Thursday, October 8, 2009

A permanent accessory!


I have always had a love/hate relationship with my nose. I love it because it is mine and I should... it has always served me well... (sometimes too well I think since particular odors seem to be WAY more offensive to me than to anyone else)...but it is also the facial feature that I cite as the one I would change. It is too long, and there is a bump on the bridge that my mother and I theorize is the by-product of being a breech baby. If I ever convey my dislike of it to anyone they either say that they've never noticed it before (unobservant or lying) or that it "fits my face." How does one respond to that?

In my younger days I toyed with the idea of getting a nose job eventually, but that concept never sat well with me. How would I be able to look in the mirror and see a foreign object where my old schnoz (gross word) used to be and feel good about myself? What if surgery went horribly wrong and I ended up with a hole in my face? I would DESERVE IT for trying to alter the nose that God gave me! (Gotta love ridiculous self-indulgent thoughts.) I've wanted to pierce it for at least the past 10 years, but something always held me back. I hadn't made peace with my beak, so we just stayed in a holding pattern.

Until yesterday.

I decided that since I'm never going to allow myself to change it... I might as well decorate it.

Once I made the final decision to go ahead and pierce my sniffer, (yes, I am attempting to use every synonym for nose in my mac thesaurus for fun) all that was left were the necessary details: placement and permission. Placement was determined using microscopic bits of crystal from Claire's Boutique. These little money wasters were a real pain in the ass to try to get to stay on my nose long enough to get an idea of how a cute little stud would look. Eventually, I convinced one of them to stick and found the perfect place for it.

Permission was granted by Ayodele and Sophia, and my Mums was as permissive as she could be, opting for "I really wish you wouldn't, but it's your nose..." as her trail-off sentence. Well, that was good enough for me, especially since I had already decided I was going to do it anyway! All of this permission business was just good form. No need to incense anyone, is there?

So off I boldly went with Jo in tow for moral support. (Well, off I went... I was still working on the "boldly" part.)

The first tattoo and piercing establishment I visited had run out of the clear crystal corkscrew that I preferred and didn't have any others that tickled my fancy. We left and I was still fully committed, undeterred by this minor setback, though time was growing short and soon all of the shops would be closing. (Gotta love small towns. Ugh.)

Jo was thrilled to use "google 411" with her cell phone (she has been extolling its virtues to me for a while now) and ended up getting connected to a shop right around the corner from my condo. As soon as I heard a soothing female voice, I knew that she was the one that I would be getting pierced by that evening.

We arrived at the shop where we were ushered back to the piercing room by the soother herself: Marcie. She had a calm piercing-table-side manner that instantly put me at ease. As she donned her pink surgical gloves she told me that it was going to hurt, but that she was fast and good. I believed her. I don't know why some people feel that confidence is offensive. I find it vastly reassuring. Marcie approached my face with her piercing equipment (no clue what exactly she had... saw a big needle and stopped looking) and said, "well you can close your eyes now, or whatever if you want," so I gratefully did. She told me to inhale... which instantly made me realize that when she said exhale that it was going to hurt like hell and question why I was there at all. I proceeded to follow her direction, though my inhaled breath was the shallowest of my life. Upon my exhale, the sharp, excruciating pain felt like God's wrath raining upon me...though only for about 5 seconds. Then it was done! And I am thrilled with the results.

Marcie was fantastic, my much lamented feature became permanently decorated, and though no one else will probably give it a second glance, I am happy to say that because of it, my nose and I have resolved our issues and will live happily ever after.

(unless it gets infected of course!)







5 comments:

  1. Would that be Marcie from North Coast Body Mod?

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  2. I can honestly say I have never noticed your nose and I disagree with your theory on "lying or unobservant." I wasn't lying when I told you that because I no longer go out of my way to lie-I would just have kept my mouth shut, and I would consider myself a very observant person. The reason I've never noticed your nose in a good/bad way is the same reason I don't notice self proclaimed "imperfections" on anyone close to me (family, good friends, people I have know for a long time):because I look past silly things that make us "ugly" or "pretty" by societies/our own standards. I think you look like you, and you are beautiful! Lol, well just wanted to clear that up if you were grouping me in your statement. BTW love the piercing!

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  3. Yes Heather! She is fantastic. www.northcoastbodymod.com! And Josephine...those are the thoughts that have gone through my mind when I have had this conversation with others. I agree that silly imperfections are skin deep and don't really matter... this is about my process to become comfortable with how I feel about MYself... not about how other people see me. But thanks for the compliments and I'm glad you like it hahah.

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  4. I love North Coast! They did 3 of my 4 tattoos and Marcie has done a few of my piercings (Becky, the other piercer there did the rest). I recommend that shop to everyone when I hear they want a tattoo.

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  5. A bone in the nose has always been a hit with mankind: well maybe really early mankind and/or African/arid and semi-arid/ mankind.

    It's like buying a car: don't do it until you must!

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