Wow, I’m behind. Not having internet at work sucks ass. It really blows. …It sucks AND blows. a-whoo a-whoo a-whoo!

I got a bad-news call from my bridal party’s dressmaker earlier in the week saying that the fabric Mr. W’s daughter had chosen for her dress design is no longer available, and that she would have to select a different fabric or a new color. Of all people to have this happen to, it would be Daughter, who is slippery-er than an eel when you’re trying to get a hold of her. I left a couple of unreturned voice mails on her cell. She finally picked up on Thursday afternoon and I explained the problem to her. She was sad, but to my surprise, offered to come with us that evening to select a new fabric. Mr. W and I had an appointment to view and choose our engagement photos after work that day, and the studio was only blocks away from the dressmaker’s shop. Daughter canceled her volleyball event with her friends and drove out to my work to meet up with me.

We hit a couple of snags at the dressmaker’s, as certain other fabrics weren’t available to go with the second fabric Daughter had selected, but I think eventually we did arrive on something Daughter was relatively content with. Next was the engagement photo appointment. Daughter oohed and aahed over how I turned out in the photos, but I was less impressed. I mean, the photos looked pretty, blah blah, but can they photoshop me any more?! I know what I look like in the mirror, unless all my home mirrors are distorted, and in these photos they narrowed my face, lost my chipmunk cheeks, and I could swear that at least on one pose, they totally CUT OUT half my upper arm. It just makes me wonder what *I* would’ve looked like in these photos, not this strange girl they’ve created by manipulating my likeness. Mr. W and Daughter disagreed with me and said it’s clearly me in the photos and Mr. W thinks that when I see myself in a mirror, the image that enters my brain is distorted by anorexia anyway, but they both did agree that Mr. W himself apeared to be severely airbrushed. He looks something like a man-boy in some poses, instead of the man I’ve come to love when I look at him. I guess this way, we appear to be closer in age… =P

Anyway, out of the many poses the three of us viewed on the large computer monitor, we only selected 15 to purchase. The makeup lady and her husband the photographer had their favorites, and they kept raving about certain features on me that make me “model” material, such as the way the corners of my lips angle up when I smile (apparently a lot of their customers angle back or down, like Kate Winslet), the great teeth, the way my body is SO unlike an Asian’s body because I have a chest and butt and proportionally smaller waist. She complained that most of her Asian customers’ torsos are shaped like a square. She REALLY pushed for purchase and blow-up of one photo in particular (her “favorite”) in which I slightly had my back to Mr. W as I lounged on a chair, and her mouse pointer kept traveling embarrassingly to circle my chest and delineate the arc in my back as she explained the figure thing.

Okay, I just did a similar pose right now from my computer chair and looked in the mirrored closet door, and the woman apparently photoshopped out the definition in my deltoid and tricep! I know that traditional Asian women are totally anti-tone and don’t think it’s feminine, and they’re always telling me to stop weightlifting, but I WORKED HARD FOR THAT DEFINITION! I wanna see the “before” pictures!

Wanna hear something more exasperating? I tried to take photos of myself to illustrate my point, but either 1) the flash kept going off ruining the photo, 2) taking the flash off made the exposure time longer so it was totally blurry, or 3) finding a setting that turns off flash and does the steady-hand thing changed the lighting (or maybe I turned funny) so that you can’t see definition in the photos after all, altho it’s clearly in the mirror.


*sigh*

(As w/all my photos, resting your mouse pointer on it brings up a caption.) But anyway, see what I mean? Chipmunk cheeks. Please ignore the glasses, messy hair and jammies. I just got up.

Oh, and the studio, as I expected, absolutely does not sell the digital images. You pay for every print you want.

After I got home, I grabbed a bag of DVDs Busykitty Vanessa had wanted to see and brought them over to her place, as she was on lockdown for 10 days after her surgery. I met the last sister I hadn’t met yet, and the three of us ended up chatting until I was dozing off on Vanessa’s comfy couch. MAN her TV is huge. I’m happy to report Vanessa is recovering well and her doctor doesn’t expect the lab to return any significantly bad news. Oh yeah, my Happy Bunny jammies (above) was a 30th bday present from Vanessa!

Speaking of no bad news in lab results, I see my doctor had left me an email regarding my pap last week. I’m gonna read it and I hope I don’t have another abnormal pap that requires further cutting, like last time! *crossing fingers*