sugar!

I finished The Dark Tower on Sunday. I had been listening to the audiobooks for the second half of the series, and good god audiobooks take SO MUCH LONGER (especially unabridged) than reading! Basically, every moment of the day when I didn't have to multi-task, I had my headphones in and the Dark Tower playing...probably with a very tense, anxious look on my face. On the bus to and from work, during downtime at work, walking around town, doing dishes in my apartment...pretty much constant Dark Tower for a week or two. Anyway, now that I'm finished (it was very good!), my ears are finally free to relax and listen to some goddamn music.

Listening to music can lead to spiritual epiphanies, but more often silly epiphanies.

If you follow health food crazes at all, you've probably heard of the weird health "tea" that is kombucha. Basically, you culture a mushroom/sponge/zoogleal mat of yeast in a mixture of tea and sugar, pour off the fermented liquid, and voila! Gross-sounding health drink. (And just an aside--I wonder how similar this is to the hooch I pour off my sourdough starter?) The whole thing really confused me at first, because we have a seaweed in Japan we call kombu, and people drink a salty tea made from it called "kombucha." Kombucha and kombucha -- different things. Go figure.

Anyway, today I was feeling a bit nostalgic, and I put on some System of a Down. (Helloooo, high school metal obsession!) And I heard the opening lyrics to that radio hit, "Sugar," and I totally did an out-loud "OH. MY. GOD." I get it now! KOMBUCHA. MUSHROOM.

10 years later, some psychedelic nu-metal lyrics make just a little bit more sense. It's good to know my brain continues to develop, and I'm just a wee bit more granola than I was a decade ago.

The kombucha mushroom people,
Sitting around all day
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray...
(sugar!)