THIS POST IS LONG.
so many wonderful things have happened since my last post. here are three stories which i will tell in chronological order which is a bit silly since the second & third things overlapped. also this post is long. anyhow.
the day joe & i randomly bought presents for each other!
i had purchased a two dollar PSP game from someone at work, & as i was telling gorthok that there is a present waiting for him, he said he has a present waiting for ME! normally i'm better at surprises, but this time he won on mystery alone. here's how the conversation began:
him: i bought you something.
me: hint me!
him: guess!
me: does it have a wrapper?
him: no. on the contrary, you'll want to throw away what's on the inside. some of it. actually you might do that many times.
me: ?#!?@#?
so i guessed a puppy, since when what's on its inside comes out, you definitely want to throw that away at each event. but of course it wasn't a puppy because who can handle that kind of neediness? then i guessed a honeydew, since i might take a slice & throw away the seeds, & do that again & again. but a honeydew kind of has a wrapper, so that wasn't it. then i guessed rainier cherries, as you throw the pits away repeatedly, but he said no. he asked why i was stuck on it being food, & i said because food surprises are my favorite kind, & then i wondered why he'd consider a puppy to be food.
anyhow, he was being tricky, because he'd brought back some five pounds of utterly delicious bing cherries (during a cherry famine!), so i was totally right on genus but too specific on species, or however biological classification works for fruit.
& in celebration of that, i posted this:
welcome to summer - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5429507.html:
welcome to summer, stretched. :D
anyhow he loved the game too & then i didn't see him for a week but could always trace his whereabouts by the incessent theme music.
the day atrophie came to visit!
i'd been pushing lindsay to visit for a few months, since we've talked pretty much daily for the last several years but haven't hung out, & since we're not internet dating then there's really not so much at stake if we don't get along well in person. which we totally did & i totally knew we would, so whatever. plus her mom works for the airline, so it's a free flight.
so lindsay came to visit on friday & it was awesome, & i threw a party on saturday which is the subject of story three, & on saturday night we stayed up talking until 4am like fucking teenagers & then she napped for an hour & then flew home sunday at dawn. it was so completely awesome that i can't even describe it to you because i don't want my readership to feel badly for being thoroughly unable to comprehend the levels of awesome to which this visit ascended, as mere humans cannot reach so high. so i'll just leave it that she's coming back next month so HAH.
oh right, & this happened too.
WHAT - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5443858.html:
the day i threw a taste tripping party!
i'm kind of overwhelmed by the amount of data i feel i need to get across, which explains all the run-ons, so i'm just going to link to what james said ...& then realize he locks his posts & so i have to detail it out anyhow. okay.
so i've been reading up on miracle fruit (hate you, wiki, & your flying elephants) & it seemed an awesome thing that i, as a straight-edge person, could safely try. in short, a protein in the berry (MIRACULIN, seriously, that's as lame a name for it as UNOBTANIUM, but okay) causes your sour taste buds to sort of numb out, so you only taste the sweet parts of foods. obviously, lemons were rumored to be especially delicious on a tongue that's recently had miracle fruit on it.
in further research, i came across the idea of "taste tripping parties", where people would get together & eat miracle fruit & then taste a bunch of different foods together. i immediately ordered some off thinkgeek, & invited all of my friends. since i was providing the fruit (in tablet form: just the fruit + corn starch), i told each person attending that they need to bring three approved items - approved only so i could make sure that a dozen people didn't all bring lemons.
we ended up with eleven people participating & three more just observing. we chopped everything & poured drink samples into tons of cups & it was fucking awesome. i played host (of course) & passed each bowl or the cups or whatever out so everyone could sample each item together. there was a lot of "HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME" & some "hm that didn't change much" & bunches of "WOW THAT'S JUST WEIRD", & it was definitely decided to do this again.
the final spread is as follows, with my notes on what happened to each item. i can't remember the order in which we tried them, so i've just vaguely alphabetized instead.
balsamic vinegar - went very sweet & like a watery syrup. enjoyable!
candied fennel seeds - no real change.
coffee - tasted like coffee-scented water. it was starbucks though, so it probably didn't change.
dark chocolate, 71% - we think it got a little sweeter. no major change.
dill pickles - DELICIOUS. like bread & butter pickles flavored with dill.
feta - blech, i still hate feta. others said it tasted like mozzarella, but since i like mozzarella, i deny this claim.
garlic - went super sweet like garlic candy! really good.
guinness - turned creamy & chocolatey, not gross like beer.
hot mustard - just turned into burning.
hummus & pita - definitely sweeter, especially the garlic hummus. yummy, but it's normally yummy.
