Fractured

My tooth was fractured. I know not how that came to pass, though I am reminded of how much I hate sleeping with Helena cuz she kicks me in the face.

Dental procedures have begun. The tooth nerve was extracted. I wanted to see what the dead nerve looked like, but then I forgot to ask, or I lost my nerve.

I am unnerved by the fact that the dentist at the emergency clinic and the dentist whom I usually see told me different, almost contradictory, things. I feel I have little choice but to trust my dentist even though that trust has been shaken. I feel that very worst of all possible feelings: not in control.

Owing to poor planning and shitty timing, I had to take Helena with me to the dental clinic. I'm extremely proud of the little monkey; she kept herself quietly entertained for a full hour.

Have I mentioned how much Helena enjoys the word "pen"? She says "pen" with such glee whenever she finds one, which in this house is very often. This week Helena has discovered that crayons are for more than chewing on; she has taken up scribbling with a vengeance.

Scribbling Woman posted links aplenty on pens. I think it's pretty neat that people feel so strongly about their pens, and their notebooks too. I used to take my pens very seriously — occupational hazard — but not so much anymore. Primarily because I no longer edit on hardcopy. I've loved many notebooks, too, saving them up for something "special." Now I buy notebooks at the dollar store and I use them all the time for taking notes: comments on anything that strikes me, whenever it strikes me. I even take notes on things I intend to get around to blogging about later. Once I've dealt with a particular set of notes, transferring comments to the appropriate forum or completing the to-do list or discounting a theory as silly and alcohol-induced, I tend to rip out the pages and destroy them.

Bookninja indicates a list of mathematical fiction, and we all know that math + fiction = freakin' good time. I question the inclusion of some works, but seeing as how I'm familiar with but a handful or two of these works, I'll hang on to this list as a springboard for future reading. One oversight obvious to me is t zero, by Italo Calvino.

In a second I'll know if the arrow's trajectory and the lion's will or will not coincide at a point X crossed by L and by A at the same second t_x...

The short story "t zero" is about that second.

Coincidentally (have I mentioned that I believe in the interconnectedness of all things?), Bookninja also links to an essay on the experience of reading and rereading Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller:

My conclusions, for what they are worth, are: some books are best loved when young; the older me has more time for Calvino the fabulist (Our Ancestors), Calvino the short-story writer (Adam, One Afternoon) or Calvino the essayist (Six Memos for the Next Millennium) than for Calvino the Escher; and that however breathtakingly inventive a book is, it is only breathtakingly inventive once. But once is better than never.

Often, once is more than enough.

Have I mentioned that I was once just outside the town of Malbork? ("Outside the Town of Malbork" is the title of one of the chapters the protagonist You reads under the mistaken impression that is the continuation of the book If on a Winter's Night a Traveller You is reading.)(Circumstances conspired to keep me from visiting the castle therein.)

Have I mentioned that my cat's name is Calvino?