tattoos

i like tattoos! and i have two of them so far. and i am going to talk about them.

this one was my first. i got it a few days after my 18th birthday. in case you can't read it (and i don't blame you) it says "i have only words to play with", which is a line from lolita.

nabokov is one of my favourite authors, but pale fire is actually my favourite book by him. for a while i was toying with the idea of getting a quote from pale fire:

"i was the shadow of the waxwing slain/by the feigned remoteness in the windowpane"

i still like the idea but i was never really sure about placement or anything for that one so i went with the lolita one instead. 

i love it still, i love it every day because it speaks a lot to me as a writer. when humbert humbert loses lolita he feels like he loses everything but he still has words

and yes the book is a little creepy and if you think about it in the sense of he has words to play with instead of a little girl to play with it's totally skeevy

but the line as a standalone is something i can really connect with.

this one is my second tattoo. it is a symbol and quote from the character rorschach from the watchmen graphic novel. it says "not even in the face of armageddon."

sorry about the half nudey pictures it is really quite difficult to photograph.

i got this one over winter break, in december, so really only a month and a half ago. i love it.

the whole quote is "not even in the face of armageddon. never compromise." and i was going to get "never compromise" but changed my mind and i love it so much more this way. 

i was so paranoid that it was going to be spelled wrong that i made my friend take off the saran wrap and check it out in the middle of a cafe right after i got it. but it's all good!

rorschach and i disagree fundamentally (especially politically) but this quote always struck me.

instead of something that defines me it is more like something i need to learn. i have compromised a lot for a lot of people and that doesn't make sense to me anymore.

here is a better picture.

neither of them hurt too badly. i got them both done in champaign, illinois (where i lived until i was like 13) at no regrets tattoos downtown. both were done by katie cain who is fucking fantastic. if you find yourself there i definitely recommend her. both times i showed up with no real plan and she got exactly what i wanted.

both of them are fairly easy to cover up with t-shirts and whatnot because i haven't been sure whether being a tattoo covered person is something i want to commit to, but honestly i think it is. i love both of my tattoos.

they don't hurt that bad. they both did hurt but not like i was expecting. i almost bit through my cheek during the lettering of the second one, but filling in rorschach's symbol didn't hurt at all. 

i think my next tattoo is going to be something like delirium from neil gaiman's sandman series plus the little mermaid, because they look sort of similar and i think they could be combined really well and they both mean a lot to me. also i have two text tattoos so i want some pretty pictures :)

xoxo

mouse