Profound musical experience

I'm not sure how to say this without seeming absolutely corny, but I was really moved by last night's Godspeed show. They have a song on Lift Your Skinny Fists to the Sky... that I listen to on the train ride to Maine whenever I go. Last night, they played it while running a projector showing passing images of wide open fields, which made me feel like I was train-bound. A bit later, the images panned out and you could actually see the train tracks, which was a little surreal. I was slammed with this overwhelming bout of homesickness. Godspeed has perfected the art of leaving me with unbearable beauty and sadness. When I first met Nate, I remember listening to Godspeed in my car in the rain. Those first months together were so influential and I find myself drowning in the memories somedays. I want to slip into a coma an live in those dreams.

I can still feel the rush of emotion from last night's show. I don't really know if I want this to linger or if I want this to go away.

Each trip to Cat's Cradle has been memorable in some way, but I don't think I've been moved like this except for maybe by Mogwai which just sent me into audio ecstasy. I couldn't get to sleep last night. It was kind of like coming down from a trip and my brain was still feeding on and exhausted from the stimulation.

I am thankful that I have today off to recover. Feeling emotions so deeply is exhausting.

7 Months of Orthodontia

My Orthodontist found out that I work in Orthopaedics and she asked me to circulate invitations to a symposium her research team has put together. So, I did. I like my Orthodontist. Have I told the Dr. Lazy story yet? I don't remember. That's what Nate calls her because the type of braces I have are self-ligating, which means fewer visits and fewer adjustments. Also, her name is Dr. Frazier, so it kind of sounds like "Lazy." I certainly don't mean no respect. I have fun going to the Orthodontist, even when they're sticking sharp tools into my mouth. And the results I've seen in just 7 months are really amazing. Whenever Dr. Lazy sees how much my teeth have moved, she gets really surprised and excited and shows my "before" pictures to everyone in eyeshot. It's pretty understandable. My teeth were incredibly crooked as you can see from my own personal braces timeline below.

Day 1: February 4

Sometime in May

Today

I used to be incredibly self-conscious of the tooth in front with an overjet. And sometimes, someone would take a picture and it would capture (or not capture?) the hidden eye tooth on the right. I had to be super selective about photos because I smile a lot and my smile looked like a hillbilly's.

Also, I don't know if you can tell by those photos or not, but my hair is hella long!

I have a phone interview today with a department on campus that I would love to work for. I'm crazy nervous, so I'm going to go ease my nerves with some Les Mills Pump.

Too much whining going on.

Mr. Susie is out of town this weekend.  He and a friend went to a music festival in Ohio.  I'm usually pretty happy having time to myself.  In fact, he left Wednesday night, and I was doing just fine and dandy until about midnight last night.  Some friends and I went out for drinks and a movie last night.  I had exactly one beer and about 2 sips of wine.  I woke up at midnight having received a text from the nate (which was really sweet... even though he was probably on drugs), and realized I was dehydrated and feeling pretty nauseas.  Needless to say, I hardly got any sleep after that.  I remember drifting to sleep at one point and the A/C was blowing on my face... and I thought "My poor little face is too cold..." which disturbed me in my half hungover state.  I turned on the TV and listened to some clips from Roseanne for a while.  It was the furthest thing from restful.  And then I was up at my normal 6:00 hour this morning.  I cleaned the cat box, took out the trash, did some laundry... and after that, the day was a total waste.  Now it's 9:30.  I'm tired, but not really tired.  I feel like I wasted a whole day.  I miss the nate.  And I feel like whining.  So, here it is.

I don't want to go home.

Some weeks fly by.  I don't feel like that happened here.  I can't complain that I didn't do enough, see enough, feel enough.  I "got my eyes full" of home, as my dad would say.  And yet, I just am not ready to go home.  I could extend my visit another full week and would still not be ready.  I think the reason for that is: this is home.  Carrboro is where I live and enjoy day-to-day life -- all the opportunities I always wanted to have.  A decent salary, public transportation, plenty of places to get vegan food, free classes, friends.  Carrboro is great, but it is not home.

I remember feeling similarly last year.  Last year's trip was quite different -- I remember being a little bit bored, but at the same time completely content and relaxed.  And I remember thinking it would be forever until I came home again.  Somehow that year seemed to pass even more quickly than this past week.

I wonder sometimes if I made the right decision, and I suppose I did.  Even if we didn't move to Carrboro, I would have constantly second guessed and wondered what could have been.  Now, I am on the other side of that predicament.  I guess I could always go home.  I think sometimes that I will after I get my education completed, but that seems so far away that it is completely overwhelming and unmanageable.

I'm afraid that tomorrow might be full of tears and an overwhelming feeling of homesickness, even before I board the train.

"Your teeth are wiggly."

At my 6-month cleaning on Monday, the Dental Hygenist (who is a total sweetheart) said "You're doing a great job keeping your teeth clean around your braces." And then she qualified it by saying "Although, most of the people I see with braces are kids, and kids don't brush their teeth without braces, let alone with them."  Ha!  She also stopped in the middle of polishing to wiggle one of my bottom eye teeth and said "This tooth is really wiggly!"  She's absolutely right, of course, but I kind of wish she hadn't mentioned it.  Now I'm going to be paranoid that my teeth are going to immediately fall out of their sockets after the braces are removed in 20 months.  At any rate, I'm free of cavities for now.  And that's all I was hoping for.

I had a heavier archwire installed on Thursday.  Yes, I used the word "installed" because it was a lengthy ordeal for the Orthodontic Assistant (who describes herself as having "man hands").  I felt kind of bad, but it's not really my fault that I have the weird brackets that open like doors.  Anyway, they didn't touch the bottom teeth, just the top ones -- I am thankful for this because they hurt like crazy.  Dr. Lazy said that she would let the archwires do their thing before putting me in bands to correct my crossbite.  There was even mention of installing more appliances on the inside of my top teeth to pull them outwards.  This frightens me.  Overall, Dr. Lazy seemed really pleased at how quickly my teeth have moved.  I saw the pictures from my first visit (before braces) and it's even surprising to me how much they've moved in 4 months.  I don't know why I waited so long to get braces.

Anyway, here's me at just a little over 4 months of brace face:

Body Image

I clicked on a link a friend had posted on FB about young girls' body images being influenced by fake air-brushed girls in magazines. And something inside my memory opened and released this long-suppressed memory of me being about 8 or 9 years old and, after being told on a daily basis by my brother that I was fat, I finally snapped and yelled at the top of my lungs "I'm fat and I need ultra slim fast!" It makes sense to trace back my current body image issues to when I was a kid. I don't think my parents stopped my brother, well, 1. Because he ruled the house and they were kind of afraid of him, too, and 2. I don't think they knew that he was permanently damaging me. But I wish they had. I wish someone had stuck up for me and told me I was not fat (because I really wasn't-- I was a normal-weight kid who turned into an anorexic pre-teen who turned into an obsessive adult). And even now, I need constant reinforcement concerning my weight and appearance. At least now, I'm smart enough to know the answer isn't Ultra Slim Fast. Do they even make that anymore?

First Archwire Adjustment

I had my first appointment after getting the braces on. They took out the archwires and I got to floss my teeth... which was a high point in my week. Flossing through the archwire is pretty time consuming and I don't really enjoy it. So, having them all exposed was fabulous. And I could tell with certainty that my teeth have moved. Anyway, after flossing, they stuck the same archwires back into my brackets and sent me on my merry way. I think it took about 10 minutes total. I had been bracing myself to expect a heavier wire and be in pain for the next week or so, but nope. I'm good to go!

Right now, braces really aren't that bad.