Thank You, San Francisco, Good Night!

Last weekend, I packed a (very full) bag and left for San Francisco to attend the BlogHer conference. I had a fun time—maybe a little too fun—and met some nice gals (and a few nice guys, even. At BlogHer—who knew?) Mostly I was there in support of Zwaggle, the sharing and trading network for parents. And I met my blogging compatriates from b5media, who were nothing short of a hoot. I camped out, for the most part, in the Zwaggle swag recycling room by day, and the piano bar across the street by night: Lefty O’Doul’s.

Oh, Lefty, how I adore you. I adore any establishment, no matter how sketchy, at which a man at a piano openly asks, “Any requests?”

“FREE BIRD!” I yelled, as we walked in the door. I continued to sing at the top of my lungs, arms draped around whomever was close enough, "requesting" songs that are obviously not a part of the piano bar canon.

“Play 'Sister Christian!' 'Ghost BUSTERS.' 'It's Raining Men. It's Raining Men. It’s Raining Men.' 'ALL MY EXES LIVE IN TEXAS!'”

And then there was my frequent, random demand for more cowbell. At the end of belting out certain songs, I liked to take the mic, throw a kiss to the audience and yell, "Thank you, San Francisco, goodnight!" My only regret is that I didn’t get enough sleep, not that I didn’t make some other conference gaffes. Live and learn.

Mistakes were made, understanding that they were bound to happen. First off, despite fervent warnings from everyone about finding a place at the intersection of comfort and style, I brought the worst possible selection of shoes that were neither comfortable nor stylish. A rookie mistake, which on the mistake spectrum is located far from taking your friend hunting, and then shooting him in the face, and closer to, say, sitting down to an evening of cable TV, only to discover that perhaps H.O.T.S. is not the kind of movie you want to watch with your grandpa. It was a slightly painful and long-remembered, but could-have-been-worse scenario for sure.

Next, I failed to bring my North Face down jacket, mostly because I didn’t realize that walking along the streets of San Francisco in July would feel like an Everest assault, temperature-wise. I brought a wimpy little jean jacket, a faux jacket really, a jacket that gives only the illusion of warmth and doesn’t even have good pockets. I mentioned one night while shivering on a street corner that Mark Twain said that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco. That was when my conference comrade and colleague Adam looked at me, deadpan, and said, “Really? I’ve never heard that one before.” I only mention it because you would think that someone who was so familiar with the saying would have actually brought a jacket. Just saying.

And I didn’t allot enough time for non-conference shenanigans. My cousin Kevin, who’s lived in the Bay Area his whole life, came to the city to meet me and catch up. We haven’t seen each other for at least ten years, and seeing him connected me in a new way to memories of visiting California every year as a youngin’. Kevin is a kind and funny guy who decided to attend Berkeley as a thirty-something after attending community college. He’s been running his mother’s tax preparation business since her death, and plans on teaching English as a second language to Spanish speakers. He's visited 29 countries, whereas I have visited about that many counties. We had dinner and a walk together, but it wasn’t enough. I can’t believe we don’t talk more often.

I also met up with…wait for it…a couple of MySpace friends, who happened to be in the city to see Eddie Izzard Saturday night. It was my first-ever MySpace moment; perhaps my first Internet-Only Friend moment, and I’m sure that there are people scratching their heads about what the big deal is. This is the part where I repeat: "I’m Amish, remember?" In short, they were totally nice, normal people with excellent taste in comedy, which is perhaps the best endorsement anyone can get from me.

In the "win" column, both my cousin and my MySpace pals commented on the quality and reputation of the Westin St. Francis, and it was all I could do to pretend like I had chosen it for that reason, dahlink. I have to agree that I was thoroughly impressed with the concierge who took my call the night I asked where I could get some Band Aids. He said, "I'll send some right up" with such enthusiasm that I wanted to call back and ask for a pony. Providing speedy free Band Aid delivery is the mark of a good hotel (are you getting this down, Frommer's), but it just so happened that’s where the conference was happening, and I got a really good rate on my closet room.

My plane was delayed in Salt Lake City both ways, but seriously, I don’t remember the last time I got to sit quietly in an airport, reading the latest David Sedaris collection and laughing until I literally embarrassed myself, instead of following around a youngster with too much energy, who insists on licking everything in the airport. It was like going to a spa, only a spa located in a cattle car instead of in a fancy hotel on Pearl Street. And instead of getting little fluffy slippers and a robe to wear, I was wearing the cruelest shoes money could buy.

