I was reading once some of the responses of younger starlets to the idea of plastic surgery.  At the time, I was in the beauty shop waiting for Nathan to get finished with his every-six-week hair cut that he has to have or he'll just drop down dead of horror.  He has such a fetish for haircuts it's not even funny.  He'll hop up onto that little booster chair and start telling them what to take off the sides and how long to leave the bangs and to use the #10 guard here and the texturing shears there and did their daughter-in-law ever get over that case of strep throat and on and on.

So there I sit, waiting for him to finish getting the air clipped around his ears when I came upon that little sidebar of an article in some rag.  I actually wrote the responses down on the back of a receipt, which I promptly (evidently) proceeded to throw out a few days later because I just can't find the thing.  That means I'll be paraphrasing, so if I mess it up, they are free to sue me for liable or slander or whichever it is when its in print versus me just blabbing about them.  Now mind you, these are all little tiny things, of course, about a buck ten dripping wet with perfect toothpick bodies and fake bewbies and small little minds.  Jessica Alba isn't sure yet if she'd have plastic surgery.  She muses that "...having babies will stretch my stomach beyond what is acceptable. People usually look better without surgery - my grandmother aged very gracefully."  Beyond what is "acceptable?"  I'm completely cracking up here that she was comfortable even saying that out loud.  Youth is wasted on the young, I tell you.

<==Scarlett Johansson said, "I will definitely have plastic surgery - I don't want to become an old hag!"

An old hag?  Moi?

Kyra Sedgwick, who has just turned 40, says, "What is really the difference between putting makeup on and having stuff shot into your face?”  (Speaking on Botox injections)  Another one where I'm thinking, "Did she really say that out loud in front of people?"  ===>

<===Cameron Diaz has been very vocal about her (current) decision NOT to get anything surgically altered, saying, "I would never have anything done. I think beauty comes from the inside. When I see women who have had plastic surgery I find it unnerving. All I can see is the surgery. The person who has had it has vanished.  I don’t want to look like that."

Of course, Jane Fonda was promoting all natural beauty until she hit a certain age, whereupon she proceeded to get all kinds of things optimized, so to speak. ===>

I'm not against plastic surgery by a long shot.  One of my very bestest buddies, Andrea, was shocked when her sister decided to have liposuction for her wedding.  Now *I'm* a little shocked because evidently, Andrea's sister is in a similar physical condition as is Andrea, which amounts to the Mary Poppins assessment of "practically perfect in every way."  Andrea is slim and gorgeous and has had four babies "stretch her stomach beyond what is acceptable."  (Whenever I read that, I imagine that Jessica Alba believes she has to eat her young.  Babies aren't in your stomach, sweet li'l thang, they're in your uterus.  It's your belly/abdomen/tummy that gets stretched, darlin.)  Anyway, my point is that if anyone doesn't need plastic surgery, it's Andrea (and Jessica Alba) and if her sister is in a similar condition, ditto. 

My girlfriends and I were talking about the upcoming wedding/liposuction and it came out that I would definitely do it myself.  Andrea looked at me and said, "Really?  You'd have plastic surgery done to change the way you look?"

Oh HELL YES.

If I could afford it and a doctor would nip it, tuck it, suck it, trim it, tug it, raise it, flatten it, cinch it up or thin it out, bring it on.  I have friends who have had tummy tucks and say it is absolutely the most painful experience they've ever had.  I have a friend who had her eyeliner tattooed on and said that while it is extremely convenient now, she was in agony the whole time and would not have done it if she'd known how much it would hurt.  I've had friends who had boob  jobs and said that it was extremely uncomfortable, but most of them are happy with it.

I love my wrinkles, so I wouldn't want a face lift, even though as soon as I hit 40, it seemed like my face was determined to just slide right off my head and onto my chest.  After breastfeeding 5 babies for a year and a half or so each (Poor Joe was bottle-fed, bless that little lamb), I could do with a boob lift just to get them up off my waste again and make the headlights point straight out there instead of at my feet.  (Breastfeeding and pregnancy stretched my breast beyond what is acceptable - *sniff* *pout*)  I'd get about 80 pounds or so of blubber sucked right on out of me and have all of that loose skin chopped out and tucked up nice and tight.  I'd get my double chin fixed.  I'd get some moles removed that seemed to have decided I'm the place to hang out since I got older.  While I'm at it, I'd likely get my uvula and part of my soft palate removed to stop the freight train snoring that has plagued me (and my husbands) since the dawn of time whether I'm fat or thin.

I need repairing, not remaking.  I don't want my ribs removed so I can suck in more ala Cher.  I don't want Botox to take away my "expression lines."  I like people to know I've laughed just a whole lot in my life, so much, in fact, that my face froze that way. 

I don't need my bones broken and reshaped or my fat little nose changed or my eyebrows enhanced or my cheekbones fattened up.  I don't want to look 21 or 18 again.  I have no interest in chasing after my lost youth or getting back all the years I wasted being miserable.  I love being older and I love how being older has changed the way I look. I like the texture and the character it provides. I just want the stretched out to be unstretched, the overstuffed to be unstuffed and the dropped to be lifted.

Is that going to happen?  Pfft, not likely.  After I finish losing the weight I want to lose, I'll probably be dragging around my loose skin forever, maybe getting it its own little cart to ride in out in front of me.  Maybe I can marsupialize my clothes so that there is always a little inside pouch for me to just funnel all of the loose skin into when I dress.  Maybe I can sling it up over my shoulder like I'm carrying a (large) bag of potatoes. 

Tra la.  I shan't worry about such things.  

I'll bet after I started bashing on those simple-headed little Hollywood girls, you thought this column was going to go in a different direction, didn't you?

Nah...I'm as shallow as the next gal...as long as I'm not standing next to those silly little things.

Be particular,