Wherein I Lose Half My Face

1. This list might be more random than usual, but there's a theme. WATER.

2. That's important.

3. Before I explain myself, let me tell you a few things you probably don't need to know, and one thing you DO need to know.

4. Important: Today is the last day to enter to win a signed copy of Saundra Mitchell's THE VESPERTINE. Don't miss out!

5. Now, for some not so important things. Etsy is mildly entertaining sort of interesting somewhat diverting CRACK!

6. It is crack. Not only do they have some awesome stores whose wares I frequently drool over, they also have a feature where you can curate your own treasury list of items based on a theme of your choosing.

7. Reader, I cannot resist this.

8. Last night, I made four lists. Because I adore them, and because I cannot possibly have wasted spent that much time on something without at least the excuse of sharing it with you, I give you the following:

• The Colors of Summer
• Life's A Beach (This is my favorite, I think)
• I Love A Rainy Day (This one is the most popular with Etsy folks so far)
• Pretty In Pink

9. You see why I started this post by telling you I'd be sharing some things you didn't need to know.

10. Now, for something of dire importance.

11. Water done WRONG.

12. Cue ridiculously WRONG visual aid that actually has nothing to do with the following story except for a vague connection to water.

Look at me! I am so WRONG, I might be right. Okay, no. I am just WRONG. But hey, you're still looking.

13. Two weeks ago, I went to the dentist to have a filling replaced.

14. When one goes to the dentist, one does not expect to be risking one's life.

15. OR, if one is risking one's life, one expects it to be because one coughed while the hygienist had that sharp, pointy thing inside one's mouth aimed most inconveniently at the back of one's throat.

16. One does not expect to risk one's life while rinsing.

17. I usually have the same hygienist every time I visit my dentist. She's a lovely woman with two beautiful daughters, an affinity for adoption, and the charming ability to clean my teeth without causing me cardiac arrest.

18. This time, a new hygienist was in charge of helping the dentist with the entire procedure. I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely woman too. When she isn't a) trying to kill me, b) trying to discuss Kathie Lee and Hoda with me while shoving her hands down my throat, and c) trying to KILL ME.

19. The problem started when the dentist realized my filling needed to be replaced because apparently I clench my teeth at night, and therefore I'd cracked the outside of my tooth. This necessitated more work than she'd anticipated, and so she had to make sure I was not just numb, but My Lip Might Be Wrapped Around The Bottom Of My Shoe And I Don't Care numb.

20. This took three shots.

21. By the time the third shot kicked it, I no longer knew how to properly work the muscles in my face.

22. Heck, I wasn't even sure I still had a face.

23. And I was pretty sure I might be drooling.

24. Enter the new hygienist, a perky woman with a Wisconsin accent who kept asking me questions and then saying "Ya, ya, ya" and laughing.

25. I had no real issue with that, until she started expecting an answer.

26. I tried to give her one when she pointed to the tv in the corner and asked something about whatever asinine thing Kathy Lee and Hoda were doing, but it sort of sounded like Mumfpshs. Shrumboobab. Oogg. And I don't think she truly understood me.



27. Also? When I opened my mouth? Drool. Like WHOA.

28. Still, none of that was life-threatening.

29. The dentist came in, confirmed that I was now missing half of my face, tilted me so far back in the chair that blood rushed to my head, and began to drill.

30. None of that was life-threatening either.

31. But when she finished her first round of drilling, looked at the hygienist, and said "Rinse," I wish I'd understood that "rinse" was code for "flush every orifice you can reach." Because if I'd understood that salient piece of information, I would've taken myself right out of that office, face or no face.

32. But I didn't. So I sat there, my head significantly lower than my body, my mouth still crammed with instruments of torture, and let the hygienist poke the water hose into my mouth and turn it on.

33. The water instantly flooded my sinuses.

34. And began to leak out my nose.

35. And I could not breathe.

36. But I was missing half of my face, so I couldn't say that I couldn't breathe.

37. I tried. It sounded like "Ibbba coggggg bwaaaannthmp."

38. The hygienist leaned forward and said, "What's that, dear?"

39. By this time, I'd begun to accompany my failed attempts at communication with full-on body twitches, and a wild attempt to sit up that had her exclaiming in alarm and gently shoving me back into position.

40. I tried again. "The waaaa woooonnnnn umph maaaa nossssh."

41. "That's nice, dear," she said. And I began to wish terrible, terrible things would happen to her. Things involving water hoses, and duct tape, and a constant loop of Richard Simmons, the early years, on her VCR.

42. The dentist was better skilled at interpreting words from people with half a face. She said "Did the water go up your nose?"

43. "Yumshhhh," I said.

44. "Oops," she said. "Sorry about that."

45. I accepted her apology as graciously as a girl with half a face, a mouthful of metal instruments, and a chin dripping a continuous string of drool could possibly do. But then, THEN, she finished drilling a second time and said "Rinse."

