poledanceromance
Forum Replies Created
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Another personal perspective on diet. I can get to a place where I can work out enough to eat pretty much whatever I want. But I will be at the top end of my weight and rather soft looking. For me to be at the low end of my weight and lean looking, my diet has to be well under control. And for me being at the low end of my weight makes a difference in the impact I feel and the control I have in advanced inverted moves. Pole feels easier to me at 120-125 and leaner muscles than it felt at 140 and with bulkier muscles.
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Happy to report that my long, long, LONG time nemesis (talkin three dang years) move, the flag lift, is officially cracked and in the bag, where it will have to be pried from my cold, stiff fingers. Woohoo!! LOL! 😀
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Ohhhh yes now THIS is talkin my language. This is what easily 50% of my pole practice time has been devoted to for the past year or two and I’ve seen so much growth from doing it. Can’t wait to film this one…what a great way to get back to open movement after primarily using my limited pole time this summer for crafting and rehearsing my Girl Next Door choreography.
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Just updating my post to say I'm now a SECOND year law student so I guess it didn't kill me 😉
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I'm really sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative it's just something I believe in really strongly. I apologize if I offended!
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I politely disagree. There are some basic standards that all piercers should follow. Autoclave use is the first and most important. Internally threaded jewelry is one, metal quality is another, minimal use of clamps is another as well, and any qualified piercer should also know about proper saline soaks and how to mix them. There are also some very basic safety thresholds of medical knowledge in piercers that you can look for as a client as well- for example if a piercer tells you to put neosporin/antibiotic ointments on a piercing, that would be a piercer to definitely think twice about as they literally aren't reading the instructions on the tube that say not to use it on puncture wounds. It's common medical knowledge that piercers should be expected to adhere to.
I agree that there is variety in preferences from piercer to piercer even at the forefront of the body mod industry, but in terms of best standards and practices for piercers in general there are some bases of knowledge that clients can and should use when evaluating who to choose because they are basic thresholds for the industry. If you read journals and periodicals out there written by and for industry artists, those standards are commonly discussed. I wholeheartedly agree with the "ask your piercer advice," but only where the piercer is competent. And I just try to provide some advice on what those minimum standards are so that people know what questions to ask to determine whether a piercer is competent and whether the service they received was safely provided. In sum, yes there is variety, but not on an infinite scale. I don't personally tell people to just ask their piercer if I don't know anything about the piercer. Maybe he doesn't even have an autoclave, doesn't even wear sterile gloves or keep a sterile field for piercing. If I don't know that, I won't just say ask the piercer, I try to talk about what the basic industry thresholds for a clean, safe piercer are. If they meet those standards, then the person can know they are totally safe in following that person's medical advice.
No offense intended. I speak from a place of over a decade of involvement in and study of the body mod industry as a whole and I try to vigorously defend the position of those who fight for the base standards of the industry. There are a lot of people piercing who dangerously do not follow the most basic of common medical and industry knowledge because there is basically no standard regulation or licensing for body mod artists- the community still has to define those for itself right now. Sorry, this touches on a passion for me.
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Congrats on your new piercing! Here’s some notes on aftercare that may help you. You should NOT use Epsom salt to soak. You SHOULD use non-iodized, sea salt to make natural saline. The proper concentration to match the salinity in your body’s cells is 1/8 of a teaspoon to one cup of warm water, preferably distilled water gently heated although tap water boiled and cooled then gently heated to body temp works too. When you soak in this manner you are promoting the exhange of fluids across the cell barrier in your body’s cells. This helps prevent infection. In addition, using warm water increases blood flow to the area which speeds healing time. You can do saline soaks throughout your piercing’s healing and it will only do it good. You can also do the soaks if a healed piercing becomes aggravated for any reason.
You should NEVER use triple antibiotic ointments like neosporin on a piercing because this can actually cause infection. The ointments say on the label they are not to be used for puncture wounds because in the deep, dark inside of a puncture wound-which is what a piercing is-the ointment creates a moist environment which actually promotes the growth of bacteria.
