No rounding up.

The alarm went off at 4:50 this morning. When my parents were getting up at 5:50, they referred to it as, "ten 'til six," and my aunt Kathy argued with them: "Not ten 'til six! Five fifty!" I feel that way about 4:50, a bit. It is not a humane hour, and it should not be rounded up to five o'clock, which is also not a humane hour but is one in which I have sometimes found myself awake anyway. I'm a morning person. But not a 4:50 morning person.

I have a dentist appointment this morning. She will tell me if my wisdom tooth is coming in okay (it hurts less this morning than it did last night, by a long shot) and other teeth-stuff. It occurred to me, when I was picking a dentist off the insurance list, that I really haven't had much for male health care personnel in my life. A few nurses, mostly, and one "I need this stupid exam to renew my prescription because my doctor in California was deliberately controlling and bitchy about it" visit. There's no reason I should specifically want a female dentist. There's nothing about dentistry that requires ovaries, to the best of my knowledge. But on the other hand, what I really want is a dentist who reminds me of Susan, my old dentist, and like most Susans, Susan is female.

I have no idea what I will be doing with the rest of my day. I'm not at all sure what I should rely on my brain to process accurately. I tried to go back to bed after dropping markgritter off at the airport, but I didn't manage to get back to sleep. Instead, my brain said to me, "I think you should white-paper the first chapter of Thermionic Night. Yep. Redo it entirely from scratch. Redeem the suckage. Go." Riiiiight. Thanks, brain. I got out of bed in self-defense.

Not quite perfect

The dentist kept crowing, "Perfect teeth! Such perfect teeth!" But in fact they are not quite perfect: two of the wisdom teeth need to leave my mouth. An you love me, please do not share your wisdom tooth extraction horror stories with me. I already know plenty upon plenty of them. We don't have it scheduled yet, but that's on the list, oh joy and bliss. Make reassuring noises like "it'll all be over before you know it" if you must. I don't need the "seven weeks of total agony!" stuff.

The hygienist was at Kato State when the tornado hit St. Pete, so we talked about tornado memories when I could talk at all. I got her talking about her dog with her fingers in my molars, so that was just fine. ("Why should I talk about my cats when I'm in the shower? Am I afraid of my cats?")

I have no idea what's for dinner tonight, or what I'm going to manage to get done at this stage of weariness. I don't think "curl up with The Ionian Mission and stare off into space" is a reasonable agenda for the rest of the day, but maybe for awhile, at least....