Tooth Dust

(I regret initially searching on Google Images for "Fist in the Mouth". Some things can never be unseen.)

Does everyone remember how when you were a little kid there were these things you looked forward to for weeks.

Christmas morning. The last day of school. The next Disney movie (um... still.)

None of these, however, could ever take top the sheer thrill and exhilaration of your biannual trip to the dentist.

That crotchety old son of a bitch.

That's why last Tuesday was so fucking special. I had the rare chance to make my second dentist visit in just under a month. How amazing is that?! It was my fifth visit in 10 months!

You see.... almost a year ago I went in to see good old Crotchety Bastard ("C.B." for short) because my face was in this excruciating pain. It felt like I was sucking on a hot coal as though it were a god damned lolly. Turns out that I had a particularly nasty cavity. I subsequently made 2 more trips to the old C.B. One trip to get a "medicated temporary filling" and then a trip out to the other, more specialized and slightly richer and less crotchety Bastard number two, who gave me a root canal

Damn was that fun. There's nothing like being in the dentist's chair, face numbed to the point of stupidity, and having them get their little pointy hooky things inside from crevice of tooth and start yanking like they're starting a tiny lawn mower.

So anyway, after the root canal, the other, more specialized and slightly richer and less crotchety bastard number two gave me another filling, and said no more. I assumed this was it.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was biting down on a piece of soft, chewy pizza and the whole fucking tooth broke off. Like.. snapped at the stem. It's hard to really describe how upsetting it is when your tooth breaks off while not participating in a rock-chewing competition or some bare knuckle brawl, but rather eating a soft and innocuous piece of glorified bread. I can tell you that it was not cool at all. AT. ALL.

So I go back to C.B's office and he's all...

"You never came back for your permanent filling. "

and I'm all...

"What the eff are you talking about you Crotchety old Bastard?" (paraphrasing)

Turns out that filling the other, more specialized and slightly richer and less crotchety bastard number two gave me was ALSO supposed to be temporary and I was supposed to come back for yet another visit to the C.Bs office to get a permanent filling put in. Did anyone tell me this? No. No they did not.

So, the CB give's me some shit about being a bad dental patient and whatnot, because I was supposed to read their fucking minds or whatever, and gives me another "temporary medicated filling", and tells me to come back in a couple of weeks, because, lucky me... I get to have a crown.

That brings us to last Tuesday.

So I go back to the CBs office once again, and the first thing he does is stick me right in the mouth with some sort of numbing agent. My favorite part of this is that every time he does it (I've had it done enough in the past year that I actually have picked up patterns), he goes "Eaassy. Eaaaasy." Like I'm a god damned wild horse or something that needs to be tamed. Then he stabs me in the mouth.

So I'm getting good and numbed up, and I bust out my Anti-Dentists balm (aka: Carmex) and I give my lips a good lathering. Apparently I have a hard time keeping my mouth open wide enough, so I'm always getting yanked around, and getting my lips cracked and bloody and whatnot. It's not a fun time. So I come prepared with loads of lip balm and moisturizing stuff.

Anyway, I lather on a good amount of it, and go back to reading Entertainment Weekly. The dentist always seems to be seeing multiple patients at once, so I typically come prepared to wait in between. The strangest thing about it is that he doesn't have full walls in his office between examining areas, so you can hear everything going on in the other rooms. I can only imagine what horrors some child would feel while hearing my teeth get ground and drilled.

So, finally the CB comes back and immediately grabs my mouth like an angler grabbing a scrod.

Then he proceeds to violate my mouth.

The exact details of events are a little unclear, I have to be honest. I think it's a defense mechanism. There are three things that DO stand out.

1) At one point, he has his index finger hooked in the corner of my mouth like fucking Bass-Masters or something, and he keeps having these incidental conversations with other people while absentmindedly keeping his finger hooked in there. It was totally insane. By the time he was through, I had a deep gash in the corner of my mouth, and my lips were red with blood again. All of the Carmex in the world couldn't have saved my mouth from the fish hook.

2) Toward the end of the ordeal, the dentist was shoving a huge amount of this pasty stuff that eventually dries to become a filling, and after he sort of shapes it down, he has the tech-lady shine this blue light in my mouth. I don't have a funny story about that. I just thought it was weird.

