(Phaysis)

So last night / this morning someone stole the right two wheels off of my car.

You read that right.

I came home at 2am, parked. Nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up around noon and looked out to check the weather; I noticed that the nose of my car was leaning forward more than usual and figured maybe I ran over a bolt or something. When I grabbed my laundry and attempted to leave around 5pm, I checked the tire to see if it was flat…and both were gone. Instead, the right side of the car is chocked up on top of a granite block. Even the lug nuts were gone.

Shock, despair, anger.

Called the cops, made my report, got a case number. They dispatched an officer to dust for prints. There were no prints. However, a neighbor saw that I was at the car with a cop, and came over to offer an eyewitness account. Apparently, at 7:30 to 8am, she had her apartment door open to let in the breeze. She stepped out onto the balcony and noticed a man at the car; he saw her, looked nervous, and then carried a tire in each hand to his car and drove off. She thought he was my car’s owner and didn’t think anything of it. The description she offered was rather generic: light-skinned black male, bald, medium height and stocky build. She got no description of the car.

I have no hope of getting my wheels back. By my estimate, it’s $150 out of my pocket to replace them. The wheels were nothing special: cheap stock rims, cheap tires that were nearing a replacement. Why my car was targeted, I don’t know. If it was at 7:30am, then yeah, I don’t know. If it was during the night, then the lighting in the lot, the shadow on the right side of the car, the right side facing the street and away from the apartment building, would all make sense.

I’ll need a ride to pick up some spare lug nuts, get a set of locking lug nuts, and top off the air in my full-sized spare and my donut spare so I can limp around tomorrow to get new wheels. Until then, I’m stranded, deflated, defeated.

Well, here I am writing a log with four new holes just four days old in my mouth where my wisdoms used to be. It’s something different, I’ll say that much. Had the procedure done on wednesday; decided that I had enough money to get all four removed at once, so I did. The aching left wisdoms on monday helped in that decision.

Don’t remember much from the procedure; remember being beside-myself nervous before, and the slight freaking out when I first felt the sedative take hold, but after a few seconds I just didn’t care anymore. I vaguely remember at least two of the pulls. Vaguely remember the oral surgeon using a drill or something similar on a right wisdom, but I don’t know which. I remember stirring after a pull, grabbing my pen from my pocket and scribbling on my hand what i knew read “KEEP TEETH”, and I remember the doc and his assistant saying, “Woah, what’s he doin’? Heh.” and “It’s ok, Michael, just relax, we’re almost done.” I remember coming around after the procedure while the assistant was cramming more gauze into my new holes, and remember looking at my hand to verify that I wrote correctly only to discover I gained a new language resembling sanskrit during the procedure. My requesting effort was fruitless: the teeth had already been placed in the biohazard bin.

After filling my prescription for hydrocodone and (oddly) amitryptaline (an antidepressive drug sometimes used for pain), I went home, changed the gauze, took my drugs, and proceeded to crash out for the rest of the day and night, waking up to redose and change gauze. Around 8am the next morning I knew I wasn’t able to work that day, so I called in. Slept and lazed around. Attempted to eat some yogurt and drink a meal-substitute shake. Still weak, I got a call from work asking for help in setting up a job, so I volunteered to go in, helped set it up, then left and got some mashed potatoes and mac & cheese from KFC on my way home. Rented “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” and “Napoleon Dynamite” (why haven’t you watched these yet?). Watched “Harold and Kumar…”, laughed a lot, and went to bed.

Worked friday, still kinda weak and undernourished, and in pain but in decent spirits. Stayed home that night, watched “Napoleon Dynamite”, looked up historic photos of Austin roadways. That’s pretty much it.

Saturday started well, then continued into the foul. Dunno what happened, just got angry, depressed, mad at myself, etcetera. I had made plans to go to Eeyore’s Birthday and to my friends Ed and Mel’s baby shower, but both were scrapped. I just wasn’t worth a damn to myself or anyone on Saturday afternoon, so I did nothing. Sorry, guys. After some research it occurred to me that the small 3-pill prescription I had for amitryptaline (remember, it’s a psychiatry drug) could’ve been to blame.

With not much food and growing weaker by nightfall, I cleaned myself up, went out and had a decent meal, the first where I had actual hard food, then after the nourishment I felt fine enough to go to Spiderhouse for some tea and maybe some company. The chatter was light and I didn’t stay long, but it helped lift my mood. Went home and decided that the disarray on my desk and around my room just wouldn’t cut it, so I pulled out a sack and started sorting the bad piles into trash and good piles. Now that the desk is clean, the room is clean. Lit a votive lantern and nodded off to sleep.

