A large percentage of the students in my class are either pierced or tattooed, making my classroom representative of our current local culture. My philosophy as a baby boomer is this: We were intentionally outrageous in our youth and we have only ourselves to look to when we see the bar for outrageousness raised ever higher. My husband was a campus radical back in the day, one of those authority-questioning college students who stormed the administration building and took over the premises refusing to relinquish control until their voices were heard. The administration listened, sent in a lunch cart because it was on the news and parents were watching, and then dispatched invitations home not to come back next semester. Husband went on to earn several advanced degrees after completing his undergrad at the College for Expatriate Students for a Democratic Society, aka Weatherman University, or as it is known today, SUNY New Paltz.
My classmates’ body art reminds me of a job I had about seven years ago and a young man I worked with there, let’s call him Kegger. Kegger joined our staff fresh out of college and he was brash and funny and frequently inappropriate. For some reason, we got along right away. One day we were eating lunch at our desks in the office we shared and we began reminiscing about the goofy things we did in college that we had since lived to question, he at the ripe old age of 23. We went punch for punch until he delivered his knockout: One drunken night in college he got his nipple pierced.
This hit a sore spot for me, figuratively and literally, since like many women I had spent my entire lifetime protecting my nipples. I always watched the closing doors, I tried to gauge a room’s temperature before I let them enter, I kept them as uppermost in my mind as they were in my date’s. Now I was listening to this former frat boy from Corona Delta Pizza Pi who had anesthetized himself out of thinking mode and into a pierced nipple. Not wanting to be the overreacting older colleague, I asked calmly, “And how’s that working for you?” “Shitty,” said the Kegger, “the nipple ring gets caught on stuff.” At which point my nipples could have piped up with, “YA THINK?”
In her teen years, Daughter once brought a friend home for dinner and I noticed as she introduced him that his tongue was pierced. I had never seen this up close before. Daughter was obviously amused watching me watch the silver bar prance around the inside of his mouth as he spoke, but again I tried to be worldly. I could still hear my parents wailing at my brother to cut his damn hair back in high school so I was determined to respect self-expression in whatever form it came at me.
In an attempt to make our guest comfortable at dinner but not call attention to his mouth metal, I said to him politely, “We’re having chicken tonight, dear, is that something you can eat?” Daughter shook her head despairingly. “He’s pierced, Mom. Not vegetarian.”
And because good food will never hurt you, here are Daughter’s Featured Fotos of the day
Vienna waits for you
Mother’s Day sushi
americana
plum
Closing Notes: Thank you to the gentleman in Gramercy Park who found Daughter’s phone, took it to Verizon for a charge, and then called me a second time. Phone and owner happily reconnected.
Also, yesterday I republished Before the House Comes Down with one of Daughter’s photos added, and although I neglected to give her credit, it is of course one of hers.
For subscribers: I will on occasion be republishing a previous entry with an added photo or link. So if you receive an article that it feels like you already read, go with the feeling.