Personal Perestróĭka

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I know no other way

than this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

– Pablo Neruda

So I got my temporary tooth today.  Hurrah.  I think it’s kind of uncomfortable.  I have to wear it for a couple days and then go get it adjusted.  My mouth right now is damn numb, so I’m actually fairly unsure about how the thing fits.  What I do know is that you’d never know it wasn’t my tooth. It’s maybe a little lighter than my other teeth and looks oddly crooked, which is to say it looks exactly like the tooth that was there before. So that’s good. I’ve got two more dentist visits, then wait 90 days, then go back again for a check up, then get the bridge put in.  I just figured out today that since the bridge amounts to three fake teeth (two crowns to support the bridge and the fake tooth) that my lower teeth will look WAY better, since they can make the fake teeth look much better than my real ones.  Something to look forward too. Yay.

I’ve been having sinus trouble this spring.  Allergies, I guess, but it seems to be much worse on storm days, right before the storm comes in.  As if perhaps I am over sensitive to barometric pressure.  Right now my sinuses feel stuffy to extent that my ears feel plugged.  The right side of my face is numb all the way to my cheekbone and back to my ear.  And novocaine is awful for me.  It makes me ache and very very umcomfortable in this hard to explain way as it wears off.  The nice dentist told me Advil would help, but mostly I just feel incredibly yucky today.  And apparently very whiny.  Which, I guess, given everything, is fair. The dentist did give me a purple toothbrush.  Which is funny since she didn’t let me choose but I would have chosen purple.  She didn’t give me toys anything though. Still everyone in her office is so nice it’s okay.  Really, best dentist’s office ever.

I am quite literally weeks behind in life.  So not caught up.  Giving myself the day off again though.  My mouth feels just too awful for me to concentrate.  Maybe after it un-numbs a little and I can eat something, I’ll try and get it together.  I might work on a little sewing.  Or might just lay here ont he couch trying to fall asleep and watching episodes of Supernatural on DVD.

My head feels like it’s filled with cotton today.  This spring has not been kind to my sinuses.  I don’t know if it’s allergies, storm pressure changes or my recent lack of use of the neti pot. Whatever it is the end result is me often feeling worn down and kind of stupid (in the mental fog that is too dense to penetrate kind of way). Ugh.

I did buy myself the Buddha shirt.  And a new jeans and t-shirts.  I should have a massive closet cleaning fest, but I just can’t find the motivation.  It is summer wardrobe time and I am feeling overwhelmed by almost everything in my life.  The least I can exert some control over is not having extraneous stuff hanging around my closet.

The weekend was uneventful and pleasent enough.  Had a musician in Sunday night, caught up on lots of past TV on the DVR.  Relaxing, if nothing else.

Gah, so foggy headed I can’t even remember what I came here to say.  So I guess I’ll just go make to-do lists and hunt around a bit for my motivation.

So I got a call last night, while I was at work.  I didn’t answer it because I didn’t recognize the number, and I was at work.  The same person called back FIVE times this morning.  Finally the 6th time I answered.

Me: Hello?
??: This Stephen Tidwell’s girlfriend.
Me: I’m sorry I don’t know who that is.
??: Your number was in his phone.
Me: I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t know who that is.
??: Well I’m calling people to let them know Stephen has passed.
Me: Okay, well…
??: And I have reason to believe he was sleeping with a lot of people, and I wanted to give STD information to the women in his phone.
Me: Okay, well I really don’t know who he is or why he has my number.  I’m sorry for your loss and your troubles.
??: Okay if it doesn’t pertain to you…
Me: No, I really don’t know him.

Naturally I’m curious about this crazy woman, so I started Googling.  As far as I can tell, it’s this guy. WTF? What the everloving fuck?  Libelle says she’s sure he just had someone’s number down wrong.  I imagine some poor girl intentionally gave him the wrong number or something.  Just weird.  I feel bad for his girlfriend that a month after his bizarre behavior and suicide that she’s sitting around on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning calling strangers to inform them of death and STDs.  How utterly miserable.  And completely insane.

