Huh not sure how I missed this post when it hit! I mustve been busy at work that day. Anyway.
I technically have five tattoos - we'll get to that. I did the first one myself, with a needle, a cork, and some india ink; because I was a punk rocker who really needed a tattoo but a *broke* punk. That one's a simple triangle with lines radiating from it on my ankle. It's pretty faded by now. A couple years later I scrounged up a few bucks and got one done in a camper at a festival - LIKE YOU DO. That was an eye in the triangle with the words Non Serviam beneath it, which means I Will Not Serve. I called it my anti-waitress charm so I could never be a waitress again and so far, it's working. Can I get a Hail Eris from anyone who knows the meaning on that one?
Tattoo #3 came along maybe a decade later - no, I guess it couldn't have been that long. Five years. I dunno. I traded a Gwar video tape for that and had it done in a pal's bedroom because, did I mention punk rock? It's a blackwork piece of the Serpent Mound and you will never see it. I got better care instructions with that one than I did from the 'pro' in the camper. The fourth one is the only one I regret: it's my ex's name, entwined in flowers around my other ankle. Some day I'll spend a little money, have that one obscured and do some matching work around my first one; but I haven't decided I have cash to drop on that as yet.
Finally, tattoo #5 and why I only *technically* have five. My eye in the triangle was done near my heart, which is to say, upon my bosom. Which sadly has not shrunk over time, but instead has been affected by gravity. Causing that original equilateral triangle to turn into an isoceles (also it was fading like a mofo). Around this same time, a dear friend passed away, and I decided to get some ink in his memory. He'd had a crow in flight on his chest; I got a standing crow - whose body now obscures 99% of my charm. You can just see a fuzzy corner of the original peeking out if you know where to look, but that piece of ink will never see the light of day again. Hence only technically there.
And that, boys and girls, is probably more than you ever wanted to know about my skin art.
I was down thread and realized that some folks were insulted or upset by talk about how tattoos might look in one's old age. Please take no offense to my comment below. I think it's probably something everyone thinks about after a certain age. They can be meaningful or not at any age. Now I'm thinking about getting one again, so thanks for that.
I was kinda expecting Robyn's mother to say something about how the figs would look in her old age, but I guess it was pretty much implied. This was my mom's response to any tattoo conversation and It has definitely worked after all these years. My son's best friend is an amazing artist and I still think about it occasionally, but Hazel (my mom), may she rip, continues to have the last word.
I'm tat-resistant because of aesthetics. I think they look amazing on darker skin tones, but on light/pasty skin black ink has kind of a sad, kid-scribbling-on-a-white-frig-with-a-black-marker aesthete. So when DD decided she wanted to get a tattoo with her friends at age 16, my recommendation to her was to take the design she wanted and draw it on her skin, and keep refreshing it when it faded. If she still liked it after six months, then make it permanent. (Note: this was not me saying yes, it was me hoping she'd lose interest.)
Years later, imagine my surprise when I heard the same advice come out of her mouth when she was talking to her then-boss, who was considering getting matching mother-daughter tattoos. She also advised her not to go to anyone who didn't have to book her months out.
I asked her at some point if she had tried drawing the design on herself that she and her friends picked out, and she said she had, and after a week she thought it was stupid and changed her mind.
She finally got a tattoo when she was in her twenties, and ignored all of her own advice, and cried at the results, but that's a different tattoo story.
I have a pony for a tattoo! Actually a horseβs head, but not like in the creepy scene from The Godfather. Itβs in the center of my back just below my neck and is a simple line drawing.
Got it in Vegas about 20 years ago. I still love it and shop for formalwear that highlights it because who doesnβt love a pony at special events?
I have two of the three common middle aged white girl tattoos: ankle yin Yang symbol, and kidsβ names. I do not have #3, which, of course, is the βtramp stampβ as itβs so derogatorily termed. I came thisclose but in the end required food more than tattoos at the point in life where that was cool. Got tentative plans to do a piece of the Duke of Cornwallβs artwork on either the shoulder or the leg, and Princess Alice is hankering for us to do matching tats for her sweet 16, but I have moped out of that since I refuse to get blamed if her ADHD βSQUIRREL!β Style thought patterns lead her to hate the design once she ages a bit. Queen of impulsive behaviour is our Princess Alice.
I have seen way too many complete room remodels and total makeovers and wardrobe transformations and new slang to think sheβd pick something and be happy. At least if sheβs an adult I can say sheβs the one who authorized it.
