Well, my next orthodontist appointment is monday.  A great way to end the "holiday" weekend (and by "holiday" I mean "we actually at my office planned the signing of a deal around the fact that if Fourth Of July Weekend fell within the ten day delivery time we would get extra days because it is ten "business days" so, yes, actually, a lot of us are working all weekend").

There are several things that I've been thinking about since last we chatted.

As my teeth become more straight relative to their neighbors and, I think, relative to the jaw bone in which they are mounted, it is becoming ever more obvious how very not aligned my jaws are.  The division between the upper to front teeth does not even remotely line up with the division between the lower front teeth.  And the bottoms/tops of the teeth look less parallel.  You'd think, having lived with something your whole life, you'd know what shape it was.  Well, you don't.  Take my word for it.

One of the consequences of this movement is that it is changing, fairly noticeably in recent weeks, how my mouth feels to me.  I've never been a particularly precise enunciator (yes, I did just make that word up; it turns out there isn't a noun form (feh!)).  In fact, in moments of honesty, I'll tell you outright that I'm a fairly lazy speaker.  But, you know, I know how to pronounce words correctly and can when I think about it.  Or, could.

Lately, it is sometimes difficult to correctly form words.  Even when I am thinking about it and trying hard.  My mouth doesn't line up right and feels weird.  In particular, my teeth just don't come together quite right and for some sounds there does not seem to be a correct place to put my tongue (I gotcher correct place place to put yer tongue right here, baby).  And, of course, I've previously mentioned how the braces make my lips stand off from my teeth just enough to be noticeable.

People have been saying "what?" to me a lot lately.  Or commenting when I mispronounce something.  This is very frustrating.

And, this brings me to the other thing I wanted to tell you.  I predict the rubber bands are coming.  Not the nice, sliver, fit around the brackets and are hardly noticeable kind, like I've had across my top front teeth for a couple of months.  I mean the hooks somewhere in the front and somewhere in the back and pulls everything backward kind.  Oh, or maybe headgear.  I don't know what I am going to do if I have to do headgear.  I can't sleep on my back.

Anyway, it is clear that most of the teeth of actually rotated so they're in more correct looking positions relative to each other.  But, there are significant gaps -- between some of the front teeth, where teeth were removed, etc.  And, well, I believe I previously mentioned that my front teeth were so far forward in the jaw bone that they were nearly out of it and the gums were barely covering some of them?  Well, they've moved back a tiny tiny amount; but I'm betting the significant spaces still around are for the purpose of pulling all of that back in.

So, there you go.  My prediction.  Documented.  In writing.  I get full credit if the orthodontist mentions it and/or starts it on monday.  I get half credit if it's not mentioned until next month.  I get quarter credit if the month after that.  And no credit even if it comes up after that.

Thanks to mal for forwarding along these cool pictures.

Or:  Biting, just do it!

In response to the regular edition of TWIMM, jillsmill very astutely pointed out that I had previously claimed to be eating hamburgers in the normal manner and wants to know how this squares with my claims of the most recent edition of TWIMM.  I thought this was a pretty good observation and something several of the more ardent followers of TWIMM would like to know.  So, BONUS EDITION!!!

Well, the fact is that in the warm glow of my exuberance at having joyously partaken of a hamburger, I may have exaggerated just a teensy bit.  When I said that I ate a hamburger "just like anyone would eat a hamburger", I really should have said something like "apparently just like anyone would".  I have not, actually, as long as I can remember, been able to really bite all the way through anything.  I have two primary solutions for this:

1. Hold and Tear.  In this system, you bite as far into something as you can, and then actually complete the disengagement of a bite-sized piece of your food by pulling the main food body away from you with your hands.  It's often messy.  Generally works with most meats and breads.  Does not work at all with non-crisp lettuce, onion rings, a lot of pickles, a lot of tomatoes you find in sandwiches, etc.
2. Half Teeth and Tongue.  In this system, you begin with the Hold and Tear system, and discover that there is something which is not actually tearing and is, instead, coming out of your hand-held main food body as a whole item.  You stop the pulling away with your hands, lower your bottom teeth, and work your tongue into position to push the pesky item up against and through your top teeth.  Generally works with sort of soft items like fruits, vegetables, confections, etc.
   

And, of course, there is cutting things into bites with a knife and fork. :D

Well, dear readers, it will come as no surprise that I still have braces.

My mouth continues to feel too small for the amount of metal installed in it.  It's not uncomfortable, exactly, just weird to have the insides of my mouth constantly touching something.  Especially when that something feels a lot like a bunch of little individual wires.  Which, to be fair, is what it is.

