Today, I discovered that I am a “product of the ABC School District.”

If you are not familiar with the schools that are a part of the ABC School District, then let me help you out: Ferguson, Melbourne, Tetzlaff, and Cerritos–all schools that I went to as a kid!

About a week ago, I got an email from a lady that works for the district. She was ecstatic to learn from the internet that I was from Hawaiian Gardens and now an AUTHOR. She called me a great role model for young kids and absolutely insisted that I meet up with her to discuss a possibility of talking to the classrooms of the district. So that’s what I did today.

I met up with Ann (that’s her name, BTW), who hit the floor at the first sight of me (maybe I should’ve brushed my hair or something, or it might have something to do with the fact that I’m some sort of celebrity now.) Anyway, after she breathed a few times, I proceeded to talk about how I got started in writing and what, if anything, led me to take on this goal when I was in school.

For a second, I thought Ann was going to have a stroke. Apparently, she couldn’t contain herself because before I could even say anything else, she rushed to the phone to ask if the superintendent could spare a few moments to meet me at that point. Then ten minutes later, we met up with the superintendent, who I relayed my life story and writing career to. Both of them were so amazed by my accomplishment that they purchased like 8 copies of my books. Even the secretary was in awe. And when I told him that I was the designer of my website, they were that much more amazed.

By the end of the meeting, they referred me as “a product of their schools.” It actually made me wonder: Did I have anything to do this, or was it all them?

In any sense, it was good to go back and recall all those memories in school. I even met up with my old vice principal in junior high. Of course, he didn’t remember me, but I remembered him (vaguely). See, I’m not that old.

It’s going to be great to speak to the students next year. I will tell all of them that it IS possible to make something of yourself.   It REALLY IS. I am living proof of that.

Sandra Lopez is an author from Hawaiian Gardens, California who has penned two novels.  Her first novel “Esperanza: A Latina Story” was published in 2008 by Floricanto Press while Lopez was still in college.   Her blog “Sandra’s Book Club” is an extension of her love of literature where she reviews books and shares about her life as a novelist.

Mami y yo

Awhile ago, my mother’s face started slowly disappearing. At first it was not as obvious to others as it was to me. It started around the eyes.

The skin around her eyes was permanently tattooed so that she would always appear to have eyeliner on. Most people didn’t know because they’d never seen her without make-up.

But I had, I had the distinct and rarely granted pleasure of seeing that beautiful face without make-up, until one day I didn’t.

The eyes kept changing. I never knew if I’d be looking into pools of blue, or hazel, or green, but I knew I would rarely see eyes so dark brown that they are almost black.

I knew that those soulful gorgeous eyes of my childhood would no longer be what I gazed into when I looked at the beautiful face of my mother. Instead I would be forced to look at an artificial color created by a contact.

It didn’t stop there. One day she came to visit and when I saw her face I started crying!

Ridiculous tears of a child in her 30s throwing a tantrum because the lips that had kissed boo-boos away, that had sung off-key, were now inflated to absurd proportions.

Now, I have no idea what my mother’s face will look like the next time I see her because she has had elective surgery to remove what she considers the ravages of time.

I’m losing that beautiful face! I actually ache over this loss, I cry, I complain, I mourn. I know it is her face to do with as she pleases, but why can’t anyone understand that THAT face is mine too.

No one asked me if I was willing to say goodbye to that face. I will always miss that face.

Unknown Mami is  a bilingual Latina mother, wife,and actor in my late 30s who lives with her husband and daughter, “Put Pie,” in San Francisco.  She has her own blog entitled “Unknown Mami.“

In my search and thirst for the past, for the faces of our history, I have forgotten the faces that brought me to the subject of immigration in the first place. I forget that the story isn’t always something out there in the world, but something right here inside my own home, and my own family.

My family decided to have a Catholic mass in my grandmother’s (my father’s mother) honor this past January. In December my grandmother was in the hospital after she suffered an episode, which many of us feared was a stroke, and that our worst fear––the inevitable truth of her passing––was upon us.

Watching her, my tiny grandmother, skin as delicate as tissue paper, laid crumpled in her bed, I tried to hold back tears, as I suspect we all did, in what seemed like an attempt to keep this fragile creature from dissolving.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a stroke, and she was back in her Boyle Heights home by Christmas Eve. To celebrate, we had a mass said in her honor this past weekend in a small Catholic church, Mission San Conrado, up above Solano Avenue, in the shadow of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium.

