another pound of flesh (okay, more like a few grams of flesh)
i went to see ryan ouellette again. enjoy some extended bullet points.
gory photos ahead; be warned.
preface
- this trip was taken in order to spitefully use a courtesy code given to me by alaska, earned when i went to see phil for his birthday last february & they delayed my return flight for no particular reason. so while i wanted another small piece by ryan, i didn't want it enough to drive three hours to vancouver WA when he was doing a seminar nearby... but apparently i wanted it enough to spend two full days traveling to new hampshire again. X)
- seattle has been getting blizzarded. we get snow maybe a couple days a year - a main reason why i moved here is the weather: the lack of snow, lack of bitter cold, & nearly constant overcast sky (fuck the sun) - but this was the second worst storm in twenty years or so, beaten only by the OTHER time we got blizzarded that left me housebound for three weeks in december 2008. so there were some ...concerns... about flying in the midst of this. & i'd already been working from home for a solid week before this trip.
sunday, february 10
- ...but fuck it, let's go! my flight wasn't until 7am, but it had been snowing most of the day, & i couldn't be sure it wouldn't continue into the night. if it did keep up, i couldn't count on lyft/uber running, i wouldn't want to drive myself (dangerous AND pay $80 for parking, ugh), & the light rail doesn't run between 1am & 5am. so i decided to get there while i could safely do so, as a night of discomfort beats missing the trip for want of a ride to the airport.
- since none of the buses were running near me, i had to hoof it in the snow, but i'm not too far from a light rail stop. i hopped on the penultimate train just after midnight & arrived at seatac without issue.
- it took longer for me to get everything metallic on the belt at security than to actually get through security.
- i found an empty padded bench on the way to my gate, in an area with many similar benches with folks sleeping on them, & plentiful guards. this seemed like the place to nap, & i did.
- my alarm went off shortly before boarding, & everything was pretty smooth to BOS.
- at boston airport (which they call massport, which i find gross?), i picked up my rental car. wary of the snow, i'd reserved an SUV, but the irony was that new hampshire had no snow. so i left a normally-never-snowy place that was covered in snow to go to a normally-very-snowy place that had none? hey, works for me!
- i drove a half hour to my hotel in methuen, MA, & checked in to find my room had the exact same microwave i accidentally blew up last year. (sweet nostalgia - i tried so hard to replace it with the same model, but they're just not available anymore. don't think i didn't consider stealing this one. X) )
- i checked in with ryan, & we set a time to meet up in the morning.
monday, february 11
- the breakfast at the hotel wasn't great, but they had the best damned orange juice. i drank several cups while checking my work email - more snow had been dumped the previous night, & all my employees were once again working from home. i had packed some extra socks & panties in case i was stuck on the east coast longer than expected, but i wasn't actively concerned - i could afford an extra day or two of PTO if needed. i was just glad i made it there; the return could be delayed.
- i met ryan at PBA at 10am. we discussed how my right hand had healed (wonderfully overall, but some of the serifs and details had been lost or distored), as this piece was going in the same location on the left. we then used that information to decide which of my five options had the best chance of healing as desired. we agreed on the last one in this image, the bold sans-serif:
- ryan stencilled me up, & the procedure was just the same as my other hand (linked above), so i'm not going into detail. it took about an hour & a half & looks significantly more painful than it was. please enjoy these horrible procedural photos:
- & finished. note the dark spot in the vertical bar - that's a vein that ryan exposed but didn't rupture (extremely impressive).
so, do you know what that symbol is? it's a letter in several alphabets, & Þ is called a thorn. a thorn. & i put it on my hand. do you see? do you see the pain i'm causing you?
i have a thorn in my paw. :)
i flew across the country & paid actual money to gain a tangible pun on my hand. it may make people want to punch me with their own hands. additionally, since the design is mirrored across the horizontal plane, i can leave a correctly-facing imprint on clay or with a stamp pad. my new small piece of at-the-ready ridiculousness was worth every moment of travel & pain. XD
- after, ryan expertly bandaged me up (very grateful for his forethought in immobilizing my wrist), & i took him to lunch at a new thai place, where we made the adorable middle-aged white-dude owner who waited on us nearly unable to breathe from laughing at our stupid jokes. the food was quite good, & the company was better. after, we hung out at ryan's place & i drew forth cosmic energy to help him score some terrible seats for a show he desperately wanted to attend.
