The Adventures of Prince Albert

Some people begin the new year with resolutions. The usual suspects include: lose weight, work less, vacation on a tropic isle. My new year began with bravery, which verged on insanity and enough blood to save a mauled and dying child in Africa.

In order to provide adequate background information, we’ll have to travel back to January 1st. It was 3am in the lounge area of a club called Cellspace, located in the Mission District of San Francisco. My leg was tapping freely and entirely of its own will. John’s, my boyfriend, face was brandishing the usual twitch, and our friends were alternating glances between the psychedelic patterns projected onto the club wall and us.

“John,” piped up the friend seated closest to us. “Do you have any piercings aside from the labret?” John shook his head no and a conversation about body piercing ensued. It wasn’t long before my brief encounter with a cross-eyed piercer and his multiple penis piercings sparked interest, but after witnessing no less than every man around me shudder at the thought, conversation halted and each of us returned to our respective entertainments.

Days passed and I began to feel as if this year would be no different from any other, memorable new year’s eve, totally forgettable days that follow. Yesterday marked my first day back at work, and nothing could have seemed more routine. The Chuck Norris factbot was cheerfully regurgitating Norris tidbits in IRC at the iroundhouse! prompt, my email was cluttered with familiar subject lines, and my Skype and AIM were sounding melodiously every few minutes with a new message. It rained, and John and I kept each other apprised in chat of by-the-minute developments that ranged from developers pinging me in the hopes that I would plug their cause to John who in return might be compelled to write some charity code to daily relationship drama that plagued our not-so lucky friends to wiki formatting tips and tricks. Around early afternoon, the subject of conversation had turned to pasta, and whether or not John should lower the heat once the water had boiled and the penne was in. And then suddenly and without warning, he disappeared from all the usual communication channels.

I didn’t fear though. He must have been fighting with the pasta, distracted by the Wii, on the phone with an old friend, or lost somewhere in the libsecondlife library. But one hour later, my phone rang. Odd, I couldn’t recall the last time John called me on the telephone. Surely this meant he was not in his computer’s vicinity, and yet he didn’t tell me he was going anywhere. We were all caught up on errands. We had groceries, movies, coffee, and books.

“Hey,” he said, not a hint of atypical tone.

“Hey,” I replied.

“Just left the piercing studio.”

“Ah,” now I understood. “You changed out the labret post for a ring.”

“Na. Got a new one.”

“Hmm?” A new one? My mind raced. Just a few days ago, on New Year’s Eve, John had mentioned that he was “pretty happy with what he had” in the way of piercings. Was it an eyebrow? A tongue? Perhaps a nipple even? “Seriously?” I asked. “What did you get pierced?”

“My Prince Albert.”

I blushed a made an unintelligible noise in my chair at the office. My co-worker turned and examined me curiously. I stuttered. I asked retarded questions like did it hurt and how long before we could have sex again. When I hung up the phone, my bemused co-worker chuckled and I set off to eat dinner with my mother as Thursday was our standing appointment. Naturally, I couldn’t concentrate and the blood everywhere and smell of death that greeted me when I arrived at home was enough to make me panic and devote the next few hours of my life to nursing my brave and butchered boyfriend, spinach salad for blood clotting Vitamin K, apple juice to reduce swelling, ice cream cake to raise spirits, and reruns of Family Guy to inject humor.

It goes without saying that I was quite pleased with the piercing. And it goes without saying that I was quite shocked. A friend had pinged me early in the day on Thursday in response to my Facebook status, which read “Katherine is wondering what to blog about.” He encouraged me to blog about the new year and all the shenannighenz that were sure to come. At the time, I was entirely unconvinced that this year would boast either surprise or wonder. Much to my satisfaction, so far it has furnished both and today is only January 4th. Course, now I’m going to have to buck up with something brave and bloody of my own … Perhaps it’s time to get that tattoo I’ve been contemplating.

To be continued …

Note: Yes, I got his permission before telling the tale.