Well, lest anyone forget that my side gig is greeting card slinger, I am here to shill my latest wares. New for the 2020 holiday season, I present to you four new cards waiting for the gong to be struck.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

PEERING RAMIREZ

First up, we have here a new Richard Ramirez design, in case the other ones in the shop weren’t tickling your pickles.

The inside says “so lock your door for christ’s sake.”

Nothing says “merry xmas I love you” better than some cautionary advice.

Fun fact about me: I used to leave my door unlocked all the time like it never occurred to me that it could be dangerous to do so while living in a city. One time, I was getting ready for bed and someone actually came into my house and put beer in my fridge. Then they started to come up the stairs, calling out my neighbor’s name. I was like, “Uh, wrong house” and they promptly retrieved their beer and left.

Somehow I feel like saying “wrong house” to the Night Stalker wouldn’t have worked but DID ANYONE TRY I wonder?

Anyway, I started dating my card-making partner (a/k/a Henry for those in the know) shortly after that and when he found out that I wasn’t locking my door, he was like, “Yeah, that ends now.” Whatta guy.

This card comes with an envelope. Maybe put one of those security system stickers inside it, too.

JIM JONES’ XMAS PUNCH

Next up, for those cult followers, might you be interested in this Jim Jones cheer-o-gram?

Who needs Jim’s punch when just ATTENDING a holiday party in 2020 could kill you.

This punchy Xmas card comes with an envelope. Maybe tuck in the recipe to your favorite festive refreshment like they probably did in olden days. I recommend finding one that requires a Jello mold and maraschino cherries.

The inside just says Cheers. I opted to steer clear of any COVID-themed messages on cards this year because I’m hoping that the 2020 holiday season is the only time they’ll be relevant.

Anyway, my friend Rocky messaged me last night and asked me if I have any Jimmy Jam Jones Christmas cards and I realized at that moment that I only had a birthday card and Valentine! WTF, Erin. What kind of card shop are running here?!

And that’s how I wound up sitting in front of Photoshop until midnight instead of watching The Crown, but that’s OK! I haven’t been feeling very productive or creative lately so this past week has given me hope that the Dad Joke/Sick Fuck side of my brain hasn’t atrophied. But then I start thinking about how I really need to redesign my mini Valentines and I’m suddenly not feeling so energetic anymore.

DECK THE HALLS

My kid gave me the “wow, that’s a stretch” grimace when he looked at this card, but COME ON most of those retro holiday card messages were questionable too! Anyway, this fresh holiday greet features the festive mugs of Ed Kemper, Aileen Wuornos, Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, and David Berkowitz. Will it inspire the recipient to slip into some latex gloves and a ski mask? YOU WON’T KNOW UNLESS YOU PURCHASE THE CARD.

It comes with an envelope that could double as a hat if they’re looking for additional layers of disguise.

I was just really stoked to use that retro background, man.

GEINDEER

Better think twice before investigating that CLICK CLICK CLICK you hear on your roof, is all I’m saying.

Come with an envelope made of paper and not stretched skin, which is probably what Ed Gein mailed his Christmas cards in.

I couldn’t resist making this dumb card, even though Henry was like, “OK, ha. Ha…” Look, it took me a long time make this and I still have a headache from staring at the computer screen and that stupid “Up On the Housetop” song got stuck in my head and I got really agitated because I spent my whole life thinking it was “Up on the Rooftop” until my kid was in kindergarten and had to sing that for the holiday assembly and I was like WHAAAT THEY’RE GETTING THE WORDS ALL FUCKED UP” and then everyone on Facebook was like, “No. You are wrong and everyone else is right” and I felt so attacked because I’m one of those people who rarely gets corrected because most people in my inner circle are too afraid to call me out when I’m wrong so when it actually happens (I mean, it’s rare, because I’m pretty fucking perfect), I will dwell on it for days (lol, years) and then Google things like HOW DO WITCHES HURT PEOPLE and TOOLS FOR CUTTING THE BRAKE CABLE and also WHERE IS THE BRAKE CABLE.

Yeah, so! The inside of this card is blank. You can write anything you want inside, like your own lyrics to that dumb carol, for example.

Well, that’s it for me at this time. Maybe I’ll churn out some more before it becomes too close to Xmas, we’ll see! In the meantime, enjoy the four new ones and check out the whole Xmas collection at the shop!

You guys. On Wednesday, those of us in the Pittsburgh office of the law firm who celebrated a five-year incremental anniversary this year (is that even how you would classify that??) were invited to attend a virtual recognition ceremony. I have had to type “recognition” approx. 27 times this week and have tried to squeeze a “z” in there each and every time. Just a little fun, behind the scenes look into my deteriorating brain.

From my department, there were 8 of us I think, from Debby who is celebrating FORTY YEARS, to Carrie who is celebrating 5! In 2010, Sandy, Nate, Mitch, and I were all hired. It was a banner year, clearly. Sandy created a 10 YEAR group chat in Jabber so the four of us could be jerks during the presentation, which entailed viewing a 30ish minute long video of what the world and the firm were like in each year us anniversary people were hired, starting with 1980 because of Debby and some other lady who I think is a practice assistant.

At the end, the…leader of the firm, the Firmfather? announced that it was raffle time and I started to peace out because I don’t usually win shit. Out of the 55ish of us being recognized, 10 were going to win a $50 gift card. But then Firmfather said, “so if your name is called, I’m going to unmute you so can acknowledge that you heard your name get called. And you know what, why don’t you also say a few things about what you remember from when you started. Give us a memory or something.”

My Jabber blew up. Everyone was like OMG ERIN IS TOTALLY GETTING CALLED FOR THIS. And Amber, who was also watching the presentation since everyone’s supervisors and managers are required to attend, Jabbered me as well saying I WANT U TO WIN SO BAD.

Why does everyone hate me??

So now I’m sitting there all clammy and pale, chanting PLEASE DONT CALL ME PLEASE DONT CALL ME and Chooch, who was getting ready to leave for the teen center, sidled up next to me and asked DID SOMEONE SAY RAFFLE. So now I have Chooch crossing his fingers, saying WIN IT WIN IT over and over while the admin lady is pulling out names, and I’m in major fight or flight mode right now. I mean, all I had to do was leave the call. I could have just left, and they would be like “ok pick another name Mary!” when they saw I wasn’t in the participant list. Just in case, my mind started flipping through a psychic rolodex of FIRM MEM’RIES from 2010 that weren’t inside jokey or completely inappropriate to share with Firmfather and the other however many randos were on the call, and then…

Well, BY NOW YOU HAVE GUESSED IT. I WAS A WINNER. THEY CALLED MY DUMB STUPID PIECE OF SHIT NAME. I have never wanted to lose something so badly in my life!

I did what I do best in these situations: I completely vacated my body and replaced myself with FAKE PROFESSIONAL ERIN who managed to improvise a wholesome memory on the spot.

This was my memory:

“Well, Firmfather, I was hired in 2010 to work the late shift. There were already two other Erin/Aarons in the department, so I became known as ‘Night Erin.'”

Not super exciting, but also not something scandalous that was going to embarrass the directors of my department, who were all listening! Anyway, I didn’t think it was all that great, but Firmfather gave a hearty laugh and said, “I LIKE THAT” and I was like “PLEASE TO BE MUTED NOW” and then everyone from my department who witnessed this contacted me immediately, like “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and I was like, “Let’s never speak of this again.”

Meanwhile, Wendy texted me and was like, “NO YOU’RE NOT NIGHT ERIN, YOU’RE—”

and here is where I will interrupt Wendy’s text and tell you that there was a second part to the story that I did share on that call, because I just didn’t feel like it.

So, I didn’t meet Wendy until a month or two after I got hired, because she was in Warsaw assisting with the opening of a new firm office. By the time she came back, I was already firmly indoctrinated as Night Erin, and when she heard this, she said that it reminded her of the town wino where she grew up, and his name was Night Train. For some reason, she thought this name was way more suitable for me, and that’s how I became known as Night Train for like, too many years.

