group who is kind of like his frenemy? And also straight?

Was this just too academic for me? Should I ask Alexa?

5. We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry

It’s been several weeks since I finished this and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Is Quan Barry my new favorite author? Am I considering getting a tattoo to celebrate (and consummate???) my love of the words on these pages? Will I ever get over these characters? Am I currently listening to She Bop on repeat?

YES YES NO YES.

I wasn’t expecting to find what is I THINK the best book I read in 2020 so late into the reading year, but holy-fucking-shit this blew me away. It was also 100% NOT what I was expecting. The synopsis, no matter how many different ways I try to frame it, always comes off sounding like some cheesy young adult romp through an I Love the 80s VH1 special but it’s so much deeper and complex than that. First of all, it’s not YA. Second of all, the pop culture references don’t feel cheap but instead act as a warm fucking hug, like Jane Fonda leg warmers for the soul.

We follow a high school girls’ field hockey team at a New England high school in the 80s. There is some connection to the Salem Witch Trials to the town of Danvers, and so we get some witchy/magical realism action which flows seamlessly through the story so that it’s not hokey at all and only makes us question, “Wait, is this real life?”

We follow, individually and as a whole, each player of the field hockey team, and each one of these kids has a story and identity. There is also some BRILLIANT personification (ex.: one of the girls has stereotypical Aqua Net 1980s bangs with a mind of its own, and also a name of its own: The Claw) and the dialogue is SO SMART that I actually started crying several times not because the story was sad (it’s FUCKING HILARIOUS) but because Quan Barry DID THAT. This is the kind of book that I read and think, “I am never writing again. There is no point. There is only Quan Barry.”

I do not know how else to get you to read this book. But if you’re looking for PURE FUN that somehow manages to weave in social and racial commentary without hurting the flow, you have got to give this a chance. I would love to see this as a TV miniseries, only if it stayed true to Barry’s vision.

6. The Queen’s Gambit – Walter Tevis 

After bingeing the Netflix series in November, I really wanted to read the book because I’m always curious to see how true to the pages adaptations stay. And it was PRETTY SIMILAR. A few differences but nothing too glaring.

So, I know very little about chess and I really had no desire to watch the show until my favorite YouTube couple, Sarah and Kyuho, raved about it. I decided to give it a chance and found it super compelling! I think the fact that it was set in the 60s really kept me hooked too though because I LOVE shows that are set in the 60s/70s/80s. I liked the book just fine, but I don’t think this would have ever been something I would have picked up otherwise. And yes, there were pages upon pages detailing chess moves which was like “zzzzz.” But goddamn, Beth is such an interesting character and I loved reading about her intellectually emasculating dude after dude after dude.

7. One By One – Ruth Ware

I’ve only read one other Ruth Ware book, but there seems to be a common opinion in the book community where her books are very hit or miss. Everyone seems to really love some of her books and absolutely hate others. Having really enjoyed the one book I read of hers earlier in the year, I was curious to see if this phenomenon would be true for me, too.

YEP. This book was so bad. Boring. Predictable. Characters that felt like they were fleshed out by a middle schooler writing a “thriller” in her notebook during study hall which may or may not be something I’m familiar with. Waaaaay too much talk about the stocks of this dumb company that most of the characters work for. A truly lackluster climax. I literally couldn’t believe the same broad who wrote The Turn of the Key wrote this pile of drivel.

Skip this and go read an Agatha Christie novel instead.

8. With the Fire on High – Elizabeth Acevedo

Isn’t this cover beautiful?!!? I had a long time to admire it because I snagged this book from a local Little Free Library over the summer and then proceeded to drown in library books and was in a perpetually race against due dates so this lovely lady kept getting bumped back. But I finally had time in December to tackle it and it was wonderful, as are all of Acevedo’s books. Elizabeth writes characters who are so real, brimming with family values while also craving the independence and freedom to be their own person and follow their dreams, and you will CHEER THESE GIRLS ON.

In this one, Emoni is a teen mom who dreams of being a chef, but she’s trying to juggle the very real priorities that come with being a mom while also working a part time job in order to help her abuela with living expenses, and the stress is palpable.

I always get the audio books for Acevedo’s books because she narrates them herself and it’s just a real treat. I can’t wait for her next book!

9. The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld

I was kind of intimidated by this book, not gon’ lie. There are several British Booktubers that I love and have gotten some great recs from their videos but their book tastes can be admittedly way too…intelllectual? Advanced? Literary? for my pea brain to handle. But they raved about this book all year long and I finally took the plunge.

It was not what I expected! Admittedly, it was a bit difficult to get into at first because there are three different timelines but eventually it clicked in my college drop-out head. We follow three women: Viv, in present day, who is tasked with taking inventory of her step-grandmother’s empty house; Ruth, back in post-WW2 times, who has just remarried and has moved into a large possibly haunted (dot dot dot) house by the sea; and Sarah, who has been accused of being a witch and is running from townspeople in the 1700s.

Violence against women is the heavy theme of this book, but there are still some light moments and humor which really made this story shine. I don’t want to say too much more about it because I walked into this only knowing that it was a gothic novel with some witchiness and ghosts and I think I expected it to be super dry for some reason. I love being wrong in these types of cases! I tried to explain the plot to Henry and he was just like, “ew feminism, boys are best” j/k he didn’t say that but he also had the “Don’t care” glaze over his face so now someone (maybe YOU??) has to read this so we can talk about it and by talk I mean possibly have a comment exchange that goes like “that book was amazing” and “IKR?!?!?!”

This is why I don’t do book groups.

I will probably think about Viv and Ruth forever.

10. Don’t Look For Me – Wendy Walker

This is a thriller. I have lukewarm feelings. Didn’t care much about anyone, all the men were sleazy, WTF was going on with the husband and was it ever explained or did I miss it, there is a small child that I absolutely hated and I don’t even feel bad about it. I’d recommend passing on this one, but it served as an OK filler while I looked for something better.

11. The Hollow Places – T. Kingfisher

WHOA another book that was not at all what I was expecting based on the cover! If you’re looking for true horror, probably skip this one because it’s actually more funny than scary. I heard someone say that the two main characters reminded them of Lorelai Gilmore and Michel and I would agree WHOLE-HEARTEDLY on the Lorelai front but if we’re going full Gilmore Girls comparisons with this, I would say that her sidekick reminded me WAY MORE of Kurt.

Basically, we follow a recently-divorced woman who moves back to her small hometown and moves into her uncle’s roadside attraction-esque museum in exchange for helping him inventory all of his wares. (Think: fiji mermaids, etc.) One day, she discovers a large-ish hole in one of the walls, presumably damaged by a tourist, and she enlists the barista at the downstairs coffee house to help her patch the hole. During this process, they discover that the hole actually leads to basically another dimension, and this part sort of reminded me of The House of Leaves, and I will admit that this part of the book started to lose me a little because it was just a bit sci-fi for me – I hate other dimensions/worlds/portals type of plots because my brain just don’t work that way.

But then as the book progresses, never losing the quirky and quick-witted banter, we come back to the museum and shit gets a bit Wonderfalls-y – do you guys remember that show?! IT WAS SO GOOD AND OF COURSE CANCELED AFTER LIKE ONE SEASON.

I would love to read more books with these characters, as long as it didn’t involve the exploration of parallel universes, lol.

12. Watching You – Lisa Jewell

I typically enjoy Lisa Jewell thrillers but this one didn’t do it for me. Basically, we follow a bunch of shitty neighbors spying on each other and one of them is some 50-ish year old male teacher who didn’t seem all that heart-throbby based on the description but somehow young girls obsess over him and I just didn’t get it at all.

Super far-fetched and just didn’t really work for me.

14. Long Bright River – Liz Moore

Exceptional!! Major trigger warning for drug addition. We follow a cop, Micky, who is searching for her estranged, addict sister while a string of murders are hitting her childhood neighborhood in Philly. We get glimpses into the past too to help us understand how Micky and her sister ended up on different paths and it’s actually heart-breaking to see how close they were, to being nothing to each other because of drugs. Present-day Micky is doing all she can to juggle her job as a cop with being a single mom to a young boy, and when she goes rogue to find her sister, major feathers are ruffled on the police force. Fucking popo.

This isn’t just a thriller or mystery though – this is a literary masterpiece that explores how drug abuse tears families apart. Liz Moore’s writing is really unique, the way she writes dialogue really appealed to me, but above all that, if Obama tells you this was one of his favorite books of 2020, you fucking listen to him and open the damn book.

