I have people like Matt Lauer for breakfast

Each morning I awake to the dreadful sound of my alarm clock blasting the same EE-ERR-EE-ERR-EE-ERR I've heard since the second grade when my mom went back to work and I was forced to get up on my own. I slam my hand around on the end table until I've successfully silenced the ear-bleeding beep (and my back up cell phone alarm). Then, I rEEE-CH over and click the remote to turn on the TV.

Ah, Helll-ooo Matt Lauer.

(I think he's kind of dorky, which of course makes me *swoon*, even in the morning)

This morning, Today had a powerful story about triplets who were burned in a fire twenty years ago, the same fire that took the life of their mother. Burns as a constant reminder of losing your mother - my heart broke. The story was about new laser technology which is helping the girls to eliminate their burn scars and stimulate the collagen underneath.

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!

Before I could say it out loud, there she was. The same blond doctor who started my tattoo removal was ADMINISTERING THEIR TREATMENT -- FOR FREE! Dr. Waibel graduated from the same medical school husband is attending and practiced here in Dayton until a few years ago when she left Ohio for a swanky clinic in Palm Beach where she works with a cutting edge researcher who is pioneering laser skin technology.

I sat there hoping that, one day, blond doctor can help Nie and Mr. Neilson too. When they're ready.

I guess leaving me and Tweety here in Dayton was a good move after all.

You can see the ABSOLUTELY TOUCHING story on the TODAY SHOW web page AND read about them in the June edition of Glamour Magazine.

You can read more about my tattoo removal HERE and HERE

If it makes you gag - it's not a real snack

Choking down a lean cuisine is the last thing I want to be doing right now.

Today has been a weird day. It started when I arrived at the dermatologist to find out the nurse who usually helps with my tattoo removal procedure was off today (office staff apparently ignored the note on my chart that says, “If no Karen, call to reschedule.") Karen is the only reason I have been able to survive these 9+ god awful singe sessions. The doctor is a total jerk mamma and if he had his way, I’d have no anesthetic or epidermis to speak of. This is where Karen [insert halo and choir] comes in. Being the self proclaimed wuss that I am, I have her shoot me up with a double dose of the numbing juice. One time a first year resident was observing my procedure and the conversation went like this.

Resident: You’re brave.
Me: Huh?
Resident: The last guy that was in here screamed like a baby. I could hear him all the way down the hall.
Me: I’m numb. He could blast my foot with a blow torch and it wouldn’t faze me.
Resident: Oh, that’s nice.
Me: It’s included in the (reDONKculously, not covered by insurance) price.
Resident: Then I wonder why that guy didn’t request local anesthetic?
Karen: Because. He’s A GUY.

Once Doctor Antisocial comes in, he barely acknowledges my existence and spends ONE (I shit you not, one) minute blasting away at Tweety and exits the room. Karen slathers on the Aquaphor (Ahh, so my favorite product, it’s like Tussin’ for your skin parts) and a second-skin gel patch that is cool on my wound and then bandages it up all nice so I can go to work without an oozy, bleedy mess.

Not!Today! After Captain Dermadick was done blasting the hell out of it with the blow torch laser, he wiped it with a tissue and slapped a Band-Aid on it. A TISSUE?! OUCH! SIR, ihateyou.ihateyou.ihateyou.ihateyou. I'm telling Karen.

Now you see how bad I want this tattoo gone. I’ll post pictures when scab won’t make your stomach turn.

Furthermore,

I didn’t mention that I’m on the South Beach Diet. Phase 1. I didn’t mention it because I don’t believe in losing weight as a New Year’s resolution. I think it’s stupid to only get your eat-right-fitness on in January. But the 15 lbs I gained back after the wedding are starting to annoy me (14 of them are a real pain in my ass). So my daily intake looks like this:

Breakfast: two pieces of turkey bacon, a fried egg and a mug of lemon tea
Snack 1: Cheese stick and 30 pistachio nuts
Lunch: The only carb-free lean cuisine I could find: Chicken Florentine
Snack 2: 8 celery sticks and one wedge of laughing cow light cheese (of course the cows are laughing, this snack is douche!)
Snack 3: (before the gym): Cottage cheese cup and 7 cherry tomatoes
Dinner: MEATBALLS! Broccoli and cauliflower.
Dessert: Sugar Free Jell-O (seriously, why bother.)
Water. Water. and Water.

The End.

P.S. Phase 1 makes me dream of stacking up 15 iced jelly donuts, licking the tiny red buttholes first, and stuffing the suggary goodness down my gabber until every last crumb is gone.

But, I refrain. Mostly, because that's how I gained the 15 lbs in the first place.
(In Phase 2 I get to eat yogurt so the cravings are pretty much gone. SIKE!)

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).