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Whiskey & Water

Thursday
September 8, 2005

I found out yesterday that I need to have a root canal. This will be my third overall, and first since I had a two-at-once root canal in October 2003. Tuesday morning I'm going in again, back to Dr. Ruiz, who did such a good job the last time.

In the interim, I'm left with some really bad tooth pain. My dentist even wrote "severe" next to the root canal, and with the little x-ray card they attached to the referral sheet, you can see where the nerve hits the top not once but twice. No wonder it hurts so bad. But my dentist wasn't even going to give me any prescription pain medicine until I specifically asked for it, and even then his advice was to "take 3 or 4 Advil during the day" and then one of the Lortabs at night. It's a pretty weak Lortab at that (not that I'm a pillhead, but I did my research online; it's amazing what prescription drug information there is out there). Not to sound like a whiner, but the pain I had on Tuesday night was so bad that I was literally trying to find something, ANYTHING to block it. I even drank some whiskey to see if that would help (and I seldom if ever drink on weeknights anymore). I doubt I would've been able to sleep had it not been for the amitriptyline that I have left over from when one of the many docs that I went to could've figure out that I was suffering from migraine headaches. Amitriptyline will knock you into next week; it's like taking a full dose of Simply Sleep, only a little stronger.

It's been tough to find time to write an update on here; things have been super busy for me as of late, but in a good way...

What can I write about the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina that hasn't been written? It has ruined the lives of so many people in such a wide path... it's horribly depressing. As a news junkie I really ate up the coverage for the first week or so, but then it just became too much for me. It didn't take long for the political blame games to start up, and that sickened me, knowing that there were still rescue efforts going on as talking heads tried to start laying blame (and this happened on "both sides of the aisle", to put it in DC politic terms).

New Orleans has been severely damaged, and it may never again be what it once was. It makes me sad. Bubba even noted to me "that was your city, wasn't it?" this past weekend. And while not like Nashville or Tampa, or even Huntington or Evansville... in a way I felt like it was my city, at least a little bit. For those who've been there and loved it, New Orleans becomes a little part of them. I have a Bourbon Street novelty street sign that hangs in my bedroom, and a small magnet version of it on my fridge. I realized this past week just how many New Orleans-related t-shirts I have (Cafe Du Monde, 2002 Phi Tau convention in New Orleans, various party t-shirts, etc.) It was a place I loved so much that I devoted columns about what had become my annual trips there in Sega Sports numbering style: New Orleans 2K2, New Orleans 2K3, and New Orleans 2K4. There will be no New Orleans 2K5, not now. Since airfare there is so cheap (or was so cheap), it was an easy, quick trip on Southwest and a great rendez-vous spot for meeting up with friends. And now it's gone.

The NFL season begins tonight with the Raiders facing the Patriots. I'm excited about it, if for nothing else so we can finally get to some real NFL action. Brent Hatley and Jeff "Co-Co" Linton have told me to expect a down year for the Patriots defense. We'll see about that. Not that I'm a Patriots sympathizer (as a fan of the Titans and the Colts, I'm anything but that), but when you're the two-time defending Super Bowl champs, you've earned the right to have the benefit of the doubt going into the season, at least in my opinion. Randy Moss and company might have a different opinion on that, but that will be settled on the field tonight in Foxboro.

One last thing: I saw the movie Ray last night, and I thought it was really good. I'd heard mixed reviews about it, but I don't know why, since I thought it was an excellent film. Jamie Foxx deserved the Oscar he received for his portrayal of Ray Charles. Not once did my suspension of disbelief get broken (which can be difficult when playing the role of a blind man), and Foxx looked amazingly like Ray Charles. If you haven't seen the film yet, I recommend it.


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