I am 37 years old, married, in a fairly stable job in a two-income-no-kids, one-car household, and the wife and I own our home. Our salaries put us square in the middle class -- not rich, but not destitute -- and I acknowledge that Daisy and I are far more privileged than many others in this town, in this world, even in our own (slowly getting smaller) group of friends.
However, it took a long time for both of us to get where we are. Daisy and I both grew up dirt poor in different parts of the country on different tracks in life. Both of us had our parents sacrifice many things -- time, energy, money, and probably some hopes and dreams along the way -- to take care of us and raise us. Both of our lives could have taken much darker paths than they did, and both of us are grateful that they did not.
What does this have to do with getting a tattoo? I'm getting to it, just hang in there.
Growing up in rural West Virginia in the 80s and 90s, I didn't really see a lot of tattoos on people. When I did, said tattoos were always on two different types of people, and only those people:
1. Unsavory characters -- bikers, dive bar musicians, drug addicts/dealers, and carnival folk, or
2. Former military, with those tattoos being service-based in nature (USMC or Navy tattoos on veterans and the like).
There was no in-between when I was younger -- if you had a tattoo, you were one of these two types of people and that was it; they were not a fashion statement, artistic expression, or "body art" like they are, culturally speaking, now. They may have been in larger, more progressive urban areas, but definitely not in rural West Virginia. In fact, while tattoos are indeed more socially acceptable now (almost universally so in some places) I guarantee you that I still have some friends and family back home who will universally disapprove of the fact that I got a Starfleet tattoo yesterday. It doesn't even really matter that it's a Starfleet tattoo, though I'm sure for some of them that would be part of it -- no, it's the fact that I'm now one of those people. That's fine; it's what it is, I'm never going to change the minds of people like that and it's mostly pointless to even try.
My oldest brother turns 50 in 2020 and is almost completely covered in tattoos, from head to toe. All of them were acquired at different times for different reasons, and for a large chunk of them I was actually able to watch the progressions/additions of them as he got more added, more details laid down in multiple sessions over multiple years, etc. Several very close friends have about the same amount of tattoo coverage all over their bodies as well. What do all of these people have in common? Well, aside from the fact that my brother has always been a dive-bar musician (which I don't hold against him, our dad is too) -- all of these people are wonderful, upstanding and contributing members of society.
When I started paying closer attention to the people I knew with tattoos, my perception of tattoos began to change. For so much of my life I was in the camp of (probably because of my upbringing in West Virginia) that people who had a lot of tattoos were, by and large, low-rent, trashy folk. To be completely fair, some of them are. But not the people I know. And really, people are just people, and all of us judge one another too harshly these days.
Neither of my parents have tattoos -- most boomers don't, unless it's one of the aforementioned military tattoos. Tattoos in my world have been worn primarily by Gen X and up -- the further away you go from the boomers, the more tattoos you see. Millennials are covered in them.
Generation X is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the Millennials. Researchers and popular media typically use birth years around 1965 to 1980 to define Generation Xers, although some sources use birth years beginning as early as 1960 and ending somewhere from 1977 to 1984.
I was born in 1982. By some folks' definitions, that marks me as a Millennial. By others, I'm squarely within the last few years of Generation X. Everyone in my family as well as Daisy's family, the parents, aunts and uncles, and all -- are very firmly boomers. In my own family, my youngest aunt was born in 1965. Youngest. There were six other kids before her, including my mother square in the middle, born to my grandmother between 1947 and 1965. Almost none of them have tattoos or would ever dream of getting one (especially not now that they're old). I say almost none because I know for a fact that my uncle has a barbed-wire tattoo around his bicep, and I'm not sure if any of the others have anything -- though i would guess not.
I met Daisy when she had just turned 24, and she already had two unobtrusive tattoos when I did -- one on her wrist and one on her back between her shoulder blades. I never understood the concept of getting a tattoo you couldn't see, but okay. I never judged her for it, it's fine. Both of hers are classy and tasteful, and they mean something deep and spiritual to her.
Me, meanwhile, who had grown up around my brother and friends with tattoos, always dreamed of one day being "cool enough" to get a bunch of tattoos and not caring what people thought of them. To me it was the epitome of being bold, being a rebel, and bucking the trends of society. To see my brother be covered in tattoos and still marry a proper catholic lady, father three children, and hold down a number of very stable, steady jobs in which he was always able to provide for his family and be a good father and husband not only showed me his character but also showed me that boldness and bravery can be and frequently is rewarded.
To those ends I always wanted the classic "badass" tattoos -- a flaming skull on my arm, a detailed Chinese dragon wrapped around my leg from ankle to knee -- etc. I always wanted sleeves, both arm and leg. I always wanted what they call "rocker stars" on the fronts of each shoulder.
