Mar 172024
 

I woke up this morning totally in a fit having just had my annual Psycho Mike nightmare. These honestly come out of the blue, 갑자기, unprovoked and apropos of nothing other than what appears to be decades-long untreated and unresolved issues. It’s crazy because the last several times we saw each other – the last being right after my 21st bday I believe and if I remember correctly, I was even telling him about how I thought I “kinda” liked Henry – we were on good terms. Not exactly friends but we had made enough amends that if we were to ever run into each other, it would have been fine. But then these nightmares started, and I don’t know if it’s because he has never acknowledged the fact that he straight up abused me, I mean – I’m not armchair shrink but I have to believe that’s what is going on here. Anyway, this last one was a real doozy, I was trying to lock him out but all of doors were screen doors and I kept screaming for Janna to call the police but she wasn’t and I just really thought “this is it, he’s going to kill me this time.”

Also, in my dream we had a KID TOGETHER and oh lord, I can’t even imagine how catastrophic that would have been IRL.

Just realllly started my day off on a sour note. I even looked him up and was startled to see that he lives in a town not far from me so now I feel like I can never go there again.

All of this is to say that my day did get better, though! I had a brunch with Sandy, Nate, Amber and Lauren today at Sally Ann’s and they pulled out some bachelorette accoutrements much to my surprise (I thought Sandy was joking when we scheduled this back in January and she said, “ooh bachelorette brunch!” and Nate piped in that he’d bring the “pecker banner” which THANKFULLY did not happen, although they considered inviting Mitch as a stripper.)!

Sandy had Blame Henry and Team Henry sashes made!

And a ton of Henry Head Confetti!

I texted Henry and his review of this madness was:

And Sandy gifted me with these ducks which is a KOREAN WEDDING TRADITION SO NOW I FEEL A LITTLE MORE LEGIT!

As much as I feel weird and silly to want to make a big deal about these 20+ years in the making nuptials (so I have been trying to be lowkey about it), it’s nice to be reminded that my friends are here for it and want to celebrate it with us. Now, let’s just see if it actually happens, considering the amount of times I’ve called it off in the last week alone haha.

This weekend was beautiful.

Mar 162024
 

Chooch actually joined Henry and me at the cemetery today, but only because it was some Pokemon Go event and I guess that still exists?! So it was actually him that suggested we go for a walk which was wild but you better believe I took him up on it.

Here he is, about to walk past one of his Pokemon Go friends? Enemies? How does that work? I don’t know, but the cemetery was rife with mindless walkers today.

Anyway, I have had not a damn thing to “talk” about on her that isn’t completely negative, so please just enjoy some photos of a nice early spring day in March while I go back to panicking about our trip/mission/expedition/elopement whatever you want to call it.

It’s me, here I am.

This is one of my favorite sections of Homewood Cemetery because it gives me Wonderland vibes a little bit.

Meanwhile, Chooch was being super argumentative and snarky so I yelled I CAN’T BELIEVE I RAISED SOMEONE SO BITCHY AND SURLY and Chooch goes REALLY? I CAN.

Earlier in the day, I did a trial run to make sure I can actually walk in the CHILD-SIZED boots I got on clearance at Target because I thought they would look cute with my not-wedding dress, and they are fine, thankfully!

This just feels so fake, lol.

Oh well, bye.

Mar 132024
 

I haven’t painted in so many years at this point but I wanted to paint a portrait of Barb to bring to her memorial dinner next week and I think I am ok with how it turned out. She was always so supportive of my art and writing, so encouraging and always cheering me on. I just felt inspired to do one more for her.

The background is wallpaper from my Pappap’s house and it just needs to be cut and properly framed – the portrait itself is painted on acrylic paper and backed with thick, sturdy cardboard to give it more depth once it’s framed.

Ugh. Grief is the absolute worst. This helped me process a little handful of it though. Still driving myself nuts with the “what if”s, though I guess that’s to be expected.

Tonight, I’ve been watching clips from super old episodes of Running Man (Korean variety show) and that has been very therapeutic but also bittersweet because I want to go back to when I first got into these things and relive it all over again (another part of my life that Barb supported!!!!).

Mar 122024
 

Some notable things that have happened recently:

Last week, I got this super official TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT email from Etsy. Apparently, Mattel did not like that some of my serial killer cards had KEN AND BARBIE in the listing name. Look, I’m not the one who named the Canadian serial killer couple “The Ken and Barbie Killers.” And apparently it’s OK to completely crib the official Barbie font and use it on Etsy products, but the names of actual people are considered infringement. MMmm. So now I have to just re-list the items using like, K*n and B*rbie or Ben and Karbie, who the fuck cares. It just made me laugh because we do such a large amount of trademark and patent work at the firm where I work so being on the other end of it was wild.

OK, not “wild” but “mildly interesting,” maybe.

I know that this incident isn’t Etsy’s fault per se, but Etsy in general has just been so shitty these last few years and I really need to take my ball and find a new playground. I’m just so lazy and to be honest, I haven’t even made anything new for Etsy in probably two years. We just keep selling the same old stock. I keep saying that I want to phase out the true crime stuff and just focus on general pop culture and expand my Kpop shop to include a bigger variety of items, but bitch, when. Where. How. I say I don’t have time but then all I’m doing is going for walks, reading books, and watching YouTube videos while complaining about being bored. Rut, I’m in you.

In “weekend news,” I was washing the dishes on Saturday (yes, we’re old-school pioneer folk up in here, only manual dish washing for us) when my hand slipped on the sponge I was using to rigorously exfoliate a fork, and one of the tines got me good on the meaty part of my palm below my thumb. It fucking HURTS still. It broke skin and I whined about it sporadically over the course of the weekend, to which Henry would give me the “it can’t be that bad” sneer at which point I will reiterate that it broke my motherfucking precious-baby skin, OK. Let’s not be cunty about someone else’s silverware wound.

The weird part is that this happened a week before the yearly anniversary of my St. Forktrick’s Day injury from the 90s, long-time readers of OHE or unfortunate decades-long acquaintances of mine right remember as the day my dad chucked a fork at me while I was setting the table and mouthing off to him and it hit my knuckle and then my mom had to take me to the doctor to make sure it wasn’t broken. FUN TIMES IN KELLYLAND.

Speaking of the 90s, I made the fatal mistake of stopping on One Day last week while scrolling through Netflix. I was looking for a series with SHORT episodes, none of this movie-length bullshit, and after seeing One Day come up a fistful of times, I finally hovered over the synopsis. Seeing that it took place in the late 80s and through the 90s was appealing to me so I put it on, thinking it would be fluff, something mindless to watch while jogging in place or doing Duolingo. You know how it is, gotta multitask while watching TV, I don’t have ADD, you have ADD.

And you know, for the most part, I don’t want to call it FLUFF because there was definite depth and substance there, but I was enjoying it, vibing with the cast, applauding the music choices, totally feeling the nostalgia. The whole premise is that each episode is one day (July 15th) of each year for 20 years, showing how the characters evolve, come in and out of contact, some episodes they don’t have scenes together at all and/or it’s only focused on one of them.

(Maybe it would have been a bit on the nose, but the fact that they never once used Billy Bragg’s St. Swithin’s Day felt like a big missed opportunity.)

But then after work yesterday, I put on the penultimate episode, and you guys if you haven’t seen it / heard about it / read the book, this isn’t a spoiler per se but maybe just say see ya next Tuesday and peace out here because, just because….

