Fala

I am in none of the photos, s'okay. Nice meeting you @CultExciter and @dcostello!

What a FANTASTIC event @gougetheeyes and @MrsGougeTheEyes!!! I feel so lucky to have won such a great painting within the auction and for such a great cause at that! Will you have the pieces that are unsold viewable on your wordpress site?

Well, looks like I'm on my way to being employed again! Yay! This means I can start getting tattooed again at my snail's pace of 1-2x/year. ;)

Love Jay Ryan's work @losParanoyas!!! Great show posters, for sure. Awesome things I've been up to --- um, not much! Teaching an herbal class later in the month, which should be fun.

Yay @a1steaks!!! That's so great @SeeSea! My Horizakura tattoo is a bit over a year old, and it has settled in so beautifully. I really love tebori - the way the ink sets in the skin is so neat.

I'll be there! I wonder if @ironchef will be there too???

Maybe "tough as nails"?

Ribs aren't that bad.

I'm not sure that it's even worth posting anything on the subject of rescheduling at this point, but... With all of my sessions up until this point, I've booked them far enough out so that if something came up with work (ie boss changing vacation dates - happened A LOT), I was able to reschedule with plenty of time (ie within 2 weeks of booking my sessions, so at least 8 weeks out) for the artist to fill that spot. I've had work done with folks who never had problems filling spots, and I've always wanted to be respectful of their time and our relationship. If I were the tattoo artist, and someone essentially double booked (or booked back to back, then decided it wasn't going to work) on me then decided a week out that they needed to reschedule a 6 hour session, you'd bet I'd be pissed. Sometimes it's the way life shakes out, but you do have to remember that this is a relationship that you are engaging in, and you want the person who is giving you the tattoo to be into what they are doing. It's hard to be into what you're doing when your client is a last minute rescheduler - professional or not. I've had to cancel with only 24 hours notice once, and that was because I had a triple whammy illness and the shop refused to let me walk in the doors (rightfully so, I was REALLY sick and probably would have wound up with a horribly infected tattoo and gotten the whole shop sick). @SeeSea - those initial consultations scare the bejesus out of me. I remember my first one so vividly, I forgot all of my visual references at home, then stuttered and made absolutely no sense. It's a miracle that my tattoo artist decided to work with me at all.

Who is doing the tattoo???

I've been experiencing lymph issues on the side of my body that has a machine-only tattoo on it (a teeny tiny tattoo compared to other's tattoos here on the forum), yet on the side which has the tebori tattoo I have had no lymph issues. It's been an interesting experience. Obviously I need to get tattooed more (who doesn't who loves tattoos?!), in order to determine if it is coincidental vs a clear correlation.

I actually gave my now-husband a bottle of lotion when we were in school, as a secret santa gift, because we were living in the desert and he always had super dry hands that were cracking open. From my point of view it was an innocent, helpful, caring kind of gift (that was also weird), but from everyone else's it was super dirty. We still laugh about it 13 years later.

Maybe it'll be a blessing in disguise and all the people who got crappy tattoos will use this cream to erase them, thus leaving the world filled with more good tattoos. Yeah, probably not...

Have fun at the convention @SeaSee!!! Looks like a great top, I might get one, even though I have no backpiece yet. Sheesh, I miss getting tattooed, stupid (voluntary) unemployment...

Lookin' good @bongsau! Love those sneakers - so comfy!

Looking for a new job (which is actually not shitty at its core, it's just shitty trying to find the new job), was supposed to go see my grandfather today but I woke up sick. That's shitty - especially as for the past 3-4 weeks I've had to postpone for one reason or another.

I'd rather have my ribs done than to revisit the fatty area on/around the hip bone/waist - ouch! No butt/lower back/knees/etc for me yet, but damn if I had to choose between ribs and that hip/butt area, I'd take the ribs every time.

Third vote for Jondix at Seven Doors!!!

This is Mike Crash's blog from his munewari with Horizakura: Munewari Minutes I think his backpiece was documented here: Meta-Ken

While I am not averse to using herbs (not the herb that most folks will think of when I say herbs), I do find that breath-work and focusing on being relaxed (as @Bongasu said) makes a huge difference. Sometimes it is hard to get over that, and having the distraction of good shop music makes a big difference. I still remember, during my first tattoo, on my ribs, my tattoo artist saying to not fight it, and to use my breath as a way to breathe the pain out. It definitely helped, and now I make sure to breathe in when my tattoo artist is not tattooing me and breathe out when my tattoo artist is needling me. Takes a while to find the right rhythm, and if I get off that rhythm I really feel it. I think this is why I like tebori so much: it's easier for me to get into the rhythm and go with the flow of the artist's pace.

Hahaha @Colored Guy!

I don't know what any of that means @CultExciter :P

I have this dresser and LOVE it: Mid-Century 6-Drawer Dresser - Acorn | West Elm

This may be opening up a can of worms, but... when you were a kid, which superpowers did you wish you had? Why? What about now as an adult, which superpower do you wish you had? Why? I used to wish that I could swim underwater like a fish, without a scuba tank, or a snorkel, to just breath the water because I loved swimming and being underwater that much. I also wished, and still do, that I had the ability to take people's pain away.

Of course I will @gougetheeyes!!!