Anyway, Amber made sure to send an email to our group, squealing about how I had to talk during the presentation and people started asking IS THERE A TAPE.

Ugh.

But it got me thinking about all the much better memories I could have shared if this was like an off-the-record happy hour or something. So here are 4 more memories from my early years at the law firm.

1. WATERBREAK ’11: the time when some broad’s water literally broke in our restroom and pandemonium ensued
2. LAW FIRM LAMB CAKE: the cake that inspired an indie eyeshadow shade and its own theme song
3. WACKY WORM: the carnival ride that sparked the now legendary feud between Glenn and me
4. LAST MAIL IN REVERSE (no blog post): so there was this woman who used to come through our floor every day at the same time, calling out “last mail’ in every quadrant. My old co-worker and I were obsessed with her and one time, he challenged himself to race through the floor in order to catch her each time she said “last mail.” Collect ’em all, if you will. I dunno why we latched on so hard to this but it was funny to us how she appeared at the exact same time every day and never deviated from her course. So one time, for April Fool’s Day, I sidled up to Barb and whispered, “WHAT IF WE GOT LISA TO DO LAST MAIL IN REVERSE. IT WILL BLOW DEREK’S MIND.” So Barb was like LEAVE IT TO ME. So Lisa was like, “Um, ok sure I can do that, you fucking weirdos” and then we got one of our co-workers Mary to make up some project to keep Derek at his desk, because we knew he’d get up and start pacing as soon as he realized Lisa was late. I got Mitch to record it (he was pretending to peruse the contents of a bunch of engagement letter boxes near Derek’s desk and he looked SO SUSPISH but no one said anything). And then BAM, Lisa came out of nowhere with her LAST MAIL and Derek was like “that’s the worst prank ever” but he has like 8 kids now and I bet this tale is TOTALLY their favorite bedtime story. Either that or it’s a threat: EAT ALL YOUR GODDAMN PEAS OR I’M GONNA TELL YOU THE LAST MAIL STORY AGAIN TONIGHT.”

Well, that’s all for me. It’s been…a week.

In today’s edition of “less pandemic panic, more memories that are manic” (???? Sorry, sometimes I’m a rhyming try-hard) you’ll find me reminiscing about all the carousel selfie funtimes I had in 2019. I like to trick the encroaching depression by focusing on shit that makes me happy and you know, maybe it’s just a Band-aid in the grand scheme of things but for now, it’s getting the job done.

The best part was that I had to go through so many amusement park blog posts to collect these photos and it made me so happy doing a little skimming here and there. 2019 was so tight. This current year is definitely making me appreciate it all the more, in hindsight!

The first amusement park we visited in 2019 was King’s Island that April, but I guess it didn’t occur to any of us to go on the carousel (do they even have one? Now I can’t picture it in my mind), but Chooch and I hit up some horsies a month later when we went to Waldameer.

Then in June, Chooch and I went to Conneaut with Janna and this is the picture that actually kick-started the tradition of CAROUSELFIES. Seriously, this picture makes me so happy, it was such a stomach-achingly hilarious day, and I should probably just put this damn thing in a locket, to be QUITE FRANK.

This technically counts as a carouselfie: at some ice cream joint in the beginning of summer. This is when Henry hijacked our tradition because wah wah wah he always have to be included even though he’s so lame and I just want to bully him right off the school bus but then he’ll go tattle to the internet and everyone on the internet always takes his side!!

Ugh, being inclusive is so hard sometimes.

The next amusement park we went to was Lotte World in Korea but it was ridiculously crowded and the wait for the carousel was like 2 hours. So the NEXT carousel we rode was in Tokyo Disney Sea! Henry actually took this without bitching!

In August, we went to Kentucky Kingdom and Holiday World in Indiana during a long weekend. Here are those carousels! You can see that Henry is really starting to get a feel for a plaster horse between his legs.

…OK never mind, he’s back to grimacing.

Then we went to Cedar Point in September! That was truly a weekend of ups and downs but our time on the derby ride thingie was pleasant (I forgot how fast it goes though)!

In October, we went to King’s Dominion in Virginia for the first time and had so much fun! SO MUCH FUN that I have literally no recollection of riding the carousel there. Side note: there was recently some thing on Twitter where people were sharing pictures of celebrities they’ve been told that they look like so I was like “cool I’ll play too” even though I never think I look like anyone I’m told (especially not Maggie Gyllenhaal but I used to get that one the most). I used to get Claire Danes a lot too, especially when I was younger and I never saw that one either but I just glanced at myself in this King’s Dominion pic and I kind of actually see it in this one!

Also, wtf are all those people looking at? I’m having major FOMO right now.

The first weekend of November (ie the last of the Halloween festivities at amusement parks) we went to Lake Compounce in Connecticut and Dorney Park in Allentown, PA and it was a legit wonderful weekend (don’t worry – we still bickered a lot, we’re the Appledales, after all).

It was super cold at Lake Compounce, but mild at Dorney. Just in case any weather groupies are wondering.

People kept telling me that they liked my jacket all weekend and Chooch was like “No, it’s ugly. I hate it.”

And then our very last carouselfie happened one year ago this month, at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. THAT WAS A FUN TRIP TOO BUT IT WAS FUCKING COLD, MAN.

Honorable mention: Chooch and I also went to Kennywood in August but for some reason we didn’t ride the carousel (we were too busy fucking with the coasters) but I did manage to take a moody pic of it before we left that night.

I wonder how much it would cost to get one of those little coin-operated carousels for the house….I could get rid of the dining room table and put it there. We could call it the diningsel. Dinner-Go-Round. Merry-Go-Lunch. Give me a break man, my brain is atrophied.

OK back to reality, a/k/a COVID-times. Have a nice night. If you dream about carousels after looking at these pictures before bed, you have to tell me!

I figured this past weekend would be a good time to Christmas-fy Trudy which was actually making  me feel exhausted and underwhelmed just by thinking about it. But then I scored a church pew through Craigslist, which my little bitchboy Hank went to pick up Saturday morning and suddenly I was fully energized by the prospect of doing a full refresh on this corner of the house!

We’ve had a big, overstuffed chaise lounge in that corner since…well, almost since as long as I’ve lived here. I remember this vividly because my mom bought it for me when I was working at the dumb meat place, before I met Henry, so this must have been around 2000, and I needed someone to be at my house when the guys delivered it so I asked THAT BITCH KERI who keeps coming up in my memories for some reason and hopefully not because she’s about to penetrate my life in some way, ugh. Anyway, Keri literally lived down the street in the same fucking neighborhood as me and didn’t work during the day so I was like “can you come and stay at my house on this afternoon etc” and she was like “NO SORRY I AM TIRED.” Or “SORRY I WILL BE WATCHING MOVIES” because that was her excuse for everything unless she had a headache which was her ultimate NO CAN DO card.

(EDIT: Janna just alerted me to the fact that she came to my house and waited for the chair to be delivered since dumb Keri wouldn’t! I can’t believe I forgot about that! Actually, I can because I am officially an old broad with a walnut brain.)

All of that is to say the same damn chair has been in that corner of the room for 20 years and no one even sits on it really unless I have people over and it just takes up so much damn room. So we moved it onto the back porch where it fits perfectly and will be my new reading chair since now it doesn’t butt up against a shared wall which was one of the reasons I quit sitting in it – the series of loud ass neighbors we’ve had.

I’m gonna get a small coffee table for that corner too at some point DON’T RUSH ME OK.

My co-workers started an email thread about this picture and Henry was like, “thx erin.” Lol. Amber said it looks like quarantine has softened him but Glenn was like MORE LIKE HE’S BROKEN FROM YEARS OF BEING BEAT DOWN.

Henry agreed with Glenn.

Every little change is such a big deal for these girls.

Truth be told, it doesn’t take that long to decorate Trudy anymore. We just leave the lights on her all the time now and have adopted a “less is more” attitude with it. And especially now that she has a co-tree in Taemin, we don’t want her to overshine him too much, you know?

Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday but I love the way the house makes me feel when it’s (extra) lighted. The power of a couple strands of twinkle lights really goes a long way, and I don’t know about you, but having this kind of romantic mood lighting up in here helps me combat the sads. Come at me, seasonal depression!

