Dental implants, that is.
Today I had my first dentist visit in about four years, and I found out I need a crown. Again I wonder, why can't they just make an entirely synthetic tooth, yank out the decaying, nerve-filled, guaranteed-to-eventually-fall-out, real one, and hammer the new one into my jaw. In fact, why can't they just do that with all my teeth now, and save me a lot of hassle down the road?
Well, they can. They call those 'implants', and they're getting more common and affordable all the time.
One of these days, I'm gonna spring for it. Get all bionic and shit up in my mizzle.
----
On a (seemingly) unrelated topic, I had a very clear and painful twinge of midlife-crisis this afternoon. My boss (the one I don't loathe) and I were talking about the different graphical styles of the designers in our department. Thinking about it afterward, I decided that my favorite way to express something graphically was in a movie poster type format.
Then it hit me -- not hard, but quietly and quickly -- that I would never actually design a movie poster.
This had never been on any 'list of things to do before I die', or any specific dream of mine to move to Hollywood and design posters for movie studios. But it still hurt to realize that when looking at where my life is now, and where it can be reasonably expected to go, it's something that I'll never do.
I had a similar moment of longing and regret while watching the bonus features on my Iron Man DVD. They devoted a great deal of time to the special effects, of course, focusing often on the actual people whose job it was... whose JOB it was... to sit at a computer and create these dazzling effects. To draw and animate and bring Iron Man to life. Their JOB. To sit in large, roomy offices with windows looking out over southern California, and play.
I, instead, drive to work in the freezing dark and make flyers for senior-citizen water aerobics classes. I can't really even say "design flyers..." Everything I do now, my boss (the one I do loathe) redesigns completely before it reaches the printer. Inane, self-indulgent, meaningless-but-time-consuming changes that eviscerate any remaining shred of ownership or justification for pride I might take in my work.
So the longing for what will never be, mixed with the demoralization of being subservient to morons, makes for one bitter horseshit sandwich that I find myself chewing on.
[cue violins]
whew. I feel better.
Don't worry, I'm not really that depressed. Sure, I work for morons, but who doesn't? At least they're reasonably nice morons. Once in a blue moon I *do* get to design something cool, even in a movie poster format (below). And there's still lots of time to get into something else, or take what I do now to the next level.
So... yeah. Enough complaining.
