The Tooth Fairy is still ticked about this one...

Today was the final day of the photo shoot for the upcoming esthetics textbook. The publishing company sent out an art director, her assistant, and Mr. creepy photographer guy (who bears a striking resemblance to Homer Simpson's neighbor, Ned Flanders) to shoot photos demonstrating procedures described in the book. Nearly all the students, 85% of whom are lovely young girls in their early twenties, were given a chance to model. The process was a fairly smooth one, with the exception of the more revealing procedures. Mr. creepy photographer guy, who looked to be in his mid-forties, suddenly had LOTS of technical trouble during those shots, and took three times as long as other procedures because either that ding-dang lighting was off or the dad-gum angle was bad. Hopefully he has better luck retouching his work in what I imagine is his creepy office in his creepy basement.

Ned Flanders

Anyway, today I had to get a head shot--sorry, Mr. creepy photographer man, I meant to say portrait shot, because that's what you prefer--for the "about the authors" page. He had me go outside and stand in front of a tree, positioning me with my feet pointed in one direction, my shoulders toward another, and my jaw in yet another. While I was holding my head at a completely unnatural angle and trying to smile naturally despite the pain in my sterno cleido mastoid muscles, I was thinking about how this mid-life career change came about, and feeling irritated for my failure to write about it while it happened, because it was unlike anything I've ever done before.

Most of you remember that, in order to become an esthetician, I had to quit my job at the university and go back to school. Beauty school. I took a lot of crap on that one, and indeed it was humbling, but I had to get my state license before I could do any other training. I thought I understood what I’d be getting into, because both my sister and a close friend went to similar schools, but I think you really have to be there every day to truly understand what it's like. And what it's like is girl prison. Crazy girl prison. Crazy, coked-up girl prison. I learned more about crack and crank than I did about skin peels, more about which city is the easiest on giving welfare assistance than I did about microdermabrasion, and more about the state prison early release/transition program than I did about the integumentary system. I keep meaning to write it all down and so I've decided to do it here. If anyone remembers a particular tale I've shared, remind me, would you? Here we go…

One of my instructors, we'll call her Miss Pam (school etiquette requires we call all instructors Miss, in a failed attempt to get the students/girl prisoners to show some respect.) Miss Pam kicked a ten-year crack habit a couple of years before, but her teeth are really bad from years of abuse. They’re rotten and causing her a lot of trouble, but she doesn’t have dental insurance. I hang out in her office a lot and fix her computer when it goes south, so I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. She has a sardonic sense of humor and is a huge Dwight Yoakam fan--when she first found out that I like him, too, we became immediate friends and now I can get away with murder around the place. It pays to have powerful friends, especially in girl prison.

Thank you, Dwight Yoakam, for making my life easier to bear in so many ways.

Anyway, the teeth. She’s lost several, but one back molar is obviously hurting her and she’s been complaining about it daily. I try to make her laugh, "Hey, gal, let's getcha some Percocet and a pair of pliers--I'll take care of it, no charge." Success--she laughs out loud, but comes to find me about an hour later.

"Would you really do that? Pull my tooth?"

"What, the pliers? Right."

"Yeah! I'm desperate here."

"You've got to be kidding. I can't pull out a molar with pliers!"

"Yes, you can! In fact, if you do it, I'll check off some of your nail services." Hmmm. Now she has my attention. I have to complete several artificial nail services to meet state requirements, but I’m not doing a single set more than the minimum, because I hate them and never intend to touch them once I get my license. The school expects me to complete three times as many sets as the state, so I’ve been getting out of the extras by trading my computer repair services in exchange for a check mark confirming I've done a full set. (Oh, don't get all uppity with me about it--I'm trapped in a building with people who give themselves tattoos with Bic pen ink and safety pins, people. I need to get out of here ASAP.)

That night I’m riffling through Michael's tool boxes, looking for just the right tool, when he walks in.

"Whatcha looking for, baby?"

"Pliars for pulling a tooth. Or maybe a vice grip..."

"Uh, did you say, "for pulling a tooth?"

"Mmm-hmmm. Which ones do you think would work best?"

"Could you explain what exactly you're talking about?"

"I'm going to pull out Miss Pam's tooth tomorrow. She can't afford a dentist and I'm gonna help her out."

"Uh-huh."

"I figure I just need to get a good strong grip and then pull really hard."

"No way will you actually do it. No way will she LET you do it."

"I'm going to take both of these. I'll clean them up afterwards--promise."

"You are insane."

