MBT Professions-gluttony Query

Well MooseGuy was wanting to be a scourge-leer-pistoleer-strivener and I said I would come up with a name for such a person/profession. Well... I came up with everything but:

• scourge-pistoleer = flagrant, orspirator/orspiratine
• scourge-wit = severine
• scourge-leer = staide, austerine
• skold-leer = scryer, saltscry, saltstrait
• skold-pistoleer = locksalt (though really, such a person is really a skold with a penchant for delivering potives from a firelock)
• leer-pistoleer = scrylock, lockstrait, straitlock
• wit-leer = looksooth, straitsooth

...and I could go on. Now, it must be said at any such combinations are not as common as you might think, especially as true pistoleers - like sagaars - see themselves as a set apart, with secret knowledge and dedication to a singular expertise in a single skill. Indeed, sagaars are even more rigourous about this; for them it is all about the purity of the Dance with out taints, cheats or augmentations . A person might gain some fundamental moves of the dance (akin to basic and more intermediate martial arts), but if you call yourself a sagaar it is because you have committed to a way off living, to a higher plan of existence. (sorry, giantfan)

As for Mr Guy-of-Moose's combination, well I was thinking, sir, you might want to have a go at coming up with your own name, for such a combination would be most probably unique to you and therefore have no common name in the Half-Continent. FYI - messing about with highly unstable and dangerous potives whilst wrestling with the instability of you mimeotes (foreign organs) you could expect to have a rather short life span, even without the ubiquitous threat of a terrible gashing end.

It is worth noting that these names might change over time and with further thinking and revision; just like most other things H-c, I am constantly reworking and adding and subtracting to ideas - especially as I get deeper and deeper into the world with each novel. It can be a tad disconcerting to discover in writing a story that something I thought pretty well thought out over many years of natural accretion plus solid hours of think-time proves to be just barely enough to start with, that I need to go much further into notions and inventions than I had ever anticipated.

It is a good problem to have, I reckon.

(Oh! I have realised it is April Fools today, but I cannot think of anything funny - though plenty that is foolish)

The Rising Sun

Despite the warmer weather, it was drizzly and overcast on Friday when I was walking north on Broadway at lunchtime.

Despite the occasional raindrop, the journey didn't warrant an umbrella. As I ambled toward Times Square, I passed a gentleman smoking a cigarette outside of a building. His arms were inked.

I walked to the corner contemplating whether I should head back and ask him about his tattoos. I dismissed the weak excuse of precipitation and wandered back and introduced myself.

He had multiple tattoos on both arms, but what jumped out initially were the pin-ups on the interior of his forearms:



I especially liked his newest piece, on the right, with the Stars & Stripes theme and what appeared to be a rising sun tattooed on the lower right buttock of the woman. "Great detail," I thought.

I handed him a printout and said that Tattoosday averages a modest 150 hits a day. He indicated he had a blog too, with significantly more traffic. I asked if I could get the site to link and he hesitated.

Remembering that he had met me only minutes before, and that people generally have strong opinions about lifestyles that may be different than theirs, his pause was understandable when he disclosed that his blog, The House of Richard Windsor (Mature Readers only), is dedicated to the fetish of, well, spanking.

I'm an open-minded guy and such a revelation hardly phased me. If anything, it made the encounter more interesting.

So, going by the name Richard Windsor, the possessor of the above tattoos is a 44-year old originally from the English town of Swindon.

He offered up the pin-ups happily. They actually represented the lifestyle he lived. On his left forearm is the "good girl". He drew her himself* and she was later inked by Kelly Krantz at FlyRite Studio in Brooklyn. The shop has previously been featured on Tattoosday here.







The opposite arm bears the Naughty Girl, as tattooed by Krantz most recently. Both were done at the same shop, although Krantz is now working out of Hold Fast Tattoos, in Williams-
burg, Brooklyn.

It was then that I made the additional connection. I said to him: "Oh, the mark on the Naughty Girl is a hand print! I thought it was a rising sun!"

Richard smiled and laughed, "Well, it is."

Brilliant.

Anyway, thanks to Mr. Windsor for being so open and sharing his ladies with the denizens of Tattoosday!

*NOTE: Richard wrote to me, clarifying the design of the "good girl" after this posted:

I just want to clarify a little bit what I told you. While I did indeed sketch the first tattoo, all credit should really go to Kelly as his interpretation of my "very rough" drawing by far exceeded my expectations. He took my ideas and the finished product is actually his work, I shouldn't really take credit for what he created. All I did was provide the ideas and the original sketch, which in fairness was 100 times inferior to his creation.

