514. Though I'm Not Religious... There Are "Angels" in My Life....

"Wendy the Angel." An essay that I wrote when I was 17 years old, applying for the Regents Fellowship program at UC Davis.

Just this last Thursday, I believe had encountered another "angel" in my life. It's quite shocking, and I'm not sure if I'm really processing it yet. The question is, how to define an "angel." Especially if you are a secular person, or "graduated" from religion, like myself. I had this conversation with my Question Reality manuscript mentor, Hugh Marsh, over lunch at a very nice hotel called the Upham, in downtown Santa Barbara.

Hugh and I came to some form of agreement that an "angel" is someone who helps you, gives you hope, and transforms you in an anomalous way that you would have not otherwise been transformed or helped otherwise. He stated that given all my talents, I will ultimately one day meet an angel--a moral and financial angel--who will be willing to help foster my artwork and creative projects and let it grow, inside and outside--but I haven't met that angel yet. I was shocked he said that.

Hugh Marsh himself has been an angel in my life. A moral angel, a cheerleader of the long haul. He was the first (and for a while, only) person to encourage me to write my Question Reality book when my main advisor Armand discouraged it, when I was mostly discouraged otherwise. He saw me to the end of it... and now new outgrowths... attempting to translate my old works into novelties that is easy for society to mentally consume.

I have a parade of other angels in my life as well. Wendy the Nurse was my first and most prominent one. The nurse who served as a role model for me when I hit the bottom of bottomlessness of anorexia, and needed to find a way out. And she was a living proof. A case of survival and health. She battled anorexia as a kid. All Wendy had to do was be there, and she didn't have to do much, but just be there, and show herself and her life as a long-term solution to my black hole problem.

I have my academic angels as well. The College of Creative Studies clan, Armand, Bruce, now Barry.... As an anonymous undergrad, Armand rescued me from drowning in the cow herd of university bureaucracy. I felt he pulled me out of this lifeless black hole torrent and set me aside with a few others to go re-investigate the world and run around the university as if it were a play ground, a garden maze, rather than a set of prison doors strapped in red tape rules and regulations. Once you have a few people who believe in you outside of your family, your confidence starts to pick up, and slowly you pick up a new family, a new intellectual, academic family, a family that is somewhat closer to you than your actual family, because in the vast ocean of human flesh, suddenly you are treated like a unique, stand-out person, a story, to someone else's eyes.

I also feel a few folks at the Bren School are like angels. They are giving me a third stab at graduate school, things are going well... or at least I'm surviving. Maybe I can officially call them "angels" after I graduate... but as for now... I'm under the gun. So, they are my authoritative support group, I'd say. I do say I was shocked that Bren provided a one-quarter grant in the Fall of 2009 for me (see Blog 477); that was most certainly angelic! Even some more financial support in the winter, drastically eliminating costs of tuition.... I've been expecting nothing from no one. I have received financial support from National Science Foundation, but it's a massive administration, and I haven't been able to pin down a face, a personality, a singularity of humanity within NSF, to exactly say thanks for the help.

Then just this past Thurday, out of the blue, another angelic sweep knocked my mind out of place. My dentist, Dr. Dart, has been very concerned about the patchwork, piecemealed dental work of my mouth over the years (my mouth is the perfect analogy to fragmentation of law and management of the global oceans, perfect analogy), plus added decay, and he is extremely concerned about the long haul of my mouth, something I do not have a solid grasp on in my mind. But of course, Dr. Dart has been around the block much longer than I have... and he knows and has probably experienced "the long haul." He proposed that I spend some time next quarter in his downtown office to help me with my dental work... but with relief of financial burdens. I'm honestly speechless about such an offer. As my dad says, "I don't know. It sounds too good to be true." And I don't know, I don't understand. The generosity is... overwhelming.

It's like I'm living through a happy moment in a movie, you know? Of course I'm crying. I'm crying because in this world I'm trained to expect nothing from nobody... and then this brutal null hypothesis is rarely overrided by the alternative... I'm shocked that someone else out of the pool of six plus billion singles you out--this time me--and stretches out a hand of help, waves a wand of hope and generosity, sees you as a human, like takes you under your wing as family.

I left the dental office stunned. I didn't understand. I was numb and dizzy. So was Dr. Dart, the dizzy side. I didn't even get a chance to give him a hug of thanks. I didn't know what to say. I just stumbled out into the main office, paid $200 for some fillings, and bumbled to the car as if I just drank a six pack of beer. My mind numb, from the numbness in my mouth, the heavy brick.

Well, so far, it's just an informal verbal agreement. We'll see what happens. We exchanged information. I was trying to figure out what to do. What to do? How to say thanks?

Well, I figured right now the first step, in this act of hope, the first step is to email him a thank you, and draw Dr. Dart a dentistry cartoon, which I did.

This is what I plan to write in my email:

Dear Dr. Dart,
I guess I can say the only state of mind I'm in right now is shellshock. It's been three or more days, and I still am shocked, awed. The least I can do is draw a cartoon of appreciation--see attached! Usually I don't draw toothy smiles on my characters (who keep my sanity through graduate school), so it's amazing for Terra the Biogeek to bust out a full smile! I will be out in the desert March 18 to 24 or so, but I will be on the lookout for your email and plan of action. Down deep I feel like a hypocrite--in some ways, how can I be so well trained to see the long run of landscape change, whether ocean or terrestrial, when I can't even see any form of long run for my own health? Thank you for helping me see the seriousness of the long run. I hope you have a great spring break! (Do you get a spring break, I hope?!) See you soon, Victoria

432. Poem "Subversivity of Dental Self Destruction"

Subversivity of Dental Self Destruction

"Everyone
has
their
own
vice.
If you hide it,
then there is something wrong,
and the vice
may be
very
very
bad,
even more so
than those revealed
to the openness
of their ripped sleeves."

