Ligature

Name:
Location: Chicagoland, Illinois, United States

Friday, October 21, 2005

Mini-sabbatical day six: The tattoo

(Sorry for the posting delay, I wanted to make sure this was well-written.)

For those of y'all who don't know, after last year's Parliament of the World's Religions in Barcelona, I finally knew what I wanted to get as a tattoo — the logo of the CPWR. It took me a year to work up my courage, get my upper arms in shape and find a tattoo artist I trusted.

The second two items are related, since I ended up meeting Noodles (the artist who did my work) at the gym. I overheard him mentioning to one of the trainers that he works at Tomato Tattoo. My curiousity was piqued because a friend-of-a-friend had recommended going to Tomato. We struck up a conversation and he suggested I stop in.

Eventually Janelle and Brad convinced me to go visit Noodles about a month ago. We stopped in, I was impressed with the cleanliness of the shop and Noodles' professionalism, and I watched him work on a client for about twenty minutes. The next weekend I dropped off my design and we made an appointment. I then immediately left a voicemail for Janelle asking her to come with me.

I woke up yesterday feeling rather excited and not as nervous as I expected to be.

I picked up Janelle at 11:45 and we went to my favorite Irish pub for lunch, where we were served very bloody hamburgers. Incidentally, Janelle kept telling me stories involving gore and blood, which made me a bit woozy. It was kind of funny, but anyone who knows me knows I get a little lightheaded when I hear those kind of stories. She was not doing it intentionally, it was just anything that we talked about ended up involving mauling.

At 1:00, we arrived at Tomato for my appointment. Noodles was there, and he had my design photocopied out a bit larger than I'd expected. And then he said it was still a bit smaller than he'd suggest. He explained that the sixteen little triangles that form the center circle were too fine and a little too close together to hold up well. He said the design would stay crisp for about ten years, but after that they'd start to bleed together.

He suggested taking out eight of the middle triangles. I wasn't convinced, so we scanned the image into Photoshop and erased them there. Once I saw it, I thought it looked good.

He gave me some time to think about it, as well as to think about the size and placement. I knew I wanted it on my shoulder, but I wasn't sure about going quite so large with it. He cut the design out of the paper so Janelle could hold it up to my shoulder, and I agreed the larger version was better.

He then made the carbon-paper transfer and we got the design positioned perfectly.

I watched him set up his workstation, unwrap the new needles (which I didn't look too closely at, because I didn't want to know how big they were), disinfect and wrap everything in plastic and the kind of plasticized paper they use at the dentist. I was really impressed with the cleanliness. Every time he touched something that hadn't been disinfected (like the telephone), he swapped out rubber gloves.

He shaved the peach fuzz off my upper arm and rubbed it to soften up the skin.

Then it was time for me to get in the chair. Janelle sat next to me (thank goodness) and I was really happy to see the chair had arms I could grip to keep from flinching.

I was really nervous about the pain factor, and prattled on embarrassingly about being afraid I'd cry during the procedure. Noodles told me to relax and that he'd start out with a short line so I could get used to the sensation.

Then he asked if I was ready. I said "yes." The sensation was nothing like I'd ever experienced really. The outlining felt like a vibrating, mild sting. Some people compare it to a cat-scratch, but every cat-scratch I've had burns like hell, and this didn't. I really just felt the vibration of the tattoo machine more than anything.

It took a long time to do the outlining. The design has so many intricate lines, so it took about forty-five minutes. (Janelle says I was in the chair for over an hour. I honestly don't remember ... it was such a surreal experience I lost all sense of time.)

Then he moved on to filling in the design. That actually felt kind of good. Janelle had described it as kind of like a deep-muscle massage. I think that's a great description. When I was watching Noodles work on another client, the filling-in looked like it would be the most painful. So I was really surprised that it kind of felt good. The filling-in took about 20 minutes.

Then I was done. I took a look in the mirror. It was beautiful. I was so impressed. The color is so nice and rich.

We settled up payment, Noodles gave me aftercare instructions and a tube of ointment, and we were done!

And here it is (bear in mind the photo was taken with a crappy phone-camera, please):



A big shout-out to Janelle for the moral support!

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Mini-sabbatical day five: All roads lead to Radiohead

The revamped Web site is (finally) posted. For those of you who are not stalkers, you may type www.firstlast.com where first stands for my real first name and last stands for my real last name.

If you are a stalker, email me at the address in my profile and I'll consider sending you the address.

Any praise or criticism is welcome!

Had a great workout at the gym today — nearly two hours. I even did crunches — sixty of them (I abhor crunches).

I'm finally getting in shape. I have bony elbows again, thin wrists and my cheekbones and jawbone are emerging. It's enough to keep me motivated.

I need to go to bed on time tonight. Tomorrow's tattoo day (1 p.m.), and I'm supposed to be well-rested for the procedure. I'm meeting Janelle for lunch beforehand.

Oh, yeah. Radiohead.

A couple months ago I bought my first Radiohead album.

I'm a bit behind the times, I know, but I should get points for listening to them on The WARP, a true underground radio station, in high school. (It had no live employees, just rotated discs with pre-programmed intros and outros.)

Back when "alternative" music was.

Fast forward ten years. Driving around with Chuck Norris, and he's got Radiohead in the car. I'm duly impressed, and I think he gives me some sort of lecture about him not being that old. (He was.) It was a good memory, nonetheless, driving off into the snowy darkness together.