But all of those are, of course, somewhat derivative. They didn't mean anything to me personally.
And, of course, I was very needle-phobic -- I don't like needles, never have. Last week when I got my flu shot, even though it didn't really hurt (it hurt way less than my tattoo today) I still looked at Daisy all glassy-eyed in fear and squeezed her hand tight while the medicine was injected into my arm. I am, frankly, a big wuss, and wouldn't be able to take the pain of a super-intricate tattoo. Or so I thought, anyway.
As an aside, I still hate having blood drawn during doctor's visits and have fainted more than once when this has happened.
But, I'm getting older. I knew if I didn't get a tattoo now, I never would. I'd keep putting it off and putting it off, citing time, fear of the needle, money concerns, etc. Another part of it is that I also know that I have an addictive personality, and knew that if I didn't mind it or outright liked the experience, I'd want more and more tattoos, which would cause me to spend many hours in the chair and many hundreds of dollars.
There were a lot of designs I thought about getting, of course. Sometimes in a passing fashion, sometimes not. I told Daisy that I wanted the dark mark tattooed on my forearm for some time, as I am a Slytherin to my core and being one holds lots of personal meaning to me. Daisy outright refused to let me get it. Well, I shouldn't say refused, but she did tell me that if I got it she would be very angry with me because of the whole murder-and-torture connotations behind it. I also considered the deathly hallows symbol as well, but I know at least four or five people who have one of those already. I thought about a stylized anchor, as my grandfather was in the Navy and was at Pearl Harbor -- but I never met the man (he died three months before I was born) and I did not serve myself, so that seemed a little off. Also -- again, it's a bit cliched at this point.
I wanted something instantly (or almost instantly) recognizable, and something that held very strong, deep and personal meaning to me -- especially as it's going to be on my body for the rest of my life, of course. I gravitated towards symbols, towards insignias, towards things that would not only speak my truth but would speak it for me, something that people would look at and say "yep, that's Brandon for you."
As such, I kept going back to Star Trek.
I've made it no secret over the years what Trek means to me, though to the average person it's a bit hard to explain without going into some long-winded diatribe about why I'd want something so...I dunno, commercial? tattooed on my body.
The truth is, I grew up watching Star Trek. It helped shape me as a person. My own middle name is Trek-related/derived, as my mother was and still is a fan. I very strongly believe in the principles of the Federation, as well as the overall message and mission of what it does:
To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.
That speaks to me. Always onward and upward, always the peaceful search for knowledge and new connections, cultures, and civilizations for the betterment of all. Star Trek is unbridled optimism, it is curiosity and exploration, it is at its core what humanity as a whole is and should be capable of were it to get its collective shit together and get off this planet. I think with progressive enough policies and forward-thinking leadership, we could absolutely create a real-life Starfleet-like organization within the next twenty years or so, and I really hope I live to see it happen.
There's nothing I believe more strongly in than the force of good in the hands of the enthusiastic and capable.
For someone who has been a lifelong pessimist and cynic, this is a big turning point.
So I settled on the Starfleet delta insignia. But which one? There are so many slightly different versions, based on the timeline of all of the series and movies:
I mean, how am I supposed to pick one of them over any of the others? I grew up with all of them, from the original series through today, with Discovery, and all of the movies in-between.
In the end, I wanted something timeless and stylistically immediately recognizable, so I picked the fourth one on the top row, as you know if you've seen the photos I posted here on my birthday. That's technically the chest emblem from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the design of which was later implemented into the chest badge of the five films following (see second row, first on the left). I already have one of the actual chest badges with that insignia pinned to my military jacket -- I bought one from the original propmakers a few years ago because yes, I am that level of nerd -- and I wanted one with the four-pointed star in the middle of it.
So, with that image file saved in my phone, I let Daisy know that this was the tattoo I wanted, on my left inner forearm, brought up the picture and laid my phone on my arm to show her the size and scale I wanted, and we made plans to go get it done. I got some initial eyerolls from her, but when I explained why and what it meant to me (much like I did above), she understood how important it was to me and agreed to accompany me on my quest to get it inked.
That was in July.
Work happened, life happened, money was tighter some months than it was in others, and any plans I'd had kept getting put on the back burner or removed from the proverbial stove entirely. I pushed the plan to get the tattoo "to the fall," which then became "at some point," before I finally came to the realization that there may never be a good time to go get it done.
That is, until earlier this month, when Daisy was asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I didn't know what to tell her.
Cycling back for a minute, I really don't need much in life. Not materially, anyway. I have a roof over my head, more than enough clothing to last me for years, and we can pay our bills and keep food on the plate (and the cats' plates) with no real issues most of the time. Most things that I want, I can easily purchase on Amazon and have it arrive at the house within two days with Prime shipping. If it's something larger, I can save and budget for it and will eventually be able to get it, also with little issue. Most of the time I'm relatively happy at my place and station in life -- overall, anyhow. I'm mostly content. So, when Daisy asks me things like "what do you want for your birthday?" or "what do you want for Christmas?" I don't really know how to respond, because I have few actual needs and my wants are ancillary and generally trivial or unrealistic -- or expensive.
