_sierra binondo @sierrabinondo - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook (2024)

2023

jesus christ. lmao

well.

real quick- i'm basically never posting the link to these again. either people know where to find them or they don't. i think it's better that way.

for the first week of this year i had only one eye. i had poked my eyeball with my wire brush and couldn't open it without experiencing excruciating pain for days. i think that dumb little injury- unfortunate, yet kinda funny- really set the tone for 2023.

the first few months i was essentially in hibernation. we were hard at work tracking vocals on the with sails ahead record well into april, technically may too. we ran into so many setbacks- joe got sick, then i got sick (or vice versa???), one night i had a really bad crying spell and stayed home, sometimes sh*t just came up- it was incredibly difficult. and we were losing our minds feeling like this record was taking forever to get done. five nights a week spent tracking vocals, sometimes doing upwards of 60 takes (sry joe) to get my takes as perfect as possible. it was f*cking. tough. and there's still things i wish i could have done differently, but we got it done.

it's kind of angering to think about how i've gotten better as a vocalist even in the time since, and i wish i could apply what i've learned to the record. but that just means that the songs will sound even better live, which will be awesome. i'm still proud of a lot of the work i did on the record.

at the end of the day, spending all that time making an album was the best possible use of my time. i don't regret it at all. i wish i could have streamed, but it's okay.

that truly was my life from january to april. i did dry january and it went well so i'm doing it again in 2024. i think i managed to extend it into most of February. the goal is to also continue it for as long as possible or generally abstain from alcohol more since WSA will be so busy. we went to shows here and there, and when we did hang out we got together at joe's since we had already been working. but that was really it. i finally got a new tattoo, which was the digimon sword piece i had been dying to get forever. i got to go to the new kura location in edison, too.

april happened. and then may was also a month.

june was an exceptionally busy month, and in that time we went on tour for WC3. three weeks prior, ryan had to bow out of the run due to an injury and we were SO f*cking lucky that cha could step in last-minute. with all things considered, we played well on tour. as weepy and f*cked up in the head as i was, that was one of my favorite weeks of this year, and one of my favorite memories. there's a longer, more detailed recap below so i won't go into exacts. but being around my friends all week was bliss.

in june, i also started taking muay thai classes. i had always wanted to go back to taking martial arts classes in some way, shape or form but i didn't think it would happen this soon. i thought maybe in my mid-30's i'd start, but it just worked out that i could start going now. i didn't start prior due to budget and time restraints but, i moved closer to my friends' gym, so i could finally go train. i knew it was going to be way different from cardio kickboxing, but understanding *some* of those fundamentals helped me at least have half a foot forward when i began training. it's taking me so long to absorb everything since i can only go once a week, but it has been f*cking awesome. there was one class where emily and i were just throwing each other around on the mat, and it was a blast. not only has it been really fun and incredible to learn, but i have become closer with my friends sean and emily, and made a new friend in our classmate kim. they've all been a tremendous help in getting me through this year; probably more than they'll ever know.

god every month this year was so busy. early july, we finally filmed our music videos for the record and played a couple gigs. the month absolutely flew by. shooting the videos was a blast, and the two fests we played were very fun. sadly, in the midst of those two gigs, i was living a f*cking nightmare. any sane person would cancel the shows and all of their obligations but i decided not to. i probably would have been better off for it, but i felt like playing the shows and being around my friends was better than being at home and mourning never seeing my dog again. but in july, i also returned to streaming, and it was so bittersweet going live again. since then, it's been difficult to maintain the schedule i once had, but i'm just so f*cking grateful and glad that my community is still here. they didn't go anywhere. and i really don't care if i grow at the moment, because if they keep coming back that's all that matters. they are what makes continuing to stream worth it or even enjoyable at all. it's so much fun.

in august, WSA decided to start giving a sh*t about tiktok and meeting at joe's to do bits. we had the WC3R weekender, so we figured it was a good time to start getting into the swing of posting. if we want to grow at all, we have to. it really helped with promoting our shows. when we went on the weekender later that month, we got to see detroit and chicago for the first time. i am so blessed to be able to travel with my best friends and see cool sh*t. we also meet the most wonderful people and get to see longtime friends on the road, many of which we maintained contact with online only. i never hesitate to reassure people that tour is grueling, but it is so f*cking rewarding.

the summer overall was awesome. spent a lot of time with friends new and old, longboarded, went to a food festival, spent a lot of time in brooklyn and philly. I SAW TWICE LIVE, FINALLY. top 3 best concerts of all time, it might rival the on letting go 10 year for #1. saw my childhood best friend get married and enjoyed a trip with my family to north carolina. SHOUTOUT ABARI VIDEO GAME BAR IN CHARLOTTE. because of emily, i also got to go to the beach so much!!! girl hooked it up with free badges!! and that was something i really wanted to make sure i didn't miss out on this year. i was sad the summer ended so early, but it was a good one.

when september came, it was like a break before the final arc of the year began. i still had to haul ass and get band stuff done, otherwise i took it a little easier. my month kicked off with a trip to the DMV, which was incredible. the barbeque at adam's was awesome, and i had a blast living with kevin and caleb for a week. it felt wrong to leave to be honest LMAOOOO. i am so grateful to them for their hospitality. basically when i crash there i live in their basem*nt lmao and i work remotely!! and it totally all works out! then we hang really hard at night. karaoke at queen's gambit was. god. just one of the most perfect nights out i have ever had. and even the nights where we didn't do much, it was wonderful. later that month was my birthday, for which my plans got hella derailed due to the storm, but my friends who are local still came which i'm so grateful for. we partied hard and sang karaoke for hours. i wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

being single is f*cking weird, but i'm mostly used to it now. it's nice to get attention but i rarely feel like actually into anyone. and when i do, it's not reciprocated. also! being on dating apps is f*cking weird! i got on them because i was craving physical intimacy but since then i've only gone on one date. that was just two days ago. people are just so weird. i really tried to connect with both men and women- i don't even want anything serious- but people just stop answering. thankfully, i really didn't get discouraged over it at all. i'm not gonna lie, i also just would stop answering people i was initially interested in. it just sucks so much. it's hard to feel anything, even excitement. but i guess i also don't really take it seriously. hence my insane prompt answers lmao

october through december was basically 9 seconds. mostly because of us dropping new music. i spent october scrambling to get everything ready, november was all about darting, then prepping for the rest of the album sh*t we need and filming content in december. i finally got to see ciara again since we met in LA!! we showed her around philly and jersey. i finally got to see steph and her family, regretfully for the first time in a long time. i'm pretty sure i was there the month prior then went back for brian's birthday. it's been harder for us to get time in together, but hanging out with steph is always just like picking up where we left off, no matter how long it's been. i went to a really fun wedding halloween weekend, and got to cosplay ann tamaki for halloween this year, which is like the 2nd faithful cosplay i've done since going blonde haha. bea kind of counts but not really? i didn't wanna chop my hair or wear a wig so. oops.

november flew. all i had on my mind was darting eyes. we wished there was a more explosive response, but we're still insanely proud of what we achieved. it was cool to see everyone's reactions and have people be really hype about it. i felt proud to see people say it's our best song yet. i think it's up there with some of the sickest sh*t we've written. i also went back to kevin and caleb's to chill with them for their birthdays and to go see daoboys in baltimore. i would love to make that a yearly trip provided that we're both free that week of november. also i cringe when i think about how i f*cked up when i mic grabbed for daoboys BUT it was still an awesome experience and i'm so lucky i can say that i got invited to do that at all.

when december came, i was not feeling festive at all. even on christmas eve, i woke up feeling more normal about it than ever. i've never listened to so little christmas music in my life. it was a really tough month. i missed brawly so badly. but my friends were glad to hang out and do festive sh*t with me, which helped so much. on christmas, it was just me and my family, no one else, and it was really lovely. it's become one of my top favorite christmases ever.

this year was tough for many reasons most likely obvious, but for a long time i resented being alone with myself. i ran from it as a kid. if i was left out of plans with friends, i would feel sorry for myself instead of dusting my shoulders off and practicing my instruments. and i definitely still did that - but i could have done more, and channeled less negative energy from it. but i ended up doing so much, spontaneously, on my own. and i'm so proud of myself for it. it took time, but i accept what has happened to me and i feel myself ready for a clean slate. i'm definitely just not ready for a relationship yet. i realized yesterday that i'm emotionally unavailable, still. i need more time. getting older sucks but, i'm not too worried about being alone for a little longer at all.

and doing those things alone is totally self care too. speaking of which. I TOOK SO MANY BATHS THIS YEAR. shoutout to my parents' jacuzzi tub. that mf is fam forreal,,,,,, i have a whole set up lmao i throw in a bath bomb, some bubbles, sometimes i grab a mask or some wine, and i throw on anime. it's so therapeutic but one time i got lightheaded from being in there too long so i have to be careful hahaha. i'm grateful to my parents for allowing me to use it so much.

i spent...... so much time with my family and friends this year. i don't remember the last time i have hung this hard with them. our family's bond has taken a completely different shape now that we're all adults, and it's become so much deeper. not only did we go through the breakup together, but losing our cats. i can be a pain in the ass for them all still, which i need to work on, but things are much better now than they have been in the past.

i got so much closer with my bandmates. we hung out way more as best friends, not just to write music and film bits. my lifelong best friends immediately took me under their wing when sh*t initially hit the fan in april and they haven't let go since. what i went through made me develop an even deeper connection to friends i wished i got to spend more time with. and i just. i had been conditioned to believe for so long that i didn't truly deserve many things, but i no longer have any reason to believe that because of the people who choose to be in my life. i really have such incredible family and friends. i always joke that i didn't ask to be born and sh*t, but i got the luckiest draw when it comes to the company i have. not that i don't give myself credit for enduring what i had to go through, but i would have been f*cked without the support system i have. i am truly so thankful every day.

god i can barely get through finishing this post without crying!!!!

when we went out to dinner recently, my friend asked us what we learned this year. i couldn’t answer because i didn’t even know where to start. i took some time to think about it, and it’s unfortunately a lot. but, here is what i learned in 2023:

what i thought was love was really attraction, and even comfort. those things are still important in a healthy context, but real love is respect- respecting your partner enough to recognize when you’re hurting them and crossing boundaries repeatedly. and a real apology is not repeating that hurtful behavior. it’s not just words, and it’s not blaming others for your mistakes. it’s action. this goes for friendships, too.

believe the things someone says when they’re livid at you. it’s not that those awful things are true, but they are an accurate reflection of how they feel about you. i am so mad at myself for not seeing this glaring red flag probably upwards of a couple dozen times. I challenged these words and i was still reassured those angry sentiments were meaningless. it all adds up now.

take people at face value. don’t try to prove them wrong about themselves. act as if who they are right now is the way they’ll be forever. that was so f*cking hard for me as someone who has always largely believed in people’s propensity to change. my therapist really really tried to drill this into my head when i started seeing her in may. it was tough to follow the first time and it didn’t finally stick until the second time i made the mistake of not listening in september. i had to abandon being a fixer. the second time i was challenged in this way this year, i didn’t so much as try to fix them, but i was praying they weren’t right about the terrible things they were telling me about themselves. i wanted them to prove me wrong. i had to come to terms with the fact that because of their commitment to believing they were no good, and not respecting boundaries, we were not going to work out. i truly believed i could love people into being better. i thought giving grace would inspire them to want more for themselves. it is physically impossible.

it is so much better to keep your mouth shut about your personal life. as someone who has always been an open book and worn her heart on her sleeve, this has been extremely difficult for me (lmao). firstly, there’s no need to prove yourself to people who are committed to not empathizing with you. not even reacting or telling the objective truth will help, because they will be dead set on denial. it fuels their disdain. second, the reality is, even some (maybe most!) people who care about you will not understand exactly what you’re going through, and how all-encompassing it feels. and it’s not ok to word vomit about your trauma all the time. unless the offer is extended, it’s best to journal everything and use tools like therapy. i am so glad i have songwriting for this. i just had such great cognitive dissonance that i couldn’t even trust myself, and that's why i couldn't shut the f*ck up in/on private lmao. i constantly found myself questioning reality and seeking validation. i couldn’t conceive what the f*ck was happening to me nor place how i was supposed to feel. i felt tremendous, overwhelming guilt and grief. a part of me died.we all make jokes about gaslighting, but the psychological torment is no joke.

i made a little change where i stopped calling myself stupid and i legitimately felt a small improvement in my mental health. i highly recommend actually speaking kinder to yourself. there are other insults i should stop using towards myself but that alone felt like a positive step in the right direction.

i believed i wasn’t being held back and that it was all in my head, but staying in a place where i was being emotionally and verbally abused was not only worsening my anxiety but my physical health. i went no contact, and i could even breathe better. sleep better. i used to experience acid reflux daily and now it’s on an occasional basis. I am lonely sometimes, and i am still grieving somewhat, but i feel so much better. it’s incredible.

and now i’m so f*cking mad that i accepted less than i deserved for so, so long. i am so mad that i held myself back from being truly happy. even being in a better situation mentally for the last decade might have meant i would have been farther along in my goals. now that i understand how f*cked my mental health was that entire time, and how it ruined my self-perception, i feel such a well of emotions when staring ahead at the rest of my life. i have no f*cking idea what it looks like. in april there was a dark, deep precipice. now, it’s a little less steep, but it’s there. sometimes it’s not. i am f*cking terrified of what comes next, but at the same time i wonder how much i can affect by legitimately believing in myself and having zero mental hindrances. what if i can actually will all of my dreams into reality. after what i experienced this year, i feel like i have nothing to lose, now. so if i'm a little delusional in 2024 i'm sorry lmao. i am only this young for so long!!! and i am hellbent on trying to have as incredible of a year as i can. but if it's anything like 2023, without all of the bad, it certainly will be.

woodland creatures 3 - final thoughts

one of the best weeks of my life, woodland creatures 3, has come and gone. these tours seem to fly by even faster every year.

typically, i post blogs for each date and conclude with my final thoughts, but i’m doing it in reverse because my schedule has been too unpredictable. i’m not sure when i’ll get to write about each day. so, i’m starting with my overall thoughts~

albeit just a week once yearly at the moment, we choose to go on tour, with our limited PTO, with no regard for how little money we might make or who may show out to support, because life is too precious. if we’ll never live the dream in the conventional, professional “rockstar” sense, the way that we envisioned it as kids, this is still more than i could ever ask for. i can’t even say “this is as close as it gets” because we’re doing it. and we’ve been doing it- and it’s one of the best things to ever happen to not just me, but all of us.

it had also been a minute since we booked the run ourselves, but matt, kevin and i tag-teamed it. i wanna say a huge thanks to the both of them for their help, and goddamnit kevin absolutely kiiiiilled it on the visual direction. we were supposed to go out with a third band and he had to redo everything to just feature our two bands about a week or two before we were going to announce. grateful to work as a team!!

