I Gotta Eat More Candy

Let me tell you about the best part of my week this past week. I went to the dentist to get a checkup finally. It had been borderline disgustingly long time since I had been. Seriously, homeless people are more diligent about their health care maintenance than me lately. So regardless to say, I was not entirely shocked to find out that I had a cavity. Weak sauce. But don’t worry dear reader, ‘cause this particular bedtime story has a happy ending. I’ll give you my half of the conversation (try to imagine her half of the dialogue in that voice they always use for adults in Charlie Brown cartoons):

Me: “A walkman huh. You guys keep it pretty old school around here.”

Chubby Hygienist: “WHAA WHAA WHAA WA WA WHAA”

Me: “That’s cool. I don’t really like Kenny Chesney. How about that Clapton greatest hits.”

Chubby Hygienist: “WHAA WA WHAA WHAA”

Me: “What’s that you say? You have nitrous oxide that you want to give me?”

Chubby Hygienist: “WA WA WHAA”

Me: “How much do I weigh so you can tell how much nitrous to let flow? I’m actually about 250.”

Chubby Hygienist: “WHAAA?”

Me: “No, that’s about right. I’m not tall but I’m very dense. I do yogalates.”

Tank O’ Awesomeness: HIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Suddenly Attractive Hygienist: “WA WA WHAA WHAAAAA WHHAAAAA”

Me: WHEEEEEEE!!!!

This is going to sound really sad, but sitting there in my comfy chair, with a wicked buzz, under a bright light and listening to “Before You Accuse Me” I was magically transported to the beach. It was awesome.

Renaissance Duderguy

The worst part about working all the time is that you don’t have time to pursue all the other stuff that you used to do. Seriously though, if you are going to do well at your job it’s difficult to still be very good at anything else. I started this blog to help with my writing and maybe entertain a few friends. It’s pretty clear from the posting frequency that this experiment has suffered from my gainful employment.

I find myself half-assing (verb!) a lot of other things pretty badly lately too. By way of illustration, my dresser fell apart a couple of weeks ago. I was cramming some t-shirts into the drawer and pushed the bottom right through. Not surprising anyway, all of the furniture I own is pretty much shit. It would take a determined meth user with a hex wrench about half an hour to disassemble everything I own. This is a symptom of the fact that I’ve bartered for most of it with old fraternity brothers; home furnishings in exchange for bourbon and a couple twenties. So anyway, I found myself in need of a new chest of drawers, which I purchased, drove and picked up from the warehouse, and dragged into my bedroom. It’s been sitting next to my busted old one for the past two weeks, and considering the state of the drywall I started hanging in my basement last month I’m likely to have dual bureaus in my bedroom for the foreseeable future.

Back before I was working I would actually accomplish things out of shear boredom. I think this is the secret of the true Renaissance man. Ben Franklin and those guys weren’t so great. They were just wealthy guys, i.e. guys without jobs, who didn’t have a television or the internet. Sleep until 10, brush your wooden teeth, drink beer and “experiment” with lightning and your kite, maybe write a letter to my homeboys in Philly. Sounds like a pretty good gig to me.

Anyway, I’m quite the dilettante at this point. I’m apathetic about writing. I’m lazy about the gym, and my yard is having a negative effect on the neighborhood property values. My pursuit of competence in my chosen field has left me as about as well rounded as a (totally blanked here… what’s the opposite of well-rounded? Poorly-squared? Or is that a synonym? I’m thinking roughly hewn.) Jobs are rough, unless you actually make the effort to pursue a life outside of work you can find yourself robbed of any creativity.