God damn I am bored.

I am so done waiting. I am in this lame-o limbo place right now and it has officially gotten old. I have 12 days until surgery. I really don't have much to do until then except do hair occasionally and, well, not much else. Booooring.

My trip up north was fun. I did a lot of hair. I cut and colored my dad's wife and her daughter. It all turned out great. I also cut my dad's hair and beard which is always fun. :) In SF, I ended up cutting Allison's fringe into a straight across deal which was so cute. Then my old roomie Lisa's boyfriend had me cut his fringe then Lisa wanted hers cut. Her hair was super fun cuz she was way open to anything. Her hair was already pretty short and I know her style so I cropped it all down except the top and just made it all fun. It was rad. I made money off my dad and his fam but the sf ones were spontaneous and free. I also got to see my frined Kim who is doing the hair thing too, only through the apprentice program. She is doing so great and she looks amazing and she just rocks. I love that girl. All in all a very successful trip.

Being in SF was weird. I didn't get that feeling of awe when I came over the bay bridge. It was weird. I always got that feeling in the past. I felt way disconnected from the city. Al and I walked around the Mission a little and that helped a lot, actually, but it made me remember how much I liked SF. The people there are just different. The city is just different. I would consider going back, I think. Not now but maybe some day. Oh, and I got a fucking speeding ticket IN THE CITY! So annoying. They were just pulling people over on Park Presidio (main thoroughfare) and I got swooped into the net. Oh well. We'll see how much that costs. I haven't been pulled over since my DUI when I was 21.

Went on a good date last night. :) Nice boy. Cute. Gentlemanly. We'll see.

Off to go buy color for highlights I am doing later today. Whatever keeps me going. I am charging next to nothing but it's for family and it keeps me working. Oh and I got business cards! Woo hoo!

I did my final dr. appt to get all my preop stuff done - bloodwork and ekg and stuff. I keep feeling like they will find something wrong with me that will delay the surgery. I think I felt like this before my gastric bypass too, though. I never believe it is really gonna happen until I am in that room. Better to be prepared, right?

Yay Friday. :)

And Tuesday was a good day.

I did the treadmill again this morning. I did 20 minutes again but at a higher elevation and a little faster at times. All good. Hopefully the same will happen tomorrow. Go me!

I am still off smoking - thank god for this surgery or it never would have happened.

I went for a job interview with Allen Pacheco today. He seems great and I would seriously consider the job if the Doves thing didn;t pan out. I have my second interview with them on September 24, by the way. I called and asked my doctor if he thought I would be ok, only 12 days out from surgery and they thought I would be fine since I am young and healthy.

This deserved its own paragraph, I thought. I started out this whole journey with a BMI of 50.5, which is Super Obese. I checked it again today and I am at 29.4. I am officially overweight! I am not obese of any kind anymore! I don;t mind being overweight at all. Fuck it. Just thought I would let y'all know that. :)

I heart smoking.

But I still quit. I stopped last Thursday, August 16th, at 5:30pm. I am on the patch and think I am gonna step down to the 2nd stage this thursday. I am supposed to be nicotine free for 2 weeks before surgery so it'll have to be that way. I miss smoking. I really like smoking. It eases my mind and calms the nerves and gives me something to do when I have nothing else to do. I don't wanna crochet to replace it. I just wanna smoke. And eat. Ugh.

I got up and walked on the treadmill this am. I have almost done that a few times int he last week but today I really did. I only did 20 minutes but I got sweaty and I worked. So tomorrow I will do a little more. I really would like to lose 5 more pounds before surgery. I don't know if I can do it but I am sure as hell gonna try.