- i made it back to the airport with literally five minutes left on the one-day car rental, but i did make it. getting through security was fast though mildly inattentive - TSA missed the 4oz of high grade liquid soap ryan had given me that i totally forgot i had in my pocket - & despite seattle being re-blizzarded, my flight out wasn't delayed.
- i boarded early, taking advantage of the broken-wrist-looking wrap-job to get to my seat without being bumped into a bunch. also boarding early was a guy who smelled so bad the air had a flavor... & of course he plonked down right next to me. i was concerned for a moment that other travelers would think my dreads were giving off the smell, but then i realized he was indian or pakistani, & racism would probably win out. 9_9 i put on the overhead vent which helped a little, & he smelled less as he cooled down. (we chatted a bit during the flight & he was a very sweet guy, but i was glad to recover my olfactory senses when we deplaned.)
- we arrived to seatac a little late & had to sit on the tarmac longer than expected, but that was still yards better than what i expected when the first flakes had started to fall a week or so prior. i walked back to the light rail, boarded quickly, snapchatted some videos of the mess seattle had become, & walked the even-snowier half mile back to my apartment in a light drizzle.
- i slowly & carefully removed ryan's bandage job & washed my hand, applied the first of many occlusive dressings, & went to bed.
- here's the cool bloodprint from removing the main bandage:
- here are the gross chunks i brought home with me:
- & the healing montage so far:
i will probably keep my art page updated with photos as the healing goes, but no promises. edit: i did! here are the next two:
big thanks to the frost giants i begged for pro-teck-shon-ahh during the Seattle Blizzard of '19, but more thanks to ryan for doing another perfectly precise piece of scalpel work on me. <3
thanks for reading.
gory photos ahead; be warned.
preface
- this trip was taken in order to spitefully use a courtesy code given to me by alaska, earned when i went to see phil for his birthday last february & they delayed my return flight for no particular reason. so while i wanted another small piece by ryan, i didn't want it enough to drive three hours to vancouver WA when he was doing a seminar nearby... but apparently i wanted it enough to spend two full days traveling to new hampshire again. X)
- seattle has been getting blizzarded. we get snow maybe a couple days a year - a main reason why i moved here is the weather: the lack of snow, lack of bitter cold, & nearly constant overcast sky (fuck the sun) - but this was the second worst storm in twenty years or so, beaten only by the OTHER time we got blizzarded that left me housebound for three weeks in december 2008. so there were some ...concerns... about flying in the midst of this. & i'd already been working from home for a solid week before this trip.
sunday, february 10
- ...but fuck it, let's go! my flight wasn't until 7am, but it had been snowing most of the day, & i couldn't be sure it wouldn't continue into the night. if it did keep up, i couldn't count on lyft/uber running, i wouldn't want to drive myself (dangerous AND pay $80 for parking, ugh), & the light rail doesn't run between 1am & 5am. so i decided to get there while i could safely do so, as a night of discomfort beats missing the trip for want of a ride to the airport.
- since none of the buses were running near me, i had to hoof it in the snow, but i'm not too far from a light rail stop. i hopped on the penultimate train just after midnight & arrived at seatac without issue.
- it took longer for me to get everything metallic on the belt at security than to actually get through security.
- i found an empty padded bench on the way to my gate, in an area with many similar benches with folks sleeping on them, & plentiful guards. this seemed like the place to nap, & i did.
- my alarm went off shortly before boarding, & everything was pretty smooth to BOS.
- at boston airport (which they call massport, which i find gross?), i picked up my rental car. wary of the snow, i'd reserved an SUV, but the irony was that new hampshire had no snow. so i left a normally-never-snowy place that was covered in snow to go to a normally-very-snowy place that had none? hey, works for me!
