coryd.dev-eleventy/src/posts/2024/on-getting-tattooed.md

date	title	description	tags
2024-02-07	On getting tattooed	I got my first tattoo over ten years ago. It was a few lines from Tom Waits' *[Coney Island Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Tod1_tZdU)* set on the inside of my left bicep as a dedication to my then fiancé and now wife of ten years. I was told recently that that's a really painful spot but, I suppose, I didn't know what I was getting into outside of having an artist recommended by a dear friend that I trust implicitly.	tattoos music

I got my first tattoo over ten years ago. It was a few lines from Tom Waits' Coney Island Baby set on the inside of my left bicep as a dedication to my then fiancé and now wife of ten years. I was told recently that that's a really painful spot but, I suppose, I didn't know what I was getting into outside of having an artist recommended by a dear friend that I trust implicitly.

I waited years before booking another appointment. I wasn't dissatisfied or hesitant, just unsure. The artist I used had moved out of state and I ultimately waited for her to do a guest session at a shop a few hours away. I had her add an astrolabe to my left shoulder¹, and some lyrics from The National's I Need My Girl to the inside of my left forearm. More sentimentality, more black and white and more time before I booked another session.

My next piece was decidedly silly, but still important to me. I grew up on MTV's cartoon Daria and would rewatch it or have it on as comfort background noise. I liked the subversive humor and attitudes and it acted as a happy reminder of different times in my life. I decided to get the logo for the show Sick Sad World that would be played in the background tattooed above my right knee. It's often not visible, but it always makes me smile when I look at it.

A few years passed and I mulled over some new ideas. My next piece would be done at a new, highly-regarded shop by the shop's owner. I had a photo of a mixed drink I liked, filtered to black and white and had her hand draw, scrawled across the napkin are lyrics from The Postal Service's This Place is a Prison: "It's not a party if it happens every night." That appointment was on January 6, 2021 and was preceded by a call from my grandfather telling us to turn on the news because there "was a real mess over there". We had the capitol riot on tv during the session.

Before the appointment I'd been out canvassing for my wife's campaign for local office² and lost my wedding band, thinking it fell off somewhere in the 70+ miles I had walked. Our daughter found it in our backyard. I threw it on a necklace, broke the necklace within a month and had our anniversary tattooed on my ring finger instead. More tattoos, more memories committed to skin.

I waited again, we found out we had a son on the way and I scheduled an appointment for a colorful piece on my chest as a tribute to him with a new artist³. He decided to show up early and I rescheduled the appointment.

I got the chest piece done, waited for it to heal and, at my daughter's request, got a rendering of the volcanoes from Pixar's Lava short on the other side of my chest⁴. My grandfather had passed away prior to this appointment and my grandmother years before and I had a tribute piece placed on my left leg, opposite the Daria tattoo — it's a rendering of a sunflower resting in a glass of water, placed next to an 80s era Mac⁵.

Now I was picking up momentum and my next piece would get placed on my right shoulder, branching out into a sleeve. The top, outer half of my arm was finished up yesterday and is based on Sturgill Simpson's A Sailor's Guide to Earth. It's adorned with my daughter's birth flower. It's going to stretch down and around my forearm, encompassing art from other albums that I hold dear.

I have ideas for my left arm (though I don't think it'll amount to a sleeve and really can't given the existing work) and my legs. I'll stop short of resembling Travis Barker or Jacob Bannon, I imagine, but I'm ok if I don't.

My parents started getting tattooed in their 50s, thinking it would be a cheaper midlife crisis than cars (it was — they're very supportive of mine too).

Each piece was important to me when I got it and remains important to me now. They're references to and reminders of important moments and I enjoy every session⁶. But, for now, my shoulder is sore.

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1. My wife got the same piece done — there was one pointing to the driveway of the house we got married at. It burned down in the Butte fire. ↩︎

2. She got elected! ↩︎

3. She was at the same local shop (and now at her own) but her style was perfect for what I had in mind. ↩︎

4. Hopefully she continues to enjoy the short, but I've got no regrets. ↩︎

5. My grandparents bought stock during Apple's IPO and were lifelong Mac users. ↩︎

6. It's definitely better than going to the dentist. ↩︎