15. Grown – Tiffany D. Jackson

Be prepared to be ANGRY while reading this. Tiffany D. Jackson is the queen of writing about those hard topics and this one will make you see red. The author claims that this is not low-key about R.Kelly but the similarities are there: a successful Black singer (in his late 20s) takes a young girl under his wing, promising her a music career, and the grooming starts IMMEDIATELY. There’s abuse, rape, gas-lighting, kidnapping – you name it, it happens in this book and it’s sickening because you know this shit is real, this shit happens to girls every day. The most heartbreaking part for me though was how hard her father fought to get her back. (I’m getting choked up as I think about this!!)

The worst part #2 for me was that I could easily picture myself, at 16, falling prey to this same type of shit. If some singer I loved started texting me, are you kidding?? I’d be all over that without even thinking that it was wrong. These men have SO MUCH POWER because they KNOW that young girls aren’t going to think twice, that these girls THINK that they’re grown enough to consent to this thinly-veiled abuse, and I am actually so thankful, as I write this, that I don’t have a daughter but it just means that I have to put in the work as a parent to ensure that my SON doesn’t become a MAN who thinks this shit is OK. Especially when we see it time and time again on TV shows. Teachers and students, mostly. (It happens in the pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek, for god’s sake!) And yeah, we mostly see it happening between men and girls, but it does go both ways! I remember watching Pretty Little Liars with Henry and he was enraged time and time again by this.

“Grown” is an extreme case of this but we know that it happens, nevertheless. Tiffany D. Jackson is an amazing writer.

16. Alice – Christina Henry 

A very (very!!) dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland. That’s really all you need to know. We have a world of murder, violence, and sex with some VERY DIFFERENT portrayals of familiar characters. For instance, the Walrus rapes his victims while eating them.

Definitely not a book to read your kids at night, but DEFINITELY a book for YOU to read if you love the Wonderland world and are looking for a much darker take on it.

I thought it was excellent and also a very quick read. Also, can we talk about that cover?!

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So that’s it! All of the books I read in December! I ended the year having read a total of 204 books and while I’m always up for a challenge and that was a cool milestone, I am very content to going back to casually reading with no goal in mind!

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In lieu of doing some phony, gratuitous recap of 2020 (I think we can agree that we all have the same feelings for it!) or making up some lame resolutions (last year at this time I predicted that 2020 was going to be the best year yet so imma just chuck that Nostradamus act off the nearest bridge and luckily I live in Pittsburgh, the bridge capital of the world), I’m just going to pretend like this is a regular day and throw down some Friday Five action.

1. The constantly in flux 1980s Dream Kitchen

I’m not sure I’m ever going to consider this room “done.” I just bought this sweet ass Pee Wee Herman art piece which I’m waiting to arrive, we have that pinball back glass that needs marquee lights, the Conair phone is an entire electrical nightmare that Henry doesn’t want to think about, lol…But I do have an update!!

When I decided I wanted to redo the kitchen, one of the first things I bought was this amazing piece of fabric on Spoonflower, featuring the likeness of Robert Smith (natch), David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Ant, Siouxsie Sioux, Boy George, and Annie Lennox. Originally I wanted to use it as a curtain for the door that goes into the backporch but honestly, I really like being able to look through that window when I’m in the kitchen. First of all, we have cute lanterns and stuff hanging from the ceiling so it’s very festival, but also there are some BIG BOY trees in the backyard and I love being able to see the birds and squirrels having tree top playtime.

Months went by and it kept getting pushed further down Henry’s To Do List (come on he’s the seamstress of the house among everything else!) and then eventually forgotten about. But then I remembered it and Henry mumbled “oh boy.”

I settled on using it as a little skirt for the front of the coffee cart and I love it so much!! Henry did a good job. Holla at him if you need no-sew curtains made–he’s really good at finding the most half-assed, cop-outiest route possible to get shit done lol.

Anyway, I know I said I wasn’t going expound upon 2020 but our kitchen was really such a ray of sunlight for us. We might not have been able to control what was going on around the world but at least we could make necessary changes inside our house that would positively affect our mental standing and I am so grateful that we had the means to do so!

2. People Cups

I know I’m not alone in this but our cat Drew will seek out my glass of water no matter where I set it and then she just helps herself and I’m all, DREW THAT’S MINE while Henry laughs heartily because it’s such a losing battle. Finally I looked at her and said, “DO YOU WANT YOUR OWN PEOPLE CUP? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT??” so now we have to keep a people cup of water on the table for her, which she drinks from with the urgency of someone who just clawed their way out of the desert.

Penelope never really bothered with my glasses of water before but her sister has helped her cross over to the People Cup side.

Cats man, amirite?

3. Reoccurring Beets

Remember a few posts ago when I talked about The Office-inspired pints of ice cream we got from Sugar Spell and how one of the pints was beet-flavored? I posted it on Instagram and my Korean teacher/friend Jiyong commented and I replied in Korean that I learned a new word and then wrote the word for “beets” and she was like “Did you mean to say sugar-free?” and I was like “no beets!” and she was like “haha that is not the word for beets” and I was like NAVER DICTIONARY FAILED ME THEN and it was so embarrassing (not really) because this was all done publicly on Instagram so all of my friends (like all 3 of them) could be reassured that good ol’ Erin is still a fucking dunce but I was so confused because I specifically used Naver to look it up because that’s the Korean version of Google and it said that the word was “satangmu” and even showed pictures of beets and I was like “OK I guess that makes sense because it translates to “sugar radish” right? Buy Jiyong said that they don’t use that word to say “beet,” they LITERALLY SAY BEET.

Languages are so frustrating.

Then right after that, our local sandwich joint, Oak Hill Post (RIP Parkers) posted on Instagram that their new veg sandwich creation was beets ‘n greens so of course I had to have it even though I was like “UGH FALSE SATANGMU.”

It was goddamn delicioso.

THEN!!!! I was reading “Grown” and there were numerous chapters called “Beet Juice Part 1,” “Beet Juice Part 2,” etc and I was like, “…..” The universe really went all out to keep me reminded that I suck at learning Korean, lol.

(But seriously, fuck dictionaries!)

4. My DoDo Son

Here are two (2) stories about my dumbo son who is actually quite intelligent but somehow always manages to shock me with his stupidity when I least expect it:

• The other day, we were on one of our walks, when Chooch said, “We learned at the teen center that the “x” in the abbreviation Xmas comes from Greek. I can’t remember what the X means though…tree…?” and as he was making other far-off guesses, I stopped him and said, “CHRIST??” He looked at me like I was a genius and exclaimed, “Yes! That’s it! How did you know that??” and I was like, “Because….CHRISTmas….???” There was this moment when time stood still and you could hear the gears & cranks turning in his thick head. “Oh my god, I had no idea…”
• Last night on New Year’s Eve aka Just Another Night, I was inspired to watch my favorite Alice in Wonderland adaption (the 1985 made-for-TV version but really it’s the porn version shhhh). I found it on YouTube which is great because I only have it on VHS but I don’t have a VCR anymore, so that’s cool. Anyway, Chooch made it approx. 15 minutes through the movie before declaring that he was bored and retreated to his room to play dumb Fortnite with his dumb friends. A little bit later, I went upstairs and poked my head in his room to say, “You missed the part where Alice dies.” I was prepared for him to say, “Yeah OK” but instead there was a pause and then he said, “Wait—Alice dies? How?” My mind started spinning; I wasn’t prepared for the convo to go this far because I assumed he knew the story?!?! “Um…the Mad Hatter….cuts her head off,” I said and immediately regretted not saying the Queen but I was ready to say that the Queen had the Mad Hatter do in case he gave me push back. But instead, he said, “OMG, does she die in the Disney version too???” He was REALLY BELIEVING THIS, you guys. “Yeah, just not as violently,” I managed to get out without laughing, thankful that we were separated by a wall and he couldn’t see my face. “How did I not know that…” I heard him whisper to himself.

You guys, these moments are my favorite parts of parenting.

5. Invasion of Privacy

Henry casually outed the fact that he OCCASIONALLY uses the security camera to watch me watching the squirrels during the day??!! Actually he tried to lie and say that he uses it to watch the squirrels but that I am “always at the window watching the squirrels” so of course he’s going to see me. He even recorded some instances and showed me the other night!! There was a video of Penelope of watching the squirrel and then she looks over her shoulder and Henry goes, “Watch, here you come…” and sure enough THERE I CAME.

I’m not sure how I feel about this!!! But then he showed me some more videos where I’m talking to the cats about the squirrels (“WHERE HIM AT, DREW?! WHERE BUDDY?” And “LOOK AT HIM EAT HIM WALNUT! HIM EAT HIM WALNUT REAL GOOD, HUH?” because I never baby talked Chooch but whoa nelly I got lots of it stored up inside me) and I was like “wow I’m really cute!” but also maybe in need of a friend.

Anyway, yesterday there were four squirrels congregating on our porch and yard at once and it was a big deal bc they were the brown ones who I have found are super territorial with each other and usually chase each other away and only one can be on our porch at a time. This was a big deal!!

