Oh, we’re going to have a good time.

Existential crisis,
one of those everyday
things:

You catch your own eye
in the glass of a bus
that has made the same trip
with or without you,
hundreds or thousands of times.

One less tooth, one dentist richer.

I had to have a tooth out this week. My new dentist, a confident young doctor, tall and toothy, assured me that it would be an easy procedure. I wasn’t sure. I’ve never had a tooth out before, nor have I ever even had my mouth frozen before. My mouth has been blessed without cavity, without abscess, without any abnormalities except a few crookednesses in the direction of my teeth.

I recently switched from my life-long dentist, which occurred when my father decided he had finished with them. There was insult when one of my family dentist’s secretaries wouldn’t make an appointment because there had been some mixup in payment, and twenty dollars was still owing on account. My father, who had been faithfully taking his family there every six months for the last twenty years, argued that he was good for the money. I imagine the secretary giving him a tired look, and simply re-asserting that we would need to pay up in order to receive the esteemed dental presence of the doctor.

My father was taken aback. Had she checked into our files, she would have found the polaroid pictures of my brother and me having our first dental checkups around four or five years old. She would have seen that for every six months from that day forward, he carefully penned in appointments to have our teeth cleaned, capped, and scrutinized by them. He was offended, but maybe not surprised. It’s not unusual that red tape gets in the way of human understanding. I was shocked when he told me he had found a different dentist. A male dentist.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a gentle, Estonian woman dentist. One who clucked appreciatively over my healthy molars, canines, lateral and central incisors. “Very nice..” she would observe, and poke at my gums as if she were poking at little white mushrooms with fragile stems – barely touching. It was all her work after all. God knows I’ve never been a good flosser. She was once a dental hygienist, but had graduated to being the head dentist in the office. She was unassuming and kind, eyes lit up warmly over her blue face mask as she explored my mouth interestedly. She would then sit back, say that my teeth looked good and insist that I please floss more often.

Then, the pirate treasure box. For children, she kept a treasure box, filled with ridiculous plastic toys: monsters that fit on the end of your fingers, little rolling cars, bracelets, fake teeth, rubber balls. Once released from the demand of fluoride trays, and the hissing, sucking tube of saliva reduction, my brother and I would hit the treasure box.

From day one, the dentist had my adoration. My wordless devotion. The trust that only little rubber balls and novelty toys can buy from a child.

We pilfered from the treasure box far beyond when it was fair to do so. I think I quit around thirteen, my brother at eleven still entranced by the gifts that I now recognized as bribery, simple and pure.

So, when my father suggested I make a cleaning appointment with a new dentist, I secretly vowed to never go in. I had never considered changing dentists. Ever. I never considered a time where my dentist might retire, or die, or move. She was The Dentist. Not any dentist: The Only Dentist.

That was before I started getting serious pain in the upper left side of my jaw last week. My jaw began clicking in a funny way when I yawned, and I began getting shooting headaches through my jaw into my temple. I panicked. I was supposed to have my wisdom teeth out years ago. I remembered looking amazed at pictures of my teeth during X-rays at my dentist’s office. The upper left hand side wisdom tooth heading down in a kind of determined attack mode into the unsuspecting molar next to it. I had just left the wisdom tooth thing on the back shelf. If they cause me guff, I’ll be under my university dental plan. No biggie. But now the day(s) of reckoning had come. My tooth was out for blood this time.

This was further complicated by the fact that getting an appointment at my dentist required weeks of booking ahead. And even then, my dentist had traditionally referred other family members to a maxillofacial surgeon. My father had paid hundreds of dollars with a government employee dental plan covering his work.

I knew I had to do it. I had no choice. I felt a twinge of betrayal as I called the New Dentist. A woman answered cheerfully, and I requested a dental appointment as soon as possible. She offered the next week. I asked, without hope, whether there would be a day sooner. She asked if I would like to come in the next day. I agreed.

I felt strange. Like I was visiting a strangers house. The office was new, open less than a year. I didn’t have any records there, so they needed to take X-rays and have me tick off a medical history chart. The stunning realization that they didn’t know a thing about my dental history struck me. A world where I don’t have a dental history. I had never considered that.

I had a cleaning, nestled in the swoop of a reclining leather chair – watching the weather network staff on a big screen television excitedly (and mutely – I declined headphones) gesture towards cold weather fronts and grimacing at little pictures of clouds dropping snow. A beautiful dental hygienist worked away at my teeth. Where are my sunglasses? I thought.

Is it absurd to ask for sunglasses? Doesn’t everyone wear sunglasses at the dentist? Little bits of water and spittle sprayed up from my mouth and landed on my forehead as the beautiful hygienist worked diligently on my coffee stains. Where are the goddamn sunglasses??

I decided I would look insane if I asked for sunglasses, and uncomfortably watched a determined looking weather man dictate the possibility of rain in Southern Ontario. They use awfully big hand gestures, the weather people.

