Well, it's happened. While Jacob was in the city playing role-playing games with Gene &co. today, I went out on my own and met someone else. We really hit it off, and in fact I've got a date to spend some more time with him in a couple of weeks. I can't wait.
He's gorgeous-- really my type. He's tall and thin, and has the most beautiful green eyes. When those eyes met mine for the first time I could just tell he was as intrigued by me as I was by him.
When we were together today... well, if you must know, we got a little physical. To be honest, I could barely keep my hands off of him and I wanted to run my fingers through his hair forever.
*Sigh* He's just perfect in every way. He's single and available, and even though he may not be young, I think his gray hair just makes him look distinguished. He's educated, too-- a doctor, in fact. His friends call him "Dr. J". I wonder what J stands for? It's so mysterious.
But I think most of all, the thing that attracts me to him and makes me think that we could have a really meaningful relationship is the way he purred so happily and never got tired of letting me pet his sides and scratch next to his ears. Oh, Dr. J... I know it's true that I fall for just about any cat who comes into my life, but you really are the sweetest and most loving one I've met. Are you as swept off your paws by me as I am swept off my feet by you? Come stay the night with me-- it won't be a mistake. I think it could be the first night of the rest of our lives together.
I just hope you're still there at the Humane Society when Katie and I go back for the volunteer orientation. I might just have to go in and play with you some more next week to make sure you don't fall in love and leave with someone else.
Y como puedo ayudarle? No, lo siento, el senor jefe no esta aqui ahora. Quiere Ud. dejar un mensaje? No, yo no se cuando volvera. No esta en la oficina hoy. Pero si Ud. me da un mensaje con su nombre y numero, de verdad el le llamara manana. Si. Si, es cierto. Si. Y su nombre? Bueno. Y... ah, gracias. Ocho-cero-cero-cinco, dijo? Ah, ocho-cero-cero-siete. Bueno. Lo tengo. Y su mensaje?
Como? Creo que no entendio esto. Puede Ud. repetirlo? Gracias. Espera, espera... de verdad tiene Ud. la oficina correcta? Si, claro... pero el senor jefe no tiene algunos hijos. Por que dijo que Ud. tiene su hijo?
Su.... bebe? De que habla Ud.? El senor jefe no tiene ni hijos ni bebes! Es cierto que Ud. quiere hablar con otro jefe en otra oficina. Que? Que significa, tiene un bebe ahora? Estoy totalmente confundida!
....
....
De verdad? El? Esta cierto? Por Dios! Que cabron! Oye... no dije la verdad cuando dije que el no estaba en la oficina. Esta en su oficina con alguna mujer. Si, si! Ahora! Dejame pasar su llamado a el, y Ud. puede gritarle todo que quiere... y digale que me debe cincuenta dolares y yo dejo de trabajar si no los recibo! *click* *SLAM!*
I had a conversation with Jacob and Andrew last night that reminded me of the fact that I'm really an argumentative brat. I was wondering whether or not to mark off the box on a job application stating that I can speak/read/write Spanish. There were two boxes, one for "fluent" and one for "good", and while I was certain the first box would be inappropriate I was generally unsure about the second one. Leading a potential employer to think one can do things one can't really do sets up profoundly unpleasant situations for the potential employee, so I strive to be honest. But really, my Spanish is okay. It's not great, but if they had a "fair-to-middlin'" box I'd be happy to check that one. Jacob and Andrew felt strongly that I should just check the damn box they gave me or I'd be selling myself short and fucking up my chances of employment.
I was entirely convinced after about 2 minutes of this that checking the box was the appropriate thing to do, but somehow I just couldn't stop arguing for the fun of it. It's incredibly frustrating to be arguing a practical point and have someone haul out semantic and technical arguments at you, which is precisely why I was doing so for my own perverse enjoyment. Sorry, guys... well, slightly sorry anyway.
I'm also slightly sorry for the lack of proper accent marks in the foregoing passage. It's nice that it covers up where I can't remember how to spell, though.
It has come to my attention that a number of members of the Cement community are stretching their earlobes at breakneck speed. Rather, the stretching came to my attention some months ago, and then I finally did the math a couple of days ago and realized that there's quickness involved.
Wait, did you think I was going to tell you to stop? Hardly. I just want to share a few horror stories. You can think of me as the earlobe-stretching equivalent of those "Red Asphalt" videos they show you in driving school. Informative links are courtesy of the BME encyclopedia of risks.
