Alterations.

As I stated in my previous post, 2-1/8" is now toast, and then some. Hopefully I'll stack some paper at the Annual APP Conference and be able to pick up some new 2-1/4" jumpoffs while I'm there, assuming of course I have the money left over from setting aside what I need to pay for certain paperwork to be processed first. It's a necessity that someone buy some of my old jewelry, basically.



I'm getting very fed up with being broke. It's incredible how my body and my mind refuse to let me quit smoking. It's retarded that I spend as much as many of my friends do each month on their apartments or car loans just to light carcinogenic-ally delicious tobacco and burn it. I could reduce most of my money problems in my current living situation almost over night IF I could just stop. I'd also like to unveil the Einstein Wardrobe Project sooner than later, as it's point becomes all the more apparent each time I subject myself to social and/or public situations. On a good note, though, I'm gaining weight and I'm up to doing 60 pushups a night in 6 sets of 10. At least my body isn't totally being a douche.



I scheduled an appointment with Shawn for the end of July to finish my stomach. As it stands, I'm about 2 sessions away from completing it. At this point, I just want it done so I can start working on other projects; most urgently, my left arm. I'm hoping to have the entire thing, possibly including my hand, outlined in one sitting. That means, in about a year, I'll be in the market for sick neck tatz, and within two, I'm hoping to start on my noggin.



Dan and I are planning to begin my gnarly tongue piercing project as soon as I get back from APP. We are going to pierce each half of my tongue twice; a 10g behind a 12g barbell in each side. We will be doing the 10g piercings first. Soon enough, as well, my conches WILL be fully removed (mark my words) so I can unleash that epic jewelry idea on the world as soon as it's completed.



Basically, this whole post boils down to the reluctant patience I'm dealing with looking into a mirror and those I am surrounded by. I see the vanity I am surrounded by on a daily basis and its implications and can't help but feel the need to pick it apart. Everyone tailors their appearance to make a statement, consciously or not, about themselves to the outside world. In a way, the clothes we choose to wear and the styles we adopt classify us into a particular subculture, thus we make the choice to abide by a stereotype already set forth and live in a vein and follow general ideologies which are staples of a particular group. The irony is that those particularly adamant in their styles and ideals as forms of "individual expression" are merely cookie-cutter reproductions. Even the most passionately anti-conformity groups have uniforms. I am not trying to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I can't help but laugh in sarcasm at the contradictions. With the life choice I have made to be a collector of body art, I have already made the conscious decision to manipulate my image into something different than I was inherently given out of a passionate drive and love for the art of aesthetics. I have decided to explore this idea on another level and, while I feel it is almost excruciatingly vain to be so tied up on my appearance, I feel driven to explore this idea and make calculated decisions to achieve my end goal of social ambiguity, other than the apparent body art interest, and observe how my outward changes affect social interactions. I will also be quite mindful and try to retain the utmost level of self awareness while undergoing these changes and try to document anything that may change about me personally.

Latches.

My dad and I went to Lowe's yesterday. We looked at a bunch of hardware and building materials for the shop's new cases. I have a pretty solid idea how these bad mofos will be designed and assembled now, which is obviously pretty awesome. We have some sweet ideas on how to wire up some legit lights and how to hold the glass panes in place and all that. The only thig left to decide are what exactly we will be using for spot lighting and what to make the shelving out of. I think I'd like to do upholstered shelving with reflective undersides to keep light bouncing around inside. Basically, we have a solid game plan. Awesome.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, it has become apparent to me that sometimes, I just try way too hard to get what I want. In certain instances, it's better, I'm learning, to just let things come to you. I'm sick of putting myself "out there" and going out of my way for basically no reason.

I'm trying to scrape up the money I need to take care of my priorities right now, but it's pretty difficult. Quitting smoking is a must right now. I just can't bring myself to do it.

Finally, I started taping my plugs last night to begin stretching again. 2-1/8" is already toast. I think I'm going to give my lobes a break today though and tape again tomorrow or the next day.

Belligerent.

Saturday was a beast of a night. For our friend Mike's birthday, the shop took him out to Kampai. We ate dope sushi and got propa drunk on sake shots and Sapporo. We then went to Shagunda's, at which point I began with the PBR and Jameson's. Amy called me and said she was going to the Belmar, so I walked my drunk ass over there from damn near Harry L. Drive. It only took about 15 or 20 minutes though. Amy, Mad Dog and Phrank Martian were there being awesome. This is where my night took a turn.

