How I Spent Last Weekend.

I went to the dentist on Friday, because they say you should go every six months, which translates to about once every 4.7 years, on average. I started feeling nervous about two hours prior to arriving at the office. I should have heeded what was clearly my body's preemptive response to impending trauma. But you know what they say about hindsight. It rubs our mistakes in our faces. Our contorted, numbed, drool-covered faces. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once in the dentist chair, everything happened really fast. A young man draped a heavy lead apron on me. The dentist took x-rays and then explained that my teeth were really dirty and that she'd have to do a "deep cleaning." Imagining the bottle of face wash in my medicine cabinet, with the pretty pink "scrublet" for deep cleaning, and lured by the dentist's generous offer to do this extra service without cost, I agreed to the procedure.

What I'm about to describe is graphic, so sensitive readers may want to turn to something more pleasant, like the highlights reel from Nascar's most explosive crashes.

The chair was tilted back, tools were wielded, I felt a series of more-than-teensy pinches as a numbing agent ending in -caine was injected into my gums. I thought "Oh, good, I won't feel anything now." Then the deep cleaning began, and things went blurry. Pain rendered me stupid. Water and saliva mingled and sprayed from my mouth in the general direction of my retinas, forcing me to shut my eyes. Mistake. The pain sharpened in my mind. So did the awareness that my legs were losing feeling, my pulse had sped into panic mode at the urgency and ruthlessness of the drilling, and my hands were no longer folded against my abdomen - they were locked together in a death grip, at the urging of my unconsciously-contracted biceps.

There were moments when I remembered to breathe, moments when I could hear my pathetic groans, catch glimpses of two solemn, masked faces peering into my mouth as if at some gruesome yet riveting horror movie. And then, finally, it was over, the chair righted itself, and the dentist was addressing me as if I still had full control of my mental capacities. The young man set a cup of pink liquid beside me. I eventually understood that I was meant to pour it into my mouth and swish vigorously. Unfortunately, the lower half of my face was numb, and when I tried to swish, I merely spouted a fountain of pink onto my flimsy bib. "Oh yes," the dentist said,"I forgot you were numb." What a silly billy! I succeeded in not grabbing her by the throat her as she handed me tissues, but I blame the PTSD for that.

She kept talking the whole time I was spitting the wasted pink stuff - now suspiciously more red than pink - into the sink, and I must have been touching my face a lot, because she said "Your face isn't swollen, I promise, it's just the numbness. Then she did me the kindness of holding a mirror in front of my face. Sadist! She claimed to be reassuring me, but what I saw was a frighteningly crooked grimace disfiguring my ashen face. Insult to injury.

Looking like a stroke victim and feeling like a professional boxing victim, I walked out into the waning sunlight, ready to start my weekend.

This Old Thing

I found a shirt. It must have been under the dryer for years. A tank top with pink and brown diagonal stripes, pink lace trim and adjustable spaghetti straps. As soon as I set eyes on it, the buzzing of vague memories quickened my pulse. Powerful memories, but beyond the grasp of definition.  Just a strong and sudden sense of something important, some critical event or occasion in my biography.

It's baffling how the mind operates. How some moments implant themselves, and can remain hidden, or dormant, or just plain forgotten, until triggered. Impressions. That's the word. This tank top evoked an impression I'd long since forgotten. I recall an icy, citrus-y beverage...lemonade, perhaps, and almost certainly spiked. A pool hall. Q Billiards. A summer backyard party at the barely-livable eyesore of a house a friend was renting at the time. Humid air and cold vodka lemonade, manic conversation fueled by chemicals, and manufactured ecstasy laced with fuck-it-all impulses. Unrestrained impulses.

An ex-boyfriend, most of all. The one I loved in the way that only happens when you don't know any better than to fall, unrestrained. Reckless love. Young love. First love. Squandered love, ultimately. Wasted in the way that only happens when you don't know any better, when you take it for granted. When you don't know yourself or love yourself or understand yourself enough to appreciate the profundity, the rarity of true love. When you have no business falling in love. When you have no fear of it, either. And by you, I of course am talking about myself.

The shirt is a relic, a memento from my past. A message, its meaning unclear, perhaps incomprehensible, but important. I think, I was a different person when I wore it last. Smaller in size as well as in scope. But I am not entirely separate from that person; I still contain my smaller self. It's just been hidden under the dryer for a while.

It's not altogether unpleasant, this reminder. It holds regret, but also love. Destruction, as well as innocence. It has depth and fullness that surprise me with persistent, choking sentiments. As these feelings rose and swirled like ribbons of smoke, I washed the shirt, and folded it. It's in my closet now. To a visitor, it probably looks like just another piece of clothing.