Horror Story #1 is a cautionary tale on the subject of skipping gauges. Early on in my quest for ear expansion (about 2.5 years ago, in fact), I stretched from roughly 12g to 8g in one jump. Mind you, that's only skipping one gauge, which doesn't seem like much. I'd fallen in love with a pair of tapered corkscrew plugs from Industrial Strength, brought them home and found myself unable to wait. I lubed them up, twisted them slowly through my ears, and left them alone for a couple of days to adjust to the stretch. When I finally tried to wiggle them around a bit so I could clean my ears, the corkscrews slipped back out a ways, my ears welled up with blood from the tears I'd caused (which I think had been unable to bleed with the pressure of the plugs on them), and the holes closed down to a puffy, scabby, irritated 14g size. They stayed that way for a month before they were healed again.
Horror Story #2 is the story of "how much can Dianna push her luck?" Dianna pushed her luck to the point of re-doing the stretch to 8g a month after the initial stretch, then stretching to 5g about 3 weeks later, then stretching to 2g about 2 weeks after that. That was unwise. One of my ears blew out, and I failed to go back to smaller jewelry and let it heal properly, so the little wiggly lip of tissue on the back of my ear is still there 2 years later.
What probably should have happened at this point was catastrophic thinning, but it so happens that I'd started out with a relatively vast expanse of earlobe and was stretching piercings located well away from the edges of my lobes. So, I had room to continue stretching and did so (albeit slightly more slowly for a while).
On to Horror Story #3, then. This was a year and a half ago, when Doug and Lisa had just come home from Japan and Jacob, Jason and myself went to crash their party and stay in their new house for a few days. In a fit of creative genius a few days earlier, I'd made myself two pairs of lovely new twisty claws out of carefully sanded, smoothed and varnished Sculpey. I'd measured as best I could and they seemed to be about 1/2" in diameter; I was currently wearing 7/16" jewelry with 1/2" flares, so the new plugs should have fit like a dream. They turned out to be a little bit big, so since they had a nice taper to them I finagled the first pair of them most of the way through my ears and held them there with o-rings. I wasn't about to make the same mistake of the first time, of pushing them all the way through in one terribly damaging fell swoop. I left them there for a few days, working them a little further in as my ears stretched to accommodate them, until I could carefully pull them all the way through at the widest point of the jewelry. Success! I changed them out for the other pair, which I liked just slightly better, and we left for Oregon.
This is BAD. I shudder just thinking about it. While in Oregon I slept on my newly-slightly-stretched ears with jewelry in, since I knew if I took the claws out overnight they wouldn't go back in comfortably the next day (and I didn't have my old jewelry with me, so it was the claws or nothing). My ears were a little cranky, like I might possibly have torn them a bit in the stretching, but I left them alone and hoped for the best. Downsizing was not to be thought of! No!
One night, J&J&D&L & I were enjoying a lovely board game about trains when Jacob suddenly nudged me and told me my right claw had sort of turned around and was starting to fall out of my ear. I touched it and noticed that it felt wet, so I went to the bathroom to see what had happened. My new claw, with its less-than-perfectly-smooth-and-nonporous surface, was rotating its way out of my ear and taking the delicate and not-quite-healed skin inside my piercing with it. My ear was puffy and dripping bloody lymph, and my precious stretched hole was rapidly shrinking from the swelling of the ear around it. Gross! I went without jewelry for the rest of the trip, and when we got back I could barely manage to clear the solid dried goo from the piercing and fit a 10g ring in it. Once it stopped oozing there was room for 6g jewelry without putting pressure on my ear, but from there I had to wait and stretch back up slowly one gauge at a time all over again.
The point, my stretchy cement associates, is BE CAREFUL! Not everything that is possible in this process is advisable. You can get away with murder, but you can also really fuck that shit up. Take care of your ears; you only get one set and you've got all the time in the world to make them large and funny-looking. Mistreat the ears, and they'll be funny-looking in ways you never intended.
(Disclaimer: you may notice that in my profile picture I'm wearing the very same black claws that were featured in Horror Story #3. Since that event, I've sanded them down to a smaller diameter, and refinished them with a smoother surface. And if I ever use jewelry like that in newly-stretched ears again, may the Earlobe Gods strike me down on the spot.)