Now, from an outside perspective, I'm sure it looked like I deserved to get kicked out of the place. I understand this. However, I'm going to fill in the blanks now and maybe feel a little more understood in my belligerence.

So, drugs 'r bad m'kay. Especially when you are booting them and or freebasing them. I'm pretty sure we've all seen enough DARE officers speak and have seen enough reality TV to know, respect, and understand this simple fact of life. It's unfortunate that people get themselves involved in bullshit (or smack, as the kids say) that they can't get out of. Especially when these people, at one point or another, were like family to you. The person I am talking about specifically was quite literally like a big brother to me. I smoked my first blunts with him, he was the first kid with stretched earlobes I ever met, he was into metalcore and hardcore 8 years ago when I was first getting into the "scene" and we both nerded out together over awesome bands like Norma Jean, The Chariot, Symphony in Peril, Zao, etc. being that we were the only hardcore kids with tight pants and sick gauges in our area. The first time I ever experimented with music was in his basement. I helped him and his homies get a place in my mom's building in Binghamton so he'd be right next door. A few months later I stopped hanging out when the mirrors started appearing around the house, a dude was there that had been awake for 36+ hours and was 4 dozen deep on cooking eggs, and I got a crash course in how to cook up crack at 16. Nuffa dat, I said, and fell off that end of things and made friends elsewhere. It killed me to watch my friends turn into drug addicts, especially him, with all of the time and history attached to us. 4 years later, he's a junky hitting on my sister after a relationship he was abusive in (according to the grapevine). He showed up at the bar, I didn't like that, and quite literally could not hold my tongue and not try to talk to him like a real friend that actually knows him should have. I wanted to call him out on his up-fuckingness and tell him to stay away from my family as he is trouble. I was punked off and disrespected when I tried to be real with him, as drunk as I may have been, and began with the insults. I was quickly physically removed from the situation by the bouncer, a fact I was and am not pleased about, seeing as though the kid is a fucking junky woman beating scumbag that I can't help but still feel love for even after all his antics. It hurts my feelings to know people can behave like he does, and as the tattoo on my left arm says, "he that is silent consents." He deserves to get called out. He deserves a lot more than that, and if I see him on the street again, I'll do exactly the same thing. Violence is not my motivation, love is, but if war is what it takes, then I'll surely be battle ready. A conversation is all I wanted, but pussy junky woman hitting faggots will be just that and they all deserve to get stomped the fuck out.

PS: Thank you Phrank for having my back. You're a solid dude.

Home, Sweet Home.

So, after a shit show of a day, half-drunken early morning at the airport following an all-nighter, being delayed, developing a fever and tonsilitis over the course of the day, and showing up to Syracuse 5 hours late, I met up with my dorablzz friend Dominique for a wonderful day of wine, Strong Heart's, coffees at hipster central, freezing my ass off, and meeting up with some old friends I havn't seen in way too long.

Yesterday, I had to call into work after going to the doctor's in the morning, resulting in a script of antibiotics and an injection of anti-inflamitory drugs to the right buttock. A day later, I feel 1 billion times better. I can actually swallow food. I did stop in the shop to drop off Efrom the Shop Jackalope and some sweet rawks from Evolve I picked up on tour. I'll be back in action at The Shaman's Den tomorrow! Instead, I had a very relaxed day napping, sweating gallons from the fever, eating a dank ass blackened tuna sandwich from The Lost Dog Cafe with my boy from way back, Mr. Roger "Yung Rog" Williams and his mom, Robin. Then, Rog, Dusty, and some of their friends had a great fantastic bonfire under a crystal clear and starlit sky out in West Windsor.

Today, as well as yesterday for that matter, I woke up around 7:30 AM. I really like doing that. I hope to make it a daily routine. I rather enjoy not skipping breakfast and having plenty of time in the morning to do constructive things. Hopefully cutiepants Dominique can get her little bottom down here to kick it again today. She's pretty much rad.

Beads.

I love this photo. I love even more the inverted cross formation this kid wanted his beads. Shit turned out tight as fuck and super clean. Healed photos will be posted.