indian bitter melon - don't try this. it's horrible. HORRIBLE. clearly miraculin does not affect bitter taste buds.
kalamata olives - no real change.
kosher hot dogs - we couldn't decide what had happened here, but we all kind of agreed that the "gross factor" had been removed. the nasty hot dog undertone wasn't there. they were okay!
lemon - OMF THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER. like lemon candy. like if lemons were oranges! an experience to repeat as often as possible without taking all the enamel off our teeth.
limes - ALSO WONDEROUS.
lime-heavy salsa - good, but it still brought out too much burning imo.
oranges - like you got an extra good orange, but no major change.
pickled ginger - sweet & really tasty!
pickled plums - absolutely nauseating. i couldn't even fully bite into mine.
pure cranberry juice, non-cocktail - tasted like a well-sweetened cranberry cocktail to the point that people were in denial & had to re-taste it once the miraculin wore off.
red pepper - no real change, just as if it were a very ripe red pepper.
rhubarb - DUDE. rhubarb is astringent & weird normally (we had to try it first since few had tasted rhubarb outside of a pie), but with the berry it became surprisingly good! we definitely want this again.
ruby red grapefruit - delicious to a slightly lower degree than the limes, but quite good.
salt & vinegar chips - like they became maui sweet onion chips. WEIRD.
sour patch kids - actually very unusual! we're accustomed to sour patch kids starting sour & becoming sweet as you chew them. with the berry, the malic acid is dulled & the powdery coating becomes VERY sweet - which means that they become LESS sweet as you chew. so weird.
sourdough bread - became sweet hawaiian bread. also totally strange.
whiskey - just became burning imo. (& for those wondering, i didn't consume enough of this or the guinness to even swallow - it was literally just for a taste in my mouth.)
so that was clearly an incredible party. the berry's effect only lasted thirty mintues on most of us, though longer on one chick - 30-120 minutes is the usual range. next time we plan to include plain yogurt, pineapple, & garlic dill pickles among 347824789279 other things that must be experienced.
storytime is over, so here are the jewelry links since the last post. (but even for those uninterested in jewelry, don't miss the "romantic story" 'cause omg. oh, & that bloody post is fun too.)
dichroooo again - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5432755.html:
a couple of years ago, i sold a fantastic pair of IS silver-blue opal dichro because the double flare made them about an inch long overall & ridiculous to wear. i missed the burgundy tones they threw, though, & started keeping watch for a pair in single flare, which has a much more reasonable wearable. readysteadystop & her wonderous kitten whitewhite found the 3/4" for me not too long ago, but how impossible would it be to find a 4ga single in trans or opal at this late stage in the game?
not all that hard, actually! you just have to know the right people. & the right people in this case was none other than our lovely deadlyrhythm. she had recently acquired a pair of 4ga DF IS silver-blue trans which she intended on sending to bill to turn into SF for her conches. i noted this could potentially ruin them, which is true, & which gave her pause. she paused just long enough for bill to start offering silver-blue himself! deadly was happy to buy a SF pair from him & turn over the coveted IS silver-blue trans to me in exchange for some (okay, a lot of) luciferins credits.
once received, i applied white nailpolish to the back, same as i'd done to create a blue opal match, & the finished result flashes that gorgeous burgundy just as well as the big plugs.
the big guys:
& the match:
it was pretty well impossible to take realistic in-ears, but i do have a special bonus to make up for it... oh hey, there are rainbow dichro jewel pics here!
what?!@ why?#!?
well, because splendidgeek found another pair of rainbow jewels in a local shop, & wouldn't you believe it - that pair was pretty much the match to mine! so now we've made two awesome sets from two originally mismatched sets. here are the updated pics for the pair i'm keeping. you can see the 4ga is now a perfect match to the right ear plug:
the big pair isn't a perfect match to each other, but they're awfully close, & MUCH closer than they used to be. i'm thrilled!
backs:
updated in-ears:
& a neat close-up of my vertical conch refracting:
& this is the other pair we made, which will be up on gt soon. these ARE a perfect match to each other, but i preferred the majority-red pair to the fun-stripey pair.
thanks again, rss & ww & dr, for making my burgundy dichro dreams come true. & also big thanks to ro for the major improvement in one of my favorite pairs. :D
want to hear a romantic story? - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5434977.html:
welp, splat's not going to be too happy with this one. she might even be more upset than when i saved her beautiful 5/8" moss agate by inlaying them.
i had admired these "lapis" plugs (wait for it) since i saw them pop up on BAF's new items page. i had immediately shown disgorge & a bunch of other folks, but no one wanted to buy them for the $145 & change they were marked down to. i went as far as to email leo about carving them down, & he gave me a very reasonable price... but it was still a whole lot of money all considered. they're easily the most exciting blue stone i've seen, but i had decided to pass.
somewhere in there, splat decided to buy them, & told me this about a week before the april sale came up. she was going to hang onto them a while to see if she ever made 1", & then have them carved down to 7/8" if not. between then & the sale start date, they sold to someone else. splat wept bitter tears, especially after she DID make 1", but at least they'd gone to someone who definitely didn't have to carve into them, right?
