my eldest son turned 21. this is…part of a much bigger story. maybe i’ll put a little here in a day or two.

on that angle—i’m moving some of my energy, some of my writing and drawing, back to the handmade. at least for a while. we all know everything changes. and then changes again.

blogging is good for a handful of things, and of course i’ll still do it. maybe i won’t even slow down on content. but it can’t be all i do anymore in the way of writing. i see a large, bound book with empty pages in my immediate future. creamy pages i can write on and draw in…fill with braindreams and mindmaps.

my writing and voice diaries have always been a way of keeping myself in touch with my own mind and heart. they are how i let myself know what i’m thinking and living. how i mark the time, the days; how i know to interpret them, how i learn from my life, how i keep history. it’s my GPS, how i connect things. it’s my own cavewall, it’s my confessional and memoir. my completely honest diaries are, in reality, how i stay sane.

writing online is always censored and shaped. it feels real, and it is real. and it also more a voice outward, and less of a meditative one meant only for my own heart and mind. it is a performance.

seeya at the next show.

so today is the day of the root canal that i hope will end this immediate crisis, which is a toothache that recedes and flares up at will and to such a degree that my life gets hijacked over it. of course, that is not really the issue. the issue is the broken teeth and the decay, and the pain is just the body saying GET THE FUCK WITH IT, KID. i still am amazed that to keep your teeth as whole as possible you need to pay about two thousand dollars for a tooth needing root canal and crown. but they’ll yank it for $100 or so. as if whole teeth are a luxury, as if chewing doesn’t become very hard when your teeth aren’t meeting up and healthy, as if you dont feel like something ugly and shameful when your smile begins to fall apart. but some of us can’t even afford the preventative work very often, or regularly. that’s why the poor people have gaps in their mouths so often. that’s why rich people can have such pretty smiles. i hate their pretty smiles like diamond lights winking down on the toothless and toothachey and toothwanting. i hate it like i hate all the gaps that stand between the hardships of the poor and the well-padded pantries of the well-to-do. i wanna be the santadontist for poor people; i’ll come round at dawn and hand out pictures of myself pulling rich people’s expensive dental work apart in the middle of the night. if we can’t bridge the gap one way, we can do it another…

go ahead and ring it for only ten or fifteen seconds and in no time at all you will feel as if your left eye is trying to sag out of your face, and your jaw weighs four hundred pounds. (pain itself is extremely heavy, that is why it turns your hair white and makes your mind empty.) now, that’s an alarm you won’t sleep through!

one swig of something like the popular drink known as “coffee” and in three seconds your alarm will be first moaning, and then outright screaming! the reaction is almost instanteous, it’s a very impressive device with extremely organic and complex circuitry.

TO RESET

to reset alarm, simply brush open area of tooth (you will need to break a tooth in half to construct the alarm) with cold water for a moment. however, unless you brush out the entire mouth (tongue too!) your saliva will contain minute sugar traces and they will set the alarm off again. this is a scenario in which you can experience the “fade in” behavior of the alarm. simply brush out entire mouth out to prevent this “Fading in” of the “alarm” sensation.

SENSITIVITY:

should you desire to do anything ridiculous or “extreme” like drink an entire cup of coffee rather than the far more reasonable sip, it is advised you stand in the bathroom, brush in hand. you will need to brush after every swallow. yes, the alarm is sensitive. the degree of sensitivity cannot be adjusted after the construction of your device, so remember to break the initial tooth carefully! for example, should the break run below the gum line, then the saliva will actually pool and rest inside the open area of the device, which will render your alarm with more or less of a hair trigger setting.

note: if the user attempts to drink more than a few swallows of “coffee” or any other sugary drink, the alarm will soon be ringing so intensely that the user will begin to lose the ability to think coherently at which point it may scare them to look up and see a disheveled, mopheaded person in the mirror with a cup of coffee and a toothbrush looking slightly annoyed, or grimacing, depending on what stage of this experiment is unfolding.

USES:

this device has many uses, mainly so that one may know at any point in the day when any particular foodstuff has sugar in it. the ability to detect is unerring, incapable of failing and immediate.

warning: it is not advised to eat candy or or any food designed to actually showcase the glucose molecule, as the food will actually lodge into the Detection Base (or “tooth”) and cause the circuits to overload which may crash your calendar application, and shortly after lead to deep draughts of whiskey.

