still journaling mostly over  here.

a little ink-a-do ya good
so, sunday past i woke up rather excited. ok, not just rather, i woke up totally excited. i was getting my third tattoo. maybe we'll have to colour it a little, i wasn't only excited i was also quite apprehensive.

the reasons for excitement were easy to see, i was getting a new tatto and more importantly i was getting the tattoo to finish my matched set. if i never ever went back for the second tattoo i think that i wouldn't have loved it half as much as i do now with the set. you know how it goes, it's part of the vision and if you can't meet then vision then you aren't meeting the desire.

as soon as i decided that i wanted my second tattoo i had hit on the idea of a matched set. although they don't really match, after all one is an antique stills camera and the other and antique movie camera but it's the duality of their nature and the way that they complement one another. one sits on my right leg representing the logical core that loves that passion more and yet still holds that the right leg is controlled by the left side of the brain so that there is room for both. the other on the left for almost the opposite reasons. photography is much more an art for me but if you don't look on it with some sort of logic and systematic knowledge you are a loss for something worth seeing.

as i said, my excitement was easy for me to see.



the apphrehension shouldn't be too difficult to fathom either. if there was to be as much pain this time as there was the last time i don't understand what kind of moron i was being to even consider going back. i mean, your body has these pain reactions so that it can tell you what to do in situations where you might be in possible harm. lots of pain means lots of reasons. i didn't have any reason what-so-ever to believe that this time would be any less painful than the last.
there was an additional reason, it didn't look like my friend sharolyn was going to be able to make it this time. now i know that last time i made some comments about how much of a freak she is and what kind of ridiculous human being she must be to enjoy the pain of the process so much but really all of that was just fun. no, not as in for fun i made it up in exageration. no fun as in i get to watch the look of glee on her face while i whimper. if there is one thing that makes such situations go easer and even more importantly, faster, it is something to do or talk about while it is going on. anything to take your mind off. if there is one thing that is true about shar more than any other it is that she is a marvelous distraction from anything. without her there this time, did that mean that there was going to be seemingly endless agony?

making the decision to actually go wasn't hard. i was already decided, i was going. there was some apprehension but i made the statement i have made in the past and until now maybe had never really been put to the test, 'it's just pain, just an electronic impulse. you can take it.' that coupled with the fact that Mikel, my tattooist really isn't half bad at keeping a conversation going while he works got me out the door.

i leave the house in plenty of time to get there on time and in fact i arrive early. i have enough time to go across the street and take some cash out for the tip, which is preferred in cash. you know, during my first tattoo i am certain there was no consideration of a tip. good thing the guys at the shop put up the handy sign saying that the artists preferred tips in cash. otherwise i would never have known. how uncultured of me. ahh the nuances of subcultures...

i get into the studio and the first thing he notices is that i am without shar. he doesn't seem overly saddened by this fact but apparently she has made enough of an impression that it not only goes noticed but remarked upon. but after we get through those tears and anguish we move onto business.

he has had to redesign the sketch i gave him a little to make it work in his mind. i am quite happy with the new effort and after two faulty applications of the pattern we get a third that is in just the right place. i lie down on the bed and he goes to work.

so you know what? sure it hurt but really not nearly as much as the last one. i don't think that this is because that leg is tougher than the first. it is either that shar's glee at my pain actually makes me feel it more to give her a better time (a suggestion that would indicate that i am truly fucked up and yet an incredibly giving friend) or that i am getting used to this level of pain. i'm going to go with the latter even though it's kind of scary. i am driving my survival instinct right out of my body with my own stupid actions? not a good idea. it is a good thing that i had resolved that it would be quite a long time before my next tattoo. if ever. probably never.

we finish in about the same time as the last one but this time the hour and a half flew by at almost twice the subjective speed. we chat the entire time about any manner of things. rarely about the tattoo itself as i am now an old hand at the process. and who knows, perhaps bringing attention to it will make it hurt more. we do talk about the process some and that is rather interesting.

in the end, as i put shoes and stuff on and he cleans up he asks me to come back in in a month. for one thing my first needs 5 minutes worth of touch up work but more importantly because he likes my tattoos and the ideas behind them enough that he wants to take a picture of them to put in his album. this hasn't happened to any of the people that i know of who have gone to him and i am quite flattered and find it quite neat.

life is good. i am so incredibly ecstatic about my tattoos. they are so beautiful. maybe i won't some day but i do think i have made the decision that will carry me though the long times.

anyways, a couple of pictures.
the first of the new tattoo. a little blacker than after the skins heals back and it turns the blue-green that black tattoos always show through...



the second of the two of them, my passion bookends.



a very happy ending and a good place to stop.