I am kind of freaking out right now.  At the age 5, I was enrolled in 1st grade, at which time I was swiftly and truly schooled by my classmates.  I was not normal.  Period.  I wasn't allowed to dance to music like I'd always done before, without getting called names and being laughed at.  My teacher gave me a time out for not being able to recite the Lord's Prayer, and when we were supposed to play games that called for teams, there was team A and team "Shit, she's the only one left."  It was apparent, in no uncertan terms, that nothing about me was normal.  And since my family moved around a lot, I wasn't normal at any school, so it had to be me, not them.  I was given the advice to ignore it and they'd eventually go away, but they didn't. This ended, for the most part, while I was working at BMG, when I finally lost it on some asshole at J Records I was forced to work with.  I had one more incident of bullying behaviour just yesterday, and I reacted viciously. To be honest, I can't remember everything that happened there, but I think I just on that thin line that separates verbal confrontation from physical altercation.  Thirty-two (non-consecutive) years of bullying boiled up in my body, and I just fucking exploded.  But I'm not here to talk about bullying.  It seems I've done a lot of that since I've been on the Internet, and finding others like myself.  The Island of Misfit Toys is a real place on Teh Intarwebz, located a little further north-west of Dr. Moreau's Island, and separated from Fantasy Island by the Sea of Dreams (yes, we can see y'all from from our winders).  Enough of that, though.  Let's get down to bidness.

I'm here to talk about feeling paranormally different since waking up on the 14th.  The doctor said he removed 17 pounds of excess skin, fat, and other crap that wouldn't have ever otherwise gone away.  I'm talking about hearing the nurse softly say in my ear, "breathe deeply", and then I woke up with parts of my body that have always been part of me since I began to gain more weight than other kids my age, at four years.  The midsection of my stomach is mostly flat, but the lower part, the part that hangs down to your thighs when you stand, and makes you think that you have no lap whatsoever when you sit down - - well, it is gone.  Totally fucking gone.  Working on my computer has even changed, because my stomach was my prop, so I could work on my writing, promotions, and blogging while Smidgen curled up on my chest or upper abdomen.  Now, I'm having dificulty trying to find a decent computer spot, so I can write this.  I feel as though, if I were back east with the friends I have, I would hear them whisper about me not being me, reinacting one of the earlier scenes of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

On 14 September whilst waiting to be rolled back to the operating room, I was lying on my back with my elbow and hands touching the mattress, or I had my fingers interlocked on my midsection, and my elbows just dangled at each side.  If I wanted to put my arms at my side, then my elbows could touch the mattress, but my fingers wouldn't meet.  I couldn't do both and I never could.  It was just a fact of life for me, even after the gastric bypass surgery in 2004. Now, my elbows can rest on the bed and my fingers can interlock at the same time.  The Mother Unit was amused that my discovery of this amazed me so much.  I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you've never been able to do it before, it's kind of a thing.  The effect on my lower back was nearly instantaneous.  A lot of that pull is gone, which was the main purpose for asking to get the procedures in the first place.  Total success, right there.  Despite currently feeling as though I have been thrown into the Iron Maiden at an Iron Maiden concert, my back already doesn't hurt as much, and I'm hoping the pain will continue to wane as I heal.  I can feel the difference in my knees as well.

Psychologically, the immediate effect has not been as positive as I would have liked, but that's not the doctor's fault. Everything he did was exactly the procedures he signed on to do, and he did them expertise.  The thing for me, though, was that I went to sleep in the body I'd had for around 32 years, and I woke up a stranger to myself.  I'm not doing as well as perhaps I should in respect to mentally catching up to the physical tranformation.  There are differences you would never think of, such as, seeing my own "cho-cha" (thank you, Missy Elliott) for the very first time in my entire life.  Only a few hours after the surgery has over, I learned the women's cho-chas were supposed to look like this.  It is still quite a surprise, because most laypeople or medical personnel would never think that such a change would be shockingly phantasmagoric.  It's as though the doctor pulled everything up.  From now on, whenever I see some crazy person in the park talking down her/his pants, I'm going to wonder if they had a panniculectomy and abdominoplasty.  Such a shock to the visual senses is bizarre and unsettling.  On the other hand, I might be that homeless crazy person taking to her own privates sooner than later.

I was told that the surgery took hours because the doctor wanted to be as thorough as possible while he was working. Based on some of the surgery pictures he'd shown me during our consultation, I have no doubt he was thorough.  In fact, I think he did more than was authorised, probably because he knew I might need it down the road. I was already dead to the world, so why not? After a little bit of online research, what little time I've been online, I'm thinking that that extra something was some liposuction, considering I have two balls that catch the bloody water draining out of me, and bruises that just won't quit on my lower stomach, thighs, and cho-cha. Everything is relatively level now.  I had fatty bits on my back that are gone now, too. After all this heals I will appear to be, more or less, like someone carrying a few extra pounds, but nothing people would gawk or throw vomit fat jokes in her direction.

My entire dieting life, I was told to chant the mantra "there's a thin person inside me that yearns to get out!"  I was conditioned to dislike everything about me that anyone could see, while striving to look like the ones who are always at the front of the line to get their kick in before the day over. I was filled with a hell of a lot of animosity by the time I was approved for gastric bypass surgery, so much so that I had before and after pictures taken in the event someone told me I looked good.  My plan was to whip those pictures out and ask them what they thought now!  Over a time, especially when Aunt Tudi's health started to decline, I just grew weary of my verbal fight with society, and just gave up on avenging the evil so quantumly ingrained in us all by this mockery of our exsistence.

