Death will be my Christmas

“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”  –Erna Bombeck

It’s 0140, Christmas morning.  I stopped being a child long ago.  There is very little of me left.

I like adulthood for being able to tune out Christmas music and ignore decorations.  The economy has so many people on edge that spray-snow-in-a-can optimism and cheer has dropped off.  Fatigue is in the air like burning tire smoke.  I want to take a chainsaw to the size of our criminal government, carve it down to something small and useful, like a pocketknife.

I went to the drugstore to peruse the As Seen on Tv crap.  Everything was still $19.99.  No Chia Pets!

No one needs a Chia Pet, that’s why it’s brilliant.  I don’t need one: I have dope.

I’ve smoked-out only once, “in moderation”.  I felt no happier.  I am going through the motions of being alive.

I saw a girl in the drugstore.  Tan jacket and ponytail, not ugly, not beautiful, but lovely.  Life.  I looked at her head, at the chestnut ponytail.  Life.  How pointless and precious.

I didn’t buy shit.  I had bought shit earlier, elsewhere.  I averaged approx. $50 per person times 5, an enormous sum for me.

I’d make it a thousand but I don’t have it.

I hate gifts, even getting them.  Let me explain.  I live in America, do you?  We can get nearly anything we want at any time of year (if you want pot all you gotta do is befriend 3 strangers).  Gifts:  if someone I know wanted something badly and I could afford it, I’d get it for them.  The people I know need what they want, they don’t waste.   I don’t like being forced to do anything; take something pleasurable like buying a gift for someone, and make it mandatory.  That’s hell.

You cannot opt out of the gift game unless you are a hermit.  I’ve tried.  It’s horrible to receive anything when you have nothing to give in return.  And yes, I tried warning everyone I knew not to give me anything.  It doesn’t work.

I have no useful advice for surviving holidays, any of them.  Enjoy what you can.

Death will be my Christmas.   Not suicide but natural death, I can wait.  I look forward to the change of pace and new environment, even in Hell.  It’s hell anyway to be alive yet numb.

Bukey the Cat (R.I.P.)

when you adopt an animal from the humane society they have you sign a form basically saying you take full responsibility for this life you’re bringing into your home and you better not fuck up or else. i do take better care of bukey than myself. i care more about her than my ownself. that’s why her going blind has upset me worse than either of my two divorces. it’s why i bawled like a little baby for three hours straight the other day after she slipped off the bed and hurt her back (she’s all better now). she is my true soulmate so i care more about her than anything else in this world. that leona helmsley who left 12 mil to her dog and nothing to her grandkids? that is cool. that dog of hers loved her more than anyone else on the planet and she knew that and did the right thing. they say a lot of old folks give all their money, or a part of it, to their beloved pets. i’m right on with that.

howie

p.s. bukey’s on my lap right now.

**************

Dear Robert:

Ah fuck, Death again.
Death at the end of every sentence, built into every heart.

The social scientists will never admit that losing a pet is worse than losing a human, too many people would be surprised and insulted to discover they will be missed far less than a dog or cat. Yet it’s true. If I had my way, the pets I loved dearly would be living on elsewhere and those humans that broke my heart would be put to sleep. That seems fair. Fairer than this.

When we first meet those animals that become our pets, we immediately forget their bodies, so perfectly matched to their souls, will give out long before our love for them. For this reason, no matter how old we get, the death of a pet will always be a crime.

I’ll spare you the jack-assed line of the professional eulogist (“I didn’t know ____ personally...”) I knew Bukey (though pronounced BOO-key her name sounds like “BYOO-key” in my bullet head) and how special she was. I read about her antics for over a decade. Her feline indifference to being a sort-of AHA mascot lended credibility to the writing since no matter how many people didn’t write in with comments, she was always first to ignore the words and instead eat pizza.

Bukey threw me for a loop by eating human food, and when I informed you cats have no taste receptors for sweetness you posted pictures of her destroying a full box of Krispy Kremes. Ha ha ha.

Right now you’re legally insane. Love does this and so must grief. You will find your way through the maze.

Bukey was a beautiful girl who lived a long, full, happy life. She couldn’t have had a better owner.

Neither could you.

In loving memory.

