Toothaches and Speeches

I have a toothache, so I went to the dentist today on an emergency, and for $85 she gave me a referral to somebody who actually does the root canal for $570 and then somebody else who does the crown for more than that. Plus, I have to wait for another ten days to go in for the appointment.

I need not ask if something is wrong with this medical system. Everyone agrees that there is something wrong with this, except for the wealthiest people for whom $570 is barely more than a 20th of a Mitt Romney impulse wager. Of course, given the US political divisions now, Repubs will say the costs and long waits are because the government won't get out of the way of the medical industry so it can be more efficient and less wasteful, even if no other country does it that way and every last industrialized country has a better, cheaper medical system than ours, and they don't have nearly the blind faith in the magic of the free market. 

Otherwise, we hear, and many believe it's because those damn patients complain frivolously to the courts, when studies show that more than 100,000 patients die of preventable accidents in hospitals every year. That doesn't indicate complaints about our medical system are usually frivolous.

The dearth of affordable dental care in this country is appalling. Even when I had company paid insurance, by a first-rate corporation, it covered dental pitifully. But dental has been known to be expensive and poorly insured for years. Add to that the pain involved, and many people in the purported premier nation of the industrialized world are going about with medieval teeth.

No functional society would run a medical system like this. No healthy society would even debate doing medicine as a free enterprise endeavor. I think Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley and the Cold War ruined this country and made it insane.

I know I've been terrible about this blog for a writer. Other things just take precedent right now, such writing fiction. That's my highest priority. Like helping other writers, particularly in my writing group. I'm trying to post in here more often, especially since, ultimately, I want to sell my writing and, therefore, I have to be known.

I'm impaired by my sleep being so fragged up. For years I've tried, but I can't seem to predict with any accuracy when I'll be ready to fall asleep, or really, when I'll wake up. Back when I had a "real" job I would force my body to wake up. However, I wasn't awake. I would make incredible errors and my mood would be uncontrolled, from concussions, I think. Now at least I can write whenever it suits me during the day. I just have to make sure I do it and not surf the Internet for hours.

On Wednesday, January 18th, I gave a speech at the local artists guild. The first time I've done any public speaking "in two decades" is what I said. Actually, that time was in front of a classroom. It was probably the first time I did any public speaking since the 80s, and that time I bombed. This time, I didn't. I killed them.

The talk was on plotting and outlining in fiction, and specifically, I presented Randy Ingermanson's "snowflake method" as a possible solution. I spent a week preparing for it, and it paid off. I put some humor into it. For the most part, the humor worked, but I shouldn't go on the club circuit yet. It was a good audience, who wanted to learn.

Other members of the panel did their part and were as well prepared. We were all surprised and pleased about the workshop overall. I thought it would be less coherent, less successful than it was, because it didn't seem like we were very coordinated in our prep, but the prep worked for me and my three cohorts. It went very smoothly, and members of the audience told us they were never bored.

A woman came up to me afterward and said she felt she had been inspired to write. Another woman, part of our writers' group, said she went right home and wrote. I am so gratified that we did such a good job.

However, I sacrificed a full week of work writing and preparing this speech. I don't know how I could have done this if I had a real job. Truth is, I couldn't have. I work so damn slow. It has always been a problem. I don't know if it's from years of depression, concussion or side-effects from medication, I'm generally too slow for any employer to tolerate now. Not to mention the fact that I work nervously making sure I'm not fucking something up.

No, I'm doing the job I should be doing. The one I'm perfect for, and I can't do much else.