dentists, Gwyneth Paltrow & bread

Had my annual dental check-up yesterday morning. Wasn't feeling sick enough to cancel, and my dentist is popular enough that I knew that trying to re-book would be a nightmare.

I used to dread dentists' appointments as a child. I was terrified of my dentist, who seemed very big and grumpy and gruff-voiced. He did not use freezing/anaesthetic when drilling, just for extractions. He would mutter "Shut up!" if we whimpered during treatment (my sister also remembers this). He was supposedly one of the best in the field, however, with an excellent reputation for working with children.

I love my current dentist. She is cheery and gentle and compassionate, so much so that even when she is causing me pain, I feel like hugging her because she so obviously hates causing me discomfort. When I arrived for my appointment yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the reams of holiday season cards displayed on the walls, the gift baskets overflowing into the hallway. I feel guilty for not sending my dentist a holiday season card or gift basket.





Played Gwyneth Paltrow for an hour last night. I've been neglecting her; I could tell from the way her D string stubbornly kept sliding out of tune, as if she was punishing me for ignoring her for so long.

I've decided to shut down Harpresource.com. I started it while I was in Philadelphia because I wanted a fun online project (Inkspot definitely wasn't fun anymore), but now I'm trying to cut down on non-writing projects so I can focus on my freelance writing.

One of my problems is that I've found that there are too many interesting things to do, but not nearly enough time to do them all. I don't understand people who say they're bored; I feel like jumping up and down and screaming at them (you think I'm kidding, but I'm not). It ties into my impatience with time-wasting people and activities. Life is too short and precious to fritter away. My advice to people who are bored: find something you're passionate about and pursue that, whether it's childrearing or writing or cooking or poetry or collecting widgets. And to clarify, relaxing and doing nothing on purpose is not the same thing as being bored (unless you're complaining about being bored, of course).

Anyway, I've realized that a crime almost as bad is to try pursuing too many things, because it means you don't go after any one thing properly, and you end up unhappy with all of them. I really liked Bilbo's line in Fellowship of the Ring: "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

My goal is to cut down on the bread. :)

(I love food analogies.)





Links/News:

According to SeattlePI.com, a 19-year-old self-published his fantasy novel, heavily promoted it, then sold it and two unpublished sequels to Knopf for over $500,000. Not only that, but this guy is a budding artist as well! (check out his art gallery).

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Today's Blatherpics:

I took the top two while waiting in the dentist's chair at my appointment yesterday. The bottom image is a partial scan of my article in The Dollar Stretcher magazine, which arrived in the mail yesterday.