I'm once again stuck looking for something entertaining and not too trashy to read. I probably have twenty different lists lying around in far corners of my computer and the Internet, but if I get all into the list-hunt, by the time I find one I'll forget why I was looking for it in the first place. It's almost a Catch-22.
I've noticed that when I meet some new Chinese person, there's an adjustment period where they have some trouble believing that humor can come out of a foreigner, and in their native language. I went to the dentist today and judging by the delays from quip to laugh, I might have been talking to Alpha Centauri. On Skype. Shudder.
Dentist: so feels ok? Are there any other problems?
Me: the door to my bedroom is really creaky. Also I think I'm addicted to the sound, I can sit there and open and close it for hours. I think my neighbor is starting to get pissed off. That's it I guess.
Dentist: ...(emits a nervous and somewhat robotic giggle and changes the subject)...so make sure not to eat really hard things. And if it continues to be uncomfortable, we'll have to put a crown on it. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Me: no problem, as long as I can still eat tofu. ("Eat tofu" = sexually harass people, in Chinese).
Dentist: ...ha...ha? Haha!
Ridiculous phrase of the day: "at least..."
You wouldn't think to think it ridiculous, mostly cause you hardly ever think to rethink the phrases you use on a daily basis. But Yuan Yuan was telling me some story about the neighbors today, and how they broke up but that they were together for at least a year, and I eventually had to explain that I wasn't crying about the onions, but about how ridiculous "at least a year" sounded. At least a year. At least a year. At least a year. Sounding ridiculous yet? How about now, when you think about the fact that the probabilty of it being exactly a year is for all intents and purposes (another phrase I nominate for extermination) zero. It's misleading! Every time I hear that phrase now, I get this incredible thirst to hear that it's exactly equal to that lower bound. But then I despair; it's much like hoping today's September 25th every day.
Showing posts with label dentist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dentist. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sniping The Toilet
Yesterday another lucky tooth graduated from death row to tooth heaven. I went to the dentist and got that long due root canal. My other teeth are jealous, but I promised them the same fate shortly.
My dentist hates doing root canals so he had a stunt double do mine. Of course I wasn't fooled. Not only did she look nothing like him, the way she operated couldn't be more different. There's an expression: "measure twice, cut once." Actually, in Russian, the expression is "measure seven times, cut once." Well my dentist is to the Russian version as the Russian version is to the American one. He can measure all day, muttering little rhymes and anecdotes into his beard, and then cut sometime next month and in a different mouth altogether. He's slow, methodical, slow, and really really slow. However, he's supposedly good at what he does and I'm definitely good at providing him with a constant inflow of work material, so we're loyal to one another.
His replacement was the exact opposite. If my dentist is more like a lizard who can wait all day to strike at that unsuspecting fly, she was more like a wasp - flying right into that bee colony and snapping off all their heads, or in my case - flying in from all directions and never letting the drill's buzz reverberations inside my mouth die out.
Nevertheless, I ended up sitting there with my mouth open for two hours and forty-five minutes. The problem was that this was a molar tooth and they have more canals than Mars ever did. Each canal has to be cleaned out separately. At least one made-up statistic says: 75% of molars have 3 canals, 24.99% have 4 canals, but then there's that nasty 0.01% that have 173. Luckily I fell in the 24.99%, otherwise I'd still be sitting in that chair.
She also used some interesting aids that my dentist never used. She put what amounted to a hand-made elastic funnel into my mouth in order to isolate the tooth from the rest of me. You can perform oral sex with that thing in your mouth and the tooth will be innocent of the whole affair. I kept wondering the whole time what it looked like from her point of view, so eventually I asked her for a bathroom break and went to take a look. The dentist's aide passed me in the hall and nearly died laughing. When I reached the bathroom I understood why. It looked pretty ridiculous. The closest I can find on the Internet is this:
which unfortunately looks nothing like it. This looks even less like it:
and this:
is completely unrelated.
