Teabag Tooth

I recently had a harrowing experience, and so it seemed only natural for this post-postmodern man to do the only sane thing I can do - blog it. So, here is the story of the melancholy departure of my two right wisdom teeth. Goodbye forever, teeth. You've served me well, helping me chow down many a bag of Swedish Fish or steak after steak after steak. How many times did I think I was brushing you thoroughly, but only teased you mercilessly with my toothbrush? But now you are gone from my life forever, and all that is left is a deep hole in my heart, and two holes in my gums where you used to lodge.

About two months ago, while at dinner with friends at an overpriced Italian restaurant (I inadvertently and shamelessly ordered sausage pasta while sitting next to a bunch of vegetarians) I noticed something strange while casually running my tongue over my back teeth at the end of the meal. Half my tooth was missing! Where did it go? Did I eat it? I guess I ate it. After much fretting and loss of sleep on account of the fear (fear of the dentist!)(I guess that means I am an anti-dentite), I sucked it up and went in for the diagnosis. Dr. M. liked my teeth, but regretfully suggested removing 2 of them. The only other option was root canal and crown, which was not only terribly expensive, but an unheard of luxury treatment for a blue-collar tooth like a wisdom tooth. I know that sounds really elitist and toothist, but it is nonetheless true. Wisdom teeth are kind of like the cat of the pet world - if anything goes wrong with them it's not really worth it to try to fix them - you just get rid of them as quickly as possible and get another one. Well, that's not totally true because you can't really get a new wisdom tooth. Hmmm.... forget that last analogy, I guess. Anyway, extraction seemed to be the way to go.

I put it off for 2 months because... well, I'm afraid to admit it, but I was really afraid of (1) getting my teeth pulled out, and (2) getting my gums shot up with a bunch of novocaine shots. I am, essentially a wimp, a fine specimen of "homo scardicatinus." But I also suffer from a crippling and debilitating sense of my own inadequacy, so not taking care of it for 2 months only helped exascerbate the shame and self-loathing. I should also say that for years I've been having the same dream - that one of my front teeth was falling out. I've read that this is supposed to be a Freudian indication of fear of impotency. Great, as if teeth falling out wasn't bad enough! This next sentence will end with a period, a question mark, and an exclamation point, all at the same time, which will occur for the first time in human history.?! Anyway, they were starting to fall out for real now, and I had better do something about it. I finally took a day off from work and decided to step up like a lamb to the proverbial slaughter (a lamb slaughtered by proverbs such as "teach a man to eat a fish and he'll just eat a fish - and possibly some french fries, but teach a man to fish a fish and he'll also learn to say a lot of bad words") and have the teeth extracted.

Before I left for the dentist that afternoon I almost chickened out completely and didn't go. But somehow I gathered the courage to move, and eventually made it there. When I arrived and was led back to the torture chamber, I told the assistant that I wasn't looking forward to this procedure very much, and she said, "Oh, really?" - like that was a new idea. Maybe no one has told these people how we feel about them. Anyway, long story somewhat shorter, it was a successful extraction. The five shots of novocaine were painful, but I just kept thinking, "pain is part of life - pain is life because life is suffering - so just embrace life, embrace life, embrace the pain..." and so forth. Then I looked out the window at a tree for about 12 minutes and tried to go to my "happy place" while the dentist was - it seemed - putting the entire force of his body against my jaw trying to wedge the damn tooth out. Props to Dr. M. for getting them both out in pretty much record time without breaking my jaw. The chipped one was a bit of a problem and took about twice the time, but it was all over before I knew it. I went home with a part of me missing and only a piece of bloody gauze jammed in to fill the gaping chasm in my soul.

For the past three days I have subsisted on a strange diet of pudding, ice cream, ice cream bars, jello, mashed potatoes, water, and mac & cheese. No chips, no steaks, no beer, and not even any soda allowed. You want to be careful when you have this procedure done that you don't find yourself with what's called "dry socket." That's when something makes off with your vital blood clots and leaves nerves and/or bone exposed. Dry socket sounds like it really sucks, so I'm trying to not get dry socket. Today I was adventurous, and I gingerly tiptoed into the realm of the canned ravioli, and then, for the first time in three days - I ate a vegetable! I felt proud of myself, and took as my reward a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone.

