My so-called journal

A little birdie told me today was your birthday; hope it's a good one!

I had an incident last weekend; one of my clients—who goes upstate frequently on weekends—called my cell on Sunday afternoon and said she was on her way back to the city. She said she'd be back in less than an hour and would like to meet; I said okay.

Turns out she misplaced a bag of semiprecious stones; her hobby is tumbling stones and making arrangements of them. She said because she'd looked everywhere over and over again—to no avail—she was now convinced I had taken them. I had never even seen these stones nor the bag they were in, and said so; because she had turned the house upside down looking for them, she refused to believe me.

The dogwalker before me had apparently also caused some problem she was never willing to go into; I took this at face value, since she hadn't complained about me to my face, and in fact seemed happy that I cared about her dogs and took them for long walks.

This is a woman I'd known on a nodding-acquaintance basis for about 30 years; I had been walking her dogs for several months and they liked me. Her telling me this, demanding the keys back, and ordering me out of her building happened so suddenly that I'm still shaking my head.

Oddly enough, I've been walking dogs for over 16 years and not one of my clients has ever accused me of stealing; this includes some who have the Nest-cam, and some who don't. (Uh—maybe it's because I don't steal? My motto is: "Don't shit on your own doorstep.")

It's being called a liar that has shaken me the most deeply—and, of course, it's just disgusting that this woman decided to be judge and jury and get rid of me in less than 10 minutes. Clearly she had been thinking about the situation and probably talking to her dogs about it on the drive down from upstate.

The thing I hate most about this scenario is the fact of being called a liar; I've always taken pains to tell the truth, even when it doesn't benefit me to do so.

In the long run, it's for the best that she's out of my life, especially if this is the way she conducts her breakups. Good riddance. (And I can't know for sure, but I'm guessing the rocks are going to turn up at some point; I'm glad to know I won't hear from her even then.)

Okay, I'm all over the place [numerically] with this, but I drew Mr. Dragon yesterday and decided to upload him.



It occurred to me belatedly that I could have drawn Daryl Dragon (son of Carmen Dragon, and was formerly with the Beach Boys—called "Captain Keyboard") but he was also the Captain half of The Captain and Tennille, best known for their single Love Will Keep Us Together.

I wasn't aware Daryl Dragon had died in January of this year, but there ya go.

I've been slow at posting these Inktober drawings, and I don't know if I did a Day 6; but here's "ENCHANTED" from day 7.

(Part of my problem is that I can't find a reliable hosting platform; but the other part is finding the time to draw. I drew either DIZZY [Day 24] or SWING [Day 9] last night; tonight I probably won't have any chance to do a drawing. So be it.)

Today's [yesterday's] keyword is FREEZE.

The prompt for Tuesday the 2nd was MINDLESS.

Well, I got a few sockets implanted in my mouth today, so I'm eventually going to shed this "hillbilly" look. NYU Dental has moved me through a few different students, and they've all graduated in turn. This whole dental nightmare has taken a few years, starting when I was a patient at Columbia Dental, which is where I first had a molar decay under the crown, having to be extracted. (The student working on me was oddly oblivious, and I saw I had to leave.)

(Note: Every chair at NYU Dental faces a notice expressly prohibiting selfies, so I'm kind of glad I got in under the wire.)

I've finally gotten to get rid of the "flipper" I was wearing for the past few years, which gave me a lisp and made it difficult to talk. Now that the anesthesia has worn off, I feel legitimately sore in the mouth, but I'm happy to be making progress at last.

And about a week ago was a 9/11 survivors' forum in which they announced there's now a $10 billion fund to cover the health care of the remaining 9/11 survivors. I qualify, since I was in the toxicity zone below Canal Street immediately after the explosion. The whole city smelled like an electrical fire; you couldn't get away from it. When I went up to upper Manhattan, it still smelled toxic.



I'm gearing up for Inktober, but I'm too tired to post anything right now.

Last night, I went to the debate-watch at Phebe's Tavern on the Bowery, and bought ten raffle tickets.

I won the Bernie action figure, and the Bernie book, which made the party worth going to; I thought all the candidates were better than the current occupant of the White House. Let's be real here; realdonaldtrump sets a real low bar, and I'm just hoping enough people turn out to vote this time to offset Russia's meddling.

For some reason, I can't get that photo to display, so just click on the link below:

"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JbKNfk3aRerpZpf-WuSRM2XcPhAWZhGPMfjchncOeRA/edit?usp=sharing" alt='Me with Bernie action figure'

Hope the kids are easy on you on your special day!

Got my first implant at NYU Dental yesterday; that is, they implanted the socket the crown will rest on. They also did the necessary bone graft and sinus lift; the placement of my maxillofacial sinus had been the reason I was first given that I wasn't a candidate for the surgery.

There was some pain yesterday (expected) but nothing I even needed the prescribed ibuprofen for—I explained I have issues with taking ibuprofen, but agreed aspirin wouldn't be a good idea to take instead, as it is a blood thinner. There's also, naturally, some swelling, so I'm happy to use the freezer packs of beads. I also have the tails of sutures on the roof of my mouth as a reminder; these are the dissolving type of sutures, naturally.

I actually was expecting to only be able to eat soup and yogurt, so I'm pleased to have had a scone for breakfast. Still, if I could go back in time for any reason, the most compelling one would be to teach 7-year-old me to floss every day.