Unfortunately, as soon as I entered the bathroom, I felt an irresistable urge to pee. I got in position and suddenly realized that there was absolutely no way I could see where to aim, with this all-but-Japanese-invention protruding from my face. I had to orient myself by sound. Does that sound like it's hitting water? No, that must be a magazine or something. Toilet paper...floor...wall...."hey! Quit that!"...window...trash bin...aha! Found it!
You know how when you wake up in the morning, you're like two feet taller till your spine snaps back to its normal length? I think there's a similar rule for jaws. When I closed my jaw after three hours of holding it open, I couldn't quite fit the two halves together. It took a few hours for everything to get back in their right places. If this is a trend for other parts of our body, I don't understand how astronauts deal with it. Seems like they'd just explode in slow motion.
My dentist hates doing root canals so he had a stunt double do mine. Of course I wasn't fooled. Not only did she look nothing like him, the way she operated couldn't be more different. There's an expression: "measure twice, cut once." Actually, in Russian, the expression is "measure seven times, cut once." Well my dentist is to the Russian version as the Russian version is to the American one. He can measure all day, muttering little rhymes and anecdotes into his beard, and then cut sometime next month and in a different mouth altogether. He's slow, methodical, slow, and really really slow. However, he's supposedly good at what he does and I'm definitely good at providing him with a constant inflow of work material, so we're loyal to one another.
His replacement was the exact opposite. If my dentist is more like a lizard who can wait all day to strike at that unsuspecting fly, she was more like a wasp - flying right into that bee colony and snapping off all their heads, or in my case - flying in from all directions and never letting the drill's buzz reverberations inside my mouth die out.
Nevertheless, I ended up sitting there with my mouth open for two hours and forty-five minutes. The problem was that this was a molar tooth and they have more canals than Mars ever did. Each canal has to be cleaned out separately. At least one made-up statistic says: 75% of molars have 3 canals, 24.99% have 4 canals, but then there's that nasty 0.01% that have 173. Luckily I fell in the 24.99%, otherwise I'd still be sitting in that chair.
She also used some interesting aids that my dentist never used. She put what amounted to a hand-made elastic funnel into my mouth in order to isolate the tooth from the rest of me. You can perform oral sex with that thing in your mouth and the tooth will be innocent of the whole affair. I kept wondering the whole time what it looked like from her point of view, so eventually I asked her for a bathroom break and went to take a look. The dentist's aide passed me in the hall and nearly died laughing. When I reached the bathroom I understood why. It looked pretty ridiculous. The closest I can find on the Internet is this:
which unfortunately looks nothing like it. This looks even less like it:
and this:
is completely unrelated.
Unfortunately, as soon as I entered the bathroom, I felt an irresistable urge to pee. I got in position and suddenly realized that there was absolutely no way I could see where to aim, with this all-but-Japanese-invention protruding from my face. I had to orient myself by sound. Does that sound like it's hitting water? No, that must be a magazine or something. Toilet paper...floor...wall...."hey! Quit that!"...window...trash bin...aha! Found it!
You know how when you wake up in the morning, you're like two feet taller till your spine snaps back to its normal length? I think there's a similar rule for jaws. When I closed my jaw after three hours of holding it open, I couldn't quite fit the two halves together. It took a few hours for everything to get back in their right places. If this is a trend for other parts of our body, I don't understand how astronauts deal with it. Seems like they'd just explode in slow motion.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Rash Decisions And Other Staples
Today is the third day of a really nutty 30 day trial. The rules of the trial are a bit ambiguous, but several items have been agreed upon:
1. No sweets (excluding ones that grow on trees (excluding ones that grow on trees in Johnny Depp's Chocolate Factory (exluding ones that also grow on trees outside the factory))).
We can pretty much stop here because it's already enough for full-scale clinical depression. I'm an extreme sugar fiend. I eat chocolate before and after a meal, floss my teeth with Twizzlers and use a Jawbreaker for a retainer. When I make myself a cup of tea, it doesn't matter in the least what flavor the tea it is because I drown the flavor in copious amounts of miracle powder. In fact, if I can tell what flavor tea I'm having by the time I finish a cup, I make an appointment with my physician; it is extremely aberrant.
