One more from the Living Room Sessions: Ry covering Paul Simon.

Another newer Ry video from the Living Room Sessions, this one quick & dirty. This song always makes me want to cry, for obvious reasons.

I bought some books last night that are slowly being added to the collection of books I really need to make time to read:

• CONVERGENCE CULTURE, by Henry Jenkins (with whom I’ll be working and from whom I’ll be learning at MIT in a few months)
• THE CLOUDSPOTTER’S GUIDE: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
• THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, by Robert Henson

Can you tell I’m really into new media and meteorology? Maybe after MIT I can go work for NOAA, managing some sustainable development projects in South America. How cool would that be?

Technically, I’ve had 57 appointments at the ortho since this ordeal began, but some were minor last-minute appointments so for this record, it’s 49.

Anyway, let’s get to the point: they’re off! RIP Braces: April 28, 2005 – March 20, 2008.

After a little crying, some bleeding gums, and drilling through five or six brackets because they were too sensitive to pop off, everything was over and I was fitted for clear plastic “forgiver” retainers, which I picked up today, and which also make me want to cry when I put them in.

The FIT canine had moved up into the gum a bit, so it’s not level with the left canine, but we decided to just let it be. Doc wanted to shave the edges of the front eye teeth to round out the sides and make them not so boxy, but I vetoed that measure. Why? Because my original teeth were boxy to begin with. Why ruin a good thing? Also, once he shaves them, that’s it. If I don’t like the result, I can’t get the old ones back. We made a deal that I could go back at any point if I change my mind. I’ll see him again in three months anyway, when they check to make sure my retainers are working out and the smile is still ok.

Doc blew me a kiss as he walked out of the office. Slightly inappropriate, but I appreciate the homage. It’s been a long 2 years 11 months.

Now, because people have asked, I am finally posting some pictures of the teeth’s progression.

DISCLAIMER ONE: these are gross, gross photos. Proceed at your own risk.
DISCLAIMER TWO: most were taken with either a phone camera or a webcam, so they’re not very clear. Sorry.

• April 29, 2005 (braces put on, two front teeth pulled)
• September 2005 (two more teeth pulled; impacted canine in gum exposed)
• December 2005
• June 2006 (impacted canine almost down)
• January 2006 (impacted canine down)
• August 2007 (front teeth shaved)
• March 20, 2008 (braces taken off)

(I skipped most of 2007 because that year was spent correcting my bite, so photos all looked the same.) They’re not perfect, but I can chew, the baby tooth is out, the crossbite is fixed, the impacted canine is down, and they generally look ok. THE END! Thank you for reading my ortho adventure. Email me (audubon at tapioca dot tv) if you’re in the Boston area and looking for a good orthodontist.

Guess what?

I bet you can guess. At long last, the metal is coming off….in TWO DAYS! This all came about as part of a discussion Doc & I had about my teeth this morning. He made me stare in the mirror and tell him all the things I thought were still “wrong”. Well, there’s this space in the gum where the FIC (Formerly Impacted Canine) begins. Doc said, well, that’s because the bone didn’t grow up there because it used to be impacted, you’ll just have to live with it.

Well, my upper right 2 FST (tooth next to the front tooth, aka Formerly Sideways Tooth) isn’t completely flush with the other teeth. Doc said, “Let’s shave the front of it to correct that,” and he did.

Well, the FIC on the upper right doesn’t exactly fit together with the bottom teeth, such that there’s kind of a space between the top and bottom when my teeth are together. Doc said, “You have two options: your bite is in the best position it’s been in, so we can stop being finicky and just decide to take the braces off, or I can attach a bone screw (yes, a screw that goes into the lower jawbone) so that you can wear an elastic from your upper canine and pull it down more, so there won’t be a space when you bite. We could do that today.”

No bone screw! Are you kidding? A BONE SCREW? No way! Fortunately Doc shared my concern that, even with a bone screw, it could still mess up the bite or the cant which could take another 4+ months to correct. We decided to break even and call the whole thing off.

I return the day after tomorrow to compromise and close the deal on this sorry adventure. Sure, the teeth won’t be perfect, but at least I won’t have sideways teeth and a greying baby tooth and a canine wedged up on the roof of my mouth, and I’ll be able to chew, and things will look *almost* perfect. Who wants to be exactly perfect, anyway?

So, our tale has almost come to a close. I’ll post some actual photos when it’s really over.

I like this picture.

A few weeks ago, I started documenting my dreams. I record them with a digital audio recorder as soon as I wake up. The dreams all have similar themes: monsters trying to eat me, high school, Dave, insecurity, ex-coworkers, Marlon Brando. It proves to me how entirely fantastical and meaningless they really are.

Here’s one example of a dream I had a few weeks ago:

Click to play

Fascinating discoveries at the orthodontist today.

Doc looked at my front teeth and asked, cautiously, if I have any Asian ancestry. I said no, I’m Irish, as far as I know. He then went on to explain what a Chinese friend had told me years ago: upper front teeth that are curved in the back (often referred to as “shovel teeth”) are standard for people of Asian descent, but not European. Doc’s conclusion was that, being 100% Irish and having these curved teeth, I was descended from an isolated population (read: inbred). Doc himself is descended from (inbred) Pharaohs so, not to worry, he also has the same teeth.

Thanks to Google, I realized that these recessive Asian teeth were not a freak result of inbreeding from my proud Northern Irish ancestors, not that it matters either way, but rather that these ancestors were direct descendants of the Melungeons — a people from Central Asia who mixed with Africans, Middle Easterns and American Indians, settling largely in Appalachia. But they also passed through Ireland at one point, and my great-great-great-great whoever must have done some breeding because I seem to have inherited all the interesting, albeit irrelevant, traits.

Doc decided the curved backs of my two front teeth were messing up the bite, so he shaved them off. Then he shaved between my premolar on the left side to try and correct the bite on that side…as well as the front right FST (Formerly Sideways Tooth) to make it fit better against the front tooth…and now I’m wearing elastics from the top left canine to the bottom left molar. That’s my ortho update for this week.

I am Central Asian! Who knew?! And here I was, wearing four-leaf clover shirts. Moral: one belief system will always replace another until we outgrow them all.