»»» The Hermit of Arcadia    September 28th, 2005:
  Well, I haven't been traveling...at all. I did not go on the abbreviated trip I mentioned in my last entry ten days ago. No camping in the Grand Canyon. No hiking in my local area. In fact, I haven't even gone into work.

  What I have been doing is living much like a hermit would if he lived in Arcadia. For the last week and a half, I have been working on my website (more on that later), catching up on my reading, watching episodes of Lost and CSI, and only leaving my apartment to check the mail or grab some groceries. Am I in a state of depression? I really don't know. I've thought about it a lot this week. Sometimes there's a thin line between depression and just plain ol' laziness. I do know that I'm a bit sad and disappointed in how quickly my travel plans unraveled. It has been many years since I've planned for a major trip only to have it fall apart. Even last December, after losing my job just a week before my South America trip, I still managed to keep to my plans. Yet this time, with my molar breaking and the price of rental cars and gas hitting a new high, it sent my trip down the drain and my spirits along with it.

  I'm usually a the-cup-is-half-full kind of guy, always looking at the positive aspects of life. When I talk to friends and family about this week, I assure them I'm fine: "I'll do the trip some other time," I tell them. "I'm perfectly content staying around here and working on my website." I don't know if I say that because I do believe it or I want to believe it.

  This morning, I went to the dentist to have my broken molar extracted. I've had some bad moments with dentists and find myself quite anxious and uncomfortable around them. Needless to say, having to see one in order to have a tooth removed didn't really make the trip any easier. As I sat in the dentist chair as the dentist washed his hands and put on the rubber gloves, I began to meditate. I knew that I would be out the door and on my way home in less than a half hour, but those next thirty minutes would most likely be very painful. Maybe it wouldn't be physically painful (thanks to a heavy shot of anesthetic), but it was most definitely going to be painful to hear.

  To start, the dentist used an instrument called an elevator to loosen the tooth, widen the space in the jawbone, and try to break the tiny fibers that attach the tooth to the bone. Believe me, this process does not create a pleasant sound. Although the anesthetic made my mouth numb, I had a very hard time concentrating on something other than the sound of breaking tooth and fibers. I tried to ignore the blood spatter on my dentists mask when he broke off the partial crown of my broken molar, or the fact that the dental hygienist was removing more blood than saliva with her suction tool. After a few minutes of this, he started using a mini drill and proceeded to cut the remaining portions of the tooth into sections so it could be removed easier. As I write this, I still have the pungent smell of tooth dust in my nose. I went through ten minutes of this before the tooth dislocated from the bone and was lifted and removed with forceps.

  Maybe things are now going to go my way now that I have had my molar removed. Tomorrow I'll be returning to work, partially because I want to but mainly because I'm not allowed to do any strenuous exercise for the next 3-4 days. I might go on a short day hike this weekend, but as of now, I'm just happy that my broken tooth - and the pain it caused - is gone.

Instead of my Link of the Day, I'd rather introduce you to a few new pages this hermit has been working on for the last eight days:

Favorite Photos of My First Pilgrimage - Since I wasn't travelling on my vacation, I had a lot of time to reminisce about past trips. I brought out all of my journals, photos, and miscellany and decided to put together to make this section. After hours of scanning and photoshop work, I've created an area of my site that I am really proud of. I hope you have time to go through it all.

Links Page - Many people have asked for it over the years and my time to myself gave me the opportunity to put one together.

RSS Feed - I've added a feed to my site so you can track when I update my blog. If you don't know what an RSS feed is, let alone an RSS, don't worry. I didn't know what it was a week ago either! But I'll save all that for my next blog entry.