Today, I turn 39.
As I write this, I technically turned 39 two minutes ago, at 6:22 PM eastern time.
I will say that yes, I accomplished my primary goal this year -- I did indeed get a new tattoo for my birthday, in the exact style I wanted, in the exact place I wanted, for much less than I expected to pay. So, with that large revelation out of the way, let's tell the story of how we got to that point, as well as the time and the effort it took to get there. To do that, I also have to start the story, roughly, on Saturday night in the overnight hours.
On Saturday night, I was not in a good mental headspace. I was intensely frustrated with a number of things, and then wrote a large amount about those things in my December post before paring it down and eventually deleting almost all of it. I have not been sleeping well in any sense of the term; my hopes even now are that I can get some good rest in the overnight tonight/into the morning and daytime hours tomorrow and "reset" myself. I do have to work the next two nights, after all. They'll either be horrible or they'll be dead silent. Judging from my inbox, things are cooling down quite a bit as we inch closer to the holidays.
But I digress. I was not in a great mood on Saturday night; my mood was downright foul. I felt as if everything was starting to fall apart, not just everything surrounding the holidays but everything surrounding my mental state. This year has been hard, this month has been hard, and I just needed some things to start going well, some things to start going right, before I lost my mind.
Thankfully, some puzzle pieces began to slowly fall into place, and when I woke up yesterday morning, I had a much better, more laid-back outlook on life. Sunday, in fact, allowed me to get a lot accomplished, and allowed me to feel a lot better about everything going on in the lead-up to the holidays. Breathing space, I guess. Allowing me to accomplish most of my goals on Sunday led me to be able to accomplish most of my goals today. I wrapped all of Daisy's presents -- the ones that are here already, anyhow, as the final four arrive tomorrow. I got some PS4 time in. I spent some quality time with the wife. She went and picked up Chinese food for us from our favorite place, and we had a nice lunch together (I still have a fair amount of leftover lo mein, in fact). I got some decompression time in on my computer here with a nice, leisurely strategy game. We ended the night by going to Home Goods (at like 9pm, when they close at 11) to pick up a few small gifts for the parents for Christmas. I was even successful in getting a couple of bars of fancy soap and some seasonal snacks for me. I even did a grocery delivery order, in which I was finally able to get some Quorn Meatless Pieces (they've been out of them for months). The biggest bonus of Sunday was that Daisy confirmed with me that yes, she had begun ordering Christmas presents, and that they'd begin arriving Tuesday-ish.
With the stars coming into alignment a bit more (so to speak), it was time to plan what we'd actually be doing on my birthday this year. I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish, which I gave the rundown of in this month's main post...but you haven't seen that yet, so I'll make a revised list here to share, and then we'll dive into it.
1. get my next tattoo
2. see Spider-Man: No Way Home
3. see Daisy's parents, if possible
4. talk to my own parents
5. do something fancy-ish for dinner
6. possibly do any last-minute Christmas shopping still necessary, with Daisy
7. finally take the "Santa" pictures with my hat on so I can shave off the beard
8. hit up the vape shop for more of my raspberry juice (I had a birthday coupon)
Etc. These were the main goals, and I knew before I even started the day that I would not be able to accomplish all of them. Which, I mean, it's fine -- it is what it is. There's only so many hours in the day, and I'm only one person with finite energy. So I'll start with the things I did not get to do, and why I couldn't, before we get into what I actually did.
I didn't get to take the Santa photos. That was, unfortunately, one of the things that fell to the wayside today, as I just didn't have the time or energy for them with everything else that was going on. We didn't do any other last-minute Christmas shopping, either -- there was also no real time or energy for that. We were mostly mission-focused for the day.
Unfortunately, we did not get to see Spider-Man: No Way Home, either. Most showings over the weekend in the area were either completely sold out, or almost sold out, and because of the tattoo timing today, although theaters were a ghost town on a Monday morning/afternoon, there's no way we could've committed to a time and pre-booked tickets before leaving the house without knowing how long it would take to get my tattoo done, if I'd need to do an appointment setup or have a first-come, first-serve thing.
Everything else, surprisingly, I did get to do. But there was a long road to that, so buckle in, this will be a story with a lot of twists.