...not so much.
what no one knew is that gorthok had been looking at them for days. i dropped him a link when they first came up, & i had exclaimed over them. he bookmarked them. & after i decided not to buy, joe began work on a plan to take very rare advantage of being able to buy me jewelry he knew i'd like.
he also knew that i have my custom stone made through leo, & i'd mentioned a while back that we'd already agreed on a price to carve them down. joe emailed leo about the surprise, & sent them off.
BAF's original pic:
& after relic's reworking! they're mildly domed on the front, & VERY difficult to photograph - they're so polished they reflect everywhere, & the soft grays are washed out by the flash OR natural light. i tried my best.
in hand (most accurate):
in sunlight (too bright, but shows the darker areas well):
& a couple with camera flash (too dark due to their shininess):
also the backs, for those who just love stone. they've been made totally flat on the back, since they started out about twice as long; i like shorter wearables as they're much more comfortable against my vertical conches.
so! as foreshadowed by the quote marks in the second paragraph, they're NOT lapis. they're dumortierite. i had identified them about midway through joe's secret surprise from another BAF listing i saw on the new page. it made instant sense since they don't have any pyrite inclusions typical of lapis. & i thought the big shiny silver patch on the front was hematite, but now i think it must be iron or aluminum! amusingly, google says dumortierite is often sold as faux lapis.
as for the match... since i'd recently upgraded one of my oldest matches, sodalite with denim lapis to a proper sodalite match, i had this spare denim lapis hanging around which looked almost exactly perfect. i used acrylic paint to add coppery stripe & a couple darker dots. then i was thinking of using actual aluminum foil for the shiny bits, but the foil was way too bright, so i mixed silver & black nailpolish to the proper shade & dabbed that on.
the match before:
the finished match:
i'm amused that this match makes the set faux lapis (dumortierite) with faux dumortierite (denim lapis)!
& the in-ears. somehow these pics came out more accurately colored than out-of-ears, haha.
i LOVE them. & joe. :D
WAY after the fact, i did the math on the difference between 1/2" lapis & 1/2" dumortierite - lapis is 20% more expensive than dumortierite - & i contacted BAF for joe. seth sweetly refunded the almost thirty dollar difference that same day, & i sent him close pics so he could be recompensed by oracle. :)
so i'm totally surprised, of course, & couldn't be happier. really though, joe's initial reaction should've clued me in that he wanted me to have them... this was pulled from our work server chat logs:
[thok] baby that stone is so fucking unique.
[thok] it's the copper stripe that really does it
[thok] the copper makes it almost look like you're looking into a view over a storm cloud at an angle
[thok] only you're looking into another dimension and the portal has cracks the color of an aged malignant rust
my boyfriend is so awesome. :D
a tale of my tongue, with bloody pics - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5436559.html:
you guys know i'm a fan of refining things when they're not perfect - my lobes with scalpeling, my helix with repunching, some tattoos i've had reworked or touched up, et cetera. this weekend, i performed a minor bodymod that i thought you might be interested in.
i'll admit this post is only vaguely on-topic for stretched, but it does concern my 10ga tongue piercings, so atrophie gave me the go-ahead. plus it has gore, & you like gore very much.
i had my first tongue piercing performed in 11-96, a second added behind that in 7-97, & made a diamond with the third & fourth off-centers in 1999. i stretched each from an initial 14ga to 10ga from '98-'00, & there they've stayed for years. i wear barbells i custom shortened myself, with a flatback disc on the bottom of three of them, a 3/16" ball on the bottom of the rearmost, & 1/4" balls on the tops. the jewelry has changed a bit since i put these two pics on what used to be BME, but the idea's the same.
in 2007, i found an interesting bump growing on the underside of the right piercing. it was not unlike a hypertrophic, but entirely different due to the tissue involved. it was also exacerbating itself - no jewelry change was needed or would change the pressure on it, but it was being banged around by the flat discs & growing because of it. it wasn't even 100% attached to the piercing, just mostly near it. so, after it stuck around a few weeks becoming more & more sore, i decided to cut it off.