Feast.

Mr. Race Dizzle and I concocted a feast to celebrate the Undead Son Of Lord's resurrection. Unfortunately, there are no photos to share. Race made something called "Sticky Chicken" with chicken legs and thighs basically boiled in a pot with some leinenkugel, bacon fat, Cajun seasoning and such. We ate this over white rice. He also prepared some mashed potato delight with chunks of bacon, onions, and a dickton of sour cream. That shit was incredible. We also had steamed broccoli with butter and pepperjack cheese melted all over it, with a kickass spinach, feta, and strawberry salad with some type of vinigrette. Between the pounds of food I consumed and the 6 pack and then some I drank, I am still right now, too full.

Fail.

F. M. L. Screwing shit up like a fucking newb. Why can I not just be awesome like a magical piercing robot-Jedi hybrid? Whatever. Another reason to try harder I guess. :/

Hindsight

I am currently obligated to camp out in a very depressing region of Florida, with one week to go on my sentence. I've been counting down the days since I've arrived and things started going awry. First, on the third day of my stay, my good friend/host/middle man for the job here decided to quit his job in a diva-esque mouth diarrhea session that burned any bridges he had with this shop. In doing so, he also put me in quite the awkward situation, in that I felt obligated to spend time with him, which turned out to be anything but fun seeing as though he no longer was welcome amongst the group of friends at the shop. In addition, about a week after that, coincidentally enough, he decided to go scope out job opportunities in Nashville, in effect leaving me homeless, and when he came back with plans to move, that was apathetically not retracted. I can't bitch too much, seeing as though I have been helped greatly and the boys at Cherry Bomb have treated me to way more than my fair share of great times; however, the self-centeredness of my host is really quite appalling to me, and the thought at the back of mind remains. What if these guys were a bunch of assholes and I was completely left hanging? Oh well, I guess. All the more reason to hurry home more than I had already wished to.

Speaking of home, I feel quite nervous to be honest. I feel kind as though I'm starting a new life in an old place. I had only been back at my shop for three weeks since moving back from New Hampshire, which as anyone who's known me for any amount of time will tell you, changed a lot of things for me. Regardless of any happenings there, the moral of the story is that my life changed drastically. I feel a bit lost in myself as of late, in that I poured myself into the most important facets of my life in New Hampshire; my job and my relationship, forgetting about almost everything else that I used to get stoked on. My wife made me happy the majority of my time there, and all I cared about was her and how I could make her happier. Unbeknown to me was the emptiness that began to consume me. I set aside body art projects, music, opportunities to make friends, and other hobbies and interests (mostly due to my own financial shortcomings) for the sake of working hard at piercing to feel fulfilled enough to take the place of everything else I used to like and to foot the bill for two people to live and be happy. I don't blame her, I blame myself for being too proud to ask for help, especially since she had a ton on her plate to worry about with school and being an artist in her own right and pouring herself into her life. We should have never been married; I could have coexisted much more happily with space I think...I would have been less likely I think to feed into the outside attention that I was receiving had I not felt so backed into a corner. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Regardless of the outcome, I genuinely believe we are each better people for our experiences with eachother and I will never forget Michelle Peterson and the things I learned from her. Thank you/I'm sorry/you're welcome, etc.

All that's left to do now if to figure out how to he happy in Upstate New York. I love where I live and there are way more than enough awesome friends there for me to pass the time with. I finally get to do what I want where I wanted to do it in the first place, which I feel is going to help my internal issues immensely. I am most excited for one project in particular. I will be learning custom metal fabrication from my father, who happens to be a jack of all trades; a quality I have always wished had been passed along into my genes. Realistically, it is my own laziness and quickness to throw in the towel that's my biggest obstacle. Piercing was the one thing that, other than Michelle's diligence in art, taught me to put my nose to the grind stone and accomplish things. He will be helping me to create (the most badass you've ever fucking seen!) jewelry cases and displays for my shop. Think industrial-chic. I'll post progress photos as they start being built. Also, shooting is an aspect of my childhood I have no idea why I ever gave up. I can't brag rightly about many things, but I'm a pretty crack shot with a shot gun, though my reaction time could be improved surely. Also, fishing, and in general, being outdoors, enjoying what my region has to offer, will be huge.