Playing catch up.
whew, i am bad at keeping up. The new job is great but keeps me busy and gives me more free time that I am actually able to use because other people have those days off too (goodbye Monday, Tuesday weekends…hello Saturdays and Sundays).
This past week I had my first cleaning with braces on. I chose a new hygienist from the same dental group where my ortho works. I scheduled it during my lunch hour thinking i’d take an extra half hour and have time to spare. This would all be true if they had not held me hostage for 2, yes 2!, hours…for a cleaning! It was relatively painless and my teeth were extraordinarily clean after but good lord! My ortho also semi-fixed a problem I have been having with the bottom retaining bar - mainly that it was (and still sort of is) slicing my tongue apart. On the plus side, my orthos office is literally across the street from a Cold Stone ice cream as well as my favorite frozen yogurt place so you bet your britches I get myself ice-crea/smoothie/frappe everytime I have an appt. Which will be a lot of ice-cream in the end since I am scheduled twice in December, twice in January and again in February. I might as well get a cot and live there (i bet the rent is just as expensive as my current place).
Now some braces encounters I have had recently (both good and bad):
We’ll start with the bad/infuriating. I went to a friend’s improv show (it was quite good) recently and ran into someone from my way-back-past. We caught up, it was fun, then about 15 minutes into the conversation he asked me, with a look of horror/disgust “When did you get braces!!!!”. I simply replied “September”, and tried to move on, but he continued, “Oh my god! Why!? How long do you have to have them on for?”, I replied cordially with “I had jaw surgery and have to have them on as a result, for 2 years”. Then, and this is what kills me most, he said “that’s awful - ugh, i can’t believe you have to have braces”, i said “I don’t think they look that bad” to which he promptly replied “I guess…”. Ahhhhh! I wanted to yell and kick and scream but i can’t because then I look like a…witch, and like I am insecure. It’s like you don’t want to encourage idiocy but sometimes it’d be nice to kick it in the face.
The second was at work. I’ve made friends. Braces and all. I was speaking with one of these new friends and she mentioned she was having knee surgery and we were lamenting on surgery in general. It came up that I had jaw surgery and eventually that I had braces, to which she replied: “Really!? Let me see?! I never even noticed! That is nothing like the atrocity I had in high school!”.
So why is it that some people notice them right away and others never. And why is it that the people who notice are the most….what’s the word….offended by them? Is it the fear of “it can happen to me!” or the disgust of the ugliness of another. Anna Wintour was once quoted in regards to ugly/bady dressed people “How can people go out like that? Don’t they ever look in the mirror?” and a friend descibed her as”hating badly dressed people”. Now, I think I dress nicely, especially with my recent pocket-emptying wardrobe upgrade but are braces really that bad?! I mean, yes they are horrendous but they are not permanant, and in the end you end up looking (and feeling!) extremely better. Everyone wants perfect teeth (and in my case Teeth as opposed to no teeth!), braces are a way to become that “perfect” but I guess if it isn’t natural it’s not ok? Well, now that doesn’t make sense with all the other accepted beauty/health improving procedures out there. Any who, I guess I am just philosophizing so I don’t hit the next person who sucks in air and proclaims “ohhh, you have braces?!?!”
btw…my teeth hurt…a lot. Although, I guess this means they are moving…move quicker little teeths!
