2:25 pm - Mon 11/22/04
Better Living Through Dentistry

Mon 11/22/04 (7:35 a.m.)
Watching Desperate Housewives...
Feeling a little defensive after my last entry, but I'm working on that "never complain/never explain" thing. And since I'm...well, me, I think it'll be easier to start with the "never explain" part.
Besides, since I don't really want to feel bad, or be bored with my life (contrary to what anyone might believe), it would be silly to defend myself for feeling that way.
So, moving on...
Finally managed to make another dentist appointment, for later today, to continue the dental work that started with the root canal a couple months back.
It was...difficult for me to make the call, after the moderate trauma of my first root canal (Even if anything else they do will be a cakewalk by comparison, I still left the office not at all anxious to go back anytime soon).
But another reason for stalling was that I'm hesitant to make any plans that necessitate "booking out" from JS ("Booking out" means calling the agency to say you're unavailable for auditions). Basically, I'm afraid the day I "book out" will be the day I would have gotten the big network national that changes everything.
(Probably a more "helpful" view of things would be to assume "everything happens when it's supposed to", including dental procedures and commercial bookings.)
But obviously, I had to get this taken care of, so I decided to shoot for today, because it's fairly rare that I get called on Friday for a Monday audition (For the commercial thing, it turns out that Wednesdays and Thursdays are pretty excellent days to have off. When I check my calendar at year's end, I'm guessing the majority of my auditions will have happened on one of those two days).
When I go in today, I need someone to explain to me why a root canal ended up with me having this big gap between the root canal tooth and the adjoining premolar, cause I don't understand why that would be the case, and said gap is very annoying; not to be gross, but whenever I eat, enough food collects in there for a hearty between-meal snack (Has anyone reading this ever had a root canal? I ask because going from "moderate pain" to "chronic annoyance" doesn't strike me as "a good result", but knowing nothing about the procedure, how do I know that? For all I know, my root canal could end up as an article in American Dentistry Monthly, as a shining example of the dentist's art).
Still debating about braces. Or to be more accurate, "I've started once again debating about braces", since I dispensed with the idea awhile back, in the face of a rapidly dwindling savings account.
A little of the debate has to do with where to get it done, if I do it (As you maybe can tell, I've become a little "iffy" on the place I'm going to). I also wonder about the pain and annoyance of braces for a year to a year-and-a-half, possible extractions of otherwise healthy teeth, wearing a retainer at night for the rest of my life, and the relative necessity/benefits of getting it done in the first place (Will it help me commercially? Theatrically? Will it make me feel better about my appearance, or will I be disappointed to see that I'll still end up basically looking like me, albeit with a somewhat improved smile?).
But of course, the lion's share of the "debate" has to do with money. If I had thousands of extra dollars just lying around, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But I don't have thousands of dollars "just lying around". All I have is a job that currently pays $8.38 an hour, and commercial income that is, at best, "questionable", and at worst, "non-existent".
And when that "questionable" commercial income starts rolling in (ex. I should be getting my first Jack-In-The-Box check any day now, which will be the union "day rate", minus JS's commission), is getting my teeth fixed the most "impactful" thing I could do? Does it help "get me where I want to go", or is it a distraction from getting to where I want to go?
I guess, since I'm so unhappy at my present job, I should focus on doing what it takes to get out of there.
So here's a tentative "order of events", as to what I should be doing with any "extra monies" that come in:
1. Pay down credit card debt. It's not huge by "normal people" standards�I'm sure that it's less than $2000 on all my cards put together�but when you're one of "The Nation's Poor" like I am, it's huge enough (Credit card payments are money that isn't helping me "get the job done" out here).
2. Pay off Mark and Jane ( I still owe them the lion's share of their car loan money. And while they aren't charging interest, and have never shown a moment of impatience with me, in the moral/ethical realm, it's something I need to get "squared away").
3. I need to funnel a lot of money back into "the business" (Pictures, mailings, showcases, wardrobe, etc.).
(2:03 p.m.)
Just got back from the dentist, where I had my "deep cleaning". Not the most fun I've ever had sitting down, but not nearly so bad as the root canal back in September.
And speaking of which...
The filling I needed? Well, it turns out the tooth in question is actually too far gone for that, so a week from Wednesday I get to go back to the dentist for another root canal.
Woo-hoo!!!
Remember how when I booked the Jack-In-The-Box gig, I said how sometimes "It's cool to be me"?
This is not one of those times.

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