sweet illusion coming down

Spending the morning in the dentist's office might not be an ideal way to start the day. But, on the other hand, my dentist is downtown in the city. Since I do not work in the city, it is actually a rare gift for me to have an excuse to wander in the bustle of the crowd. It is not the Times Square-like crowd, the kind of crowd that makes you yearn for some special dispensation to part the sea of people so that you can pass through, unobstructed. Instead, there are just enough people walking about to indicate activity, energy. There is nothing like a crowd to center yourself and think in a completely solitary, self-absorbed manner. Maybe not everyone feels that way. Maybe some people like large, open spaces to be truly alone with their thoughts. I need an ambient buzz, a flurry of activity around me, to really sort myself out.

During the holidays, I managed to break two teeth. Believe me, I would love to tell you a story now about a bar brawl at the corner lesbian bar in my neighborhood. The hermano claims a certain lesbian bar beats up anyone who is straight if they dare enter the bar. I do not believe him. I think that's the excuse he uses to keep me from forcing him to go in there some time, because they play some of the best music in the neighborhood.

Anyway, as much as I would like to tell you that an angry lesbian beat me up for claiming to be punk and straight, I am afraid my sexual orientation has no relation to the teeth breaking. I can't even tell you that some evil a$$hat from work bought me toffee as a Christmas present, knowing full well I would break my teeth trying to eat it. A co-worker did bring me toffee, but I ate it without any damage to my molars. Instead, a week later, I was flossing my teeth, and out popped half of one tooth. Continued flossing caused another tooth to chip away. And no, I was not flossing with the material they use to make brillo pads.

Now, as much as I would like to correlate flossing with teeth breaking, that would be bad science. When I recounted the story to my dentist, mostly because I was amused that my teeth had broken while doing something all dentists tell you to do, she gave me this b*tch, please look, and then said, "At that point, you could have broken your teeth eating yogurt."

She is right, of course. The teeth just sort of crumbled because what was inside them had deteriorated to such a point that the teeth were little more than shells. I worry about things like that. Decay you can't see, genetic mutations that are just waiting to turn into cancer, viruses that lie dormant. Or all those experiences that should be dealt with, but instead are pushed away into long-term storage. Things you keep telling yourself you will deal with when you have time, but you never do. And then, one day, you do something ordinary and you might fall to pieces. What if I am tied together by flimsy string?