a fresh scalpel & proper preparation, it was pretty easy to slice off once i got a hold of the thing with forceps. i had the foresight to get a couple pictures of the process, too. here's before & after:
& a blurry pic of the removed bit, which joe ate:
it healed almost immediately & there was no further issue with it. an excellent decision.
almost exactly three years later, i discovered it grew back in pretty much the same spot. i didn't delay so long this time, & i had another perfect result. here are pics. note that the bump on the back piercing (which you can see in the above pics too) is actually an odd adaptation - it folds over the ball when my tongue is at rest & protects my frenulum from it. it's been that way since the first year. quite strange, totally comfortable.
before:
the slightly scary freshly done:
a few minutes later after a rinse, & the next morning:
it again healed beautifully & my tongue is back to fully happy. still no clue what it is, but it's gone now!
obligatory: of course i wouldn't recommend anyone undereducated go hacking at their body with anything sharp. i just thought you might enjoy the story of how i did so successfully. :)
2ga fractal creations interlace captives. no, seriously. - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5439905.html:
i'm not sure why towhatmaycome decided to sell these, but i sure am glad she sold them to me.
when we first met, gorthok had said that stretched lobes look odd to him with round jewelry - his experience had been more with folks who wore weights. always interested in finding the centerline between our interests, i had tried on some things nude-lobed, including some old custom steel 10ga sproket rings i still have, & my spinal captives. nothing i have weighed much of anything, though, & wouldn't work.
recently, kwaniesiam contacted me about buying her 8ga interlaces. they wouldn't suit my needs, but i mentioned i'm looking for a set in 2ga. crazily enough, she was almost able to swap hers for a 2ga pair, which would've then come to me... but the 2ga person bailed on the swap. still, that meant there was a pair out there that someone was willing to sell or trade for the right price.
when i found out the mystery non-trader was twmc, i contacted her directly. not surprisingly, she had already promised them to someone else. oh well; i had figured it'd be years before i acquired a pair, if ever. never hold your breath on fractals.
in the meantime, i posted my welcome-to-summer picture, which made me think more seriously about going weighted-nude-lobed. i didn't find anything else i really thought would look better nude than through an eyelet (except, obviously, cherries), so i kept abreast of twmc's deal... & it fell through! after deliberating a bit, she accepted my offer & they arrived a few days later - today.
i present to you my newest delight: 2ga titanium fractal creations interlace captives.
flip:
& in their open state:
the interlaces weigh in at about ten grams each - just enough to pull without stretching. imo, they're the perfect weight & thickness to wear nude.
i also found they'll fit through my paul's plugs custom ebony pretty nicely:
so the fear, of course, is that they'll fall apart in-ear. i couldn't stand if i lost the bottom of one on the bus, or down a sewer grate, or anywhere else irreplaceable jewelry goes to its grave. so i took a couple strands of black thread & engaged them at the back. you can see the thread if you look closely:
& now, should they come apart, they'd likely remain in-ear to be pressed back together:
i feel much more assured of wearing them out now.
& for those keeping track, i still have a single 4ga interlace captive... which means ridiculous true match pics!
!@#!$!@#:
but i honestly think they look better with just an eyelet in my upper lobe. :)
my most sincere thanks, appreciation, & all accolades to towhatmaycome for being so truly & wonderfully awesome as to let me have these. :)
honeyfish - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5444523.html:
i was going to wait for BAF to stock them so i could get a swirly-legged, non-penisy pair of jellyfish, but having an empty, reserved hole in my glass drawer got to me AGES before BAF would be able to keep 3/4" in stock long enough to photograph & let me pick. & i think most of you have seen my love for the jellyfish, jpeg starring gorthok. i bought my pair straight from GWS.
i think these are the first larger gauge jellyfish we've seen, & i adoooooore them.
their bells are iridescent like my well-loved skull plugs, & the fuming makes them glow & almost appear to be moving underwater. brilliant work by GWS, seriously. here they are from the side:
i was going to make the match a typical tiny version of the big plug, but tiny jellyfish don't look the same as the big ones. so i decided to veer off the usual, such as i did with my lizard plugs. i thought about painting a larval jellyfish, but they don't look like much. i considered painting the 4ga as a bit of algae or other plant life, but i finally settled on The Super Cute Thing i didn't do with the lizards - painting the match as a bit of jellyfish food. from this site comes a little zooplankton:
& the painted version, ready to be stung & consumed. i made him a bit paler than in the jpeg so he wouldn't outright clash with the jellyfish.
in-ears, little zooplankton swimming away:
i'm SO happy with them.
also, ryan found me these...
i've been looking for a pair of GWS 3/4" honeycomb image plugs for some time, a desire which was refreshed whenever disgorge would flaunt her sexy 1" pair... but ryan wouldn't let me commission a pair since they're only made up to 5/8" nowadays.