Even Trudy understands the science behind wearing a mask.

YEAH HE HAS.

I definitely put out less decorations this year since we won’t be having any parties, but it still makes me feel peaceful.

Drew’s always gotta be in pictures. She knows.

It’s hard to believe that this is Trudy’s fifth (sixth??) Christmas with us already. We don’t have many “traditional” traditions but Trudy just feels so regular and normal. And if we’re being honest, she’s pretty low maintenance. We don’t have to chop her down, nor we have to lug her out of the attic and put her together. She’s just…always around. LIKE PART OF THE FAMILY. Love that babe.

(Fun fact: we actually tried to find her a boyfriend a few mths ago when JC Penney had a WE’RE CLOSING, PLEASE BUY IT ALL sale but we got there too late and there were no mannequins left. Is there a Tinder for mannequins?)

Even though it’s just the three of us here in our cozy covid pod, I didn’t want to just say ‘fuck it’ and like, order pizza or something, which is definitely something we have done on other holidays since we don’t really have anything else to do, family to visit, etc. So I suggested that we make a little spread of international delights, akin to what I had planned for 4th of July before we decided to tear up the kitchen instead.

(“Yeah but can’t we still do it anyway?” I asked Henry and he was like WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO COOK?? Oh…yeah. Lol.)

Here is the menu I painstakingly constructed only to have Henry prove at 11pm on Thanksgiving Eve that he only barely read it by answering, “Um…..” 4 out of 5 times to my questions of, “Did you get the ingredients for this?” He’s such a holidayfucker, I swear to god. Spoiler: IT TURNED OUT FINE! He was able to get the rest of what he needed at the Mexican grocery store down the street the next day.

• fufu and peanut soup (West African)
• Mamaliga (Romania)
• baked apple sauce (Dutch)
• Smolensk porridge (Russia)
• Street corn salad (Mexico)
• Sweet potato rolls (Portugal)
• Mashed potatoes (good ol’ Merica, made by Chooch)
• Vegan ham
• Bibingka (Philippines)
• Cherry pie (another American contribution by vanilla Chooch)

Pre-dinner, Chooch off-handedly mentioned that he wanted to try peppermint Schnappes after seeing Lily guzzle it on Dash + Lily so I was like OH WHAT THE HELL IT’S A HOLIDAY and let him have a sip.

Chooch’s cherry pie was the first thing that was done that day and proceeded to tempt us with its cloying aroma

I made bibingka all by myself! I lied! It was a box mix and Chooch had to help me because the directions were totally confusing. I was crying. But hot damn, this coconut milk cake was delicious. I learned about it from the book The Farm, which I did not like but at least it taught me about some delicious Filipino foods.

My apple sauce required the addition of speculaaskruiden which is a speculoos-y spice, I guess. Of course it was impossible to find but then I found a recipe with how to make it and it seemed easy until I sent it to Henry and he was like CARDAMOM PODS ARE $10, GRRRRR but he bought them and spent Wednesday night roasting, shelling, and grinding them lolololol. The next day, I was like, “WHEN DO I GET TO DO SOMETHING” and he was all, “Here, make your damn apple shit” and swept his arm toward a pile of apples and I was like, “OK, so do I just shove them in the oven?”

“No. You have to peel and cut them first.”

OH HAHAHA HELL NO. I was looking for something a bit less laborious, buddy. So he sent me away and then let me come back hours later after they had been baked and were ready for some mashing. I am good at mashing.

I did hurt my wrist though.

FAKE HAM. This was just from the store. Probably Whole Foods.

MY RUSSIAN PORRIDGE SHIT! It was really weird – fresh cranberry sauce (I MADE IT…wait, did I? No, I was supposed to I think but then Henry ended up doing it because I lost interest) poured over rice. This was our….amuse bouche? Maybe. Chooch HATED IT. I thought it was quite interesting and also good (a lot of people might think interesting means bad but NOT IN THIS CASE) and Henry was immediately coming up with ways to make it better, OK Boris.

Nope, not a fan.

Then we had our fufu course and you guys, I cannot stress enough HOW.GOOD.FUFU.IS. This is another food I learned about from a book and Henry first made it last spring at my request. The fufu is that yellow hunk floating in the soup, and it’s made from plantain and yucca (actually, there are variations of this depending on what region you’re looking at). Literally just those two things and water. It turns into a sticky dough that you then use an edible utensil for soup-spooning.

It is so insanely good with peanut soup. Holy shit, I think I want this to be our new Thanksgiving dinner tradition.

Romanian mamaliga is essentially polenta (Henry was like, “That’s exactly what it is, so…”) topped with a dollop of sour cream, and as a fan of polenta in general, I was not mad at all about this addition to our holiday menu.

This was another thing that Chooch DID NOT LIKE.

Our first time using the buffet!!

OH SHOOOOOT, these sweet potato rolls were bangin’. They were so dense and rich! I toasted one the next morning for breakfast and it was like a fucking gourmet English muffin. Henry added the recipe to his KEEPER pile.

Would I have liked to have invited my mom and Henry’s mom over for dinner? Absolutely. But it’s not worth risking their health (or worse: lives) just because we wanted it to feel “more like a holiday.” Maybe next year things will be safer and we can go all out, but for this year I was…thankful (ugh) to just share a nice dinner with these two goofs.

This is Chooch’s “I CAN HEAR YOU CHEWING” face.

Oh shit, and don’t forget the Korea representation!! Soju in the house! Wish we had makgeolli too but we would have had to travel to obtain that milky nectar of the motherland.

We had some vegan Sugar Spell pints too and that purple sweet potato casserole is a contender for my favorite flavor of theirs.

A little bit of e’er’thang.

My poor stomach felt like Stretch Armstrong after that smorgasbord.

To cap off the night, Chooch and I did the dishes and then indulged in our annual T-giving tradition of mocking birthday party videos on YouTube. I think we all got along all day, too?? COULD THIS BE TRUE?!!

Good afternoon, people of the Internet. Today’s post is about the time I splurged on a Selina Sanders handmade shirt made from a vintage dishtowel because it reminded me so much of my Pappap’s game room carpet and general aesthetic. I could imagine these dish towels being used in one of the bar areas. (There were two – “too excessive” was not in my Pappap’s vocab.)

Anyway, I paid like $120 for this damn shirt thinking that it would be nice to wear in the fall when we returned to work – LOL such pure, wholesome thinking! We obviously have still not returned back to the office and the dressiest I get these days are when I swap my sweatpants for jeans but keep the hoodie.

My hair wasn’t looking too rat-nesty today so I asked Chooch to take some pictures of me wearing this dumb shirt so I could at least kind of get some use out of it and it’s still fall, so….

And you can imagine how thrilled he was!

One time a few years ago, I was on a walk while screaming at Henry about something over the phone and didn’t realize that there were people working on this balcony thingie that I posing under. I think about that every time I walk past this place because those worker guys exchanged “wheeeeeeew-eeeeee, better him than me!” glances.

Chooch is obsessed with the shrubbery in this yard and never fails to openly admire it every time we stroll past.

“Sit like your leg is broken.”

Obligatory jump shot.

I have a really hard time standing with my arms at my side. I always want them to be akimbo or waving like mattress store inflatable man thingies:

I’m kind of annoyed because I have a pair of boots that would have looked much better with this outfit but they’re under my desk at work, in a box with like 9 other pairs of shoes. Where they have been languishing since March.

It’s very hard for me to be on this side of the lens, you guys, you have no idea. And also hard for the person taking the pictures! Chooch was just like, “OMG YOU LOOK OK STOP.”

But then this happened and it’s 100% the BEST PICTURE ANYONE HAS EVER TAKEN OF ME. This effing bird came out of nowhere and Chooch and I both screamed so hard. It flew by so fast that it only registered as a blip on the live version of this picture which is insane. Henry originally thought it was a hawk but then obsessed over it for 30 minutes and is going with sparrow as his final answer. I put it on Instagram, so I’m sure all the high strung ornithologists will trip over themselves to “Actually…” him. GOOD!