Thanks to Richard Windsor for a) clarifying this matter and b) sending visitors this way to check out his pin-ups over here on Tattoosday!

Don McLeroy & "Crazy Chinese Words"

(photo: tfn.org)

The Texas State Board of Education recently issued a recommended reading list, which has been criticized for lacking diversity: Educators rip book list in English plan.

A draft of the curriculum, released Wednesday, includes more than 150 literary works that Texas public school teachers should consider using for their courses. Only four of them reflect the Hispanic culture, a woefully low figure they fear will limit the exposure of the state's 4.7 million schoolchildren to cultural diversity.

When confronted with criticisms, Board Chair Don McLeroy, who responded by saying:

"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That's not going to help you master... English. So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again?"

He added that some words -- such as chow mein -- might be useful.

Not if the child decides to get a tattoo later on, Don. Or the child might become U. S. Secretary of State, quotes what he/she thought was a Chinese proverb, and get his/her's ass laughed at by those "crazy Chinese" as well as late night comedy show host. All because he/she never read "those Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them".

If you would like to add your thoughts & comments about this matter, Mr. McLeroy's contact information is available at Texas State Board of Education website. It might helpful to drop a few "crazy Chinese words" like 閉門造車 in your comments.

A Trio of Stars, Remembering a Father

A few weeks back, at our local fashion and accessories store, I noticed three stars tattooed on the store manager's foot. I made a mental note that, when I returned, I should ask her about them.

I was in the store yesterday and the opportunity presented itself. From the sound of it, every employee in the store has ink, and most of them seem to be open to talking with Tattoosday.

But Samantha took the lead and offered up the three stars on her feet:


These were inked by Joe at Studio Enigma.

The triad of stars is a memorial to Samantha's father, who passed away about five years ago. She initially got the one large star, but then added the two others about 2 months ago to make a set of three, representing her and her two siblings, a brother and sister.

She chose to do these on her foot because it seemed to her like a different spot.

Thanks again for shining your stars on the blog, Samantha!

Audrina Patridge's Pork Fried Rice

Thanks to OK! magazine, Defamer, WWTDD & many others for bring this to my attention:





Ms. Audrina Patridge has recently got 豬肉油煎的米 tattooed on her forearm. It is unclear if the tattoo is genuine or some kind of publicity stunt.

However the tattooed phrase is not grammatically correct. What has been tattooed is direct translation from English word-per-word to Chinese of "pork; oil fried; rice grain".

If she wanted "pork fried rice", it should be 豬肉炒飯.

Tyler Durden has summed this up:

"...White people need to knock it off with the Chinese lettering tattoos. I'm a big fan of white people and being white is terrific, but we're kind of dumb, and the overwhelming majority of us don't know how to use Chinese... God only knows WTF she thinks it means. It turns out that guy [tattooist] isn’t an expert on Chinese. Shocking, yes?"

Tattoos I Know: Brooke's Back

Readers of Tattoosday may already be familiar with Brooke from her first appearance here, showing off her courage.

Well, she's back. Literally. The other day I spotted her wearing a sweater over a halter-top, so I thought I'd invite her back to show off her previously alluded-to koi.

From a distance, they look like wings, or perhaps even eyes:


But a closer examination reveals that they are two koi. For more on koi, jump here and follow the links.

Just to recap, Brooke is from Utah and currently lives in Hoboken.

Her first koi was inked on the right side of her back in May 2005. She was in Boise, Idaho, at the time, reeling from the end of a ten-year relationship. She was in a watering hole called Bittercreek Alehouse where, she estimates, she consumed a pitcher of mojitos. It was decided that a tattoo was on the menu for the evening so she headed over to 6th Street Studio in downtown Boise.

Brooke had heard the expression "bleeding out" when people had gone through the tattoo process. Rather than the threateningly negative meaning the phrase may have in the medical community, or the technical expression of flawed inking, Brooke understands the expression to reflect the fact that many people find the pain and the minimal blood shed of the tattoo process to be redemptive and healing.

Brooke spent time looking through books and found a design she liked, a traditional koi with a background of cherry blossom petals and waves. However, when working with John the artist, she had him enlarge the koi, brighten its color, and remove the background elements.


To her, the koi on her back symbolized moving past the ended relationship into a new chapter of her life.

Flash forward to December, seven months later, she was headed back to Boise. There was a celebrity event she wanted to attend with her friends, at which adult film director/producer/star Ron Jeremy was the main attraction. She met him at the event and the next night, was back at Bittercreek, enjoying their mojitos.