I found out, on Saturday, that the shop I normally go to (I say "normally" but I've only been there once before, for the Starfleet tattoo two years ago) was closed on Mondays. Today is Monday. It's my birthday. I have the day off and it's the only day that I could get the tattoo done. Getting it done on my birthday is important to me. It's a tradition I started in 2019, couldn't do in 2020 because of Covid, and I knew that even this year it would be, ahem, a bit hairy to get it done somewhere because Covid is still a thing that we had to worry about. Many shops have gone appointment-only, many operate on reduced hours, and almost every shop I've ever seen requires everyone to wear masks for every second you're inside them, even now. With 24 hours' notice, it was unlikely I was going to be able to get an appointment set up for Monday morning or afternoon. I shot an email off and requested some information/if a Monday appointment would be possible for the shop down the street (where Daisy got at least one, maybe both of her tattoos many years ago) and never got a response. I talked to one of our close friends (and one of my current colleagues at work), and she tossed out a few recommendations for different shops in the area -- she is covered in tattoos of her own, and her husband has worked as a piercer at several shops around town, so she knows the "scene" -- I trust her judgment and recommendations far more than I would anyone else I know, honestly.
I called a shop across town, who said that they were appointment-only and were all booked up for Monday, but they'd had a few folks drop out of their Sunday afternoon appointments, so if I had the time I could stop by and they could discuss it with me, see if they could fit me in, etc. At the time, that would have been a really strong maybe and I told them I couldn't commit to being able to do that -- Daisy was currently out picking up the Chinese food, and I'd had the grocery delivery scheduled for the 4pm-5pm hour -- the shop closed at 5. Daisy also wanted to do the Home Goods run too.
After eating the Chinese food and digesting a bit, it was well after 2pm. There was simply no way we'd have enough time to go get a tattoo consultation and the work done, if possible, before the groceries got here and before the shop would close. I felt bad about that, especially as those guys seemed cool as hell on the phone, but for that shop at least, it would have to be a no.
I came back upstairs and looked into the other shop our friend had recommended. It was a few miles away, and Daisy said she'd been there at least once before -- not to get work done on herself, mind you, but with one or more friends. So, I gave them a ring. They confirmed that yes, they were open at noon on Monday -- 12p-8p hours, were walk-in only (first-come, first-served) and that they were a cash-only business. I thanked them, told them I'd likely be there bright and early on Monday when they opened up shop, and hung up. So...we had a plan.
As an aside -- is there some law prohibiting tattoo shops from being anything but cash only? Do you have any idea how much more ink I'd have if I could put it on my Discover card? Tattoo shops may be the last "cash only" business model left in the world, or at least in this area anyway. Is it because debt collectors can't repossess tattoos, or something? Surely there's some reason for it.
Edit: I guess it's because artists can set their own prices, and so if someone with regrets after the work is done decides to dispute payment, they can't do that. Stuff along those lines. Which is fair.
Anyway.
With that out of the way, we began formulating our plans for the day. I told Daisy I was pretty open to whatever she wanted and how she would be willing to do it -- outside of the time frame for the tattoo, of course. She, in turn, told me she was pretty go-with-the-flow and that it was really up to me. My only real request of her was that she didn't drink caffeine in the afternoon or evening hours so that she could get some decent sleep on a reasonable timeframe, because I wanted to be waiting in that parking lot when the tattoo shop opened.
Sunday night, as the clock hit midnight, she ran into my office and loudly sang the happy birthday song to me, which I thought was adorable. I actually ended up going to bed -- yes, to the bedroom, where I was able to wrap up in my new plush blanket I purchased on deep discount from Macy's last week -- before her, and passed the fuck out. All I remember is being vaguely aware that she'd come to bed when she had, and that the cats were sleeping with us.
When I awoke, it was still very dark, and it was around 6am. I had to use the bathroom (a few times, in fact; apparently adding high-sodium Chinese food to my diet the day before, even as a treat, wasn't the greatest idea I'd had in recent months) and I was just...awake. I read several comics, I played a little on my phone and on my computer, and saw that my mother had texted me happy birthday and said she had a job interview at noon. So, I called my parents and talked to both of them for some time. I gave them the rough rundown of our plans for the day as well as asked them the fateful question of "when I shipped your Christmas gift to you, did it come in its own box with a label smacked on it, or did it come in the shipping box?" My mother confirmed that yes, it had shipped in its own box with zero discretion and zero surprise whatsoever as to what it was -- a Sodastream Terra machine. I told them both about what it was and how it operates, and what you can do with it, what flavors you can add to it, etc. My dad also explained how my Christmas gift -- an expensive, fancy safety razor -- was the gift he'd gotten for all the men of the family this year.