And without shitting you in the slightest, I can’t wait to do it again.

Sans Sans-A-Belt: A Blogumentary in 3 Parts

I.
[Cue the Frank Sinatra music to go with the home movie footage of hip white guys hanging at the Sands or the Pink Flamingo or Caesar's, ca. 1971.]

[Imagine a black and white photograph] This is my dad, Frank, a first-generation American born in Colorado of all places, in the mid 1920s. Here he is walking the Vegas Strip with his friends, a bunch of other "goombas" that he's known practically since birth. Although they're of all shapes, sizes, and incomes, they pretty much all have one thing in common besides their Italian-American heritage: Their pants.

[Pan down] Note the multi-colored offering of polyester pants, which by the way, are a real bitch to crease down the front like that. (I ironed my dad's pants once a week from 1991-1993.) They aren't just any polyester pants, however. First off, as my friend and fashion guru, Suzy Ten Bears says, "They're not even really pants. I find myself wanting to call them 'slacks.'" And she's right, they are more like slacks than anything else. They're Sans-a-belt slacks.

II.
Thirty years later, you could still see my dad, and most of his friends, wearing the same pants, by which I mean the exact same pants. Not a new pair of the same style of pants, but the very pants they'd been wearing all along. (For those of you who rage against the half-life of plastic grocery bags, please add Sans-a-Belt pants to your list of Things That Last Four Thousand Years in a Landfill.)

They wear them to the bocce courts, and to lunch, and to card games. They wear them to do all the same stuff they've always done, like stand around telling stories and gambling on...everything. Dad's got grungy pairs he puts aside for doing things like disassembling the sprinkler system in his yard, and digging up the flower beds. Shoveling snow, and what have you. He's probably got nicer pairs that he wears to tournaments and Olive Garden, and in-between pairs that he wears for watching Antiques Roadshow. He's an older guy now, my dad, which means that his favorite slacks are getting old, too.

III.
And here we are: No matter how well you take care of a garment, it's bound to forsake you. It's going to wear out at some point. I think Shakespeare may have been hanging out with my dad and talking about slacks the day he walked home from Ye Olde Olive Garden and wrote, "therein lies the rub."

Dad's been troubled by all this, I hear. I can relate. The expiration of my favorite things is often cause for reflection, and reflection isn't always comfortable. There's the nostalgia. The stories. The history. I imagine dad patting one leg of his trousers and saying, "Before deciding that blankets were more appealing, the government approached me about using these pants to introduce smallpox to the Native Americans, but I would have no part of it."

Mom says that San-a-Belt pants slacks are hard to come by these days, and so Dad is hoarding them, as I probably would. They probably still make them, but unless you're a referee or clergyman, you probably can't get your arthritic, spotted hands on a pair anymore. Not one to make assumptions, though, (you know what happens when you ass u me, right?) I took a look for Sans-a-Belt slacks. Sure enough, there's a "dealer locator" page at the Web site, which is interesting. I've never thought of clothing as being something that required a dealer, but, well, we are talking about an American institution here, an iconic brand that is perhaps made of petroleum products and sheet metal.

My mom, a woman who still has the red hounds tooth polyester pantsuit uniform she wore every day of her career as a reservations agent for Western Airlines (from 1865 until I graduated high school), had finally had enough. She thinks it's time to move on. I kind of agree, although this probably means that Dad's only alternatives are jogging suits or Dockers separates, or cheap jeans from COSTCO. Really, it doesn't matter. Whatever's comfy enough to watch Matlock in while you openly discuss your bowels.

But take heart from physics, friends, because matter is neither created nor destroyed. There is, somewhere in the cosmos, little pieces of Sans-a-Belt pants swirling and mingling with other materials, becoming reincarnated--with divine guidance, no doubt--into something new. Something wonderful. And for those of us who fear change, who deny death its right to a speedy trial, for those of us who would forget that the world is an impermanent place, I say simply this: Dillards. I called, and while the news is not great, "I have only a very few pieces of them," they do exist in the here and now. For now.

So go on, take an opportunity to grab a piece of history. You can someday set a pair next to your piece of the Berlin Wall, your autographed picture taken with the drummer from Def Leppard back when he had both arms. Put them in your time capsule. And wait for it, the dawning of a new age.