Some examples? I want a few arcade cabinets from the early-to-mid-90s and three or four pinball machines. I want a 1977 Bandit Trans Am. I want a hot tub or a backyard swimming pool. None of these things are needs.
So I began to think -- my birthday was my day, and Daisy always wanted to celebrate it as such. What's something that I wanted that wouldn't a) be unrealistic, b) cost a lot of money, c) put undue stress on myself or on her, or d) she would enjoy the experience of as well?
Try as I might, I can't just think about myself, even on my birthday. I don't like putting people out, especially not my wife.
I told Daisy not to get me anything; while she loves taking care of me and making me happy, she always spends a lot of money on me for the holidays (I do the same for her too, see my recent Christmas post) and that I'd be perfectly happy just getting a pizza with her and spending the day with her, since she took the day off work.
But in the middle of the night one night last week, for some reason, I remembered the tattoo.
The thought of the tattoo just sort of came out of the blue; I remembered that I'd wanted it, and my thought process went along the lines of "well, now is a good time, I guess -- I'll be off work for ten days so I can get it, take care of it while it heals, and it won't be that expensive."
So I told Daisy my plan, told her that's what I wanted to do, and she agreed.
And I immediately began doing research.
There are a number of tattoo shops in Omaha -- they are scattered around the city and some have better reviews than others. Daisy had gotten her own tattoos done at one downtown before I'd ever met her, and told me while she loved her artist's art style, she didn't like the dude as a person. I consulted some folks via email, we reached out to our heavily-tattooed friends to ask for suggestions or recommendations, and on the nights at work where it was dead because the holidays are coming, I spent hours reading about tattoo care and aftercare, getting all sorts of information about how much tattoos hurt, about how to prep your skin for one and how to take care of it afterwards (the life-cycle of a new tattoo and when it stops being swollen, when it scabs, when you can stop cleaning it every 4-6 hours and putting ointment on it, etc). Most of the resources I consulted told me to prepare the skin by shaving it and moisturizing it, as tattooing in hairy places could cause your hair to get caught in the needle, etc.. For aftercare most resources mentioned Aquaphor by name, so I ordered a bottle of that. A few places also mentioned a special water-based foam soap and a before-during-and-after lotion called Hustle Butter, so I ordered both of those as well. My mindset was that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. Shit is expensive and I'm not going to have the tattoo run or fade or look gnarly, I was going to take care of it.
Anyway, one of the shops I reached out to got back to me the next day, and said that my tattoo would be quick and simple and I could schedule an appointment if I wanted to, or I could just come into their sister shop, a walk-in studio, anytime during business hours -- there would be a wait for a bit, probably, but they'd be happy to do it.
"Let's just do the walk-in," I told Daisy. "There's no reason to 'schedule' this thing; it won't be that expensive and it'll be less than an hour's worth of work."
The morning of my birthday, I very carefully shaved my inner forearm -- I shaved more than I needed to because I didn't want anything to get in the way and I decided that if I wanted a bigger version of the Starfleet insignia, I could size it up and make it bigger. I then applied some Aquaphor (which had arrived a few days prior) and made sure my skin was supple, smooth, and moisturized.
The shop opened at noon and we live about ten minutes away. It's in the hipster district of town known as Benson, a fantastic few streets of arcades, bars, coffee shops, art studios, a music venue or three, and yes, tattoo shops. So, shortly before noon, we headed that way, arriving around 12:15 or so.
Now, mind you, my birthday was on a Friday, five days before Christmas, and we were going to a tattoo shop at noon. I figured the place would be completely deserted. I was wrong.
"It may be a couple hours' wait," the aloof front desk lady told me.
"That's fine," I said, still gung-ho despite the circumstances.
There were two other people who had arrived before me -- one was a young-ish kid who was getting a very large and detailed arm piece of a tiger, and the other was a lady perhaps a few years older than me who was getting the phases of the moon down her back from neck to below her shoulder blades -- both were beautiful designs, but the tiger kid was absolutely going to take hours to do, and there were only two artists in the shop that day -- the owner, who was doing the tiger tattoo, and a guest artist, who was doing the moon phases.
"Those moon phases are pretty, and they're big," I whispered to Daisy, "but they're not especially intricate. He'll be done with that in an hour or so, and then I'm up."
True to form, I was correct. I listened to/watched him finish up with said tattoo and he charged the lady $120, which is about what I was expecting to pay for my own tattoo -- it was a cash only shop and we made sure to get out cash beforehand, both for the tattoo and for the pizza we'd be ordering later in the evening.
