wisdom_teeth maruku http://www.bitterfilms.com/ta_wt_03.html 010525 ... mad bird with teeth a december day when i was seventeen the oral surgeon's office intravenous valium on a slow drip i was conscious but had no memory of the event (no different from a few other afternoons i had spent in those days) "Count backwards from ten," he said. "10, 9, 8, 7..." and the rest of the day was disappeared 010527 ... moonshine I'm keeping mine. I hope... 010527 ... soia got them taken out the day of news years eve, and none of my friends stayed with me that night, and neither did my boyfriend. my mom was there but fell asleep on the couch. i wrote in my journal something like "earlier in my life this would have caused a breakdown". I guess that's earlier as in before I was doing so many pain killers, heh. 010527 ... kali mine need to come out. now. 010527 ... kali i wanted her to feel the holes with her tongue. i wanted to kiss each of her toes. 010930 ... unhinged my 16 year old brother just got all four of his pulled out on friday. i find that really odd for some reason. 010930 ... spoons When i was fourteen i had all four cut out... 011001 ... spooky fish feeding frenzy funny, i wasnt any smarter when i still had the fucking things crowding my mouth 011002 ... pralines&cream how long will i take to heal? How long before I can eat real food? :( 020713 ... silentbob i wonder... 020716 ... megan dry sockets ouch 060804 ... clara One has arrived Another is arriving a time of much learning and painful wisdom 060805 ... native persimmon the afterwards narcs made me sick, so put them away in the medicine cabinet, along with scores of other excess prescription amphetamines the family has accumulated over the years. . . think it is surprising they haven't become party favors for my motley rotation of friends and pseudo fuck-buddies. Suppose I'm striving for more pure associations, not looking to further pollute. 060805 ... raze ten years gone, and i don't feel any less wise. there's just less unwanted chewing of the inside of my mouth. the molar that got pushed crooked by one of the wisdom teeth is still crooked, but keeps to itself. top right, leaning forward. there was little pain and almost no noticeable swelling when they came out. there was a bit of bruising that looked like a faint birthmark and took some time to fade. there were pink and purple shirts with buttons that weren't gone to be missed but would be gone and missed soon. there was a plastic syringe to fill with water. there was tylenol 3. there were the early incandescent bits. there was a film and an album, both with one word names. there was braided hair in a darkened room, stripping me of what i hid behind. there was the beached goldfish paying for the window he'd broken almost a year before. and there was a salad to celebrate when the healing was done, but the restaurant that served it doesn't exist anymore, and the name of the place won't be called back from wherever it's buried in my mind. 131213 ... retractyl I became unwise last year at the same time that I got set to go back to school. Maybe making room or something. I remember watching all the action reflected in the dentist's eyes while some battle scene played out on a screen set in the ceiling. He had his knee on my chest for extra leverage when he paused and asked his assistant for the little bone-saw. For some reason, the assistant had a few buttons undone on her lab coat, revealing heaps of body glitter across her chest. She always did. I guess some people just really need a little more glamour in their days. The following days were nearly painless. I saved up my pills until there were just enough to abuse or in case i had some trouble sleeping, but quickly learned that I don't like the immobility of the abuse or the nightmares of the sleep aid one bit. It was fun doing the extractions, though. Maybe I should have stuck with the sciences. 131213 ... unhinged my body only made half as many as most people but i still have them so does that make me twice as wise as people who got them pulled? 131214 ... epitome of incomprehensibility My wisdom teeth were wise enough not to get in the way. But they will be pulled out if they happen to get too many cavities, says the dentist. In that eventuality I should get some kind of insurance again. But it's just a bother, private insurance. I don't like the idea, at least for dentistry. For travel insurance it makes sense. But for teeth, why not a) just pay as you go, when you can and/or otherwise b) have it federally subsidized, like medicare? take money away from weapons or fancy government lunches; teeth are important. But there is no perfect solution. I don't know if having all four of these teeth makes me wiser. They told me, "Don't be poetic. Rant about something tangential." 