2003-11-13 - 12:50 p.m.
this episode is brought to you by my teef.
i just got back from the dentist. is going the dentist not the most dehumanizing experience there is? i hate it so much that when i walk in the door i want to shout out: "i loathe the dentist" a la molly ringwald in "sixteen candles" talking about the bus.
having your teeth cleaned is so awkward and embarrassing. first off, you have to hold your mouth wide open the entire time while the hygenist sticks rubber gloved hands in there. then they masochisticly scrape at your teeth and little pieces of crud and tooth matter fall on your tongue. i spend most of my time at the dentist trying not to gag. to add insult to injury, they continually suck up all your spittle into a mini-vacuum. it is shaming to the suckee because you (read: i) can't help but wonder if the hygenist is thinking: "jesus christ, this person has the most spit in their mouth i've ever seen!" i always think that my hygenist is overzealous with the spit vacuum in an attempt to made me feel bad about my hyperactive saliva glands. then once the sucking and scraping is finished comes the worst part: the toothpaste/brushing with satan's whirring mechanical toothbrush. why do i hate this the most? because of the toothpaste. if the smell of spit, blood, and rubber doesn't make me gag, the toothpaste most certainly will. it is gritty and tastes like hell. today i laid there staring up at the stupid poster of a maze above my head with my hands folded in prayer and resting on my crotch and begged the gods (alright, iggy) to please not let me taste any of the toothpaste by having it fall on my tongue. i have no idea what flavor it was today (cinnamon, berry, bubblegum, dirt?), but i do know it was pink. when she brushes my teeth, i concentrate very hard on not moving my mouth or tongue at all so that none of the devil matter will touch any of my tastebuds. aside from one small slip of the tongue today (at which point i retreated directly to my "happy place"), i was in the clear. all i had to do (i thought) was get to the end of the brushing, then i could bolt upright and run for the sink to rinse away the taste of death. but no...i think the hygenist could sense my fear (or perhaps she noted the rigidity of my body) and rather than let me rinse, she used the water spraying thingie in concert with the spit vacuum and sprayed and sucked all the paste off. it was excruciating and made me feel like i was going to pass out. in truth, i still feel a little dizzy.
luckily all i had was a cleaning today and it seems despite my best efforts not to floss, i am in the clear. don't even get me started on my allergic reaction to novacaine, don't even get me started.
i have a longstanding hatred of the dentist coupled with the fact that i spent much of my youth in dr. freshman's dentist chair. i have a mouth full of metal fillings due to this man. i can still clearly remember what the inside of his nose looked like. then i got braces in fifth grade to improve on my bucktoofed smile. they worked, but braces impinge on your ability to fully clean your teeth, and when those suckers came off, i had more cavities than you could shake a stick at. my new dentist made me spend many a saturday in his chair while he maniacally drilled and filled my teeth. he called me his "little miracle" when in truth, my teeth really weren't that bad. the problem was all the "sealant" (stupid clear stuff that they used in the eighties instead of fillings) had allowed cavities to occur underneath, so all dr. freshman's hard work had to be redone and i became my new dentist's bread-and-butter.
looking at me, you'd never know i have a jillion fillings. actually, i have lovely looking teeth. considering i smoke, drink coffee and pepsi a lot, my teeth are surprisingly white. my high school boyfriend, in an attempt to make the 16-year-old me give him more blowjobs, told me that cum whitens your teeth. completely unrelated to that, people comment on the whiteness of my teeth all the time.
now i will perfectly segue into briefly telling you about martin amis's reading last night. how is this segue perfect? well it's all about the teef, as martin has had significant dental work done to fix his formerly british choppers. martin amis has just about the poshest british accent i've ever heard. i love when you can finally put a writer's voice to their written words (case in point, john irving's voice totally sounds like yankee connecticut rich, just swimming in money). accordingly, martin amis' voice is "full of money" just like daisy in gatsby. martin read from his latest book, "yellow dog", but i have to say i wasn't blown away. he literally picked the boringest part of the book to read (basically a transcription of a black box recording). he did answer questions though. i didn't ask one (although in my head i had brilliantly formulated one about visual representations [read: movies] of his earlier works) and i couldn't convince my cohort to come up with a stunningly smart academic question. martin was extremely gracious and incredibly short (in stature). i found it most interesting to learn that when he is blocked, he picks up something else (by someone else) to read. i found this puzzling, because i wondered if when he becomes "unblocked" his perception is informed or influenced by that which he read. just a thought. oh, and the amis reading probably was MOST pleasant because prior to it i sucked down two dirty grey goose martinis in thirty-five minutes, providing a nice literary buzz...
