Well…today I took a big step forward into my “tan, blond, and fun” era: I checked into a tanning salon for the first time in my life and actually started a treatment regimen.
Slightly more complicated in my case because I ended up going to the beach a lot before I arrived in Los Angeles recently…and it happened to be sunny a lot, giving me a surprisingly deep tan…but only over parts of my body that weren’t covered by my pants and shirt. Oh no! Fortunately sunscreen is a thing, and, as the girl at the tanning salon advised me to do, I’ll spray it on so the tan I get from the salon primarily builds up on the pale parts of my body, so it all comes out evenly when all is said and done.
I’m opting for an ultraviolet treatment, the same mechanism of action as natural sunlight: spray tans are “healthier”, but I’m a competitive ballroom dancer, so I’ve had up-close and personal experience with spray tans. Never me getting any (whoever decided ballroom dancers, of all people, need to be the same color as Donald Trump on the floor!? Ugh…), but I’m not exactly enamored of the results. But a natural tan from the sun? That’s something I’ve always reacted very well to, from childhood onward, and I wear it so very well whenever I can get any (thank you, Italian ancestors!).
Tanning beds are the most common method, but booths, where you stand up and don’t have to flip over (or have any contact with potentially icky laying surfaces…) are found most everywhere these days, including the place on the west side of Greater Los Angeles that I selected.
I know it’s mundane for some people, but for me, someone who’s never been to such a place before, the apparatus was akin to something out of a science fiction movie: what with how I was sealed in by the doors which then lit up with the heavy ultraviolet radiation…and golly it felt hot in that thing! Good news is the model I had had a fan attached for cooling purposes. But that heat is a sign that it’s working, much like natural sunlight does. Only unlike natural sunlight, you don’t have to bathe in it for hours to see results: my session lasted a grand total of 3 minutes. That’s all it takes, since it’s a much more concentrated radiation dose than natural sunlight.
In my case I’ve been put on a regimen of daily tanning; I’m to come in every day for a week to build a base tan (on the parts of my body that don’t already have one…), and I’m told thenceforth it could be ramped up to 4 minutes and I could still come in more or less daily, though the precise details depend on my goals and how well my skin is tanning. Deeper tans will of course require longer duration and more frequency, but I’m not entirely sure how far I’d like to go. My face and lower arms have had a lot of sun exposure, but I feel like I should push even them to a deeper tan color, let alone the rest of my body, which is basically untanned…though even after today’s brief session I notice a salutary darkening, even if it is ever-so-slight.
It’s all quite exciting, and it turned out to be much easier to find a good place and get into it for tanning than I expected. In the city I lived near for most of my life there were usually few (or even one) providers for a given service, it took days to hunt them down, and actually getting them to serve me was like pulling teeth. Difficult to the point of harrowing. In Los Angeles, by contrast, everything seems so easy as to be unnatural. Just ask ChatGPT to suggest you a place and you can just pop in over there and get something done; total time from start of your search to finishing up your service just a few hours in the best cases. Wild.
There are a lot of providers too; I feel spoiled for choice…which is reflected in prices: in some cases I’m able to find beauty services listed for cheaper than what I was paying…in what was allegedly a low-cost-of-living area. Indeed, in my entire experience in California so far I’ve yet to be sticker-shocked; gasoline and rent is somewhat more, groceries are somewhat less, and so on and so forth. It’s all surprisingly comparable. But factoring in lifestyle changes as a result of being in a more convenient location (no more 200-mile commutes…), it’s entirely possible I’ll end up saving money by moving here. Where’s the sky-high cost of living increase I was promised? 🤪
Among the profusion of providers that offer good beauty services for good rates is full-body waxing: there’s no shortage of them, and I’m in desperate need of continuing my hair removal regimen. I got a full-body hair removal via waxing last spring before I left for Europe, and OMG it left me feeling like a whole new person…a much prettier (and hence better) person. I so need to feel that way again…especially since my body hair has grown back somewhat (particularly in the areas where I had microneedling for stretch marks done last winter and it had to be shaved right before I got my waxing, hence it wasn’t as effective in those areas). It just makes me feel icky about the whole idea of going out onto the beach…or anything.
But never fear: I was able to book an appointment at a top-rated waxing center tomorrow. Full body. In one day. For less than what I was paying in my previous city. And this is a place that’s literally in Hollywood. I’ll see how my experience compares with the place I used in my previous city, but it’s seeming more and more to me that lesser cities are just a rip-off. At least they seem to be for me.
Ever since coming to the West Coast I can breathe in the ocean air every day, and I can go outside all day and all night without feeling like I’m going to drop dead (the Pacific Ocean is nature’s air conditioner). I can do things and actually feel good! And my suntan makes me feel even better. Combined with how my weight loss program has made me thinner and worked wonders for my face, it’s harder and harder with each passing week for me to stay mad or be depressed about everything. When you’re pretty the world is just better.
Like, I was in a really bad state, but I had no idea how intimately tied my moodiness was to how dissatisfied I was with my physical appearance. A thinner me and a tanner me is a better me. I’ve not even reached my flat-tummy weight yet, or even completed my tanning regimen, but I’m just imagining what I’ll look like when I’ve got a flat tummy with a deep golden tan, and it makes me really happy just thinking about it…
But the new me is not only tan and thin, I’m also going to be blond, and that’s the next piece of the puzzle, the only one I’ve yet to set the wheels in motion for in earnest…but as of today I’m beginning to research that too. Turns out there are several places that work on celebrities that it seems I could go to and get anything I wanted done…including my dream transformation from dark brown to platinum blond, complete with curly long extensions all the way past my shoulders. Several places specialize in that sort of transformation, exactly what I have in mind, and are the best you can get in the entire world. All of them in or near Hollywood (what a surprise…), but for me Hollywood is less than an hour away.
I’ll have to have a consultation to be sure, but my best information suggests it could be done in two or three treatments in about two months, about the same time as it’ll take me to reach my dream tan. By Christmas I’ll have given the ultimate present to myself: a new tan and blond me, a me who looks like California sunshine itself.
The new thin me will take more effort, but it should be doable if I diet down and start weight training again. I’m already determined to cut my food intake, starting immediately. That’s simple enough. Exercise is a bit more complicated, since selecting a gym isn’t easy when you still don’t know where exactly you’ll be living, and I’ve got enough to work on as it is (waxing, tanning, blonding…), but I should be able to get back into the swing of that soon enough. I want the new thin me to have a toned supple body, not a doughboy physique that makes me go “ugh” when I see it in other people.
To achieve my dream physique will require anabolic steroids if we’re being honest about it, but someone who’s not even at flat-tummy yet really should focus on that first. Ditto for my face getting preventive botox: I just don’t have the bandwidth to work on all that right now. But eventually it’ll all come together. I’ll even have a dance regimen again where I’m learning whole new aspects of the craft, learning music as well as getting into tai chi, qigong and the like; together with my more wholesome living I aim to not only experience a physical makeover, but a mental makeover as well. A clean and calm mind that breaths in the Pacific wind every day and looks in the mirror at a body and a face I can be proud of. When your life’s like that, it’s the most natural thing in the world to be fun. Sooner than I think, that’s going to be me…