So it's day three now, and I can't help but notice that I suddenly have tons of free time. At least three extra hours. Granted, now I spend them prostrate on the floor of my room, suffering from withdrawal, but they're extra nonetheless. If you could have an extra few hours of life every day with no ultimate changes to your lifespan, with the "BUT" (fancy word for "caveat") being that they were full of suffering, would you take them? I would without a second thought, but only if I were on a 30-day trial of taking them.
Generally, I'm feeling more deflated across the board (hmm, can't think of a way to not be redundant in this sentence, oh well). I experienced this before - during my 4th attempt to quit drinking soda. The abrupt disappearance of the sugar high renders life gray and uninteresting. I'm sure glad I'm giving up sugar and not heroin (NEVER giving that one up).
2. No snacking. Only eat when hungry.
Snacking all but disappears when you eliminate sugar from your diet. Now I only have the urge to snack every three minutes as opposed to after every successful swallow. I spend a lot of time in my room upstairs working up my hunger to earn permission to indulge my mouth. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," is the mantra of the month.
3. Decide what to do for the generalized version of this 30 day trial.
The original plan was to give up all impulses. Obviously this is only feasible for living Buddhas and select igneous rocks, but there's a saying about bars and settings that's popular in this house - something along the lines of "set the bar high for everyone else." After much fruitless discussion, we decided to start off with the obvious sacrifices - #1 and #2 (not the ones you're thinking of...well...definitely not the ones you're thinking of after reading this sentence), and then kick it into high gear the second to last or last week of the trial. I'll let you know how that goes if it goes anywhere.
Went to New York today as a chaperone for Gene on his field trip to the dentist. Gene dropped me off at 80th and Broadway and went off to the torture chamber. I took a slow walk to Barnes and Noble a few blocks away, scaring pidgins and people with my hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-for-months pale zombie face, and read about three pages in half an hour. I decided I was better at walking and went back out to partake of some pollution.
Later, I came to check up on Gene and he was still being held prisoner. The warden said he was due for release soon, but time passes very differently inside and outside the prison; I ended up waiting for another hour. Anyway, I went outside again, and just then this guy passed me carrying a box. The box read "China" and nothing else. Thank God I'm practicing stifling my impulses, otherwise I would have snuck into that box and prayed it was on an express delivery route to Shanghai...and probably would have ended up as dinner. Still, it's obviously a sign that China's anxious for my arrival.
On the way back from New York, we dropped by the King Fung Food Market - a Chinese grocery store in my town. At checkout, Gene, with his usual lack of sensibility, casually mentioned to the Chinese cashiers that I study Chinese. All of a sudden, there was a blinding tornado of blood and headless torsos, followed by an investigation into my abilities. I came out relatively unscathed, being 38.9% Chinese by the latest estimate, but I fear (and am secretly eager) to return. Sometimes enjoying life as a masochist is so easy it's unfair.
1. No sweets (excluding ones that grow on trees (excluding ones that grow on trees in Johnny Depp's Chocolate Factory (exluding ones that also grow on trees outside the factory))).
We can pretty much stop here because it's already enough for full-scale clinical depression. I'm an extreme sugar fiend. I eat chocolate before and after a meal, floss my teeth with Twizzlers and use a Jawbreaker for a retainer. When I make myself a cup of tea, it doesn't matter in the least what flavor the tea it is because I drown the flavor in copious amounts of miracle powder. In fact, if I can tell what flavor tea I'm having by the time I finish a cup, I make an appointment with my physician; it is extremely aberrant.
So it's day three now, and I can't help but notice that I suddenly have tons of free time. At least three extra hours. Granted, now I spend them prostrate on the floor of my room, suffering from withdrawal, but they're extra nonetheless. If you could have an extra few hours of life every day with no ultimate changes to your lifespan, with the "BUT" (fancy word for "caveat") being that they were full of suffering, would you take them? I would without a second thought, but only if I were on a 30-day trial of taking them.
