Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Random Thoughts Lying at the Dentist Office


I need to give you an injection before I fix that.

Can I have some Anastasia instead? Like, I feel like getting high. It felt good last time.

Breathing deeply. Oh, it feels good.

When I was high, I was missing you so much more. Is it because we always got high together, from drinks, happiness, the heat and other things?

Am I bolder when I am high, bolder to face the pain? Because I am numb.

I feel like tears were welling up and coming out of my eyes, but no, I only felt like it. My eyes were dry.

I was staring at the ceiling and thinking of you, I was missing you with every muscle of my body, I could feel it at my finger tips.

I was high.

My dentist is a nice Chinese man. He is good and delicate with his hand. But since my last visit, he began to use this cute Asian girl as assistant. She got an attitude. I don't know why he tolerates that. I would not. But so long he is happy.

How does dentist fall in love? When they think of you lying down there with your mouth open and gum exposed, in that very indecent state of being, when they look into your throat, do their hearts beat still, for anyone? Isn't it too much reality?

Anastasia is not enough, obviously my gum is less tolerant to pain than my heart. I still got my injection. So the former became purely recreational.

And half of my face is numb. I was told not to eat. I will be at my own risk of chewing my own tongue. That sounds a sad potential.

And tonight is the night I am going out with friends we tried to get together since before the holiday.

Tonight is the night I still will not be seeing you, after so long.

So long as I could drink, and fake a smile, so long as nobody can tell that, my heart, is aching.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Legend has long alleged that dentists are the sad possessors of the highest suicide rates of any profession. Contrary to popular belief, however, an article titled "Suicide by profession: lots of confusion, inconclusive data" in the January 2001 issue of Monitor on Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, suggested something different.

"In the end," the article concluded, "occupation may not be much of a factor in suicide. Psychologists have long documented that among the top predictors for suicide are diagnosable mental disorder, co-morbid substance use, loss of social support and availability and access to a firearm."

Yours was a beautiful and interesting and heartbreaking post, Red. Keep writing.

11:10 PM  
Blogger NYE said...

I read the article you posted here, the inconclusiveness of the study is due to lack of data to support it. It is good and bad. Good in the sense that suicide remains low in number so that in-depth study is usually not statistical signficant; bad in the sense that for those cases that did happen, not enough effort was paid to collect the information to ensure we can study it better and provide help and address the root casue for people before they took the final, irreversible action.

Dentist as a profession has a self-selection bias in the sense that I believe people know what they get into and if they still chose to do it, they must have got the priority figured out. So, no, I am not surprised that they are not necessarily the depressed group.
It takes certain personality to become a dentist, and it is the life outside the dentist office that have kept them going, I assume.

What interest me is that Business is one of the professions that ranks high in suicide by occupation, along side creative work. I think of Japanese business men when I read this.

There is an old Chinese saying that (I can't help it being a Chinese): Take a step back and it is all open sea and clear sky, meaning, change your angel of looking at things, and you will find the options are plenty.

Ultimately it is how we value experiences and people that we love in our life that will keep us strong while facing pressure, boredom and low times in life.

So never never shut ourself out from friends and loved ones. If we do that, even being a dentist for a life time will not scare me.

I can only keep writing and writing well if I feel the passion. I pray for that to stay in my heart.

Keep coming back, Anonymous.

2:14 PM  
Blogger NYE said...

I am posting this one as my favorite, it still is, most dear to my heart, for many reasons....for the words I found to describe my feelings, the comment, for the time, for the feeling itself and longing.

Most recently, I was reading the Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano, the short story called Dentist mesmerised me. It starts like this: He wasn't Rimbaud, he was just an Indian boy. I was reading the line on a night train back from a short trip, I again did my typical thing:teary and smiling at the same time.

Aye, dentist...

4:46 PM  

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