August 30, 2001
Today I am in awe of the painkiller. I took two and was again amazed at their efficacy. They take away the pain. Something in me resists their easy cure, but when I fold to their charms I feel like lighting a candle, singing a chorus, skipping a little. I’m just talking your basic advil at this point. Not even the killer painkillers, the percoset, the percodan, the demerol. When there has been discomfort, for who is to say it was really pain, and the body is cleared of that discomfort, the whole being feels polished. Every pain brings a great love of that part when the pain goes away; to feel it fresh again without pain makes that part seem limitless in its beauty and efficiency.
Initially I blamed Bob Dylan. I went to hear him play in a GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) pitch in Kilkenny on my last day in Ireland this summer. I went up to the front to see what this creature looked like close up now that he is sixty. It was very loud. I couldn’t hear in one ear the next day and then I got on a plane to New York. I couldn’t hear properly in that ear for weeks. And then it went away and I could hear again and hearing with two ears was miraculous. But it wasn’t Bob Dylan, I can’t blame him for my temporary deafness in one ear, nor for the strange sensation that remained, the conviction that there is something amiss with the lower half of my face. They have a term for it, but I’m less interested in the term than in the fact that I just can’t seem to take my jaw for granted any more now that it has this odd malaise. Apparently I have been gnashing my teeth (isn’t that supposed to be reserved for hell along with wailing?) at night, which leaves the teeth and the muscles of the jaw irritated. All day long I wonder what to do with my jaw. Where should it sit? I don’t know where it belongs on my face any more. It may detach and fly through the air, liberated from its uncomfortable socket. A bloody but relieved comet. I feel like Dora Maar after Picasso got at her—reluctantly Cubist. I would happily bandage my jaw to my head like one of those cartoon toothache sufferers; I have the odd, and apparently incorrect conviction, that this would help. My friend Kate, who had the same problem, says you have to keep the lips together, the teeth apart. Advice when very young on how to give a decent blow job and advice on how to deal with TMJ when middle aged appear to be the same. Meanwhile, I’m going to take another two advil and marvel at how it feels to have a face. Incidentally, Bob Dylan at sixty viewed from where I was standing on the Kilkenny GAA pitch is a reassuring mixture of the ancient and the ageless. A ravaged boy.
hot dogs on the rooof.....
First I would like to thank the gods for granting me this really fine state of relatively good health and would hope for many more years of same, and don't get me wrong, but I have for a few years been thinking about what it is I'm seeing and it seems there may not be all that much to recommend a life of longevity. I mean the chronic aches we medicate against is one thing, and a thing we have been fairly warned about what with all those geriatric actors on TV extolling the virtues of brand x painkillers (ibupropen-advil is good, I'm recently experimenting with naproxen sodium-aleve) but what is with this teeth gnashing thing? I think it is fairly common but why weren't we warned? Is it because even the least religious or literary of us are aware of the association that teeth gnashing has with the depths of Hell, and Madison Ave. is not up to the task of a campaign promoting a product that will deliver us from this E-veeel condition? I, for one, do not underestimate the prowess of the AVE. So, what's up?
In the final anaylsis though, I think there is plenty of information available for the suffering. Just last week while at the WalMart purchasing the 100 count generic Aleve, naproxen sodium, compare and save!, I saw on the shelf above a seventeen dollar mouth guard that is designed to keep us from gritting our teeth to excess. Judging by the picture on the box it looked very similar to, or exactly like, the mouth guards one might find over in Sporting Goods for 2.97. Which brings to mind the question of how do you avoid the very real possibility of swallowing the more expensive seventeen dollar version, and/or possibly choking to death in your sleep (if such a thing is possible)? With the cheaper version, you could at least attach it to the face guard of a football helmet and sleep in relative safety. Just some thoughts.
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Today I am in awe of the painkiller. I took two and was again amazed at their efficacy. They take away the pain. Something in me resists their easy cure, but when I fold to their charms I feel like lighting a candle, singing a chorus, skipping a little. I’m just talking your basic advil at this point. Not even the killer painkillers, the percoset, the percodan, the demerol. When there has been discomfort, for who is to say it was really pain, and the body is cleared of that discomfort, the whole being feels polished. Every pain brings a great love of that part when the pain goes away; to feel it fresh again without pain makes that part seem limitless in its beauty and efficiency.
Initially I blamed Bob Dylan. I went to hear him play in a GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) pitch in Kilkenny on my last day in Ireland this summer. I went up to the front to see what this creature looked like close up now that he is sixty. It was very loud. I couldn’t hear in one ear the next day and then I got on a plane to New York. I couldn’t hear properly in that ear for weeks. And then it went away and I could hear again and hearing with two ears was miraculous. But it wasn’t Bob Dylan, I can’t blame him for my temporary deafness in one ear, nor for the strange sensation that remained, the conviction that there is something amiss with the lower half of my face. They have a term for it, but I’m less interested in the term than in the fact that I just can’t seem to take my jaw for granted any more now that it has this odd malaise. Apparently I have been gnashing my teeth (isn’t that supposed to be reserved for hell along with wailing?) at night, which leaves the teeth and the muscles of the jaw irritated. All day long I wonder what to do with my jaw. Where should it sit? I don’t know where it belongs on my face any more. It may detach and fly through the air, liberated from its uncomfortable socket. A bloody but relieved comet. I feel like Dora Maar after Picasso got at her—reluctantly Cubist. I would happily bandage my jaw to my head like one of those cartoon toothache sufferers; I have the odd, and apparently incorrect conviction, that this would help. My friend Kate, who had the same problem, says you have to keep the lips together, the teeth apart. Advice when very young on how to give a decent blow job and advice on how to deal with TMJ when middle aged appear to be the same. Meanwhile, I’m going to take another two advil and marvel at how it feels to have a face. Incidentally, Bob Dylan at sixty viewed from where I was standing on the Kilkenny GAA pitch is a reassuring mixture of the ancient and the ageless. A ravaged boy.
- rachael 8-31-2001 3:51 am
hot dogs on the rooof.....
- anonymous (guest) 8-31-2001 4:09 am [add a comment]
First I would like to thank the gods for granting me this really fine state of relatively good health and would hope for many more years of same, and don't get me wrong, but I have for a few years been thinking about what it is I'm seeing and it seems there may not be all that much to recommend a life of longevity. I mean the chronic aches we medicate against is one thing, and a thing we have been fairly warned about what with all those geriatric actors on TV extolling the virtues of brand x painkillers (ibupropen-advil is good, I'm recently experimenting with naproxen sodium-aleve) but what is with this teeth gnashing thing? I think it is fairly common but why weren't we warned? Is it because even the least religious or literary of us are aware of the association that teeth gnashing has with the depths of Hell, and Madison Ave. is not up to the task of a campaign promoting a product that will deliver us from this E-veeel condition? I, for one, do not underestimate the prowess of the AVE. So, what's up?
In the final anaylsis though, I think there is plenty of information available for the suffering. Just last week while at the WalMart purchasing the 100 count generic Aleve, naproxen sodium, compare and save!, I saw on the shelf above a seventeen dollar mouth guard that is designed to keep us from gritting our teeth to excess. Judging by the picture on the box it looked very similar to, or exactly like, the mouth guards one might find over in Sporting Goods for 2.97. Which brings to mind the question of how do you avoid the very real possibility of swallowing the more expensive seventeen dollar version, and/or possibly choking to death in your sleep (if such a thing is possible)? With the cheaper version, you could at least attach it to the face guard of a football helmet and sleep in relative safety. Just some thoughts.
- jimlouis 9-01-2001 3:01 pm [add a comment]