For reasons I'll go into in a bit, this post didn't start off auspiciously. Just as I was about to put fingers to keyboard extenuating circumstances prevented the composition of text...

Long time readers of this blog are no doubt aware of two things: That I haven't posted much here in past weeks and my long and sordid history of dental problems. As it turns out, the two things are more related than it would otherwise seem.

I haven't had it in me for the past few weeks to sit down and write anything substantial, the queue of notes on …