Earlier today, Chooch and Henry were at Target and they bought me a candle named Ruby.

Chooch, referring to my old online persona, just now asked me, “Did you used to call yourself Ruby because that was your birthstone?

”

“No, I changed my name to Emerald in 10th grade* and Ruby was my psychotic alter ego,” I explained.

“So…isn’t that just your normal self then?” he deadpanned.

WOW.

Also, accurate.

*(I started writing “poetry” in 10 grade to mock my friend Melissa/Martha/Poptart and Emerald was my pen name. I got two whole teachers to call me that: my English teacher and one of the gym teachers.

Bless them.)

Also, we are decorating for Christmas tonight I guess and it is super sad without Janna here.

OMG as I’m typing this ANOTHER SHITTY CONVERSATION HAPPENED. Henry is talking about how he needs to go to Lowe’s and Chooch said he wants to go too and Henry was about to voice his disdain but then he remembered it’s me who is the pain the ass to go to Lowe’s with.

“Going anywhere with her is a pain in the ass,” Chooch tacked on, not missing a beat.

I FEEL SO LOVED TONIGHT.

Here’s son of the year, trying to think of the word “ottoman.”

OK, proceed with your Saturday night.

My law firm always gives us the day after Thanksgiving off and I am post-Thanksgiving thankful for that. Maybe that means I actually put some effort into a Friday Five? We’ll see how far my effort will stretch. No promises!

• IN THE DARK

Hello. Why have I not seen anyone talking about this show??? I randomly started watching it on Netflix a week ago and IT WAS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. So you got this blind girl, Murphy, and she is getting pissed that the police are being so blasé about her friend Tyson’s murder so she starts trying to solve it herself, so it’s got Veronica Mars vibes if VM was in her twenties, blind, engaging in LOTS of wanton sex, is jaded and sarcastic to the point where she’s just flat out mean at times. The rest of the cast too is GOLD. Like, every character. (I’m crying thinking about Jess and Felix right now.)

I was trying to figure out why the dynamics of Murphy and her best friend Jess seemed so familiar to me and then I (tried to) snapped my fingers: it’s basically me and my ex BFF Christina, if I was blind and she was my roommate trying to take care of me while I was insulting her and like, making her want to kill herself on the daily. I told Henry and he was like oh yeah I can see that totally.

Netflix has the first two seasons and I finished the second one the other night and am BROKEN. Apparently there is a third season but it hasn’t aired yet on The CW so Netflix can’t pick it up yet ugh.

Someone please watch this show so I can talk about it I’m dying here!! (Henry watched some of it even though I started it alone and then he kept asking me questions and that’s like my least fave thing about him right up there with his nose whistles and his lack of motivation to finish projects in a timely fashion.)

• SEX TALK ON THE BLVD

I was about to go for a walk earlier on Thanksgiving and Henry was all, “Let me know if the Mexican grocery is open” because one of the recipes I assigned to him for T-Day was Mexican. “I wasn’t going to walk that way, but OK fine,” I sighed.

And just as I texted Henry to tell him that it was, indeed, open, this old man beckoned me over to him. Now this wasn’t just a rando, this was the guy who used to own a Greek restaurant called It’s Greek To Me and now he sadly spends all of his days loitering on the boulevard, selling junk for cash. He always tells me I’m beautiful and you know what, sometimes I need to hear that even if it’s coming from an old man who is possibly suffering from dementia.

On this day, he had a vase of flowers that looked like he plucked straight from the alley weeds. I gave him the universal “no money” shrug but he started asking me additional questions, like “what’s your name” and I truly have a soft spot for old guys so I quietly sighed and pressed pause on my audio book.

And hoo boy, how I wish I hadn’t done that. He held me hostage for probably no more than five minutes but you know how  that can seem like an eternity when you’re in a FML sitch. A lot of fucking nonsense was said (like how he was Cleopatra’s husband) but I will tell you that he was VERY AGITATED when he learned that I have a son because I should be a virgin and he literally gave me a sex talk about said that “nothing should be coming out of there” and that I should only LET HIM IN THERE OMFG WHYYYYY GOD WHYYYYY. Then he asked me for a hug and I started to say no because PANDEMIC but he interrupted me and said, “I understand, we have to get to know each other first.”

Then he told me that he was going to be down by the state store and laundromat later that afternoon, and if I could bring him a coffee and $10 so that he can get his passport renewed (maybe if this was 1965) and then he’s going to take me to Cairo and buy me a bikini the color of the wilted flowers he was schilling and we can lay on the beach together. Additionally, he wanted steak because he doesn’t like turkey.

I did the whole, “Oh OK, sure” bit and as I walked away, he shouted, “ERIN I LOVE YOU!” and I was mortified because the Boulevard was pretty poppin’ for a Thanksgiving morning.

• PARANOPE

G-Dragon’s new Nikes went on sale Wednesday at 10AM and I was all set to give it the ol’ college try, and even had Henry and my friend Carrie (no stranger to competing with sneakerheads for limited edition shoes) trying for me, but as per usual, the power of GD crashed the fucking Nike site and the shoes sold out in every size in pretty much 2 minutes. One of these days!!!

Though at this rate, I think I’d have better odds actually befriending GD and having him gift me with the even more limited “friends and family” version.

• EWs and AWs

Today Chooch and I went for a walk with no time restraints since we both had the day off. As we walked past this one house, a little toddler girl came to the door and we both said “ew.”

Then on the next block, we saw a ball chilling among some trees and we both said, “aw.”

So, to summarize:

ew to children

aw to discarded toys

We are basically the same damn person sometimes.

• JONNY CRAIG REMAINS A PIECE OF SHIT

I mean, is it even accurate to classify him as only a PIECE of shit? He’s basically an entire manure packaging plant. The latest is that he was in jail for domestic violence, but only for a week. He’s back out and back to being a bitch. I never mention him anymore because he’s so worthless but I do check in every so often when my blog stats spike because that ALWAYS means he’s done something atrocious again and people are inspired to google him at which point they find y blog. The blog posts I’ve written about him in the past are still my most-viewed posts of all time, which is actually kind of depressing that out of everything I’ve written in this junkyard of words, those are the posts that have had the longest shelf life. Sigh.

Anyway, for anyone keeping score, he had a baby with some broad over the summer but immediately went back to cheating on her and doing drugs and she oscillates between fighting with him publicly via Instagram and tagging the girls he’s cheating with, to defending him and slut-shaming anyone who tries to tell her that he’s sliding into their DMs.

He needs to spend the rest of his life alone. His ex-girlfriends have (maybe literally) dodged a bullet by putting him in their rearview mirrors. I just hate him and what he has done to so many people over the years and I wish that people would keep accepting him back into the music industry because he shouldn’t have a career anymore. It’s just enabling him and he thinks he’s fucking invincible. Stop supporting that asshole!! If you want to hear beautiful voices I can point you in the direction of some Korean singers who blow his strained vocals out of the water. (Check out any of the main vocalists from Exo, for instance.)

BONUS:

I’d be remiss if I ended this week without even a mention of GOT7, who just had a comeback after what seems like forever. I love GOT7 so much, they are in my top 5 boy groups, and I think it would be fantastic if everyone reading this watches their new video because it’s SO GOOD.

It’s 9:00PM already on Thanksgiving (2020 is on goddamn warped speed) and I am so tired and content. This was quite possibly the nicest T-giving my little fam-trio has had, because the pandemic brought with it LOW EXPECTATIONS. I will pop back on here sometime this weekend to give a proper recap but I wanted to use this day to say thanks to those of you guys who read this, whether we know each other in real life, became friends via the Internet, or maybe you’re a friendly stranger who occasionally reads but doesn’t comment: I’m thankful for you guys! I enjoy writing about the daily minutiae of my life and that anyone cares to read it really means so much to me. I don’t say thanks enough!

I also wanted to take some dumb family pictures to immortalize this Thanksgiving, which was blessedly sans arguing (mostly) and we all pitched in (mostly) and everything turned out wonderfully (100%)!