In addition, one of the biggest factors in properly healing a piercing is jewelr quality. Initial jewelry in a standard navel piercing should be an internally threaded, curved barbell, not a ring. You know if your jewelry is internally threaded if the post with the threads is actually coming out of the ball and screws into a hole in the end of the post. Externally threaded jewelry is threaded on the post and screws into the ball. These are inappropriate for a healing piercing because they require you to drag the threads through the healing fistula. For the same reason if you were pierced with a ring and told to turn it, you should never turn a ring in a healing piercing as it will tear the developing fistula. In addition, the big concern with jewelry is that the metal must be implant grade or many people will have reactions to the metal that can look similar to an infection but are not. This means surgical grade stainless steel or titanium. The two biggest known companies that manufacture such jewelry are anatometal and industrial strength. You can find jewelry from both of them on bodyartforms.com.
Based on what you’ve said, and if you find that these aftercare instructions differ from what you were told, you may be able to find a piercer who is more knowledgable in proper aftercare to look after you until its healed. Generally a good rule of thumb is to call up a piercer you are considering going to on the phone and ask whether they use internally threaded jewelry in new piercings. If they say yes, odds are good they keep up their studying of best aftercare practices! If they say no or don’t even know what internally threaded jewelry is, that piercer is sadly the sort who does not bother to keep up their study of the advances in the industry on piercing technique and aftercare. Another good question to ask is whether they use clamps for most piercings. A good modern piercer does not use clamps because the clamps cause trauma to the tissue that slows healing and because they have developed their free hand technique and don’t need them to get a good straight piercing.
Good luck! Feel free to message me with any questions. I have just a tiny bit of experience with this stuff lol. 🙂
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Brilliant!!
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I should add that if you go that route you’d want to get it running in your pole room about half an hour before you pole to give it a chance to do its thing.
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Does your pole room have a door so it can be completely enclosed? If so, running a dehumidifier as well as air conditioning can lower the humidity significantly.
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Rabbits and deer can be kept out by taking bars of Irish spring soap, cutting them into chunks and tying them into a a hunk of onion bag, that plastic netting, and tying the little bag of soap to a stake which goes right next to the plants. If it gets really bad you can actually dissolve some of the soap in water and put it in a sprayer and spray that directly on the plants getting chewed on. They hate the smell and taste.
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Holy shit sorry that was so long. You inadvertently stumbled on one of my greatest passions. <3
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I don't know what kind of perennials you have- find out what growing zone you are in and that will help you a lot- but there really are just a few key tips to get you started:
1. Feed the soil in the spring and fall. It's either spend all season trying to feed the plants, or just feed the soil and let it feed the plants. You can get soil test kits that telly you about the condition of your soil, and then it's just about looking up what kinds of plants you have to see what levels they want. If something is "off," you can feed the one deficiency directly. Too much fertilizers will burn your plants so check your levels. Most areas will have a farm bureau/agricultural office/local state government gardening techs. If you look them up you can often get all kinds of information and even free soil test kits because they promote gardening!
2. Water periodically. The surface soil doesn't have to be wet all the time. What you want to do is dig your fingers into the earth. If there's moisture below the first inch or two, you don't have to oversoak. If it's dry and crumbly all the way down, give it a good soak. That means you water until it starts to pool up a little, then move to the next area. In hot summers (90+) you may have to do this two or three times a week if it's not raining. It really helps to get a good rain gauge to have in your garden. If you look up your plants it will tell you how much rainfall they like to have, so if you have a rain gauge you can just do the math to see if you need more water! If your area lets you install a rain barrel, I highly suggest you do to conserve water and cut your water bills. They are gravity fed with a hose at the bottom so you can siphon the water out.