From left to right: my father, grandmother, mother, and me

Yesterday, once again looking through Don Normack’s photos from the book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, I came across a black and white landscape shot of Solano Avenue and the north slope of La Loma. The homes of La Loma are gone now, but the church, the site of my grandmother’s mass, stands at the foot of that hill, and it is still green, still looking untouched. My brother Andres took his son Armando and our nephew Gabrielito up the steps behind the church, past the ceramic alter to the Virgin Mary, to explore the greenery. I wasn’t up there with them, but I’m sure the boys played pirate, adventurer, conqueror, as I’m sure the boys of La Loma did 60-70 years earlier.

Inside the church, during the homily, the priest (speaking only in Spanish) addressed my grandmother, who with the help of her youngest daughter slowly rose to her feet. He asked her, are all your children here? She nodded. And are these young people your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? She smiled and nodded.

Some of the great-grandchildren attempting to sing for their great-grandmother

And señora, he asked, where are you from in Mexico? Teocaltiche (a small pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico), someone in the aisles assisted. Is anyone else here from Teocaltiche? My father raised his hand high up and let a proud grin spread wide over his face. And señora, how long have you been here? My grandmother laughed, shyly keeping her glance low in what seemed like an old school sign of respect for clergy, Cincuenta años. Fifty years, she told him.

And here I was trying to find an L.A. story, lamenting the loss of a culture and a people, not realizing that culture still lived in Chavez Ravine. Normack’s photos illustrate a lost town, but the hills are still there, the Spanish is still there, and family is still there.

In 1949 Normack stumbled into Chavez Ravine. In 1949 my grandmother had 3 young children, in a poor pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico (my father once told me how they didn’t have electricity in Teocaltiche, and that the children waited for full moons to play out in the streets at night). In 1949, the inhabitants of those three Los Angeles communities grew their own vegetables and milked goats that grazed along the green hills all around them. In 1949, my father scaled the hills surrounding his town with his grandmother to collect nopales (cactus) to accompany the simple meal of frijoles, chile, and tortillas his mother was preparing for dinner.

My father, first on the left, with his siblings, cousins, and grandfather in Teocaltiche, Mexico

And now in 2010, sixty-one years later, the houses on the hill of La Loma are gone, but my family thrives. And my small, unassuming grandmother stands in a church beaming with pride to be surrounded by her still growing family of seven children, nineteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren. And in an hour two of those great-grandchildren, Armando and Gabrielito, will be conquering the hill just outside. And somehow, there is comfort in knowing nothing is ever completely gone.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

Cada mañana cuando me monto en el bus que me lleva a la universidad las probabilidades de encontrarme a una mujer detrás del volante son altas. No es raro ver a una de ellas, entrada en sus 30, conduciendo un automotor de servicio público para abrirse paso en mega avenidas de 10 carriles como la I-95. Tampoco es extraño verlas como integrantes de las cuadrillas de mantenimiento que cambian constantemente el asfalto.

No hay que extrañarse si en pleno verano usan bikinis para tomar el sol dejando de lado la forma del cuerpo y la edad. En julio pasado, vi a un grupo con uno que otro kilo de más. A diferencia de lo que les hubiera pasado en Colombia, no fueron miradas con desdén ni despertaron un runrún de críticas al pasar. Por lo menos eso percibí tras ver a los bañistas muy metidos en lo suyo.

No es extraño ver a más y más mujeres en la calle, tanto caucásicas como afroamericanas, enfrentándose de tú a tú con los hombres si la situación lo amerita. Las he visto pelear y no parecieran intimidarse con la fuerza que el contrincante les demuestra.

Aquí ellas levantan la voz, gritan si es necesario. Son ‘frenteras‘. No están llenas de tantos prejuicios ni de telarañas en la cabeza. Van tan despreocupadas por la calle que pareciera importarles poco el qué dirán. Eso sí, no faltan quienes las tildan de poco femeninas, de muy liberadas, de desatender a los hijos y de ser las culpables del auge de los divorcios.

Las estudiantes, por ejemplo, hacen un alto en su jornada académica para trabajar en un bar o en un restaurante. No les importa buscar trabajo en áreas de servicio para completar el dinero para el arriendo, los libros y la diversión. Son meseras, sirven tragos y no por eso tienen dudosa reputación. Luego, cuando la jornada laboral termina, regresan a la universidad para seguir cumpliendo con sus tareas.