She headed back to 6th Street Studio and had John even out her back, placing another koi on the left side, facing the other.


The symmetry brought a nice balance to the ink on her back. John also gave a little touch-up to the original koi on her right side.

And here's a Tattoosday first: Brooke has provided pictures from the shop as she was getting the second koi:

And here's a photo with Brooke and Chris, the artist at 6th Street Studio:


Brooke loves her koi, which people often mistake for wings from afar. However, he finds them symbolic of her perseverance and courage.

There are many stories about koi and their significance in body art. One legend is that, when koi swim upstream and reach the source of the river, they transform into dragons. Brooke sees parallels to this in her own life, having swum away from home and reached the East Coast. She is not a dragon, but feels that her tattoos represent her transformation here in the New York City area.

Thanks gain to Brooke for sharing her ink and the great back story (no pun intended) behind these and the prior tattoo here. Next time you drink mojitos, think of koi and good fortune!

Washington

Reader Welton from Brazil sent in a photo of his friend's tattoo. It supposed to be his name "Washington".



However according to Alan, this tattoo is wrong in several levels:

First of all, the name Washington is usually written ワシントン [washinton] rather than ウォシントン [woshinton] as was presumably intended by the tattooist.

Next, someone left out the first ン, leaving only ウォシトン [woshiton]. Then, they used the large オ rather than the small ォ, making the tattoo actually spelled ウオシトン [uoshiton], so I guess it would be pronounced sort of like the English words "Whoa Shit On." That's probably not quite what Mr. Washington wanted when he got his tattoo...

And finally, they left out one stroke in オ, making the character look more like the character 七 but backwards.

It's sort of sad that people don't check these things before getting a huge tattoo that covers their whole arm.

Chino Latino

Minneapolis restaurant Chino Latino (612-824-7878) uses pseudo-Chinese characters as profanity alternatives in billboard ad. (Photo by Beijing Sounds)

If the restaurant wanted to advertise and not get fined by the FCC, why not put some effort into it & do it correctly:

"A 2-hour vacation from the 他媽的 weather"?

What is written on the billboard are repetition of "新仿宋文[体]", which means "new imitated Song typeface".

A better question would be:

"Why did Chino Latino chose its location to be at a 鬼不生蛋的地方?"


* Speaking of bad weather, I was in Quebec City last week & right before my return flight was scheduled to take off from Québec Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB), a Canadian medical plane crash landed after its front landing gear collapsed & slipped off from the runway.





Due to this fiasco, my flight was delayed for two hours, consequentially I missed my connection at Detroit & had to stay there over night. Detroit is a very depressing city. It looks like a nuclear bomb has gone off there.

Alicio's Barbed Cross

Here's a quick one.

Last Sunday at the laundromat, I ran into Alicio who had this simple tattoo on the inside of his left forearm:
Designs are never just designs.

Alicio explained, "When I was growing up, religion was a big part of my life, but it caused me a lot of pain. I wanted something to represent that."

Alicio got this cross, with barbs on it to represent the pain. The tattoo is about two years old and he had it inked in Tucson, Arizona, where he lives. He was in Brooklyn, visiting.

Thanks to Alicio for his willingness to share his barbed ink with Tattoosday.

Cameron Mark, aka. Kamokuron Shinkai

From Alan Siegrist:


http://www.bmeink.com/A80220/high/npsq-cameron-mark.jpg

From the caption, this tattoo (Feb. 20, 2008 in BMEink) with the characters 火目論真開 was evidently supposed to represent the name Cameron Mark, but I think it falls a bit short of the mark, so to speak.

Now, there might be “cute” ways to represent English names in Japanese using kanji instead of the traditional katakana. For example, Cameron in katakana is カメロン [kameron] but this might be a bit boring so some people might write 亀論 (which is similarly pronounced kameron) for a play on words meaning “Turtle Theory.” If you like turtles, why not?

But in our example火目論真開, using the characters 火目 for [kame] is really “forced” because this is a strange combination of different types of readings of characters. The 火目論bit could be something of a lame joke meaning “Tuesday-Thursday Theory” (火曜日 is Tuesday and 木曜日 is Thursday) but then it must be read Kamokuron not Kameron and is no longer a play on words.

And to top it off, 真開 cannot be pronounced anything close to “Mark.” The character 開 is definitely wrong. 真開 could conceivably be read マカイ [makai] but not マーク [ma-ku] which is the Japanese equivalent of the name “Mark.” In fact, 真開 is a rare Japanese surname read しんかい [Shinkai].

