First off, I will update on Alice.  Another coulple thousand words down.  Chapter Sixteen will be finished in the morning.  We’re at about 300 pages now and really just getting moving.  It’s one thing after another with these girls in this book.   Tomorrow should be quite a writing day.  I have a very good idea for chapter Seventeen and that should roll off pretty smoothly once we get going. 

Yesterday, I sat in a chair for about five hours and got my arm poked and prodded and needled and stabbed.

I am relatively new to the tattoo world.  This is my third in three years and this will probably be my last.  The other two were smaller, generally speaking.  This one was much larger and detailed than those in the past.  

The first one was the first one and once I found out what I wanted, I knew that was the first.  That one wasn’t about stress relief.  That was about doing something I had always wanted to do but never had the nerves or means to do so.  You will hear tales of tattoo therapy, where people go and endure the pain to squash whatever is going on in their lives and that may have been the case with the second one.  Maybe it wasn’t.  I just felt like doing it at the time.  I wanted something on my forearm.  And my little geisha girl knick knack seemed perfect for the task.  

When she was finished, my body felt uneven to me.  One on the shoulder.  One on the opposite forearm.  It took me a long time to figure out the third.  I honestly had written off the idea for a long time.

That statue of the Archangel Michael had always been on my mind for a tattoo, going back for quite a long time.  It was just a very realistic statue that most artists would struggle with.  When I stumbled across that old woodcut drawing of the same scene, I started to get that itch.  I had been floating this idea around for the better part of a year.  The other two drawings were used as color ideas and in general just things I wanted to build in… although there was no Link.

When someone has a new tattoo, the average bystander will always ask “What’s it mean?”  And some tattoos do have meaning.  Some do not.  I don’t find fyself to be deep into the tattoo culture but my answers are similar to others.   “I don’t know… I liked it so I got it.”    This one, may actually have significance, or maybe it’s just a good story with a cool picture.  I haven’t decided.  Maybe it’s Michael squashing his demons once and for all.  Maybe it’s something I wanted to get.  I guess I haven’t decided where I stand with it yet.  If you want meaning, I’ll make something up for you.  If you don’t ask, I won’t have to fake it for you.