this was the first time i was ever distressed and nervous leading up to a run. i felt so incredibly unprepared and insane that it didn’t feel like it was happening until i was at santino’s dad’s rehearsing with everyone. i’ve been grieving the loss of something really important to me since late april. like half of me has been torn out. i made the most difficult choice i’ve ever had to face and my entire f*cking life has been flipped upside down in more ways than one. i am incredibly, incredibly f*cking depressed. my brain chemicals have never been more out of whack in my life. with all this considered, imagine having to play gigs every night, knowing that you could break out into intense sobs at random points in your day with zero power over it. crying f*cks with your ability to sing, heavily. i feel like a shell of myself. so. i was very scared. for the most part, i’m glad that i mostly held it together until the day after the last show, save for some weepy moments in the van.

for weeks people told me tour would help, and they were right. touring does feel like escaping to an alternate reality. from beginning to end, it was bliss. even with the scary drives through summer storms and eating crappy dinners at 1 am-2 am. i would live it all again in a heartbeat.

on this run, we had our friend cha helping out on drums - we are so f*cking lucky he was available to come with us. ryan injured himself and cha had less than a month to learn 6 songs we have been playing for 2 years or more. he absolutely crushed it, he’s such a talented musician. he practiced everything (and even posted some sick covers - go sub 2 him on youtube) so that he was really prepared for when we did meet up. he saved our asses and i couldn’t be more grateful. he also fits right in with us, such a funny dude. i found myself sniping memes from him daily lmao

we gigged with SO many friends, new and old, and got to see some of our favorite people at these shows. family came through, friends from other cities pulled up, people traveled from far away- it’s so so wild to think that all these people went out of their way for us. just to watch our bands play for 30 minutes each. it’s for that reason i always stress playing as perfect of a gig as i can. i know i’ll never achieve that, but despite oooone show, i don’t think i was too bad this run. as a whole, i think we really hit our stride in atlanta and orlando. those two shows hit different. but the folks in the crowd in philly and charlotte REALLY moved for us- that was sick. it’s really motivating to see a legitimate difference over time in these shows, and how the turnouts grow. omg and we had several people coming up to us to ask for morning sun deep cuts, it was a good feeling haha.

i feel so grateful and inspired by all the bands we got to gig with. longfriend timefriend in philly (literally the drummer is my longtime friend from college), science penguin (who played with us on the OG WC) and granite state in baltimore, mikau and followship in richmond, forever we roam and the safety in charlotte, our new friends in sister sleep and cascadent in atl and last but not least yeti, letters to part and holodeck in orlando. probably the most stacked bills we’ve ever had on a run, and all the absolute f*cking best people. and no two bands sound alike! these people helped keep our spirits so high and our excitement through the roof for these gigs. i f*cking love meeting other musicians; the music scene feels so huge yet the community is so tight knit, all at once. it’s incredible to know you have such amazing friends in different places. if it weren’t for these bands these shows wouldn’t have gone off nearly as hard. huge huge thanks to them.

It felt like each day was go-go-go, no stopping to check anything out really- but we did get to do some stuff locally. we got amazing tex mex and boba in richmond, cookout in charlotte (we don’t have it in jersey lul), and tako cheena in orlando. bummed we missed out on lemon pepper wings in atlanta, but we’re just going to have to go back asap. in addition to kevin and caleb, we also crashed with our friends zach benson in richmond and kealy in concord who are both talented musicians in their own right. our friend adam only had the chance to put up pulses. after philly but then hosted us for a cookout before the baltimore show. these ppl legitimately got me questioning moving south if it weren’t for my dog, their places are so niceeee aksldjfaksjdflk

when we met back up with pulses., it was like no time had passed as always. we were immediately yelling and laughing again, blowing up the group chat with bullsh*t, and finding new things to joke about. on long van rides, it was nice to just shoot the sh*t with cha and listen to CDs. when i cried, and i cried, hard, taylor was there to hold me. i love when we roll up 11 heads deep to food spots, and have dance parties while loading out. even when nightmare scenarios happen (like after the show in atlanta which was bullsh*t and a stressful f*cking situation especially for kevin ugh - i’ll get into that another time haha), we manage to make it through because we have the support of one another. we all got wasted in orlando and brought a bit of home to the airbnb by posting up til 4:30 am watching music videos. and lastly, we still made our beach episode happen even if it meant getting home at 3:30-4 am lmao. by the way.....beach episode was incredible. being at the beach with your best friends is the best. there was a moment where i was sitting in the water with tyler and it was like time stopped. i really didn’t want to go back to real life.

pulses. are truly the best band, ever. i am so glad i can bear witness to their growth and be by their sides for their journey. i have always thought they were one of the most talented groups to exist, and it’s been so beautiful to watch their come up over the years. just when you think they can’t top themselves, because they’re already so f*cking good, they do it. again, and again. their new songs are just as incredible live, and to think that there’s still SO many more they haven’t shared with the world!!! i really believe they will be one of the biggest bands in the world. truly. and however we can support them and make that happen, i’m there, no questions asked. they’ve done so much for us, to keep us going. they’ve done so much for me, as friends. if they seem really cool from afar, it’s because they are, and they’re even cooler in person. such genuine people inside and out. and when somehow, you really click with people, you just want to be around them all the time. it is impossible to imagine life without them now.

(photo credit: bycheepi)

my bandmates have also been going through such tough sh*t in the last year and i’m so proud of how they still continue to show up and be the best possible versions of themselves. they impress me all the goddamn time. a friend of ours who has shot our band previously, dieter, played with us in orlando with his band holodeck. he told us he noticed a huge improvement in the way we sound. the last time he saw us was in 2017 when we opened for emarosa and a lot like birds (phew). he told us we sound soooo much fuller, like a legit band. that made me really happy. i know that is all possible due to how my bandmates have grown and pushed themselves, despite all odds. it was so incredible to finally play our new single live, the reaction really restored our faith in ourselves. it’s hard when you’ve got all these songs locked up for an indefinite period of time. i was so excited to release the album before, but now i’m suffering hahaha i want to get it out so badly. i can’t wait for the adventures that lie ahead of us once this thing is out.

i feel proud of myself for getting through this tour. i was scared leading up to it, but once i was in it, it all felt second nature. even though i had gear issues with my IEMs, i tried not to panic as much when i couldn’t hear myself. i had so much fun on stage. i really feel like myself up there. maybe a little too myself tho lmao i need to learn how to say less jasakjdflkajdf. i’m excited to continue improving and become an even better performer than i am now.

currently, i feel the most alone i’ve ever felt in my entire life, and god i am..... miserable lmao but i know that i’m not truly alone. if there is anything this tour has shown me, it’s that. i am so fortunate to call so many beautiful people my friends. it really does suck to be home though. it’s difficult to get a taste of living your dreams then get sucked right back into normality, but like i said- just grateful we can do it at all. i’m so glad i got to feel a little better, even for a little while. i’ll continue to chase that feeling. i’ll continue to keep working on myself, the band, streaming- chasing what i love and hope it all just pays back. i’ll continue to surround myself with the people i love, because they have graciously given me that space, and for once i will fall into it without hesitation. i can’t wait for all the WC runs that are to come, and to see this community we have grow even bigger. woodland creatures truly is what drives us forward, and it will always be a part of me. i could not be more grateful for the people i just spent a week on the road with and look forward to touring with for many more weeks to come. i love them. WC4E.

(photo cred: tyler adlam)thanks for reading if u got this far ! i will post the other blogs soon and i’m def throwing up the video ones, as well as our sets from atl and orlando.

2022

~5-10 minute read (depending on how fast you can read i guess lmao)

it’s time!!! my annual recap of the year where i detail as much as i can remember as possible because i will 100% forget most of it in the near future. kind of depressing, kind of fun!

i took a peep at the 2021 post and...my god. ohhhh no. lmaooooooooo

in some ways 2022 was better than 2021. where it was worse, it was worse than i could have ever imagined. i was in a very terrible place for the better part of this year. thankfully, a lot of positive things still happened. so,,,without further ado,,,

i went into this year with, again, lofty expectations. i was convinced 2022 would be uber busy and explosive for WSA. the beginning of the year was rly quiet. it was basically just about recording acid redux and getting prepped for our first tour since 2019. for the first time ever, i was entrusted with drawing the tour ad mat. it was so difficult but i’m glad i was able to contribute. i needed to have that experience because i had never done a piece that big before, and i need to do more of those.

my job situation at the time was f*ckING terrible. anyone who is close to me knows how toxic the environment was at eventide. it was really getting to me. i was making an incredible amount of mistakes and i felt myself shrink every time i needed to be in a zoom call with my superiors. i came to hate my job so, so much. eventually, i lost my job around end of february. i already had a new position lined up (i feel like they knew because i updated my linkedin and they f*ckING said something to me about it) but it wasn’t the way i wanted to go. whereas i was panicking losing my job pre-pandemic, i was just angry i had no control over my exit.

another thing that cushioned the blow of losing my job was almost being on the b****** album. pulses. wrote to him that i should be on his next record and he liked murder mountain so much that he contacted me. he reached out a week prior to me being let go, and that kicked off a really cool period of the year. so then i get this cool opp, no longer have to show up to this job i loathe, get a month off, accept a new job offer during this short break, go on tour, and come back to a new job. that was probably the best part of the year. it was great because i had zero idea what was coming lmao

getting a month off was a f*ckING blessing. the only huge downside was that my credit card debt became INFINITELY worse. in 2020 i was privileged to be paid to not work for the entire year and it was one of my favorite years of my life. i will take any chance i can get to experience that again, i.e. having a month and a half free from working. i got to go collision with my twitch friends that i FINALLY got to meet in person, finally hung out with donis, bren, frankie and christy after not having seen them in years, took brawly on long ass walks every day, and drew a lot. it was a relief to have so much downtime WHILE prepping for tour.

most of all. in that period of time, i finally started listening to twice. i don’t know if it was just hitting extra because i was in a transitional period at the time, but it only took a week before i was FULLY f*cking indoctrinated. i. love. kpop. i love it!! so much!!! like yes, i know i’m mentally ill, but it’s like cocaine. it’s addicting. i spent the year learning the choreo to two full twice songs then the main chorus parts for about 10 other random songs for other groups laksjdl;akjsdf. i literally hadn’t danced since performing arts hs. i only have like a handful of friends i sometimes see who f*ck with kpop and it’s killing me lmao help

i won’t spend too much time on it because there’s like 8 other entries below this one about it, but we spent a week of april on tour with pulses. and IMAY for WCII and it was probably THE best thing that happened this year. our shortest run ever, and our most successful. i am so thankful we got to finally tour again, and it was better than i could have imagined. i really hoped at the time it wasn’t going to be our last tour for the year, but things fell apart (i’ll get to that lmao) so it sadly was our only run.

when i came back from tour, i had my first-ever subathon. i had so much trouble running things smoothly, but it was so much fun. it was a wonderful way to celebrate the folks in my community and everything we’ve done together over the last two years. couldn’t be more grateful for them!!!

in may we played beers 4 tears fest with a sh*t ton of our friends and it was chaos. i have never played a set trashed before then, and i will NEVER do it again. oh my god. and to my dismay, the evidence is on full display on youtube. so yeah. we wanted to actually enjoy ourselves at the fest and drink red tank beer, but we had to play f*cking last at near midnight lmao. one of our worst sets, but it was a fun day and i’m glad we got to be a part of it.

i also finally got covid! that was f*cking awful! and i’m pretty sure i am experiencing some form of long covid. i have never been so tired in my life and if feel winded more easily. it really sucked. i wish i could have avoided it, but it’s absolutely impossible now. thankfully, i didn’t get it again for the remainder of the year.

in june, my uncle passed suddenly. it was so devastating, and he died way too young. he had health complications throughout his life, but i never, ever thought he’d go this soon; they were never life-threatening. in may, i knew he was in and out of the hospital, but my mom was frequently visiting him and insisted it wasn’t crtiical. then, out of nowhere, he’s in serious condition after a procedure and the doctors are swearing up and down they can’t do anything to help him. my aunt and mom had just gone to a second doctor for his opinion and said there was something that could be done to save him, but they couldn’t get him what he needed in time. i still to this day can’t grasp that he’s gone.

in both june and august, my band was invited to DJ emo nite baltimore (and eventually emo nite asbury, which we bombed hard lmao) which was shocking to us, but considering we’d get to hang with pulses., and the emo nite crew, there was no way we were turning that down. that was such a fun weekend trip to baltimore. for baltimore we were lucky to have our set earlier in the night so that made things a little easier but we still felt so awkward on stage just dancing around with no instruments hahaha. dropping smooth to a room full of 300 emo zoomers was hilarious. afterwards, alexa put us up overnight and cooked brunch for all f*cking like 15 of us. it was so so lovely.

over the course of the year, i got to hang out with pulses. SO often. out of all my friendships with anyone, ours is thriving so f*cking hard. we really make this long distance stuff work with no issue :’) for the better part of 2022 they’d make the drive to us, but i made trips down to them in august, october and november. in july they came down to go see thursday with jaime and i. every time we’d hang, we stayed up til like 3-4 am drinking and watching music videos. in the fall, we saw shows in VIP at soundstage together and those shows were even better because we had seats lmao. i got to hang out more with adam, carlos and the emo nite crew more, and i’m glad we had more time to chill!!

as i mentioned earlier this year, i got a new job. i actually really, really like it. i will never romanticize a job- they’re all going to have their imperfections- but holy sh*t, i am actually not waking up every day feeling crippling anxiety about having to work. i have ample PTO (almost a month’s worth). i work with really amazing, like-minded people who actually believe in boundaries and having a life outside of their jobs. the work i do feels like it means something. and i am actually not afraid of my manager and/or boss. i have never felt even the slightest bit positive about a past position, but i do here. and these people got me out to CALIFORNIA and SPAIN this year. so yeah, out of nowhere, i get a new job and find out two months after i start that i’m going to los angeles for a few days. then, i spent a week in september in spain, which overlapped with my birthday. normally, i vehemently reject having to do anything outside of M-F office hours (even parties), but those were two of my favorite parts this year. i absolutely fell in love with LA and i did so much exploring in spain. most of all.....i ate so much good f*cking food. to think that, i not only got a way healthier work experience with this new position after going through HELL, but i also got to travel? that’s incredible. and i very much adore the people on my team. they make me want to actually... care about my job

my 30th birthday was this year. i tried so hard to rent a place for it but what the f*ck it’s SO expensive. so we ended up throwing the biggest rager we’ve ever had at our house. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN and i wish i could have spent more time with everyone that came. karaoke ruled, THE FOOD SPREAD WAS INCREDIBLE (TY TO MY FAMILY AND KRISTEN) and we partied hard as f*ck. so many people came through, and it was an honor to have so many amazing people show up for me (even driving HOURS to be there). i have the best f*cking people in my life,,,,,ever. i really do. and i’m so lucky.

