22:29 NZT Thur 23rd

Facial Discrimination

Warning: this post contains dangerously high levels of vanity.

In twenty minutes I’m going to place a call to the office of my father’s dentist, a Harley Street practitioner. Something my father said makes me think that Dr Searson, a South African by birth, was in the Police Service over there once upon a time.

I will have to grovel for not having been to the dentist since before university. Grovel for not having had my maxilla broken as a teenager and my face re-set. Grovel for still sucking my thumb at the age of twenty-seven. Grovel for having an utterly asymmetric face as a result.

My mother says that the orthodontist in Kew, who was so keen to go to work with chisel and pliers in 1991, burst out of his office, strode up to her and demanded to examine her jaw. He hadn’t seen a case like mine and wanted to check out the genetic antecedents. Lucky Mummy’s jaw is fine, as are the jaws of my lucky father and lucky brother.

Not so lucky here.

The mandible sticks out at funny angles, skews sideways at the front and the back and means that I have a prodigious underbite. By way of reinforcement I have dreadful fangs and twisted teeth too. The maxilla seems set too far back in my mouth too.

In all likelihood it would be easiest to get a replacement head direct from the manufacturer.

So in twenty minutes (in fact in ten minutes now) I will place this call, write off the tens of thousands it will take to get fixed and begin the three year procession towards the sunlit uplands of straight white teeth. I forget the context (might well be in Experience) but Martin Amis wrote of his journey, via some horrific sounding maxillo-facial surgery, to the “land of heads thrown back in wide smiles, gloopy kisses and fine dining.”

Of course, Negative Capability will be carrying exclusive coverage of my bloody and drawn-out engagement with complicated orthognathic, orthodontic and cosmetic dentistry. I expect the parts where they break bone will make the grittiest entries. One day I may even smile about the whole business.

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Had a good haircut, though it is a bit shorter than normal and if I am totally honest makes me look gay. I might have to play up to this. The place I found is outwardly quite traditional, aimed at the gruff, tough hetrosexual men of Christchurch and staffed by friendly women. They're all about grooming and along with haircuts and wet shaves also offer ‘treatments.' I am weirdly attracted to the idea of a facial and a back wax. Well, why not?

I will be in Melbourne on Sunday and Monday so I have delayed the shopping until I have been there. Doubtless there will be a much bigger choice of better stuff. Looking forward to seeing Matt and Sal for lunch on Monday.

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22:10 GMT 8 Mar

" The gadget [a large, temporary and uncomfortable restraining bridge] was brought into the room, and shyly awaited its introduction. Here it came, my ticket to good looks and fine dining, to the head thrown back in vivid laughter, to nuzzling and honeying, to goopy kisses."

Amis, M., Experience, (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), p. 123.