The Philosophy of My Mouth

Laying in the "chair" at your local dentist's office doesn't bring up exciting memories for most people. At best you'll remember the beautiful Dental Assistant that brushed her breasts up against you as she scraped away on your teeth. I imagine if you are one of those people who has been blessed with good teeth you may even enjoy going to the dentist for a cleaning or some trite conversation about dental hygenics. I, on the other hand, am not blessed with good teeth. When I say good teeth I really mean strong teeth.

I had the untimely misfortune to be born in the American southwest at a time when there was an overabundant amount of floride in the water. The long lasting effects of this imbalance left my adult teeth (buckteeth to make matters worse) stained a random hue of light to dark yellow in spots. The buckteeth could be fixed and eventually were. The yellow wasn't bleached out until I was in high school and new technology made "bleaching" teeth affordable. While the yellow was gone the mark remained.

I distinctively have two memories of Sarah Lewis. The first is her vehemenently telling Brandy Morowski to say "No" when I asked her out at Skate Castle in the Sixth Grade. The second is her asking me why I never brushed my teeth. Ouch. I brush my teeth twice a day! Nothing hurts a kids ego more than a mean girl. I never did like her.

With trauma aside, I have never really been good with my teeth. I brushed mostly because our mother made us, but I can't say I ever really enjoyed brushing my teeth. Spanish inquisitors should have used braces to get information from the Gnostics. "The Iron Maiden is for sissies...put some braces on those heretics." I took care of my braces but I didn't accessorize them. I brushed and flossed and scrubbed in between them with that little crooked brush. I had plenty of bloody gums from them, and once was speared in the side of the mouth by a wire that broke loose. Some people put little colored bands around them. I didn't care.

Before braces I had a Frankel. I have no idea how to spell the name of the genius that made this thing, but it was big, it was pink, and I couldn't talk with it in my mouth. What a horrible thing to do to a Sixth Grader. I think I dug that thing out of the trash at school at least once a week. There it sat on my lunch tray all wrapped in tissue because no one wanted to look at it. I didn't want to look at it either, but my parents paid some masochist to make it for me. It was only a step up from headgear on the freak scale. I was really afraid of having headgear. What kind of social life could you ever dream of having if you wore head gear to school. I present my case: the only girl in our Elementary School who had head gear was a band geek in High School and aspired to be a librarian. Now that I am older I wished I played any instrument better and I love the library, but when I was young that stigma was a flaming pit of hell.

I had my fair share of cavities. I went from not brushing all the time and getting no cavities, to brushing all of the time and getting two. There was no right or wrong; no matter what I did I may have cavities and I couldn't really do anything about it. I have bad teeth.

Now imagine you are like me, maybe you even had a Frankel, and you have bad teeth. The last time I went to the dentist was when I was in Bootcamp. I had one cavity. Suprisingly they gave me novacaine - I was half expecting a guy to rip it out with a K-bar and then someone would run in and brand a tooth on my arm. Hoorah. It was on the up and up. But in my country if you don't have dental insurance, going to the dentist for a cleaning isn't cheap, let alone going in for a cavity if you know you are probably going to have one. Let's skip to the chase. Bootcamp was a while ago and I need a cleaning to say the least.

What brought me into the dentist a month or so ago was a broken tooth. I think it was decaying from the side. A gray, pulpy mess of decay that had weakened my already sub-par tooth. I actually got to see the inside of my tooth last time I was in the "chair." It was awesome; all beat and decayed. It's broken edges shot out like a Swiss Alp. COOOOL! So after the drilling took place I got to see the cleaned up version of my dental peak. Actually it looked like Mt. St. Helens when the dentist got done removing all the crud. So I had a Cinder Cone Volcano in my mouth. Good to know.

Today I had my volcano reclaimed. I nice mouth full of Amalgamum or whatever it is that they put in the hole. I kept wondering how they put this metal stuff in soft, and it harden quickly to last for years. It's the opposite of "melt in your mouth but not in your hands." I guess it's a chemical, but the scientist in me is always curious about these things. As I lay there staring at the cieling pondering such pearls of wisdom, I had a moment. I was looking beyond those working over me at that spot in the ceiling. You know that spot where every dentist hangs the picture of a kitten frolicking, or Garfield saying "hang in there." I found myself remembering every one of those horrible posters every time I had a filling. I remembered the creaking noise the filling material made as it was smeared into my tooth. The scraping noises, the suction hose. I had a lot of dental memories that have been stagnant for quite some time. And then I thought about something else. My dentist speaks English well and his associate speak ok. When they speak to me of course they speak in English. But as I was being worked on I was witness to a strange scene. Lights, creaking, spit and metal. Two people standing over me talking to each other in a foreign language that I only understood randomly. I started to think "what would it be like to be laying on a doctor's bed on some foreign battlefield, while someone you don't know and can't understand does his or her best to patch you up." At that point you're helpless or else you wouldn't be there. You just watch and listen while your fate may rest in the hands of a total stranger.

At that point I realized we put our faith in each other ever day. I know my tooth is no big deal, but having that experience just reminded me of how much we need each other. Everyone. Nobody can do it all alone. I can do a lot of stuff, but I couldn't operate on myself. For instance I can't teach myself Arabic. I can do some of the work, but someone else must fill in the blanks. I suppose on a grand scale we need each other to "fill in the blanks." Being in a foreign country and surrounded by different cultures and opinions, it's kind of nice knowing that somewhere here I am filling in. Like Syria has some sort of cavity and I am the wonder-metal. I'm not saving anyone's life right now, but who knows what will happen from all that I have done! Fillings of the world unite!

