Resolutions

Be good to others (not the resolution) but not at the expense of myself (there it is)

Don't settle for less than awesome, in anything or anyone. I deserve awesome.

Take time in silence to just be or think or something.

Ride my bike AT LEAST twice a week, for over 2 miles.

Eat healthier: more fruits and veggies, less potatos.

Go to mass at least once a week, ideally more.

Be better to myself.

Well...

This is me. Covered in my own blood. The lady drew all over my face with bodily fluids spewing from a face wound left by this 6 gauge spear through my cheek. It's supposed to go through both sides but I was too emotional (and scared). Hopefully I'll get to do another cheek spear in a couple weeks and be able to handle both. I'm a little nervous.

I've gotten some fuckin phenominal piercings lately. I got my nostrils repierced. I got a vertical bridge piercing, which is a vertical (duh) surface piercing on my forhead. It.Looks.Rad. I also started a bitchin' anchor project on my tummy. I'm so excited to add to it. I also started stretching my lobes again and am on my way to 3/4 inches of awesome.

I also went from eating omnivoriously to be a vegetarian, a vegan, back to omni, and now back to vegetarian. Meat just makes me sick and sad. It's delicious but I feel better when it and I are not on speaking terms. Remind you of anything?

School started back up and I love being with the kids at work all the time. It's so inspiring to see them working so hard and making so much progress. It definitely isn't always great, don't get me wrong. But i love those kids so much and they try so hard jus to be treated with respect and kindness that any other human would just expect to have all the time. I also got a new title: LIBRARIAN! and I love it. I love helping the kids pick out a book that will challenge them intellectually. I also teach a lesson every week and really enjoy exposing the classes to different mediums of expression, different authors, and different genres. I never would've guessed how many students loved Jules Verne.

Yikes. This is a lot.

Time to be Grown Up

Sometimes it seems, being an adult doesn't mean running away from your problems by moving into a hovel studio apartment. Sometimes it means continuing to live in your childhood home with your dad and paying for groceries occasionally, making dinner, cleaning, and being there for the man that has never left you.

My dad is awesome. He taught me to love history, appreciate sci-fi and embrace being a nerd. He's funny in some strange old-man way, ridiculously smart and loves me and my brother with his whole heart even though sometimes, as children, we suck.

As an independent Julia, however, I have been up to quite a bit. I got a rose tattoo (Behold! A photo!) by the fantastic Anji Marth, visiting Phoenix from High Priestess Piercing and Tattoo of Eugene, OR. I followed that up with another tattoo of another flower, a sort of violet called a Johnny Jump Up, on the inside of my right ankle. My family used to plant them every year and my little brother, John, would get so excited to have flowers with his name. He was so little and sweet and he loved me and liked me just because I was his big sister.

In piercing news, I got my traguses (tragi?) repierced and I hate them. But they're so swollen and goo-ey and gross that I was warned not to take them out yet or I could get an abscess. I took out my hood jewelry because my tricky hooha made it hurt like fuck every time I moved. I took out an anchor I had behind my ear. I'm repiercing my nostril (maybe both) in the next couple weeks, as soon as I can get jewelry out of a tragus (or two). Ooo! And, after like 1o minutes of palpitations I got my conches punched at a 12 gauge. It's like a tiny cookie cutter that goes through tissue removing said tissue, instead of a regular puncture. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. And the jewelry options are almost limitless!!!

I literally don't think I have anything else to write.

this is all for now

My parents are getting a divorce.
Shit sucks.

Wordless

Things right now are hard. Not everything, I have 2 clients, might get a third. I just started a beautiful tattoo with Katelyn of Black Lantern Tattoo. I'm looking at apartments and thinking very seriously about moving. But right now, things are mostly hard and sad.

I don't know what to do.
I don't even hhave words.

Help me find my words?

Robo Cookie / Anger

Today I woke up pissed. I had a dream about Jarre in which he chose to move in with a bunch of dirtbags and get high all the time instead of dealing with his shit.