I spend too much time at the window! Also, Chooch tried to take the garbage out yesterday and one of them was sitting on the chair next to the door, eating a walnut, and then JUMPED DOWN TO THE DOORSTEP so Chooch couldn’t get out of the house! They’re getting so fucking ballsy and perhaps a bit too comfortable, haha. Also, it’s going to be sad when I go back to work in the office eventually.

Can you spot all four??

Well, I guess that’s all for this Friday Five. Happy Fucking New Year.

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Hi hello what’s up hola *hello in ASL*.  I have been wanting for quite some time to give my original serial killer V-Day sets a refresher because let’s be real – I made those YEARS ago and my design style has graduated to, I dunno, 6th grade level Photoshop skill? I was especially unhappy with the backs – they were just sloppy, if we’re being honest. But I just kept putting it off, especially this year because while I’m very lucky to have a job that has seamlessly transitioned into work from home status during the pandemic, the last thing I want to do is finish my work day sitting at the computer and then…continue sitting at the computer.

But I really felt inspired and refreshed last weekend so I hunkered down on Saturday and got ‘er done, boys. Well, the first set, anyway. Maybe set #2 will happen this weekend??

I’m so much happier with the new backs!

I love these cards so much because they bring back fond memories of Valentine parties in elementary school, when we all got to fuck a shoebox with a glue stick and crepe paper and then run around stuffing Scooby Doo sentiments into everyone’s “mailbox” even if we didn’t like the person because THE TEACHER SAID. My favorite part was the candy and cupcakes though. I was a fat kid.

And then in fifth grade, I was the fat kid with a perm.

AND BRACES.

FML.

But I somehow still got Valentines so I didn’t hate the damn day.

Even now, as a grown as adult, I like passing out Valentines at work. I passed the serial killer ones out one year to mixed reviews. My one co-worker received an Albert Fish one and sent me an email that said, “OMG I just Wiki’d that guy. He was so terrible! Why would you give me that card?!”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Surprisingly, no one reported me to HR.

Life is all about taking risks, you know?

This set includes 16 different designs! Can you even imagine? They do not come with envelopes though because they’re mini-cards. There are so many uses for them! One of my customers told me that she hid all of them around the house for her husband to randomly discover as he went about life. I thought that was so cute!

The backs include the names of each hellion in case your recipient isn’t as up to speed on their murder shows as you and me. So I guess you could even say that these are EDUCATIONAL TOO!

They could even be used as gift tags! Party favors! (REMEMBER PRE-PANDEMIC PARTIES??)

What are you waiting for?? Go grab a set!

I also have sets for vintage porn stars, cult leaders, Golden Girls, The Cure, and you can find several kpop sets in my KPOP SHOP as well!

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I have honestly no complaints about this Christmas. It might have actually been one of the only ones where I didn’t cry or pout or smash glass, if we’re being real here. So here are some photos from our super cozy day at home!

When I woke up that morning, I had no expectations. Henry and I don’t always exchange gifts because we’re so focused on getting shit for our spoiled son who wasn’t supposed to get anything this year because we got him a brand new gaming computer in October and he was all, “THIS CAN BE MY EARLY XMAS GIFT, I WON’T EXPECT ANYTHING ON XMAS!

” but of course I was like, “We have to get him some little things just so he has something to open on Christmas” because you know that’s the real meaning of Xmas, come on. And then that slowly morphed into DID WE GET HIM ENOUGH, MAYBE I SHOULD JUST GET HIM MORE THING” and then he ended up with a decent stack and do you know what that little shit said he liked the best?

These dumb stress bands I bought him because he said he wanted stress toys. They’re just these floppy rubber colorful strips that he can pull on and he has been walking around with no less than two of them in his hands at once, ever since Xmas, like he’s the Stress Cowboy.

So dumb.

But before any of that happened, we all came downstairs and I was prepared to get comfortable on the couch and watch Chooch tear through his gifts, except that I was met with a gigantic blanket-covered lump in the middle of the room, and Henry and Chooch were standing there staring at me expectantly, until I yelled, “IS THAT FOR ME?!” and it was!

You guys, I have four wheelchairs now!!!!

Henry said Chooch only knew about this for less than one full day because he can’t be trusted, but that he actually bought it awhile ago and it’s been in the garage ever since. Hot Naybor Chris helped him get it in there apparently and asked, “You guys going racin’ or something?” and I can totally picture him saying this which makes it even better!

And then Chooch made me a card inside which he wrote lots of sappy shit that he never ever ever would say out loud and I just kept saying, “I hate you” over and over while trying not to cry. This was the best Christmas I’ve had in a while!!

“I can’t believe he finally wrote on the correct side of the card,” I said to Henry later, of our genius son who is the biggest stoop when it comes to cards, letters, and envelopes.

“Oh, that was his third attempt,” Henry sighed.

The cats got a new tunnel for Henry to trip over and kick 87 times a day! (The amount of cat toys strewn about our house every day is actually really hilarious. I’m pretty sure they have more toys than Chooch ever did.)

Drew always has to be in the thick of things.

Chooch got an egg maker thingie and also an air fryer. He did not, however, get anything from wine.com. I just used the box to wrap something else! I FUCKING SWEAR!

Chooch loves Uniqlo, so I got him a coat which I think looks so nice on him but he’s just like, “I DON’T NEED COATS!” Because, you know, teenagers don’t get cold. Hoodies or GTFO.

And also this Keith Haring x Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. He loves Keith Haring! I hate how grown-up he looks here though.

Our joint gift to Henry was originally that he could eat and breathe all day without us complaining about how loud he was being but that turned out to be something that was just way out of our budget so we reneged after about an hour. (If you ask Henry, he’ll probably say we didn’t even last that long.)

Then it was time for dinner! Henry pre-ordered two Christmas dinner kits from our pals at Zenith and then made himself some gross meat-laden stew in his PRESSURE COOKER which he remembered he had on the night before Xmas Eve when we delivered cookies to Wendy and Shawn and crock pots somehow came up in conversation (I zoned out for most of that segment because it was too Adulting) and I guess that made him feel inspired to use it.

“Is that the thing we used to make the hot chocolate for the hot chocolate bar at our Xmas party last year?” I asked.

“No! That was a CROCK POT!” Henry cried because apparently he has tried to teach me the differences of these two kitchen gadgets in the past but I’m too obtuse to retain it.

Or care.

The best part of Zenith meals is the VEGAN BUDNT CAKE. This one was apple and I wanted to ride my new wheelchair to the nearest courthouse with the cake strapped to my lap.

You know, so we could be married.

The cake and me.

Henry was making lots of mouth-sounds with his stew, and I really think Chooch was about to pack up a hobo sack and hit the road.

Chooch’s face is perfect lol.

Actually getting along.

Afterward, we watched Die Hard (Chooch is going through this phase where he wants to watch “classics” which basically are just movies from the 80s so that doesn’t make me feel like a fucking old hag or anything) while Chooch attempted to make a gingerbread house and hurled the box across the room after 10 minutes, which is way longer than I would have lasted, so good for him.

Anyway, while watching Die Hard, I realized that I have never seen Die Hard. The end.

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Henry and I both had Christmas Eve off from work and it was really nice to just hang out and chill. Regardless of the pandemic, the holidays aren’t TOO stressful and busy for us because it’s usually just the three of us anyway. The last several years, we’ve gone to dinner with my mom and brothers but that’s usually just on a random night around Christmas. Obviously that didn’t happen this year!

Henry and I left Chooch at home and went to do some last minute Xmas shopping which wasn’t as terrible as I  thought it would be, though we did see a big fucking maskless douche-couple at Target. Which reminds me: the night before, we stopped by Wendy’s house to give her a tin of Chooch’s cookies and ended up having a really nice socially-distanced catch-up sesh outside of her house – it was the first time I’ve seen her (aside from WebEx video calls) since last March! (Actually, that’s not true – we waved to each other through my window last April when she dropped Sarris Candies off at my house.) Anyway! The reason I bring this up is because Shawn (her husband) was ranting about plumbers who came to their house and were free-lippin’ it and I was like “????” and then “…..” and then “!!!!!” because that’s the best term for it EVER. Fuck the free-lippers!

So yeah, aside from those two inconsiderate, selfish ‘MURRICA motherfuckers, we were able to grab the remaining things we needed with little to no conflict, and the lady who rang us at Target was amazingly In The Spirit and it was kind of nice.

I spent a good portion of the afternoon working on a work-related digital Xmas card and it turned out fine in the end but for some reason I was a maniac about it and Henry was like, “Please don’t burn down the house, I spent so much time painting the walls this year.” Once I got that finished and emailed, I felt like I could DO ANYTHING. Like liquid weight was just dripping off my shoulders. That’s the best feeling. It was like Xmas Vacation could officially start at that point!

