syringe syringe syringe

is there a term (i'm sure there is) for when you're watching a movie, say, that you've already seen before (or maybe you haven't) and you're screening it through the eyes of someone else because you want them to like it or maybe you just want to gauge what their response will be? i get that feeling quite often. it's weird to think what sort of affect just knowing someone else can have on your perspective which is never entirely your own. my mind and the way i perceive things is so dependent on how i hope to relate to other people. i evaluate things according to how i think other people evaluate things, even if most of the time i like to pretend that i don't care how other people feel about things and that my opinion is truly unique or original.

i think what it's all about--life, that is--is finding the right people to surround yourself with because it's these people who determine who you are; who shape your personality, your interests and so forth, for better or worse.

still: i feel that there is an essential quality that is particular to each individual human being which cannot, no matter how hard one tries, be abolished.

the self prevails--like a weed that can never be truly eliminated. it is impossible, it seems, for one to completely uproot themselves.

so why worry?

speaking of uprooting:

i had a wisdom tooth extracted today. i wrote about it in a mass txt msg, so i don't feel like writing about it anymore here, except to provide the more grotesque and remarkable details.

that the instruments they used looked primitive and medieval.
the syringe looked like something straight off a dungeon-wall--big and metal and ornate with holes for the surgeon's thumb and one other finger.
once extracted, they held the tooth out in front of me, a bloody stump hovering above a blood-splattered bib, alongside even more blood-covered instruments.
i could feel them break the tooth off from my jaw. i could both hear and feel the crack.
a pesky bit of the root remained, embedded in my gums--they had to go back and dig it out with what looked like pliers.
the numbing agent they used made the whole left side of my face numb--tingly-numb, not completely unfeeling-numb. when he actually stuck the needle in, i could feel it and whatever anaesthetic he used penetrate the surface tissue. i could feel it in the deep corner-pocket of my jaw, like being stabbed at an odd angle through the mouth by a ballpoint pen--the closest i'll ever come to knowing what it's like to be a fish hooked through the mouth.
the whole time they (the oral surgeon and his assistant) were performing the surgery soft-rock radio was playing lightly in the background and, as if that wasn't ironic enough, before he actually began the procedure--which i had no idea he was going to do (i was told i was going in for a consultation)--the doctor took a reflective glance out the window and made a casual remark about the "dreary day" outside. "it was nice and sunny yesterday," he said, to his assistant. "i know," she said. "one in a long streak of dreary days," he said. "well, winter will be over soon." he said all this in a hurried sort-of mumble so that, thinking back on it now, he may or may not have told me in advance that i was supposed to have the operation done today--but i'd have no way of knowing because i couldn't understand anything he said through his thick slur. it struck me as odd--even if he had done the surgery countless times before--that he could be so nonchalant about the whole ordeal.
at one point i thought i was going to pass out and i never pass out or feel like passing out at anything.
the whole experience was so fascinating and i'd definitely do it again if i had the choice. in fact: i recommend it to anyone wanting to take a vacation--from work or the humdrum day-to-day routine of compromised living. i could spend my entire life trying to write about it and document every gory little detail. i can't say the same for vacations i've spent on anonymous beaches in florida or looking at monuments to things which have no business being celebrated--especially not in the form of slabs of stone.