I have my preop appt on thursday at 1 so I'll let you know how it goes. I have an interview at some salon tomorrow afternoon that I probably won't work for but it is worht the effort. I have lunch plans today, meetings to go to, phone calls to make - I am very busy.I just need to keep getting my shit done and all will be well. I am assuming I will have to get a bunch of bloodwork done before surgery so that will fill up my time nicely in the next couple weeks. And I am going up north this weeknd to san jose to see my dad and to sf to see my lovely allison. I can't wait to give that girl a hug. It's been over a year now and it is weird wihtout her, although I feel like sh is always here. I will get to make some money doing my dad's wife' hair, and her daughter's highlights. I hope they know it costs some dough for that - their colors alone cost $40. I am thinking 60 for color, 80 for highlights and 40 for both cuts - that will be my discount. I have to give them a deal - it's my dad's fam. But I need the money and I am worht every penny - more, really. :)

Yay for things progressing!

Am I dreaming?

I swear I must be because I never thought this day would come. I officially have a surgery date for my Lower Body Lift (LBL). On one of my favorite days of the year, both my sisters' bdays, I will be starting my new life. September 12, 2007 at 6:30 in the early this gets done. I will finally feel like I actually did this, you know? I will get to see what really is going on under all this skin. It's a good day for it - Moll and Les's bdays, early fall (my fave time of year) and it is erev rosh hashanah (the night before the Jewish New Year) so I get to start my next year totally new. I am so excited. My mo and Molly are both off work for the couple days after, too, so it works out well. I told Molly i owe her a bday this year. :)

I was waiting for insurance to clear some stuff but they would have made me go to another doctor and for the amount I am paying, the percentage they would have covered, if any, didn't make it worth it. I am also on a time frame - I need to be healed in time to really start working by October 1ish so mid-September had to be the time. This means that, if work allows and everything goes ok, I could do phase 2 by mid-december and be new again for the new year. If I could go into 2008 feeling better about my body under my clothes, I don't even know... I try and explain how it wiuld make me feel, and I try to think I even know how it is going to make me feel but I have no idea. People who have had it done talk about this freedom they feel. God, to not have to be so worried about my skin... to not feel it all the time. That will be nice.

So I quit smoking yesterday - I have the patch on right now and got up early cuz of the crazy dreams the patch makes me have. I started my regimen of vitamin c and iron yesterday also. I have my pre-op appointment on August 23rd at 1pm - that is next Thursday, I believe. At the appointment I get all my actual info. I pay them a huge chunk of money, too. Ugh. I booked my 2 nights post-op at Serenity, this aftercare facility I have to stay at for 2 nights instead of the actual hospital (you can come visit me there!!) where they monitor me and deal with meds and all that good stuff.

I can't wait to get all the drawings and stuff on me so I can see where stuff is gonna get removed and moved to. I have been looking at peoples' blogs and stuff online to see their processes and results and have even found a few who have similar bodies to mine and it is amazing. I mean, I am gonna wake up without all this yucky skin hanging. No more front butt!! People seem to get amazing results. I am not expecting perfection, just a new start. It will be like losing the weight all over again. For real.

Off to my day. I have really been enjoying writing in my blog again. Glad I am back. :)

Ok, one person still emailed me back.

Fine. I got one person to email me back. And I got some reassurance from a friend. And I got up today and did my hair (which I am still not stoked on) and my makeup (a little better) and went and got waxed so I feel a bit more human. More like an attractive, female human, at least. It'll be a slow road, I am sure, but I will get my groove back.

Apparently, I am completely unattractive.

I put up an ad on Craigslist yesterday. A simple w4m, straightfoward, just wanna meet somebody to hang with ad. Got a few good responses that were grammatically correct, more than one sentence, not written in all caps, and not including a picture of their naked parts. I wrote a couple of them back, put in some pics of me or a link to my myspace so they could check out all the different pics I have on there - usual stuff. Not one single response. They all just disappeared. Huh. I had no idea I was so ugly. Not the boost to my ego I was looking for, I have to admit. I kinda had this idea in my head that, sans all the weight, I am kinda cute. I was apparently wrong. I am the kinda girl that you are stoked about meeting until you see what she looks like and then you never email back. I think 8 guys chose that option over the last 24 hours.

