Inked and Holed

I woke up this morning at least as depressed as I've been over these past two months. Over the same shit, too. It's human contact, I'm not getting enough of it, I'm craving it, and my attempts to procure some of it have been roundly, if silently, rebuffed at every turn. I had officially reached the point of being depressed that I was depressed. Once that takes hold, it's an endless feedback loop that leads ever downward to places I've never been and have no wish to go.

And today was a special day. No day is fit for emotions like those; this day less than most. Today was tattoo and piercing day. This was to be the day I symbolically changed. It wouldn't do to walk into it feeling like I didn't deserve to change.

I got angry with myself. Quit yer whining, I admonished, or I'll have to call you a wahmbulance.

That didn't work. That just added anger to loneliness. Corrosive combination.

So let's try positivity. Let's cast back to grade 13, Rev. McCombe's Classical Civilizations class. There was a handout every day we spent five or ten minutes discussing. Well, actually, if it took the period to discuss it, that's how long it took. Rev. McCombe was that kind of a teacher.

The handout I remembered said

If you have one friend, you're lucky. Two, you're blessed. Three is impossible. 

I remember scoffing at that when I first read it. I was surrounded by people who numbered their friends in the dozens. That was long before Facebook came along to make a mockery of the word 'friend'. Rev. McCombe did his best to redefine 'friend' such that I understood. There are acquaintances, there are friends, and then there are friends. The real friends tended to be as close, or closer than, family: there for you no matter what. It doesn't diminish the importance of those other tiers of friends to know the close ones for who they are.

Well, I have two friends in my life. I married one of them. And what's more, I have at least two people who would have taken that second friend spot (since three is  impossible) had my life unfolded a little differently. Let's re-recognize these people for the treasures they are and stop trying to turn others into something they were never meant to be. As for that human contact: like everything else, it'll come as soon as you stop needing it so damned badly.

Writing that out--and then going up and playing my keyboard for an hour--set me right again. Right and ready to make myself over.

We met our friend Ande at Way Cool Tattoos   Now, Eva had had a tat done here before, and I'd been here once to put down the deposit for today's collection, but I couldn't help but notice a whiff of ancient prejudice. Why do tattoo parlours always have to look like they do, I thought. Way Cool was on the main floor of a converted duplex in a, shall we say, seedy part of town. There were enough crazy posters on the walls to make me either feel like, or wish I was, on acid.  Hip-hop music thumped through the place. And while you should never trust a skinny chef, these tattoo artists were heavily inked. I've come a hell of a long way since I met my wife and learned that body art was just that, art...but apparently I'm still a little leery of people who feel the need to cover every square inch of skin.  I would feel better, I thought, in a clinic: nice nondescript beige walls...a landscape here and there, a standard drop ceiling...

Jesus, Ken, today seems to be your day for shitty thoughts. Zip it. 

After some fiddling with designs, we were ready to go. Ande was up first...these were to be her first tattoos as well: serotonin and dopamine molecules.  But wait, what's this? "Let's get the piercing out of the way first".

Uh, let's not. This was the part of the day I was dreading. As many times as I told myself that five year old girls get their ears pierced, I couldn't stop thinking he's going to drill a hole RIGHT THROUGH YOUR EAR. One slip and he'll puncture your eardrum and you'll be deaf in one ear. RIGHT THROUGH, MAN! Picture a hole right through your arm. Or your foot. They send people home from wars for that. 

Is you a man or is you a mouse?

(squeak)

John explained the process , had me sit up, and handed me a cup to catch the needle in. I took a deep breath and braced myself for the RIGHT THROUGH I knew was coming.

"Okay, bring the cup over, now tilt it a little." *clink*

Huh? Seriously? I've had dust motes hurt me more than that did.

"Not a drop of blood", John said. The stud was in. I was officially studly.


Amazing. I felt a little tingle for the first half hour or so, after that, I couldn't feel the earring at all.

Ande,  meanwhile, was almost done with this:

She looked fantastic, and told me if she could handle the feeling behind her ear, I'd surely be able to handle the feeling on my shoulders.