Rachel, mi tutora de inglés, es una de ellas. Se ve muy madura para estar apenas en sus 20. Vive sola desde los 18 años. Dejó su casa cuando comenzó a estudiar Licenciatura en Inglés. Ha sido mesera y ha lavado platos en diferentes restaurantes. Acaba de graduarse y en agosto pasado inició su maestría en Enseñanza de Inglés como Segunda Lengua. Obtuvo una beca que le cubre la matrícula y le da un estipendio mensual. A cambio, debe trabajar para la universidad. Por eso, ya no necesitará seguir como mesera.

Cuando veo a Rachel me doy cuenta que ella escenifica el prototipo de la mujer estadounidense, especialmente a las más jóvenes. Trabajan desde la adolescencia. Van a la universidad —claro, si tienen recursos, hacen un préstamo o consiguen una de las tantas becas que el gobierno o las instituciones les ofrecen—. Son educadas y llenas de criterio propio. Desde los 20 años son exitosas. A los 23 tienen pregrado y postgrado, y están listas para seguir enfrentándose a la vida llenas de sueños.

No me atrevo a decir que en Estados Unidos las mujeres están libres de intimidación o que han ganado por completo su lucha por alcanzar la igualdad de derechos. Siguen obteniendo menos dinero y siendo minoría en altos cargos ejecutivos, tal como lo muestra una nota publicada por El Tiempo. Pero, algo que sí me queda claro, tras estarlas viendo en el último año, es que logran mayor protagonismo a diferencia de nosotras, las latinoamericanas.

Entonces era de esperarse, tal como lo publicaron los medios recientemente, que la mitad de la fuerza laboral en Estados Unidos sea femenina porque la mentalidad con la que están creciendo las nuevas generaciones ha contribuido a que sean vistas en la sociedad más allá del tradicional rol de tener hijos y ser amas de casa.

Tatiana Velásquez es una escritora de Colombia y tiene dos blogs Con Ojos Latinos y Noches de Media.

Before the Lasorda and Valenzuela, before we bled blue, before Dodger Stadium Chavez Ravine was a collection of three sleepy communities–La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde–existing in the hills sandwiched between downtown and Elysian Park.

There, poor, mostly Mexican-American families made their homes out of shacks and makeshift dwellings, but when a young photographer, Don Normark, stumbled upon the inhabitants of Chavez Ravine, he felt he “had found a poor man’s Shangri-la.” He had found three communities full of life, pride, and strength. Of course, most know that the homes that once scattered across the hillsides where vacated and bulldozed, at first for a public housing project, but later the public land was sold to private investor, Walter O’Malley for Dodger Stadium.

So what was once a vibrant Mexican-American enclave hidden in the hills of Los Angeles became the site of the major Los Angeles professional sport institution known as The Dodgers.

What is especially astounding to me is that Normack accidentally stumbled on to La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde, when he was searching for a wide shot of downtown, but was so inspired by the place that he came back more than a dozen times with his camera in hand. Little did he know, nor the subjects of his photographs know, that the place he was capturing would soon no longer exist.

And now because of the work of a young, novice, but inspired photographer, we have a look back at a time and a way of life that has become obsolete in wide-spread industrialized Los Angeles.

This is one of my favorite photos. He is demanding his own poem.

The book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, is full of Normack’s black and white photos and is accompanied by interviews with the people who once lived there. It is an amazing source, and a reminder of a simpler time when neighbors knew one another, and L.A. was green and untouched.

Below is a poem I wrote inspired by a Normack photograph and one woman’s memory of life in the Ravine. The poem was published in Trellis Magazine’s Valentine’s issue:

Quinceañera Serenata

“And what was really, really special was that on Saturday, five o’ clock in the morning when the sun was coming out, the boys used to play the guitar and serenade everybody, and it was so beautiful to hear the music in Spanish.” ––Carmen Torres Roldan

Mi quinceañera, en tela blanca,
como linda flor de la mañana,
blushes before an open window’s light.
A virgin veil sweeps black coquettish eyes,
and hands hold prayers like fiery drama.

Dawn calls me to sing my serenata
for this child-bride, this niña querida,
versus for young apricot cheeks. Ayay,
mi quinceañera.

Cantante, your song inside my soul gnaws.
Skin burns to feel a man’s eyes on my flaws.
Virgin hands clasp prayers while wild eyes
desire things unaware, while dawn invites
mi quinceañera.

