It's Valentine's Day again. I'm in Phoenix begging to pick up a trip in order to make some overtime. Alas, my attitude towards Valentine's Day hasn't changed since last year. While I had the option to go home and spend the morning with Laura, the commute would have been far to crazy for it to be worth it. For the record, Laura's attitude towards Valentine's Day hasn't changed either.

I got my wisdom teeth out just the other day. Now I have a little bit of dental insurance, but it still cost me hundreds of dollars to get four teeth taken out. When I was a kid, the tooth fairy was supposed to give me money. The most I ever saw from that sick, tooth-hoarding broad was a Loonie (that's a dollar). Usually, I got a quarter for incisors and a pair of quarters for a molar. Even if I had put that money into a high-yield savings account, I would be caught holding the short end of the stick today. Where is the justice in that?

Seeing that the topic has been on my mind so much lately, I have been thinking about being a dentist when I grow up. I mean, you get to torture people and they pay you for it. Let's face it, I don't have the legs to be a dominatrix.

I don't work in Washington DC anymore!

The company finally let me come back out west, and now I am working out of Phoenix. I am pretty happy about that; however, because Phoenix is my base, the company will not pay for a hotel room here. So, I rent an apartment with my closest friend Jason, and my new flatmate Amberlie-she's a flight attendant for us. The saddest part about the transition back west is that I was in DC for almost four months and I never saw the White House, or any of the monuments. I did however get to go to the Smithsonian. So I guess it wasn't a total loss.

Anyway, this morning I was on reserve from 4:00 am to 4:00 pm. Jason's reserve shift didn't begin until noon, and he's in Des Moines now I guess. Amberlie has been away on a four-day trip since before either of us woke up this morning. The funny thing about sitting on reserve is that it's not like work. You wait for a phone call. Usually, if the company hasn't called by 10am, there isn't a call. It's very boring, and not very lucrative.

So I was sitting around, talking to myself about how I needed to go work-out and how gay it was that I had to sit in Phoenix, not working and not getting paid while I could be at home with my kids. Jason, who was sitting near me was on his computer, was listening to me at about half listening-power when he piped up in a frustrated tone. "I can't find anything on Google!" I put my bitching on pause for a minute and looked over at him, "What are you searching for." Without looking away from his computer he calmly and very seriously said, "'Real Jobs.'" I erupted in laughter. "I'm serious," he continued. "should we be truck drivers? What's the name of that driving school? Truckmasters I think it was?"

For those of you who are pilots, you're laughing hard. If you're not a pilot but a fan of Top Gun, you probably got his joke. If you're a nursing student or a cake maker, It's probably not that funny. Pilots would laugh at that because pilots know every line to the movie Top Gun. Top Gun fans know that line for sure. Nursing students and cake makers, probably not. Boo-ya.

So here is the thing. I think Jason is actually going to quit his job to go to culinary school to be a cake maker, while I will pursue my dreams of becoming a nurse. It's either that or we'll be trucking partners after we finish a two weeks at truck-driving college. We'll keep you posted.

I'm sure many of you, after reading the title of this post, are gearing up to read about how I have trouble curbing my foul language and how I am working on not swearing as much. You are expecting me to tell you that I have learned that the tongue has the power of life and death, and that I am on the path to speaking sweetly. You're wrong. I'm quitting tobacco, and I'm chewing nicotine gum just so I don't kill somebody; what the hell is wrong with you? This post is about my wisdom teeth.

For the last few days I have been suffering from a tooth that desperately wants to come out. It is one of my four wisdom teeth that are all vying for some real estate in my mouth. Unfortunately, three of the four teeth are impacted. Roughly, what this means is that the tooth grows in the wrong direction and rubs and grinds and infects and hurts and causes me to consume mass quantities of Excedrin. It also means that the only alternative is to get surgery.

It's not as simple as getting a few teeth pulled. They actually have to go in and smash each tooth into pieces and pull out all the little fragments afterward. Now that's what we in the medical business call a "smash-and-grab job." That has got to be pleasant. I don't know what I am going to do about it. What's worse, I have known that this day was coming for the last three years, and I still don't know what to do. I have about two-dozen friends who are dental hygienists that would tell me to just go to the dentist; and that would be fine, if I knew dentists who wanted to extend me a professional courtesy of a referral to an oral surgeon. But I'm not a hygienist, and that crap costs money. A lot of money.

Sure I have dental benefits. But really, dental benefits are there so that I can pay someone some money to feel like I'm covered. Really, it turns out that my benefits will only cover a third of the cost. I wish I had opted out of my dental coverage. Oh well.

Presently, the Excedrin is working just fine. I'm willing to bet that this tooth sinks back down in a little while, and I can delay surgery, again, for another few months. They tend to do this from time to time. To those of you in the medical/dental profession, yes, I am well aware that infections can be fatal, and that bone loss can, and will, and is most likely occurring. Thank you. I have been so advised.

Check that out, not a single swear word.

LeAnn Rimes and I have a little thing going. At first I was ashamed to write it down; after all, how do you really talk about waking up to a woman who isn't your wife? There was that one time back in September in Tuscan. In October in Oklahoma City she graced me again. In November, we hooked up San Antonio. In December she made her way up to Pittsburgh with me. Now again this morning, here in Columbia, South Carolina I have woken up to her lovely voice again. When I asked her why she keeps following me around the country she simply said:

nothin' better to do, got nothin' better to do

It's odd, I have woken up to that song more times than any other song. Well, that might not be true. If I forget to set the radio at night before I go to bed, I generally wake up to some Mexican radio station. These stations are a hit with the cleaning ladies. Who knows, there might be some song that I don't know and cannot recognize. There is an equally as good chance that there is a Mexican senorita that has been trying to get my attention as well. I'm sorry ma'am, I can't help you.

Waking up to LeAnn–yeah, we're on a first name basis now–isn't bad at all. I mean there are a lot worse options, it could have been Courtney Love or Rita Macniel.