….there is a thing that happens in that episode that I wasn’t prepared for, maybe I sort of started to wonder if something was going to happen but then it did and it still knocked the wind out of me and the way I started ugly-crying INSTANTANEOUSLY is kind of ridiculous, and even Henry who saw this happen in passing, having not watched a single episode, was like, “Yikes.” Then he left to go to Dunkin’ for After Work Coffee and while he was gone I was like, “Well, I might as well just watch the last episode and get it over with, it can’t even worse.”

IT GOT WORSE.

You guys, I can’t remember the last time television made me feel that broken inside. Gutted. Panicked.

Henry came home and I was now full-blown WAILING. Penelope was in my lap and drenched in my tears and slobber.

“IT GOT WORSE!” I cried, hiccupping on my uncontrollable sorrow.

Henry was like the IRL version of the eyeball / looking emoji. “Jesus,” he muttered, putting down my coffee and patting my head.

I was crying so hard that I almost threw up. Sorry, that’s gross, but you need to know how serious this was, OK. Maybe I just watched this at the wrong time (right time??) in my life where I am so tightly wound and corked up that I needed something like this to break the dam. I don’t know. But I cried like I was losing my Pappap or Marcy all over again. Just, inexplicable.

Then it was over, my face was swollen, I couldn’t calm down. Now I needed to talk about it. So I ran to Chooch’s room (like, why would I think was a good idea, hey sociopathic son, console mommy with your biting sarcasm and abrasiveness) and cried, “Don’t watch One Day, it ruined my life!”

“Cool, I wasn’t planning to, shut my door, bye.”

So now I’m like WHO DO I KNOW WHO MIGHT HAVE WATCHED THIS, MEGAN so I start blowing up Megan’s phone and she did watch it and was like, “I take it you did too?” based on my “UGHHHHHHHHH” I guess, very intuitive. Then she told me that there was also a movie adapted from this book in 2011!!!

She said she liked the movie a bit better but I looked it up and ANNE HATHAWAY was in it which made Henry laugh because over the weekend, we kept seeing previews for some dumb romcom she’s in and I said, “You know, I’m just going to say it, I don’t like Anne Hathaway” and Henry was like, “OK” and I said, “I didn’t want to offend you since you’re obsessed with her.”

“I’m not…?” Henry slowly said, questioningly.

“Yeah, because of Princess Diaries,” I reminded him, and he was like, “OMG SO WHAT, I LIKED THE PRINCESS DIARIES!”

Dude, so defensive, calm down.

But back to me. Yeah, this really triggered me to the point where I started reading things and watching YouTube videos to continue the torture and now I’m wondering if I should just really drive it home by reading the book, too?? I don’t like getting too MUSHY on here but I kept imagining that I was Dex and Henry was Emma, OK?? God, I tell you way too much.

I was so exhausted from all of the crying that I passed out around 11:30, slept straight through the night and literally felt like I was recovering from an illness when I woke up this morning. I felt so heavy and swollen.

Both Henry and Megan tentatively asked me how I was doing this morning, lol. STILL WRECKED but thanks for asking!

I don’t think I will ever forget this series. Jesus Christ. This was right up there with The Smile Has Left Your Eyes which also made me do the full-body sob sesh and traumatized me for many months.

Mar 092024
 

Checking in from the tail end of the weekend! It’s been an OK one but the weather was so shitty. It rained ALL DAY yesterday but I was still able to take a few walks because I’m a psycho, and then Henry and I did some shopping for our trip which he keeps referring to as “vacation” and I correct him every time because this is in no way a “vacation,” this is a “MISSION.”

I can’t even put into words about how stressed I am about this. “Oh, let’s elope, it will be less stressful than planning a wedding.” Remember when you said that, Erin? Remember?

We leave in less than two weeks. I’m freaking out, man.

I did get one thing off of my to-do list that has been weighing on me: some of us arranged to have a memorial dinner for Barb, for past and present law firm people to come and share stories and laughs in Barb’s honor. Jeannie assigned herself the task of sending out the email and keeping track of the RSVPs, Wendy was in charge of locking down the reservations, Aaron is the….token bro? And I assigned myself the task of “decorations,” if you will. I knew that I wanted to make prayer cards since there wasn’t an actual funeral service or visitation, and I thought I’d also make a photo board to display photos of Barb around the office. But then in secret I thought, “What if I try to paint a portrait of Barb?” I haven’t painted in years. Truthfully, I never thought I would again. And the notion of “coming out of retirement” had been weighing heavily on me for weeks but I FINALLY pulled out the paints yesterday and committed to at least TRYING.

It was pretty gnarly at first. I asked Chooch if he knew who it was supposed to be and he said, “Barb, right?” So that was good, but then I stupidly asked, “Does it look bad though?” and he goes, “I mean I thought that was just your style…?”

LOL, bro.

Anyway, I worked on it some more today and I think I’m OK with how it turned out! The dinner is next week so to be continued…

The weather today wasn’t any better, just a different form of “wet.”

“I didn’t know it was supposed to snow today!” I cried, and Henry was like, “It was all over the weather forecast, so…”

Not the one on my phone! It just had the squiggle lines which I think means “WIND.” I don’t know.

We thought there was supposed to be a long enough reprieve to run out for some Yinz coffee and take a cem stroll, but SURPRISE! SNOW SQUALL!

I got this coat on major end of the season sale from Dolls Kill (it’s Delia*s brand!!) and didn’t think I’d have a chance to wear it this year but, Pittsburgh weather yo.

This is my “Drink Yinz Coffee” ad, before the snow.

And then, the snow.

Mausoleum Selfie.

This dick.

Then we came home and I watched some more One Day episodes which I have been pleasantly surprised how much I like it.

And now it’s almost time to put another weekend to bed and start a new work week. Hamster Wheel City. :/

 

 

Mar 082024
 

Chooch and Henry were just in the kitchen half-arguing about something probably when Chooch stormed out and yelled, “WHY DO YOU DO THAT?! You just evacuated the whole kitchen!” And then to me he goes, “We were mid-conversation and he just shoved one of those crackers in his mouth while talking!” Here is the part where Chooch took the liberty to imitate Henry talking with his mouth full before retreated back to his lair.

Chooch cannot be in the same room while Henry chews. To be honest, it’s hard for me as well.

I’m going to miss these interactions when he’s in college, savor every moment, etc.

In other news I have been so stressed that I worry I’m going to crack my teeth so this was a nice, much-needed laugh, thank you Strained Relationship Between Chooch & Henry.

I don’t really have anything else to say. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not!

Mar 072024
 

Oh boy more books.

——————————————

  1. Berlin by Bea Setton

3 stars. This lady was insufferable, maybe even more so than me. Still, I didn’t hate this. Parts of it read like a series of REALLY WELL-WRITTEN LiveJournal posts from the early 00s. Really well-written, but also wildly solipsistic and self-aggrandizing. So yeah, LJ posts but make them literary, I guess.

2. Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

3.5 – for most of the book, I wasn’t bored but I was constantly questioning wtf it was about so it was tough to get really immerse myself in the story. Then The Something happens about 3/4 of the way through and it’s…hilarious but also traumatic and then everything just falls like dominoes. Lots and lots of cringe and secondhand embarrassment.

I still question wtf this was even about, but it was entertaining and I loved Millie. And Collette.

3. Dark Corners (Rachel Krall, #2) by Megan Goldin

4 stars, made me want to go back to Florida since I was reading this during the dreadful month of February. A good, fast-paced thriller. Etc etc etc. This is #2 in a series and while I did read #1, I didn’t feel like it was the necessary to have read it.