Poem Notes:

The form of this poem is a rondeau. It is missing the final stanza for publication purposes.

A quinceañera is the celebration of a girl turning 15 years-old. It can also refer to a girl who is turning 15. This Mexican tradition is still very prevalent among Mexican-Americans.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

I have a soft heart for little runts. Poor things are so tiny and frail. Most of them don’t survive. Luna was the smallest kitten in her litter, but full of spunk and attitude.

She belonged to a friend of a friend who had too many cats and was looking for a home for the kitten. I first met her when she was 4 weeks old. Happy and full of energy, she was running all over the place with her little tail pointing straight up in the air.

I took the kitten home on the 4th of July weekend in 1995. By then she was about 8 weeks old. When I got home she seemed lethargic but I chalked it up to the change of her environment. When hours went buy and she wouldn’t get up, I took her to the vet.

I still remember the look on his face. It was a nasty case of pneumonia. He told me to take her home and not to bother to give her a name because she most likely wouldn’t make it through the weekend. He gave me a prescription and ushered me out the door.

Di picked her up, put her on a pillow and placed her in the warm sunlight in her bedroom window. She nursed the kitty for the entire weekend. Completely ignoring the festivities, she fed her, gave her water and carried her to the litter box.

Di stayed with her day and night. Amazingly after a couple of days, Luna woke up full of energy exploding like fireworks in the sky. We took her outside and she lifted her little tail and dashed through the yard. Thru the years, Luna became our constant reminder of what can be accomplished with faith, strength and hope.

Luna also taught us how to be grateful. Every time Di was sick, she returned the favor over and over again, staying in bed with her until she would get better. She would also come to my bed to comfort me in times of distress and sorrow. 

As she gets older, her ability to sense sickness has increased. She insisted on sitting on my brother in law’s lap when he came to visit us in between trips to the Mayo Clinic, totally disregarding his dislike of felines.

She has bonded with my neighbor unbeknownst to me until this morning. He asked me how she was doing, full of concern, after her big cat fight last night. We talked for a few minutes. I knew Luna had been visiting him when he described her dislikes and quirky personality.

He told me about his struggles with cancer and that now he was terminal.  I apologized to him for not telling him Luna might visit him after sensing his illness.

He was unaware of her comforting nature, thinking her daily visits were just out of curiosity. But then his face lit up when he realized she had started keeping him company right after his cancer diagnosis.

My husband and I joke about getting her a “nurse kitty” uniform. It’s our own way of coping with the fact our 15 year old miracle could be leaving us anytime, taking her the gift of giving hope and comfort with her. I love how the best perfumes come in the tiniest bottles.

Sandy Suarez is a blogger from Florida.  Her blog “Cheerful Simplicity” has been going strong since 2007.

Self-Educated Dental Linguist

When you sit horizontally in that cool moving chair in the dentist office, with official people buzzing around you in white coats, you hear a lot of alien words.  After a few appointments, you’d be amazed at how many of these neat, strange words you can pick up and use in your everyday life.

One such appointment absolutely filled to overflowing with this fascinating dental jargon was my third.  After somewhat skillfully removing all those now icky bands and mutilated wires, Selma proceeded to call in Dr. Thatcher for a quick consultation and observation of the work done so far.

As usual, there was light in my eyes because apparently they can charge thousands of dollars for braces, yet they can’t spend $30 to buy a new light that actually moves around and stays in place.  Dr. Thatcher made some noises, as she always did, as she stuck her long dainty fingers every which way in my mouth.

“Alright, Selma, the upper right cuspid needs to come down but hasn’t yet broken the gum, so go ahead and laser that away and attach a button,” she instructed.  “Tie it up with some zing-o-string to help it come on down and join the rest of us.”

She then pats my cheek and prances off to some other victim of circumstance.

Whoa.

Um, can I please have a definition for cuspid?  Or what about zing-o-string?  That sounds like something my five-year-old nephew would play with.

The only buttons I know of belong on shirts and sock puppets.  What makes a cuspid bi?  And did I hear you were sticking a LASER in my mouth?

¿Qué?

These questions and many others were answered throughout the appointment.

Cuspids are also referred to as canine teeth and are quite useful if you’re biting somebody.  It just so happens that the Aguirres as a whole are cursed with horrible cuspids.

