Happy Chinese New Year!
Eat some oranges and tangerines for happiness and noodles for longevity, and don't cry tomorrow, because the Chinese say that if you cry on the first day of the new year, you'll cry all year long.
Cyrus and I went skiing this weekend and once again I pondered the exclusivity of the sport. We spent $200 for one day of skiing (rentals, lift tickets, two-hour group lesson)--$200 would have fed 20 people at our wedding or gotten us cross-country trail passes for five days or covered the cost of this week's expensive dentistry.
I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago to learn that I have gum disease--ugh. Everyone out there, make sure to floss every day. I've been lame and sporadic about it, and I'm paying now with deep cleaning, which is painful and scary. I hate going to the dentist but today as I lay back, tensed up in the chair and shrinking from the noisome buzz of the cleaning implement, tasting blood in the back of my mouth and trying not to swallow, trying to breathe deeply, I felt nothing but love for the dentist who was slaving away over my mouth. I trust her. She's going to make things okay.
So now half of my face is completely numb, and I have no control over the muscles. I can't close my eye, open half of my mouth, smile, breathe through one nostril (at least, it doesn't feel as if I can). I'm supposed to go jogging right now, before the lovely weather turns dark and cold, before the rains come--but all I can do is huddle on the couch with my computer and some children's books, listening to Alison Krauss and Miles Davis and hoping that when feeling returns, I won't be in so much pain that I can't sleep or eat.
I'm getting the other half cleaned on Thursday.
Cyrus and I had a huge and awful debate last night about religion--he's a confirmed atheist and I'm...not sure what I am, except that I'm not an atheist. Because he hasn't given too much thought to religion, and because he doesn't believe in religion (he claims atheism is a religion, but I'm not buying it), he doesn't believe this difference signifies much. I disagree--I think that religion is one of the most important things that we could disagree about, and I'm worried to think of the future, of raising children with him and growing old, one of us clinging to the hope/faith that the end of this life isn't the end of everything, the other sure that life just stops...
Anyway, for the time being we agreed to disagree. I feel sure that this will come up again.
My mouth feels too weird and I can't really write coherently. Honestly, you'd think half my brain was asleep or something.
I'm going to go look for "Daddy Long Legs" and curl up on the couch.
Signing off...
Cyrus and I went skiing this weekend and once again I pondered the exclusivity of the sport. We spent $200 for one day of skiing (rentals, lift tickets, two-hour group lesson)--$200 would have fed 20 people at our wedding or gotten us cross-country trail passes for five days or covered the cost of this week's expensive dentistry.
I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago to learn that I have gum disease--ugh. Everyone out there, make sure to floss every day. I've been lame and sporadic about it, and I'm paying now with deep cleaning, which is painful and scary. I hate going to the dentist but today as I lay back, tensed up in the chair and shrinking from the noisome buzz of the cleaning implement, tasting blood in the back of my mouth and trying not to swallow, trying to breathe deeply, I felt nothing but love for the dentist who was slaving away over my mouth. I trust her. She's going to make things okay.
So now half of my face is completely numb, and I have no control over the muscles. I can't close my eye, open half of my mouth, smile, breathe through one nostril (at least, it doesn't feel as if I can). I'm supposed to go jogging right now, before the lovely weather turns dark and cold, before the rains come--but all I can do is huddle on the couch with my computer and some children's books, listening to Alison Krauss and Miles Davis and hoping that when feeling returns, I won't be in so much pain that I can't sleep or eat.
I'm getting the other half cleaned on Thursday.
Cyrus and I had a huge and awful debate last night about religion--he's a confirmed atheist and I'm...not sure what I am, except that I'm not an atheist. Because he hasn't given too much thought to religion, and because he doesn't believe in religion (he claims atheism is a religion, but I'm not buying it), he doesn't believe this difference signifies much. I disagree--I think that religion is one of the most important things that we could disagree about, and I'm worried to think of the future, of raising children with him and growing old, one of us clinging to the hope/faith that the end of this life isn't the end of everything, the other sure that life just stops...
Anyway, for the time being we agreed to disagree. I feel sure that this will come up again.
My mouth feels too weird and I can't really write coherently. Honestly, you'd think half my brain was asleep or something.
I'm going to go look for "Daddy Long Legs" and curl up on the couch.
Signing off...