ink
So on Saturday, I got a tattoo.
It's the Northern Cross, from Cygnus.
It's part of a semi-matching set:
from mine clockwise: safelybeds, raininariver, drmoonpants
It is not my 'first' tattoo; it is (and will very likely remain) my only tattoo. It hurt. I've heard about people who get inked and feel euphoric during and/or afterwards; I turned white as a sheet, and the nausea lingered far longer than the pain of the tattoo itself did. I think it's totally awesome that some people really like getting inked! I am not one of them. The artist lay the design down on my wrist, and I remember looking at the skin beneath it and thinking, that's a lot of blue under there.
I can't wait for it to fade a little, or at least for the scabbing to give up the ghost. Right now it looks like I just drew really hard on my wrist with a fountain pen.
I did it for a lot of reasons, though the main one was obviously that all my friends were jumping off a bridge.
It's an X, but it's not an X. safelybeds' is more design-style, bold and artistic. raininariver's is a variable. drmoonpants's is typographic. Mine's star stuff.
It's educational. Go on, ask me what it is. Let's talk about asterisms.
It's missing a star, I know. I wasn't looking while he did it so I didn't see it until I was way beyond the point of wanting that needle to touch my skin again. Someday maybe I'll get up the nerve to get it added.
It's entertaining. I don't think my students would have blinked if I'd shown up with it on the first day, but a couple of them noticed the change. I'm now remarkably self-conscious about how much I use my left hand to gesture during lectures. One of them asked me about it, but I could see his eyes glaze over about ten words into my explanation. (Maybe it's not that educational.)
It's going to baffle my mother. I hate needles and I'm tremendously squeamish. I don't think she'll be mad, but I bet if you'd asked her to order her children by likelihood of getting a tattoo, she would've put me comfortably at the bottom.
It's a don't -- not that I'd ever, ever go for my wrists if I made that decision, but the prohibition stands.
It's kind of inflamed; it's time to put lotion on it again.
It's a permanent reminder of the high cost of saving someone life -- not just once, and not just one life. As much as I disparage a lot of evangelical Protestant Christianity, I can't make fun of multiple altar calls, of dedicating yourself to Jesus time and again; salvation is a lengthy, repetitive process of advance and retreat, and what the Bible-criers say is true: it's not something you can accomplish alone. It might as well have been etched into my skin years ago. I just had to catch up with the rest of me.
It's like my father always said, human scarification is the cure for all ills.
If you're going to say something mean, please don't.
It's the Northern Cross, from Cygnus.
It's part of a semi-matching set:
from mine clockwise: safelybeds, raininariver, drmoonpants
It is not my 'first' tattoo; it is (and will very likely remain) my only tattoo. It hurt. I've heard about people who get inked and feel euphoric during and/or afterwards; I turned white as a sheet, and the nausea lingered far longer than the pain of the tattoo itself did. I think it's totally awesome that some people really like getting inked! I am not one of them. The artist lay the design down on my wrist, and I remember looking at the skin beneath it and thinking, that's a lot of blue under there.
I can't wait for it to fade a little, or at least for the scabbing to give up the ghost. Right now it looks like I just drew really hard on my wrist with a fountain pen.
I did it for a lot of reasons, though the main one was obviously that all my friends were jumping off a bridge.
It's an X, but it's not an X. safelybeds' is more design-style, bold and artistic. raininariver's is a variable. drmoonpants's is typographic. Mine's star stuff.
It's educational. Go on, ask me what it is. Let's talk about asterisms.
It's missing a star, I know. I wasn't looking while he did it so I didn't see it until I was way beyond the point of wanting that needle to touch my skin again. Someday maybe I'll get up the nerve to get it added.
It's entertaining. I don't think my students would have blinked if I'd shown up with it on the first day, but a couple of them noticed the change. I'm now remarkably self-conscious about how much I use my left hand to gesture during lectures. One of them asked me about it, but I could see his eyes glaze over about ten words into my explanation. (Maybe it's not that educational.)
It's going to baffle my mother. I hate needles and I'm tremendously squeamish. I don't think she'll be mad, but I bet if you'd asked her to order her children by likelihood of getting a tattoo, she would've put me comfortably at the bottom.
It's a don't -- not that I'd ever, ever go for my wrists if I made that decision, but the prohibition stands.
It's kind of inflamed; it's time to put lotion on it again.
It's a permanent reminder of the high cost of saving someone life -- not just once, and not just one life. As much as I disparage a lot of evangelical Protestant Christianity, I can't make fun of multiple altar calls, of dedicating yourself to Jesus time and again; salvation is a lengthy, repetitive process of advance and retreat, and what the Bible-criers say is true: it's not something you can accomplish alone. It might as well have been etched into my skin years ago. I just had to catch up with the rest of me.
It's like my father always said, human scarification is the cure for all ills.
If you're going to say something mean, please don't.