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How I Spent My 27th Birthday In Quarantine

If you had told me that I’d spend my 27th birthday jobless, staying at my moms, with the entire world in a lock down, I’d think you were fucking nuts.

But I guess the reality is that the world truly is fucking nuts right now.

I don’t know why but my 27th birthday has always been one that I’ve never looked forward to. You’re officially in your late twenties, you either have your shit together or you don’t, and of course the ol’ 27 club. I wanted to make this birthday the BEST one ever. I had booked off two weeks of work, and was planning on seeing all my friends, and then taking myself of my absolute dream trip to Hollywood, California for a week. It was going to be perfect.

And then the world shut down.

So here I am, at my moms house, I haven’t seen anyone except my one friend Cole for two hours at a park, my trip to California is cancelled, but I’m going to try to still make this a good birthday. So, heres how I spent my birthday weekend in quarantine.

After waking up at 5:40am, 7am, and 8:15am I decided to finally admit defeat and stay awake. I already had a few messages to wake up to, so I started replying and feeling excited for the day. My mom came in a bit later to give me my gifts, which was this amazing candle holder and these cute reusable ice cubes!

Can you tell I like flamingos? I started to get ready for the day and kept getting a bunch of messages from people, which made me feel super happy! I had a received a few cards from people, so once I was ready for the day I opened those next. My friend Amy sent me a lovely card, my friends Chris & Alissa gave me a singing pizza card with a pizza gift card inside, and my friend Megan sent me a package with some BEAUTIFUL jewelry inside!

Thankfully I managed to get permission from my mom to go visit my friend Cole for the weekend (imagine having to ask permission to go to a friends house on your 27th birthday... Thanks, Covid-19!) so since I would be going out later, my mom and I got lunch together. We went to our favourite place in town, L.A. Franks, for some takeout.

I thought these social distance signs were the cutest thing!

A few hours later I headed to my friend Cole's, and we had already agreed to get dinner from another one of my favourite spots in town, My Thai. We settled on a special priced pack they had that came with spring rolls, green curry, rice, and our favourite - vegan pad thai. We were so excited to order our food that we forgot to ask Cole's daughter what she wanted to eat - oops! After placing our order, we had to place a second one for her daughter.

We placed two Uber Eats orders in a row, and then I realized that I didn't have any mix for my vodka later that night. After looking at the options for a while, we placed another order from Tim Hortons because they were offering free delivery. You know where else had free delivery? Little Caesars. And you know what Little Caesars has? Crazy bread. Yup. 4 Uber Eats orders placed in about 10 minutes. It was my birthday. No shame.

After dinner we were sad to see that the weather was starting to get a bit dark and gloomy. It ALWAYS seems to rain on my birthday, this is the third year in a row at least! I was determined to have a drink outside at the park though, and once the rain lightened up a bit, we made some to-go drinks and went to the park down the street.

Okay, so maaaaybe it wasn't our best idea, and we got a bit wet and cold. But we made it outside for a drink and that's what matters! After a bit we decided to head back to Cole's, and we facetimed our friend Elyse for a bit. Once we finished up our facetime, it was time to drink, and we stayed up until 2am drinking, listening to music, and talking.

The next morning Cole made us a yummy breakfast and thankfully, it was beautiful and sunny outside, so we were able to have breakfast on the back patio!

We didn't get up to too much this day, went for a short walk to the grocery store to get some beer for Cole, and just hung out in the backyard. Our friends Chris and Alissa, as well as their baby Finn came to visit (from a safe distance) and it was nice to just have a semi normal back yard hangout again! After they left Cole and I made a bunch of mozzarella sticks in her air fryer, and had a pretty low key rest of the night.

So was my birthday what I thought it was going to be? No, but was it still fun and did I get to see people I care about who helped make me feel special on this strange, quarantined birthday? Yes, and while it was definitely more low key and calm than my birthdays the past few years, it was definitely the 27th birthday I didn't know I needed.

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Salem 2019 Part II

Click here for part one!

I woke up my second morning in Salem and thankfully, it wasn’t raining anymore! The weather wasn’t great as it was still a bit gloomy and cold out, but at least I’d be able to walk around outside, which was the plan for the day. I woke up a bit earlier than planned and decided that instead of taking an Uber again, I would attempt to take the local bus to downtown Salem. I googled the price online and there were so many different prices?? It made no sense to me, but I came to the conclusion that it appeared the fare was $5.50, which seemed like a lot but if you saw the website, it made sense. I used my map app on my phone to help me walk to the stop, and I made it there in time!

