The Breadbin

Well, that was (almost) painless.

That was my first dental visit in almost seven years. I dreaded it, both the actual scraping and prodding and the truckload of guilt that, in my experience, dentists and especially oral hygienists like to shove down your throat until you choke on it. How often do you brush your teeth? (The only acceptable answer is "whenever I'm not using them to chew my fo--excuse me, I have to go brush now.")  Why have you not been to a dentist in so long? Don't you know that tooth decay causes global warming?

That's why I haven't been to a dentist in so long. I really don't need the heaping helping of judgment.

But as I said recently, I've had to balance that against my increasing self-consciousness about my teeth. Eventually I figured it was time to bite the bullet, so to speak.

We shortlisted two major dental chains. The first was Dawson Dental, and after the initial meet and greet I decided we wouldn't bother going anywhere e…

My thoughts on #YesAllWomen and #NotAllMen.

First off, I have to try and get over my disdain for Twitter hashtags. It goes beyond my well-documented disdain for Twitter itself. A hashtag is oh-so-trendy and it supposedly raises awareness. Maybe for a day or a week or in rare cases, maybe a month, says I; there's just too much happening in the world for "awareness" not to turn into apathy. Wikipedia suggests I might be wrong in this case. I hope so.
The first thing I noticed in the wake of the Isla Vista killings that brought forth both movements: many men seemed incapable of understanding why women were so outraged. I mean, after all, he killed four men and only two women, right? Doesn't it follow that men should be twice as angry as women?

Head, meet desk.

Why does the suggestion that half the human race be treated with respect by the other half arouse such fury in the latter half?--Joyce Carol Oates

Digression: you know what bothers me? Elizabeth Renzetti alluded t…

Tuesday, June 17, 2:37 p.m.
The phone rings. The landline phone, I mean, the only phone I have.
I'd say at least 95% of the calls that come in on that line are unsolicited, and so I really shouldn't have the dimwitted Pavolvian reaction I have to a Facebook bong or beep...but I do. Kind of the way you phone zombies grab your pockets, I get up and run to the nearest extension.
By the time I get there, the ring has become one of three things: a standard ring for a local call (almost always a telemarketer or a wrong number); a syncopated ring for a long distance call (ditto); or maybe, just maybe, the Ode To Joy snippet from Beethoven's Ninth if the caller is someone we've told the phone to consider Important.)
Check the call display: we only pick up if it's a call we want to take. Telemarketers take note: if you've called our house 666 times--and all of you have, damnit--and we've never picked up, there's a reason for that.
(Why don't you just answer …

There is a provincial election tomorrow--if you live here, no matter how much effort you put into being politically blind, you'll know it. Lawn signs are everywhere; TV ads are everywhere; disdain and distrust is everywhere as well, at an all-time high as far as I can tell.
If you believe the polls, this election is too close to call. Then again, I've found that all but the most marked routs are "too close to call" in the week before the election...I think the media has a vested interest in saying this, for the dramatics that are in it. Landslides are boring.
Regardless, we're told this is a two-horse race between the Progressive Conservatives, led by Tim Hudak, and the Liberals led by Kathleen Wynne. Andrea Horwath's New Democrats are polling a distant third and the Green Party is barely on the radar outside Guelph, probably the most environmentally conscious city in the province, where it's running second behind the Liberals.

The None of the Above Party …

I've been keeping a diary since I was 15. I wonder how many guys can say that.
Between '88 and '90 it was a daily diary. I think I only missed one day in that three year span, and I hope you'll pardon the nearly instant digression because it's time for y'all to laugh at me again.

I usually wrote up my day just before going to bed. One hot day in July--a Friday--my day went long. , I walked up  to McDonald's for a 4-8 shift. Sometime in the course of that shift I was asked if I could stay until midnight. I was already scheduled to bop--that's McD's slang for 'breakfast-open' the next morning at six. Ken at 42 would never even consider it: by the time I get home and get to sleep, given my wind-down period, it's gonna be 1:30 minimum and I'd have to be up by 5:15 to get to work for nope no way in hell.  Ken at 16 didn't bat an eye.
Ken at 16 was every bit as absentminded as the antique version is today. On this day he forgot his key…