STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP

It all started when I was 11.

I begged my mother to let me get my ears pierced. I worked on her for weeks. I've always been good at manipulation, but this was just blatant, constant begging. I find can be very relentless. I was even worse when I was younger, I had fewer reservations back then. 

She finally agreed. 

I remember sitting on the tall stool in Claire's. The girl in line before me was shaking like a leaf and tearing up. I turned to my mother, "Should I be more nervous than I am?" 

My mom just blinked at me, "Well, do YOU feel like you should be nervous?"

"Well, judging by observation I should be, but I see it as being useless at this moment."

I was a strange child. 

I remember the lady clicking the beginner earrings into the plastic piercing gun:

"Oooh, can I do it?"

"Um... No."

"Darn."

My mother asked if I wanted to hold her hand. I gave her a look. Uhh, no. She walked away. The first pinch caught me off guard, the second pinch hurt more. I shrugged. We left. 

My first two. 

~

I got my cartilage done when I was 14. 

Some close friends who had moved to Switzerland were back in town. My friend and I had been wandering around the mall for hours. We decided to ask and our mothers were drunk on nostalgia. 

They agreed. 

I was sitting on that same stool in Claire's.

"This better be the last piercing."

"Of course, mother."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

I went first. It hurt less than my earlobes, but I figured that was because I was older. Then it was my friend's turn. The same plastic piercing gun was locked and loaded.

"Can I do it?"

"If your friend doesn't mind."

"Um, no."

"Darn."

She made made me hold her hand. I rolled my eyes when she started crying.

My third.

~

I pierced the middle of my helix when I was 16. 

It was the day I had my first cigarette. The girl I was dating at the time and I were on her front lawn. I was laying down, contracting lung cancer, and she was sitting beside me, playing with a needle and sticking it into various places of her skin. 

All of a sudden, I felt an awful pinch in my ear. 

"Fucking OW! What the hell, Rin?!"

"Hold on, it's not all the way through."

"What the fu-"

"Hold still!"

She had a habit of doing things like this. 

We had to go inside to stop the bleeding. I walked around with the needle in my ear for a week, not really knowing what to do. I finally got fed up with having to sleep on one side and pulled it out. I wanted to keep the hole though. I found an old stud in the bottom of my jewelry bag and tried to put it in my ear. I couldn't find the hole very well and when I did find it the hole was smaller than the stud. I ended up just shoving the stud through the hole anyway, nearly re-piercing the ear. 

My fourth.

~

I got my tragus pierced the day after I turned 18. 

I actually went to a tattoo parlor this time. Claire's wasn't really qualified for more creative piercings. I remember excitedly handing my I.D. to the inked up receptionist, proud of the fact that I didn't need permission for this one. 

There was no plastic piercing gun. Just a needle, the earring, and some q-tips. I gulped. The piercist chuckled. 

My friends went with me and asked if I wanted to hold someone's hand. I didn't. 

It pinched, but wasn't any worse than the other piercings. It was certainly more pleasant than my previous impromptu piercing. It took longer and I was glad that I didn't jerk upright in the middle of it. 

A couple days later I was laying on my friend's lap and started bleeding all over their jeans.

My fifth.

~

Cartilage (3rd) , Tragus (5th) , Lobe (1st)

~

I got my tattoo during Freshman year of college. 

My friend was getting a touch up and asked if I wanted to come along and get one done. We drove for an hour to a very sketchy parlor called "Mo Thangz". I was skeptical but we already had appointments. The man on the phone told us to ask for Mo. Walking to the door there was a man smoking outside. He was bald and had an eyepatch. 

"Um, we're looking for Mo?" Please don't be Mo, please don't be Mo, please don't b-

"Hey there, I'm Mo."

Damn it. 

I was nervous, this was a needle that wasn't just gonna be shoved through a piece of skin. This was gonna take an hour or so, by a gentleman with one eye nonetheless.

"Where ya want it?"

"Um, on my neck..."

"Well, you picka a helluva place to get yer first tattoo. It's gon' hurt like a bitch."

It did.

It was awkward. I didn't scream or cry, I just made awkward moans that sounded like I was fucking long and slow. Mo kept commenting on it. 

