I have a textbook-perfect reaction to Nitrous Oxide, and if I could only get dentists around here to use it, I'd never have another Novacaine injection.

Due to excessive laziness, I didn't go to the library yesterday, even though I've read all my books. But the midtown branch is open today! Sweet! And I can do some shopping when I'm down there. And actually, due to train repairs, the one I will have to take into the city goes right there.

While you're out can you fill my prescription, Jesse? I don't think I'm leaving home today.

Sure! I'll swing by in like three days?

You're a doll.

I would fill your prescription if it were a couple thousand miles closer.

MIL went to a wedding for Jamaican friends yesterday. She told tales of curried goat, rum cake, and ginger beer. Bunches of other stuff I don't remember but sounded mighty tasty. The couple are in their 60s or so. She said they were like giggly teens.

Ugh ita, bad day? I have a stretch class at noon but other than that I can run an errand or two if you need it.

I've grown out of my sensitivity to novacaine but I can vividly recall lapsing into convulsions on the dentist's chair. And that was with only 1/2 the standard dose. That was when the dentist told me that novacaine was related to cocaine and suggested that I'd be wise to avoid it.

Does anyone know what college admission officers are looking for in recommendation letters? I've been asked to write one.

Unrelated... I just discovered that my program bio has been changed without my approval and it's not good.

When I write a rec letter I figure the most important thing is that it doesn't sound vague and/or generic. I want to say something specific about that person, maybe what she's like or what she wrote for my class. I always say when I met her and in what capacity, and I try to include something about her interests outside of my class, if I know about them that is. If I feel the student is really special, I make sure to demonstrate that in the letter.

Has anybody been following the Nebraska Safe-Haven debacle?

I just saw a news piece where more than 30 teens and kids have been abandoned, as opposed to the unwanted infants the law hoped to protect.

I must confess to wildly mixed feelings. On the one hand, if a parent is so...whatever it takes...that they can be okay with pitching their kids, the kid has to be better off without them right? Do we mean it when we say it takes a village?

On the other. The fuck? So much for the blood is thicker than water theory.

But, then, who foots the bill?

I know. Let's set up well-run Islands for Misfit Toys, where at risk kids get the attention, guidance and dare I say it, love, they deserve and tax the bejesus out of the parents who can't step up otherwise.