600% More Than Last Year. With The Suspension To Boot!
Part 2
(First Published on BMEzine.com, Summer, 2003)

*Phew* Now that we have THAT out of the way, onto the real experience shall we? Toronto was to host a Suscon (suspension convention) right before the big BMEfest of 2003 (Canada Day BBQ courtesy of Shannon and the crazy kooky ideas he comes up with) and I jumped at the chance. Over the past few months I had become good friend with Phil, a core member of iWasCured, and we sometimes talked about suspension. He mostly ranted on about how hard it was to find space and all the "behind the scenes" stuff that goes on (money to host the event, place to host it, buying supplies ect.) so in the few months and especally the few weeks before Suscon.Can.03 was to happen, I'd learned a lot about how much work goes into throwing a convention of this size. In the past these have been "pay what you can" but when the groups realize that no one really paid, it became "here is a suggested donation if you wish to participate" and I for one, the day I saw the paypal link go up I was attacking it trying to figure out why it wouldn't let me pay my full amount of $140 ($100 for the suspension, and 2 t-shirts, but I was over my credit card limit) and settled for sending in as much as I could ($120 at the time) just to prove to the organizers that I was serious about wanting to suspend.

The BME Events page was listed with a good 70+ people saying they wanted to be there to watch, to suspend, or to work as staff. We all were getting regular messages via IAM from Allen (the foreman) giving us updates on what was going to happen, when the event was extended due to the amount of people who signed up, then reduced when not 20% of the people signed up bothered to register or pay. Myself as well as a few others, Jordan sticks out in my mind, that were freaking out at the threat of Suscon being canceled all together due to lack of support, and personally I started to make every IAM diary entry start off with a link to the Toronto Suscon Payment information page. Suscon eventually was scaled back to one day (June 30, 2003), with a last minute location change, but went on as planned thankfully.

The week before the event overall was probably my biggest learning experience. First I was chased down online and instructed to pick up the t-shirts for Suscon since they were rush-ordered, then left to sit in the warehouse of a small downtown printing company which was demanding their pick-up that day "or else" After loading 2 boxes full of t-shirts into my car, it was off to Phil's house to volunteer to scrub and bag hooks. I escaped the scrubbing, but aided in the bagging of hooks along with Warren and Cate, where I learned the difference between sharp, pointy hooks and blunt hooks, as well as open eyed and closed eyed hooks, and sorting through them all while in a big salad-bowl while we demonstrated our skills of playing barrel of monkeys (with the hooks instead of monkeys of course!) The next night I returned downtown for school, and after called Phil up to see if he needed any more help. That night I learned that when people say "iron the bags closed" they literal ly mean IRON the bags closed. Finding Phil's iron amongst 3 or 4 others that were in the house (one of the roommates is a fashion type of person, who deals with clothes and obviously irons) and being instructed on using the edge or corner of the iron to literally iron a score in the middle of the bag (that way, the hooks would be in the bottom half of the bag, then the needles could be in the top half since there would be a line where the plastic melts to the paper on the bag) I spent probably a good hour doing that, which is very tiring (holding an iron for that long) and was quite relieved when I was then told to sort through t-shirts for those who had paid and those who were staff for suscon. Everyone who was to get a shirt had a name-tag made up for them, plus the size shirt they were to receive. I made the tags while Phil bagged and ironed these monstrous "Sea-demon" hooks, the 6 gauge atrocities. Then as a joint effort we dug through about 100 t-shirts looking for people's sizes to make sure their shirts were reserved before we bega n to sell them at Suscon and BMEfest. Two nights of work done. Now it was time for me to relax and show up for Suscon.

Maybe 2 days before Suscon, I started drinking as much water as I could hold. It became a constant rush to fill and refill various small bottles of water from either a larger bottle, or from a Brita pitcher in the fridge, and a lot of peeing. It got somewhat ridiculous when I realized that I was drinking a bottle of water, then not 2 minutes later was in the bathroom on the toilet, and the day before when this was happening maybe every half an hour, I'd simply decided to stop wiping and stop flushing to conserve on both the toilet paper and the water bill. This sounds gross but my logic was, I was peeing out the same bottle of water I just drank, so there was no harm in doing so! It wasn't really until that particular weekend that I realized just what I was going to do.

