The Misadventures of a Body Pierce

A couple of friends have asked now if I’d be writing about getting my belly button pierced. While getting holes poked in one’s abdomen does sound terribly exciting, it turned out to be pretty tame. The body piercer, Jesus, remained matter of fact throughout, despite my efforts to joke about how reliable a center point for his measurements could be when he appeared to be navigating directly from my chest. Still, I’m inclined to think that “matter of fact” is actually a desirable quality when it comes to people who are about to poke holes in my body.

Mostly it seems like people want to know if it hurt. Well, yeah it sort of did. While I’m not so much afraid of pain as I am of needles, I can never turn away. Luckily for me, my view was totally and completely blocked. Maybe men can see what’s happening to their abdomen while lying flat, I wouldn’t know. But once the fear of watching the needle was removed, it wasn’t all that bad.

No, most of the pain has come from my adventures outside of the piercing studio. I wouldn’t describe myself as a klutz so much as I would distractible to the point of not finishing sentences, forgetting to press “send” on emails, and letting whatever happens to be flitting by at the moment grab my attention just long enough for me to look like I’ve lost control of my limbs…that last one being how I came to walk into the security system of the public library, causing a whole new round of bleeding. You’d think that since the security thing is sort of tall, my chest would have protected me some, but no. Apparently I walked into it just so, the angle being absolutely perfect for a nice hard slam of the jewelry.

Within the first week of being pierced I learned my lesson about rollerblading with a new tummy ring: when you’re finishing up your rollerblading expedition on a busy street corner because the trail doesn’t arrive exactly at your doorstep and you’re wearing your favorite jeans ‘cause the junky ones go up too high for the new piercing and you swerve to avoid a pedestrian while watching to make sure your son doesn’t get run over by a car and your first thought when you realize that you’ve swerved a little too far over is, “MY JEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”…

…so yeah…I’m not actually going to finish this story, ‘cause it makes me out to sound a lot less graceful than I actually am on those things. And as I’ve clearly stated here, I am ever so graceful. Well. I may or may not be graceful on rollerblades. I’ve been told I’m a graceful swimmer. Put me in a library, however, and I can’t be bothered to watch out for inanimate objects strategically placed so that I’m sure to smack right into them at navel level as I make a beeline for nonfiction.

Last but not least, let’s all remember the importance of sun safety. I had very specific instructions from Jesus not to put anything on the piercing besides plain ole’ Dial hand soap. Forgoing sunscreen altogether didn’t seem like such a great idea, so I took a swipe at it, careful not to get too close to the actual metal.

Did I mention I’ve never worn a bikini in my life until this year? Definitely not good enough for skin that has never seen the sun before. Maybe it was because I spent a fair amount of time napping on the beach, or maybe the jewelry itself made a little reflecting oven out of my belly button…either way I was so burnt it was still tinged pink a month later.

They say it can take four months to a year to fully heal a navel piercing. Somehow I don’t think that four months thing was decided with me in mind.