I spent what will hopefully will be the last nice spring day in a periodontist chair today. I really like these guys. They don’t see my great dental insurance when I walk in the door, which is a novel experience. Most dentists try to talk me into braces and quarterly cleanings because they’re covered. These guys were the first to look at a tooth that had caused problems and been deemed nonviable by two dentists and say they could save it. And oh, by the way, it would cost less to do so.

Most people don’t like the dentist. I’m not any different, although my reasons may differ. I can’t stand having anything done that isn’t being explained. Indeed, if they could have cameras that would show me what was going on while they did it, I’d like that best. Actually, the best would be if I could have the dentist doing his thing, explaining it all, filming it for me to see, while I could simultaneously talk.

I think the hardest thing about the dentist — and possibly sleeping — is not being able to talk. I wonder to myself how many writers have an ongoing stream of words running through their heads like I do. Witty ripostes, strange theories, snide commentary on current events…it runs like snow melt on a warm spring day. On a hot day, it can be a flood — although I don’t like hot so most of that is just complaining about the heat.

Twitter, were I near a means of tweeting regularly, would probably be like crack for me. Every stray thought I thought was clever would shoot out from my fingers. And then, what if it wasn’t retweeted? What if no one commented on my humor or sagacity? Or my humorous sagacity?

Being a writer is an ego-busting business, except for those times when it’s ego-boosting. More the former, though, than the latter. You wonder how so much crap gets published and paid for and why no one has recognized your talent. The reason is that we don’t sell ourselves as well as those other crappy writers.

My entire family is full of sales and marketing people. I have always ran screaming from anything that has a whiff of sales about it. I will ask anyone their deepest darkest secret — why they are divorced, when they will have children, what crimes they have committed and how many times they cheated in college. But I won’t ask for money. Or more money. I wonder if I ever write that book proposal — you know, the one I’ve been talking about for more than a year now — will I be able to ask an agent or a publisher to do what I want and give me a contract? Isn’t asking for the business the key to closing a deal?

It must have been nice to be talented during the time of art patrons, where rich people would throw money at painters and poets so they could just sit around and exercise their artistic muscles. It was probably the last time it was good to be an odist or professional lute player.

I’m going to go to bed now, where some of my best writing happens in my head. And there, I’m going to thank God I don’t wish I were a professional poet, because the only thing that could be worse than asking someone to pay me for all my clever thoughts written in book form would be to ask someone to please publish my volume of poetry.