Yep, Yep, It Does

12.29.06, 3:05 pm, Burbank, Calif.

My heart longs to Brooklyn. Everyday. Every. Day. My heart longs to Brooklyn.

I think of cold weather, trash on the streets, the first time I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs performed on the community theatre stage of Theatre Memphis back in the late '80s, back before Theatre ever thought of giving me credit card debt and a dream.

I can see the subway entrance in Bay Ridge, next to the McDonald's and a caucus of variously ethnicked boys arguing like lawyers over the pros and cons of Warcraft. I see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. I can feel my air conditioning straining to cough out a laugh at me in the middle of Son of Sam's heat wave.

I see the curls of the Hasidic men on the way to Shabbat service getting caught on their mufflers, and they close in tighter to their distanced families.

I see trash on the street.
And sweating bakery windows.
And pubs who know how to be a pub.

Every day - this is where my mind brings me to, and I have such joy.

Oh my heart ...

*****

I went for a teeth cleaning the other day. I'm on Christmas vacation from my job as a celebrity news photo editor, I'm a few uncomfortable pounds over my desired weight and six months late on the cleaning. Don't know what my weight has to do with that, but anyway, my teeth are getting some attention.

I usually do okay at the dentist.

"You're grinding your teeth, you know that?" the dental hygienist said.

What??! "WHADKCHGH??"

"Yep, your front teeth are flattened out."

"WhADKCHAAAUGH - Maw ack ath?" Again, she insists on delivering this shocking diagnosis while hovering with those sharp pokers in my mouth agape.

"Yep, here in front," and she looks closer. "Yep, here in front, you're rubbing the front top teeth against the bottom teeth."

Again - WHAAAAAAAT??

That's just damn strange. My front teeth? Although I had woke up that morning with the right side of my face hurting when I yawned. I didn't think much about it ... that was weird too. I usually LOVE to ruminate on my pain.

I sit straight up. Luckily she gets those pokers outta there before I start a-yapping.

"Why?!" I attack her. "I'm on vacation, for crisssake! I mean, I have stress but GRINDING MY TEETH? What the hell! I DIDN'T THINK I WAS that STRESSED..."

It was then that I saw all the question marks and exclaimation marks hitting her in the face and hanging from the deadly pokers and bouncing off the "Hang in there" kitten posters on the ceiling. Historically, I've had stress about having stress because my family was so repressed, strained and stressed, and they all died - either of a legitimate early death or a timely spiritual death. So stress means disease to me, and disease doesn't just mean a lousy, unproductive life of pills and addictions and griping to the grocery clerk about your prostate - STRESS MEANS DEATH. IMMINENT. RUTHLESS. DEATH.

So I'm grinding my teeth? I'M SLOWLY KILLING MYSELF WITH WORRY AND FRET AND REPRESSED RAGE! And maybe a little bit of the indulgent punctuation...

"What's the big deal?" the dental hygienist shrugs, just when I've convinced myself I'm in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. Behind her AMA-approved riot gear, holding her pokers up in the air like Dr. Frankenstein, her kind eyes twinkle. "You live in LA - so, you're stressed."

:~|

This is the reason she gives for my grinding my teeth? Like it's a problem of such epidemic proportions that it's like, 'Oh, you live in Africa and you can't shake that cold? Well, it's gotta be AIDS.'

But she makes a really good point.

There's much about living in LA that I don't cotton to and I'm a flagrant imposter. I hate the oppressive, omnipresent sun. Who needs that much Vitamin D? I don't own a car, a cell phone, an IPOD, and I can't MySpace to save my life. (though that's just probably cuz my computer isn't fast enough at home... in any event, who has time to scroll through endless wannabees?) Martinis have me down for the count in two sips. I don't want my feet to sweat in Ugg boots. And I hate being cynical and snobbish.

But I do like seeing the mountains everyday and having a culture of horses around me. But dude, that's about it.

So maybe it's just getting to me - this plan to move to Brooklyn. I've moved inside my heart and mind. I pack my closet into boxes daily - in my mind. I plan the moving truck and the cross-country trip through Memphis and Chicago - daily - in my mind. And yet, daily, in my life, I have to negotiate the trip to work, the culture of celebrity news work environment of talent barnacles that drive my website's market.

Maybe that's why I'm grinding my teeth - Cuz the clock's ticking down slowly but surely on the verb that I'm busy not doing.

I've been holding it in. Well, not anymore. My jaw's killing me. If Brooklyn's under my skin, and expressing itself through my teeth... and that's the only thing I have to worry about is the time passing between now and Brooklyn, hell! I'll blog my way out of it. It's cheaper than a Sonicare electric toothbrush, anyway.

*****

So here will be where I'll get it outta my system - to save my teeth, to save myself.

My Heart Longs to Brooklyn. I'll tell you why from now until the moment when all I have left to do with my day is BROOKLYN.