Thursday, October 02, 2008
Teeth
I surrender.
I'm having my bad teeth taken out. I haven't a remote or cowardly rationale remaining to put it off. I knew this was inevitable 15 years ago, & decided then what the window would be for it happening, & I'm in that window, been in it for awhile, fiddling around & delaying for reasons good & bad. Now the good reasons are finished. Twice I had the insurance approval, & twice I decided not yet, didn't regret the first & only slightly the second. I'm a little sorry for not doing it over the summer, but this season is OK, better than January. I have to go through it alone with support from friends online, that's my current situation in this city & I'll work with it. It's a six week process & the whole middle part is just waiting & drinking a lot of high calorie smoothies. I don't have a toothy grin to protect or preserve, never did, you will not find that kind of smile in any photo of me going back to childhood. Even then when I was happy I tended to look a bit stoned.
I have a major birthday this year, nobody's throwing me a gala at a theater or making me Poet Laureate of the Boardwalk; I deserve the latter honor, the laurel wreath ceremony should wait until next summer, & I wouldn't show up without a functional set of teeth anyway, as I would expect a buffet sampling of my favorite boardwalk treats.
I also vowed to clean my apartment. I mean clean, not just pick stuff off the floor. & also take the comforter to the laundromat with the big machines. Despite the messy pile of dirty clothes on the floor in front of the closet, there's always clean clothes in the closet. But that blanket doesn't fit in the washer downstairs.
The Haitian couple in the adjacent apt had one of their rare domestic arguments today. She does 90% of the yelling. It's in creole, but I can tell she repeats words & phrases, laying into him over something, he loudly grunts, after he's taken enough he starts yelling back, then they slowly quiet down. The two kids weren't there. She got so mad once that she locked him out & he literally broke the door in, I wasn't around for that event, heard the story when I arrived home & Louie the Guy Who Fixes Stuff was repairing the door. I think it was so embarassing to them - they're church people, plus the landlord may have charged them for the door - that nothing like it has occurred since.
I'm having my bad teeth taken out. I haven't a remote or cowardly rationale remaining to put it off. I knew this was inevitable 15 years ago, & decided then what the window would be for it happening, & I'm in that window, been in it for awhile, fiddling around & delaying for reasons good & bad. Now the good reasons are finished. Twice I had the insurance approval, & twice I decided not yet, didn't regret the first & only slightly the second. I'm a little sorry for not doing it over the summer, but this season is OK, better than January. I have to go through it alone with support from friends online, that's my current situation in this city & I'll work with it. It's a six week process & the whole middle part is just waiting & drinking a lot of high calorie smoothies. I don't have a toothy grin to protect or preserve, never did, you will not find that kind of smile in any photo of me going back to childhood. Even then when I was happy I tended to look a bit stoned.
I have a major birthday this year, nobody's throwing me a gala at a theater or making me Poet Laureate of the Boardwalk; I deserve the latter honor, the laurel wreath ceremony should wait until next summer, & I wouldn't show up without a functional set of teeth anyway, as I would expect a buffet sampling of my favorite boardwalk treats.
I also vowed to clean my apartment. I mean clean, not just pick stuff off the floor. & also take the comforter to the laundromat with the big machines. Despite the messy pile of dirty clothes on the floor in front of the closet, there's always clean clothes in the closet. But that blanket doesn't fit in the washer downstairs.
The Haitian couple in the adjacent apt had one of their rare domestic arguments today. She does 90% of the yelling. It's in creole, but I can tell she repeats words & phrases, laying into him over something, he loudly grunts, after he's taken enough he starts yelling back, then they slowly quiet down. The two kids weren't there. She got so mad once that she locked him out & he literally broke the door in, I wasn't around for that event, heard the story when I arrived home & Louie the Guy Who Fixes Stuff was repairing the door. I think it was so embarassing to them - they're church people, plus the landlord may have charged them for the door - that nothing like it has occurred since.
Labels: Elizabeth NJ, home furnishings
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I'll always think of you as Poet Laureate of the Boardwalk, toothy grin or not. Shoot out the stars, Bob.
Bob, if I were a civil servant of a a shore town, I'd get my municipal council to draft a resolution pronto. Do you want to be poet laureate of Irving St.? How about the bike path along River Rd.?
I was offered the position of Rahway Poet Laureate as a sort of publicity stunt by the Downtown Redevelopment folks, but I turned it down as beneath my dignity because it failed to meet either of my low standards; that it had to be awarded by people who had actually read & liked my poems (none of which mention Rahway by name) OR have some monetary value.
Of the two options you offer, definitely the bike path. They can call Irving the "Arts District" but every poet, painter & photographer knows the river is the hippest thing in town, always was.
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Of the two options you offer, definitely the bike path. They can call Irving the "Arts District" but every poet, painter & photographer knows the river is the hippest thing in town, always was.
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