At A Glance
Author	Jana
Contact	Jana@bme.anon
When	Three months ago
Artist	Parker
Studio	MT Tattoo
Location	Pacifica CA

My navel project began in the summer of 2005. To understand my most recent two piercings I must explain the how it started.

I wanted my bellybutton pierced. What teenage girl doesn't? I lived around the corner from a tattoo shop, and I was in middle school so no other girls had one yet!

I researched navel piercing, here, at BME. And after much convincing my mom agreed. I don't remember when I got the first one, I'm thinking October 2005. I got it done at Mom's on Haight Street in San Francisco, by Vaughn. He did it freehand(no clamps), I held my mother's hand, she nearly passed out when he did it, but it came out perfect! And I did end up being the first in my grade to get it done that year.

A few months later I was inspired to get a horizontal surface piercing underneath my bellybutton. This combined with the standard top piercing would create a triangle. I have this weird thing about the number three. I believe three to be the perfect number. It has a beginning, middle, and end. My favorite number is nine, its square root is three! So a triangle was what I wanted.

So come September my mom was ready. Again I went to Mom's on Haight St. This time a man named Jesse was my piercer. He explained that a surface piercing had a very high chance of being rejected by my body, even if I took good care of it. I went ahead with it. Holding my best friends hand (my mom did not want to watch) he pierced me. My best friend thought watching it done was the coolest thing ever, but it hurt me a lot more than the first one.

It looked hot as hell. And by now other girls had theirs done and were amazed that I had mine more than once. Not that everyone liked it, I mean I got people staring at it in the locker room like it was about to eat them. But I liked it. My friends liked it. And it was a good story/ice-breaker.

But alas it didn't want to heal. At first I had to change to a longer barbell, that helped for a while, but by November half the piercing was healed and the other side was red and the skin was almost transparent over the barbell. I took it out and decided to let it heal closed.

I longed for my triangle back though. I had just started high school where every girl and her sister had a navel piercing. I missed being a little different. I mean I now had this brilliant purple scar under my bellybutton. Not just two dots, but a line and a dot, as I said one side of the piercing rejected more than the other.

I decided I wanted to get it re-done. But this time I was going to get two standard navel piercings on the bottom part of my bellybutton. I would have the triangle again.

From the time I took the barbell out (late November) to March I was constantly checking in with the tattoo shop up the street. Always asking them if it looked healed enough to pierce. Eventually I decided I knew my body well enough that I knew it was as healed as it was going to get.

So about two weeks after my birthday, now the end of March 2006, I planned to get it done. This time I decided to go to the tattoo shop by my house, I knew them there (I had become friends with the owner and the piercer), and knew it was clean. My mom came with me to pay and my boyfriend came to hold my hand.

After paying my mom left me to be pierced. Parker [the piercer] and Josh [my then boyfriend] helped me to pick out jewelry. I choose to barbells that had large crystals set in the bottom part of the barbell. They weren't my first choice, but they were the only decorated ones long enough. I decided I'd change them later.

So Parker got everything ready. Finding the right place to mark the skin was hard though. We marked at the ends of the first horizontal piercing, but it took a few trys to make it symmetrical. One piece of advice I have is to always make sure its marked where you like it, I'm glad I was comfortable enough with Parker to tell him that it just didn't look right. After we got it right, and all three of us agreed it looked right, I got in one of those dandy chairs that all the shops have, and he put the clamps on. This was a new experience for me. The previous two piercers didn't use clamps. I found out then that the clamps do hurt almost as much as the piercings. I knew that the clamps alone hurt more then the first piercings I had got done freehand.

So I held my boyfriends hand took deep breaths, and closed my eyes waiting for the first one to come.

Now I've never had to pierce through scar tissue. But it hurts. It hurts really, really bad. I have a high pain tolerance, and needles don't bother/scare me, but this was a surprise. Maybe it's the fact that the skin is thicker, so it takes longer. All I know is it hurt.

Without even waiting a minute Parker was piercing the other one. I know this sounds kind of bad, not waiting or checking if I was okay, but I feel like if I had stopped then I wouldn't have wanted to do the other side that day, I think Parker knew this too.

The second one hurt even more. This was the side that had rejected more, so much more scar tissue had formed. This one hurt more because it took two shoves with the needle to get it all the way through. It also bled a little which doesn't normally happen with my piercings.

Soon enough though I was done and I wanted to look in a mirror. So I got up and looked. I was a bit light headed but I liked it. It was a triangle, just want I had wanted in the beginning.

Parker also liked it and decided to take a picture. Unfortunately while he was getting the camera I started to feel like I was going to pass out. My boyfriend helped me stay up, because, I too, wanted to take a picture. After taking the picture I had to sit down very quickly.

A little while later I felt better and with Josh's help to get up I felt ready to walk home.

Now, almost three months later both piercings are healing nicely. I have changed to smaller barbells with smaller balls, and cleaned/taken care of them the same way I did for my other piercings: cleaning with soap it the shower(I've been using antibacterial, but natural works just as well), sometimes a saltwater soak, and just in general being careful with them/not touching them too much, especially when they were fresh.

I do still have the scar. It looks like it connects the two new piercings. I actually kind of like it. The way I look at it: every scar tells a story.