vituperation

June 14, 2002

So I had to go visit my plastic surgeon yesterday, for a one-month (since last visit, not since the surgery) checkup. He was very pleased with my stomach, but my chest is going to need some, um, touch-up work due to "minor asymmetry".

I’ll spare you the details of what he’s going to do, because it grosses out my wife. Personally, I think it sounds fucking cool, but it’s months away.

The man was leaning towards me - I was standing, pants undone and slightly lowered along with my boxerbriefs, to display the scarline - and he looks around my side, sort of at my lower back, before straightening up.

“You don’t need to be wearing 560’s, Fred,” he said, “They’re too big. You need to get some 550’s.”

Apparently, my plastic surgeon doubles as a Levi’s salesman in his spare time.

And, as long as I’m on the subject of the doc, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to having a man fondle and squeeze my chest. Particularly when it goes on and on and on for what seems to be an eternity. With the nurse watching and offering a running commentary.

God help me.

In a fit of foolishness, I agreed today to let the Huntsville newspaper do a story about me. Only they didn’t just call it a “story”, like I thought it was going to be. You know, a blurb on the side of a page with a headline like “Local man is half his former self” or something.

No.

They called it a “FEATURE story”, which has me all spazzed out. They’re sending a reporter and a photographer to my house on Tuesday for the initial interview. Yes, initial. Because there will be a second one before the final story runs.

I guess if I’m planning that world domination tour I need to get used to publicity, huh?

Let us hope I don’t make too much a fool of myself. Rhetorically speaking, I wonder if that’s even possible.

Interestingly, this reporter is just finishing up a story about a local woman who had weight-loss surgery (and, on a side note, I commented to the reporter, “Oooh, don’t get me started on that subject”. To which she promptly replied, “Why not?” leading me to wax poetic) that went horribly awry. I hate to hear things like that. Carnie Fucking Wilson sure doesn’t share the statistics - hey, did you know you have about a 1 in 100 chance of dying from it? - about the surgery.

Oh, damn, there I go, starting up again. But, while I’m at it, check out Paul’s story. Paul and my wife have shared emails, and he shared his story of weight-loss surgery. Go read it, it’s an eye-opener.

Surprisingly, Monster’s Ball was pretty damn good, even though there was a sex scene with Billy Bob Thornton in it. A downer of a movie, though, if you’re considering it.

And there’s one particularly brutal scene between Halle Berry and her fat son, if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing.

Also, for the record, Black Hawk Down wasn’t too shabby, especially if you like the boom-boom in your movies.