Mr. Smith

After reading jinxproof1996 and Dan S's responses, I might have to change my tune a bit. I don't know if I ever would have reached my bottom if I had been living with my parents (my dad decided to kick me out the same day I told him I was moving out), and without that, I don't know if I ever would have made the decision to get clean. =/

I had a pretty bad drug problem when I was a teenager (coke, meth, and adderall were the big things, but really pretty much anything that would fuck me up in any way would do)...at one point, when I was 17 and just out of high school, I moved to Miami on a whim with a couple of dudes I had only known for two weeks, because one of them had "a guy" down there. I ended up living there for 6 months, and realized the I was just genuinely dissatisfied with the way things were going, and called my dad to ask for a bus ticket home. Having been in your daughters shoes not too many years ago, the best advice I can give is just to be there for her and help her when she makes the decision for herself, and do your best not to hold her past against her. Try to trust her if she says she's clean, within limits...don't go giving her a lot of cash or anything, but accusing her of doing drugs every time she leaves or comes home will only make her resentful and more likely to relapse. And as hard as it is, understand that there's nothing you can do to make her clean up...that decision HAS to be hers if it's gonna stick. You can do it for someone else for a while, but as soon as that person gives you an excuse (which as an addict is CRAZY easy to find), it'll be right back to it. I don't know if that's any help at all, but just know that a few years back my folks had all but lost hope for me, and now I have a steady job, wonderful girlfriend, daughter on the way, and I rarely even drink at this point. So don't lose hope. As for throwing her out...I'd give her one more chance, but make it clear that it's just that: ONE...it may really have been a one-time slip-up...I certainly had a few of those.

Thanks for sharing that, dude. I didn't want to sleep tonight anyways.

I was playing semi-drunk putt putt a few weeks back, and a dude stopped me to ask where I got my tattoos done. He was home on leave from the military, and had been into a few different shops and was put off by how cheaply all these dudes were telling him that they'd do the tattoo he wanted for. He ended up not getting tattooed at any of them because he had heard the old "Cheap tattoos aren't good..." line, and didn't want to settle for a cheap, shitty tattoo. I recommended the one great shop in our town (Front Street Tattoo), showed him the stuff I had gotten there, and mentioned that they had military Mondays where they did 10% off for servicemen. I was stoked on that interaction for the rest of the day because it was so different than the usual "My dude will do that for 40 bucks" shit that I hear from 95% of people. I'm really hoping he went in and got something awesome.

I feel like you don't need to worry about whether a tattoo is masculine or feminine. For me, in 99% of cases, it's the female body that lends the femininity to the tattoo, not the image. Honestly, I've always thought there was something really sexy about tough as fuck tattoos on women. My girlfriend has a real tough dagger on her forearm, and no one would ever think of her and the word masculine at the same time. In my opinion, the overtly "feminine" touches that I see ladies add to images to try and "girl them up" just take away from the power of the tattoo. In summation: a dragon would be fucking awesome.

SECONDED.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one!

Quite probably. I'm a pretty hairy bastard. That's really interesting though...I had no idea, as I've always had a razor run over even the relatively hairless areas. I'm really afraid of syringes. Like cringe when there's one on the TV level fear. For whatever reason though, tattoo needles don't bother me in the least. The lady who drew blood last time I was at the doctor gave me a whole lot of shit about it when she realized that this dude with a whole bunch of tattoos was shaking like a child and couldn't even look at the needle. I've never done the acupuncture thing though....I have no idea how I would react to that.