I always wrap presents as they’re purchased since Chooch obviously knows they’re not coming from Santa. This is super fun for me because you can see Chooch going slowly insane for the weeks leading up to Xmas, as he tries desperately to figure out what’s inside each box. He guessed one of them correctly this time (he wanted stress toys and somehow knew exactly that’s what was inside one of the boxes and I was so stunned that he guessed that I stuttered which was a dead giveaway lol) but for the most part, it brings me great joy to watch him get curiosity twitches.

Anyway, my favorite part of this is thinking of who I can put on the “from” line. This year we had:

• Taemin’s Eye Patch
• Buddy (our fave squirrel)
• Crushed Ibuprofen
• Spoiled Almond Milk (he was in the middle of fighting with Henry about how the milk is always bad)
• Kat from Paperbackdreams (our favorite Booktuber, and the present was cologne from a company called Imaginary Authors)
• Library Security Guard P.S. Read a Fucking Book (the security guard at the library knows me by name and always chats with Chooch and me! He is so freaking nice!)
• Larry’s Son who Shovels Diligently (Larry is Chooch’s nemesis who lives on our street and his teenaged son was out there shoveling immediately after a snowstorm while Chooch was lazing about watching TikToks)
• Future Nephew (yes, Blake’s wife Haley is expecting their third child, and the gift was a stress ball, lol)
• Raine’s Dad (of SIDEWALK DRAMA FAME)
• Trump House Guy (this house up the street has all kinds of grotesque Trump flags and we hate the guy that lives there; the other day we were driving home from somewhere and Chooch and I pointed to a guy walking his dog and how we talked to him a few times and Henry was like “that’s the guy that lives in the Trump house” and I was like “is not” but he was like “is too” and OMG CHOOCH AND I WERE SO NICE TO HIM UNWITTINGLY!!!!)
• The Real Christina Goosterjuice (Chooch has been calling our cat Drew Goosterjuice and I was like STOP CALLING HER THAT, THAT’S MY NAME and he was like NO I MADE IT UP and I was like NO YOU DID NOT and proceeded to tell him about how when I was in high school, there was this guy named Dave Osterhus in one of my classes and I can’t remember the exact context now but there were several us sitting at a desk or table and someone was making fun of his last name and then someone else was like “yeah, and his cousin Christina Goosterjuice” and I was VERY LIKELY the only person who laughed at this and EVEN MORE LIKELY the only person privy to that exchange WHO STILL THINKS OF THAT FICTIONAL NAME TO THIS DAY and even NAMED A PAINTING AFTER IT which is how I proved to Chooch that he clearly picked up on that name from me, by googling it and showing him that the only result is a post from OH HONESTLY ERIN called CHRISTINA GOOSTERJUICE.
• The Mommy & Gracie Show (RIP) (this was the YouTube channel that started our obsession/tradition with watching birthday party videos on Thanksgiving but then GRACIE got older and decided that she didn’t want to be in MOMMY’S videos anymore and then MOMMY took them all down and now we can’t watch the infamous HASHTAG COOKIE PIZZA video anymore)
• That kid’s Woobie (SEE BELOW, RE: MR. MOM)

Drew sat near this bag, knowing it was full of treats, and would casually gnaw at the handles whenever she thought no one was looking. Little jerk!

Later that night, we started to watch Christmas Vacation because apparently Chooch has never seen it but it was clear that he was NOT FEELING IT right from the get-go so then I remembered that recently I was talking about Mr. Mom and Chooch had never heard of it so I was like WE SHOULD JUST WATCH MR MOM and Henry was like “goddammit” because it took him forever to find somewhere to stream Christmas Vacation for free but it only took me 5 seconds to see that YouTube Movies had Mr. Mom available so that’s what we did and I was so ready to flip a table and possibly a chair or two if Chooch ended up not liking it because my love for that movie is deep and complicated (OK it’s not that complicated but I have loved it since I was a young child and thought Michael Keaton was amazing and Teri Garr was so pretty and I HATED ANN JILLIAN AND THEN SHE WAS ALSO IN MY FAVORITE ADAPTATION OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND IT WAS VERY CONFUSING FOR ME and I also cried a lot as a kid over the Woobie because I was super-attached to a stuffed animal named Purple WHO IS STILL MY BEST FRIEND AND I STILL CANNOT SLEEP WITHOUT HIM AND IF YOU THINK HE HASN’T BEEN TO SOUTH KOREA, THEN YOU ARE A FUCKING STOOP).

*deep pants*

*passes out*

Anyway, Chooch admitted that Mr. Mom was excellent and I knew he wasn’t lying because he was actually watching it and not fucking around on his phone and then I was like ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS YOU JUST WATCHED A GREAT MOVIE WITH YOUR COOL AF PARENTS and he was like “let us not go that far, Mother.”

You know, it was just a really nice day which turned into a cozy night and I went to bed feeling content and relaxed.

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Hey everybody, just wanted to pop on here and share our annual Christmas card and wish everyone a Merry Christmas or just a happy Friday, whichever works best for you! I went the slightly tacky route as a little parody of those Christmas letters tucked inside cards, you know the ones That Aunt always sent to everyone detailing the triumphs and travels of the family and it always made you feel inadequate and, you know, lesser than.

There was a friend of the family, the mom of someone I went to school with, who sent shit like that in her card every year and we were always like GO TO HELL.

I wonder what that letter would look like during Covid times…?

So this was our version – every single picture is us at home because quarantine. No vacations, no amusement parks, no concerts…

but we still had fun together. And that’s alright.

We are spending the day as just a trio, plus two sleepy cats, which is how we would have done it regardless of Covid, but I hope those of you out there accustomed to big family get-togethers have found alternate ways to be happy and safe today!

It’s currently 3:30 and none of us have fought yet so I’m gonna go ahead and say we’re on track for Xmas 2020 to go down in the books as “one of the better ones,” even though snow and poor road conditions are keeping us home from our traditional cemetery “picnic.” We’re doing it tomorrow instead and that’s fine by me because it will be a whole ass 10 degrees warmer then!

Anyway, I’m going to go back to the book I’m reading while Chooch tests out all the kitchen appliances Santa drop-kicked down the chimney, and Henry works on…whatever he has left to work on.

I’ll be back later with a more detailed recap of Xmas and Xmas Eve – stay warm and cozy, you people!

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I mean, as super and stuffed as a weekend during a pandemic can possibly be, which isn’t really much but as I sit here on HINDSIGHT tuffet, it really does feel like a decent amount of stuff happened and you know me, always keeping the ol’ LOG updated for alibi accuracy.

So come on, Mary. Let’s do it bulletpoint-style.

• I almost forgot to make the Christmas card for my boss Amber which I strong-armed my team into jumping on video call in order for me to get a screenshot of our BIG SMILING FACES (lol at Todd who apparently was having audio issues and had no idea what was going on, oops). I mean, I had it designed, it just needed printed so Henry did that on Saturday along with the million other cards he had to make from our actual card shop and then we walked to the post office, which is basically our Saturday morning ritual because our lives are SO EXCITING. On the way there he was being SUCH A FUCKING DICKHEAD TO ME. Literally whiteknighting everything that I was against, being contrary to my every opinion, and EW YOU GUYS, I was feeling it. So I started yelling at him for being shitty and JUST THEN, a huge clump of snow slid off a rooftop and fell straight into his jacket and down his shirt. I felt some BIG WITCH ENERGY right then. Don’t fuck with me, dickheads.
  • But then later that afternoon, I was walking home from the library and some guy on our street (the grandfather of Chooch’s friend, and he hates Chooch and is actually kind of scary in a  Yinzer Danny DeVito kind of way) was trying to pull away from the sidewalk and his tires started kicking up DIRTY STREET SNOW RIGHT AS I WALKED PAST AND IT GOT ALL IN MY HAIR AND MY BLUE FLUFFY COAT AND I WILL GOOGLE A SPELL, BUDDY, YOU JUST WAIT.
• Henry went to pick up our latest batch of Sugar Spell pints Friday evening (that counts as the weekend!) and they were amazing as always! They did a special edition “The Office” series of flavors and shit, as if we’re not blessed enough to have a delicious vegan scoop shop right here in the ‘Burgh, they’re also fucking creative geniuses too! Now look, it’s already Vegan Hunger Games when preorders go live, because those of us in the know realize that these pints will sell out in a blink. Seriously. And this one was even worse (for us) because they got a lot of press and shout-outs for these flavors so now we had new people to contend with! Every single flavor sold out in less than 5 minutes! This was the first time that we weren’t able to get all the ones we wanted (there was just one that got snatched from our grips!) but we were still happy with the trio we managed to procure. However, Sugar Spell posted later that night on Instagram that they had received a lot of shitty comments and messages from unhappy and angry people who weren’t able to snag any ice cream. The proprietor of the place said that she was in tears and I swear to god you guys, I was like WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, I WILL FIGHT THEM. I just don’t get people like that! First of all – it’s just ice cream (granted, REALLY FUCKING DELICIOUS ICE CREAM) and your life will surely go on if you miss out on a pint. Second of all – this is a small business, run by two people who work their asses off to make this for us. Third of all – we’re in the middle of a pandemic. How about channeling your Karen energy toward the government or racists or anti-maskers. My lord, I was so angry about this that night! Even Henry was mad about it and his only emotions are usually: ambivalence and drowsiness. Is that an emotion? It feels like it is. But yeah, we got our pints and they are D-I-V-I-N-E. That one literally is made with beets and I never knew how much I needed an ice cream made with beets until now.

