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Toothscraping
Mar. 9th, 2009 01:51 pmI know that there was a point in my life when I didn't dread going to the dentist. I remember when it just entailed opening your mouth for it to be looked at by a nice lady, and then getting a Mr Men sticker for your bravery. Now it's more like visiting Dr Terrible's House of Pain, and one of the few things that are meant for the good of your health where I come out feeling significantly worse than I was when I went in.
This time the problem is I have what they called "pocketing", where my teeth no longer fit into my gums and there's more than 4 millimetres between the two of them. This causes a buildup of bacteria (which she was kind enough to show me a giant picture of under a microscope) and is also why flossing hurts such an incredible amount, as does the thorough cleaning that they do where they jam forks in between every single one of them. If I use floss regularly then it'll get better, but at the beginning it'll take a few days before it isn't painful - like learning the guitar. With my teeth.
Other than that I was relieved that there were no further problems that I would have to come back for - the dentist still wants me to get my wisdom teeth out, as I sort of let myself forget about that last year, and even if they don't hurt they may cause the loss of bones (if there is an argument against creationism then the design of the human mouth is it, because no creator who made all things bright and beautiful would have done such a poor schematic job on the dominant species to live among them). After swallowing so much of my own blood that I may now actually be a vampire, my teeth were polished to the American glow-in-the-dark standard and I was set free once more, feeling as though my mouth was a lot wider than when I arrived.
I took the opportunity to look round the Harvard Vanguard building that I used to work in while I was there (it's across the road), and took some awful photos on my camera phone - since we were last in that crumbling building it's been completely redecorated, with new carpets and wallpaper and a big address up on the wall. We never had a big address up on the wall when we were there. It's mildly distressing to see our suite having been taken over on a directory listing better than the few sheets of plastic nailed to the wall that we had, and the fourth floor looks almost pleasant. (Unhappily there's no sign of the plant that I hid there on our last day - they're all planted in metallic square things now.) After seeing all this sudden improvement since we moved out, though, I was very happy to see that the lifts are just as dreadfully life-threatening as ever. As you can tell from the presence of these photos, the door codes have also not been changed.
I visited Taipei Tokyo, too - I was quite relieved to see that it was still there, but it was almost completely deserted and there was a distinct absence of Sam, who was the first person in Davis Square to start recognizing me when I came in for lunch. Their buffet has also folded and been replaced with a set of lunch specials, so I'm now reversing the tooth-polishing process with some sashimi and their rubbish soy sauce.
This time the problem is I have what they called "pocketing", where my teeth no longer fit into my gums and there's more than 4 millimetres between the two of them. This causes a buildup of bacteria (which she was kind enough to show me a giant picture of under a microscope) and is also why flossing hurts such an incredible amount, as does the thorough cleaning that they do where they jam forks in between every single one of them. If I use floss regularly then it'll get better, but at the beginning it'll take a few days before it isn't painful - like learning the guitar. With my teeth.
Other than that I was relieved that there were no further problems that I would have to come back for - the dentist still wants me to get my wisdom teeth out, as I sort of let myself forget about that last year, and even if they don't hurt they may cause the loss of bones (if there is an argument against creationism then the design of the human mouth is it, because no creator who made all things bright and beautiful would have done such a poor schematic job on the dominant species to live among them). After swallowing so much of my own blood that I may now actually be a vampire, my teeth were polished to the American glow-in-the-dark standard and I was set free once more, feeling as though my mouth was a lot wider than when I arrived.
I took the opportunity to look round the Harvard Vanguard building that I used to work in while I was there (it's across the road), and took some awful photos on my camera phone - since we were last in that crumbling building it's been completely redecorated, with new carpets and wallpaper and a big address up on the wall. We never had a big address up on the wall when we were there. It's mildly distressing to see our suite having been taken over on a directory listing better than the few sheets of plastic nailed to the wall that we had, and the fourth floor looks almost pleasant. (Unhappily there's no sign of the plant that I hid there on our last day - they're all planted in metallic square things now.) After seeing all this sudden improvement since we moved out, though, I was very happy to see that the lifts are just as dreadfully life-threatening as ever. As you can tell from the presence of these photos, the door codes have also not been changed.
I visited Taipei Tokyo, too - I was quite relieved to see that it was still there, but it was almost completely deserted and there was a distinct absence of Sam, who was the first person in Davis Square to start recognizing me when I came in for lunch. Their buffet has also folded and been replaced with a set of lunch specials, so I'm now reversing the tooth-polishing process with some sashimi and their rubbish soy sauce.
