What do you get when you cross one French Asian woman, a Norwegian world-traveler and a bunch of North Dakotans?

My roommate, K, is from North Dakota--of Scandinavian descent. As I've been learning over the past few months, her family is comprised of rock stars! Her aunt runs the largest Scandinavian Festival in the country. The festival is so big that it's her full-time year-round job. Her sister, C, is a fashion designer, has appeared as a commentator on shows like "E's Celebrity Weddings" and is Liza Minelli's assistant (hence, why Liza is performing at the largest Scandinavian Festival in the country this year...). C's boyfriend also works for Liza and used to be a weatherman on a local North Dakota news show. And, my roommate isn't too shabby herself--sweaters she knit the first few months she lived here were sold at Barney's this summer (yep, they're all sold-out!).

So, this is just a little background for my Labor-Day Weekend story. K's cousin was in town this weekend from North Dakota. I was invited to the cousin's birthday party at Alice's Tea Cup Saturday night. In addition to K, her sister C and C's boyfriend, there was also a French Asian woman at the table who designs lingerie for Calvin Klein and a perfume designer from Norway who met the family at the Scandinavian Festival one year. A little later came B, another one of my roommate's cousins, who is studying business journalism at NYU.

So, there we were drinking tea (no worries, I had the silver needle jasmine white tea!), eating scones, talking about the big festival, memories of North Dakota, you get the drift. B was sitting next to me and asked me what I did...which is a whole bunch of disconnected things. As we're talking I'm thinking to myself, "Does this guy have braces?" When he talked, he didn't open his mouth very wide and I could have sworn I could see glints of silver shooting out from his bottom lip. He asked me if I had ever been to North Dakota. To which I replied, "Yes, once on tour." Then we got into the whole acting thing. He asked me how that was going. I told him it wasn't. Then tried to explain the whole braces thing and my hopes and dreams for the future. That's when, sure enough, he says, "Yeah, me, too...see" and then opens wide. I asked him if he found that he was meeting tons of people with braces. He said, No, this was his first time. I thought this was strange since he's getting his braces off in a month. Everywhere I go--dinners with strangers, tango class, even the lady servin' up my chai has braces. As GirlRay said, "You are a magnet for people with braces."

Another thought came over me as I sat there that night. When you've only been to North Dakota once for the weekend, and you don't design anything major like lingerie or perfume, there's not that much to contribute to the conversation. Looking around the table, listening to the many stories they had to tell, I suddenly became entranced by everyone's teeth. All these strangers with straight teeth--and each one had a different version of straight teeth. My roommate has one slight snaggle tooth, which she pointed out to me, but I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Her cousin's two front teeth overlapped slightly. The guys' teeth were both the same--straight and all the same length. But it was my roommate's sister's teeth that I decided I wanted. Her two front teeth were slightly longer than the rest. The shape and size of her teeth seemed in perfect proportion to her features. That's when I realized that I not only want straight teeth, but I am also envisioning myself with the perfect kind of straight teeth. This is why I think I sometimes get nervous at the thought of getting my braces off. Granted, my teeth will be straight, but what if they don't look the way I want them to look?