I will not lie to you, friends. It’s been a tough few weeks. Do you want to hear my sad, sad story? No? Ok, then go to another site now. Or read a book. Go blast your quads at the gym. Do whatever you want, I’m giving you an out. It’s like when your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse says, honey do you want to go to the office Christmas party, you totally don’t have to, it’s OK. And you think, hmm, is this a trap or can I really not go to that party, I hear there will be caroling and dude, I’m Jewish I don’t know any of those songs except for Dreidel Dreidel and you know they will not be singing that, and your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse says no really, it’s an out. This is what I mean. It’s an out. You can leave now. I’ll even wait for a second while you leave because I’m nice like that.

Still waiting.

OK. Cool. Now that no one is reading this, on to my story.

As I mentioned before, I pulled a muscle in my neck. That sucked.

Then a few days later, I woke up with an ache in my mouth. I thought, whatever, I’ll just eat cereal and it will go away. Cereal solves like 68% of my problems. I eat my cereal, go to work, and by 11:00 in the morning, I’m in curled up in the women’s bathroom wanting to die. Toothache. It hurts so bad it hurts to think. It is like someone has punched me in the mouth and then blackjacked me on the left side of the head. (Blackjacking is when you fill a tube sock with rocks and hit someone with it. It sucks, dude. It happens to me at least once a week.) So, I call my dentist, he says, guess what? Sounds like you need a root canal. I go to a specialist recommended to me by a coworker because my dentist doesn’t roto-rooter.

I go to this dentist. I get xrays. This is what it looks like.

I have bad teeth, yes, I know. The one causing problems is the big white dude. There’s a crown on it. I just got the crown in December/January. It is a new crown.

He says, oh yeah, you’ll need a root canal, but I have some bad news. You’ve used up the deductible on your insurance (on the crown), so you’re not covered. Do you still want to get it done? I mean what am I supposed to say? Oh no, doctor, it’s cool, I’ll just live like this forever and never eat anything ever again except squishy bananas. So he doses me up with Novocaine, and then proceeds to leave me to work on other patients. He’s gone for forty-five minutes. I begin to take pictures of things.

All of this is going in my mouth:

This is what they do: They drill a hole in your tooth. In my case, they are drilling a hole in the $753 crown I just got in Dec/Jan. And then they jam spikes into the hole in order to kill the nerve inside it. Then they pull out the innards. That yellow crap is some kind of ‘medicine’ they shove in the hole to keep it from getting infected. It look like a booger.

So then the dentist comes back and says, oh I better give you more Novocaine, it’s been so long I bet the other stuff is wearing out. The man doesn’t know how to juggle patients, it is obvious. So he sticks me. And then leaves again. Half an hour.

I don’t know what these two machines do:

But, you know what I always say, “It’s not clean until it’s LeClean.” And I also always say, “Oh man if ONLY I had a sensimatic electrosurge, then I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

So he comes back, FINALLY starts to do work, over an hour I’ve been sitting in that chair wanting to die, and as he sticks a spike into my tooth, I feel searing pain into my brainparts and I do that thing where you wave your arms in the air and go MMMF MMMF MMMMF MMMMF and he says, oh you’re not supposed to feel it, I guess the novocaine is wearing off again. So then he gives me another shot. As he is working in my mouth, I feel this tearing pain in my neck, because as I mentioned, I had pulled a muscle in my stupid neck. When he’s done my entire back feels like I’ve been moving pianos to a fifth floor walk-up.

He puts a temporary filling in and says, come back next week and we’ll finish the job.

The entire next week, my toof still hurts. I am on extra special drugs and they aren’t doing much. I also drool at night. A lot. It’s gross. It’s like sleeping in mouth-pee. I do not understand what’s going on. My coworkers all say it’s not supposed to hurt, but, dude, I say, it hurts. It hurts to exist. I go back to the dentist. He says, oh? It hurts? It’s not supposed to…I guess it means you didn’t give any recommendations for me to your friends.