I became enamored of tattoos when I was about four. Back then they were rare, apart from men who'd served in the Navy. One such man and his lovely wife were friends of my parents, and had a son who was (I think) six; maybe seven. He showed me the anchor tattooed on his forearm, and let me touch it. From that moment on, I wanted a tattoo, too. Of course the tattoo I wanted was a dragonfly, which became my totem when I read Water Babies, a moralistic Victorian children's novel that, among many other things, describes the metamorphosis of a dragonfly.
In 1986 or '87 at the internal Chinese martial arts studio I attended, I met the brilliant tattooist Michael McCabe. He wrote the book New York Tattoo and earned his MFA in tattooing. He was also the only Westerner the Japanese licensed to do the full back tattoos favored by the Yakuza. One of my teachers was (is) an illustrated man, and all his best work was done by Mike. My dragonfly, clouds, and waterlily is a collaborative design. I got it about six months before Re:Search published Modern Primitives; after the book came out everyone and her sister got tatted. Had the book been out, most likely I wouldn't have gotten one at all.
My mother, of blessed and cursed memory, thought all tattoos were ugly, so I got it where she never had to see it. Of course, eventually she did see it. I no longer cared. I need the color refreshed. and I'd love to have that done by the very talented Wonketteer Sister Artemis. One of these days ....
It's weird to discover that Van Morrison, and Dion, are both alive have have careers in the Blues field. I mean, since I listened to them when I was a kid and am an old man now, they have got to be really old.
Several people below saying the reason they don't have tats is fear or dislike of needles.
I've only got two, but the thought of needles never entered my mind as a problem. When I was a little kid, allergies were treated by giving you very small doses of the thing you were allergic to, so I got an allergy shot once a week for twelve years. My mom took me the first handful of times, but she had things to do, so I'd just come home from school, gather my library books, walk over to the doctors office for my shot, then to the library, change my books, and walk home. Every Friday after school for my entire childhood and teens.
When you grow up like that, it's really hard to get too excited about a needle. I don't remember how I felt about getting a shot at the beginning, probably didn't like it, but how long can you let it bother you?
I remember the first time I got an inject of anesthesia from a dentist. I tried to squirm out of the back of the chair to avoid it. That was a time when I was getting a lot of cavities and I don;t think I was getting numbed (or numbed very well) before drilling. My current dentist uses NO2 to reduce tension than has a method of injection that distracts me from the shot. And he's not afraid to give me a second shot if the first was not enough, I love this guy!
Robyn, I feel like you're channeling a mix of me and my kid with this post. I'll get my first tattoo this year (with her, matching ferns and fiddleheads) and most of hers are cringey AF. The guy I found in town charges 1200 bucks for 4 hours. I'm sure I can find someone else but he'd do a great job.
I have one that I got in 2021 when I visited Maui to see relatives. It was a sudden desire to get a sea turtle and I realized it when I randomly went to a place for BBQ that had an all women run tattoo parlor next door. The artist took an appointment for the next day and let me research and find a design online and send it to her. I picked a tribal looking turtle with small circles in a spiral inside it. I asked her to modify the fins so that the upper ones included the first initial of my daughter and the lower ones were the included the first initial of the love of my life. I also asked her to color the inner circles in the chakra colors. It turned out fantastic because she was very detailed oriented and could really make a fine line. The parlor was in Haiku, Maui and is called Haiku Tattoo. I received many compliments on it and have met many other people who are sea turtle brothers and sisters. In Hawaii they call the turtle Honu and he is the protector of children....
I have 18. Some are mementos from trips, others were spur of the moment, six are various dragon tattoos, some are related to my time as a divemaster. I'm not sure why I have so many dragons; as far as pain, it actually isn't that bad
I'm an old, so before I turned 40, only ex-cons, sailors, longshoremen and yakuza had tattoos. But I have the best idea for a tattoo, courtesy of Dante':
lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate
that is: abandon all hope ye who enter here
Placement is entirely optional, though on a young woman I would suggest the lower abdomen.
Young women turn into old women if we're lucky. If we choose to be pregnant that'll turn into a funky shrinky dink. I always said I never need tattoos of my kids' names because it's written all over.
Huh not sure how I missed this post when it hit! I mustve been busy at work that day. Anyway.
I technically have five tattoos - we'll get to that. I did the first one myself, with a needle, a cork, and some india ink; because I was a punk rocker who really needed a tattoo but a *broke* punk. That one's a simple triangle with lines radiating from it on my ankle. It's pretty faded by now. A couple years later I scrounged up a few bucks and got one done in a camper at a festival - LIKE YOU DO. That was an eye in the triangle with the words Non Serviam beneath it, which means I Will Not Serve. I called it my anti-waitress charm so I could never be a waitress again and so far, it's working. Can I get a Hail Eris from anyone who knows the meaning on that one?
