'ars longa, vita brevis' - art is long, life is short.
per Aspera, ad Astra
Through difficulty, to the stars
In the end, this is the phrase I chose for my tattoo. Because I like the look of the words and found a written example of it in a beautiful font that I couldn't resist. I also like the message and how whenever I say it I find myself trailing off as I say stars.. as though even the phrase implies going on and on into oblivion forever. I'm not sure if I view the phrase as more of a past thing.. i've been through difficulties to get to the good part. Or if I few it as a message to the future.. it will take difficulties to reach all the good things.
I saw this once translated as "through the thorns to the stars" I like that too. Anyway.. so the design has the latin on the outside of my left ankle... with two kind of swirly designs on either side of it connecting it to the dragonfly on my inner ankle. And accenting the swirly bits are strokes of bright blue.. 24 of them in all.. to represent my birthday and the age I wanted to remember.
Anyway, I got my tattoo done at Keystone Tattoo (Sacred Tattoo? dunno how many names the place has) on Saturday, August 1 at noon. My original appointment was for Wednesday, but he called me an hour before the appointment to reschedule... which in a way was good because I didn't feel ready and in a way is bad because Janelle was supposed to go with me and was out of town on Saturday. Toby and my dad came with me instead. My dad left before it started to get a drink and a paper and Toby stayed with me. I couldn't believe how nervous I was. The guy tried to put me at ease.. he joked around and reassured me that he was very experienced in tattooing... 17 years working. So that made me feel better but I didn't know how to anticipate the pain. He told me he would start at the most likely least painful area.. on the outside of my ankle where the lettering would be. Well... for the first second it just stung fairly badly.. and then he hit the area above my ankle bone and i just felt this very sharp stabbing pain.. it almost felt like it was vibrating the bone itself or something. I could see then why John said that it was an 8 on the pain scale. Holy crap. I didn't really know how to react to the pain.. so I ended up laughing a good bit trying to deal with it and I made occasional "ya! and byah!" sounds whenever it surprised me with particularly sharp pain. After I said byah.. toby asked me who used to say that.. and I couldn't even think because it was still hurting so much.. and i barely got out.. dean.. dean dean dean.. howard dean. Which toby made fun of me for. But I held on tightly to toby's hand during all of it.. and my palms were terribly clammy. And I tried to talk to the guy to distract myself as well as tried to focus on the bizarre and disturbing things this guy had decorated the room with.. there was a head, arms, and legs of a doll baby sticking out of a dark canvas.. and another doll in some kind of costume with a hood.. with its hands coming out of his head.. hanging in the corner.. like he was about to swoop down upon us. He had a huge painting of a figure with the word focus (umlaut over the u) above it. Then there was a face coming out of the wall with nails all through it.. and a picture of zombie? rugrats.. something like that. A poster near the door of a topless woman (a drawing) with red crosses covering her nipples. And a plethora of other gothic and frightening things including clowns. He said he liked all of those things around him because he thought it would keep evil things away.
When I had walked into the room.. there was this intense music coming from his huge desktop computer.. it sounded like a heavy heartbeat with random brief intervals of dissonance thrown in which nearly made me jump once or twice. Luckily before we started he said he could change it for me. So he put on some more mainstream music... ended up listening to some annie lennox which kept repeating. But I like the song "why" so it's okay.
Anyway.. after he did the lettering.. all black.. he moved to the front part of my ankle.. telling me it may be more sensitive.. this area ended up being the part that hurt the least. It was an annoying scratchy feeling.. a bit like a lot of little cat scratches over and over.. but it was much more tolerable and not so much of a stabbing pain. My leg was shaking a bit though so I had my knee up and my foot flat on the bench so that if i felt the urge to tense or move I could just push my foot down into the chair rather than moving it from side to side. Well after this he had me turn onto my stomach so that he could do the back part of my ankle. This seemed just as painful as the first part he did. I think it was only slightly better because I was able to grip the chair easier and keep my head down. My dad came back during this part.
Then he did the last part.. the inside of my ankle with the dragonfly. He put that bright blue and some turquoise into it and really gave it a pretty transparent effect.. I really think he did the dragonfly beautifully. This part didn't hurt quite as much either.. and it was over faster than I expected it to be. Just over an hour really.
After all of this.. I didn't immediately feel woozy.. just a bit in a daze.
But when I got home I really started to feel kind of out of it. I had only slept about 3 hours the night before so I had this heady, didn't-get-enough-sleep kind of heaviness in my head and this near light-headed-ness. It felt like I was nearly lightheaded.. but not quite. I spent the afternoon trying to lie down because i felt better that way and I felt better when I ate something.. at least immediately afterward. A little while after I ate I started feeling just slightly nauseated. So in the end.. I felt too badly to try to drive to Cathy's bachelorette party. I had just found out about it the night before and I was going to try to go.. really didn't expect to feel so badly.. and didn't feel up to the 2 hour drive to Pittsburgh when feeling so woozy.
That kind of sick, not quite right feeling is apparently quite normal with a tattoo. But surprisingly my tattoo itself didn't hurt much at all.. once in a great while I'd feel a little bit of a sting.. but that was it. And it looks better than I was expecting.. no oozing and until yesterday.. no redness around it even. And today the bit of redness from yesterday has gone.
So it's looking good.. let us just hope it heals okay.
