bed bug-a-thon

I haven't been writing the past few days because I couldn't decide whether to lie about how hard things have been or to actually sit down and tell it how it is. But then I realized like an idiot, that it's my blog, my story, not anyone else's. So why would I hesitate to write what's true? It's a funny inclination I have to avoid problems. Therefore, if I don't display the problems on an internet journal, then the problem exists a little less in my life, right?

Fuck it.

Bed bugs have taken over our life. When we came back from tour, Dave noticed he was getting bites again. (I say again, because we thought we had had them a couple months ago but got rid of them). So we called the landlord, and we eventually scheduled the exterminator to come. What I didn't realize before this started is how draining the bed bug war is. Not only do you have to wash every item of clothing or cloth thing that you own, but you have to bag everything you own for a while and live out of trash bags until the problem has vanished. The night we were preparing for all this, we both had several break downs after having lifted the heaviest laundry loads up and down stairs, vacuuming books, emptying drawers of important photos and papers, and clearing our pantry. We might as well have moved in one day, we were exhausted.
Then at 3:30 in the morning, as dave was coming back from a walk with Roger, he noticed his bike was missing, and the only evidence left was his now cut chain. Imagine our chagrin when he walks inside and shows me the broken chain. That's just too much for one day. There should be a limit on shitty things that occur to a person on a given day or week.
But they always seem to collide into one shit chasm, don't they?

But things are looking up, I hope. We got the bike back, miraculously. Or not, because the idiot who stole it rode around on it every night two blocks away, so about 4 of our neighbors noticed and told us about it. Finally, our friend Ashely saw him riding around and at that moment called dave while he was at an interview, and the cops drove him over to the scene, and he politely and carefully took his bike back and rode off into the Bushwick sunset.

The bugs: the guy came and exterminated, supposedly. He sprayed the hell out of our apartment with this liquid chemical that Roger, and even we, were not allowed to walk barefood on for two whole days. We left the house to eat at Fiore, the place I work. (If you ever want really great, affordable Italian food while in NY, go there! Fiore restaurant on grand st. in Williamsburg, BK)

So we are living out of bags, sleeping on a plastic bed with no pillows or blankets, and the apartment seems bare. But, no bites for the past two nights! We've had some consolation through the indulgence of television via netflix and internet. ie: Weeds season 3, Daily Show, and DNC and RNC speeches.
We haven't been able to practice our music all that much, but we're getting back to it slowly. There's no way a bed bug could ever defeat the duo Chicken Little! No way no how.

Pictures from tour still on hold since I had to put the film canisters in a bag somewhere. Thanks for being my virtual shrink today everyone. May you live a bug-free life.