Fish on a Hook

14 September 2011. This is a day to remember. This is the day I GOT MY LIP PIERCED!!!!

I have of course been wanting a lip piercing for a few years, ever since I was fifteen. Maybe sixteen. Since I turned eighteen I've beel legally able to get one without my parents, and since I still wanted one, I figured I'd wanted one long enough that I wasn't going to regret it. It wasn't a rash decision.

So I started looking for places to get it done in Peoria. My problem was transportation. I don't have a car, and I don't know anyone nearby with one that I would want to go with me. There weren't many tattoo parlors within walking distance, and the city bus didn't got near any of them either. I also wanted to find one with good ratings. In the end, I probably wasn't as careful choosing one as I should have been.

I called a small tattoo parlor two streets over, purely because it was within easy walking distance. I'd researched it, and it didn't have any ratings and appeared to be a new shop. So anyway, I called, They guy on the phone was friendly and very willing to answer my questions (unlike that guy from that other place...) so I went over and looked at the shop.

It was small, largely undecorated, and had crappy carpet. There were only two people in there, and they both worked there. Lip piercing was only $30, which was a bit of a red flag, since, as a general rule, you get what you pay for in this industry. Still, I'd been wanting a lip piercing for a long time, and this was the only shop nearby. I told them I wanted my lip pierced and he said the piercer wasn't there at the moment, as he had a family emergency. I made an appointment (although they take walk-ins) for the following day.
The following day I went over. There were more people there this time: a guy at the counter, two in the back room (one was my piercer, one was a tattoo artist), a guy discussing a tattoo he wanted, and another guy who was getting a tattoo. I did the paperwork, proved I was old enough, and then went into the back room.
It was a pretty quick procedure. I think I was expecting it to take more time. He put a dot on my lower lip with a sharpie, we made sure it was centered and where I wanted it, and then I sat down on a chair. He pulled out the needle and the clamp and asked me if I was ready.
I'd been doing fine up until this point. Really. I was like "oh yes, I'm such a bamf, I'm getting my lip pierced all on my own and I'm not even nervous, sunshine and daisies, lalala..." But when he pulled out the needle I suddenly inhaled like a vaccuum and said, "um...can you give me a moment? I'm freaking out." He reassured me that I could take all the time I needed and told me it hurts a shitload. Oddly, that was more reassuring than if he had told me it doesn't hurt that much. When people say it doesn't hurt that much, I always think they're downplaying it. Anyway, while I was working on not freaking out, I asked him a few questions, and then I was ready.

I needn't have freaked out. It just felt like my lip was being pinched. I can't even remember if it hurt or not - I think it did for a second, but it was so trivial that now I can't really remember. I mean, I remember thinking that there was pain, but I don't remember feeling pain. He put the clamp on my lip, pushed the needle through (I confess...I had my eyes closed during this part), and then he worked the hoop through the hole.

So then I had a hoop in my lip, but he still needed to put the bead on it. This was the hard part. He spent several minutes tugging at my lip trying to get the bead on the hoop. He couldn't. He had the other guy try, the tattoo artist, and he couldn't get it either, so then he asked the guy at the front counter and he put it on in like, two seconds. Even while they were tugging at my lip, it didn't really hurt. The piercer wiped the marker of my lip, made me use mouthwash, and then I went up front and paid. And then I walked out feeling like a bamf. I went to CVS feeling like a bamf. And then I came back to my dorm feeling like a bamf.
Altogether, it was a good experience. I'm really happy with my piercing. It bled a little bit at first, but now you can't even tell it's fresh. There's no swelling, bleeding, crusting, or bruising. I give the shop 4 stars out of five.
My piercing is still healing. I'll come back later and add updates to this post as it heals up.
 
Update: Day Four - the skin around the piercing is a little swollen and pinkish. It still doesn't hurt, it's only a little sore when I try to eat something like a bagel, where I have to bite down on it.

I've Got a Few Wires Loose

Dry, somber brown leaf
Trapped on the branch alone
Why do you not change your colors?
How do you bear watching your peers
as they shed their old selves to take on the new;
as they go on with the flow of life
ever changing?

It's been a while since I did anything social with somebody who was not "like me". In other words, I haven't hung out with normal people for a while, and as usually happens, I have forgotten what it is like, this ebb and flow of energy that they are constantly experiencing. How do they handle it? I just can't. I can't fit in with them. Their so-loud music grates on my ears; their unwillingness to think about the future even a moment sets me on edge; their repetative humor and inside jokes confuse me; the way they nudge each other and give each other facial expressions leaves me completely lost and muddled in the middle of conversations.

Through the Doors

I'm over the high school nostalgia. Way over it - didn't take me long, either. I have thrown myself into the aforementioned summer activities: cleaning out my old life, getting reading for college, and preparing to reinvent myself. This includes morning runs, not drinking soda, and making leather jewelry (I'm making a leather wrist cuff. It's gonna have gun metal studs and it's gonna be awesome). I have a new vision of myself - a lean, muscly, tattooed, and rebellious vision.

Doors

Last night, I graduated high school. I didn't attribute it much significance at the time (being more given to making snarky commentary and focusing on not messing up my salutatorian speech), but now I feel... something. I don't usually feel things, so I can't tell what it is. I can taste it though; it's bittersweet and surprising, like dark chocolate when you were expecting sugar-coated peeps. It's less colorful than I wanted. Now I have all summer to clean out my old life, get ready for college, and prepare to reinvent myself. I should be gearing up for fresh independence and power. And yet, I keep remembering all my old classmates and teachers, how much fun they all were, how accepting they all were of me as a person and a student. Also, they were quite a lot of fun.