The address of Suscon was released over the weekend and I had mapquested my way down there. I picked up a small Vietnamese sub (the ones you buy at a Chinese supermarket) at around 8am and drank yet another bottle of water. My mom thought (and still thinks) I'm going camping, so she let me borrow a small cooler that I filled with two bottles of orange juice, about 6 bottles of water and a handful of cans of "Five Alive" plus a few ice packs. Drove away with all my "camping gear" (BMEfest was the next day in Tweed) and headed down after picking up a passenger. Arrive and park, then walk down to the space, bumping into two staff members who were in a rush to photocopy release forms. Arriving at just after 10am and parking my stuff (cooler and bag) down to somewhat stand around and do nothing. Allen and Phil gave the instructions, mainly to keep the door closed so people can't see in, to say we're "at a photo shoot" if anyone asks what we're doing, to get out of the way i f someone yells to get out of the way, and to be polite, and not to be an ass while stuff is going on. General stuff I figured out already but it's nice to hear to make sure everyone knows it.

The release forms were all photocopied and handed out, I dug through my bag (which is also my school bag) and found my pencil case and started handing out the pens I had so we wouldn't be in a lineup for the 2 pens already circulating, I got most of them back (one went missing, but oh well, it wasn't a great loss, and if someone really wanted to keep a pen then go ahead) and we handed them all in. I wasn't really scheduled at any point in time to go up, so I kind of lazed in the background, talking to all the "superstars" of BME and just chatting in general with people. Sometime in the afternoon I realized I had yet to eat again, but I had no food, so I drank one of the two bottles of orange juice I had, while noticing that in my plight to be friendly, all my water seemingly disappeared (it's just water, no harm done!) and generally walked around saying hi to people while trying to keep out of everyone's way. There were some very beautiful and moving suspensions that prec eeded me. Still early afternoon, Jason was announced to a group standing outside the door (it was cooler outside than inside) that he needed "someone who has a vehicle, and knows how to get to Stainless Studios" and I offered up my car, and with Cate as my guide, we headed up to pick up an emergency supply of autoclaved hooks and needles. We arrive just outside of Stainless, Cate runs in while I sit in the car (it's illegal to park at the time we were there so I had to be in the car so if I got yelled at, I could move) and Cate returns with Rob as well as needles and hooks. We drive back to Suscon, blasting "Born to be Wild" out the windows (it was on the radio... and seemed fitting!) so I drop them off right at the door since Jason made it seem they were urgently needed, then drove back to the parking lot myself and walked back. This walk takes maybe 5-10 minutes at most, with the parking lot being a little more than a block away, and I walk into the suspension area wat ching about 4 or 5 people all straddling chairs topless and about ever y piercer available hooking them all at the same time. I think nothing of it at the moment.

After another minute, I realize that everyone who just got pierced, was basically everyone who was left to suspend. Phil being the person I know best out of the staff, grab his attention and am like "Phil! Did I just miss my chance at getting hooked?" He looks around, realizes that I most obviously didn't get pierced yet, and is like "Yes... yes you did. Rob! You doing anything?" Asks me if it's ok that Rob pierces me, I have no problem with it. Jonny offers to do it too so it'd be a tandem (two piercers at a time, makes things go by twice as quickly!) but I declined because I already asked Jason to pierce me (nostalgic reasons stemming from almost a year before) so they got me into the prep area where Jason started looking for hooks. I recognized all these bags since... I helped prepare a load of them! But since it was nearing the end of the day it was getting hard to find six 8 gauge closed eye hooks. We finally found what we were looking for, and Rob marked me while exp laining to someone else what he's doing. The marking was done and I got to lie down on the massage table with my arms at my sides. I was wearing a sports bra, which just so happen to cross in the middle and have a bit more material then Jason and Rob liked, so Pierre grabs a piece of duct tape and ties it up in the middle without touching my back (and thus needing it to be cleaned off again, and probably marked again) and after taking a bit of time to calm my nerves, I okay'ed the first set of piercings to be done on the second breath out.

