intimate friends

In New Orleans, I once duct-taped my breasts together.

Rather, a very close girlfriend did the taping. I merely stood there with my arms up. And duct tape can do anything, right?

This has nothing to do with the coincidence that I happened to live in N'awlins at the time of this formal military dinner dance I was attending. It had everything to do with the fact that, in the spaghetti-strapped sparkly gray dress I had donned for the evening, I wanted to have cleavage. Or something that could possibly resemble more endowment than that I had been naturally or genetically given.

I have had two children and, both times had close friends in attendance. Girl friends. The kind who you can trust at the time you are in the most pain your have ever experienced in your life and denying yourself pain medication to give you all the support that only a Community of Women can provide its members. The ones who can see you naked and giving birth and be a part of and appreciate that miracle. But that is different.

Yesterday my new piko ring arrived...finally. It had been over two months since getting my piko pierced, something I find incredibly sexy, and I ordered myself something very nice and classy. After all, if I have a hole through my abdomen, I want something nice going through it.

Getting it in, however, was no small task. She-ra, in compliance of her position as Enabler Extraordinnaire, not only stood with me as I got the nail pushed through my belly button in April, she was here in the morning to await the arrival of The Piko Ring.

With her camera.

As it is a top-down design, I was hoping to thread it through by attaching the piercing to the top of the bar with which I was initially pierced. That did not work. She-ra then suggested following the tecnique demonstrated during the piercing, when my skin was pinched tight so that there would be lesser distance for the piercing to travel to get through the other side. So here is She-ra, trying to pinch-grasp my belly skin and hold the ring steady so I could try to connect the new one to the old one and "pull" it through the track.

Yeah. Great theory, did not work.

So, with She-ra watching I somehow just took a deep breath and pushed the silver bar out with my new golden diamonds. She-ra stood facing me and exclaimed, "I see it!" as the gold pushed through to the other side.

My hands were shaking so hard that I could hardly get the ball screwed on the bottom, but I did and my new piko ring is now in place!



Sure could have used a shot of something after that.

Meanwhile, She-ra has now been elevated in stature as One with Intimate Knowledge of My Body. No, true, she did not duct-tape any of my body parts together. But she not only was my accomplice in getting the nail through my gut, she was my cheerleader in the daunting task of changing the piercing for the first time.

No more piercings for me. Ears thrice, piko. That's it. I think I'm getting too old for this.

(shudder)

Tequila, anyone?