In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

I wake up after a dread-filled sleep to a sunny cold morning and hurry off to a meeting regarding the City Ranch grant. It’s at a wonderful little diner of a restaurant, the kind where the waitress tells everyone when to move their cars because of street sweeping and calls all of the patrons, “Hon” unironically.

I have eggs and home fries because this isn’t the place for gluten-free toast, but the coffee is pretty damn good and the conversation is even better.

Mr. Dahn and I hug when we part, our first hug, and he feels like a friend. That makes me feel warm.

I go home and floss my teeth, brush, and use plaque-reducing mouthwash. I have an appointment at the periodontist, and when I get there I [unknowingly] sit right across from a mucous-filled old lady who coughs with her mouth open and blows her nose into the same tissue for the next 45 minutes. It is utterly horrific.

I sit there for an hour and am about to lose my shit when I get called back and everything is worth it because my new favorite periodontist tells me that there is really nothing wrong with my teeth so he will leave my mouth alone but recommends a bite guard for my raging bruxism. I think I love him.

Side note: I wrote the above-linked article for bruxism, and all the other articles on that website. It is a miracle my teeth survived that year and a half.

It’s one week until my birthday, one week into the social media fast. I have had a few moments where I considered checking back in to The Facebook, but I have not done so. They passed, and I felt better for staying off.

Like someone on a juice fast, I feel lighter. I missed the connection of some of my social media interactions, and I am sad that very, very few people read this blog (thanks, friends who do), but for the most part this has been refreshing and clarifying.

I recommend it.

In late-breaking, entirely unrelated news, I am so proud and pleased to be a Marylander today after the House of Delegates passed an assisted suicide bill, making it legal for terminally ill people to end their lives in the state of Maryland. Hopefully the Senate will follow suit, and Governor Hogan will sign the bill.