Generally, I'm feeling more deflated across the board (hmm, can't think of a way to not be redundant in this sentence, oh well). I experienced this before - during my 4th attempt to quit drinking soda. The abrupt disappearance of the sugar high renders life gray and uninteresting. I'm sure glad I'm giving up sugar and not heroin (NEVER giving that one up).
2. No snacking. Only eat when hungry.
Snacking all but disappears when you eliminate sugar from your diet. Now I only have the urge to snack every three minutes as opposed to after every successful swallow. I spend a lot of time in my room upstairs working up my hunger to earn permission to indulge my mouth. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," is the mantra of the month.
3. Decide what to do for the generalized version of this 30 day trial.
The original plan was to give up all impulses. Obviously this is only feasible for living Buddhas and select igneous rocks, but there's a saying about bars and settings that's popular in this house - something along the lines of "set the bar high for everyone else." After much fruitless discussion, we decided to start off with the obvious sacrifices - #1 and #2 (not the ones you're thinking of...well...definitely not the ones you're thinking of after reading this sentence), and then kick it into high gear the second to last or last week of the trial. I'll let you know how that goes if it goes anywhere.
Went to New York today as a chaperone for Gene on his field trip to the dentist. Gene dropped me off at 80th and Broadway and went off to the torture chamber. I took a slow walk to Barnes and Noble a few blocks away, scaring pidgins and people with my hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-for-months pale zombie face, and read about three pages in half an hour. I decided I was better at walking and went back out to partake of some pollution.
Later, I came to check up on Gene and he was still being held prisoner. The warden said he was due for release soon, but time passes very differently inside and outside the prison; I ended up waiting for another hour. Anyway, I went outside again, and just then this guy passed me carrying a box. The box read "China" and nothing else. Thank God I'm practicing stifling my impulses, otherwise I would have snuck into that box and prayed it was on an express delivery route to Shanghai...and probably would have ended up as dinner. Still, it's obviously a sign that China's anxious for my arrival.
On the way back from New York, we dropped by the King Fung Food Market - a Chinese grocery store in my town. At checkout, Gene, with his usual lack of sensibility, casually mentioned to the Chinese cashiers that I study Chinese. All of a sudden, there was a blinding tornado of blood and headless torsos, followed by an investigation into my abilities. I came out relatively unscathed, being 38.9% Chinese by the latest estimate, but I fear (and am secretly eager) to return. Sometimes enjoying life as a masochist is so easy it's unfair.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Improbable
Today defied all odds. First of all, I didn't get a root canal. Instead, I fell for the oldest trick in the dentist manual - first make them pay for a new filling in the doomed tooth, and then make them pay again a week later for a root canal. The first step of this new plan took place today, the second won't be long in waiting. The filling, which was supposed to allay sensitivity to cold - instead decided to not do that. Russian dentist #2 better watch his fingers next time he sticks them in my mouth.
The second odds-defying event was the lack of cinematic entertainment at the day's end. The problem is that Mom and Dad don't watch movies after the yoga lesson, but they do turn the selfishness dial to 11. I had several films lined up to be sacrificed, and even naively made some popcorn. Then, just as I approached the territory of the Play button with a practiced digit, Mom decided today was the day she was to begin her formal guitar training, and the setting was to be right between my headphones and my ears. And so she wouldn't be distracted by the popcorn while she played, she and Dad chomped it all before I could say "You Porkers!"
Went to Barnes and Noble's today, picked up a copy of The Magus and attempted to find where I left off at home in my library copy. Ten minutes of confusion later, I realized that I held a book version of a "director's cut" edition - complete with new scenes and revised old ones. Frustration and cursing ensued: unlike a DVD, this book didn't conveniently store the additions and revisions behind a separate menu item. Instead everything was interwoven with the original. I eventually found my place, but the book continued in an almost style alien to the one I had been reading. This would be even more annoying if it merited reading both versions.
Oh, forgot, some more whining: The Magus is slowly and disappointingly becoming less and less mysterious, magical, mythlike, and more Da-Vinci-Code-esque - a new twist, a new puzzle on each new page. I was wondering when the drama was winding down what could possibly take the next 200 pages, but it's obvious now - baloney and cheese.