And then this mother fucking bus driver watches me pay with a god damn $5 bill before telling me that the fare was only $3. Thanks man.

So there I was, off to Salem again. Even though I had the whole bus route on my phone, I kept getting worried that I had somehow messed up and was on the wrong bus. Thankfully, I wasn’t and I arrived downtown. I went to the same cafe for lunch, and decided to walk around and see what I could find. I stumbled upon the Gallows Hill Museum & The Lost Museum, and they had a specialty ticket price if you bought both at the same time.

Now remember in part I where I said Salem calls everything museums... Yeah, THESE ARE NOT MUSEUMS!! Gallows Hill Museum is a theatre act (okay, I will give them some credit because it does say museum/theatre) and you go into one PITCH BLACK ROOM and a man puts on a one-man show with JUMP SCARES. I, personally, do not like haunted houses. I do not like to be scared. So now I’m stuck in this theater show thats literally meant to make you jump. Sis, I was just jumping from anxiety jitters the whole time okay. Honestly the guy really did do a good job & had I not been alone and known what I was getting into, I probably would have appreciated and enjoyed it more. 

The Lost Museum however.... ITS LIKE AN ESCAPE ROOM COURSE THING. Man I don’t know how to explain it. I just wanted to look at some fucking museum things. But noooo, after my Gallows Hill jumps I thought this would maybe be the museum part. NOPE. We ended up in a group of 5, lucky me being the fifth wheel to two couples, and had a tour guide. When we went into the first room and suddenly everything went black and we “had to escape” I knew in my heart I had fucked up. This was not a museum. This was my own personal torture chamber. We had to go through so many rooms and figure out how to escape them, with things popping up and screaming at us to make us scared. In the last room, the tour guide looked at me and said “you! Go turn that lever so we can escape” and I looked at her and went “No fucking way!” and refused hahaha. I’m a chicken shit okay. Honestly it felt like it was never ending and I was not having it. Salem, please for the love of God, stop calling everything a God damn museum.

So after my two back to back NOT museum experiences, I decided to take a walk to find the real Gallows Hill, which is the spot where the accused witches were hung. On my way I walked past the Witch House, which is a popular tourist attraction and had a huge crowd/line in front of it, so I didn’t go in.

Also saw this neat building!

OOGA BOOGA.

I stopped in this little, kind of sketchy liquour store on my walk and picked up a 4pack of these cute little wine bottles. After I paid I took them out of the package and asked the guy to throw it out for me and tossed them in my purse. He laughed at me.

I’m super bummed to admit that apparently I didn’t even take a picture of the real Gallows Hill! The exact spot were the hangings took place is called Proctor’s Ledge and it was only discovered in 2016. Its a really nice memorial spot, but I wish it wasn’t on such a busy intersection and right behind a Walgreens. Oh well. Heres an image from the Salem Witch Museum website.

After hanging out there for a little while and reading about the memorials, I decided to head back into town. 

I decided I wanted to go to the Satanic Temple, but after my map glitching out and sending me in circles for 15 minutes, I gave up. I found a bench in front of an apartment to relax and sip some wine, and a local happened to see me outside and started talking to me. He was a bit older but he was very kind and was telling me about how long he had lived there, how much he loves the community, and how cool he thought I was for travelling here alone. 

I decided to get some dinner. I knew there was a restaurant inside the Witch City Mall, and got some pad thai. It was the blandest, saddest pad thai I have ever had.

As it was starting to get dark and the day was coming to an end, I realized I had $60 left and three options: go into more museums, buy souvenirs, or go bar hopping alone.

Guess which one I chose. Let the shit show begin, stay tuned for part III.

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Sephora Spring Sale 2020 Haul

Makeup has been a huge love of mine for as long as I can remember. Even when I was a little girl, I always loved going into Claire’s and getting body glitters, lip glosses and, well, anything my mom was willing to buy me. Oddly enough, I remember my first time wearing eye shadow to school. I had gotten a trio of purple shadows, and I wore one to school in grade 6. I believe the comments I got were along the lines of “are your eyes supposed to be purple?” but that didn’t matter to me. 

Right now were in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and while I’ve been trying to not spend any money, when Sephora announced their biannual sale I decided to treat myself to a few things. Nothing like retail therapy to cheer you up.

I have a Sephora VIB account, so I got 15% off my entire order.

Sephora Collection False Lashes - On sale for $6.50 each.

