A Trip To The Parlor

Monday night I had an appointment at Freaks & Geeks Tattoo Sideshow. They are located right down the street from my house. The cool thing is they were doing a special Haiti tattoo where all proceeds went straight to releif efforts and it was affordable in terms of tattoo’s….$50. It’s an adorable tattoo too!

In the banner I think I am going to add “pwisans”. According to a Haitian Creole dictionary it means strength. It felt fitting to honor the Haitians with that because they are some very strong people. As much as any of us complain about our hardships, none of us can compare to the suffering most Haitians endure. At least here in the US we have organizations who work hard to help the less fortunate. We also have a welfare system that does attempt to help those who need it. In Haiti they have nothing like that. If you have no money, home or food….you are stuck. In order to survive you must be strong, including before the tragic earthquake. So, it seems fitting.

Now, besides having this particular work done, I am going back next week to have another tat designed. It will actually be specifically related to this blog. I think it will be crook & flail in background, an ankh in the foreground and “The Pagan Mom Blog” around it. I am hoping to use royal blue and gold as the colors for the tat. My plan is to redesign the look of the blog and subsequently change my blog button so that the tat becomes the logo.  Talk about branding lol! I won’t have to worry about running into that tattoo on anyone else!

One thing about getting a tat is, I always worry about conversing with the artist. I am sure that some of them, if not most, are really intelligent enough to talk and work at the same time. Unfortunatley I am so aware of the loud buzzing needle and need to follow the stencil that’s on my body. It doesn’t seem quite the appropriate time to have a chat. So I kinda tend to be real quiet unless they speak first. At least then I know I am not distracting them, ya know?

The other odd thing I think about while in the chair is the paperwork involved. If you have never had ink done you do fill out paperwork. One of the things they need you to disclose is if you have certain illnesses that can be passed on through blood. SoI wonder, how often are people honest that they have Herpes, HIV/AIDS, or Hepatitis? And really, if you had a disease that could be passed on by bodily fluids….would you really have work done? Now Galen, the guy who did my work, was very sanitary. I pay close attention to that because I sure as hell don’t want to catch anything. And really, if I did have a disease I don’t think I would have any done. I mean the fear of passing it on to some stranger who is just trying to stay in business and enjoy the work they do would be overwhelming. I am not trying to pass on judgment to anyone who might have had Hepatitis and got ink. I am just curious on what their thought process was about doing it. And I really want to know if they REALLY disclosed their illnes. Makes ya wonder!