This is Agonizing. And that interests me SO much..

**This might be icky for some readers. Just warning you**

So this morning was the fun fun dental procedure. I had done a lot of thinking over the weekend about my teeth and how flossing has always been a problem etc. etc. etc., so when I got to the office I laid out my carefully considered reasons for just getting rid of the damn retainers forever, and they took them out while I was numb.

"Numb." It's an interesting concept. Laughing gas and novocaine are a weird combination. At first I thought the gas was going to be my only anaesthetic, which would have been fine, but then they injected my mouth with novocaine anyway, and I had a really trippy couple of hours. I don't think I was ever really "numb," meaning devoid of sensation. I heard sounds in a really funny way, like stereo speakers all around my head, and lights looked very strange to me whenever I opened my eyes. I also had the sensation of a couple of very tiny people (flea-sized people) running around inside my mouth having a light-saber duel, and at one point my brain just kept repeating "Tiny TINY fleas. Tiny TINY sabers" over and over again. (yes, my brain frequently specifies capitalization). And I felt like something large, furry, and warm was being repeatedly wrapped around my head almost to the point of choking me, which wasn't really all that unpleasant. Even pain feels oddly compelling on this stuff. I remember at one point noticing that the tooth they were working on wasn't really numb and it felt like it was being pried out of my mouth with a hot poker. But even this wasn't bad, just interesting. At one point the word "excruciating" crossed my mind and I thought to myself, "This is agonizing. And that interests me SO much."

When I was done I was still unable to move my mouth at all and my lips felt huge. This was the moment that the dental staff chose to have a "conversation" with me about payment, and my side of it was done entirely via scribble. I wanted to holler, "Come on! You deal with people all day who can't talk! Do this before you numb them!" But on the upside I now have a written record of at least my side of the conversation.

Went home, took pills, woke up at 3pm. Teeth are still tender but I feel like the worst has passed. I think tonight I will lay low and get to bed early. It's going to be a short week but a long couple of days.

Sadly my staying in tonight means I will miss Cabaret Vagabond. My friends put it on every once in a while (every couple of months) and it's tonight. Very fun kind of German-tinged variety show that tonight is taking place on a roof in the West Loop. Here's the scoop if any of my sweet-smelling readers want to go:

Cabaret Vagabond
DAS IST KUNST!
Music-Politics-Theatre-Satire-Puppets-Vulgarity

presents:

THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS

After the tremendous success of our inaugural cabaret in April, we are at it again, and this time the setting could not be more ideal:

We're holding court on a rooftop in the West Loop, that is a sculpture garden and generally one of the most beautiful places in Chicago. So we're gonna rock it out and be vulgar and skanky and inappropriate while making some hot sweaty art.

COME JOIN US!

WHEN: Monday June 30th
Doors at 7:30
Show at 8:00
WHERE:117 N Jefferson
Jefferson & Randolph in the West Loop
CTA: Clinton on the Green Line
$5

21 and over show

Non-smoking venue

Over and out,
kat

In Love. With a Town. And a Season.

Chicago rocks hard like a cinderblock in the summer. It's just so much fun. And so much of the fun is free. Free things are very important to me right now (see dentistry post from a couple days ago).

Just got home from marvelous Orchestre Baobab show with JSS. It was absolutely perfect out (hot earlier, but I made a deal with God that if I took a nap he would drop the temperature 10 degrees, and he did!) and the setting, the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, was just lovely. Everybody danced, especially after the singer told them they had to, and by the end of the night everyone was grooving up front by the stage, waving their arms in the air, and yelling the chorus, "Oui, c'est vrai! Ca, c'est vrai! C'est vrai!"* over and over again, even if they were actually yelling, "Squash! Is green! Squash is green! It's green!" or some such thing.

There's this whole passel of free events going on here, as there is every summer, and I feel so lucky to be living here. Stevie Wonder performed for free. Andrew Bird is performing for free. Joffrey Ballet and Calexico and Pinchas Zukerman and Australia's Strange Fruit are all performing for free. And there's more! Free dance classes every night! Classic movies on the big screen! Neighborhood fests! Not to mention that there are fireworks on the lake twice a week just 'cuz and everyone is nice and friendly and the CTA is starting to work again. Not all the time, but some of the time, which is better than none of the time.

