This afternoon I hopped around my bedroom, desperately trying to get my labret out for my interview today. It was crazy stuck. Was it cross-threaded? I looked in the mirror. It looked straight. Could I pull it through the back of the hole without cauliflowering my lip? Could I cover it with a bandage and say I cut myself…shaving? Makeup, making it look oh-so-convincingly like a really round and symmetrical wart? Not good. This place was WAI too conservative for face metal. Was I going righty-tighty by accident? Which way was it facing? If I was facing it like it was stuck to a wall then lefty would be one way, but it was in my face… WAS I TIGHTENING IT? I had a bus to catch!

THE PLIERS! Pliers are always the answer and sadly have gotten me out of many piercing-related pinches. Speaking of pinches…there was the needlenose and the biggier one, whatever it was called. Needlenose on the inside? I tried to get a grip on the flat disk back of my labret while spinning the front bead loose. Oh god oh god I was going to give myself a fat lip this way. I imagined myself canceling the interview and making up some bogus excuse. “My cat got kicked in the taco and now I have to take her to the cateria.” I drooled slightly as I tried to get a better grip on something, anything. I could not bang my face on the counter as if it was a stubborn jar.

I thought about how I had seen piercers do it. Rubber gloves! Of course. I put on one and got a firm grip and…felt it come loose. That was it. Now I only had a giant hole in my bottom lip. That looked totally natural!

I tried to take it out once, for good, but the absence bothered me. Someday I think my age and maTOORity level is going to be at odds with some of the weird stuff I have going on, like my labret, but I will cross that bridge later.

In other news, the interview went well, but now I have to do audition work for them this weekend. This seems to be a trend lately, like the head hunter who asked me to write a paragraph for each requirement of a job before being submitted for it. I am crossing my fingers that upfront work like this will be less of a trend. I am happy to provide writing samples. It’s been said repeatedly, but this process is so draining. The phone screens, the interviews, the waiting, the smiling, the thinking on your feet. Two long interviews and retail training, with more retail training to come. That’s enough for one week.

Also, I should tell you that Ruby took me out to see John Hodgman read last night. It was less like a reading and more like Garrison Keillor humped the Jerry Lewis Telethon. I had no clue wtc he was until he started talking about hobos. Then I was like, OH, this is the guy that KoL stole a bunch of stuff from. 10-4. The dude from The Long Winters showed up and was massively awesome, as was Sean Nelson, who covered Billy Joel SO well. And that guy that indie nerds are always hubbubbing about, Jonathan Coulton, was there too and sang Codemonkey. They should probably just tour.