tattoos

This, because I've already told you the story of my half-done tattoo. M-C was kind enough to take a picture for me for you.

And this because I need to remember how goddamn cute my cat is the next time she wakes me up with her demon yowling at 4 in the ante meridian. Besides which, I would just kill for markings like hers.

Here's a trick I use on a regular basis:

If I can't decide between two options, I flip a coin. Not so that the coin can tell me what to do, but so that I can judge my reaction to what the coin is telling me to do. If I'm disappointed it's tails, I know that heads is the right decision.

Even as the early results were coming in, before I saw any comments, the answers were in favour of not telling. I found myself wishing it had been heads.

I really don't think they would have fired me. But I go to a fair number of conferences as a representative of my work, to net-work, and I wasn't sure if they'd be happy about having an emissary with starfish arms on her neck.

What I should have mentioned in the first post is that everyone I work with is great. They're incredibly cool. In the end, that's what decided it. I wanted to stop worrying needlessly over something that was likely not true.

In fact, this is how the conversation went:

Me: So, that appointment I have tomorrow afternoon?
Boss: Yeah?
M: It's a tattoo appointment.
B: raises her eyebrows
M: Oh, don't worry, I'll make up the time.
B: waves hand in the air dismissively And...?
M: Well, it's going to be visible. On my shoulder and neck. Hard-to-hide kind of visible.
B: And....?
M: Well, I go to conferences and stuff, representing us.
B: And...? It's not a like a big [something my work is categorically against], is it?
M: Oh! Oh no. It's a starfish.

Since we're not categorically against starfish, she was fine with it. We went on to talk about how cool starfish are and how she saw some really beautiful ones on Salt Spring when the tide was low. Of an indescribable red.

I am lucky lucky lucky.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

The day is finally here. Wait, no. The day is not here, but the day before the day is here.

I'm getting my new tattoo tomorrow. It's the starfish up in the banner, on my shoulder and neck.

I've got mostly the regular day-before-the-day jitters. I'm worried that I'll hate it when it's done. I'm worried that I won't be able to sit for 4 hours.

Another layer of worry is that this is my first all-the-time visible tattoo. I have giant tattoos now, but nobody sees them. In one way, I kind of like that, these hidden presents wrapped around my torso that nobody would guess are there.

Then I see other people's visible tattoos, and I want to be one of the people who has ink right out there.

At any rate, it's booked and the cold feet will warm up once the design is being carved into me.

The main reason that I'm writing this is that it just occurred to me today that my work might not like it. Or, at the very least, might not like being surprised by it. As a little background, I don't work with the public at all. The only time I see anyone besides my immediate co-workers is at conferences, though I go to a few of those a year.

I'm pretty sure they won't care, but then the consequences might be pretty dire if they don't. Plus, maybe it would just be polite to check in. I can't decide. I don't want to talk to my boss about it, because it would be awkward, but I feel like I maybe should. I don't know, I don't know.

What do you think?

Should I tell my bosses about my new tattoo before I get it?
( surveys)/>

I took this picture last week to get me prepped for the consultation appointment I have with my tattoo artist this afternoon.

About 6 months ago, I started to feel my skin itch again for more ink. I had a vague idea of what I wanted, and thought I'd better call, since I know my guy books at least a few months ahead, though I think now it's closer to 6.

It took a few tries, but I finally got in touch with someone, someone who remembered me:

"Have you had work here before?"

"Yeah, a couple of years ago I had a squid and whale done."

"On... your arm?"

"No, my ribs."

"Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure it was the same lady."

I guess having miniature versions of giant deep sea animals on your ribcage makes you a lady.

At any rate, she offered up today, two weeks out. I was flabbergasted. Took the appointment, of course, and then started freaking out, because I suddenly had to definitively decide in a damn hurry what was going to be permanently splayed over my body.

Though I won't divulge what it is, my initial plan was grand, covering part of my neck, my shoulder and most of my right upper arm.

I do really want that, at least eventually, but considering that I have a mortgage and a couple of interesting possible trips on my horizon, it might be best to start small and work out from there.

The part I want the most, the part I'm going to start with, is at the top, on the tip of my right shoulder blade, creeping up onto my neck, around into my clavicle.

I've got the photos ready, the deposit in my wallet; dreams of smeary ink, blood, tight weepy skin, shiny colours, arms wrapped around my neck.

All photos by the inestimably lovely Eric.

It is hard to fucking believe, but the tattoo is done.* It's beautiful. It hurt. A lot. But I was kind of sad to say a last goodbye to my tattoo guy, and mentioned that I was already thinking of my next one. Maybe in the summer.

"After you've forgotten about the pain," he said.

Really, it takes about two weeks for me to forget about the pain.

