Last month I went to the dentist. Unfortch, after three years of avoiding it, I had a few new cavities (I collect them, I’m a collector, be impressed). My teeth are basically all filler at this point, I don’t know what else they can shove in there, but I handed over my credit card and demanded to be gassed, “for my own comfort.”
The gas was not as comfortable as I recalled, for me or it turned out, everyone else. At first it was terrifying—I was in a video game, and when I reached the end, I would die—but after I accepted it, life on gas was… freeing. How often am I in a dentists’s office surrounded by highly informed professionals? (honestly a lot, but not recently!!) Thus liberated, I stopped the dentist MULTIPLE TIMES during the procedure to ask the following questions:
Are teeth bone? (“They come from bone, but are not the same.”)
Does Joe Biden have implants or crowns? (I like asking dentists this question and have done it before!!) (“Crowns,” she said, after thinking about it for a second. “Implants are a last resort.”)
Why didn’t I have implants? Shouldn’t they take my teeth away? Clearly I am a bad steward. (“That may be true, but nothing is as good as your natural teeth.”)
Had she seen the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil? I felt like this:
(“No,” she had not seen Brazil, and also, “please stop talking unless you need to tell us you’re in pain.”)
I took the “hint” and surrendered to the process. The dentist put more epoxy or whatever in my mouth, cured it with a UV lamp, filed it down and sent me on my way.
Since then, armed with teeth that should last me another year or two, I have been generally marveling at the simple delight of being alive. It’s wild that we can hire someone to glue our teeth back together; it’s amazing that we get to live on this planet; it’s finally fall, is maybe my point, and the inside of my brain feels fresh and clean.
I hope that you have healthy teeth, and that you’re enjoying this gorgeous, perfect weather. If you’re in Baltimore on Wednesday, my molars and I will be holding a very belated launch for The Force of Such Beauty. There will be cake. Full details below.
Sincerely,
Babs
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Events:
It’s here! The world’s latest book launch.
The Force of Such Beauty: The Better Late than Never Party
Wednesday, September 28th, 8pm
Greedy Reads Remington
320 W 29th St, Baltimore, MD 21211
What I’m Reading, and Loving:
Hurricane Girl, by Marcy Dermansky. Read in one glorious sitting, outside, in the shade. The plot: a writer buys a house in North Carolina; it gets blown away in a hurricane; she gets hit on the head; chaos ensues. Like all of Marcy Dermansky’s novels, the sentences are spotless, there are turkey sandwiches and swimming pools, and it closes like someone pulling a drawstring bag shut. SUCH A PLEASURE.
The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li. A rec from Santiago at GR, it is nominally about a friendship between two girls in postwar France - but don’t let that dissuade you. It opens with the narrator pointing out that sticking two orange halves together doesn’t actually make a whole orange, and continues in that vein. Sinister and interior and … almost kind of poetically defeated? Oh, it’s very good.
The Gospel of Wellness, by Rina Raphael. There’s no huge revelations in this nonfiction assessment of how the “wellness” industry uses the language of spiritual fulfillment to sell goods and services, but! - it is very funny and well-observed, and reminded me why I love it when journalists write books -- because they are used to serving an audience. It is not a small thing to sing for your supper. She goes for it.
Heat 2, by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner. Admittedly I did not read this. My husband did, and reader, he loved it. Yes, it is a sequel to the feature film Heat. No, “Heat One” was not a novel. Anyway his review is that it survived in spite of the quality of the prose, which is a rave. I won’t be reading it, but if you know someone who liked Heat One, then you’re welcome because this is the perfect holiday gift for that person.
Fun Stuff:
I had to buy a new computer. It’s … completely fine? Lol, what a letdown.
Here is Frida having a little stretch. :