I was highly impressed with how meticulously Kyle cleaned everything. I mean, you expect as much, but seeing it is reassuring.
A couple of razor strokes, an alcohol rubdown, and then the stencil was applied. Everything looked good. I got up on the table. The infinity heart was first.

Now, these tattoos were supposed to be the easy part. It had variously been explained to me as a scraping, a scratching, and a bunch of bees stinging me. I discarded that last because otherwise I would have ran away screaming. Instead I thought scraping, scratching. You scrape and scratch yourself for sport and never even feel it. I warned Kyle that I'm naturally fidgety, and resolved to sit as still as I can manage.

'Okay, outline first", said Kyle. "This is going to scrape and scratch and sting a little".

The needles were applied.

Scrape, scratch, sting. Yup, that's exactly what that feels like. Not pleasant, but not unbearable.

What I'd neglected to realize is that when I scrape or scratch myself, even without noticing it, I only do it the once. I don't think you know what, I didn't feel that quite enough, so I'm going to do it again and again and again and I'm really gonna WHALE on that area. Nope, never even crossed my mind to do that.

Damnit, this hurts. Some places more than others. Some places that really stung were about a quarter of an inch from other places that didn't. There was no predicting the level of OUCH I was about to feel. Eva's looking at me. I'm allowed to look like I'm hurting in front of Eva. ANDE'S also looking at me, along with a room full of strangers, and I'm not allowed to look like this hurts in front of them.

Damnit, this HURTS.

Halfway through, my favourite Eminem track came on. My eyes must have lit up like a pinball machine: this song was exactly what I needed to hear today.

I guess I had to go through that place to get to this one...

But I think I'm still tryin' to figure this crap out
Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn't
This fucking black cloud still follows me around
But it's time to exorcise these demons
These motherfuckers are doing jumpin' jacks now!

Suddenly it didn't hurt quite so badly.

Maybe 45 minutes later:

(The scratch below is where Eva tried to demonstrate to me how much today was going to hurt. "Does this hurt?", she asked, scratching. "No." "Okay, this?" "Not really", "Well, how about--" "okay, now it hurts, stop it!)

A break to move around, and then the blue spruce. This was larger and considerably more detailed: unlike the infinity heart, which is a standard design we'd given Kyle, this tree was Kyle's own creation. The stencil looked good: all systems go.

This hurt more.

I started talking to Kyle to stop myself from thinking RIGHT THROUGH, man, do you have to poke those needles RIGHT THROUGH MY ARM? Actually, he asked me first what kind of music I like to listen to, and I answered truthfully, a little of almost everything....and we were off and running. He is a guitarist in a punk rock band...and a cellist. We were able to mesh musical minds, running from Dream Theater to Queen to the Forgotten Rebels to (yes, Nicole) Tool--he specifically told me the Aenima album was fantastic front to back.

The pain was gone. My mind was thoroughly engaged.

An unknowable, but not very long, time later:

 I love this. I mean, I really love it. It's better than I had any right to imagine it would be.
The roots were Eva's addition; the rest of it is all Kyle...and it's perfect. It actually looks quite a lot like the blue spruce on my front lawn.

Kyle made a point of telling me I sat better than many people who were not tattoo virgins. I was awash in good feelings. A friend of mine called me "brave" last night; I savoured that, it occurred to me that this was maybe the first time I'd ever heard that particular word applied to me. For you people out there with sleeves and giant back pieces, I'm sure these don't seem like such of a much...but they are for me, They mean a lot. Aside from the individual meaning of each piece...well, for a great many years I swore up and down I would never do this, and to join the love of my life in the ranks of the tatted...it feels good.

You know what feels even better? This.

That's right, Eva got a matching infinity heart. Kyle did that one up lickety split after I was off the table.
I love you, love.

Thanks to Kyle and John at Way Cool for making this day...way cool. Thanks to Ande, who kept me honest over the length of that first tattoo (and yours look great!) And thanks again to my darling wife, who has made and is making this possible.