The Late, Great, Really Needy Mona Reale

One more post from the Grieving Mona files, and then I'm going to put posting about her passing to rest for a while. I'll stick to just the facts, ma'am, to avoid some of the blubbering I'm prone to doing when I'm terribly sad about things having to do with the creatures in this house. (Confession alert: I still get a little misty over the demise of Charles, the beta fish I rescued from my workplace four years ago. So.)

Last week, at the age of nine, we put our dog Mona down. She was suffering; we were all ready. It was hard. I've received many heartfelt condolences from friends and family, but this one is my favorite, for its mix of using just the right amounts of sympathy, understanding, realness, and irreverence. It's from my good friend and writing coach, David Hicks, and is also reprinted here without any permission whatsoever.

We were really, really sad to hear about Mona. She was a truly great dog. You must have been so sad, and Sophie must have been confused. Anyway, long live Mona, the neediest dog on earth.

I think that pretty much says it all. And also this: Thanks, Mona, for being our dog.

When? or, Tuesdays With Mona

If most of my duties as The Lady of the House are unglamorous and menial, there's one that's undeniably important, if difficult: the task of keeping the living things in our home alive and well. And as the prime caregiver to family members of the canine kind, I'm also sometimes burdened with the say-so over the dying part.

Our nine-year-old Lab/husky mutt, Mona, is the victim of something that has taken away the use of the right side of her head. It's moving fast, whatever it is; this morning her right eye is rolling around, her lip is dangling from her jaw, and her head is perpetually tilted. She can still walk, but the right side of her body is visibly atrophied. Plainly, it's all in her head. It's probably a tumor.

Knowing that there are people who put their dogs on life support, I know that veterinary care for one's animals is one of life's deeply personal decisions. We've decided against an MRI, because we've decided that we're not going to opt for brain surgery or chemotherapy. She's sedated, medicated, and for now, comfortable. We call her Sister Morphine. I'm sad to the point of paralysis. I didn't think I'd be this sad. I never do; I'm a procrastinator that way.

I knew something was up when Mona began acting funny a few months ago, slobbering and eating funny. I thought her teeth were bothering her. At least we can say that, when she gets to Dog Heaven, she will have nice, clean teeth.

I'm doing the best I can with this, the strangest of all familial duties, and I know the drill. After what's done is done, I will say something stupid like, "No more dogs. It's too hard when they leave." My friend Dawn, who has had dogs and horses and all kinds of animals for a million years, will tell me what a shame that kind of thinking is, reminding me that the price of being a Dog Person is outliving most of your friends. "But at least we can give them a good life," she would say.

I may have to decide when to say when, which is one of my job's cruelest or merciful decisions. It's a hard one, even if Mona could tell me whether or not she is suffering under pain's harsh rule. I may have to make some distinctions about quality of life, both mine and Mona's. She will forgive me.

Whatever happens, I can enjoy her company now, and remind myself of our time together later. I'm grateful to our Mona: for being our friend, our companion, the gentle and infinitely tolerant introduction she gave our daughter to big, loud dogs. She is proof that I like a big, dopey, old dog more than anything in the world. She has something to do with the feeling of safety I enjoy in our home. I like that she has replaced me as the resident nutjob for the past five years. And I like that she still perks up at the invitation of a walk, and barks with what's left of all her might at whomever dares cross her lop-sided path. She's still eating with the gusto of a pup; I'm happy to feed her steak while she can still eat it. We're sympatico that way.

And when she's unable to act crazy, or look interested in knocking over the trash; when she can't walk, or eat, I'll know that we're there yet.

When the Lights Go Down in the City

It's with just a pang of nostalgia that I'm going to San Francisco for the BlogHer Conference in July. I realized, while shopping for a hotel room, that I haven't been to the Bay Area in twenty years.

My sister lived there, just before her life took what could be called a dismal turn, followed by several other disturbing ones, and eventually culminated in one big tragic one. She was ten years my senior; we were never close. In Facebook parlance, "It's complicated." So were her relationships with pretty much everyone else.

The anniversary of her death was about a week ago, and when I think about her, I'm not sure what I feel is grief. It's something closer to remorse. Now that she's been dead five years, the time we spent together in San Francisco is my fondest, clearest memory of her. I still have one thing she gave me ten years ago: her dog. He's old and gray and ornery. I love him.

