dude, the inside of my arm where my elbow bends hurts a little. not like a "oh god! my arm! my arm!" kind of hurt, just like a sunburn-y kind of hurt. without the actual sunburn.

(sunlight evil! stay away from my pale pale skin!)

i don't think i mentioned exactly what i got tattooed, so i'll do that now. (plus a little backstory):

four years ago the december, i got my first tattoo. kanji on the inside of my left arm. its says "anti-war". or at least that's what i thought it says. i'm not really sure anymore. before i got it, i researched online for quite a while, and then a week after my 18th birthday i got it done. however, i've never seen it anywhere else, so for all i know it could say "stupid white girl with a tattoo she doesn't understand". whenever i go to a chinese or japanese restaurant, i would always hide my arm so no one saw it because i felt like a retard. so this summer, i decided to get a cover-up.

now, the cover up idea started out as a tribal piece, mainly because i knew that would be something that would cover it up just fine. but i didn't really want tribal. so i tossed around a few ideas. a star. a dragonfly. a lizard of some sort. a few weeks ago, i went to a shop just off of WMU's campus. i talked to the people there and checked out the shop. clean, with big windows, very nice employees, shop hours clearly posted on the door (which is an issue i had with my previous tattoo shop), music was on but not so loud that they couldn't hear when the phone rang (another issue i had).

i talked to mike, the tattoo artist there. i told him about my cover-up and i also told him about the large leg piece i want to get done. and he actually understood the idea for the leg piece. most people just kinda of stare like they don't know what i'm talking about.

after talking to mike for a while, i left, determined that he would be the one to do my tattoos. two weeks later, i came in and made an appointment with him. the day of my appointment, i showed up and we went over the design he had drawn for my arm. however, he was feeling a little sick, so we re-scheduled for thursday. thursday came around, and when i showed up, he had drawn a couple more things for my arm. and it was(is) awesome.

there are branches growing up my arm until 3 inches past my elbow. a lizard is on one of the branches, long tounge out trying to catch a big-eyed lightning bug. a big ol' ant is one the backside of my arm chillin' on a branch. they are all a little cartoony looking. big eyes.

its my critter arm. and its only 1/4 done.

music: northern state