So the guy has managed to name himself Kamokuron Shinkai.

Mixed Martial Arts Figher

My good buddy, Jon Rahoi, sent me photos of a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter.



Jon says:

One of these mutant fighters was sporting some Chinese tat, that, upon further inspection, was actually Japanese. I think it's trying to say, "I'll win in spite of yesterday?" or something like that.

Plus, making "I" two characters wide on the top makes it confusing at first glance to figure out if it should be read top-down or left-to-right. Anyway, not sure your final verdict on this but it's totally suspect.



HS senior resident pro-bono Japanese consultant Alan Siegrist concludes that:

The order of characters is strange, and I guess someone has left out a few words or characters. The grammar is also wrong because they are using the future tense for something that happened in the past.

This is very weird.

Anyway, I guess the intended order is: 我は昨日のに勝つ.

This would mean roughly something like "I will win yesterday's ___."

I guess the word in the blank is supposed to be "match" or something, since these guys are some sort of MMA fighter guys.

Maybe he didn't have enough money to let the tattooist finish the tattoo or maybe he weenied out at the last minute. Maybe he couldn't stand the pain.

A new poll question!

All I can think of - other than that I am doing prayers for church this Sunday - as in Easter Sunday (dun dun dun) a bit of a responsibility - not sure if I can be trusted... I find writing prayers harder than MBT, would you believe it - but otherwise all I can think of is: nominative, vocative, accustative, genitive, dative, ablative - nominative, vocative, accustative, genitive, dative, ablative - nomi...

Oh - and I formulated a new poll question for added Easter fun; just think of it as a little digital chocolate egg... or don't, as you see fit.

The First Two Elements of Omar's Sleeve

I was sitting in my local coffee establishment Sunday morning when I overheard some words that got my attention. Among the words uttered were “traditional,” “sleeve,” and “work”. I looked up to see a guy talking to the barista. He had a tattoo on his wrist. I waited until he was done talking to the guy behind the counter and spoke up when he walked by.

His name is Omar and he has two tattoos, both on his inner right forearm:


His first one is the nautical star, definitely a traditional piece:

He explained that, as he understood it, the nautical star tattoo is a common piece that represents a star guiding a sailor home on the right path. He had flames added to symbolize change, as it so often does in tattooing.

This was not inked at any shop, but by one of Omar's friends who is just learning the art of the tattoo. He pointed out that the line work was not perfect, but I wouldn't have noticed it without a harder glance.

The second piece is a traditional sugar skull, very similar to the one that appeared in Tattoosday's "Rad Tattoo from Nebraska" post:


Omar had first gone into Brooklyn Ink and discussed his second tattoo it was there that the artist recommended that he should stay traditional to be consistent with the nautical star.

He ended up in SoHo at Whatever Tattoo II where he had the sugar skull added. I'll be frank, I thought that the design was just a Day of the Dead piece and only recently learned of the significance of the sugar skull. These items are usually associated with the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, and are made specifically for the ocasion using colored sugar. In the context of the tattoo they represent the dichotomy of life and death. This tattoo is only about two weeks old.

Omar says he plans to have a full sleeve dedicated to traditional tattoo symbols. He next hopes to add to the background of the skull with some flowers and other designs.

Thanks to Omar for his contribution to Tattoosday!

David Beckham's Chinese Tattoo

I have received many emails regarding David Beckham's new tattoo.



Many gossip sites are questioning the actual meaning & legitimacy behind his tattoo.

Lucky for Beckham, his tattoo styled in Chinese Cursive Script (also known as Grass Script) is correct.

生死有命 富貴在天, which is Chinese proverb of "death and life have determined appointments, riches and honor depend upon heaven."

First posting....

To start, I began tattooing at about age 20, eight years ago, in the very area I am setting up in now. The Mount Pleasant, or Uptown area. I began my career at Funhouse Tattoos in 1999. At that time it was located at 15 east Broadway, between Quebec and Ontario, a block and a half from Main street. This is partially why I chose this building. I had a weird attraction to the place even a long time ago. To be able to set up in it is an honor. So here I am, setting up my own space. It has been open just two short weeks, and already it has a life of it's own. The space is in the second floor of the Lee building, in unit 206.

"Is it May yet?"

Pertinent title provided by Kate, I myself am getting very impatient, but day by day we are getting closer to release.