HE ACTUALLY SAYS THAT. When he looks at me, all he sees is a big dollar sign. It’s so outrageously offensive. I mean at least try to HIDE IT. What a ginormous prick and a half. He’s trying to play it off as a joke, but it’s not funny. At all.

He says I guess I didn’t get all the nerve tissue out. We’re gonna have to do more. More root canal. DUDE! More! Root! Canal!

This is where I want to burst into tears, but I’m so angry I want to stab him with that hook scraper thing. You know what I’m talking about. The Hook. Rip his guts out of his mouth. From what I understand you can see all that stuff on the xray, so he could’ve seen that he hadn’t gotten it all out, if he had just taken some more xrays.

So. He goes back in there, and digs some more canal. It is like Venice up in my grill.

The whole thing will cost me about $800.

So basically I paid this guy $800 to screw me in the mouth and the whole thing took HOURS to complete, even though it should’ve taken an hour. Seriously I clocked in two appointments that were almost three hours each.

This is on top of the $2500 computer I just bought.

That is my story.

Oh, and I have to go back next week to get it filled.

I realize I haven’t been blogging much these days. Mostly because I have writer’s block. It’s pretty bad. Really bad. I’m having problems. And it’s not like one of those problems you can throw money at or one of those problems where you can just amputate something or one of those problems you can just throw something out and start over like a souffle or a custard. What do you do when your brain refuses to help you out? I say, hey brain, let’s write about this, and the brain says, I have an idea, why don’t I suckerpunch you in the face or stick a shiv in your gut. Pow! And then I say, but brain, seriously, it’s time to get serious. We need to write something that doesn’t suck and the brain is like, oh my god, you totally need to handwash that scarf right now.

So I handwash that scarf and now it’s ruined. The yarn is like falling apart, I guess the detergent was too heavy duty (Sorry Erin, it was the one you made me).

So then I’m like, OK brain, let’s do this. I’m totally serious this time. We’re gonna squeeze something out. We will write anything. We’ll write an essay, or a letter, or EVEN A PIECE OF FICTION GOOD GOD HOW HORRIFYING and then my brain is like, you know, this isn’t working out. I want to break up with you. I want to see other people. And I’m like, dude you can’t leave me just because things are tough, we’ve been together for a long time, for as long as I can remember, you can’t do this to me and my brain is like oh yeah? Watch me. Then I hear the door slam and if I (only) had a brain, I’d think oh my god, I think my brain just left me and is never coming back. I mean if I were my brain, I’d leave too.

So now my brain is totally at the club,doing the cabbage patch on the dance floor, doing coke with, like, everyone from Gossip Girl and probably getting it on with James Franco or Peter Petrelli from Heroes and I’m sitting here, with a wet scarf on my table. The good news is that I washed the walls in the bathroom so now they’re not as moldy.

So hello, friends. If you see my brain, tell her I miss her and want to get back together again. We’re meant to be together, like Hall and Oates.

This morning, I eat oatmeal. I think there is no possible way my tummy will protest. Oatmeal is chewable water. I get the oatmeal. I eat the oatmeal. It is surprisingly delicious. I think oh yes. This is food. I am enjoying it.

Then the tummy hurts. I am displeased. But I soldier on with my day.

Later I get vegetable sushi. I think well this is rice and cucumbers. It is about as mild as if gets without being oatmeal. I eat it and decide no, no this won’t work at all. I can’t eat it. It does not taste good. My tummy believes it is poison. It says no thanks. Please send this back to the kitchen this won’t do at all. I am hungry and I cannot eat. This is basically my hell. I am usually an eating machine. So when the machine breaks, I am sad. Very sad. I cry emo tears. Emo tears of hunger. I wonder if people will start raising money to feed me. Probably not.

Later a coworker offers me a potato chip. I eat it.

