Numb skull

And numb mouth to match. Not even Rick Monday could save me from this Monday (and he's good at saving things too). At 7:00 in the morning, I went back to the dentist this morning for my cleaning and filling. As I wrote to my wife, "I had a Russian woman dentist with the beside manner of...a Russian woman." She barked things out to me throughout the procedure as if she were in charge of this mission and she'd be damned if some kid from America was going to blow it for her. "Head down." "Bite!" "Open more!" "Floss better." Since she passed dental school, I'm pretty sure she has the ability to say more than two words at a time, but after an hour with her, I can't say for sure. I'm having some oatmeal now, but I still feel like I have three cheeks on top of each other on the right side of my face. Let's hope this wears off by the time I want to eat actual food.

So, we went to Twilight's birthday party with the karaoke aspects I'd been worrying about. As it turns out, the singing set up was different than I'd imagined, and we're all happier for it. Instead of one person with a mic up at the front of the room, there were three mics being passed around the seated guests. This led to a lot of group songs and less of the pressure I'd put on myself. "Piano Man" by Billy Joel was a big hit, with tipsy folk belting it out loud and proud. I sang along on a few, but only truly co-starred in one. First, allow me to set the scene a little more. I would estimate that 80% was gay. Therefore, almost the entire Rent soundtrack got played (including one duet twice in a row for some reason - there was almost a gay-off to decide who was better). So when time came for me to "straight it up", my fellow breeder Dusty and I performed a lovely duet of Dr. Dre's "Gin and Juice." Nothing changes the flow of a party quite like "We gonna smoke an ounce of this/G's up, ho's down while you muthafuckers bounce to this" and "So turn out the lights and close the door/But for what? We don't love them ho's." We yelled "Bee-otch" a few times when the screen told us to, and Dusty took the liberty of changing "Compton" to "Encino" in one of the lines.

After the applause died down, one of the party guests announced that there was too much misogyny in that song and that the party needed a change. Naturally, she opted for a Dixie Chicks song about killing a man who either abused or sexually assaulted the protagonist. I didn't hear all of the lyrics, but I'm sure it undid the ill will that the Straight Posse brought to the party. Final score: Murder 1, Bee-otch 0.

Wimpiest sentence I've written all month: I'm sore from playing Nintendo. Dave bought the Nintendo Wii, and after swinging the controller violently to mimic the motions in the tennis, golf, baseball, and bowling games, my body thinks I actually played them. On one hand, it's really cool to have the system work like that. I actually was doing front-hands and back-hands in the tennis game to hit the ball. On the other, when I play a video game, it's not because I want exercise. I want a system so I can sit and be mentally stimulated for a while, not stand and work out. It's a cool system, and I definitely want to see what it's like with other games, but it's not one I walked away from saying "I have to have that."

I just dug my fingernail into my gums, and I officially have some feeling back now. I probably should've tried that a different way that wouldn't result in pain. Live and learn, eh?

Time to do actual work now. Sucky. Good luck with the rest of the Monday, everyone.