i never thought this was ever going to happen but this year i ended up joining nintendo noise! truthfully, i had secretly gotten started in like may or june hehe. never ever thought i would end up being a podcaster. i was elated when pete and steve asked me to join as a co-host and i wanted to do whatever i could to make it work. i am obviously not the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to video games, but it’s been a blast getting to talk games every other week with them. pete and steve alone have been my favorite duo to listen to since 2017, and i’ve known pete since 2010. i’ve learned a lot from listening to their past shows, and now being on a show with them. i know i’m really passionate about music, but i’ve also come to realize that video games are equally as much of an important part of my life. so it’s incredible to also be involved with them in this way, thanks to my friends :’) and i get ANOTHER platform to tell everyone that they should be playing digimon,,,,,,

that really cool feature i landed at the beginning of the year ended up not happening. i really thought,“there’s no way after he paid me half and we put in all this work together that he would just ghost me” but he did. but i’m grateful i even got the opportunity, and i know it means i was worthy of getting there. whatever happened was out of my control, and i came to accept that. it’s not my song. i have my feelings on the way the situation was handled, but it’s all in the past. just! don’t meet your heroes, folks!

in september, WSA stopped playing shows to focus on the full length. i don’t know what happened but we just didn’t get it done this year. as of the time i’m writing this, all main guitars are done and fully tracked, some drums still need to be done, and ALL of the vocals need to be tracked (i just got started last night). the thing i try to keep saying to myself to calm my anxieties about it is that- we only get one chance to drop this album, and once it’s out, we get about a week of people’s attention. that’s it. so, if we have to take our time, so be it. but it’s 100% coming out next year IT HAS TO AT THIS POINT LMFAO

and that was really the rest of my year. enjoying the holidays (cosplayed as mirko for halloween :-----) and trying to stay productive. every time december rolls around i try really hard to make it a fun holiday season, but i end up getting too busy :((( december was also a scary month for me, mentally. my depression has been worsening as of late but i’m trying really hard to work through it.

i also realized this year that i have a lot of friendships that have stood the test of time, and it’s okay if we’re not always in sync! i spent a lot of my mid 20′s second guessing the people in my life, but i don’t have to anymore. i know that i have incredible friends who will always be there for me if i need them. so now i just need to learn how to be a better friend to myself.

it was a really tough year, and there’s so much i wish i could do over, but the good that came with 2022 was ultimately really positive. tons of fun gigs, dozens of late nights forcing my friends to watch buff correll, drunk heart to hearts, lots of kind new faces, and an abundance of laughs. i think this year a lot of foundation was laid for 2023 to be really cool. i’m crossing my fingers and keeping my expectations as low as i can lmao.

so if you read this far, i’m sorry HAHA. but thanks? i hope to come back this time next year with some good news. a lot can happen in 12 months.

woodland creatures II - leaving home

morning was fine until we split up and got lost. greenvans pick up was super easy. found out we were picking up a van the same day as higher power haha. the address we put into google maps after picking up the van took us to a COMPLETELY different place than the wawa we were supposed to meet joe and santino at. put us two hours behind schedule. but once we were on a road it was an easy 6 hour drive (lul). that was pretty much the average length of travel each day. i drew a little bit in the van and didn't do much else really. we got to roanoke too late to get good food so we settled for sheetz. i wasn’t opposed to sheetz whatsoever, but the thing was we had found this delicious tex mex place and got so hyped for that. though we would have arrived in time to pick up food way before they closed, i guess the kitchen was closing up because the online ordering portal didn’t have any pick-up times available for the remainder of the evening. it was nice to get back to a sheetz again.

we pull up to the motel and it is sketch as f*ck. in the parking lot there was a rock, a pile of broken glass and a syringe. we were on edge for like an hour until we moved the guitars into the hotel room and put the van in front of the motel under a street lamp. super low key night, we just played mario kart before going to bed. i got to facetime with jeremiah and brawly, so that at least made me feel better.

woodland creatures II - day 0: nashville

we woke joe up right at 8 am singing happy birthday to him. laughed our asses off at santino's impression of the bar rescue guy. thankfully, our van was not broken into overnight! but a lot of us still had trouble sleeping. we got ready and packed up quickly so that we could hit the road as soon as possible. we decided our breakfast would be little green hive in downtown roanoke, a small cafe inside an indoor market. it was so good. i got an iced latte with lavender and honey, with a strawberry smoothie bowl as my breakfast. for most of the drive to nashville, i was on my phone doing social posts, nd nothing else really. i drew on colors live which was SO difficult in the van and played pokémon puzzle challenge. it was nice to watch the highway scenery outside the van window. so amazing to drive through the blue ridge mountains again. weird to say but i haven't been outside much lately lmao. i'm sure that's about to change now that warmer weather is nearing.

we arrived to rainy nashville pretty early. it was 4 in the afternoon, and pulses. wouldn't be arriving to the area til 8. our first stop to kill time was martins bbq. oh my f*cking god. absolutely f*cking incredible. i got ribs with potato salad and mac and cheese. this was the first time we would be touring with not just one but two vegans, so jaime and ryan had to sit and wait while the rest of us ate. we would eventually find them food at a vegan restaurant called graze, which they loved so much they returned before the gig the next day haha.

we walked music row for a bit while it drizzled. ryan didn't get to come on the tour in 2018 where we last visited nashville, so we wanted to make sure he got to see it. half the honky tonk bars either had a band covering mr. brightside or they were playing love songs about nascar lmao. we made a couple souvenir shop stops for our families and then made a half assed attempt to go try the riverwalk. when we realized it, in fact, involved a lot of walking, we changed our minds. we had to keep a tight schedule anyway. we were planning to surprise joe with a birthday dinner at a brewery + pizza then a barcade afterward in nashville.

jaime and ryan got some nice looking good at graze, like these vegan nachos, but i wasn't hungry. though, we rolled 5 heads deep and only 2 of us were eating so i ordered a tiny side of roasted potatoes out of guilt lmao. i did also get beer though, some blackberry sour. graze is in the east side of nashville which is all yuppie stuff; a stark contrast to downtown. we learned pulses. were nearing nashville so we headed to the brewery, but i f*cked up and miscommunicated the plans for the evening so it was just our band that went to pizza brewery and pulses. went straight to the barcade. the pizza was actually REALLY good. we are from jersey so we can kinda be pizza snobs lmao, and it was actually the selection of beer i was underwhelmed by. we ate quickly there and booked it across town to the barcade.

the place we went to was called 16-bit bar or something like that? it was MASSIVE, not only did it have arcade cabinets but it also had bowling. we had a blissful reunion with pulses., grabbed a lane and chilled for the rest of the night. i was so f*cking happy to see everyone again. if it hadn't felt like tour before then, it definitely did then. we essentially played mini bowling? it was really funny. the beer was pretty cheap too, $11 for like an enormous double pint glass. i don't normally drink on tour but i let a little loose this time lmao.

once the bar was starting to close up we left to crash at tyler's friend joey's house. we descended on that place and took almost every square inch of space. my dumbass bought a QUEEN SIZE AIR MATTRESS and so i ate up the entire area between the living room and kitchen by the backdoor. we were so wiped that we immediately passed out.

woodland creatures - day 1: nashville

since we didn't sleep in a hotel we had the luxury of sleeping in as late as possible. i think i slept til like 10:30-11. we got breakfast from dunkin, showered and played smash til kevin and tyler got back from picking up taylor at the airport. load-in wasn't til 7, so we planned to use today to do even more sightseeing. our absolute first priority was hot chicken. in the past WSA went to hattie b's which was a m a z i n g. this time we went to prince's which was also incredibly delicious. everyone opted for mild or medium sauce but caleb and i went hot. as we downed our chicken and people were sweating from the spice of theirs, they were looking at me like "how are you not dying" lmao. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ jaime and i have a high spice tolerance (i thought joe too though? idk) it was literally nothing. it was delicious. but i will say the repercussions for indulging on hotter sauce were abundant lmao. acid reflux went OFF. and everything hurt.

with more time to kill still, we found a local record store and headed there next. we ended up at grimey's, which also had a vintage clothing shop and a combo coffee shop/brewery. grimeys i think is a repurposed church? it was really nice in there and they had a small stage. i don't collect vinyl so i headed to the basem*nt and almost spent $50 on books. i got two instead of three which brought it down to like, $35 i think haha. i got a japanese cookbook and crying in h mart. i don't have time to read really but at least now i have a book i can bring to the beach. we walked over to the vintage shop and i really didn't think i was going to buy anything except hoooooly sh*t they had official ariana grande tour merch. and it was a crew neck that was only $35. i would be a dumbass to not cop that. they had a rack of concert tees too and i was PRAYing they would have carlos santana but all they had was toby keith, dave matthews band and $75 scene band shirts. like i wanted to get this the academy is... tee but it was THAT expensive.

at this point in the day we needed to get food in our stomachs before the show, and after such an insanely heavy lunch all i wanted was a smoothie bowl. we found a random place called urban kitchen or something like that where san and i got bowls, then we took ryan and jaime back to graze. i think this was the only show we pulled up to load in on time lmao. this was also our first show since december so we had a lot of rust to shake off. it took me forever to set up merch and i stomped on and broke our christmas lights lmao. i also tried to stream our set and it failed?? that was luckily the only gig i had that issue. our set went all right! i feel like my voice coulda been better but whatever, it was the first night. we had a really nice crowd! so funny when i mentioned that we played springwater supper club the last time we were in nashville and there was audible disgust LMFAOOO. later on folks would ask us why the f*ck we played there and i explained it was genuinely the only spot that would have us back then 🙃 springwater was indeed a sh*thole. i got to see my old friend matt marder which was awesome and we met folks from twitter as well! most of all it was so wild and amazing to see crowd-goers know our friends' music and go off for them. the person who was putting on the show, camden, was part of a band called roam zoetta and they closed out the night for their last show ever. they had a real cool sound! always a bummer when bands break up. he was such a sweet guy to work with. it was so incredible to return to nashville. i miss it so much.

we left the venue incredibly late and wanted to get food but the only thing that was really open was cookout and it had a super long line. buuuummer. so we just stopped at the convenience store near joey's house for food. this was about to be the roughest like 24 hours of the tour because the next day we had to get up at 5:30 am to leave for our 10 hour drive to tulsa.

woodland creatures II - day 2: tulsa

if it wasn't for all 11 of us needing to get up and go at the same time, i don't know that i would have woken up before 9. we silently packed our things at the crack of dawn, did a quick dummy check and left joey's. our bands rendezvoused for a dunkin breakfast and then hit the road for tulsa. i felt upbeat then, but after eating my breakfast i passed right out in my seat. by the way, not a big fan of the goddamn seats in ford transits lmao. sooooooooooo uncomfortable. nice roomy van but god, naps were painful. if i was tired enough i would just pass out, but i would wake up with a sore neck or shoulder. the drive was extremely difficult. we are a band that stops a lot, so it added a tremendous amount of time to our travel. and, at some point i somehow plugged in the wrong f*ckin address so instead of driving to foolish things coffee shop it drove us to mr. browns hamburgers lmao. it was stressful. we were tired, hungry, and annoyed. when i took a shift driving the van i tried so hard to cut down driving time by speeding but it was too windy to drive like that. the sights were real interesting though, that was my first time ever in oklahoma.

ok this is a photo of nothing but i basically only took video this day on my phone, Fmy anxiety was high when we finally pulled up to the venue an hour and forty-five minutes late, nearly time for doors. the second the van was double-parked by the load-in door i f*ckin ran for my life to the bathroom cause i had to piss SO BADLY. but it was real beautiful outside! and the venue was sick! nice coffee shop with an enormous stage area. we had japanese food door dashed to us that was waiting when we got there and i couldn't eat any of it until after i sang! rip! even worse, after we pulled up we didn't know each band was going to have to sound check so it took a while to wrangle everyone back together. as i was preparing for sound check, grabbing my in ear monitors, i realized that my ac adapter :) was missing :)now at this point in the tour everyone was noticing that i was constantly misplacing my things. worse than ever. and also maybe i was a little on edge more often than not lmao. so imagine my f*ckin face and how i reacted when i realized something was legitimately gone.in all the commotion of getting off-stage the night before, i managed to forget the ac adapter for my in ears at the venue. normally my transmitter is hooked up in the back by whoever is doing sound, but they had to do it on the stage. i forgot to triple check that i had it. and i didn't realize it until sound check in tulsa. i also realized that i left my expensive hair conditioner and towel at joey's in nashville! 🙃i was in total shock but eventually i calmed down. i was so upset that i had lost something so important. and that's not something you can walk into walmart and easily find a replacement for. later after the gig i managed to find one on amazon. the soonest it could arrive was saturday on houston at an amazon locker, so i had to pray it would arrive in time for the show. i could kinda hear my voice through the monitors at the gig, but it's really not the same as having in-ears. not my favorite situation but there was nothing i could do.once i had accepted the consequences of my broken brain and that i had to do the show without in-ears, i could kinda relax. since my twitch stream failed the night before, i wanted to do a test real quick to see if it would work at the venue. i ended up going live for an impromptu just chatting stream and it was so nice to see some of my community say hi 🥺 though tulsa wasn't packed out or anything, the crowd was equally as engaged and hype for the bands. it was great to see the dudes in lilac kings again for the first time in person since 2019. jaime didn't play like half of murder mountain cause the sound guy made him plug into a di box AFTER our set had already started lmao. it was a lil bit quieter of a night but it was still so much fun!

after the gig ended we moved on to our first hotel with pulses. for the week which was a studio 6 in tulsa. we checked in pretty late but cassie at the front desk was real cool about it. we mentioned we were bands on tour and she was like "yuck why tulsa" LMAO 😭 damn like we didn't have a bad time or anything, hahathe rooms were HUGE, and for whatever reason we had a full kitchen? the appliances were old and rusty but yeah, very interesting. after we all settled in, jaime and i went to go chat with pulses. for an hour. came back and took a 1:30 am shower because i desperately needed to. i couldn't stop think about how far from home we are and how it was kinda wild. i've gone a lot of places i never would have gone otherwise because of WSA. it's sick

woodland creatures II - day 3: denton

when we all woke up, we noticed our sinuses felt like absolute sh*t. pulses. felt the same. the hotel rooms must have had a sh*t ton of dust in them. poor matt had a cold so i'm sure that made it worse. once we packed up to leave, we agreed to meet at IHOP for a lil family breakfast. i ordered waaaay too much food, i got a huge f*cking vegetable omelet with a side of protein pancakes. i really should have just ordered one of those lmao. but it was pretty good. my only complaint is that IHOP doesn't have non-dairy milk!!! what the f*ck! yeah lemme just drink this liquid pig slop straight with no oat milk. i should have followed matt and ordered orange juice.

after that we ran to a target cause i was missing makeup (wow shocker). i noticed these really cool energy drinks called alani and the cans were so pretty but i had already finished buying sh*t and didn't wanna get back in line. but! luckily, when we made one of our stops on the way to texas, we saw them in a gas station. so i bought 5! purely off the strength of the label design! why am i like this! ok but the addison rae one was f*cking delicious it was like a strawberry milkshake. the others i still have not tried HAHA.

crossing the state line to texas was so exciting. for years people have been asking us to come there and like this was finally the f*cking moment. we played killer's tacos which is now one of my favorite places to play. it was small but it wasn't cramped. they had incredible food and beer. there was an outdoor patio section i really wished i could have spent more time at. off the bat, the vibes of the place and the people there were straight up amazing. real friendly folks!!! the promoters from DIE entertainment, jesse and daisy, are so so wonderful. they truly took care of us. they got us vegan pizza and exchanged really kind words.honestly the texas shows, objectively, were the best. we had a good crowd watching us and a lot of them knew who we were 🥺 i talked with a lot of people about anime hahahaha, that was a common conversation point. i got a few tacos after i sang, i think i got carne asada, i think pernil?? and a vegetarian taco. with guac and chips. i streamed the set and then i forgot to end it when i suddenly had a wait at merch, so my viewers got to have a nice merch table simulator stream lmao. i drew the red panda and the pigeon on the white board at the venue too but i forgot to get a picture of it.