"Baby, if you think this will make you moan, wait 'till I take you home."

"Um..."

He was very nice, very pleasant, and gave me a discount for "being a trooper"

My first tattoo and only tattoo...for now.

~

Trinity Knot

~

During the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year, I got my industrial bar. 

I went to the same place I got my tragus pierced. If you go so many times you get a discount. I went with three of my friends who wanted to watch.

My piercist was a large, terrifying-looking, inked man who looked like he could eat me. When I layed down on the table he caught a glance at the My Little Pony seatbelt belt I was wearing. I was caught off guard.

"You watch My Little Pony?"

"Um, yes?" Please don't eat me. 

"I watch that with my 3 year old daughter all the time! Whose your favorite?"

He laughed like Santa.

I was expecting two pinches and only felt one.

"Um, is it in?"

Santa laugh. "I'm glad that's the first time a woman has asked me that."

I love the people I meet in tattoo parlors. 

My sixth.

~

Industrial Bar (6th), Helix (4th), Lobe (2nd)

~

I got my nose pierced earlier this year. 

I went with my roommate to a place near my school. The lady who did it was named Mel. She part timed at Whole Foods. She put a cork in my nose. She also really, really wanted to pierce my nipples. She gave me her number.

At the end I asked her if this made me badass. 

She just laughed.

My seventh.
~

I prefer a ring to a stud.

~

People ask me all sorts of questions: 

Did it hurt? 

Why'd you get that one? 

What made you want to get that?

How do you expect to get a job with those?

Uh, yes.

I don't know.

Because I felt like it?

...dumbass.

~

Yesterday, I got my nipples pierced. 

I walked into the same parlor that did a couple other piercings. In the waiting room there was a high school senior, his girlfriend, and a married couple that were hardcore and looked like they'd eat me. I walk in with my American Eagle jeans and North Face jacket like I'm lost. I always get nervous anyway. The receptionist had purple dreads; my brown hair was in a bun. She asked me if she could help me. 

*mumbling* "I, uh, wanna get my nipples pierced."

"I'm sorry, what?"

*still mumbling* "Uh, my nipples..."

"Pardon?"

*loudly* "I'd like my nipples done, please."

She instantly perked up, "Oh! Of course!"

The patrons sitting around me were all staring with mixed looks of surprised and mildly impressed. I certainly didn't "look the part"

The cold-handed gentleman whom was to shove needles through very tender parts of my body looked me up and down. I followed him behind a screen, not a private room, mind you, but a screen.

"Alrighty, strip for me." He chuckled.

I nervously laughed and obeyed, "How bad is this going to hurt?"

"Whelp, have you ever had your nipples bitten really, really hard?"

I winked at him, "Yea." 

He smiled, "Then you should be fine."

It hurt like a bitch.

~

"Huh, you didn't bleed...like...at all."

"It's probably 'cause I have such small tits."

He died laughing. 

My eight and ninth.

~

HA! Like I'd post my tits.

~

The rumors are true, this shit is addictive. I want more ink, more metal, more. I want more. More, more, more. But I'm poor, so I'll take it in steps.

No, I don't think this necessarily makes me more attractive for potential mates or anything like that. I do it because I like it, because I like how it looks, I do it in my small way of possibly being artistic. There's something beautiful about the permanence of it. I love tattoos. They're like graffiti for your body. I want to be covered. I do understand that I need to be strategic. I also understand that I can't stay away. 

I don't fully know why I do it. It hurts and I'm a masochist but there's more to it than that. I guess I'm addicted. My poor body is just yelling at me to stop. My brain is telling me to blow all my money on more artistic mutilations. I believe the body is a perfectly good canvas. 

I don't think each piercing or tattoo has to have a very meaningful reason behind it. It just has to be beautiful. You don't have to "fit the part" or look too terribly hardcore. You just need to do it for you. 

I think it's perfectly acceptable to wake up one morning and be like, "Huh...I should get my nipples pierced today."

~

Things I'm thankful for today: 

1. Thai leftovers.

2. The feeling of getting your hair washed.

3. Subscriptions to music applications.