4. People to Follow by Olivia Worley

And Then Were None but make it YA with a cast of pretentious YouTubers. By the time the killer was revealed, I wasn’t interested anymore nor did the motive even make sense to me. Also, I get that these were vapid 20-something social media darlings who were constantly distracted by their own refection, but the reactions to discovering each dead body was kind of….underwhelming? Eh, I’m sure this was a lot more fun for its intended audience.

5. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

5 stars, but maybe 4.5 since I didn’t love this AS MUCH as The Dutch House. It took me about 1/4 of the way in to really get into it, but once I did, it became such a cozy read for me. I was jealous of the family dynamic – stories of close-knit families always sucker-punch me because I don’t have that with my family (I mean, my parents and siblings) and what I wouldn’t have given to be able to spend the early parts of Covid on my family’s cherry farm, listening to my mom tell us the story of her golden years, pre-marriage. This book doesn’t have a hard-driving plot, but it’s full of interesting characters, love, and family. I don’t know what else to say other than it resonated with me and I was hooked. And then I walked it back to the library while doing the “I’ve Just Been Crying” body shudder. Oh, and it’s narrated by Merril Streep! And she of course did a fantastic job except that she used a concerning “Tommy Pickles”-esque voice for one of the (adult!!) daughters and that was kind of annoying.

6. Y/N by Esther Yi

This way too literary for me. I was looking for a fun romp into the psyche of a delulu Kpop sasaeng but this was way too fever dreamy for me. I did not have a good time reading this.

7. That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally

4 stars – A great example of a YA thriller being better than a lot of adult thrillers. I couldn’t put this down! Dark, twisty, pulse-pumping. I LOVED the chapters where the boyfriend of the missing teen girl was doing his own damn detective work with two friends – it gave Teen Wolf (the series) vibes. The camaraderie was realistic, the dialogue was believable. It was entertaining without making the book corny.

8. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum

4 stars – probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I just really love Korean novels and this one played out like a slow, cozy slice-of-life K-Drama in my mind. I loved the natural progression of relationships between the bookstore owner, her barista, and her regular customers. This one moves slow, there is no real “climax,” it’s just….about life. And it’s precious. And thought-provoking.

9. The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon

UGH THIS ONE HAD ME SCREAMING!! The Goodreads blurb says it best: A pulse-pounding psychological thriller about a serial killer narrated by those closest to him: His 13-year-old daughter, his girlfriend—and the one victim he has spared.

4 stars!

10. Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan

Yoooo. 5 stars. This book was sick. A wild ride. A fantastic saga. Trigger warnings galore. Brutal yet wickedly funny. Also? Probably not for everyone.

11. Penance by Eliza Clark

I was really into this and then..the end happened. This knocked it down to more of a 3.5 for me because I felt like it wasn’t necessary. Sometimes you don’t need a twist and it felt like it was tacked on because a certain word count needed to be met, I don’t know. It was jarring.

Anyway, pretty chilling but please look up content / trigger warnings. I can handle a lot but this one got very detailed w/r/t a school shooting and it was hard to read, being, you know, American and all.

12. My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine

Eh. It was fine.

13. The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy

4 stars for the plot, fucking weird man. I was into it. Maybe more of a 3 for the actual writing though. I felt like it could have been executed a bit better, especially the dialogue. There were some scenes where the conversation felt very rigid and unnatural.

14. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Solid 5 stars are you kidding me. This entire book is a masterpiece but the last several chapters had me holding my breath and shaking. Unforgettable, frustrating, beautifully written, devastating, characters as clear as day. I can’t recommend this book enough but be forewarned: it is BRUTAL. One of the best ghost stories I have ever read and will undoubtedly never forget.

I mean for Christ’s sake, it has a 4.52 average out of 8,151 ratings on Goodreads. The hype is real. This book deserves all the accolades it gets.

Mar 052024
 

Because doofus Henry made a terrible decision in the 90s, he needs a certified copy of his divorce decree thing in order for us to get married. We knew this months ago when we first started researching “can foreigners get married in South Korea” and I asked, “you have that, right?” It’s one of the things we need to have with us at the US Embassy.

“Yeah it’s here somewhere,” he said, buffeting “somewhere” in a cough.

He was oh-so-sure it was in the attic closet, that he saw it last year when we were cleaning the room out pre-Chooch’s lounge but then put off looking for it until THIS PAST WEEKEND.

Hi, we leave for Korea on March 22nd let’s wait a few more weeks, why don’t we. Jesus Christ.

And guess what? As expected, he couldn’t find it. So he figured he would just have to go through the county and get a new one.

Except that he couldn’t find it that way either.

“I mean, you did get divorced, right? She married someone else, so I hope the divorce was legit?!” I asked.

Apparently yesterday he was trawling my blog looking for when he got divorced because he couldn’t remember the date? (Long Time Readers may remember that this was the thorn in my side for the first half of our relationship – he and Thing just being “legally separated” and not legit divorced, which USED to be the reason why we were never married, which then just turned into complacency I guess, wow our love story is really one for the ages.)

“Omg is that why my stats were so high yesterday?” I cried. Ugh, I was so excited thinking people were actually visiting this wasteland.

“Yeah, and let me tell you, that was fun seeing how much you torture me on your blog,” he huffed. “I should get hazard pay.”

OK calm down, sweaty betty.

Anyway, I asked him if he found out the date or year from my blog and he said no, to which I said, “Yeah no shit – I never wrote about it because I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to write about ‘her’ remember?” Even though she dragged my name through the mud every fucking chance she got. (My favorite is still that I was some internet dominatrix and my blog was just one big sex channel.)

God!

So today, he called me like a real American hero and excitedly panted that he found where it was filed. “I thought to myself, ‘what would she have done’ so I googled HOW TO GET THE CHEAPEST DIVORCE IN PENNSYLVANIA.” Apparently, some county three hours away came up, so he called and bam, they have it. So now he’s out getting a money order and a priority envelope so that he can send them $10 and get this shit sent to him ASAP.

I guess he thought I was going to swoon at the manly-man-man way he handled this but instead I said, “Wow, terrific, too bad you didn’t do this back in DECEMBER when I first started ‘nagging’ you about it. Wait a little longer next time, jackass.”

“In case you were wondering, it was 2011 when I got divorced,” Henry said, and I fake-snapped my fingers. “That’s right! I knew I was sitting in this one particular desk at work when it happened, but it was a desk that I sat in on two separate seat-change rotations so I couldn’t remember which time.”

Henry just stared at me. “Wow, if it’s not where you were sitting at work, it’s what song was playing,” he said, clearly just jealous at my personally-tailored mnemonic devices.

I’m still not fully convinced that this is going to happen, but I guess only time will tell. There’s still the chance that I’ll come home from Korea married to someone else, lol.

Mar 042024
 

Yo, what a nice weekend. Henry and I spent a nice amount of time outside, which is always GOOD FOR THE SOUL or whatever someone with a collection of Rae Dunn cups would say. Saturday was decent enough but it was hot off the heels of some pretty heavy raining, and we admittedly picked a dumb locale for a walk that afternoon – Schenley Park, which has sand-like trails so we were dodging puddles left and right. ANYWAY, I wouldn’t have included this in here at all except that as we were walking, we found car keys on the trail by the soccer field. Henry scooped them up, I guess because he figured it would be safer than leaving them on the ground and also because he thought they probably belonged to one of the joggers who had splattered past us in the mud.

