I had a tooth cleaning and checkup at my dentist's this morning. The good news: no tooth decay. The bad news: I need some fillings anyway because I grind my teeth and thus lose enamel. I wear a night guard while I'm sleeping, but it's not enough; I need to wear it for most of the day now.

My dentist and hygienist told me that it is common for people who live in the SF bay area to wear down their teeth due to stress. Apparently there have been some studies that confirm this.

I have to pay for this out-of-pocket. It will cost me as much as I'd spend on four weeks of dance lessons with Michelle, so there go the dance lessons I was hoping to take. I won't be signing up for lessons with her until after I have my yearly eye exam and see how much money I have to spend as a result of it.

I wish I was not so stressed. I don't remember being this stressed when I was a teenager. I think the first signs of (tooth-eroding) stress appeared sometime around 1988, a year before I started grad school. There isn't anything that's causing me undue stress at the moment, so it must be something that's developed over the years.