Hammers, The Devil, Bikes and Gypsy Beds

I woke up this morning in the worst mood I've been in in a long, long time. My eyes opened to a perfect day and bam I wanted to yell at kittens. It's bad. A Watch-Out-Now kind of mood. A I will punch you in the head over no more toilet paper kind of mood. A if someone tells me to smile I will side kick you kind of mood. Oh man, it's so bad. There would only be a tiny number of reasons why I feel this way, one reason in particular that is the most obvious culprit. I've been on a sugar binge since I made Maya's lovely birthday cake.

Now, do I really want to talk about what an idiot I am? Not really. Do we want to go over the hit-your-hand-with-a-hammer theory; meaning, if you bludgeon your hand it will hurt so maybe stop hitting your hand. So, no, I don't want to fucking talk about that either. Here's my fundamental problem: I do things that make me feel good. I feel so good that I feel I can do anything I like, even the stuff that does not make me feel good. A piece of vegan, natural sugar cake? Sure, I can handle that! Then it rolls into all kinds of shit because sugar is the devil, and all of the sudden I don't feel so good anymore. Que sopresa. This is the cycle of my life though it's been a long time since I've played with the devil like this. I had long stopped hitting my hand with the hammer. And now I'm clawing my way back up, out of the funk, again, towards the light, kicking myself.

I could go on and on about the things that are bugging me this minute -- sugar is a catalyst to unearth the tiniest of grievances into the most major of problems -- but I think instead I'll write about the things that I'm digging right now. It's almost a struggle to coax them out from behind the heavy fog blanketing my demeanor right now, but I think it will be good for me. Just don't tell me to smile. Ooo, don't do it.

I've got a new musical love interest. For the last few weeks I've been listening nonstop at full volume to Gogol Bordello. They are a gypsy punk band from the Ukraine. I yell out the lyrics in broken English and Ukrainian and this makes me happy. I learned about them during my last tattoo session. I had been in the chair nearly five hours and after a series of old metal tracks and some hip hop, one of the artists jammed in his own CD and Gogol Bordello came crashing in over the shop speakers. Everyone bobbed their heads; hardcore artists and clients alike. I watched the owner of the shop with a huge grey rose tat'ed to the side of his neck get up to retrieve paper towels from a cabinet and he trotted and swung his elbows wildly to the music as he did. It's that kind of music. You have to swing and trot and yell out unintelligible lyrics. I love it. Here's some samplings;



What else? Husband feels tremendously better. He has taken to sleeping in the living room on the air mattress we keep for guests. That kind of sucks, but it's all we can think of until we can save enough money for a sleep-by-numbers bed that will make us both comfortable. It's kind of like dating again though he never visits me in my bed. We had the best date on Saturday night -- actually the best day. The whole family took the bus to the LACMA to see a pretty provocative exhibit called Phantom Sightings. The LACMA is looking fierce, everybody. Go, support! We checked out the tar pits on the grounds too and the excavation pit that's been going pretty strong since 1914. It's very, very difficult to wrap my mind around what they are still digging up to this day. As we peered down into the pit we saw a huge pelvic bone stewing in the black pool tagged with a red flag. Another sooty bone was tagged with a yellow flag. They were a giant sloth pelvis and a dire wolf shoulder respectively. I asked the worker from what time were these bones. And she said, "The Ice Age." Of course. The Ice Age. Right there in front to me. Still getting dug up with mammoth femurs and saber tooth tiger teeth and shit. Crazy! We took the bus home and it's been a while since Husband's been on a bus because he was gonna sit next to a guy having a loud conversation with himself. When Husband realized I was waving him back to the middle of the bus, he shuffled to us and said, "Sorry, I didn't realize dude had his homies with him." Later that evening, Husband and I rode our bikes down to The 3rd Street Promenade to catch a movie. I smuggled in snacks and we ate vegan cookies and held hands and laughed, and then we rode our bikes home in the nighttime mildness of our beach city, and man, I was high on life. I looked back at Husband riding. He was aglow from street lights and he looked so handsome in his newsboy cap and hoodie, riding his bike. We're city kids gone green. I told him all of this -- him openly if not loudly being conscientious -- turned me on. Later that night, I visited the air mattress.

Speaking of bikes, how cool is this? Ikea Denmark now has bikes with trailers so you can haul your Ikea loot home with pedal power.

(Photo ganked from Copenhagenize.)

That's all I got for now. I'm starting to level off after The Crash. I'm gonna go toss any evidence left of sugar-like snacks and then hide all hammers.