To be frank I've been mad at him for a few days now. Actually just mad at everyone and everything with anything to do with him, except his beautiful and wonderful family. It's really draining to be that angry for that long.

Finally, I thought about it. The three types of love that I try to live my life by (Ahava, Raya, and Dod), that I had so much of for him, he didn't reciprocate. He loved how I look, he loved holding me and squeezing me and loving me in a touching manner. But he wasn't my best friend. He was mean to me and kept horrible, debilitating secrets. He refused to talk to me. There goes the Raya. When things got hard, he left me. Every. Single. Time. And would blame me to make it easier for him to ignore his shortcomings. Total lack of Ahave.

He never loved me the way I loved him. It sucks. I wasted like 4 years of my life.

Needless to say, I found it time to move on with my life. And what better time? I'm getting tattooed on Monday and I have the summer to ponder over life and find myself...again.

I started this transition with a piercing I have both wanted and feared for a great length of time: a vertical hood. I was scared that it would hurt, that it'd be unattractive to my future partners, that I'd be super uncomfortable with people I know semi casually looking that closely at my hooha. But I am a brave little person and decided to just do it.

To make things a tad more terrifying, the aforementioned piercer, Marilyn, the self-dubbed Queen of Cootchie, tells me that I have a tricky hood.

After much giggling, marking, pondering, and deep breathing, I grabbed/squeezed a lovely counter kid's (Anthony) hands in prep for the needle. Marilyn did a fantastic job but that shit hurt. I screamed an obscenity and almost cried and then, I was fine. I don't know what I did to poor little Anthony's hands.

The point is, I have reclaimed myself and my hooha and become a little shinier in the process.

Go forth, be shiny, and above all else, be your true, fantastic self.

In desparate need of...

1) Not living with my wackadoo family. They don't get along with each other and it causes me unnecessary stress.

2) More money to support not living with my wackadoo family.

3) Ink in my skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.

4) More friends. Though I adore the ones I have con todo mi corazon ("with all my heart" for those of you with less Spanish-speaking awesomeness), I have lost some friends lately and I need to replenish my supplies. I have also decided that one can never have too many friends.

5) CURRENT PICTURES! My ears are bigger and my entire person is shinier and more colorful than in any existing photos of myself at the moment. A few pictures have been taken of my body parts though for the updated HTC portfolio and I have requested copies of those though my ears have changed since.

6) Another meeting with that very attractive boy from a co worker's party. I flirted with him and I think he flirted back and he is nice to look at.

7) Dinero for the fancy coffee beverages I have come to love.

8) Being skinnier. Less fat cells. And bigger boobs.

9) Not being hung up on Jarre. This is ridiculous.

10) Sleep. Goodnight friends.

My life is a Yo-Yo

Jarre and I are done. Again. I'm heartbroken. I love him so much I don't even have words for it. But it's what he needs right now. He's so sad, it hurts me to see how sad he is. I know I can't fix but I wish I could. I wish I could just love him so hard that he'd just be fully happy and whole and we would be good. I don't like not being able to do something. I don't like not making him happy.

I am semi-ok though. I saw it coming. I'm pretty decent at being single. I can do this. I just need to have faith and trust that God has a plan for me and will provide.

I am still getting tattooed on Saturday with my Hebrew/love piece and will start Ganesh on the 7th. I'm also house sitting this weekend and I can't wait. I just need time to myself to sleep and drink and be relaxed and sad and whatever else happens.

As much as I love my job and the children I work with, I can't wait for school to be over.

I love me, I can do this.
Sleep well and love yourself.

I am coming off incorrectly perhaps

I was accused today of being a superficial elitist by someone I love because I talk about my piercings and tattoos and the proper terminology for piercings and jewelry. I was so hurt. I talk about those things because I find them fascinating. It took so long for me to find my niche in society that I just want to know everything and experiance as much as possible and I like to tell people about them because I'm excited.

That shit hurt.

As one idea falls, another rises!