It hurt like a fucker. I kept pretty quiet though, and the first thing out of Jason's mouth was "Well you're 200% further than last year!" (with last year me backing out after one single hook, it's our little inside joke for now I suppose!) After taking a bit more time, probably a few minutes, I was ready again, was pierced on the second breath out, this time it hurt...more? There was discussion between Jason and Rob about the fact out of my 6 hooks, 2 of them would be pierced with 9 gauge needles then followed with 8g hooks, meaning they'd hurt more. My little joke was to be able to guess which ones they were. I figure at least one of them was in the second set of piercings. A few more moments, and another okay, the last two hooks went into my back, a bit more of a quiet scream, and my own justification that another of those 9 gauge needles went into my back. The piercing situation was somewhat funny in itself, with two members of two different crews working on me. J ason from iHung and Rob from iWasCured, they have different piercing strategys. Rob learned how to "pull" a hook in, where he would stand facing the same direction as me, and make the hook go downwards and towards himself. Jason pushes the hook, standing in front of me, and pushes the hook away from him into my back. Besides that, the order in which they pierced was completely different than I thought. I figured they would do the two outside ones, then the two middle ones, then the two inside ones. Instead, they did one the left-most holes, then the middle, then the right most holes (if you can catch my drift) so I personally felt VERY imbalanced because I'm thinking that one of the piercings was very off from the other, and it wasn't until all 6 hooks were in that I realized what they'd done. We're done with all 6 hooks, and Jason says "Alright Angela! You're 600% further than last year!" and we all congratulate each other. I also made sure I thanked both Rob and Ja son for what they'd done for me so far.

I find out that I'm to suspend on the rig that's closest to the prep station, but had to move because there was someone else who needed to be pierced. Walking around with hooks in my back felt very very strange. Soon it was time to go up. I ended up with quick-links attached to the eyes of the hooks (to make rigging me easier I suppose, as well as to not contaminate the rig) and then I was rigged. It felt very very strange. Person who Rob was training was pulling me up while Rob was coaching me. At first I was going somewhat along, with Rob telling me to step forward and back, sometimes adjusting the tension on the para-cord to make sure it felt even, later he let me grab his arms to give me a better feel of what I was doing. Oh I also was barefoot at this point on a painted concrete (I think) floor, and it was hot, and my feet were sweaty, if you can imagine, I was kind of sticking to the floor. Anyways, I would go forwards a step or two, it would feel tight, I woul d go back while kind of crouching to keep the tension, then go forward, and back, and forward, and back... you get the picture. I ended up on my toes, for a VERY long time to me, but I couldn't let myself go, couldn't take both feet of the floor. I tried once and stumbled, and Rob even reminded me; "You're practically up already, you're just on your tippy-toes!"

I forget exactly when, or where, or why, but at one point both feet kind of left the floor, Rob got me pulled up higher and that was about it. I feel like maybe I was kind of blacking out, I heard somewhat faintly to kick my legs around, so I did that for a few seconds. I opened my eyes at one point to look down to make sure I wasn't dreaming that my feet really had left the ground, then promptly closed them because I'm scared of heights. Someone, I don't know who, pushed me a little and I was swinging for a little bit, and probably somewhere in the distance I heard a burst of clapping and figured someone else had just gotten up. After all this seemingly feeling like 4 seconds, I started feeling like I was about to puke, and started saying "Down down down down down..." and thankfully someone heard me and I was lowered. I got a chair placed under my butt as I hit the floor, and received my nearly empty bottle of orange juice. (I almost drank the whole thing before, and r ealized I'd probably need SOME of it for after). Rob gave me the option of sitting, chilling and going back up, so they tightened the ropes to give a little bit of tension so I wouldn't swell and make it hurt more the second time I went up.