I show my vice
on my teeth.
Decaying my whites
with Werthers
upon Werthers
denied with
sugar-free xylitol
tic-tac mints--
it's not that bad
relative to smoking
or alcoholism
or wrist slitting
or designing malicious bugs
for other computers
to self-destruct.
Or suicide cult planning
or bombing other countries
or just being an overall
pest to humanity
for my own vilenesss
of consumption
of valuable resources
and production
and nonutile wastes--
depending on the scale
of my operations.

Carameled sugar is an addiction
to feed a rapidly firing mind
for potentially up to 12 hours straight
of writing and thinking
and clinging to a computer
because she seeks what is written
on the computer
to one day reflect what is in her mind.
Mind mirrors
Computer's electrons
Mirrors mind.

And she is overwhelmed
always
by the influx of such splendid ideas
and notions of her surroundings
to a point of cumulative doom--
for she cannot keep up
and the sugar fix rises even more.
And all for what?
To become a better writer and artist?
I am destroying myself
to become better?

Day in, day out,
despite occasional brushing
and flossing and poking
and mouthwashing,
the bacterial colonies
move in, invade, occupy
establish incumbency,
and carve their crevices--
oh dear to think
I'm fostering an ecosystem
of malaise
in my major oral opening.
Good for the bacteria,
they are having a party,
I am sure,
yet not so hot for me.

But I dread and tread
myself, heavily into the
sterile multimilliondollar offices
of the dentist.
I hate him? Even her!
Why?
Because it costs so much?
Because some of them go to the realm
of aesthetics--beyond functionality?
Because they create dental problems--
hence my financial problems--
that don't seem to exist?
Because some of them are incompetent?
Because they have control over something
I cannot control and manage myself?
I cannot operate myself for fillings
and crowns
and bridges
and one day
implants?

Because I have
absolutely no control?
Oh yes, I'm slipping....
I am assuming I have no control.

I wonder where these dentists come from.
Why they even exist?
A few million years, billion years
without their functional
and aesthetic
and even technological existence.
Humans used to live till age 30.
Now it's 70.
But humans never ate sugar,
till the mass produced
canning and preservations of foods.
The dawn of sugar
was the dawn of dentists.

The dawn of strange biology people--
bioboneengineers
or dental jewerlyists--
who make a fantasmic monetary living
looking at, taking X-rays of,
poking at, sticking needles into,
chiseling away at, filling materials in to,
leaving something
slightly unfinished
so that their helpless
dazed and confused
customer limp in a fancy electric seat
can return for more pricy labors
of functionality to aesthetics
for the most beautiful
of perfect smiles of bleached coral white teeth
of small handful of overhyped movie stars,
with mine full of holes, stained yellow and brown
and I shall never hold a grin so parfait
as those pixelated figures on the screen--

So I smile with my eyes,
and somehow some people seem to like it.
I hide the sin of my mouth,
for the Culture of Perfect Teeth
has made my mouth a sin,
and I even feel shame myself.

"Your
dreams
predict
your
future.
You are
what you wish for."
And in the depths
of subversivity
of dental self destruction,
I somehow clutched to a wish
for the vanishing
of an array of external boneage
within my mouth.
I wished to dream a high price profession
that would allow me to set aside funds
for a fresh set of implants
after a resum-ation
of years of painful, slow, aggravating decay--

And--I am receiving
what I wished for.
The slipping and shifting,
from the whites,
to the yellows,
to the dark brownish blacks,
the relying and crutching
on exterior knowledges and technologies
to save me
to account for my vices
rather than me
clench to myself
and save myself--
not just for this moment,
but here on out--

rather than me to say--
I am my only beast
of self-management
of self-sustenance at hand--
and I have no one to help--
no one to hold me up
in my own island
of complexity--
my own internal dialogue
of conflict
and slight self destruction--
SO WHAT?!
so why not take care
and to "love thyself"
and internalize
this externality
this stained vice
this crippled smile
only with the eyes?

"The originals are always the best--
Replacing your teeth with implants
is like purposely trying
to acquire a knee implant."
"That's absurd!"
Sisters exist to keep the absurd mind
from tumulting into decay of thought.
A mental snap
before a filling chips out
and disturbs my
vulnerable stomach?

What to do?
Slow the decay?
Slow my mind?
Get my head off of sugar meth
with half the velocity of thoughts
running through
per second of time?
It's okay to think slowly
and thoughtfully
though the world spins
like a waffling top
by a El Capitan cliff
of doom--

What is my new vision?
It is my own choice
to live... with...
or live... without...
my own evolutionarily-designed
crunching and grinding cubes.
My vice shall be my vice,
yet minimize it!

I will care as much as I can care
for my own Beastly Self
and I will hold my frail, splintering bones in place
for the longest possible
that I foreseeably can
within my own possible means.

How can I bother to think
of sustaining the world in its entirety
if I cannot even bother to
concsciously sustain my own microcosmos?
to the highest of standards
and healthiest of means?

And in last resort,
in daunting screams of pain?
Then I shall go visit the dentist.

Don't be down on yourself.
Accept!
Embrace!
It is such paradoxical tragedy
no matter how much
I subversively deconstruct my teeth
my gums hold strong like
a child's fresh sand castle
that still has the capacity
to last long
in an ephemeral sense.

The dentist must become
my appendix,
an optional removal,
not my lungs,
not my emotions,
not my smiles,
not an unhealthy vice
that drags down the rest
of the blossoming
of my mind's heart.

UCSB Dental Clinic
Call for appointment 1:30pm
corporate time.
805-893-2891
10am May 21.
Start with Tooth #12.