These Days I'm Starting To Feel A Little Like Bionic Woman

This is what I got on my stop-over in KL en route back from Perth - the nape piercing I've been meaning to get since forever, but didn't because in the early years this was popular, the lack of knowledge back in those days meant that it was also a piercing that was very prone to rejection, as all surface piercings in very mobile areas are.

The human body is an amazing collection of self-healing mechanisms, and one of them is the ability to push out foreign objects lodged in the flesh, such as splinters, gravel, and more frustratingly for body-mod enthusiasts like me, piercings. This is when migration and rejection occurs (click on this link here for more information and some slightly gross-looking images).

I've mentioned before that I've found the only person I'll trust with this sort of thing, and that is my very awesome piercer, Frankie. Last year, while discussing possible new metal to be put in, he brought up the new advances in jewellery for surface piercings.

In the early days, straight or curved barbells were used, which most certainly always led to rejection. In recent years, surface bars have been used instead, which coupled with skillful piercing helps to reduce the chances of rejection.

This is what a surface bar looks like:

And this is how it's placed underneath the skin:

Image credits: http://wiki.bmezine.com

Even with the more wide-spread usage of the surface bar, I was reluctant to get this piercing, and was looking into doing a pair of micro-dermal implants instead, which are little trans-dermal implants that look like piercing jewellery but are actually anchored underneath the skin with only the jewel portion showing:

A pair of micro-dermals on the nape of a fellow Redditor. I think it looks pretty sexy... =)

This is how micro-dermals actually look like - you can clearly see the base which is to go underneath the skin 
(Image credits: http://www.tattoobodyartstudio.com)

This illustrates ow a micro-dermal's installed under the skin 
(Image credits: http://wiki.bmezine.com)

At RM250 for one (RM500 for a pair), micro-dermals don't come cheap. I was seriously considering going ahead anyway, especially after Miss Dot got a pair (but placed vertically instead of horizontally like I prefer), but while in discussion with Frankie, he mentioned something that he describes as a cross between a surface bar and a microdermal.

I've since found out that it's actually referred to as a flat surface bar, because it's so new that it doesn't really have a proper name for itself yet. Whatever it's called, this form of surface bar has proven to be much less prone to rejection, due to how it's shaped.

It looks like this:

Image credits: http://painfulpleasures.com

Once inserted the skin there's the option of screwing on various sorts of jewels onto the end of it:

Image credits: http://painfulpleasures.com

I've been waiting since last year for this particular new jewellery, and when I popped by his shop yesterday, I was overjoyed to find out he'd finally ordered it. Brought Joe along for moral support and to decide on my new metal, and he got even more excited than me upon seeing the bar, so the decision was pretty much made up five minutes into setting foot in Zoo Body Art.

As this flat bar's something very new, it costs RM280, which is more expensive than usual surface piercings, which aren't more than RM250 usually, but still cheaper than putting in a pair of micro-dermals. In hindsight I should've gotten Joe to take a video or at least a heap of photos of the insertion, as it's not done as a traditional piercing is, where you punch a hole through flesh with the aid of a needle. Instead, two holes were punched where the ends of the bar was to go, and a taper was used to slowly separate the layers of skin, thus creating a pocket. The bar was then slowly and carefully slid into place.

All this took about 10 minutes (or more, I'm not too sure as it felt like it was taking forever) to get it in, because the bar was so small and he didn't want it to break off in me, even though titanium's a pretty strong metal.

The more squeamish among my readers will probably be experiencing the screaming meemies after reading this far, but I'll have to report that the procedure was mildly uncomfortable, but not painful as one would imagine it to be. Felt more like a pressure in my neck the entire time the procedure was under way, much like when you hold a fold of your flesh firmly between fore-finger and thumb, but not strongly enough for it to pinch. Nothing like most of the other piercings I've done, when the pain is sharp and stinging.

Looks like micro-dermal implants, doesn't it? *satisfied smile*

Gooey squidgy bit on upper left is the adhesive for the bandage that Frankie put on after the bar was inserted

Frankie seemed rather pleased with it, and I only found out why after he'd installed it - I'm only the second person to have gotten this particular type of surface bar, and the first to have it in the nape. Thank goodness I only found out about that after it was done, else I might have been a little less confident in getting this one heh heh.

