Let me start this out by saying that I am obsessed with symmetry. Not just balance, mind you, but actual symmetry, with all piercings and tattoos either going down the exact center of my body or having an identical counterpart on the other side. This is quite a restriction for piercings, being as I have a seemingly limited number of body parts going down my center. After getting my lip done at the ripe young age of 17, and my septum done 6 months later, I was itching for more piercings.
At A Glance Author phaedrasfallacy Contact insomniac_dream@hotmail.com Artist Michael Studio Andromeda Location St. Mark's Place, NYC My ears had been pierced when I was 12 years old, and I remembered it fondly. My earlobes' memory was not as good, however, as I discovered upon attempting to shove 16ga hoops into the long-neglected holes. I intended to gauge them out with tapers, to either 4 or 2, but they didn't like this idea. It was time to repierce my ears, I realized...then procrastinated for a few months. The urge resurfaced a week after moving to NYC for school.
I didn't know any piercing studios in NYC (I'm a Philadelphia native), so I enlisted the help of my friend Adam, who linked me to the nycgoth.com web site. About 4 blocks from my dorm I found a studio called Andromeda, which we went to check out the next day.
St. Mark's Place is filled with thousands of seemingly-makeshift piercing shops, and after passing 10 or 11 of them I imagined that I would probably be better off finding a rusty safety pin and gouging the holes myself in a public restroom. I was about to turn around when I found the place I was looking for, situated on the second floor of a building with a vinyl-clad mannequin at the bottom of the steps. I climbed up the stairs, Adam in tow, and was very pleasantly surprised to find what appeared to be a clean and sanitary piercing studio. It was slightly crowded, being a weekend night, so I waited while a few girls decided what color jewel they wanted in their navel, then asked the person behind the counter a few questions about my plan. I intended to get my ears repierced at 14ga, then gauge them out. He seemed to think this was a bad idea, and, although I agreed, I didn't know of any alternatives.
"Dermal punch!" the man said enthusiastically. Now, the phrase "dermal punch" just sounds kind of scary, and I was hesitant. He described the procedure...basically removing a 4ga chunk of my ear, and putting in either a plug, a flesh tunnel, or a hoop. This sounded okay to me, albeit a bit pricey. After I thought about it, though, it seemed more cost-effective than buying multiple tapers, so I gave my consent, my credit card, my pennsylvania state id and my signature before being introduced to the actual piercer, a man named Michael with more piercings than I could count and long yarn-wrapped extensions tipped with circular barbells and captive bead hoops. I always envied professional piercers, because they could get anything they wanted done to their bodies, for relatively cheap (I know it's worth the price, but I'm a poor college student, dammit!)
He led me into a back room, and my normal pre-piercing fears started to kick in. Will this hurt? Will it get infected? Will mutated alien lifeforms smell the blood and crawl into my ear, eating my sanity like in that star trek movie? I know all of my fears are irrational, being as I take good care of my piercings and I actually like the pain of a healing piercing...it just reminds me what a nice piece of metal I have shoved into my body. I asked these questions repeatedly as the piercer went through the prep, laying out all of the stuff he would be using. The dermal punch looked like a miniature cookie cutter, and I was slightly disturbed. Did I really want this?
He turned the adjustable light to my face, and clamped my ear. Picked up the cookie cutter. This shouldn't be too bad, I thought, as I inhaled per the normal breathing exercises. "FUCK!" I yelled, when I had finished exhaling.
Now, I am a complete wimp, but this was more painful than both my lip and my septum. I assumed "oh, ears, no big deal," but I guess it was the large gauge that changed the situation.
"You ok?" the piercer asked as he put the flesh tunnel in, and I nodded. "Ready for the next one?"
Damn that symmetry thing.
He pierced the next one, which hurt about the same. There was a lot of blood. A LOT. I had paper towels taped to my neck and shoulders to keep the blood from dripping on my clothes...it wasn't entirely successful, but I was wearing black so nothing was seriously affected. Blood was dripping down my cleavage, down my arms, all over. more blood than I had ever seen leave my body at once (I've lived a rather uneventful life). After realizing the blood wasn't stopping anytime soon, the piercer let me rest in another room. Everyone who worked there kept offering me glasses of water, and I was kind of confused, wondering if I was supposed to be going into shock or something because they seemed really concerned.
After about 15 minutes, a guy carrying a skateboard in one arm and his jacket in the other walked into the room, looked at me, and cursed in wonderment. "You do realize you have like a giant fucking blood icicle hanging from your ear, right? like a fucking giant one. someone should take a picture of that, seriously. I wish I had a camera!" I wasn't aware of this, but it did kind of explain the weird looks I was getting. The skateboard guy left the room and got the attention of the person who'd originally talked me into the piercing and had been bringing me water for the past 20 minutes. "dude, do you see these icicles?" he said. I was getting really curious.
My piercer chose this time to take me back into the original room and clean off these icicles, which he let me see (they were quite amazing...about 3 inches in length). The bleeding had stopped, sure enough, but he gave me a few pieces of gauze just in case, took my picture for his portfolio, and I resumed my daily life.
Walking home, my ear started bleeding again. By the time I got to the dorm the gauze was soaked, and I switched to tissues and paper towels. Hopefully, it would stop before I was supposed to have dinner that evening...I hadn't anticipated this much blood, and I didnt want to cancel on my friend.
At about midnight I thought the bleeding was done, so I headed out for dinner. Wrong. As soon as I sat down at the table it started bleeding again, and soon all of my tissues and napkins were soaked with blood and discreetly hidden in my purse for lack of a trash can. I went to the bathroom and got some toilet paper, using that on my ear for a while. When the food came, I realized that it would take both of my hands to eat pasta, and I would be unable to hold the tissue to my ear any longer. With ingenuity worthy of MacGuyver, I attached the tissue to my head with two hair elastics and a piece of ribbon, something I'm sure many of cafe's patrons thought was a bold fashion statement instead of an attempt to stop the bleeding. Quite proud of myself, I ate my meal and went home.
The next week, the bleeding had completely stopped, and one of the two small flaps of skin left on the back on my ear had shriveled and fallen off, like my piercer told me it would. The other one had not, however, and I debated cutting it off, but this seemed like a bad idea.
A few days later, I was walking to lunch when I passed Andromeda, and Michael the piercer, who was standing at the top of the stairs, somehow recognized me and called me up to the studio to see how my ear was healing. "Ooh, that's not good," he said. "I'll fix it, it'll only take a second." He took me back into the studio and snipped off the little piece of skin, which was much less painful than I had expected. I got worried, though, when a drip of blood hit my shoulder. Was I going to be bleeding for hours again? Fortunately, it stopped for good after a couple minutes, and, once again, I resumed normal life. Now, it's seemingly healed, and I'm very happy with the piercing, my piercer, and the studio in general (which I have already returned to once and will definitely return to again). My only advice to those of you planning on getting dermal punched: Wear black. Wear only black. Blood stains are tough to wash out, I hear.