I love false lashes and have been wearing them almost everyday since I was 15. I always wear 2 or 3 pairs at a time! I love the look of big, bold, long lashes and stacking them is the only way to go for me. Normally I would only get one of each, but since they were on sale, I got two pairs each.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Dewy Set Setting Spray - $35

So I’ll admit, I mostly bought this because the picture on the website makes it look like the glitter is IN the spray, when in reality its just the packaging. I’m not too upset about it though, because I have loved almost every ABH product I have tried, and I love a dewy, glowing look. I can’t wait to try this.

Marc Jacobs Beauty Re(marc)able Full Cover Foundation Concentrate - On sale for $35

I’ve actually never tried this foundation, but my mom was buying one and since I noticed it was already on sale, I decided to try it as well. The colour looks like it might be a little dark, but nothing a bit of highlighting and blending wont fix. Plus, I normally self tan in the warmer months, so I think it’ll end up be okay.

Cover FX Custom Enhancer Drops - On sale for $38.50

I’m OBSESSED with anything holographic, so back when Cover FX came out with this holo, liquid highlighter I knew that one day it would be mine. After trying it out pretty much every time I had gone into the store, when I saw it was on sale AND would also be 15% off on top of that, I knew it was time to finally buy it. Very excited about this one!

Clinique Bottom Lash Mascara - $17

This little tube of mascara has been one of my all time faves for a few years now. As I stated before, I love big, bold, long lashes and you can bet that includes my bottom lashes as well! I always found that no matter what mascara I tried though, it always left little bits of mascara under my eyes and would always smudge throughout the day, especially with how heavy I do mine at times. This is the ONLY product I have ever found that doesn’t smudge or create any mess under your eyes throughout the day! It is God sent I swear. 10/10 highly recommend.

Well thats all for now! I can’t wait to try my new products, did anyone else get anything from the sale? Now to just wait for the winter sale for another haul, ha!

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Tips On Finding Abandoned Places To Explore

Something I am constantly asked whenever I post about an abandoned spot is “how did you even find this?” 

Truthfully, finding the place is half the fun. Its part of the challenge, and makes getting to that spot even more exciting. Unfortunately I have had a few spots that we made it to too late (demolished) but that hasn’t stopped me from constantly trying to find new places. 

I feel like theres an unwritten rule when it comes to abandoned places, and that is to not share the location. 90% of the time if someone asks me where something is, I don’t tell them, unless I actually know them and know they can be trusted. Its nothing personal, its simply to help preserve the spot. The less people who know, the more special it becomes, and less chance of it being destroyed.

So, here are some tips on how to find some abandoned places to explore.

Join/Follow Pages That Post Abandoned Places

I follow a ton of abandoned groups on Facebook, and you can find a bunch of pages on Instagram as well. People are always sharing finds on there, and will at times post an area or city/town that its in. Use that as your main clue. If you can find out the town/area, often after a bit of online hunting, you can find the spot.

Another tip that can come from this, is when you’re looking at posts by other people, look for clues especially if there are pictures outside of the building. Can you see any street signs? Is there a water tower or distinctive building in the background? Is the name of the place on the building? These can all be huge hints to help you find where a location is.

Google

Google will be your best friend. I’m going to use Caddy’s, the abandoned strip club as an example. A lot of times if you search the name of the place, if it hasn’t been closed down long the location may still easily pop up on Google. But what if it doesn’t? Well, we know that its in somewhere around Toronto, so start googling things like “abandoned strip club Toronto” or “closed down strip club Toronto” and read EVERYTHING. Any link you can find, read all the comments for clues. Occasionally someone might post the location, it just might take some digging.

Another thing you can do on Google is simply search “abandoned Toronto” or whichever city, if you don’t have anywhere specific you’re trying to find. Sometimes it’ll come up with nothing, but chances are someone, at some point, has posted about an abandoned place they’ve found in that city.

Google Maps Satellite View

Google Maps satellite view is your second best friend. Now, this will at times take a lot of patience and time. This is used best if you know the city/area but don’t know the exact location. Look at pictures of the spot, is it near water? In an open field? These are your hints. Go on the satellite view and starting moving around the map looking for buildings that seem to match the pictures you’ve seen. Sometimes it won’t end up being the right spot, or you’ll go to the spot and realized its been demolished since its location was uploaded, but we’ve managed to find a lot of cool places this way.

This is what Caddy's, the strip club looked like on Google maps (the label I added myself to remember.)

This is what the abandoned log mansion in Brampton looked like on street view. It has since burnt down. Stay tuned for my post about it.

