Broke Tooth Blues and Thin Gruel

I bit into a peach. It was just out of the icebox and so sweet and juicy. Unfortunately I bit down too hard and broke one of my lower front teeth on the pit. I ignored it for a few days, the tooth started to crumble and eventually split entirely, with the back falling off of the tooth, leaving me looking no different, just with the biting surface crumbled and the tooth hollowed out. It was sheer agony.

Thankfully I found a cheap clinic that worked on a sliding scale and managed to get it fixed with some bonding material. It looks no different, but my tongue is unruly and keeps finding that new altered back to the tooth and bothering at it. At least it doesn’t actually hurt anymore and looks fine.

I had mentally prepared myself for the dentist just to pull the damn thing out. There was no way I could afford a crown or a bridge and thought, oh well, not the end of the world, just a broken tooth because I got greedy and bit down on the pit of a particularly nice peach. My sister pointed out that I would be mortified and trying to hide the gap as soon as a cute lesbian wandered my way. She is probably right, even if I have more or less given up with dating at all. I am too old and set in my ways. I like things my way, and I accept no risk at all. I cannot allow anyone to have the chance to hurt my fragile peace. I have self-protected myself into celibate isolationism, but at least I have my freedom and my little family unit of me and the Boy.

I have been working on work for money, a few journalistic pieces can take up a lot of time in research and writing. I have also been writing for competitions, and entered two short story competitions and am currently putting a volume of my poetry together for a poetry contest. This takes up so much time and effort. I dislike putting myself out there in this way, but if I want a hope of surviving or making a success out of my writing ‘career’, then I have to do these things. I have a list of contests I want to enter, and an even longer list of things that I have to write. To be frank, I could do with some quiet time this weekend, but the chances of that happening are basically nil.

Putting together a book of poetry is not as simple as choosing the poems and slapping them into a word document. The order of the poems and the flow of them as a whole unit is not an easy thing to decide on. I have dropped some perfectly good poems out of the collection just because they do not fit together nicely. There is nothing for it, but to print them out and read and reorder. It is dull work. I love writing, but not so much editing and ordering and rehashing things already written. I am the cream off the top of the milk kinda girl I suppose. I do not enjoy the thin gruel of editing my work.

My one year anniversary of moving into the apartment came and went quietly. We did not celebrate in any big way, but in the sweet happy way of simply having a nice quiet day at home. Home. That word is a luxury. We have had a good year, the best year. I am beyond happy living here, like this. I just wish it could last forever. I am guessing we have another year and if I cannot make a success out of my writing, then that is simply, that.

It is cool and foggy outside right now, but we are promised hot and sunny weather. Our dog days of summer, early fall heatwave, that comes to San Francisco before we can wave goodbye to the summer and settle into cooler weather. I see no signs of a bright and unpleasant day out there. I see no signs of things going south….but then again, since when does heat and danger announce itself? The heat is on, or so that old song from the 80s bopped along telling us…it’s on the streets….Just as long as the heat does not make it into my sweet little apartment in a not so sweet part of town, I will be ok. I even have a fixed tooth after my escapades with biting into peaches with too much carelessness. I even have another year, even if the subsidy runs out on December 1st.

The powers that be could have given me another year’s subsidy, but they chose not to do so. Me and the Boy were not seen as worthy. At least I have a good friend who cares. At least I have this blog and a bit more time.

I hope for cool days and cool heads ahead for us all….

D