• The Dunder Mufflin flavor up there is a blueberry muffin base with swirls of blueberry jam and it tastes like waking up on Grandma Eloise’s farm in Idaho on a mild summer day, basket of muffins fresh from the oven, covered with a tea towel, and you’re wearing short-alls and getting ready to go out and flirt with all the farmhands who are JUST A LITTLE BIT too old for you but THAT IS WHY IT’S FUN and also IT’S THE 90s so SOCIAL MEDIA HAS NOT TAUGHT YOU THAT THIS IS WRONG. I mean…I don’t have a Grandma Eloise, you have a Grandma Eloise. Anyway, this ice cream also reminds me of the blueberry candle I bought when I moved into my first apartment, and that blueberry smell was so accurate and sweet and every time I smell something even remotely similar, I am jettisoned back to 1998, sitting on a beanbag chair in Payne Hill Apartments (I think my address was like J-163 or something??) because I didn’t have furniture yet and I swear to god, it makes me feel SO WARM AND COZY and this ice cream gave me the same feels except not the warm part because, ice cream.

• Speaking of sweet treats, Chooch baked a shit ton of cookies for 10 lucky people and Sunday was “Delivery Day.” Before he baked the cookies, I googled, “Is it OK to give people baked goods during the pandemic” and everything said YES BUT REMEMBER THAT NON-PANDEMIC HYGIENE CODES STILL MATTER TOO!! but don’t worry – I am a nutcase about keeping the kitchen squeaky clean so no one is going to die from dirt. Anyway, we delivered to half the recipients on Sunday, and actually got to see two of them and have socially-distanced conversations outside! One was the Chris half of Chronica fame, and it was SO FUCKING NICE TO SEE HER FACE IN REAL LIFE. When I tell you that I haven’t seen any of my friends or family since March (I saw my mom once a few months ago for several minutes when I went over to pick up that wallpaper), I really mean it. Then we gave Henry’s mom Judy her cookies outside of the apartment complex she lives in and believe me, we all wore masks because I’m definitely not trying to kill Judy over some dumb cookies, you know? Anyway, she was telling us that she misses hanging out with my mom and that they used to pick up guys together?!?!? I was like WAIT WHAT and she said for example that there was this one time they started talking to this one guy and were having a good time but then he had to leave and they were like no don’t leave so they FOLLOWED HIM TO SEE WHERE HE LIVES?! Judy was laughing so hard with this far-away glimmer in her eyes and we were like “………………………..” Honestly, this has my mom’s name written all over it but when I asked her about it she said that Judy must be dreaming but then she followed up by saying that there WAS this one time where they started talking to some guy in McDonald’s because they were the only three people in there  but she swears there was no stalking involved but that if I’m welcome to write about it in my journal if I want. I AM JUST GOING TO GO AHEAD AND BELIEVE A LITTLE BIT OF BOTH SIDES OK.
  • This made me remember the time Judy told this story about having to lay down in the back of a car while the guys she was with drove around McKeesport and knocked on doors, looking for prostitutes?!?!?!?!!?!?

Well, Mary, it’s Xmas Eve and I would like to go and like, egg houses or whatever it is we do on Xmas Eve. Tootleloo.

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How you doing today, Lucy? You good, Mary? OK cool because I got a fun pandemic decorating tale for you today so if you wanna just go ahead and fluff your tuffet – go on, I’ll wait.

I think I mentioned in here recently that I really wanted to clean up the little hallway area upstairs (when I say little, I MEAN little – there’s just two bedrooms and a bathroom up there so the hallway is basically a rectangular block). There used to be this big, wavy metal shelf at the top which was fine when I lived alone but then HENRY moved in and started leaving random tools and other masculine sundry on the shelves, and then I accidentally put too many photo albums and journals on it and it always kind of looked like it was one hard gust of air away from toppling. Plus, Drew kept jumping on it and it was just a crisis waiting to happen.

Then I got the idea to make it the Cure corner, because with that Seoul subway sign’s impending arrival to the wall behind the couch, my Robert Smith self portrait was going to need a new home and it wasn’t going to be tucked away in the attic, believe me! This was one of my first eBay wins in 1999 and I paid too much for it to rot away under a pound of cobwebs.

So then it turned into, “Hey Henry, what if…” and this is the one thing I always say that makes him visibly clench, well, that and “I have an idea.” That one probably gives him angina though.

I think that Henry is really just in some weird Bob Vila groove now though because not only has he been tinkering away at my projects, but he’s also been fixing things on his own, too. Like things that I didn’t even realize were broken because I’m not an adult. He like, put in new plugs and stuff. In the walls. I don’t know, but he was doing stuff OK?!

All I did was tell him that I wanted to do this and he was like “OK” and took down the shelf and then asked what color the wall will be (at this point it’s more like “what shade of pink will this wall be?” and then he went to Lowe’s and got the paint and then, like, actually painted straight away and then when the first several panels of faux-plants arrived, HE HUNG THEM. Like, without me even having to nag! Has he finally realized that this is all it takes to keep the whine away?!

The first phase, it looked like this, and even then I was enamored! But I had a firm, clear vision of what I wanted the end result to look like, so we pressed on. First, I knew that I wouldn’t be happy with the picture hanging up there as it was. I should have reframed that thing years and years ago instead of leaving it in the plain metal frame it came in, but if ever there was a time…

We had recently bought a picture at Goodwill specifically for the frame because I planned to use it for a different project. It was too big for the Robert picture so we tried to find something comparable in a smaller size but we are still in the pandemic after all, and I’m extremely uneasy about being in stores, so after two tries, we quit. Then Henry was like, “You know, I could probably just cut down that frame you like and make it work” and I was like THIS IS WHY I STAY WITH YOU.

Literally, what can’t Henry do!? (Aside from completing my Seoul subway sign.)

FUCKKKKKKKK it is so beautiful, like something that would ACTUALLY be at the top of the stairway to Heaven.

The view from below.

Then FINALLY last night we had everything else that was needed: three neon lips and a strand of LED lights, and Henry got to work.

YES. YES, HENRY, THIS WILL DO.

Haven’t decided which other of the myriad Cure memorabilia in my collection will go on the adjacent wall. I also have a small table that used to be downstairs, and I’m painting it cherry red with a pink top that has sequined lip patches adhered to it, so look forward to that, Mary.

I couldn’t have asked for anything more once Henry lit this bitch up, but then he went rogue and installed an LED bulb in the ceiling fixture. HE DID THIS OF HIS OWN ACCORD!!!!

So now the whole corner is awash in pink! I imagine him standing in an aisle in Lowe’s, looking at the bulbs and muttering, “she wants pink? Oh, I’ll give her pink.”

Like I said, I really think the man is broken.

I want to get some extra fake foliage from the craft store and make some drip off the bottom so it looks like less of a severe cut-off there.

The print has a portion of what would become the lyrics to A Letter To Elise, which would be released on the Wish album.

“Could you make it so that the Cure is constantly wafting out of a hidden speaker somewhere up here?”

“We’ll see,” Henry mumbled. So I guess we’ll see, Lucy!

(Sorry, I’ve been doing Paul Eugene workouts again and he’s always talking to some imaginary Mary and Lucy and now I’ve picked it up like a bad tick.)

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*because according to my housemates, I am apparently super snippy and mean while reading but ok then STOP BEING LOUD AND DISRUPTIVE AROUND ME AND MAYBE I WON‘T HAVE TO YELL AT YOU?!?!

You guys, I did it! I completed my 200 book challenge last night and wow it was anticlimactic. I mean, what was I expecting to happen though? G-Dragon knocking on my door with a bouquet of his coveted Paranoise Nikes? Publishers Clearinghouse rolling up with local news crews to present me with a gigantic Barnes and Noble gift card? My local library revealing their secret portal to South Korea for my exclusive use?