If they were only normal, many of us wouldn’t need braces at all (I still would.  I’m just that screwed up). Bicuspids simply refer to the first two teeth that branch out and back from the original cuspid.  There are four total cuspids and eight bicuspids in most every normal mouth.

And yes, you read correctly, they lasered away a bit of my gum.  Though it wasn’t nearly as painful as it sounds, I wouldn’t recommend it.

On a pain level from paper cut to cracking open your skull, it would land somewhere between getting a shot and touching the hot end of a straightener.  Not altogether unbearable, but far from enjoyable.

While my gum was lasered, this strange calm washed over me, and while I winced and flinched, I discovered a new Zen, where I was totally zoned.  Completely out-of touch.

Buttons look as cute as they sound, but require the same amount of maintenance as a regular bracket would.  The one thing about buttons is that they’re great for helping bring stubborn teeth down (or up, I suppose), but once the tooth is down they’ve done all they can do for you.

Then you must sit still at your next appointment as they break off the button and the glue that holds it in place, reapply the glue, and place a bracket.  One of my biggest fears when they apply the glue is what would happen if my lip falls on top of it and gets stuck to my tooth?

Then not only would they have to rip my lip off the tooth, but they’d probably have to do it in the next appointment, so I’d walk around for one month with a lip attached to my tooth.

Wow.  I bet the guys are really into that.

Zing-o-string, as opposed to popular belief, is not a child’s play thing.  It is string that stretches out very taught that attaches the button to the wire and brings the right amount of pulling that tooth needs to make its way south.

Zing-o string, like all things dental, has its drawbacks.  Selma, as an inexperienced orthodontist person who means well, wanted very much to get this mastered on the first try.

So she pulled and pulled and pulled at that string until it could stretch no more, and then she pulled it even harder and then…

…SNAP!

Ow.

“Oh, oh, I’m so sorry Celie!” she cried.  “Oh, let me go get the doctor…”

She ran off as a welt began on my upper lip where the zing-o-string hit as it rebelled against Selma’s persistent pulling.

Sigh.  Why is it that I can’t seem to leave a dentist office unless I’m red, swollen, and in pain?

As it got time to go, we set about taking all of our pictures (which I never look good in and there are no retakes), and I asked for my fluoride rinse (cherry flavor, please).  I took one last look in the mirror before getting in the car.

My turquoise bands are super cute, they even match my top.  Now that is coordination.  But the fact that there’s a decently sized red bump over my lip is a bit of a setback.

I got back to school just in time for science.  This particular part of the year is devoted to teaching children about sex and why we should wait to have it (because you should).

Also, we talk about all those lovely diseases you can get if you sleep around.  The wanna-be punk next to me asked if I had syphilis (a warty disease) on my mouth.

Oh, shut up.

Kelly Elizabeth Day is a sophomore at Smithson Valley High School in Comal Independent School District.

Droolers Anonymous

We’ve all done it. Whether it was into a pillow or on our desks, we’ve all drooled, and it is never glamorous. Many people laugh at the myth that you drool more when you have braces.

“I don’t drool,” they smirk.

Guess what?

You do.

After you come to terms with it, it’s not all that bad. Admitting you drool is the first step. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll always be gross, but you’ll accept its grossness for what it truly is:

Life. Totally unfair.

And drool doesn’t just happen once a day – far from true. It’s all the time.

I awake in the morning to what I always hope is morning light, yet is always pure darkness (and yet, it doesn’t get dark outside until 8:30 p.m. Something’s a little backwards…). Lifting my head in all its morning glory, my hair is plastered to my face. Well, that’s different.

After pulling it away, I partially lose balance and grab hold of my pillow for support. It is then that I discover that it is soaked. Lovely. If you happen to experience these same goings-on, then you suffer from chronic drool, brought to you by that metal in your mouth.

While getting ready, I, like many of my breed, practice the gentle and time-consuming art of putting on make-up. I think of how well my eyelids will fade with my clothes, how the little flare of bright color at the tippy-tip will attract all the attention away from that awful mouth.

As I quite carefully apply little dots of eyeliner (a procedure I tell myself is done by Broadway beauties) to the ends of my lids, a strange sensation tingles my lips. I pause. While investigating this strange happening, I feel a repeat of that same feeling and a cool, wet sensation on my blouse, brand new and very pastel.

After realizing the culprit behind the momentary ruining of my top, I quickly suck in all the rest of my pestilence in a very unladylike, soda-slurping fashion only adopted when you are positively sure no one else is around and you are dying for that last drop of drink. Unfortunately, I was not alone.