Drive Down Dirt/Back/Country Roads

This method works best on a nice day when you can simply enjoy the ride, because theres no guarantee you’ll find a spot. A lot of old barns and houses can be found this way. Look for visual clues: Are the windows boarded up / broken? Is the roof falling apart? Does the garden/grass look unkempt? Is there a car in the driveway? Sometimes you can easily tell, other times you may need to drive past a few times throughout a period of time to make sure nothing appears to be changed or cleaned up, and that no one is actually looking after the house. You can pin these locations onto your map app so that you can remember exactly where it is.

My pinned locations on my map! Pink are places I've been, and green are places I want to go to!

Keep Your Eye On Closed Down Businesses

This is a way to find places like hospitals, offices, bowling alleys, anything that isn’t a house or barn. If theres a place you’ve known that has been closed down for a while, chances are its abandoned. There could be a maintenance person whos occasionally there, or a security guard, so make sure you look for signs that someone could be inside (a car parked out front, or lights on are good signs.) Even places that have recently closed down could be abandoned, but I would suggest waiting a bit to make sure its not fresh in peoples minds. If a hospital closes down, everyone is going to remember at first, but in a few months might not think about it, you know? 

Offer To Share Locations With Other Explorers

I wouldn’t suggest doing this until you’ve managed to find a few spots on your own, and have noticed people reacting to your posts. You don’t want to seem like you’re just trying to get a location out of someone. If someone seems to have an interest in a location you’ve found, see if they’ve posted any that you’d like to see. This won’t always work, but people are usually more open to sharing locations once they can see that you’ve put in the work and effort to actually find places on your own.

I’m sure other people know of even more tips on finding places, but I think that covers most of them. Good luck & happy hunting! Hope you can find somewhere amazing.

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Salem 2019 Part I

Early in October 2019, my friend and I went to Salem on a road trip and I fell in love. So, when I saw that later in the month the tattoo studio I loved was putting on a dark arts faire, and after thinking about it nonstop, I decided I would finally travel alone and go. I normally have Sundays & Mondays off, and the faire was on a Saturday/Sunday. I figured I would just fly down Saturday after work, go to the faire on Sunday, have Monday to explore Salem more, and fly home Tuesday morning before work. What could go wrong?!

Everything. Everything went wrong.

So I’ve only been on a plane a handful of times, however I have never been on a plane alone before, so I was nervous as all hell. I took an Uber to the airport after work and after getting lost a few times, I managed to check in almost smoothly. Almost, you’re wondering? Yes. My metal tunnels in my ears set off the security alarm, and the girl watching it was not impressed when I had to give her my large tunnels right out of my ears. Whatever girl, I’m sure you’ve seen worse. I had about two hours to kill, and was going to get some food, but man airport food is EXPENSIVE. So I got the next best thing to settle my stomach - booze & anti nausea pills.

2 (or 3?) drinks later, it was finally time for me to board the plane. Of course as soon as I got on, it hit me - I had to fucking piss. Luckily I was one of the first people on the plane, and my seat was pretty close to the bathroom so I was able to run in pretty quick. It wasn’t too traumatizing. The flight from Toronto to Boston is only an hour and a half, so I stuck in my headphones and honestly, enjoyed the flight. It was dark out so I got to see all the city lights from above, it was quite pretty! AND I had no one beside me, score.

Once I landed, I needed to get to my Air Bnb, which was in Lynn, Massachusetts. About halfway between Boston & Salem. I called for an Uber but heres the thing - I didn’t know where the fuck I was. I’ve never been to Boston airport before. I don’t know where any terminals are. I don’t know which side exits to which street which goes in what direction. I know nothing. I found what I THOUGHT was a terminal waiting area, and called an Uber, which was surged up the ass. When he arrived he called me, and starting asking if I was “at the TNT” Uh, what? I kept explaining that I was in terminal 3 passenger pickup, and he kept yelling about some “TNT” thing and that I was wasting his time by not being there. He ended up hanging up on me and cancelling the ride! I was so shook, I thought I was going to be stuck there because I didn’t know what the hell a TNT was. I walked back inside trying to look for clues and oh, what do you know, I walked right past the door labelled TNT. I called for another Uber, which was a hell of a lot cheaper than my original one, and headed to my Air Bnb.

Thankfully my Air Bnb host was a lovely lady and understood me coming a bit late. I was just renting a room in her house, so she gave me a little tour and some snacks. There was even this little friend in my room!