Scarification is out. I just don't fuckin scar. It's ridiculous. Butbutbut I will be getting tattooed at the end of the month and starting work on a sleeve. I am getting Ahava, Raya, and Dod around my upper wrist. They are the three types of love in Hebrew that correlate to types of love from a psychological perspective: Ahava is the love of wills, commitment; Raya is the love of friendship, intimacy; and Dod is sexy love, passion. I'm so excited, I've wanted this tattoo for years.

Hopefully, I will be adding a Ganesh tattoo on my upper arm soon thereafter. I'm very excited about that. I, numero uno, love elephants. Ganesh has an elephant head. Numero dos, Ganesh is all about overcoming obstacles and the sort, which I do. Numero tres, it'll be big and colorful and beautiful. I just want his head and I want it surrounded by lotus and grapefruit blossoms. It would be beautiful. Hopefully, I can get a decent start on it this summer at least and maybe have it finished by Christmas.

My job makes mods so difficult. I have to think about what would happen if it got hit, pinched, bitten, or scratched. For tattoos, those would be awful, it would ruin healing work. For piercings, it hurts and it's irritating but it's livable. It just means that all my tattoos need to be healed by like mid August.

Jarre and I are happy again. Therapy is helpful.
Go forth and be colorful.

At least it's not cancer

Things with Jarre and I are shitty. I'm scared and this sucks. Gah. My stomach issues are either acid reflux or gall bladder disease.

It's hard to be positive somtimes.

I do believe it's the stomach death

This is the week of the APP (Association of Professional Piercers) Convention and a piercer friend of mine, Marilyn, will be in search of three beautiful pairs of stone plugs for me. I'm excited.

Things with Jarre and I are going well. I have more shit to deal with as a Julia than I think we do as a couple which is why tomorrow I will be looking into finding myself a real live psychologist of my very own. I need help. This is the first time in years that I don't think I can fix things on my own. I need help. And I'm ready to accept help. Now most of you don't know me but I don't do that easily. I'm very independent and asking for/accepting help from others is something I would not have been able to do 6 months ago. However, it's very upsetting to find out I've been holding on to so much pain and anger for so long. Like, years. I thought I was past that sorta stuff.

In other news, I have had horrible stomach pain since last Wednesday and I think I might be dying. Or just not eating correctly. Or, heaven forbid, lactose intolerant.

Ah well, let's just hope for good things to come.

All you need is love, babadadada

I fight tooth-and-nail for the things that are important to me. Jarre is important to me and he's a tad blue at the moment. It's affecting our relationship. And it is because of a statement I made in regards to the person he was several months ago. But he's grown so much and is a different, better, even more amazing person than the guy I originally fell in love with. So I'm going to fight with every ounce I have to make this work.

"Love never fails."
Neither do I.
Live strong and prosper readers.

Oy Vay. Things have been a-changin...

To understand the present, you must understand the past.

I saw him at a choir concert and although his posture was off and he looked indifferent, he was the single most gorgeous human being I'd ever seen. I was only 15 and he was 16. I didn't know his name but I had to meet him. He was too attractive to not meet. I met him a few months later and was enamored. He was funny and his laugh was infectious but I thought he was way too pretty to want to talk to me. I am persistent however and he was an especially beautiful and our last classes were next to each other. So I talked to him before and after that class and at the end of the year I discovered two amazing things: 1) we would have choir together the next year and 2) his name was Jarre.


Our relationship as rather tumultuous the first year. The second year though was generally beautiful and loving and comfortable. Then the last few months we were together, something was wrong. I didn't know what. I didn't know how to fix it so I just kept trying to smother him with all of my time and attention so he'd be happy. He wasn't. Nothing got fixed.

I've already written about our break up and thus will not discuss it again but I've done quite a bit of thinking about us lately and I was definitely more at fault than either of us previously thought. I'm neurotic, needy, emotional, and I was remarkably passive. I knew something was wrong but I never pressed him for an answer.

