So it looks like I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep again - bruxing. And it seems I’ve ground one of my teeth down to the enamel because I have a toothache worthy of a character in a Russian short story and this happened last year and felt exactly the same. I’ll go in, my dentist will drill, tell me distracting jokes, take a casting of the tooth, put in a temporary, then I’ll come back in a week and get the porcelain crown put in.

Meanwhile I’m wearing my mouthguard again, as I should have been this whole time. It reminds me of my ferocious days of karate as a kid, when I’d wear a similar piece to spar. I’d chew on it before it was my turn to fight, thinking about the magic wand in the sixth Zelda temple, lunch at Ardmore Pizza*, and how I sort of loved to be hurt - an unfair advantage, no?

*With their battery-acid tomato sauce.