I can hear my wife again.

I was hanging out with a couple of friends in New York and I decided I wanted to get the industrial I’ve been dreaming of for so long. (I used to only have lobe piercings, but ever since I went back to school, I’ve realized I can get anything that doesn’t show up much on a VRS screen.) I called New York Adorned and they wanted a lot for it, so I ended up at Ian’s which had gotten pretty favorable reviews on Yelp and only wanted $45 for piercing and jewelry combined.

When we got to St. Mark’s Place, where Ian’s is located, I saw several jewelry vendors on the street. There are a ton of piercing shops on that corner, so I figured they were selling unique stuff that wasn’t in the shops. I knew I wanted a cool barbell, and I ended up getting a spiral one. We went into Ian’s, I bought the piercing jewelry, and sat to wait for a navel piercing and a nostril piercing to be done before it was my turn.

When I got to go into the piercing room, I hopped up on the table. The guy immediately said “I can’t do this.” It turns out I don’t have the ear for it. I immediately knew what he meant. See, I have a sticky-outy part on my ear, and if he did the piercing, I would be in danger of ear collapse or having the sticky-outy part grow over the barbell. I knew I had that bit that stuck out, but I didn’t think it would prevent me from getting the piercing I’ve wanted for years. Unfortunately, according to the guy, it did. He pointed out that unscrupulous piercers would have said “oh sure” without a thought to the risks involved, and I knew he was right. He suggested an orbital instead, and I like those too, so I said that sounded good.

Unfortunately, it turns out you can’t get an orbital all at once. According to this guy, you have to heal the first hole and then do the second. So I ended up walking out of the shop with nothing more than a 16g inner conch piercing. Again…not what I wanted.

I’m hoping that someday I can turn it into an orbital or something else cool. I went back to the vendor I’d bought the barbell from and explained what happened, and he let me trade it for a pink ring with a silver ball. He even gave me back the $4 that resulted from the price being different, which was nice of him. So I did get a piercing today…which is nice…but not the one I wanted…which makes me sad.

(I don’t recommend wearing white contacts into a visual environment on a daily basis though. It upset a few of the people who wanted to talk to me and couldn’t because making eye contact was freaky!)

I’m reasonably pleased with how it came out. I had sent in these pictures for the artists to use as a reference. It’s not quite what I expected but the dragon came out really well, and it’s definitely recognizable if you’re familiar with the park. And it has Casper, that’s the really important part!

It looked great, and I got tons of compliments, but I think it really was too tight. My wife tightened it up for me and it felt really good going on, so I left for the contest. This was the first time I’d worn it out, and driving up there was tough but I figured I’d be okay once I was standing. Guess again! It was still awfully tight and I was very conscious of it the whole time. I had a really big gap in back but I guess it should have been a little bigger!

I was amused that one of the deaf boys was wearing a male corset too. He needed me to e-mail him about something so he gave me his card, which I promptly dropped. fairerhiannon was there and I asked her to pick it up for me - no bending, remember - but the deaf boy got it instead! Not an easy feat, because I’m pretty sure his corset was steel-boned like mine.

If you click through to the Flickr picture, there are some other pictures of the same outfit from earlier in the day.