Anyway, things are going fine.  The more in line my teeth become, the more horrifyingly obvious it is that Dr. "That's a bad bite" Riley really can be excused for constantly commenting on just how bad my bite is.  Wow.  You know, I have been chewing (and other more fun things) with this for 36.75 years.  Sheesh.

Which reminds me.  I am beginning to become anxious about biting things post-op.  I know it's a long ways away; but I have a lot of habits which are predicated on the complete, deep, utter assurance with which I live in the knowledge that I cannot actually bite through anything.  My tongue lives between my teeth a lot.  Related, but different from that, sometimes I just chew on my tongue, as a sort of nervous habit or whatever.  Did you know I cannot bite my own tongue hard enough to hurt (between my front teeth)?  I cannot.  Related to that, I don't actually nibble on ears.  I bite them.  You know, as hard as I can.  I am also pretty comfortable biting during *ahem* wrestling.  Pretty hard, too.  Oh, wait, I know what you're thinking, I didn't mean *that*.  Well, now you've brought it up, I'll probably have to relearn *that*, too.

I am going to have to relearn nearly everything that has to do with operating my mouth, aren't I?  This is .... kind of terrifying.

Oh.  I wonder if I should look into going back into speech therapy.  Huh.

So, I went to my (rescheduled) orthodontist appointment on Wednesday.  As you might expect, my teeth got all achy again.  The pain is not so bad on these visits as it was when the braces were first put on; but it is still noticeably achy.  Enough to make one all weary and tuckered out feeling at the end of the day for a few days.  No real news, though.  Dr. Ross says I am doing a very good job of keeping my braces clean and in good shape.  I get a gold star.

They took the band across my front teeth off to rewire everything.  They put a new one on to replace it.  I guess I was wrong about it appearing to work too well.  This, gentle reader, is why I am paying someone else to do this.

This week's picture shows that my lower canines are finally beginning to turn the corner, literally, towards making a nice, even arch with the other bottom teeth.

That's all.

So, uh, yeah.  I am a dork.  You want to know why nothing hurts?  Because I should have gone in to the orthodontist on tuesday so they could make it hurt again.  Duh.

Somehow, this did not make it on to my calendar.

This week, in my mouth, nothing hurts.

Apparently, though, something has moved, or my cheeks have swollen, or maybe my teeth did -- at this point I'm willing to believe just about anything of teeth.  I have a sort of weird spot on the inside of one cheek where one of the multitude of hooks or other tiny sharp things the orthodontist saw fit to install on my teeth is rubbing.  It made a little sore.  Which is rubbed all the time.  So, the flesh is kind of chewed up there on the surface.  Which makes it stick up a little.  Which is a pretty good target for whatever it is to rub some more.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

This probably sounds pretty annoying.  It's really only kind of annoying.  It's nothing compared to, say, all of my front teeth hurting a lot.  And that was nothing compared to that first time I flossed after the braces were installed.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and the inside of whatever cheek I've been sleeping on is stuck to my teeth/braces.  I can unstick it easily enough with my tongue; but it leaves this bizarre mold of my braces in the skin for my to run my tongue up and down for a while until it subsides.

I kind of feel like the band across my front four teeth has done its job a little too well.  Those teeth are all very much touching; but the floss doesn't have anything to touch at all between the next teeth.  I guess we'll see.

This tidbit was passed on to me from araignee .  It is awesome.

http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/03/women_in_the_wo.html

I would dearly like a list of the alluded to weaknesses a physician might find that might make me mentally or physically unfit for the job.  But, you know, they're spot on about the even tempers and efficiency of us husky women.  Totally.

Here, gentle readers, is photographic evidence that I did, indeed, sport a very very very yellow shirt for a short while on the second of May.

All credit, goes to lunacow , who both allowed the shirt out on loan and snapped the incriminating photo.

So, this is really 'the last coupla weeks in my mouth' but what are ya gonna do?  I worked a lot the week before last.  I mean, you know, a lot.  Even by sysadmins at a small company standards.  We both did, araignee and I.  So, I didn't post anything.


One of the things I did that week which was not Work, Sleep, or Eat (with sneaked in Battlestar Galactica during eating), was to go for my two months' orthodontist visit.  They, being the observant types they are, notice the enormous gap between my two front teeth and they Did Something about that.  Namely, a special rubber band-y type thing which is sort of like a rubber thing with four small loops with connectors between them.  Each loop went around one of the brackets on my four front teeth.  Mine is silver and not particularly noticeable on the braces unless you're looking; so I will spare you yet another picture of my dental devices.

