the garlic breath is really just...

yikes...

why does it come out in the saliva, though? why don't i just piss it out? is that instructive?

so, i swallowed it the first time and then realized i didn't research the concentration levels (that much is safe.....if diluted in a large glass of water), got scared and drank a bunch of water, which defeated the point.

what i did the second time was spit it in a glass of water, and i'll drink the water later. i know that's safe - it's tap water, in civilized countries.

i seem to be able to buy varnish online if i want. 

you have to buy it in bulk, but it's less than $1/treatment. what will the dentist charge to apply it?

i'll wait until the appointment. but, that seems like a potential necessity.

for now, i'll try the prevident as a topical, daily.

i would be considered high risk because i don't have access to fluoridated water.

they're suggesting a varnish every three months.

if i put this stuff on there every day, it should be more fluoride than the varnish, in total. but, how potent can i get?

http://www.ada.org/~/media/ADA/Science%20and%20Research/Files/report_fluoride.ashx

i want to be clear - the issues that i'm dealing with are very thoroughly tied to a lack of water fluoridation. what happened to my teeth is a predictable consequence of removing fluoride from low-income communities, where access to dentistry is minimal, restricted or non-existent. this is what should have been expected.

so, fluoride is the right solution to salvage as much as i can.

i left it too long. we'll have to see if that mistake was catastrophic or not.

i misunderstood what this prevident is.

this is a varnish - it's just a very weak one. you're supposed to leave it on your teeth, after brushing, rather than brush with it. i think i'm ok with everything in it, including the xanthan gum.

if it's not covered, i may need to varnish them myself.

this is 5000 ppm fluoride, in the form of sodium fluoride. i could try a gel at potentially 9000 ppm. the varnish would be 22500 ppm. but, there's an offset - you don't varnish every day. i simply don't know if using the prevident every day for a week is as good as using the varnish once a week.

*shrug*.

let's give it a shot.

and, yes - i'm swallowing. not spitting...

these procedures used to be covered.

i remember going to a dentist when i was a kid and getting polishing and fluoride treatments, and the only coverage my mom had was through welfare.

mike harris, probably. asshole...

i wonder if this is a part of the problem, and nobody's explained it to me. i've just been told i get "basic coverage" - and would have assumed that meant cleaning.

the cyproterone acetate does list "dry mouth" as a side effect.

if this is the truth - that they're pushing for fillings because i can't get a scaling due to a lack of coverage - then i wish they'd be upfront about it rather than try to manipulate me in a dishonest way. i can probably get coverage, and that's a far better idea than drilling into a tooth that obviously doesn't actually need it.

i'll find out next week - i'm booked for a cleaning, let's see what they tell me.

garlic breath is intense.

need to tone it down.

i could see myself getting vaccinated against some future strain when i'm a little older and it actually poses me a serious threat.

for right now, i'll let you be my guinea pigs.

it's rational self-interest.

i had to nap again this morning....

:(.

i dunno. let's hope it's over with.

listen: i don't doubt the vaccine will work, or relatively well, anyways. i've yet to see any really good evidence that you can catch this disease repeatedly, so if we can create effective antibodies on contact with the virus then we should be able to stimulate them with a vaccine, as well - it's the same thing. but, that's just the point.

even the best vaccines - and we shouldn't expect that of this one - will kill some people, due to a variety of causes. vaccines are generally safe, but they're doing all of this testing for a reason - they're not completely safe.

my argument is simply that you need to look at it comparatively: there is some risk from the vaccine, and some risk from the virus. if you're old or vulnerable, you should get vaccinated, clearly. but, if you're young and healthy, what is more dangerous - the vaccine or the virus? and a sober, quantitative analysis will demonstrate that, for many people, it's safer to get sick and fight it off.

but, you shouldn't have exaggerated expectations of the vaccine, either. 

it won't exactly "wear off". but, given that the virus is here to stay, constant vaccination may actually produce a feedback loop: the more that people get vaccinated, the more the need to get vaccinated repeatedly, to adjust to a changing virus. thankfully, the virus seems stable, at least - so far. i wonder if distancing hasn't made it more contagious, but it hasn't changed to fight our attempts to stop it, yet. but, we haven't pushed it. a major vaccination campaign could change that and make it that much more deadly - in which case the vaccine stops working, and we're back to the drawing board.

so, what you should expect is something that is mostly safe and works moderately well. you shouldn't expect a magic potion that will set everything back to normal. even after being vaccinated, the vulnerable will remain vulnerable - and some will be so vulnerable that they can't even get vaccinated at all. the vaccine will certainly increase these peoples' chances if they catch the virus, but these people will need to continue to quarantine, as the virus continues to spread - and potentially strengthen - amongst young, healthy, vaccinated people.

some years, the flu vaccine is barely 70% effective.

it will help, but it's not a magic spell. be realistic...