Have I shown you my new shoes?

Right?  Wearing these maybe no one will notice I’m missing a tooth? Heh. They are fabulous though, right?

Because of my very nature, I guess I haven’t been as nice to myself this week as I could have been.  I have given myself a break on the to-do lists.  Today I am going to get something done though, how ever trivial.  Just as soon as I finish this cup of lovely coffee.

William Gibson posted this pic to his Twitter earlier today.  It was taken a few blocks from my old apartment in Seattle.  Most of the signs in my neighborhood were altered as such.  I’m suddenly incredibly homesick for Seattle.

It’s nice out.  I could be sitting on the porch and painting my nails.  I could be sewing or cutting out patterns.  I could be answering emails or editing.  I could be writing or making work plans. I should be at work.  Instead I am sitting on the couch with a sore shoulder and a sore mouth, feeling sorry for myself and catching up on past episodes of Life even though it’s been cancelled. All things considered I suppose it’s fair that I am basically fucking off. Still I feel guilty about it.  I should go out and see people.  Maybe.  Mostly I just want to eat food that isn’t mushy and sleep uninterrupted by oral discomfort.  Both of which feel sort of impossible right now (seriously, I am so tired of thinking about my mouth, which isn’t going to end, as I have to worry about my tongue in relation to the hole in my mouth, I have to speak very carefully, I can’t eat normally, it all just sucks). I could use a good stiff drink right about now. And a shoulder to lean on while I watch movies.  And movies to watch that aren’t sad.  Instead I guess I’ll just continue to feel sorry for myself on the couch. Maybe I’ll get up to get ice cream.

I am sort of obsessed with this shirt.  I saw someone wearing it a couple weeks ago and I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for it, or looking for fabric like it.  I can’t wear this shirt without making major alterations to it, which I’m not opposed too and yet I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy it.  Maybe I’m worried I’d wreck it when I altered it.  Maybe deep down I know I don’t really need another shirt.  And yet, I’ve had the tab for it open on my desk top for almost two weeks now.  *sigh*

The dentist went well today.  I got fitted for my new tooth.  I don’t get it for a week or so.  They offered to glue in a temporary one for vanity’s sake.  But I would have had to be very careful with it, with chewing, with making sure no pressure went on it or anything and so I opted not to get it.  I don’t need one more thing to be worried about in my mouth right now. So the next week will be a lesson in humility and overcoming vanity as I will just have no tooth for a while.  I have to get an intensive cleaning and a little other work done before they can do a bridge but in the meantime I’m assured that the tooth I am getting will look like it belongs and no one will know the difference.  Also I can’t stress how nice everyone was at the dentist’s office.  It was completely 1000% times better than the ER experience.

I could really use a massage after all that.  I feel like I’m recovering from tension in places I didn’t even know I could be tense. Ow ow ow ow.  Also not having a tooth is really awkward and uncomfortable (beyond the vanity thing).  I am very much looking forward to my new tooth.

Three words one definitely never wants to hear are “emergency dental work.” Basically what happened is that my lower front teeth have been crowding together for a while.  I knew this, they’ve become harder to floss in recent years, the front four so tight that flossing was pretty much out of the question. The middle left tooth eventually cracked from the pressure of the teeth on either side of it.  Sometime early Monday morning, I bit down hard in my sleep (something I’ve done for years as stress reaction, not grinding, just biting down hard) and broke the tooth.  I hauled myself to the emergency room at the dental school where they told me the tooth had to come out immediately.  And by immediately she meant 15 minutes after I got there and the x-rays came back. Suffice to say I was pretty much in state of shock or panic through the entire procedure.  One of the first things they did was check my blood pressure (108/73 very much normal) and then when they started the extraction my heart started racing and I kept trying to distract myself by wondering what the difference in blood pressure was during a panic reaction.  It was pretty awful in way I’m not sure I can really express in writing.

