The long awaited reveal is finally here. I’m still shocked that y’all care so much about my ink, but I really do appreciate your interest and your twitter help with quashing my fears that my arm was going to fall off (ok that’s an exaggeration but I thought it might heal horribly or all the ink would fall out) because it scabbed over.

My wrist tattoo scabbed a bit too so I might just have the type of skin that does that. Or I might have been leaking too much plasma. Or I might have kept it too moist. Or I could be mildly allergic to the black and red inks. Who knows.

What I do know is that I’m still going through the sunburn peel stage and that means it doesn’t look as amazing as it could right now. But I gave myself a deadline and made a promise to reveal on Giftmas day when my Mum had seen the tattoo and so I’m sharing some photos anyway. When it is completely healed I’ll share better photos.

I can’t draw at all so in early October I took a sheet of designs I liked to Tattoo City and asked for a Mum heart to be designed. I was the annoying customer that doesn’t know what the fuck they want, but amazingly Ben came up with a design from my very vague instruction and as soon as I saw it I knew what I wanted. The original puffy waves things turned into splatters and the ochre turned into blue. The text became fatter and turned into a cut out, and the heart turned into black. And just 2 days before my appointment I saw the finalised design and it was exactly as I’d seen it in my mind.

The 14th saw me freaking out in nervous anticipation. I had so many butterflies I didn’t feel I could eat anything (but forced myself to) and ended up feeling a bit nauseous. Thankfully Sarah-Rose suggested I have some rescue remedy and my buddy, and companion for the day, Stacey had some on hand to calm my nerves. It worked a treat.

Outline Done

Adrenalin is working!

Anyway, everything went as planned. It hurt most in the elbow crease and inner arm and after an hour and forty minutes I was very ready for it to be done. I breathed through the pain and closed my eyes. Stacey took photos and made me laugh. It was bandaged, I bled, and leaked, and swelled like a balloon. And I’m so happy with it.

Swelly bruise

Just finished…and bleeding

Yep, I put up with this ugly scabbing for about 5 days!

Consider me addicted.

Happy Giftmas! I hope you got something you wished for.

20 points to the first person to correctly guess which song I stole my title from.

Recently my family received some very sad news. My remaining Grandad, my Dad’s dad has been given a couple of months to live. He has been living with cancer for 14 years but the drugs originally used to fight his myeloma have led to leukaemia and the specialist says there is nothing they can do.

My maternal Grandad died a few years ago from Alzheimer’s and cancer. And his gradual decline into the harsh life of Alzheimer’s meant he was figuratively gone before he was diagnosed with cancer. Dad’s dad however has lived around 9 years longer than he was supposed to and we kind of expected him to keep fighting forever. It has been a hard couple of weeks for everyone just trying to come to grips with the situation.

I handled it in my usual way, taking everything in at once, realising all the implications and then deciding the only way to stop crying and feeling shitty is to not think about it.

Instead, I got tattooed. In honour of both of my Grandads who I love. Although I do not believe in a god, and I am agnostic about spirits and an afterlife, having this reminder on me means I can never forget where I come from. Even when I’m old and wrinkly (assuming I live that long) and it looks like I have dirt on my arm, I’ll know that I had a life full of family that loved me.

Thursday the 15th of October I went to Tattoo City to book an appointment to have a tattoo designed and decided to look at some fonts while I was there. I had an idea of getting the g tattooed I just didn’t know where I wanted it or what it would look like. The guy from Tattoo City (I need to find out his name) was so friendly and sat with me to have a look. I found a font I liked and he suggested I could get it done that weekend at the Lower Hutt Tattoo Show and he kindly photocopied the font for me to take along.

This isn’t the bigger tattoo I’m planning, so I hope you’re not all disappointed expecting to see that.

I hadn’t planned on getting tattooed so quickly but there is no time like the present. So I rocked up to the Tattoo City booth on Saturday the 17th only to find they were too busy and was sent to Sacred Tattoo.
I was lucky enough to be tattooed by Erin from Sacred Tattoo. Sacred is located in Auckland and usually very hard to get an appointment with. The work they produce is amazing. Erin however was just back from the UK and had forgotten they were coming to the show so she had a spot available right away!

I was expecting tears and pain, but what I got was scratching, a few winces on the bony bits, and a numb hand from the vibrating and the lack of blood flowing in my arm due to the angle I had to hold it. The most painful part was the way I had to twist my arm to get my wrist to sit right.
$150 later and I am marked forever.
I also managed to win a bag of protat aftercare products when the guy on stage called out for any women tattooed on the day!

I can hardly wait till I get the big tatt done which will be revealed after December 25. I am hopefully going to see the preliminary design tomorrow (today really I guess), but I’ve booked the actual tattoo appointment for the 14th of December!

We take off for a week tomorrow (today!) to stay with The Boys dad and my family and to visit Grandad. I’ll still be around but not as much. We fly back very early on Sunday the 8th.

O oh, 1 month till 2009!! Lots of links today to help you forget you haven’t started Xmas shopping yet.

• Blind! Idiot! Rat Fink! Atheist!
• Episode two on Shortline Street. This week Maia the lesbian gets the wrong idea.
• I’ve never worked in a clothing store before so this might be old news but OMG I had to try this before i would believe it. Super easy way to fold a shirt!
• Problogger reviews the Lijit search engine. I’ve added Lijit to Cupcakes and Mace because it seems like a powerful little engine. You can add the ability to search your Flickr and Youtube accounts among others.
• Geeky tattoos on Geeks are Sexy; Bathory has a full Star Wars sleeve, plus Princess Bride, Fifth Element and barcode tattoos!
• James Nachtwey’s black and white “witness” photography.
• Perhaps the worlds most inoffensive graffiti. Knitting!
• Every time I look at this photo my heart flutters crazily and I fall in love again.
• So gross, ever heard of cuitlacoche? Well this guy ate it so we don’t have to.
• Google suggests stereotypes
• Rain photography and a beautiful misty river photo
• If you’ve got time to burn online (who doesn’t in December?!) then these random facts could help.
• The Facebook of Genesis
• Blog writing guides by Write to Done and Copyblogger
• I found out about Schmap guides when I was sent an email notifying me one of my photos from Melbourne had been put on a shortlist for their next guide. The Wellington guide was published in 2006 so it’s out of date. Shops and restaurants change so quickly. It’s a great idea though, the guides are free to download!
• Favourite Lookbook looks of the week garbage, bodysuit and tutu, key necklace, twiggy, big glasses, men’s shirt, blue glasses.
• Yo mamma’s broke cuz she spend all her money on rhinestones and cigarettes!
• Bloodthirsty Japanese mascot. Cute of course!
• This is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. P Diddy (if that’s what he’s called right now) created this video to advertise his new fragrance and to audition as the first black James Bond at the same time. Cue a series of shots of him in a helicopter, on a jetski in a suit, walking with scantily clad ladies, lounging on a boat in a dressing gown etc. Add a cheesy voiceover spoken in an American accent with a gansta slur and you’ve got the worst Bond ever!

  I know it’s crass but this comment on the video sums it up pretty well. (Why can’t people put apostrophes and capital letters in the correct places? I had to edit the comment just so I didn’t lie awake stressing about the bad punctuation on my blog.)

  I didn’t think Youtube allowed porn, much less gay porn.

  But here we have a video of a man sucking his own cock for 6 straight minutes, amazing.