Henry and Chooch changed clothes IMMEDIATELY after this, so in the next post you’ll see them chowing down on Thanksgiving fare in their super-casual attire.

If Henry looks exhausted/harried, it’s because he was in the middle of cooking and I made him throw on a flannel and sit for an entire 5 minutes while we pretended to be at Olan Mills.

Anyway, I hope my fellow Americans found a way to maintain some traditions while not breaking any pandemic laws. Trust me, I’m not thrilled about how things are playing out either because our new-ish tradition has been to spend a quiet Thanksgiving at home and then go to an amusement for the weekend, and you better believe I was super bummed when summer came and went and an end to covid was still not in sight. I pretty much made peace with the fact months ago that we’d just be staying put for Thanksgiving weekend, and it’s ok. Life goes on (it might not though if you don’t follow covid safety measures!!).

And now I’m going to go and roll myself out of these jeans and into sweatpants, and maybe scroll through Instagram to check out all the pies my friends made. That’s my favorite part of Thanksgiving! ALL OF THE PIE. Speaking of, Chooch made a delightful one and I will talk about that in my Thanksgiving recap.

Byeeeeeeeeeee.

Let’s be real, it’s been hard to make lemonade out of the dirty ass lemons that the coronavirus has chucked at us this year.  With all the staying-at-home that has been mandated since March, the one thing that has really kept me from spiraling out has been giving our rental home a refresher. I can’t even stress how much just a simple change in wall-color has boosted my mood!

But one of the biggest problems we’ve ALWAYS had is CLUTTER. We just don’t have a lot of room to put things (I mean, we’re not hoarders, but we’re…just messy. And by “we” I mean “Henry). After we redid  the dining room, I was like, “AND YOU NEED TO FIND SOMEWHERE TO KEEP THE CARD-MAKING SUPPLIES.” We have a shelf at the bottom of the steps, but that evidently isn’t enough because his supplies kept spilling out onto the dining room table, under the dining room table, next to the dining room table, on the dining room chairs…you get the picture. It’s his card-making station, you guys, and I can’t be too finger-pointer-y about it because we sell cards very consistently so he just got in a routine where he would leave the main supplies out, since he was “going to need them again tomorrow.”

Basically this is A LOT of words to say that we could never even sit at the table to eat because his paper cutter, his crafting knives, his tape, his envelopes, his etc etc etc, was always strewn across the tabletop.

So after we redid the dining room, he moved all of his supplies to the basement until we found a good storage solution.

I knew from the start that I wanted a buffet-type piece that could be useful if we ever get to host parties again but also double as hidden storage. I didn’t want to buy something new though – I wanted to find something at the thrift store so that we could dress it up in my dumb aesthetic, which varies.

We ended up finding this really solid mid-century buffet a few weeks ago for like $60 and it was, um, very worth it because the manufacturer is a very good one (we found out that this piece could possibly be worth between $1500-$3000…good thing we used good paint?). As usual, I have no before photo but just know that it was ugly and like, off-white.

Henry finally put it back together last night and brought it up from the basement and I love it SO MUCH. It’s perfect!

We bought the cabinet paint from Lowe’s and the cashier was like, “THIS IS A GREAT COLOR.”

Yeah, no duh.

I knew before we even found a buffet that I wanted to use some of my Pappap’s wallpaper on it. I felt that the print from the master bedroom of the Gillcrest House was the perfect complement to the pink I picked (literally typed “pink I pinked” the first time). Henry used actual wallpaper paste-stuff and the sheets went right on the doors like it was made just to sit around for 50 years waiting for this moment.

I chose gold glitter ribbon as an accent because pink and gold glitter is my signature, like it’s hard to believe I wasn’t in a sorority sometimes, like hee hee, bitches.

Here’s what the wallpaper looked like in the Gillcrest master bedroom.

When I was a really little kid, I used to sleepover my grandparents’ house a lot and I would always sleep in that room with them. That room was fucking magical, the bathroom alone was like no other, and I am so happy to have a piece of that room here in my house, on a repurposed piece of furniture that will hopefully live on for many more decades. (I mean, I can picture this in Chooch’s house someday, can’t you?

)

I just fucking love it and can’t wait until I can have people over here again so I can load it up with snaaaaax.

Henry was mad because I posted pictures of it on Instagram without including one of it with the actual buffet flap-things open. “THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT A BUFFET!” he yelled, because he wrote a thesis on midcentury furniture, didn’t you know?

Hilariously, when we first found this at the thrift store, it was SO UGLY TO ME, especially when Henry opened the flaps. I screamed, “OMG WHAT IS THIS????” and he calmly said, “A buffet…” and I was like, “Oh thank god, I thought it was some kind of exam table.”

Wheelchairs? Yes. Funerary paraphernalia? Fuck yeah. Exam tables? GTFO.

I have my limits, you guys.

True to form, Henry left the inside blank. I mean, I guess if he was refurbishing this to sell as a OOAK piece, he’d have gone the extra mile and fluffed up the innards, but we’re only going to stuff it with non compos cards supplies (and cats, apparently), so who really cares, you know?

Drew really fucking loves it.

“Thanks for the new spot!” she said.

So anyway, that’s my buffet story. It would have been really cool to have had this back when I had that vintage food party!

I must be officially old, because I’m getting all hot and bothered over attractive, yet functioning, storage solutions.

OMG it’s part 2, right on the heels of Part 1. I bet you didn’t see this one coming at all.

****

9. Lair of Dreams – Libba Bray

This is the second book in the Diviners series and I am so obsessed. I mean, sorry, I know I say that for like pretty much everything because I have a very obsessive personality, but I really am a huge fan of these books so far. There are still two more I have to read and I have high hopes that the series will end on a high note and end up being something I will never forget.

I have to say though that listening to audiobook while reading along is 100% the way to go with this series, because it’s set in the 1920s and the narrator (January Lavoy) does the best flapper accents. I never knew I cared about the roaring 20s until l picked up these books and now I have half a mind to start watching silent films or whatever was cool back then. Did “talkies’ exist yet, who knows, too tired to google.

If you’re looking for, say, Scooby Doo, but punt it back to the prohibition and add some psychic shenanigans, this could be the jam your book-bread is desperately seeking.

10. Tuesday’s Gone – Nicci French

While we’re talking about series, the Frieda Klein series is incredible! This one is set in 21st century London and it’s basically a cop procedural mystery/thriller doo dad thingie mabob (I’m really not great at genre-placing books, you guys) but our main character is Frieda Klein, a psychotherapist with a knack for solving crimes faster than the popo.

What I like even more than the stories/plots of this series, though, is the colorful character studies. These people pop right off the page, you can hear their accents, you can feel the coziness of Frieda’s home, you want all the good guys to find happiness. Especially Frieda, god love her.

What I also find intriguing is that these books are written by a married couple and like, I can’t even imagine co-authoring a yard sale flyer with Henry, let alone an entire book series.

11. Earthlings – Sayaka Murata

Shiiiit. I honestly don’t even know how to explain this crazy ass jaunt into literary chaos. It’s pretty fucked. If you have ever seen, say, Visitor Q, this is like the print version of that psycho Japanese movie. I read it in one day and was screaming, “OH MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU KIDDING” while reading it in bed, which Henry super-enjoyed.

Just when you start to get comfortable, it takes a series of OMG turns and then you’re in squirmy territory and I was laughing really hard for pretty much the entire last quarter of the book but…it was pretty disturbing. I can’t really say too much else because giving it away would really take a lot of the shock value away, you know?

I’m…not even sure if I LIKED this book? But it took me places. And that’s really all we can ask for, right?

12. The Snowman – Jo Nesbø

I saw this recommended in several thriller booktube videos and everyone said that even though it’s part of a series, you don’t have to read them in order. I mean, I didn’t feel lost, although there were some references to past cases but I felt like it was explained well enough that I was able to move on with my day and still get the same experience from this book.

If you’re into pretty gruesome murder cases, this is for you. There were parts where I was like, “To skim or not to skim” because I was getting a bit squeamish.