Anyhoo, a couple weeks ago he did three things he'd never done before:
1) He answered a specific question with a specific answer.
2) He listed things he missed about me as a person rather than things I did for him.
3) He told me he loved me, missed me, and wanted me back.

It's a process but we're working towards getting back together. He's shown some very promising growth and is committed to making this work this time around. We have plans to work through our issues both together and individually and for the first time in months, I'm wholly happy. He's sweet, intelligent, kind, loving, hi-larious, and makes me smile.

Be happy for me.
Stay classy readers.

Quick, Quick, Slow

That's right, this is a post about two-stepping!

I went to line-dancing/two-stepping lessons this past Thursday with some girlfriends and it was the most fun I've had in forever. I discovered a few new things: 1) I love to two-step 2) I like to lead ;)

There was this ridiculously attractive lady teaching, you see, which may have made me stumble a bit more than I would've otherwise. Of course I had no problem sticking my foot directly in my mouth. Somehow the entire line dancing crew ending facing my table, including said good-lookin instuctor, and I mentioned to my friend "O I don't like this at all" meaning I wasn't a fan of having such a large group facing me. However my statement was misunderstood and the instructor looked at me and said, "It's ok, you don't have to like every line dance." But I did like the dance! I couldn't do it but I loved it. I wanted to be able to do it but I ended up in the complete wong direction and I kept forgetting which foot was right and which was left. Oy vay, it was no good. I felt like a jerk.

But let's be honest, the dancing I'd done up to this point was with stationary feet and rhythmic ass shaking. The fact that I was able to dance while moving them at all was fuckin amazing.

In other news, we did a test spot today to see if I'd scar with just cutting or if skin removal was necessary. That shit did not tickle, let me tell you what*. I mean, it wasn't nearly as awful as I thought it would be but it wasn't a picnic. I think I get to keep my skin, thank God.

I'm so excited for the things to come.
I hope you are too, reader!

*said with an audible "h"

I'm so blessed

I have not always been fortunate in finding quality friends. In middle school, I didn't have friends. Period. In high school, my friends changed every year. My first year of college I met an amazing lady, my Crista (Cree-stuh), and that was it.

As things with Jarre ended, I became more and more aware that I really only had like 2 friends. I didn't think I needed them, I had a soul mate. Anyhoo, I got lucky this time, I found Jen.

I'm going to be honest, the first time I saw her I was positive I would dislike her. Boy o boy was I wrong. She pretty much adopted me. I went to school to talk to her about life and learn from her experience and to tell her about what I was going through. I worked hard so she'd be proud of my wrinkly brain. If it weren't for Jen, I would've dropped, or failed, out of community college. It follows suit then that I call her Mom and her amazing fiance Tristica (TK) is my Dad.

TK makes sure I am comfortable in my own skin and aware of how awesome I am. She scares off disastrous dates (funny story, I'll tell you later). And she is getting the most rad Father's day card ever.

Through them, I met Alli, an awesome mom who has mad me toast and tea the past two days and lets me play with her adorable children. She's such a cool chickadee and shares my loves of baking and cooking. She's so down to Earth and sweet and quirky and generally amazing.

And all these people, including Crista (who I skipped over a bit only because she needs a full post to herself) and others not mentioned, are my friends and family. I'm so lucky to have finally found my people in life and my place in the world both with these glorious people and my piercing friends.

I really wanna sound like a Hallmark card and use something semi-poetic to describe finding myself by finding a home but it's just too corny.

Dorothy said it best, "There's no place like home."
Goodnight friends.

Ugh

RIP Tragus piercings.

I had to take them out. They were very important to me, I got them to help get over boy, you see.