(EDIT: kevin got a photo. here it is haha. thanks dude)

oh my god watching the crowd go off for pulses. was INSANE. not a single person wasn't moving, or dancing, or singing the words. the crowd was equally as hype in houston. they work so hard and their music resonates with so many people- to get to see that in person, so far from home, ugh. i got really emotional. and none of us had ever gigged in texas before, this was our first time.

while we swore we'd eat tacos in texas, we had to be sure to also enjoy the region's offerings of fast food and THAT. JUST so happened to include in-n-out. i never eat fast food (not as a point of contention. it just doesn’t agree with my stomach really), especially not burgers, but holy f*ck i love in-n-out so much. i had it once in vegas after years of seeing my touring friends talk so much about it. it was awesome to get to finally go with my bandmates. i got a double cheeseburger and animal style fries to split with taylor. we ate it back at the hotel while we played mario kart in our hotel room. this hotel was pretty nice but the rooms were sooo cramped. we got a couple rounds in before we all went to bed to hopefully give ourselves more time to travel to houston.

woodland creatures II - day 4: houston

waking up and realizing, holy sh*t, i'm in texas, was kinda sick. why must it be so beautiful and nice there but also the land of bigoted conservatives? it had been kinda chilly most of the week so to finally be in sunny, warm weather was so wonderful. we decided this would be the day we hit buc-ees for the first time ever. i really wasn't expecting much when we pulled up to this supersized f*cking convenience store. holy sh*t. honestly kind of bewildering that it was pretty sick inside lmao. our band and pulses. are now indoctrinated into the church of Buc-ees ™. they not only had food??? but home goods??? and merch??? i HAD to have the shorts, and i facetimed jeremiah so that he could pick stuff out too haha. AND BUCKY THE BEAVER WAS WALKING AROUND SO I GOT A PHOTO WITH HIM. i really wanted to get brisket or something huge but i was already eating like sh*t on this tour so i decided to just go with a stupid bacon egg and cheese bowl. it wasn't even satisfying, i ended up getting more food at dunkin after lmao

we had a really beautiful drive to houston. i drove this time, so i requested that we listened to our friends shallow pools and marigold's new music. the new marigold album was f*cking perfect for driving past sweeping pastures, and of course the new shallow pools song was a bop. as we neared the venue lui shared in the group chat that the show was going to be OUTSIDE. super exciting but also my allergies had been so bad so i was worried about my voice lmao. the weather was real pleasant though, and the outdoor area was really pretty. i just couldn't believe how dry it was. my dumbass thought that would be better for my allergies but it's just as bad as when it's humid in jersey. i can never get any reprieve lmao. this place also had f*cking delicious fish and shrimp tacos. and angelica the promoter was a f*cking sweetheart!!! she killed it on this one, it was really well attended. so many awesome people came out. especially folks we knew from twitter!!! AND I MET ONE OF MY FRIENDS FROM MY STREAM 🥺🥺🥺 she's been subscribed to me for so long and we've chatted here and there and it was so amazing to meet her in person 🥺 it sucks that its kinda hard to hang out at gig sometimes when there's a lot going on and it's hard to get a moment of silence to talk haha, but we got to hang out for a little!

our set was really fun, people ACTUALLY moved for us lmaoooo we were so stoked haha. those folks kept that energy up and more for pulses. and yeti. i loved watching my friends from the crowd and singing along with everyone. the band that closed out the gig, margins, oh my god they were such great dudes. and their set was really f*ckin cool. we had chatted with the vocalist, luke, before the gig. we were so hype when he got on the mic and was like "who's ready to be sad". taylor and i both laughed and yelled "I LOVE THIS MAN" lmaooo. he had really great chemistry with the crowd.

so after this show we decided we would try whataburger. my bandmates wanted to go to a late night asian restaurant but i wanted whataburger way more, so since pulses. wanted to go i hopped in their van. i got a smol whataburger jr since i didn't wanna eat too much but i wanted to try it. i honestly don't know that i like it more than in-n-out but it's really f*cking good. idk what it is but i hate fast food burgers besides shake shack and smashburger otherwise, they've always been so dry to me.

woodland creatures - day 5: new orleans

d r i v i n g d a y. our day started around 8:30 am. jaime had already woken up and was showering as the rest of us rolled around in bed. i flipped over to grab my phone and start scrolling through twitter. lo and behold. i see that kingdom hearts is trending. and...... i tap a tweet that looks like some weird hyper-realistic image of sora laying on a couch........ and i cLICK IT AND IT’S A NEW TRAILER FOR KINGDOM HEARTS. I IMMEDIATELY WATCHED IT AND THEN BANGED ON THE BATHROOM DOOR SHOUTING “JAIME JAIME NEW KINGDOM HEARTS TRAILER IS OUT NEW KINGDOM HEARTS!!!” jaime is my fellow kingdom hearts fan in the band haha. less than a minute later he hurries out of the bathroom and we watch it again together. i was seriously in shock. the kingdom hearts 20th anniversary event had happened while we were sleeping. i really didn’t expect them to share anything crazy, but holy sh*t, there it was. i was aware i was being a nuisance but i didn’t care. that stupid franchise has me by the f*cking throat. and i couldn’t believe how the graphics looked. i heard they’re currently working in UE4 but moving to 5? i don’t know how game design works but i wonder why they don’t just start in 5. anyway. it looks really great. and it will probably be too big to play on the switch, lmao. still salty that the switch cloud versions are so ass.

we sadly said goodbye to texas, but not without one last buc-ee's stop (or so we thought it would be our last heh heh). our plan was to go get po' boys and wander bourbon street in new orleans on our way to the halfway point of the drive to orlando. though we broke this drive up into two 5 hour halves, it was still so f*cking challenging. on our way to nola we found a po’ boy place on google with vegan sandwiches, but ryan ended up not coming out with us and jaime decided to break vegan to have a shrimp po’ boy anyway lolololol. our goal was to speed run an outing in new orleans, but try to hit all of the important points of interest- po’ boys, cafe du monde, bourbon street, jackson square, and hopefully a bakery matt’s girlfriend sami recommended. we arrived to nola way later than we planned, but we still got there for the afternoon like we wanted to.

the second i started seeing those colorful buildings with iron balconies downtown, i nearly cried. i say that i cry a lot but this time it is not just a euphemism lmao. the last time i was in new orleans was in 2018 for a bachelorette. absolutely batsh*t ‘round-the-clock, POMA-inducing drinking activities aside, it was a beautiful trip. for that trip we had flown out, because new orleans is such a far drive from jersey. i never thought i’d be back anytime soon whatsoever. so to be back with my BANDMATES and pulses.- with more of my best friends- was a dream. and to not have to run to play a show was nice!

when we pulled up, ryan and santino dropped us at the po’ boy restaurant, but pulses. had parked in the lot we were supposed to originally meet at. we ended up walking all the way there and even saw ryan and santino at the gas station they went to along the way LMAO. but it was just, so so nice to walk around the city. the walk to the lot wasn’t that bad either. so we met up with pulses., then walked back towards killer po’ boys. on the way there we crossed paths with mad people shouting out everyone’s buc-ees merch lmao. people walking around nola are usually pretty friendly, most likely because they’re all in a state of inebriation. soon, we would be there too, heh heh

killer po’ boys was soooo good. the reviews looked positive so i’m glad we went forth with our choice. the service was fantastic and GODDDDD THE PO’ BOYS WERE SO DELICIOUS. i really can’t imagine a po’ boy without shrimp??????????? but joe gave me a bite of his pork belly po’ boy and it was f*ckin’ delicious. after digesting, we popped over to the hat store next door. i followed jaime in just to see what was good in there, he was trying to find a souvenir for his girlfriend rebecca. but IIIIII ended up finding one of those stupid hats with ears that flap when you press buttons LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SO I BOUGHT OOOOOOOOOOONE it was only $18, whatever. don’t kill the cringe kill the part of u that cringes, right?

we planned to go straight to cafe du monde, but we realized bourbon street was on our way. so we got onto bourbon, bought drinks, and started drinking those as we made our way over to beignets. i got a hurricane, cause when in rome, y’know? joe got a jaegerbomb HAHAHA. i think jaime got something that had rum and cinnamon? it was really interesting. of course, i’m uber excited to drink my drink and get drunk, so i immediately get brain freeze on my second sip. i’m a f*cking adult, how do i manage to still get brain freeze when i know how to avoid it?

i felt such bliss marching down bourbon, styrofoam cups in hand with my best friends. at one point we made a pit stop to a shirt store for joe and i think nelly was on and we all just started throwing ass in the middle of the street lmao. if we had more time i would have wanted to pop into some bars. i don’t like bar hopping *that* much but it hits different there.

we approach jackson square as we near cafe du monde, and i realized we still had alcohol. i turned to taylor and i was like“f*ck i haven’t finished my alcohol, what do we do?” she looked around and then gestured to some people in the square who also had the same cups as us. she goes“i think we’re fine”, or something like that hahaha. it was golden hour so we paused and let tyler take our portraits as the sun started to set. when the park started to close we hurried across the street. at first we stood in that super long line to get in to cafe du monde, but when we spotted the take out window we sighed in relief and moved over there.

my bandmates and i split one order of beignets (they’re 3 per order). i also HIGHly recommend getting the cafe au lait if you are able (iced or not iced. but i get it iced). the mistake i made was not drinking it as i was eating the beignet. in fact i didn’t f*cking get to finish the drink at all, shockingly haha. but oh my god. the beignet....was just as perfect as i remembered it. it was nice to be present for my friends trying their first authentic nola beignets, too. in fact i filmed it by setting down my phone vertically like a gen zer about to film an embarassing tiktok in public but we were kinda to ourselves in a corner so it felt much more covert haha. i also was trying to generally do a better job of documenting tour so, there’s that.

it was starting to get late so we dusted the powdered sugar off ourselves and started heading for our last stop, sucre. we crossed back through jackson square and we saw a group of dudes in flannels, khakis and dad hats. i jokingly whispered to taylor“those guys look like band dudes” lmao. i think she possibly mentioned the joke to everyone else, but either way, kevin turned around and shouted out one of those guys’ joyce manor shirt hahaha. even though i couldn’t have sucre’s macarons (nut allergy :-----( they’re made with almond flour), i WAS able to get sorbet and that hit. i got pineapple coconut, it was so f*cking satisfying after walking around so much. i wanted the gelato but that was made with almond milk, too. the bakery was reeeal cute too, it looked like the dgd betrayed by the game music video hahaha.

OKAY SO LMAO. AT THIS POINT EVERYONE WANTS TO GO TO THE BATHROOM BECAUSE WE’RE GONNA BE LEAVING THE CITY SOON. SO JOE GETS THE DOOR CODE AND WE ALL START TAKING TURNS GOING. WELL. THE BATHROOM TURNS OUT TO BE HARD TO FIND. YOU OPEN THE DOOR AND THERE’S NO SIGNS OR ANYTHING, YOU’RE JUST KIND OF DROPPED IN THIS HALLWAY. IT’S REALLY CONFUSING. WHEN I WENT, I OPENED A DOOR AND ENTERED A 4TH DIMENSION. EVENTUALLY WE ALL FOUND IT BUT. TYLER HAD A HARD TIME AND HAD TO PEE SO BADLY, THAT HE GOT FED UP AND PEED IN THE HALLWAY LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. i’m still f*cking laughing about it to this day.

the one thing i really wanted to do was go to the waterfront and get a photo, because the last time i took a photo there and location tagged it, the location tag came up as the M I S S I P I S S I R I V E R and i didn’t realize until after the fact hahaha. so i wanted to see if it was still like that. but i know i’ll be back. and i would love to go back with the woodland creatures again, that’s for damn sure.

the price we had to pay for such an incredible pit stop was we didn’t pull up to the hotel until 3 am. that’s the latest we have ever, EVER, checked in to a hotel. we grabbed our key cards and i literally passed out in my clothes. didn’t even wash my face. the rooms weren’t bad but they smelled like formaldehyde. it was really unnerving lmao

woodland creatures II - day 6: orlando

as pulses. and WSA packed our vans to get ready to head out, we chatted in the parking lot and joked about ant civilizations and what ant travel is like, watching those lil f*ckers carry crap on their backs. lmao i did not know where this sentence was going to go at first but that’s certainly not how i thought it was going to end.

while the group really wanted to go to waffle house we ended up at denny’s lmao, but it ended up being cool because it was attached to a convenience store targeted at truckers. the first thing we saw when we walked in was shelves of ridiculous t-shirts that looked like sh*tposts, the kind of facebook computer-generated graphic tees that say: I Am 1000% American And I Love Screwing My Wife Who Is a Libra Sun And Virgo Moon!!!!! I Like To Say f*ck And Drink Jaegermeister While Watching Dog The Bounty Hunter And I Don’t Give A f*ck About Your FEELINGS (that part is important. it was on a lot of them) Hot Dogs Are A Sandwich And My AR-15 Is My Son!!!!!!!

denny’s took a hot minute and our group was so big we had to sit back to back in two different tables. it was here that my band finalized our decision to cover seven years at the orlando gig for the last night of tour. i climbed over the 6 ft tall glass divider between our booth and the one ryan, santino, kevin and tyler shared to get my drummer and other guitarist’s final approval. i climbed back down, and joe asks“what did they say?” i stare blankly. i go,“i don’t remember” LMAO. my brain is b r o k e n it’s so sad

thank god we had a shorter drive. we were actually able to go drop our clothes and stuff at our sick airbnb in kissimmee. taylor is so f*cking good at finding affordable bnbeees. it was so beautiful outside, i wished i could go for a swim before the show. joe, santino and jaime ran seven years unplugged together real quick before it was time to leave. we didn’t get to run it properly full band, once. and david practiced murder mountain by the pool since we planned to bring him up on stage hehe

we didn’t get to load-in *too* late, but i definitely had less time to get the merch table together. we planned to get dinner with the whole touring package, including yeti!! after they sound-checked, we started making our way to hawker’s across the street from will’s pub. joe, kris khunachak and i had eaten dinner here last time we played orlando and it was AMAZING. but i should have known we were screwed when it had become dinner time and we saw folks waiting outside the restaurant. the wait was 45 minutes, so lui recommended that we walk to tako cheena in the opposite direction. so our big group of pals made the trek down north mills ave together, a few of us having to play IRL frogger to try to cross the highway safely haha.