Tattoo #3 came along maybe a decade later - no, I guess it couldn't have been that long. Five years. I dunno. I traded a Gwar video tape for that and had it done in a pal's bedroom because, did I mention punk rock? It's a blackwork piece of the Serpent Mound and you will never see it. I got better care instructions with that one than I did from the 'pro' in the camper. The fourth one is the only one I regret: it's my ex's name, entwined in flowers around my other ankle. Some day I'll spend a little money, have that one obscured and do some matching work around my first one; but I haven't decided I have cash to drop on that as yet.
Finally, tattoo #5 and why I only *technically* have five. My eye in the triangle was done near my heart, which is to say, upon my bosom. Which sadly has not shrunk over time, but instead has been affected by gravity. Causing that original equilateral triangle to turn into an isoceles (also it was fading like a mofo). Around this same time, a dear friend passed away, and I decided to get some ink in his memory. He'd had a crow in flight on his chest; I got a standing crow - whose body now obscures 99% of my charm. You can just see a fuzzy corner of the original peeking out if you know where to look, but that piece of ink will never see the light of day again. Hence only technically there.
And that, boys and girls, is probably more than you ever wanted to know about my skin art.
I was down thread and realized that some folks were insulted or upset by talk about how tattoos might look in one's old age. Please take no offense to my comment below. I think it's probably something everyone thinks about after a certain age. They can be meaningful or not at any age. Now I'm thinking about getting one again, so thanks for that.
I was kinda expecting Robyn's mother to say something about how the figs would look in her old age, but I guess it was pretty much implied. This was my mom's response to any tattoo conversation and It has definitely worked after all these years. My son's best friend is an amazing artist and I still think about it occasionally, but Hazel (my mom), may she rip, continues to have the last word.
I'm tat-resistant because of aesthetics. I think they look amazing on darker skin tones, but on light/pasty skin black ink has kind of a sad, kid-scribbling-on-a-white-frig-with-a-black-marker aesthete. So when DD decided she wanted to get a tattoo with her friends at age 16, my recommendation to her was to take the design she wanted and draw it on her skin, and keep refreshing it when it faded. If she still liked it after six months, then make it permanent. (Note: this was not me saying yes, it was me hoping she'd lose interest.)
Years later, imagine my surprise when I heard the same advice come out of her mouth when she was talking to her then-boss, who was considering getting matching mother-daughter tattoos. She also advised her not to go to anyone who didn't have to book her months out.
I asked her at some point if she had tried drawing the design on herself that she and her friends picked out, and she said she had, and after a week she thought it was stupid and changed her mind.
She finally got a tattoo when she was in her twenties, and ignored all of her own advice, and cried at the results, but that's a different tattoo story.
I have a pony for a tattoo! Actually a horseβs head, but not like in the creepy scene from The Godfather. Itβs in the center of my back just below my neck and is a simple line drawing.
Got it in Vegas about 20 years ago. I still love it and shop for formalwear that highlights it because who doesnβt love a pony at special events?
I have two of the three common middle aged white girl tattoos: ankle yin Yang symbol, and kidsβ names. I do not have #3, which, of course, is the βtramp stampβ as itβs so derogatorily termed. I came thisclose but in the end required food more than tattoos at the point in life where that was cool. Got tentative plans to do a piece of the Duke of Cornwallβs artwork on either the shoulder or the leg, and Princess Alice is hankering for us to do matching tats for her sweet 16, but I have moped out of that since I refuse to get blamed if her ADHD βSQUIRREL!β Style thought patterns lead her to hate the design once she ages a bit. Queen of impulsive behaviour is our Princess Alice.
"ADHD βSQUIRREL!β Style thought patterns lead her to hate the design once she ages a bit."
This is why I don't have a tattoo, I can't think of anything I definitely won't hate in 5 years.
I have seen way too many complete room remodels and total makeovers and wardrobe transformations and new slang to think sheβd pick something and be happy. At least if sheβs an adult I can say sheβs the one who authorized it.
Your mother was a wise woman, Robyn.
I became enamored of tattoos when I was about four. Back then they were rare, apart from men who'd served in the Navy. One such man and his lovely wife were friends of my parents, and had a son who was (I think) six; maybe seven. He showed me the anchor tattooed on his forearm, and let me touch it. From that moment on, I wanted a tattoo, too. Of course the tattoo I wanted was a dragonfly, which became my totem when I read Water Babies, a moralistic Victorian children's novel that, among many other things, describes the metamorphosis of a dragonfly.
