all the literari keep an imaginary friend

[incandescens]

Bother. I hate that feeling, just after a meal, when something feels a little bit off in your mouth, and after some exploratory probing with your tongue, you come to the conclusion that the rounded bump on the side of one tooth, previously the site of a filling, is now distinctly concave and has a bit of an edge to it.

In other words, I foresee an appointment with the dentist in the near future.

Oh well.

Have been loading some of my rpg pdf collection onto my iPad. The iPages section is now looking entertainingly full. Ah, the pleasures of owning stuff. Very non-Buddhist, but very enjoyable.

---

The Fall of Rome

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

-- W H Auden

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Oh, those 'off' moments in the mouth. Crumbling fillings are only trumped by crumbling teeth, which I hope you may be spared. Worse when it's soft stuff like buns that kills the fillings or teeth. Hard candy, nuts, sticky gumdrops: well, only yourself to blame; but a cream-filled pastry?

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I once had part of a molar shear off while eating *ice cream*. That was a sad day.

[incandescens]

(winces) I can imagine, yes.

[incandescens]

On this occasion it was blackberries with icecream - Haagen-dasz Praline icecream, which included some frozen nuts. Probably it was evil of me to eat icecream in the first place.

I did once looe a filling while eating chicken pie, which seems (then and now) rather unfair.

[archangelbeth]

For PDFs, I strongly advise buying GoodReader (I think there's a Lite version you can try that will only load up to about 5 files). You can crop the margins of the pages (evens and odds separately!) and it makes the text very readable. iBooks is okay for PDFs, but GoodReader is better. Try the Lite version if it's still available (it's what I have on my phone; I have the for-pay version on my iPad), and see what you think.

[incandescens]

I'll check it out. Thank you!