Gnashing of Teeth: The Age of Regression

The key is to not drive yourself crazy.

Funny the triggers.

Tuesday night Fascinoma practice. Got there 5 minutes before official start time. Just me and Alanna in the Tokyo apartment. Had just drunk a coffee at Groundwork, the Killsonic website had had some breakthroughs, thought I was feeling good.

Two minutes in though, I was complaining about the mean endontist?/root canal specialist who treated my tooth the day before. The words were flying fast, I was successfully recounting, reliving, re-riling while Alanna shuffled around, prepping penne and spaghetti Bolognese. At some point she attempted some gesture to slow/calm me down, but I ranted right through it, rushing to detail how Dr. P----- started out nice but quickly became unpersonable, how he’d perfunctorily asked me if I had any more questions (which I did, like: did the fact the other dentist shaved down my tooth make his job harder, was my general dentist’s explanation of the x ray incorrect, (is he a fuck-up?), how much is this going to cost? etc…) which were all made decreasingly intelligible by novacaine and responded to with answers scant on information, heavy on impatience. It was an unpleasant visit. Alanna didn’t care.

And I didn’t care that she didn’t care so I continued to completion and waited for empathic words to fall on my ears, but instead Alanna just paused and said – “you seem to have a lot of stories of…disenfranchisement, lately.” Slow. Thoughtful. Alanna.

I shut up.

I raged.

Disenfranchised!? What does she mean? What's she trying to say?!

Maybe: (You’ve been talking non-stop about your stressy dental escapade since you got here. Last week it was your ongoing struggle with earthlink and web design headaches, in texas it was your infected gums and bad filling; the week before was the chiropractor with the bad touch and dirty towels and the sadist acupuncturist, before that the Mercedes SUV driver that rear-ended you in the rain. Your life is chaos, you’re a complainer, you’re a negative presence. YOU BRING NO JOY TO OTHERS.)

Or so it went in my head.

So the drums got set up in total silence. Mike arrived a few minutes later. He walked into all that rancid air, sensed the struggle immediately, and was like “oh no…” to which we gave assurances that everything would be fine and alanna said sorry (which assuaged the beast for a split second) and explained she was just feeling irate and upset on my behalf, but I
(knowing how easily concern for someone transmutes into annoyance and resentment towards the object of your pity) was not buying it. So I continued to speak not at all, choosing instead to quietly let the eyes leak all over the place while I adjusted my drums and mike and alanna shot the shit . Meanwhile, snot levels rose. Their conversation became punctuated with sniffling (and the soft pinging of tears on the ride)...

I was MADMADMAD at Alanna for making her rather accurate comment during my Time of Need. I was low on sleep and stressed about the future of my gums and teeth. I didn’t want to be called a complainer but I wanted to COMPLAIN!!!!

Eventually the drums were in place. I wiped my face and sat at the table and ate penne while Mike and Alanna continued to talk about fictitious business names, silkscreening and whatnot. But as I chewed only with the left side of my mouth, I thought about the mess that was going on across the way, the exposed dentine on molar #30 and the loose expensive crown on molar #29, the unfinished root canal re-treatment on the same, the soreness of my jaw, my nice but possibly incompetent dentist, the mean but maybe capable? specialist and my fear that health care is practitioned by a bunch of greedy, untalented hacks who don’t feel or understand their patients' sorrow, the tears started up again and I cried into the penne like someone just diagnosed with Extreme Syphilis and I knew this was a real bum way to start rehearsal (especially for Mike who’d actually bothered to take a nap for the sake of band harmony that night).

Finally, Alanna got up and handed me a tissue and said, “Alice…” and immediately the teary pitter patter gave way to thirty seconds of full-on crying with ground beef particles sputtered mostly in the direction of Mike’s (lustrous brown) hair and me semi-asphyxiating, bawling “I don’t know why I can’t stop crying….”

But I do know why. Quick review:

1. Came in feeling sorry for myself.
2. Expected sympathy, incited irritation.
3. Listener/sister's use of “disenfranchisement” was construed as offensive and condescending
4. Suspicion/concern that I was becoming a “complainer” were confirmed through above use.
5. Wrong time for confirmation.
6. I felt shame.
7. Matters of the body are emotional matters as well.
8. Matters of the body piggybacking matters of failed dsl and auto accidents are tough on a wussy camel’s back.
9. Assymetrical chewing is aggravating.
10. Sleep deprivation compensated by caffeine is a poor foundation for a stable moods.
11. Felt guilty for ruining practice at the very beginning of practice.
12. Was filled with many emotions; didn’t know what to do.

Anyway, after the classy opener, we started practicing. The sisters were possessed twice more that evening (volley to Alanna, volley back to alice to close out the night). Mike stayed resilient -- like old times. In the end, we sat around exhausted and decided that all 3 of us are prone to repression and we should aim to not be. We mustered enough energy to make a plan for the following week.

The mature days are to come?

Universal love and so on,
Alice
"documenting unglory as a service"