Chooch replied to my I DID IT text with “oml” and I’m sure he’s irritated because he’s the one who egged me on probably thinking I’d fail because he clearly has learned nothing about me in 14 years.

And Henry didn’t say anything because he was already in bed and wouldn’t care anyway because whut r bookz.

Was it rewarding? Sure I guess. I mean I read a lot (clearly) of really great books that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. And what else would I have been doing anyway? I can’t go anywhere! But speaking of, I read a ton of books set in other countries and that sort of helped scratch the travel itch. I guess.

Will I do it again? Nope. Back to leisurely reading. I mean, I really am a fast reader but I was picking up another book as soon as I closed the one before it and I would like to have some free time back in case I choose to just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. And I have a ton of kdramas to catch up on now that I’m not too tired to read subtitles!

Some people I follow on Booktube read more than this every year, no challenge required, and those people are the real MVPs.

I’d like to round up my top 10 favorite books I read this year (2 of them are from this month!!) and perhaps bake book-shaped cookies and then decorate each one with its respective book cover?! SHOULD I? Henry and Chooch both emphatically said no because I hate baking and cookie decorating makes me angry, but I feel like that’s a level of Shit Show perfect for sending off 2020. Right?

(It might have to be a bakers dozen though because I’m having a hard time narrowing it down to just 10! I read some real winners!)

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Shall we continue onto the second half of November? YES, ME THINKS WE SHALL. (Books 1-7 can be found here.)

8. Sourdough – Robin Sloan

I watch a lot of different Booktubers on YouTube, which puts Henry and Chooch to sleep, but listen Linda: I have gotten so many good recs from watching these videos and also discovered that I actually things like, I dunno, historical fiction (some of it anyway). I have found also that I share similar likes and dislikes with some of these people. And this is how I learned about Sourdough, by watching Noelle Gallagher do a book haul in which one of her viewers sent her a copy of this book and said it was her favorite. Now, Noelle hadn’t yet read it, but the book itself seemed intriguing to me and I found it immediately on one of my library/book apps.

WHAT A FUCKING DELIGHT! Literally, the entire book is about a woman named Lois who works at some tech company that programs robots, and how she falls in love with the food from this clandestine sandwich shop which is take-out only. Turns out that it’s run by two Mazg brothers from their apartment but then they have Visa issues and have to return home, but they leave Lois with their sourdough starter and it unleashes some latent bread-baking passion in her, which leads her to eventually quit her job and join some avant garde farmers market where they strive for innovation.

You guys, I read a review that said this book felt like a friend and honestly I can’t argue with that.

It was such a comforting read! It was light-hearted and humorous, made me utterly craze fresh bread (Chooch, can you try your hand at that again?!?).

This book is adorable and also will make you want to drop your adult priorities and finally start molding those Danny Bonaduce beeswax candles you always wanted to get into what that wasn’t me that was you.

9. Tender is the Flesh – Agustina Bazterrica

In this book, some type of disease has made the consumption of animals lethal so essentially all animals are eradicated and now humans are bred for meat-making purposes and honestly, I couldn’t handle this book at all.

It’s VERY cold. There really aren’t any characters to cozy up to, the descriptions of the various processes of the slaughtering industry are excruciatingly detailed, and I just hated the dry, dystopian atmosphere. Maybe I read this at the wrong time, or maybe it just isn’t the book for me. I also didn’t feel bad AT ALL that this shit was happening to humans, because hello card-carrying vegetarian here.

10. The Subtweet – Vivek Shraya

THIS!!! Oh holy shit, I related to this on so many levels that it was actually painful at times. We follow two characters: one is an artist in the Toronto indie music scene, who is beloved and respected by her peers, but never really “made it.”

The other is a woman, Rukmini, who sings cover songs on her YouTube channel. When she covers a song by indie singer Neela, it takes off and obviously Neela feels a certain type of way about this. They end up meeting and developing a deep friendship, but that’s tested when Rukmini gets invited to go on a world tour with a super big white pop star.

So we have the exploration of selling out and catering to the white crowd (who attend the concerts and attempt to do various Indian dances along to the music) and leaving behind a friend in the process.

Meanwhile, Neela is like, ‘Fuck this I’m going to put out the best album of my life” and when she sends it to Rukmini, she doesn’t hear back from her. Of course Neela is like, “Wow, Rukmini is too good for me now” but really Rukmini is panicking because she listens to it and is crushed because it confirms the fact that she’s not the one with the talent, Neela is, and Rukmini only got where she did by riding on Neela’s coattails (ie. covering one of her songs).

It was very frustrating because I was so Team Neela and to watch her constantly get overlooked for something that was more marketable to the white people made me want to flip a table.

It’s interesting to me because I have felt a lot of these things over the years, especially back when I used to actually “write.” I would sit here and pour my everything into blog posts, essays, short stories, just to watch the MOST VANILLA and bland blogs take off and get tens of thousands of subscribers. I never wanted to change who I am, to become a basic bitch mommy blogger, or to start some dumb DIY or food blog, because what’s the point?

Also, I’m such a sucker for subtweeting. It’s so fucking immature and passive aggressive but I cannot break myself of it.

Yeah, this book is wonderful. Vivek Shraya is a superb writer!

11. Young Jane Young – Gabrielle Zevin 

I have never heard of Gabrielle Zevin or this book, but I was in-between physical copies of books from the library and was looking for an audio book to help coast me through a work day and this seemed like it was going to be good and fluffy.

GUYS. Do you like Gilmore Girls? Then this book might be for you. It was so much fun but also deep and I connected to every character and it’s also infuriating and made me scream, “WE HATE MANS IN THIS HOUSE, DON’T WE?!?!” to the cats and they were like *blink* (it’s not ‘men,’ it’s ‘mans’ but nice try).

We follow several women (each one gets their own section) who are all connected and it’s quirky and endearing and explores different mother/daughter relationships and there’s a teenager named Ruby whose entire chapter is told from her side of emails to her international pen pal….and, it’s everything. Read this book. I loved it. I’m definitely going to add more of Zevin’s books to my TBR!

12. Out – Natsuo Kirino 

Oof, this book was SO HARD TO READ. Don’t get me wrong – it was excellent. But the font was weird and my eyes had a really hard time with it, am I getting old?

I’m getting old, aren’t I?

Oh my god.

Anyway, it’s no secret that I love translated Japanese thrillers, and this one was no exception. We follow a group of women co-workers who become bound together via a murder and while it’s definitely dark and there are some very graphic and explicit scenes that were even a bit hard for this horror fanatic to handle, the interactions and quirky dialogue between the women sometimes added a much needed reprieve from the violence.

It was good but just a bit slow-moving (the character building was STRONG though).

13. Beartown – Fredrik Backman 

I stayed up until like 2am one night because I was so close to finishing and couldn’t bear to put it down for the night. I honestly can’t remember the last time this happened.

This book made me feel so many things. I loved everyone (well, the ones worth loving). Benji and Bobo forever! HOCKEY!!! (Even if you don’t like hockey or know anything about it, it won’t hinder your reading journey if you pick this up, trust me.)

Oh, what’s it about? The small Swedish town of Beartown lives and breathes hockey, and their high school team is LIFE for them. There is so much drama and politics surrounding the team, which is one big plot point. But when the school’s star player (literally is being scouted by the NHL) rapes the daughter of the league’s GM, the town is divided (to say the least). It was infuriating and heartbreaking to watch this play out, to see how the daughter was actually holding it together better than her mom, who is an attorney and struggling with the reality that she couldn’t protect her own child. And then the dad who has to choose between his family and the team.

This was so well-written, the characters were SO ALIVE, the town felt so real. My heart is aching just writing about it but it’s actually not some huge depressive missive: yes, it’s dark and dramatic, but there’s love and friendship too, and some big hero moments which made me gurgle on my own tears while I laid in bed reading it and then I couldn’t fall asleep after it ended and I think about it every day. Five stars. You’re my favorite.

Apparently, Nordic Netflix adapted it into a series, which was released last fall and some light (OK, obsessive) google searches have learned me that the US is picking it up sometime in 2021 and I hope that means we’re getting the original with subtitles, please god.

This is my first Fredrik Backman book, although I have definitely seen his other books around the block, and this will definitely not be my last!

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So, November was pretty good for me! December is also going well (I’m currently reading my 200th book of the year!) and I have ANOTHER five star book that has completely taken over my mind and I can’t wait to tell you about it in my December wrap-up!

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Today is the three year anniversary (that word seems not right) of Jonghyun’s death and I burst into tears thinking about that while I was doing the dishes this morning and so let’s do a Friday five to distract that blog-author, can we? Can we really?

I’ve been off work all week but as usual, I have very little going on so let’s see what I can pull out of my…brain.