Finally, cleaning finished, the dentist walked in. He is tall, young, confident and likes to joke. The dental hygienist kindly put my X-rays on the big screen television so I could clearly point out the attack tooth for the dentist. I explained my situation, dental plan-less, jaw hurtingness, generally dismay-ful. I was a dental plan orphan, and I felt strangely at the mercy of this person.

He looked at the X-ray, and looked at me. He demanded a good look at the tooth. He poked around, then rolled back in his dental chair, leaned back confidently and looked me in the eye. “A tooth like that, fifteen minutes, max. No problem.”
What did that mean? One thousand? Two thousand?
“I think you’re looking at about 130 bucks.”
“What, seriously?” I thought maybe he meant for the anaesthetic.
“Yep. It should be easy. Though, if it’s difficult to extract you may be looking at as much as 200 dollars.”
Two hundred dollars. I felt like a thief.
“I was expecting like two thousand dollars.”
He smiled, toothily, “I can charge you that if you want.”
I hurriedly explained that I couldn’t pay that right now, but gee whiz it sure it is a relief and when can I come in?

When you’re offered a price like that, you want to lock it down you see. Especially when your jaw is complaining about it.

I made another appointment. For that Friday. I was suspicious. Friday the 13th. It was going to be a disaster. It was too easy. It was too cheap. Who is this guy? Who does he think he is, telling me this tooth will be easy and inexpensive? I wondered about his credentials. I was hopeful the way a Horn is hopeful: silently, and grimly.

So, I arrived on Friday. I had some agonizing jaw pain, peppered with headaches along the way. My best friend’s mother drove me to the appointment, lovingly assuring me that thinking about it was the worst. Thinking about the big needle and the nerves and the terrible sound when the tooth comes out. She assured me that even though she fainted when she had her teeth removed, it was not a big deal. I found it difficult to believe the ‘not a big deal’ part. Getting a molar ripped out of your jaw seemed like a big deal.

All the same, I was not intimidated. I have a body pact: it treats me well, I treat it well. It’s strange, I know, to make a pact with your own body. I am my own body. But, nonetheless, I have faith that it will cooperate when I need it to. It hasn’t failed me yet, and I imagine it won’t fail me until I mangle it terribly, or reach my expiry date. I silently explained to my jaw that this had to happen, and that that tooth needed to get ripped out. I felt so badly for that passive tooth next to it, which had begun to simply cede to the advance of the other tooth and grow around it.

My jaw was displeased, the nerves around my temple disgruntled. We were ready to say goodbye. (I say this at the risk of sounding like a new age healer, I promise I am not into chakras, I’m just on a downward facing slope into the valley of insanity).

A dental assistant greeted me happily, and asked me if I’d like some drugs. I am not a drug user. At least not usually. I’ll give if someone is ripping things out of my head. I accepted her offer, and she handed me a little wax paper cup with a bit of red juice in it. “They put it in cough syrup.” She explained and smiled conspiratorially, “You’ll feel real good after this.”

I didn’t ask what I was taking. She placed some headphones on my ears as I leaned back in the leather chair, and started taking in some wide-screen television. The drugs began working almost immediately, and I embarrassedly changed the channel from the children’s network when the assistant came in to check on me to clip a bib around my neck. I flicked channels until I caught Jim Carrie in a uniform, and decided this is where I would stay, mentally, for the next half an hour – embroiled in The Cable Guy.

Many tens of minutes passed, and I occasionally wondered where the dentist was. I almost worried, but then woozily started giggling instead. Jim Carrie smashed the glass backing of a basketball net in slow motion as he slam dunked a basketball with crazed, sweaty fixation.

He finally arrived, my male dentist, looking flushed. He apologized for being late, he had just finished a very tricky root canal. I felt sorry for him, and hoped he would take a break for a bit. I didn’t need a flustered dentist fumbling over my trouble tooth. But, he slipped on some non-latex gloves and issued a couple of requests from the less beautiful hygienist at my side.

“Will you need the scalpel?”
“No.”

Thank Peter.

“Don’t look at all the tools,” he offered me good naturedly, catching my druggy gaze on the tools on the tray near my left side. “I’ll probably only use two or so.”

I couldn’t respond wittily, so I just turned back to the Cable Guy and opened up my mouth on his request. They put some topical anaesthetic on my gums near my tooth. A few minutes later he explained that I might feel a prick. This was the needle part. This was where a man would stick a long needle into the gums near the roof of my mouth. I shut my eyes hard, and began imagining a picnic in Ottawa.

It was over quickly. And I immediately started tonguing the frozen bits of my mouth. My tongue felt half frozen, likely from the topical anaesthetic. Now it was time to take out the tooth. I thought about what my jaw might do, in a circumstance like this. Sure, it’s not the most active part of my body. But what if the flesh seized up? What if my body just didn’t want to let go of the tooth and it clung to the tooth defensively?

It wasn’t really logical. It was just fears. I felt a little crunching. I started to giggle, despite myself. I can’t help laughing when I’m nervous. I tried my best to maintain serious. I thought about how my stepfather couldn’t stop laughing when they were sewing up his neck after a knife fight. He had lost a fight outside a bar as a younger man, and had the deep pink scars on his neck to prove it. I remember him telling me, fourteen years old and amazed, how he gargled out jokes to the nurses and doctors as they sewed up his trachea.