Sure enough, some lady who was actually parked in front of us eventually started jogging over to us and panted, “You didn’t happen to see car—” and Henry held the key up for her to take.

“Oh my god!” she cried. “I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna ask these ppl over there’ and thank god I did!” and we were like, “<good natured lip service>” but really in my head I was like WOW MUST BE NICE TO LOSE SOMETHING AND THEN GET IT BACK.

So then I whined about my missing ring for pretty much the rest of our walk. Picked up Chooch from his game design class at Pitt, stopped at Grim Wizard for a chai but then ended up getting a Vlad the Impaler latte instead and it was OK but had a bit too much strong flavors swirling up in it.

Not too much else happened on Saturday. Oh, we went to Kohl’s which has become one of my least favorite places in the world but I needed to find a top to wear with a skirt I got for my not-wedding and it ended up OK but I just truly hate shopping, I think.

The weather on Sunday was much more beautiful than Saturday though and I was rearin’ to go. This time I chose Monongahela Cemetery because it’s been a few years since I was last there with Chooch the day we went out without a chaperone to geocache. 

We stopped at a Sheetz down the street first so I could pee and I found a pair of sunglasses hanging in the stall! SO I TURNED THEM IN TO SOMEONE AT THE CHECK-OUT.

WHY COULDN’T SOMEONE TURN MY RING IN??

(Ugh I honestly spent all weekend reliving that night.)

(Yeah-yeah that’s me, linking back to one post ago like a loser.)

Anway. Ugh. What a nice day.

Ew, you can see Henry BANDAID in this picture. He started to tell me what the cause of his injury was but it had something to do with a car seat of a truck and it fell on his arm and UGH I started screaming because I think I was picturing this to be way worse in my mind because Henry was doing a poor job explaining it so I had to fill in the gaps with my mental Play-Doh Factory of worst case scenarios.

Of course, we mainly talked about K<3REA.

AND THEN I

SAID THAT’S

THE ONE THING WE’VE GOT

(Hate that song, actually, so I’m thrilled for myself that it popped in my head just now.)

You guys! I couldn’t tell if this raccoon was dead or just sleeping!?! Henry said it was definitely sleeping but I couldn’t see that he was breathing and I was so freaked out.

That was a nice hour of sunshine and acting like morons.

Then we drove a few towns over to CHARLEROI and had lunch at some place called Perked Up cafe. The vibe of the place was decent – I mean, we were so far removed from ThE bIg CiTy that this wasn’t a magnet for Instagram Influedouchers.

I was sad though because I must have been looking at old menu and the AVOCADO TOMATO sandwich I was eyeballing wasn’t on the actual menu board there :( The cashier suggested just getting the avocado toast with tomato but I had it in my head that the retired sandwich was meant* to be actual slices of avocado and tomato on a sandwich, son. Not smashed avocado. :( So instead I got the spinach & artichoke on marbled rye and let me just tell you that the bread was the best part because the stuff between the slices was scant and lacked absolutely all flavor. And for $10!!!! Jesus Christ. I abhor making sandwiches but you better trust that even I would have made this better.

*(I had a friend who moved away from Pgh many many many years ago and she would always say “meant” instead of “supposed,” for example: “You were meant to turn there.” I would get angry and scoff, ”Stop talking like you’re British!” So, good job triggering yourself, Erin.)

I mean, I still ate it though because I was fucking hunggggy.

Henry kept raving about his cold brew and I was like, “Calm down, guy, it’s not that special.” For instance, I got a French Toast latte it tasted like neither French nor toast nor French toast. I didn’t hate it, and I somehow didn’t hate the place in general. But I was still fucking hunggggy when we left.

LOL you’re welcome.

Mar 012024
 

PART 1: Just a Quiet Day in the Office

I went into the office to work on Wednesday because I had dinner plans that evening in Market Square with some work pals, current and past. It was storming and raining and windy – a perfect Just Stay Home weather cocktail – but Wendy was going in too, so I put on my big girl pants and sucked it up. It was nice going through my jewelry though, and choosing what to wear since I haven’t been accessorizing much since 2020. The little things. I even popped on my engagement ring that I rarely wear because I still haven’t gotten it resized, since I was going to dinner with THE LADIES that night.

As usual, it was empty there. Just Wendy, Lucas, Terry, and me. With the occasional interloper from other floors, like Beth, who walked by and merrily said, “Hey Erin!” to me. I don’t know why this stopped me dead, but for some reason I didn’t think she actually knew my name?! So, I giddily Jabbered Amber, who was like, “But you’re the girl she gave her mother’s wig to!” OK, this is true. You probably don’t forget someone’s name after that.

This was apropos of nothing. Back to the story.

The day was slow and quiet. Finally, around 6:oo, Wendy popped over and said, “Hey, come with me to the parking garage so I can get my car keys before it’s too late, and then we’ll start walking over.” I was kind of excited about this because I haven’t been in the parking garage in probably 10 years, and again – the little things! As we took the elevator down to the lobby, Wendy was struggling with her multitude of bags and accidentally hit the emergency call button, sounding off an alarm and the crackle of the disembodied, tinny voice of a security guard asking, Hello, hello, is there an emergency? Wendy was all flustered, yelling back, “NO I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED I DIDN’T PRESS THE BUTTON”

“One of your six bags pressed it, Wendy,” I said, and she was like NO, MY BAG WOULD NEVER.  Anyway, it gave the security people a good laugh when we got down to the lobby. I had my hands up saying IT WASN’T ME! and Wendy’s bag is also still not owning up to it, but then it turned out that one of the security people was being trained so it was a “good learning moment.”

Next, we had to take a different elevator down to the garage. Wendy finally realized she needed help with her bag situation and asked me to hold one for her, so now I looked like a mini-Wendy with my own giant crossbody body; one of her monster bags on my right shoulder; and, in my left hand, a bag of Girl Scout cookies that I bought from Wendy’s daughter. I was sweating from the exertion. After Wendy got her key on one level of the garage, we walked down a stairwell to where her car was parked and she finally dumped at least 75% of the bags in her car and then we were finally free to walk to Pizzaiolo Primo in Market Square.

It’s a short walk, but holy shit had the temperature dropped since that morning, Larry! I at least had the foresight to bring a jacket but I was still shivering. We arrived 20 minutes before our reservation, so we sat at the bar. I was already very uncomfortable because it was a tight space and I had my huge bag with my work laptop and everything else in it, plus this bag of cookies!! and there was just nowhere to set everything. So, with my bag on my lap, I was trying to rummage through the pockets of it for my wallet when I immediately noticed that…

MY ENGAGEMENT RING WAS NO LONGER ON MY FINGER.

You want to talk about when a cold sweat might immediately spring forth? Apparently, this is one of those times.

PART 2: “I LOST MY FUCKING RING”

“So I just LOST MY ENGAGEMENT RING,” I croaked, hysterics boosting my voice higher with every word.

“What??” Wendy cried, and then swooped into my purse, pulling everything out and placing it on the bar while I am now standing up, fully in the way of all the servers coming in and out of the kitchen, acutely aware of how close all of the tables of diners are to me in my time of panic, patting myself down, rummaging through the empty pockets of my jacket, looking on the floor. Now I can feel my eye twitching and for some STUPID reason, I am SO CONCERNED about “how this looks,” “making a scene,” “having the contents of my purse on the bar for all to see.” WOW, WHERE DO I GET THAT FROM, GRANDMA. I’m on the edge at this point, the room is closing in on me, I feel like I’m going to be sick, I need to bolt.