My mother, coming upstairs to get my younger niece up, scolds, “Cecilia, no quiero oir otra vez. I don’t want to hear that again. It’s unladylike and rude. And clean up whatever it is that you spilled.”

“Sí, Mamá,” I reply.

Considering that drool will only stain for a few minutes, I decide to clean the rest up with my sleeve. As my niece walks into the bathroom, she asks, in her sleepy, oh-God-why-do-I-have-to-be-up-at-this-hour voice, “What are you cleaning up?”

“Just water,” I respond.

After you drool on yourself once, you try your hardest not to clean it up with your sleeve ever again. The smell is far more potent than previously believed, and lasts longer than your deodorant will. Sometimes, though, it is inevitable.

That day during gym, it was the rare occasion where we had to run the mile, for time. It just so happens that the boys class was also out there. As if you don’t feel just perfectly gorgeous in your generic gym shirt previously worn by somebody in need of deodorant in the last class, you’re also sweaty, and pink in the face, and just a tad bit ripe yourself (unless you’re one of those really irritating athletic people who call themselves sporty who can run a five-minute mile without breaking a sweat. Oh well, at least the rest of us can pass a drug test).

If you’re me, on this nice, sunny, humid Texas day, where the air is as still as the water would be, if we had any, then you’ve also got a smattering of drool all across your jaw. Apparently I pick up so much momentum when I run that my jaw locks without me knowing it in a wide open position (it’s like watching someone run while they have a giant horrified smile on their face- and they just keep on going).

This allows for drool to leak out and dry and cake itself to my face. The actual amount is amazing, I never believed it possible for one person to salivate so much.

After finishing my mile, I lay on the grass, huffing and puffing while my comrades continue their run.

“Celie?,” a voice from heaven beckons me.

I open my eyes and see a dark figure blocking the sun. I must’ve been out in the heat too long.

“Celie, I didn’t know you had gym this period.”

Oh God. It’s not a hallucination. That voice, it’s identical to the one that belongs to the guy that sits beside me in English, who always picks up my pencils when I fake drop them.

Oh God. He’s gorgeous. And I’m a wreck that can’t sit up without having to catch her breath. I believe I have astroturf in my hair, and I ate a sausage sandwich for lunch.

Oh, my God.

“Uh, yeah, I have aerobics right now,” I say as I sit up, trying to regain some dignity, which works pretty well, until I feel the mask of drool bestowed upon my mouth.

At this point in time, I don’t want to try to wipe it away, for fear that he hasn’t noticed yet and I don’t want to draw attention to it. So I just hope.

And this hope brings me through a conversation that is so heavenly I forget where I am. He keeps fidgeting with his ring. He’s nervous.

About a million and one things are running through my mind, and all of them have a common word: boyfriend.

“Uh, Celie, there’s something I should tell you,” he pauses.

“Yeah?” I ask.

He stares at his shoes.

“You’ve got something on your face.”

Huh.

“All over it, actually, and a little something else too.”

Oh.

“Well, my class is going in now,” he says. “See you in English.”

Yeah. If I haven’t dissolved into a pool of utter humiliation. And drool.

In the locker room, I find the courage to look in the mirror. Looking back is a broken soul with white caked up substance surrounding her mouth.

And something else, too. Oh, great. My soul mate just told me about the piece of sausage stuck to my cheek.

Now isn’t that graceful?

Kelly Elizabeth Day is a sophomore at Smithson Valley High School in Comal Independent School District.

The Evils of Floss

Every person on Earth has heard it.  Dentists say it to each patient every visit.

“Floss more.”

The concept of flossing sounds easy enough.  You pull a 6-inch mint-coated string between your teeth to clean out whatever stubborn ick decided to reside there.  The reasons for flossing are quite good.

Flossing removes bacteria, prevents infection, which could ultimately prevent heart disease, stroke, and low birth weight, helps keep your teeth in your mouth, and keeps the sticky spinach from interfering on that first date.

But flossing also doesn’t make a lot of sense.  First of all, it’s painful.  I’ve had dentists who’ve flossed my teeth so hard it felt as though they wanted to raise the gum line up to my nostrils and down my chin.

To get the full benefits, one must push this surprisingly sharp string up and under the gums, wiggle around, then move on to the next tooth, where the process is repeated, until you’re too sore to close your mouth.  When flossing, it’s actually a good thing to make your gums bleed, because that signals that you’re doing it right.  Does that make sense?

