Oh tattooooooooooooooos. I have one. I wish I had more. I wish I was THAT girl. The total painted lady, lady. The bad-ass at the coffee shop that is edgy yet friendly yet doesn’t give a shit. And really, what says, “I do not care what you think” more than putting ink on your body that will be there FOREVER.
Unless you are my friend Maria Christina. She got a tattoo of a cute little Chickie on the bottom of her big toe at a small tattoo shop while we were in Brighton one weekend in the mid 90′s. It might have been the cutest tattoo and the cutest place for a tattoo that I have ever seen. And within 48 hours it had vanished. A total tattoo mystery.
On that same trip I was supposed to get a tattoo of a turquoise star on the squeezie part between my thumb and index finger. (what is that area called?) But because Maria Christina spent so much time doing her patented flirty, flirty Italian girl routine on the tattoo artist there simply wasn’t enough time before our train was scheduled to head back to London.
And let me tell you something- PHEW! Because while my Mom was very cool with me getting my ear pierced a 3rd time in the 9th grade I can not imagine she would have been ok with me coming back from theatre school at the awesome age of 16 with a giant star on my hand. Clearly that tattoo was not meant to be for me.
When I finally DID get my tattoo I was ready. Big time ready. (& in my 20′s.) I had wanted this particular design for years and I knew where on my body I wanted it. It was just a matter of getting enough guts to go through with it. (have I mentioned my low threshold of pain before?)
The Los Angeles neighborhood I was living in at the time was awesome. It was the perfect place to be in my 20′s. A total mish-mash of Hollywood celebrities and celebrity wannabes. People with too much money and people just barely making ends meet. But somehow it came together beautifully at this bar called Jack’s Sugar Shack. (Which has sadly now been turned into some silly hipster joint.) Next door to Jack’s was a tattoo parlor that was beyond old school.
My roommates and I could walk to Jack’s and the cute Rockabilly boys would buy us drinks. And the tattoo staff would come by on breaks and make us laugh. Ah…those were the days. We became friends with the staff of the tattoo parlor and one of the artists found out that I wanted a tattoo but was probably never going to go through with it because of the pain thing. And wouldn’t you know, within 24 hours I had a tattoo.
A few years later I bought Mother a tattoo for her birthday- the exact same design that I have as it is special to both of us. I was hoping she could have the same artist, but apparently he had just been arrested the night before for shooting fireworks in the middle of Sunset Blvd. Um. Yeah.
Pretty meandering story just for a little bit of ink on my arm. Can’t wait to hear what stories you guys have about your tattoos!
If you are participating (& you totally should!) please leave the url of the post of your blog where the photos are showcased in the linky box below. You can add your url whenever- don’t worry if it isn’t a friday. Visit other contributors and let them know what you think of their photographs!
To find more information about photo Fridays (as well as the code for a sidebar or post graphic) you can go here.
As a courtesy to members of the ALI (adoption, loss, infertility) community, if your photo or photos feature a child please put an * before your caption.
Going to try the image linky again because I think it would be cool to have all of our tattoos, etc lined up next to each other like one giant awesome carnival lady. If you have a problem getting your image to work let me know in the comments and I will grab the image from your site and add it once I am back on line later today.
*** Am also going to tell you to look down there at that “other posts from…” deal because it is blowing my mind. Each time I write a post now I type in a word into a little box on my dashboard of my blogging platform that I feel is a big theme of the post. Before my eyes a list of posts pop up that are somehow connected to the theme.
I have been taking it as an opportunity to go back and visit with these different versions of myself. The 2005 version to the now version. And the really crazy thing is that many of you guys are in the comments- all young and cute. We were like pig-tailed freshmen or something in 
squeaky white keds with ironed blue jeans. Just wanted to take another moment and explain what those links are again- they are portals to another dimension.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the design, love the story. I feel like mine should come with a warning about seeing a lot of skin, but oh, well. It was your idea
Happy Photo Friday!
I’m so glad you chose this topic. I love your tatto and esp. tattoos that have special meanings. I wrote a post awhile back about my first tattoo experience. I will put the link to the post on my blog. My tattoo means so much to me. I just got it last year at 31.
I’m so off my game for the Photo Fridays, but I promise to get back on the horse next week! Am loving the photos of the tats…my brother-in-law is a painted dude, and if he lived nearby I TOTALLY would have taken some shots of his ink for you all, as I am sans tattoo, personally.
Love the design. And, what a great back story. Yay
Ooo, love your tattoo and the story behind it! And I tweeted you this, but I about crapped when I pulled up the wikipedia article and saw the chalice is found in Somerset County, England, which I found out yesterday is where my English ancestors are from. Fancy!
My back piece is a combo. I had a bunch of separate pieces and I was starting to feel like a patchwork quilt so I wanted something to bring them all together. Each tattoo has a special meaning to me and/or represents a particular point in my life and bringing them all together with my wife’s and my birth flowers just felt right.
Jennifer – absolutely love your piece…that’s kind of what i want to do with all of my individual yet related tats on my back
it’s beautiful.
I have the name of my favorite poem with a scorpion at the end. I got it at 34 after dating another asshole to remind me, 1) Don’t date assholes, and 2) I’m unconquerable. I have a great pic of me and Lu with my back to the camera and she has her hands folded just above looking like a badass. My next one is going to be of her name. I’m trying to find a spot on my body that doesn’t sag, at this age and weight, that’s getting hard to do
re: squeezie bit between thumb and index finger, people tend to call it the webbing, but I believe it’s called the thenar eminence. In acupuncture it’s LI4, one of my faaavorite points.
I love tattoo stories. Just love them.
Since I don’t have to post today, then I will get mine up there this weekend.
It’s the story behind it that means even more than the tat itself.
I would like more details about a) how you went from confessing to the tattoo guy to getting the tat (those 24 hours) and b) exactly what if felt like. Tying to develop nerve here.
Love your tattoo! And I know exactly what you’re talking about re: Hollywood (since I still live a few miles away). I never got a tattoo, though I wanted one for many years. I always wanted this celtic phoenix-type design that I became fixated on when I was about 20 years old.
I was going to gt my tattoo on my 25th birthday but was pregnant when that rolled around – and since then haven’t had the expendable cash to do it but I want one soooo bad. I want an entire back piece of a pin-up girl medusa with ladybugs in her snakes a face that’s a mirror and with one high heeled foot up on a stack of cookbooks…… yep, that’s what I want. I wish I could draw it, but alas I cannot. People tend to look at me very strange when I tell them my concept, but it perfectly embodies me…love you!
I tried using the linky, but it won’t let me.
So, I’ll just add my link: * http://tellithowitis.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/07/photo-friday-errr-saturday.html
I totally dig the tattoo photos. I love the stories behind the ink. In my Library we have a rotating exhibit called “Linked by Ink” celebrating the diversity found on our campus. Our tagline is “What makes us different can bring us together.” Photography students take the photos and student volunteers record the stories that go along with the photographs.
Woo Hoo – I delurked!