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.

A few minutes ago, I went out to get something more to drink. For some reason, today, I can't seem to get enough liquid. As usual, Matt policed what I was taking in, commenting that I never drank water, it was always just soda. This is patently untrue. I was actually throwing out my Mountain Dew bottle and going back to the kitchen for my cold bottle of water.

I don't know what led to this point but, for some reason, Matt felt it wise to comment that I should throw the Mother Unit out along with the Mountain Dew bottle, then warned me not to get a hernia. Even though I already knew what he was implying, I played dumb and asked him what he meant. He made some offhand remark about the Unit's weight.

I fucking went cold as ice from there. I told him that we could joke about pretty much anything and, even though we did seriously bicker at times, I was usually cool with our incessant ragging on one another, except for this particular subject.

Flustered, Matt said, "I'm just, I'm just sayin'..."

"You're just saying you're a fucking bully," I responded. "You realise that most people, when fat-shamed, often gain more weight, rather than losing. And, not only that, like everything else in the world, a person's weight is influenced by genetics."

"No," he said. "I'm the reason your mom gained weight." I'm assuming this was a way of saying he is a fabulous cook, and people can't resist eating more than they should because it's so tasty. Right.

I then said: "I'm still trying to figure out which one of your parents is the massive asshole, because that's genetic, too, and you're a major one."

I wasn't kidding. I don't kid about this particular subject. It's been one of my number one rants since my time here on The Cliffs of Insanity.

When I was a kid being tormented by others who grew up to be just like Matt, I would just withdraw, hoping that the "sticks and stones" myth would actually fucking work. It doesn't. It never has, and it never will. The only way to confront a situation like this is to do so aggressively and without hesitation.

I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in regards to myself, but especially when it comes to my mother. This has long been my stance on my tribe and myself. You can diss on me, but expect me to diss right back. But, if you diss on my Tribe, those I love and am grateful for their presence in my life, expect a merciless response over a long period of time, because I fucking hold grudges and am always on the lookout for ways to repay your unkindness threefold.

I notice things about people, and I carry these observations until I might be able to make use of them in some way. My observations have brought me to several conclusions that would probably make for unpleasant conversations if the weight subject is brought up again. I hope it isn't, mainly for the Unit's sake. She doesn't deserve the discord Matt and I generate. But I can't not defend her.