tako cheena was so f*cking good. y’know, i was bummed i didn’t get my soup dumplings, but now that i know how delicious tako cheena is i’m so happy we went there instead. i got pork belly and pernil tacos. they had hot dogs too. they were like mogo (korean taco place in jersey by us) in that it was korean/asian fusion mexican food.in that moment, as our three bands at tacos together and chatted, i was so sad that tour was ending. that was the first time all week that the entire tour package had the time to hang out the three of us. it makes me wanna tour the three of us again. we would go on to have a little more time with everyone in yeti throughout the night, but it went by so fast.

bay street and venture motel who opened the gig were SO NICE and tight as hell. bay street was like an extremely 50/50 mix of hardcore and pop punk, super energetic. venture motel, everyone unanimously agreed, was vibey as hell. LOVE to see bands with keys. they had everyone grooving. i talked to wilson from VM some more and come to find, we both play smash hahaha. LOVE to meet f e l l o w g a m e r s on the road. marshall of montgomery drive who was the promoter of the show is SO f*ckING SWEET i love him, what an absolutely awesome person. we also had SO MANY FRIENDS come to the gig oh my god. we were able to guest list some folks too which was a warm nd fuzzy feeling. my friend gage who i grew up with in jersey came out to the show and brought a friend. it’s so surreal to still have friends that i knew in high school. it hurts to think about how long ago that was, but it really makes you appreciate having legit any contact at all since life has pulled us all in different directions. he really talks us up to people, i appreciate it so much.

we got to see ivy again for the first time since we met in jersey last year!!!!!!! she even got to come to taco bell and the airbnb afterwards with us, it was wonderful to have her along for the post-show activities. i also got to see CHARLEEEEEEENe OMFG she came RUNNING into the back of the venue to find me and picked me up off my feet it was the cutest f*cking thing. and she smelled so good lmao. she played an amazing set our first-ever orlando show on the original WC tour. and she’s been a good friend of mine ever since. it was f*cking wonderful having her around that night. i also got to meet my friend trey from the band holodeck, we were connected by charlene and we’ve gone on to become streamer friends!!! it was so sick to actually be able to talk to him in person and have a drink together. it’s so extra f*cking special when friends come to gigs thousands of miles from jersey. it really makes it feel like home away from home. i felt so much love and gratitude that night for all the friends we’ve made through music.

our set went pretty well! i’m not gonna lie, the texas shows set a high bar that was tough to beat haha. but the love and excitement in the room was still palpable. i was so happy to be able to use my in-ears again, finally. i’m not gonna lie- i thought folks were gonna go harder for our seven years cover but at the end of the day we did it for ourselves and that’s all that matters hahaha. i had matt and caleb come up to do vocals too and that was SO FUN. i can’t wait til our song on the full length with them is done and OUT so that we can start playing that with them live, too. we also swapped bassists in ours and pulses.’ sets as we planned, that was so fun. i think orlando was my favorite night that i did the midoriyama feature. and of course, we all wore jorts for the scoobramble. we couldn’t find a dumpster big enough for the group photo we took, but a small garbage can sufficed.

the show ended sooooo late. we really wanted to get more tacos with yeti after the show, but pulses. were driving back home in one shot the next day at 8 am. daisy was going to take us to gringos locos tacos, we were so excited to go, but when we saw what time it was we knew we had to just finish up our drinks and get back to the airbnb. we spent the last 20 minutes after the gig by the bar just shooting the sh*t with daisy and ivy, and joking around. someone bought a round of shots but i felt myself starting to get sick. i was only going to have a little tiny sip of mine anyways, but i ended up spilling my shot everywhere lmaoooo. we said goodbyes to yeti and started to hit the road. the plan was to get taco bell doordashed, but someone pointed out that they were closing soon and the nearest one might be worth hitting up for takeout. well. the nearest one was a taco bell cantina LMAO. ugh i wanted to get a baja blast with tequila but i was already really drunk. i just wanted food. poor tyler was trashed at this point haha.

these poor fast food workers. our sweaty tired asses descended en masse on the taco bell but we did our best to be fast. oh boy. i was really in my feelings about tour ending and band stuff. we were on the side waiting for our orders to be prepared when i was talking to pulses. about sentimental stuff. i really don’t remember how it got to this point, or what set me off, but i started sobbing hysterically. i must have looked like a f*cking psycho to these taco bell workers LMAOOO. first we f*cking invade the place in the last half hour they were open, most of us are drunk, and then i’m crying my f*cking eyes out in the corner of the cantina. basically i was freaking the f*ck out, how i was so sad that i’m getting so f*cking old and that now, FINALLY, all of this cool sh*t is happening to our band. after seven years of grinding and feeling like no one was looking our way. i know you can’t control anything. and i’m glad things like my feature on this year’s [REDACTED] album (and now i found out we are touring with them when they drop the record.................holy sh*t) are happening now, at all, rather than not at all. jeremiah told me that i don’t have to worry about the whole buying a house/getting married/having kids thing, and that he’s not worried. so i think my anxiety just got really bad in that moment. though i know that’s my brain being mean to me, i was drunk and vulnerable. i bawled my eyes out into taylor’s arms and shook it off minutes later.

it was during THIS evening that ryan decides he’s going to make a bucky the buc-ee’s beaver twitter account, and starts talking to everyone like a beaver with southern drawl. he even types out barbeque like BARBELQUE, EVEN THOUGH THERE’S NO L LMAO. even when you pronounce it in that accent. i can’t hahaha. so he starts replying to literally EVERYONE and ANYTHING.

he made up a jingle for buc-ee’s that is DEFINITELY not brand friendly. it was the WSA bio for a few hours but then i deleted it and he moved it to his bucky account hahaha. i still crack up f*cking thinking about it RIGHT NOW as i’m typing this lmaooo. i’m not putting it here in case my family reads it. you can go find it if you wish hahahaha.

we had been waiting so long to have airbnb hangs and it was a bummer they were going to be so short. but we immediately started making the best out of it. poor tyler instantly passed out on the couch so he missed it, but he didn’t miss too much. we were gonna get a big group picture with yeti but several of them had left after the gig, so it was like it wasn’t going to be everyone in the photo anyway :----( we didn’t realize the time to get it was while we were at tako cheena. so we piled onto the staircase and got a big group photo, pulses. and WSA. you can see that my face is still red from crying and my makeup is completely gone hahahaha.

photo was done, so it was time to get in the pool. man, i wish it was actually hot out or that the pool was heated because it was FREEZING. but i was committed to using the bathing suit i packed. i changed, grabbed a claw and headed for the back. yeah i froze my ass off, but whatever. matt jumps in first and assures us it’s better once you’re in for a few minutes. i never got comfortable but i was able to tolerate it long enough. we stayed up until 4 am just talking and shooting the sh*t. at one point, without speaking, jaime stands up, approaches the pool, and walks in fully CLOTHED lmaooooooooo. he swam to the other side and back while we all howled laughing. jaime is like that, he can be a quiet dude but once he’s really feeling himself he’ll just do something out-of-pocket out of nowhere. he’s so funny hahaha.

to be here with everyone again in orlando and ending the tour like this was wonderful. on the last tour the orlando bnb happened halfway through, and we had way more time to get wasted and party because we were off the next day. still, it felt like we got that same quality of hangs in. we laughed about the idea of driving all the way to florida just to play two shows and then go on vacation together for a full week. the only reason tour doesn’t feel completely like a vacation is because you’re still working really hard, just not in the conventional sense. and you get way less sleep than you would on a regular vacation haha.

the next morning pulses. woke us to let us know they were leaving so that we could say goodbye and see them off. well, little did we know that we would be seeing them again. WSA was packing to leave the airbnb when i realize i can’t find my fanny pack anywhere. somehow, matt took it by accident HAHA. so we ended up having to meet them in daytona (at buc-ee’s, of course) to exchange stuff. they had left shirts behind at the airbnb so it worked out. the timing also ended up creating a serendipitous opportunity for santino to meet one of his internationally famous WWE heros, braun strowman. not that i follow wrestling but the dude had just gone to alexa bliss’ wedding like days earlier haha. we all made one last buc-ee’s run, said“see ya in may” (we’re seeing them in may for our next gig together) and went our separate ways.

woodland creatures II - final thoughts

after a year of planning with yeti, and YEARS of talking about it with pulses., woodland creatures II finally happened. what was a mere hope, and a longtime goal, became real. and it was so much better than we ever could have envisioned.

i want to thank daisy first and foremost for her hard work on this run. she put the brunt of booking all the dates on her shoulders, while balancing everything else she has going on with her bands and her life, and did a wonderful job. this was the first time in my life i could take a step back and let things fall into place, and i’m forever indebted to her for that. thank you yeti for being a part of this tour. to not only finally get to play a gig with ya but SEVERAL!!! it was so sick. and i can’t wait until we can hang out again. yeti truly are one of the best f*cking bands doing it in our scene. we are so fortunate to have them as our friends. thank you kevin and taylor for helping me organize the day to day. i often try to overwhelm myself with things and i seriously appreciate your help on the coordination aspect. thanks to all of pulses. in general for the company, tyler for the photos, and to my bandmates for ripping the gigs as well as they do, and the dozens and dozens of laughs. and thanks everyone for taking a chance on me and letting me draw the flyer. it was truly a work of love!!

thanks to all the promoters- sky daddy, todo amor, DIE entertainment, montgomery drive and perennial- for making the gigs as wonderful as they were. and the venues were some of the coolest we’ve ever played. great contrast to playing basem*nts with asbestos falling out of the ceiling hahahaha. it was amazing to return to will’s pub, play a gig outdoors, PLAY PLACES THAT MAKE TACOS, etc etc etc. some of the most fun shows we have ever played in our lives. ever. ever!!!!!!!!! can’t say it enough. thanks so much for taking care of us.

thank you to everyone who came to the gigs. thank you for taking time to come see all of us, and oh my god some of you traveled HOURS and i truly will just, i’ll never get over that. thanks for the selfies, buying merch, asking us to sign said merch. thank you for being as stoked as we were to play these gigs, for your time and attention, for maybe giving us a chance if you hadn’t heard of us before, or if you had been waiting years for us to finally make our way out to you. this was the best tour we have ever done.objectively. we have never in our life seen folks tweet that they were so excited to see the gigs and subsequently share that they had an amazing time. please know that your presence mattered. it altered our lives. it makes all of us in WC feel like all this time working so hard and wishing and hoping really was worth it. it was worth it before anyways, y’know! and i should know better, and be confident in that. but to have people look at you in the eyes and say,“please come back”. lmaooo i’m cryyyingasdaskldf agaaaaaaaaain aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

we have been friends with pulses. for so long now and have gone through so much together. from toughing out our own difficult road bumps as bands together, to passing time in a global pandemic, to navigating awkward moments at gigs and late drunken nights laughing until tears leak from our eyes. woodland creatures was born out of a tour three years ago and has become so much more now. the fact that we could put our energy as friends out there and people resonated with that is wild at times. everything is just so much more fun with them. and by extension, more fulfilling. i can forget about being in a“band” and remember to enjoy myself when we’re together. i’ve gone on to carry this with me even when we’re apart, because putting the bullsh*t of trying to be something aside was apparently hard for me in the past. i would even go as far as saying that it feels like my purpose as a musician has completely changed. even if every tour was just clubs and coffee shops here on out, it still feels like we made it. because i truly don’t know or comprehend how it could get better than going on these incredible journeys with our best friends.

i’m so proud of my bandmates for the shows we put on, and how much we’ve grown together. being in a band is not easy, especially when you’re a small band. there’s so much life and day-to-day stress that gets in the way of making music but we’ve managed for the last six years that we’ve been playing together as a unit. six!!! that’s such a long time to be a band. i’m so happy that we’ve stuck it out this long. and yet year after year, it still feels like we’re just getting started. i’m so happy to be on this adventure with them, and grateful that we have each other. i can’t wait to see where the future takes us. they are my brothers, and being in a band with them feels like i’m where i’m meant to be.

for the first time ever, i didn’t spend the van ride home crying. ok, well, i got that all out in orlando, lmao. typically, when i’m thinking about tour on the way home, i’m miserable at the thought of not knowing when the next time we’ll hit the road is. i’ve always been so insecure and unsure of our band’s future. for once, that wasn’t the reason i felt sad. i wished the run had been longer, and i already missed our friends so much. i wasn’t worried about the next time we get to tour. because i know it’s coming, later this year. either one or two runs. i’m not sure which one is going to come first. or which ones will be confirmed first. yaddayaddayadda

WSA is gearing up to have some pretty wild stuff on the horizon. i have to keep multiple secrets from everyone and it’s really the hardest thing. worst of all, due to life being LIFE and things that continuously keep getting in our way, the album is definitely now in danger of not being released this year at all. but i’m prob thinking we’ll at least start dropping singles from it by the end of 2022, worst case scenario. we are home feeling more inspired to finish the record than ever, so we are trying. but in ADDITION to that, know that there is even more amazing on its way and i could not be more impatient about sharing it. and WCII was the best f*cking way to kick it all off. i can’t believe i’m going to be going back to a normal job this upcoming week. i wonder where the year is really going to take us. but i’m gonna shut up and let all just happen. i’ll document as much as i can while enjoying every moment. these things that i never, ever dreamed were possible for us. they’re happening. it’s f*cking surreal. and i know that with pulses. and all our friends by our side, it’ll just be so incredible.