I also told them about the plans for the tattoo, which they didn't exactly seem surprised by (they were somewhat surprised by the Starfleet tattoo idea, but at the time to them it was a novelty because I'd never gotten a tattoo before). During that conversation with my dad, I mentioned that it would take a decent amount of time to prepare, because I'd have to shave my forearm first -- tattoo artists can't really draw through hair, and I have hairy appendages.
"I hope I don't take all this time and planning, shaving my arm and the like, to get in there and have them tell me they're full up for the day," I said. "That's why I want to get there early and be waiting when they open up."
"Yeah," my dad said, "you don't want to be like, I shaved my arm for this?"
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen -- the title of this post.
I heard the bed/floors creak, signifying that Daisy was waking up. Daisy came into my office a short while later to proclaim that our oldest, most feeble cat had apparently pissed a puddle into the carpet/floor behind her computer chair in her office, six feet from the litter box. Daisy was not happy. I would not have been happy either. The cat is old, and she is very loving, but she isn't all there anymore -- and she is getting a little worse every year. She has a lot of trouble getting around and in/out of the boxes, getting on and off the couches, etc. I told Daisy we could stop at the pet supply store while we were out to get a gallon jug of the cleaner we use to get rid of those smells and stains.
"Have you eaten anything?" she asked. "You really want to eat something before you get a tattoo, especially knowing how you are with needles."
Now, mind you, I had not eaten anything, but needles only really bother me when they're taking blood out of me, not at any other time. I've had three Covid shots and a flu shot over the course of this past year, and not a single one of them bothered me. I'm not all Bravo Six, going dark over a tattoo, especially not since I've already had a tattoo and knew what to expect about it and from the experience. But, it was my birthday, and she wanted to cook breakfast. Daisy made us (vegan) scrambled egg sandwiches with (vegan) bacon. Well, she made the bacon and eggs. I added them to super-low-carb bread and added real cheese to them to make sandwiches.
While she was waking up and getting the food ready, I absconded to the bathroom, where I popped a new cartridge into my Mach3 razor and meticulously shaved my entire forearm wrist to elbow, all the way around, using my sensitive skin shave gel. I have hairy arms. It took multiple passes, multiple minutes, just to get all of the hair off to give the tattoo artist a clean, open area with which to work his/her magic. I wouldn't need the entire arm shaved, of course, but I did it anyway. What if I changed my mind on the placement? What if I needed a larger area? Screw it, might as well just do it.
I knew the tattoo design I wanted would be large -- 3-4x the size of the Starfleet tattoo, and it would need some space and fresh skin. I also jumped into the shower to rinse off all the excess hair and shave gel cream and to get cleaned up for the day. Once I had showered, I put a thin layer of Hustle Butter on the shaven skin and rubbed it in -- that stuff is like a miracle cream, and is well worth the $20 I spent on it two years ago. It makes the skin so soft, so moisturized. It's mostly a post-tattoo treatment and moisturizer, but I wanted to prep the skin, because apparently if you do, the pain is lessened -- or so people say. While the Starfleet tattoo didn't really hurt much at all (it did in a few places, for brief moments), I knew today's tattoo was going to be bigger, wider, longer, and hopefully contain a few colors in it. It was also going to be in a different spot on the opposite arm, so that alone was going to make it more difficult and possibly far more painful than the last one. Once I was satisfied and the, ahem, butter was absorbed into my arm, we got ready to head out.
There were two things we had to do before we could head to the tattoo shop -- we had to get gas in the car, which was almost empty, and we had to actually stop at our bank to, y'know, get the cash for the tattoo.
I had no idea how much my tattoo idea would cost. I knew that line art, if I wanted to leave it black and white with a little shading, would likely start around $100 and only go up from there. If I could add color to it? I was likely looking at three bills or more. I'd just gotten paid on Friday, all of my bills are covered until sometime in January, if not early February, and Daisy gets paid on Wednesday. I also get paid again on New Year's Eve...so, I had a little wiggle room, and some monetary flexibility to work with.
We took out $400 and deposited an insurance refund check of $90-something at the same time. We figured this was likely more than we needed; I was absolutely not planning to give the go-ahead on a $400 high-detail tattoo just because I wanted one on my arm, but it would be enough to get some semblance of what I wanted, and would likely leave us with some cash left over to get some food someplace or what have you.