This is a sad story so I must tell.
Jarre, the aforementioned boy, and I were together for over 2 and a half years. I loved with with every ounce of my being. I gave him everything I could, often meaning I gave him something instead of doing something for myself. His family loved me, still does. My family loved him, def does not anymore. We had just taken our first class together and spent hours afterwards discussing our plans to move out, marry and procreate. We were beautiful together and couldn't wait to spend the rest of our lives together. Or so I thought. But then, literally the next day I called him after class and he told me he didn't know if he could be wth me anymore. I gave him years of my life and essentially get dumped over the phone. I spent the next week in agony as he tried to decide whether or not we could try to fix things. And what did he do? He not only left me, he blamed me for it. The next day I went to see my favorite piercer Dana to get some new shinies in my traguses (tragi?).



I still don't know exactly what I want or need or am ready for. But I know that I deserve more than Jarre is capable of giving me.

I have started dating again.
Good night, keep loving.

You know what really grinds my gears?

Yesterday as I was hanging out with a couple new friends, I over heard a woman and her daughter discussing college (ASU specifically). I intend to transfer to ASU so I figured I'd jump in. The fees those awful institutions of higher learning charge people! This woman had to pay $75 to walk around orientation with her child. And then, just to sign up for classes, not to attend school, not to buy a book but to sit down with someone while they click about 6 buttons to sign up for classes cost ANOTHER $250. What the fuck? That's so ridiculous. How the hell can we as a society expect for those in our community to educate themselves beyond high school if they have to pay for something new and heinous every time they turn around? And text books! As if one doesn't pay enough for tuition, lab fees, parking permits, and an ID then they make you buy books costing easily over $100 used, sometimes requiring multiple books per class, but it's ok because you can sell it back at the end of the semester for $4. Ridiculous.

And my friends, is my rant of the day.

In other news though, I got both of my nostrils pierced today and they look fuckin gorgeous. I have tiny little faceted opal studs and they're soooooo pretty. I thought adding more opal would make me like my septum ring with the opal bead a bit more, but sadly, it did not. Thus, I decided to change it back to my seamless ring and it hurt so much and bled. Again. Gross. Marilyn (the lovely lady responsible for all my new and replaced nose shinies) spent so much time in my nose. It was weird but definitely a bond experience.

What about you, random reader? Do you have any piercings? Or questions about piercings? Or are you an Arizonan looking for a good piercer?

I don't know what to do with my life right now. I don't know what I want as far as dating or even if I want to date. I don't know how much school I want, or whether I wanna take a semester off. I know I want to be selfish right now and that's it.

On that rather morose note, I think I'll close.
May the force be with you, reader.

Fancy meeting you here

Hi. I'm Julia and this is my blog that you're reading right now.
I don't know that I have a specific idea as to where this is going but I really just feel like writing and who knows? Maybe someone (you, perhaps) will find me utterly fascinating.
I hope so.

Anyway, a bit about myself?
I'm getting my bachelors degree in psychology. Figuring out why people are who they are, understanding the way their mind works and what makes them tick is so fascinating to me. I want to be a psychologist eventually but it won't happen for years. Psych is my passion but school is sorta my nemesis. I wish the two could be mutually exclusive but sadly, no. Turns out people don't want to entrust their minds with folks too lazy for school. Who knew?

My favorite hobby right now is body modification. Lately I've been focusing on piercings, which is heavily influenced by my friendships with pretty much the entire staff of my favorite piercing studio HTC. To date I've been pierced 17 times including my brand new shiny conch piercings that I got just this afternoon. I also have a few tattoos, 3 to be specific. This summer though, I will be adding to my collection with a whole new form of modification, or at least new to me. Of course I mean scarification. for those who don't know, this entails the cutting and sometimes removal of skin to intentionally create a scar in a design of some sort. I will be getting filigree on both sides of my torso starting at right about side boob and going down to right in front of my hip bones.

Right now I work as an instructor's assistant at a school for children with autism. My job is fulfilling and awesome but can sometimes get a little physically intense. I'll probably bitch about this injury or that sore limb semi-regularly but again, love my job. The kids I work with are such beautiful amazing little people and we sing at work! What more can I girl ask for, right?

Well my friends, the hour is late and I must wake relatively early for the aforementioned job.
I hope this finds you well.