Da Plane! Da Plane!

We now live in a world where this has happened:

That's right, my friends.  My mid-life crisis is in full swing, and I've acquired a tattoo.  Call me a rebel, call me brave, call me insane;  I've already done that to myself.  But let's talk some background, shall we?


A month or so ago, my best co-worker friend, June, said that she was thinking of getting a tattoo in honor of her wedding anniversary, because her husband has asked her to get one on multiple occasions.  She's still not sure if he was joking all of those times, but now it's too late.  Anyway, I think that she mentioned it to me because I'm the only one of her friends that would come close to even consider joining her.  It didn't take me more than 30 seconds to say, "I would get one with you!"  Um, Sher?  Where are you, lost in all of that spontaneity?  Well, I was still there, because we thought about it, thought about our designs, thought about when to do it, and decided to invite another friend of ours to get one to celebrate her upcoming retirement.  We went to dinner with her and she was apprehensive, but did start to think about getting a monkey on her back.  Yes, I'm aware that most people try to get monkeys *off* of their backs, but Marilee is not most people.  


As time passed, I decided that my design would be something about music, and so did the friends who offered suggestions, not really knowing whether or not I'd actually do this.  I wanted to make sure of the design I wanted before actually getting drunk and then choosing something insane.  The only real block for me was the whole church gig thing.  I had originally thought of getting inked on my ankle, but when I was in church one weekend, I figured that I wouldn't be able to hide the tattoo from anyone that might possibly be offended, because I walk back and forth in front of the altar as part of my cantor duties.  So I decided to get it done in a place that's hidden. 


Time grew closer.  June asked her daughter where she had hers done.  I checked Yelp for reviews, and they had good ratings.  We had decided to make it a whole Girls' Weekend so that I could get drunk beforehand, and we could take a taxi back and forth to the hotel or whatever.  So we booked a hotel, June told her husband she'd be out of town (it's still a surprise until their actual anniversary -- her challenge is to hide the thing from him), and then...Marilee realized that she was scheduled to be out of state this weekend.  I'm pretty sure that she also chickened out.  But that's OK.  All this past week, June and I asked each other if we were chickening out, and replied "No."  I was actually psyched for it.  This tends to happen a lot to me:  think of trying something new, get excited about it, realize the actual implications, chicken out or flake, and disappointment (from others and myself) ensues.  


Not this time, baby! 


June arrived at my house after I got home from church, and we drove to Pasadena.  I was so psyched up that I decided that I wouldn't even need to drink beforehand.  What?!  We decided to go check out In The Skin, just to see if we could talk to whomever first, and get ideas.  We both had prints of a few images for ourselves, and showed them to the guy who greeted us.  I told him that it was the first time for both of us, and I asked him which of my images he thought would be the least painful.  He said that it would be a max of 45 more seconds of pain if I had the portion of my image filled in.  He consulted the artist that would be working on us, and she told us that she'd be available in about 90 minutes.  So he said that he would work on our designs and we said we'd see him later.  "OK, June.  We've committed to it.  It's happening."  We both looked at each other in disbelief and amazement.


We checked into the hotel, had dinner (June's with wine, mine without), and returned to In The Skin.  The dude had done 2 designs for me, one a combination of the 2 designs I had narrowed my choices down to, and the other a little more like one of the choices.  I chose the combination one.   We signed contracts that included agreeing to not being intoxicated by alcohol or drugs at the moment.  I pointed it out to June and smiled.  It also has a line where you state the image and placement of the tattoo.  We signed.  We breathed.  We looked at each other and smiled.  I had already agreed to go first, back when it was the Tattoo Trio, and I fulfilled my commitment.  


First, I sat down with my back to artist Alisa, and felt rude that I was talking with my back to her.  We told her the reasons for our first tattoos, and she liked both of them.  She said that she went through her mid-life crisis when she was young and got her tattoo at that time.  I told her it was her mid-mid-life crisis.  She laughed and positioned the stencil onto my shoulder where I had shown her that I wanted it to be.  The stencil was kind of like a temporary tattoo from thermal paper.  It was her outline for the work she'd eventually do.  She asked me to look at it with a mirror behind me and a hand mirror in front of me.  All of a sudden, I didn't know how to look in a mirror to see my back.  Have I told you that when I'm nervous, I become an idiot?  So they helped out the idiot in me, and I liked the positioning and everything.  Then I laid down on my stomach on the table, wth a pillow propping up my head.  My body was in kind of diagonal position on the bench, so that the shoulder was closest to her.  Then she got her equipment ready.  Then she was on her cell phone for what seemed like an eternity.  Then she asked if I was ready.

Alisa working on Sher

Deep breath.  OK.  She cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol, then rubbed some kind of gel on the area. She did the linework first.  The feeling is like getting shot with a needle and having the needle scrape across your skin.  You're cringing now, aren't you?  I am.  Anyway, so it's not just one continuous scrape.  She did it in sections, brushing away extra ink between the sections.  She said that the filling-in would be less painful.  I couldn't wait until that happened.  I didn't cry.  I smiled when June came over to check on my face.  All this time, June took pictures, as I had requested.  I just don't want y'all to think that the above shot is a henna tattoo that I'd be touching up for months until the joke got old.  No, no.  This is quite real.  Finally, Alisa was done with the outline, and started to fill in.  The sensation was more like she was rocking an instrument back and forth between the outlines, so it wasn't as scrape-y, but still hurt a little bit.  She also added some white highlights to accentuate the outlined portion a little bit.  Every once in awhile, she would ask if I was OK.  She was very gentle with everything, so much so that even during the process, I thought, "I can see why people keep getting this done, because it doesn't hurt *that* much."  Seriously, that's what I thought.  Alisa finally finished, then June took the picture shown above before Alisa taped the bandage onto me.  

How does this work?!

Then they changed the furniture so that June could be in the position needed for her Tramp Stamp.  Yes, that's where she had it done.  I promised her no pictures on the blog of her for this process, but here's the contraption that had us confused until she was told to sit down.  I watched as Alisa changed the needle out to a new sterilized one (like in the dentist office), and I was glad that I had gone first so that I couldn't imagine with all of the knowledge of what was being done to me.  


Once June was done, Alisa gave us instructions for after-care, and we paid, making sure to give her a nice tip for being so good to us old fogies.  We had 2 hours to kill before taking off our bandages, and I needed a drink.  We drove back to the hotel, and tried to get a drink there, too, but "Mr. Magoo", as June calls him, didn't acknowledge us, so we walked to the Yardhouse for dessert and drinks.  I had a Southern Rum Punch.  It was yummy.  So was the Kona Coffee Sundae.  


By the time we got back to the hotel, it was time to remove our bandages, which did have a couple of spots of blood on them.  As instructed, I gently washed the area with warm water and soft soap and patted it dry.  The area stung just a little bit, and the skin was raised.  It felt like kind of a burn.  


We watched "You've Got Mail" on TNT because it's a chick flick, laughed ourselves to sleep, which wasn't very restful because our room was right next to the elevators.  This morning, we had a yummy breakfast at Green Street and went to Target to buy the Curel lotion recommended for us, which is to be applied twice a day for the next 10 days.  The tattoo is not to be exposed to sun for a month, so I'll be fine wearing my tank tops for all of the DCI and other summer events.  The area is still a little bit sore, in an irritated-skin kind of way.


I'm quite happy with the design.  It shows my devotion to both God and the music He brought to my life.  I just talked the BFF, because I couldn't wait until I saw her to tell her about it.  She already has one, but is going to get another one within a year.  I will not be getting a second one so soon, but we'll see what craziness I feel after that.  Stay tuned.