: I've been working on sanding all the bumps, drips, and other imperfections
: off my two Pygmys, and man is it ever going S...L...O...W... .

: (Again, lesson to new builders: scrape off those drips while green! you'll
: regret it otherwise!)

: To exacerbate the problem (I love that word), my sandpaper seems to get worn
: out very rapidly. I'll put a new quarter-sheet in my palm sander, and
: it'll last for maybe one square foot of sanding, if even that.

: It's just generic multipurpose stuff (not garnet though, which I think I
: heard is quite soft), 120 grit. It doesn't tell me what material the
: abrasive is made out of.

: Is there a different type of paper I should be using instead? perhaps
: aluminum oxide, as I read in the old "scary sharp" posts?

You have already run into some of the problems in sanding epoxy, and here's another. If the drips have cured hard, when you try to sand them off you sand deeper around the drips than on the drips themselves, since the surrounding wood is so much softer.

The best solution is to remove the drips before you sand. The best time to do that is when they're still wet. But even if they have cured, it's easy to remove them with a cabinet scraper. There was a thread on this topic recently and several good posts.