bumpkin

\I'm a bumpkin...as in I will be toothless for at least 6 months. Yes, my molar has finally bit the dust, and now it won't be biting anything anymore, it has been yanked from my jaw, leaving an empty gaping hole. I miss it. I will also miss smoking. If anyone cares about the long and sordid tale of the life and death of my tooth, I will regale it...


The story begins way back in college, I believe my sophomore or junior year. I was slightly more portlier than I am currently (though I'm well on my way to returning to my previous state). I was snacking on some hard candy as you can imagine a shy, frumpy, portly girl like myself might be doing, and a hard bite led to a sizeable chunk of tooth chipping away. Honestly I don't even think the candy was that hard, it may have been a starburst, I don't remember. I do remember thinking that I didn't have dental insurance (indeed, I did, I just didn't realize my stepmother had added me to her plan). Being your typical strapped for cash college student (this was even before I discovered alchohol and started blowing my wad on that), I thought there was no way I could afford the dental work. Fast forward a couple years, I believe stepmom inquired as to when I had last visited el dentist, and I informed her of my plight. She insisted that I visit her kind and gentle dentist. I went in, the dentist thought that we could attempt to get by with a filling...keep in mind I had chipped a decent chunk out and left it untreated for approx. 2 years. The dentist warned me that a the filling might do the trick but assured me it was worth a shot before going for the dreaded root canal. Another year or so goes by and something just isn't right, I have swelling and some pain. I return and they decided to go ahead with the root canal which was NO BIG DEAL, like some people make it out to be. Another year goes by...tooth STILL doesn't feel quite right, apparently dentist didn't do a sufficient root canal, by this time I have my own dental insurance and regular dentist who refers me to a specialist to do ANOTHER root canal. More time passes (see a theme emerging) and the tooth...still something wrong, go back to the specialist to do yet another root canal and before she dives in she tells me there is nothing more she can do and refers me to an even more specialized specialist. I'm not quite sure what the problem is but what it comes down to is that I have to get the tooth removed or have surgery if I want to attempt to save my tooth. He recommends the surgery which is very expensive even with insurance. I go in for my checkup in 6 months and he claims things look great, I go in for my yearly checkup and things are not so great, apparently now my tooth has a fracture and that is the final straw, it has to come out. So at this point I've put a couple grand into this tooth, minus what my parents paid for in the early stages. Now I have to get a dental implant or nothing, implants are quite expensive also but I would like some sort of tooth there. Anywho, the tooth is gone and I feel like a bumpkin, not that anyone can tell since it is in the back, and the rest of my teeth are in pretty good shape, it isn't as though I neglect my oral hygiene. The healing process apparently takes about 5 to 6 months, and then I can get the implant hopefully, meanwhile smoking obviously doesn't help the chances of the implant becoming acclimated to it's environment so it is a good reason to get me to actually quit. It's weird how I feel about quitting smoking, clearly I know that I should quit, especially now that I'm getting older, but sadly it's become part of who I am in a way, and certainly how I socialize, which I will miss. I keep trying to envision myself as a non-smoker and my improved health, it's going to be hard, but I figure if I can at least get out of the every day habit that I can maybe get to the point where I can have the occasional smoke.

So that, plus helping with the next installation at the gallery I'm volunteering at has got me plum tired. Helping with the install has been great fun, well, the first day was fun. It was a bit nervewracking trying to understand what the artist has in mind and execute it, but she seemed to like me and affirmed that I was doing well. Yesterday when I worked I pretty much felt like a dolt the entire time, some hot artist dude asked me a question and me being a recent and lowly volunteer had no idea, I cut these pictures wrong for this other dude, and I didn't know what to do with my painting supplies when I finished and felt too stupid to ask someone, so I just left. Last time I volunteered there I was gallery sitting with another sexy artist dude who I had admired outside the window doing some manual labor a couple weeks when I was scraping potentially harmful debris off the pane of said window. Well, we sat in silence pert near the entire time (we were reading), then when it came time to shut down the gallery I didn't have any clue how to turn off any of the dvd players and what not, so I wandered around attempting to figure it out not knowing that my sitting partner had all the remotes. I felt really moronic and silly, and awkward. I have a major issue with feeling awkward almost all the time.

Other than that...I guess being 30 hasn't been all that bad, except the decline in my looks and metabolism.