"Yes, but you can never call me boring."

"That is so true that it scares me."

The next day, a Friday, we wait until the afternoon slows down. Miss Pam takes a pill she had on hand, and we wait until she gets a little giggly. The student floor has been hopping with gossip and speculation on whether or not we're going through with this, but as she and I go into the facial room, it's suddenly completely quiet in anticipation. Miss Pam lies down on the bed, opens her mouth wide and shows me the trouble spot. A bridge that once covered two teeth is still connected to the remaining tooth. I think grabbing the bridge is the way to go. I give her a chance to back out, but she's talked herself into this. I reach the pliers into her mouth, secure them around the tooth, and pull.

"G'OW!!!"

"Sorry! The pliers slipped! Do you want me to try again?"

"Wes, pwease."

Two or three pulls later, she's bawling and I'm sweating. "Miss Pam, are you absolutely SURE about this?"

"WES. WES I'm surh!!! Wust bucking DO it!!!"

Fine. Okay. This time I’m gonna rip out that damn tooth. I look at the pliers, look at her tooth, then become inspired. It's just like waxing--it's all in the wrist! I need to put some power in the pull. I suddenly know I can do this. I reach in again, grab the bridge, and go for the gold. 1. 2. 3. YANK.

Suddenly I am holding up the pliers and staring at a huge, rotten, black-rooted back molar attached to a mangled bridge. Miss Pam's mouth is full of blood, and yet she is attempting to talk. She is…happy.

"Miwhel! Wank you! Oh, it weels bedder aweady! Wank you! Wank you so muth!"

The pair on the left did the trick.

I get her towels and sterile cotton, along with strict instructions to gargle with hydrogen peroxide and water several times a day over the weekend. This is my show, after all, and I am drunk with power. She leans over the sink to clean up and I go out to take a stroll around the floor with my trophy in hand. The endorphins have kicked in and I feel better, too. I just pulled out an adult tooth! And not just any tooth, but a freakin’ MOLAR! Not surprisingly, the hair and nail students are repulsed by my trophy, (they are such wusses) and only the esthetic students share my joy. See, we love picking at blackheads and tweezing ingrown hairs, so a rotten tooth is, like, the ultimate extraction.

Included solely because I think it's funny.

Later, I smugly hand over Michael's cleaned and sanitized pliers and relay my tale. He is incredulous and wildly amused, and I tease him mercilessly for doubting me. I am entirely too pleased with myself.

Over the weekend, I call a friend who's a dentist and ask if I can pay for Miss Pam to get checked out and see what can be done. He is also amused, and offers a free consultation. We schedule an appointment. Turns out, her teeth are in such bad shape that they all need to be pulled and replaced with dentures. He asks if she's interested in having him work on them, or would she prefer to stick with me? Funny guy. Cracks me up.

A healthy tooth is a happy tooth.

Eventually she finds out her cousin is in dental school in Portland, and she gets a mouth full of brand new, pretty white teeth. I won’t see her again for years, but I hope that whenever she sees a pair of pliers, she thinks about getting her tooth pulled in girl prison. I know I do.

While pondering my father's move to Utah...

When my parents first became my neighbors, we needed to establish boundaries. Our house is about 350 yards from theirs, so while we weren't too close, there were still kinks to work out.

Example: Saturday afternoon, both Michael's car and my car are in the driveway. We are...busy. Very busy. Busily busy with our busy-ness. Smack in the middle of getting down to our busy-ness. Dad knocks on the door. He sees the cars and knows we're home. And so he keeps knocking. And knocking. And still he knocks.

We've been busily ignoring the knocking, but Michael is now distracted and highly irritated about it. He throws back the covers and gets out of bed. "I have HAD IT with your DAD."

"Michael, where...what...you aren't really going to...oh! NO! NOOOO!...Michael! For the love of..."

Bare-naked, very recently busy Michael throws the front door wide open. "What can I do for you, Dad?"

(Silence. In the distance, a bird sings.)

"...Uh, I can come back later."

"Good. Great. That is GREAT. I will see you later."

Fast forward twelve years: Dad is moving back to Utah and we will no longer be neighbors. In less than thirty days, Michael and I can finally get back to uninterruptable busy-ness, and that's okay by me.

Tooth Beautification

This week I'm getting braces--something every forty-something woman looks forward to like, I dunno, mammograms. It shouldn't be too bad, though, as they're clear (here's a shout-out: Thanks Invisalign!) I have eight sets of trays and will wear each set for two weeks, and when I'm done I'll be able to use the final set as custom-made bleaching trays. I'm certain the straightness and whiteness of my resulting smile will no doubt lead to world peace.



