polliwog

All of you New York people are making me so jealous right now. Gah. Are you getting your whole back done by Yoni @Fala?

Yes:

Golden eagles and hawks are pretty cool, too. Plus 3 seems like a good number of eagles to have. I feel like stylized tigers look really good on the chest, too.

I am so so jealous of your arm, @sophistre.

Just finished up a long day working at the Boston Book Festival. The kids' and young adult events we did were the best-attended by far. It's really encouraging to spend a day around kids who love reading. The explosion of YA is both particularly cool to see and slightly odd to me, since I'm only a decade removed from that demographic. The presence of massive online teen-centric fanbases makes the experience of being a nerdy teenager seem like it must be pretty different for these kids compared to what it was for me. I mostly remember hanging around on adult message boards where I probably wasn't wanted (ha) and feeling quite lonely in my hometown. These kids know each other's tumblr handles and are preternaturally confident and at ease with themselves.

I wish every tattoo felt like getting my bicep tattooed.

Yeah, I'm a little concerned about the healing. The sensations from accidentally brushing up against it while asleep were like being welcomed to a whole new world of stupid, distinct from getting tattooed. Hope the really tender part's over soon.

Even though I'd said earlier that piercings aren't my thing, I got a helix piercing earlier today with some friends in Northampton, MA. My friend also got a stud in her ear and her badass 15-year-old daughter got an industrial (and handled it with barely a sniffle). I appreciated that the shop was woman-owned and that the owner's very active in the Association of Professional Piercers and has helped to set the standard. Overall a really positive experience that gave me a respect for the profession and will always remind me of the time when I did this thing with 2 generations of amazing women.

'Cattoo': The Rise of the Cat Tattoo - The Atlantic Short video with Betty Rose at 8 of Swords

I never, ever would have guessed this. I sorta figured a lot of the artists on here had been doing this forever because the work looks so accomplished to me. If you don't mind my asking, how did you go about learning?

Asked a question and thought better of it. (Wish posts were deletable.)

Hawk knocks a drone out of the sky

That's a shame. I'd say there was some pretty deceptive marketing of that book. Re: what @Pugilist said, only the other week I was talking to a potter who was bemoaning how many people try to talk down prices, as if he surely can't be serious about trying to make a living off his work. I sort of enjoy the stupid questions these days. If I can find a book with very little information, the customer's usually pretty impressed and grateful. Hero of the bookstore! (When in reality people buy the same few hundred books over and over, plus whatever is new and popular, and it's easy to become familiar with them after eight years...) I'm mostly just happy that the store's doing well and that I have this job, and that I can maybe one-up Google or Amazon. Keep the stupid questions coming! (Though it's always exciting when someone brings in not just a name or a title, but an ISBN.)

I think maybe some of this comes from how disconnected a lot of jobs are from what they ultimately wind up producing. (I feel like I saw a stand-up comedian go on a tangent about this recently but can't remember who it was. Patton Oswalt, maybe? Anyway, I'm about to rip off that person's ideas.) So if the only way you make anything immediate and with your hands in the average day is via your hobby, then maybe it's easier to assume that artisans or craftspeople=glorified hobbyists. But of course this doesn't apply to folks making stuff in an industrial setting overseas. Nobody assumes that their manual labor is more "soulful" than our desk jobs. I never read that book but am disappointed to hear that it's terrible, if only for the reason that I loved shop class and find tinkering satisfying in a non-work context and would be interested in reading a good book on that subject.

My folks saw my new tattoo today and my mom said it was pretty, remarked that it went together well with the other one on that leg and then said her usual "please don't get any more/I don't understand why you're doing this" piece. Still think she's gonna end up with some flowers on her shoulder some day. She thought Chad Koeplinger was a very nice man...

Who tattooed the gentleman with the body suit? (The first one, not the Shige fudo myo-o one.) It's fantastic. (I guess I'm about to be embarrassed if I should know who he is...)

I can vouch for Dream Cream feeling really good on a flaky tattoo. It sort of cools all the itching down. I've always been too wary of the tea tree oil to use it on a fresh one. (I like tea tree for cleaning wounds but don't know how it would affect a tattoo.)

People in "complaining on the Internet" shocker - news at 11. (myself included, 9 times apparently, which is more than necessary)

If you're in Brooklyn, you're OK with getting trashed and you don't mind pricey bars with precious names (though maybe this is normal for NY, I have no idea), go here and sample some of the ciders: Beers I had a wild-fermented one that reminded me a whole lot of a gueuze, and a really dry one that was just this side of drinkable. Refreshing after a tattoo, though. I don't know anything about ciders either, but these tasted good to me. Really puckery, totally the opposite of sweet-cold-and-watery.

Oh man. As a bookstore worker I hear "you must sit around and read" at least once a week. It is a nice job, but...nope. Seems like a lot of these envious comments are directed towards people who essentially work manual or retail jobs. Re: loving your work, that's only ever made it harder, in my experience. The expectations you set for yourself tend to be higher.

After getting this tattoo I was at a bar with a hilariously extensive cider list. Thought of you! Bringing out a bag of peas and a porter (which is the best I can do at the moment).

I'm trying to heal a small tattoo near my ankle with Saniderm. I'm sort of fascinated that my body can produce something this gross. I've gone through three bandages in two days to avoid leaking (combined w/being on my feet all day). My inner 5-year-old thinks it's really cool, though.

Congratulations! (And I like the blank part.)

@HaydenRose those peonies just made my heart leap a little.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread so far. I think a few things are happening here: - If we're talking about people who take a collector's approach to getting tattooed (and I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way), maybe interest in big names could be seen as roughly similar to getting books or music that are fairly "correct" but express little about a person. I know I own a lot of music like this, but I don't regret having it because it's helped me seperate what I like from what I'm supposed to like (and may still appreciate somewhat, but that doesn't viscerally excite me like a favorite album or novel). I think this is a phase that many folks need to go through when they discover a new interest but haven't really begun to inhabit it yet. -Most of us who aren't tattooers always need to spend money on this hobby (or whatever word you want to use). We're not trading art. Maybe there's an anxiety that this isn't any different from purchasing other things, even though it's a lot more intimate. Are my tattoos ultimately just an expensive suit? Am I just buying my way into something? I think there's also a point at which "good taste" becomes suffocating. I hope this makes sense and that it isn't just rambling. A lot of this is overthinking and I try not to worry about it and to just get what excites me. I can't control how it comes across to others, and you can tie yourself in knots thinking about your own motivations.