I Have More Than Three Tattoos, Therefore I Have a Collection.

Would you rather have piercings or tattoos?

What a funny question.  I have both piercings and tattoos.  My most read blog is about my newest tattoo. I know that if I HAD to choose I would choose tattoos.  But I started with piercings.  I'm going to call piercings my gateway drug to tattoos. Each piercing and tattoo has a story attached.  Everything has some meaning right?

My first non-standard ear piercing was my ear cartilage. At the point that I decided I needed my cartilage pierced I had three holes in each ear and I wanted something different.  It was also 1995 and piercings were cool.  My cartilage hurt and was no fun.  That may have had something to do with the fact that I had my friend Rick do it. Using a piercing stud and a bag of peas on my parents front porch.  It was traumatic.  And once it was pierced it hurt for years.  I'm not being dramatic either.  I couldn't talk on the phone on my left ear for a really long time.  It's still pierced.  I've never taken it out.

My mom let me get my belly button pierced for my 16th birthday.  I then took it out for some reason. Got it pierced again.  Got pregnant and took it out (because I was so big I didn't have a choice) then had it pierced again when I was done being pregnant.  It's still pierced.

I got my tongue pierced after I turned 18 and promptly proceeded to travel to Eugene for a party where I smoked and drank and it got infected.  I hid it from my parents.  They told me that they spent WAY too much on my teeth for me to ruin them with a stud in my tongue.  That may have been my "I'm an adult now" act of rebellion.  I kept it long enough to go to Greece and freak out my ex-husbands small town Greek extended family, then I took it out.  I drove myself nuts with it, running it back and forth along my teeth. There's still a hole in my tongue where you can see where it was. There are pictures of this tongue piercing, at said party in Eugene. However, in addition to thinking I should have my tongue pierced, I also thought I should be a horrible shade of blonde.  It was all bad.

 My most recent piercing was a Christmas gift to myself in 2008.  It was my first Christmas as a divorced person, I was sharing my son with his Dad and was having a bit of a crisis over it.  I had been thinking about getting my nose pierced for a long time but the Ex didn't want me to.  I had talked about scarring with an esthetician.  I figured out which nostril was traditional for piercing and then one day on my lunch I went and did it. I question whether or not I'm getting too old to have my nose pierced occasionally, then I decide I don't care.

Traditionally the left nostril is the one you pierce for fertility reasons. Also if you are married, or of age to be married,  you wear a nose ring.

Tattoos, oh tattoos.  What should I say about tattoos.  I love them.  I love them on me.  I love them on other people.  I am a fan of tattoos.  I don't think I could ever be a person that has tattoos all over. I do like to be able to hide mine if necessary and I do think any tattoo above the collarbone is gross.  But I still love tattoos. My first husband had one wimpy tattoo and my second husband had no tattoos at all.  I've lucked out this time. My boyfriend has them everywhere and he wants more.  SEXY!!!

My first tattoo was the Chinese symbol of friendship.  I got it with a few friends after graduation.  I was 17 and my mom had to sign for it.  For my 18th birthday my mom and dad paid for my crown tattoo.  I think that there's a possibility I can blame my tattoo obsession on my parents :-)  After that I didn't feel like the crown was big enough so I had a swirly design added below it.  The crown and swirly design are technically a what is now referred to as a "tramp stamp".  I don't care.  They are still two of my favorites and it was 2000.  Lower back tattoo's had taken over where piercings left off.

Yes this is my crown.  No you cannot see the rest of the pictures.  But if you want to take pictures like it I can hook you up with the best boudoir photographer in the Portland/Vancouver area.

After that I waited a few years and got a tattoo of a frog on my foot around my ankle bone.  PJ was my little frog when he was a baby and I never wanted his name tattooed on me but that frog is symbolic of him. That tattoo lead to a HUGE fight with my then husband so when I left him I got another tattoo of a Forget-Me-Not down by my hip bone.  Low enough that if you ever got to see it you surely wouldn't forget.

Next came my maid-of-honor tattoo from Hawaii.  Mi'Cole and I both got tattoos while we were there.  In all of my genius I got a sun tattooed on the top of my foot, in the middle of September, which meant no shoes.  Until my most recent tattoo this one was definitely the most painful. But completely worth it.  My brother thinks it looks like I shot myself in the foot but I don't care. I still
love it.

You can kinda see both feet tattoos...

I took a few year hiatus (read I was re-married and didn't get to have anymore tattoos for five years) before I got my Bliss tattoo.  I got this tattoo about three days after I moved out of my second husbands house.  I was finding my bliss dammit.  Regardless of what happened I knew I didn't want to forget that was my goal.  So I had the word tattooed on the inside of my left bicep.  It is the one people see the most and I can't wait to get Patience tattooed on the other bicep.  Soon, very soon.

I then went with my friend Veronica to get her massive side tattoo and decided to get one on my right rib cage to test the pain level, and because, you know, why not?  It's an Audrey Hepburn quote that I love. And still love and do not mind having forever on my body.**

**I actually completely forgot I even had that one.  I guess that's why anything more than three is considered a collection.

Then there was the massive tattoo that I got about six months ago.  Like I said you can read all about it here.  Next will be the Patience tattoo. And then.  Then I'm going to get something big on my left shoulder blade/back and connect it to the big painful one on my side.  Maybe something like this... yeah that's a shadow and awesome and really what better to go with waves and flowers than the sun and moon and stars?

***Correction*** I was just reminded by my friend Lindsay (who actually has a matching Forget-Me-Not tattoo that we got together) that I didn't talk about the Fairy on my right shoulder, which you can see in the above picture. I don't remember why I got that one except that I found a picture I loved and based it off of.  I got it after the "tramp stamp" and before the frog.  I can't see that one and forget it's there. Goodness gracious.  I have grey hair and I'm losing my memory.  I feel old.