- i drove a half hour to my hotel in methuen, MA, & checked in to find my room had the exact same microwave i accidentally blew up last year. (sweet nostalgia - i tried so hard to replace it with the same model, but they're just not available anymore. don't think i didn't consider stealing this one. X) )
- i checked in with ryan, & we set a time to meet up in the morning.
monday, february 11
- the breakfast at the hotel wasn't great, but they had the best damned orange juice. i drank several cups while checking my work email - more snow had been dumped the previous night, & all my employees were once again working from home. i had packed some extra socks & panties in case i was stuck on the east coast longer than expected, but i wasn't actively concerned - i could afford an extra day or two of PTO if needed. i was just glad i made it there; the return could be delayed.
- i met ryan at PBA at 10am. we discussed how my right hand had healed (wonderfully overall, but some of the serifs and details had been lost or distored), as this piece was going in the same location on the left. we then used that information to decide which of my five options had the best chance of healing as desired. we agreed on the last one in this image, the bold sans-serif:
- ryan stencilled me up, & the procedure was just the same as my other hand (linked above), so i'm not going into detail. it took about an hour & a half & looks significantly more painful than it was. please enjoy these horrible procedural photos:
- & finished. note the dark spot in the vertical bar - that's a vein that ryan exposed but didn't rupture (extremely impressive).
so, do you know what that symbol is? it's a letter in several alphabets, & Þ is called a thorn. a thorn. & i put it on my hand. do you see? do you see the pain i'm causing you?
i have a thorn in my paw. :)
i flew across the country & paid actual money to gain a tangible pun on my hand. it may make people want to punch me with their own hands. additionally, since the design is mirrored across the horizontal plane, i can leave a correctly-facing imprint on clay or with a stamp pad. my new small piece of at-the-ready ridiculousness was worth every moment of travel & pain. XD
- after, ryan expertly bandaged me up (very grateful for his forethought in immobilizing my wrist), & i took him to lunch at a new thai place, where we made the adorable middle-aged white-dude owner who waited on us nearly unable to breathe from laughing at our stupid jokes. the food was quite good, & the company was better. after, we hung out at ryan's place & i drew forth cosmic energy to help him score some terrible seats for a show he desperately wanted to attend.
- i made it back to the airport with literally five minutes left on the one-day car rental, but i did make it. getting through security was fast though mildly inattentive - TSA missed the 4oz of high grade liquid soap ryan had given me that i totally forgot i had in my pocket - & despite seattle being re-blizzarded, my flight out wasn't delayed.
- i boarded early, taking advantage of the broken-wrist-looking wrap-job to get to my seat without being bumped into a bunch. also boarding early was a guy who smelled so bad the air had a flavor... & of course he plonked down right next to me. i was concerned for a moment that other travelers would think my dreads were giving off the smell, but then i realized he was indian or pakistani, & racism would probably win out. 9_9 i put on the overhead vent which helped a little, & he smelled less as he cooled down. (we chatted a bit during the flight & he was a very sweet guy, but i was glad to recover my olfactory senses when we deplaned.)
- we arrived to seatac a little late & had to sit on the tarmac longer than expected, but that was still yards better than what i expected when the first flakes had started to fall a week or so prior. i walked back to the light rail, boarded quickly, snapchatted some videos of the mess seattle had become, & walked the even-snowier half mile back to my apartment in a light drizzle.
- i slowly & carefully removed ryan's bandage job & washed my hand, applied the first of many occlusive dressings, & went to bed.
- here's the cool bloodprint from removing the main bandage:
- here are the gross chunks i brought home with me:
- & the healing montage so far:
i will probably keep my art page updated with photos as the healing goes, but no promises. edit: i did! here are the next two:
big thanks to the frost giants i begged for pro-teck-shon-ahh during the Seattle Blizzard of '19, but more thanks to ryan for doing another perfectly precise piece of scalpel work on me. <3
thanks for reading.