Thursday afternoon roundup (I'll explain)

This man is brilliant! So rarely do I read a man whose writing resonates the way Ron Charles does:

It’s distressing, of course, when a woman is right; when she’s witty, too, it’s intolerable. Fortunately, we can draw upon a reliable cache of special words to denigrate women’s speech, from “harping” to “bitching,” but until the waiters could shoo these harridans from the old boys club, we had to hear them nagging: When a man writes a novel about marriage and family, we call it “literature”; when a woman does it, we call it “women’s fiction.” 

and

Instead, “One Last Thing Before I Go” mopes along in that long line of “whiny man” books — stories about white guys who just can’t seem to figure out why their lives aren’t going better. If you write like Hemingway or Updike, the whiny man’s plight can be transcendent and profound. But without that kind of stylistic magic and psychological insight, it’s like being trapped at Denny’s with an old friend from high school who’s just moved back in with his parents.

You know that manliness crisis everyone's been writing about? Well, holy crap, it's reached unprecedented proportions.

***
You may be wondering why I'm here. Well, early this week, I started experiencing pain in the area of my left wisdom teeth. For years, various dentists have said, "keep an eye on those... we don't like them, but I guess if they don't bother you, you can leave them be." So I did. And then they really started to bother me. I realized it might be a while before I actually got an appointment, but I was still on the fence so I didn't go out of my way to do anything about it. On Monday, I tried to find my dental insurance information. On Tuesday, toward the end of a mostly crazy day, I managed to called my insurance company and got my info from them, and then looked up providers, of which there were not many. On Wednesday morning, which was crazy, I asked a couple of coworkers whether they'd had the procedure. They all made it sound very serious but manageable. That afternoon, I called the first group. It was 1:47, and they were out of the office for lunch until 2pm. I called the next office. Their oral surgeon was only in on Thursdays, but they just had a cancellation for 8am the next morning. Could I come in then? Why not?

I let my team know I'd be out of the office the next day, to which one colleague responded, "what, did you find someone with a new set of pliers??" He, and another, said they probably wouldn't let me leave the office on my own. But the receptionist didn't say anything about that. Still, I asked a friend who worked nearby if she'd be on call to collect me, and she graciously agreed. I didn't really know what was happening: was the surgery on, or just a consultation? What kind of anesthetic did they offer? Was I supposed to fast?

I knew nothing, so I took the necessary precautions, knowing I'd be unable to get another Thursday appointment for the next two weeks. I ate dinner but not breakfast, and had no fluids, either. I showed up at 8am, was seating 15 minutes later, was locally anesthetized another 15 minutes later, and got up with all four wisdom teeth pulled at 9:15. I texted my escort-on-standby to say I was about to walk out, e-mailed my colleagues to let them know I definitively wouldn't be in, and went to pick up my prescriptions. So I may have set a new record: Appointment made at 1:50pm the day before, appointment begun at 8am, out by 9:15, on the metro by 10ish and home before 10:30. Now the Novocaine is starting to wear off and I'm hoping the vicodin and motrin start to hit. The tea bags helped with the bleeding, but it comes back.

Even though I only got the localized anesthetic, which was my preference and theirs, I'm glad I didn't eat. It was good not to have to worry about bathroom breaks, etc. That said, I had to get food into my body so I could take the medications, and it was hard to consume anything (even coconut milk) without any feeling in my mouth.

Anyway, that's why I'm here. I'm going to catch up on newspapers and stuff, will let you know if I see anything good.