I woke up the next morning after not sleeping all night and ooohhh, yessss, oh wowowowow of course its fucking raining the day I’m supposed to go to an outdoor faire! I checked online and it said it was rain or shine, so I assumed it would be good to go. It didn’t start until 4pm, so I figured I would wander around downtown until it was time to head on over. Luckily since I had been to Salem earlier that month, I still kind of knew my way around downtown. I got an Uber and went to the best little vegan cafe called Jodi Bee Bakes and oh my god, it is SO good. I went there both mornings and I would highly recommend trying it! 

So heres the thing, this weekend that I’m here also happens to be Halloween weekend, and I’m in Salem. You don’t even want to know how God damn busy it was. Not only that, but it’s cold, rainy, and windy. So my plan to wander outside was out of the question. I decided to go into the Witch History Museum. Heres the thing about Salem - they call EVERY building a museum. Even if its one room, its a museum, and they’re mostly filled with wax figures with audio voice overs. The fact that they call everything a museum would be my downfall the next day. So I finished the museum, and was walking through a large comic book store when I decided to check my phone. And thats when I saw it.... My event was cancelled. And it was only 12:30pm.

I decided to find somewhere I could hide inside until I could figure out what the hell I was going to do. My event was cancelled, it was cold, windy and rainy out, it was busy as hell, and I did not want to go back to my Air Bnb. I went inside the Witch City Mall, which is basically just filled with cheesy gift shops and touristy things (and easily has the grossest washrooms I have ever seen in my life), and I found a spot against a wall to sit against. I didn’t know what the hell to do. After sitting there for a little while, I decided I may as well find somewhere to have a damn drink. I deserved one at that point, honestly. I went to a bar/restaurant called The Derby and got a seat at the bar. I posted on my Instagram asking for advice on what to do, and then started pounding sangrias back trying to figure out my life for the day. If only I at least had someone to talk to and hang out with, and thats when the idea came to me: download Tinder and find a friend. Luckily, it worked! I met a guy named Ian who came and hung out with me for a few hours, you can read about that experience here. We had some drinks, had some food, had some laughs, and the best part is that he wasn’t creepy at all. But after not sleeping very well the night before, being overly stressed out, and the fact I started drinking at 1pm I asked him to drive me home pretty early, I think it was only like 8pm or something. I pretty much passed out as soon as I got back.

So my first day in Salem didn’t go as planned at ALL, but I still had a good day! But man oh man, things were gonna get crazy on my second day. Stay tuned for part II!

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Exploring Caddy’s - An Abandoned Strip Club

This honestly may be one of my favourite places I’ve ever gotten to explore, and of course, its the place I got the least pictures of. This strip club closed down in Dec 2017, and as far as I know, has now been boarded up and is near impossible to get into. We were lucky enough to get to explore it in April 2019.

*As of May 17th 2020, I’ve been told its been demolished.

We parked around the corner and walked up to the club. There was a fence around it, but it wasn’t closed. There was also a man who was selling mangoes out of a truck in the parking lot. He didn’t seem to mind or care that we were going inside. We waited until there weren’t too many cars driving by, and walked in through the front door.

Once inside it was pitch black, which is why I wasn’t able to get many pictures (I’ll leave some links to some galleries at the end of this post!) Thankfully we had our phone flashlights, a real flashlight, and flashlight headbands to help us see. All the chairs and tables were still there, and of course the stage and poles.

Attached to the strip club was an old concert venue, so we decided to check that out first before we got fully into the club. Tables and chairs were all left in place, as well as another stage (this one, though, without poles) and we found this lovely message someone had left us on the floor. There wasn’t really much to explore, as it was basically just one big room, but it was still neat to see.

We went back into the strip club, and couldn’t stop laughing at how cheesy everything was! These are the fridges! There was also a DJ booth with a TON of cds labelled things like “Mariah’s Hot Jams” and “Stacy’s Top 10″ so we took a bunch of the cds to try in the car. They ended up working, and we actually liked a lot of the songs the girls had picked, hah!

There were all these individual booths with a single chair and a mirror. Honestly, I would not have trusted sitting in one of those chairs. There were also all of these, uh, “sexy” pictures all around.

Rules are rules, man.

Next, we headed into the basement which is where all of the old lockers were. There was so much left behind! Some lockers were empty, some were still shut, but some had things like shoes, water bottles, makeup and ...Sriracha? 

I’m not even kidding, there was like three bottles of Sriracha down there! Also a container of ranch dressing. Oh, and we found these...

Yeahhhh.... We left those there.

Bedazzled bandanna and an abandoned shoe.

