think about your ink.

I got a new tattoo today.

Four hours of the worst pain of my entire life.

Here it is in a nutshell: An Acacia-type tree with branches/trunks that wrap around each other and my leg in a DNA format. On each of the leafy plateaus are books, sort of growing out of the tree. There are twenty-something books altogether. As we go along on the covers of the books will be dates that are significant to my life. It's lowest point is the back of my heel, and it ascends up to about mid thigh. 

Normally [surprisingly] I am very good with tattoo and piercing pain. I won't lie about it hurting but I usually can get by without more than a wince or an expletive here and there...Not this time.

Todd (Studio City Tattoo) really put me through the ringer. This being the third time I've worked with him (he did my Shel Silverstein arm-piece as well as my feet) I trust him very much to meet me all the way with my ridiculous ideas and he definitely delivered. Although I was probably the most irritating client (several minutes were spent with me shaking due to all the trauma and random whines/moans/yelps of pain every now and again), he worked through everything and gave me the start of a gorgeous leg sleeve.

Right now it actually feels very nice. I'm usually a big fan of getting tattooed; I actually like the feeling a lot. Not in some masochistic "I-get-off-on-this" way, but the adrenaline rush is just what one needs after a while of monotony. Today wasn't necessarily an exception, but it did take a lot of stress just to get to this point.

I can't wait until we get to coloring it and adding the dates. I have five so far: The rest will come as I age.

1. 12-30-06 -- The day my grandfather passed away. I loved him and it being one of the first deaths I've ever dealt with hit me kind of hard. I miss him every day. There are a lot of things that happened on/around that day; a lot of things that affected not only me but the people around me I care about. It's going on the tree to signify moving on.

2. 6-27-05 -- The day I knew I wanted to pursue music forever. It may seem insignificant to you, but that night I got the opportunity to get on stage and sing a song with Danger Radio. It was the first time I had even been on the same stage as any kind of band, and even though I look back at videos of that night and shudder at how awfully my nerves affected my voice, I remember the elation I felt being able to be up there. It's going on the tree to remind me to keep working at it.

3. 12-15-06 -- I won't go into too much detail on this one; it's very much for myself. This was just a good day. Nothing significant or extravagant happened, but I've always remembered that day for it's peace. It's going on the tree to show me that even though --friendships, relationships, life-- don't always work out as you want them to, you still have memories.

4. 12-10-08 -- December seems to wield plenty of dates for me; who knew? This was the very first time I performed my own music on stage. We were doing Soapbox at Mission College and I arrived there completely by myself, so nervous that at one point during the drive I actually turned around to bail. It's going on the tree to signify following my instinct and going through with everything I desire, because I'll never know what happens if I don't try.

5. 2-2-10 -- Yep! You guessed it! Again, stupid to you means the world to me. This is the day Stick to Your Guns approached me about using my cover for their new album. I'm honored to be a part of this. Who knows what will come from this? Maybe nothing, maybe everything. But this is going on the tree to remind me of the day where I felt absolutely unstoppable.

So many memories yet to make. I can't wait to put them on the tree.