What have I learned from this experience? Well, Dr. M. told me that I have a high tolerance for pain, which I don't believe - I think he was just trying to make me feel good after all the crying and the screaming and the help me Mommy. I learned what dry socket is. I also learned that really intense suffering does make you start to appreciate the little things in life that you take for granted each day - like eating a steak or drinking a beer or being able to eat a chip without experiencing searing pain. But most of all, I learned how much I love and cherish my memories of #1 and #32, my two long lost right-hand-side wisdom teeth. This blog goes out to you, my boys! May you rest in peace.

PS: According to my post extraction instruction booklet given to me by Dr. M.'s assistant, one way of reducing the bleeding after an extraction is to apply a damp tea bag to the affected area. That's right - a teabag.

High School

I suppose that for many people, high school is a happy time, and those four years are looked back upon with fond remembrances and nostalgia. My high school experience, however, conjures images of a four-year prison term. I couldn't wait to get the hell out. But then a weird thing happened. I somehow ended up going BACK to high school, this time as a teacher. For the past 8 years I've served the state of Texas in both Houston and Austin as a public high school English teacher, and now that I'm leaving the profession (at least for now) I thought I would take this moment to share a few of my personal reflections and opinions on the subject.

You can't go far these days without hearing someone bemoan the public school system, and I'm sure you are familiar with the litany of complaints on the subject: Unqualified teachers, outdated curriculum, school financing woes, lack of teacher pay, and so forth. When you tell someone you are a teacher, you never know what kind of reaction you are going to get. Many people seem to admire you because you are working a tough job for low pay, and you are giving something back to the community. But on the other hand, there are others who think that teachers are incompetent or perhaps lazy - choosing to merely "teach" rather than "do." I've also noticed that most of the blame for our current educational "crisis" tends to fall squarely on the back of the teachers. Now, while I'll be the first to admit that there are, in every school, teachers who are irresponsible, lazy, and even... well... stupid... from my experience I have found teachers to be a pretty respectable lot. I see a lot of very hard-working, intelligent, caring folk - people who really care about students and want to make a difference with their lives. These are people, for the most part, who are knowledgeable in their subjects and are good communicators. So... what is the real problem with public schools?

It sounds cliche, I know, but from my view it is a complex problem. I think that in the state of Texas, the first problem is that we don't seem truly committed to what we say we believe. You know the old phrase, "Put your money where your mouth is"? If we really want to improve our schools, why are we constantly hearing of slashing budgets, cutting enrichment programs, and so forth. Why are we asking our teachers to go without even an incremental "inflation-managing" raise each year? Why do we talk about the importance of technology in the classroom, and yet the public schools seem to be about 5-10 years behind the rest of the world in possession of those "gadgets" that make the use of technology possible? So this is one problem.

I think, like I said, that some teachers are probably to blame, but then again we could point that finger of blame around the room at everyone. What about administrators, who fail to support their staff and instead only add to the pressure of an already difficult job? What about parents who refuse to make their kids take responsibility for their own actions and choices? Ask any teacher to tell you of a time when a student refused to do his assignments, and yet his parents somehow believe that "Little Johnny" is an angel and would never lie to Mommy and Daddy--so the teacher MUST be picking on him. Speaking of students, isn't it possible that the kid who can't remember to do his homework or to bring his books or even a pen to class with him, but can somehow remember to bring his cell phone, fully charged IPod, and PSP is at least partly culpable for his own education or lack thereof?

One thing that doesn't help, it seems to me, is the recent emphasis on standardized high-stakes testing. It is actually quite funny to think that we are somehow judging our kids (and our schools!) by how they score on a once-a-year multiple-choice test! We test them in high school every year, some years in multiple subjects. Add to that all the practice tests we administer, and you can safely say that 1/6 of our year is devoted solely to testing. That's an entire six weeks of instruction lost, which is a terrible shame, in my opinion.