“I’m going back to the office to look,” I whispered hoarsely in someone else’s voice.

“I’ll come with you,” Wendy said, starting to gather her stuff but I stopped her.

“I don’t want to ruin dinner for you!” I said, and thankfully at that moment, Jill arrived so I didn’t feel guilty leaving Wendy alone. So, I used this as my opportunity to escape and run back to the office, having a near-miss with a questionable man raving about something in the middle of Market Square. I don’t remember the jog back except for being pissed that the back doors to the building were already locked and I had to walk around to the front. I DID NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS.

PART 3: THE LAMONT INTERLUDE

First I searched the floor of the elevator Wendy and I had used, then I went to our floor where I dumped everything out of my bag in the office space I was using that day. I was SO ANGRY AND FRANTIC, ripping everything out and slamming it on the table and then shaking my empty bag out but the only small, loose item that dropped out with a “tink” was an errant salmakki-flavored FISHERMAN’S FRIEND cough drop from Finland.

“FFFFFUUUUUCK!!!!!” I screamed, squeezing my hands into muscle-quaking fists. It was nearly 6:30 at this point so I assumed I was alone on the floor and just let it alllll out.

Catching my breath after whatever number freak-out that was, I had lost count, I left my office and retraced my steps around the floor. I hadn’t gone anywhere during work hours except to the bathroom and kitchen, but there was no trace of a ring. I got so fucking angry in the kitchen though, thinking of how every goddamn  time I used the sink that day, I was so careful to take ALL of my rings off and set them far aside on the counter. The sink at work is one of those “inSINKerator” deals and at one point during the day, I was washing my coffee cup and imagined having to stick my hand down there to search for a lost ring and then having to live the rest of my life with a hook-hand. This was a real life thought I had that day!! My mind was trying to subconsciously tell me, “Take that ring off now and lock it up somewhere because you’re slated to lose it later.”

AND I IGNORED IT.

When I circled back to my office,  the cleaning guy was in there.

“Oh!” he said, startled. “Someone is here! I was wondering where all that stuff came from!” he laughed.

“I LOST MY RING,” I said to him frantically.

“Oh man, and I just emptied your garbage!” he said. “Here, let me sift through….” and he started to dig through his garbage receptacle but I was like, “Look, I didn’t throw that much away today, I know it’s not there. I know I lost it outside,” and then the hopeless overtook me again and the tears sprung up and he’s all, “Oh, no, look, I’m gonna help you! I lost my class ring here once and I know how shitty—excuse my language—that feels!”

So we searched the small, mostly empty office because no one works there full time in person anymore so there wasn’t much to overturn. But still, his presence was very calming to me, and it was a connection I didn’t know I needed at that time.

“Hey, I’m Erin by the way.”

“Monty! Lamont!” he said and then fist-bumped me.

AND THEN HERE COMES TERRY.

“Hey, Erin,” he said, startled to see that I was still here.

“I LOST MY RING!!!” I cried, back to needing a fainting sofa.

“Oh,” Terry stuttered uncomfortably. “Do you want a box of Girl Scout cookies?” He held up a bag of no less than 10 boxes that he had bought from Wendy.

NO I DON’T WANT A FUCKING BOX OF GIRL SCOUT COOKIES, I WANT MY FUCKING RING!!!

But instead, I just quietly said, “No thank you.”

“You got any pecan in there?” Lamont asked.

“Um….let me see,” Terry said, and then proceeded to take all of the boxes out and display them on a counter.

Lamont chose a box of Thin Mints.

PART 4. HERE COMES WENDY

After Lamont promised to keep looking and turn it in if he found it, we said goodbye and I made my way to the parking garage, where I called Henry and screamed, “I LOST MY RING COME PICK ME UP.” Because there was no fucking way I was going to dinner at this point. You on a diet and want something to help you curb your appetite? LOSE YOUR ENGAGEMENT RING!

I walked all around the garage. In the stairwell that seemed like forever and a day ago when I was commented on how freshly painted it appeared. All around Wendy’s car. By the door to the office where Wendy picked up her keys.

Nothing but dirt and gravel and things I don’t want to think about.

Now Wendy is calling me. “I’m on my way back to the office to help you!” she said, sounds of traffic and the same man in Market Square screaming in the background.

I tried to get her to go back to the dinner. This wasn’t her problem and I didn’t want dinner to be ruined for her. I told her it was fine, Henry was on his way and I was just going to go home. “It’s gone,” I said in defeat. “I know I lost it outside somewhere and there is no chance in hell it’s going to turn up now.” That cold air probably helped it slide right off and I never even felt it.

“I’m almost there,” Wendy said. “I’m by McCormicks—” and I looked up from where I was standing on the sidewalk and saw her walking toward me, so this was happening. I walked over to meet her, and as we continued to walk back toward our office, she tripped and fell hard! It was just like a stumble-to-the-knees but a face-down sprawl and now I’m REALLY feeling like the biggest asshole ever, and I’m crying, “OMG ARE YOU OK THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!”

Two women passing by also stopped to help but Wendy was like “I’M FINE” and got up on her own and then some black gentleman across the street was yelling, “ARE YOU OK??” and I called back, “She’s fine!” because he wouldn’t stop yelling, and then he goes, “OK BECAUSE I HAVE A PHD IN—-” but then I couldn’t hear what he said over the traffic, which is probably good because I have a feeling it was something crude, but also I really do want to know, a PhD in what?!!?

I was so worried that she was injured and all she cared about was helping me find a ring that doesn’t even have that much monetary value so at this point I’m just like, “Fuck this ring, it’s causing more harm than good at this point” but she was already marching toward the building’s entrance where we ran into Megan who had just arrived to town from the trolley.

She took one look at me and had a *yikes* look on her face before I even had a chance to wail, “I LOST MY ENGAGEMENT RING!!!!”

“We’ll meet you back at the restaurant,” Wendy calmly said to Megan and I was like, “YOU WILL, I WON’T. I AM GOING HOME TO DIE. HENRY IS ALREADY ON HIS WAY.” But Wendy was like, “OK I am going to continue to ignore that” and led me back up to the 10th floor where she STUCK HER HAND DOWN THE KITCHEN SINK DRAIN WHILE I STOOD THERE BEGGING HER NOT TO. Don’t worry, she’s a trained professional (a/k/a adult) so she knew what was she doing which is how this remained a tale of only one person losing something.

After searching the garage again, we went back up the street where Wendy continued to hound me to come back to the restaurant. “Let’s just go back and have a nice dinner, it’ll take your mind off it.” I was still resisting when….

PART 5. IN ROLLS HENRY

Henry pulled up to the curb and looked alarmed and tentative because I’m not sure he fully knew what was going on still. I opened the passenger door and hurled my bag at him because seeing him reminded me that he was the one who got me a ring in the wrong size in the first place (I had to wear it on my pointer finger and even then it was still too loose!!) nevermind the fact that it was me who kept putting off getting it resized so now I am pissed off and projecting it on Henry.

“WELL ARE YOU GOING TO PARK AND HELP ME LOOK??” I screamed and then he and Wendy had a silent exchange where they communicated many sentiments with just their eyes, and then Wendy closed the passenger door and he drove away, presumably to park, I don’t know, I hated him and never wanted to see him again at that point.

Now Wendy and I are standing alone on the sidewalk and I start CRYING which I hate doing in public but also, it’s downtown Pgh post-pandemic, some white bitch crying on the sidewalk is not worthy of a second glance.

