Constructive Dentistry

            I woke up at 4:30 on Friday and peed. I tried to go back to sleep but I’d gotten enough rest and so I got up at 4:37. I did my yoga fifteen minutes early.

            I worked until 9:00 and then took a siesta, planning on sleeping until 10:30, but just before 10:00 one of the workmen downstairs started making short, powerful bursts into the ceiling with an electric screwdriver directly below me. It felt like I was sitting in the mouth of someone while they were being drilled by a dentist and so I got up.

            I went to be again between 15:30 and 16:45. When I got up my vision was dim and I suspected the computer screen had burned holes in my eyes.

            By 20:28 I finished the third sweep of my notes and had planed them down to 28 pages.

            It hurts to delete notes because the information inspires so many arguments I would like to make but now that I’ve established my thesis those notes don’t support it.

            I went to bed at midnight having shaved my notes down to 22 pages.