Wow!  So much has happened since last Friday, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning.  Friday morning I went to look at a used car.  It was red, sporty, so cool.  I was psyched because it was within my price range.  When I got there, this old man, who looked like he had never taken a bath in his life, came out and talked to me.  I told him I wanted to take the car for a test drive and have my dad look it over because I was interested in it.  He didn't trust me at first for some reason, but after a quick conversation with one of the owners, he said it would be no problem.  Well, he went to get the car, but he drove right past me and headed down the road.  He waved a finger to let me know he would be right back.  He didn't know that I had been up there the night before to look at the car.  Anyway, he came back about two minutes later and said he had to fill it up with gas.  When I got in, I noticed the radio was turned up really loud.  Being the music aficionado that I am, I simply changed the station and didn't think a whole lot about it.  I had to wait in The Garage for a while because Dad was working on another vehicle, but I didn't mind.  This was my car!  My new best friend!  What did I care?  Well, when Dad was ready to look it over, I started it up to move it into the bay area, and the engine started ticking really loudly.  I couldn't hear it at first because of the radio, but I turned it down and was shocked at myself for not having heard it before.  It was really loud.  So we didn't even need to look it over.  I headed back to the dealership and couldn't believe that guy had tried to pull a fast one over on me.  Of all the nerve!  But about halfway back to the place, I realized that the tick was so quiet that you could only hear it if you turned the radio off all the way and were specifically listening for it.  The guy had warmed up the engine to stop the tick and blasted the radio.  I was not amused, but I was still my ever-charming self when he played stupid upon my arrival.  So needless to say (but when has that ever stopped me?), I'm still hitchin' it for now.  What rotten luck!  But I still had a full day scheduled.  A woman named Sue had called me that morning to invite me to the post-op patient support group meeting.  We had met on the phone a few weeks earlier, and she had had the surgery done at the same hospital.  I had never been to one of the meetings and was interested to see what it would be like.  People from all different stages were there.  One woman had only been out, I think, eleven days, and some had been out three and four years.  But the one thing I never expected to happen was to find out that I'd lost more than anybody else at the meeting.  Out of approximately thirty people, I had been the biggest loser.  And not only that, but most people had stopped losing long before this point, or it had certainly slowed right down for them.  I am still quite consistently losing at least two pounds per week (knock on wood!).  Of course the NP, from former head-butting episodes, was quick to the jump on saying that nobody should expect results like that and that it was really rare that anyone would lose that much.  What a crock!  I know a lot of people who have lost much, much more than I have.  But she couldn't hide her shock when I said how it was going.  Her jaw dropped and she didn't say anything for a few seconds.  How could she?  The gasps and awes were pretty loud.  Oh, and I was the youngest person there, as well.  Maybe that had something to do with it.  I don't know.  But I also wasn't going to sit silently through the meeting, even though the NP seemed to want that sometimes.  The other post-ops seemed interested in my advice, and why not?  If it works, why not try it, right?  So anyway, I went to the pre-op meeting also.  The NP seemed hesitant to let me talk about my own personal experiences too much, but I did it anyway.  People asked about my eating habits and my depression period and I was completely honest with them.  I told them about the hard times, but also how it was so worth all of the hard stuff they were going through pre-operatively.  I know what a hell it is to have to sit there and wait and wait and wait... with no apparent end in sight.  Later on, I was thinking about how if one of them would have asked what I would have done differently, my answer would have been to get a different hospital.  The people at my hospital simply weren't nice.  Well, most of them weren't.  And I'm also talking about those who run the program.  The doctor and nursing staff were fantastic.  It was the skinny bitties who were so mean.  And since I'm on that note, it seems they have a changed a few things about the program.  One is that if someone shows anger and hostility toward the staff about scheduling or treatment (personal, not physical), they will be ejected from the entire process with no second chance.  Thank God that wasn't in place when I was there because I would have been kicked to the curb in a second.  