It's a big weekend. Tomorrow morning I'll be at the Anti-Cruelty Society doing my volunteer orientation, which I am so excited about! I'm going to be walking dogs, possibly doing a little light training and counseling people who want to adopt. Also I'll be helping to socialize puppies (read: tell them stories, fuzzle their ears, teach them to spell and look for constellations) and doing whatever else the coordinators tell me to do. I decided to volunteer at Anti-Cruelty after signing a lease on yet another dog-unwelcoming apartment (it's a studio; I probably wouldn't try to have a dog in a studio anyway) and just feeling enormous amounts of dog withdrawal. Part of it is spending so much time around cats since moving here I think. After the mind games and the strange mood swings and dealing with volatile tempers and fragile egos, I just want to stop feeling like I'm on a date and go play with an animal that loves me. For me that means a dog.

And Monday is the dentist (Boo!), who I have decided to ask what the process would be like to remove my retainers entirely. I don't know that they're doing anything for my teeth anymore, they fuck up my ability to floss as regularly and normally as I should, and they tend to come unglued when I'm on vacations or doing something when it's really inconvenient to get them fixed.

Tuesday I get keys to the new apartment! Hooray!

Best to you all. Enjoy the summery summer.



* yes, it's true, yes it's true, it's true!

Adulthood Rears Ugly Head. News at Nine.

So, I thought I'd grow up, since I'm moving into my own place soon and negotiating the terms of my job and caring about the environment and minimizing my carbon footprint and so on. Also this has so far been the year of "buckling down" where I've been paying special attention to keeping my house clean, paying bills on time, taking care of my health, and all the rest. I did these things before, but this year I've been more organized about them.

One thing I've been putting off for the past couple of years has been going to a dentist, and this has primarily been for financial reasons. I don't have dental insurance. I barely have health insurance. (Basically I send Unicare $100 a month so they can cover me if I get run over by the El, on a Tuesday, between the hours of 3 and 4 pm. It's not valid in any other circumstances).

A friend of a friend recommended their dentist, who runs a "dental spa" in Roscoe Village. What is a dental spa? It's a dental office where they have massage chairs and are way liberal with the local anaesthetic. Which it turns out is a good thing for me.

Apparently my gums aren't as healthy as they should be, and I have my first ever cavity. The dentist, upon seeing my devastation at this news, said, "You really shouldn't beat yourself up. It's really minor and there are tons of people walking around with worse than you have who don't even know it." Or some such thing. He wants to go in and do some deep cleaning, fix the cavity with a laser, and do a little preventative work. On Monday. For an amount of money that is four digits and begins with a 1.

One thing I know about preventative maintenance in medicine is that the philosophy behind it is to fix problems before they become big, scary, and expensive. I'm definitely into preventative maintenance for something like my teeth. Or my brain. Or my joints. Or, hell, everything.

The problem here is that I feel responsible. And I am. If I'd stuck to cleanings every 6-12 months like I'd had every year of my life until 2 years ago this would never have happened. If I'd taken the time when I was younger and developed valuable, marketable skills instead of "following my passions" -- which is great and soulful and fulfilling in all kinds of ways -- I could have gone to college for something lucrative and landed a job where I would have good health insurance, and presumably dental as well, this would never have happened. If I hadn't always been fiercely independent and insisted on starting a solo life 800 miles from my nearest relatives, I might have let fewer things like medical checkups and dentistry appointments fall through the cracks because I could still go to my doctor and dentist from when I was growing up like so many of my friends do. But is that just laziness? I mean, if I still lived in my hometown and relied on the connections made for me by my family even before I was born (never having to choose a doctor, or a dentist, or movers, or a handyman) would that mean I was in some way slacking off from going out into the world and forging these essential connections myself?

At this point I'm just taking a position and being overly philosophical about the whole thing. It's too hot to do that in my apartment right now. Maybe I'll save all my pennies and turn on the A/C.