The year Sophie was born, I began to wonder what my sister would have been like had Things (with a capital t) been different. I began reinventing her in my mind, making up the kind of person she might have been. In my mind, she became someone who always had gum in her purse. Her karaoke song was "It's Raining Men." When she laughed, she would show you every filling in her mouth. She would be my example that there is nothing to fear from forty. And whenever visiting The City, she would pick me up at the airport.

I Want a New Drug Car

If it's considered romantic to continue to learn things about one's spouse long after the nuptials, consider this: I realized not long ago that I happened to have married a man with a very interesting feature. Somewhere in Alex's head is a little invisible clock, a timer that is constantly counting down to zero the minutes and seconds in which it will be time to rid ourselves of each of our worldly possessions. He seems to own one of these little clocks for everything material thing--mine, his, ours. Nothing escapes his timer; even the houses we've lived in have been on the clock, and in fact, deciding on a dime to sell our first home was how I learned of his expire-o-meter in the first place.

A few months ago, Alex began making little noises about my car, a Subaru sedan. They were little, introductory-type messages that indicated that it was becoming time to sell my car, as opposed to the statement, "I sold your car today." I appreciated the warm up to the main event. I , of course, dug my heels in and proceeded to drag my feet, kicking and screaming all the way to Craigslist the day we put it up for sale. Someone bought it the next day. I cried, wee wee wee, all the way home.

I enjoy forming attachments to my things, and keeping them until death do us part, which is why Sophie is using my childhood bedroom furniture, and--no kidding--sleeping on my Snoopy sheets from 1974. Apart from finding this sort of conservationist quality in myself a strength, I also know that I do it because that's how much I really hate shopping to replace the stuff we've parted with. I think I may also have contracted a case of Being Old Fashioned, which makes buying new things with new features and shiny buttons and knobs a lot like putting the cast of Hee Haw on the space shuttle: an embarrassment to those who have spent their lives and enthusiasm furthering technology's advances, and a plea for space aliens to just shoot us all and eat our brains--NOW.

I say all that, knowing I'm a little sad that I'm no longer such a gadgety gal. The truth is, technology doesn't do it for me like it used to, and that's perhaps because I live in a house full of nutjobs intent on ruining everything I care too much about. Motherhood has done things to me, beyond the obvious, physical things that it does to all of us, and I'm afraid that it's shown me that anything with buttons on it, anything mechanical or digital or electrical, is soon rendered inoperable with extreme and swift prejudice.

I also know that I've inherited a lot of my no-nonsense, frugal behaviors from a long line of people who had just enough, and needed to save every bit of it for as long as they could. Just today, I built a fort for Sophie out of the same (reupholstered) couch cushions with which my dad made countless forts for me. My first car, which made it past college graduation, was the 1971 Camaro my dad bought when I was two years old. Mom and Dad still live in the same house they bought when they married in 1968; they probably always will.

Without entering territory that I would call stingy or cheap, my family's Depression-era thinking has rubbed off on me, a fact that I'm almost proud of, in a noble way; a kind of waste-not-want-not kind of way. In a way that makes my husband, a person I also plan to keep as long as possible, dizzy with anxiety. Funny, that.

So in addition to calling him Rapunzel (behind his back), I shall now refer to Alex as Chronos, Timekeeper of All Our Things. It's a good thing, and an annoying thing, and I'll take it because at least the man is the buying type in addition to being the selling type. Yesterday he bought me a car--a "pre-owned" one, as I like to call it--at my urging. It's just like my old car, only newer, and neater, and in much better shape. No, Dr. Freud, it's just a cigar.

I told Alex that I wanted a newer car that was modestly priced, and that got good gas mileage. I wasn't looking for anything fancy, understanding that fancy is relative; I reminded him that my cell phone only does two things: takes phone calls and makes them. (I think I actually had to pay extra for that.) And now I have exactly what I asked for. For now.

Now it's time to wait and see. Because maybe the clock that governs his clocks is going to wind down to 0:00:00, and he will forget to stop me from keeping and loving every single thing that has ever served me, and we will finally see each other for who we are: People who need deserve each another.

Of Mouth and Men, or, Down in the Mouth: Thirteen Years of Dentists and Dread

There aren't many cruel fates that have befallen me; my health, overall, has been good, and I've said before that, without knowing whether luck is something that you make or something that you get, I've always had a lot of the good kind. It's true that I can't cook, and I'm a terrible photographer--I know these things about myself, and I don't suffer much over them. There is usually little money in the things I enjoy doing the most. A coincidence, or a self-fulfilling prophecy? You tell me, Grasshopper.