"Maybe I'll get another tattoo too," Daisy mused.
"It's walk-ins 12-8," I told her. "We'll already be there and it's not like we have anything to do or anywhere else pressing to be. If you want to get something new, I'm all for it, baby."
This was and is true; Daisy has not gotten a new tattoo since before we got together. Like, a few years before we got together. In 2022, we'll celebrate ten years together, so...it's been a while. She has two small tattoos -- one on her left wrist, and a small landscape at the base of her neck on her back, between her shoulder blades.
Because of traffic -- which, for a Monday at 11am, during the week of Christmas, was excessive -- we arrived at the shop at like, 12:01. They hadn't unlocked the doors yet. I waited until they unlocked the doors and switched on their "open" light before we went inside.
I've been in a few tattoos shops over the years, so I sort of know what to expect to an extent. I have seen shops that were very barebones and shops that were decked out with all sorts of art and merch and the like. This place was pretty square in the middle. Lots of art on the walls, but not an excessive amount, no real merch to speak of, no snotty staff. It was very clear that the location had once been a hair salon at some point, just due to the interior construction and the placement of mirrors. It was also in a strange location -- in a little strip-mall area a few miles from the house -- so nobody would ever really suspect it was there unless you were a repeat patron or knew the scene/industry in Omaha. In my experience and my knowledge of friends' tattoos and their experiences over the years, tattoo houses like this were usually pretentiousness-free and no-bones-about-it, these folks were in it for the fun and the art and not the "scene" or reputation. They also tend to produce some of the best work.
We were greeted by the guy I had been on the phone with the day before, who was kind and helpful. "What can we do for you today?"
"Yes, I'd like one of your finest tattoos, please," I said with a grin, which could not be seen under the mask I was wearing. That was another big thing -- anyone who entered the shop needed to be masked, no exceptions. They were hardcore about this.
I told the front desk guy about my ideas and showed him my design, which was this:
And there you have it, folks -- you get to see the genesis of the new tattoo for the first time.
"Oh, that's pretty line art," he said. "Lemme take this back to our guys and he'll come out and consult with you here in a few moments."
"Sure," I said.
There were three guys on staff in the shop, including that front desk guy; all of them were artists (I would later find this out by doing a deep dive on their website in the evening hours when I started writing here). The front desk guy has some amazing work posted out there on the web, and while we were there I learned one of the two other guys (not the one who did my tattoo) had been working there and tattooing for twenty-one years, through two different iterations of the shop -- apparently recently they'd done some remodeling.
The artist who came out to consult with me, and who would eventually be the one doing my tattoo, was named Tony. Tony cheerfully and actually excitedly looked at the design and was like "I can do this; how do you want to do it? Just the line art? small or large? Colors?"
"Well," I said, "I'd like it to take up a good chunk of my forearm, so I'd like it to be fairly large," I said. "Color is going to depend on what the pricing scale is for it, but I mean, if possible/affordable, I'd like the roses to be red and the vines/leaves green."
Tony looked over the design from a few angles, zooming in and out on it a few times on my phone, and then air-dropped it to his own phone since he also had an iPhone (woooo, iPhone users unite!).
"Well, the line art would be quick, I'd say less than an hour, about $100 or so. Color and shading will make the time and cost go up considerably."
Ah, there it was, I knew it. I braced for the number.
"I'd say to add the colors to it, we're probably looking at around $200, roughly."
"Sold," I said. "I'll absolutely pay $200 for full color."
"Alrighty!" Tony said. "Let's get this printed up for stencil and we'll get started here in a few minutes."
With the photo template air-dropped to his phone, he went to the back to the printer in order to get the design printed up and onto the stencil paper/ditto paper, whatever it is they use to superimpose the tattoo design onto your skin to trace it. It's pretty neat technology. During that time, I took this photo and sent it to a good chunk of my friends and family:
Yeah, I'm a nerd like that. And yes, those glasses really ARE that big. Purposely.
So, anyway, he came back with a printout that was....way too large for my arm. Don't get me wrong, I totally would've done it that large, but it absolutely would have been a $400 tattoo if I had. Instead, I told him a little smaller, and he came back with a much more reasonably-sized one. I agreed to it, he printed up the stencil, and began mixing the ink.
