6 posts tagged “braces”
How I long for the halcyon days when I had time to roll blu-tak on my desk as though mad. I'm so busy, I might break. But as I was saying to my sister (who has finished her degree! Hurrah!) earlier, two things which sometimes annoy me about blogs are a) people going on about how tired and busy and stressed they are (guilty, moi), and b) people showing off about their fabulous weekends/lives. As my life has latterly consisted of a) tiring busy stressfulness and b) a fabulous weekend on the North East coast with friends (and icecream), I am spent. I have nothing for you. Get out.
But how about my new photo? Brilliantly grotesque, no? No arms-length, big-eyed myspace posing for me. But also it's first full photographic view of Betty in all her glory. If you're thinking of getting a clear brace, have a recce of Betty. Enlarge the photo at will and gag at my icecream tache as you do so.
Oh Betty, why are you hurting me so? The first day wasn't painful, but days 2 and 3 have been sore. As a result, all I have eaten is soup, smoothies, porridge, (soggy) weetabix, and- oh, the excitement- some very, very soft noodles. The weirdest thing is that my mouth feels fuller than it should, as though I have an extra row of teeth, or a family of tiny trolls living under my top lip who sit in a row, poised and waiting to leap out of my mouth as soon as I open it.
All I can talk about are my braces!
But that's because life has hit a lull over the past week or so, and it's all the fault of teeth. You know sometimes you're running around doing things, seeing people, generally feeling 100%ish? Gunning on all cylinders, or some other mixed metaphor? Well, that is not me this week. Since G had his wisdom tooth out, we haven't done much because he was poorly. Then he passed on the baton of tooth-related incapacity to me. So there have been no meals out, no late nights, not much apart from lolling about watching telly and falling asleep. It's not that we don't spend a fair amount of time lolling anyway, but normally we have a choice, and normally it's peppered with other things, and usually involves less soup and pain.
But you don't want to know about that either! Let's talk about fashion. High-waisted jeans are having a fashion moment. Topshop's corset-waist jeans have already sold out nationwide. But are they acceptable for women like me? Let's not pussyfoot around. I'm curvy, y'all. To borrow from Sir Mixalot, I've got an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face. Well, not literally in your face, but anyway. Small waist, big hips. I'm not saying that's good, or indeed bad (QotD: do you feel compelled to justify every remark made on your blog that could be mistaken as a boast, or as self-flagellation?) (Did you see how I used the word flagellation?). It is just me. I am down with that.
Hence, the low-rise trousers that have ruled the fashion roost for many years have been a little frustrating. Gapey on the waist, a bit "snug" on the hips at times, a bit too much of the whale-tail effect. And as for skinny jeans- well, they are both low-rise and very tight, and take me to a whole new level of legs-that-look-like-parsnips, although I have succumbed to buying one pair, but only to wear with boots.
So I'm attracted to the idea of high-waisted jeans/trousers, not least because they seem more ladylike and dressy than low-rise kecks. Good with a blouse, good with a waist-belt, good with heels. Nice silhouette. No muffin-top! And surely cut to fit nicely on pear/hourglass shapes?
BUT, could I be mistaken? Are high waisted trousers going to make my hips and bum look not so much generous but rather, the size of small island? Is this another fashion moment destined to pass me by, favouring only the sylph-like snakehips of waifs? What do you think? Any adventures in the world of high-waisted-ness?
ps. Crivens*! Must it be so difficult to eat a biscuit? It's Free Biscuit Friday in the work canteen (free biscuits with each hot drink bought), and I am, as I type, unsuccessfully attempting to eat a custard cream. Impossible. I have to break off a piece, put it on a plastic spoon and hold it under the surface of my skinny latte until it is mush. Rather takes the crunch, and the fun, out of biscuits.
*pps I have my dear friend Caffers to thank for the word crivens. She used it in an e-mail the other day and I thought, I must purloin that word and use it regularly, along with aforementioned "purloin" and "tremendous". And I'm quite keen on using "y'all" too. Did you spot it in this post? Very Britney.
I have named the brace Betty, and this next song is dedicated to her:
A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear (NB: it really is!)
That now I'm in a whole new world with you
It is a whole new world with Betty. A world where it takes five times as long to clean my teeth, involving several stages:
1. Brushing my teeth with a special orthodontic brush. It's like having three extra sets of teeth: above the brackets; below the brackets; and finally, the brackets themselves. Small avalanche of blood aside (at the moment, my teeth are, essentially, wobbly, and hence don't like to be shoved around by a toothbrush too much), this was relatively straightforward.