Now opening for nobody...

I went out with a few friends the other night to one of the activities the French counsel sponsors for a week every year. It was a "blues" concert performed by some southern French band named Blues & Trouble; namely how you felt after hearing them play. In all fairness the percussionist that played random odd sounds and created moods was really good. The pianist was also a horn player and was excellent. The guitarist was technically sound as well as bassist, and the drummer had more of a Ringo role. The singer. Well she sort of had the air of an old French madam who was immitating Liza Monelli, who in turn was imitating Celia Cruz. It was heartfelt but not very good. They could maybe open at the Davenport Ramada, but when you are starved for ANY activity, the performance was an oasis in the desert.

I met a really cool guy from Aleppo who did his studies at U of M. At first I thought he was Danish or something. He carried himself different from other Syrians, and he was amazingly well spoken. I came to find out that he grew up here, taught himself most of his English, went to the states for his masters, and came back. The whole coming back thing really amazes me every time I hear it - I'm sure hey was sent back not by choice, but I intend to find out. It's not like Syrians are all that welcome in the states, and if they are, it is for a period of schooling and no more.

In other news, there is an official KFC in Damascus now. They have been working on getting it opened and sanctioned for a while, and a few months back they finally made whatever deals they needed to make for it to open. Even being in the axis of evil we can still get Kentucky's finest chicken! I thought the US wasn't doing business with Syria...you know, sanctions and all. Kind of like the way Cheney wasn't involved in oil deals with Iraq, through the nineties, with Haliburton. I guess an off-shore P.O. box is still a viable option these days as it was back then. Finger lickin' good all the way to the bank. Hipocrites the whole lot of 'em. I can count my weapons of mass destruction over a bucket of extra crispy thighs. Now THAT'S progress!

Did everyone see the Syrian woman who went head to head with some Islamic cleric about how Islam is responsible for the backwardness of the Middle East? Thanks for sending that website to me Erin! I thought for sure she would be dead by now, but as it turns out she lives in the states and everyone supports her. God, if she lived here she would be shot. Maybe not here in Syria. Here she would have a car accident. In Iraq she'd be given the choppy-chop. In Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and many of the Gulf states she'd be hung...maybe shot, maybe even stoned old-school style. But she lives in the states so she gets a parade...or at least I hope she did; that woman has balls! I haven't heard much about it in the news here. The people here probably deny she is Syrian. Denial is the order of the day for most things. It's like like the whole society can somehow socially repress bad memories. What lady? She will come back around in a few months like that cartoon of Mohammad did. Nobody notices now, and then someone will stir the whole thing up into a frenzy. I don't see any Syrians fire bombing their own embassies. What's up with that?

I guess you choose your battles. If the society can repress their collective heartbreak, then they can also displace their anger onto something else like a consular office. Ahhh simple social psych in action. In a follow up to the whole banning Danish products fiasco. We took a trip to a chocolate factory where wafer bars are made. It was a prominant brand for the region, and the greatest thing about the whole trip was that they got there butter and sugar from Danish sources. I can just see someone chucking a molotov cocktail all-the-while eating a primarily danish confection. I take joy in the little things.

The grass IS greener!

I must say every time I travel to Beirut I confirm my belief that it is a very open and progressive city, for the Middle East, that has a lot going on. Every place has it's problems but this place can be physically and culturally entertaining while it is governmentally problematic. One of my gripes about Aleppo is "there is nothing to do!" I terminally feel like I am twelve wanting to live in New York City, yet I am stuck in Loveland with no way to go anywhere else. That is the difference between Aleppo and Beirut. I will concede what most of the westerners that I have met in Beirut have said. Yes Aleppo has nice history, architecture, and food. It's people are friendly and it has a slower pace that makes it feel more homey. In my world reality kicks in after you have been here longer than a week. It's history is history, you will probably know more of it than many people here. It's architecture is nice in the old city but nothing compared to Beirut, and the food is good but all the same. You can eat Armenian food here, but I can find Armenian restaurants there as well. There are Armenian clubs here but you can only get in if you are Armenian. Armenians are just as welcoming as Arabs if they think you are Christian...and lose interest if you aren't. The people treat most foreigners warmly, but hold class and status pretty firm when it comes to one another. And finally, the pace is slow becuase nothing works, not because people enjoy life any more. If anything people here are lazy because there is no incentive to work.

It's funny when people romanticize about places you wouldn't think twice about, but what are they really idealizing. I guess they are looking at what they don't have, and nicely assigning it a positive value. What someone see's as a livable pace I see as lazy cause I have been caught in that "livable pace" trying to get something done to no avail. I can't really say Beirut is "better" than Haleb because one man's trash is another man's treasure as they say. I have met people that hate Beirut. I have met people that would choose to live in a wig-wam over a nice apartment. I guess we all have different values of good and right. I find myself continually forcing myself to not judge or place value on things. I end up with caveats in conversations like "for me" and "in my opinion." I guess the more you banter on about how much something sucks you will eventually run into someone who feels devalued and a little bent 'cause you just ultimately labled them.

I have learned more about how much tolerance I DON'T have being here than anything else. I study history and discuss politics, religion and current events with a very static approach. Of course I have my opinions and someone else has theirs, but I have been placing my values on other peoples realities. I owe the world an apology for being an ass.

Today I will re-assert my heart felt attempt at understanding the world as it is and not as I want it to be. I definitely have ideas about what would make the world great, but none of them include whining and belittling places and cultures. I do try but I have a long way to go.