Year: 2002
Gratuitous Blog Chalking Post
Posted on September 20, 2002 in Misc
This is my blogchalk:
United States, California, Trabuco Canyon, Portola Hills, English, Joel, Male, 41-45, Writing, Photography.
Parings
Posted on September 19, 2002 in Fact-Dropping OCD Psychotropics
Do you recall my mentioning that a rhino’s horn is made of the same stuff as a fingernail? The thought occurs to me that I could save my parings, grind them up, and sell them to desperate Asian businessmen.
Two Dreams
Posted on September 18, 2002 in Dreams
1. I am riding a train that is part of a tour I am taking with other people. The back flat cars of the train have been planted with tropical plants. As it begins to rain, most of the people rush into the passenger cars. The train, which has been stretched out, comes together just before it enters a tunnel. I pirouette on the cars, my arms held up in the air, leaping and bounding on and off the train, calling to others to join me in my dance. They have no idea how good it is.
2. I lead a people who want to know the truth about alien abductions into a spaceship that takes us all to a crystal city orbiting the earth. Those who have been taken there are happy because the stresses of the world have been removed from their shoulders. I introduce my party to one young man who was taken in 1868, just after the Civil War.
I must return from the sky city to retrieve a few things from earth. The people in the Pentagon have discovered a bug in Windows that has kept them from launching their attacks. I go back with my neighbor Tim and we are captured when we land on my balcony. Soldiers take us off to NORAD where the top brass are retrofitting an ICBM to hit the city. The announcement comes over the radio and through our minds that the time has come for the sky city to act. They take me outside, maybe to execute me, and I point up to the night sky. A milky translucent beam appears from a spot between stars and dribbles to earth. It covers the world and prevents the the warmongers from shooting their missiles beyond the atmosphere. As it settles beyond the stratosphere, it brings peace.
America the Seralgio
Posted on September 18, 2002 in Citizenship
The eunuch who is supposed to be working for us and following our commands is running the show as he pleases.
A Communion of Xanax
Posted on September 18, 2002 in Depression
I broke a xanax and ate half. Fifteen minutes later, I took the other half, entering the benzoid communion.
The AC Saga
Posted on September 17, 2002 in Lucre Weather
Insurance will cover the most brutal of the costs, but we have to pay the taxes, get a new programmable thermostat (I’ll try to talk the insurance into buying this and save us $85), and carry the old flutter box to the dump.
A Teeth Cleaning
Posted on September 16, 2002 in Dentition
April conducted me through a long fishhook of a hall to a room that occupied the place of the barb. She looked over my chart as I rolled my legs and torso into the chair. “No changes in health,” I announced. “Medications same as above.”
“You’re getting this down, aren’t you?” she giggled. She dropped a pile of clean explorers and a dental mirror on the tray and then took soundings on the pockets in my gumlines. The explorer dove into each corner and at a middle point on each tooth. April checked several points at a gasp and wrote numbers ranging from 1 to 5 on a chart of my mouth. She started on the outside of the top, worked her way to the other side, doubled back along the inside, and then repeated the drill for the lower jaw.
The other end of the explorer went into service as a pick. Following the same course as before, she scratched out stray skeins of pineapple and odd boulders of plaque from beneath the edges of my crowns. A dental drill that took a polisher head went over the surfaces of what the prosthodontist had called my “movie star teeth”. When she asked me how long I used my Sonicare toothbrush for, I confessed that I had been missing some brushings. We agreed as therapist and patient that I would have to conduct the humming sieges three times per day before we considered more drastic measures.
I quaffed half a cup of nasty-tasting blue Listerine. This forced indulgence nearly ruined the pleasure of having a clean mouth. I chased it with a cup of cloudy water from the tap. April led me back up front where the receptionist itemized the payments I still owed. I took an envelope to mail a check, promised to have my wife send it on the morrow, and scurried out to the parking lot. I felt guilty about exceeding my dental coverage this year. I had movie star teeth that secretly rotted in places that the brush couldn’t reach. Dental woes never ceased and I made no money to help cover the expense.
I swung into the truck, started the engine, aimed home, and fled from the thought. I burst past crossing shadows of palm trees as I savored the magestic gloom of Saint Saen’s Organ Symphony.
Pickings
Posted on September 16, 2002 in OCD
Something’s eating me. The evidence is on my fingers, three of them in particular. The two index fingers and the left thumb. There are these spots there on each where I pick at the skin using my finger nails and my teeth. Ever hear of [[trichotillomania]]? ((Skin picking is called [[dematillomania]].)) People with this disorder pull out their hair. They keep at the harvest until small bald patches crop up. They can cover them with the unplucked remainder for a time, but after a while, the urge begins to show itself.
I don’t have trichotillomania. I do this thing to my fingers instead. The spots I choose are all old scars, places where I cut myself or developed a blister. It’s nothing spectacular. I’ve never whittled the skin down to the bone. Sooner or later, I pull off a little too much and open a wound. Then I stop myself. I chew on the inner corners of my lower lip or pick at my navel or at this spot on my chin which is well covered by my beard. I leave the hair alone.
I figure something’s eating me and I am taking out little pieces of surface flesh to propitiate it. This is the price I pay for being silent about something, I suppose. Now I need to sit awhile until I know what needs to be spoken.
UPDATED: 6/14/2011
