Yesterday, I went to the dentist.

Unlike (ahem, cough, cough) some people I know, I actually don't mind the dentist. In fact, I was actually kind of excited to go. That's probably more a reflection on my interest level at work this week, since going to the dentist meant I'd get to leave the office two hours early, but I find the dentist kind of reassuring.

"Just relax," I told myself. "It's like a facial for your teeth." I've never actually had a facial, and I'm pretty sure it probably involves a fewer high-pitched whirring products coming at your face, but, really, isn't that what microdermabrasion is all about? So, yes, facial for my teeth.

I've generally had pretty decent teeth. Yes, my mouth is really small, and I do have one teeny, tiny, dot-sized filling (literally, it is a speck) in one of my molars, but it was put in when I was seven to fill a natural soft spot, not a rotted, nasty decayed hole. When I went to the dentist after a three year hiatus (I was in college! Without dental insurance! And my dentist back home made creepy Donald Duck voices that seemed a little unnecessary for an 18-year-old) I was welcomed back into the dentist's chair with welcome arms. "Wow, you say you haven't seen a dentist in how long?" the new dentist was saying. "You're lucky, I wouldn't have known." He didn't say this exactly like a compliment, either, it was more like, "Just because you've had good genes, lady, don't think you can skip out on me in the future."

Anyway, I was deeply disappointed to see the dentist frown and say, "We should fill this," at the end of my visit yesterday. It's another one of those soft spots, apparently, not an actual cavity, but he seemed pretty sure they should force me to come back for a 20 minute procedure to have it filled. "Oh, it won't hurt," he said. "Just some drilling, but no novocaine." (As if drilling without novocaine is a good thing? How is that supposed to sell me on this procedure?)

The dental hygienist assured me that nobody would know; he'll use a tooth-colored filling and it's at the back of my mouth again. But it did make me sad to have a less-than-perfect mouth again.

Disturbing discovery

Tonight, I learned that someone with an evil, horrible, Tickle-Me-Elmo-esque laugh lives next door. What's peculiar (aside from this person's unfortunate laugh) is that he (I think? it's difficult to say) seems to laugh at nothing at all. With the window open, I can hear a lot of what goes on next door, but I never hear any conversation, any television program, any anything that would prompt this bizarre cackling. So, in summary: a freak lives next door. This probably shouldn't be surprising, given that yesterday I found four boxes of Cheerios in grocery shopping bags just draped over our fence, like someone was going to bring them into the house, but decided they'd go better in the garbage instead.

I love Queens.

Happy Hour Conversation

"Let me guess," he said. He'd been sitting next to us throughout most of happy hour, alone. At first, I thought he was going to try and hit on either me or my co-worker, but he'd mostly left us alone, so I'd given that up.

"You're 24, right?" he said, "and you just moved in with your boyfriend?"

I told him that, yes, I was in fact 24, and that since he'd obviously overheard us discussing how I'd recently moved in with my boyfriend, yes, that was also true.

He looked kind of smug.

"Did you have some other guesses about us?" I said, because I wasn't actually impressed by someone deducing my age. (Mildly insulted, but I have no idea why it was insulting -- I like being 24; it's a good age -- but I also don't want to be a cliche of 24, I guess.)

"Uh, no," he said. "But the living with your boyfriend, how's that going?" as if he expected a really long-winded and whiney answer.

"It's going well," I said.

"But...?"

"But he works crappy hours?" I offered, which was what I'd said to my co-worker as well when the subject came up. This has pretty much been an issue throughout the better part of our relationship, leading to a year-long breakup at one point. It is not easy, but also, I think working crappy hours is somewhat understandable in your 20s. "Being woken up every night at 3 or 4 or 5 does kind of suck when you work normal-person hours," I say. "But otherwise, I can't complain."

He nods and says he also just moved in with his girlfriend last month. "So why are you talking to us?" I want to ask, but I don't, because I'm not that good. Instead, I say, "Ahh, and so that's not going well, eh?"

He tells us, no, it has been, except for the last few nights, but fails to elaborate. He says she just moved here from North Carolina, but she's from Poughkeepsie originally, so moving here wasn't so strange.

"Oh, is that what she told everyone in North Carolina when she followed you here?" I ask, because I know she didn't really move to New York just because of its proximity to Poughkeepsie. People might move to Poughkeepsie because of its proximity to New York City, but nobody moves to New York City because of its proximity to Poughkeepsie.

People do, however, move to New York because they are following someone else there.

He laughed and pointed at me and said "Ahh -- you -- you're good..."

And I was at least mildly happy at having one-upped someone at the sizing-up game.

Baby DJ

As promised...

Me, holding baby:

In the arms of my brother:

He did a lot of sleeping, and actually, it wasn't until our second meeting that he really opened his eyes, and saw me (and then it was only quite briefly). But I did get to spend more time with him yesterday, assisting with his sponge bath (he did not enjoy) and a diaper-changing and a bit of burping and feeding. He is a very-well behaved baby who barely cried and mostly eats and sleeps and looks, well, absolutley adorable.

Welcome to the world, DJ.