Just, after sitting and thinking for those few minutes I realized that there really wasn't anything in it for me. It wasn't a life changing experience, or very spiritual. I remembered writing on my IAM page that I'm prepared to get what I need from this experience, and not what I want, and considering I didn't remember much of anything, I really didn't need anything and there wasn't a reason to go back up. I told Rob next time he passed by me that I was done for the day and he cut me loose. I asked to keep the para-cord though as a souvenir and had it jammed into my pockets (after being wrapped in gloves). I had a few people come up to me and congratulate me, with people telling me I was up for a long time. I didn't see 3 or 4 seconds as being long, but it was confirmed later I was up more for 1 to 2 minutes, still not long, but I was told there is no conception of time while in the air, so I'm comfortable with what I accomplished.

The bleed out station was run by the girls from Hangin Betty, only I kept missing my chances because Pierre was about to go up and I wanted to be there for him. Finally I got a spare moment between Pierre's piercings and rigging so I ran my butt over and had Jen do most of the work. She asked me if I wanted a warning when she did it but I really didn't care, after she took out the first hook I realized I couldn't feel anything so it didn't matter. I did however ask to keep two of the hooks because I wanted one and Pierre wanted one. Out of the 6, I got the two "bigger" ones complete with the quick links. Either way, they quickly removed all the hooks from my back, then tried to burp the air out, and realized there wasn't any in my back to begin with. Fine by me, I heard stories that it wasn't very pleasant sounding or feeling so the more of that I avoided the better. The tegaderms that were used looked just like normal large-sized bandaids, that perfectly covered the holes from one hook, so I had six of those taped to my back, although from hearing the girls struggling, they seem to be pretty complicated to put on (there's the normal backing, then a "special" backing that also needs to be removed.)

Either way, that was about the end of the suspension experience. I ended up driving me and Pierre to the store by his house, after realizing that I couldn't really lift my arms above shoulder height comfortably. Also in the parking lot, I found that not lifting my arms comfortably above shoulder height compromised my driving skills. Most notably that while making tight turns (into parking spaces) I wouldn't be able to bring my right arm OVER the steering wheel, and instead smashed the back of my fingers ACROSS the steering wheel. Pulling open doors was also a bit of a hassle as it reminded me of my sore shoulders. Sleeping that night was rather uneventful, but I found that sleeping on my side hurt the most. I don't tend to sleep on my back, and sleeping on my stomach was just dandy to me.

The next morning was BMEfest, I jumped into the shower with my tegaderms still on, convinced that I should leave them on as long as possible, had no problems showering or driving the two hours to Tweed. Once I got there, I decided to get Pierre to take them off because I wanted to walk around without a shirt on (just my sports bra) and didn't want people to think I was sick and disgusting because I had six bloody tegaderm bandages affixed to my back. They were not as bloody as I had thought, and they seemed fine in general. I had a lot of people ask me how it was going up, and when I went up and other sort of "Oh, you've suspended?" types of questions, I didn't mind answering because no one made it sound like I was nuts for doing it. All the holes had scabbed over so I was fine.

It's now a week later, and still no real changes. Either I'm delayed in any spiritual involvement, or there was none there. I've figured out that there's one of two things going on. 1: Suscon was neither the time nor the place for me. I didn't really get a quiet setting I had hoped for, nor did I get to listen to the music I wanted to, but more than that, I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing because there were too many people around me, and that next time I should try to suspend in a more quiet, subdued, private environment. 2: I'm one of those few people that get nothing out of suspension, perhaps this just "isn't my thing" and I'll figure that out later. Either way, I want to try this again, as in situation 1, with a more quiet, private experience to see if suspension is "my thing" or not, if not, then no harm done and nothing's been lost.

So, to make this long story (and some would say extremely long story) short, suspension doesn't always give you this hyped up spiritual awakening, it might just give you some extra holes in your back and sore shoulders.

Oh, another thing, do not, I repeat, do NOT stretch your septum to a 6 gauge (from an 8 gauge) 3 days before suspending. It either looked like I don't wipe my nose enough, or really really sore the entire day, which just took away from my concentration even more.

Well I hope you're still awake!

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