46. And, dear reader, the hygienist poked the hose into my mouth and once more filled my sinuses with water.

47. At this point, I realized I'd neglected to ask a very important question.

48. I jerked away from her, snort-snerked the water out of my sinuses as best I could (not the easiest task when I only had half a face to work with), and said the following: "Ooo yuuuu knoaaaoo Beffff Revvissshhh?"

49. Because it occurred to me that my hygienist was trying to kill me. And anyone who expects to carry on a conversation with a girl who's lost half her face while having a mouth full of every piece of equipment known to the dentisting world couldn't possibly have come up with such a dastardly plot on her own. Beth Revis, having failed in her first attempt, had to be behind it.

50. Both the dentist and the hygienist pretended not to know what I was talking about, (In fact, they acted somewhat confused as to who Beth Revis was and why I'd be asking about her.) but they didn't fool me.  This had Beth Revis written all over it.

51. Especially when the hygienist pretended to feel bad for nearly drowning me a second time, yanked the hose from my mouth, and managed to squirt me UP THE NOSE from the OUTSIDE and then score a direct hit IN MY EYE before remembering to turn off the water.

52. I would've given her a piece of my mind, but figured the lack of enunciation, coupled with the drool, might mitigate the impact.

53. Plus, I didn't want to give her any further cause to go after the few orifices she'd missed.

54. I left the dentist's office and went straight to Books A Million to finish revising TCD, a move which may, in retrospect, have been ill-advised.

55. You'll recall that this is the same coffee shop where just the week before, the day Beth Revis first tried to kill me, I'd contorted my face in all manner of unnatural positions while unknowingly looking like a homeless woman?

56. Now, I was walking into the coffee shop with half of my face dangling around my knees.

57. The barista greeted me, and I tried to nonchalantly greet her in return, but I'm pretty sure it was a fail. A) because it sounded something like "Doonnmt maaandd mee aaah wassshhh almoooossssht killllebd aat thbe dennntissssshbt", B) because she looked at me with pity and offered me a free raspberry chocolate smoothie sample, and C) because when I sat down, I realized I was still drooling.

Beth Revis Tried to Kill Me

1. The above picture was originally going to be in honor of Beth Revis (explanation coming), but now it's for Blogger as well.

2. Thank you SO MUCH, Blogger, thou unholy fiend, for losing the post I'd typed up for today, thus forcing me to perform any number of difficult mental gymnastics in a losing effort to remember everything I'd typed.

3. It was a fabulous post.

4. Really.

5. But you'll never know that, will you? Because Blogger got hungry and my post looked like a tasty snack.

6. *wonders if Blogger is really a zombie*

7. I can't recall all the hilarious little anecdotes I shared (It's been a few days. Don't judge me.), but I can assure you it was a blog post that would rank right up there with such fabulous literary works as Chicken Soup for the Idiot's Soul or the classic Green Eggs & Ham.

8. They don't actually publish a Chicken Soup for the Idiot's Soul, but I think that's a mistake. Look how well the __Fill in the blank__ for Dummies is going! Those Chicken Soup folks are missing a (from my personal observations) rather large demographic.

9. Anyway, I can't remember the entertaining little anecdotes that littered my blogging masterpiece, but I can remember this: Beth Revis, author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, tried to kill me.

10. She was sneaky about it too.

11. She disguised her attack as a friendly email full of lovely support and shining promises of opening the secret inner sanctum to a secret few writers know.

12. I was sucked in!

13. I read through the email, wondering what deep, juicy, life-changing secret she was about to share with me ...

14. She did an excellent job of stringing me along, building up the hype, making me WANT TO KNOW...

15. And then she shared the secret.

16. It involved Nutella. And some coffee. But that's not the important part of this story.

17. The important part is this: She took me by surprise, and I half-laughed, half-snerked.

18. It was the snerk that proved to be my undoing.

19. A proper snerk is all about shooting air through one's nostrils like mini oxygenated torpedoes.

20. I do a mean snerk.

21. Sadly, this particular snerk had two overwhelming problems.

22. One, I was in public.

23. Two, I was chewing a fresh piece of Trident cinnamon gum.

24. Cinnamon gum, as I'm sure you're aware, does not shoot through one's nostrils like a mini oxygenated torpedo.

25. It does, however, lodge firmly in the nasal cavities and threaten to cause imminent, immediate, and yes, even instant cinnamon-scented DEATH.

26. Anyone know the universal signal for "Help! Beth Revis caused me to snerk cinnamon gum up my nose and now I can't dislodge it without an act of God?"

27. Neither do I.

28. And you know what is true about fresh cinnamon gum?

29. It burns the tender tissues inside one's nose.

30. So, I had a lot of motivation to get it out.

31. I had nostrils to save. Air to breathe.

32. A best-selling author to kill.

33. I was sitting at my corner table in Books A Million writing. I began contorting my face into expressions designed to scare young children and drop old ladies where they stand.