The second odds-defying event was the lack of cinematic entertainment at the day's end. The problem is that Mom and Dad don't watch movies after the yoga lesson, but they do turn the selfishness dial to 11. I had several films lined up to be sacrificed, and even naively made some popcorn. Then, just as I approached the territory of the Play button with a practiced digit, Mom decided today was the day she was to begin her formal guitar training, and the setting was to be right between my headphones and my ears. And so she wouldn't be distracted by the popcorn while she played, she and Dad chomped it all before I could say "You Porkers!"
Went to Barnes and Noble's today, picked up a copy of The Magus and attempted to find where I left off at home in my library copy. Ten minutes of confusion later, I realized that I held a book version of a "director's cut" edition - complete with new scenes and revised old ones. Frustration and cursing ensued: unlike a DVD, this book didn't conveniently store the additions and revisions behind a separate menu item. Instead everything was interwoven with the original. I eventually found my place, but the book continued in an almost style alien to the one I had been reading. This would be even more annoying if it merited reading both versions.
Oh, forgot, some more whining: The Magus is slowly and disappointingly becoming less and less mysterious, magical, mythlike, and more Da-Vinci-Code-esque - a new twist, a new puzzle on each new page. I was wondering when the drama was winding down what could possibly take the next 200 pages, but it's obvious now - baloney and cheese.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
MCATs and Squirrels
A love triangle meets several times a week on the left fence of our backyard. Two of the squirrels clearly form a couple, but the third invariably attends their dates.
These squirrels, now that I think about it, are an almost exact replica of my life at college with Chun and Mario:
One lies draped over a fence bulb as relaxed as a loogie - he's usually off to himself, sleeping, or observing the other two. He turns away when the cuteness of the couple approaches disgusting. This is Mario across the board, though not nearly as lazy as the real one.
The second lies in often awkward-looking positions, with arms and legs branching at impossible angles, and head sometimes stuck in between the posts, like an ostrich in the sand. Nevertheless, he manages to look eternally relaxed; his eyelids teeter up and down. This is me.
The third runs circles around me, and climbs on and off in frenzied attempts to weed out something that's apparently permeated my entire hide. Though the squirrel version uses her face and not her hands to administer the cleansing, this creature is clearly Chun, who loves picking things out of other things, the first usually being dandruff, and the second - my hair.
The other, more obvious details of the love triangle's existence are not appropriate for the multitudes of 5-year-olds who peruse this blog daily, and I wouldn't want to be in breach of blog-writer-blog-reader ethics. Use your imagination.
NY/NJ forecast for tomorrow: pain, anaesthesia, death. Chances of root canal - 99%. Chances of overpaying for parking - 100%. Chances of watching a movie before going to bed - an ever unflagging 100% - that's destiny. Big day tomorrow NY/NJ, 299% worth of various crap.
Georgia forecast: light breakfast followed by 5 delicious hours of MCATs. Everyone wish Chun good luck, though this time the test is the underdog. Good luck Chun!
These squirrels, now that I think about it, are an almost exact replica of my life at college with Chun and Mario:
One lies draped over a fence bulb as relaxed as a loogie - he's usually off to himself, sleeping, or observing the other two. He turns away when the cuteness of the couple approaches disgusting. This is Mario across the board, though not nearly as lazy as the real one.
The second lies in often awkward-looking positions, with arms and legs branching at impossible angles, and head sometimes stuck in between the posts, like an ostrich in the sand. Nevertheless, he manages to look eternally relaxed; his eyelids teeter up and down. This is me.
The third runs circles around me, and climbs on and off in frenzied attempts to weed out something that's apparently permeated my entire hide. Though the squirrel version uses her face and not her hands to administer the cleansing, this creature is clearly Chun, who loves picking things out of other things, the first usually being dandruff, and the second - my hair.
The other, more obvious details of the love triangle's existence are not appropriate for the multitudes of 5-year-olds who peruse this blog daily, and I wouldn't want to be in breach of blog-writer-blog-reader ethics. Use your imagination.