There is one regrettable card I've been dealt, however, that causes me a considerable amount of scowling and pouting about once every five to ten years. It's this: My teeth could give a shit about Novocaine.

I discovered this, of course, in the worst possible way: At the hands of a totally incompetent dental technician named George. (After such an experience, you would remember his name after all these years, too.) George worked for the dentist I had chosen the year I finally landed a job with good benefits, Dr. P.V., DDS, a Denver dentist who owned one of those dental franchise-things called Perfect Teeth.

I was in my mid-20s; it made me feel all grown up and responsible to choose a dentist and actually go to an appointment. I was new to being a good consumer of medical and health services, and I believe I chose the good doctor by closing my eyes and pointing to the "Dentists" section of the Yellow Pages. I opened my eyes, my finger resting on a listing called Perfect Teeth. "Perfect Teeth," I gasped, opening my eyes. They must be good.

I went to my first checkup appointment after several years of not making any checkup appointments, and of course I had a whopper of a cavity making a tunnel between two of my bottom molars. What with being a grown-up and all who didn't need her mother to tell her that such things require attention, I made an appointment for a filling.

It was early, maybe 7:00 AM, and still dark the day of my appointment. I had taken the first one of the day so that I could still make it to work on time, even if the weather was bad. I took the chair and met George, the technician assigned to my case. He made chitchat as he set up the workspace, which included explaining that, because he loved snowboarding so much, he had his hands insured. "If I mess these up," he held up two meat hooks, "I lose my livelihood." I looked around at the otherwise empty office and asked, "Where's the dentist?"

"Oh, he's not coming. I'm filling your tooth." This sounded strange to me, but I figured it was just a no-big-deal filling, and could be handled by the superstar snowboarder whose dunlop* hadn't escaped my attention. George gave me several Novocaine shots, and put his Lloyd's of London policy on his drill.

"Ahhhrgh," I said, flinching. George told me to relax, but I could still feel the drill, a sensation that, at first, was unpleasant, but not unbearable. Like maybe picking a fresh scab, or listening to a John Tesh song. As he continued, things became more like taking a pick ax to that scab, or turning up the John Tesh to 11. I was trying to hold still, but found myself squirming and sinking, slinking down out of the chair, my fingernails impaling the pleather of the armrest. "Arrrgh! Arrawaah!" I protested. George tried several more shots of Novocaine, to no noticeable effect. Finally, he put down the drill, filled the tooth, and called it good.

I went to work, to answer phone calls with half my face, and went home to a throbbing sensation in my teeth that night. By bedtime, the throbbing had become a jackhammer in my jaw. Knowing that I faced a sleepless night, twisting and turning myself inside out trying to get comfortable, moaning in agony, I called the dentist's office number. I took down the emergency after-hours pager number the answering machine rattled off. My phone rang in a half hour.

"Take some Advil or Aleve," said Dr. V., unconcerned. I explained that I had already taken enough Advil to kill Keith Richards. He refused to call in a prescription, telling me, in so many words, that shit happens. For whatever reason, I believed him. Two months later, I still couldn't chew with the filled molars, and anything cold was out of the question. This was adulthood, I figured. Fillings hurt, which is why, I guessed, all the old people I knew were so pissed off most of the time.

I thought that for a few months, until the day a I felt a tiny little earthquake, then a tiny little landslide of metal going on in my mouth. I couldn't take it anymore; I made an appointment to see Dr. V. "What day is George's day off?" I asked the receptionist.

I realize now that this is a lot like returning to the hairdresser who just gave you the Borat after you had asked for the Rachel, but these were desperate times. Times during which there was no Yellow Pages in the cafeteria at work.

It turns out that George, untrained in how to deal with a patient who couldn't get numb, said, "Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling," instead of dispatching the remaining decay before filling the teeth. With such shaky footing, the amalgam could find only limited purchase, and eventually it cracked and shimmied its way out of Dodge. "Douchebag," I mumbled at the news. Dr. V. Himself performed the replacement, with the help of a nice technician with a bad perm and prison work tattoos, andNovocaine, and a generous helping of nitrous oxide gas, which I learned doesn't so much lessen the pain of the drill so much as it lessens how much I care about the pain of the drill. While it was an improvement, I considered the situation a lose-lose one, but the best I could do given the circumstances.

