The state of things

I feel much more "recovered" today than I felt yesterday, or at the very least I believe my head is a little clearer, anyway, so I thought I'd try to get a blog post up. For the curious, here's a little detour into my dental world, starting with a recap. As it were.

( Cut for if you don't like tales of dental work )

So here's where we are now: take apart previous mess (done), get root canal (done), get temporary crown (done, except not really, but it doesn't matter now), get crown lengthening (done, thank FSM), get cap. I have to wait two months before I can get the crown finished up, because it apparently will take that long for this surgery to heal. So all told, from the time the tooth came apart this latest time to the time (hopefully) that the crown is installed, I will have spent close to six months and probably something like two grand on this one frickin' tooth. I was kinda wallowing in that depressing thought yesterday during recovery.

Anyway. So the last couple days has been nothing but a liquid diet for me, and that hasn't been a really joyful time, either. I tried to make it up to myself by including a generous allotment of ice cream into my mealtimes, but let me just say that, although I would have never expected it to be possible, I actually got kind of sick of ice cream. Probably because the rest of the time was yogurt. This has not been a diet of much variety, so...probably just myself to blame for that. But man...do I miss food. That's actually pretty much been what today has been about. Yesterday was just trying to heal up and feel like not killing myself. That done, today was just pining after some meal of substance that I could, literally, sink my teeth into. Today I kept thinking, thank goodness I already quit smoking; if I had to quit food and cigarettes cold turkey like that, I'd be gunning people down in the street right now.

So, yeah...that's kinda where I'm at right now. Hungry and irrationally angry. Oh, man, I totally yelled at like this 100-year-old guy driving around with his wife today because he was rolling along at like 8 miles an hour in the bike lane -- just fast enough that I couldn't pass him in traffic, but just slow enough that it was fucking up my ability to go uphill, which is naturally where we were. Not my proudest moment. I mean, I don't like yelling at anyone, let alone a couple of senior citizens looking for a parking space, but damn, man...I just wanted to get home and eat my yogurt. Well, no, I wanted to get home and eat like a 12-course meal of Chinese takeout, but what I was going to eat was yogurt.

Not that I'm bitter.

Yes I am.

Anyway. So something like...oh...six weeks or so ago, I posted this lament about how I wasn't at all sure about this new job being a good idea, and what do I do now, and all that stuff. I happened to see it today, so it seemed like a good idea to take stock of things in that department. I can report the following improvement: I'm not in debilitating pain at the end of my work days any more, so there's at least that. I think this is due to a combination of me having acclimated to a lifestyle involving a lot more physical labor than I was previously used to, plus I think there's less actual physical demand on me these days. Not a lot less, mind you...but less. I'm also feeling...let's say marginally more competent at my work, but I feel I'm still ignorant of a lot more things than I've learned. The job isn't as spiritually fulfilling as I'd hoped it would be, and I don't expect that to change. Intellectually it's like pounding on my own hand with a hammer, but what the fuck...I work in a warehouse, what else can I expect. Physically I think I'm probably in better shape now than I ever have been in my life. Socially... Hmm. Well, let's just say that this isn't going to break me out of my shell. I'm getting along with people, don't get me wrong. But I'm getting by pretty much solely on politeness reflexes. It'll have to do.

Life outside work...well, there isn't anything going on, frankly. My weekdays are totally shot. I generally give about a quarter of my weekend downtime to weekly chores and shit like that, and I spend the rest of my time...well, I guess trying not to go completely insane. Mostly this involves Netflix or bike rides. I actively try to spend so much of my waking life, both at work and not, just shutting my brain down so that I don't have to be aware of what's going on. Any serious analysis I attempt to make of my life and times generally ends up with me sort of shaking and gibbering, so I'm trying to kind of put that aside for now. I know in the general sense that what I need is probably some goals...short-term, long-term, whatever, just something that will point me in a direction other than the one I'm pointed right now. In the vagueness of my fleeting thoughts, I tell myself I just need a little breathing room, but I know that's probably bullshit. All I do with breathing room is waste time. So what I really need, then, extrapolating from that, is more energy or determination -- the ability to do what I need do both now and for the future. Also I'd like to not break any more teeth. And I want to eat.

So, yeah. That's how I'm rollin' nowadays. Seeya on the other side, everybody.