2. Cleaning under the wires with a tiny pokey brush device.
3. Washing my mouth out with medicated and mildly aneasthetic mouthwash.
4, Smearing my teeth with revolting*-tasting "flouro-gel", which I then have to swish around my mouth for one minute. And I'm not allowed to rinse with water afterwards. It is torture by peppermint, I'm telling you.
(*I say revolting, but when I got into bed last night and breathed in the direction of The G, he exclaimed "mmm, I love that mouthwash!". So maybe I won't be needing the below link)
Betty's world has whole websites dedicated to the cause (I've linked to my favourite page on the site- Braces and Romance. Am disturbed, though, by the following statement: "Generally, men seem to have a harder time with braces than women. Perhaps this is because women have other factors at work -- and that teenage cheerleader look isn't always a bad thing when it comes to attracting men." Um, ew?).
In Betty's world, porridge is just a bit too crunchy, and the thought of eating an apple, or god forbid, a nut, is an anethema to me.
On balance, things are still pretty rosy between Betty and I. But she can be a bit of a bitch, in a making-me-scream-with-pain kind of way.
I feel confident, though, that these are just teething problems
ps. Boom boom
One week tomorrow is B-Day. No, unfortunately not my birthday, but rather, the Day of the Braces. The Braces of Bling. When I went to my last consultation, I asked several questions of my orthodontist. These included: how visible will the braces be? How do I keep them clean? How often will they be tightened? Frankly, I was misguided in my choice of questions. What I really want to know is:
- Next Wednesday, when I look in the mirror, am I going to cry? Scratch that. How much am I going to cry, and for how many hours? Or even days?
- What direction should I take, sartorially? Do I embrace the, um, brace, and go all-out studenty? Hell, it's going to make me look younger so should I don baggy jeans and hoodies and really get back to '96? My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me.... NO*. Rather, I think I should take the route of grown-up sophistication, foreswearing combats and maybe even jeans altogether. Skirts, blouses and waist belts all round. I'll be all lady until I open my mouth. No change there, then.
- And on that note: clear gloss to keep things inconspicuous, or bright red lips to show that I am bracey and proud?
- How many schoolchildren will refer to me as "Ugly Betty" on the bus? And how long will it take for my brother to cotton on that my (real) name has, well, certain phonic similarities to said Betty?
- More importantly, how quickly can I arrange a TV-themed fancy dress party and go all out Betty?
-Will The G want to kiss me? Really? Without closing his eyes?
- And will I, well, break his mouth?
- Will we witness a return of my ridiculous teenage photo-smile- top lip curved over upper teeth, sheepish expression, dipped head?
- Again, the crying? How long?
Anyway, I'm totally going to channel my beautiful little sister who, despite the odd flash of ridiculous teenage photo-smile, just loved to bear her metallic gnashers at her bro and sisters in a big bracey grin. She still looked so pretty. I can only hope to emulate her a little. She would find all this hilarious.
In other news, I am quivering with excitement about the yardening that awaits me at the weekend. I am sorry, Alan Titchmarch, but container fever has struck! Though it will be March by the weekend so it may be allowed.... will have to check with Al. Today brought the happy combination of the cancellation of this weekend's filming, plus the unexpected use of the work hire car this evening. Which meant that I had to drop by B&Q on the way home, to pick up a monster bag of compost and seeds galore. Basil and night stocks and chives, oh my! As I hauled the mighty-ass bag of compost into the car boot, truly I knew what a task it must be shift a dead body to a lonely woodland, post-murder. Moderately psychotic thoughts aside, I am so so much looking forward to yardening this weekend, while The poor old G convelesces from having his wisdom teeth out. There will be much moving around of plants, to create a lavender bed, and planting of iris and lily-of-the-valley bulbs, ready to burst into life in summer.
Happy days indeed.
*Fully embracing 1996 at this point- R Kelly lyrics and everything!
This time I wore a black dress and lady-shoes. After my combats and trainers get-up increased the already huge awkward-teenager factor during my first visit to the orthodontist, I decided that grown up and (relatively) sophisticated was the way forward for my second consultation.
I like to think I treated the whole thing as a business meeting, from the moment I arrived and threw my handbag onto the table crisply as if to say "Here I am: adult, in control, and ready for straight teeth. Show me your business plan, doctor".
During the consultation, I did not blush when the orthodontist exclaimed "My, what a strange little tooth it is!".
Nor did I giggle nervously as he produced plaster models of my teeth and clacked the lower and upper sets together merrily. And I coolly refused his offer to keep the damn things and put them on my mantlepiece.
As I perused the braces on offer, I made sure to emphasise that I wanted them to be discreet because "I am twenty-six, after all!" (tinkling laughter aimed at curious, eavesdropping teens).
