A wise bird and an unwise Doug: when some things can’t be helped

Saturday night I dreamt I was outside in a forest of some sort, and an owl was watching me.  Nothing happened for a long while.  When he finally flew away, I had a feeling of both relief & worry. 

When I awoke Sunday morning, my face felt red-hot, like I’d fallen asleep on a lounge chair by a swimming pool under the midday sun.  I climbed out of bed, looked in my bathroom mirror—my complexion was a dull purple (like I’d slept standing on my head) and my temples were swollen.  (The temples… that was a first.)  When I reached up and touched them, yeow they were hot.

I knew 2 things:  I brought this on myself, and it was payback time.

These last couple weeks, trying to come to terms that my TMJ issues just aren’t going away anytime soon, I made a promise to myself that I would NOT just sit in this apartment and stare at my tv (or tablet or laptop) and suffer in silence.  We’ve been having beautiful weather, and I was going to shower and shave early each day, put on a nice shirt and just… get the hell out of here and explore Avalon, or head in the opposite direction (towards my old neighborhood in Bellevue) and do more of the same. 

And that’s just what I’ve been doing, sometimes for an hour, sometimes a lot longer.  (It depends on the severity of discomfort.)  Sometimes I come back, cook some eggs or heat some soup, take a nap, wash my face then put on my shoes and head back out again.  It’s done nothing to help my tmj, but keeps me in a healthier mindset (and I’m sure my ticker appreciates it as well).

Anyway, my story here began Saturday morning.  After I’d gotten up, made a cup of coffee and hit play on the most recent episode of ‘Masterchef’, I looked out my window, saw all the sunshine and wondered what I’d be doing.  I know—go to Lincoln Barbershop.  Saturday is their busiest day of the week, the wait is HOURS--but not for me.  I’d just gotten my haircut Friday, so I’d go & say hi to some of the “old gang” and Rosie’s sister Angie. 

Nothing too long, a half-hour at most. 

Just the day before, my barber (Rosie) had said “Dougie Fresh, when are you gonna come up here on a Saturday and say hi to Angie?”  Several years back, her sister Angie (who used to cut hair alongside Rose) traded in her shears for an office job and now only cuts on Saturdays.  I hadn’t seen her since 2015, after I retired and no longer had to wait for the weekend to get a haircut.

So I got dressed and headed up to Bellevue.  When I got there, I looked in the front window and saw Rose in her barber chair and Angie in hers, both quiet and staring down at their respective smartphones.  And not a customer in sight.  What the—!?   I opened the door and said “Where the hell is everybody??” and both of them looked up and exclaimed “DOUGIE FRESH!”  (It was dear and funny.)  They were as mystified as I was why they had no customers.  Rose thought it was because the weather was TOO nice, and everyone was on ‘last minute vacations’. 

(But seriously, that shop has never been empty on a Saturday—ever.) 

Angie said “Doug when did you go all gray!?” and Rose said “Fresh, could you stay and visit with us for awhile?”  I said sure, and ignored the small worry in the back of my head about too much talking with an aggravated jaw.  This won’t last long.  We grabbed some folding chairs from the back and parked ourselves outside.  We sat out there and waited for customers, and caught each other up on our families, the future of Bellevue, the nightmare of Trump and that perverted coward Jeffrey Epstein.

And I just kept ignoring the rising swelling on the right side of my face.

One 40-something guy (with a goatee and 80’s mullet) was walking his dog, wearing (what looked to be) navy boxer-briefs and nothing else.  Angie said “Hey, would you like a haircut?”  and the guy said “umm… I’m not dressed for it”  and when he got far enough away, she burst out laughing.  She said “Should we call a cop or something??”  and we all laughed.  (I told them about my recent run-in with a woman in her underwear here, but at least she was wearing a top.)  Anyway, the right side of my face was a giant exclamation point now, and I regretfully told them I’d have to go home and ice my face. 

That lasted 2 hours.  I knew the tmj gods were going to punish me, but it was such a nice time and I’m almost tempted to say it was worth it.

As I headed to the corner of Lincoln & Balph to cross the street and go home, another guy walked up beside me while I stood waiting for the light.  I glanced in his direction and gave him the dude nod—Hey—and then did a double-take.  He said “Hey how’s it going” and I said “Mellon Bank, right?”  and he said “No, I used to live down the street on Monroe under a gay couple, I think you lived beside ’em.”   I said “That’s right, we both called the cops one night and the officers thought we were a gay couple too.”  

(That was way back in February 2013, I even wrote about that night here.)

He re-introduced himself (Matt) and I did the same, and as the light turned green and we both crossed, he said “I was going to grab some lunch at the new Chinese place, did you have plans?  Do you want to come along?”   I didn’t want to explain the whole TMJ thing, plus I was starving so I said sure.  Maybe I could get something without a lot of chew, like chicken & garlic sauce.

The Dragon Town Restaurant in Bellevue

We head inside and right away begin blinking our eyes—there’s a tall vase near the entrance with these long incense sticks poking out it’s top, each with lazy tendrils of smoke wafting from them.  It was pretty acrid. 

Matt said “Let’s get it to go and find a place to eat outside.”  I said okay, and soon they brought our bags.  When we got outside again, Matt asked where to, and I said “We’re only a block from our old place, let’s take it down there and sit out front.”  He laughed and said sure, and that’s just what we did.  

(I was dismayed when I took the lid off my order—it was cooked to perfection, the chicken pieces were very soft—but the garlic sauce really stung my jaw, plus it came with a lot of crunchy green peppers, sliced carrots and onions that would require a lot of chewing.)  I said the hell with it and began eating, ignoring my burning face and the clucking sounds from my jaw’s right joint.  I found myself once again in a discussion of Trump, Epstein and the sorry state of our government.  But Matt was (and still is) a great guy, and it was one of the best chats I’ve had since—well, since the barbershop earlier. 

I couldn’t help but look at the familiar area around us, and remember the many years I ran up & down these same sidewalks to get to my bus-stop in the mornings, or come tiredly home after a long workday… and how often I drove this street in my little green Honda, en route to my mom or sister Shawn’s house for holidays & summer cookouts.  I was fine as can be then, never having heard of TMJ.  

After Matt & I headed back up the street to Lincoln Avenue and parted company, my face was pretty much yelling in real protest.  I took my time walking home.  I stopped in Kuhn’s Market and bought a 24 oz bottle of Squirt soda—why not—and chugged it from it’s little paper sack while I walked, like a wino and his bottle.  I got inside my front door, kicked off my shoes, took off my belt, filled a towel with two trays of ice cubes, laid down across my bed with the icy sack sitting atop my face.  I’d worry about tomorrow when it came.

It was somehow both the best & worst day for me in a very long while.