Sarrrahhhh

So, yesterday I got my first tattoo!!  It was a bit impromptu.  Not in what I wanted, because I designed it ages ago, but in actually getting it that night.  Nikki and I had nothing to do when her friend went home, so I was like why don’t we look into getting our tattoos.  We can just pick a place we like and go check it out.  Get a quote, get an idea.  Why not?

What should have been a half hour trip from our part of Brooklyn to Hipster Brooklyn — oh, I’m sorry, Williamsburg — took like an hour because the MTA sucks.  The Q was down after Prospect Park so we had to take a shuttle to Atlantic and then walk to the G train — which was also fucked up.  But we got there.  (Don’t worry, we took the L back, which involved going into Manhattan just to get back to Brooklyn, but this is about the tattoo, not the subway.)

The place we decided on was called Twelve 28 (http://www.1228tattoo.com/tattoos/) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  A guy who worked there greeted us and we explained we were interested in getting tattoos soon and wanted to talk to someone.  He looks at our sketches and calls over another guy, who looks at what I wanted.  It’s a fairly simple text tattoo.  Just the word “believe” with a star over the i.  In cursive.  He said he wouldn’t be around next weekend to do it, but gave me a card for some other artist.  Then he started talking to Nikki about hers.  But then another artist came over to look at mine.   His name was Gerald and he was the one to eventually tattoo me.

He decided that the script I picked wasn’t good enough and I needed something more custom.  So in all of like 3 seconds, he pencil sketches something amazing and it looked exactly like what I pictured in my head.  He said if I wanted it tonight, he could do it in about an hour and a half.  We decided to stick around since it wouldn’t take long and we had nothing better to do.

So, after killing time at Crif Dog, we head back and wait for him to finish up the people ahead of us.

So after stenciling it out and getting the placement right, he starts.  Oh and the placement was on the left side of my ribs, like right under my bra line.  It definitely hurt, but it wasn’t that bad.  I had trouble breathing right and I felt like I wasn’t breathing at all.  It was weird.  But I think my industrial hurt more.  I mean, that only hurt for like a minute and this hurt for like 15 minutes, but it was a lighter pain.  I mean, I couldn’t tell you about it now so it must not have been that bad.  Nikki even said I didn’t look like it was too bad.

So, now I have this gorgeous, adorable tattoo.  It’s black cursive with a star colored in red.  The red was a last minute decision as well.  I had been toying around with a star outlined red and then colored black, but I went the other way around and I love it.

Now, the inspiration.  It’s totally a baseball tattoo.  I believe that the Phillies can win the World Series.  Maybe next year!  Or the next year!  Or… whatever.  So, that’s why there’s a star.  Because the Phillies logo has stars.  So, that’s where I got the idea, but it’s more than that.

The meaning.  Well, it’s pretty self explanatory.  Believe.  I believe that if it’s not so great right now, it’ll get better later.  Or next time will be better.  Or it’s going to be okay.  Inspired by baseball, yeah, but it means way more than that.  And I think my situation with field is a good example.  I advocated for myself and I got a better placement.  I got waitlisted for campus housing and now I live in a huge, much cheaper apartment with friends instead of strangers.  If a boy hurts me, the next one will be better (that one really worked out well).  But yeah.  I believe that if it’s not so great now, it’ll get better.  And I believe that if I really put my mind to it, I’m going to be a successful social worker.

Now I just have to hide it from my parents for as long as possible.

But I love it.  Gerald at Twelve 28 did a great job!  And he was really nice too.

philadelphiaphillies:

So ready for tomorrow.

colealtmann:

Philadelphia Pillow Pets! I would like them all. Taken at the Haldeman Ave Target