2021

LMAO I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS SITE IS STILL ACTIVE

going into this year, i had way too many expectations. in january i said to myself that by the end of the year i would be partnered and full time on twitch (lmao) and that the WSA full length would have been done and out (lol. lmao). i pep talked myself saying,“hey, you’re not going to get a lot of sleep this year. and you’re going to be reeeeal tired. cause you gotta go back to work. you literally have to.”

it was difficult at times, but i basically just sacrificed having more free time and/or a social life. a pandemic is still raging, so it’s not like it mattered that much. i still had *some* free time. the biggest sacrifice was time at the gym; i really did not get to go at all and had to work out at home, if at all. i also had to slowly stop accepting commissions which crushed me. i realized i could not deliver work in a timely manner and had to give that up, whereas last year they were all i did. weeeee haha

the winter was pretty quiet. i still felt like i was constantly busy due to streaming. our day-to-day excitement was binging haikyuu and cooking hellofresh meals. the most adventurous thing i did was drive to connecticut to record a feature at silver bullet studio. that was pretty nerve-wracking cause i had to nail it that one session; that studio was a 3 hour drive away. it was great to see my friends from huo again and work with chris teti. it snowed so much, so it was incredible watching my arctic dog play and sleep in the snow. on stream i was working on beating mario sunshine and 3d world with friends. i picked up a more consistent twitch and tiktok schedule, because i desperately wanted streaming to be my job instead of wherever i landed this year. as i got busier, all my quarantine plants slowly died one by one. that’s something that really saddens me every time i think about it. i filled my house with plants, a longtime goal, and they all started to wither away the busier i got. i did finally get to decorate the house in other ways though, like making the loft area cozier; something i had been wanting to do. the one thing i will say, is that when i started to work much harder on my gaming content, i saw some change.

a couple of the most poignant things that happened to me in the winter were being hosted by a top smash player and getting a chance to get to know him, and being recognized by my favorite band lower definition. i did a podcast where i spoke in length about their discography and they not only heard it but listened to it multiple times. like, it equally blew their minds that someone would go out of their way to talk about them. that is unbelievable to me, because they are lower definition, but they said it was incredibly validating for them. the guitarist wrote a long IG post and tagged me and i bawled my eyes out on stream.

as it got warmer out, we set out to do more things for ourselves. jeremiah built me a goddamn garden box!!!! so i still got to garden this year. i went with all starters (except for the kale i grew from seeds).it was wonderful having fresh vegetables and herbs again. my basil plant grew so huge. we started to see friends more; one by one i was having friends at the house to meet brawly and eat hot pot when i wasn’t busy with streaming. jer and i also finally started going out on hikes, dinners (CONVEYOR BELT SUSHI) and dog meetups since we were vaxxed and felt safe. even saw some friends we hadn’t seen in forever. when things started to open back up and friends were getting together, i still had to miss so much due to streaming. i was still hellbent on not breaking my consistent schedule. i look back and i think it was still worth it. even when only 5 people showed up to watch, i’m glad i put the work in. i get really bad fomo but i was trying so hard to lay the foundation for what i hoped would allow me to eventually be in control of my schedule and thus have more freedom. i look back and that part of the year was still so good. all of the warmer months were honestly wonderful. the perfect balance of spending time streaming and seeing friends. i miss it very much.

one thing i finally did was I WENT BLONDE. i have been dreaming of doing this since 2018. however, i never had the extra money for it. i had some funds saved from unemployment so once i started getting income again i booked an appointment. lo and behold, we got it in one f*cking session, and my hair didn’t fall off. for years folks have told me to not go blonde or that it wouldn’t look good on me and they were all wrong lmao. it’s weird how changing one facet of your appearance is technically not that big of a deal but holy sh*t i feel like a new person. it’s great. if you are also brown please also go blonde!!! let us be the blonde brothers!!!

it was a tough year for my band as we chugged along on album writing. we did wrap most of it by the end of the year but it took many sessions and lots of alcohol lmao. we finally released murder mountain, which was years in the making. the video hit road bumps and wrapped filming in february. when we were set to drop it in may, we prayyyed to god it would be a turning point for us. we wanted so badly to finally accomplish the streaming numbers our peers have, but we fell short. however, when you put that aside, we absolutely demolished all of our prior release records and dozens of new folks did find us. we also FINALLY dropped a hot sauce which was an absolute dream come true. that sh*t sold out in 24 hours. unbelievable. we played a string of shows with pulses. in the fall and i’m so glad that was how we came back to live music. i would not have wanted it any other way. it was our first time seeing them in person since the previous tour, too. that weekend was a dream. i had never played so many great gigs in a row. i couldn’t believe it. i was actually happy after playing a set. a lot of folks know i nitpick at my performances but i legit had nothing. it sucks we couldn’t gig more this year, but the time off to write was nice. it turns out, however, that we need more. eek lmao

we wanted so badly to have a huge 2021 and drop the record. we wanted to line things up so that when 2022 came around our lives would be changed. but life happens. living is expensive. and that’s basically the root of our problem. that’s literally it. i am in awe of how quickly other bands can turn releases around, or tour actively. that was why we waited so long to do a record and now the record is proving to be as arduous as we feared it would. we’re inching closer to the finish line but we sadly prob won’t have it done in time for our plans in the spring. so, even if we finish recording, there are so many pieces of the puzzle that must be paid for and we are f*cking broke. most of us are renting homes and don’t get paid much. though i know that it will be worth the wait. we are so thrilled about this material. the hardest part is always pushing yourself to achieve what you conceive as impossible. we are so close.

as the summer months went on, the band and the stream were both growing surely but slowly. i hit 1,000 followers on twitch as i watched a lot of folks start to come back to the stream week after week. i cannot emphasize how much streaming has enriched my life and made days i normally dread (mondays lol) ones i look forward to. this year i played games that i said for many years i wasn’t good enough for like mario sunshine and breath of the wild. it’s so uplifting to have folks you can get together with on weeknights and bullsh*t about life, while sharing the common experience of playing the same video games. it’s so weird. i am not an outgoing person, i’m horrible at small talk, and i usually assume the worst out of folks. but streaming is entirely different for me. i am so grateful to have mostly positive experiences with it.

we started to come up on the end of the year and i realized i was not going to achieve the major goals i wanted to set for myself. i don’t have a consistent subscriber base and the album kept having set backs. at this point i had no choice but to let it all go and just choose to enjoy life. i was able to have a small get together for my birthday which was incredibly fun. i did a hot sauce stream and managed to survive, but i will say i’ll probably need to get even hotter sauces for next time so that i can really do it justice. i finally got to celebrate a holiday with my family, in person. i recorded my feature on the upcoming poeta record, probably the earliest session i’ve ever had lmao, but i got it done! thanks to our friends in the ones you forgot, ourselves and poeta were able to return to house of independents and play an incredible gig. we’re very confident it was the biggest crowd we’ve played to. i’m so mad because we were so prepared but we (mostly me) still made some mistakes. however, it was still a success because we still made a good impression on folks and SO MANY FRIENDS CAME. like kevin and caleb drove up from virginia. it was an amazing weekend. we also had the WSA christmas party for the first time since 2019 and it was only 3 friends’ absences short of being perfect. my family got sick on christmas but it was still a good one.

there are many insane plans for 2022. a lot involving music, and for stream, i gotta figure out some more creative stuff. but it’s going to be another busy year. if it’s like this past year, i’ll be able to handle it. though this wasn’t the year i wanted in terms of accomplishments, it was the year i needed. i needed to remember how important it is to experience life and be present for every positive moment. it makes me sad when each really wonderful day ends because i know i’ll never et to experience it exactly the same again. at this point, i am unfortunately still fearful about my future. i’m... phew. in the last year of my 20s. so i can’t really write what i’m thinking or i’m going to piss and cry and throw up. but while i will put a positive mindset first and foremost for 2022 i need a miracle to happen lmao. of course, i will accept how the year ends with grace, and be grateful. but i’ve been having mad anxiety re: when we’re finally going to start a family, when we’re going to have the money to move onto important milestones in our life... i don’t know that these can coexist financially with the band and streaming. and i am very, very scared. not gonna lie tho, if student debt was cancelled and cost of living went down, that would change everything. that would eliminate my anxiety. i don’t have much faith in the government/society tho lmao. so i am putting these thoughts out here in the open now and subsequently putting them away and never speaking of them til maybe next year. the most important thing is that i owe it to myself to not give up until i really can’t keep going, and that’s gonna be the plan for now i guess.

so i try to document my life with the hopes that no matter what happens i have so much to look back on and be glad for, knowing that it was better i experienced it all than to have not tried. this reads really morbid, but i promise it’s a good thing. as gut-wrenching as it is to accept that time moves quickly without warning, i have to realize how many incredible memories i’ve created and that my life is simply going to take a different shape as i grow older. it’s funny though because i mentally feel the youngest i have ever felt in my life. i feel like my life is only getting cooler. so i would like for it to not all come to a screeching halt. pls.

TLDR:

- got more serious with streaming and it’s slowly paying off

- first full year as dog owners

- watched so much anime (but that should be implied lmao)

- bought a new pc, jer bought me a new gaming chair, insane

- hot pot nights though that sh*t fogs up the whole house

- my band dropped our best single

- we dropped a HOT SAUCE. a longtime dream

- the new pokemon snap game. that is all.

- played amazing gigs with wonderful friends

- jeremiah built me a garden box, grew hella crops

- played games i thought were too difficult for me to play

- CONVEYOR BELT SUSHI.

- met amazing people while streaming

- the two emote commissions i got to do, lmao

- had many wonderful hangs IN PERSON with FRIENDS because VACCINES

- took brawly to doggy meetups

- lots of fun writing sessions with my bandmates. many involving alcohol

- recorded guest vocals for many a friends

- recognized by my favorite band for doing a podcast about them

- finally having birthdays and holidays with family and friends in person

- PEDALBOARD DAY

- finishing song lyrics for the record, a few of which i banged out in one day

- lots of fun gaming nights with friends

- jeremiah’s love and support

2020

damn my last tumblr post is the last day of woodland creatures, did i not do a 2019 wrap up?? i feel like i did. oh well lmao

so, arguably the most tumultuous year in modern history (at least, american history- all pandemic and political events considered) is about to come to a close. it was very not fun experiencing a pandemic as millions lost their loved ones to covid. i was part of the 20% of people that became unemployed as a result of the economy taking a huge dump. i would not want to experience this same year again if it meant that every life lost could be saved. with the year i was given, i made the best out of it that i could.

like every other person on this earth (except for where the virus was already spreading), this year started out normal as hell for me. i was hating my job but chugging through each week, with the occasional show to worry about and then planning our band’s 2020 release plans. despite my salaried job, i was barely making enough to put anything away in savings, forthcoming disney trip aside. i really felt like i was putting in all this work at a full time job just to barely stay afloat and it grated at my soul. i don’t dream of labor, and i only take jobs like this because nothing i am passionate about truly makes money and the marketing jobs i would actually care about are never available to me/never come to fruition after submitting myself for consideration.

disney was a huge highlight of my year despite being deathly sick. i keep wondering if i had covid (i never figured it out), but it sure as hell felt like it. i feel like if i did have it i would have passed it on to jeremiah and his family but i didn’t. i could still kinda taste, but not smell because i had the worst sinus infection i ever had in my entire f*cking life. like i know i get them a lot but really, holy sh*t. i really had it bad. it started when we were in the studio the 2nd to last weekend of february on the last studio day. i had to go back to the studio several months later because i was that unsatisfied with how the vocals came out. i didn’t want to f*ck up these releases and have my performance be mid so i was willing to pay to have to re-do everything. i assumed if this was like any other sinus infection, it would go away in a week.

lmao.

i had that infection for THREE WHOLE f*ckING WEEKS. i played a show with that monster sinus infection, and went to disney with it. i went two weeks without meds because i really was convinced it would go away on its own. before we left for disney i finally got antibiotics at urgent care and couldn’t drink most of the trip which sucked. but that finally did the job, and the infection waned when we returned from disney. despite being physically weak, in pain (there was one friday my body pains were so horrible that jeremiah contemplated taking me to the hospital), and leaking snot all over my sleeves the entire trip (LIKE IT WAS THAT UNCONTROLLABLE. I HAD NEVER GONE THROUGH THAT MANY PACKS OF TISSUES IN MY LIFE. I WAS LEAKING SO MUCH I HAD TO LOCATE THE BABY CHANGING STATION IN MAGIC KINGDOM. IT WAS LIKE A SECRET STERILIZED TROVE OF HAND SANITIZER, WIPES, TISSUES AND BABY OIL.) i had an amazing time at disney. and it was my first time going with a significant other so it was incredibly fun. it was also a wonderful opportunity to spend time with his family. the only very not fun part was missing our nephew in the main street parade because some bozos f*cked up the info they gave my sister-in-law and we were out walking around when his high school band had actually marched earlier than we thought.

it’s funny, because that weekend after we returned was the last weekend of“freedom” everyone had before lockdown. we were weary of covid while in florida but still living it up on vacation. at that time, there had only been 3 cases in orlando. 3!!!! i had plans to go to a party once home but i cancelled only because i still wasn’t completely out of the woods and 100% well again. i felt so bad cancelling because it was for my friend’s party and she never really did parties usually :( and i thought it wouldn’t be a good idea considering i may or may not have had covid.

then... the following week came.

monday we got a weird email from our CEO saying there was going to be salary cuts and that it was essential for the company to survive a downturn. i pouted but my parents consoled me saying it was better than nothing; maybe look for a new job. and then- i got the nothing! a day or two later, i was let go. and i could tell my manager was absolutely not souped to be giving me this call at all. she literally prefaced it like,“this sucks, but-” and gave me the news. and i was utterly devastated, sobbing controllably, because i was just scraping by on this income to begin with. and i had JUST, finally, received health insurance through this job. i was asked to continue working through friday the 20th, which i would be paid for, and then i would have to return my laptop and any other work materials (like printouts and promo stuff) i had possession of.

that day and the days following i had coworkers calling me or emailing me telling me they were so sorry. i was the first to be let go, and they were kind enough to extend words of encouragement to me. clients i worked closely with, a couple of them around my age, assured me that i could use them as a reference. many of my colleagues were my higher-ups, but were very down-to-earth people. one call that stuck out to me was from my colleague sarah.

sarah was candid with me and said,“y’know how i was unemployed for 6 months?” i knew this well though we had only worked together for a year and a half; it was an important part of her path to where she was in her career now and why she chose it. she continued, “those were the best 6 months of my life.”

and i would come to find out that yes, me too being unemployed was the best f*cking time of my entire goddamn adult life.

when i posted i was officially unemployed i had an outpouring of support from my friends, and received enough animal crossing commissions to pay one month’s rent. the first day i finally felt peace was when i was sitting on my porch on an abnormally warm march day playing animal crossing following my last day at my company. it was like the universe was giving me a hug and telling me everything was going to be all right.

what would come was a pretty chaotic couple of months. jeremiah, my roommate and i would stay up until 3 am either watching anime or playing video games, subsequently sleeping until 11 am or noon. pair having fun, drinking (mostly me lmao) and lounging about with the scary realization that thousands of people every day were dying of covid and it could be my high-risk parents. i would cry at night and be so f*cking scared. my sibling would tell me my family was being reckless, running unnecessary errands, and whenever my dad showed up to drop off food or necessities i would cry because i couldn’t hug him. i’m even getting choked up thinking about it now. and it was a fear that returned during the second spike around the holidays because it is the loss i fear the most.

amidst this really horrible time, i would play games almost every other night online with my friends and it was so much f*cking fun because all of us were either unemployed, furloughed or working from home. we’d laugh so goddamn hard our voices were hoarse. one of my favorite memories is playing quiplash with the creatureposting gang and then my big friends from college. and a really fun night in particular was SIIE release night, i popped a bottle of champagne and got absoluely zonked lmao. every few days i would have something to look forward to, some sort of virtual plans with my friends. this would continue until july when my friends were slowly starting to go back to work.

