I haven’t been making much progress this month. This is mostly due to my obstinate refusal to consistently wear two elastics in my mouth: one to keep my FIT (Formerly Impacted Tooth) down, the other to correct my crossbite.

“Have you been wearing the elastics?” Doc asked upon seeing my teeth.

“Um, yes.”

“All the time?”

“Um, almost. You know, as much as my professional life will allow.”

“You’re lying. You have to be lying. You can’t be wearing them.”

I wasn’t lying. But apparently I never wore them enough, so now I have to wear them again, little nooses slamming shut my upper and lower jaw, for another month. Today Doc shaved off the sides of my teeth so instead of bumping asymmetrically together like little rounded horseshoes, they’ll line up like perfect, right-angled boxes. I have to admit, it was horrifying — the drill, the pressure, the loss of bone. His nonchalance.

“Be careful!” I pleaded. “Don’t take too much off! We can never get it back!”

“Will you relax?” he said. He seemed particularly relaxed, which I suppose is an excellent way to keep patients relaxed. My appointments have increased from every four weeks to every three now, so we can hurry it up and finish. A teenager in the chair beside me was getting her braces removed today. Doc did it in half an hour, while I was sitting there, and the girl looked awesome afterwards.

“It feels so squishy!” she kept remarking, running her tongue over her newly liberated teeth. “Slimy, like snails!” I told her she looked great, cause she did.

“Will you whiten teeth once you take off the braces?” I asked, hopefully. “Maybe, for certain patients, that can be arranged,” he mused. “For a small fee.” But he didn’t whiten the other girl’s teeth. I love getting proprietary services.

I was in Bangkok in March during the HUGE protest demanding Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s resignation. I guess the crowds got sick of waiting — today the military overthrew the government while the Thaksin was in New York, addressing the UN. Why?

There has been pressure growing on the prime minister to resign, including from groups close to King Bhumibol, following a political impasse in which April’s general election was declared invalid.

Imagine if Americans had done this after the last election, or the one before that? We’d be a completely different country today…

This is a video I shot in the spring of Sudanese Parliament member Salih Mahmoud Osman, who talked at my office on the situation in Darfur. Next vlog will be the Darfur rally outside the U.N. that I’ll be attending on Sunday.

Quicktime version is also available.

Just read about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s new blog (the blog is here) as well as Indonesia’s defense minister’s blog.

Ok, so when will W’s camp join the information revolution? I can just picture it now:

“Today, Laura and I visited New Orleans, with Mom. Mom made some really insensitive racial comments that someone caught on camera…but I didn’t think it was that bad, actually. I mean, these people DO have more opportunities now than they did in the 9th ward. They’re living in hotels now! Can you get better than that? I’ve lived in hotels, and let me tell you, aside from the ranch, it doesn’t get better that. Executive suites are unbelievable.”

Bring it on, man.

Yes, I’m welcoming myself to the 21st century.

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Best smell of the day – the streets of Downtown Crossing, at dusk, in the rain.

Best music of the day – the bells of some church near Downtown Crossing, at dusk, in the rain.

Number of babies currently gestating in my friends’ abdomens – 3

Number imported British cookies currently gestating in my abdomen – 4

Television programs I still ache for – Stargazer (the midnight astronomy show on PBS), Blackadder, Today’s Japan, and World News from Berlin.

Number of detours encountered this morning driving to and from the airport – 5

Number of minutes I spent navigating hopelessly through the streets of South Boston before 8am, due to aforementioned detours and my own lack of direction – 35

Current professional options for my immediate or kind-of-immediate future – 4

Percentage chance that my boyfriend will jump up and work lucratively abroad in the next five years – 70%

Coffee or tea? – Neither. Chilled juice.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum just released a concert podcast so people can hear their latest performances (classical) for free. I think it’s a great move to make the high-society music scene a bit more accessible, and affords ISGM deserved credit for pioneering new technologies. Subscribe!

Steve Anderson of the Center for Media and Democracy has just produced this video, “The Best War Ever”.

In his words, “The video is about how the Bush administration propagandized the US people into the war in Iraq, and how they are trying to do it again with Iran and Syria.”

Check it out.