I wore my camo jacket symbolically today.

1. I am hiding and you can’t see me.
2. I do not particularly feel like presenting in the feminine.
3. While I may not be ready for battle, I am certainly on stealth recon.

I also have no cavities which is great news because as of 10 days ago, I also have no dental insurance.

So like chicks are wont to do, I made best friends with my hygienist. What else ya gonna do when a skilled person with sharp tools approaches your mouth? Before the festivities began, I may have uttered something snotty and remotely cynical about a particular non-female gender. Not that I am a man hater, but I am cynical today. Cynical to the point that I am wearing camo and being snotty about the non-female gender.

I have a dear friend who is a retired policeman. He introduced me to glocks. This is not going postal, and there is a chance it could sum up tidily, but for the moment, allow me some James Joyce. I contacted him and asked him if there were any gun shows that I could help him with this weekend. You see, he is kind and gentle and very very grandfatherly. Protective, supportive, entirely safe, and he has taught me how to clean and dissemble and reassemble a glock. There is an undeniably awesome feeling about being at a gun show as a woman and being able to do this. Also, there are reasons that I am turning to my conservative roots this week.

So Earl is a rockstar, but the show is in southern Oregon, so this weekend is a no go. Wow, totally didn’t mean to go off on Earl. Think the connection was the camo… Where was I? Oh, yes, my new hygienist friend. I explained briefly, the symbolism of the camo. Deconstructing the pieces of midlife to its rock core and rebuilding. Since her pokey tools were in my mouth and it didn’t appear possible I would be doing much of the talking, I asked her to explain how it came to be that she had found herself married three times and now dating her third ex-husband. She explained that he was kind of controlling and she was kind of independent and they worked better when they were NOT living together. This made sense to me in a far off way–not like dating my ex but like the concept of being kind of intimate with someone but not exactly living with them. Down the road. Far, far away.

And where was I going with that? Oh, yes, so the dentist comes in as we are giggling conspiratorially about what not–a young woman in her maybe mid-thirties. Small children. First husband. She suggested (since I am a certified member of the lifetime achievement society in ardent somnolent teeth grinding) that perhaps I jump back on the night-time tooth guard wearing wagon. I mentioned that mine was a bit tight. Hadn’t been wearing it lately. We all then brought her over to the camo and not-quite-man-bashing cynical mid-age women topics which had previously ensued.

“That is terrific. Goodness even. With men out of your life, you may now avoid root canals and embrace excessive drooling because you will be wearing your bite guard.” It was kinda bossy, but that is a power-reframer right there, that lady. Learned a lot today…. She suggested I nearly boil my bite guard and put it in my mouth really gooey so that it will reform to my current bite. Sometimes things need to get boiled to the point of really gooey before they fit and function well in new circumstances.

If that didn’t work, I had an appointment on Thursday to get a new bite guard made–I was going to ask if they came in camo. It did work, as it turns out, and I wear it now. I am not drooling. Neither do I feel fetching. I have no cavities; but you still can’t see me.