IT IS GLORIOUS.

Salty. Crunchy. Delicious. It becomes clear quickly that I will house her whole bag. So a coworker buys me my a bag. It is my destiny. I eat it. No tummy ache. So salty. So crunchy. It is what I need. I am happy. I have found something that agrees

And then I get a tummy ache. I get ginger ale. I try to hide my emo tears.

It is dinner. I am hungry. There is a large group of people. They want pizza. I say ok. On a normal day, pizza is my death. My kryptonite. I cannot eat it without feeling some form of regret. Cheese is a real ballbreaker of a friend. I get a salad. But the pizza calls to me. It says eat me. I am delicious. I can be yours forever. I try to resist. I eat my salad. It is a salad, not a pizza. So obviously not a pizza. So I eat a small slice.

I have lost this battle. It was a horrible choice I made. Imagine you swallowed a grizzly bear whole. Imagine now the grizzly bear does not like being in your tummy. Now imagine it trying to claw out. It Is like a reverse Little Red Riding Hood.

It will not have a happy ending.

It is however a great way to lose weight.

I just had my first meal in twenty hours. I had toast. Toast is always so friendly and kind and loving. It appears to be staying inside my body so far. This can change. Things change.

Yesterday I had mentioned that I had returned to the living. Well guess what?I was lying. I am a liar. My pants are on fire. Sue me. As soon as I wrote that I got a crazy fever and passed out. And then I tried to eat something which only succeeded in making me totes nosh, as the kids say. I am miserable. I want to die again. My stomach feels like something is clawing its way out. I do believe I have pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicavolcanoconeosis. That’s a real disease. It’s fatal. Side effects include dry mouth and uncontrollable high fiving. My goose is cooked.

I’m here blogging live from Beth Israel Hospital where my friend is getting a lumpectomy. That is when they feel your boobies and say hey there’s something not right about your boobies. They are a nice size and shape and whatnot but there’s something a little strange. Oh look at this! It is a “mass” but let’s call it a lump because it’s cuter and not as scary. (Why not call it Henry or James or even Henry James since he was a big fan of boobies? I don’t know.) So now they are removing Henry James which is good because quite frankly, he was a real prick. There I said it. We got here at the ass crack of dawn, at the hour when the only people on the train are constructuon workers going to work to build homes and homeless people who will not be living in said homes.

Anyway now she is inside going sleepy time and I am in this waiting room with three other people who are also sleepy time. One has his mouth gaping open. I’m trying to resist throwing pennies into it like a fountain.

An aside: Au Bon Pain has really shitty coffee. It’s like light brown tepid water which might come out of my faucet.

Anyway the point is this: if you are a girl and have boobies, as girls most likely do, check your boobies for Henry James. The guy is a dickface. The kind of bro who will show up to your place uninvited and eat all your cereal. Do you like cereal? Yes? Ok then check your boobies. Done and done.

So this morning, I come to the office and just like any other day at the office, I open my drawer to get out some papers. Documents, if you will. But what do I find underneath my documents?

MICE SHIT.

SHIT. FROM MICE.

How do I know it’s from mice and not say, a dog? Good point. I’m not sure. I can only ASSUME it’s from mice. I have not SEEN the beasts who have made the shits. It could very well be a dog. It could also be a minotaur. I hear those shit too. But let’s assume it’s mice. Once a co-worker came to the office and smelled something bad and it was a dead mouse. In his office.

MICE POOP IN MY DRAWER.

But wait! What if it’s just ONE mouse? How do you know it’s mice, as in plural of mouse? Hmm, good point. Well, there was a lot of poop. So it’s either one mouse with a very active and enthusiastic lower G.I. or a bunch of mice was slightly less active lower G.I.’s. But still active nonetheless. There was also dried pee.

I threw EVERYTHING out. All my documents. Totally. Fucking. Disgusting. I doused the thing with bleach wipes. I then I washed my hands with the bleach wipes, put hand sanitizer on them, and then washed my hands with soap.