So I spent most of Monday with my mouth full of gauze either sleeping or crying. Apparently there is some bone loss under the four front teeth.  This is, I guess, the result of not having flossed well there (always floss, kids, if it won’t fit between your teeth go to the orthodonist). Today I go to the regular dentist for comprehensive exam where presumably I will find out if the teeth on either side of the now missing one are strong enough to support the bridge needed to hold the fake tooth in (I am very anxious about this, as I really don’t want to loose more teeth) and hopefully start the process of getting the fake tooth put in.  What this means for me is lots and lots of dentist appointments in coming days/weeks, lots of money I really don’t have and dealing with my current crisis of vanity.

Don’t get me wrong, the emergency room was really, really traumatizing.  Despite their assuance that the pain would go away once they got the tooth out, there has been some pain consistently since yesterday morning.  I am having a hard time telling anyone about what happened without bursting into tears.  And still half my problem is my vanity.  I can’t really deal the fact that I will have to go out in public and talk to people without one of my teeth (the ER told me no fake tooth until the original extraction heals, hopefully the dentist today will tell me that that will be very soon). Also it is really, shockingly uncomfortable to be missing one of your front teeth.  It impedes talking and has other somewhat gross side effects I won’t tell you about.

I am trying to retain my sense of humor about the whole thing, but my ability to do that kind of comes and goes.  I am hoping that after I go to the dentist this afternoon I will have a better idea of what the future holds for my mouth and can relax a little about all of it. Everyone seems to be assuring me that this kind of horrible, dramatic dental work is par the course in one’s late 30s/early 40s, but man, really?  Yikes.  I’ve always had pretty good teeth, I am so not prepared to deal with this.

Today was a total loss for me.  I achieved almost nothing but eating, surfing the internet, watching TV and picking up a little bit (a very, very little bit) around the house.  I also took my mom to the airport which was very sad.

We had a good visit.  On the one hand I didn’t get hardly anything productive done in the past week, but on the other, I had a great week.  I think my mom had a good time too.  We went on lots and lots of walks, saw Star Trek (mmmm, Chris Pine), saw the Medieval art thing at the Frist, ate many great meals (including my own discovery of new to me good places to eat in Nashville), went to the museum under the Parthenon, walked more, shopped a lot (new shoes!), got pedicures, saw the great museum at Cheekwood (fantastic especially the William Edmondson sculptures), spent much time loitering at Ugly Mugs, and of course, I worked a bunch causing Ma to spend a lot of time at the bar (but I think she had a good time).  I got plenty of exercise and maybe not enough sleep (especially last night).

I definitely feel somewhat guilty about shirked responsibilities.  But hey, I feel like a good daughter and pretty relaxed and excited about new parts of my city I discovered.  Alas as with nearly every vacation we take together, I forgot entirely to take pictures.

And now back to regular life.  I’m somewhat terrified by what my to do list will look like tomorrow morning.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning May 7
Copyright 2009 by Rob Brezsny

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):  In recent decades, many British people with unfortunate surnames have changed them. There are now 40 percent fewer Shufflebottoms, while the numbers of Cockshotts and Smellies have also declined precipitously. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the government has re-branded its notorious Global War on Terror, shifting to the more palatable “Overseas Contingency Operation.” I hold these examples up for your inspiration, Taurus. It’s a good time to alter any name or title you’ve outgrown, as well as any label that no longer fits or any category you’d like to leave behind.

Truly I take my Free Will Astrology way too seriously, but I think this one will require a lot of meditation this week.