OR SO HE SAID! after ordering the jellyfish, he found a 3/4" pair in his one-off stock & offered them to me directly. well of COURSE you can have more money, sir! he shipped both pairs together & this post doubled in content.
it's a straight painted match on this one, what i call an "estimated" match - i mixed paint of the right shade, then tapped it onto the plug. once dried, i scratched it off into a hexagon & made some of the "cells" in the paint larger. this worked just as well as taking six hours to actually scratch out the proper cells, & i think it mimics the big plugs more than decently.
with the big plugs:
& the in-ears:
enjoy!
amusing fractal love - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5446645.html:
i found this little guy last week with atrophie. consider this part two in a three part series. (part one is, of course, here.)
it's a 00ga fractal creations captive eyelet, & apparently it'll squeeze into my 0ga helix. so i thought i'd snap some pics so you can all see how ridiculous this is. :D
it'll also barely fit this way, which is pretty cumbersome. :)
& a walk-around of the piece by itself. left, front, right, back.
i can be convinced to sell it, but for now it has a home in my jewelry box.
& some hair pics from july.
OKAY SHEESH i think that's enough information, y/y
the day joe & i randomly bought presents for each other!
i had purchased a two dollar PSP game from someone at work, & as i was telling gorthok that there is a present waiting for him, he said he has a present waiting for ME! normally i'm better at surprises, but this time he won on mystery alone. here's how the conversation began:
him: i bought you something.
me: hint me!
him: guess!
me: does it have a wrapper?
him: no. on the contrary, you'll want to throw away what's on the inside. some of it. actually you might do that many times.
me: ?#!?@#?
so i guessed a puppy, since when what's on its inside comes out, you definitely want to throw that away at each event. but of course it wasn't a puppy because who can handle that kind of neediness? then i guessed a honeydew, since i might take a slice & throw away the seeds, & do that again & again. but a honeydew kind of has a wrapper, so that wasn't it. then i guessed rainier cherries, as you throw the pits away repeatedly, but he said no. he asked why i was stuck on it being food, & i said because food surprises are my favorite kind, & then i wondered why he'd consider a puppy to be food.
anyhow, he was being tricky, because he'd brought back some five pounds of utterly delicious bing cherries (during a cherry famine!), so i was totally right on genus but too specific on species, or however biological classification works for fruit.
& in celebration of that, i posted this:
welcome to summer - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5429507.html:
welcome to summer, stretched. :D
anyhow he loved the game too & then i didn't see him for a week but could always trace his whereabouts by the incessent theme music.
the day atrophie came to visit!
i'd been pushing lindsay to visit for a few months, since we've talked pretty much daily for the last several years but haven't hung out, & since we're not internet dating then there's really not so much at stake if we don't get along well in person. which we totally did & i totally knew we would, so whatever. plus her mom works for the airline, so it's a free flight.
so lindsay came to visit on friday & it was awesome, & i threw a party on saturday which is the subject of story three, & on saturday night we stayed up talking until 4am like fucking teenagers & then she napped for an hour & then flew home sunday at dawn. it was so completely awesome that i can't even describe it to you because i don't want my readership to feel badly for being thoroughly unable to comprehend the levels of awesome to which this visit ascended, as mere humans cannot reach so high. so i'll just leave it that she's coming back next month so HAH.
oh right, & this happened too.
WHAT - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5443858.html:
the day i threw a taste tripping party!
i'm kind of overwhelmed by the amount of data i feel i need to get across, which explains all the run-ons, so i'm just going to link to what james said ...& then realize he locks his posts & so i have to detail it out anyhow. okay.
so i've been reading up on miracle fruit (hate you, wiki, & your flying elephants) & it seemed an awesome thing that i, as a straight-edge person, could safely try. in short, a protein in the berry (MIRACULIN, seriously, that's as lame a name for it as UNOBTANIUM, but okay) causes your sour taste buds to sort of numb out, so you only taste the sweet parts of foods. obviously, lemons were rumored to be especially delicious on a tongue that's recently had miracle fruit on it.
in further research, i came across the idea of "taste tripping parties", where people would get together & eat miracle fruit & then taste a bunch of different foods together. i immediately ordered some off thinkgeek, & invited all of my friends. since i was providing the fruit (in tablet form: just the fruit + corn starch), i told each person attending that they need to bring three approved items - approved only so i could make sure that a dozen people didn't all bring lemons.