131214 ... tender_square the anesthesia charged through my veins like a scorpion sting. tears left my eyes as the nurse instructed that i count backwards from 10. i don’t remember making it past 7. in that moment i was convinced that i was dying, my soul left my body as i reclined in the surgeon’s chair. i awoke in a different room, upright and unsure, with enough gauze stashed in my mouth to wrap the body of a mummy. in the car i told my mother that my lip was rubber. “feel it, it’s so strange,” i insisted. she touched my mouth to humor me. “it just feels that way to you, honey.” she didn’t understand. on the sofa bed i watched seinfeld in my drugged-out state, smiling and gobbling chocolate pudding. i tongued the wounds in my mouth, memorizing each thick stitch where my teeth used to be. i imagined the dentist cracking my jaw like a walnut shell as he yanked them free. each sister individually asked if they could score a few of my painkillers, but i'd given them to mom for safekeeping. as i slept, the sofa bed’s metal springs wound themselves into my body. next day, i was well enough to go to corn fest. i didn’t want to miss out on the beer tent because it was my first summer being of age and there was the convenience of stumbling a block back home. my uncles, kenny and bob, ran the operation for the knights of columbus, they buzzed around in their electric wheelchairs directing volunteers to stock the coolers, gave us extra drink tickets. my brother ronnie came out that night and he and i and my parents drank labatt blue’s and sang along with eddie money performing on the main stage, “baby, hold onto me, whatever will be will be.” with the oxycodone in my bloodstream i believed i’d crossed over, survived the worst of the recovery. in the days that followed, i gradually weaned myself off, stuck the cartoon-sized syringe into each sinkhole and flooded them with water two times a day. gradually, incrementally, my molars became metal gears grinding against delicate gums. a tightness not before known, not even with braces. my mouth throbbed with a mechanical heartbeat that called for those phantom teeth. 211105 ... e_o_i I don't know what the deal is with putting people under just to take out teeth! Doesn't sound fun. My friend J. - anne-girl of blather in former days - had all her wisdom teeth out at once. She was in her late 20s and by then they weren't knocking people out anymore, just numbing with needles. But she ambitiously went to a Python workshop (the code, not the snake) the same day. At last she admitted that she was too tired and was heading home. I'd be distracted by the gauze pads stuffing all four corners of my mouth. I wouldn't want to go anywhere. Even having one gauze pad at once is annoying. My first wisdom tooth removal had the surgeon knocking away because my roots were weirdly curvy. It took a while to get everything. "Does this hurt?" Not at all. But it did in a few hours! Second one was much easier. One yank, and presto. A rush of blood and I felt dizzy. Had to lie in the chair a bit longer. But afterwards, much less pain. Still wouldn't want to be out and about that same day. That's why I was grateful this week: the wisdom teeth that lost a filling wouldn't have to be pulled out yet. Just filled in. On the latest news in the metal alloy department. 211105 ... e_o_i Correction: tooth. Just one tooth. Lower right. Tuesday was the appointment. I was late and the hurried dentist grazed my gums with the buzzing polisher-thing, but the scratches are already healing. 211105 ... kerry before they knocked me out they removed some scar tissue from the inside of my lower lip, the spot where i'd bit myself during a collision in a soccer game. then it was 10, 9, 8... and i woke up on a little cot, still giddy from the gas. jo had given me her old spool bed, and i laid there for days, listening to sigur ros and gazing at the walls danny had helped me paint deep teal. ellen and jackie came to visit me, bringing slightly underbaked cookies and marshmallow fluff. i took daily selfies as my cheeks swelled, temporarily transforming me into a chipmunk. i still have the pictures. i'd dyed my hair a terrible shade of red and was wearing a bandana most of the time. the bump inside my lip never quite went away. i still tongue it when i'm thinking. 211105 ... mcdougall Still have the full set. One dentist once said they'll likely have to be removed. Another recently said there's room for even more teeth back there. Must have grown a large mouth. I mean, I’ve sure stuck my foot in there a hand full of times. I'm a noisy chewer, which is less about wisdom teeth and more of a weird_confession. It'll be the death of me one day. At my wife's hands. She abhors noisy chewing. I say, it would be my superpower, if I were a superhero (weird_superpower? Lame_superpower?). 220817 what's it to you? who go blather from