After five days of wearing invisalign, I feel slightly better than I did on day one. The hardest part is the social aspect of not being able to go out for extended eats and drinks. I also miss nursing a coffee in the morning, and having snacks throughout the day. Although in some ways, invisalign is the willpower I never had regarding food, so I am developing better habits and eating when I'm truly hungry as opposed to when I'm bored, lonely, anxious, procrastinating, or simply because it's there.
My mouth is a bit sore and my tongue is a little cut up, but nothing compared to the agony of metal braces. I've been really diligent about brushing and cleaning both my teeth and the aligners, so no complaints there (some people have issues with the trays becoming cloudy or gross). I've been using Dawn dish soap to scrub them, which seems to work quite well and is cheap and easy. My final complaint is that I still lisp a little bit, but it seems like others don't notice it the way I do.
To compensate for the self-consciousness of having weird stuff on my teeth and a small speech impediment, I got a haircut and have been ramping up the workouts and taking the time to do my makeup (no lipstick, though!! NOT compatible with invisalign). So I'm feeling fly and also feeling like such the ugly duckling. A funny combination, for sure...
This song just hit me hard. Driving up the hill in Point Richmond after spending the evening at the gallery with my friend Carolyn and brainstorming jewelry stuff for our show, and for our lives. It felt good to be there, in that space. A welcome coming-round of sorts after being very burned out.
Life has been full lately. I've been traveling like mad, spreading my work wings broadly, dancing. Sorting. Measuring and evaluating.
One exciting thing is I believe I've started to "cure" my chronically cold, clammy hands. (A standout memory from 10 years ago is a salsa partner telling me that my hands were like eels, slick and hard to hold on to.) Beyond sweaty my hands also "loose their blood" periodically and become numb and white in patches thanks to Reynauds Syndrome.
Anyhow, after decades of avoiding people's touch but also really, really wanting to do things like dance and hold hands and safely grip onto a subway pole when when the train lurches, I've been searching for a solution. Over the past 3 months I've been doing a mix of acupuncture and herbs to treat circulation and digestion. Over the last 2 weeks I've been shocking my hands in water (a therapy that seemingly works for many people). And over the last week I've significantly modified my diet to be very low sugar and low carb.
I don't know if it's a mix of these things, a coincidence, or whatever but my hands have been totally different these past three days, maybe even week. They are not sweaty or cold. I lost a bit of circulation this morning, but it was cold and foggy out and I went running at Tilden without gloves on, so to be expected I guess.
But I danced on Saturday and Sunday and pretty much had warm, regular person hands. This seems like a miracle, and I'm almost afraid to believe it.
In other news, Carolyn and I drove out to the middle of nowhere outside Antioch the other night (madrugada, really) to see the Perseid meteor shower. I miss the dark, dark skies of the Sandias. We saw several dozen meteors but even way out in the Sacramento Delta there is still so much light pollution. And it was cold and windy as shit. But absolutely worth the effort.
Here's the sky from earlier that evening. No meteors in Point Richmond, though. Too much fog later in the night when the moon was gone and the shooting stars visible.