I believed him, of course. It was just the sort of thing he would have done. This situation seemed pale in comparison, and giggling didn’t seem so abnormal as a result. The dentist struggled a bit, braced against my cheek. And, with a light sucking noise (and no feeling at all, I should mention), the tooth came free.

“Congratulations, your tooth is out.”
“That was so quick!” The hygienist cooed.
“It’s almost like I’m a dentist.” He quipped.
I gargled out a bloody, tongue frozen joke – something along the lines of “You mean you have a degree and everything??” But, it sounded more like “oo a a dgee a eveeig?”

I still felt like we had experienced something special, together. They quickly stuffed some gauze in the gaping maw where once the attack tooth was, and I asked for my tooth back. The hygienist seemed a little disgusted, but game. I grabbed it off the metal stand and I stared at it, the little offending tooth. It seemed so small.

They ushered me out, and issued me a half-hearted prescription for ‘Tylenol 2′. The dentist urged me to go to a doctor if my wound started pumping blood at an usual flow. “I mean like drip drip drip.” He said, face tilted and finger running down his cheek in mimic. The dental assistant awkwardly mentioned after making post-extraction small talk, “There is a balance owing..”

I pulled out my debit card. Not a word, good woman. Your services were stupendous. I felt good. I felt free. I felt high. I wondered if they ever popped back any of the red stuff at dental parties.

She told me the balance. The entire procedure, drugs and post-op gargle and swabs included, cost one hundred dollars.

I wanted to hug her, I wanted to offer the dentist my first-born. I thanked her very very very much. I left the office, free of worrying tooth, only one hundred dollars lighter.

A couple days has passed now, and I don’t have any pain at all. I have begun making my dentist an elaborate card, on which there will be a glaze-eyed pastel smiling tooth. I don’t know how to thank him enough.

Dead fly on the zed

how did that dead fly get on my zed key?

I mean I don’t use zed that often but I Just did and it’s sitting in the bottom right corner of the zed and ..

it’s still there.

rust you

Okay I tried to teach you that loveis all about
dancing in a pit of broken bottles,
okay that happened.

but now that’s passed.

And maybe I never shouldhave tried to
teach anyone-anything, but

regret is a rusting scythe
in the back shed

I don’t think about it very often.

some’ingsome’ingblgh.

Auden nIcarus

So we can’t fly anymore: we just need to
be like those old men in Breughel’s Icarus
what were they thinking anyways, sort of bored – oh
they had better morepractical things on
their minds: Auden seemed to think those old men had the right
idea he always liked that kind of seasoned
disenchantment.

And ah hope that we can carry on some kindof
peace while our children are trying to blow
bubbles in the turning ocean currents.

The Pear of Compromise

The Mean Bear no 2

Beans and rice

This morning, I put some beans and rice in half a pita with some avocado and ate that.

Then I put the same in the other half of a pita.

Then, I ran out of pita so I just mixed beans and rice together and ate them off of a plate. And it was then I realized that the pita was all pretension.

I had been fooling myself.

Sweet Peter

I think part of being an adult means that sometimes you are allowed to ignore certain people. Like, say, an old, estranged, and never-known-well classmate from your high school. Or, the Subway guy who you used to make small talk with when you were getting sandwiches on your lunch from work. I think it’s generally understood that your relationship was tenuous, and it may only make things awkward if you go ahead and begin a ’so what are you doing?’ conversation with them.

I don’t take offense when I see someone I barely know turn their gaze pointedly at something else when I meet it. I know it’s not because they suspect I’m a paranoid schizophrenic. Or at least, I think I know that. I expect it’s because I’m absolutely peripheral to their lives. And, the same is true for me of them.

And though I understand it, I can’t help myself. I have to say hello. It’s like an itch that I have to scratch. They see me, I see them. I know they know me. I know them! I know I should stay quiet….. and just pretend that I don’t see them. But it’s like lying. And I’m a terrible liar.

Usually I fidget and my stomach turns until I can just get it over with and start some meaningless conversation so I can assure them (and myself) that there’s no animosity between us. It’s always a little strange and forced and I tend to laugh louder than I should, at jokes that I would never find funny in a situation that wasn’t as uncomfortable.

So, it happened the other day that I saw a very old school mate on the bus home from work. One who I had a pretty good rapport with in grade nine, but with whom I haven’t spoken in years. I figured: this is it. I’m really going to do it. I’m going to employ a perfectly reasonable strategy, and just pretend I didn’t see him. I gazed distractedly out the window, and fiddled with my iPod. I was casual. I pulled the bus-bell, and got off at my stop. It was seamless. We never made eye contact, and I spared us both stilted bus conversation.

And, no kidding: he finds me on Facebook and sends me a message asking me how I’m doing, and wondering why we ignored each other on the bus.

The one time.