My ad was clear - I have short hair, I am tattooed, I am not your average gal. I guess I should have written that I am not as cute as you want me to be. Or I want to be, I suppose. Maybe sitting around, unemployed, without makeup on for the last 6 weeks is having an effect on me - who knows. Maybe I am cute but I have bad pics right now. Maybe I look like a 45 year old saggy formerly fat lady with grandma hair. That's kinda how I feel, at least. Blech. I hate this. In the last 6 weeks I have had one date and it sucked. The guy was a jerk and obviously completely uninterested fromt he second he walked in the door. And now this. Needing some ego stroking please.

Maybe I will wake up less ugly tomorrow. Maybe my hair will grow really quickly and I will get my cuteness back. Right now, nothing is looking so great. I think today, even though I have nothing to do and am trying to find a reason to leave the house, I will do my hair in a new way to try and offset the desperate need for a haircut, and actually put on makeup. Even if it is just to go sit at starbucks and read my encyclopedia. I need somethin', people. This blows.

Being unemployed rocks.

I went to palm springs by myself this week. My mom had booked a room but ended up moving this week so I took it for 2 nights. I had so much fun. I brought a bunch of books (I started my journey to read the encyclopedia, even if I did have to start with a 1978 version and the letter "I") and my computer and Buffy and had a blast. I went to the casinos a bit and won a bunch of money which i promptly lost. It's all good though. I came home with cash in hand. If you have never taken a vacation alone, I highly recommend it. I sat by the pool, swam, relaxed and just had some alone time. I was surprised how much i enjoyed it. And it was gorgeous in the desert. I was actually in La Quinta, at the La Quinta Resort. It butts up right against the mountains there and it was just gorgeous. Blue blue blue skies and red rock mountains. I didn't get any pics, sorry. But I am definitely gonna try to go again. It was beautiful.

My plastic surgery consult went great. My doctor was amazing. His name is Jay Orringer and he was my next door neighbor a million years ago. The second we started the exam, he opened my gown and just said "Yeah, this needed to be done yesterday." So he agreed I need to have surgery - it's not my imagination. He was really enthusiastic and took a ton of time checking me out and everything. It was a little odd being poked and prodded and stared at. He kept lifting skin and moving it around and squeezing bits and stuff. He measured me with calipers and weird devices. It was really odd standing there having someone look at all the bits of me that I am so disgusted with but knowing he would fix them helped.

Basically the plan is this: Lower Body Lift as soon as we can schedule it. I have to wait to hear if insurance will cover any of it and I also have to quit smoking for 4 weeks. I need to do that soon. A minimum of 3 months after that, he will do a breast lift and inner thigh lift. He is not going to do any implants, which I am very glad about. It will just be a lift. He is going to take tissue from my side, like next to my boob, and fold it in on itself to create fullness in my upper breast area. I should end up the same size as now, just in the right places and stuff. Inner thigh lift is pretty straightforward. Originally he vetoed doing my arms - the scars are really bad and almost never worth it. After he looked at mine, though, he agreed it was necessary. I don't just have saggy skin, I have wrinkled, dimpled, elephant skin on my arms. I hate it. I was willing to live with it if he really thought i should but my arms are really bad. So my arm surgery will be last in line, somewhere down the road. I am so excited about all fo this though.

Now for the scary part - the price. I had been looking at nationwide averages for ths stuff and figured it would be about $40k for everything. Not so much. The lower body lift is $22k alone. The breasts and thighs are $29k and I don't know what the arms will cost. Basically, this is my house. I am building my future in my body rather than property. I have thought about it a lot and I am ok with that. I am more than ok. I have been through so much to get to this point. I have worked damn hard and been through a lot - emotionally, mentally and obviously physically. I want this. I want to complete this process. This will make it real. This will make it all worth it. This will make my body complete. I can't run, I can't wear clothes that really fit me, I can't see the results of what I worked so hard to accomplish and that is demotivating. I want to see what is under all this skin. I want to be who I can be. Dr. Orringer couldn't stress enough how much this would change my life. I am so excited.

Other than that stuff, life is good. The apartment is coming together. Lesl was n town and she helped us do so much. I am really excited about this place. Moll and I have had fun and been doing well together. This seems like it is gonna work out great.

:)