“It’s an omen!” I wailed, channeling my best desperate dating show contestant. “I’m never going to get married!”

Wendy takes me by the shoulders and goes, “LISTEN. YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED WITH OR WITHOUT THIS RING. THE RING DOESN’T MATTER.”

“BUT IT’S A SIGN!!”

Wendy, desperate for all of us to have dinner together,  now lures me back to the restaurant under the pretense of “retracing our steps again and looking around the sidewalk” which turned into “OK let’s just go back inside the restaurant and you can leave your contact info with the bartender in case you lost it in  there and it turns up.” Jesus, she was still in GIRL SCOUT MODE after helping Summer sell cookies, I guess.

We get to Market Square and that same guy is still there, yelling his grievances into the sky.

PART 6. BACK AT THE RESTAURANT, BEGRUDGINGLY

Now I’m inside at the bar, the bartenders are talking to me about the ring but it all sounds like underwater word bubbles, I just want to leave. So after I write down my number, I go to push the open and Wendy is like, “Just come upstairs to the table and say hi to everyone.”

I’m like, Jesus Christ Wendy, no one cares if I miss a dinner, I see or talk to these people regularly! They will be fine! I will not be missed!

I finally give in because she is being relentless. I walk upstairs to “say hi, omg” and everyone at the table is just sitting there, frozen, looking at me with terse smiles because they know I AM IN A MOOD and I feel so stupid and self-conscious, still doing the body shudder / post-cry sniffle and I just feel disheveled, you know? Not really wanting to be in a crowded restaurant, but whatever, here I am, hello now can I go.

But then as I’m looking around the table, it slowly (and I do mean slowly) dawns on me that….this was a bridal shower dinner.

They took our ordinary for-no-reason dinner and centered it around me, managing to keep me completely in the dark.

And of course, I would go and lose my engagement ring 20 minutes before a dinner in honor of my upcoming maybe-nuptials.

CLASSIC ERIN.

ERIN RACHELLE KELLY 101.

I still want to go home though because now on top of everything else, I’m embarrassed and mortified and just feel terrible that I ruined for everyone what should have been a nice night. Gooooo, Erin! At least it wasn’t as bad as when I had a huge blow-out fight with my mom at her house and then drove back here only to find that some of my friends had planned a surprise party for my 21st birthday and I flipped out and couldn’t calm down and they ended up taking me to Mercy Hospital in an attempt to 302 me.

That was an…event alright.

Anyway, Wendy managed to steer me to the guest of honor seat and was like, “Just sit down and we will pack all this stuff up for you and then you can leave,” and Regina flagged down a server for a bag and Marlene was patting my shoulder while I was gulping down ice water. But you know what? In that short amount of time, Marlene had made me start giggling a little and then my shoulders started to lower from my earlobes one centimeter at a time, and the next thing I knew, I was saying in a small voice, “OK, I’ll stay.”

PART 7. I’M STAYING

“She’s staying!” Regina called out in case Jill and Megan didn’t hear from the other end of the table, and then Debby was like, “Yay! Do you want to put on your veil—”

“NO,” I interrupted firmly. LOL.

So instead, Debby snapped her fingers and before I knew it, a glass of wine was being slid in front of me. And after the first glass, you know what? “I’m ready to wear the tiara now,” I said and everyone was like “Yay!”

“And the vei—” Debby started.

“NO.”

I did agree to the “bride-to-be” sash though.

“Oh shit! I forgot about Henry!” I laughed, and then texted him: I’m staying now.

I know, Wendy told me. Thanks.

LOLOLOL.

I wonder what it looked like to the other diners, the table decorated beautifully, gifts, flower petals, and then here comes the guest of honor looking like she just found out her favorite Kpop group is disbanding before being forced to look at Trump’s nudes. Depressed and traumatized.

When we were all getting ready to leave, the bartender walked past and said, “Happy…..birthday? Con…..gratulations? Not sure what you’re celebrating but I hope it’s great!” She looked so concerned about how to approach me though, because I’m sure I looked beaten down and exhausted, but I was also wearing a tiara and had bags of presents like maybe I just reached the End Game of some dark and intense work initiation that had me running around the city on a quest to find a lost object the size of a nickel and the color of the sidewalk while pitting me against random co-workers trying to thwart my progress by pushing Girl Scout cookies on me and ending with the final round of seeing how many temper tantrums I could throw without getting fired by the Final Boss.

I love these ladies. <3 Honestly had no expectation of anything bridal-related happening since this doesn’t even feel real to begin with. Also, I’m so sad that there’s a water glass blocking my HAECHAN photocard in my badge holder (amazing I didn’t lose that as well that night.)

I forget who it was that asked if Henry was mad about the ring and I was like, “Henry? Mad? LOL.” I believe Henry’s low-key response was, “It’s just an object. You still have your finger. We’ll get you a new ring.” He’s already contacted the jewelry on Etsy and she said she does have a similarly-shaped raw diamond on hand so she’s going to make a new one and said there’s no obligation for him to purchase. I’m trying to look on the bright side here, and maybe instead of a bad omen, it’s a good thing. Because that ring had so many bad, traumatic feelings attached to it caused from the BOTCHED PROPOSAL at the Cure concert. So maybe a new ring will be good. And maybe this new one will be even prettier than the first! WHO CAN BE SURE.

Look at this card that Megan made me! The inside said “congratulations” written in Hangul and Marlene was shocked and awed that I could read it. I’m glad my preschool-level Korean impresses someone! I love that Megan gave Henry aka Herbert a backwards cap and his soju flavor is blueberry since he hates blueberries but has spent the last 20+ years suffering through blueberry-flavored desserts that I ask him to share with me. 

Also, Megan got me this “love” LED sign!!

And Wendy’s “something blue”!

Debby got me a series of fabulous framed prints, and Marlene got me this quirky yellow and black paint-splattered tea pot that looks perfect in the kitchen. And Jill and Regina contributed to the Korea fund.  AND during all of this, Henry texted me from home that he secured our appointments with the US Embassy for March 26th in Seoul, so that is one giant hurdle down toward actually “getting married” in Korea. We have been waiting on pins and needles for the Embassy to open up appointments for the week we’ll be there, so this was perfect timing. This and my wonderful friends saved the night. Thanks to Wendy’s persistence too, because I was seriously so close to pulling a runner when she wasn’t looking but she was so freaking vigilant until she finally got me upstairs in that restaurant.

So far, I’m 2 for 2 with miserable, unhappy ugly-crying in public at my marriage-related events. Yep, that tracks.

Looking back, it’s now really funny when I thought that the dumbest thing that was going to happen that day was when I accidentally ingested molten wax because I used a DISPOSABLE WAX CUP in the coffee maker at work. It was already melting as I frantically tried to transport the coffee to a regular coffee cup and then I had this weird wax residue all over my hands.

YOU THOUGHT, ERIN.


The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Lamont and how good he was at helping me calm down, and how much he genuinely seemed to care about finding my ring. So, I called the cleaning service company and told the lady who answered about my tragedy (lol) and how kind he was to me and that I just needed someone to know that, because it’s not always common these days. She was so happy that I called and thanked me for letting her know, and that she would pass it on to his supervisor. She was like, “I love this, we need more positivity in the world!” and I said, “Yes, and less Karens!” It was a nice phone call, but then I was reminded of years ago when a cleaning guy from the same company accidentally broke some dumb thing on my desk that I didn’t even care about and had to fill out an INCIDENT REPORT and I kept telling our facilities lady (THE SAME ONE WHO REMEMBERED MY NAME ON WEDNESDAY, THIS POST HAS COME FULL CIRCLE!) that I truly didn’t care and didn’t want him to get in trouble but I don’t know if he did or not!?! I should have called then, too. Ugh.