Anyway, I was up next. I showed the artist the photo on my phone, and he asked where I'd gotten it.
"Um, the internet," I replied, to the artist who was very clearly a millennial and had never lived in a time before it.
He then pulled it up and put it into the stencil program, which he could increase or decrease the size of the image in, and when we got to the size I wanted, I told him that was good and we could begin. He put the stencil on me and made sure it stuck -- the "ink" they used to print the stencil was purple and reminded me of those old-school "ditto" mimeograph machines. That may be what they use, actually, I dunno.
"Are you ready?" he asked me, once the gun was all good to go and the ink was secured in its cup.
"Yep," I said, "Let's do this."
For those of you who have never gotten a tattoo before, it's an odd experience. I don't know if I can accurately describe the feeling or the pain involved -- and yes, there is indeed pain -- aside from saying that it isn't what I expected at all. I expected the pain to be severe, but it wasn't. I described it on the phone to my mother, as well as to Daisy's parents, as being drawn on by the tip of a knife that is vibrating the entire time. It hurts, yes, but it's nowhere near unbearable. I didn't mind it at all, and even watched my artist do most of it, because it is fascinating to watch.
Other tattoo experiences, I'm sure, are really painful -- multiple colors, shading, gradients, yeah, I can see those being excruciating. And I'm sure different parts of the body will hurt more or hurt less due to the placement and nerves in those parts. But, again, this is what I got:
It's simple line art. Even the star in the middle didn't hurt any more than the rest of it, and that is some deep color shading there. The most painful parts were the back points of the delta, where they're thicker and where (I believe) there are more clusters of nerves under the skin -- I did have a few twinges of nerve pain later in the day/night after it was all done, in those spots only. But the overall experience? Quiet, much less painful than I expected, and at times -- dare I say it -- soothing.
My artist was done within 40 minutes or so, and the tattoo looked much like it does in the photos above -- and still does now, thankfully. He immediately cleaned it off and bandaged it, then gave me the after-care instructions (each artist has a version of this, by the way) and lauded that I'd done my research and already had the Aquaphor and the like. Good guy. He wasn't necessarily friendly, nor did it seem like he really had a sense of humor, but he did good, fast, efficient work.
"Did they give you an estimate when you came in?" he asked me.
"Nope," I said, "not at all."
He hemmed and hawwed for a moment and then said "I'd say $80 is probably good."
"Cool," I replied, and pulled $100 out of my wallet. "There's $100, the extra $20 is for you, thank you."
He thanked me, I thanked him and the staff, and we were on our way.
In the two days since, the tattoo itself looks and feels fine. Every 6-8 hours I've been gently washing it, patting it dry, and applying a layer of Aquaphor to it. I can stop doing that around Christmas Eve/Day, and can switch over to the Hustle Butter to keep it adequately moisturized and to minimize any scabbing and/or itching. That foam soap I ordered is supposed to help with that as well.
Is there any residual pain? No, not really. There was when it was still bandaged right after it was done -- it felt hot and achy, akin to a sunburn -- but once I removed the bandage, cleaned it, and put the Aquaphor on it the first time, that went away. The arm itself feels ticklish and sensitive, but that's generally because I shaved all the hair off and I'm used to having hair on my arm.
Instead, a larger problem now presents itself, and it was one that I was afraid of before getting the tattoo -- I now know what it feels like and that it's not incredibly expensive or painful, and I want more.
The next tattoo I've planned will be on the other forearm in the same spot -- the Rebel Alliance/Republic Starbird:
Another simple line art piece that means a lot to me in its symbolism -- rebel, fight evil empires, resist we must. Given our current political climate this means more to me now than ever before.
I'm stating for the record now that I'd like to get this one done within the next few months, preferably before the end of winter. This is partially because I now know that the pain isn't bad at all and also because I'm a fan of symmetry. Having one arm with something on it is cool, but looks out of place when there's nothing else on me anywhere. At least to me.
"You're aware," Daisy told me shortly before getting the tattoo, "that you may end up getting a job that will require you to wear long sleeves at all times because of your arm tattoo, right?"
I blinked at her a few times. "I am aware that's a possibility," I said. "However, I would never want to work at a job where I would have to keep a tattoo on my arm covered at all times. Not really my thing."
Which is true. If that's a job's policy, I can't imagine what other authoritarian policies they'd have on the books, but regardless, it's probably someplace I wouldn't want to work anyhow. Almost every office-related job I've applied for as of late has touted their "casual work environment" either on their website or during the interview. I'm too old and too rebellious to work somewhere extremely formal anymore. That would've been great fifteen years ago -- now I'm just looking for somewhere to pay the bills and give me a decent path to retirement.
Anyway, that's the tattoo story.
Now....on with the holidays.
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