Thursday, June 22, 2006

Let there be light!

Last week wasn't going all that great for me. Nothing particularly distressing happened, but I think the realization that I STILL have no job was beginning to set in. Rather than letting my friends take me out for a night on the town (or in the case of myself and my friends, a day of hiking among gorgeous scenery) to cheer me up, I decided to acquire yet another mod. After re-piercing my corset, I figured that my raging desire for mods would be quelled for at least a few months. After all, 8 piercings positioned in a quite un-easily accesible area of one's body aren't cake to take care of, nor do they heal quickly (if at all). But I absolutely could not resist getting my septum pierced after coming to find out that a friend of mine had had it pierced without my ever knowing. She kept the ring "flipped up" in her nostrils the majority of the time, only taking it out when she felt like it. An optional piercing?!?!?! I was flooded with envy upon contemplating the utter coolness of it. I had thought about getting my septum done before, but the jewelry I saw most people wearing for it was, in my opinion, hideous. I dont like full CBRs or retainers, but once I saw the tiny dual-balled ring that my friend was wearing, I coulnd't resist.

Flipped down on the train to NYC


I think what attracted me most to the septum piercing is how it reminds me of the cyberpunk notion of human/computer hybrids. I know that flipping my septum ring out into public view does nothing more than slightly alter my appearance, but I feel that it is much like flipping a switch or activating some function on a computer. With one move, I can change my face from sweet and innocent to...well...not so sweet and innocent. The friend I mentioned earler actually told me a funny fact about her septum piercing. According to her, she gets hit on quite a bit while walking around her college campus in New Haven, CT. The majority of...OK, more like ALL of...these offers and comments were unwelcomed, so she began to flip down her normally hidden septum when on campus. Well, it worked! I don't know if this is because many people find septum piercings unattractive, or perhaps because such a piercing does look kinda "hardcore," but she successfuly avoided contact with the male gender for the remainder of the semester. Nice.

Flipped up when picking strawberries @ the local farm


Another pro concering my new metal is that I can easily hide it from my parents! Unless my mother decides to ensure that my nose is being kept clean, I should be able to keep this my little secret for years to come. Woohoo! On that subject, I'll update y'all on my parental situation in saying that I just don't care anymore. A friend shocked some sense into me yesterday when he saw that I had just spent 2 hours straight looking at pictures of tattoos. He basically yelled at me for allowing someone else to interfere with one of the most important elements of my life. Body modification is wonderous in my eyes, so the promise not to acquire any permanent mods (i.e. tattoos, scars) for another two years has pretty much gone down the shitter. I believe that I'm extremely level-headed, and I have already come to terms with the fact that I might not always appreciate my mods as I do now. But the memories. The memories on my skin. They will live on forever, and tell stories to everyone I meet. I'm getting butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. SO! Enough rambling on my part. I apologize for my summer slacking, but I promise to be posting more often beginning next week when my boyfriend crosses the sea to China for 7 weeks. Ciao!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Sad saddy sad

TheMilkmaid
I have mentioned Pure Body Arts a number of times here on modifiedstateofmind, mostly referring to scarification and piercing artist Brian Decker. Another member of the Pure family, Joy Rumore, has recently had some shittiness in her life when both her home and car were burglarized. I can't imagine how much of a shock this must have been for Joy, especially because all of her tattooing equipment was stolen. If you would like to help contribute to a fund set up to help Joy pick up the pieces, click the Milkmaid button above. Thanks all!

Monday, June 12, 2006

a closed-minded View

I flipped on the television this morning to find the ABC talk show, "The View." If you're not familiar with the show, it's basically 4 middle-aged women who discuss various issues from the news and their own lives. In any case, I was surprised to notice that the women were talking about tattoos. One co-host, Barbara Walters, seemed confused by tattooing, as much of her generation is. She recounted an experience not unlike one that I had with my mother in which she questioned why her daughter didn't remove her jacket on a particularly warm day. It was on this day she came to discover that her daughter had acquired a tattoo on her shoulder. Although confused, Walters didn't seem to have the same negative attitude toward tattooing that both Joy Behar and Star Jones did. Behar boldly claimed that "tattoos are a mistake" because we are constantly changing. Yes, Joy, it is a fact that people change, but not all tattoos are just a "cool design." Many represent meaningful experiences in one's life and will eternally serve as a reminder of such. Also, Behar only referred to her disdain for celebrity tattoos during the discussion. We all know that Angelina Jolie screwed up a bit in the tattooing department, but she screwed up in the marriage department too. Her biggest mistake of all was combining the two into a (semi-) permanent marking on her body. Tattoos aren't the problem here - bad tattoo choices are.
Star Jones, on the other hand, was more concerned with the deterioration of tattoos over time as a result of changes in body shape and size. I don't mean to be offensive, but considering that the only news headlines I have ever read about Star Jones concern her body size, it's fair to say that she would be preoccupied with such things. As for many of the rest of us, the art and the memory are what really matters. Anyway, I don't think America should be taking advice from a group of women who agreed that it's a great idea to "drink a lot before" getting inked. Come on now...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Freaks.

Freaks. What on earth does this term actually refer to? For every culture and set of customs, there are going to be people labeled as "freaks." Such a label is carelessly applied to both the voluntarily and involuntarily different, as the recognition that someone is indeed (according to one's society) freakish is always second nature. As modified individuals, we have learned to cope with the stares and ignorant comments, as have all other freaks in history. We actually have it pretty easy these days: "In the beginning of Rome, Romulus forbid to kill abnormals and disformed children but the introduction of the 12 tables changed all as it stated that any monstrous child should be killed instantly. More generally it was a rule for most abnormal beings to be brutally executed, most often at birth." Sheesh.
In any case, this subject was brought to mind recently after watching a movie on TLC (pop it on...you might learn something interesting) entitled "The Man Whose Arms Exploded." It's about a professional bodybuilder named Gregg Valentino who, as the title might imply, pumped and injected his 27-inch biceps until one of them developed a haematoma and burst. Even people in the weightlifting and bodybuilding communities deem Valentino a freak, but he seems not to mind: "