most of my early quarantine days were as follows: wake up, watch anime, work on commissions for most of the day, order extremely good food for delivery, play video games, and then bed. at one point commissions became so overwhelming i started to get slower at churning them out. though this became a daunting project, WOW it really forced me to become a better artist. and this year i got to spend so much more time drawing, which was fantastic.

one thing i DID NOT spend a lot of time on at all? ugh. MUSIC. f*ckING MUSIC. i barely touched my guitar, stopped writing lyrics after july, and barely completed the instrumentals for about 3 songs. the only thing i consistently practiced was singing (because i would literally curl up and die if i didn’t). do you have any idea how much i blabbed to my therapist in 2019 about how much i would get done if i didn’t work full time and could just focus on my creative endeavors? and then life HANDED that sh*t to me on a silver platter the following year. i really did nothing insane musically with my time. and now i am really kicking myself for it. if i think about it, it was mostly because i was so exhausted from doing AC commissions, and partly because i was really intimidated about the prospect of struggling through songwriting. now i really wish that i had tried.

one thing i started doing this year was streaming. i originally planned to just do it for fun, because i am horrible at video games and i really didn’t expect much out of it. i thought it would be cool if my friends could watch me play animal crossing. and then i unfortunately learned that this 3rd expensive pasttime is actually really, really, really fun. i started to spend half my week streaming and it led me to either getting closer to some online friends i only talked to a lil previously and making new friends. viewers would ask me if i continue to stream after the pandemic was over, and i enthusiastically assured them i would. and i meant it. even with the difficulties of returning to work and the band playing shows again considered, i really wanted to. i don’t get invited to things anymore anyway, so f*ck it if that’s what i stand to lose lmao.

when the curve flattened in jersey i decided to become lenient again and start meeting with my bandmates. we spent the year trying to finish some new material and chip away at what work we have to do for the full length (yes, a full length). we had plans to tour this year and it sucks that fell through. we also had plans to do so much more content during the pandemic and we faltered under the stress of... well, existing in a pandemic. we did finally get to drop a new single though, and the difference in hype now vs when we dropped our last work was incredible. i am so thankful we were able to build an audience with nothing new for two years. i still often beat myself up because god every day i look around me, at our peers, and wonder where the f*ck we’ve gone wrong to have such a slow build. and even daily just trying to stand out and prove that we have cut our teeth/deserve a chance is so demoralizing. i feel like it’s even worse than before. i literally have to talk to myself out loud, both alone and during interviews lmao, to remind myself that we truly have accomplished so much. and to take in and appreciate the little positive things. because this could all be over in a second. and this won’t be forever. the older we get the more we are risking for this, both time and resources, and it won’t do to let myself get bogged down over my inner competitive voice. but god it’s hard. like even with new music we still didn’t even TOUCH any of the goal numbers we set for ourselves in may. though we did put out less music than we had planned, and we really hope to change that in 2021 forreal.

there was a single we were supposed to put out this year that’s on hold due to some pending assets but goddamn. if we really don’t break some sort of ceiling with this one i don’t know what will. i have the strongest gut feeling about the next single and in my opinion, it’s the best one we’ve had to date. when we play it at shows, the air in the room sometimes shifts. i’m eager to see what the response is and i’m so ready to push it with everything i have.

f*ck this is getting so much longer than i planned i have to try to wrap this up lmao.

with our government stimmy money we turned around and got the dog of our dreams. we figured, i’d be home enough to watch him, and it was finally goddamn time. it’s why we moved into a house and not into another apartment. i was so scared meeting the puppy parents, and totally on edge the entire day. we went out to meet the breeder to test my allergies and see how i would react. samoyeds are not 100% perfectly hypoallergenic, but they were often lauded for being so. honestly? i still didn’t feel confident after two hours with the dogs because the pollen out there was bad (one of my WORST allergies) and i had mysterious hives on my arms i couldn’t figure out where they came from. for months jeremiah and my parents had to calm my nerves and remind me i lived with 3 cats before i moved out (i’m more allergic to cats) and that i would be fine. i had to do a lot of work on myself to get out of my own way about being excited about finally owning the dog of my dreams.

this little f*cking boy. i couldn’t believe he was real. neither in the pictures i often looked at about 20 times a day on the breeder’s facebook page nor when we went to meet him. and he was truly, truly perfect. our little sh*thead. when we went to go pick him out, he sat apart from his puppy pile of brothers, sniffing around the room and trying to rip off his ribbon collar. we locked eyes and he f*ckING APPROACHED ME. i could not fathom any other puppy in the room being brawly. this was the one. we could already tell he was a mischevious smartass, because once he untied his ribbon he proceeded to rip off the ribbons of all the other puppies. but he was the cutest, flopping over on his back when you were near to get belly rubs.

ever since we have picked him up he has simultaneously been the biggest joy in our lives and the most source of stress lmao. that first week, and the next couple, werE f*ckING ROUGH. i had a horrible anxiety attack when i couldn’t calm him for bedtime the first saturday he was home and i was loudly sobbing to jeremiah that i couldn’t handle this sh*t lmao. he was so scared i was having regrets but i am just a f*cking anxious wreck and not used to having a DOG!! this is my first dog!!! but while i can remember what life was like before him i cannot imagine going back. the first time he got sick and we took him to the emergency vet i cried so hard. when he is wagging his tail happy to see me and he looks like a f*ckin seal because his ears are folded back it is the best feeling. i’m so excited for when he gets older and we’re vaccinated for covid so that we can take him on so many adventures. he is truly the best.

there is so much more i want to say but this is long as sh*t. this is even painful for me to read lmao. it’s always been for me, a guy with dogsh*t memory, to remember everything, but so, so much happened. so i’m gonna wrap up the real descriptive stuff with this.

being unemployed allowed me to just experience life. to wake up each day, enjoy the sun in my backyard, have time to try new recipes, go for long walks, GET A DOG, get better at art, get better at singing, spend more time with friends (virtually), bond even harder with my amazing, beautiful boyfriend, create amazing work with my bandmates, improve at video games, connect with people all over the world, and so much more. all my life i let money dictate my every move. i am insanely privileged to have experienced this but when i had to just live within my means off unemployment i did just fine. i once believed i was perpetually indebted to my employer when i was discarded like it was nothing. i can get a job anywhere and be fine. it strengthened my class consciousness and while i have control over my own destiny it is our country that has so royally screwed us of living the lives we should be living. our lives do not revolve around labor. so until we win the fight and get what we deserve, i will be returning to work next month (full time... in commercial real estate.... again), but i will do whatever it takes to replicate the everlasting feeling of joy i felt this year for the rest of my godforsaken life. if that means struggling for 2021 to build up my twitch channel and the band, working 9 hour days and then streaming/writing music for another 4, so be it. i felt from a young age i was not destined to live a normal life and that feeling has stayed with me no matter how much i have tried to play the game of life as i have been told. i finally have the confidence to pave the life i want.

so, if you are here at this very spot because you read everything, thank you. if you are here because you scrolled to see how long this was, here’s the TLDR of my best parts of 2020:

- tapping out cover

- the 2 shows we played lmao, maybe 3 tops

- disneyworld

- ACNH outside on the porch on release day in warm weather

- making banana bread

- learning how to BRINE meats

- watching anime until 3 am, namely the time we watched pokemon journeys until 3 am

-watching so. much. anime.

-watching livestream concerts with my friends (the chon one was a real good time)

-playing jackbox with my creatureposting friends, the volcano saga (if u know u know)

-playing jackbox with my big friends

-the first time we ever had panchos and juanchos

-finally having sushi again after painful cravings and being grumpy

-the first time we had chinese food again after the lockdown began

-hitting the punching bag for the first time in forever (my dad bought me one)

-the first time we had ramen in forever

-surprising joe with cake at his doorstep for his birthday (we thought he would be the only one with a pandemic birthday lmao)

-playing monopoly and wheel of fortune on the switch, surprisingly having fun

-jeremiah’s birthday

-getting PAID for my ART

-writing + recording ONE (1) acoustic demo

-finally finishing the singles, fixing the vocals

-shooting band promos

-unus annus

-meeting samoyeds

-meeting BRAWLY

-streaming except for the times 13 year olds cyberbullied me

-my birthday when my mom got me a terrifying singing birthday candle contraption and my sibling curbstomped the sh*t out of it (i was literally crying laughing like that kind of noiseless laugh cause you’re laughing that hard)

- getting the stamp of approval from andrew wells and anthony green

-my friends having their first baby!!!

-dying from thanksgiving charceuterie board

-that week i binged ghibli movies on an hbo max trial and did nothing else

-filling the front porch with plants and most of them SURVIVING the fall, possibly winter but we’ll see in 2021 lmao

- (in general) nailing riffs i f*cking sing over and over when practicing but prob won’t get down good enough to sing in front of others lmao

-solo inflatable pool hangs

-thursdays with sarah in the fall playing with the puppy

-the release of the first WSA single in two and a half years

-virtual movie night with sarah watching happiest season

-the music video shoots

-brawly experiencing CHRISTMAS

-receiving really thoughtful gifts from jerry and my parents

-deciding i would work towards being a full time streamer to supplement being a musician

woodland creatures tour - day 8 (falls church)

finally got around to starting the final journal. life picks back up so quickly for me when i return from going anywhere, really, so it’s hard to stick to little projects like this. but i probably could have benefited from writing this sooner after the actual last day of tour haha. it’s funny how we only leave for a week or so but it feels like our lives shift so drastically during that time. it really does take time to snap back into reality and accept normalcy.

after a good night of bullsh*tting until super late (we tried to put on hot ones around 2:00 am but all passed out shortly after) we grabbed coffee and breakfast at coffeeology (i THINK that’s the name) in greensboro. we stopped at a shop literally across the street from the venue we played last year, new york pizza. seeing that place again reminded us of playing to literally our tourmates destination dimension and maybe like 3 other people in the room, versus the couple dozen we played to last night. the main band that played the gig that night literally sat outside the entire show with their friends and only came inside for when they had to play. it was disheartening, to say the least. this time, we didn’t play to a crowd that was there for us, but we played to so many more people who actually stayed inside to watch us.

i wish i could remember this drive, i didn’t have any work to do so i think this was the day i bought untitled goose game and i was playing it a little bit haha. we listened to some music and just enjoyed the trek to our last gig on this run. of course, we started to hit traffic as we approached falls church, which is in the DC area for anyone not familiar. however, we were still making okay time. we could make a detour to drop our bags at the hotel in vienna, get food, and then run our dual band cover of uneasy hearts with pulses. forgot to mention this in the jacksonville journal lmao, i approached kevin with this idea for the last show of tour super casually and we did end up deciding as a whole to go through with it!

the hotel in vienna was such a strange spot, but it was kind of cool? we stayed at the vienna wolf trap hotel hahaha. all of the decor was SO DATED but it was still pretty okay. the guy at the desk was nice, we somehow got on the topic that we were a band on tour rand he gave us late check-in for free! ended up not needing it. but it’s the thought that counts haha.we arrive to the venue and jaime’s girlfriend rebecca is there to greet us :’) poor girl drove their RV all the way down to virginia alone, and that thing drives slowly. but then that meant jaime could ride back up to jersey with her which was good.

it is insane how at home we feel at falls church. i guess everyone south of maryland is just way f*cking cooler than the northeast lmao, but it’s like pulling up to play somewhere at home in jersey and running into old friends. i can’t get over that we have that in a state hundreds of miles from home. it was good to see familiar faces and be back at the vfw. our friends’ band to michigan, with love was also on the gig, and our newer friends in science penguin joined us on the show as well! it was an all-around homie fest. i rolled up to the venue with the remainder of the trulys i purchased the night before, and shoved the box in the fridge haha. i was ready to just chillll.

because we have played here a handful of times, it is also now tradition to walk across the parking lot and go get korean fried chicken at the restaurant next door. it f*cking sucks, we always arrive just in time to eat before doors and i normally can’t eat jack sh*t because of fried/spicy food being horrible for my voice. i ordered bibimbap and then 12 wings to go, for after the show lmao. or a snack after we play!! but i ended up forgetting to f*ckING eat them AND they just sat out overnight in the van so they were toast. goddamnit.i think the restaurant is literally just called bbq fried chicken, the way they fry their chicken is just perfect. the sauces are all delicious and everything besides that on the menu is also tasty.

i wanted so badly to break my last set of tour curse. it’s definitely a self-imposed, silly, superstitious thing, but my last set of tour iS ALWAYS HOT GARBAGE. i always for sure mess up. and this was probably the best last set of tour i’ve had but still not my best performance all of tour haha. i got lost the bridge of murder mountain and couldn’t hear my bandmates for some reason? f*cking embarrassing but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cannot stress enough how much fun it was. it truly was. f*cking, we’re about to play pixelated and i’m trying to give my SHPIEL about not being a JERK musician and i hear the sounds of“smooth” by carlos santana featuring rob thomas faintly playing through my in-ears. i rip them off and i’m like, what the f*ck is going on LMAO. surprise, the pulses. gang were behind it, and tyler, taylor and kevin come dancing up to the stage. i was DEAD. we never do last day of tour pranks so we were fuuuully unprepared hahaha. it was so funny. my meme now takes on a whole new meaning!!

most importantly this show felt like such a fun celebration of tour. pulses., as they did all tour, hyped us up during almost every song and went off for synapse fires. we are too f*cking lucky to have them as friends. they really helped make every set and every show feel worth the hours of travel and sometimes stress. to look out and see their faces in the crowd and singing the words uplifted us each night. it’s unfair that we live so far apart. it’s like how they say your soulmate could be literally anywhere in the world but you won’t know until you go look??? it’s like that but with finding supportive friends. i’m not sure if we’ve stressed this enough but this tour gave us strength to keep going as musicians, due in part to their friendship. we always joked like how the f*ck we’re supposed to just go on not playing shows together or seeing each other all the time but it really does suck lmao. i was in my feelings in both a good and bad way, soooo i immediately scurried off the stage to go grab a truly the second we were done HAHA

it’s always so sad to watch your friends play their last set of tour, too. well moreso bittersweet! but you know that it’ll be your last time seeing them play for a while. i enjoyed every single minute. i love watching them play hometown shows, too. halfway through we jumped on stage to do the uneasy hearts cover, completely unrehearsed, and i’d say we did a pretty damn good job. such a fun way to send off the woodland creatures tour. i had always wanted to do something like this, where two bands play on stage at once (holla me versus i nd the artwork of). the energy the whole song was so infectious, it was fun to see people in the crowd go off too. also, f*cking KRIS KHUNACHAK shot this video with TWO ANGLES holding both his cameras at the same time. i still can’t get over that.

ilove that pulses. played you already know as their closer, it was the perfect way to wrap up their set and the best bookend to the setlist they chose. kevin would get on the mic every night and speak to the crowd, dude is just really good at being a performer and resonating with people. in jacksonville he sat down and everyone followed his lead haha. it was fun to dance one last time with everyone as we watched pulses. kill it before the tour came to an official end. we then gathered outside to take group pictures. it’s the part you don’t wanna get to, because it signals farewells in the near future, but we took some really great ones.

post-gig taco bell plans were foiled, but someone recommended the silver dollar diner nearby. diners outside of jersey are normally horrifying but i trusted the people we were with. we piled back in our vehicles and rolled 20 heads deep to the diner. it was actually a really sick diner with tons of vegan dishes and pretty tasty food. i got chicken noodle soup, red wine and an ice cream sundae because i am a freak of nature. we ate up like 3 tables and sat altogether, just bitching about having to return to real life the following monday. but also, trying to plan the next time we would see each other. already!! and!! talking about doing more shows together. we try to work with different people all the time but there are a select few bands we would tour with or gig with again and again and again and pulses. are one of them. after how much fun this run was it’s pretty hard to imagine not doing this again. it just... makes sense. so much sense. and it feels wrong to not do it again lmao.

goodbyes were bittersweet. we huddled in the parking lot by our van to say goodnight and see ya later, one by one. f*ckin, tyler is moving to nashville very soon so we all probably won’t see him for a hot minute :’----------( thankfully everyone else really isn’t that far if we planned a weekend trip to meet halfway or if we wanted to make the trip out to each other, thank god!!! i don’t know what i would do if i couldn’t always have a part of this tour with me, somehow or some way.

afterword

was thinking of adding a lengthy epilogue but it’s essentially just me openly sobbing in the van the entire ride home hahaha. you’d think that every single time it would get easier to come home but it doesn’t. i know why touring impacts me as much as it does emotionally, but when the bittersweet acceptance of coming home pours over into tears like it does, i feel kinda silly. i’m sure that there are musicians who are constantly gigging that would love nothing more than to be home more, and i know that if i was in their shoes i would come to dread touring, too.

i really, truly wish i was in a place, or that my bandmates and i, were in a place to tour more often, but for now we have what we have. and that’s okay. i want to share something beautiful our friend charlene posted today that deeply moved me:

This is the moment. I’ve made it.

