I got my teeth cleaned today! Well, at least the first stage. Apparently since I hadn't had my teeth cleaned in 6 years, I needed some kind of super comprehensive cleaning. Today they did a "total mouth debridement" (translation: chipping plaque off the teeth with a chisel) and I have another appointment in two weeks for what I think they were calling a "fine scaling," to get whatever the chisel left behind.
I don't have any new cavities, only one where a filling cracked and fell out. The dentist said since it's so close to the nerve I might want to just have it taken out. The tooth, that is. It's a wisdom tooth. Yank it out, I say. That way, I won't have to worry about it any more.
I feel giddy. I had become
so self-conscious about my breath that I was avoiding public gatherings, I was
really avoiding meeting new people, and I got terribly anxious going into any situation in which I might have to speak with anyone at close range. Any time I had to talk to anyone at school I found myself muttering out of the side of my mouth. But I am an outcast no more!
I'll be in Indiana until some time around the end of July. I'm staying with my mom and dad while my mom recovers from surgery she had a few weeks ago, helping with gardening and cooking and anything else they need and enjoying the nice long visit with my family that I haven't been able to have for many years. My sister and her family along with her in-laws -- they all live about 45 minutes away -- are going on a trip in mid-July, and I'm going to house-sit and cat-sit for them. They're going to pay me for it, which I feel a little strange about because it is something I would happily do anyway, but the money makes it possible for me to stay here for this extended time. So it all works out.
I was also counting on my $600 check from the IRS to help me get through the summer, but now I don't think I'm going to get one, since everyone I know has gotten theirs or at least a letter saying that one is on the way. Not that I necessarily deserve $600 from the federal government, but if everyone else is getting it I want mine too. I deserve to be pandered to as much as anyone! (I don't know if I was excluded because I earned so little money last year, or because I'm a student, or what.)
My dad is a Civil War buff. The military stuff doesn't interest me much, but the politics do. Over the last two nights, we watched Gods and Generals (it's almost 4 hours long) and he's watching Gettysburg tonight. I'm wandering in to catch bits of it, but I can only take so much. Great acting, and beautiful photography, but the ponderous tone wears me out. I know there's a case to be made that this class of people in this time were more eloquent and sentimental, but was everything that came out of their mouths so lofty?
