I hope he left a little wisdom...

Yesterday morning I had wisdom teeth removed, approximately 20 years later than everyone else I know.  I thought the fact that all four came in, without incident, back in college meant that I was safe. However, back in grad school my dentist told me that it would be best for me to have my back four molars extracted. Perhaps it was because I hadn't been to the dentist in more than a decade at that point, or perhaps it was because my mind simply couldn't comprehend the notion of preventative surgery, or perhaps it was her diploma was from Romania and I harbored some secret resentment or prejudice against Ceauşescu and his kinfolk.

 Whatever the reason I did nothing.

[lapse, two years]

About three months ago, I went to a new dentist, who happens to share a name with the designer of my glasses:

image appropriated from Scott Harris

But this is beside the point.

The point is that this second dentist told me the same thing 3 months ago as the mad Romanian back in 2010. One referral, one consultation with an oral sureon, and one hefty dose of nitrous oxide and I.V. sedation later, I have four fewer teeth than I had yesterday morning.

Amazingly, I remember nothing about the procedure whatsoever. Nothing. Intellectually, I knew this would probably be the case, but somehow I didn't really understand the full extent of it. One minute, I'm inhaling the laughing gas, doing mantra, keeping my left hand in chin mudra as the surgeon asks me, "Are you starting to feel relaxed yet?" I tell him I do, and ask him to turn down the gas a bit. 

(This was also my first time under the effects of nitrous, which feels like nothing so much like as being fifteen feet under water while holding your tongue to a 9-volt battery.)

Anyway, I'm watching myself in this state, hear myself responding to questions, and the surgeon asks me which arm I prefer for the I.V. 

"The right," I say.

He asks me to pump my fist, compliments my veins, and I can barely feel the needle piercing the skin. Then. a flurry of sounds as the surgeon and his two assistants begin taping the stint into place. It sounds like a wrapping station at Boca Town Center Mall on the day before Christmas.

The next thing I know, I'm awake.  My yin is there, and the surgeon is saying that everything went well. I'm neither groggy nor in pain, and other than the fact that my jowls are packed full of gauze, everything feels fine. I drift in and out of consciousness on the way home, and somewhere along the way my yin stops to fill prescriptions for antibiotics, painkillers, and some mystery mouthwash that I didn't even know existed.

The rest of yesterday passes in bed, with a disturbing - though not frightening - amount of blood dribbling out of my mouth.  Apparently they use enough Novocaine to kill a horse when they pull your wisdom teeth because my chin and front lip feel like a dead fish until sundown. This made it next to impossible to drink anything without leaving a pinkish spill of bloody water for a two-foot radius around me. I keep an ice pack on for 20 minutes out of every hour, and my yin, amazing as always, nurses me through it all, mashing potatoes and blending in broccoli so I can get some vitamins before finally going to bed.

I wake inexplicably at 2am, lie in bed for two hours, then get up and move to the living room.  By this point, the swelling has gone down and there is surprisingly little discomfort.  In fact, other than the constant, metallic, oozing taste of blood, I seem to be more or less okay. My appetite is beginning to return, I can actually touch my front teeth together, and ibuprofen is le drug du jour.

All that remains to be seen is whether or not the surgeon was able to follow-through on the last request I made before he turned on the nitrous: "If possible, when you pull the teeth, please try leave the little bit of wisdom I've accumulated."

Time will tell...

Two Exhibits, One Graph and Chickens Coming Home to Proust

Exhibit #1:

Conclusion #1: This blog is more volatile than the stock market.
Conclusion #2: Invest in tech stocks.

Exhibit #2:

     “Thank you. But I think I have everything I need.”
     “How about books and videos and the like?”
     “I can't think of anything I particularly want.”
     “How about Proust’s  In Search of Lost Time?” Tamaru asked. “If you’ve never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing.”
     “Have you read it?”
     “No, I've never been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can't read the whole of Proust.”
     “Do you know anybody who has read the whole thing?”
     “I’ve known some people who have spent a long period in jail, but none were the type to be interested in Proust.”

Conclusion #1: Haruki Murakami has a keen sense of conversation.
Conclusion #2: I'm probably never gonna make it all the way through Proust.

In Response to Alison Luterman's "Because These Failures Are My Job"

These images are neither the ghosts of the past

nor the promise 

of a future.

They are merely an observation:

everything that can pass

will.

     But let also us remember: these failures –

whether "offering"

or "apology"

or "thank you"

 

 – are miracles nonethless.

Confession

I woke this morning a little before 5am from a dream of an unruly meditation group.  In the dream, two of the students from my past life as an adjunct community college professor have found their way into the new age bookstore where the meditation group is meeting.  I attempt to corral their energy in a constructive manner but fail, utterly, and soon find myself asking them to leave the gathering.  As they get up to go, I’m struck by a wave of guilt – is one allowed to expel another under these circumstances if it’s for the good of the whole? Or, is it a sign of failure on the part of the teacher, a mix of impatience, incompetence and frustration?

