January 20, 2009, was an important day in world history. Like many of my fellow Americans and citizens of the world, I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. It was an immensely satisfying outcome to a long political campaign. I'm proud to say I had a small involvement in the campaign by joining a phone bank four Sundays in a row leading up to the election on Nov. 4. I spoke to people of all political leanings in states such as Indiana and Missouri. It was time well spent.
Jan. 20 was also an important day in my personal history. On that day, after enjoying the inauguration proceedings, I went to my orthodontist's office to submit having braces put on my teeth. After years of being not too pleased with my smile, I decided to take the plunge.
With this blog, I plan to document the process of getting my teeth straightened. I don't think anyone's going to want to read this stuff. But at least I'll enjoy having a visual and verbal diary to chart my progress.
I can say that after two full days of having braces, I'm really looking forward to this being over with. I don't know if I'm ever going to get used to the feeling of having braces, but it sure feels weird right now. And eating is a whole new ball game. No more roasted & salted peanuts from Trader Joe's for a while, it appears. There goes one staple of my diet. I'll probably talk about food a lot in this blog. But in the interest of brevity, I'll leave that to future posts.