I hope she remembered to bring everything.

Dec 1998 - Dec 2017! This gal “B” was dedicated! After lots of laughs in the basement, we decided to head on up to the third, top floor of the building which was a small hotel attached to the club.

Upstairs wasn’t overly exciting, just a few empty hotel rooms that basically all looked the same. Except for this room. Someone want to explain to me why there is a HUGE FUCKING KNIFE?! Hellllll no.

Surprisingly, things weren’t too trashed! You never really know when going somewhere if its going to be left as is, or totally destroyed.

Hotel hallway.

Can you believe this club could afford to have the Mona Lisa herself?! Girlllll. She has seen some things. 

We went back downstairs and did one last walk around the club, making sure we didn’t miss anything. Of course, we had to take our turn on the poles. How could we not!?

Honestly I don’t think we have ever had as much fun exploring anywhere as we did here, at least thats how it is for me. I feel like I was laughing non stop the entire time, it was just so crazy! Funny enough, I’ve never actually been to a strip club before, so my first time seeing one was this, which I think made it even more crazy to me. I wish I could have gotten a lot more better pictures, but at least I’ll always remember this adventure.

Here are some links to some photo galleries!

Freaktography

Ontario Abandoned Places

Hope you enjoyed this post!

- S

[glmrtrsh]

6 Of My Favourite Tattoos & What They Mean

Personally, I don’t feel like I have a lot of tattoos. There are SO many more I want to get! But when compared to a lot of people I know and meet, I realize I have a fair collection. Everyone always asks the same ol’ questions - “what does it mean?” “which is your favourite” and “did it hurt?” I mean, its a tattoo. Of course it fucking hurt. Although truthfully, most of mine have been pretty bearable. No one ever wants to believe that though. Which brings us to the other most asked questions of “what does it mean? and “which is your favourite?” So I figured why not write about 6 of my favourite tattoos and what they mean. So here they are, in no particular order.

Giant Ass Centipede On My Ribs By Matt Chaos

This is probably the tattoo that freaks people out the most. I mean, its pretty fucking creepy. So heres the things - I hate bugs. Like, I fucking. Hate. Bugs. However I was in love with Matt’s tattoo style years before I ever got the chance to be tattooed by him. He is easily one of my favourite artists and when I saw he was coming to do a guest spot in Toronto, I knew I HAD to get one. But what to get? I definitely wanted something that would stand out, that other fans of his work would recognize. I had seen him do a few other centipede tattoos before, and they just looked so fucking badass. I honestly knew I wanted a centipede from him before he even announced he was coming to Toronto. I must say, he is a lovely human and it was such a breeze getting tattoed by him! While the other side of my ribs felt like living fucking hell, getting this massive piece really didn’t bother me at all! As for what it means? Well, it doesn’t really mean anything, it just means my ribs look fucking cool.

Spider And Moon On My Wrist/Hand By Ryan Murray

Along with Matt, Ryan Murray is another artist whose work I was in love with for years before I got the very, VERY lucky chance to get tattooed by him. If his name happens to sound familiar, its because he is one of the owners of The Black Veil Tattoo in Salem, Massachusetts. The Black Veil is a very well known tattoo shop owned by him and his twin brother Matt Murray, who competed on Ink Master, and the pair have been featured on Vice. I plan on making an entire post about how I ended up getting this because let me tell you, I did NOT expect it to happen and yes, I cried. It doesn’t have a meaning in the tattoo itself, but as with Matt’s, has a distinct style that fans will recognize. It will always remind me of the time I got it done and its just such an amazing memory for me. Stay tuned for that post!

Flowers On My Chest By Jennifer Lawes

I always wanted a chest piece, but I never liked the idea of a full chest piece. While I love dark, creepy and spooky tattoos, I always wanted my chest to have a bit more of a girlier, feminine vibe. I finally stumbled upon pictures of different artists who had done floral pieces like this, and I fell in love. I found the perfect artist via Instagram thanks to a recommendation. It doesn’t have much of a meaning, I just think its really pretty, and the bee was the cutest extra touch.

Captain Spaulding On My Ankle By Rosario

Rosario was my first “regular” tattoo artist in Toronto, and I found him through a friend who also had a lot of work done by him. A few years back for Halloween he was doing horror movie flash, and I had commented on a post suggesting he make one of Spaulding. He teased that one was coming, and once the flash post got uploaded, I’m pretty sure I claimed this piece in like, 15 seconds or something insane haha. Captain Spaulding is a character from the Rob Zombie movies House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, and 3 From Hell. House of 1000 Corpses happens to be one of my favourite movies, and Spaulding is a hilarious evil killer clown, to simply put it. 