CHOOCH’S MEMOIR

I mentioned previously in here that Chooch has to write a short memoir-type essay for his creative writing class and actually opted to write about his trip to Korea, which obviously made my heart swell. However, he’s been furiously searching my blog for my Korea recaps in order to get names, dates, places and basically every other detail correct. I’m not sure if this is something you’ll believe, but I have been STRAIGHT UP GLOATING over this because HAHA suddenly MOMMY’S BLOG is useful.

Anyway, he has opted to go the “switchback” route, which has allowed him to combine both trips into one story and at first I was like THAT IS NOT GOING TO WORK but then he ironed out some smaller details and it’s actually turning out pretty cool.

Also, his computer crashed last night at midnight when he was finishing up his essay and he lost two entire pages because he wasn’t aware that Word has an auto-save option that needed to be turned on and while I feel super bad for him, I’m also kind of like, “Initiation complete. Welcome to the writing club.”

It’s due at some point today so I hope he gets it done!? I’m fighting the urge to be That Mom who writes papers for their kids but good goddamn do I want to stick my finger in this pie, wow that sounded awful.

KILLER KLOWN

I got some more fantastic pieces from my favorite pin maker The Idol Collective (which is currently defunct because   Danielle is actually rebranding herself so I’m not sure if The Idol Collective is coming back or if she will be reopening under a completely new name, but I do hope she comes back because I LOVE HER).

Killer Klowns From Outerspace was one of my favorite horror movies as a child. My younger brother Ryan and I used to go ham over horror movies, especially those of the B-variety (The Gate, anybody?) and Killer Klowns was definitely on our shortlist of favorites, so when The Idol Collective debuted this new line of necklaces, I snatched one up without even blinking. I love working from home, but I’m also kind of like, “when can we go back?” because I have so many new pieces and literally nowhere to wear them!

Side note: that Killer Klown / popcorn sculpture thing was made by Chuck Jarmon, a mastermind in the Halloween costume and prop industry. A long ass time ago, he asked me to write some descriptions of his products and then gifted me this amazing piece as a thank you. We had become friends through a mutual, who I’m no longer friends with because she accused me of “talking shit on [her] mother” and I lost him in the friend divorce, which is sad, but we’re all adults here and he is allowed to make that choice, I guess…EVEN THOUGH IT WAS THE WRONG ONE. Lol.

TREK TO HANDPIELAND

Last night, 350 Bakery posted on Instagram about the new hand pies for this weekend, one of which is ROASTED WINTER VEGETABLES. I was all set to tell Henry to get his ass over there on Saturday morning, but then they mentioned that three local coffee shops were going to be selling them on Friday, and one of those coffee shops is 802 Coffee (so many number names, ugh) which is on the boulevard, so I was like, “I AM GETTING THAT IN THE MORNING” and usually I say things like that and then I wake up and think, “Eh, maybe another day.” But not today. I sprung out of bed, showered, quickly acknowledged Chooch’s presence, and then set off for my mile(ish?) trek along slushy, unshoveled sidewalks (thanks, neighbors) but as expected, this bad boy was totally worth lacing up my boots for.

File under: things that motivate me to leave the house.

KPOP DAD

I was really bored one night last week and had this GREAT IDEA to pop quiz Henry on all of the members of the Kpop mega-group, NCT. In 2020, they acquired several new members, and now, when all of their units are combined, they are up to a whopping TWENTY-THREE MEMBERS. That’s insane! I remember when I got into NCT a few years ago, the only unit I followed was NCT-127 which had…nine members then, I think? And I was like, “I WILL NEVER KNOW ALL OF THEIR NAMES.” Flash forward to 2020 and I can name all members of NCT127, NCT Dream, and WayV (the Chinese member unit).

Their agency has released this super ambitious undertaking with all of the members of those units, plus two entirely new members, for a massive NCT 2020 release. There’s one song (at least – I haven’t really looked into the whole entire album yet) that features all 23 members, and then the members are broken up into smaller groups for all of the other songs. Whenever NCT does stuff like this, it’s known as NCT-U. (It’s a whole fucking culture, you guys, you have no idea how long it took me to understand the NCT concept!)

Anyway, I gave Henry a sheet of paper and a pencil and told him to go to town. He was able to eke out the names of 11 members.

“I have to tell Veronica!” I squealed through hysterical peals of laughter. Veronica is my favorite kpop partner-in-crime whom I met on Instagram and I would be so lonely in this kpop world without her, I’ll tell you!

“Why do you have to tell her everything?” Henry sighed. But he secretly loves it, I think.

Then it was my turn and I got 22/23 because I can never remember new member Sungchan, although I probably will now.

 BAD INTERNET FRIENDS

In a previous post, I mentioned that I took down a shelf that used to live at the top of the steps and the things I found stashed away in it are Pure Gold. For instance, I found a note that one of my co-workers at Echostar and I had written back and forth (we were such great pupils in that training class!) and at first I was like “wtf are we going on about” because whoever I was writing to had replied “why would your friend want to spend the last 2 months of her life working here?!” And then I realized we were talking about my friend Cinn whom I had recently met through a gothic chat room called Darkchat and supposedly had a brain tumor.

BUT GUESS WHAT GUYS SHE WAS LYING ABOUT IT FOR ATTENTION and I guess she just hadn’t anticipated becoming IRL friends with someone from there (we lived like 15 minutes away from each other) so then her stupid ass lie took on a life of its own and it made me feel so pathetic and angry to read my parts of the note because it was clear that I really cared about my new friend who was going to die soon and how fucked up is that??

We are no longer friends, although we did come in and out of each other’s lives several times for about 8-ish years, long enough that Henry had met her and learned very quickly that she was a fucking snake. But still, I was blind to it, or maybe it was a purposeful blind eye I had, because I was attached to her. She was the big sister I never had. She took care of me. But she was also very quick to belittle and humiliate me in front of others; it took me years to finally understand that this happened when she wasn’t getting attention from the room.

Seeing that note really opened up a wound that I hadn’t realized was still festering under my skin. I ranted about this for a while to Henry and then realized that I’ve had so many awful encounters and fall-outs with people that I met online, that I could do a whole series on it WOULD U COME HERE FOR THAT TEA, y or n?!?!?

On that note, I have to go watch the squirrels from my window. At least they don’t let me down. (Although, they do use me…)

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Yesterday Chooch came downstairs and said, “I have to write a memoir in my creative writing class” and before the words even had a chance to hit the air and cool down, I was bounding up from the couch and shouting, “DID SOMEONE SAY MEMOIR?! THAT’S MY SPECIALTY!”

Anyway, he actually decided that he’s going to write about one of our trips to Korea as his topic! You have no idea how much this pleases me because usually, he picks really stupid shit like “that one time I was playing Pokemon Go and got a [insert dumb name of a stupid thing].” Or the time he had to write about something that changed his life and I was like “KOREA?!” but instead he wrote about when he watched the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Lily hates the sound of people chewing and then he realized that he also hates that and it amplified it in his mind so now he actually hulks out any time Henry is closer than 2 blocks away while eating. Even if it’s just a marshmallow. (I can attest though that Henry has a way of taking the softest most unassuming foods and sexualizing them with his mouth, ugh ew ew ew especially bananas, I’m SHUDDERING RIGHT NOW.)

I was cruising my blog archives and found this Chooch-centric post about our last day of the first trip, where we did a bunch of shit he wanted to do, and I was inspired to repost it. When you have a blog, you can do things like that. I’m laughing to myself now, but it’s a laughter void of any mirth because I just a memory of the time this dumb bitch started an e-feud with me on Twitter and was like, “AND ALL YOU DO IS WRITE ABOUT YOURSELF!!!”

Um…OK.

“Personal blog.”

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 GOLDEN PIZZA AND NORAEBANGS: See also: Chooch’s Last Day in Seoul 2018

Can you tell that I’ve been supremely dragging my feet with these posts? I know it’s annoying to everyone else that I have approx. 87 posts about a 10-day trip and that we’ve been home for over two months and I still haven’t closed the book on it, but you have to remember that I’m the girl who can stretch Warped Tour into 6 blog posts plus a gratuitous Henry Interview Extravaganza.

And I’m not even sponsored!

So on that note, here is what we did for the rest of our final full day in Seoul, holy shit I didn’t expect to start crying as I typed that, yet here we are.

For the last night, we finally gave in to Chooch’s desire for SUPER KOREAN FUN TIMES, which involved pizza (specifically, “gold” pizza, more on that in a bit) and noraebang, which is Korean karaoke (literally translates to ‘song room’). Let’s be real, you can’t go to South Korea and not partake in some noraebang because it is a super popular pastime of native Koreans. There are noraebangs everywhere, on nearly every street, in alleys, in every neighborhood and district.

