Monday, October 09, 2006

Journal 10.9

I won't go into why I was thinking of this, but anyway, when I was five I got my ears pierced, and from then until I was ten I wore earrings on and off, and after ten, I stopped. Now, my lobes didn't really close up. Cartiledge grew back in, but it was a thin layer, easily punched through for special occasions.

When I was 16, I decided to wear an earring. Just one, because I thought it would be an individual thing. I picked one of my mothers loopy ones, that don't have a rod to stab your neck with, and it happened to have a lot of glass "diamonds" so it was really sparkly.

"I'm thinking about wearing an earring." I said to my friend. "Oh," said she, "only one?" "Yeah, which side do you think it should go?" "Well, if you're gay, you wear it on the left." "Really? On the right it is."

A few months later, I was visiting my dad in another part of the state. We all went over to the neighbor's, and there was a boy about my age there, wearing a single earring on the left. Mentally, I giggled at him. I knew he wasn't gay, but I suspected he didn't know the statement he was making. Anyway, he's laughing with his brother, and then he came over to me.

"So, you're only wearing one earring?" "Yeah." I was thinking, 'so are you.' "And you're wearing it on the right?" "Yeah?" 'You're wearing yours on the left.' He and his eavesdropping brother exchanged knowing smiles and then he walked away. It was about then that I realized that perhaps in different areas, the gay ear may switch. We had been laughing at each other, basically for growing up somewhere else. Unfortunately, I had been more able to conceal my mirth, so he didn't know that he was actually the gay one.

Another thing, people aren't very perceptive. I wore that one earring for a good 9 months, and people didn't realize it. They either thought I didn't wear earrings, or that I had two. I know this because when I'd point it out to them, they'd inspect both sides of my head and agree with me. Then they'd marvel that they hadn't noticed before (Like I said, it was a pretty gaudy earring). They did the same thing when I dyed half my hair candy apple red. I had zigzagged the part, so that I had red streaks on one side, and blonde streaks on the other, and people thought I just had put some red streaks in, or that I had dyed it all red and left some blonde streaks. Apparently people only look at one side or another of my head and assume the other side matches.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My mother told me a story like that. For years she only wore one earing until a friend told her, 'Did you know that wearing only one earing on that side sends the message that you're gay?" what do ya know.