This was also adapted into a movie but I haven’t watched it yet.

13. More Than This – Patrick Ness

I have no idea what possessed me to order this from the library, but I should I have known just from the synopsis that it wasn’t the book for me. It’s borderline sci-fi, part post-apocalyptic, and it just left  me feeling very uncomfy in general.

It starts with a teenaged boy dying, not a spoiler, and he wakes up in his old childhood home but everything is deserted and wrong-feeling. While he’s trying to figure out WTF is going on, we revisit the months and days leading up to his death in flash back chapters. This was the only part of the book I enjoyed – the flashing back.

14. I’m Afraid of Men – Vivek Shraya

Listen to Tegan & Sara – this is definitely 100% percent reading for everyone. I want every fucking straight white male to be required to read this. It’s VERY short so you could probably knock this out in one sitting and feel like you read something important. If we really want to call ourselves trans allies, we need to read more ‘own voices’ books like this one.

15. Hell House – Richard Matheson 

Do. Not. Waste. Your. Time.

Talk about a book that doesn’t hold up. This is predictable, the writing was soooooo pompous. The characters were flat and I really didn’t care if any of them lived or died. I wasn’t creeped out, except for the times my mind started to wander down various optical malady paths on account of all the massive eyerolling I was doing.

I wish I had DNF’d this, if we’re being frank. I wanted a good haunted house book to read in October and this WASN’T IT, FAM.

16. John Dies at the End – David Wong

For the first 100ish pages, I was INTO THIS and really thought it was going to be a 4 star. The writing is quirky, witty, the characters full of life, and there were many times when I LOLd for real, but it doesn’t really work for the entire 466 pages. Honestly it was about 150 pages too long and there were entire chapters where I just felt bored and lost, just completely forgot what the plot was (was there a plot?). It’s actually pretty inexplicable that I even picked this up because I never even had any desire to watch the movie.

I was also not a fan of the incessant use of “retarded.” I mean, I was actually wincing every time it popped up, and it was a lot. I wish I had counted. Then the n-word & f*g was dropped several times too – that’s gonna be a big NOPE for me, Bob.

I want to give it a 2 because of the gratuitous slurs, but then there’s a dog side-kick who is so fantastic, that I have to bump it back up to a 3. Molly, you saved this book.

Honestly, could have been solid 4 and I’m actually depressed at how it unraveled for me.

Also, David Wong is the author’s pen name and he isn’t even Asian, so when I learned that fun fact, it um, really explained a lot

17. House at the Bottom of a Lake – Josh Malerman

I received an advanced reader copy of this through Net Galley. I haven’t read anything else by Jos Malerman but I know that he wrote Bird Box which everyone loves but I have only seen the movie so this was my first foray into the Malerman experience.

It’s about two teenagers who meet in a hardware store and just…you know, hit it off and then the boy takes the girl on a canoeing date, which is cool but then there is a secret lake that they access through some weird tunnel thing and I was fucking FREAKING OUT and feeling so claustrophobic.

Then it only gets worse when they discover that there is, as the book title totally spoiled for us, a house at the bottom of the lake. They become obsessed with it and start spending basically all of their free time exploring it, and then they start sleeping on a raft because they can’t even stand to be away from it.

There is a lot of suspenseful tension throughout the whole thing and I wasn’t bored, but I have to be honest and say that the writing itself sort of left something to be desired. It was very…cold and the dialogue was realllly short and not very meaty. We didn’t really get to know much about either person, and maybe that’s what Malerman intended, for the focus to be on the house.

I don’t know, it just kind of ended and I sat here thinking, “What did I just read….” It’s classified as horror and…I guess so? It was also kind of a coming of age story too, with these two kids falling in love, just in a very strange location.

…before Henry completely obliterated the poor kid’s hair later that day.

Hello. Since school pictures for 2020 are up in the air as of now, I figured I better take matters into my own hands, use those same hands to dust off my camera, and drag Chooch to the cemetery for some portraits today.

Of course it’s never that easy – I had to promise that I’d buy him some dumb Titanfall thing and then give him $10 cash on top of that (overall a pretty cheap deal until you realize that you’re the one who should be getting paid for this shit).

We left Henry at home because he had chores to do and SHOCKINGLY Chooch and I got along swimmingly, which confirms my suspicion that Henry is the catalyst.

Chooch wears a hoodie to “school” every day so it was kind of nice to see him wearing something with, I dunno, a pattern. And color.

I made him do a wardrobe change, and we also changed locations once too, which made him grumble because “that wasn’t part of the arrangement” but REMEMBER WHO THE PARENT IS, OK.

He does the “sullen teen” look so well.

OMG I just went upstairs to Henry’s Salon and he basically made Chooch look like he’s leaving for boot camp…

I’m trying not to freak out.

That mushroom coif is gone-zo!

Well, this has been the latest edition of “I have a kid and here are some pictures of him.”

P.S. I just saw Chooch post-hair shaving and he’s actually not completely bald – Henry left some hair on the top lol.

Dear Internet Diary,

I’m extremely unorganized when it comes to photos, which is awful when it comes to preservation but also fun when I randomly come across one when I’m digging in a drawer for a pen or safety pin or the glasses that I never wear. Here are some that I unearthed recently which I thought would be fun to share since the only other things I have to talk about right now are the recipes I’ve chosen for Henry to make for Thanksgiving, Taemin/SHINee stuff, and my continuously rising ire at people who STILL REFUSE TO WEAR A FUCKING MASK. I just…I can’t do it today. So let’s look at some old ass pictures, spanning various decades of shitty hairstyles!

1. THE OBLIGATORY WILDWOOD SHOT

You guys. I remember this like it was yester-fucking-day and not OMG 1988. It was taken at my beloved Wildwood, New Jersey on one of my family’s summer vacations. Every night after dinner, we would go to the boardwalk, specifically Morey’s Piers, for some junk food and ride action. Here are some things I would like to point out about this photo:

• I had just gotten my hair cut that summer and it was a huge deal because my hair is pretty long prior to this, and I got bangs too which was MAJOR YOU GUYS. I remember getting my hair done at a salon called Shear Talent which was down the street from my Pappap’s drywall company. This is notable because it was located next to an apartment that OLYMPIC WRESTLER KURT ANGLE* lived in sometime in the 90s and I know that this is true because my dad worked for the gas company and had to go there to like, read the meter or fix something back then, I don’t know. But he came home and was so excited and I was like “Oh.”
  • *I cared so little about this that I originally put “Engler” as his last name and then decided to google to make sure I even had the right guy. I did. That’s him.
• My dad and Ryan and those other people are looking up because the boardwalk’s famous looping coaster, The Sea Serpent, had gotten stuck with people on it and this was major news because it was the 80s and we didn’t have Twitter and a psychotic president abusing it, and also maybe all the serial killers were on sabbatical.
• *waves back to the stranger lady*
• I fucking loved that shirt that I was wearing. I have no idea why I liked it so much.
• This was the year I started to get fat and ugly.

2. Erin Rachelle Kelly, Babysitter Extraordinaire

From the looks of this picture, I would wager to say it was the summer of 1996. It was definitely taken in my mom’s living room and I can promise you that the camera had the timer set and was propped up on her antique roll-top desk. Here are some things I remember:

• That broad (lol, we were like 16 but OK, Erin) in the middle is the KERI THAT WAS MENTIONED A FEW BLOG POSTS AGO WHEN I WAS V. MAD THAT JASON VOORHEES CHOSE HER OVER ME. And that’s her  then-boyfriend Dan who liked me first but I went on one date and passed him on to Keri, who ended up dating him for quite some time (I mean, probably like 6 months which was the equivalent to like 5 years in high school time) and then one time I had a little get together like almost a year after this picture was taken and he was there and seriously you guys I’m pretty sure he was on his way to sexually assaulting me when I was drunk and the only thing that stopped him was my friends Justin and Jon opening the door to the laundry room (the same one where I found out Gionni Versace was killed!!) and seeing that he had me pushed against the wall, at which point they escorted him out of my house and Justin drove him home. I ill never forget that.
• I was definitely supposed to be babysitting my brothers here and I still can’t believe that my mom ever trusted me to babysit.
• There’s a similar picture floating around somewhere in which my brothers are holding butcher knives.
• I was the Overall Queen in the 90s.
• Might try to bring back the “showing off the bruise on my thigh” pose.