I don’t even keep food in my drawers. I don’t even have food. Karina has my food, remember? So I think, what if they are LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO NEST. Oh my god. I’m getting the hurlies just thinking about this.

MICE! Poop! In! My! Drawers!

My friend Mary P-S tells me that mice do not like spearmint. You get spearmint oil, douse it on some cotton balls, shove it in the drawers, and hope they scamper off to somewhere else. Most likely to the desk next to me. I just purchased some spearmint oil on the tubes. If this shit doesn’t work, I’m lighting the whole place on fire. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. Do I work in an alley? No. I work in an office. A modern office, not some turn of the century Oliver Twist shit, you know what I mean? At least I don’t work above a Wendy’s, but still.

Hopefully the exterminator will come and napalm the building. And the city with it. But this won’t really help my drawers. I SHALL EMERGE THE VICTOR. I am outnumbered, no doubt, but I SHALL BE VICTORIOUS.

In other totally unrelated news, I am writing a movie on “cups, pints, quarts, and gallons” and was researching on the interwebz and googled “what comes in quarts?” Because, I wanted to know (other than milk, juice and paint.) And then I found this.

http://comesinquarts.com

Keep refreshing!!!

Hello from (greater) Los Angeles! My time here has gone something like this: driving, driving, driving, park, driving, driving, driving, oh no traffic, beer, beer, taco truck, brrrrr, Lost Boys 2: Shit Sandwich, driving, driving, huevos rancheros, yay, zzzzz. That’s it. I’m helping my brother find an apartment and holy shit it sucks. No no it SUCKS with a capital SUCK. I realize no matter what city you live in, finding a place is exactly like kicking yourself in the neck. But wait, Annie! It’s imposible to kick myself in the neck! That’s where you’re wrong, buddy. And right. Today’s gem included a studio that had a shared bathroom which the landlord didn’t mention in the ad. Like did she think we wouldn’t notice? That was some New York shit right there. Also I’d like to point out that L.A. was COLDER than NY the last few nights. That’s COLDER with a capital SUCK. Tomorrow we shall continue the pain and suffering. And driving. Did I mention the driving? Also I’m helping Mike find a car too. I’m like his PA. That’s personal assistant, to be clear. I am not his Pennsylvania or whatever. But I should get some kind of trophy or something for doing this. Mike: give me my trophy dammit. Where is my trophy!!!

Also Korean food, how I missed you, old friend. You never judge me. You just love me and give give give. Sniff. I love you.

I’m here at lovely John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport waiting for a flight to the greater Los Angeles area. On the way here I saw a rainbow over Queens. It was the filthiest, most polluted rainbow ever. Then whilst in line at Jamba Juice, a woman flipped out because she didn’t like the employee’s attitude, and got all “I’m going to sue!” and then an old man collapsed in the terminal and the medics came. And now they are playing Wham! in the terminal. Which came after Kenny G version of Auld Lang Syne. I can’t tell if I’m having a positive or negative experience.

Happy Holidays!

Today I’m going to the dentist, where he will ask me to open my facehole so he can install a crown on my toof. This crown happens to cost eight hundred United States dollars. In addition, while he is “there,” he would like to replace an old silver filling that is more or less the same age as myself. This will cost fifty United States dollars even.

It occurred to me today that the crown is the most expensive thing I own, except for my computer and my keyboard (musical, not USB with the coffee on it). Actually the crown is worth more than my computer since that beast is about three years old. So the second most expensive thing I own is this stupid crown. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS! I must part with EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS during this economic meltdown! I feel like it should come with a free toaster. A few years ago if you opened an account at a Commerce Bank in Chinatown they gave you a free rice cooker. A FREE RICE COOKER. All I get is a toothbrush, but I have to ask for it because during these tough economic times, the dentist is being stingy with the toothbrushes.