It's only started to get a bit tender and warm today, but that's to be expected from the inflammation stage of wound healing. I must say I'm really very, very chuffed with this one! Aside from my belly piercing, this is the first surface piercing I've done in almost a decade. Finger's crossed that it'll heal up nicely without rejection =)

毛手毛脚

Hi there. Yes, the lack of updates after the last disturbing buggy one means that I'm still here in Perth. I've done quite a fair bit here, including eating through most of the good stuff the city's got to offer, as well as gaining quite a healthy nut-brown complexion, but I'm not going to blog about that, at least not just yet, or never, if I couldn't be arsed.

What I'm going to post up instead, today, is this:

It's a fuzzy hand-shaped flower-head of some native plant here in Perth, planted as an ornamental plant on Curtin University's campus. The flower heads grow in arrangements just like so:

Don't know about you but the first time I saw them, all I could think of were the clawing hands of condemned souls trying to drag hapless individuals into hell to join them.

Either way I had A LOT of fun on my first day here, being an utter pest during the photo-shoot for the skinny's convocation.

Hehehehehe... it's a wonder my sisters haven't run me out of town yet. =P

小强~

Greetings from Perth!

This is a dead Australian cockroach, just outside the door of a room in the rather large beach-house at Ocean Reef that we were staying at.

Apparently posh holiday homes in a non-tropical country also host these tenacious little fellas. This one's the the same as those scary flying ones which terrorise me back in Malaysia - the easily recognisable Periplaneta americana.

This short non-update will have to suffice while I make the most of the remaining week I have with my sisters here. Probably not what you guys were expecting but... what can I say? It's late, I couldn't be arse to do a more comprehensive write-up, and this picture tickles my macabre sense of humour. =)

Observer

Don't go breaking hearts at times best reserved for gentle goodbyes. I'm tired of picking up the pieces in your wake, tired of handing out balm and bandages to that sensitive soul you so repeatedly bruise.

Pod People

My love,

I know you no longer read me here. I do hope, though, that you do, sometimes. Like today.

I just want you to know how much I miss you. I can almost hear your irate, "But you just saw me, silly!" in reply to that statement, but that's not what I mean, and you know it.

It doesn't matter. I won't call you out on the games you are playing, to protect your own fragile heart.

But I do miss you. I miss waking up beside you, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world. I miss it when you hold my hand, and I sigh contentedly inside, somehow knowing that you're the only one that really feels right, and there is no other that I want. I miss the kisses and the sneaky hugs from you.

None of those remain, anymore.

But it's OK, even my broken heart's long healed over. The scars still throb in pain, of course, but that's to be expected from the remnants of half a heart. 

The jaded indifference, however, hurts me more than our flawed affection for each other. I feel the tendrils of empty cynicism tightening their hold inside my rib-cage every day. And more and more, I find that I no longer care enough, or have the words to let you know, that this alien thing inside of me has killed most of my passion.

But today is different. This brief respite from strangled silence has allowed me this post for you. 

I just wanted to say today that I love you. I miss you. Even if you have drifted so far away from me. Even if you are no longer able to reach out for me.

Little Bit of Love On A Sunny Day

This is a testament to the staying power of Stage's lip-liner:

Was bored while waiting for my sister to make her purchases of foundation, concealers and lip-sticks, so I drew this on myself with a tester lip-liner.

Walked around for the rest of the day with this little heart on my hand, much to my sister's dismay ("You're acting all cute! Cute is so not you!"), and a good twelve hours later it's still pretty much intact.

That's all I wanted to post here about because I think I should be off to the airport in an hour to send off a friend. Rubbish update, I know, but I needed a reason to post up a picture I like. :D

Got Pok?

And this was lunch today. It was quite the resounding success, which rather surprised me, considering the fact that Miss Dot (as well as the rest of my family) do not really favour very hearty, meaty meals like this one. Had to reduce the amount of blue cheese used as well, to just a modest little smear on each patty, as my family members are quite averse to that.

Next cooking project will be done during my two-week stay in Perth. I'm very excited at the idea of all the very fresh beef, cheap mushrooms and wide selection of cheeses I'll be able to get my hands on there!