3) The last thing the CB did was shave down my (now filled) tooth. There's something incredibly unpleasant about the sight, sound, and smell of having your tooth ground down. I generally keep my eyes closed during the dental procedures, as it helps me stay relaxed. Generally, I don't want to know what's happening to me. This time, I made the mistake of opening my eyes as he was grinding my mouth with a glorified Dremel tool, and I see a cloud above my head. Tooth dust. There was a fucking cloud of my TOOTH flying around the air. I took a sharp breath. I couldn't help it. This was a mistake. I breathed in a lung-load of my own tooth. The realization hit me, and I immediately breathed out again. I had a cloud of own, aspirated tooth dust coming out of my mouth like a sicko dragon.

I have another appointment on Tuesday.

Something Stinks: An informal poll

Roller Coasters might do it.

I'm going to stray a little from the usual high brow discourse on American Idol, Disney World, and Baseball for an entry, because I was reminded today of a story I heard a couple of years ago, and I wanted to get your opinion. Warning... Bad language follows.

First, the background....

A friend of mine (we'll call her Smuckers) was a department manager for a fairly large company, and one of her employees (we'll call her Whiskers) was by all accounts terrible in every facet of her job. Especially in the non-work facets... She was constantly late. She had a terrible attitude. She smelled bad. I mean... I'm not tossing stones or anything. I can be cranky at work. I have been late. I get it...

Anyway, one day Whiskers was running especially late for work, so she called up Smuckers and had the following exchange...

RING RING

Smuckers: Hello?

Whiskers: I'm gonna be late, because I was almost at work, but now I have to go home.

Smuckers: Why?

Whiskers: Well, I shit my pants.

Smuckers: ... ... ...

Smuckers: ... ... ...

Whiskers: Hello?

Smuckers: Um... Just get here when you can.

Okay... so, I have a couple of thoughts/questions...

A) If you're running late because you actually shit your pants (!) would you ever in a million years call your boss and tell them THAT is the reason you're running late? I believe that had I shit my pants that:

1) I'd almost definitely crash my car so I had a reasonable excuse for actually shitting my pants
2) I'd definitely definitely not call to say I was running late. I'd call to say I wasn't coming in at all and I would never admit to shitting my pants. I would probably consider never coming back... or ever straying more than 2 steps away from a toilet ever again.
3) I'd probably end up burning my car.
4) Most realistically I would make up just about anything to avoid telling the truth that I had, in fact, shit my pants.

B) If you're running late for any other reason, would you EVER lie and say you shit your pants? I'm trying to wrap my mind around what kind of horrible situation I'd have to be in to make the mental leap that whatever I did, shitting my pants is a better outcome.
The possibilities are few. Here are some reasons that I would be more likely to claim to have shit my pants rather than admit:

1) My crack deal went bad.
2) I lost track of time masturbating.

That's it. Except that doesn't really tell the whole story, because if it's NOT true. If Whiskers DIDN'T shit her pants, I can't think of a single (not one single) truth that requires the lie of "I shit my pants". I mean... What happened to "My kid/cat/plant is sick." or "I accidentally left the oven on/door open/candle burning." or even, dare I say it, "I overslept."?

Does this not strike anyone else as being totally insane? Honestly I can't figure any situation that would require me to ever tell my boss that I shit my pants, whether it's true or not.

So... the poll...

What's Worse?
	To shit your pants and not think up anything else to use as an excuse?
	To not shit your pants, but use THAT as your excuse for being late?
pollcode.com free polls

Sorry to go on and on, but seriously....

As a side note: Whiskers also once volunteered to Smuckers the unsolicited information that she had to go home at lunch because she vomited on herself at her desk.

The Audacity of Hope

Dare I dream? Dare I?

My life is pretty damned good. Awesome girlfriend. Awesome hobby. Great family. Great friends. I just about have everything a guy could wish for... Just about.

Now I'm on the precipice of completing the picture.

