t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


my dental implant consultation wasn't until 12:00 so i had time to eat some cereal for breakfast before leaving. after weighing the pros and cons, i decided to ride the subway instead of taking the bike, a much warmer and safer way to get into the city. it was cold but temperature was around the freezing mark which really isn't that cold when the sun is out. on the subway i sat next to a sleeping homeless man, slumped across 2 seats, smelling of rotten chicken entrails. across from me a chubby asian artsy boy was knitting what looked to be a blue cap with a pair of circular needles. here and there commuters played with their phones will a few others read books.

i arrived at south station and walked to lincoln street, where i got a bit lost trying to find the address. for a second i thought maybe it was in my old building, formerly squid country safari, but that wasn't the case. a pretty blonde receptionist sitting behind a circular counter wearing her coat took my information as i then waited to be called. a nurse said i could leave my things in an examination room and had me stand in this fancy booth, where my jaw was held in place by biting on a bit while mechanically controlled drums rotated around my head. apparently that was a high tech x-ray machine and in a matter of seconds developed a photo of my entire teeth. a minute later the doctor showed up. not once during the consultation did he actually look inside of my mouth, as apparently the x-ray image was enough. bottom line is a dental implant would cost about $3500. but because my tooth was on my upper jaw, and i had big sinus cavities, i needed a special procedure involving a sinus lift and adding more bone inside my jaw before the implant could be added, which is another $800-900. even if i had dental insurance, these sort of procedures aren't covered, so i'll have to pay everything out of pocket. oh, one more thing: the whole thing would probably take a year to complete, since i'd have to wait 3-4 months between operations, to let everything heal.

after the consultation, i went across the street to the chinese supermarket to pick up a few things (nori furikake, fried garlic, korean barbecue sauce). i could've stayed in boston and wandered around some more, but i was carrying a bag of groceries, and wanted to get home and wait for my fedex package (if it hasn't arrived already). nevertheless, i sitll made time to visit chinatown cafe (out by tufts medical school) to get some R45 spicy porkchop with rice for lunch. i bumped into a friend of my parents; she was having lunch with her friend and was about to hit the supermarket themselves. only then did i head back to south station. walking down one of the side streets that lead to the station, i came across a panhandler asking people for money. i calculated the risks in my head and decided he was harmless. "how you doing?" he asked me. he told me he was from scotland - scotland connecticut that is. "you have really nice skin," he told me, but after and awkward pause, he clarified himself, "oh, nothing like that." something that wasn't here before: south station now has a 2-story CVS. i went upstairs just to take a peek before leaving.

on the subway heading back into cambridge, i was next to a tall young man who sat with his legs not only wide apart but sticking out so they were almost in the middle of the aisle. in front of me was a young woman going through a stack of index cards. she was standing pretty close, practically on top of me, pushing up against my chinese takeout. i thought maybe they were vocabulary cards and she was one of the many foreign students here to learn english, but i glanced over and noticed they were related to some sort company, like maybe she was giving a presentation.

i got home around 2:30. there was no delivery sticker on my door which meant the fedex truck hadn't arrived yet, so i could still get my phone today. i ate lunch and waited. my package finally arrived at 3:40. when i turned the phone on, the battery was still nearly fully charged.

around 5:00 i fell asleep on the couch, but it was a little chilly and i didn't want to turn up the heat, so i decided to go sleep in the bedroom. i went to go brush my teeth beforehand, but that ended up waking up me up so i returned to the living room to surf the web. i downloaded the game app monument valley (free) and played it for a while.

my late lunch was big enough that i wasn't hungry came dinner time. i cleaned up some of the postcards on my fridge. the young woman who stayed at my place for 2 months before i returned home must've done a lot of oily cooking, because a lot of kitchen surface areas are still coated in condensed oil, including all my fridge postcards. i had to take them down one by one and wipe off the oil mixed with dust and mold.