If I was going to have it, I would have the fat over my knees sucked out. I have puffy knees and I hate wearing anything that shows them.

I had a skin tag on my left eyelid burned off for purely cosmetic reasons (in both senses of the word - it interfered with eyeliner application). It was one of those things where I was at the dermatologist anyhow to have a possible pre-cancerous mole removed. So...

Every now and then, I've thought about breast reduction surgery - nothing radical, but I would like the girls to match each other in size.

Fortunately, my biggest visual flaw (weak chin) is only really apparent in profile and not from the view of me I have in the mirror. Thus, no gut level angst about it. I can see opting for plastic surgery to correct something that bothered me about myself, but I don't care enough about other people's opinions of my appearance to go through the pain and expense.

Mathemetistas, I have a question.

I have a series of data between zero and -1 (not including zero) that I know is of limited accuracy. I don't want to graph the actual numbers because this I know the extreme inaccuracy makes them misleading. What seems reasonable is to classify results into terciles. However I have graph the data for decision making. Is it reasonable to translate all numbers into -0.1666 , -.6666, and -.9999 with error bars of -.16?

Basically I know that if I graph the real data and then list a wide confidences interval and low confidence level, this will be ignored and the resulting curve used for splitting babies without taking the tentative nature of the results into consideration. The data conversion I'm doing would just produce a step function (I'd put in large error bars), which I think more reflects actual choices. With error bars it would really look like a stair case. And I'd disclose what I was doing, including a table of original and converted data - which of course would also be ignored. But the question is whether this is valid?

I knew a woman in college who had a bit of bone shaved off the bridge of her nose over a Christmas vacation. So, not the kind where they chop off your whole nose and reattach it, just incredibly sharp implements up your nostrils. She looked fine afterward, but, she's also looked fine beforehand.

(She reported that every woman in her family had it done, to decrease the Romanness of the nose; I think the subtext of it all was "I want to look less Indo-Hispanic" because the result was inevitably a less strikingly Inca-type profile.)

The kinds of physical "improvements" I might do are all technically impossible -- make my eyes less closely-spaced; make my waist longer -- so I'm secure in the knowledge that I will not change my personal aesthetic via knives. I mean, also, knives, on purpose, and not of necessity. But knowing that I'd have to rearrange my whole skull to make my eyes more widely spaced reassures me that I'll never even fantasize about doing it, you know?

Happy Belated Birthday to 'Ouise and Zenkitty!

has anyone here had plastic surgery (i.e. for cosmetic reasons, not for reconstruction after a car accident or something)?

I've had 13 plastic surgeries to repair my partial cleft lip. The last surgery was a nose job, and to this day I have NO idea why anyone does it for purely cosmetic reasons. It WAS NOT FUN.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

If I were to ever have plastic surgery, it would be lipo. I'm pretty happy with the way I look, just wish that there was less of me! plus, if I had lipo, I'd be sure to keep the boobs!

The only plastic surgery I've ever considered has been breast reduction. But it can lead to loss of sensation, plus it can cut off the milk ducts, and I tend to scar really badly from even pretty minor cuts, so I've always decided against it.

I got my book! (2 actually. Couldn't resist.)

Only on page 12 and sniffling and getting teary.

Thanks for being so brave, for writing the book, for everybody who helped, for just everything Allyson and buffistas.