I watched as he pulled out five different ink colors, which I found intensely interesting. There was the black, of course, for the actual lines/design, but in addition to the bright red and green for the petals and leaves/stem, I saw him do up a little vial of brown and a little vial of white. This intrigued me, but I wasn't really concerned or anything. The artist is the artist, and I wasn't about to argue with his artistic license or what colors he chose as long as it looked somewhat like what I expected it to look like in my head.
Little did I know at the time how spot on he'd be with that when all was said and done.
Anyway, once he'd gotten everything done up correctly and his tattoo needle machine USB charged, because what a glorious future we live in -- with multiple needle tips ready to go -- we got started.
I will tell you that when I had the Starfleet tattoo done, it was on my left inner forearm, and it wasn't bad. I barely felt a lot of it. There was a little pain here and there on it, especially some of the shading in the center of the emblem, where there is apparently a nerve cluster riiiight beneath the skin there... but it wasn't overall painful at all, and I was in and out pretty quickly. I told my mother when she asked if it hurt that it felt like someone drawing on me with a vibrator with a knife attached to the end. That was a pretty accurate statement.
This experience was a little different. For one, I learned pretty quickly that Tony was a very detailed artist, and that he had a heavy needle hand. I didn't mind this at all -- it means thicker lines, better art, and a deeper color. But I did not anticipate that some of it would be quite painful. Not unbearably so, but as mentioned before, the art was being done on a different arm, and a different spot on said arm than my other tattoo. So there were sections of it -- especially the leaves at the bottom of the stem, that were holy shit levels of painful for a few minutes at a time.
The actual line art took maybe forty minutes, max. I found that the brown ink was used to add a little shading/shadow to the leaves/stems to give them more definition and a sort of 3D quality, perspective, etc. This looked far better than the line art by itself, and I was impressed.
Sometime in between the line art being completed and the coloring being added, Daisy had decided that yes, she did want to get her own tattoo as well, impromptu. She asked Tony if he'd do it for her once he was done with mine.
"Oh, I suppose," he said, playfully.
Yeah, I liked this guy a lot. Really funny, really appreciative of our patronage, and seemed to be an all around good dude.
As for the coloring...
Hoo boy.
Like, I knew the shading and addition of color would be painful in some spots, and places where colors were blended or where shadow effect was needed I figured that would hurt. In reality, those were the parts that didn't really hurt at all to get the coloring added. It was the solid coloring, such as the green on the leaves, that hurt like a bitch. I watched closely and for the addition of color, it wasn't just one needle that was being used -- it was a needle tip with four or five of them lined up horizontally very close to one another that injected the color, acting like a sharpie on my arm. The coloring took another 40 minutes or so, and a good chunk of those 40 minutes I was in some fair-to-middlin' pain. Again, not overwhelming, not excruciating, but a, say...6-7 on a scale of 10 in a very small, localized area for brief moments.
"It's wild how some of it you barely feel," I said, "and then for some reason for some places, there's a nerve cluster close to the skin and it'll just scream at ya."
"Oh yeah," Tony said. "What's bad is if you hit one that sends that radiating pain all the way up your arm, and just aches at ya."
I didn't have that, thankfully.
But, I did have a side effect that I hadn't really expected or really thought of that much -- I began to bleed. Like, not a lot, but some. Noticeably so. I also noticed that the bleeding was coming primarily from the more painful sections -- some of the leaves, one of the larger petals, etc.
As the color and shading was added, the design and style took shape, and the more he worked on it, the more I absolutely loved it. Tony had put his own style into it, and it appears that his style is very much that classic, timeless Sailor Jerry sort of tattooing style -- a style of art that I adore. I've heard that described as sort of a "stained glass" look as well, and that's sort of accurate also. I had told Daisy beforehand that I hoped whoever did my tattoo would do it in said style, because I was a huge fan of it, and I found it immensely old school and classy.
"That's just beautiful," I told him.
"Ah, why thank you," he replied. "Just have to do some accenting/lighting with some white and we'll be all done."
Ah, so that's what the white was for.
He spent some time, took it slowly, and outlined most of the larger petals and some of the leaves with thin, white accenting. I have really pale skin as it is, so I was afraid it wouldn't really show up well. But, the way he did it, it makes the design pop out even more and appear to shine. He also let my natural skin tone show through as natural highlighting and accenting as well on some of the petals. The effect, and the completed tattoo itself, was gorgeous.
"Okay," he said, "All done. Oh wow, that took less time than I thought. $180."
"Awesome," I replied.
