~~~some assembly required~~~

*some assembly required

Two Kinds of Needles
assembled @ 12:32 a.m. on 2004-11-29

Today, I finally did something that I�ve been wanting to do for a few years: I got my nostril pierced. I�ve researched, and read, looked at pictures and thought a lot. I�ve talked about it with friends and I finally realized that the �right time� I�d been waiting for is now. I�m not living with someone that I�m worried about impressing. I don�t have a job in which I have to look a certain way. I�m also a damn grown-up already. As a bonus, the local body art place was having a 50% off sale, so it was crazy cheap. That never hurts. I took the plunge, and I�m very happy with it. I have a tiny little silver stud on the right side of my nose, and it makes my roundish nose look decidedly more elegant.

It didn�t hurt as much as I thought it would to get it, though it did hurt more afterwards than I expected. I have a tattoo, but I�ve never had a piercing, other than my ears, and that was when I was 10 years old. It was also at a jewelry store at the mall, with a piercing gun. Shiver. Anyhow, afterwards, my nose was doing this icky throbbing thing for a bit; my forehead even hurt, especially when I would bend over to pick up the children�s� toys and the blood would flow to my head. Also, I move my nose more than I ever realized. But I love how it looks, and as soon as I can, I�m going to get a pretty semi-precious stone to put there, I�m thinking maybe my birthstone (garnet) or maybe even a small ring. I know I can�t change the jewelry for a while, but I�m looking forward to trying different looks.

Hah. Thirty years old and I�m finally brave enough to start dressing and looking the way that I�ve always wanted to.

--------------------------------------------

I got to visit with Natalie on Friday! She and I went to high school together, many moons ago, and though we�ve kept in touch (and in many ways, grown closer) since then, I haven�t actually seen her since just after Hero and I were married, over 6 years ago. We had so much fun, babysitting her wee new niece, watching Jon Wesley Harding, whom I had somehow never heard before, and I passed on my spinning addiction! Which also taught me that I am not (yet) qualified to be a spinning teacher. My hands know what to do, but my mouth and brain don�t know how to explain it. Or rather, my brain knows how to visualize pretty pictures of what to do, and my mouth says, �Um. yeah� take that, and do.. this right here� then� yeah� you�ve got it.� (That was totally not meant to be as perverted as it sounds. Hey Natalie�. Orifice).

Anyhow, she picked it up like a pro, and I can�t believe how evenly she was spinning already. My first skein looked like big fat beads on thread, and I still wish I had taken it with me to show her. Lesson number one: when teaching a new spinner, show them your meager virgin efforts. They�ll feel better about their own. And probably laugh a little too. A little laughter is good for the soul.

So I had a wonderful time, I learned how to Norwegian Purl and Natalie is awesome and creative and somehow designs her own knitwear, a skill I totally covet. I can�t wait to snitch her pattern for cabled wrist warmers.

--N

then || now