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My good friend got me 'Bodies of Subversion, A Secret History of Women and Tattoo' by Margot Mifflin for Christmas. I wasn't expecting it. Amazing present. I can't wait to sit down and read it.

I think everyone should have at least 2 dragons on them. And a dragon should be your first tattoo, period. - - - Updated - - - This is the one on my chest from 2010.

Upper inside of the arm tonight. Feels like burning. With Greg Whitehead, as usual! A fun panther-leopard with a Tibetan shell. Starting to close in on it with this arm. Room for two modest/smallish pieces and then just filler after that. Crazy.

I would definitely show her when you think the time is right. Everyone likes to hear something nice about their departed spouse, believe me, I know first hand. I still have people coming up to me with cool Barbara stories I've never heard.

So how many whacks at the piñata does Tatu Baby get, anyway?

We always open gifts on Christmas Eve. The parents and wife know where it is at! I'm pumped!

Hahaha, I like you. I saw Neurosis and Godspeed You Black Emperor in January--I've seen Godspeed many times, though never Neurosis even though I've been into them for a long, long time--and the people at the show kind of ruined it for me. The thing with Godspeed locally is that for a lot of people they're a band who's shows you want to be seen at to establish some kind of douchebag credibility so a ton of people there were there for seemingly no good reason, which meant that when Neurosis was playing I got stuck behind a guy who was completely wasted and taking pictures of the band through the bottom of his empty plastic beer glass, and then when he finally staggered away, he was replaced by a dirty, dirty hippie couple where the dude had dreads that smelled like dead things and a Greenpeace t-shirt, and they spent the rest of the set making out. For fuck's sake. At least I managed to wrangle backstage access for Godspeed so I could watch the band play without being distracted by idiots. Fenriz said something once to the effect of how for him music isn't about the live experience but rather is about the relationship between him and his headphones or his speakers and the record or tape he's listening to and I think he's on to something here.

Couple of little Bonji on the shins done by Benjamin Toner, at Sacred Art, Manchester. Lovely way to finish out the year, cant beat some nice Bonji!

In the meantime, there is LST. :)

This is more of a general comment on bereavement than this specific situation, but my observation is that people handle things in different ways. Sometimes you will meet someone who wants to talk about their deceased family member / spouse etc. and you can see that it's clearly helping them and it's part of their way of addressing things. On the other hand, there are people who are less keen on talking and here in Ireland at least I know that some people find it really difficult when, for months, they have to hear people's condolences endlessly. I fell into the latter category! It's not that I hate people, but I'm just not a big talker in that sense. I think in the situation described the key, at least as far as talking to the lady about the work you have, would be to suss out whether she is open to talking about something that personal.

I think there is often a personal tie with the artist. This should bring back happy memories for her and I think that leaving the piece unfinished is not only a good thing to remind you of that tie, but also adds an immense amount of story to the piece to treasure and share when you have come to grips with the loss. As for sharing with the wife, why not seek out and ask someone else in the same shop? They would probably know how she has progressed in her grieving.

my girl head faces forward and my fudo faces backwards. the fudo stencil was originally placed looking forward but the tattooer felt that it didn't look "right" with the heads neatly stacked and facing the same direction. moral of the story is get tattooed by todd noble and eddy deutsche

I know its been a few quiet months on here for me so I think the awesome things thread is the perfect spot for update. its been a big year, since Feb I have: - Moved to the United States (Minneapolis to be exact) - Got married (my wife is American) - Bought a house (or at least signed up for some loan repayments for the next 30 years, hard to think of it as ours till its all paid, at least in my mind) - Met a bunch of interesting Americans - Caught my first Musky, only 36" but i am by no stretch of the imagination a fishing type guy, luckily my brother in law is! - Experienced true cold (and its only gonna get worse for the next few months!) - Had my first Thanksgiving with the in-laws (3.5 out of 5 stars, its like pregame christmas without presents) - Seriously considered a classic american truck for the garage... -Theres been a few tattoos in there, cant remember when i stopped updating but i feel it was around july, I'll try and post pics of what ive had since then in the latest lowdown thread Good to see the forum is still going strong, have enjoyed catching up over the last week on some of the in depth 'motivations' threads and renewing the search for Mike Roper.... I do have an uncle in law now who lives in tempe.... maybe a visit is in order!

One more awesome thing. Went to Vegas for work and was was able to meet up with Jacqueline Carrizosa and shoot some machine guns too. It was her day off but she came up to the range anyway just to I could say hi and shoot some guns with her. If you're not sure who she is, she's a hot, tatted, motocross, gun chick. And all around awesome person.