Eyebrow piercings don't hurt -- Ninety Eighth Post

The fun continues as I pay people money to poke holes in my skin.

This picture adequately sums up my feelings on people who think body mods are a sin.

Anyway, I'd just like to report that eyebrow piercings hurt way less than any other piercing I've had with the possible exception of my very first ear lobe piercings when I was 13 that I don't really remember anymore. Since I don't remember them hurting, I assume they didn't hurt. To sum up, it hurt less than a nose (nostril) piercing, ear cartilage piercing, that one time I pierced my earlobes by myself because it took me forever to get the damn needle through, and way less than dermals. Dermals hurt like a bitch. I thought that eyebrows would hurt similarly bad because the needle is going through so much flesh and I have sensitive eyebrows, but it was a very brief hot pain and then we were good, with just one tiny tear sitting in the corner of my eye. My eyes water whenever I pluck my eyebrows, so one tiny tear is saying a lot about how much it didn't hurt. 

Anyway, I got my left eyebrow pierced with a slightly curved barbell that just has two normal-boring balls on the ends. Nothing fancy, just the standard stainless steel piercing jewelry. I hear that eyebrows will swell up quite a bit (something about poking a hole under the skin right against a bone and then sticking a piece of metal in it), so starting off with the normal-boring is highly recommended because you don't want your inflamed skin getting all stuck in fancy barbell decorations. Besides, how normal-boring can it be? It's an eyebrow piercing for fuck's sake. Another recommended option is getting a captive ball ring, like you often see on lips and ear cartilage, because it's pretty much impossible for the wounds to grow over the ends of a ring as has been known to happen with barbells that are too short. 

Now my only worry is that I'll keep bumping into it. I've actually almost forgotten that it's there because it stopped hurting so quickly, and so far I've accidentally rubbed my eyebrow, leaned my head against my fist and essentially punched myself in the piercing, and straight up scratched around the piercing because I thought something, like a piece of paper or a feather from my duvet, was stuck to my eyebrow. Something is stuck to my eyebrow, it's just that it's supposed to be there. 

But seriously. So far, probably the easiest piercing I've done. 

Next on the list: tragus, conch (also known as orbital, on the ear), and/or labret (in the center under the bottom lip). I'm really on the fence about the lip piercing. It looks super cute on other people, but I'm not sure I have the right face and the ability not to play with it constantly and ruin my teeth. My teeth are bad enough, they don't need help getting worse. And then, sometime, and sometime after I get a car because saving for that is a huge pain, there will be a tattoo. 

Thirty-First Post

I'm never sure whether there should be a hyphen in numbers like "thirty first". So I put one in this time. 

I would like to say that my summer was not too horribly boring, in spite of my blog title. I hung out with friends, read way too many books, ordered and rekindled my hate for overpriced textbooks, developed a passion for designing knit and crochet scarves and bags, got my wisdom teeth out and a crown in, and learned how to shoot various and sundry firearms. 

Really, it was a great summer, other than the fact that my arm is really, really sore today. It was totally worth it; I love guns now. I mean, I still flinch every time one goes off, but I like the feeling of holding something that powerful in my hand(s). I have terrible aim, and I also learned that I need to be doing waaaaay more pushups in the morning, but it was great! I can load guns, I can be safe around guns, I can fire guns... I'm totally getting a concealed weapons permit as soon as I'm legal and looking into a handgun with a nice safety that I can keep in my purse, possibly in a knit or crochet bag-thing. (It will need a good safety because I'm now paranoid about guns that don't have safeties, and I want it not to discharge in my purse. I can picture it now... *Me walking along/being at work/being at the doctor's office/you get the picture* *BAM!* *Screams from surrounding people* "Oh, sorry, that was my gun." "Your WHAT?!" "My gun. I keep it in my purse or pocket at all times. You know, like mace... but a gun." *Screams of horror* *Me being arrested/losing job/causing heart attack/losing gun permit/you get the picture*)

Anyway. 

I also mentioned that I got my wisdom teeth out. Now, my friend had his wisdom teeth out a while ago, but he was told that recovery was better with topical anaesthesia and laughing gas. I was told that as well, but I have a hard enough time dealing with cleanings, so I ruled out being conscious as a method of extraction. I've never been under general anaesthesia, so I was rather excited. My friend apparently hasn't either, or he wouldn't have told me to email him whilst incoherent (he was abroad at the time, so I couldn't text him). My incoherence consisted entirely of being unconscious. 

It was really cool, going under... I'm sitting there, busily not looking at the freaking needle in my freaking hand (because my elbow vein is too skinny for needles lately), waiting for the anaesthesia to hit. The nurses or whatever they are are busy ignoring me, putting creepy metal tools on my chest, and waiting for the oral surgeon. He comes in, finally, and informs me that he's putting medicine in my drip, as if I couldn't figure out what "anaesthesia" means. At this point, he stabs the IV bag thing with a syringe. Then he tells me that I will feel like I'm floating, and that it's normal for the ceiling to move. 

I'm totally on board with this whole unconsciousness thing. I get dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour, all so I can go get put back to sleep. Cool! In any case, my arms started floating, which reminded me of my former roommate on NyQuil, and then I realised that the chair was gone, which reminded me of being on a roller coaster at the bottom of the drops, when your feet won't stay on the floor of the car, and I kind of panicked, but then I started laughing, and then they woke me up. 

I was not pleased to be woken up. I wanted to keep sleeping. I had gauze packets in my mouth, top and bottom, and I could hardly stand, and I was sleepy. FYI, those chairs are quite comfortable. 

I got home without falling asleep, then promptly fell asleep on the couch. 

When I woke up, I discovered that my shirt had been inside out the whole time. Then I took hydrocodone and vomited up the meager contents of my stomach immediately. As it turned out, I'm allergic to hydrocodone, which meant that I staved off massive amounts of pain with acetaminophen. Joy!

It was only supposed to take two sets of gauze packet things to stop the bleeding. It took all the gauze we had, plus about four sets of earl gray teabags because my mom was totally out of english breakfast. I hate the taste of earl gray at the best of times; it doesn't improve with blood. I still had to spit the blood into a bowl because I was bleeding that much. 

But now I'm better, other than a weird zit-like thing with lots of lovely blood and pus on one of the sockets caused, according to my dentist, by the gum healing faster than the bone, but that cleared up pretty quickly. I do have a superpower, though, and that's that spicy food doesn't bother me any more. 

Spicy food has been the bane of my existence as a vegetarian. Half the vegetarian food in the world is overly spicy, and the other half is overly bland. The other, other half is about right, but I have trouble finding it. Now, however, I can eat whatever the heck I want. 

And, as this is one heck of a post, I'm just going to end it there.