Unfortunately, the actor who played him, Sid Haig, passed away on September 21, 2019. May he rest in peace.

Eagle On My Arm By Chris Rae

This tattoo holds a special place in my heart because I got it matching with my friend Chey on our first American road trip together. We knew we wanted to get matching tattoos, but weren’t sure where. We were planning on getting tattooed in Pennsylvania, but took a wrong turn and ended up in New Jersey. A quick Google search brought us to Chris’s shops page, and we figured eh, what the heck. Lets try there. We are both SO glad we did because we ended up having an amazing experience thanks to Chris and the entire staff at Mr. Blue Sky Tattoo, they were all such lovely people! We walked in and were basically like “Hey, we’re on a road trip and want a tattoo, you got any flash?” As soon as we saw the eagle we knew it was the perfect one, for ‘MURICA Y’ALL. We joked about the differences in Canada and America, and Chris actually has a tattoo of our Toronto 6ix God Drake. It was meant to be, honestly.

The Brave Little Toaster By Iti

Look, I love this tattoo for so many reasons. First off, The Brave Little Toaster is my absolute all time favourite movie. Second, thanks to this tattoo, I met my lovely friend Iti who I now get tattooed by quite often! She was a apprentice, stick-n-poke artist and had posted online looking for people she could practice on - for free. Who’s going to say no to a free tattoo?! I love this tattoo so much, it always makes everyone who sees it, including myself, laugh at how dumb it is. I mean look at his face. Dude looks high as a kite! I’ve actually even met someone else who has a Brave Little Toaster too and we both laughed at the fact that we both had them. Mine is better though, obviously. (Just kidding!)

Anyways, theres a look at a few tattoos I have! If you’d like to see more posts about some more that I have and their meanings, let me know! 

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Worlds Worst Vegetarian

Hi, my name is Sarah, and I am a self proclaimed bad vegetarian. I have even dubbed myself as “Worlds Worst Vegetarian” and before you ask: yes, I am actually a vegetarian, and no I don’t eat meat - ever. 

So how does one become Worlds Worst Vegetarian? Well, theres a few things I do that typically most vegetarians wouldn’t.

First off, I drink caesars. Anchovies, baby. Look, I can’t help it, they’re so damn good. Worst part is that I started drinking them AFTER becoming vegetarian. However there is the old debate of whether seafood is classified as meat or not, and many people live a pescatarian lifestyle. For those of you who don’t know, pescatarian is where you’re basically vegetarian except for the fact that you also eat seafood. However, I don’t eat any seafood (to be honest, I was never a fan to begin with) and in my opinion, seafood is made of once living creatures, and is meat. Which I don’t eat. But, apparently I will drink ground up with some clam juice. It is what it is.

Second, I am a bitch who likes to eat, and I don’t believe in wasting food. So if you’re going to offer me a slice of pepperoni pizza, you best your ass I’m just going to pick off the pepperoni and eat the rest of the slice. I get my Tim Hortons breakfast sandwiches with bacon on them so that my mom can take it off and have extra bacon on hers. I’ve bought sandwiches that have a ton of veggies on them and some sort of deli slice, just to take the meat off and eat the rest. Of course, I much prefer a true vegetarian option, but if I’m hungry or there is nothing else available, I’m gonna take what I can get.

Third, I collect taxidermy. I won’t eat a dead animal, but fuck yeah let me have its skull and put it on my shelf. Small critter in a jar, sure I’ll take one. A cute, fluffy stuffed duck? You bet your ass I have one, and its named Steve. Oh, and don’t get me started on how many vintage fur coats and scarves I have... I have a lot. People always find it very, very weird how many fur products I own and how obsessed I am with taxidermy, so here is a bit of an explanation. When it comes to fur coats for example, I only buy vintage. The animal has been dead longer than I have been alive, and while its a shame it died to become a coat, owning the coat and preserving the beauty of the animal is better than letting it rot in a landfill somewhere. Same goes with taxidermy. I get all my products from reliable sources (Skull Store is my favourite) so I know that no harm was actually done to the animal, and it wasn’t killed just for sport or simply to be made into things. As for my skulls, so far all 3 that I have were found by other people while they were out for walks! They didn’t cost me anything, and I can only assume those animals died of natural causes.

