No pain No Gain - screw you Tweety

So my impending nuptials have been quite the motivator for my body and such. Well, actually, I started cycling way before I got engaged but have definitely upped my gym intensity since 6/25/07. My constant struggle with hypoglycemia has aided in my wedding diet – no matter how badly I crave delicious carbs (mostly donuts, the jelly filled with white icing on top variety, and cake) feeling sick afterwards and almost passing out two hours later isn’t worth it. I have also sacrificed TV time and the general dicking around [one of my favorite pastimes]. My most painful sacrifice thus far has been my tattoo removal. This has been a long process and I am coming to the realization that although the ass of a dermatologist I go to said it would be gone by July 4th, this will not happen. Case in point – its May 21st and after six terribly painful treatments, it’s still very much there. Faded, but there.

BACKSTORY: I have a blue flower smack in the middle of my right thigh and a Tweety bird on the front of my left ankle –which I got when I was 16 and 17, respectively, to piss of my overbearing dad. And while this worked wonders in the paternal off-pissing department, I am now stuck with a Looney Toons character on a visible part of my body. My adult self in no way identifies with this image so the frivolity of my youth is exposed by its very presence. Every time I am attempting to be professional and someone gets a glance at my yellow bird friend I get that look. You know the look that says, “Wow I was almost fooled when you referred to “those data” in the plural form [as it should be] but now I know you are a trashy tattooed girl who probably walks around your trailer at night in a dirty pink robe and curlers” First of all my robe is green and secondly.. AH! I want my research and my career to be taken seriously and I cannot do that with Tweety hanging out on my extremity! The wedding was a perfect excuse to excommunicate him from my body – that and the fact that tattooing is somewhat frowned upon in Judaism.

Last spring I went to a skin screening here at the WSUniversity. A young blond doctor deemed me cancer-free and said she liked my tattoos. My response, “I hate Tweety Bird” so she said she was teaching residents how to use a new laser and she would remove it FOR FREE. Then this same blonde doctor took a job in West Palm Beach at a cosmetics boutique, leaving Tweety only a shade lighter. This left me to seek out this b-hole derm, who doesn’t speak and charges me $75 per zap. Mind you the tatooing only cost me $80 to begin with [cheap and forever just like I like them] and even with inflation doesn’t add up to the $300 I’ve already spent on this.

Moral of the story, FI and I are documenting this process through photography and saving it in a precious memory book [you know the ones with the lovely moment’s kids on the front]. Anyway, we are saving it for inevitable rainy day [or a sunny day] when our kid asks for a tattoo. We will show them the pictures and let them choose for him/herself [then if he/she makes the wrong choice we will just flat out tell them there is no way in hell they are getting a tattoo]. Here are a few teasers from the album (after the first treatment, then after the 5th treatment).