And now, less than a month until Goblet of Fire appears in theaters, they've released one of the new Weird Sisters songs. (Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway and Jarvis Cocker will be performing as the Weird Sisters, though none of them seems particularly hairy enough.) The song is perfect, at least in my imagination.

Mini-sabbatical day four: Rest, gym, tea & personal Web site.

Since staying up late again to work on my personal Web site last night, I slept in again today. I woke up at about 10:00. I had breakfast, went to the gym and then came home to rest some more.

At 3:00 I went to the library to research some magazines for which I might like to work in the future. I'm not currently planning to leave my job, but it's a very uncertain environment, and it's always best to be prepared.

I'd forgotten how much I love the library. There's something about being surrounded by vast amounts of information that makes one feel both humbled and empowered. And rather proud of a system that lets anyone, no matter their income, have access to that information.

And there's something about the quiet of a library that's charged with the electricity of synapses firing.

I'm definitely going back tomorrow.

At four o'clock it was off to tea with Sharan, her parents and sister-in-law. I got to meet her beautiful new baby! What a sweetie ...

Then I went off to the mall to attempt to find the very last piece of my Halloween costume. I'm going to Austin for Halloween. Kathy, Foster, Ron and I are dressing as the Scooby Doo gang. I'm (no surprise) Velma.

But I can't for the life of me find knee-high orange socks. I've been to every department and discount store in Chicagoland, it seems.

Oh, well.

I'm one page away from finishing my personal Web site. Woo hoo!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Mini-sabbatical day three: Personal Web site, rest, gym, errands

Day three began with working on my personal Web site from midnight until 3:30 a.m.

I slept until 11 (when I was awakened by the realization that it's 70 degrees outside, my landlord has turned on the heat to my apartment and I was buried under flannel sheets and a flannel comforter cover), ate breakfast and then went to the gym. Wow, that felt good. And I finished my workout in record time, since there was no one else there using the weight machines.

After the gym, I went to the mall to pick up a gift for Sharan & Sukh's new baby. I also did some window-shopping.

I saw the most gorgeous formal dress and doubled-back to try it on. Shimmery, bright green underlining with a black diamond-patterned taffetta sprinkled with sparklies and a velvet ribbon at the waist. It was so elegantly Slytherin.

Alas, it fit perfectly except that it was too small in the bust.

Oh well, I wouldn't have had anywhere to wear it, anyhow.

Edited to add: I've known this forever, but the first half of this week has certainly driven home the point that Work!Me and Creative!Me operate on two entirely different schedules. Work!Me prefers to get in early (8 a.m.), while Creative!Me doesn't get motivated until at least 8 or 9 p.m. Creative!Me is definitely in control during this mini-sabbatical. Especially considering it's 12:45 a.m. and I'm still quite happily working away ...

Monday, October 17, 2005

Mini-sabbatical day two: Rest & personal Web site

I began to revamp my personal Web site last night. I overhauled it about six months ago, but I haven't been pleased with it at all.

I've had the germ of an idea since the end of September, but I haven't been satisfied with my execution of it. After another very productive nap this afternoon, the pieces began coming together.

I'm almost done with my front page. Hopefully I'll have at least one or two of the secondary pages done by the time I go to bed tonight.

(It's 5 p.m., and my mechanic still has my car. Guess I won't be able to pick it up until tomorrow morning. It just needed a tune-up, cooling system flush and fuel injector flush. Who knew that would take all day.)

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Intermission

Lester William Polfus is on NPR right now. My grandpa used to take violin lessons from the same teacher that taught Les Paul. Grandpa's 83rd birthday would have been Friday.

Nasubionna has updated her site to include the work I commissioned. See it here.

Mini-sabbatical day one: Rest

The most productive thing I did today was to take a four-hour nap. There was a nice patch of sunshine on my comforter at about noon, and it looked like a good place to lie down for awhile.

Oh, well. I probably needed those four hours of sleep.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The mini-sabbatical begins

This has been a horrible year at work. I've been doing the work of two people (for the compensation of one) and have a schedule that precludes me from taking vacation (or being ill) two weeks out of any given month.

So I'm taking the next week off of work, which falls between the two weeks I'm required to be in. I have told my colleagues I'll be unreachable. I've put an out-of-office reply on my email and voicemail. I've trained another colleague to back-up the essentials. I've told my colleagues I won't be checking my messages.

And now, I'm officially away for a week. It feels good.

Since I've neglected most of my creative projects this year, the next week is devoted to painting, screenprinting, work on my personal Web site and writing. Oh, and I'm going to the gym, too, since that gives me energy and helps me to focus during the day and sleep at night.

I don't plan to answer the phone, except for calls from family and very close friends.

I am taking my car to the mechanic for a pre-winter check-up, but other than that, I don't plan to do any chores, either.

And I'm scheduled to get my very first tattoo on Friday. I've enlisted Janelle to accompany me, to help me not freak out and to make sure I don't chicken out.

To help keep me focused on my creative pursuits, I intend to update this blog with each day's accomplishments.

Stay tuned ...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Assumptions

Just a guess, but the White Sox have either scored a bases-loaded run or they have won tonight's game.

This, from the celebratory whooping floating up from the bar above which I live.