Rainy Days, Mondays, and Drs Appointments Always Get Me Down

You know how there are those days when you just feel at the top of your game? When your teeth look extra white, your car doesn't have the weird smell it had for the past week, and not a single bill comes in the mail? You know how that feels?

Monday was not one of those days. Not for me, anyway. It started out pretty inauspiciously, with my mother cleaning up cat puke in my room, from, not surprisingly, the bulimic cat. (I should've cleaned it up, but I had already regressed to acting like my ten-year-old self. I pulled the oldest trick in the book: I claimed I didn't know how to clean it, then pretended to learn as my mother showed me, but really I just tricked her to do it for me. "Wait, wait," I said, "slow down. What was the step between using the carpet cleaner and then letting it dry? Oh, there wasn't one? I really think I'm starting to get it, Mom.")

Then, I fell. Hard. My right hip, and my pride, took the brunt of it. I fell in the entrance to Whole Foods, in the Pearl District, at lunch time. So, you know, a low traffic area. Only about one million witnesses to gasp in unison and offer their assistance, wincing as I got gingerly back onto my feet. There is really nothing quite like a fall to remind me that I am, well, fallible. Capable of being brought down by a rainy day, the wrong shoes, a slick floor, and my own foolish sense that I am busy and important and in a hurry. So far, I only feel the pain in my ankles, my right hip, my right arm and my neck. But especially my right arm. Blogging hurts a little bit, to tell you truth.

On top of that, today I have to go to the dentist. Oh, I hate the dentist. There is only one kind of doctor I hate more than a dentist, a doctor whose procedures and prodding are even more uncomfortable than a dentist's procedures and prodding, though really, there is some correlation between a dental technician forcing dental floss between your teeth, and a gynecologist with her speculum...but I digress! My point is, I'm seeing that kind of doctor today too! Ah, the luck. I have this shiny new insurance card (no thanks whatsoever to the US Congress), and I'll be damned if I don't go see all the doctors I possibly can, flashing my insurance at anyone who'll look.

But my poor gums think they're under attack. It's like some sort of floss blitzkrieg where every few hours, I am at them again, because I live in fear of the dentist accusing me of not flossing. The thing is: I don't floss. Not regularly. Do I even know anyone who flosses regularly? If you do, speak up, and explain to me how flossing is not one of the most boring, unpleasant events of your day. I have a feeling it is just something we all do when we know there is a dental visit coming up. Or is that just me?

A huge, huge amount of my self-esteem is wrapped up in my dentist's evaluation of my home tooth care. When I was sixteen, and acne-ridden, boyfriendless, and terrible at every extracurricular I tried, I went to the dentist and was told I had "excellent home care." The heavens parted, angels sang, and I felt the warm glow of accomplishment: there was something I was good at. Dental home care. Ever since then, I have fretted for weeks leading up to a check-up because, honestly, if the results were less than positive, I'd be destroyed. I'd self-medicate with chocolate, which I'm sure would only make my teeth worse for the next go round. If I get judged to have failed with my flossing, we might as well just cancel Christmas, because who can celebrate when she's got inadequate home care??

I've got to go floss. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

K. S.

PS: Have you watched the video yet? It occurs to me, watching it, that I kind of just got that Karen Carpenter haircut.