My only boofus moment, in fact, was when he suddenly, without warning, wrestled me into the dentists chair and ripped the decade-old fixed wire retainer from the back of my teeth, with a crackle of crumbling dental glue, wire, and possibly tooth enamel. At that point I did kick my high heels wildly in pain and protest (given that my mouth was clamped open and I could not therefore voice my indignation).
I have decided to go ahead with the treatment. It's not free by any means, but I figured it's a reasonable amount of money to pay, given that I don't plan to buy a car (that's a clue as to the approximate price). Despite the Ugly Betty factor, I am strangely looking forward to being a brace-face, simply because after 12 months I will actually be able to smile at people I don't know.
And dahlings, I shall have sapphires on my teeth. Jewels, beautiful jewels, and champagne for everybody! I must stress that the sapphire brackets aren't blue, they're clear. And so all you can really make out (unless you're really close up, in which case I would hope that you love me enough to see beyond the metalwork) is the metal wire running through the brackets. I had hoped I would be able to get a white wire, but apparently that's just a plastic coating, and it starts to rub off after a couple of weeks, giving a not-so-fetching striped appearance.
Also, I see the fitting of the braces as a short crash-diet moment, given that- and I know this from experience- I won't be able to eat anything but soup for the first three days each time the brace is tightened.
So the countdown has begun. One month and five days to go until the Braces of Bling.
Yesterday morning, 9.30am.
I'm sitting in a room full of tweenagers and teenagers, sweaty and metal-mouthed in their school uniforms. Some of them look at me like "what's she doing here?", and I feel inappropriate, like a big hairy man at a playgroup, wearing a nappy. I read Grazia and try to look grown up and intimidating.
The merry call from the doorway saves me from the sullen stares of the youths.
"Hello there, Bokker, good to see you again! How long has it been? Ten years?"
"Huh huh, yeah....", I trail off, my adult powers of conversation apparently sucked away, kryptonite-fashion, by the medicinal fumes emanating from the orthodontist's clinic.
And why, I am asking myself as I shuffle towards the Chair of Doom, did I choose to dress like a 15 year old in combats and trainers (even my shoes are retro: Air Max 95s)? Why did I switch my traditional "Dress Down Friday" to Tuesday, instead of opting for ladylike heels, wool trousers or similar? My outfit is not helping my sense of being dragged backwards into humiliating teenagerdom.
I sit in the horrid chair, and my mouth is filled with plastecine, and I bite down on bits of wax, and when I look down, my combats have ridden up so my Piglet socks- pulled up- are on display. Fortunately, the orthodontist, who now has grey hair, has taken his own dental skills to his halitosis since I was last here. But, sweet breath aside, it is all somewhat gruelling, and at a cost of £95 for two consultations, not entirely bargain basement.
But I want straight teeth. I had them, for a couple of glorious years, after 18 months of being a brace-face. But eventually, my very unique and (I think) unsightly tooth rotation- yes, rotation as in twisted- began to spring back. By the time I hit my early twenties, I was snaggle-toothed once more. The orthodontist informs me that rotated teeth will always boing back into their original embarassing position- they need continuing attention. As I hadn't had my fixed retainer seen to for a decade, the tooth had said "F you, retainer, I'm off", and repositioned itself at a jaunty angle.
(I'm sorry, I can't work out how to format that picture properly)
It's an unfortunate, if not life-threatening, affliction. Essentially it looks like I have one front tooth longer than the other, and it's why there are hardly any photographs of me smiling with my mouth open. It's why I feel self-conscious when lots of people, or even one person, sometimes, are looking at me. It's why I can't quite picture myself as a beautiful bride. And it's why I don't like wearing brightly coloured lipstick, because it might draw attention to the tooth! The freaky snaggletooth!
Like I said, not life-threatening. But waaaaaaaaah. Poor me. God, it's not like there are children starving in Africa, or anything. Er.
Now I need some help. Basically I have two options:
1. The train track. AAAAAARGH! But, I am assured, it can now come with white brackets and wires, so is not so visible. Compare and contrast the top and bottom tracks in this picture:
Not so bad, huh? Even for a 26 year old woman.
2. The strange, jellified world of the "invisible brace", which is clear, but I fear will make me look like I have something unidenitifiable happening with dribble and/or slime on my teeth:
At least with the first option, people might think "yikes, what's up with those teeth? Oh, it's brace". Whereas with this option, there's a risk that they might think "yikes, what's up with those teeth? Yikes, what's up with those teeth?". But on the other hand, perhaps there is less chance of them noticing in the first place.
Or, I could forswear vanity and learn to love ole snaggletooth.
What do you think?
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