Things are moving along in the world of storytelling. I'm up to 6,782 words on my current story, which is less than I hoped for today thanks to not writing yesterday. After a long walk following a beer-fueled dinner, I managed to squeeze out about another page of new material. I have almost figured out what the story is about--now I only need to write it and finish the first draft, which turns out to be much easier to say than do.

Doolies is arriving on Saturday evening. She's visiting for an entire month, and I can't wait! I found this cute engagement comic during my normal surfing. Doolies now insists that I draw a comic describing our engagement. I resisted, reminding Doolies that my drawing skills involve painting monsters, and unless she wants me to draw her as a monster (and one that looks different in each cell), she should accept my bad poetry in lieu of clever comics.

I went to the dentist today for the first time in a year and a half. It turns out my teeth are in good shape. Cavities (of which I have had my unfair share) seem to be a thing of the past. The dentist explained that as you age, your teeth become more stable, perhaps less susceptible to bacteria (or something like that--I was busy breathing deeply and trying not to freak out to remember everything that he said). My anxiety stems (quite naturally, I believe) from my childhood visits to the dentist. My mother, in her Jewish wisdom, decided that the needles dentists stick into gums to dull the pain (hence the "painless dentistry we were promised) were somehow more painful than the drilling of ten holes (on average) per visit in my teeth. I'm still recovering from the child abuse. What my mother failed to realize is that while the needles might look scary, the pain is much quicker than the incessant drilling. From grueling experience I can now tell you that there's nothing like the feeling of drill bit on nerve to develop a deep-seated hatred for all things dental. I guess it doesn't help that my mother has good teeth and probably never had a cavity. She couldn't share those genes with me?