Six years later, I knew I needed another filling, and chose a dentist with the care one would take to choose a babysitter, a roommate, a spouse. I had asked friends and family for referrals; I had learned to ask, "Are you the kind of dentist who performs the procedures, or are you the kind of dentist who does the books and buys the furniture?" I had made an important DUH-scovery that maybe not all dentists were alike. And when my new dentist asked me why I hadn't had a checkup in so long, I didn't lie. I had become self-unemployed, and didn't have benefits. I think I said something like, "The only thing worse than asking someone to hurt you is to pay someone out of pocket to hurt you." I made sure to tell her my story, which for some reason, entertained her as much as it informed her. She gassed me and filled my tooth. It was a little thing, it was no problem, and she was nice and competent enough that I actually don't remember her name.

Since then, I've been more diligent in seeing my dental professional. We have insurance right now, which is a bonus. Alex found the dentist we have now, a congenial fella with what I thought at first sounded like an exotic last name. I balked a little when I found out he was an Air Force dentist, but he quickly bucked the stereotype. (No offense to persons trained and working in the armed forces, but I spent years as a Planned Parenthood patient, and found myself in the stirrups across from a few former Army nurses. When you've had a pelvic exam from Maj. Margaret Houlihan, you can argue with me about the differences between military and civilian care.)

At my last appointment, last week, I learned that my filling of eight years ago, installed by the nice woman who laughed at my jokes and tolerated my nervous nellie patient style, was going bad. I launched my well-rehearsed presentation of George: The Man Who Hurt Me. My exotic-named dentist patted me on the arm, promised to gas me, and assured me that he would do no harm.

I went to my filling replacement remembering the nice dentist who thought my dental story was such a hoot. I lay in the chair in a full sweat, waiting for the ensuing jolts of pain that were coming, coming, coming. Then after the drilling was over, I lay trembling from the chills I got from sweating the previous hour. "Poor dear," the hygienist said, draping a blanket over me, and wiping down my forehead with a mop. Later, I vomited, which I considered a fair price for the modicum of relief the gas gave me.

The dentist's assistant, Xena, was waiting for me when I walked in, showed me to my chair; she asked me if I wanted to wear my own sunglasses, or wear the office goggles. "It's just for your protection," Xena said, and I wondered what kind of filling replacement could put out a person's eye. "Do you want some headphones?" she asked. "They might help if the sound of the drill bothers you." Considering that the drilling was going to go on inside my head, using earphones to dampen the sound didn't make sense to me, but I accepted them anyway, and put them on.

The dentist took a seat next to me, and we prepared each other on what was about to happen. "I can't get numb; there's nothing we can do about it," I said, and he looked at me sideways and said he didn't know about that. Nevertheless, I told him I wanted him to gas me, ASAP, but not too much. "Somewhere between Dead show and Pink Floyd." He gave me my shots and I lay there with my sunglasses and headphones on. I sent up a prayer of thanks that John Tesh was totally absent from the FM dial.

And then he said, "I couldn't tell from your X-rays for sure, but I see now that you definitely have a little cavity in the tooth next to this one. Do you want to just take care of it now?" This was an unwelcome surprise to me, but only mildly so. It's a little like having your mechanic tell you that, during your break job, he discovered you have a tail light out. No biggie, but another 10 minutes in the chair is another 10 in the chair. I told him to go ahead and fill it, to be conservative, and so I lay there, waiting, waiting, waiting. As the drill spun around in my head, I have to say I never felt a thing.

While I don't know if it was a change in me, or a change in the dentist, it turned out to be my most positive dental experience to date. And you can ask me for the man's name and number, but I'm busy organizing a ticker tape parade in his honor, and sending bouquets and gold bouillon to his office. I'm lobbying our local and state governments to name a day after him after offering him a key to the city. Sure, I may sound overzealous, but this kind of breakthrough means that maybe I'm living in a world in which anything could happen after all. Like, for example, how Dr. V.'s stellar filling continues to hold up to this day.

And how, if teeth can change their minds at the hands of one Air Force dentist with an exotic last name and a staff member named Xena, then who knows what other pains I'm tolerating that could turn themselves off one morning? Shoot, I'll bet that in a world like this one, I might even be able to forgo cavities altogether. Just as an experiment, I'm having Lindt chocolates for lunch. And just as insurance, I'm going to brush and floss afterward.


*Dunlop--shorthand parlance to describe one's abdominal physique, as in, "His belly done lop over his belt."