Oh, lord, but I love sushi. No, wait, that isn't right. I love sushi. There is nothing quite like beautiful sweet crunchy red pepper and soft squishy mushrooms and cool delicious cucumber and-- treasure of treasures-- creamy ripe avocado, all wrapped up cozily inside a blanket of sticky seasoned rice and oceanically delicious seaweed. Nothing at all in the world, I tell you.
And I will strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers (and sisters) by telling them that sushi is not delicious. That's like telling people that the sky isn't blue, or that bed isn't comfy. I say it's crazy talk, and seeing as I've had giant mountains of homemade sushi for dinner the last two days running, I ought to know what I'm talking about.
No fish were harmed in the making of this entry. That would be blasphemy. Some biologists may cry when they come home from conferences in Monterey and discover that they missed two delicious extravagant sushi dinners at home, but that can't be helped.
Most of you, my cement associates, know me as Dianna-with-metal-thingies-in-her-cheeks. Not unreasonable, since I've had them there for almost a year and a half. Jacob knew me for a short time as Dianna-without-those-thingies; Jason, Erica and Michelle all met me once or twice as Dianna-with-a-lip-ring-instead. Even I have a hard time remembering what I looked like so far in the distant past, so I can only assume that you all find yourselves in a similar situation.
I regret to inform you that you're about to be reminded. I'm taking them out.
We've had some good times together, those metal thingies and I. We've gotten ourselves all-but-disowned together. We've been poked in the face by strangers whose curiosity outweighed their sense of personal space. We've been asked the same inane questions so many times we've wished we had a personal FAQ file ("Is that all one piece of jewelry all the way across your mouth?"). We've been stared at with expressions of bewilderment, hostility, sympathetic pain and occasionally admiration. We laughed together at the job interview in which both cheeks lost their jewelry while I was explaining my incredible qualifications and enthusiasm for the job. We sat in the front room of Gottsi together feeling nauseous after the painful post-interview re-insertion. We've collaborated in freaking Kristen out by making ridiculous stretchy fishy faces. We've gently helped countless surprised people remember the word "dimples" while they stuttered and gesticulated.
How, then, could we possibly be parting ways after such a long and wonderful relationship? Well, no one is an island. Not even with metal thingies to keep them company. We all must think of the health and happiness of others, in this case my teeth. While making funny faces in the shower this morning, I suddenly thought of my top canine teeth and how often I feel the insides of my metal thingies rubbing on them. Exploratory poking with a finger revealed alarming results-- as near as I can tell, the disks inside my cheeks have rubbed distinct depressions into the teeth nearest them. I can't be having that.
As someone who argues constantly against the assumption that piercings are dangerous and unwise, I can't walk around with my piercings causing incidental damage even if I didn't mind wearing away my teeth. It's the same reason I can't subsist on french fries and vegan cookies and be malnourished-- it undermines every health-related argument I can make in favor of my hippie-ass vegan diet. So I have to eat lots of fresh vegetables and legumes and take my animal-free vitamins and take out my piercings when they start having consequences for my dental health; I don't want to subvert my own subversiveness by being a hypocrite. But it makes me sad.
At least I'll always have the dimples. Or so I hope. *sniffle*
...that clicking "update now" on my statistics page next to where it said "never updated" would in fact erase all data gathered before today?
Counter-intuitive bastards.
"Interesting music," I said to Jacob the other day, "has always been the province of fucked-up people." The subject of our conversation was jazz's origin as the music of the junkie, but really I just wanted an excuse to expound on this concept so dear to my heart. And behold! Again, it's marginally relevant as I sit here listening to a juxtaposition of Mozart and the Smashing Pumpkins, but really I just want to expound some more and you're all powerless to stop me.
You won't, goes my argument, compose Requiem if you're in a sane and healthy mind any more than you would compose Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them? in a sane and healthy mind. If you're a sober and well-adjusted musician, you might be Dvorak, or the Osmonds, or perhaps Jewel. You're unlikely to compose a work of heartrending beauty or searing horror that will leave the listener inspired as if touched by a muse in the form of a chemical-burn hotseat. You may delight their ears and make them think of the sweetness of dappled sunlight on the tresses of lovely maidens, but what's that going to do besides make a lot of maidens get worried and take out restraining orders?
Write to your congressperson today and urge him or her to support denying mental-health insurance coverage to people with musical inclinations. Do it for the sake of the maidens.
