Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

I read a book today. A whole book. It was pretty wonderful, both the experience and the book. I'm not sure what led me to suddenly decide to read some Pearl S. Buck. I've long looked at her book covers and thought, One day , but for some reason the melancholy that I've always mentally associated with her (for no reason I can cite) fit feeling like death today, so in the waiting room at the Urgent Care I started reading Peony and I read until I was finished, through the brewing of tea and my hot bath which I had hoped would clear my sinuses and did not. I want to start it all over again. I feel like I devoured it so quickly that there are things I missed, conversations I want to have with the book and my thoughts that I didn't give myself time to have.  A few thoughts though, before I lose the thread. There are so many dichotomies in this book, so many choices weighed and options considered. David must choose between the old ways of his people represented by marriage

I got my braces yesterday.  So, the experience. First, you walk in and there are a lot of implements. Like, a lot.  All that for my face. It's a little nerve wracking. On the right on the tray you can see the strips of plastic with my braces attached. They prepare them ahead of time so that they can be attached en masse.  This mostly worked well for me. One of the braces on my molar didn't stay the first time, and then they ended up moving two of them, so they had to take them off and put them back on individually. I wish I had a picture of the remover because it looks like the thing you use to skin catfish except that they pry a bracket off your tooth and it makes a loud cracking sound. Not what you want to hear while you're laid out in a dental chair.  They put a large circular tarp in your mouth, and then something that looks like a transparent horseshoe with suction and a light that you bite on. I felt like a bit of a baby as the first half was honestly pretty scary. I

So, turns out that having teeth that are twice as long as usual takes some getting used to.  For about 3 days I couldn't bite anything without a lot of pain where my teeth would crash into each other. I still can't really bite things normally, but as long as I think about it, I can now bite soft things.  Anything hard a no-go. My overbite is still massive, but now the pressure on my front teeth is at a new angle, so there's all sorts of new pain and new sensitivity. Additionally, bite props are a pain, literally. It means that all the attempts that I make at chewing put all the force of contact on 2 molars on each side instead of all of them, so by the end of the day, those two molars are killing me.  Given what everyone says about when you first get your braces on, this seems like good prep. I've just figured it out and am almost eating normal things again, and tomorrow the braces go on! Also, when I am stressed, I do things to my hair. I'm a redder head now.

Warning: there are about to be a lot of pictures of my mouth.  It's kind of gross.  Feel free to ignore.

Six years ago, a man broke into my house in Nicaragua while I was sleeping and I woke up to feel his hand on me knee. I held my breath as I tried to convince myself that the presence I felt in the darkness wasn’t really there. There was a struggle, a hand over my face, and then he was gone. For months, the slightest sound at night would wake me up, and I found it hardest to sleep when I was home alone. The worst of it though, was that I just knew deep down that somehow it was my fault. I’m a feminist, have never shied away from the term. I hated slut shaming long before culture gave me a term for the feeling.   I knew that victim blaming is repugnant, but I became my own persecutor. Earlier that night, there was a fiesta, and my friend Norlan had walked me home, and I’d invited him inside for something to drink. We’d left the doors to my house open so no one would think anything was happening inside. I was trying to respect the cultural mores of Nicaragua, but maybe that had g

I'm getting braces. In three weeks. For non-cosmetic reasons.  For the past 20 years, I've been destroying my front teeth, slowly but surely wearing them down with every chomp and utterance. It's now time to fork over massive quantities of cash to get this fixed or else they are going to die and I will have 6 (6!) dead teeth in the front of my mouth.  Not good for anyone, but especially not for someone who works on speech for a living. The problems: I have a huge overbite! Duh.  My front teeth actually point inward. I had no idea.  Severe overcrowding on the bottom despite having 3 teeth removed when I was a kid. The only reason I don't have severe overcrowding on the top is bc I had 4 teeth removed, including both my canines.  I guess they tamed me early.  Severe wear on my front teeth, uppers and lowers, thanks to the front teeth grinding together inappropriately during my bite.  My snaggletooth.  Spencer and I will no longer match in this respect.  My gums.

A few different people have asked about my new oil cleansing routine, so what I've figured out is below. I'd read about oil cleansing for a long time, but really could not get down with that because it was terrifying. Then I read this post about honey cleansing, and decided to give it a try along with the oil. Then if one was terrible, I'd at least feel like I was making some changes.  http://empoweredsustenance. com/wash-face-with-honey/ I bought my honey at Whole Foods and it's raw, organic honey, not crazy expensive. It's pretty solid and I like that because it makes it easier to scoop and put on my face. I just grab a clump and put it on my fingers, get a little warm water and smear it around. I usually leave it on while I make my coffee and then wash it off in the shower. Sometimes I end up just putting it on in the shower if I'm in a super hurry. It turns out that my skin is pretty dry, so while she mentions a half water / half ACV toner, I ma