In 1986 or '87 at the internal Chinese martial arts studio I attended, I met the brilliant tattooist Michael McCabe. He wrote the book New York Tattoo and earned his MFA in tattooing. He was also the only Westerner the Japanese licensed to do the full back tattoos favored by the Yakuza. One of my teachers was (is) an illustrated man, and all his best work was done by Mike. My dragonfly, clouds, and waterlily is a collaborative design. I got it about six months before Re:Search published Modern Primitives; after the book came out everyone and her sister got tatted. Had the book been out, most likely I wouldn't have gotten one at all.
My mother, of blessed and cursed memory, thought all tattoos were ugly, so I got it where she never had to see it. Of course, eventually she did see it. I no longer cared. I need the color refreshed. and I'd love to have that done by the very talented Wonketteer Sister Artemis. One of these days ....
It's weird to discover that Van Morrison, and Dion, are both alive have have careers in the Blues field. I mean, since I listened to them when I was a kid and am an old man now, they have got to be really old.
Several people below saying the reason they don't have tats is fear or dislike of needles.
I've only got two, but the thought of needles never entered my mind as a problem. When I was a little kid, allergies were treated by giving you very small doses of the thing you were allergic to, so I got an allergy shot once a week for twelve years. My mom took me the first handful of times, but she had things to do, so I'd just come home from school, gather my library books, walk over to the doctors office for my shot, then to the library, change my books, and walk home. Every Friday after school for my entire childhood and teens.
When you grow up like that, it's really hard to get too excited about a needle. I don't remember how I felt about getting a shot at the beginning, probably didn't like it, but how long can you let it bother you?
I remember the first time I got an inject of anesthesia from a dentist. I tried to squirm out of the back of the chair to avoid it. That was a time when I was getting a lot of cavities and I don;t think I was getting numbed (or numbed very well) before drilling. My current dentist uses NO2 to reduce tension than has a method of injection that distracts me from the shot. And he's not afraid to give me a second shot if the first was not enough, I love this guy!
Robyn, I feel like you're channeling a mix of me and my kid with this post. I'll get my first tattoo this year (with her, matching ferns and fiddleheads) and most of hers are cringey AF. The guy I found in town charges 1200 bucks for 4 hours. I'm sure I can find someone else but he'd do a great job.
I have one that I got in 2021 when I visited Maui to see relatives. It was a sudden desire to get a sea turtle and I realized it when I randomly went to a place for BBQ that had an all women run tattoo parlor next door. The artist took an appointment for the next day and let me research and find a design online and send it to her. I picked a tribal looking turtle with small circles in a spiral inside it. I asked her to modify the fins so that the upper ones included the first initial of my daughter and the lower ones were the included the first initial of the love of my life. I also asked her to color the inner circles in the chakra colors. It turned out fantastic because she was very detailed oriented and could really make a fine line. The parlor was in Haiku, Maui and is called Haiku Tattoo. I received many compliments on it and have met many other people who are sea turtle brothers and sisters. In Hawaii they call the turtle Honu and he is the protector of children....
Great tattoo origination story! Thanks
Thank you!
Gamera is the friend of all children!
Heβs a close cousinβ¦
I have 18. Some are mementos from trips, others were spur of the moment, six are various dragon tattoos, some are related to my time as a divemaster. I'm not sure why I have so many dragons; as far as pain, it actually isn't that bad
Definitely not worried about pain. Birthed a few big ones and imagine the sound would be the most annoying bit.
It is a little bit dental drill.
Perhaps you have Targaryen blood.
Those damn boomers had already done all the fun, rebellious, attention-grabbing stuff. Getting a tat is all that's left now.
The moral of the story is that the Boebert incident was all about figs. Possibly some thistle.
I'm an old, so before I turned 40, only ex-cons, sailors, longshoremen and yakuza had tattoos. But I have the best idea for a tattoo, courtesy of Dante':
lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate
that is: abandon all hope ye who enter here
Placement is entirely optional, though on a young woman I would suggest the lower abdomen.
There was a dude on our football team that had a shoulder tattoo - this was in 1979. He was a mean, mean MF'er.
that is the saying over the entrance to hell.
Young women turn into old women if we're lucky. If we choose to be pregnant that'll turn into a funky shrinky dink. I always said I never need tattoos of my kids' names because it's written all over.