we ended up with eleven people participating & three more just observing. we chopped everything & poured drink samples into tons of cups & it was fucking awesome. i played host (of course) & passed each bowl or the cups or whatever out so everyone could sample each item together. there was a lot of "HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME" & some "hm that didn't change much" & bunches of "WOW THAT'S JUST WEIRD", & it was definitely decided to do this again.
the final spread is as follows, with my notes on what happened to each item. i can't remember the order in which we tried them, so i've just vaguely alphabetized instead.
so that was clearly an incredible party. the berry's effect only lasted thirty mintues on most of us, though longer on one chick - 30-120 minutes is the usual range. next time we plan to include plain yogurt, pineapple, & garlic dill pickles among 347824789279 other things that must be experienced.
storytime is over, so here are the jewelry links since the last post. (but even for those uninterested in jewelry, don't miss the "romantic story" 'cause omg. oh, & that bloody post is fun too.)
dichroooo again - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5432755.html:
a couple of years ago, i sold a fantastic pair of IS silver-blue opal dichro because the double flare made them about an inch long overall & ridiculous to wear. i missed the burgundy tones they threw, though, & started keeping watch for a pair in single flare, which has a much more reasonable wearable. readysteadystop & her wonderous kitten whitewhite found the 3/4" for me not too long ago, but how impossible would it be to find a 4ga single in trans or opal at this late stage in the game?
not all that hard, actually! you just have to know the right people. & the right people in this case was none other than our lovely deadlyrhythm. she had recently acquired a pair of 4ga DF IS silver-blue trans which she intended on sending to bill to turn into SF for her conches. i noted this could potentially ruin them, which is true, & which gave her pause. she paused just long enough for bill to start offering silver-blue himself! deadly was happy to buy a SF pair from him & turn over the coveted IS silver-blue trans to me in exchange for some (okay, a lot of) luciferins credits.
once received, i applied white nailpolish to the back, same as i'd done to create a blue opal match, & the finished result flashes that gorgeous burgundy just as well as the big plugs.
the big guys:
& the match:
it was pretty well impossible to take realistic in-ears, but i do have a special bonus to make up for it... oh hey, there are rainbow dichro jewel pics here!
what?!@ why?#!?
well, because splendidgeek found another pair of rainbow jewels in a local shop, & wouldn't you believe it - that pair was pretty much the match to mine! so now we've made two awesome sets from two originally mismatched sets. here are the updated pics for the pair i'm keeping. you can see the 4ga is now a perfect match to the right ear plug:
the big pair isn't a perfect match to each other, but they're awfully close, & MUCH closer than they used to be. i'm thrilled!
backs:
updated in-ears:
& a neat close-up of my vertical conch refracting:
& this is the other pair we made, which will be up on gt soon. these ARE a perfect match to each other, but i preferred the majority-red pair to the fun-stripey pair.
thanks again, rss & ww & dr, for making my burgundy dichro dreams come true. & also big thanks to ro for the major improvement in one of my favorite pairs. :D
want to hear a romantic story? - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5434977.html:
welp, splat's not going to be too happy with this one. she might even be more upset than when i saved her beautiful 5/8" moss agate by inlaying them.
i had admired these "lapis" plugs (wait for it) since i saw them pop up on BAF's new items page. i had immediately shown disgorge & a bunch of other folks, but no one wanted to buy them for the $145 & change they were marked down to. i went as far as to email leo about carving them down, & he gave me a very reasonable price... but it was still a whole lot of money all considered. they're easily the most exciting blue stone i've seen, but i had decided to pass.
somewhere in there, splat decided to buy them, & told me this about a week before the april sale came up. she was going to hang onto them a while to see if she ever made 1", & then have them carved down to 7/8" if not. between then & the sale start date, they sold to someone else. splat wept bitter tears, especially after she DID make 1", but at least they'd gone to someone who definitely didn't have to carve into them, right?
...not so much.
what no one knew is that gorthok had been looking at them for days. i dropped him a link when they first came up, & i had exclaimed over them. he bookmarked them. & after i decided not to buy, joe began work on a plan to take very rare advantage of being able to buy me jewelry he knew i'd like.
he also knew that i have my custom stone made through leo, & i'd mentioned a while back that we'd already agreed on a price to carve them down. joe emailed leo about the surprise, & sent them off.
