Friday, January 13, 2006 Falling Apart Fysically WARNING: The following post may be "too much information."

I'm falling apart, physically. My list of maladies includes slowly healing (but still peeling) athlete's foot, an allergic blistering on my hands, flaking scalp due to stress and the climate change, and a weird swollen feeling in my jaw. The mouth mystery was of most concern for the last few days because I feared that my molar had died and started another abscess. The outer gum on the left seemed redder and more swollen than normal. Today, I went to the dentist to have it examined. Calm Asian, DDS could see nothing wrong, but I apparently grind that tooth. Suddenly, everything made sense. Maybe my anxiety dreams at night (which so far have included a plane crash, my guitar breaking in half, my computer getting splashed with water because I was working in a subterranean room with only the overflow drain of a public swimming pool as the window, etc.) are causing me to grind my teeth. Or maybe a salivary duct is backed up or inflamed. Or both. At least the fear of a root canal and crown can be put to rest, even if I do have cavities.

This is not a great start to what I expect will be a great year. Two-thousand six has a lot to live up to, as do I.