3. If It Doesn’t Taste Good…

OK this is really bizarre because I have zero recollection of this photo but Chooch found it in his room when we were rearranging it a few months ago. I know that this was obviously from the vacation I was on that summer with my grandparents and Sharon but I’m not sure where exactly we were here, and I only vaguely remember the people here but I’m sure I could pull out one of y vacation journals to fact check, but that would almost imply that I’m a legit blogger and come on, we all know it’s “half-assed of GTFO” over here in these parts. There’s a bunch of fun facial expressions we can expound upon but when I first found this picture, my immediate response was to scream because that gentleman standing in the middle was the greatest. I believe his name was John and he and his wife really took a liking to my Pappap so they would often join us at our table for travel group dinners.

This man gave me the GREATEST advice of all time, and I think about it A LOT:

If it doesn’t taste good, put cheese on it.

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have attempted to make food for myself and, after the first inaugural taste/forced swallow, I’d grab the parmesan out of the fridge door and give my plate a hearty sprinkling.

I tried to tell Chooch this story but he peaced out as soon as I said “Europe with my grandparents” because he hates hearing stories about my silver spooned childhood.

4. RICOLA

One of my best childhood memories was the time I turned 11 in Switzerland (Chooch is burying his head under a pillow right now). I was V.SHY then (I came out of my shell by 7th grade) and so, when the MC of the dinner theater thingie we were attending asked for volunteers to blow on the Ricola horn (honestly I have no idea what that thing is actually called but it’s in the Ricola cough drop commercials!), my grandparents and Sharon nearly shit their pants when I raised my hand.

It might have been my first YOLO moment!? I dunno, but to this day I prefer Ricola over everything else.

(Fun fact: I also received a birthday scroll from the restaurant that night, which is framed and still hanging in my house after all these years.)

(That’s a lie: It was hanging up until a month ago when we painted the dining room and still needs to be re-hung.)

5. Staircase Model

I know this is really crazy that I’m giving you all of these facts about myself on a blog that has my name in it, but here’s another:

I guess my aunt Sharon was trying to distract me of the impending birth of my brother Ryan which directly correlates with the RUINATION OF MY LIFE (j/k, I love my brother but I also really loved being an only child) when she took me to open auditions for some child modeling / acting agency. Apparently, she thought I would be automatically accepted since I already had like 4 years of posing in every single new outfit she bought for me.

I have no idea what happened to me, aside from the fact that my genes dictated my path and lead me straight to Homelyville, but now that I am an adult, I cannot pose for a picture to save my fucking life. But back then, I was SO GOOD at the arms akimbo/hip-jut combo. Now I just look like the entire precinct shouted SMILE!! while I was preparing for my mugshot.

Anyway, I wanted to include this picture in particular because I HAVE ROLLS OF THAT WALLPAPER NOW! The pattern is made from velvet or something and I can’t wait to do something with it.

***

Actually now that I look at these, I had bangs in every single one and now I feel like I want bangs agai—NO ERIN *SLAPS FACE* YOU DON’T WANT BANGS.

Feeling the need to shoot some bullets up in this piece today.

• Like pretty much everyone else in the world, I have been super antsy and bored these last several months. You know it’s bad when nothing in your YouTube feed interests you anymore, so I cried uncle and queued up the ol’ Netflix, with which I have such a bad rapport.
  • Here are all of the shows I have tried to watch over the last month or so on Netflix and then gave up after 1 or 2 episodes:
    • Evil (what a fucking hokey snoozefest)
    • Sweet Magnolias (like Gilmore Girls with less witty banter/more predictable drama)
    • Virgin River (I really like the main lady and then my mind was blown when I realized the main dude is the guys from the Ring and Britney’s Toxic video, and I might actually try this one again at some point because I didn’t hate it but I was bored)
    • Northern Rescue (somehow I let this play through three episodes before realizing I wasn’t watching it anymore)
    • Dawson’s Creek (You know it’s bad when there are 27340927304 streaming services and you can’t find anything to watch so you decide to revisit Dawson’s Creek and can only manage to make it to the second episode before having second-embarrassment for your younger self that actually thought this was a good show. Does not hold up.)
  • Here are all of the (non-Korean) shows that actually hooked me and I would recommend to everyone, also on netflix:
    • The Unicorn (sometimes you need a feel-good American sitcom, and also a show with 25 minute episodes)
    • Dash + Lily (Um, this was fucking everything I needed and I cried a lot and also adored every single person on this show)
    • In the Dark (OMG does the CW actually have good shows on it again that aren’t just about super heroes or supernatural shit?? I haven’t finished the first season yet but I am obsessed with every single character and have laughed and cried. Also, the guide dog’s name is Pretzel. We love a good dog name.)
    • The Queen’s Gambit (I don’t know SHIT about chess but this show was fucking amazing and I am now considering learning Russian – because Korean is going so well lol.)
• Speaking of Korean, I was reading “Shine” by Jessica Jung, former lead vocalist of arguably the most iconic Kpop girl group, Girl’s Generation, and I laughed because “noonchi ubssuh” was used in this after I just wrote about it on here last week! I’m used to seeing it Romanized a different way though which is the frustrating thing about when Korean words are written out using the English alphabet – there are so many variations when there is only one way  to spell it in Korean using the Hangul alphabet. But yeah, to review last week’s lesson, “noonchi” means like…to be self-aware, to be considerate of others, etc. And “ubssuh” means “to not have it.” So, they’re saying that the person is basically rude, clueless. I read that the literal translation is to gauge a person’s emotion by looking into their eyes, so basically to be socially aware, I guess. noon – eyes. chi – emotion.

• UNPOPULAR OPNION: I don’t like Lizzo. I’m sorry.
• The other night, I had a dream that I was standing outside of my Pappap’s house when a white pick-up truck came barreling down the street, made a hard turn into my Pappap’s front yard and plowed through the side of the upper garage, then drove off. I ran into the street screaming, trying to see their license plate, when I noticed that there was a woman walking down the street and the truck slowed down to say something to her. I asked her what they said and she was like, “he just said for me not to tell you who he is.” Then later, I was at Felix-from-“In the Dark”‘s apartment and the white pick-up truck was trying to kick down the door (which was just a flimsy piece of plywood) because he was trying to kill me and that’s when I saw that it was my birth dad who died right before my third birthday but was actually SURPRISE alive and my mom kept it a secret all these years which, if you know my mom, is actually something that could happen in my non-dream, awake life. So that was concerning.
  • Also I don’t think I have ever dreamt of my birth dad before and I rarely even think about him, so this was nice.
• I feel like such an old hag but I hate the new Instagram and Twitter updates. I’m so tired of “Stories” taking over social media. If I don’t want your stories on Instagram, I’m surely not going to watch them on Twitter. Also, I thought “Fleets” was such a dumb name for them but then it finally clicked this morning why it’s called that and, well done Twitter, but it’s still stupid!! And now every time I try to post something on IG, it brings up Reels instead because I keep forgetting they moved all of THE IMPORTANT features. God I hate change. I miss the days when IG was new and no one I knew used it so all of my friends were random people who I added simply because I liked the photos  they were taking. YOU KNOW BECAUSE IT’S A PHOTO APP. Now it’s just a meme junkyard because all of the Facebook people infiltrated.

