More Problems of the Day - the backstory

So I went, the other day, to the dentist and complained that my far back tooth did hurt when crunched, and recalled the day, some weeks back, when biting on a piece of bread (!!) sent electric shock through my jaw, and I pondered mid sentence while conversing with colleagues at work how I was going to afford to deal with this. And for the first time I put in for a pre-evaluation, since the dentist announced two actually cracked teeth, both of which needed crowns. 

Now, I've had crowns before, and facing what seemed no choice, I've never pre-submitted my claims, and the insurance company has always paid.  So, playing by the rules this time, they found their reason to refuse, I guess because by submitting I did confirm my actual choice (!!!).

To be fair, I think cracks don't show up on x-rays.  

But now, and the punch line to this little tale of woe (as if - I should be so lucky as to have to patronize those outdoor bazaar-style dentist collectives like I witnessed in China, where pulling teeth is a spectator sport, like eating beating snake hearts, and the anaesthesia consists in really bad rot gut) is that now the opposite tooth - opposite both in side and up/downness - is killing me.

So clearly, faced with choices proliferating, I must be grinding my teeth at night, and thus compounding the fracture in my life's non-plan cash flow crisis.

And, to be entirely honest about the cage thing, I do actually own a spare car, in all senses of that term.  It's a 1988 spartan-style VW, currently leaking antifreeze from the heater core, but otherwise, apart from WNY salt cancer of the body, in fine tough shape and getting some 36 mpg.  In the case of this car, it's not the sunken costs so much as the sunken labor.   Actual weeks spent writhing on the cold cement slab of my garage (in my youth, I would have done this is the freezing mud) replacing brake lines and bearings.  (My own body perversely none-the-better for the exercise, and still going the way of all post menopausal flesh)

So, the choice I present is, as I suppose it always must be, not a real choice.  It is more a Joni Mitchell too-much choice.  As now, my main preoccupation is which of my next generation blood relatives can be lured into driving the old spartan cage back to my country hermitage from city digs where I thought it would be useful over the Christmas gathering - to have a spare car.

In the event, the spare was one too many (and no thanks from the driveway juggle challenged who did nonetheless benefit from the added flexibility in arrangements, even though a tweak to control freakishness), and now snowstorms and other lame excuses have prevented its transport back while I was in the country, leaving me with two cars and only one driver (daughter returned to college), and no spare to back my possibly poor decision making.

My ex, of course being the control freak, since perhaps what else could you be or become dealing with someone who acts so much as if he's stoned on pot thinking about things even if he never actually is (stoned on pot).  Thinking about things for sure.

My definition of control freak being someone who views every incursion on orderly planning as a potential disruption, to be deflected with all possible vigor as default catastrophic.  In most cases, control freakishness is very hard to distinguish from plain vanilla negativity.  But I do think extreme go with the flowishness such as I might be said to exhibit just might exacerbate that particular latent tendency.  Right?

So, the problem is to clear and not dislodge the clot which is stopping continued arterial movement.  I seek an economy of repair, with only minor newness, don't I?  Savage Capitalism:Cancer::Enlightened Socialism:Life.  Marriage:commitment::prostitution:evernew. Prostitution:worn smooth::virginity:obtuse disappointment.  Old famliar:broken down::New shiny::cookie cutter same.  Digital:infinite regress::analog:evolution.  Digital:House of mirrors but always reflection::Analog:no mistaking the original. Me:you::Inside:out.

I hate that this is the week to dispose of that truly most beautiful Christmas tree which I now both scent and watch.  The days elongate, and I am saddened.  How odd.  I must crave excuses to cover up, burrow under, hide out, crawl into, and twinkle little lights under the covers. I do, however, love the Christmas driving, past ethnic descended (what else could it be?) lighting displays of ostentation surely beyond what all the cooler geocodes on earth could ever need to aspire to.