Whatever it is, I find myself running after them in the dream, stopping them in the parking lot, and telling them they can come back inside if they contribute rather than distract from the teachings. Neither of them respond, and I return to the room.  Something has shifted, however, and the momentum that I had been building has been replaced by doubt.
This may or may not be the point.

[lapse]

I woke again at 6:30, meditated, showered, and made a cup of chai.  At some point I began to journal (a measly, anemic entry that has sadly become par for the course over the past year) and eventually turned on my phone. There was a message from Saylor:

"Drowned Sorrows Dried Up"

We haven’t spoken in months, and other than a couple of unreturned calls in either direction over the winter, we’ve had virtually no contact since last summer when my yin and I spent a couple of nights with him in San Francisco. The call, both in its timing and content, was poignant. Among other things, Saylor mentioned that he has been watching this blog, wondering what had happened.

(here comes the confession)

I don’t know.

I have at least a half dozen reasons, some real, others fictive, but all are ultimately unsatisfying. I’ve thought maybe it’s a result of being too happy, of being unhappy, of working too much, of not working enough, of working too much of the wrong type of job, of being uncomfortable, of being too uncomfortable, blah blah bah…

Do you see what I did there?

The words seem to disappear as effortlessly as they arrive, and over the past year this has been a curious source of disappointment for me. But, with Saylor’s call this morning, and the resultant  realizations I had on the drive into work, I can’t help but think I may have turned a corner, found some pinprick of light through the dark haze that has been obscuring the words for far too long…

Time will tell…

Happy belated birthday!

Note: This poem was originally penned in March of 2008 under the influence of boredom, Francis Scott Key, and the patriotism of the previous six and a half years. It is best read while listening to:

"Makes No Difference" by Richard King

I close my eyes and listen...

the vision of a banner

spangled and splattered

smothered and covered

hoisted and dropped

from the rooftop of Waffle House

Stitched together from the scraps of Sicily

and the dregs of Dublin

and the bums of the Balkans

and the crumbs of the Caucuses

and the niggers of the Niger river basin

and the ten thousand bastard Amerasians

from the hundred thousand homeless vets

whose Vietinsemination was such a success.

Can you see that banner?
Can you see that billboard?
The one over the streets of Baghdad:

The one bragging in Bangalore:

The one towering over Tel Aviv:

Can you see?

the dawn’s early light over Bikini Atoll

With sheep lashed to the railings of destroyers,
and GI’s washing their clothes later that day,
eating gyros and laughing at Oppenheimer.

Are you still there?

have I lost you Tet?

What a lovely new year and many more to come,

holidays in the sun

holidays in Cambodia

holidays in Laos.

I have a friend who was there in ‘61:

19 years old

jumping into the jungles

with plenty of advice
and a canteen full of vinegar

for the purpose of douching the wounded.

But who needs all this when we have the Rock?

and the Rock’s red glare

staring down

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Keeping us warm at night,
bringing us in from the cold.

It reminds me of my childhood

and the last icy villain

and his Red Scare.

An actor brought him in from the cold, too:

a real cowboy

But this is a new era,
with a new almond-faced hero

(it’s okay he’s Samoan)

no miscegenation here, boss.

And the planes bursting in mid-air?

not since Lockerby

5 million screaming Scotsmen can’t be wrong.
and 19 dead Arabs can’t be right
and 1 balding municipal servant
who had one good day in September?

He can run for president.

But the flag is still there:

The flag is still there.

The flag is still there.

And what does it say?

Alone at night, naked

and cold.

Shivering from night terrors

and kicking at the covers

holding on with both hands

trying to stretch that blanket a little further

pulling it overhead and trying not to breathe

because Ed Jenner is nowhere around.

And the land?

The land was free;
a manifest destiny quilting bee,
a landscape stitched together

with all those poxy small blankets

three thousand miles
from sea to shining sea.

And our home?

How brave it is, to leave a single tribe in all of Georgia?
No more Apalachee, or Cherokee, or Shawnee.

only a single tribe left in all of Georgia

bought because
it was the cheapest
programming in town.

Who wouldn’t want to own a part of this dream?

Five Things I (re)Learned From Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 Over the Weekend

1. "True, rewriting the past probably had no meaning, Tengo felt. His older girlfriend had been right about that. No matter how passionately or how minutely he might attempt to rewrite the past, the present circumstances in which he found himself would remain generally unchanged. Time had the power to cancel all changes wrought by human artifice, overwriting all new revisions with further revisions, returning the flow to its original course. A few minor facts might be changed, but Tengo would still be Tengo."

2. "Wakeful nights often give people useless thoughts."

3. "Unfortunately, however, sheer talent is not enough. And depending upon how you look at it, possessing an outstanding talent that is not sufficient may be more dangerous than possessing nothing at all."

4. "Certain kinds of knowledge rob people of their sleep. Green tea is no match for these things. They might take restful sleep away from you forever."

5. "Tengo closed his eyes again, took a deep breath, found the words he needed and set them in a row. Then he rearranged them to give the image greater clarity and prevision. Finally, he improved the rhythm."