so, i'm not saying it's not going to work. i remain convinced that masks don't work, and that i'd win a court battle over it. vaccines, though, should work. what i'm saying is i don't want a vaccine for a weak virus - it's not worth it. i want to catch it and fight it off.

see, the irony is that graeber has been bullshitting his way through this now for years.

i didn't get a response from anybody regarding the emails i sent out proving that this woman filed a false report and should be sent to jail for it. it's just reflective of the role that class plays in the justice system.

i'll need to get the report via a foia and go to the justice, myself.

and, you'll be sure i will.

i think i want to continue zapping these anchovies just to be safe, but they turn into mush, at even 20 seconds, and you have to scrape it off the plate. so, i want to dissolve them in a bit of water, i think, and zap the paste, instead.

the thing about garlic is that it becomes useless once it's cut (there's no point in storing half a clove for any length of time beyond a few hours), so i tried to chop it a little more finely, instead. that probably won't eliminate the garlic breath, but it might stop it from overpowering the bowl. right now, the results are mixed - it seems less extreme than yesterday, but still too much.

so, what's next? should i use half and throw the rest away? seems silly.

i wonder if i can just find smaller cloves.

no, you don't understand.

i haven't seen any film in roughly 15 years.

i try to keep up with music a little, but i haven't the slightest idea about film. i more or less decided that the medium was unworkable -  the idea of a film is inherently pointless, nothing of any value can ever come from it, it's just inherently a waste of time - and just completely ejected it.

i won't watch tv, either. i don't even know what tv is, anymore.

i've really watched nothing but news for the better part of my adult life. i just don't have time for film.

if you're curious, the actual truth is that i do not know who elliot/ellen page is (i have sincerely never heard of this person before. they're some kind of movie star or something, i take it? primarily popular amongst younger people than myself, from what i can tell?) and i have no comment on the matter besides a general statement of support for freedom of autonomous, individual choice in the matter of gender expression, if that had to be repeated at all.

what are my thoughts on the fact that i bummed a few smokes on sunday and one more on monday?

well, the term i would use is relapse. and, i'm not proud of it. so, if you want to interpret my behaviour, you need to begin from a starting point that is perhaps different than the one you are - i regret it; i wish it didn't happen. i'm ashamed of it, even. and, i'm now back to trying to avoid smoking as much as possible.

nicotine is a powerful physical addiction. while i've proven to myself that it is conquerable, as i always claimed it was, trying to downplay that or ignore it in analyzing the behaviour of people under it's influence is foolhardy.

i guess it started on saturday afternoon in amherstburg. i needed to null my aching muscles, so i bought the smallest amount of marijuana that i could. i smelled horribly when i got home, and was too tired to even shower when i got in. so, i contaminated everything - my clothes, my jacket, my bed. i woke up in a haze on sunday morning and knew i was going to have to go back out in the pollution to shop.

i decided when i was out shopping that it didn't matter at just that minute, that i smelled so bad anyways that i'd might as well. further, i was experimenting with edibles and nicking as a result of it. through the course of the day, i ended up bumming something like 5 cigarettes.

again: i wish i hadn't done that. that was a mistake.

but, it doesn't reflect on my broader desire to avoid smoking, it merely reflects on the difficulty of quitting. it's not hypocritical to struggle and fail - it's just failure, not hypocrisy. nothing's changed, except a mistake i made, that i regret.

it was the same thing over the summer. you can take a look back through my comments, and it's clear that i wish that that binge never happened. i've stated as much clearly. i nearly started smoking cigarettes again...i'm glad i caught myself before it was too late...

so, try to take this from the right perspective: i'm a recovering nicotine addict and a broadly straight-edge person. i have exceedingly negative views of smoking of any kind and, while i may make mistakes from time to time, i need to have it kept out of my living space if i'm to conquer it, permanently. so, i get very mad when people smoke near my living space, because i want to be rid of it, even if i have difficulty with it sometimes.

i want it away from me, and that is a sincere desire.

right now, it's stuffy in here, and all i can do is try to clean and wait for my sense of smell to get back to 100%.

needless to say, my mouth smells and tastes like garlic, which indicates i've metabolized it and it's coming out through the saliva...

i knew it was too much as i was eating it.

that was more sleep than i'd like, but less than before, so it's getting better. i'm going to do some laundry to try to clean up in here after the cleanliness disaster that kicked in on saturday - i feel sleep in my bed after biking five hours in the pollution. then, i let it sit because i was going grocery shopping on sunday, anyways. and again on monday. and, then i slept last night. 

i need to clean...

it severely damages the credibility of the national center for biotechnology information, as a source of reliable information.

how did this get published in a science journal? 

that's hilarious.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4389398/

garlic may do more good than harm for your teeth, it seems, although i wouldn't go so far as to use it as a replacement therapy for something more established. but, garbage like that has no place in the literature.