UPGRADES:

Future iterations and upgrades of the Sugar Alarm include:
-Alarm that detects and is activated by room temperature air
-Alarm that detects and is activated by own saliva

as part of my new leaf springtime borderline agenda i went to the doctor as i’ve said and got myself hooked up with some medicine. i didnt go to the chinese doctor as my friend kai suggested not because i dont think he is right, but because  it’s simply much easier going through this clinic for a few reasons. so its western medicine this time and at least this time and at least so far i have to say i’m so very happy that it seems to be working already and i almost feel normal, or like most people, who aren’t constantly trying to keep their stomach in and down at almost all times of day. especially after eating anything acidic, or getting stressed out. i can’t tell you how this makes me feel. its so liberating. i’ve even slept through a whole night, i think (maybe a couple?) without having to sit up. ah, the things we can take for granted. (well, we can take everything for granted! and do) it’s basically like hiccuping that never ever ended. its stress, its physical energy expended, its disruption of the esophagus and breathing process. its a constant thing that happens to your body and never leaves you alone. and sometimes it hurts too. i think i got used to that burn. but i never got used to the constant interruptions. now…i feel so much more…still. i’m not constantly spitting fire. its a beautiful thing. i’ts not fully resolved, but its only been a week. and my body is more at peace than it has been since 2003.

i also decided to lay down almost $400 at the lab and have various blood work done of the sort where you hope for negative results and i’m happy to say i got my money’s worth, though i’m sure glad they take payments. i guess that’s what some peace(s) of mind cost. never took most of these tests, but as the son of a woman who is director of public health and past infection control nurse, i felt i ought to for years. so, again, as part of my springtime draw a blooming line agenda, i ran the full gamut and bit the bullet and anyway its just good to know the deal for sure. so now i do.

in other news, i’ve replaced the tires on my bike. which means no more badass knobbies! i ‘m sad about this. i really enjoyed those knobbies and i’m not sure about this change. the bike guy was really happy. he earnestly was passing on his own experience, which is why he advised me to do this. that’s the third guy who talked to me about this, and the third who advised it. but i dont know. the first guy was worried about his weight. he thought he already had enough drag and didnt want more. okay, i get that. but i dont have that worry. so i was like “okay, i’ll keep the knobbies.” so the next guy is all like technical with “these have thicker walls but these other ones have—” well i’m not sure what the other ones had…i got very distracted right about the time he said “thicker walls” but he was cool, he helped me see that these were two different tires entirely, the street tire and the trail tire. made differently with different strengths, etc. not just knobbies/not-knobbies.

the third guy was like “wow you’ll feel so much faster, like riding a whole new bike” and that pretty much grabbed me because lately something has been dragging on me as i ride and i use this bike like a car. its my way to get anywhere. and i use it every day. so i feel this drag happening and i’m saying “okay, just pump harder!” and i don’t mind because i think its just work to be done. my thighs burn up and i just get more toned and harder every day. thats a huge plus of this bike thing. no more guilt on myself for sitting around and getting soft. no sirree maam. its a real work out. but it wasn’t just that, it was something rubbing or dragging on the wheel, turned out to be the brake. dude also tightened up my spokes, very cool.

but i’m really not sure about these thinner, smaller road tires! sure they look sporty. and i guess they are “armadillos” the “best tire in the world/cosmos/town/stockroom/store” etc etc. (i was like  ”give me the ones with the red stripe”) i’ll see how they fare on the trip to luna y paloma. maybe they will make it a lost easier. its a hell of a hill and some bad asphalt. if so, its worth it. but they throw off the visual aesthetics something fierce. now my fender looks too big, so i took it off. my seat threatens to overwhelm the balance, but i love that seat and its new and comfortable so it stays. its just a whole nother bike and oh i dont know who you are anymore, GT! i also kind of liked having the traction at the ready. now, i cant zip up that supersteep little hill at the edge of my parking lot, on the mulch. i just knife into it. spin and look sort of idiotic. eh, looking idiotic has never stopped me before and maybe i’ll grow to love them. if not, i’m replacing them with the knobbies.