odontophobia

i just made a dentist's appointment for next Tuesday, and there is nothing remarkable about this expect that i have not been to the dentist since Clinton was in office. the first term. thankfully, the intervening years have been without dental incident - no toothaches, no (known) cavities, no impacted wisdom teeth.

i credit a childhood obsession with milk for being able to go this long, but i suspect that some of the wisdom promised by those final four teeth is finally making its way into my head. i don't know what to expect, but the nice woman with the British accent promised there would be x-rays and hundreds of dollars involved. but this is beside the point.

the point is that two years ago i was stuck in limbo, somewhere in the Appalachians. i was waiting on a very important phone call from a woman i did not know, acting under the instruction of a man (perhaps even The Man) i knew even less. i paced around my father's home and rode the backroads, hoping to find some respite from the wondering in my wandering. i drank good cups of coffee in the morning, and bad cups of coffee in the afternoon, and by the time all the coffee drinking was done the phone call finally arrived.

i booked the next flight home.