Hot and Bothered

I'm kind of a cranky bitch today. I had all these grand illusions for a lovely, cheery post today. Not happenin'. (It'll wait until Sunday now.)

So, if you're not in the mood for a ranty, bitchy post, move along folks. Or, if you're like me or my dear friend Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes), pull up a seat and commiserate for a while.

I guess I should probably elaborate on just exactly why I'm in such a shitty mood today, the throbbing, aching, debilitating reason why: I've got a toothache. I've had a toothache since Sunday night. Correction: I've had this toothache since January, but it flared up again in full force Sunday night.

Let me just put it out there: I hate the dentist. Not mine, who is a gentle man in a rather swanky office. Just dentistry in general. I have a thing about people touching my face or my head, so to sit in a chair, my mouth full with metal instruments and people ALL up in my business... it's not a pleasant experience. Add to the fact that a) I hate needles and b) omg you want to stick a needle in my gums - it's all around not fun times.

So I had an abscessed tooth back in January. Know how they tell you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the absolute worst pain you have ever felt in you life? I know what a 12 feels like now - and this is coming from someone who had an ovarian torsion - it's like all that pain was happening in my face and jaw. I gave Larry an at-home reenactment of The Exorcist the way I was screaming and writhing around in bed. And I'm not a screamer - I have a pretty damn high pain threshold.

So of course my Gentle Dentist says, "You need a root canal." And I look at the estimate of costs (because our dental insurance blows like whoa) and because of my previous three horrifying root canal experiences with other dentists, I make the appointment and then promptly cancel.

My Gentle Dentist's voice echoing in my head ominously: "If you don't take care of this now, it'll only get worse next time it flares up."

And yeah, he wasn't kidding. I'm pretty sure I've exceeded the legal limit for a week's worth of ibuprofen consumption. So this morning I got The Lecture About How I Should Have Taken Care of This 6 Months Ago and if I don't do it soon, they'll have to extract the tooth instead of just a root canal.

Visions of the opening scenes of the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman pilot flashed through my head (you know, when Colm Meaney is the town's barber/dentist and he's pulling out some Western dude's tooth with no anesthesia - am I the only one who watched that show as a kid?) and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. Two weeks from now, it'll be time for root canal numero quatro.

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The other reason I'm so damn cranky?

It's hot people. Like, really effing hot.



I am not normally one to complain about the heat. I grew up in southern New Jersey, and Philadelphia-region summers get gross. Sticky, hot, nasty gross. And then I moved to the DC-region. I thought I knew what humidity was until I went to July 4th fireworks on the National Mall one year and got schooled about what I thought I knew about humidity. There would be some days I'd make the 20 second walk from my car to my office feeling like I had just walked through someone's wet ass.

So when I moved to Massachusetts, I have found the summers to be quite lovely. Living in Salem and less than a mile from the ocean makes for a very pleasant climate usually. But the last two days have been a little ridiculous. Even with our A/Cs blaring, it's still hot as balls in our house. And at my office, too.

And as much as I love my Jetta, it's black on black interior and exterior turns it into a small oven on wheels for the first 5 minutes I drive it.

Protip for all you VW owners: if you put your key in the driver's side door, turn it to the left and hold it for a couple of seconds, all four windows will automatically roll down. Neat little trick they don't mention in the manual.

So yeah. The heat makes me a wee bit cranky.

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To complete my Trifecta of Crank...

I've also been taking birth control for 10 weeks straight now. I'm prescribed a generic version of Seasonale, but instead of taking it three months straight, I usually do my old routine of 3 weeks pink pills, skip the last week, bleed, lather rinse repeat.

I'm trying my experiment again, this time without the huge gaps in accidentally skipping a day or four. Let's see if 12 solid weeks of birth control pills will stim my ovary, get me to ovulate on my own, do the bedroom mambo and perhaps make a baby. (So, for those of you that know us, if we aren't answering our phones in the evenings the week of August 15, there's your reason.)

I've got nothing to lose really. And hey, a week of sex might be fun.

But I'm pretty sure, since I've been taking my pill religiously every night, that this build up of hormones is turning me into a crazy lady. So, if this doesn't work, and I don't manage to get knocked up, this will be one helluva period.

Here, I'll let my friends at SNL demonstrate:



Happy Friday, folks.

*pops another Advil, glares at her wimpy AC unit*