Some people might think that I’m not a true vegetarian, or that I’m not vegetarian at all. Meh, let them. I’m comfortable with how I live with my life, and thats the main thing. I think its important to not let how someone else chooses to live their life effect how you live yours. Plus, I know that some people think some of my choices are odd, hence why I came up with the whole “Worlds Worst Vegetarian” thing, because if you can’t laugh at yourself, how in the hell are you gonna laugh at somebody else, right? Now, someone get me a damn caesar.

- S

[glmrtrsh]

My One And Only Tinder Date

Ah yes, Tinder. Everyones favourite dating app. Or sex app. Whichever way you want to look at it.

No matter your age, Tinder seems to be everyones go to when it comes to trying to meet new people. Some people just want it for hookups, while others have actually found decent relationships on it. I had downloaded it twice before, for about 5 minutes each time, because truthfully - online dating apps just aren’t for me. I never thought I would ever have a reason to download it again.

That is, until, I was in Salem alone drunk in a bar at 2pm. Now, how I got to THAT point is a whole other story, but this my friends. This tale, this journey I’m going to take you on. This is the tale of the one and only Tinder date I ever went on.

Spoiler alert, I didn’t die.

So before I get too into the date, you may be wondering “well gee Sarah, if you don’t like dating apps why would you download one in a city where you literally don’t know a single human?” The answer to that, is my dear friend Nianna, who told me that if I got bored or lonely, that I should make an account clearly stating that I just wanted a friend to hang out with for the day. She was the little voice in the back of my drunk mindset that Sunday afternoon. Holla gurl.

So, its 2pm. I’m 2 sangrias deep. I have free wifi at the bar (shout out to The Derby) and I download the app. I make it very clear in my profile that I’m only in Salem for two days and I simply just want someone to hang out with for a bit. I swiped right on like, two people, and apparently “super liked” someone by accident because next thing you know, I’m getting this message.

Why no, Torin, I do not need weed.

While Torin’s offer was, well, not exactly what I wanted, I actually did manage to make one, single match on Tinder. Hey, one match is all a girl needs, right? Someone who was a year younger than me, also had black tattoos (although his one of cilantro doesn’t really count...) and looked like he wasn’t a murderer - Ian. Here’s what Ian had to say about our “date.”

Thank you for your kind words, Ian.

I mean to be fair, I WAS two sangrias deep on an empty stomach, I was not taking no for an answer. So after about an hour of convincing (honestly, he didn't want to come) Ian finally agreed to come hang out with me. He came and met me at the bar, and we each had a drink and some awkward conversation. Somehow, I convinced him to drive me around Salem.

Yes. I, a single, drunk girl. Got into a car with a guy I had known for an hour. Was I never taught to not get into a car with strangers?

Thankfully, Ian is actually a nice guy and has actually become one of my good friends, and we talk quite often! We drove around Salem a bit, he made fun of me for liking Cheesecake Factory, we talked about emo music and crazy ex's, and we ended up at Bit Bar. Another drink, some nachos and tater tots later, it was almost like we hadn't just met a few hours earlier! He drove me back to my Air Bnb and played me a rap song he had made as a joke. And truth be told, 7 months later, he still shows me all the songs he makes. I told him I was going to call him a nerd in this blog, so here it is. Nerd.

So there you go, I went on one Tinder date with Ian, or as he would like to be known as, "Jamie" and nothing bad happened. I'm actually quite glad I ended up downloading the app that day, because I made a good friend out of it, and have a story to share. Lifes about taking risks, even if it means drunkingly getting into a strangers car.

- S

[glmrtrsh]

Here We Are Again

The day is May 5th, 2020 and I’ve been off work for about 5 weeks thanks to Covid-19. My 27th birthday is in just over two weeks. Life is really, really weird right now. We can’t go out, we can’t go see friends, we can’t go to work, everything is being cancelled. Some days are okay, some days feel longer than others. Some days are reaaaallllyyyy long. So, why not come back to a hobby I used to have, and actually enjoy, to help pass the time and also help me feel like I’m not going insane.

I’ve blogged on and off ever since I was 15/16, I had a Tumblr for YEARS and eventually tried having a real website with a friend, which unfortunately didn’t work out. Writing is one of those things I’ve always enjoyed doing, and I’ve been told I’m good at it. While writing my thoughts and feelings used to get me into quite some drama back in the day, I believe I’ve grown to be able to still write about things without making it so, uh, dramatic.

So to anyone who ends up reading any posts on here, thank you. I can’t imagine this blog really going anywhere, but if anyone cares enough to read it, just know I appreciate that.

- S