I’ve been thinking about my Monday Musings post, or lack of it all week. Tuesday Twitterings, Wednesday Whinings. Thursday Thoughts, Friday Feelings. Although, not exactly sure why I have gotten around to it…

I suppose it’s because I haven’t made time to lounge in bed for a morning on my phone.

I can’t even remember what I did Monday. I suppose the usual dog park work combo. Tuesday I know I started work disgustingly early because I beat some of my London colleagues online and alarmed a few others. Wednesday, I also signed on early so I could sign off early to go day drinking. To be fair, the day drinking was a work sanctioned event, we did an office outing to a baseball game. But then after party did devolve to watching England beat Croatia and then a hop to another bar. Thursday, I needed to recover, not from the beer but from the socializing. And then yesterday I had a lovely half day, yay for summer Fridays, coffee date with a friend, a leisurely dog park outing, and the most blissful restorative yoga Thai massage retreat ever.

Yoga has been feeling very good in my body lately. But I have not been feeling very good about my body. I am at my highest weight and I don’t love it. I’m trying not to overly focus on that and just incorporate slowly getting more movement in and prioritizing better eating habits. And I do have faith I’ll get there. Trust the process. I trust it. But also damn it for being slow.

I feel like being single again has brought a sort of hyper awareness of my body that I don’t exactly appreciate. But am trying to reframe in a beneficial way.

The results from the laser facial have been amazing! Yesterday marked my full week of recovery and the day I was allowed to go back to my regular routine. Let’s walk through the process. I’m still blown away by everything. Science is truly magic. It started with sitting about 25 minutes with numbing cream on my face – felt refreshingly cold and the numbing felt particularly weird at the peaks of my lips but otherwise mostly just me freaking out that I was doing *this*. Then the laser itself was surprisingly fast, started with the pico which targets the dark spots – felt a bit a heat, heard a bit of crackling, smelled my mustache being burnt off. Or as the derm called it, peach fuzz. Bless him. Then the general Ultra laser came out, a lot more crackling, a bit more heat, uncomfortable but not in any way that stands out amongst the many horrors women subject themselves to for beauty. Very quick process. Not even sure if it lasted 15 minutes. 10 sounds more reasonable. But I couldn’t tell you for sure. I was in and out in under an hour though.

The ice pack for the ride home was definitely a necessity. Why wasn’t it bigger? Why wasn’t it colder? My face was on fire! They said people have described it as a sunburn or the feeling of eating spicy food. Definitely felt like I had slathered some hot sauce on my entire face. The hottest of the hot sauces too – we know I like my ghost peppers. It was an intense burning. But because it was a steady intensity even though it was extreme it felt like I could tune it out a bit. The joint I smoked heading back on 76 probably also helped with that. I stopped for a smoothie and saw in the mirror I looked a bit flushed. But just a bit, it could have easily been dismissed as it being hot outside. But I’d take that over the slight puffiness I had immediately after, although even that was minor.

About an hour after my face was fine. I napped and I went out later and did not feel self conscious at all. My skin looked a little dry or crisp if you looked closely but nothing noticeable without it being pointed out. Saturday and Sunday it felt very dry and like a fine sandpaper. Noticeable burnt flakes and peppering but really only noticeable if you were looking for it. Peppering is a new term to me, it’s how they describe the little flaking off of dark spots. It looks how it sounds. And don’t be alarmed by my burnt flakes, they were tiny pinpoints that were dry skin but dark as if crisp. Which I assumed they were. By Sunday my one noticeable under eye spot and one of the big drivers for this procedure – GONE! Just gone! I was dumbfounded. The second one that was even bigger was fully gone by Tuesday. And by Tuesday my face was clear in general and almost fully recovered with just a few sandy patches on my cheeks by my sideburns.

I’m impressed by how it looks! I’m so happy I did this for myself. And I’m excited to see the continued glow up in the next few weeks.

As for my recovery routine, extremely easy, no actives, just gentle cleansing with a gentle face wash in the shower in the morning and micellar water at night. A lot of moisturizer – hyaluronic acid, cicalfate, a thick moisturizer – and lots of sunscreen.

That’s it.

Okay, so back to my social interactions. Friday, as I said, I went out post-laser. I went to a friend’s for cocktails and coasters where we drank cocktails and made coasters. It was quite fun.

Immediately prior, I ran into [redacted] or should I say Ryan passing by the dog park. We stopped and caught up for a moment and it was nice. I felt neither triggered or desire, for the most part indifferent. Like they were just another dog park friend to chat with.

That and making peace with getting a cosmetic procedure was the basis for me vague booking about it being a healing Friday.

That Saturday the guy I’m seeing came over for dinner and a sleepover. He then proceeded to hangout well into the evening on Sunday!! Getting naked in front of him was delightfully awkward and playful. Pip seems to like him. And it was really easy and fun to spend a large amount of unstructured time together. We went to the dog park. We went out for an impromptu brunch. We went to a human park. We had a beer. We lounged in the living room. It was beautifully mundane.

And well we’ll see if that repeats this weekend because he’s sleeping over tonight. Eek!

Anyways, I think I’ve caught you all up. And now my restless pup is ready to be taken outside. I’m thinking we might venture all the way to the Wissahickon for a hike. It’s been far too long.