Beautiful Skin

This is my next tattoo. I would like to get it as a full sleeve on my right arm. Justifying spending the kind of money this will cost (Probably upwards of $1,000) is difficult, and it will probably be at least another year before I'm in a financial position to do so.

Today I was discussing tattoos with a coworker who had a very negative experience while getting her first tattoo. Many women (and a few men) I know have complained of the same condescending, rude treatment by tattoo artists, particularly if it is their first tattoo. I've certainly experienced this myself, though now I go to the same artist each time and am always pleased with both the quality of his work and the way he treats me. (If you're in the Seattle area and want a tattoo, I can't recommend Deep Roots on University highly enough. The artist who I see is named Jason, and I think the other tattoo artists at that shop are great as well.) I've brought my friends in for matching tattoos, I've sent my sister and my co-workers to him, too. The only reason I even met Jason was the terrible rude woman at another tattoo shop on the same street. After being belittled and told flat-out that my tattoo had too many words for her to do, I went a few block south to her competition. I am so glad that I did. I've gotten three tattoos from Jason so far, and he's got a customer for life (or, at least as long as he's in Seattle.)

I love my tattoos, all 8 of them. Even the ones I don't like very much any more, the ones that get me in trouble in airports, and even the one I got with a person I'd rather forget entirely (at least it isn't his name, right?) Each one has a story (usually no deeper than "I like stars and the color blue" or "Laura wrote this on a napkin in a Thai restaurant so I wanted it tattooed on me.")

People frequently suggest that tattoos will prevent me from getting "a real job." This may be correct, but, as my parents' generation retires, I think this will be less and less of a problem. I certainly appreciate my current job's policy on tattoos (no one cares) and find that, in general, if a company doesn't like my tattoos, I probably won't enjoy working for them.

I gave up on my skin a while ago. It's temperamental. I have a number of scars, it breaks out every five seconds and wavers between pasty pale and tomato red with nothing in between. That's fine. I have other good qualities. I remember once, after a group of friends had met my ex-boyfriend's newest girlfriend and found little kind to say about her, one friend diplomatically reached for whatever he could grasp. "She has beautiful skin." He proclaimed, gesturing that the conversation was over. He might well have said "She has tiny, feminine hands." And, while I would spend a year after that comparing myself to her, wondering what he saw in her, I think I knew at that moment that she had something I never would. Even as he kept inviting me into his bed, I would be the shameful secret, she would be the one he married. Do I think this is really because she has beautiful skin and I do not? Of course not. But I have reflected on this conversation every time I get a new tattoo. My skin will be beautiful in its own way.

I suppose vanity is not the worst of my sins. I don't spend a great deal of time or effort on my appearance (If Jessi wasn't such an awesome hairdresser I'd probably still have 3 feet of snarls in 3 different colors.) My tattoos are definitely a source of pride, a small part of a body that often feels like a punishment or a curse for some past-life misbehavior that I truly love. It may seem frivolous and vain (and, I admit, it is) but I will continue to get more until I run out of room or will (whichever comes first.)