Day 282 of 2026
“Twenty-two hours a day”
ALIGNMENT, n.
1. The state in which a tooth, or a day, sits correctly against its neighbor.
2. Dentistry: a clear tray worn eighteen hours in twenty-four, removed only to eat, to speak, to kiss, to board.
3. Scheduling: nine meetings set edge to edge, no air between them, read by the body as a bite that will not close.
4. The small violence of taking the tray out mid-flight and feeling, for one second, every tooth remember its old crooked place.
5. See also: ITINERARY; ROOT; OVERBOOKED.