But, the other day, I was told it was good to see me, a "much thinner" me.  I didn't say anything then, because I've been feeling like every hell imagined in every dimension that could currently be calculated by any Physics Academic, and to be perfectly frank, I did not want to be in a tiff, or what have you.  Now, I'm a tad concerned that, in my heart, I know I may throat punch anyone who has ever known or seen me prior to the surgeries, but still comes out with that programmed bullshit, especially if they refer to having surgies to assist me lose the weight that was killing me as "taking the easy way out."  I am not above going all Jack Torrance with an ax on any motherfucker who crosses that line, and thanks to those oh so very easy surgeries and recoveries that were alllll done for cosmetic reasons and nothing else, I'm lighter, limberer, and enthusiastically motivated to shut you up by ripping your jaw bone off your stupid brainless head and feeding it to Toby. Strangers who do not know me will get you one free pass but, if a stranger proving how much of a douche nozzle they are by judging another within my earshot may very well end up in an intimate relationship with my shoes and elbows.  I haven't forgotten all the Kung Fu I was taught, and I'll probably be able to do them better now.  You can be my practice.

The flesh a person is in, is not that person, but it can affect them in unimaginable ways.  I feel like a stranger in a strange land now.  I can't quite grasp the extent of my aura.  Toby caught a glimpse of mm the other day, and barked at me as though I were a stranger.  I'm wondering how Smidge will handle seeing her new old bed, unimpressed that it no longer has the cushioning she requires.  I can get around things a bit easier, but still move like I need to squeeze, and that makes me look like I'm up to no good.  I had some of these issues with the first surgery, but the effects came much more slowly, so my adjustments were more easily accepted.  This time, not so much.  Not even after the gastric bypass did I have a figure.  Now that I do, I don't look right.

But just because I'm struggling doesn't mean I've lost one iota of my venom for humanity as a whole.  Once built, or stolen, I can just shoot my lethal laser gun at the global urban centers while wearing some dumbass latex cat suit.

FUCK THE WORLD

Love, Tin

PS: If you find any spelling or grammatical mistakes in this, chalk it up to unbridled anger combined with full body pain. Thank you.

About an hour ago, Matt reminded me of the drum circle that's happening tonight. A short while after that, the Mother Unit also reminded me, asking if I was going with them.

I am not.

When it was mentioned at the Rainbow drumming circle on Sunday, I didn't get the chance to tell the Unit and Matt that I wouldn't participate. Later, I forgot to bring it up. They just assumed I'd be up for any drum circle, and that's totally understandable. I don't think they understood why I won't be going with them, though, despite my best efforts to explain.

Honestly, I didn't try very hard to explain my reason to Matt, because his understanding others - at least me, at any rate - is as selective as his hearing and attention span, and it would have led to nothing more but another avoidable conflict.  But I did try to clarify my position to the Unit.

If there is something I despise more than anything else in the world, I would have to say it is hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy to be exact.

Since 2011, I have had issues with my spirituality that, today, sees me on the threshold of unapologetic atheism.  I have not participated in Esbats or Sabbats, nor will I until I can say without reservation that I still believe.  This is a full moon drum circle.  Engaging in connecting with Earth's heartbeat by creating rhythms beneath a full moon is too close to participating in ritual for my comfort.

The Unit's argument to mine was that she was not Pagan, nor is Matt, and they're still attending.  In fact, she said, there were probably few, if any, Witches present, that it was more about the drumming than anything.  And she's right.  I can't deny she doesn't have a point.  She also fails to understand that, because I'm an initiate, because I take spirituality extremely seriously, I don't feel comfortable going to an event that even hints at ritual.  I would feel like a hypocrite, and that's an untenable position in which to find oneself.

I would love to go drumming tonight.  Since this one is on the beach, I would particularly love going, as I have been wanting to return to the ocean for quite a few months now.  (I think I may be past the used condom incident to the point I could brave the water again.)  Immersing into the Pacific beneath a full moon as the attendees drum out our collective heartbeat sounds wonderful to me right now.  In all good conscience, however, I can't do it.  Even though the Unit and Matt don't see a problem with my participation, neither of them have undergone an initiation into a spiritual path.  They don't see the conflict because, for them, there is none.  And that's okay.  That's the way it's supposed to be.

In completely unrelated news, my back has been about to kill me today. As I went up the stairs earlier, I felt like the G-force was tripled. It then occurred to me that the excess skin I could never get removed may be a major factor in keeping my back in a fix. So I decided to see what my health insurance might cover, given it changed when I moved to California. I couldn't find anything on Aetna's secure members' page, but that didn't stop me. I wrote Aetna. About thirty minutes later, I got this back:

Your provider will need to request precertification for the procedure.
If approved you may be responsible $264 out patient procedure co-payment.

I'm flabbergasted by this. It just doesn't even seem real to me, that this procedure, considered strictly cosmetic by all insurers in South Carolina, would cost me less than $300, if I got approval. Based on the experience I've so far had with the medical maze in California, I'm pretty confident I'd get approval, especially if it means the procedure would help with my back, knees, and my skin in general.

I go see my PCP next week, and will definitely be broaching the subject to her at that time. I will also be mentioning it to the pain doctor later on this month, considering he's been treating my pain issues in regard to my spine, knees, and fibro. So, we'll see.

I'm probably screwing myself over royally for feeling this way, but I'm actually kind of hopeful about the prospects of this. Anyone who reads this needs to keep your digits crossed for me, 'cos this would be monumental.