Monday noonish thoughts

* I hope I don't wind up eventually having to go on anxiety meds. For some reason, Friday midday, I was convinced, like idée fixe convinced, that the one remaining filled tooth I have had cracked also. There is absolutely no objective evidence to support that; I have brushed it several times since without incident and I have no pain. I think what happened was I got a weird "shifty" feeling on that side of my mouth Friday morning. But I now realize that was actually another tooth, and it was sinus. It was weird, though. I had an hour or two of extreme discomfort - nervousness, fast heart rate, could not shake the idea that I was going to need another crown right away.

(I don't chew on that side of my mouth anyway, out of fear of that tooth. I mean, it will probably have to be crowned SOMETIME, fillings don't last forever, but I'm not in any hurry to have it done)

I wonder though if that could have been some weird delayed reaction to the epinephrine they mix with the lidocaine. (They still do that, don't they?) I know I felt really shaky and nervous after dental work in the past. (I'm probably not even supposed to have epinephrine, seeing as I am on a beta blocker - apparently combining the two can blow up your brain, or something)

Or it could have just been my mouth being really jacked up, and the fact that I was fighting a near migraine at the time; migraines give me a sense of doom like nothing else. It's gotta be neurotransmitters; the feeling is out of any proportion of the pain, and is unrelated to the head pain.

* If I didn't feel like it would jinx me, I'd see if I could find a little widget that would count up the "days since last dental incident" (at this point, four, seeing as I cracked the tooth at lunch on Wednesday). You know, like those industrial hygiene "accident free since...." things. But I'd be afraid of jinxing myself.

* I finished the "heavy" crocheting on Moondancer (all the legs*) last night. Now I have some thinking: do I do her face "pre-friending" (sad eyes, slight frown) or "post-friending," with a smile like I have given the other ponies.

It's interesting. I almost want to do her in "pre-friend" mode. I remember reading years ago that "sad characters" (Eeyore being the atavar of this) are well-loved by some children because (a) they feel like that character understands when THEY are sad and (b) maybe they kind of believe they could cheer the character up.

I'm going to do her with the "updo" (which is less imitative of Twilight's hair). It might actually take less effort than trying to get bangs right. (I can't even get my own bangs right, sometimes).

(*And again I observe: if it was "My Little Decapods," I probably would be much less motivated to make stuffies. Quadrupeds are bad enough)

* I re-watched an episode of "Father Brown" (well, what I think of as "the reboot version of 'Father Brown'" because I've read many of the stories and the BBC/PBS version is different in a number of ways). It was the episode with the young wife and the older doctor and the victim was an obnoxious young man from a nearby farm who kept implying the young wife had an affair with him....and when he died, the doctor was a suspect, because it was thought he was enraged at the man.

And the doctor willingly went along with it (even making up evidence). Turns out he was starting with some form of cancer and wanted "the quick way out" (being hanged) rather than a lingering death.....then, at the trial, he finds out his wife is pregnant (with HIS child, very obviously - she didn't give the obnoxious man the time of day). And he decides: Well, after all, I will try treatment. I want to stick around to see my child. (And it turns out that the murder wasn't; the obnoxious young man was drunk and met his horrible end by accident, and of course it was Father Brown who helped figure that out).

And it occurs to me, especially now, why I like Golden Age mystery stories so much: yes, something bad has happened. But justice is eventually done (Father Brown convinces the doctor that allowing himself to be executed for a crime he didn't commit was little different from suicide; and the Father helps to figure out what really happened), life goes on (Mrs. McCarthy knits baby clothes for Oona's child....and a gentle joke is made about how Oona's people "run to twins"), and there's apparently some promise that things will be happy again (well, for most people). That idea of a restoration of order. I need that. I prefer stories that have that.....I don't like some of the modern novels that kind of trail off where everyone has kind of broken everything (people have cheated on devoted and good spouses, or been unkind to their children, or done something wrong that they haven't atoned for). And while I get that "real life" is probably more like the second way (lots of brokenness) than the first, I want to believe that there will be that denoument where the real killer is found out and the innocent man goes free. And the people in the town who were shocked that the innocent man "could have" committed a murder, when he goes free, nod to themselves and say, "I was right; he was too good a man to have done that" instead of them suspecting him for the rest of his life....I want to believe that things can be made "right" again even in the absence of objective evidence that they can.

I don't know. I admit it's childish to want a world order where the guilty are punished and the good prosper, but there are some very specific ways in which I am childish.

I also admit I like the whole setting of the Fr. Brown mysteries: the idyllic countryside parish, the loving busybody Mrs. McCarthy with her scones and her knitting and her tea, the slightly earthy Sid who will sit on a bench and enjoy a pint with the Father and talk with him....there's something comfortable about it, even as I recognize it cannot be real and never would have been real, not even in the 1950s when the series is ostensibly set.