"he asked for a 13 and they drew a 31"
For 15 years or more now I've been thinking of getting a tattoo. The history is like this. I progressed from thinking I'd like one, to thinking I'll get one, to thinking what would it be? to finally settling on a celtic design of some sort. Finally i figured I'd get a celtic cross. It has a bunch of meanings and well it's not like I'm going to stop being Irish, so the meanings would remain true for me for as long as I have the thing (i.e. forever). So then I started actually looking for a design. (We're at about 6 years ago now). In the summer of 2003 I was in Newfoundland with my friends and I went to mass (weird, i know, but we were staying with my friend Paul, who's a priest, and figured it'd be polite to actually go to see him 'on the job') and there in the church, on the podium/lecturn and elsewhere in the church was a really beautiful design of a celtic cross. Different from normal because it was an equal cross (not the kind where the vertical is longer than the horizontal).
After I came home I asked Paul to take a pic and send it to me. So for more than a year I've had the design and have been finding excuses not to get it done. As my 35th birthday approached this fall, I figured it was time to 'piss or get off the pot' as my sainted Mother would say. But the money wasn't there (my usual excuse). And then, speaking of my mommy, she (and dad) gave me some dough for Christmas that handily covered the price of a tattoo. When they discover that not only have I gotten one, but that they paid for it, they will truly freak out. THAT'S a conversation I promise to blog about when it happens.
So on Tuesday this week I went and did the deed. Finding a tattooer (she never referred to herself as a tattoo artist - I guess it seems a bit pretentious) was easy, I asked my buddy Alexis where I should go. She suggested Amanda, a great artists and the wife of Alexis's ex boyfriend. (And if you can't trust the wife of the ex-boyfriend of a good friend of yours the WHO can you trust I say!).
I had brought her the design a week before and she had made a couple of variations for me to choose. I picked one, it was great/perfect, and we began. FOr those who don't know the process is like this. she applies a stencil to your body part. it's a weird purply thing. Like the color of ink from a ditto machine if you're old enough to remember those. why that ink doesn't end up under your skin when you tattoo over it I don't know. Then she gets to work. To start with she outlines it in black ink. You can see from the pic that the cross and the circles are outlined in black. then she drew the rest, and filled it all in.
In all it took about 2 hours.
Now, I know your next question: "Did it hurt?" Well yes. Of course it did. But it didnt' hurt anywhere near as much as you'd think. It stung. like getting a needle (not the deep muscle pain of getting a needle, but the pin-prick part). Only it hurt like that for two hours. So it's not the volume of pain, but the duration that's a bit weird. I have heard that 3 hours is the max that anyone can take at a time (with some masochistic exceptions I'm sure). Because at some point your body just gets annoyed with you and starts to do weird things like go into shock. You can only override your basic desire to flinch and pull away for so long before your body wants to protect itself.
Anwyay it was great. Yah it hurt, but it felt wonderful to be finally doing something I'd thought about for a long time. And really, it's a mild form of body modification (gawd isn't that THE most pretentious fucking way of describing it?) going these days.
I doubt very much if I'll become one of these tattoo addicts. You never know, I make no promises, but I doubt I'll be getting Geiger pictures on my back anytime soon or hyacinthes on my ass (Amanda told a story about her time tattooing in Miami, apparently a lot of cougars get hyacinthes on their asses at 4am). I mean I managed to get only two earrings and one nipple ring during my 'peircing' phase :)
The after effects are fine too. the skin's a bit rough, but i'm moisturizing as per her instructions. Everyone asks if it's scabbed over yet. But when I asked Amanda about that she said "I'm no butcher!" So I dont' think it will (and now three days later it is showing no signs of it).
Every once in a while, getting out of the shower or something, I catch sight of it and marvel at the fact that I do have a tattoo. It's kinda cool.