• Last night, Chooch dramatically declared that it was “face mask and The Unicorn” time, and to “don’t disturb him.” Of course, I hid behind my bedroom door while he was applying th eface mask in the bathroom, because I had a clear shot of his bedroom from  the crack in the door and wanted to take a clandestine photo, but then he came out of the bathroom and immediately shut his door when he went into his room! So I blew my own cover and ambushed him with my phone. He wasn’t very pleased, but I’m the leader of this household and do what I want. ( just think it’s funny that he pulls his hair up into a unicorn horn-esque ponytail which is apropos here since he was watching The Unicorn (he kept craning his neck from the dining room while I was watching it a few weeks ago and then decided to just watch it on his own because he tries so HARD TO BE LIKE HIS MOMMY.)
• It’s been a week and a half and I’m still done laughing at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. I keep meaning to buy a commemorative shirt.
• Chooch has Civics now that he’s in 9th grade and he was worried in the beginning that he was going to hate it but turns out, he really enjoys it a lot and we talk about politics all the time now on our nightly strolls and if you had told me even as little as 5 years ago that one day I’d be having animated political discourse with my son for fun, I’d be like, “LOL fuck a politic amirite.” If there is one thing to credit Trump for, it’s that his complete fuckery made me actually care about shit, I guess.

• Chooch and I went to the library yesterday to pick up books we had ordered. Usually, I still call ahead and do the curbside pick-up but honestly, there is typically no one else inside the library so we feel relatively OK going inside with our masks. On the way to the check-out counter, there is a “grab-and-go” table with paper bags filled with books, in case you’re trying to spice up your reading life with some mystery books and by mystery I mean literally that you don’t know what books are inside. They do have labels though so you at least know the genre, and Chooch of course honed right in on a bag of holiday cookie books. I started to shake my head no because what the fuck do I want that for, but one of the librarians said to him, “Go ahead, you take that if you’d like” and he smirked at me. At least he had them use his own damn library card for them though, and then on the way home, I was like “You know, if you’re going to make cookies, maybe you can make some boxes and give them away as Christmas gifts.” So then of course I actually made myself excited for that because I like buying cute boxes and shit and Chooch happily started to make a list of cookies he chose from the books and then we made a list of recipients. But then I was like, “Shit, is this safe?” so I had to google “Can you give people homemade cookies during the pandemic” (2020 is the year of bizarre google searches, isn’t it?) and apparently it’s fine as long as we’re not blowing dandelions at people when we hand them over (we plan on just dropping them off on porches and mailing when needed, so I think it should be fine?). And trust me, we’re all manic hand-washers here at the Palace Pioneer and our kitchen is like a sanitary station because I’m obsessed with it being clean ever since we redesigned it, so you can eat our cookies with confidence.
• When Henry and I were at Lowe’s on Saturday, a 90s-ish song came on the radio and I was like “Shit I haven’t heard this song since….probably whatever year it came out” but I couldn’t think right away who it was and I almost NEVER have cell service in Lowe’s so my Shazam wouldn’t work and Henry can NEVER fucking hear the overhead music in stores ISTFG, so I had to wait until we got outside before I could google the lyrics. “Oh wow,” I said. “It was Filter, and I never would have guessed that. I kept wanting to say it was…..you know….” but I couldn’t think of the fucking band’s name! “You know, the singer is Perry….shit what’s his last name….you know, he created Lollapalooza.” Henry shrugged. “Side project was Porno For Pyros? DAVE NAVARRO!??!!?” Sill Henry was like, “Shit I know who you mean but I can’t think of the name either!” and by now I was tonguing tears of frustration off my cheeks. “And I was supposed to see them at Mellon Arena that one time with Wonka? We had pit tickets, but I had a migraine and couldn’t go and gave my ticket to that kid I met in line for the Cold show!?” Henry was just like, “THAT DOES NOT HELP ME” because I don’t think Henry and I were dating yet lol. Anyway, he finally remembered it hours later and he gave me clues until I finally shrieked JANE’S ADDICTION and Chooch was like, “WTF is happening never mind I don’t care.”
  • So the whole reason I’m telling you this boring ass story about two old people trying to remember an old band is because yesterday in the book I was reading JANE’S ADDICTION was referenced and I fucking swear this happens to me so often, that it actually scares me! Fucking synchronicity.
  • Oh, the song was “Take a Picture” by Filter, but I only really ever liked their older song “Nice Shot” because it reminded me so much of hanging out with Lisa in high school. We were the perfect of example of opposite’s attract because where she was super into alternative and metal, I was a little yo-girl constantly trying to slip my Bone Thugs n Harmony tapes into the cassette player of her Jeep. ANYHOO, she really liked Filter and before we would leave her house for whatever daily idiotic adventure we were about to finds ourselves embroiled in, she would ask me which shirt she should wear and I’d always pick Filter but then she started making me choose between just two shirts so that I wasn’t making her wear the same shirt every time.
• Chooch and I went for a walk on my lunch break and I tried to tell him the Jane’s Addiction saga and he was like, “mmhmm cool wow” and I was so mad that he didn’t find it interesting but then we both saw an albino squirrel and….what was I talking about again?

And I’ll leave you with a classic Girl’s Generation video:

Hello. Welcome to another edition of “weekend?” or “just another random lump of weekdays?” It was OK. Nothing exciting. I mean, what do we expect to happen on weekends during a pandemic, anyway?

Henry had been on “vacation” the prior week, so I’m not sure if he was treating the weekend like his last chance to live it up before returning to work, or if it was more of a COUNTDOWN to returning to work, because that was A LOT of “at home time” with me and Chooch. He got a lot of work done on various projects (FINISHED NONE THOUGH) and that just kind of bled into the weekend.

I went with him to Lowe’s on Saturday, where he made me languish in what has to be a contender for the Most Boring Aisle in the World. Then I asked him what he needed these alleged “hooks & eyes” for and that just elevated my boredom to Snooze Level, my god.

But I guess he needed shit in order to hang up my giant Seoul subway sign (and by that I don’t mean “hang on the wall” but “hang from the basement rafters” because he’s not anywhere near finishing this bitch yet) which he got a moderate amount of work done on over his “vacation week.” Here is a video of him working on it Friday night while listening to 2nd generation Kpop (aka the best kpop):

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Side note: if you’re ever like, “Aw, I really miss seeing people’s noses” during Covid Days, just go to Lowe’s. Lots of fucking dumbasses with their schnozzes hanging out of their masks. Fucking assholes.

I pretty much spend every day soapboxing about this bullshit country. It’s gonna be wild when I’m an old lady one day, telling my grandkids about the time selfish people in America cried like bitches over having to cover their big fat faces with a piece of fabric. FABRIC.

Assuming the anti-maskers don’t kill me first.

I’m pretty sure I spent a large portion of the weekend, when I wasn’t micromanaging Henry, ranting about Covid-19 and the stupidity of half the country. PLEASE STAY HOME FOR THANKSIVING!!! DO NOT BE SELFISH. I get it – some people are very close to their families (can’t relate) and not spending a holiday together feels like it could kill you but guess what, spending the holiday together ACTUALLY COULD KILL YOU OR THEM. I’m so glad that I generally don’t have holiday obligations and I truly do feel bad for those who do, but please be smart about this.

It stresses me out so much you guys that I have been having covid nightmares, such as Saturday night when I dreamt that I went to dinner at Bob Evans and they sat me at a table that was super close to another table, so I tried to move my table away and the people at the other table got super offended and then I suddenly had this lucid moment inside my dream where I realized that I was at a restaurant after I spent the last nine months preaching about how people shouldn’t eat in restaurants during the pandemic, and I could feel, inside my dream, the blood rushing to my face because OMG I’M A HYPOCRITE AND WHAT WILL MY INTERNET FRIENDS THINK OF ME NOW and also SERIOUSLY, I CHOSE BOB EVANS OF ALL PLACES??

Anytime I have ever eaten at Bob Evans, it’s looked like a nursing home field trip up in that piece.

Sunday was really dreary for most of the day, and then by late afternoon, it cleared up but a really scary windstorm kicked up and I started to Final Destination’ing the situation and decided it was time to retreat back to the house before a street sign became dislodged and decapitated us.

I don’t even know what else to say. I’m depressed. LOL, aren’t we all. I’m gonna slap myself in the face a few times and maybe squirt some whipped cream in my mouth until I gag. And then who knows maybe my next post will be more exciting. But I doubt it.

Here’s a new Taemin performance from his recent promotions. All I can say is thank god for Kpop because it’s really keeping me afloat these days.