I was there for a function: it was the 40th birthday bash of one of my very good friends. And it was a great night.

This is less about the actual night but more about how it feels to leave the life you’re living now and go to a place that hosted another life you were living at another time.

People who grow up and stay in the same place have their memories all around them, and as they grow, so does the place they live. They change together, and because they’re there every day, they hardly notice the change. It’s like watching kids grow up. You don’t notice how tall they’re growing each day but look at the photos from last Xmas and you can see the difference.

I read somewhere that people who have lost limbs sometimes dream of themselves as complete; the missing arm or leg returns. It’s part of themselves. My life, in a geographic sense, has been cut in half. Half of it there and the other half in other places, mostly here. Because I’m not there anymore, I lose touch with the surroundings and the people, and it and they change in my absence. So when I go back it’s like being in a dream. I recognise the changes but I also recognise the things that haven’t changed but that I’d forgotten. The street I used to live on, the shop over the road from school, the streets where I did my paper route, the drinking fountain on the median strip, that house where that kid from school used to live. It’s like the missing limb is back.

It’s kind of like that with the people too, mostly friends from high school, I suppose. You can’t exactly pick up where you left off, and sometimes the changes are bittersweet because were not all quite so young anymore, but there’s something reassuring about being around them. A completely unspoken, perhaps even unidentified, understanding based on our shared history that means we just kind of get each other. There’s no need for pretense or airs and graces because there’s no need for that. It’s a familiarity, it’s almost familial. Like we’re all cousins.

And I think everyone feels awkward in high school. I know I did. But the good thing is that we’re all ostensibly grown up now and I think we’ve gotten over that and realised it actually was the same for everyone, probably.

One thing that stood out for me last night was an observation from a friend about how they percieved me back then. And it wasn’t a good or bad thing, but it was a way I’d never considered people would have thought about me. It reinforced the notion I just mentioned, that we’re connected in that way, to the extent that maybe they, either singularly or collectively, know you better than you know yourself.

The whole experience is quite overwhelming. It loosens the foundations a bit. You think you have a handle on everything, then all of a sudden this deep-down stuff is stirred up. There were poeple I didn’t catch up with that I would love to have seen, and truth be told, I probably had time to drop in on. But it’s very emotionally taxing. There’s good and bad in there; it’s good overall to have that experience. I think if I got back there more often, the shock wouldn’t be quite as intense. So I couldn’t get around to everyone; it would have been just too much.

The next reunion is probably in 2014. Might have to get on Facebook in the meantime.

It’s hard to say yes without sounding arrogant or elite, or at least something resembling classist. But here’s a list. Call me what you will.

• I don’t like football
• I don’t drink iced coffee (that’s important in South Australia)
• I don’t drive with my forearm hanging out the window of the car
• I put myself through university
• I don’t drink to get drunk
• If I do get drunk, I don’t get loud or violent
• I don’t really care about how cool my car does or doesn’t look
• That said, I don’t drive a Commodore or a Falcon
• I don’t find commerical radio hosts at all entertaining, let alone funny
• I don’t have farmeville, mafia wars, or any of that rubbish installed on facebook
• I’ve studied, and read books in, French (and the French are like the anti-bogans (except in popular music))
• I try not to stereotype groups in society (by sex, age, race, sexual orientation, religion… with the possible exception of baby boomers)
• I try to keep an open mind and I’ll admit when I’m wrong  (and sometimes it can be amazing to find out you were)
• I can’t stand anti-intellectualism
• I use words like “anti-intellectualism”
• I try not only to consume, use, buy, and watch, but to produce, create.
• I’m really good at grammar (which, alone should be enough).

I slipped off my tshirt and put it down, then I pulled down the briefs and let them fall to my feet.

Now, you know that trick you do, where you take one foot out but then you flick them up with the other foot and catch them? Yeah, well I did that.

Only it was first thing in the morning, and I must still have been a little tired, a little off balance.

So when I tried to flick them up with my foot, they flew up, but not far enough. They didn’t go up, so much as across the room.

Into the toilet.

Which my daughter had just used.

And she’s a bit lazy when it comes to flushing.

Fuck.

Anyway, the wisdom tooth is gone but the reminder of its departure still weighs heavy and the very real pain lingers, as though the tooth were a loved one that had been traumatically ripped out of my life.

I’m working from home again today. And I’ll be ringing the dentist back when they open in a little while maybe for a chat, maybe to come in for a checkup because it’s really getting a bit much.

It will be a week today since I had my lower left wisdom tooth pulled. They say it’s good to get them out sooner rather than later to prevent problems they may cause. It’s also easier (I’ve since found out) to have them out when you’re younger. So me, pushing— no, I can’t say it. So me, in my very late 30s, should have had the bugger out years ago. The older you get, the harder it is to get them out and the more traumatic it can be.