Mar 012024
 

This week was wack so here are five positive things because maybe going thru the motions of typing it out might train my brain yanno?!

1. Had dinner with my Coaster Crew BFF Pam and her friend Greg tonight at Industry Public House and it was soooo fun! Pam also met my brother Corey earlier today because he’s going to be her realtor since she has decided to move here from Philly, which I already mentioned but it’s worth mentioning again! Anyway, she was saying that even thought Corey and I don’t look like she could totally tell we’re brother and sister because of our personalities & mannerisms, and Henry muttered, “Try being around both of them at once.” LOLOL. I was also glad to meet Greg – totally chill and easy to talk to so I’m looking forward to finally having people to go to Kennywood with!

2. Speaking of Pam, I was telling Group Chat that she’s moving here from Philly and Wendi, who lives Philly sports, said “Go Birds” and Amber said she name her baby-to-be (is that the right term??) Phillie so I was like “and she could have an orange nursery!”

“Orange fur wall with googly eyes,” Wendi said and I was like I HAVE A FUR WALL WITH GOOGLY EYES IN MY HOUSE I CAN HELP!

I dunno it made me laugh and I need that so.

3. Speaking of Pam part 2, Corey said that during their meeting today she had mentioned being from New Orleans and that I’m one of kind and “belong in New Orleans” whatever that means?? I have never been there so I wouldn’t know. Henry went there ON HIS HONEYMOON with first wife, so.

4. Speaking of first wife, I found the perfect shoes to wear with the outfit I picked out for when/if I become Henry’s NEXT WIFE. “Aren’t those kids shoes?” Henry asked when we were at Target tonight. “Yes, and? They fit me so I’m getting them?” God. Step off. So catch me wearing my new Cat & Jack metallic purple boots at some point I guess.

5. Speaking of getting married, we finally snagged our appointments at the US Embassy in Seoul for the date we needed. I’m still not solidly convinced that this will happen but of all else fails, Wildwood here we come.

Ok that’s all for now. I broke my fast to eat a veggie burger at dinner tonight and my stomach is like “remember when you were pregnant? Here let me remind you” *expands greatly*

Feb 282024
 

Tonight drained me – it was chaotic, ridiculous, careless, surprising, ended with a studio audience chorus of “awwww.” It had some night walking in it too so here’s Ten’s Nightwalker and now I’m going to bed in hopes that tomorrow is boring.

Feb 272024
 

Hey yo. This past weekend was fine, nothing fabulouso happened really. Henry and I went to Yinz Coffee on Saturday because I was dying for the good chai latte. Raspberry chai was the current special so I slurped that up real quick. We also split a cranberry orange scone and an oatmeal cream pie cookie sandwich. Henry was SO ANNOYING when we were ordering. I just knew that I wanted the cookie sandwich but also something else so I assigned this task onto him which I should have known was a mistake because he was going to order a cookie?? Bitch, why would you get a COOKIE if we are already getting a COOKIE SANDWICH.

The stress. It’s constant.

Plus, he can never read my cues or my mind or my body language so I ask myself – why did I say YES??

Anyway, the scone (which I ordered, btw, because he was being so embarrassing and the barista* was looking at us like we were two complete strangers paired up blindly for a social experiment on cafe ordering compatibility) was the perfect choice. It was so good. I almost never eat scones!! There is a cafe in Seoul called Cafe Layered that specializes in scones and it is on my list 100% after being reminded that I do, in fact, enjoy a scone every now and then.

*(“I’m….just gonna go and make this drink while you decide,” she said, jiggling a cup of ice in the air and slowly backing away after I snapped at Henry for never listening to me. “YEAH, LET’S GET A COOKIE SANDWICH AND MORE COOKIES, DUMBASS” even though the rational non-manic episodic side of me was like, “I mean, can you ever really have ‘too many’ cookies though, Erin?” I was just on the prowl for anger triggers, is all.)

Some young couple came in with their ugly baby in a stroller and stood (stood!!!) at a table next to us and it made me very uncomfortable. Seems they were visiting from somewhere because I heard them asking the barista for things to do and then she recommended that they eat at Bonfire in Southside (on the Southside? Northside and Southside irritate me) and I silently cosigned that suggestion and on mute, I kind of hoped that they would ask for more suggestions so I could panic-punt frantic activities at them (THE WOOD STREET T-STATION WHERE SOMEONE WAS HACKED BY A MACHETE!”) but they were TOO COOL to talk to us. They had tattoos and were SWATHED* in athleisure, you guys. They probably go to Post Malone concerts.

*(Coincidentally, the very next audiobook I picked up after the British one has an American narrator and SHE said the word “swathe” like I always thought it was pronounced so I felt validated! swAWthe.)

Then we strolled around whatever that park is in Northside for as long as we could handle it – it was pretty windy that day and also kind of cold so not really great walking weather but I needed to DIGEST. Also? We had a really crazy and random (well, maybe not to the … weather people? Meteorologists! They probably expected it) snowstorm that morning but then the snow melted within hours. Isn’t it great how nice we’ve treated this planet.

:/

Sunday was a bit warmer so we went to Frick Park for some walking action. I asked King Doof to take my picture here too and does it look like he did?

No, he just got up and lumbered away.

The walk was nice, if not a bit muddy and uneventful. My evening walk would prove to be MUCH DIFFERENT though!!

Henry and Chooch went to Target after dinner so I decided to walk to the library to drop off a book (the one from my last post where I was mad it for the slight to Robert Smith, but then it ended up being a pretty decent book and OK I liked it – is that what you want to hear from me? I FREAKIN’ LIKED IT).

Anyway, picture me, doing some wholesome, one step down from God Tier activity (Levar Burton Tier?) when KAPCHUGI: I am nearly wiped out while crossing the street.

BY A MOTHERFUCKING COP.

OH OF FUCKING COURSE.

Let me paint the scene: I was crossing parallel to the street I live on, which as you know people LOVE to use as a race track, across a residential street. The pig came from behind me, flying along my street and not slowing down as he made the left turn onto the street I was walking across. No turn signal. No siren. No flashing lights. WHAT’S THE EMERGENCY SIR?? Big hurry to get to your buddy’s for a Sunday night brewski? Some IMPRACTICAL JOKESTER viewing? In my head, I slung way worse speculations but you know, I’m trying not to get myself worked up again.

Anyway, I immediately called Henry and started screaming to him about it because he loves to defend cops, but even this time he was like, “Dawwww, that cop did a bad” and I’m like, “NO SHIT, COP-LOVER.”

“I wish I could have run faster, I would have chased his ass down the street!” I screamed into the phone and Henry of course said his favorite comfort command to me: Calm down.

“I’M GOING HOME AND REPORTING HIM!” I cried and jogged the remaining three blocks home, where I flexed my Karen fingers, cracked my MANAGER-SPEAKING-TO knuckles, and brought up whatever city of Pgh website I could find that looked appropriate for LODGING A COMPLAINT.

I will have you know that in order to do this, I had to create an account and I was originally going to make a fake one but then you know what? I did the ADULT thing and used my real info because I have every right to report this.