BAF's original pic:
& after relic's reworking! they're mildly domed on the front, & VERY difficult to photograph - they're so polished they reflect everywhere, & the soft grays are washed out by the flash OR natural light. i tried my best.
in hand (most accurate):
in sunlight (too bright, but shows the darker areas well):
& a couple with camera flash (too dark due to their shininess):
also the backs, for those who just love stone. they've been made totally flat on the back, since they started out about twice as long; i like shorter wearables as they're much more comfortable against my vertical conches.
so! as foreshadowed by the quote marks in the second paragraph, they're NOT lapis. they're dumortierite. i had identified them about midway through joe's secret surprise from another BAF listing i saw on the new page. it made instant sense since they don't have any pyrite inclusions typical of lapis. & i thought the big shiny silver patch on the front was hematite, but now i think it must be iron or aluminum! amusingly, google says dumortierite is often sold as faux lapis.
as for the match... since i'd recently upgraded one of my oldest matches, sodalite with denim lapis to a proper sodalite match, i had this spare denim lapis hanging around which looked almost exactly perfect. i used acrylic paint to add coppery stripe & a couple darker dots. then i was thinking of using actual aluminum foil for the shiny bits, but the foil was way too bright, so i mixed silver & black nailpolish to the proper shade & dabbed that on.
the match before:
the finished match:
i'm amused that this match makes the set faux lapis (dumortierite) with faux dumortierite (denim lapis)!
& the in-ears. somehow these pics came out more accurately colored than out-of-ears, haha.
i LOVE them. & joe. :D
WAY after the fact, i did the math on the difference between 1/2" lapis & 1/2" dumortierite - lapis is 20% more expensive than dumortierite - & i contacted BAF for joe. seth sweetly refunded the almost thirty dollar difference that same day, & i sent him close pics so he could be recompensed by oracle. :)
so i'm totally surprised, of course, & couldn't be happier. really though, joe's initial reaction should've clued me in that he wanted me to have them... this was pulled from our work server chat logs:
[thok] baby that stone is so fucking unique.
[thok] it's the copper stripe that really does it
[thok] the copper makes it almost look like you're looking into a view over a storm cloud at an angle
[thok] only you're looking into another dimension and the portal has cracks the color of an aged malignant rust
my boyfriend is so awesome. :D
a tale of my tongue, with bloody pics - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5436559.html:
you guys know i'm a fan of refining things when they're not perfect - my lobes with scalpeling, my helix with repunching, some tattoos i've had reworked or touched up, et cetera. this weekend, i performed a minor bodymod that i thought you might be interested in.
i'll admit this post is only vaguely on-topic for stretched, but it does concern my 10ga tongue piercings, so atrophie gave me the go-ahead. plus it has gore, & you like gore very much.
i had my first tongue piercing performed in 11-96, a second added behind that in 7-97, & made a diamond with the third & fourth off-centers in 1999. i stretched each from an initial 14ga to 10ga from '98-'00, & there they've stayed for years. i wear barbells i custom shortened myself, with a flatback disc on the bottom of three of them, a 3/16" ball on the bottom of the rearmost, & 1/4" balls on the tops. the jewelry has changed a bit since i put these two pics on what used to be BME, but the idea's the same.
in 2007, i found an interesting bump growing on the underside of the right piercing. it was not unlike a hypertrophic, but entirely different due to the tissue involved. it was also exacerbating itself - no jewelry change was needed or would change the pressure on it, but it was being banged around by the flat discs & growing because of it. it wasn't even 100% attached to the piercing, just mostly near it. so, after it stuck around a few weeks becoming more & more sore, i decided to cut it off.
a fresh scalpel & proper preparation, it was pretty easy to slice off once i got a hold of the thing with forceps. i had the foresight to get a couple pictures of the process, too. here's before & after:
& a blurry pic of the removed bit, which joe ate:
it healed almost immediately & there was no further issue with it. an excellent decision.
almost exactly three years later, i discovered it grew back in pretty much the same spot. i didn't delay so long this time, & i had another perfect result. here are pics. note that the bump on the back piercing (which you can see in the above pics too) is actually an odd adaptation - it folds over the ball when my tongue is at rest & protects my frenulum from it. it's been that way since the first year. quite strange, totally comfortable.
before:
the slightly scary freshly done:
a few minutes later after a rinse, & the next morning:
it again healed beautifully & my tongue is back to fully happy. still no clue what it is, but it's gone now!
obligatory: of course i wouldn't recommend anyone undereducated go hacking at their body with anything sharp. i just thought you might enjoy the story of how i did so successfully. :)
2ga fractal creations interlace captives. no, seriously. - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5439905.html:
i'm not sure why towhatmaycome decided to sell these, but i sure am glad she sold them to me.
when we first met, gorthok had said that stretched lobes look odd to him with round jewelry - his experience had been more with folks who wore weights. always interested in finding the centerline between our interests, i had tried on some things nude-lobed, including some old custom steel 10ga sproket rings i still have, & my spinal captives. nothing i have weighed much of anything, though, & wouldn't work.