Ok.  That was tuesday morning.  And, yes, since you asked, my front teeth did hurt a fair bit from this.  But, you know, the usual sort of achey hurt which this particular brand of dental torture is expected to induce.  The next morning, I brush my teeth and look in the mirror and think, "um, hum.  Did my teeth already move an awful lot or am I just misremembering the size of the gap?".  I went to work.  I worked a lot and then went home and had dinner (with some aforementioned sneaky BSG).  Then I went to brush my teeth.  And floss them.  And .. my front teeth touch.

So, um, yeah.  I find this both wonderful and creepy in equal measures.  I mean, it's nice not to have a big old gap in my front teeth.  Especially when eating sushi.  There is nothing so sexy as a big piece of raw fish lodged between your front teeth like pink mortar.  However, teeth are, you know, hard.  And they're in sockets in your jaw bone.  Emphasis on *bone* there.  It just doesn't seem like visible changes should happen in a day and a half.  Well, really, a day if my morning observations can be believed.  I find that a little unsettling.

Anyway, nothing else major to report.  I still have braces.  This still makes various teeth hurt on different days.  The HUGE SENSITIVITY TO COLD!!! seems to come and go.  It's nearly always in my eyeteeth.  There is a lot of gum recession on both of them in the front and the orthodontist says that's what is giving me the cold sensitivity.

So, whilst looking for Oxyopidae on the fig tree in the back yard, this thing flew right into my face, bounced off, and landed on a fig leaf. It wandered around there for a while. It puts its head down, giraffe-style, to investigate the leaf. And it lifts its head up like in this picture when it sees me moving.

Any ideas what the heck it is?

It is true that I love Sanjuro and rated The Killers and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari very high. And it is the case that I really enjoy Strong Bad Emails. But the juxtaposition is .. just .. awesome

... or, please mind the gap.

So, at a little under two months, I think the picture gives the story so far. I've been taking a picture every week, so I kind of have a little stop action movie when I get to the end of this. But, also, it's interesting to see what's happening. Comparing one week to the last doesn't show much; but comparing this photo to the first one shows a fair amount of movement.

One of the cheerful hive of women at the orthodontist's office warned me that there is often a big gap created between your front teeth during the braces process and to please not worry about it because they know what they're doing and they definitely will not leave me with an enormous gap in my front teeth at the end of the process. So, enjoy it while it lasts, ladies!

Beyond that, you can see that my eye teeth have clearly moved around quite a bit. Gone, already, my beautiful fangs. The bottom canine teeth, and bottom teeth in general, have not moved as dramatically. This is expected, too, because of the bottom jaw bone being more solid and like a femur than the upper jaw bone which is a skull bone. There's definitely been some spreading out and the front teeth are less slanted at wild angles relative to each other.

And, there you go.

In other news, I ate a hamburger on saturday. Whoooooooo! I mean, not even with a knife and fork or anything; but just like anyone (not in Japan) would eat a hamburger. It was .. somewhat uncomfortable and there was ALL KINDS OF CRAP in my front braces afterwards which I found to be pretty damned disgusting. But, it can be done.

You know, folks are often enjoining other folks to "stop and smell the roses". And, nearly every time I've ever seen this on some saccharine poster, it's included a picture of some adorable urchin or cartoon or something with their face stuffed right up into a big rose flower.

I gotta tell ya, I highly recommend you stop and consider the roses; but I am not sure I'd go so far as to be inhaling them. Recent playing with my macro lens suggests that you are never entirely sure what you're going to find in there.

This little male Satlcidae had been left alone in the spider box for a while. Long enough he made a little web-y home in the corner. It's hard to see the silk in this picture; but, he's hanging from it and arched up to check me out.

I signed up for Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Rockin' Sock Club this year. The first kit was Serendipity.

A lot of the reason I signed up for the RSC is because I pretty much have knit only toe-up, short-row toes and heels, socks of my own design (mostly). Even the ones which were someone else's design, I modified to be toe-up and have short-row toes and heels. So, in the interest of learning new things, I signed up for the RSC and set myself the task of knitting them as written.

These socks look great. I am not entirely happy with them; but the ways in which I am not are useful things learned. For example, these have a "star toe". This was very easy to knit; but I really don't like the way it feels to walk around on and, especially, in my shoes.

These do have short-row heels; but the way she did them was different from how I have done and I learned several really great things from them. Things I will keep and incorporate into my own design.

Also, there's something I've been already thinking about a lot lately that these socks really solidified for me. The colors in this sock are all really great; but I just don't like the way these many-colored yarns look with lace patterns. It's too busy and too much. So, I think for my own designs I am going to stick to semi-solids or solids and interesting knit patterns. Or, if I find some colorway I really dig, just knit them up in a simple rib pattern. I don't really like busy clothes.