For all of my life I've felt like every time I've gotten to this point where things are falling into place, the rug has been swiped out from under me. That may seem dramatic, but I can't help how I feel. I start loving college and suddenly I'm displaced. I start loving my job as a teacher and the hours and salary become impossible. I start finding the perfect balance between my job, my hobby, and my personal life and within months I lose my job, my girlfriend, and my home.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not for a second suggesting that I didn't have a hand in both my fortune AND my misfortune. I let my weight get out of hand my freshman year, and wasn't quite the versatile actor Wright State would have wanted. I CHOSE to leave the teaching job for no real good reason. I got complacent in all facets of my life, creating an unsustainable lifestyle... If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have fallen so hard after losing my job back in '06. I get it. I take responsibility.

Well... Now I am back at a place I could get used to. I WANT to get used to it. There's only one single thing missing, and I'm right at the cusp of placing the final piece into the puzzle...

'm remaining guarded.

Why do I feel filled with dread? Why am I waiting for the other shoe to drop at any second? I don't have an answer. I'm going about reaching my goal in the right way. I am being proactive. I'm being aggressive. At the same time, I won't allow myself to over-reach.

I've started thinking about The Secret. You know The Secret right? Focused Positive thinking manifests positive results. Believing hard enough can tilt the pinball down the right chute.

I read a blog recently where a woman was having issues, and she sent herself text messages that her issues were going to be resolved and both times "within 30 minutes" she got the news she was wanting.

Sounds awesome right? It also sounds a bit suspect to me...

Far be it from me to question fate, or the power of positive thinking (I mean, hell... my grandpa had crystals and a copper meditation pyramid to concentrate his positive energy), but I'm also a natural skeptic. I'm a pessimist (I have the mug to prove it). I would love to fully believe that all it takes to nudge fate my way is some focused good thoughts.

For a cynic, would the opposite will work just as well? Maybe I need to behave as though I expect the worst. Set my expectations to "zero". Work on my back-up plans as though they are the front men. Just assume that all of my efforts couldn't possibly make a difference. Text myself things like "Don't get your hopes up. You have it good enough already. Stop being greedy." Only then, free of expectations, can the best things happen.

Or maybe the negative thoughts will simply manifest themselves, just as the positive ones would.

Clearly it's complicated. So... how bout this...

From now on I'll send myself those positive thoughts... I'll even text myself right now. (texting... texting... texting...) (Um... Is it odd that I got this surge of happy thoughts when I read the message I literally JUST sent?) From now on, I'll be positive. A guarded positive. I can't get too high (on hope). I have to be prepared for Plan B. It's the whole eggs in basket thing. The whole chicken counting thing I guess...

All that said... I want to have hope. It's a nice feeling. Even though there's no official headcount of those aforementioned chickens, there's a definite estimate.

To quote a great moment in a great movie:

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

So, I hope.

Wish me luck.

(I wonder how many people will find this post because of the title... shamelessly stolen from our President Obama)

Lemony Odds, Firey Ends, and People Flipping the Bird

Hey Folks-

I've been so bogged down with all of the Disney blogging that I've sort of neglected all of the other goings-on in my life... so let me catch you up.

1) Last Monday (the 28th), I was invited to "break the fast" at my a family member's home. This is essentially the celebration of the end of Yom Kippur, which entails a ton of fasting and atonement and general teeth gnashing of all kinds. Yom Kippur is the most solemn, serious time of the year for Jews, and breaking the fast is like a great big sigh of relief that it's over.

For this occasion, I was asked to furnish a dessert, which is fortuitous considering all of the baking I've been doing lately. The best part is that they didn't even know about any of that.

Anyway, I'd been wanting to bake a cake for a while... something about decorating a cake seems very meditative for me. I don't know why. I decided on baking a Lemon Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting and raspberries.

I was admittedly a little cranky while baking this, as I was in a bit of a rush for part of the day, having to drive up to Dayton during the actual baking process (a huge thanks goes to the Tofu Muchacha for wrangling the piping hot baked goods while I was gone) and then rushing to get it iced upon my return. Due to those factors, I didn't take my usual string of pictures, but I did manage to get one of the finished cake:
Not bad, I guess. The cakes had sort of a convex shape and when I flipped the top layer over in order to provide a flat surface to ice on top, it created a sort of hour-glass shape. It ended up requiring a ton of frosting to fill the big gaps in the middle, and it was tasty but kind of bulbous. In the future I'll definitely plane the rounded tops down to flatten it out a bit more. Not bad for a first trip though. The cake itself was also a bit dry, which I would have known if I'd read the recipe reviews. I want to make a really dense cake, but have it be moist. Anyone have suggestions or recipes?

