What I did over the weekend:

Played in the City Museum in St. Louis. Chicago needs something like this. It’s a huge indoor/outdoor play/art/museum/aquarium space that kids and adults can enjoy. Ya, most stuff is geared toward kids but they have nights where the museum is just open to adults. They sell beer! They have slides and tunnels leading to mysterious places! They have some rusty bolts!
I liked playing in the caves

and inside of the giant fish

There were lots of slides and tunnels. This slide was awesome because it was really long and all of the bars are handpainted and spin when you run your hands along them. It almost forces you to go down the slide in the hands above your head “whee!” position.

There were lots of random exhibits and I think what I liked best is that there are little or no descriptions on them. Do you really need the history of an object to enjoy it? Is it a little better to make up the explanation yourself?

Inside of a safe door:

After the museum, we went to the Arch.

You can go inside the arch in a frighteningly small tram car. 5 people get squished into one car and in a few minutes are pulled up to the top where there is an observation deck.

I observed East St. Louis and clouds.

It was a good weekend overall. St. Louis is a much better town than I had previously thought. And I finished my tattoo! Yay!

I came back to no boss at work (she is out for the week) which is nice. I came back to a cat pee smelling kitchen which is not nice. Does anyone want a cat? She doesn’t really smell bad/act bad if you do crazy things like clean her litterbox and pay attention to her. She is indoor only and probably would not be good with small kids.

My workplace is involved in the 50 Million Pound Challenge. We had a kick off event this week and there is an inter-agency contest going on. Whoever loses the most weight in 10 weeks (by percentage, not pounds) wins moneys! My agency isn’t that big and I’m sure everyone won’t participate. I would say there is a 1 in 50 chance of winning. So really I have no excuse not to start working at losing weight. The first weigh in is Monday (so I’m working on finishing my box of Valentine’s truffles this weekend.)

My tattoo is healing nicely and has stopped being itchier than Lindsay Lohan’s crotch. My tattoo is another reason for me to lose weight! I gots to look good to show it off!

Wonderful moment at work this week: Assistant of the Last Minute department comes by asking for FedEx envelopes. I don’t have any, just Express Mail. No, she needs FedEx because these are VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS. Whatever, keep hunting. She finally finds the envelopes (probably in her own office because her department is the only one that uses Fed Ex) and sends off her docs. Next day I find out the very importantness did not reach it’s very important person because the Assistant sent it to the wrong address. Competency. We do not have.

Much more going on than tube mangling!

The boy and I went to the opera this week. We saw Falstaff for cheap with our student ID’s. I read a synopsis of the opera beforehand like the Lyric’s site tells you to do. It helps to know what is going on so you don’t have to stare at the surtitles the entire time. This was my first opera so I was impressed by everything, the costumes, the set, the cast were all beautiful. The last scene was pretty amazing and I was really surprised when people started bailing early. Some people walked out before the scene finished, some jumped up as soon as the curtain went down. Stay and clap, bitches! You just spent 3 hours at an opera and now it’s so important to jump in your car? You wouldn’t have to wait so long for valet if you just parked a couple blocks away in the garage, lazy.

I just got an email confirming that I am going to start on my big back tattoo when the boy and I go out of town. I’ve been emailing back and forth with the artist and he says the Julia set I picked out is do-able but he is booked up for months. He’s going to be super nice and squeeze me in and do the outline now and then I will return for the fill in. He would like to do it in multiple sessions even if he had time now so it works out nicely. This tattoo is really detailed so its going to be big. I’m nervous about having a big piece but I really like this artist, I think he will do a good job.

And the last thing that’s been going on this week-my brief proposal got rejected :( It’s my first proposal so I guess this is a learning experience or something. I’m still upset because I think that the topic was really good,substance abuse treatment for people with developmental disabilities. My boss still wants the next proposal to be about substance abuse but dual diagnosis MI and substance abuse just isn’t as much fun!

On the sidebar of my site is a link to one of my favorite blogs, ModBlog. It’s where I first started to see microdermals and I first saw my now favorite tattoo artist,Trevor Collis on BMEzine(the main site to ModBlog).
I know better than to get into OMG internet drama but recently there’s been some legal/personal fights on BMEzine/ModBlog that have led to Shannon, the owner/operator of the sites, being locked out of the admin side of his sites.
There are other people running the site for now but ModBlog is not being updated, BMEzine galleries aren’t updated and the IAM community was down for days.
I don’t know who is right or wrong in this battle because I don’t know the details of the battle but if you’re going to go through the trouble of taking away admin rights, shouldn’t you at least maintain the community? Keep things updated? It makes the lockout seem very spiteful even if that wasn’t it’s intention.
For now, ModBlog has moved to Body Two so I can still get my fix of topless girls with tattoos and stretched parts.

About microdermals
The site is in French but it’s has good pics of the jewelry and the girl at the bottom has the same piercing I got.

I went to the piercers at The Alley last week and asked about microdermal placement. I think I already wrote about that part, they need to be on a flat surface like sternum. So I came back today with my roommate and Scott B. (there are 2 Scotts) pierced me good!
He was so nice and professional. I don’t have any other piercers to compare him to but he explained the process and was willing to take his time more than my tattoo artists were.
I picked out a small white opal and went over the process and aftercare while Scott sterilized everything. He marked the spot on my chest, I gave him the OK and laid down while he prepared. I remembered my deep abdominal breathing to calm myself (thanks acupuncturist!)

He grabbed the marked area of skin and when I gave the OK, pressed the dermal punch in, pause, twist. That part didn’t hurt very much. My roommate said there was some blood when he twisted. I wish we were allowed to take pics so I could have seen what it looked like. After he removed the punch, he wiped the area and put the base or foot of the jewelry in. That part hurt more and there was an audible pop when the foot pushed through. Then he screwed the opal on and ta-da all done!

So just like with my tattoo, I was being a wussy and almost backed out. And just like my tattoo, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I expected/feared. I have a Tegaderm bandage over it because I went to a party tonight and didn’t want it to get dirty. It’s a little bloody around the edge of the jewelry but I will do as told and leave it alone and let it be ugly for a week or so. Scott said I can change out the opal after it heals which I might do because right now it seems to be sticking out a lot. That may change when it heals.
Pretty pretty, shiny shiny!

My mom screamed at my voicemail this morning and informed me that I was caught by a red light camera and have a ticket waiting for me at my parent’s house. My dad cosigned on the car with me so his name is also on the ticket, which was the reason she was yelling. I run a lot of red lights and was afraid to tell her there may be more tickets coming.

My first day got moved back until Wednesday so I’ve been slacking. It’s kind of nice. I got my hair cut all cute and short. It’s back to where I can scrunch it and make it into messy curly “sex hair” as my friend calls it. I was going to get pierced today but the internet confirmed my suspicion that women feel more pain while they’re ragging so I am putting off piercing until end of the week. I am concerned about the pain of piercing but I was also concerned about the pain of tattooing and that ended up being manageable. I’m hoping this is the same situation. Even if it isn’t, piercing is a brief pain not a half hour of someone dragging a needle across your back.