Since last fall I've been waiting to get a tattoo from this one particular artist. After two reschedulings, tomorrow's finally the day. I'm getting a half sleeve, or at least most of the upper right arm covered. I don't know what the design is as I just told her I love her style and she could do what she wished. It'll be black and white, that's all I know.
Her portfolio is full of beautiful images and wonderful line work. In particular, I fell for this one piece and immediately knew I wanted her to do something on me. Plus she's in San Diego, which must be fate right? In addition, the name of the shop she works at is the same name as my literary agency.
Before this, most of my tattoos had to have meaning, or some sort of symbolism. Now I'm just here for aesthetics and letting the artist do what they want. I feel like, for an accomplished tattooist, having something dictated to them must be the worst. They've trained for years at their craft and somebody walks in wanting to just reproduce from a piece of paper. I mean, that's exactly what I did before, but you know, I was basically just getting stock images.
When you decide you admire someone's work and that you trust their expertise, you just let'em do what they know how to do.
Tonight I prepared by taking photos of my bare arms, for posterity. It seemed silly but I thought I should do it. My friend said that it was weird that I'd never see that part of my arm again. No, that's not true, it'll just be a prettier arm. The naked skin wasn't doing great things for me anyway. If I had an unlimited budget, most of my body would be covered by ink. Love that look.
I also hopped down to Target to get a tank top for the big day. The men's wear section was pretty thin on options. Mesh basketball jerseys, sleeveless dri-fit stuff for guys who like working out, and wifebeaters. (The marketing term for "wifebeaters" is "A-Shirt," who knew?)
After some consideration, I am now the proud owner of a pack of wifebeaters in four fine colors. The only ones I've owned previously were stolen from my friend's closet, possibly from all the way back in college. Now if I can get some pec and arm muscles to grow in -- I've been feeding them boba -- I can wear wifebeaters all the time.
And I'm back! Well, for some reason I thought the whole thing would be done in a few hours. Having never gotten a tattoo bigger than a few inches across, I had no concept of how long a custom design would take. Right now it's just the outline -- which took about three hours -- and then it'll have to be filled in and fleshed out. I guess I'll be back for a few more sessions. For the instant gratification part of me that's killer, but it'll be interesting to see how the design evolves and comes together.
Behind me, a girl was getting a shoulder tattoo of a medium sized cross. From her moaning and wimpers, you'd have thought she was undergoing traumatic surgery. Afterwards she was so happy.
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