NY/NJ forecast for tomorrow: pain, anaesthesia, death. Chances of root canal - 99%. Chances of overpaying for parking - 100%. Chances of watching a movie before going to bed - an ever unflagging 100% - that's destiny. Big day tomorrow NY/NJ, 299% worth of various crap.
Georgia forecast: light breakfast followed by 5 delicious hours of MCATs. Everyone wish Chun good luck, though this time the test is the underdog. Good luck Chun!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
To Australians
Ran out of health/dental insurance starting yesterday. Normally this wouldn't phase me, but for the last 22 years of my life I've suffered from a little-known condition called spontaneous rapid dental decay. In English this means that in a couple of months, possible as early as late August, one of the remaining 12 living teeth in my mouth will mutiny. Not having too many ways to wage war, it will commence operation suicide. With dental insurance, I usually catch the little bastards somewhere in the second trimester, and go to Russian dentist #1 or Russian dentist #2, who give the culprits a lobotomy. Now I suppose I shall have to learn to love pain and suffering.
I have an appointment at Barnes and Noble's today at 8 - an unlikely coincidence with today's 8 o'clock yoga lesson chez moi. I'm thinking two servings of Battle Cry of Freedom, a grande hot chocolate, and then a serving of aimless browsing.
...
Back from appointment, and one less national bestseller left to read. I dipped my toes into The Lovely Bones, and didn't feel a damn thing.
Watched an Australian comedy - The Rage in Placid Lake. Not really sure what happened because my tolerance for good movies has gotten so low from lack of experience, the film threw me into an epileptic fit. Nonetheless, there's a good if unorthodox aftertaste.
The film is about a human teenager raised by hippies. His name is Placid Lake. He has a girlfriend - Gemma - who is the brain of a Helga in the body of an Amber. Placid, also a genius, but cursed with the body of a rhesus monkey, is constantly tormented by bully classmates who experience acute withdrawal if they're not molding his face into a new shape. Instead of buying a gun and shooting everyone in school like we do in America, Placid waves a big red figurative flag right in their Aussie faces, and then refuses to move when they charge. After another incident where Placid barely escapes with his life, he decides to make a change - as Gemma puts it - "from fearless to spineless." Apres-metamorphosis, Placid enjoys his newfound job, friends, and lack of principles, while Gemma tries to cope with his slithering, while trying to decide whether to be the next Neils Bohr, Isaac Newton, or Euler (does he have a first name? or is he like Sting?). The rest you must find out for yourself.
I have an appointment at Barnes and Noble's today at 8 - an unlikely coincidence with today's 8 o'clock yoga lesson chez moi. I'm thinking two servings of Battle Cry of Freedom, a grande hot chocolate, and then a serving of aimless browsing.
...
Back from appointment, and one less national bestseller left to read. I dipped my toes into The Lovely Bones, and didn't feel a damn thing.
Watched an Australian comedy - The Rage in Placid Lake. Not really sure what happened because my tolerance for good movies has gotten so low from lack of experience, the film threw me into an epileptic fit. Nonetheless, there's a good if unorthodox aftertaste.
The film is about a human teenager raised by hippies. His name is Placid Lake. He has a girlfriend - Gemma - who is the brain of a Helga in the body of an Amber. Placid, also a genius, but cursed with the body of a rhesus monkey, is constantly tormented by bully classmates who experience acute withdrawal if they're not molding his face into a new shape. Instead of buying a gun and shooting everyone in school like we do in America, Placid waves a big red figurative flag right in their Aussie faces, and then refuses to move when they charge. After another incident where Placid barely escapes with his life, he decides to make a change - as Gemma puts it - "from fearless to spineless." Apres-metamorphosis, Placid enjoys his newfound job, friends, and lack of principles, while Gemma tries to cope with his slithering, while trying to decide whether to be the next Neils Bohr, Isaac Newton, or Euler (does he have a first name? or is he like Sting?). The rest you must find out for yourself.
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