I’m having two basic problems. One, there’s this bad taste in my mouth. I’ve been doing some reading and apparently this can happen in two ways. One is when the clot becomes dislodged from the extraction site and you have what’s called dry socket. Bacteria builds up and that causes the bad taste. The other way is that bacteria just builds up anyway, around the site, around any stitching. Dry socket comes with pain around the hole. I don’t have the pain. Either way, the bad taste also translates to bad breath. This is one of the reasons I’m working from home again today: the swelling has pretty much gone, so despite the fact I can show my face in public again, I just don’t want to go breathing around people.

The second problem is just pretty much constant pain, just not where you’d expect it, ie. the hole the tooth came out of. I can’t open my mouth very far still, as there’s still some swelling making that difficult, so eating is an ordeal. Yesterday I had a toasted ham & cheese sandwich. I should have just had toast. It seems the width of two layers of bread together was too much. I had to have some painkillers and a lie down as dessert. So with the pain, I don’t know if it’s related to not being able to open my mouth very far, which is just hurting everywhere I’m swollen, or if it’s related to an older injury…

That older injury being a tripod fracture I received to my cheekbone in 1998. I now have metal plates inserted in my head, where they put things back (almost) in the right place. After I recovered from that, for a few years following (not so much anymore) when there was a change in the weather, my face used to hurt like fuck. Some of the pain I’m getting now is reminscent of that hurting like buggery, perhaps because things are moving around ever so slightly in there and the metal plates are like, ‘yeah, fuck off, we’re not moving’.

I have called the dentist. A checkup is on the cards this afternoon.

The procedure wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it might be. And it was actually over quite quickly. Not the hour of carving up the tooth and removing it bit by bit I had somehow been led to expect. I think that must have been a worst-case scenario.

I was due in at 4.30, and arrived pretty much on the dot. The dentist was in the waiting room as I sat down. He was expecting me, having already taken some other Drew into his chamber and luckily realising his mistake before applying the anaesthetic.

So I was in the room by, say, 4.32. They got me in the chair, gave me a bib and some glasses then proceeded with the anaesthesia. First, there’s the cotton swab to numb the place where they put that fucking awesome giant needle, then there’s that giant needle. Then, while they’re waiting for that to take effect, we stand around talking about Michael Bublé, Bryan Ferry. No TV screens mounted on the ceiling in this room; just bad FM radio.

By this time, I’m guessing it’s maybe 4.40 and he’s going in, making some noise, yanking things around. He’s leveraging the tooth this way and that, and after a few minutes he says to his assistant “I think I may be able to get a [insert fancy instrument name here] around that,” and she passes him one and he goes to town. It wasn’t quite Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors but it was pretty full on. He had his plier thingy in his right hand and he was grabbing my bottom jaw in his left, so hard that I think he split my lip against the teeth on that side. I could feel the skin of my top lip stretch till I thought it was going to split and I thought my jaw might break. But then there was a cracking sound and out it popped.

Then, they got some stitches in there, some gauze for me to bite down on to stop any bleeding, and I look up and it was only 4.50.

I spent the next half hour at the shopping centre nearby getting supplies of prescription and non-prescription painkillers. I now have about every combination of paracetamol, codeine and ibuprofen known to man.

Then, as the numbness wore off, the pain set it and ouch ouch ouch ouch OUCH!

I’m on my third day. I look like the elephant man. Actually, I look like a really fat person with—not a double chin—but one of those non-chins that’s just flesh between the tip of the chin and the adam’s apple.

The worst part is that I can’t eat solids. Two reasons: it hurts to move my jaw and it hurts to swallow. So I’ve been puréeing most foods the last few days. My favorite for breakfast is a banana and a small tub of diced peaches in syrup. Yum. Lunch has been mostly soup, maybe with some rice to bulk it up a bit. For dinner, I’ve puréed spag bol, and last night was chicken & veg. Spag was great. Chicken & veg, not so great. Needed gravy.

I haven’t had a coffee since Tuesday morning though. I might have to have an iced soy latte. And I think I’ll throw it in the blender with a Tim Tam.

A man (possibly two) is (possibly are) going to jack open my mouth and take to part of it with sharp rotating cutty things that will penetrate and cut up some of the really hard and well-stuck-in bits, which he (possibly they) will then extract with shiny stainless-steel pliers.

Normally, I don’t mind minor, outpatient procedures. I don’t even normally mind inpatient procedures because they usually afford you the courtesy of ensuring you’re unconscious for the most unpleasant parts.

But I’ll be awake for this. And it’s not some ankle adjustment or in-grown toenail removal. This is a wisdom tooth, buried deep in my head. My head is where I keep my brain and other really quite important things.

It is on the lower jaw though, so I’m trying to focus on the positives here.

I’m not sure I’ve had time to prepare emotionally for this. Though I’m not sure giving myself that time would be in any way beneficial.

You can over-think these things.

