A Twist of Things to Come

Well, now. I am about $1000.00 poorer but I have a temporary crown and an appointment to get the permanent one. Not having dental coverage sucks, but a plan with dental coverage runs almost that much a month, on top of what we are paying for health coverage already.

But now you see why I gave recovering the other one a try before committing to a dentist. He was cool, though. He said, "I'm self-employed, too. I know." Then he didn't charge me for the eval or the X-rays, just his fixed costs, which was nice. He didn't have to do that.

***

Big Boy is staying on top of his work like a real champ this term. I'm proud of him and, truly, I can see that he is proud of himself.

The boys' buses arrived at almost the same time today, so they came in together and we all went to play with our dog, Bitey (we favor metonymical pet names, for some reason), in the back yard. The weather today was lovely, just a tad crisp.

***

I went through my feedback from Boyhouse, and I have sketched out a plan to rectify some of its deficiencies in the opening chapters. Still, I know where I'm going with it and have made steady progress on the story, tooth-swallowing/horking up notwithstanding.

Also, I had some great feedback from extremely talented and insightful writers who have since made names for themselves, like Sarah Prineas, Leah Bobet and Elizabeth Bear! I even had one from Ellen Harris-Braun. Memory of this had been lost to the pressures of Wee Boy's Early Intervention and Related Crises, but I had saved the files.

That made me very happy.

***

I don't watch soap operas, never have. Technically, I still don't, but... I happened upon the story of Luke and Noah on As the World Turns, via YouTube. Luke was this soap's first character to come out as gay, and sometime in the last year or two they decided to give him a love interest. A closeted love interest who was banging Luke's best friend so his father would approve of him. Or something. The motivations on soaps always baffle me, and of course people who have been shot or had kidney transplants never have scars. You know how it goes. So, for some time the writers have had to figure out ways to keep them apart, because, I suspect, they like keeping the religious right and the gay groups equally stirred up. I don't know. Noah's father tried to kill Luke, and Luke was paralyzed (only for a little while - pretty people never get permanent disabilities, didn't you know?) and then Noah married an Iraqi girl so she wouldn't be deported. Luke cheated in a student election and Noah wouldn't lie for him, so he was kicked out of college and started drinking. Then his grandmother's new husband started hitting on him... You get the idea. It's utterly ridiculous.

But... There are cute young men macking, and I'm very shallow.



So, now that they are an official Gay Couple doing Gay Things, I suspect they will have much less screen time. Then again, you never know.

***

It's time for Ibuprofen. The feeling is coming back in my mouth, and that feeling is "OUCH."