Tuesday, June 16, 2015

This post is about earrings

Back about maybe ten years ago, I decided to fulfill my dream of getting a cartilage piercing. I'd used those little slid-on cuffs for a while and pestered every piercing person I found with the question, "If my lobes got infected, will my cartilage as well?" Since my lobes had managed to get infected and remain that way for four years, while still being pierced. And then I put sensitive solution earrings in them and they cleared up and everyone was happy. But apparently a cartilage infection can result in surgery and probably losing chunks of your ear.

I like my ears.

But when I was nineteen, I finally just went and got it done at Claire's and got a cutesy pink bottle of stuff to rub on it and so on. It was also several months before I could sleep on that side of my head. And a bump of displaced cartilage formed on the back of my ear for a year or two before disappearing again. Claire's has since ceased doing those, which is probably good because I think they use the regular earring puncher for it and an actual piercing place uses something like a mini hole puncher, I think. Instead of displacing cartilage, it just takes it out. But my cartilage didn't get infected, although it did get jarred during roughhousing a few times and bled and was painful.

I tried with various earrings, but some were too thick and a ring pressed into the ear when I slept, making it sore. So for the past couple years, I've just been rocking the ball-post-back combo, which is basically a normal ball earring. Which I take out at night because it presses into the side of my head.

All this to give some background for when I saw a cartilage earring on another girl on vacation with a flat back, like a tiny coin.

Ok, so stuff like that exists at every piercing place ever. How was I supposed to know?

"Where did you get that?" I asked. "Cause I wouldn't take mine out ever if it didn't dig into the side of my head."

She told me about sketchy-sounding Chinese-run jewelry stores that apparently sold everything and could fix anything. And apparently I had just missed one that day in a shopping center we were at. I had, understandably, spent the entire time in Barnes and Noble.

And so began a quest!

Objective: Obtain a flat-backed cartilage piercing.

"Wayne, can we stop back by Zona Rosa? There's a jewelry place I want to hit up."

"We'll see," Wayne replies. Then later I get told it probably won't be open when we leave the next morning.

"I've lived with this for five years, I suppose I can wait a week," I say.

So at the end of the week, I try again.

"Those are sold at all the piercing places," I get told.

"Does that mean we can't go?" I'm stubborn about getting an actual answer.

We'll see.

On the drive back, they call John from their truck to tell him that we're not able to stop there cause we're going a different way.

Bah.

Back at home, I Google piercing places, but end up going to the mall cause I had a return. In the mall, I stop by "Shag," one of those hippie places that sells incense, baja hoodies, and boxers with weed leaves on them. Shag replaced another hippie place that replaced a Hot Topic. Anyway, they pull out a bunch of flat-backed studs for ears, but there is a problem.

"Those are really thick," I say. They're labeled 16G. "Is that the standard size?"

"Yeah, I think so," replies the guy.

I explain my situation. He tells me that standard size is 22G (which is somehow smaller than a 16G) and how some people up their size by some weird process involving rubbing, lotion, irritation, ibuprofen, and ramming. "What' does Claire's use?" he asks.

"I don't know. I guess I'll go look."

At Claire's, they do actual have varying sizes of cartilage piercings. "Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to do mine, too," the girl says. Apparently, she got hers done at Claire's as well. I pick out a 20G, that looks more blingly that I like, and an 18G, since buy one, get one for $5. I'll start a process of gradually expanding the hole, like I did with my lobes, although there is no cartilage in lobes.

At home, the 20G goes in easily and moves easily and without pain. Too easily. Also, the ring is so small I can't close it around the side of my ear. Too bad I can't return earrings.

No pain, no gain. So I go for the 18G. First problem is that apparently, it is a wire pressed into indents on either side of a ball. So as I pull it out, the ball pops out. So I'd need to realign the ends of the wire and push them in on either side of the ball. Also, since it's an 18G, the wire is fairly hard to bend. Even harder when it has been shoved in a hole too small for it in my ear.

"David? I need your help!"

David's help comes in the form of large pinchy tools that I don't know the names for. If this doesn't prove that I trust him, I don't know what will.


Somewhat needless to say, my ear was NOT HAPPY with me. It's still sore. Guess I'll be sleeping on the right side of my head for a while.

So, Quest Incomplete, for now. Until the hole gets a little happier.

Anyone want a tiny 20G cartilage earring? I know we aren't supposed to share them, but I could probably boil it or something...

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Sunday's Dose of Guilt Doesn't Involve a Sermon

Unless your portable snacks to Prairie Moon Winery are carrot and celery sticks, sans ranch dressing, I would not recommend bringing the Fitness magazine.

Now I feel guilty.

Those cheese curds and sea-salt&vinegar chips still tasted good, though.

Curse my lack of self-control.