There is no frigate like some floss.

I have maintained my healthy vigor in the realm of oral hygiene. My flossing record remains unsullied.

Novelty appears to be a big part of maintaining an interest in any undertaking. I begin to weary to my nightly station there leaning against the bathroom sink and reaching into the nether regions of my mouth. I am half tempted to start flossing in a different room each night despite the obvious risks involved. I say here “obvious” in part because I know somebody who back in the dim bygone days of the early 1990’s was rather passive-aggressively thrown out of her apartment by a roommate who objected to the habit this person had (the habit the soon-to-be-thrown-out personhad, not any objectionable habits the person who was doing the throwing might have had, though tossing out a roommate by means of a note is fairly  objectionable whether a habitual abuse or no) — anyway, I digress into legalistic moral judgments: the note-leaving roommate objected to the habit this person had of walking around the house while flossing her teeth but did not feel she had the compunction to stand up and request that her roommate stop with the perpipatetic flossing routine (such perhaps being the implicit moral authority of a regular flosser such as to cow others into silence).

But I have no wish to sow the seeds of domestic discord so I shall instead cleave unto my conventional station there over the sink peering at the mirror and into the dim recesses of my mouth while sawing away at my incisors, and seek seek the unknown shore during some other less energetic hygienic interlude — perhaps while scrubbing at my face with the washcloth.

Why yes.

Yes I did.

A frivolous interlude.

I have created a short animated film in which a sad clown recites my previous entry.

Bloodied but unbowed.

I have sustained a flossing injury. (Small abrasion near the inside fold of the first knuckle of the the left index finger.) The obvious culprit would be my winding technique, which appears to be slicing into my dermis like a two-bit cheese slicer. The aggressive engirdlement of floss about my index fingers also seems to cut off most of the circulation to the outer extremities of my digits and certainly a defiant stance against gingivitis is no reason to embrace gangrene. So I have decided to loosen up my grip a bit and switch over to a two-handed backhand with more of a focus on a consistent stroke rather than a baseline power game.

And despite the temptation to go on the injured reserve, I did indeed floss last night.

Hey Commandment Four my apologies OK?

I flossed again last night. And the night before.

I wish I could claim that my break in blog entries yesterday could be attributed to observance of the Sabbath but I am not a terrifically adept sabbatarian. Unless you consider the fact that I always carry something of the Sabbath about me at all times and slip the surly bonds of labor with a perhaps disconcerting ease.

I sing of teeth and the man.

It will probably not come as a surprise to many that I once spent a year writing poems about plumbing, specifically little formal pieces exploring questions of toilets and chrome valves and the furnishings of public restrooms and the looming presence of death inherent in all human endeavor despite our obsessive efforts at encapsulation, regimentation and sterility.

Not that I stopped wearing my seatbelt or anything — I esteem a healthy lifespan and clean toilets as much as the next guy but I guess what I’m saying here is that there exists ample aesthetic precedent for taking a specific aspect of hygiene and hammering away at it for extended periods until the mania passes and my spouse comes in to find me twitching in a heap on the floor.

Of course it’s not like I needed incentive to pee more or anything back then, so at least this little foray into oral hygiene will have some tangible benefit. (That is if one does not consider producing a chapbook’s worth of material on the American Standard company something other than a tangible benefit.)

Flossed again last night. About to floss right now.

My dental floss, my petite madeleine.

I flossed again last night.

I am a little unsettled that the act of flossing has become an end in itself. It’s a bit like swinging a hammer around without worrying about the nails. Which is foolish unless you are in a Saturday morning special in which a spunky preteen girl is trying to resurrect your minor-league pitching career by having you hammer nails into a log until you suddenly develop a curve ball.

Man.

Flossing has succeeded in dredging up the dim recollections of hack children’s television of the late 1970s. And my guess is that there is no yoked association in my life between dental floss and hammers and/or this television movie. I am not transported back to some more innocent anteperiodontal age of tender affection and uplifiting television. Is there no act so trivial that in paying it a modicum of attention it cannot fail to call up some seemingly random association?

On certain teleological implications of flossing.

I flossed again last night.

I’m still waiting for that sense of ambient smugness (my loose translation here of arete, at least as it relates to the Artistotelian aspects of oral hygiene) that usually accompanies my occasional forays into a life of virtue. I think back here to my days spent as a jogger of sorts in the early 1990’s, days well remembered by some friends of mine if only for the gaily-colored yellow tights I would don before pounding up and down the streets of Sunnyvale, Calif.  (In fact to this day the cognomen “Bananaman” is still thrown up in my face by some whenever I undertake a new exercise regimen.)

But at least the entwined senses of virtuous persecution and moral superiority were a wonderful relish to the less tangible benefits of sore knees and clownish apparel, all of which raises of course the question of whether a life lived in accordance with the dictates of smugness may be led in any way other than in relationship to the perceived failings of others. But persecution for my flossing has been so far minimal, and I am loathe to inquire too closely into the state of my neighbors’ gums.

(“Neighbors” is here used broadly in the whole Luke 10:25-37 sense, lest folks on the block feel the need to spend their time in my presence with their jaws clamped shut.)

In which we hone our media skills.

I flossed again last night. Three nights straight now. I entertain notions of becoming the Jeff Feagles of oral hygiene.

I shall bear down and focus and continue to take this “one game” at a “time.”

Also: Hi Mom.

I will note here that I  did not realize the depth of emotion attendant upon flossing for the population at large. From opinions on the preferred brand of floss to feelings of inadequacy or even revelations that some never step out into the world without a container of floss secreted away in some pocket or clutch — nothing so far would indicate that such a thing as indifferent neutrality exists re: flossing.

I begin to suspect there are no dental floss “atheists” in “foxholes.”

I flossed last night.

And the night before as well.

I’m having great success so far with Crest Glide Comfort Plus Mint Floss. (The 40 meter package.)

With the start of the new year I think we could do worse than to meditate on the legacy of Levi Spear Parmly.