Is this hurting you?
I wanted to tell him no, that it was just my fear that made tears leak out of my eyes. But my mouth was full of dentistry tools, and all I could manage was a negative uh-uh guttural sound, which seems to be understood by everyone in every language. Particularly dentists.
This morning I had the last bit of root canal work done. Sat down and talked first, told my dentist firmly that this wasn’t a tooth problem, took him thru an abbreviated version of the last two weeks. He kept asking me ‘Why did the dentist at Erasmus do the root canal?’ I told him all my teeth could have been pulled at that stage; I really didn’t care. The pain was too much.
The good news is he didn’t hurt me this morning. I told him to please numb the area out heavily because I was still having pain, and thankfully, he listened. So much so that I’m sitting here typing with half my face still feeling dead. The not so great news is I think he’s a bit angry at the emergency dentist for doing a procedure that wasn’t needed. Wouldn’t outright say that, naturally. Doctors tend to stick together. But his repeated questions and puzzlement told me that someone is going to hear about this.
Now I’ve more appointments for a mouth guard fitting. Joy, joy. And I need to get moving on the physio for this.
So, let’s add a bit more excitement to the mix, since it’s excitement and good things happening in my life that set this off in the first place. Signed into my writer’s email and found a message from the theatre group in the states. Blue Whale has made the semi-finals, out of 250 entries. Sent a reply out to the artistic director thanking her for the news and her continued support. Also apologized for not sending out Taman, which was my intention. Played up the health issue a bit – and I’ve gotta say, I’ve no shame in playing the sympathy card at this point in my life. If it gets my work performed and seen, I’m all for it.
Been working on the second installment of the trilogy. It’s a big re-write – but I knew that. Needed gender flips, different deaths… Still working on the last four scenes. And I’ve cut and cut and cut because it swelled up to over 7000 words. May have to add in another scene, but at this point I’d rather be pumping it up than cutting it more. Have two pages of notes/self talk written out as I work. Mostly stuff like ‘What are you doing here?’ or ‘If this is gonna happen in scene 7, you need to do this in scene 2’. The number one question I keep coming back to is: Does it drive the scene? Oh, yes. I’ve become one of those. Every word, every glance has to mean something. I don’t have time for fluff in this format. And so I’m analyzing my own work. This has to be there; it establishes this and that. If I want this, than I’ve got to have that somewhere earlier. And spread out the scares. Had them bunched up one on top of the other, with long stretches of important but not-so-scary dialogue.
I think I’m close. Don’t plan on much today after the dental work and anticipated soreness once the numbing agent wears off. But a few more days should do it. If I’m in the groove, I should be able to finish if before New Year’s.
January hangs in front of me, full of unscheduled pops of excitement like the fireworks that are already being set off in the neighborhood. I know the theatre group is going to get together to finally watch the vids of the play. I know the film group will get together, once to watch the finished film as a group and once for the awards ceremony at school. I’ll be hearing one way or the other from the theatre group in the states on Blue Whale. And it’ll be back to language classes, back to trying to write the children’s story in Dutch. That’s enough excitement to be dealing with, and I’d bet my last euro that something else is gonna pop up, too.
Mm. Can’t tell you how pleased I am that my refill on the morphine pills came with another refill.
Need to start pulling it together. Smoking too much. Not going to the gym. Gotta finish up my work and get my head out of my ass. My bro’s working on re-writing the lost chapter of his book, which means I’ll need to start sending out feelers for that. Gotta wrap my head around Dutch again. It’s there, almost, but it’s floaty. Indistinct. I know I should know it, but the meaning escapes me and I’ve reverted to just using English.
Geez…and I don’t want to start beating myself up again about doing this or that. The list above looks like my justification to begin berating myself. And I know I need to still rest and relax.
*SIGH*
…Is this hurting you? Hell, yeah! I hate sitting here feeling like I need to start accomplishing things again but holding back because my body needs to heal. Fucking hate it. Especially when I know it’s me hurting my body. It becomes one big circle: hurt yourself somehow, need to take time down, beat yourself up for being lazy, continue to hurt yourself… And it’s all the more bitter knowing it’s come to me from mania, from joy, from overloading excitement and amazement at good things suddenly showing up in my life.
I am the snake devouring it’s own tail.
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