People always ask me “what are you gonna do when you’ve made it?” I need you to understand something; I’ve already made it. I am living out my dreams. It’s not easy and obviously I would only hope that’s I will continue to grow, to reach bigger goals, to push the limits. But I’ve already made it. This is the moment. I won’t let myself miss out on the beauty of life that’s right in front of me because I’m too worried about something that may or may not come tomorrow. This is the moment.

woodland creatures tour - day 7 (greensboro)

normally i feel very weird about sleeping over people’s houses, just in general??? you know what i mean? sometimes you just can’t get comfortable because you’re not in your own bed, not because of where you are or who you’re with. on tour i’m so f*cking exhausted and so comfortable with living like i’m a backpacker that it’s all just normal to me. like a brat i located the couch and crawled up onto it while everyone else took an air mattress. i would have slept on an air mattress but we couldn’t fit one lmao.

i automatically woke up at like 8:30 and couldn’t fall back asleep, so i got up and started getting ready. tour has also made me skilled at being able to freshen up and do my makeup in the crevice of any house, hotel, car, you name it. i try not to make noise but inevitably everyone heard me and slowly woke up one by one. the door was unlocked so i started to pack whatever i could into the van. god, it was so beautiful out. though we were in the south, and the temperature was still pretty high day-to-day, at this moment it just felt like the most beautiful fall weather. we managed to get out of the house at 9:30 am, which we were aiming for. james’ roommate, who was leaving for work, kindly wished us well as we packed up the van to head out. we unfortunately missed james so i shot him a text.

the day before, taylor and i coordinated a group outing to the greensboro science center, which was a museum, zoo and aquarium all in one. for the price of $12 per person, since we were a group!!! incredible! before heading to greensboro, which would be our shortest drive all of tour (an hour and a half!), we hit starbucks and panera again. when we pulled up to the panera it was in a shopping plaza with people lined up waiting for like... verizon to open???? so bizarre.

i desperately needed to hunker down and get some work done before we hit the road, for the most part my phone was providing reliable wifi but i had a time sensitive task that needed to be completed. once that was done we hit the road. we arrived to the science center and once pulses. showed up, we headed in. the science center was so sick. we started our trek around the building at like 1, and penguin feeding was at 3:30. but with so much exploring to do, we knew we’d be able to kill two hours and a half easily.

we started with the zoo portion a

nd saw a lot of cool animals. they had a lot of atypical mammals you don’t always see at zoos. what they DID have was R E D P A N D A S, and theY WERE AWAKE. back at home we have the cape may zoo which is soooooo sick, i love going there, but their red pandas are always sleeping. i literally cried because the red pandas at this exhibit were so much closer, and they were romping around their lil home. the one red panda hopped off its perch and CAME TO THE WINDOW TO SAY HELLO IT JUMPED UP RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. i definitely made a fool of myself getting loudly emotional but i didn’t care in the slightest. my entire life was made. we also saw an owl at the barn where the petting zoo was!!!

we were all laughing so f*cking hard cracking jokes at every exhibit. it felt like an adult school field trip hahaha. i was having so much fun. it was nice to enjoy something together and not be stuck in a van in a rush to get somewhere. the outdoor area tuckered us out pretty badly from being in the heat, so it was nice to get back inside to go check out the aquarium in the air-conditioned building.the aquarium was pretty sick, there was a tank that was home to the biggest octopus i have ever seen in person. i was most interested in the otters and penguins, to be honest. we also hit the touch tank which was sick, except i had to soak my entire f*cking arm just to maybe get a crumb of attention from a sting ray. they were swimming everywhere but where i planted myself.

after going through the aquarium, we still had some time to kill before the penguin feeding at 3:30 pm. we hit the gift shop, where they had red panda and barn owl plushes. what a coincidence, both our tour mascots!! i’m a sucker for stuffed animals so of course i bought one. taylor bought an owl for pulses. so now we both had FRIENDS to represent our bands. we went downstairs to go check out the snakes and lizards. not as exciting for me, but still sick. we were going to hit the museum part finally, but it was 3:20 so we figured might as well head over to the penguins. it was worth the wait. there was a penguin named gojira haha

it turned out that there was enough time for us to get food together before the show. jaime found a restaurant named pastabilities, it was a sit-down but you could make your own pasta dish chipotle-style???? so i got chickpea pasta with chicken, sundried tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms. sooooooooooooooooooo good. i wasn’t going to get pasta because i was going to try to be a healthy guy but ugh what the f*ck ever. i love pasta. i’m not going to rob myself of pasta opportunities!!!! we had another really wonderful meal together as a tour package. i guess because we were the biggest group and you could hear us talking loudly about tour the staff figured out we were musicians. the manager came over and started asking who played what haha.

after a delicious early dinner, we drove to our hotel for check-in so that we could drop our personal bags. pulses. followed us because they were just driving home after the show later, and waited in the parking lot until they could head to the venue. i forget the name of the hotel we stayed at but the people in there were super suspect, and projecting those vibes FOR sure. taylor said she thinks she saw a guy walking around with a burner phone as a car was slowly driving in circles around the parking lot. i’m like great, last thing we need is another scary motel. our stuff ended up being fine though, it was one of the better spots we stayed at.

pulses. awaited us at the venue and we arrived a little after load-in started. it was super quiet when we showed up, we set up quickly and waited around. the house we played, ice house, was huge. so much more massive than houses in new brunswick where students in jersey host shows, mostly. there was so much room to move around and sit, it was nice. at first it seemed like not many people were inside, but then you go outside and there’s DOZENS of kids hanging out drinking. eventually more and more people came inside to watch the bands too. glow and terms x conditions were great!

for all of us, it had been a weird afternoon, but we did our best to be positive and just rip our set(s) as best as we could. and the change in attitude paid off! both our bands received awesome crowd response from the people who attended. it was awesome to see people jamming out and genuinely having a good time. also uh a fight broke out during our set??? insane. there was a kid trying to take down everyone, like just to the ground lmao, and when he tried to do it to david he put in a chokehold. and david grabbed his arm and was just like, STOP. i made everyone stop playing until we sorted out that everything was all right. i had to play without my in-ears which sucked, in the past i have always struggled and tired myself out trying to sing loud enough over the monitors. so i just tried to listen carefully, sing carefully and trust myself. and joe said i hit some like bananas note during synapse that i haven’t been able to do since?? i remember going for it and it was fine, idk maybe it was actually BAD, but i will never know now haha.

we didn’t sell merch, nor make a lot of money, but i think what counts as a successful show is when people receive you super well. leaving a positive first impression on somebody as a band is so important to me because that person could potentially go on to listen to us for a long time. i will say though, it’s important to try to help touring bands make money if you can, like legit anything. i know we’re small guys and we’re not worth much, but we travel so far from home. and this is the ONE time of year that we actually do need money to operate. i’ve run into people who don’t believe in this, or don’t understand. i guess it won’t be possible to make those people understand until it happens to them. it’s why we can only tour on vacation time and even then we deplete our funds.

we sweat our f*cking asses off playing the house because it had no AC, so nothing could feel more refreshing than loading out during a rainstorm. i wasn’t even mad that it was raining. it felt so amazing. normally i bug out during crazy storms, but the thunderstorm was lighting up the sky in an incredible display. it continued as we said our goodbyes to pulses. before they headed back to virginia late, and we made our way to sheetz for post-gig eats. i wasn’t going to pig out but i was feeling the munchies. sheetz doesn’t really have anything wawa doesn’t have except for the tacos, so i got some hard shell tacos that were absolutely banging. also wonderful, they had my favorite flavor of bon & viv (black cherry rosemary) so i grabbed that too. eating tacos and drinking late was NOT a smart move the night before we played our last show on tour, but boy did it feel like a nice TREAT after playing a fantastic show.

woodland creatures tour - day 6

day 6 marked the final stretch of shows and i h a t e d it!!! we started to make our way back up north for our shows in north carolina.

thank god florida has wawa, it was nice to have familiarity of some sort. if i needed coffee i knew what to get, what food sucked and what didn’t, and that i could get cash out of the atm no problem without surcharges or whatever. i also don’t really understand why wawa is only a thing in new jersey and nova??? i think parts of pennsylvania too. just makes it all the more special when you do run into one.

we had our longest drive ahead of us today. nearly 7 hours. while driving back up north to garner was going to suck, at least the remainder of the drives wouldn’t be as bad. we did get pretty stir crazy though. that drive drove everybody insane. f*ck this day is a blur to me lmao, i’m pretty sure this was the day we watched your name dubbed. and i was on my laptop a lot because i had to do assignments for work.

we drove straight to the venue just to check out the area, and at first it was hard to understand where it was??? we knew it was a basem*nt, but the GPS kinda just dropped us off and didn’t indicate what building or store it was the basem*nt of. we made it before pulses. and waaay before load-in. we decided to run to walmart since i still needed to do some work and everyone wanted to pick up some stuff. santino very badly wanted a shirt that said“state” on it lmao which he managed to find. i found a sick mens windbreaker for $12, and i bought a huge bottle of capriccio red sangria for $7. LIKE WHAT. the more i travel the more i fail to understand why jersey doesn’t sell liquor/beer in most stores.

we drive back to the venue to meet up with pulses., and we get coffee at the shop next door. which was a really nice spot! i had to get coffee for later because i wasn’t able to drink it before i sang. they had a honey cold brew i was dying to try. i got hot water and a kale salad to have before the show and i held on to the coffee for later. everyone ordered something except for ryan and santino, they went to go get food elsewhere and get gas or something like that.

it looked like bands were starting to load in as i was working in the coffee shop and we were all shooting the sh*t, so i hit the WSA van chat like“hey, looks like load-in is starting if y’all can start bringing your stuff in.” ryan was like,“we have the van, we’ll be back soon we’re just around the corner.” about a few minutes later i get a phone call from ryan. i pick up, he goes:

“don’t freak out.”

i wait with baited breath. dear god, if you preface with that, that means there’s still grounds to freak out lmao.

“um... it’s really not that bad, but the van is stuck in a ditch.”

i SPRANG from my seat and everyone around me immediately noticed how alarmed i looked. i was like“WHERE ARE YOU.”

ryan says something like“we’re just around the corner, we were trying to find where to load in, drove around too far and tried to turn around but we backed the van up into a ditch. it’s really not that bad, it’s like 2 ft...”

he told me what road they were on and we all just agreed to go and find them. i was pretty mad lmfao. i mean if he was saying it’s not that bad, i was hoping there wasn’t damage but i have never gotten a vehicle stuck in a ditch before. and like, where was the ditch??? what did it look like????as we approached the van everyone was trying to calm me down or say“don’t look” LMAO of COURSE i’m going to look goddamnit. we get closer and from the way the van is sitting, it looks like santino tried to k-turn, backed up too far and into a steep drop-off on the side of the road. clearly the van was stuck but there was no noticable damage. i guess that was why ryan was saying it wasn’t that bad. but the ditch was full of dirt, so there was absolutely no way the tires could get any traction to drive out.

i was just like, are you guys calling a tow truck? someone confirmed ryan was on the phone with somebody. so i was like okay cool welp that’s handled!!! nothing i can do!! and we quickly devised a game plan. if the tow truck arrived in time to get the van out for load in, then my bandmates would just bring the gear over themselves. but if the tow truck couldn’t get there for over an hour, pulses. would bring their van over to carry gear to the venue for us after they finish bringing their gear in. i went to help pulses. bring their gear in, and by the time that was almost done the tow truck got the van out. as far as everyone could tell there was literally no damage to the undercarriage. so we were good. but even if there was we had insurance on the van, rental and CDW. so we were covered.

the venue was kaboom art gallery, in the basem*nt of a building. it was pretty damp, so i had to limit my exposure as much as i could due to my mold allergy (super annoying lol). we fashioned a merch table out of some furniture that was in the basem*nt and set up our stuff next to another touring band, fathom farewell. one of the members is also in a band we played with last year in massachusets, where they’re all from. this show was a weird one performance-wise for all of us because of how long and chaotic our day was, but what felt like weird performances for us still seemed to be a good time for everyone else at the show which was reassuring. i brought my bottle of sangria on stage for the i drink juice skit hahaha. all of the bands were absolutely awesome, it was a really good night. besides fathom farewell, we also played with moryo and the old laws. all the people at the show were really nice! the promoters, sound guy, the bands who played, and the people who attended. our friend james who helped us put the show together came out to support! and put us up for the night. we became friends before tour because we were both looking for help booking out of state this year and were able to get each other’s bands gigs. it was great to hang out at the show and talk more. he’s in a really sick prog metal band named anamorph based in the triangle area of north carolina, which is raleigh, durham, and chapel hill.

after the show the tour ran to sheetz together for a post gig meal. i think this was also when we learned about DBMII instrumentals dropping which was really exciting for me. it was nice to sit and talk after a long day. it’s one of my favorite aspects about tour, to just unwind with friends and revel in the good that DID happen.