If you want to know if hell exists, IT DOES and it’s called cracked tooth pain. I woke up Friday morning looking like The Godfather. I was miserable. When I sent a selfie of it to my best friend Jalee, she said I looked like an old, decrepit version of myself, the kind of thing you would see at the haunted house at Disneyland when the young girl on the wall morphs into a scary old lady because the photo was in black and white. Black and white and scary. I didn’t have the guts to post it so I put a photo of my wristband. But here is a screenshot of my phone and all the emergency dentists’ offices I called Friday night:

How desperate does that look. No one answered.

That was after I took myself to the emergency room, which is depressing but Mauro was at the gym. And I took myself because when I talked to my friend Gretchen she said, “if you have an infected tooth you have to take care if it RIGHT AWAY BECAUSE THE INFECTION IS SO CLOSE TO YOUR BRAIN. YOU NEED ANTIBIOTICS.” It scared the bejesus out of me. She was a nurse.

Three things they asked me in the emergency room, because they “have to ask everyone:”

“Do you feel safe in your home environment?” I thought they thought I got punched by my husband, but again, they “have to ask everyone” because some people are homeless and that made me sad. Answer: yes.

“Do you feel like hurting yourself?” I wanted to stab myself in the jaw with his pen to make the unbelievable pain stop, but that didn’t count and I would just get ink mouth. Answer: no.

“Do you feel like hurting anyone else?” Who would say yes to that? Answer: no.

I asked the guy for a printout of all that, but he said they don’t really do that.

I spent the whole weekend in bed writing and pounding antibiotics and eating Otter Pops. And I got some good shit.

And that’s the story of why I’ve ignored this blog for 10 days, not because I haven’t had anything to say (I do) or nothing’s happened (stuff has happened). That’s OK, I’ll go back in and fill in the days when I can and you’ll never know, because “A Pot Every Day Until I’m Fifty” means every day and DAMN YO it’s harder than I thought.

There’s more, including the author questionnaire for my book I have to finish right now. RIGHT NOW. No pressure.