Birthday aside, I’ve had an emotionally rough time the past week or so. It isn’t quite past but I’m fine, really, I just need time to adjust yet another change in my worldview.  On the other hand, Libelle really is the best friend ever.  She deserves some sort of award for sitting up with me late at night and making me laugh and laugh when I would otherwise just be sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

The rain isn’t helping.  We’ve broken rainfall records around the area in the past few days, but it’s more than that.  It’s the unrelenting grey.  I’m sure you think I should be able to to take 6+ days of grey, since I am from the PNW, but I’ve lost that skill.  I’m not sure I can remember more than 3 or 4 days in row like this since I moved to TN.  Plus it isn’t just grey, it’s really, seriously raining. And since everyone knows I am from Seattle people keeping saying to me, “hey, this is just like Seattle weather, huh?”  And no, no, no, no it isn’t.  It is grey there.  And wet.  But it just doesn’t rain so consistently hard there.  The temps are different, the air is different.  The sky is different.  There is no marine layer here.  It, in fact, isn’t like Seattle weather at all.  Seattle makes me feel mossy and chilly.  This weather makes me feel like a tropical amphibian. A cranky, lethargic tropical amphibian.

I’ve been meaning to do this for more than a week but haven’t.  Somehow I got Libelle to do the hard work for me yesterday (flipping around to find old text messages is hard work!).  I present you with a transcript of a normal day in text conversations between Libelle and me

me:  Today begins day 4 of quitting smoking.  I forgot to have coffee until just now.  I am not very friendly right now.  Like a bear poked with a stick.  (11:47 am)

Libelle:  I’m feeling much the same.  Everyone who has recently f’ed me over suddenly wants to be my best friend.  We should go punch babies later.

me:  I am also up for puppy kicking.

Libelle:  I suppose we can work that in.  And maybe find some little kids and tell them there’s no Santa.

me: Also, perhaps with practice, we can learn to make it rain on parades.

Libelle: The bunny was in the hat the whole time!

me:  We can also make t-shirts with movie spoilers on them.  Soylent Green is people!

Libelle: It was Earth all along!

me:  Bruce Willis is dead!  He just didn’t know it!

Libelle: Rhett leaves Scarlett!

me: Aargorn becomes king.  Evil is defeated.  Also, Wesley rescues Buttercup and True Love triumphs.

Libelle: Dorthy had the power to go home all along!  Romeo and Juliet both die!

me:  Heh.  I’m feeling much better now.  You?

Libelle:  Yeah.  We’re funny!

Last night I dreamt that a rabbit got into the house.  It ran in a circle through all the rooms and when we got up to chase it, it went right to the door and out.  But I didn’t close the door tight enough and another rabbit ran in, ran roughly the same circle and out again. The next time opened the door there was a third.  The next day we heard scuffling outside and when we went to investigate we discovered that the rabbits had dragged a dead body on to the porch and an injured dog.  Both were laying on a blue tarp that had tears all around the edges from where the rabbits had gripped it in their teeth.  The dog was alive but really badly hurt.  We called the police about the body and got the dog to the vet.  The entire time, the three little rabbits who had run individually into the house sat huddled on a far corner of the porch watching us.

It’s been storming for days here.  I heard 4 to 7 more inches of rain today.  I think perhaps the grass grows directly proportional to the amount of rain.  If we get 7 inches, I won’t be able to walk through the yard tomorrow.

Wow the storms last night were crazy.  It seemed like the thunder was right over my house for hours. It affected my dreams for sure.  Now we are on to noontime storms.  It’s nearly black outside and it feels like everything is underwater: slow, shifting strangely and slightly unreal.  I have been carefully focusing all morning on the the rush of water washing all the negativity of the past away.  On water that makes things grow, that makes me stronger, that brings change and cleanses.  I would, I suspect, be a much diffrent person if I could meditate like this every morning.  And I guess there’s no reason I can’t, though I know myself well enough to know that I won’t.  But today it was good.

The thunder is still rumbling, moving closer again.  I have eaten a healthy lunch.  I have made a simple, reasonable to-do list for the day.  I have A History of Violence on in the background (yes, much like A Walk on the Moon, this is a good movie, but probably most re-watched for the insanely hot Viggo sex scenes). Today will be a good day.  As will tomorrow.  And all the rest of the days.  Even the ones I forget to look for the goodness in.  I will keep in my heart the best parts of the best days and try to remember to that every day has the possibility of those  wonderful moments.