Fun with Dentistry on my day off (again)

Heaven from every side is closed.

–Mother Teresa

I thought it was going to be a routine dental check-up and was dead wrong. It was Deep-Tissue Cleaning Day and the festivities began with six (fucking SIX) Novocain shots. With fillings done over the past 3 visits I thought I was through with all that…I was more upset my eyeteeth had been blinded with an ugly surprise than the actual needles.

The needles, as always, were hot.

I didn’t see God, just a poster with idiot multicultural models smiling in support of a teeth-whitening procedure. In the Age of Photoshop how could anyone trust such a thing?

The most painful aspect was the dentist delivering the goods. He was younger than me and looked like a handsome pilot right out of Top Gun, the other Alpha-Hunk archetype that women fantasize about when the bare-chested, long-haired horse- and motorcycle-riding rebel is off being rebellious.

“Sorry about this,” Gun said sincerely as the needle plunged. A hot tear welled up in my right eye, not from pain but from imagining he was apologizing for life so far and not the endless wasp sting in the roof of my mouth.

Even remembering Bukoswki (“People’s mouths were even uglier than their assholes.”) didn’t help.

Top Gun left for good after the shots and I stopped feeling like a helpless 10-year-old with a go-nowhere paper route.

The pleasant Filipina who’d been my main girl did the cleaning. She worked free of judgment but I felt embarrassed all the same. How bad was the damage that my teeth had to be numbed to get to the problem areas?

An hour later I was at the front desk waiting to pay (this time with money, not pain) when the Filipina snapped to and with wide eyes said, “I forgot to do something!”

I had to go back to the chair, where she applied gel to my gums with a long Q-tip.
“This will ease the soreness when the numbness wears off.”
“Gimme two.”
“Don’t brush or floss tonight. Don’t eat anything hot, temperature-wise.”

At the supermark I bought a lottery ticket, shrimp and deviled eggs. It would be awhile till I smiled again, like 2011.

Heart of Dentist Too(th)

Click for the original post.

I wake up unhappy, don’t eat and go to the dentist’s office.

Lying in the chair with a fairly attractive Asian probing my
mouth, I think about how I’ve never seen a porno that takes
place in a dentist’s office, probably because no one believes
anything pleasurable happens there.

As the woman works away with hooks and drills I once
again imagine the sewer pipes under the building, draining
the sludge of blood, gum tissue and tooth (fairy) dust to
Hell for sinners to drink.

I get the vibe the pretty Asian might be Interested, but I’m
not. I’m already heartsick and have no idea why it’s
important my teeth be in good order; ideas for suicide don’t
involve anything that leaves ID only by the teeth.

The dentist is a Good Old Florida Cracker. There are fillings
to be done and the syringe has a shiny silver ring for his
thumb. Oh shit.

The needle pierces my gums, pain lighting up the nerves
racing up the length of my jawline. By the 5th time the
needle strikes, I’m used to it, the monstrous pain of the
white hot needle, a cum-squirt of hot Novocain and WHOOF,
the pain vanishes like a match being blown out. The
horrible needle delivers the cure for itself.

As Dr. Cracker finishes with the shots I tell him, “This is why
I could never be a spy.”

Ha ha ha ha.

Fairly Pretty Asian cleans some more. I’m led to another
chair for the fillings.

A White girl, age unknown, wears a cloth mask over her
mouth and a full facial visor over that. Her smock is
brown and neither her tits or ass leap out as extraordinary.
I love her anyway. She sets up the tools of the trade on
the little tray. Hyperactive squirrels outside the window
distract her. Uh oh.

Dr. Cracker joins her when all is ready. Even with the left
half of my face numb, the drill feels like one from a hardware store. My
mind is both keenly focused and racing. I wonder why
there have never been tooth-shaped birthday cakes, why
everything is a disaster to the unhappy mind. A line from
Bukowski: People’s mouths are uglier than their assholes. I
try not to laugh aloud, there are four hands in my mouth
wielding all manner of sharps and I’m drowning in my own
saliva. I wonder if the girl is a dental student. I love her
even though I haven’t seen her face. Is this how poor
Muslim men go through life? Wondering what’s under there?

No wonder they pray to Allah. No, girl, don’t look at the Muslim squirrels holding their nuts, concentrate on this.