I think the most ridiculous and myopic aspect of this testing mandate is what it says about our philosophy of education. Anyone who has ever been in a classroom and learned anything knows that learning is not like depositing money in a bank account, or saving files on a computer hard drive. It seems that lawmakers see our schools as little businesses of sorts... teachers have product (education), which they give to the students, and we can see if the teachers and students have done their jobs by testing the students over that product to see if it has transferred over adequately. Obviously, this is a simplification of the issue, but it does have some truth to it. What I wonder is how these Very Important People who make our laws have so soon forgotten what learning is REALLY like? I'm reminded of an example from my own experience. In high school I read "Hamlet" and was tested over it, and I passed. But a few months went by and I was asked to remember a bunch of facts from the play for my cumulative final, and I found that I could only remember certain parts and lines, and that much of the play had sunk into a kind of haze from which I couldn't retrieve much of anything. Now, as a teacher, when I read "Hamlet" three or four times in one month, I tend to remember minute details of the play for longer periods of time. Isn't this much more like REAL learning? It's a constantly developing process, and each person goes about it at his or her own unique, individual rate.

One could argue that I'm talking about knowledge as "facts" and not knowledge as "skills." True, but how much are we really objectively testing these "skills" - and how much are we merely testing "facts?" Check the state tests out... see for yourself.

I'm rambling now, and I see that I could probably write an entire book on this subject. Let me bring this to a close by saying that I don't think that public schools (generally speaking) are really all that "broken" actually. I think that our society has changed - out culture has changed - and we are now struggling with the question of who is going to give - the system or the people? Are we going to change, or are we going to change the schools to meet our current needs and interests? I think this is a very interesting question, and I'll be curious to see what we end up doing!

Until then, thanks to everyone who helped me keep my sanity over the past 8 years. I will miss all of you, my wonderful colleagues and especially the students who made my job so very very interesting and often quite surprisingly fun. I hope you will all keep in touch as I enter this new phase of my life, and I hope that you'll know that you've made a great impact on my life forever. Keep it real!

Welcome to The Shiz!

It's great to get this blog up and running! My hope is to have a unique, creative and eccentric post at least once a week, maybe even once every 7 days! I also hope to make a lot of statements using exclamation points, because it's so emphatic! Wordsworth wrote that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling" and so while driving to work this morning the feeling of "Mutated Space Elvis" came over me, and I knew I would write a poem about it.

This will be the "maiden voyage" of sorts for this blog, with the hopes that these strange ramblings will help spread tolerance, peace, question marks, love, beauty, openness, things, and niceness across this great globe. If you don't like the poem, or if you are somehow offended by it, try reading it backwards. And remember that Wordsworth also wrote this: "Hey man! What the hell is this floating in my coffee!?"

So (trumpets and drum roll) - here is "Mutated Space Elvis"

Mutated Space Elvis

God works in mysterious ways
Said the desiccated friend
“The Bible told me that”
because the Bible talks to me.
Sometimes it says “Hey, Poindexter,
Go play some ping-pong!”
Or, “if you believe in something
hard enough, it will come true.”
And I reply, “Oh, really?”
“Well then I believe in Mutated Space Elvis,
with three arms and a gyrating torso.”
“He speaks to me and says things like,
‘Ho-yaaa!' and ‘Shhamalama Dingdong!,’ and
‘Gimme some donuts sprinkled with
crumbled up Quaaludes,
Mister’.”

Then the Bible says, “See ya!,”
So I slam it shut, -BAM -
Onomatopoeia!

(c) 2006; "Mutated Space Elvis" is an original poem by James Moore. Do not steal, deface or otherwise hurt the feelings of this poem or any of its contents. Those attempting to discover meaning in the poem should remember that all poetry is allegorical, and each element represents some abstract concept, such as lust or the color blue, or underwear-wearing. In this poem, for instance, the Quaaludes represent a state of altered reality, and the donuts represent fried, sugared pastries.

Give a holla to J. Dolla!

Do it!