2) This one can be filed away in the "Tofu Muchacha is Always Right" bin.

Monday, she and I went canoeing. I hadn't been in some time, and while I was a little nervous that it would be too cold to be in a little boat on a river, the weather was freaking gorgeous... so it was quite pleasant. I was also a little nervous that we'd tip over at some point, but we didn't. We did get wedged into some rocks at one point in the middle of some rapids (as rapid as they really could be...) and we had to get out and pull the canoe free slightly. The water was frigid, but that was no real hardship.

The biggest issue was the Sun.

Being a whitey white boy of Euro-Pasty heritage, I am no stranger to the dangers of the Sun. I've had more burns in my life than a That 70s Show marathon. The worst probably being on my bald, bald head that I got on a drive from Cincinnati to Hilton Head in a convertible. I should have known that the cool breeze wouldn't have protected me from the Suns evil rays, but I didn't, and I was thusly punished.

On this particular field trip down the river, I took precautions. I sprayed my head and neck and arms and face with that sports sunscreen, and thought I was good to go. When we got in the canoe, the Tofu Muchacha took one look at me in my sweatshirt and shorts and said "You wanna get your knees too?" and I was all... "Nah! I'm good."

Four hours and thirteen miles later and down river I started feeling like my knees were a little hot. ON the car ride back to town I had the AC blowing on them directly. By bed time, I couldn't sleep on my stomach because the contact with the mattress made me cry. By last night I couldn't sleep at all. It's like the constant creasing and walking and standing has been perceived as taunting the sunburn gods or something. It's really, really painful.

So let me just say in front of all of my thousands of readers... You were right T.M. You were right.

Now I just need to find me some fucking aloe.

3)Now it's time for a little venting....

What the fuck is the world coming to? Have people gone even more crazy than they already have been? I've had a couple of the most insane experiences on the road in the last couple of weeks, and I seriously don't get it. Let me lay it out for you....

Experience # 1: I was driving into downtown from the North and I had to get over twice in order to make my exit. It was crowded, but I had plenty of time. I signaled and started making my way over, and this gold car sped up to try to prevent me from getting in. Just to be clear, I wasn't pushing them out. There was plenty of room if everyone just maintained speed. But no... she sped up to try to cut me off. She failed, but sort of did that weaving thing that people do in auto races when they're drafting. Anyway, she got over again and I had to get over as well...so I signaled. And again, if she just maintained her speed we'd all be in the lanes we needed to be and everyone would be happy. This time, though, she sped up even more aggressively and she actually cut me off, preventing me from getting over. I ended up slowing down to let her pass completely (since she matched my speed initially after pulling up along side of me. Once I slowed down, she cut completely across my lane, and we actually crossed. So now I'm in the lane to her right and we come to the stop light at the exit. She actually stops 5 car lengths shy of the car in front of her so that we're stopped even at the exit. She rolls down her window and starts sreaming at me that I cut her off twice!

I would have tried to logic her up, but my pimp-hand was stayed by the Tofu Muchacha being in the car and reminding me that trying to logic-up a stone is a pointless task. In any case, it totally blows my mind that a person who was putting US in danger 2 times was so appalled that I would try to...you know... drive safely.

Experience # 2: This one happened on Monday. I was minding my own business on highway, and a dude on my left side cuts directly in front of me without signaling and then slows down. I sort of give him the "what the hell, dude?" hand signal, but didn't honk, and went on my way. I changed lanes to the left, and ended up directly on his left...I look over to see what the crazy person looks like and he's FLIPPING ME THE BIRD. Like... before he even knew I was looking over, his hand was up in the bird position. I couldn't believe it.

Another person who acted crazy and dangerous on the road, and then ATTACKED ME for you know... looking at them.

Tell me... What's happening in the world where these crazies have been released from the asylum and are roaming Cincinnati in shitty, late 90s automobiles?