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January 6th, 2004
01:51 pm
So two separate people recently have wondered why I don't have any visible piercings.
The first one I'd been hanging out with all evening, and all of a sudden she looked at me funny and said: "You have no metal in your head! are you planning on fixing that?"
The other one was yesterday, he just said: "hunh. I thought you had a piercing or something. guess not. did you used to?"
Piercings are something that I've always found very intriguing. I have been pierced before, it only stuck around for a few months for a few reasons which I'll not get into here. But between tatoos and piercings, I'm clean of body mods right now, which apparently doesn't mesh well with who people percieve me to be.
At work, I'm one of the subculturey people. In my personal life, I'm relatively mainstream (in comparison to most friends). I occupy this odd middle-ground. At work, I'm expected to have body mods cause I'm so damn counter-culture.
Among friends, it's astonishing that I don't have them, because it's mostly assumed among that crowd.
I'm not sure what point i'm trying to make, or if I'm trying to make any point at all. it's just something that's come up a lot lately, and thusly has piqued my thought processes.
*slight tangent*
There's one tatoo I'd wanted for most of my life, probably since I was 11-12ish.
a barcode.
Now they're fucking everywhere, and I can't bring myself to get one and be another sheep in the crowd. It was such a unique idea when I came up with it, I'd never even heard of one before let alone seen one. And I'm still hung up on it, so I can't come up with something else I'd want. It's a predicklement.
*/tangent*
Also there's my selected profession. It's becoming more and more corporate, so alternative computer geeks just aren't in demand so much anymore. It'd be extremely frowned upon for me to dye my hair anything unnatural with my current place of employment, which pisses me off. A bridge piercing, or a pseudo-staple in the back of my neck, would just be grounds for firing, I'm sure.
anyway, enough narcissistic rambling.
mood:  pensive
music: I can't get no satisfaction is stuck in my head. argh....
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![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/3615578/62356) | | From: |  oceanic |
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| Date: | January 6th, 2004 12:02 pm (UTC) |
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I feel your pain here, in many many ways. We share the middle-ground classification in the friends group of which you speak, and it's sort of a weird tap dance, thinking "damn I'm counterculture!" when you're at work and thinking "good god I'm mundane!" when you're with friends. I find I'm much more comfortable walking my own line than swaying to either extreme. It's almost a complete identity in itself, in a negative space kind of way.
Also, I had the same dilemna with my tongue piercing. Because every motherfucking 13 year-old girl with a string undershirt and a Hot Topic keychain has one. And it's something I had wanted for years, before, through, and after it become super popular to get one.
I got one anyway. Fuck all of them. :) It's what makes my body feel whole, and I can't let trends make me OR keep me from doing anything if it's that important to me. My only stab against the perceived conformity was to get a 10g one, eff their poncey little 12g barbells. :) Which was immensely gratifying on several occasions when said teenyboppers would gawk at the barbell in my mouth and go "Oh my god, it's HUGE!"
Hmm. That just made me feel like a 40 year-old pedophile. ;) ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/79739981/420017) | | From: | freak1c |
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| Date: | January 6th, 2004 12:06 pm (UTC) |
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What's the tatoo?
Is it a Chinese symbol meaning life? Is it A Chinese symbol meaning Love? Happy? Death? Man? Man Love? Happy Man? These are all I see anymore.
Not saying they're bad. Just. Kind of frustrating to me considering the ramifications of beautifying another culture, of holding a language to a standard that only serves to orientalize said language. *oh. wrong meeting.*
Heh.
er. hey look, ducks! | | From: | oceanic |
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| Date: | January 6th, 2004 02:23 pm (UTC) |
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Did you guys ever figure out that whole "Oriental Paradox" thing? That discussion was intriguing.
Oh, and it's all your fault (well, it's actually all Jennifer's fault), but whenever I see man-anything these days, I collapse in giggles with the word "man-fudge" echoing in my brain. :) I seriously joked (um, yeah) about getting a tattoo that said "stupid american" in kanji... | | From: | freak1c |
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| Date: | January 7th, 2004 05:39 am (UTC) |
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Haha - nice. I'm pretty sure they all say something to that effect - "Kick Me, I'm Gai-Jin!" or "Ha! We take-a you money!"
: )
For a long long time I wanted to get a tatoo that said simply 'tatoo' - but that was in my younger, more ironic days. I'm glad I didn't now. I similarly was tempted to just have "ink" written in typewriter font on my ankle for a while as a tattoo. It's fun to plot how ironic and meta- we can be with our counterculture cynicism and overall predictable rebellion.
| | From: | freak1c |
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| Date: | January 7th, 2004 06:02 am (UTC) |
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| | yes but see how i don't capitalize my words? | (Link) |
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You said meta. I haven't used that word for a few months - must integrate it more fully into my daily speech. I mean, speaking meta-cognitively of course. bwhaha.
I'm a bad cynic because at heart I'm a proletariat. So the snob in me combines with the plebe in me and I end up defending and rationalizing my taste for Adam Sandler movies.
ditto to everything you've said.
except i want a circuitry diagram as a tattoo. but i won't get one. :) ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/42770768/895901) | | From: | squidia |
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| Date: | January 7th, 2004 04:08 pm (UTC) |
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yer tattoo dilemna reminds me of mine -- back in 94 i wanted a yin/yang tattoo but had to "settle" for a tibetan symbol for infinity/universe (also very cool, but not quite AS cool) because that was when the whole mainstream obsession with yin/yang started happening, and i'd known about the concept/symbol for a long time but decided i couldn't get the tattoo because it was "too mainstream." i don't know -- maybe when i'm 80 if it's not mainstream any longer, then i'll get a yin/yang, and you can get the barcode! :) Sorry. Didn't mean to weird you out there. I'd honestly never noticed before. no no no, it was way cool to hear. massaged my no-queer-enough ego, as it were. Didn't weird me out, was just really odd to hear. :o) |
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