I just empathize with your sweetie and know a bit about her frustrations.

I’ll bet you do. She deserves attention, a decent place to live, and at least a little more freedom from worry than she has now. The two of us deserve a home.

I feel the same way that you do about New Mexico. And once a person has felt something like that, almost any other place is just pretending. That’s why I will move heaven and earth to make things work right here, of course. If I can just get us a little slack, so we can travel some more. If I left the mountains for good, I would always miss them.

The truth about the water back in MD is that were I ever to plonk myself down in the Chester River again, I’m sure I would say, “Hey, I know this place!” and then that would be that. Been there, etc. For all I loved it, I mean. I would feel like I was in a trap. That’s exactly what happened when we went back in 2001, I think it was. Having “escaped,” then, it wouldn’t do to go back. Forward is the only way.

robbo: hell yeah! let’s start a full-on flame war!!! or at least a good vicious “yo’ mama so…” contest

Number 6: dar is a strong-minded individual who’s been reading my stuff, sending me cool links, and frequently telling me what to do for years. Some of the time he’s stunningly on the mark. The rest of the time, I try not to get riled, ’cause he means well, I’m sure. Telling me I’m gonna die because of measures I’ve taken to alleviate the godawful pain and swelling is getting on my nerves — and that has worked just fine so far — but all God’s chillun got shoes, so what’s a man supposed to do?

GD! GD!!!! How very cool to hear from you. And you’re right about the single malt. I tend to go with tequila and whatever else may be available, including a large wooden mallet to the head.

robbo: what’s the matter with you, you haven’t offended anyone yet! C’mon, generate some traffic here.

and “dar” needs to get off his fundamentalist high horse and stop being so dictatorial, judgmental and absolutist. you’re right about the negative vibe he projects; i can feel it just reading his comments (and i bet a lot of his own health issues were brought on by his own negativist attitude and mental state – the map is not the territory, and one creates the reality they choose (usually unconsciously) to experience). if it works (?) for him fine, whatever, but he has NO right to impose his view on anyone else, however justified he may feel.

Dar, of course, you believe that conventional antibiotics and root canal therapy will cost one dearly, and so it does.

But I doubt that the human body/soul continuum is as fragile as you make it out to be. In fact, once a very long time ago I was in the audience listening to a great Hindu spiritual teacher. Naturally one of the questions was about diet, and what one should eat. Amazingly to me at the time, he said, “It doesn’t matter at all! Eat whatever you want!” Much later, I understood: we’re all different. He was speaking to a Western audience with no tradition of vegetarianism. What one believes (or inherits as a belief) is all-important.

I appreciate where you’re coming from, truly, and I’m delighted to have you as a longtime reader. I have to say, though, that TELLING someone he’ll “pay dearly healthwise” seems to be the wrong thing to do. It sets up a steady stream of negative energy coming from yourself directed at me and anyone else who may be contemplating such treatment and works against healing, frankly. It’s like negative prayer, or praying for someone to die.

As for your natural antibiotic suggestions, those are actually no doubt very good. I was however in a severe medical crisis and experiencing excruciating pain, with infection beginning to spread throughout the bones of my skull. In that condition, to do anything else but take my dentist’s advice would have been truly insane. Not the time to experiment with alternatives, I needed to kill the bug RIGHT NOW.

Put me on a desert island with the garlic oil and a hot tooth, and I’ll drink the stuff until it comes out of my ears.