Today, woke up at 9:30am to the pain in my upper teeth. The 6 fillings are still bothering me; I’m still living on tylenol. So it’s my alarm clock. After some breakfast (which required chewing), the pain numbed itself down and I was in better spirits. Chatted online, then got dressed, grabbed my bike, and rode off for the day to get some lunch and tea. Late afternoon I left the coffeeshop and rode to Cheapo’s, picked up the new Garbage album (which is good), and my bike and I caught the bus home where I still remain.

Tomorrow I return to work; so far, it’s shaping up to be an uneventful workweek. No dentist appointments. No having to cut out early. Hopefully my holes will grow closed soon; the clots are still there and it appears the gums are closing in underneath. Hopefully my molars will stop hurting soon as I get accustomed to eating harder, chewier food (believe me, if you don’t give your teeth a workout, they’ll let you down). Hopefully I can get my life back to normal soon. My biggest hope is that this season of dental despair is over.

I know it’s sounding like a broken record. That’s what bothers me most about it. My teeth are hurting again. I had a visit with my dentist on monday to get three of my teeth (on the upper right) filled, which he dutifully did. Then at dinner I discovered that my teeth were now more temperature sensitive than before. Great. I’ll acclimate.

Well, the pain started yesterday. Pain like I had a tooth infection, or whatever. Pain almost like the dull, joy-killing pain I had when I first had tooth problems back in February. Almost the same tooth, almost the same spot, which is impossible: that tooth is now dead after the root canal. This tells me a few things: there’s an infection at the roots ($), or my wisdom teeth really need to come out now ($$$), or the filling procedure left me open for infection.

So, for the moment, I’ll go back to the Tylenol and deal with it until my appointment next monday to fill the other 3 cavities. I’ll see if the dentist has anything to say about the pain. I know I can’t afford to pay the $523 upfront cost to get 4 wisdoms pulled. But given that next wednesday is payday and that the oral surgeon makes the visit to my dentist’s office on wednesdays, maybe I can swing getting the two right wisdoms pulled for half the price.

Damn, this sucks.

Alright. Update on the tooth situation. On Tuesday of last week I woke up early and managed to get through to an actual voice at the UT Dental School in San Antonio. I explained my situation, expressed my sensations of ongoing pain, and the operator offered to set an emergency appointment for me on the next day to get a temporary filling placed, after which I would then be called back some day or week later to get the root canal performed. Quickly deciding that getting a temporary filling, dealing with more pain after the fill, and then having to go through it all again to get finished was not worth the driving, gas, traffic, and headache of going to San Antonio on pain meds, I backed out and went with my Plan B.

I called my boss, explained what was going on, and took the day off. Got myself cleaned up and went to Castle Dental to see about getting this taken care of. Did the paperwork, insurance, blah blah, then the dentist saw me, the assistant took an X-ray, the dentist came back and the X-ray hadn’t changed a bit in the past week – I still had a major hole in my tooth. So he addressed the same two options the previous dentist presented: extraction or root canal. I opted to keep the tooth. So he had the receptionists schedule for me to return at 2pm that afternoon to undergo the procedure. Everything was go.

Waiting for 2 hours was the hardest, most painful part. Wracked with nervousness, I ate some lunch and tried to distract myself. I chatted with a friend of mine back home who manages a dentist office, got some needed consolement, and then I steadied my resolve to go have it all done and make the pain go away.

There is nothing that can compare to trying to keep biting down on a dental tray full of rubber epoxy for 7 minutes in order to get a mold of your original tooth while your jaw is loaded up on anesthetics, the slobber is building, the slurping is increasing, and the plate is cutting into your gums as it’s pressed hard into them. Quite a humbling time, to be sure. Well, actually, the high-frequency shocks that shoot through your skull as the dentist reams out the crown and then each root of the tooth with his high dollar dremel tool — yeah, that can compare. (Enjoy the mental images)

So. I am now sporting a mostly dead tooth capped off with a temporary acrylic crown cast from the mold of my old tooth. I go back on the 15th of this month to have the tooth’s roots permanenty filled and have the ceramic crown, currently being made at a dental lab, installed. Until then, I can only eat on my left side (because the acrylic will break under force), and that’s just too weird; my jaw hinge hurts sometimes because I can’t chew on the right side, and I’m only getting half of the flavor out of my meals. Bleh. But I’m (mostly) pain free, and this is a good thing.