My logic is, if it hurts, stop.  If it bleeds, stop.  If your dentist still wants you to do this, pretend you did.

Braces complicate everything.  Talking, eating, kissing (not that I would know), and of course, flossing.  There have been several technological breakthroughs to help solve this pressing issue.

Such inventions include the floss threader-a flimsy plastic needle with an enlarged eye where you thread the floss.  Then, you proceed to push the entire threader under the wire (be sure to not get it between wires should you have multiple ones) until it has gone all the way through and there is nothing but floss under the wire.

Continue to floss and repeat the exercise until all areas have been reached.  One unpleasant setback is that while pushing the threader through, it tends to become rather hard to maneuver, and may be more of a negative than a positive.

It is not uncommon for a threader to end up poking the underside of a lip.  Nor has it been unknown for a threader to explore the inner parts of a nostril.  And trust me-unless you’re five- you don’t want to put that back in your mouth.

Another super-fix for flossing troubles is “Super Floss.”  Though not a classic comic book hero, or any for that matter, “Super Floss” has ridded the braced and normal mouths of men and women alike of greasy bits of dinner that didn’t quite make it to the doggy bag.

“Super Floss” is composed of three sections to one pre-cut piece: First is the thick floss.  Thick floss is a firmer, short section of floss which can be used to get the floss guided to where it’s supposed to be, without wasting a threader.  The second section is the fluffy floss.  This area can be used to get the basics that stick to fronts of teeth, such as that nasty spinach we referred to earlier.

The third and final (though not at all the least important) section would be the regular floss, used for-you guessed it-regular flossing!  Like all nifty inventions, this has setbacks, also.

The thick floss has the same issues as the threader mentioned above.  The fluffy floss begins to slowly unravel itself and gets to be rather irritating to use.  And the whole thing gets so overused during the course of one flossing that it just becomes covered in saliva and rendered completely useless.

The ineffectiveness of the tools is not the only reason that I detest flossing.  Other than the fact that it’s wasteful and time-consuming, whenever I attempt to floss something always goes horribly wrong.

Once while flossing I pulled too hard up and caused my gums to bleed for what seemed three days straight, of course I’m a writer, so it’s my job to be overly dramatic.

I’ve also had experiences where the tiny threads that make up a strand of floss have so very inconveniently gotten caught on a bracket.  Silly, inattentive me didn’t notice and continued pulling the floss, until the whole affair became one giant tangled mess.  Not to mention drool.

When you hold your mouth open for extended periods of time in a downward position, especially when you have braces, you drool.  A lot.

While flossing, I become so absorbed in the flossing and my thoughts that I have no idea a tiny pool is forming beneath my chin.  Then my niece and bathroom mate, Ashley, point out the scene with a grimace and “Ew.”

And I proceed to further make myself look stupid by wiping away all the massive amounts of drool with my sleeve.  As fun as this sounds, it’s not.

Flossing is viewed as a simple and mandatory way to keep up good oral hygiene.  But in the real world under actual circumstances, it really isn’t.

And no matter how often you floss, it’s never enough.  For Lent I decided to floss every night.  The next dentist appointment, she complimented me on my pretty choice of band colors and my eyeglasses.

But floss more; always floss more.

Kelly Elizabeth Day is a sophomore at Smithson Valley High School in Comal Independent School District.

Things get tight

It took me a week before I could eat real food again, at a decent pace so it wouldn’t get cold between bites.

Every morning I ate half a Pop-tart, then starved through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd period until lunch, which went from sandwiches, chips, plum, and cookie pre-brackets to yogurt and chips post-bracket (Pringles are very easy to eat without using your teeth; just simply mash them against the roof of your mouth with your tongue and enjoy).

After that first week, though the pain was constant that whole month, the throbbing stopped and turned into a dull ache, which I could lose track of if I buried myself in a task.  Then I’d eat.  And remember.  Dinner was always the easiest meal of the day; though people looked at you funny when you heated up ramen noodles- minus the noodles.

Though it was tough, I survived that first month, which is always the worst.  At that point you think your golden – almost like when dieters think they’ve got it made after they drop five pounds after a month.

For dieters, it’s the dreaded office party where butter cream frosting and potato chip variety packs not only bring those five pounds back home, but encourage them to invite their friends.  For those with braces, it’s the first tightening.

