2005-10-24 - 11:38 p.m.

Hey all. Don't I feel grand. Like a fucking piano. I wish someone would have some local wizards cast a protective spell on me. Save that, at least have someone make me a bowl of coconut yogurt. Is there even such a thing? I don't know. But if there isn't, I'm going to have to make my contacts in the yogurt industry get right on that! [Editor's Note: Zach has no contacts in the yogurt industry]

So I worked a half day today - my 43rd-in-a-hodaddy-row! Doesn't that sound like a 43rd day-in-a-row I'd work? But yeah, I left work at 1 so I could go get the last of my not-so-full-of-wisdom teeth pulled out. You know, "pulled" is kind of the wrong term to use. Cracked, crushed, yanked and mutilated are much better to use. All of them. Not just one. I was there forever since before the "extractions" (which makes me sound more like a rascally Derevko/Bristow than a patient) I had to get full scan X-rays so I can become a regular patient there and get cleanings and shit and be told every 6 months or so that I really need to get over my crippling fear of floss and that I should brush 4 times a day and do a little dance and it goes like this! The name of this dance is the Peppermint Twist! Hot damn! But yeah, the dentist shot me full of like 100 shiny syringes of novacaine. [Ed. Note: No. He didn't. The dentist did inject NINE shots though. And come on, that's a fucking lot. It's not 100, but it's still 9.] But he did coat the corners of the back of my mouth with this pre-shot numbing blueberry gel. I have no idea what the fuck kind of shit that was, but he probably picked it up from Brad at some sort of kwazy rave in Ibiza. I don't know. But I liked it. In a Pop Rocks are bad for you but you still like the way they make you feel kind of way, you know? Like heroin? Or anonymous sex in the park? I mean . . . hey, from before.

But yeah, if you can even try to imagine the sound/feeling of having your tooth pulled. It's like if someone coated the inside layer of your brain with wet sand. And then judiciously splattered sue-bee honey on it. Not enough to make everything all cranially sloppy, but enough to get things sticky. And then they took some real high grade sand paper and rubbed it on the sand in a circular OUTWARD motion. NOT inward! But OUTWARD!! And you can hear it grinding, grinding, grinding inside the ionosphere of your cerebellum. It's . . . not the most pleasant sensation I've ever felt. Nor is the Turkish Twist. But my insurance doesn't cover Twists of Turkish origins. Stupid non-covering Turkish Twist insurance people!

Making kids puke up their burgers for over 50 years!

So yeah. Here I am. Shivering in this plastic bubble I call a home. While Kenichi goes absolutely ape next to me trying to break into this cat nip bag that my mother bought him. He is on another plane of existence right now so I don't dare even speak to him, for fear he'll claw my eyes out for getting to close to his cat nip. Similar to Kate at any steak house if you get to close to her plate. I'm saving my heavy meds until I go to bed. Though they'll only spare me the pain. They won't spare me the blood that I will no doubt bleed all over my pillow like Ben at a middle school sleep-out. [Ed. Note: The obscure reference Zach is trotting out here is pointing to Ben's propensity to have nocturnal nose bleeds and be the last to find out, long after others had awoken and seen his pillow caked in blood. Except the kicker was that Ben usually forgot to bring pillows to tent sleep outs so TC or Zach would let him borrow a pillow. Only to have him spot all over it in the night.] God I hate the metal/lipton taste that is in my mouth right now. Blood and teabags what a mix. We're the class of '96.

Ok, I'm going to go watch I Love the 80's: 3D right now on VH1. I know it'll be full of Michael Ian Black goodness. This is there LAST chance to cover TH, Clue and You Can't Do That On Television. They better make it right. I'll be back in a bit . . .

. . . ok, 1 1/2 hours later, I'm back. I missed the first half of '80, so if they covered Talking Heads then, I missed it. BUT, here's what I learned from watching half of 80 & all of '81. Barbara Mandrell & The Mandrell Sisters are even freakier in hindsight than I recall. Jill Whelan still is hot. She can take me on a love boat, exciting and new, whenever she wants. I saw Elvira for the first time in my whole fucking life without her Elvira costume on. It was a sobering experience. Webster WILL NEVER AGE and that freaks me the fuck out. Rachel Harris always has and always will continue to remind me of Jackie. Oh snap! Juice Newton! I used to dance at the Mug to "Queen of Hearts" until they stopped serving me ginger ale. Hot damn! And they had a segment on You Can't Do That On Television! Sweeeeeeet. I . . . I thought the Oak Ridge Boys were something I totally created in my head. It appears that they were real. Also, Lisa Lisa's boobs are ENORMOUS! Were they always that big? I think I would have noticed. And this needs to be said: REO Speedwagon has some sweeeeet songs, but they have got to be one of the most heinous looking groups of people I have ever seen in one place outside of a Lundgren Family Reunion. [Ed. Note: For those of you long time readers, if you haven't already surmised on your own, Zach will go to his grave making Tracey Lundgren jokes. If there is ever a joke he will just not release from his cold, evil, icy grip, it is this one.]

I've seen a lot of Cam-bot, Keeley Monster, Justin and Renee lately. (Renee doesn't seem half as nebulously evil as the show Alias would make you think by the way) Cameron is getting to the point that Kelsey was at this summer. Which makes sense since she was born a few months before he was. He knows a ton of words, loves to repeat what people say, but still hasn't quite made the leap to stringing all the words together in a cohesive logial way. But it doesn't stop him from quoting commercials on tv before they even say their tag line. It's as if he already knows he's the cutest kid ever and keeps trying to trump himself. Keeley has her work cut out for her, truly. Man, babies, babies everywhere! And Titie is going to be having little Evelyn any minute now! I wish they could just come out at 2 years old instantly. When I have one, with whatever girl I trick into doing so, I will see what I can do about making them 2 years old right off.

Cute + Precious = Mind-Bendingly Cuprecious!

Ok, these painkillers aren't working for squat! I was anticipating having the brain functions of green jello at this point. I think I've been spoiled by all that methadone! Still, I can barely eat. Which is the greatest tragedy. Peter and Titie dropped some KFC mashed potato & gravy off earlier tonight. Mmmmmmmmm. Unfortunately, I can barely shove fractions of a sporkfull in my mouth. Some of it makes its way to my tongue while the rest just kind of hangs off my lips. Until I wipe it off. But sometimes I don't wipe it off. And then the press jumps from the bushes and takes pics of me. And then it ends up on the AP WIRE. And then they get sold to adult magazines with glossy paper. And people in South East Asia get off on pics of me with caked mashed potato and gravy drying around my aching mouth. While my glassy eyes take in the NewsRadio that is playing on repeat on the big ol' tv. And since they look at me as a drugged out American stereotype I'll probably have a ten-gallon hat airbrushed in and a word balloon will have me saying, "Heck, I sure do hanker some buffalo burgers right now, I sure do! And then I'll kill me an Injun!" Man, what my grasshopper brain won't concoct in order to make Asian people's mashed potato fetish fantasies a reality!

It's been real,

Tom P. Baxter

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