Yep, those are braces.
And they're still on my teeth.
Oh, and those? Rubber bands.
Kill me now. Please, please do.
Just last month I was all, "Tra-lee-la-lee-la! Life's wonderful! I'm wonderful! I'll never have to wear rubber bands!" And then, BAM! Reality check. "Almost everyone has to do this toward the end," I'm told, but I don't really believe it.

So yeah, here I am. Six months. Braces. No feeling in my mouth.
That's cool, I guess.

As usual, I'm going to tell you that nothing has changed and then prattle on about all the stuff that actually has changed. Except I mean it this time! Literally nothing has changed since last month.
It's six months and I still don't have feeling in the roof of my mouth. Just--ugh. No. I'm supposed to have feeling there by now. I'm irreparably damaged. I just know it.
I noticed a little while ago that the roof of my mouth is this purple-ish color, which isn't helping anything. Please somebody go look in the mirror and see what color your's is. If you tell me that your's is that color too then I'll know mine's not, like, dead or something.  And if nobody says anything, I'll just take it to mean that you all simply hate me. Which I honestly would prefer to never feeling the inside of my mouth again.

I still can't whistle. I wanted to be able to whistle after the surgery. But I'm not giving up hope yet! If I can't whistle after I get my braces off then I'll give it up, but I'm holding on to that thought for now.

I do whistle, however, whenever I use any fricatives.
fric·a·tive [frik-uh-tiv] adjective1.(of a speech sound) characterized by audible friction produced by forcing the breath through a constricted orpartially obstructed passage in the vocal tract; spirantal; spirant.

So, you know, like -ph or -sh or -th.
In other words, pretty much every other word I say whistles when I talk.
I sound like an old man.

On a completely unrelated topic, I said something in my last post before I had my surgery about taking "anti-swelling medication" because I needed to go to the school the next week.  I don't really know where I got the idea that I actually had any of that or that it even exists (does it?) but I definitely never took anything like that. I don't know, that just made me feel dumb so I felt like I needed to clarify.

Anyway, I've been to two orthodontist appointments since my last post. Two! Lucky you, getting to read about two different visits.
The first one I went to around the end of November. I finally told the ortho how I felt about my front teeth so he tried to fix that. He also polished a few of my teeth so that they're all smooth on the bottom, but they don't exactly feel straight, so I'm not sure he understood what I meant. But I'm done. I'm just done. They look fine so I really don't even care anymore. I'm just ready to get them off!
My regular orthodontist was actually there this time, and he knows that I wanted them off by Christmas, so he told me to come back in four to five weeks.  He went ahead and told me that the braces weren't coming off before Christmas so I didn't really care so much how far away the appointment was, but for some reason his secretary set it for three weeks.  Later we realized that my appointment interfered with an exam I was having that day, so when my mom called the office the secretary moved it up a week. So it really ended up being only two weeks, but that's fine by me!
I went again. And I got rubberbands. And now I'm unhappy.
They hurt and--aughh! One literally just popped!--they're inconvenient and annoying and they take up my time and I'm just fed up with them. I can't move my mouth and they make me spit all over the place and they're just ugly. But I'm going to be a good little patient and wear them anyway because I WANT MY BRACES OFF.
On the bright side, though, they're making me sleep with my mouth closed. Kind of. I can't keep my lips closed (fingers crossed that that'll change after my braces are off!) but my mouth doesn't hang open unattractively. It's a work in progress, but I--Crap! Another rubber band popped!--have faith that this'll fix me!

Sooooooo, that's it really.
Once again, on an entirely different subject, I love my hair.
Just sayin'.
In the spirit of keeping things Susan-like, though, I'll follow that positive note with something negative.
Glass bottle soft drinks irritate me. I really would like to just put the lid back on it when I'm done.
That's why there's a lid!

Aeroiuqyknsdbnxz! I'm bothered just thinking about it.
Just. Ugh.
Have a happy Christmas or something.