Meanderings: September 21, 1999

Tuesday,
September 21, 1999

Excuse me while I probe the new filling in an upper molar. Have I mentioned recently that I have the World's Best Dentist (Dr. Margareta Axelsson, Backvägen 83, Stockholm, 300 SEK per half hour and worth every ore)? This is the woman who pulled out my cracked wisdom tooth with a dexterity that Indiana Jones would have admired (fifteen minutes and it was out, no swelling, nothing but ibuprofen needed over the weekend and I was dandy by Monday) -- I've now completed one extraction and two fillings with ceramic composite, and I have one more filling and a replacement of an amalgam filling that's shifted to go. And man, I can't wait to get this damn amalgam filling out and replaced -- I had it done back in 1994, by a dentist who couldn't be bothered to take the time and freeze my jaw properly for what was supposed to be a root canal. When I kept grabbing his hands because I could FEEL the drill probing my tooth, he snorted and said, "Well, obviously the nerve is healthy -- we'll just give you a deep filling." I was almost crying with relief by that point to get out of his office, but this filling has done nothing but annoy me over the years -- it's sitting directly on the nerve, so application of anything hot or cold to the filling gets transmitted directly to the tooth. Can you say, "AIE!" I knew you could.

But now that I have Dr. Axelsson, Dentist of the Gods, I can lie back in the dentist's chair until all the blood is running to my head with complete peace and relaxation, and watch little bits of my tooth spray into the air as she drills. Rapture!

Yeah, I know -- I gotta get a life (that last image is also more than a little disgusting). This is week two of the SFF.Net Story Dare (I finished RAISING BEAUTY -- 6,404 words, rough as all hell, but it's on paper), and when I posted the results on my second piece on Monday night, someone told me to slow down and take a break. Well, to be perfectly honest, the bulk of THE ONLY DIET YOU'LL EVER NEED was stuff I'd written last year, but she did have a point. Unfortunately, I also seem to be experiencing one of those little pranks of the endocrine system where life is generally pooping along all right, but you still feel grumbly and blue. No, I don't have depression -- PMS is more like it.

So life in general is fine, but I just need more of it. I dunno -- maybe what I really need is some fantastic adventure. Or maybe some adult education classes in English. Whatever.

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