After about the second or third tightening, it’s really not that bad at all.  Soon you’ll almost look forward to it, for you realize that each tightening is a milestone that brings you closer to getting the hateful things off.  Plus you get to pick new colors.  Keeps things fresh.

But the first tightening will not only cause you to hate your dentist, but also your genes, because it’s their fault you’re here in the first place.  Gee, thanks Mom and Dad, I love the overbite (insert eye roll here).

Since phys. ed. was my first class of the day, I always had my appointments then.  My first time back I relaxed in the waiting room while the receptionist, René, smiled at me, until 20 minutes into the appointment.  Then Bea called me back to the end room where I sat another 15 minutes while Bea fumbled the supplies.

Finally the battery-operated chair scooted me back until I was horizontal.  She shoved a curved, pointy instrument in my mouth and forcefully removed each and every colored band.

She then got the wires out to change them, for somehow I had destroyed them.  The much anticipated question came: What color do you want this time?  Glow-in-the-dark, please.

She cut my wire down to what was viewed as an appropriate size, and then shoved it back into my mouth.  This is where something quite painful happened (more so than the rest of the operation).  The wire, being too long, landed in my gums.  Ow.
Then something more painful happened.  She didn’t understand why it hadn’t landed in the right place, took it out (momentary salvation), then shoved it back in with enough force to knock over a baby elephant (I don’t understand how this was supposed to fix the problem).

Naturally, I screamed, and cried, quite audibly.  Bea tried to figure out what was wrong, almost hyperventilating, desperately trying to calm me down.

“I’m sorry this isn’t supposed to hurt, I’m so sorry, don’t cry,” begged Bea.

I guess she didn’t understand that I was still in pain, for the wire is still about half an inch into my gums.

Let’s very quickly look at the situation through a third party’s perspective.  At this particular moment in time, there is a 12-year-old girl lying down with this bright light shining in her leaking muddy eyes.  She is screaming.  Loudly.

She keeps telling herself, “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK..”

There is sweat on her forehead and drool running down her chin.  The scene smells of fluoride, gloves, and copper, for her mouth is filled with blood. A wire is cutting into the outer part of her cheek since the end that wasn’t poking her had yet to be attached to anything.

Next to her is a weathered youngish woman, who is frantically rummaging through her dentist drawer, while trying to calm the child down.  She looks like she wants to curl up in a fetal position and cry herself.

OK, that’s enough of that.  Back to the story.

Eventually, Bea stopped the bleeding with some gauze, trimmed the wire down to its appropriate size, attached my glow-in-the-dark bands, cleaned my face with a steaming moist towel, and calmed me down to dry, silent sobs.

It’s been over an hour.  It’s well through 2nd period Teen Leadership.  My mouth is fixed in a permanent open position, and it has a ring of red around it where it had been overly irritated.

“You’re almost done,” Bea sighed, crossing herself, “Now we just have to take pictures.”

What?

The first pictures required me pulling my mouth in opposite directions so she could get pictures of each tooth’s progress.  There were two of those.  The flash refused to come on, so it took about five tries.  Note that my mouth is being held in a constant open position.

The next two pictures involved a giant (or so it felt considering my mouth is too small; I know this because only every dentist I’ve ever had has told me so; apparently telling someone their mouth is too small is small talk in the wonderful world of dentistry) mirror being put in my mouth while the upper and bottom lips switch off being pulled down (it must be great fun being a dentist, you get to watch people make funny faces all day long).
Though the flash worked, I kept unintentionally breathing through my mouth.  To fix this problem in future appointments, I would cease breathing, and Bea would have an air blowing tool on hand to clear any accidental steam.

The two pictures required about another five shots.  Finally, the three easiest photos were shot.  One where you smile to the front (I kept my face in the same open grimace of horror position), one where you relax to the front (same position held), and one where you turn to the left for a profile and relax (position held).

If that’s too hard to visualize, just imagine bad cops taking your mug shot after they tasered you.  Not that Bea is a bad cop.  Not at all.  She’s a sweetheart – just unpracticed.

And so it was like that – glazed-over eyes, mouth hanging open zombie-style, drooling and red faced, hair all in disarray, shaking body – that I went to school during the middle of 3rd period.  Ms Skiles, Pre-Algebra.  She read my note.

“Well lucky you, just in time for lunch,” she said as she smiled down on me.

Ugh.

Kelly Elizabeth Day is a sophomore at Smithson Valley High School in Comal Independent School District.