polliwog

If you're looking to choose from flash, Aloha Monkey is particularly incredible. Lots of really beautiful Kandi Everett and Rollo things on the walls. (Because I don't really know what I'm doing I didn't get something that was recognizably either of them, but there's always more skin.) Everyone is really friendly. You do need to rent a car to get there, I think.

This is super dorky...I'm usually "odradek" on the internet but sometimes I'm also "Molly Polliwog" from a series of childhood stories my family used to make up about tadpoles living in a pond near our house.

Signed. I wonder if single-use ink packets wouldn't also create much more waste than disposable caps?

Read this & thought of you all: I Can't Stop Reading One-Star Yelp Reviews of National Parks

Well, that could be worse. If she likes it now, great; if she wants it covered or redone later, that looks doable too. Fingers crossed everything was sterile. This sounds like awful judgment on the part of the teacher. Most of my friends and family who teach at a HS level feel they need to be pretty cautious these days. (I guess this is another conversation entirely, though.)

Not sure if I want to travel to get a tiger on my left thigh or stay closer to home & get a dragon. Ideally I need another thigh.

@cltattooing AMAZING. I particularly love the dragons & hoju (if that's the right word??) but it's all beautiful.

Thanks for sharing this.

My bank has a low daily ATM max, so if I want cash, the only way is to go to the branch down the street from me. I'm kind of surprised that you all can hit up any old ATM beforehand...downside to using an otherwise fantastic local bank, I guess. I do try to carry the cash somewhere other than my wallet/handbag.

I've flown with a decent amount of cash on me (not thousands, but high hundreds) and just kept it on me at all times. But I haven't been traveling anywhere particularly dangerous. Dropping it off beforehand hadn't occurred to me, but makes a lot of sense! The nervewracking part hasn't been flying with the cash so much as carrying it afterward.

Chad Chesko in Boston!

Thanks for your reassurance and it finally came. I regret not having bought it ages ago! I know I'm going to learn a ton (including how much I don't know). Best use of tattoo money I haven't spent on tattoos, by far. To anyone else reading this who doesn't own this book, buy it now. I wish I had more money to spend on this stuff.

Redundant post, sorry.

Here's an article that might be of interest in terms of defining cultural appropriation: Fashion's Cultural-Appropriation Debate: Pointless - The Atlantic Another one: http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/cultural-exchange-and-cultural-appropriation/ (unsure about what exactly "western culture" means in this context though, if there is such a thing as a western culture, so there are some issues w/this article) It's tricky because many people who try to comment on cultural appropriation specifically within tattooing often don't know anything about tattoos (I'll include myself here, trying to do better). Knowledge complicates things. I agree that this isn't a great conversation for the internet, though here we are, and I have learned more by talking to artists in person about religious iconography and stuff like that. I do think cultural appropriation is a real & worthy issue, but a lot of the discussion around it is pretty unfortunate.

Another poster here mentioned reacting to Tegaderm and not Saniderm. I seem to always end up with too-small leftover bits of Saniderm and I'm happy to mail them to anyone who wants to test them out for a reaction before getting tattooed. I didn't and was lucky, but it would make sense to patch-test any of this stuff before wearing it against your skin for days.

Oh fuck, I am so jealous of you I'm sort of mad about it, at this point... Also super jealous of the Chad panther above. Not sure how you found the inner bicep to be, but that *looks* like it felt good...

Aw, bummer about the contest (though I understand why you might want to suspend/rethink it). I wonder if some of the lower participation isn't down to people being intimidated by the amount of jaw-dropping large-scale work that has won over the last year. I know I wouldn't mind seeing more badass small-to-medium one-shots in these things...

Oh definitely. When the sun shines directly on my lower leg tattoos in midday, it gets uncomfortably hot really fast. They're relatively new tattoos, though, so I'm not sure if this'll change as the pigment migrates. I also tend to use chemical sunscreens, so I dunno if a good layer of zinc-based sunscreen would make a difference or not. I find it more comfortable to wear pants in the heat now.

Those fonts already look like a computer approximation of hand-drawn, so why not get the real thing? It'll look much nicer. I assume you have looked at artists in the Boston area?

Some good discussion here: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-designs-books-flash/1845-native-american-tattoos-designs.html Some people feel one way, some feel another way, we all come from different reference points and the world keeps turning. This is a tricky subject to raise.

I never knew a pressure cooker had so many uses!

The green borneo roses story was my favorite. Like it's helpful to have a reminder that @hogg is a mere mortal.

OK, that is reassuring; I figured it was a small business but didn't know Doug Hardy took care of everything. Thanks!

Ooh. Is there a picture of this amazing back piece?

Did it take anyone else a long time to get the Tattootime box? I ordered mine in mid-June (and received confirmation from Paypal that the money had transferred) and still no sign of it--not sure whether to ask the post office or try contacting Hardy Marks again. Right now I'm reading a preview copy of Lauren Redniss's "Thunder and Lightning," which comes out in October. Good if you're a weather nerd who likes a well-told story, trivia and printmaking--it's an approach to science writing that I haven't really seen before. Need to check out her book on the Curies next.