A Time to Embrace: For my Aunty

I try and write back to people in my comments and I fail when I'm at work. It wont let me. Sorry. (and side note - Elisa -OMG! Did I read your aversion to sweets lately correctly?)

Here is my first tattoo. My mom had been nagging me for weeks to go get it done. I believe she may have called me a wuss. Or wimp. Or both. She was like that in a loving way.

So one night, in the dead of night, I left my VERY ill husband (who ended up going to the hospital and being admitted for a week the next morning with Colitis) and went to the tattoo shop I had been scouting out.

It was in an older part of Tucson and I was driving a Toyota Corolla. And wearing a soccer mom looking pink sweater and khakis. There was no one more out of place that night than me.

I walked in and explained what I was looking for and they told me no problem and set me up with the "head" tattoo artist. I went into his office that had a window looking out on the rest of the shop and we discussed my 3 leaf tattoo.

The office was painted blood red and he had mini-statues of the character HellRaiser all over. He had multiple tattoos and piercings including skeletal birds on the sides of his neck. One on each side. Did I mention I looked out of place?

After the discussion I showed him where I wanted it placed, on my inside right ankle. This is where my aunts and mother all have THEIR tattoos (which is a much better story than this one). He left me alone for a few moments to gather myself because I was afraid. He recommend I do some deep breathing and "find my happy place".

My happy place was back at home in my warm bed watching Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel.

But I wasn't there. I was in a scary look tattoo shop. So I closed my eyes and imagined calm meadows and forests, a babbling brook and maybe some chirping birds. Not skeletal ones. Imagine the opening scene from Bambi. That was me in my mind.

I heard him come back into the room but I was very relaxed and so just left my eyes closed. I heard him moving around, gathering equipment and still floated along, in my happy place.

Then he sat down on the stool by my foot and YANKED up my pant leg. This startled me obviously because 1)I hadn't shaved my legs above my ankle and 2)he YANKED on me.
My startled expression made him comment "In case the blood starts squiring out your pants wont get messy."

Happy place. Gone.

All in all the experience wasn't bad, it felt just like his underage girlfriend said it would, like a cat scratch on a bad sunburn, and I walked out of there feeling great.

I had to hide my tattoo from my then husband because he believed that women with tattoos were trashy. Despite his mother having 4 and his grandmother having one. My mother had one and NOW he and his girlfriend go get tattoos as a hobby. I believe she has something like 4 or 5.

So here is a picture of my first tattoo.

My second tattoo. I got it done September 30, 2008. That's the day my divorce from Brian was final. Micah took me to get it and held my hand while it was done. It hurt a LOT worse, in case you were curious.