Body Art

So, I was reading blog.payperpost this morning, and noticed that entry.

The question posed by the PPP crew is, “Would I have any takers?”

I answered directly on their blog that yes, I’d do it if they offered it.
After all, I wrote PayPerPost on my thigh in Sharpie (since it’s not so easy to do that on your arm by yourself), and paraded around the house to tell my family about it.

I just have to get the cash together for a simple tattoo, though I’d like to know if it has to look like their logo, or if I can use a design of my own.

If I can design my own, I’d get something like this…

Though I would use a darker green for the stems, and likely have ‘em do actual roses instead.

So, a week ago, I went out to get my tongue pierced at Atomic Tattoos and Piercing (warning, link opens a rather obnoxious webpage with some sort of embedded audio I’ve yet to find - this is a new development on their site).

My tongue did swell a bit after the piercing, but not as bad as everyone hinted it would. I could still eat (barely), talk (somewhat), and generally function, which helped a lot.

I’m a bit surprised. My mother didn’t attempt to stop me, nor did she complain when I came back with a piece of 14 gauge steel stuffed through my freshly pierced tongue.

This sixty-one year old woman proceeded to LAUGH at me, instead, because the first words out of my mouth were: "Damnit, I should’ve had Quizno’s before I did this. My tongue hurts!"

Because of this piercing, I’ve been the family joke for a few days — I had to learn how to eat all over again, but perhaps this was a good thing. I’m eating less food, in smaller bites, but more frequently during the day as I can manage. A little pasta here, a few chicken nuggets there as I work out how to eat around the piece of steel.

A few of my coworkers elucidated to me that I don’t look like the type of person who would actually go through with a tongue piercing ("but maybe a tattoo," one clarified after her comment). Maybe it’s because I’m this nice, big black guy who usually values the ability to enunciate clearly when speaking. I can still enunciate, but I have to actually work for it now.

… Good thing that my years of singing in school and church have finally been put to use again. Diction exercises certainly are helping on the enunciation. As the scar tissue in my tongue wears down from the giant lump back into the tongue shape I’m used to, my enunciation also becomes clearer.

I’ll probably put my shorter rod in tomorrow after I get up, and see if it helps with the irritating rubbing that the balls do underneath my tongue. It’s sorta painful to have the stainless steel rubbing there.

Speaking of balls, on Thursday, I lost one of the two stainless steel balls that hold my piercing into place. I was at work at the time, which did not help things. No one could find the ball, so I spent my last half-hour with the piercing in my mouth, and speaking carefully so as to not accidentally swallow the damned thing.

What gets me is, you’d think a stainless steel ball would show up on a brown-ish floor, right? I dare say it went down a floor drain in the bathroom while I was trying to figure out how to screw the damn thing back on. I regret taking the ball off at work, but the thing was beginning to make me see spots.

I had to borrow a ball from my aunt (who’s had her tongue pierced a long while ago), so that I could at least keep this piercing open long enough to go out and buy replacement supplies — Atomic closes up shop at 9 pm, but I get off from work at 10 pm. This made it imperative that I get something to stick in that hole. Thank crap she had it done.

At any rate, I’m beginning to really enjoy the experience here. More at eleven.

I have to run to work in a couple of minutes, so, recap:

I’m alive.

I’ve been sick for a few days. On antibiotics, so I’m recovering. Flu-like symptoms and pharyngitis.

Wordpress is now version 2.0.1, and I’m using it. Trying out this ‘tag’ tag, to see what the hell it does.

I got my tongue pierced.

Didn’t swell much at all.

I’ll likely be onto a normal length rod by the end of the week.

If more people got their tongues pierced, I’d think there would be less halitosis in the world. :p

See you later.