February 27, 2004
Wider and wider
My teeth are gapping. The tiny cracks between my teeth, which are perfectly normal and natural, are slowly widening as I sleep. Every morning I take a tiny tape measure and examine the progression, the continental drift of my teeth. Tiny bacteria clad in woolly mammoth skins are shaking spears and migrating slowly from molar to molar, one day to evolve into tie-wearing city dwellers trailing their poncey colognes onto the subways of an incisor metropolis. They are widening. They. Are. Widening. The micrometers of the tape measure do not, cannot lie. I am keeping a graph and the line is smooth and straight. And slanting upward. Undeniably.
I have tried to stop it -- I'm not crazy. Before I sleep I bind my jaw with scarves, with masking tape; I glue my mouth with peanut butter and once, disastrously, rubber cement. (This last was helpful as a preventative but caused more problems than it solved.) The teeth continue their smooth jazz electric slide against my restraining gums. I have tried meditation. Astral projection. Hypnotism. Wider and wider. My modest reluctance to bother my dentist with such a small, painless problem is eroding. I suspect a famous oral surgeon from Belmont, NJ, will be called in to consult on this case. More time is lost. More micrometers on the chart. He rides in brandishing a bouquet of tiny high-magnification mirrors on sticks, his stern eyes heroically, myopically gleaming above a flimsy green mask. Open wide? Yes, doctor, that's the whole trouble, you see. Wider and wider. At this point I have become a grotesque, suitable only for the modern day freak tent, the talk show. Children are encouraged to stick an entire fist in the gaps. Go ahead, kiddo, she won't bite, just gum you a little is all.
The decision is made. The teeth cannot be saved. They are painlessly pulled under the influence of a safe and rather enjoyable anesthesia. She'll never have a normal mouth, my father is told, but then look how well Julia Roberts does for herself. I am sent home, beaming in relief.
Disaster. The gums, unhampered now by those useless lumps of cheery porcelain, continue to stretch. I buy a larger tape measure. Millimeters. Centimeters. Meters! I can and do fit the entire head of a three-month infant in my mouth. Wider and wider. The celebrated oral surgeon refuses my calls. Wider still. My graph spills over onto several sheets of paper.
My 25th birthday. My mouth has stretched all the way around my head. I adjust rapidly to my new situation; I am extremely adaptable. I use half a tube of lipstick every time I go out, but I save on toothpaste. I guest star on WWF and beat every contestant by gripping his head with my sturdy gums until he is too disgusted to continue. A syndrome is named after me. The Moms publishes her bestseller, Don't Give Me No Lip: Raising and Loving Your Larson-Syndrome Child. Oprah invites me to discuss my experiences so that the world can get to know me, as a person. My hometown erects a bronze monument to my suffering, and my name is known everywhere. I am a survivor. I am a hero. I am a star.
Posted by didofoot at 11:25 AM | Comments (3)
February 20, 2004
Date date date
I met up with the Sicilian on Wednesday night to deliver my annual report. In all the fuss and bother of being broken up with and then nursing my sputtering fantasies of revenge for two years, I had forgotten how much I really do like him and we had a quite a nice time I thought.
The tricky part was when I found myself starting to give him advice on his love life, encouraging him to go out there and date date date. I thought to myself, Self, what the fuck are you doing? You don't want this man to date. You want him to spend the rest of his life trying in vain to recapture the pinnacles of life that he was able to experience only with you, and eventually to swear off women forever in sad resignation. (For the record, I want this to be true of all men who cross my path, including those who are gay, married, or who I have only briefly made eye contact with on the bus.)
In other news, I have been moved into a new office! Now I have my own rather large space, with my very own window. Basically, I have just sold my soul to DARPA for a corner cubicle and a square foot of natural light. I'm never going to escape from here, am I? I'm going to retire from here when I'm seventy-three.
Posted by didofoot at 12:41 PM | Comments (13)
February 18, 2004
Carthage turns two
I'm sitting at a precariously tilted cafe table on a precariously tilted sidewalk. My coffee cup is full and I have my laptop in front of me. I'm making bets with myself as to how long this will take to go horribly wrong.
It seems fitting to celebrate Carthage's entry into her terrible twos by destroying my computer. Happy birthday, C. Like a toddler, your existence annoys the fuck out of me and like a toddler you steal the energy which should be given to something more worthwhile.
Posted by didofoot at 03:28 PM | Comments (6)
February 11, 2004
Still in Tucson
I think we should get formal pictures taken, I say.
Formal pictures? You mean, like, with sequins? And a corsage?
No. Like with a photography studio in Sears.
The Lad grimaces predictably. But why would we want pictures of ourselves looking fake? he says.
We are a beautiful couple, I tell him sternly. The world needs to know.
But we're out in the world right now, he says. Look, here we are. Hello, world! We are very good looking! Hi, could we get some more chips? Thanks.
The waiter brings more chips. The Lad says, What if I set the camera up with a remote and we take pictures of ourselves?