3. Trimming encourages blooming in perennials if done correctly. Again look up the plants to see when and how much to trim. Generally speaking you want to cut some things back in the fall when they start to whither. You also will want to get some kind of mulch to cover your garden in the fall to protect it. You can save some money here – towards the end of the season if you let your grass get real long for two grows in a row you can get a big heap of tall, thick grass clippings and mound it around the bases of the plants. Under the snow during the winter it will keep the roots of the plant from freezing solid because the decomposing organic material creates warmth as it rots. In the spring when the snow melts, that organic matter is already mostly decomposed into rich black earth that will feed it in the spring. Not all perennials need this, so google your plants!
4. Weeds. Dun dun dun. In the spring some of your new growth can look like weeds. I know I've said it a million times but do google your plants, You'll get pictures of what the new growth looks like so you know what is weed and what is garden plant! If you have some open areas that are weeding concerns, I suggest planting a native breed of a hearty day lily that bushes, or something like iris. They will spread themselves so voraciously that at some point you will probably have to pull some of the bulbs or they will take over! The advantage is that they choke out the weeds. Wherever you have a thick patch of day lily or iris, you probably won't have to weed. Another fun idea for your back garden patches if this is your permanent home is to plant perennial foods that will keep providing for you. Two great ones for this are asparagus and rhubarb. Both take about three years to grow before they are ready to be harvested to eat, but once they establish themselves you will have plenty of both. Both like to be in the sun. The asparagus comes in during the mild spring and early summer. The rhubarb is good all year – note that the leaves are poisonous, you just eat the thick red stems. Chopped up and simmered with a bit of sugar and gelatin it makes an incredible topping for ice cream. Or mix it with cut strawberries and some gelatin for an OMGamazing strawberry-rhubarb pie, one of the best things there is. You can also just chop it up and freeze it wrapped tightly in bags and put it up for later use in pies and etc. Yummo.
5. Pests! Bleh! Some varieties of plant are very susceptible to diseases and pests, like soil molds that get hollyhocks and tomatos and potato beetles! There are organic and inorganic ways to address this. Unfortunately if you get soil molds, it's usually all but impossible to get rid of, and you have to just tear out the diseased plants *burn them don't turn them under you'll make it worse!!* and put in something different that's resistant. This is where your soil test kits can really help!!!
—> I'll make one safety note here…not all fertilizers and soil-feeds or treatments are appropriate for edible plants. If you want to eat from your garden, you have to adjust what you are putting in it and how you address pests. But that's all easily look-uppable.
My grandma taught me everything she knows and I'm known as a bit of a green thumb. Any veeners can always feel free to message me with gardening questions, edible plants or no! But truth be told, if you know the basics of the five tips I just gave you and are willing to go to the agricultural office folks and/or the internet when you have a problem, you should be right as rain. As a last piece of advice, MOST community colleges will have a basic gardening course, which I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest you take. They are almost always taught by a master gardener who will give you all kinds of INVALUABLE information about your local growing conditions and who stays current on all the latest agricultural and farm tech progress. Find the master gardeners in your area and you will never run out of answers!
Above all…enjoy it. Gardening allowed me to connect to my grandmother in a way that makes my connection to her spirit inseparable even after her death. She is still with me – in every patch of earth and every bloom. I ate the food she grew. She is in my blood and bones. Recently her house was sold to people who grew up in the area and remember driving past her beautiful gardens. Gardening connects you to people. Take advantage of that and a new beautiful world will open up to you, where the goodness of people shows through. It's a beautiful and life enriching hobby that has added to my life beyond measure.
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Also last year when BSB week came along, I was in the middle of a fucking atrocious moving process. I hadn’t had my pole up in a month and then it would be another several months before I would get it up so it was a stressful time.
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I’m not a medical professional but I am currently sitting in my grandparents house watching an auction company strip any trace of their life from the home. It’s painful and I’m angry and sad and not feeling even remotely into the idea of sexy week. Unless huddling in a corner crying is sexy but I think it is decidedly NOT.