Clearly

Today, I went to the dentist. I go to the dentist a lot. I have a very positive attitude about the dentist, despite a few bad experiences and an overwhelming number of visits. This summer marks the beginning of the end of all my dental work, and it's looking to be a year-long tooth-a-thon.

So far this summer, I've had:

- 2 teeth drilled into

- 1 temporary cap placed (permanent will come in a week)

- 2 holes drilled into my jaws

- 2 posts driven into those holes

- 2 instances of numbing

- 4 stitches removed from my gums

- 4 prescriptions related to dental work

- 8 X-rays

- 7 different people stick their hands in my mouth

- 4 nightmares related to my teeth

- Around 8 hours sitting in a dentist's chair

It's been a month, but a lot had to happen all at once. After next week, it's all going to get chill until about August, when I have a final round of appointments to confirm scheduling and make sure my teeth aren't rotting from being in such a middling state of repair. And then it looks like this will all happen again this winter, and finish forever next spring.

My appointment today left me a bit traumatized. It was going to be a consult, but I ended up getting two of my molars drilled into for about three hours. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. More like 2.5 hours of solid drilling. My teeth were chattering by the end of it. Normally I'm super lax about dental work. But I went from thinking I had a nice empty day to having two different procedures done at once. No chance to mentally prepare myself combined with the weird emotional state I've been in apparently leads to me getting shaken. I'm not feeling so hot at this moment.

I'll get over it and move on, but man. It was rough. I hope it never goes this way again.

Digitized

Things. I've got 'em. And now, you're going to feel weird reading this list of things that I've got. Because it's probably not the sort of thing you're thinking of.

I've got a thing for men in fine suits.

I've got a thing for men with slender, but strong hands. Like you'd find on the cellist for a string quartet.

(I guess this means I've got a thing for cellists in string quartets that wear fine suits.)

I've got a thing for the bandaged invisible man look. Complete it with a nice hat and a fine suit, and I'm happy.

I've got a thing for nice hats.

I've got a thing for books bound in leather.

I've got a thing for maps and globes. The older, the better.

I've got a thing for masks. Every mask, every time.

I've got a thing for dice. Every number of sides, every possible color and size.

I've got a thing for sleek ties.

I've got a thing for heavy pieces of paper.

I've got a thing for playing cards.

I've got a thing for magic tricks.

I've got a thing for things that have faces on them, but normally shouldn't.

I've got a thing for plush animals. Or plush anything, really.

I've got a thing for knick-knacks.

I've got a thing for pinstripes, and demand they be in style.

I've got a thing for leather shoes.

I've got a thing for feathers in bright colors, especially red, yellow, and blue.

I've got a thing for the color combination of green and black, but I try to use it sparingly.

I've got a thing for drawing supplies.

I've got a thing for writing utensils.

I've got a thing for Batman.

I've got a thing for fish and birds.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore, I'm just listing things I really like. I was going somewhere with this, but I've forgotten.

Insomnabulist

I've never been very good at sleeping. I can't get a full rest in eight hours a night. I'll either take a long time trying to fall asleep, or I'll sleep the solid eight hours and feel like I've been up all night. On weekends, I'll sleep for a good 14 hours, and the only reason I get up is because I don't want to waste an entire day. I've even been known to do weird things, like hold conversations in my sleep, or fall asleep with my eyes open.

Once a year or so, I begin to wonder what is wrong with me. I'll do a bunch of internet research, decide that I have ____, and then continue on with life. I won't see a doctor because they'll prescribe pills, and I don't like pills. Sleeping pills only make me tired, so none of that.

I've always thought insomnia was my thing. I mean, I'm awake late into the night whether or not I am tired, so it makes sense. When my dad was diagnosed with a bad case of sleep apnea, I wondered if I had it, too. Quite a few times I've been falling asleep, and I've caught myself not breathing. Sometimes I wonder if Americans just have a poor understanding of how sleep should work, and it's actually super normal to be unable to sleep for eight solid hours. I even read an article once that said everything we know about good sleeping habits is wrong.

Ever since my senior year in highschool, I've been wondering if I'm narcoleptic. I don't suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate moments, but I will feel incredibly sleepy at intervals during the day. All I'll want to do is lie down, and it lasts for one to four hours before I'm okay again. It's usually during this time that I fall asleep with my eyes open. Doing research on it tonight, I realized that I have a lot of the symptoms associated with narcolepsy. But something in me doubts that I'm actually narcoleptic.

I'm finding out a lot of neat stuff about sleep disorders, though. Apparently it's weird to dream before you fall asleep? I always thought that you knew you were about to sleep because you were having a half-awake dream. And carrying on conversation in your sleep is entirely possible, so I'm not mistaken when I say I talk to people in my sleep sometimes. I can't find anything about how I'll fall asleep, but still look fully awake. I must just be weird.

