Parp?

My friend Amanda sent me this blog posting, which had me guffawing out loud at my desk. I thought this would be all about toothy solidarity, but oh, it gets so much better!:

Hyperbole and A Half: The Party

If you have teeth, or kids, or have ever been heavily sedated, oh my, this one's for you!

Tooth Obsessed!

I was never the sort who liked to collect knickknacks. People with "collections" kind of befuddle me. Why does one need cups and keychains and and posters and t-shirts and purses and placemats with chickens on them? (Uh, sorry, Jill!)

However, since I got the braces, I've been kind of fascinated by the plethora of items out there with teeth on them. I'm wondering why anyone would want, or create this sort of stuff. For example:

http://www.toothartist.com/

The guy makes tiny portraits and paints them on molars and bicuspids. He calls them tooth tattoos and apparently they're some sort of "white collar ink." It ain't that pretty and it ain't cheap. Why would anyone want a portrait of David Letterman on their back molars??

And this gal makes golden charms out of children's teeth that have fallen out. Apparently she gilded her son's first lost tooth and it was so popular that it turned into a business. Um, really? I'm a little creeped out by that, and there are just too many unsettling metaphors to attach to it

However, lest I leave you with an *ahem* bad taste in your mouth, here is a really cute little tooth. I love the one with the eyes closed and the lovely feminine lashes on the left.

On that note, I bid you good night, sweet dreams, and hope that the tooth fairy leaves you a lucrative bonus under your pillow for teeth once lost long ago.

Everybody Has a Hungry Heart

Remember those 10 pounds that I lost when I first got the braces? Well, let's just say, I found them.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself that I couldn't have the foods that I used to eat, and so I have been loitering in what I am now calling a "cupcake depression." That means I have eaten cupcakes every day for about 2 months. (It's a great way to find pounds that you've lost. They come a-runnin' right back home!) I find myself craving cake, soft breads, anything that is literally providing a form of cushioning, a soft place for me to bump up against, whether that means me, or my interior self.

What seemed like a good idea at the time is now, quite literally making me go soft. I'm getting fleshy and round. I used to be so smart and so sharp, but I feel like I'm dulled around the edges. I know I should simply stop eating the cupcakes--problem solved!--but I cannot stop.

Today, I finally asked my stomach "Are you truly hungry for a cupcake?" and the interior answer was a resounding "NO!" Believe it or not, this surprised me. I asked myself, again, "Really you're not hungry?" I realized I've been trying to feed something in me--a definitive hunger--but apparently not for sugar or treats or soft, easily chewed food.

I started to take stock of my body to see what was really hungry and I finally saw the places that were compensating for the braces. It appears that I'm growing teeth in all the areas within me that are hungry. My feet for example, have a full set of incisors, canines and molars. They are starving to move, to feel grass, sand and dirt underneath them. They'd even settle for a good uninterrupted stretch of concrete. They are just so tired of being still, obediently arranged side by side under my office desk when they want to move! They want to dance! They want to jump like pogo sticks and downward dog. That dog wants a bone to gnaw upon so very badly.

I realized that my heart is growing teeth too. The heart is so close to the stomach that when hunger is concerned it's so easy to get them confused. I think this is why so many who are lonely are comforted by moon pies and ice cream. We think our bellies are grumbly for food, so it makes sense to up the food intake. But after I ate a full farmer's breakfast with eggs and potatoes, basmati rice and saag paneer, a veritable ton of girl scout cookies, a dinner of spaghetti squash with roasted pine nuts and home made cranberry cake (2 slices!), I realized I was full to the gills and with not a stitch of room and I still wanted to keep eating.

It was then that I knew that teeth are popping out all over my body, rising to the surface of my limbs, my organs, trying to sink themselves in, anywhere, because the ones in my mouth cannot do it. They don't want to go soft. They want to sharpen themselves, and crunch and chew, take in experience, break it all down, and digest it, making it wholly a part of me. Perhaps this is the way I have to feed myself now, but it's so new and so strange. I am like an adolescent going through puberty, amazed, embarrassed by all the changes my body is going through. Maybe, if I just allow these new teeth--in my feet, my heart, my lungs--to tell me what they want to eat, I can finally be sated.

This reminds me of The Waking by Theodore Rothke. This passage in particular:

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know

What falls away is always. And is near

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I swear, it's always something new with these teeth. They actually hurt today, and I don't understand why. People keep telling me that they see a difference--my teeth look straighter, my chin looks straighter, my whole face looks thinner. I would like to believe these observations, but I can't yet see it myself. I do know that things are moving. I can feel it, but I can't quite chart it yet. I'm Lewis and Clarking all over myself, but haven't yet found my Sacajawea who can help me make sense of it all.

Since I can't show you anything too different about my chompers, I figured that there's nothing more fun than making fun of a celebrity. So here goes:

http://allieiswired.com/archives/2009/06/celebrities-who-fixed-their-teeth/

Some of these examples are not that big a deal. But man! Catherine Zeta Jones! Celine Dion! Nicolas Cage! Elliott Yamin! (Looks like he fixed more than just his teeth!) Such drastic changes. It gives new meaning to "self improvement." More like reinvention. I always suspected that some actors have trouble with their centers of identity and that's why they need to inhabit characters--because they cannot firmly root themselves in who they are. (I've noticed this same curiosity about therapists and psychologists.) I went on a date with an actor once and asked him about this idea. He got insulted and took it very personally when I brought this up, when really I just wanted his opinion. The tenor of our date changed dramatically and I knew that it was going to be our first and last outing. So imagine my surprise when he gave me one hell of a kiss as we parted--and then not so surprisingly never called again.

I think perhaps that was his way of answering my question.