And you know what else? I didn’t swear. Not once! I didn’t swear, I didn’t make threats, I didn’t call the cop a pig, I actually used the word “officer” and laid out my concerns in a way that illustrated my frustration while also keeping its INTEGRITY. This is the new me: use intelligent words and regular capitalization to have your complaint regarded with seriousness.

Look at your girl!!!

I am acting 44!

I didn’t have the cop’s plate # but I did have the exact time and location of the INCIDENT, and I also stressed that this isn’t the first time their cops have sped through residential streets with seemingly no cause.

Then I texted my brother and told him and he was like “OMG! Did he at least apologize?” WHAT A WHITE MALE THING TO ASK! OF COURSE HE DIDN’T FUCKING APOLOGIZE, THAT COCKER NEVER EVEN SLOWED DOWN OR GLANCED IN MY DIRECTION, JUST SPED OFF DOWN THE BRICK ROAD LIKE A RACIST DOROTHY EN ROUTE TO SEE THE WIZARD.

IYKWIM. 😡

Today I got an email response from some “Sgt” who APOLOGIZED for my terrible experience with one of their officers and urged me to file a report, but apparently I have to go into a building somewhere to do that and I don’t actually care that much after all, it turns out.

Except for the fact that in my anger, I misspelled “abysmal”  in my complaint but then Janna was like, “Eh, those people are dumb, they probably won’t notice.”

Well, that’s all I have. At least you guys can rest easy knowing that I have an account with some city website so that I can lodge future complaints with ease.

Feb 242024
 

Some things that happened lately that I want to remember, so, bullet-time. Pow Pow.

  • I went to the library last Saturday and my security guard pal, Robert, was very exhausted. He told me that he also works security at PPG Paints and had worked the Drake show the night before, and that he had to also work the Saturday night show too later that night. I asked him if he gets to experience the concerts at all when he’s working and he said that yes, he does, and also that his manager knows he isn’t star struck so he often gets to be UP CLOSE TO THE ARTISTS, providing security detail. (First of all, I was dying inside because Chooch wanted to go to the Drake concert so bad but the tix were $$$ and here’s Robert, getting to attend both shows by default.) Robert went on to say, for example, that when Lady Gaga is in town, she specifically requests Robert!!!! OK he might not be starstruck, but I was finding myself very starstruck of Robert in that moment. I love learning these things about people and you guys, Robert is such a wonderful person so this really tracks. He then said that Gaga is a true artist, so genuine, she cares about people and her fans, etc., and look – I figured this to be true already but it is really nice to hear someone confirm this. Robert and Gaga – what a duo!
    • I had mentioned Robert to Christina recently, for another reason, and they were like, “OK, you always have security guard friends” and I was like, “No I don’t…do I? OMG you’re right. I do.” Remember the time one of the security guards at the Tina & Eleanore Job got fired because he made an inappropriate comment to me that I didn’t even give a shit about but someone else overheard and took offense and REPORTED HIM and he had to APOLOGIZE to me and then NEVER CAME BACK? Well, that happened, and I know I wrote about it but that was 2007 and I gave up after a quick preliminary blog-search so you’ll just have to trust me.
  • A few days ago at work, I was imagining myself having a conversation with some friends (this is weird, but I was seriously like Sim’img out a sitch in my head) and in that conversation, I had used the word, “swathe.” But then out loud, I said to my cat Drew, “Wait, I don’t even know how to actually pronounce this word? I have never heard this word said out loud?” But then I moved on with my day because ADD. About an hour later, I listened to the audiobook of Eliza Clark’s Penance and there was a paragraph where, I am NOT fucking around with your emotions here, someone said SWATHE three times!!! So since it was an audiobook, I got to actually hear it being said BUT the narrator was British SO CAN I TRUST THAT? But yeah, look, I’m not trying to make you jealous. I’m just saying it happened. Useless magick.

Random picture of my backporch

  • A few days after the Superbowl, Chooch was playing me a video of some kid at the Superbowl he was at totally hulking out at the end of the game and I was like, “Wow, that’s not nearly as entertaining as the Wham! documentary I was watching on Netflix because the Superbowl has no room in my life. Of course he was like, “Wow that’s so cool, you’re so cool, no one cares” and then as he was retreating up to his room, he called down from the steps, “Wake me up before you go-go” and I said, I am so ashamed but I will share this on here because I trust you, “Why, where am I going?” I TOTALLY FELL FOR THAT SHIT, I HATE MYSELF.
  • Henry and I haven’t even gotten married yet, but I am already doing research for our Romanian honeymoon which will happen regardless I don’t need a husband, I swear to god, I have had my Romanian dreams peed on too many times over the years so THAT ENDS NOW (well, maybe not now but sometime in 2025 GOD WILLING).

  • ^^^This was from a few weeks ago but it made me laugh so I’m leaving it here whether you like it or not.
  • It only took NINE YEARS of me being a pest but guess who might FINALLY be stanning a kpop group? JANNA!!! I *think* I got her into Seventeen. She seems to be getting cozy as a Carat and she even texted me last night that she has a preliminary bias (Vernon!). We’ll see if she can learn all 13 members. Only then will I believe her!

  • We played Rummikub the night we went to Wonka’s a few weeks ago and I liked it so much that I immediately bought our own set. We finally played it with Chooch last weekend and he was, as expected, just as destructive with it as Wonka is (rearranging the sets beyond recognition in an effort to “make something stick” and then forgetting how to put everything back when they eventually hit a wall). Anyway, guess who won? THIS BROAD, THANK YOU.
  • This is my second week of doing a 16:8 fast. It’s actually not that hard. I’ve only lost a pound so far (you’re really not supposed to be see real results until like 10 weeks) but I do feel more in control of my eating without having to micromanage my calorie count. Basically, my eating window is 9:45am – 5:45pm and I haven’t felt like I’m starved or anything. I feel less bloated and I seem to be sleeping better, so I’ll keep going for now I guess! I’m not using an app or anything, just, you know, a clock lol.

  • ^^^ Um, hello what? I am FUMING. It might as well just say, “crooning that he’ll stop the world and melt with you.” (In case you are like wtf is she going on about, the author referenced a song by THE SMITHS, not THE CURE; additionally, Robert Smith of the Cure strongly dislikes the singer of the Smiths, Morrissey so GOOD JOB AUTHOR. This book might end up being one of the best books I read all year (it won’t) but I will still always remember it for this FATAL FLAW.
  • In group chat the other day, someone asked someone else what kind of phone they have, and they said, “a green android.” Been thinking about that all week.
  • Speaking of work, Chooch got written up / issued a FINAL WARNING or some bullshit threat from his asshole Chipotle manager because he told her months ago that he can’t work on Saturdays because he has a class at Pitt, yet she continues to randomly schedule him and then doesn’t tell him, so of course he doesn’t show up and then she screams about it I guess. So she said to him that IT’S NOT HER JOB TO KEEP TRACK OF HIS SCHEDULE and Chooch said he didn’t say it to her face because he doesn’t want to burn any bridges* but that in his head, he was like, “Yes, that actually IS your job??”
    • *He actually interviewed quite a while ago at Starbucks because they’re opening a new location right across from where he currently works; he got the job and will be starting in early March and said that he still wants to be able to go to Chipotle for food so he’s being nice and giving notice rather than knocking over some condiments before storming out with middle fingers up.
      • Blake is going to be the night manager of this new Starbucks so I imagine Henry will get conned into picking BOTH of his sons up from work. Lucky him!
  • I started doing face yoga and Henry thinks this is the most hilarious thing ever. Mmm.

Well, thunder only happens when it’s raining.