He wrapped my arm in several tight-ish layers of plastic wrap to help protect the tattoo, and I guess to make sure nothing would get in it.
"Some shops bandage it up," he said, "but when people get a tattoo they want to be able to show it off, you know?"
I was instructed to keep it covered for at least an hour, though 3-4 hours was likely best, and to wash it/apply antibiotic ointment on it a few times a day. Washing should only be done with soap and hand, no scrubbing, etc. I knew Daisy had triple antibiotic cream at home, and I also knew I had my trusty Aquaphor and Hustle Butter. Later in the day, I would also purchase a few tubes of bacitracin zinc/antibiotic ointment as well, just to make sure we had some extra in the house.
I slid my coat on, gave Daisy $200 in cash out of my wallet so she could pay him for mine if he wanted that before he started on hers, and went outside to vape.
The arm ached; it hurt as if someone had beaten me there for hours on end. It was sore and tender and hot to the touch. But, it did not burn or tingle or feel like there was some sort of nerve damage to it or anything like that -- my Starfleet tattoo burned for the rest of the day after it was done, and every once in a while it would twinge -- like I would feel a jangling nerve that felt like the needle was digging into my arm anew. That feeling hit once or twice a day for a week or two. I thankfully did not feel and have not felt that with this one.
What I did not know at the time was that I, uh, hadn't really stopped bleeding from the spots where I had bled some while the tattoo was being done. And with my jacket on, covering the arm and the plastic wrapping over the tattoo, I didn't notice. There was no padding, no bandage to soak it up or really stop it, so I slowly continued to bleed under the plastic, and the blood -- body temperature, of course -- didn't dry, it just sort of moved around under the plastic on my skin. I couldn't feel this; to me, it just felt like my arm had plastic on it.
When I came back in after vaping, Tony was prepping Daisy's tattoo and the stenciling for it -- she wanted three stars on her outer wrist, with a swirl of blue-green fade to look like a galaxy inside. Stars have meaning to Daisy; it's part of a secret inside code thing she has with her sister (the Canadian one) and, additionally, we're all made of stardust -- just like the famous Carl Sagan quote. I did not recall until later (though I did know it) that it was a grand coincidence that she got a stars/stardust tattoo on my birthday, which is also the day Carl Sagan died -- he died December 20, 1996, 25 years ago today.
Daisy's tattoo was fast -- he had it done in maybe 25 minutes at the most.
"$60," Tony said.
Daisy's tattoo was very pretty and super simple, but sometimes those are the most elegant ones. I really like it a lot.
With $180 for mine and $60 for Daisy's, that came to a total of $240 just for the work. I wanted to tip him well, especially since he decided to do Daisy's tattoo on a whim too, and because the work was gorgeous. I also fully expected before leaving the house that morning that I'd be paying something like $240 for the base price of mine alone, not even factoring in a second tattoo for my wife.
We ended up giving him $300 or $310 total, I believe -- a $30 or $35 tip from each of us, which we thought was pretty fair. We had also watched a couple who'd come in to get tattoos from one of the other guys in the shop tip the artist $5 each on $150 of work, and we were like we're not going to be like those buttholes.
Truthfully, I think Tony was shocked when he counted the money and saw how much we'd given him. As we were getting in the car, he ran out the door and personally thanked us, like a little kid. I think it absolutely made his day. At his personal workstation he had a few photos up of his family, and he had at least two or three kids. I glanced at them and hadn't really paid close attention, but Daisy had, and made a mental note of it when we were driving off.
I always want to be a kind soul -- this dude did amazing work on both of us on a Monday, during the week of Christmas, when many other folks would be already checked out during the holidays. And he has kids. If I can do something to make his Christmas a little better and make his kids' Christmas a little better, I'm going to do so. This shop treated us with respect, these guys were all class acts, they had humor and talent without pretentiousness, and I will absolutely have them at the top of my list every year for future work.
So I guess here's the part all of you have been waiting for throughout this whole post, right? Here's the finished work:
It's sort of difficult to get a great photo of it because it's legit right on top of my arm, and to put the camera over it directly creates a shadow which obscures it.
Also note that these photos were taken almost as soon as I took the plastic off, before I was really able to clean it or moisturize it that well, so I hadn't had any ink leaching or skin peeling or minor scabbing yet.
Needless to say, and I'll repeat it again here, I love it. I think it's beautiful. Sure, the colors will fade some over the years, and it'll blur here and there, and the hair on my arm will grow back over it, but yeah, this art is gorgeous. I have zero regrets. It is exactly what I wanted.