I have prepared myself though, thus:

• I have told my boss not to expect me in for a day (possibly two)
• I have procured ample supplies of paracetamol/codeine based painkillers
• I have reasonably well stocked cupboards and fridge
• I have six episodes of House that I have yet to watch, and I’ve been meaning to re-visit the animated series of Aeon Flux for a while now
• I have a laptop and an ipad at my disposal

So I’m not looking forward to the procedure (not least because it means I have to sit there for an hour with my mouth open and that’s just not natural).

But the recovery, while painful, could be the break I’ve been craving for a year or two but have never had.

I like the rain.

Mostly.

The good things about rain are that it’s refreshing. Especially in summer. It cools things off, particularly my things, which is good because I hate that in mid-summer I’m obliged by societal convention to wear pants and a long-sleeved shirt, when I’d probably do a much better job in shorts and a t-shirt, on account of being more comfortable.

The bad things about rain are that it tends to turn hot weather into humid weather. I hate humidity. Especially when I’m wearing long pants and sleeves.

The other bad thing about rain is that people start using umbrellas.

I hate umbrellas and I refuse to use them in all but the worst weather conditions. Keeping dry in a thunderstorm in the middle of winter is an OK time to use an umbrella. Trying to stop your hair from going frizzy in mid-summer drizzle isn’t; it’s quite pathetic.

The reason I won’t use an umbrella is that I don’t want to be one of these ignorant, selfish, umbrella-weilding people:

The space hog
Why, oh why do you need a golf umbrella to keep the rain off in the city? Overkill? Y’think? Golf umbrellas are called “golf” umbrellas because they’re designed for use on a golf course. Golf courses are vast open spaces, usually populated by only four people per 15,000sqm*. With this much space you could bring your shed roof along with you and not get in anyone’s way. This is not the case when you’re in the CBD. Of a state capital. During lunch hour.
Space hogs must think they’re a little bit more special than everyone else and deserve a little bit more personal space than the rest of us. Maybe they’re important business people; maybe they’re just a bit precious and think it outrageous that standard umbrellas don’t provide head-to-toe protection. Maybe they’re just selfish pricks.

The shelter hog
These are, in my opinion, the worst umbrella criminals because when dry personal space is at a premium, they hog what dry space there is, while still brandishing their own personal protection from the elements, making an already crowded situation even more crowded, not to mention hazardous. When I see people under umbrellas walking under the shelter provided by buildings, I want to yell “Get out from under the fucking awning!” (And I want to yell it in capitals.)

Blind Freddy
You can see them coming towards you but can they see you? Their head is nestled so far into the top of the umbrella their whole heads are covered. They look like their head has been replaced by an eight-panel polyester dome. How can you see where you’re going and successfully navigate your way through a crowd of people when you can only see the feet of other people when they’re within 2 m of you? Why do you need your brolly so far over your head? Are you just incredibly ugly, or are you embarrassed about your rain-affected frizzy hair?

Spike
One of the reasons I hate umbrellas is their eye-putting-out potential. Those pointy bits, despite the addition of those littlel plastic covers, still present a hazard to passers-by. These brollies cease to become protection from benign raindrops; they’re now offensive weapons. I saw a chap this afternoon walking through the rain with a rather sorry looking umbrella. Of its eight points, four of them must have been exposed. Those sharp metal prongs pointing out are fucking dangerous. Imagine walking down a crowded street with a set of metal barbecue skewers poking out of your coat or bag. They’d have you arrested! Combine Spike, with any of the above types and you could be up for grievous bodily harm, even manslaughter charges.

Please, people. If you must use an umbrella, be considerate of others, and realise that when you’re still holding it over your head next to a building with an overhang that goes all the way to the kerb, you look like a right dick.

*I’m estimating the average golf hole to be, say 300 m long by 50 m wide.

• Canon EOS 20D
• EF 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 lens
• EF 70-300 f/3.5-5.6 lens
• 1GB memory card (holds 100+ RAW or 200+ large JPG)
• Battery & charger
• USB cable
• Strap
• All in a Lowepro kit bag, below.

$600 the lot

SOLD

Send me an electronic mail, at idrewthis<at>gmail<dot>com or ask any questions in the comments.

Case in point:

I work for a government institution. Everyone that works here has either a government email address or an institution email address. The government addresses work on Outlook; the institution addresses run on some old-ish Novell system, which nobody likes much.

Over the break, the Novell system was switched over to the M1cro$oft Live system. It’s web based; it can be accessed from anywhere; it has 25GB of web space for each user. And lots of other bells/whistles etc.

But new technology is always something to complain about.

I run the facebook page for this institution and made the mistake of asking fans what they thought of the new system. A complainer thought this was a great opportunity to complain.

“It’s terrible,” she said. Then listed why it was terrible.

She has since removed her comments, probably out of embarrassment (and probably after I posted a slightly passive-aggressive comment of Shakespearian proportions on how staff switching over to the new system are pioneers, paving the way and overcoming the hurdles so that others may face the transition easily).

But she wasn’t disappointed with the features of the “terrible” new system, only with the fact that the changeover hadn’t been seamless.
Which is like buying a DVD player, then saying it’s shit because you can’t watch your VHS tapes on it.