34. I tried using air to force the gum to complete its journey through my nose.

35. This was a mistake.

36. Now, I was a woman contorting her face, wheezing pathetic amounts of air through her obstructed nostrils, catching the full attention of the barista (who apparently doesn't recognize a gum-arrested snerk when she sees one because she did NOTHING but stare like maybe I was the next Charlie Sheen), and realizing I might need professional help to get myself right again.

37. I could see it. Paramedics called to the scene. Everyone scrambling around for a pair of extra long tweezers. Someone filming it on their iPhone. Another commenting that whatever cinnamon air freshener the bookstore was using smelled quite nice. And everyone wondering why the dying woman on the coffee shop floor kept muttering "Beth Revis" with what little air she had left.

38. I finally scrunched up my face at just the right angle, gathered air like a ninja, and shot that cinnamon-scented projectile right down the back of my throat where, if my grandmother is to be believed, it will reside in my stomach for the next year.

39. Which is fine.

40. It might take me that long to craft the perfect revenge for Beth Revis. Don't worry, Beth. It's coming. And it will smell just as lovely as your initial shot across the bow did for me.

41. I drew my first real breath and that is apparently the universal signal for "Check on the crazy woman in the corner because she might actually die on you" because the barista came over and asked if I was okay.

42. No, I was not okay. I'd nearly had to have a pair of extra-long tweezers stuck up my nose while some stranger made a viral video of me and all because I read an email from Beth Revis.

43. I smelled cinnamon every time I breathed for the next two hours.

44. I recovered my equilibrium and focused on finishing my manuscript. I'm able to completely shut out everyone around me in the bookstore by using my headphones, my playlist, and a single-minded attention on what is going on in my character's heads. So, it was with a great deal of surprise that I looked up to see the barista in front of me an hour later offering me a sample of cheesecake.

45. But it was nice of her, so I accepted.

46. And then got right back to writing.

47. I was nearing the climax of the book. Stuff was happening. Some of it was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and I'd known it was coming for weeks now and was so moved to finally get there with my characters that as they cried, I joined in.

48. Not giant, WHAT IS THAT CRAZY WOMAN DOING NOW? sobs, of course. Just a few tears as I opened a vein and let it bleed across the page.

49. Next thing I know, I'm being offered more cheesecake.

50. I mean, I know it was pretty deserted in the book store at that point (I'd been there for hours and it was getting close to closing time), but really?

51. I finished the scene, wiped my eyes, got up to stretch my legs, used the restroom, bought a coffee, and stared in complete confusion as the barista offered me yet another sample of cheesecake.

52. "I'm fine," I said.

53. "But dear, cheesecake makes everything better," she said.

54. And because she seemed to really need to give it to me, I accepted.

55. Moments later, I packed up, went home, walked in and caught sight of myself in the mirror. (Keep in mind that YES I'd used the restroom at the book store and YES they have a mirror, but I was so focused on being inside my characters' heads, I hadn't bothered to process what I was seeing.).

56. I need to back up this story to the point in the evening where I rushed out of work determined to get to the bookstore as fast as possible so I could finish my book on time.

57. If you're in a hurry, do you grab your change of clothes and go back inside your place of business so you can be stopped by every employee who now wonders what you're doing back in the building so soon just so you can use the restroom to change out of your uniform?

58. Okay, maybe you would. But I wouldn't. I have tinted windows in the back of my Explorer and was deliberately parked in the back, far away from other vehicles.

59. I changed clothes in the cramped backseat of the Explorer.

60. Fast.

61. Because the story was burning inside me and needed out.

62. Now, hours later, I'm staring at myself in the mirror and realizing all those offers for cheesecake? Were because I look like a homeless person.

63. My hair was a little wild, no doubt from the cinnamon-scented choking fit I had courtesy of Beth Revis. My eyes were tear-stained. Any semblance of make-up gave up and fled for easier subjects long ago.

64. But the worst? Oh, the worst was the fact that my sweater was buttoned all wrong.

65. Wrong.

66. Wrong as in the bottom button was in the top button hole.

67. And every subsequent button in between was pigeon-holed wherever I apparently felt there was an appropriate place to stick it.

68. I'm thankful I had a shirt on underneath it or I might have had that choking fit in the back of a police car.

69. I was a wildly disheveled mess who looked like she couldn't even dress herself.

70. No wonder the barista waited until it was obvious I was going to live before approaching me.

71. I wouldn't have wanted to give me mouth to mouth either.

72. I suppose I should blame my own foolishness for the sweater.

73. And my connection to my characters for the tears and lack of make-up.

74. But I'm not.

75. I'm blaming the entire thing on Beth Revis.