But first, he had to suffer through last minute souvenir shopping in Insadong, haha. What every 12-year-old boy wants!

This was when Henry abandoned us in Insadong because he wanted to exchange more money and Chooch somehow inherited two balloons from some people promoting the Alive Museum and then some older Korean man came over and tried to pretend-steal one from Chooch and even with a language barrier, we all managed to have a great big international laugh and these are the heart-warming things that happens when Henry abandons us.

The plan after Insadong was to walk back to the hotel, where Henry would meet us later with pizza procured from a place that Chooch had zeroed in on the day before when we were walking to the palaces. We figured we’d just eat in our room and then set off to Myeongdong for noraebang.

But then Henry came back and was like, “DON’T GET TOO EXCITED” because the pizza was just REGULAR, not GOLD. Apparently, the menu that Chooch saw was for a pizza place that was there previously and now this new one had a different menu which was all in Hangeul and hey you guys, I spent many months leading up to this trip trying to get Henry to learn how to at least read it and he was all, “I DON’T NEED NO HANGEUL.”

Yeah, until you do!

Anyway, Henry felt obligated to buy a pizza from this joint because he had already frustrated the guy working there enough I guess, and it was great pizza, you guys! It really was. But it was extremely similar to American pizza and it was not want we wanted. We wanted that Korean flair.

So we decided to venture on out to the Cheonggyecheon Stream where we saw a place called Mr. Pizza on our second night in Seoul.

But first! We got no further than across the street from the hotel before I realized I left my subway card in the room so Henry obediently went back inside to get it. For some reason, like we need a reason, Chooch and I were nearly peeing our pants in anticipation of seeing our hotel room light turn on, I don’t know why this was such a crucial comedic moment for us, but then it never happened because Henry was all, “I didn’t need to turn it on.” Whatever. At least Chooch nabbed this frameable picture of Henry on his way back to us:

I can only imagine what Chooch and I looked like to passers by, as our raucous laughter caused us to fall into each other like drunks.

This reminds me that I never talked about (lol, like this is a talk show) how we accidentally got lost from Henry the night before on our way to Hongdae. We were walking to one of the Jongno subway stations when Chooch and I stopped to look at jewelry in a store window. I thought dumb Henry knew we stopped but he kept walking and by the time we looked up from the window, WE WERE ABANDONED.

This was like the theme of Korea now that I think about it.

Anyway, we were mildly panicked because there were two subway stations near us and weren’t sure which one he was going to, so we chose the closest one and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And eventually, this happened:

https://instagram.com/p/Bg-5EYvgdVN/

He didn’t realize we weren’t with him anymore until he turned around to hand us our subway cards.

“You couldn’t tell that you didn’t hear us laughing anymore?” I asked.

“No, because I block that out,” Henry mumbled.

Random alley picture because I don’t even want to forget those narrow Korean alleys that pop off once the sun sets.

When we got to Cheongyecheon, we were excited to see that another night market was going on! It was so tempting to just pig out on all the food vendors there, but we had a fucking pizza to scratch off the Korea bucket list, goddammit. To Mr. Pizza!

Gold pizza level achieved!

So, one notorious thing about Korean pizza is that “gold crust” means that it’s made with sweet potato — I fucking love sweet potato but nothing is better than Korean sweet potato, my friends. It’s like candy. Also, corn! Somehow, corn is as synonymous with pizza in Korea as pepperoni is here.

I just asked Chooch what his Mr. Pizza review is and his eyes got all bugged out. “Yum,” he said, with a very ‘duh’ inflection.

But yeah, so worth it and I’m glad we didn’t settle on the other normal pizza!

I just also asked Henry if he liked Mr. Pizza and he said, “Yeah!” with an actual modicum of enthusiasm because he’s trying to keep me from leaving him so he’s suddenly Boyfriend of the Year.

Also, I was excited because I got to push the button on the table to get the waitress to come and bring us a box! I always wanted to push the button!!!

Afterward, we took  the subway to Myeongdong. I chose Myeongdong for our final night because that area rules and we hadn’t experienced it at night before then.

“Are you sure there are noraebangs here?” Henry asked, and I was like, “Uh yeah, le duh” because where aren’t there noraebangs, is the real question. Funny though how as soon as you’re looking for one, they’re suddenly gone, like those little trolls from Labyrinth were flipping over the signs before we walked past. Also, I did notice that most of these places don’t have any English on the signs, so unless it’s a really big, touristy noraebang with big windows in the front to let you see in, you might walk past 59 of them without ever knowing. So if you’re planning to go to Korea and want to sing your face blue in one of these joints, look for this word: 노래방

We eventually found one (not like we were bored looking for one though; Myeongdong is so freaking vibrant and upbeat at night, even on a Sunday!) called Sing Sing. When we walked in, Henry was like, “OH” because it reeked like a dive bar and was pretty dark and creepy, but I loved the atmosphere! It felt more authentic than the shiny, bright ones in Gangnam and Hongdae. This one felt like a place where locals would hang out, and we were definitely not the only ones there.

Henry paid the nice boy approximately 20,000 won for an hour and he lead us into our own private room, gave us a brief tutorial on how to work the remote, and then let us have our privacy to hold faux Produce 101 auditions.

Chooch’s first song was a goddamn Maroon 5 song and we were like, “Oh.” Then he sang something else that was dumb too, while I flipped through the book to find him something cool to sing.

Guys, the rooms even come with tambourines.

I had no intentions of doing any singing because I’m just not into that. And that’s when I saw it.

“Even the Night’s Are Better” by Air Supply.

Air Supply, you guys.

“Henry, you’re singing this with me,” I ordered, tossing him a mic and punching in the number.

“Wha—?” he stuttered, and then the song started and he was like, “Are you kidding.”

I immediately launched into my famous brand of shriek-singing on top of a bed of throaty giggles, while Henry mumbled along, and Chooch stared at me with the most appalled and disgusted look on his face.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?” he cried when the song ended.

“God, I forgot how great I sing!” I said, and Henry was just like, “No.” I think it brought back his PTSD from all the Saturday nights we spent at McCoy’s on karaoke night. I think my crowning moment was the time I sang “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and called for audience participation. The weathered broad who ran karaoke there, DJ Danger (lol), haaaaated me with such a passion and actually got to the point where she would make executive decisions and veto my song choices.

WELL THEN DON’T PUT THEM IN YOUR SONG BOOK, BITCH.

Anyway, back to noraebang, we also sang SHATTERED DREAMS and Chooch was like WHAT IS HAPPENING AM I HALLUCINATING, OR….

“Ugh, I wish they had Skater Boi!” Chooch groaned, flipping through the book 7800 times. I knew they had it because I saw it but I lied and said they totally 100% did not have that song or any other Avril Lavigne songs because she has a lawsuit out against noraebangs, but then I felt bad and said FINE HERE IT IS, SING YOUR DUMB HEART OUT.

But the grand finale was Chooch and me dueting with….

CAN YOU GUESS?!?!

CALL ME MAYBE.

Our theme!

Oh good lord, we were so sweaty by the time our hour was up, and our stomachs hurt from laughing so hard, and my throat hurt from going ham on Air Supply, and it was just the perfect way to end our time in Korea. I especially loved how we could hear people singing in other rooms every time we paused to find our next song.

It was so good! Don’t skip out on noraebang if you’re in Korea! DON’T!!

Here I am in the noraebang bathroom!

Here’s Chooch under the noraebang sign!

Myeongdong!

We capped off the night with ice cream from Milky Bee.

My hand looks so weird here. Henry’s pose, tho.

On our walk back to the hotel from the Jongno subway station, we stopped at a snack shop and I stocked up on some Korean candies for my International Candy Pumpkin at work and had to snap this picture because I’ve had some these corn sticks in there before and at first my work friends were skeptical but then grew to love them.

OK, maybe “love” is a stretch, but they ate them. There were so many different varieties in Korea! Back at the hotel. Chooch and I collapsed and Henry did all the packing while muttering things like, “Just lay there, assholes. Sure, I’ll do everything. Don’t help me.”

I don’t even know how to end this. This was so much more than just a vacation, though. It was a dream come true and a really amazing thing to experience with my little family unit. But, all good things, am I right? We’re hoping to go back again next summer, because there are other cities we want to explore in addition to Seoul and Busan, and plus there was so much in Seoul alone that we weren’t able to get to.

So, if you read all of these or followed along with us on Instagram, thank you! You’re the real MVP!

“OMG I don’t want to hit ‘publish’ on this because once I do, it’s done. It’s over. It’s really over,” I just wailed to Henry. “UNLESS YOU WRITE YOUR OWN RECAP!!!!”

And do you know what he said?

“We’ll see.”

THAT MEANS YES!

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