What I Learned in Space

1) A plane full of journalists worrying about barfing in front of one another is funny.

2) M&Ms and water are amazing toys to play with when you're weightless.

3) M&Ms and water are disgusting, goopy things to lay down on when you're not weightless anymore and they've been smeared all over the plane.

Tele-phooey

Setting what must be some sort of consumer electronics record for epic failure, my third Treo 650 died yesterday. My IT department is ordering me a new phone—the Treo 750—and it will probably get here in a few days, but in the meantime, I don’t have a phone.

Yes, I recognize the absurdity of purchasing the next iteration of a product that has absolutely, definitively not worked, but among the options, I think it’s the best one. Either that, or I go back to paying for my own phone service, and since this is basically the one perk I get from this job, you will have to pry the phone from my cold, dead hands.

Although you might not want to bother, since it probably won’t be working.

Kristen Salvatore, MD

I take oral hygiene very seriously.

Nine years ago, during my first visit to the dentist in about three years, the attending doc leaned back and asked me, "So, are you interested in keeping your own teeth as you get older, or is your plan for dentures?" Because it's me, I was crushed that I'd let down this dentist I'd never met before, and as a result became a serial flosser/fluoride rinser. I haven't had a cavity since.

So imagine my surprise when a routine X-ray turned up what my dentist (different guy) described as "something bad." Then he asked me if I'd ever been in a car accident or been hit hard in the mouth. This seemed to embarrass me more than him, for some reason--I generally approach people's possible traumas gingerly--but luckily he didn't take that as cause to call health and human services. He just explained that it looked like the bottom of the root of one of my front teeth was infected and that I'd need a root canal. I thought this sounded crazy--I am a serial flosser!--but the X-ray did in fact show a big, black blotch on one of my front teeth.

I will spare you all the details of my root canal, except to say while it a) wasn't painful, it was b) absolutely disgusting, and it c) required several stitches. This is what they looked like:

I've had stitches before--many times, in fact--so four stitches at once wasn't new to me. Four stitches that looked like permanent shit in my front teeth was new (black thread? in my mouth? really?), but stitches, no, I'm old hat at those.

After a day spent on the couch with HRH Prince Vicodin (take a moment, bow to him), it was time to head em up, move em out, and head back to work. So I performed my morning ablutions--wash it, dry it, moisturize it--and got ready to head out. Before I did, I decided to rinse the coffee cup I'd been sipping from. Which was totally cool until it broke off in my hand and slice my thumb open something fierce.

This is what that looked like:

So me and my four existing stitches went off to the hospital (and I'd like to take a moment here to thank my ex for just dropping me off outside the emergency room and then heading out--what a sweetheart, folks!), where we met Dr. Matt:

got all shot up:

and added five stitches:


bringing the full stitch count to a total of nine, in two different places, for unrelated incidents.

I told Dr. Matt that had to be some sort of record. He rewarded me by telling me that if I was careful, I could take my own stitches out when they were ready.

And I did:




(Full disclosure: this happened two years ago, but I just stumbled upon the pictures/video.)