March 5, 2004
Free At Last
Miracle of miracles, I am braces free for the first time in seven years.
My teeth are too big for my head/mouth. The point was repeatedly marked to me this afternoon. First with the original mold of my teeth (carbon dated 1995, I had a year off from braces roughly, then back on again. "Two" phases) with how crowded they were, then again with the original x-ray of my head/teeth. I just have a tiny, tiny mouth.
Then they gave me the next phase of my orthodontics, this kind of mouth guard thing. Supposedly I am to wear this while I sleep and for four additional hours during the day. The problem with the mouth guard is that I cannot wear it when I am eating or talking and wearing it for any amount of time less than a half hour does not count in my four hours.
So I am to be a munk for the next couple of weeks, except when absolutely necessary to do otherwise. Then again it may all work out, I should probably concentrate on my academics and everything else more and give up on this whole communicating thing. Obviously I suck at it and only get frustrated by the whole process.
At about fifth period today I needed a punching bag or to take a walk, but my Bio teacher would have been less than receptive to me pacing the room, so I just sat and watched a video on kidney functioning, essentially stewing. I cannot tell if Jake laughed at me because he could see the smoke coming out of my ears or if he caught on to how Ben and I constantly exchange looks across the room. Both are humorous and equally meaningless.
Welcome to my theater of the absurd.
Along with the 'isn't it amazing what we did?' speech I received at the orthodontist, I received a mold of what my teeth originally looked like and what they should eventually look like. I can only assume they gave it to me because they did not want it; too bad I do not want it either. The good news is that apparently there are limits to my narcissism.
So take that.
On the bright side work was generally fun. There were soo many kids but most of them were well behaved. One of the kids kept on crying until I took her outside and rambled to her for a while, then she was all sunshine for the rest of the evening. It was such a gorgeous day/night that I knew that I wanted to be outdoors instead of cooped up with the hot air generated by so many people in one tennis hut, it only made sense that she wanted to do the same. Even her sister came out of her funk and started lifting up her skirt a bunch.
I will work on correcting that last character trait a bit later. Baby steps. Well, kid steps, which are one or two steps forward, then some backwards until you notice they are going the wrong direction and scold them for it.
And can I say that I absolutely love love love one of the guys in the kitchen at work? I was walking through the kitchen per the usual and he noticed I got my hair cut. "It looks good!" I smiled, and then he noticed my missing braces too. "And braces are off too! Damn!" I thanked him for noticing, not knowing what else to say.
I am curious if any of my self-consciousness came off the wires and brackets. I have not really seen anyone to test it out yet.
I also am quite fond of Branden. I went to the Prom Fashion show with Kara, Elizabeth, and Claire, since I had never been and Branden asked me to come. I sat with Kara and we talked shoes and people throughout the whole show.
Seeing my peers parading around in high heels and other fanciness was quite amusing, but Branden just made it for me (Carmen, if you're reading, this is the guy you met in D.C.). What a model! Before he could leave the stage he always had to some kind of pout and he had so much expression and just got into it. Kara and I are expecting to see him standing around Abercrombie shirtless any day now, gyrating, etc, on the occasions that Beyonce is played. That boy and Miss Crazy In Love is crazy.
Plus Branden gave Kara and I an excuse to be loud and scream and cheer a bunch. Which is really all we ask in school functions, for the love of god, please give us multiple opportunities to make asses of ourselves. If we can leave an auditorium with our head held high obviously we have not been scathing enough to our peers or embarassing enough in our own respect.
I do not know what I am going to do without Kara next year, better to just not think about it.
Maybe this mouth guard thing is just Dr. Cook's way of telling me I need to lose weight. My tummy's rumbling slightly, perhaps it is time for some mashed potatoes. Fuck the hours.
But not The Hours. That's a damn good movie, even if I do think it is a pretty lousy book. I think me choosing the film version over the book is what lost NCTE for me. Heh, which of course is not fair, because it is not my fault that the book sucked ass goblins (thank you Danny). I liked another story I read by Michael Cunningham, but what a poorly written book.
Love,
Mandy