It was kind of odd this time because I was alone with my tattoo guy. Normally the other tattoo guy is there as well along with another client. This time, it was just me and J. and my escaping mammaries.

I think this is the next thing the Misses Manners and Etiquette need to tackle. What's the appropriate response when you look down and instead of seeing your shirt, see a nipple?

The first option is to cover it up again, but that just seems weird, because you know he's seen it, not staring at it, no, but hopefully paying very close attention to the skin he's jabbing needles into about 3 inches underneath the offending appendage. I felt like covering it up would be kind of like admitting one of us had done something wrong. What that something would be, I have no idea.

The second option would be to just give up and let the nipple run free. But (and this is going to sound weird to anyone who reads this blog regularly) I'm kind of shy. Seriously. I talk a good game, and can occasionally get my gumption up to do something revealing in public, but generally, what you get here or up on stage is much more revealing that what you'll get out of me in person.

I couldn't decide which was the best course of action, so I swung back and forth. Sometimes I yoinked my shirt down, sometimes I pretended I didn't have nipples.

My tattoo guy, who is a brilliant tattoo guy, and very nice, was entirely stoic and did a very good job of not noticing whether they were out or in. Bless his heart.

* It might be longer till the pictures come, because some of the colouring he did is really light. And really light blocks of colour look like angry angry bruises for about the first 5 days. And then they look like flaky snakeskin. Hot.

Someone asked me to sit down someday and explain why I've decided to use my body as a canvas.

Well, today is some day, but I don't really have a very good reason.

I first wanted a tattoo when I was 16 years old and had a Sassy subscription. Oh! Sassy, how you saved me from my dreary sub-suburban existence, how you showed me the path to coolness each and every month. How I waited with bated breath to see what next funny thing would be written on your spine. How I swooned when I read "We can't believe you people read these." You people! I was You People!

But I digress. There was a story about women getting tattoos, and a picture, I can still picture it, of a woman, probably about my current age, maybe a little younger, so hip, with her messy pulled up hair and loose white wide-necked blousey dress and stunning swallows dipping under her collar bones. She wasn't model beautiful, but she was beautiful. A kind of beautiful I wasn't used to - one that didn't ipso facto permanently exclude me. She was a kind of beautiful I could maybe be some day.

I wanted those tattoos so badly. I wanted to be her and her friends, doing what they wanted with their bodies. They were probably not hiding in their basements, away from their parents screaming at each other; they were probably not going to a high school where the best thing you could do was play volleyball and the only interesting thing you could do was get smashed. They were probably smoking and getting tipsy on good wine and having smart conversations and not shaving their legs. And having cool jobs, not cleaning toilets in baggy uniforms. And fucking whenever they wanted to. Wherever they wanted to. Not in cars and schoolyards and forests.

But I digress. I loved those tattoos. That I understood them as beautiful and powerful set me apart, and finally in a good way, from all but a core of my classmates. For the first time, I saw a kind of beauty that might include me, an achievable beauty. It still is. You need money, yes. And you need a good idea. But money can be saved and man, I got a million ideas I ain't even rocked yet.

Enough of that for now. I had another appointment last night.

And so I present to you: THE SQUID

Managed to sit for 3 hours, though by two and three-quarters I was counting time with the songs in a whisper.

When I breathe deep, the squid swims.

My last appointment is January 3rd, when I will get the whale on my bastard left side finished. And some bubbles.

It's going to be some pretty. Beautiful, even.

Tattoos

Am I fucking crazy? Who thought these giant tattoos on my ribs would be a good idea? I got most of the whale coloured in today. I had to stop Julian when my legs started twitching and I though might barf. Only two hours in. Fuck. Me. But it's too late to stop the whole process now.

This time I was not so shy with the boobs. You know, there are a lot of people who wander in and out of that tattoo shop, neighbours, old clients, friends. But everyone seems nice, and moreover, they all pretended not to notice that my tit was hanging out. But I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I wouldn't have known if they were ogling anyway.

After we stopped for the day, I lay there for a few seconds, dumbstruck and leaking tears: I knew, just knew, that what I had coming up was not a patient few tears, but a flood. "Julian," I said "Could you hand me a kleenex? I'm sorry, I need to bawl."

He grabbed a paper towel and handed it over. "Weep away." And I did. It was cathartic sad bawling, not ouchie pain bawling. They understood that, have seen it a million times.

It is doubtful that there will be pictures in the near future. Before I wrapped my ribs up in tensor strips to hopefully keep the swelling down, the blood had almost soaked through the bandages.

Bob Dylan

The GD and I had seats 1 & 2 in the 40th row on the floor. The last row on the floor. It was dark when we went in, and there was row 40, though I practically had to crawl to find the number chalked on the floor. There were two empty seats at the end, so we didn't pay much attention and sat down. A half hour or so into the Foo Fighters, security came over. "Could I see your tickets?" We pulled them out, and she directed us down to the other end of the row - the beginning of the row. That started at Seat 3. There was no C40 1 or 2.

