Today was the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Nine hours and 26 minutes of daylight where I am.
Tradition calls for the lighting of lights and the singing of songs. You know in your bones it’s the only way to make the sun come up tomorrow.
If we did it right, tomorrow we’ll get nine hours and 27 minutes of daylight.
…that a sponge has to be wet before it will absorb any liquid?
I’ve been searching the internet for answers but so far, nothing but chemistry class experiments. Maybe the good folks at Ask Yahoo! will get back to me with an answer.
It’s two full weeks since I got my tongue pierced and I’ve learned a lot about how my mouth functions. Observations from the day to day healing process:
[Read more…] about Tyranny of the tongue
This may sound odd but I’ve often wondered how men and women manage to have sex. Not that I haven’t been bombarded with images of heterosexuality, like everyone else in America, practically from birth. The mechanics of intercourse are really not a mystery, and haven’t been since I was about eight years old. There are, however, some times when I wonder about the physics of certain couples. Take, for example, the pair that I saw walking to the Metro tonight.
He was a fairly big guy, maybe 6’1″ and a sort of chunky 215lbs. She, on the other hand, was maybe 5’5″ and 110lbs. Her hips couldn’t have measured more than 26″ around. And all I could think as I watched them walk happily, hand-in-hand, down the hill to the subway entrance was: “How is that physically possible?” I’m sort of glad I don’t own a copy of the Kamasutra, or a copy of The Joy of Sex because the reality is that while I’m glad it works for them some how, I don’t really want to know just how.
After several weeks of research and psyching myself up I finally took the plunge and got my tongue pierced. It’s only about an hour old but so far, it isn’t all that bad.
The piercer had me rinse my mouth with Listerine before he opened the sterile kit. The kit consisted of a clamp, a rubber band, a cork, a tube, and a needle. He attached the clamp and the rubber band to my tongue and checked to make sure the target area was far enough forward of the tendon under my tongue. The clamp and rubber band combination sort of numbed my tongue and helped reduce the flow of blood to the area to be pierced. The actual piercing itself didn’t really hurt much more than biting down hard on your tongue.
He then put the jewelry (3/4″ 14g surgical steel) through the hole made by the needle. The stretching hurt a little bit more than the actual piercing. After the jewelry was in he had me rinse again with the Listerine. There was a little bit of blood, but, honestly, I’ve had more during a routine dental visit.
By the way, despite what you may have heard, Listerine is not recommended for cleaning oral piercings as it contains alcohol and can delay healing because it irritates the piercing.
In the not quite two hours since I had it done I’ve talked normally, though ‘h’ and ‘c’ are going to be a bit problematic for a while I think. The top of the tongue, where the barbell rubs the most, has a slight burning sensation and it pulls rather scarily in some instances when I talk, but, so far, so good.
Now I just need to get through my first meal.
More as the adventure continues.
[Read more…] about Adventures in body modification, part 1