Take a deep breath and let it out slowly...
Went to Houston last night with R. Actually, some friends of mine from work were going to a performance of a local big band, along the lines of Ricky’s band in those old “I Love Lucy” shows. A friend of mine from high school plays tenor sax in the band, and I now work with his mother. Since R enjoys big band music, and my boyfriend’s out of town for a few more days, I grabbed him up for an escort.
Picked him up at his house, and then went for dinner. Somewhere between exiting the freeway and knocking on his door, I decided to go ahead and do what I’ve talked about for months. I got my belly button pierced. Really tame seeing as how I previously had a nipple piercing.
Dinner was to calm my anxiety before actually letting somebody poke holes in me. Didn’t help just a whole hell of a lot. I realized that when the guy (Thom, excellent guy if I may so myself) asked if I had any questions and I giggled really loud and said no. He looked real quick and asked if I was really sure. Uh, yeah, jus take my credit card and let’s get on with this.
Now, I’m not big into piercings really. The long-ago nipple ring was an ex-boyfriend’s idea and it was gone almost as soon as he was. I don’t like to look at piercings on others and they really don’t do anything for me—the belly button thing’s just something I’ve always talked about and it’s harmless. I have to say though, that I found myself studying a picture of a suspension (one of those things where someone’s got piercings at particular points all of the body—back, legs, whatever—and they are suspended by those piercings. Yuck.). As R and I talked with Thom, we discovered that he is on a team that travels all over and does suspensions. He’d been in Hollywood a few weeks ago and does the big HPEP show every year. Oddly enough, this made me feel less worried about getting my own boring old navel ring.
So, a few deep breaths and one unexpected pain later, I was done. I now know that I’ve got really thick skin, literally. Thom said I had the toughest skin he’d ever seen on a white person. I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but maybe I can put it on my resume’.
I also now know that a 14-gauge bar through my tummy skin actually feels like shoving one of those thick kindergarten pencils through my skin.
I told you that I wasn’t YOUR high school librarian.
Picked him up at his house, and then went for dinner. Somewhere between exiting the freeway and knocking on his door, I decided to go ahead and do what I’ve talked about for months. I got my belly button pierced. Really tame seeing as how I previously had a nipple piercing.
Dinner was to calm my anxiety before actually letting somebody poke holes in me. Didn’t help just a whole hell of a lot. I realized that when the guy (Thom, excellent guy if I may so myself) asked if I had any questions and I giggled really loud and said no. He looked real quick and asked if I was really sure. Uh, yeah, jus take my credit card and let’s get on with this.
Now, I’m not big into piercings really. The long-ago nipple ring was an ex-boyfriend’s idea and it was gone almost as soon as he was. I don’t like to look at piercings on others and they really don’t do anything for me—the belly button thing’s just something I’ve always talked about and it’s harmless. I have to say though, that I found myself studying a picture of a suspension (one of those things where someone’s got piercings at particular points all of the body—back, legs, whatever—and they are suspended by those piercings. Yuck.). As R and I talked with Thom, we discovered that he is on a team that travels all over and does suspensions. He’d been in Hollywood a few weeks ago and does the big HPEP show every year. Oddly enough, this made me feel less worried about getting my own boring old navel ring.
So, a few deep breaths and one unexpected pain later, I was done. I now know that I’ve got really thick skin, literally. Thom said I had the toughest skin he’d ever seen on a white person. I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but maybe I can put it on my resume’.
I also now know that a 14-gauge bar through my tummy skin actually feels like shoving one of those thick kindergarten pencils through my skin.
I told you that I wasn’t YOUR high school librarian.
Sep 12, 2004, 6:44:00 PM
Glad to be of service.
Seriously though, I'm not your typical librarian by any stretch.