I really shouldn't complain, since I had the old-fashioned metal braces, complete with elastics and headgear, when I was a kid, and these new braces are sure to be far less painful. I need another go, however, because a) I threw away my retainers in college, and b) one of the last three car accidents I've been involved in damaged my bite and my teeth started moving, resulting in a gap a lot like Madonna's. (Let me interject--anyone who's ever experienced my driving might jump to the conclusion that these wrecks occurred as a result of my propensity towards speed, but you'd be wrong, so na na poo poo na na.) I wouldn't care so much, except the skin on the inside of my upper lip keeps getting pinched in the gap, which hurts crazy bad and causes me to cuss vehemently.

(Speaking of cussing, my friend Holls recently went to Vegas, where she and her boyfriend caught a Penn and Teller show and met the duo afterwards. Holls told Teller, the short and silent one, that she'd come to Vegas with but one desire: to hear him say aloud the F-word. He obliged her with a gratifyingly long sentence employing said word as a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb enhancing an adjective. Nothing like giving back to the fans.)

Some people have said they like the gap, that it gives my face more character. Uh huh. But according to Chinese face reading, a gap between the two front teeth indicates either a risk taker, a spend thrift, or a person who has trouble making up their mind. This is a rather unsettling and revealing look at my personality, as I happen to be all three. Don't scoff at this stuff--even Shakespeare believed in it, and you don't question Shakespeare: "Your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters." Makes me wonder if glaringly-obvious risk-taker Madge has someone else handling her fortune.

9th grade, 1979: Post braces.

So there's another reason why I need braces--my gap is allowing people to understand my negative personality tendencies far too well, at least people knowledgeable about Chinese Face Reading, and that could be anyone.

Feelin' the Pretty

Okay! Now I like my blog design. Crisis and crankiness resolved. Do you not agree that it is, as promised, pretty? Thanks, Pyzam, for the swell design!

I thought you might also enjoy the completely dork-like photo of me from second grade. Me mum made that dress for me and that's how I wore my hair for years--I didn't have a say in the matter. In our old bathroom, there was a double sink bathroom counter, and I had to lay down between the sinks to get my hair washed. My hair was so long and so fine and so curly that it was the only way Mom could get it under control. She'd pull it into braids so tight my eyes were slanted, and then insisted on putting SPF lotion on the center part so it wouldn't sunburn, so it'd look greasy. Alas, these are the traumas of my youth.

Cranky Spice

So this blog thing is new to me but I'm already completely addicted. Those of you who've been on my case for years to write (you know who you are) will now be free to enjoy my unsolicited opinions and ponderings on anything and everything. Thankfully, you'll have to voluntarily visit the blog to read them, which is much better than me assaulting your inbox with my ravings.

As is the case in so many areas of my life, I can't be bothered with the easy, simple, pre-packaged blog templates offered to me on the site. Nope. I have to search for one on the Internet that's pretty (and it's all about the pretty, people) but requires me to make changes to over forty lines of HTML code. Code that I screwed up somehow. And Michael is going crazy watching me try to do it because this code writing is what he pays other people to do for him, only they know what they're doing. And so it doesn't look very pretty on screen at the moment, but it's pretty in my head and THAT'S WHAT COUNTS.

The future's so bright...

Michael's mom was laid to rest today, and although I wasn't able to go, Michael tells me it was a beautiful thing. Sarah Phyllis Wilding Eldridge was a force to be reckoned with--she loved her family dearly and worked hard every day of her life. She lived to see 90 years, has more progeny than I can count and they're still going strong. In fact, on the day of her passing, her first great great grandchild was born. Yeah, two greats! I understand the service was sweet, and even sweeter was the fact that all six of her sons, who have argued constantly and competed with each other their entire lives, got along without a single cross word all day, not even during the reading of the will. Michael said this miracle alone was proof to him that there is a God.

Anyway, there was a viewing prior to the service for people to see her one last time. One of the great-grandkids mentioned that she didn't look like herself, and they realized it was because she wasn't wearing her glasses. Someone fetched them from the car and quickly placed them on her face. But what no one considered was that her glasses were the kind that turn dark in sunlight, and being in the car and exposed to the sun, they were as dark as possible and, apparently, slow to change to clear. So Michael glanced over at her, and there she was, laid out in a gorgeous casket, dressed in her temple whites, and wearing shades. Seems a fitting way to go.