Nape piercings and moshpits don t mix Who d have guessed .

Every so often, I get itchy for a new piercing or tattoo. In March, I was hugely twitchy to try something new; after a lot of thought, I decided I wanted to try a surface piercing. I was unbelievably curious about how they worked, and obviously the best way to find out would be to try it myself. Around my birthday, I figured it would be the perfect time: it celebrated an important anniversary, I was just beginning to make some new changes in my life, and the the piercing had a lot of symbolism for the choices I was making.ﾠ

Ryan had pierced my nose back in January, and was the go-to guy for my various jewelry adjustments as well as my newly-started lobe-stretching. It was pretty obvious where I was going to go to get my nape pierced.ﾠ

I was unbelievably nervous. Never having had a surface piercing before, I expected it to be the worst pain I had ever felt in my entire life. My nervousness was not helped by how long it took to prepare for the piercing. However, I would trust Ryan with surgery, so waiting for him to get everything perfect wasn't a big deal. He had me stand and look at the wall while he tried to line everything up, drawing lines and then dots on my neck and having Zach check them out to make sure they were perfectly positioned. One of my favourite things about Ryan, as a piercist, is his complete perfectionism.ﾠ

He finally got the dots drawn where they were supposed to go and had me lie down so he could poke the needed holes in me. As nervous as I was, I completely forgot to have him show me where the final marks were at, so I had no idea where the piercing was going to end up. By the time this occurred to me, he was already sticking needles in me, so I wasn't about to go, "Hey, wait a minute!"ﾠ

As I've said, I fully expected it to be the most painful thing I had ever done. I will say that it was hugely uncomfortable, mostly because I was incredibly stressed, very tense, and absolutely terrified. However, when he first stuck the needle in my neck -- it hurt, but not unbearably. He talked me through it while he did it, making the second hole, then piercing through to connect them. The last puncture obviously took the longest -- it would get to the point where it was about to become painful, and then he would stop to let me catch my breath before pushing any farther. He pulled away for a minute, then came back. I was ready to him to put the jewelry in, which again I expected to be excruciatingly painful. However, he just said, "Okay, done!"ﾠ

He put the jewelry in without me even noticing. I literally didn't feel it.ﾠ

When he showed it to me in the mirror, it was absolutely perfect. Two flat metal disks right at the base of my neck.ﾠ

Unfortunately, three months later, I only have a faint scar in the shape of two dots in the back of my neck. The piercing did not reject. After two months, I ended up taking it out because it became unbearably irritated. This is mostly my fault. It turns out that getting kicked in the neck repeatedly by crowd-surfers in a moshpit tends to cause unhealed piercings to become incredibly irritated. The various people who would poke at it, both family members and strangers, probably didn't help either. I also got a tattoo high on my back in May, which only caused further irritation.

ﾠAlthough I didn't realize it at the time, the piercing was also pretty much in exactly the wrong spot. Most people would not have had a problem with it; I, however, worked a job which required me to wear an apron. The necktie of that apron rested right over the piercing. Oops.ﾠ

I do plan to redo the piercing when I return to Edmonton. Ryan did an amazing job the first time, and I fully expect the second time to go even better -- especially since I won't be as hugely stressed out as I was the first time, since I know it's not nearly as bad as one would think. I also know that I need it to be slightly lower so as to avoid getting it caught on things. I'd like the new piercing to be slightly under the collar of my t-shirt, so that I can show it off when I want to, but not have people poking at it otherwise. I will avoid moshpits and other places where getting kicked in the neck is likely, and hopefully this time the piercing will last longer than two months. I'm excited about it already.