I am now somewhere in the region of 80% done with my insanely intensive and invasive dental work. Today's session was supposed to last about an hour and a half. It ran three hours solid, all of which was spent under nitrous oxide, listening to Adam sing version after version of "Rain King." (It turns out, by the way, that I can get through approximately twenty versions of "Rain King" in three hours, intermixed with a truly awesome number of alternate lyrics. In case you were wondering, this is all that keeps me sane when I have to face my ultimate phobia...the friendly, smiling Dr. Mason. The characters were named before I got this dentist, I swear.)

Three hours of nitrous leaves me woozy, unsteady, and barely able to stand up on my own. My mother, who is sometimes a cruel woman, finds this hysterical, and likes to point and laugh. Luckily, she also likes to take me to IHOP for the calories necessary to put my stomach back into its original position. I might otherwise be forced to kill her.

The cats also find this hysterical, as well as useful, since I mostly sit still with my laptop on my legs, petting the cats and watching DVDs of The West Wing. I really wasn't planning to spend my entire day in a drugged stupor, but there you go. Peh.

On the plus side, I finally finished Sparrow Hill Road #7, "Do You Want to Dance?" It's off with my first-pass proofers now, getting smashed to pieces with hammers. I like this stage. It's the stage that I have nothing whatsoever to do with. This leaves me with five stories to go before the big finish, and then...well, then, I suppose I'll be focusing back on Velveteen and her crew. I actually have an installment in process right now, "Velveteen vs. The Secret Identity," which will almost certainly prove to be messy for everyone involved. Fun!

Now I sit here in my leopard-print nightie, trying to figure out where I left my feet. I am really not recovering from today's procedure in anything resembling a swift or coherent manner.

Peh.