Sounday

Ahahaha, it's one of those weeks where I don't know where I'll find the time to do everything, so I hardly do anything.

I may or may not be going crazy from stress ffffffffff I probably just need more sleep and a better diet. Actually, less sleep and a better diet. I didn't get out of bed until 1pm today.

If I can get one big thing done tomorrow, I'll feel a little better. If I can get two big things mostly done, I will feel back on track! Too bad I have three big things to do! Four big things to do? Six, if you count the next two weeks!

Bah! Pah! Bah! This is going to be the most incoherent Ubiquity post I've made yet, I think.

This is the most upbeat cartoon character I've ever seen. I don't know how he does it! Maybe he's been hit on the head too many times?

No worries, daughter Eliza! So you ran off into the Andes mountains by yourself shortly after tricking me, and then climbed too high and fainted from lack of oxygen! During a snow storm! And I had to build a snow house out of my own two hands and save you from a certain death! I probably would have done the same thing as a boy! Don't tell your mother. Good show.

Oh my! We seem to be sinking in quicksand! On our anniversary! In complete isolation from the rest of the world! No worries, it's still romantic!

Would you look at that! My oldest daughter drove our home off of a cliff and into a riverbed during a flood! Welp, I'm just gonna build a silly little boat! Nobody's in trouble at all! And while I sleep that night, all of my children will disappear! Smashing!

But his spirit breaks when he has trouble tracking an incredibly rare animal that is hardly ever seen by humans. This man is my hero.

Lid it Up

I have this really big pad of old newsprint that my mother bought when I was little. It's like two and a half feet long, the pages are huge. And then I have a smaller pad that's only a foot and a half long--But that's still pretty big. Whenever I do a project that might be messy, like painting something, I lay down a piece of this newsprint paper. I'd rather lay down regular ol' newspaper, but that stuff is hard to find. So yellowed newsprint it is!

I taped a sheet down onto my desk the other day because I wanted to paint some felt. I haven't bothered to take it off, because I love having paper on my desk like this to write and take notes on.

Anyways, I drew a bird on the paper:

That's the whole point of this story. I wanted to show somebody this bird I drew, before I inevitably rip it off my desk by accident. I love this bird, it looks great in real life. It's also sideways, and about six inches long.

I don't know why I drew it sideways on the paper.

I also drew it all in pen. Colored it with colored pencils.

This is how I spend my time.

I wish I had a better camera.

Yams

I can't seem to stop laying in bed. I went to bed at eight last night, and then woke up around noon today. I then spent a better part of the day laying in bed with my laptop. I finally got up when a friend wanted me to come visit. I am so tired lately. My blood doesn't seem to be flowing the way it should. Maybe I'm depressed? Let's hope I snap out of it soon.

I've been having trouble drawing things. What is this, an eight year artblock? I think that lately it's less been an artblock, and more been a loss of skills due to lack of practice. I've been doing what I can to overcome it, but without much luck. Every so often I seem to be in the zone to make something, and I treasure those few times. But I've had to cut corners each time. I haven't drawn a complete face in a very long time.

I wish I could say that I've had a lack of ideas of interesting things to draw, but that just is not true. I've actually been posting ideas of interesting things to draw on my cork board. There's some good stuff up there. But I can't seem to get any of it out. Maybe because they're all different people?

I'm just bitter because I tried to draw some clouds the other day, and they turned out terribly. They used to be the one thing I was good at, and I totally failed it. Total stab to the ego.

The Perfect Perfect

It is Saturday.

Saturday means a few things for me:

- I won't do any homework

- I probably won't eat a proper meal

- I won't get out of bed until well past noon

- I won't get dressed until about 4pm

- I won't shower unless I am literally leaking grossness

- I won't accomplish anything, not even fun stuff

That is, until about 5 or 6 pm, at which point I suddenly clean up, polish my mind, and go play DnD with some friends. But yeah, except for that, I like to waste my Saturdays doing nothing at all. Sometimes I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours. Often times, the only things I eat are a cup of tea and a few handful of almonds. I've heard of people going on eating binges on the weekends, but I pretty much do the exact opposite. I'm just not hungry on the weekends.

Anyways, last night I had a dream about DnD, pirates, and hugs. We were playing an epic game of DnD and it was great. Then I lost a special dice mean for a special someone (just a d8, actually), and I felt awful about it. It had fallen overboard off the pirate ship we were on. I required hugs to feel better. Then another friend of mine found it, and I required hugs to thank her. Then I gave the missing die back, and required hugs to apologize. Then a large tsunami wave came to kill us all, and I required hugs for protection. We all survived, but out pirate ship crashed. We had a group hug.

For some reason, after waking up, I felt like I could really use a hug.