Last week, Doc made a hasty proclamation: “Your braces will be off before you leave for Germany!” (Feb. 12)

The fingernail assistant from Round 41 worked on me, which was again rather horrible, not because her fingernails were digging into my gums, but because she kept hovering over me and sighing the type of sighs you heave when you’re really annoyed by adults with orthodontic problems and would rather be on the phone with your boyfriend. Then Doc announced I was “really almost done” and scheduled me to return in one week in the hopes of, perhaps, taking the things off.

Fortunately, I saw through his lies. Today was Round 45. They put me in a special room, thinking I was near the end. Nope. My bite is still messed up. Doc was in a bad mood, stressed out by various personnel problems and not quite as interested in my teeth as I’d hoped he’d be.

“My upper right molar is lower than the one on the left,” I kept whining. “You said you’d do something about it.”

He sighed. Much like the sighs of the young assistant with long fingernails. “Ok,” he said, and yanked something on the tooth that pushed it up immediately, delivering a wave of pain that ended abruptly and made me gasp. “There are multiple ways of making adjustments,” Doc said. “That’s one of them.”

He went on to have his other assistant (a lovely woman, very gentle and kind) put on latex chains across the upper and lower teeth, then changed his mind and had her remove them from my lower teeth. He then affixed a metal hook to my lower right molar, near the gumline, so I can wear (with extreme difficulty, might I add) an elastic from the inside lower right molar to the inside upper right molar. This will, supposedly, raise up the right side and even out my bite, finally. I’m scheduled to return in three weeks, well after his projected end date.

To compensate for the added pain and continuing delay, I bought pumpkin and spinach ravioli at the fresh pasta store which I plan to swallow whole tonight, since I haven’t been able to fully chew in weeks.

Check out Julia Kuo, an artist I discovered today in CMYK magazine whom, much like my artist friend Kate, I would like to shamelessly promote.

I made the most terrible discovery tonight:

The reason I have not been receiving any mail at my @tapioca.tv account is NOT in fact because I am wildly unpopular, but because the account was not pop enabled, and while my Gmail account was set up to SEND email from that address, it was not configured to RECEIVE email, except from its own account… What does all this mean? It means I missed seven months of extremely important and/or potentially life-changing emails (yes, life-changing!) including a nice note from an oscar-winning editor (true fact) and a video request from an EU member of parliament (also true fact: Salih Mahmoud Osman has indeed won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought) and some other important international emails that could have, if discovered last summer, altered the course of my…well, life, career, potential contribution to the global good, etc etc.

But “even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.” (M. Strand)

In unrelated news, my humble boyfriend watched Frontline’s Growing Up Online tonight, only to reaffirm his conviction that the internet dispossess adolescents of the ability to communicate properly in English, which is true, and thwarts interpersonal skills into a new sad realm of subreality (my interpretation) such that they become ill-equipped to have actual face-to-face discussions, conflicts, and most importantly, to form their own opinions — most kids look online for other peoples’ thoughts on a book, for example, rather than learning to think critically themselves. About anything.

What the documentary did not address, however, was the benefits of this whole new world of communication, what it promises to bring to the next generation of leaders — and followers. Of course, I was baking cookies in the other room and only half-heard the documentary, so that’s just my naive assessment. Regardless, I agree with DD that we’re definitely hiding the computer from the kids. As if it were a sharp object, or hard drugs.

J. has come to visit every year since he was 12, and every year we like to make ridiculous singing/dancing videos. This one is half a spoof of French techtonik and half a rehearsal of our really bad moves from Street Funk dance class. Music by Architecture in Helsinki.

Click To Play

This time Doc made a snide comment about my boyfriend, then proceeded to shave off the sides of my bottom teeth, AGAIN, while apologizing profusely over the buzzing dental saw. Then his assistant (the one who witnessed my flip out session in Round 39) wove some tight latex around the front bottom teeth, which froze my ability to chew for a solid week but also pushed the teeth together within 24 hours. I have to give Doc credit: wearing another elastic (top left canine to lower left molar) has, in conjunction with the shaved front bottom teeth, moved my bite into an almost-centered position. My appointments happen every two weeks now, because if the orthodontal train pulls into the station after nearly three years of waiting, you don’t want to be sitting in your office when it arrives.

Do you even care about this? Some of you crooked-toothed adults do. It is for you that I write.

What’s the only thing good about waking up very early every Saturday morning? GERMAN CLASS at the GOETHE INSTITUTE!

I don’t know why I love German class so much. I walked in today to discover a new teacher, who apparently was in Europe last week when the semester started. She’s a woman around my age, and she’s ganz prima. We also have a 90+ year-old man in the class, P., who doesn’t talk much and occasionally falls asleep and only answers questions in English, if he answers at all. It’s kind of adorable. The other cast of characters includes The French Girl, The Girl Who Wants To Be French, The Missionary Couple (lovely people), and The Giggling Girl Who Always Brings Interesting Snacks. We spent the entire class discussing Lebensmittel, particularly Gemüse, Obst und Fleisch. I prefer ordering Pfirsiche, mostly because of its phonetics.

It’s a good thing I love German class so much, because I will be in Heidelberg next month for a whopping six days to visit SDR, a dear pal who, after a recent divorce, is learning to be independent again and, as we all do after a draining relationship, is remembering the things she loves in life: biking, books, and all things German. I’ll be flying into Frankfurt, hopping a bus to Heidelberg, and then SDR and I will be going up to Bremen (any German readers out there have a car they’d like to lend us?), possibly stopping in other places along the way. Maybe I can hitchhike back to Well, The Netherlands, and say hello to the peacocks, horses and Dutch waitress I haven’t seen in eight years.

A non-EU-related note: if you, like me, are absolutely infatuated with the early Marlon Brando, I highly recommend a 3-part interview series with Brando from 1966 which is absolutely awesome, particularly the bit in Part II where he busts out in French and pulls a woman off the street to discuss civil rights in America, as well as a bit in Part III where he busts out in German and then goes off about the Native Americans, and all three parts where he relentlessly & shamelessly hits on every female reporter who speaks to him. Utterly priceless.

I put this together with what little footage I had from Thailand (I shot a lot of footage, but most of it was from an ACVHD camera whose footage I can’t use in FCP). Am trying to make something a little more engaging, but for now, here’s an intro to GHRE’s educational programs for Burmese refugee children.

Click To Play

JB visited from Paris, and let me in on the latest post-punk fad to hit France, skinny jeans & mullets included: TECHTONIK.

I wish American kids spent more time on their roofs dancing like this…we’d have a lot less crime.

Here’s the tres chic clip…my favorite part is the first 3 seconds, where the guy pumps up his shoes.

2008 as a collection of so many new years

A man pawned sausages on the corner by the church; his breath
fizzed over the fire when he smiled, crowds of overdressed strangers
gathered around a television with bubbles
in their noses and sloppy grins falling out of their mouths, I peed
with a punk singer in a parking lot (him by the fence,
me between two cars and a brick wall) when
someone says later do you remember
walking past the windows of wealthy
businessmen’s homes in the evenings to examine their art with
what’s-his-name then
teaching him how to play the piano later in a crowded theatre
I’ll say can’t you see I’m still
playing, obviously, and he’s still next to me, and the sugar
from the 2003 cake I made with you, Reen, for that horrible party
never dissolved, I taste it in my sleep
I taste it in the morning
I taste it without remembering
the way it actually was (do you remember?) What will they say later
when the shades are drawn early and the city in its revelry
has forgotten us? What will the answer be
when I ask are we stronger for these clumsy bruised years?
Have we grown at all?