Finally, the wait is over. It's been over 6 months, and at long last I have been branded.
At A Glance Author shane @ Contact goodvibes717@aol.com When It just happened Artist john weir Studio infinite Location filthadelphia, pa Yeah, it's been a long overdue procedure, but it'd done, and right now I feel so high, as if I could take on the entire world, and win. It wasn't as bad as I first thought; sure, it was bad enough, but I've felt worse. It was along the same lines as getting cut, but not. The pain was just as intense, a steady searing of the flesh, but it wasn't as sharp. Hard to explain.
It all started out around a year agon when my friend Liz said she wanted to get branded, and like a dumb-ass that I am I said that I'd get it done too. Kind of spur of the moment. I've always thought that I would never get branded, what with being scared of fire. All day today I was worked up because I knew for sure that tonight was gonna be the night.
For the past 6 months or so I've been stopping in to see the guy who was supposed to do the branding. He works at a different shop, right up the street from where I got the branding done. He actually worked at the shop awhile ago. He's done some other procedures on me--dermal punch, cutting, piercing. Every time we made an appointment to do the branding something would come up on his end. Some sort of personal problem. I couldn't very well be upset with the guy, with him being a friend, and I understand that shit happens. But man, what a disappointment time after time. I don't think you can fully appreciate the mental preparation to go into something like this, unless you've been through it yourself. Every time afterwards I'd be so depressed for a few days.
My friend mentioned that another guy up the street, John at Infinite might be able to take care of it for me. I ran into John one day, asked him if he'd be into it, and sure enough, his face lit up like a kids at Christmas, and he said "hell yeah".
Damn that was pretty easy. Just like that I have an appointment for a week later.
For the rest of the week I've been trying to store up my frustration, and let me tell you I have a lot of that. It's not easy, at least for me, to deal with idiotic people all .
Today was the day. I was pretty calm for most of the day, until around 6pm when I got off of work. Then all of a sudden my hands started getting clammy, & my stomach was churning. I got really agitated, had a hard time sitting still. All I kept doing was watching the clock at my house. 8:30pm, time to go.
I showed up at the shop a little early. John was just finishing up with a few last piercings. Then he wanted to grab a smoke and something to drink before we got started.
I've not had much interaction with John before tonight. Sure, we've spoken to each other before, but never really hung out or anything of that sort. He engaged me in small talk outside while he got himself preped up too. I never really took into consideration the piercers mental state. John expressed how excited he was to do a branding. I'm glad someone was excited. I was nervous as all get out.
After John finished up he invited me back into the room to get stated. First, he placed on the stencil of the star which was going around my navel. Then, he did some drawing to touch it up, to get it just right. A quick look into the mirror confirmed, for me, the correct placement.
Up onto the table I go. John turns on the vent to kill the smell, finishes preparing, dons a surgical masks, and leans over me with a cautery pen in hand.
"Ready"?
"Yeah," I meekly reply.
Then John gives me a quick jolt of the 2500degree pen. Yikes! That's hot. But it's not anything I can't handle.
During the entire time John kept talking to me, coaching me on my breathing, stopping to give me a break every time he thought I'd need it. Surprisingly I didn't need as many as I may have at first assumed. John went around and did the outline first, and then when that was finished he went back in and took a bigger pen to scrape it all again so that it would be nice and smooth. The second time didn't hurt as much, but it hurt nonetheless. In approximately 20 minutes we were done.
Not much of a clean up since there was no blood. So after another round of pleasantries, and surprisingly, a hug from John, i left feeling high as a kite. A truly great experience.
I believe that I can overcome any of my fears, and that's what I set out to do, and did do. Thanx John.