I don't mind when someone approaches me to ask questions about where I got my tattoos done, as I definitely enjoy being able to direct people to the one decent shop our town has instead of one of the dozen other scratcher-level shops around. Most of the time I don't mind the stray compliments either, although I find it really funny when people tell me "I really like your tattoo," and then look at me like I pulled their pants down when I ask, "Which one?" I just really fucking hate when people approach me (especially drunk people at bars) with the sole intent of showing me their shitty tattoo that their buddy did, or one faded rose the size of a quarter on their bicep, or "this one that turns those two moles into a smiley face, get it?" Some of the random things people say really blow me away too...I was buying a card for the lady's birthday at the Hallmark store the other day, and as she rang me up, the clerk saw my forearms and remarked, "I'll bet they had to shave your arm to do that, didn't they." People are fucking weird.

Jesus Christ, I love Mario's skulls. Such a rad little tattoo.

No weapons...yet. Although I am banking pretty hard on the whole scary old guy with a lot of tattoos thing.

Thanks, guys!

Seconded. It's not a bad design, but if you're not married to it, an ace of spades could be a really rad fucking tattoo. Just find a great artist let them do their thing with it. You'll be way happier with the results. - - - Updated - - - Just realized this thread was started over a year ago...I wonder what dude ended up doing.

My girlfriend and I just found out this morning that we're going to be having a daughter! I seriously couldn't be any more stoked!

I'm so sorry, man. I truly wish you and your whole family all the best.

Pretty much anytime I see a really great (or honestly even just a pretty good) tattoo, I tend to stare at it a fair amount. But I have quite a few visible tattoos myself, so I feel like there's an element of camaraderie there. Plus I know that I interpret stares from other tattooed people or kids or even people who just seem genuinely interested in a completely different way than I do judgmental eye-daggers from old women making cat-butt faces. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference. At the same time, I think it was a poster on here a while back that said that we don't get heavily tattooed because we're well-adjusted people that want to blend in with the crowd.

My girlfriend and I were eating at a restaurant in the downtown area of our town a week or two ago, and we ended up getting seated directly next to the floor to ceiling window that looked out onto the sidewalk. A family stopped right outside and there was a little dude--probably 7 or 8--who was absolutely fascinated by my tattoos. He stood there staring open mouthed and at one point grabbed his sister to point and show her. It was really cute...he clearly didn't realize that we could see him too, as after a minute or two we finally laughed and waved to him, at which point he ran and hid behind his parents. Kids are the best.

@Iwar That dagger is fucking perfect. SUCH a beautiful tattoo!

That's fucking awesome, @Kev!

This.

I completely agree. There are several really awesome tattooers who do incredible work--one in particular that I really wanted to get tattooed by at one time--who I have no interest in getting anything from based entirely on how they've treated friends of mine that have worked with or been tattooed by them. If I was starting over with no tattoos at all, I might not be as concerned with it, but knowing that there's a limit on how many more times I can get tattooed makes me really want that "whole experience." Which isn't to say that I expect anyone to be my best friend...I usually don't talk a lot when I'm getting tattooed, so I'm okay with relative silence, so long as they're not a dick or spouting of homophobic/racist/otherwise offensive shit.

I get tattooed at Name Brand in Ann Arbor fairly often, which is a four hour drive each way from where I live. I've made the trek to Chicago (8+ hours each way) to get tattooed by Mario a few times, and last year, I drove around 7.5 hours each way to Toronto to get tattooed by Lizzie Renaud and Adrian Menzies. There's a rad shop in my town, and I have a lot of tattoos from them, but there's something so fucking awesome about tattoo road trips.

I didn't have any problem at all healing my ass. Granted, I only have the lines done on it, but as far as that went, it healed right in line with the rest of my back. I expected it to be awful, but I drove 4 hours home immediately after my session, and had no problems at all doing so.

On the plus side though, once the ass portion was done, the rest of the back that was left was cake to sit through.

My backpiece covers most of my ass. It was definitely the worst part of the outline session, and it doesn't even reach the thigh/ass meet-up point. Each of the subsequent sessions has started with Jeff asking me, "What do you want to do today?" My response is always the same: "Whatever you want, just no butt stuff." Reeeeeally not looking forward to when it comes time to finish that part of the tattoo.