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

The Happy ToothIt’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!

Me Stuff, front coverYou 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 3 Mes: 22 Days Until 40

Number 3I’ve become very self-centered over the last few months.

Not in a “I’m going to be rude” kind of way. No, this is more like I get lost in thoughts, staring off into the distance. It’s like…

I’m sorry, I was someplace else right then. I’m back now.

A few posts ago, someone commented that I was going through a mid-life crisis. At the time, I brushed it off. Me? No!

I didn’t have any of the signs we all know from television and movies! But… now…  I think this might be my version of it. An exclusive and unique mid-life crisis. Sounds like something I would do. And to get through this stage in my life, I thought it might be “fun” to document my thoughts and feelings. Capture this moment. As a writer, you never know what will lead to inspiration and right now all of my focus seems to be on this, this shift. It is new, it is different, and it won’t happen again.

Okay…. Oddly, at this time (22 days off from life’s halfway mark) I feel splintered, broken into three different versions of myself.

There is the present me, the future me, and the past me. And I can see them in the mirror, they haunt me. When I get dressed in the morning, I sometimes wonder which one I am dressing like, which one I am going to be that day. This may all seem very dramatic to some, but I am a writer. It comes with the territory, drama is in the DNA. One of the great truths for all three of the mes. Continue reading

My Coke (Zero) Addiction

Ah, sweet nectar of the Gods!

What was life like before Coke Zero, and dare I even try to remember?

With two kids, early mornings, and a life that always feels like it is running and then suddenly asleep, Coke Zero has replaced the blood in my veins and my heartbeat now beats to the tempo of “I would like to teach the world to sing…”

This is my life force.

It wasn’t always like this. No, for a time I was off soda.  Four months of semi-consciousness, bumping into walls, speaking incomplete sentences, losing words, forgetting to—I don’t know—wear socks. But thanks to my baby daughter’s teething, I was brought back into the fold and I am once again collecting My Coke Reward points like nobody’s business. Subscription to Entertainment Weekly? Nah, I’m hoping to earn enough points to take over their editorial staff (I have a strong opinion regarding their obsession around Twilight, reality shows, and Glee). Continue reading