She hold a blue light over the filling goo. Beep….beeep.

It is finished.

I sit in the raised chair like the Buddha, the stupid beaded chain with alligator clips holding a blue napkin on my chest. Horrible pain brings a powerful ability to focus. When Dr. Cracker was shooting me with Novocain, I wished he would’ve flipped out and stabbed me in the heart. It would probably be a fine way to die, the heart stopping as if batteries had been removed but instead of cold death, warmth and beautiful numbness.

The bill is $285 for 3 fillings and a partial cleaning. I’m in the wrong line of work and of questionable sanity, as is everyone who visits a dentist of their own free will.

Heart of Dentist

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it’d been six years since I’d visited a dentist, and of those six years, there was an entire year I even had insurance but never quite got around to going, not due to fear (I broke my front teeth in a bike accident when I was a kid, so I’m used to dentistry) but sheer laziness.

After making an appointment a month ago, this morning I finally went in.

The cavity filling took only a half hour, but time in a dentist’s chair is measured by eternities; I’d say three or four passed. The Doc, who looked like a friendly, White, Toxic Avenger, swabbed the gumline to numb it before the needle. There’s nothing ironic about numbing the area for a needle which will then numb the hell out of everything.

“Slight pinch and some pressure,” lied Doc Tox. I tried to relax but there was little need: Doc was a pro, and should be since he looked like he was about 85. I barely felt the needle.

The entire right side of my face went numb. Three hours later it still is. I wondered if it drooped like Tom Cruise’s face in Minority Report…I was too scared to look in a mirror. Here came the hooks and drills, not bad at all. Non-metallic filling was injected and zapped a few times by a blue laser. The female assistant did a good job with the saliva-sucking wand.

Now the cleaning, done by a pleasant Asian woman. “It’s mostly going to be at the gumline,” she said. Silently I thanked the gods for the continuing numbth of the needle. Her drills sounded like whining puppies and screeching banshees and rattled my skull. Her suction wasn’t as good, one time I coughing up a wellspring of thick saliva and blood, drooling because of the numbing agent. She wiped my teeth with a cloth and it came away red. I imagined what the drainpipes under the building look like, converging in a River Styx of blood, drool, gum tissue and powdered tooth.

Riding the storm of splash, drill and suck I thought of grainy black-and-white 1950s films about primitive dentistry and felt lucky and thankful for Now, but also jealous of the future, when teeth would be replaced by nanotech-grown diamonds that never got cavities.

Sometimes while scraping and probing her sliver of a metal hook, the Asian Sweetheart would strike a nerve and I would see God, laughing. If I could focus on writing the way hook and nerve triggered complete and profound focus on pain, I’d be able to write an entire novel every day. I wrote several in that chair.

If this treatment works, I’ll have cheated all those times I should’ve flossed!!

Not so. Not so.

Finally it ended. I rinsed with a sweet liquid and my teeth were swabbed with something like toothpaste, only stronger.

“Leave that on. No food or drink for half and hour.”

The Asian Sweetheart showed me a printout for the additional work I’d require in the coming months, totaling almost two grand (!!) and that for just fighting periodontal disease, not fancy stuff like bridgework or retractable fangs. She told me there’s a connection between plaque on teeth and a plaque buildup in the heart. Next time, I thought, I’ll have to break the news that my heart’s shot anyway.

“Aren’t you going to scold me for not flossing?”

She smiled–her teeth were perfect, of course–and told me I should already know better.

I set up the next appointment and when I got to my car I finally looked at my face. It didn’t work right, my upper lip looked normal but felt bee-stung like Angelina Jolie’s and the right half of my face was numb, the muscles totally slack. Thankfully no one would be able to tell.

I went to the supermarket and filled the scrip she gave me for a rinse, the bottle warning THIS MEDICINE MAY STAIN TEETH.

For crying out loud, could it at least stain them white? I tossed the rinse in the back with the box of cupcakes.

I admired my poor teeth in the car again. With years of neglect drilled and blasted away the visible black gaps between them returned. I sighed and started the car. Somewhere I’d read: Caring costs, but not caring always costs more. I would have to start flossing again, diamond-teeth be damned.