This is by far one of the best ways to experience Valentines Day for me. At the time I was itching to get pierced because I haven't had anything in my ears for about 19 years, so I decided to check out Area51 because I knew Jim and Kim worked there (from hanging out with him at Dennys most of the time). I went up there and talk to Kim about what I can do for standard piercings and what a good idea would be to start since I was bare. Kim wasn't in, so I talked to Del while he was there. He said he would do the work even if he normally doesn't do it and that he'll only do lobes and nothing else. He also said I could start as large as an 8g on a fresh piercing. I was pretty excited to hear it so I said lets go for it. I got my prices figured out and my times checked as well, and I went out later that day to buy some jewelry (blue Lucite plugs, cheap Hot Topic stuff. It was good enough for the first few days.) and pick up Julie (my "date" for the day).
At A Glance Author steve Contact steve@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist del sykora Studio area51 tattoos Location northfield ohio My "date" and I go back to the studio and I give Del the jewelry to get sanitized and such. It felt like forever before he said come on back and well get started. So Julie and I walk back there and I get comfortable. Del told me he would pierce with a 12g followed by a 10g and then an 8g, Im thinking "alright no problems". Del starts working his magic and the next thing I know Julie is looking at me like "what the hell is with this kid? He's smiling getting needles put through his ear" and according to her I had a huge smirk on my face the whole time. My left ear geysered blood all over my hoodie from the unknown lump that was in my ear when we ran the 8g hollow needle and getting the plug in that ear was a problem too. After a bit of working the plug through it finally went in and I was finished with the left ear. I took a quick look at what I sat through and I was pretty damn impressed because what I was doing wasn't something done at the studio. The right ear wasn't as st ubborn as my left ear, which drove me nuts. After my experience I took Julie back and I made her mac n cheese for dinner and called it a night.
The only real problems I had were keeping my holes clean and non-infected with how busy I was that entire month. Im not surprised they did get infected because I did go from nothing to 8g and I was somewhat slacking on cleaning them the first 2weeks with work and all. At one point I lost both of my plugs and I had to use makeshift 8g plugs from qtips and pen clickers so I could retain my holes (it worked, that's all that matters to me). And because I was afraid of my plugs coming out after they healed up a bit (3weeks after I got pierced) I would use qtips to retain my holes while I slept (trust me, they're 8g. I compared the stump to the one plug I had. And Im not talking about the plastic qtips either). I did use a lot of saline solution to help the healing, along with a 500 count box of qtips, swimming at my job (Im a lifeguard, and I was told the chlorine would help according to a friend) and peroxide (which is a no-no with healing, but it helped). The healing part of th is was more frustrating to me because I wanted to start stretching right away as well, but under recommendation I waited until they fully healed.
Most people I tell that story to say Im insane for doing it, but I have the satisfaction of knowing Im the first person (at Area51 at least) who went from having nothing in his ears to an 8g on a fresh piercing. The whole experience in general was a lot of fun and there's always something else Im wanting to do to my ears now. I sort of wish we took before and after pics of my ears instead of just after, Ill have to get the pics from that experience from Del and post them somewhere. Since this experience I've stretched my holes 2 more times, I went from 8g to a 4g in one sitting (Julie also got to see this one as well, poor girl), and recently I went from 4g to 0g. I don't think ill go any higher than 0g, I have to look somewhat decent while I teach kids how to swim.