care and feeding of your spoiler-phobe

So okay. The reason I pointed you all at Ellen yesterday was because, in a conversation we'd been having where she checked in to see where in the Vorkosigan timeline I am (ftr: approaching the end of The Vor Game, having come through Shards of Honor, Barrayar, Warrior's Apprentice, and "The Mountains of Mourning"*), she made a comment about what's up next and how soon after that shit's going to get real.

Of course I can perceive the difference between this and spoilers on the i-am-your-father order, but it's nevertheless something I'd rather not hear, especially from someone who (a) knows of my extreme spoiler-avoidance and (b) has been making a particular effort not to spoil me because she is a good friend. :-)

So for those of you who have spoiler-averse friends, let me give you this guidance: any time you are contemplating an utterance that begins "I don't want to spoil you, but ...", obviously you should rethink; but furthermore, any time you are contemplating an utterance that ends "... and that's all I'm going to say about that", please reflect before saying even that much that it may be better to say nothing at all.

Of course we're not all alike. Many people who are very important to me prefer to know they should brace themselves before some startling fictitious thing happens. I am emphatically the opposite. Not only do I not want to know what the big shocking thing is or when it happens or whom it affects - I'd rather not know one way or the other whether there's going to be a big shocking thing at all. Your (or someone else's) hand: please don't tip it.

I'm happy to entertain a philosophical discussion of how spoiler-avoidant it is possible or reasonable to be - but not a discussion in which stuff gets spoiled for me, or even in which it gets a little stale (as I said to Ellen: I'm not going to stop reading the damn things out of spite, but everyone - apparently everyone in the world [g] - has the opportunity to make me enjoy them a lot less -a- than I would have otherwise and -b- than I presume people want their friends to enjoy them), so please don't talk about Vorkosigan at all if you comment. (Ellen is hosting group squee here.)



* Mark Watches has a no-spoiler policy by which he bans even so much as "ooh, wait until you get to Episode Nine!" This seems entirely sensible to me, as a thing to require in one's own space. You know what I'm saying?

ow.

Today has been a very difficult TMJ day. Actually a difficult week. Since I had the braces adjusted on Tuesday everything has hurt like hell. Two nights in a row the pain woke me up; this morning I went to the PT in the hope that he would be able to help not only with the head and neck and dizziness thing but also with the jaw thing. I may have cried a little while I was telling him about how hard my summer has been. Got a little electro-stim on my neck before I left, and that was fine, but my jaw has really never hurt so much.

I finally called the orthodontist's office, and he called back an hour later to agree that it shouldn't hurt this much and suggest a couple of things that might help. Bump the invisalign tray back to night-time only, for one; cut away the last molar from that tray if that doesn't work, for another. I came home and took 800mg of ibuprofen and all evening have been having limited success with a combination of heat and ice and stretching; when the pain ebbs it's not bad at all, just the sort of feeling like the joint is bruised (which by now it may be) - but when it stops ebbing it is excruciating.

Help. :-(