Now imagine if I'd had it done so large that it took up almost all of my forearm, like the first printout he tried. Yeah, again, definitely would have been a four-bill piece of work.
Now for Daisy's tattoo:
Blue is a gorgeous tattoo color. My next tattoo(s) will likely have blue in them. Daisy's stars came out really well, though she said that they were incredibly painful to have done -- far more than the other tattoos she has already. This surprised me, but they're also on the outer part of her forearm/wrist area, and that's where the leaves on mine were the most painful, so I believe it. Again, Tony has a heavy needle hand, and that's part of why I think both of them came out so well.
Also of note: I asked Daisy for her permission to post this photo, and she said it was fine. I also asked her if she wanted me to crop the photo so that it didn't show all of the cleavage for days that my fine wife sports while wearing that top. "Hell nah," she said, "YOU SHOW THAT SHIT OFF." And I was like "YES MA'AM."
So. Anyway.
Moving onward, there's a lot more of my birthday story to tell.
In the car, Daisy asked if I wanted to go see the parents to show them the tattoos. I emphatically said yes, as I knew the parents would want to see me on my birthday anyhow (even though we already had my birthday dinner and the like on Saturday) but because I also wanted to show off our new ink.
Remember how I said that I had kept slowly bleeding, but didn't know?
Well, by the time I got to the parents' and was able to show them the tattoo, the slow bleed had basically begun to fill the plastic wrap around my arm, and it was allowing the wrap to move instead of stay in place. I had my jacket on, so it's not like I noticed, but believe me, when I rolled up my sleeve to show the parents, I noticed -- it was close to dripping out and soaking the inside of my jacket sleeve. It was not a lot of blood, but I mean, it was enough. It made the plastic and my arm somewhat uncomfortable.
We socialized with the parents for a bit and showed off the art, before I told Daisy, quietly, that I was beginning to bleed through everything and needed to get home to remove the plastic and clean it all off, coat in Aquaphor, etc. She was exceedingly understanding and had the patience of a saint -- especially when I told her I had to, had to hit up the vape shop before we went home, bleeding or otherwise, because I was almost out of juice.
So, I did that -- used the birthday coupon code they sent me, in fact, to get something like 30% off my total -- and then came home to wash the blood off my arm. That's one of the strangest sentences I've written in a while.
I very carefully washed it and applied some Aquaphor to seal it and keep the moisture in the skin. I don't know how many of you have tattoos, but it is a process to keep them clean and moisturized for the first week or two after you get a new one. You're supposed to be washing it with gentle soap and hand (nothing else) 3-4 times a day, applying moisturizer or balm afterwards to seal it -- like I mentioned above. You're also not supposed to wear any tight or form-fitting clothing over it that doesn't let the tattoo breathe, and you can't scratch it or pick at it or anything like that no matter how much it itches. Well, for those of us who have normal lives and/or get tattoos in the winter months when your skin is already prone to dryness and the like, that is sometimes really hard.
Look, I know it's going to fade and go dull and lose some color and detail over the years, especially once the hair I shaved off grows back out under (and through) it. I'm okay with this. I can live with it, because that's what tattoos do. But I really don't want to damage it before everything sets and fully heals (usually about a week or two, but can be up to a month or two).
After I took care of that, we wound down for a bit before I told Daisy if she wanted to get pizza, we could. We had a coupon for a free large three-topping from our favorite local place, and I figured we could order some cheese bread and tip them really well too, since we're nearing Christmas. I also told Daisy if she wasn't feelin' it tonight, or otherwise didn't want to, we didn't have to -- I could wait on pizza, I didn't need anything else if she wasn't into it -- I'd had a nearly perfect birthday.
She did end up wanting to get the pizza, so we did -- a large pizza with vegan cheese, whole roasted garlic cloves, artichokes, and vegan sausage. Their vegan sausage is great -- I don't know who their supplier is, or if they make it in-house, but holy shit that is some good food.
And so ended what was really, really a pretty perfect birthday. I've had good birthdays over the years, and I've had some pretty terrible ones. It depends on the year and my mental state, really. Daisy has been amazing in recent years in doing everything she can to make my birthdays special, and this year was no exception.
So, 39. One year short of forty. I have so much to accomplish in the last year of my thirties on this planet.
Let's see what I can do.
