Flashback Monday: “The Happy Bliss of Dentistry” from ME STUFF

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Scott D. Southard

It’s Monday faithful readers and time for another flashback! Yup, where I share a post that appears in my new fun-gotta-read-it-sometime-hilarious book ME STUFF.

In the previous installments I took on poison and a sharp knife. This time I take on a new form of torture. Let’s hear it for dentists! (Actually, I like my current dentist, he seems like a good guy.) Here is an excerpt from the beginning:

I have always had a thing about dentists.

It’s not a fear, more like a slight terror fueled by judgment and pain. Let me break that down a little more.

Cavities hurt and I dislike pain so I naturally associate the pain with the person who works in the mouth. I know it is like blaming the mechanic for my car breaking down, but I do it.

The judgment? Well, sometimes I feel like dentists harshly evaluate me and how I am overseeing the management of my own mouth. Has anyone else noticed this? When they are telling you what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong, doesn’t a part of you feel like you are being lectured? Now, I can’t point to a specific moment when a finger was wagged in my direction or eyes were rolled, but I sense it. I know it is there. The hidden eye roll is always there.

Because of all of this, I had been very relaxed on my visits over much of my adult life. And sadly, over the last five years this has come back to bite me in the ass… or mouth… or something. I’m just trying to say I hate my teeth right now and there is biting and occasional pain involved with it. The biting, I mean. Argh!

You can read the rest of this article here.

Or, even better, you can grab a copy of ME STUFF which contains 40 editorials like this one and it is super cheap-o. The eBook version of the book is only $1.99 (here on Amazon) and in print for only $8.99 (here on Amazon).

The Issue With My Clock or the Post With Breaks

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Scott D. Southard

My clock has switched.

I’m not sure how this happened, but everything is upside down and it is the new norm I have to accept. I’m Alice in a world where the ceiling is now the floor, and that is just how reality will have to be. We are all mad here.

Let me explain this better: When you are young you are always counting up to experiences.

When I am 16, I will learn to drive a car.
When I am 18, I graduate and go to college.
When I am 21, I can drink (well, I don’t like alcohol very much, so I watch my friends drink…. I just have never liked the taste or smell of beer or wine. Okay, I do admit I drink a little but the stuff I do enjoy, the mixes, usually involve chocolate or fruity flavors and they can come in glasses that some would find embarrassing. Well, just the color would be embarrassing for many to be near. So I keep to the soda when I am out in public, because I like to believe I have a certain swagger in my step and a coolness that I aim to keep, and the fruity drinks don’t help).

More counting! Then there is a wedding… and a house…the first baby… and a second… And suddenly, right there, when you have reached your limit on kids, and they begin to age out of diapers and clothes… everything turns.

It’s like in one of those cartoons from the 1940’s where the clocks have a face and the hands are attached to the nose and they spin in a strange fashion. Well, that is my internal clock, and now with 40 fast approaching, I feel the face’s confusion.

I have begun counting down to things… The outcome at the end, I don’t want to even imagine.

(I need a break, just a second. I have a soda around here someplace.) Continue reading →

The Power of My Now

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Scott D. Southard

A new blog post by me is up at greenspotblue.com. Here is a snippet from the entry:

To begin, let me state upfront I’m stealing my idea from my wife.

She writes a dance education blog for a dance Web site and recently wrote an article called “The Power of Now.” While hers focused more on being “present” in the now of a performance, I’m going to take a less creative approach to the word.

For me, now is living in the present, and trying to avoid the “whatifs.” I’ve always hated the whatifs.

What if I did this? What if I did that? What if I made that decision instead?

Each and every day, I have seen people who are drowning in whatifs and I have never wanted to be that person lost in the past. Actually, it was at a very early age that I decided I was going to do my best to avoid their dreaded curse. You only live life right once? So why not see what will happen when you make the leap? So, because of that lifestyle decision, when I do look back, I see an existence full of big decisions, a life of big life-changing choices.

You can read the rest of the article here.