I've been feeling not bad exactly for the past week or so, but kind of blah. Like last season I felt bad, I felt like I was always getting knocked down or trapped and that doesn't seem to be happening hardly at all. But then again, nothing seems to be happening. Almost like nobody bothers about me, almost like I'm not there. And actually it wasn't bothering me that much, just like a little bit of smoke that you vaguely wave your hand at.
That's how I was feeling, and then I got mixed up and went fast instead of slow in a runaway, and I hate a runaway more than anything. Then there's no almost, I'm not there, not doing anything, it's hard for me to land or even launch blocks after a certain speed, and also I'm getting tired. Tired, mad, tripped, and that's when I fell on my tooth. I seriously did fall on my tooth, I hit the floor with my tooth. I skated off the track so pissed, I knew my tooth wasn't right, I thought Roe wasn't going to let me scrimmage more, and dammit I just need to play to get myself sorted out.
Roe undid my wristguards, and I gingerly picked my mouthguard off my teeth with one finger. So now I can add "emptied mouthguard filled with blood" and "spat blood into the practice space sink" to the list of badass things I have done. It was my left front tooth, it got knocked straight back. Like still in the gum, not knocked out. It was like a magic trick where something suddenly shows up someplace that you wouldn't expect, like all of a sudden there's an elephant on top of the Empire State building. Except you know, just my tooth and just a few millimeters back. So basically like there's an elephant in my mouth.
"Can I play?"
Roe said gruffly, "Put your mouthguard in."
Ha well, it used to be a custom mouthguard. I jammed that sucker back in, I wasn't sure it would come back out without taking out my tooth.
So Red had been giving me feedback all night, she called me over and we sat down and watched a bunch of jams together and talked through what was happening. Who was being active, what they were doing, and why they were doing that. That helped me get the plot back a bit, I hadn't even known it was lost.
The two jams I played after that felt different. I mean if I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times, where is the jammer? But those two times it was like, NO REALLY, WHERE IS THE JAMMER and I was actually looking for and finding the jammer. But also I just felt different, less smoky and more electric. I kind of didn't want to go to sleep that night because I wanted to remember how that felt. So I was lying awake sort of munching my teeth together and thuk! the tooth shifted back into place.
"Dude," I said to the sweetie man, "my tooth just went back."
"Yay, thanks for the update," he said, entirely asleep. I mean, it was three or four in the morning.
Dr. Harada mournfully checks the back of my front teeth with his little mirror and reports that I also cracked the tooth next to the tooth that moved. Nothing to be done but wait and see, and only eat soft foods for a month.
Luckily, I pretty much only eat soft foods! I mean, right? Oatmeal, beans and rice, sweet potatoes, pasta, smoothies, who knew I was such a grandma. Also who knew that al dente does, actually, mean to the tooth. I know from trying to eat spaghetti Tuesday night. I guess I will have to eat short pasta instead. Good thing I stopped eating apples. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will have to be cut up into little squares.
No hotdog at the bout this weekend. Not that I would, this weekend.
