polliwog

Good to know. I'll figure on going only if I can book an appointment with someone.

Sorry for the delay - the Saniderm roll I got is 10 inches wide, which managed to totally cover my thigh tattoo. I just liked that I didn't have to piece it together over a larger area, since I'm already pretty cack-handed at applying it, but I don't think it matters that much!

Rather than make a new thread, I figured I'd bump this one and ask if anyone's going this August (the 29th to the 31st). Since I am new to all this, I see quite a few artists I've heard of & like and a bunch more who I'm unfamiliar with.

Beautiful tattoos, and could someone please give my boyfriend this idea?

This month is ridiculous!!

Welcome to LST, and definitely listen to the tattooers who post here! I hope you can love your tattoo with a bit of spiffing up. The oft-repeated advice about getting more and better tattoos is also so true.

My Saniderm didn't have an absorbent pad of any sort; it was just clear, sticky clingfilm, similar to this Tegaderm product. I liked the roll format for a thigh-sized tattoo. It seemed easier than piecing together squares.

My cousin is a lovely, intelligent young man, but he just asked me for shop recommendations and then described a project that combines almost everything listed in the "most hated tattoo requests" thread. I'm trying to gently persuade him to describe what he wants to convey and leave as much of the actual design to the artist as possible. And to get tattooed with me in Portsmouth so I can buy him a drink afterward. (He just turned 21.)

Not to belabor the issue, but: I haven't met anyone from this forum, but I do care (or if "care" is too loaded a word, give a shit) about the people on here. If you've hung around for longer than a few weeks, why wouldn't you? Having met a handful of people who I'd previously only talked to online, I'm no longer so sure that the internet is less "real" than other ways of communicating. But it does suck to feel like you've been at the receiving end of some false or patronizing sympathy. @Gloomy Inks, I am so sorry to hear this.

The grossest thing I ever ate on fries was chili cheese fries from The Hat in LA. Tastes OK, looks like diarrhea. There's a place in Boston that does foie gras poutine.

Is Mr. Lurksalot related to sirblazealot? (sorry...)

So sorry @bongsau.

I've gotten the addiction one a lot lately, and I feel like I'm moving at a pretty slow pace compared to lots of people here. I just tell people that I think tattoos look better together.

I read this article today and was reminded of some of the things discussed on this thread, as well as a friend's father who studies addiction and has proposed an alternative to the disease model. Worth a read, I think. I do have a close friend who's been helped tremendously by AA and passed his 4-year mark recently, so I have no agenda here. I just hope that we ultimately create a society where there are many options available to anyone seeking help.

I ran into a friend on the train today who's considering getting a first tattoo. He didn't ask, but I would've been happy to tell him what my tattoos cost, since we were having a conversation and it might've made planning a bit easier for him. Friends who could reasonably and respectfully ask questions about expense almost never do (because they're smart enough to have considered that it might be rude unless there's a very specific reason to ask) - it's always the folks who are perversely fascinated or need another reason to disapprove.

I've never really understood how people come to refer to different tattooers as being heavy-handed (including a couple of the people who've tattooed me). It's a sharper pain in some places than others, but it all feels more or less the same to me. I'm sorta drunk but hopefully this makes sense.

This is amazing!

I was reading through some of the older pages of this thread the other day and was startled by how many members here, who I'd assumed had been getting tattooed for a long time owing to their knowledge and the quality of their tattoos, got their first tattoos while on this forum. I was sort of surprised anew by what a cool community you all have built here. I wish I'd spent more time here lurking and less time posting, particularly as a new member, but thanks for letting me hang around.

Dunno about the rest of you, but l feel like I should lose in any contest also involving @Mick Weder as a matter of principle. (even though it's about the tattoos, not us)

Somehow I'm not finding it (on the website?) but that's cool.

I'll enter this one because I love my eagle. Happy to see her every day, and she has a name :o By Chad Koeplinger at Congress St. Photo from his Instagram.

I recently read some of Karen Russell's short story collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove. I find her writing show-offy -- unusual word choices can be good, but not when they bump me out of reading -- but there's an interesting story about a veteran who's cured of his PTSD when a masseuse manipulates the tattoo on his back. I was able to suspend my disbelief because the story was satisfyingly creepy. Has anyone here read The Electric Michelangelo?

I thought this was going to be about So, You Want to be a Tattoo Artist?

Thanks for that quote. I started getting tattooed partly as a reminder to take myself less seriously. Not sure that the human body is intrinsically beautiful (or ugly, for that matter) though.

I've been getting a lot of "are you getting a sleeve?" comments lately. I have two tattoos on one arm that are totally separate and don't match at all. I've been sort of frustrated with that arm lately because I feel like I've backed myself into a corner with what I can put on it and find it amusing that it's what people choose to compliment.