January 13, 2008

Human Maintenance

Posted in transgender at 9:36 pm by Michael

Today was my day for two minor but significant human maintenance activities – eyebrow waxing and ear piercing.

Here’s the result.

I had waited this long for both for different post-surgical reasons.

The eyebrow stuff I had held off on because I was still having nerve/feeling issues with my forehead/eyebrow area and plucking was oddly painful (way more painful than before). However, recently I’ve gotten back the vast majority of the feeling back, so I thought this would be ok.

Ear piercing I had been cautioned not to do until my ears had completely healed from the “tucking” procedure.

As an aside, “Tuck” is a word that I generally associate with shirts and sheets, and its generally a painless exercise. However, getting your “Ears Tucked Back” involves an incision from the very bottom of the back of your ear, all the way to the top, and removal of cartilage, and then dissolvable sutures to put the whole mess together. Only the nose job was more painful than the crazy ear tuck.

As a result of the complexity (and due to the fact that I had a little infection behind my left ear about three weeks ago – easily taken care of with a round of antibiotics) and the risk of infection, I waited.

In addition, when Peri found out that I was going to get my ears pierced, she wanted to go with me.

Last night, she had all sorts of advice for me.

“It will hurt, but they will let you hold a teddy bear if it makes you feel better.”

“You get to pick out your own earrings, but they can’t be the dangly kind.”

“Make sure you clean them three times a day!”

“Do we have cotton balls? We need cotton balls.”

“You should have them do both at once, it hurts less that way!”

“Make sure you really LIKE what you pick out, you CAN’T change them for SIX WEEKS!” (six weeks is really a long time when you are nine)

Peri recommended that we go to “Claire’s” at Bellevue Square Mall. All the cool girls from her school go there, and her best friend had it done there too.

So this afternoon, after the Chargers stunned the Colts and Manning #2 (Archie, Peyton, Eli) made the sourpuss whiner face (surprised?), we ventured out.

First stop, eyebrows. There’s a good nail/wax place on top of Queen Anne, so we went there – walk in. This took literally two minutes. Zip Zop, Eyebrows Done! $8.

As we were driving over to Bellevue, Peri was reiterating how much it might hurt. I told her that it was ok, I was prepared! It was cute.

We get to the mall, and we walk in (longish walk), and Peri reached over and held my hand as soon as we got out of the car. We were just chatting about one of her games and the deal she got on a dotted shirt – bought it for 3 bells, sold it for 30! I wish I could eBay that well!

Anyway, as we were walking, I noticed that her hand was getting sweaty. I asked her “Are you nervous?” She gave me a little smile and said “Yes Daddy, I don’t want it to hurt too much!”

We got to the place, and started look through the choices. Peri really wanted me to get my birthstone, or a little flowery thing, but I choose big fake-o CZ stones. Right until the moment the gun went off (had to do one at a time – only one person was there who could do it), she was trying to convince me that a little colored purple stone would be better.

Click, Click and I had earrings. Electrolysis is worse (as is Laser).

Big smile from Peri, and she says “Those are PRETTY Daddy. I like them!”

Me too!

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