A kerfuffle ensued, requiring the getting of the supervisor. "Don't worry, we'll Take Care of It," he said to us.

Take Care of It? I thought, Do you have to have a conference call to ask for two more folding chairs?

As the supervisor walked away, presumably to just find the conference room where the big guns would dole out our chairs, the Great Dater grabbed his sleeve. "Well, I guess you'll have to put us up at the front now, eh?"

"Sorry to make you stand. It'll just be a few moments." The baby security guard was very apologetic. Who the fuck do they normally deal with here? I thought. Are the people who normally come to scotiabank place particularly weak of leg? Particularly bitchy?

Supervisor came back, no chairs in sight, and crooked a finger for us to follow him. We did, closer and closer to the stage. And indeed, there we were, being taken up to the front. To row 10, as a matter of fact. I think I enjoyed the concert more from row 10 than row 40.

There was one particularly entertaining man who would pop up every 3 or 4 minutes and pump his fist in the air, and then just as suddenly melt into the crowd again. And there was another crazy dancing man, one who just could not be kept down, instead keeping up a herky-jerky Elaine-dance for almost all of Dylan's set.

Highly entertaining, all in all.

On the Way Home from Bob Dylan

I borrowed the Grs car, affectionately known as the Polecat. GD and I were speeding home along the highway in said Polecat, talking about the high points of the show. "One of my favourites," he says to me, "was the penultimate song. But I can't remember the name."

"Did you just say penultimate?" I goggled.

"Yes. It means second to last. Doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah, it does." A moment of silence. "Now all you need to do is toss 'nonplussed' casually and correctly into conversation and you will have well and truly swept me off my feet."

Jurassic 5

Mitch and Steve and I went to see J5 last night. It was a capacity crowd at the Capital Music Hall. 650 people screaming their heads off any time someone in the band called out a sing-song "Ottawa!" Only for the longest time, I thought he was shouting "I dunno!" and I couldn't figure out why we were supposed to scream our support out for him not knowing whatever it was he was not knowing. I waved my arms in the air like I just didn't care for quite a long time and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The band seemed genuinely surprised by the sustained enthusiasm of the crowd. It was fun to watch just that. Ottawa fans obviously don't get as much hip hop as they'd like.

Mitch bailed early, and as Steve and I were walking home, he stopped. I kept going for a few steps, then realized Steve wasn't with me and stopped dead too, waiting for him to catch up. And then backed up, wanting to see what he was staring so perplexedly at. A barefoot and shirtless man, either scaling or climbing down the side of a house, wrapping the ropy wires covering the house like ivy around his hands. Electrical wires? We didn't wait to find out. "What the fuck are you looking at?" he said to us. "A guy," Steve responded "who seems to be climing the side of a house." And we moved on.

Only a few steps later, someone shouted our names. Thankfully, it was not our shirtless Spidey, but the Great Dater, who was just getting dropped off after a hot tub soiree. The GD invited me home with him, so we scooted across the street and watched some Monty Python before I attacked him. He was really drunk and really high - the first time I've seen him be either of those things - and really fucking adorable. "How so?" he asked me this morning, when I told him that, and I had no good answer. Just 'cause.

Tonight

Since I feel like shit, I'm staying in. The GD is coming over and we're going to watch a movie. I will actually suggest starting the first season of the Wire. He's never seen it, and it is my favourite television show, hands down. And since I already know what happens, I won't have to pay that much attention.

I have Raynaud's Syndrome, and today is the day it came out in full force for the first time this season.

Mostly, I get it in my toes. and it is definitely a smallie. I didn't even realize that occasionally having fingers or toes look like they're dead wasn't normal until I met someone else who had it in their nipples. It doesn't hurt and I don't have it very badly. I just have to be careful about my hands and feet getting cold, or else put up with not being able to tell if my extremities are still attached. And then feeling all weird and pins-and-needly as I rub whatever's disappeared and the blood flows back in. Two pairs of socks for me, from here till April.

Tomorrow is the first of my two tattoo appointments. That's right, today is the last day for bare skin on my ribs. Now that it's here, I'm a little trepidatious. What if I don't like the squid and whale? What if it hurts too much and I wiggle around and fuck up his work? What if he figures out that his ex is dating my ex and that makes him irritable and distracted?

Pshaw, I say to that inner nagging voice, pshaw. These tattoos are going to be great. I have a high pain tolerance. He's a great tattoo artist. The squid and whale is a great idea.

Am I convinced yet? Well, at least the blood is flowing back in.

Hopefully, photos to follow. Though I haven't delivered on the Nova Scotia/Montreal photos yet, have I? No, I have not.