I say, This would lack the stiff, unnatural quality I require in formal photographs.
Is there anything I could get you instead? the Lad asks desperately.
I think about this. My enchilada comes. I say, You could get me a Lego set.
He says, A Lego set would show the world that we're attractive?
No, I say, but it would distract me.
Yeah? he says, brightening. Okay. A Lego set is a great trade.
A real Lego set, I say suspiciously. One of the castle ones. Not just tiny cinder blocks and miniature pieces of plywood.
It's a deal, he says, so cheerfully that I am certain I should have demanded more.
Posted by didofoot at 08:56 PM | Comments (2)
February 09, 2004
Dog Dream
I'm in Tucson today. I was thinking how I would go there for grad school and drag the Lad with me and he and I would get a little house up in the hills just outside of the city. It would go like this: Our kitchen is painted yellow. The house is NOT filled with Southwest paraphernalia, it's filled with his electronics and the stuff that reminds me of California. Our fridge has a picture of Michele and the Lad on it and a menu from a pizza place. (We just moved in a few months ago so I haven't really had a chance to get going on my fridge decorations.) He is uncomfortable with having this picture of himself on the fridge. I think he's weird. We have a patio outside where we can sit wrapped in sweatshirts and blankets at night and watch the deer come down from the hills to eat the basil out of my garden goddammit. We have a fold-out couch for our potential guests that is very uncomfortable to sleep on according to me and perfect to sleep on according to the Lad. He got this couch from a guy at the place where he works in downtown Tucson and it only cost $20 and we needed a couch. We have a washer and dryer but the dryer takes forever to dry anything. I'm trying to talk him into getting a dog. I say, We could call her Honey and she could be a golden retriever and wear a red bandanna. He is unmoved by my beautiful dog dream. I wear a red bandanna instead of my imaginary dog.
It's Sunday. We go hiking in the hilly, non-agoraphobic part of desert near our house. I say, If we had a dog, she could chase those damn little marmoty squirrelly things that keep eating my garden. I say, Maybe they're prairie dogs. He says, But we're not on the prairie. I sigh theatrically to show that I know darn well he is wiggling out of the dog discussion. We discuss possible ways to fence in the garden effectively.
We go back to the house where it is much cooler because the house is mostly made of stone. He sits at his computer and I lie on the cold stone floor, which is dusty. I sing the Fugees. He tells me about a new kind of telescope that has been invented. I sing a few bars of the theme song to the once-popular children's television show "Gummybears." Michele calls and I talk to her while lying on the floor. From the Lad's end, the conversation seems to consist mainly of vowel sounds and giggling.
I make a salad for dinner with feta and cucumbers and we eat it outside in the interesting period when the heat has faded but the cold hasn't really hit. I tell the Lad that I was looking online at houses in Maine. I say that we could buy a house for not very much money. He says, I thought we were going back to San Francisco after you finished school? Wasn't that the deal? I say, I'm just looking around. I say, we could wear yellow rain slickers and learn to catch fish. Everyone fishes in Maine, I say. I tell him that we could get a little house and decorate it with old photographs of lighthouses. He suggests that my mom could decorate a house with old photographs of lighthouses. His witty repartee shames me.
It's Monday. He goes to work and I go to school all day. We go downtown for dinner and then play pool at a bar with some people he knows from work. I am shy, but pretty. I have a beer. I am less shy. We drive home and I sing the Fugees. I say, I hope Honey wasn't too lonely without us tonight. I tell him that I have decided to get an imaginary dog. I tell him that our imaginary dog has worms and needs to go to the imaginary vet. He is completely disgusted. I laugh like a goblin and we go to bed.
Posted by didofoot at 01:20 PM | Comments (10)
February 08, 2004
Michele
Happy birthday, pretty bird. I love you and all that you stand for. Communist.
Posted by didofoot at 10:16 AM | Comments (5)
February 06, 2004
Don't call me stupid
Professor Cleese performed the same physical comedy routine in the second week of class that he used for the first: straining to move large teacher's desk to a more central position, enormous screeching sound in silent room, dismay and perplexity followed by inspiration, huffing and puffing to lift desk instead of dragging it, enormous tweed-clad bottom stuck accidentally in several faces as desk is carried to correct spot. I wanda if I will ever tire of this fine, traditional banana peel humor.
Posted by didofoot at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)
February 03, 2004
I'm the space goblin and I'm here to say that staying in school is a-ok.
One of my professors is playing his Professor role exactly as I imagine John Cleese would play it. It's all English accent and bumbling physical comedy and stuttering halts.
"Most writers agree that the most difficult thing to describe is sex. But the student who takes the minutes in this class will find it still more difficult to describe 70 minutes of class discussion, so I believe that minute-taking is actually the most difficult thing to describe." Looks pleased with himself. Pauses. Looks worried. "Unless someone has sex in class." Looks more worried as he considers the implications. "That would, of course, be...extremely difficult. Er. To describe."
Posted by didofoot at 11:16 AM | Comments (3)