But why would they even need that policy if the people in the program were congenial about the delays.  It was my experience that they could have been a lot nicer, even though having to bring bad news.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who had problems with their attitudes.  They have also added that now a pre-op patient must maintain the required fifteen pounds, but not only lose it.  They say it shows a commitment to the program.  I never even lost their stupid fifteen pounds and I've done better than any of the other people there, so they can take their little theory and shove it up their asses.  They are holding peoples' lives hostage and it's really not fair.  And especially when I had gotten to the finally speak with the surgeon and he told me that it didn't matter anyway, and that it was just a requirement to meet him.  Then what the hell is the point of it at all?  Ugh, they are just on a power trip, I am completely convinced.  So anyway, the trip back with Sue was very pleasant.  We can truly be friends.  We just clicked and had so much to talk about.  I can't wait to hang out with her again.  So when I got back that night, I decided that I wanted to go out dancing.  Melissa was game, but the place was a total drag.  Only all old people, and frankly, I'm getting a little sick of going to the same old boring place every week.  I think if I go out next weekend, I'm trying someplace new that my brother suggested, which is near his college.  Also, nobody else would dance with me besides Melissa.  I think most people think she's my girlfriend because I am always there with her, and we always dance together, but we're just friends.  Great friends, but just friends!  Then on Saturday was the big karaoke competition.  Long story short, I tied for fourth place, had to have a sing-off, and came in fifth out of eight competitors in my category.  But I think a lot of it had to do with the section called presentation.  All of the other guys could dance around while they sang, and all I could do was tremor in my stupid wheelchair.  After it was over, the judge (my former chorus teacher) apprehensively told me that it was a case of poor song selection, but from the screaming and standing ovations I received, somehow I think the other judge may have had a little more thought on that comment.  Maybe my first song had one or two errors, but the second song was perfect.  It wasn't really fair.  I know for certain that I sang better than two out of the four winners, and probably three of them.  And the person who won first wasn't even supposed to be able to qualify because he was an employee of the bar.  It says right in the rules that no employee can compete, but three of this week's eight finalists are employees.  And why not?  They get to practice their little dance routines all week.  I show up ten minutes before.  But hey!  I'm not bitter, can't you tell?  So sitting at a McDonald's afterward, I was faced with the possibility that maybe I wasn't that great of a singer after all, but was just another dreaming loser with no talent.  I mean, after singing with that band earlier this month and completely humiliating myself, I had to wonder.  But I know in my heart that I'm really good enough to make it and I also think I have that "It" factor that Simon Cowell from American Idol is always talking about.  But maybe not after all.  How could I not doubt my talent now?  So on Sunday, I went to the movies with Heather.  We saw Miracle.  Don't waste your money.  It's about fifteen minutes of the same old sport movie drama with an hour and a half of pure hockey playing.  Unless you are completely obsessed with all things hockey, don't waste your time.  Especially since you know how it's going to end, anyway.  I mean, it's called Miracle for cying out loud!  Oh, and my dad and I started The Bet.  I bet him that I could lose more weight in a month than he could.  The only problem is that I now he is so commited to beating me that I really have little chance unless he simply quits because he's bored with it.  Perhaps a little sabotage could thwart his efforts!  Mwahahaha...  He loves potato chips, so we'll have to see where I can make this go.  We only bet ten dollars each, but you would think it's a million the way we're going at it!  And I also met this girl online.  She is so cool.  Really one of the coolest girls I've met in a really long time.  She's my age and totally cute, but she already knows that!  Ha ha, we talked on the phone for almost two hours last night, and I didn't even call her until 12:30AM.  I'm calling her tonight, too.  Too bad she lives in Florida!  Bummer!  Hey, I've been wanting to get out of the frigid hell hole of Vermont forever anyways.  Now I have the perfect reason!  Well, since I have no excitement planned for the next several hours, other than going to my brother's stupid bio class again and cleaning this forsaken house, I reckon I better head out and pay my bills.  Damn, I hate giving up money!