And would you expect to get all this for $69.95? No? How about $49.95? Guess again. Wait, would you expect to pay $19.95 for all this, PLUS the antiobiotic pills, the codiene pills, and the highly fashionable ceramic crown? “Most certainly not!” you say? Well, how about we throw in two hours of your time for absolute free? $9.95? You can have this all for the low, low price of only $631.95! Astonishing! For this unbelievably low price, YOU TOO could experience the freedom to say, “I have had major dental work done!” Shipping and handling is free to the first 200 callers – operators are standing by, so CALL NOW!

I got my car back tuesday. My brakes work. I’m poor now.

Backstory:
Over the weekend, my brake line popped rendering my car useless, got it towed to the brake shop, and had repairs started on saturday. They had originally quoted my repair at $106, which I was ok with. Now, fast forward to tuesday morning. I walked to work and, after clocking in, I called the brake shop.

“Hi, I’m calling for an update on my car.”
“Oh, did you get our message yesterday?”
“Sorry, I don’t check my voicemail often. It’s done then?”
“Yes. Pick it up when you want.”
“Great, I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

So, I scratch off my clock in, grab my backpack, and head out the door. No sooner did I turn the corner to walk 40 yards to the bus stop, my bus just sails right past. Fuck. So I cinch up my backpack and start sprinting down the block to the next stop, and I mean running faster than I’ve run since high school. My reserve energy drained off by mid-block, and I had to speed-walk the rest of the way. Damn. Getting too old for this shit. Luckily for me the bus was stopped at the red light. I reached the door, tapped on it, and got on.

So, after getting off at the right stop, I walk to the shop and, still out of breath, walk into the office. They present the bill: one-hundred and ninety-eight dollars! Much more than the original quote. “Well, we apparently gave you the book quote, and when the hoses came in they were more, and we had to flush and bleed the system,” etc., etc. I was sunk. So I pony up the debit card and hope for the best. Luckily it went through. I took my receipt, asked for the spare key back, and walk out the door muttering as dryly and as sternly as possible, “well, let’s go see these $200 hoses.” Mostly satisfied with the repair, I leave with my car, remove my sweaty shirt, and drive gingerly back to work.

So far, there’s been no problems with my brakes, but I’m not taking chances. The action is a bit different than it was before friday, so I’m getting accustomed to it. Almost a little more spongy on the top side of the pedal action, but when I clamp down it grabs good.

I had to cancel a layaway I had at a music shop and get my money back to help maintain a comfort zone in my bank account. The chargeback hasn’t posted to my account yet, but I have faith that it will post some time within the next month or so. Feh. Faith.

Well, roomate’s gone for the week. He has a family wedding to attend in Wisconsin, where he’s from, so he’s taking 10 days off of work, and about 3 days on the bus, to see his family and friends. The house is oddly quiet and still. Almost sane — everything is exactly as I leave it. I miss the bugger already.

Neverminding the monster migraine I had yesterday (and the spots in my vision in the hour leading up to it), I’ve been doing ok healthwise. Chest gets wonky on occasion, but other than that (and the maniacal sprint I did tuesday), I’m feeling fine. Usually hungry but feeling fine.

I’m getting a lot of programming done. Apparently I’m in a zone where I can get stuff hammered out fast enough to keep it all straight in my head. For me, that’s the key to programming. The section I’m working on is a group of classes and modules that allow me to, in an object-oriented way, access rows and tables in the database. There’s one parent class, and all the child classes inherit major chunks of generic code from the parent, thereby reducing (by a lot) the amount of work I have to do and code I have to write. When I create a new table in the database, I just duplicate a child class and slightly modify it to fit the table and voila I have a new object to handle data from that table.

Larry Wall, the original author of the programming language Perl (my language of choice), had this to say about programming: “There are three principle virtues of a good programmer, and those virtues are ‘laziness’,'impatience’, and ‘hubris’.” What he means is this:

• laziness – doing more with the least amount of code or work
• impatience – never wanting to wait on code to execute or do its job; never settling for slow programs
• hubris – don’t just document everything, but document well. Make sure your code is straightforward enough to document itself, and illuminate what it does and, in special cases, why.

In programming, and in some parts of my life, I try my best to hold true to these principles. Doing more with less. Sounds like an excellent idea.

Ok, bedtime. G’nite y’all.