Lo! An Unwise Email!
Ow.
Hi folks,
A small warning: this month’s dispatch is coming to you directly from one of Dante’s Circles of Hell. On Tuesday I had two of my wisdom teeth removed. It was extremely painful, and continues to be. So please note that whatever follows is written under the influence of some considerably undelicious antibiotics. If you don’t like any of this: it’s the metronidazole talking.
It’s probably a little bit pathetic to whine on your Substack about toothache. I’ve been using the app a lot more recently and it appears the majority of the posts on here are now either: extremely famous authors delineating their process, or 22-year-old women writing lavishly about the first time they felt free in their own bodies. I sadly fall into neither of these groups. But I did see one of these (self-proclaimed, direct quote) ‘thought-daughters’ posting earnestly about wanting to read more work that displayed ‘teeth and tenderness’. And if that’s not an invitation to talk about dry socket then I don’t know what is.
Long-time Lo! readers, with their piercing eagle-eyes, will notice that this is the third minor surgery I’ve had in the last four years*. I don’t know why this is. My best guess is that, failing to improve my self consciously, my subconscious has taken over. Without my brain knowing, my body has begun slowly removing its extraneous pieces until I am honed to a point. Only tonsils left, and I will be perfectly uncluttered, slick, sharp like an architect’s pencil.
But it does not feel like that yet. The surgery itself was long, and uncomfortable in new and interesting ways. Right before we started, one of the surgeons said to her helper (and this is not a joke, I promise this happened): ‘Ha! Let’s hope this doesn’t go like last time!’. Then there were cracks and tugs and blood in a pipe and jaw-ache. It felt like someone rummaging around in your attic, but you are the attic. There’s no getting around the fact that they are just removing a bit of your head, that used to be yours. Meanwhile, under local anesthetic, you are making eye contact with them the entire time, like you’re having sex with someone you love. But you absolutely are not. Your mouth is open like you are surprised or bored with everything they’re attempting.
It’s quite existentially challenging, the whole thing. During the procedure, one of the surgeons genuinely looked me in the eye (with both of his eyes, no less) and said, ‘we call this is a terradont! The monster tooth!’ And it was very unclear whether he meant this type of tooth, that everyone has, or mine in particular. But the way in which they handed it to me after in a little test tube and said, ‘look! it’s a beast!’ made me feel like it was the latter. I was slightly proud of this until a friend later noted that the phrase ‘monster tooth’ heavily implied that I am a monster.
And now: the healing process. It requires me to avoid hot drinks, chewable food, exercise, alcohol, and I suppose by extension, dopamine of any kind. Everything I eat is the food you would give a lazy baby. I’m living on a diet of slop, goo and ibuprofen**. Soup. Stew. Mashed, smashed, thrashed potato. If you can’t pour it down a funnel, I can’t have it. And it has made me really quite depressed. It’s humbling to discover how much of my sanity is held up by Tetley’s and chewing. Food and drink are what break up my sad little days. I need them. I feel like a smoker who, upon quitting, has discovered that he wasn’t in it for the nicotine. He was in it for the smoking area.
*appendix! foreskin! wisdom teeth! next? ears!
**a friend once pronounced the word ibuprofen with a stress on the -bu and it has changed my life, it’s so fun to say. Try it now. Ibuprofen. I think it’s because you get to say boop. Free of charge.
Book Nook
My book club (Ben’s Book Club) is coming to town (London) on Feb 22nd! There are only a handful of tickets left for that so I really would jump on that pronto. Below you can also find an exclusive ticket link for the next Book Club which is on March 29th at 5pm - with Alex Kealy and Alexandra Haddow. We’ll be chatting about bestseller Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, which I have been excited to read since 2024 so I’m pumped. Roll up, roll up!
Ben’s Book Club #2 - Eurotrash by Christian Kracht w/ Alex Kealy + Alexandra Haddow
See you there! And, as ever, if you’d like my book recommendations, become a paid subscriber and all will be revealed below…