recently, kwaniesiam contacted me about buying her 8ga interlaces. they wouldn't suit my needs, but i mentioned i'm looking for a set in 2ga. crazily enough, she was almost able to swap hers for a 2ga pair, which would've then come to me... but the 2ga person bailed on the swap. still, that meant there was a pair out there that someone was willing to sell or trade for the right price.
when i found out the mystery non-trader was twmc, i contacted her directly. not surprisingly, she had already promised them to someone else. oh well; i had figured it'd be years before i acquired a pair, if ever. never hold your breath on fractals.
in the meantime, i posted my welcome-to-summer picture, which made me think more seriously about going weighted-nude-lobed. i didn't find anything else i really thought would look better nude than through an eyelet (except, obviously, cherries), so i kept abreast of twmc's deal... & it fell through! after deliberating a bit, she accepted my offer & they arrived a few days later - today.
i present to you my newest delight: 2ga titanium fractal creations interlace captives.
flip:
& in their open state:
the interlaces weigh in at about ten grams each - just enough to pull without stretching. imo, they're the perfect weight & thickness to wear nude.
i also found they'll fit through my paul's plugs custom ebony pretty nicely:
so the fear, of course, is that they'll fall apart in-ear. i couldn't stand if i lost the bottom of one on the bus, or down a sewer grate, or anywhere else irreplaceable jewelry goes to its grave. so i took a couple strands of black thread & engaged them at the back. you can see the thread if you look closely:
& now, should they come apart, they'd likely remain in-ear to be pressed back together:
i feel much more assured of wearing them out now.
& for those keeping track, i still have a single 4ga interlace captive... which means ridiculous true match pics!
!@#!$!@#:
but i honestly think they look better with just an eyelet in my upper lobe. :)
my most sincere thanks, appreciation, & all accolades to towhatmaycome for being so truly & wonderfully awesome as to let me have these. :)
honeyfish - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5444523.html:
i was going to wait for BAF to stock them so i could get a swirly-legged, non-penisy pair of jellyfish, but having an empty, reserved hole in my glass drawer got to me AGES before BAF would be able to keep 3/4" in stock long enough to photograph & let me pick. & i think most of you have seen my love for the jellyfish, jpeg starring gorthok. i bought my pair straight from GWS.
i think these are the first larger gauge jellyfish we've seen, & i adoooooore them.
their bells are iridescent like my well-loved skull plugs, & the fuming makes them glow & almost appear to be moving underwater. brilliant work by GWS, seriously. here they are from the side:
i was going to make the match a typical tiny version of the big plug, but tiny jellyfish don't look the same as the big ones. so i decided to veer off the usual, such as i did with my lizard plugs. i thought about painting a larval jellyfish, but they don't look like much. i considered painting the 4ga as a bit of algae or other plant life, but i finally settled on The Super Cute Thing i didn't do with the lizards - painting the match as a bit of jellyfish food. from this site comes a little zooplankton:
& the painted version, ready to be stung & consumed. i made him a bit paler than in the jpeg so he wouldn't outright clash with the jellyfish.
in-ears, little zooplankton swimming away:
i'm SO happy with them.
also, ryan found me these...
i've been looking for a pair of GWS 3/4" honeycomb image plugs for some time, a desire which was refreshed whenever disgorge would flaunt her sexy 1" pair... but ryan wouldn't let me commission a pair since they're only made up to 5/8" nowadays.
OR SO HE SAID! after ordering the jellyfish, he found a 3/4" pair in his one-off stock & offered them to me directly. well of COURSE you can have more money, sir! he shipped both pairs together & this post doubled in content.
it's a straight painted match on this one, what i call an "estimated" match - i mixed paint of the right shade, then tapped it onto the plug. once dried, i scratched it off into a hexagon & made some of the "cells" in the paint larger. this worked just as well as taking six hours to actually scratch out the proper cells, & i think it mimics the big plugs more than decently.
with the big plugs:
& the in-ears:
enjoy!
amusing fractal love - http://community.livejournal.com/stretched/5446645.html:
i found this little guy last week with atrophie. consider this part two in a three part series. (part one is, of course, here.)
it's a 00ga fractal creations captive eyelet, & apparently it'll squeeze into my 0ga helix. so i thought i'd snap some pics so you can all see how ridiculous this is. :D
it'll also barely fit this way, which is pretty cumbersome. :)
& a walk-around of the piece by itself. left, front, right, back.
i can be convinced to sell it, but for now it has a home in my jewelry box.
& some hair pics from july.
OKAY SHEESH i think that's enough information, y/y