The lone tree and rigging in the mouth

Posted on May 23, 2009 in Body Language Dentition Hikes and Trails Photos

This is a photo ((If you want to see more, visit my photostream.)) I took on my last walk with Drake in the hills. This golden mesa kept attracting my attention but I couldn’t frame it with a wide-angle lense, so I stretched out my zoom to telephoto length. Even then, haze made the picture unpretty, so when I downloaded at home, I put it through an infrared and then a platinum effect plug-in to get the result that you see.

I’ve been quiet mostly because I went into a frenzy of shooting photos before I got a tooth extracted on Wednesday. I’m none too comfortable today — traditionally the most painful because you puff up and stretch the stitches to the breaking point.

Last night I got up the courage to look at what the periodontist had wreaked ((My Twitter friend Felicity said “You only just looked at it tonight? I would have checked it as soon as I got home.” I confess I am a coward and need to get used to the string being there.)) . There’s enough string stretching from tooth to gum to palate (ew!) in there to rig the Pilgrim or The Spirit of Dana Point. I imagine sailors tugging at the lines, changing the direction of the gums, with each pull producing a new, spasm.

This is usual for the third and fourth days, which I am in. Fortunately I was so nonplussed by the pain of the second day that I stopped taking vicodin at all, so I have a store ready to weather the next several hours of misery.

This ship is rounding the Horn. We’ll make the Golden Coast soon.