For our senior trip, we ended having a picnic at our principle's house and playing Do You Love Your Neighbor. We sat in a big circle, and the person in the middle had to pick someone. If they loved their neighbors, the people sitting on either side of them had to switch places while the person in the middle had to try to grab one of their places. If they didn't love their neighbors, they had to love everyone with a certain trait (like wearing white socks), and everyone with that trait had to find a new spot. Of course, someone always ended up in the middle. Kathy "loved" everyone who had ever cut a class. All the students except three moved.

Last summer, three other girls and I went skinny dipping in a park at night and were caught my the sherriff. When he pulled up, we all dove underwater and hoped he wouldn't be able to see us with his headlights  reflecting off the surface of the lake. The problem with being underwater is that there's no way to breathe unless you have special equipment, and we did not have special equipment. Also, it's hard to figure out what's going on when you're struggling to breathe and be underwater at the same time. Only one of us realized that the sherriff had already seen our clothes and us when we came up for air, and she was calmly pretending that we hadn't realized we weren't supposed to be here while the rest of us kept floundering around and gasping. Once the sherriff told us we needed to leave and drove away, we got out, got dressed, and walked back home. On the way home, we were pulled over and picked up by another guy in a sherriff's car. While he talked on his little radio about us (apparently the mother of the girl whose house we were staying at had called the police because we were so long gone on our "walk"), one of us suddenly whispered,"Oh crap! It's the guy from the lake." And then we all got a very awkward ride home after the sherriff casually asked us if we were the girls from the lake.

There were only thirty people in my senior class, and I've had many more adventures like this one with them (maybe not as intimate as this one, though). I may never see most of these people again. Where do I go from here? I have to make a new life for myself, starting this summer. A door has closed on my high school experience, and I can only hope a few more doors have opened that I just can't see now.

Before I Go

I found this poem as I was searching my files for a school assignment. I wrote a couple years ago. I don't remember the inspiration, but I like what I wrote. I'd completely forgotten about it.

So this I know, before I go

A secret must I tell

As deadly as the drifting snow

Even if I’m damned to hell 

My throbbing heart was torn from me

My hands stained bloody red

I killed he that stole it from me
And left him there for dead

My life drains in gushing rivers

My eyes are weighted low

I took the life from the giver

My soul thrums, sad and slow

His ghost came back and sang to me

And I gave him a dirge

And so we parted happily

Entwined, our souls will merge

So he with me, and I with him

A double travesty

Pliant to each and every whim
Till blood should be set free

Five (Not Serious) Skills Everyone Should Learn to Impress People

1. How to mix drinks - coffee drinks and alcoholic drinks. This is a skill to impress people with. And besides that, it's practical. It's much cheaper to make yourself a mocha or a daiquiri at home than it is to buy one, and you can always make sure it's made just the way you like it.

2. How to cut and dye hair. Who wants to pay $300 to get a cut and highlights at a salon? I know someone who actually paid that much once, and I don't see that it was worth it. Hair is often a much simpler entity that most people make it out to be. Cutting and dyeing it are skills that take a little bit of practice but are easy to learn and definitely worth it in the end. You don't even need that many tools. A comb, a pair of basic scissors, an old paintbrush for putting on the dye, and a few others things that you probably already have in your kitchen. You do have to buy your own hair dye, though. I got my own thinning shears, too, because I started cutting others people's hair and sometimes I need them. Now I'm starting to comtemplate buying a hair razor.

3. Card tricks. Everything from how to cut a deck with one hand, games, magic tricks, and how to do a reading for someone. This is just plain fun and good entertainment. Plus, a deck of cards is a cheap asset and easy to carry around with you. Hey, you there - care to know your future? The cards know it all. And what more fun activity could you find to do with your friends than a game of cards? Card games are great because they give you something to do while you're all chatting; in fact, they can be a source of conversation topics, and if you're betting, they provide for a little playful competition. Even in The Next Generation, many of the officers play cards (Data's learning to bluff).

4. Ambidexterity. Hey, why not? Then if you injure one hand, you've got the other one to use. Learning to do things with your non-dominant side exercises parts of your brain and strengthens neural pathways.

5. How to juggle. It's so impressive when you pick up a couple things lying around and just oh-so-casually start juggling them like you're bored. You look super talented. Learning also improves hand-eye coordination. It's a lot of fun, too, and if you're really good, you could use it to entertain as festivals and the like.

I Kept Looking for Someone to Solve my Problem...then I Realized, I am the Problem

"I kept looking for someone to solve my problem, then I realized I am someone."
-Anonymous

I just don't understand people. I'm discovering I have asperger's syndrome, which means I can't read social cues or nonverbal signals (among other things). All three of my friends just gathered up their stuff and left the computer lab as one unit, like they'd recieve some secret message. Class isn't over, and nobody said anything, so how did they all know to go at once?  And why do they need to go to the bathroom together?

I remember in a Star Trek episode, Picard proved to some aliens how advanced humans are by telling his officers to lock said aliens up without ever giving a verbal order. He just gave Riker a "look". I couldn't figure it out until Picard explained it to the aliens. The ability to communicate and understand communications nonverbally is an ability I lack.

My brain just works differently. I feel differently, think differently, act differently. A lot of what other people say doesn't make sense to me, and a lot of what I say doesn't make sense to them. I like blogging, though - it's easier to communicate through text because there's none of this nonverbal nonsense to screw up what I'm saying. People just read it and take it to mean exactly what it says (for the most part, anyway). I can verbalize effectively, but it feels very weird and kind of awkward.