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November 6, 1998

Being a Social Butterfly

Click on this image to get the larger version I've never thought of myself as a social butterfly, but today I certainly felt like one. Today, I was to see Mike (Mr. Pepe) for lunch since he discovered that he was going into the city (something I just found out yesterday). I was also invited to hang out with Christine and meet Rebekah (of r.a.b. fame), including checking out her new mod: a forked tongue! I thought that would be totally wild and I agreed to do that too! So, I was a social butterfly today. First, I got to see Mike for lunch. He arrived at my office to pick me up.. at practically the worst possible time! We were all running around like madmen in the office because of the "code freeze". (BTW, what do you think of the purple color treatment of the photograph? Perhaps it should be sepia-toned instead?) I had him wait in our little reception area for quite a while. Doh! I felt kind of bad about that. We went to the same chinese restaurant that we went to last time. I asked him yesterday if he liked Japanese and he said he didn't care much for it, so I suggested the same place that we went to last time. It's a great place, cheap, fast.. a bit on the noisy side. It was good to see him again, as usual. Over lunch he showed me his new toy: a lovely digital camera! A man with gadgets is definitely a man I adore. It's probably the influence from my father, a complete gadget-guy. Perhaps that would make a good Christmas present for me? I am currently giving a list of options to my father for Christmas gifts and maybe I should put that on my list. I should buy my own Lomo, but he can buy the expensive digital camera. <grin> I should remember to ask Mike what model his camera is. I felt kind of bad that I had to go back to work right after lunch, and I felt I really didn't have enough time to really sit down and have a great chat with Mike, because of the code freeze and all coming today. So, we took our time as I walked him to his car. I decided that I had to take a picture of him, for my journal and posterity's sake. He decided to reciprocate and take a photograph of me. He sent it to me and it's the picture that now graces the top of this entry. Click on it to see a larger version of the photograph. Pretty good, huh? We also took photographs of the Chrystler Building, which he was suprised to find was located right by my building. This is my photograph of it. His photograph came out much better, not because of the building but it shows part of my building being worked on by the construction workers. I'm going to put that up in my photographs page, because I like it for its artistic quality. I'll put a link from here to there someday. Well, that was the first social encounter I had today. Around 5ish, Christine came to come and pick me up. We were going to go to Penn Station to see Rebekah before she took the train back to Connecticut (sp?). She had gone up to Albany earlier to get the surgery to split her tongue and Christine was anxious to see it. So was I! I think there's something very sexy about that mod. We left work and decided to walk down to Penn Station, instead of taking the bus or anything like that. Christine likes to walk. She had just gotten a new industrial yesterday and she wanted to show me that too. I think it's extremely subtle. It's what I would call a "conch to conch industrial". It's the bar that you can see in her inner ear in this photograph. The other industrial she has is a helix to outer rim cartilage industrial. I love that. I think that I might get that for my next mod. Hmm... In any case, we decided to eat dinner (pizza! Her treat!) before we went to see Rebekah, since we didn't want to flaunt it in her face that we could eat and she couldn't (because of her new mod). That was really considerate of Christine. Isn't she a cutie? We got to the station and that was the first time I met Rebekah. The minute I saw her, I thought, "This is a person that I want to get to know." There's just something about the way she looks at you through her glasses that makes one think that there is an interesting, intelligent, funny person behind them. She gave Christine a hug and me too (which is very cool. Anyone who hugs me the first time they meet me is a good person). I corrected her (and Christine) on the pronounciation of my nickname. It's Japanese, pronounced like one would say the "eco" part in "ecology", not like the song "iko iko". Christine seemed surprised. <grin> So, Constant Readers, how many of you have been pronouncing it incorrectly? When Rebekah started talking to us, that kind of gave me a bit of a jolt. With a mod like a tongue split, she shouldn't be able to speak that clearly. She told us that she couldn't get the mod done up in Albany because her psychiatrist talked to the physician doing the mod while she was on the table and told her that she didn't feel that Rebekah was capable of making the rational decision on getting her tongue split. I felt outwardly offended! We chatted about it, Christine holding Rebekah's hand. I asked Rebekah if her psychiatrist ever told her that she held this opinion. Rebekah told us that the psychiatrist was always against her mods, but never outright told her that she would give the professional opinion that Rebekah was "incapable of making the rational decision" to get the mod done. Oh man, was I offended. I hate it when people waste my time. The letter that she gave Rebekah to show the doctor who was doing the modification said that she had objection towards getting the modification, but not that Rebekah was in anyway "incapable of making a rational decision". One is an opinion, personal and the other is an opinion, professional (a diagnosis). In any case, Rebekah fired her psychiatrist (yay!). I told her she should look into getting some sort of compensation, for lost wages and the like. Her psychiatrist was being completely unprofessional by not being honest with Rebekah and thus, wasted her time AND money. Christine and I felt kind of bad that we had already eaten dinner and told Rebekah our reasons... if we knew she wasn't modded, then we would have definitely had dinner with her! Another person arrived to sit with us: Andria. Andria is Keith's apprentice. She's also one of the most good-looking women I've seen in a long time live. She was dressed in all black and had a long black trenchcoat on as well. Very sophisticated-looking. She was in shock as well when she heard Rebekah talking and got the scoop. We then all sat around and stewed for a little while. Rebekah decided that she was going to get modded this weekend somehow and that we were all going to go to Philly this weekend (Rebekah, Christine and I). Yay! I'm really looking forward to that. Rebekah treated us to some chocolate and a drink at a nearby bar before she had to take the train back up. At the bar, I started talking to Andria. She's very cool to boot! We talked about what she does (lighting director and an artist). She was very into the Mumia Abu-Jamal cause (I don't know too much about it and I think I should take the time to really educate myself on it) and we talked about how she got involved with web development/multimedia development because of it. That is very cool! She also reads online journals and we chatted about the Mighty Kymm and Dori. Too wild! I told her that I would start fowarding job notices to her if and when I get them in my mailbox from Webgrrls. We waved bye to Rebekah and Christine and Andria rode with me on the subway to Times Square, where we said our goodbyes and hugged. I walked outside (gorgeous day out) to Port Authority and on my way, I got to see a group of men putting up the new Prince of Egypt billboards down 42nd Street. I found it fascinating and I stood there for about 15 minutes, watching them. I couldn't help but think how I had neglected to take photographs of Andria or Rebekah. <sigh> Next time. I've got to become more shutter-bug happy. I can't show you the two beautiful people I just met today. I love being part of the bodyart community.

© Copyright 1998, Eileene Coscolluela
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