It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Well, maybe it is, and we’re just crazier than we think we are. Rev. Jim Rehnberg is the Rent-A-Rev™ (yes, he’s trademarked). Karen and I are meeting with him later this month, and considering that neither of us is part of an organized church, this may make the most sense. He seems very open-minded, jovial and friendly.

This would be the opposite of the kind of "God’s letting you get married because I say so" attitude we want to steer clear of, I think. Also, since he does this for a living, he’s used to dealing with the fact that the people he’s marrying are usually from different faiths, faithless or at least not super observant. Hopefully, this will work out.

I had my first filling put in this morning. The dentist gave me three shots of novocaine before my lip started tingling so he could proceed with matters. I don’t know if those three shots were necessary, or if he was just impatient.

My dentist is always very complimentary about my teeth. He repeatedly describes them as "perfect" and "wonderful" and so on. I suppose he’s talking about them from a dental health point of view, rather than an aesthetic standpoint, considering that I’m gap-toothed (in spite of expensive orthodonture) and a candidate for one of those tooth-whitening toothpastes.

But he’s always complimenting me on my teeth; it’s a little ridiculous. I suppose that dentists are used to carrying the balance of the conversation, considering, so they are bound to ramble. And after the weather and whatnot, what is there left to say? It’s not like my dentist and I are on intimate terms, though I’ve been seeing him for as long as I can remember.

Are there people out there with really low self-esteem about their teeth that their dentists need to be reassuring them all the time? Is this some new mandate on chair-side manner from the ADA? Whatever, it makes me feel especially silly, since I don’t take very good care of my teeth. I brush once a day and rarely floss. I walk away from the dentist feeling I don’t deserve the good dental health I actually have.

What have I done to deserve such "perfect" teeth, I wonder? And meanwhile, there’s some poor schlub who brushes four times a day, flosses, uses Listerine, refrains from sugar and has major dental surgery every other year. He’s just living for one kind word from his dentist, and I’m swimming in undeserved praise. But who said life was fair, right? I know my dentist didn’t.

I’m posting a lot, relatively speaking, right now because (1) I’m on spring break so I have more free time on my hands in between errands and interviewing sources for stories, (2) there are a few things I’ve been meaning to write about for a while and this blog is affording me the opportunity, (3) I’m just getting this started so I want to give it some content before asking folks to stop by and read it, and (4) I like making lists.

Oh, God, please no! Not another blog. Yes, God, yes! It’s another blog. This blog will cover just about anything that comes to my mind. But if you know me, that means a lot of posts about politics, music movies and sports. More specifically, a lot of scribbling about libertarian stuff, Bob Dylan and the Cubs.

But I will also be posting stuff about my wedding arrangements and other personal news and ruminations. I will probably post about once or twice a day, though it is hard to say in advance how frequently I will post.

So why a blog? Well, I’ve been a fan of the form for a while now, first reading Andrew Sullivan and Virginia Postrel regularly, the latter of whom pointed me to Glenn Reynolds’ InstaPundit site, now known as “The New York Times of the bloggers,” according to Pravda (and, really, is there any more reliable news source?). And, as more and more online friends and acquaintances began starting their blogs (Julian Sanchez, Amy Phillips, Chuck Karczag), I started getting a little — well — jealous.

I hope this blog will encourage me to write more often, though I do write quite a fair bit for journalism classes at Columbia and for the Chronicle. But as an aspiring journalist, you can never write too much. It’s been probably four years since I’ve kept a regular journal, and while this won’t be intensely personal, it will provide me with the kind of regular, low-pressure writing outlet that a journal provides.

Nota bene: While this post did indeed mark the April 2002 start of my blog, I posted some nonblog content to the site that dates earlier (for example).