It is so difficult for me to wear flip flops and not put on my boots.
Through difficulty, to the stars
In the end, this is the phrase I chose for my tattoo. Because I like the look of the words and found a written example of it in a beautiful font that I couldn't resist. I also like the message and how whenever I say it I find myself trailing off as I say stars.. as though even the phrase implies going on and on into oblivion forever. I'm not sure if I view the phrase as more of a past thing.. i've been through difficulties to get to the good part. Or if I few it as a message to the future.. it will take difficulties to reach all the good things.
I saw this once translated as "through the thorns to the stars" I like that too. Anyway.. so the design has the latin on the outside of my left ankle... with two kind of swirly designs on either side of it connecting it to the dragonfly on my inner ankle. And accenting the swirly bits are strokes of bright blue.. 24 of them in all.. to represent my birthday and the age I wanted to remember.
Anyway, I got my tattoo done at Keystone Tattoo (Sacred Tattoo? dunno how many names the place has) on Saturday, August 1 at noon. My original appointment was for Wednesday, but he called me an hour before the appointment to reschedule... which in a way was good because I didn't feel ready and in a way is bad because Janelle was supposed to go with me and was out of town on Saturday. Toby and my dad came with me instead. My dad left before it started to get a drink and a paper and Toby stayed with me. I couldn't believe how nervous I was. The guy tried to put me at ease.. he joked around and reassured me that he was very experienced in tattooing... 17 years working. So that made me feel better but I didn't know how to anticipate the pain. He told me he would start at the most likely least painful area.. on the outside of my ankle where the lettering would be. Well... for the first second it just stung fairly badly.. and then he hit the area above my ankle bone and i just felt this very sharp stabbing pain.. it almost felt like it was vibrating the bone itself or something. I could see then why John said that it was an 8 on the pain scale. Holy crap. I didn't really know how to react to the pain.. so I ended up laughing a good bit trying to deal with it and I made occasional "ya! and byah!" sounds whenever it surprised me with particularly sharp pain. After I said byah.. toby asked me who used to say that.. and I couldn't even think because it was still hurting so much.. and i barely got out.. dean.. dean dean dean.. howard dean. Which toby made fun of me for. But I held on tightly to toby's hand during all of it.. and my palms were terribly clammy. And I tried to talk to the guy to distract myself as well as tried to focus on the bizarre and disturbing things this guy had decorated the room with.. there was a head, arms, and legs of a doll baby sticking out of a dark canvas.. and another doll in some kind of costume with a hood.. with its hands coming out of his head.. hanging in the corner.. like he was about to swoop down upon us. He had a huge painting of a figure with the word focus (umlaut over the u) above it. Then there was a face coming out of the wall with nails all through it.. and a picture of zombie? rugrats.. something like that. A poster near the door of a topless woman (a drawing) with red crosses covering her nipples. And a plethora of other gothic and frightening things including clowns. He said he liked all of those things around him because he thought it would keep evil things away.
When I had walked into the room.. there was this intense music coming from his huge desktop computer.. it sounded like a heavy heartbeat with random brief intervals of dissonance thrown in which nearly made me jump once or twice. Luckily before we started he said he could change it for me. So he put on some more mainstream music... ended up listening to some annie lennox which kept repeating. But I like the song "why" so it's okay.
Anyway.. after he did the lettering.. all black.. he moved to the front part of my ankle.. telling me it may be more sensitive.. this area ended up being the part that hurt the least. It was an annoying scratchy feeling.. a bit like a lot of little cat scratches over and over.. but it was much more tolerable and not so much of a stabbing pain. My leg was shaking a bit though so I had my knee up and my foot flat on the bench so that if i felt the urge to tense or move I could just push my foot down into the chair rather than moving it from side to side. Well after this he had me turn onto my stomach so that he could do the back part of my ankle. This seemed just as painful as the first part he did. I think it was only slightly better because I was able to grip the chair easier and keep my head down. My dad came back during this part.
Then he did the last part.. the inside of my ankle with the dragonfly. He put that bright blue and some turquoise into it and really gave it a pretty transparent effect.. I really think he did the dragonfly beautifully. This part didn't hurt quite as much either.. and it was over faster than I expected it to be. Just over an hour really.
After all of this.. I didn't immediately feel woozy.. just a bit in a daze.
But when I got home I really started to feel kind of out of it. I had only slept about 3 hours the night before so I had this heady, didn't-get-enough-sleep kind of heaviness in my head and this near light-headed-ness. It felt like I was nearly lightheaded.. but not quite. I spent the afternoon trying to lie down because i felt better that way and I felt better when I ate something.. at least immediately afterward. A little while after I ate I started feeling just slightly nauseated. So in the end.. I felt too badly to try to drive to Cathy's bachelorette party. I had just found out about it the night before and I was going to try to go.. really didn't expect to feel so badly.. and didn't feel up to the 2 hour drive to Pittsburgh when feeling so woozy.
That kind of sick, not quite right feeling is apparently quite normal with a tattoo. But surprisingly my tattoo itself didn't hurt much at all.. once in a great while I'd feel a little bit of a sting.. but that was it. And it looks better than I was expecting.. no oozing and until yesterday.. no redness around it even. And today the bit of redness from yesterday has gone.
So it's looking good.. let us just hope it heals okay.
It is so difficult for me to wear flip flops and not put on my boots.