Last post madbomber said: "As I read your post it occurred to me there aren't any cool kids in Latin class..." and it got me thinking, what is cool anyway? Now, I have never been "cool", surprise surprise - except in the art room. By this I mean I have never fit with that fickle bunch of alpha kids lording over the rest at school. But then there were always levels, the sporty cools, the smoking, Dead Kennedy's listening cools (almost made it with these fellows, learnt lessons about being true to myself here), the funny, sassy cools.

And what is cool in the adult world? I mean, one of the defining characteristics of the 'nerds' at school was/is their passion, their love and devotion to something more that looking unaffected and detached and wearing the right things. In adult life this seems to often grow into success, so do the nerds become the 'cool' ones (if cool is measured in professional success)? Does nerdiness become coolness once you grow up? Or is it that as you get on you reconcile that 'cool' and 'nerd' are just nonsense and get on with life as you find it as best you can?

I think I am rambling now...

Pete was asking: "I know you've answered this before, but I can't for the life of me remember what the answer was. How does one go about posting an illo with their character bio?"
I think the best thing to do for those of you interested would be to send me an image via email (which you will find in my profile). For those of you who do not know what we are talking about it is reference to a bunch of questions I posed late last year - feel free to answer if you like, I put up peoples' responses on the right just for a bit o' fun [TM]. and any illustrations of their character, if provided, hence the question from Pete.

I really am in a rambly frame of mind today - hope this bodes well for the day's word-count... this might give my US publishers some kind of heart-attack (ie not fast enough for them) but I am currently at 41,000 words for Book 3 as of penning this - my target being about 100,000. Getting there, getting there

BTW, I noticed a little while ago that li'l old MBT Book 1 got noticed on Muggle.net. Does this mean Rossamünd has made it? It is too early to be so cheeky, really, but this attention has set in me a notion to one day ask if Harry and Rossamünd would be friends if they met, and who'd win a fight between them. But this would be silly, not to mention presumptuous, so I won't (and mostly because I don't think I'll like the answer...)

Tattoos I Know: Paul Part 2, or, The Traditional Japanese Sleeve

NOTE: This post was updated on March 31, 2008 with three additional photographs.

Here's a Tattoosday first: a repeat subject in this blog's history.

Paul appeared here first, showing off his first tattoo, a dragon. In this post, Paul returns, showing off a full sleeve on his left arm.

The sleeve consists of traditional elements: there is a dragon, a lotus, a mask, a lily, and a koi.

If you went back in a time machine 8 or 9 years to visit Paul's arm, you would have seen a grim reaper holding a skull on the bicep:


and some roses in a pattern on the forearm. These earlier tattoos have been covered by elements in the sleeve. Even when told where the original ink lies, it's extremely difficult to see the previous work.

So I will break this down into two sections: the upper arm and the lower arm.

The upper arm began with the dragon cover-up:

The dark rock below the dragon covered the old piece. This design, which included the aum or om symbol at the top of the arm, was inked by Carlos at Rising Dragon Tattoos in Chelsea back in 2001. The aum symbol is the Siddhaṃ script version and is a mystical and sacred symbol in Indian religions. Note that this om is different than the one that appeare din the first Tattoosday post here.

Paul was not 100% thrilled with the dragon, so when he decided to finish the sleeve, the following year, he went elsewhere.

The lower part of the arm, which is the more prominent part of the sleeve, was inked by Mike Bellamy at Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan, although at the time his shop was known as Triple X Tattoo.

The specific elements in the sleeve are all traditional irezumi, or Japanese tattooing, elements.

The largest piece is the koi. It appears to be a golden koi.

There's a whole discussion here on what koi tattoos symbolize.

In addition, one can read here about the symbolic nature of the lotus flower in tattoos.

Paul also referred to the other flower as a spider lily.

However, there are so many different varieties of specific families of flowers, that I often have a hard time finding good pictures to represent the tattoos.

The additional element in the sleeve which is only a small part, but is still interesting is what Paul referred to as the "kite mask":

Masks are traditional parts of Japanese tattoo design, but this specific one is hard to pinpoint for me. Here are some Chinese mask kites. Yet, the fact that I cannot easily find one on the web, just fascinates me more.

Paul estimates that the whole sleeve (including the dragon from 2001) took about 20 hours of work, and he did it in 6-7 sittings, mostly in 2002.

Paul sent me the following photos from the New York City Tattoo Convention, where Mike Bellamy did some of the work on Paul's sleeve:

That's Paul and Mike on the far left of the photo:

Thanks to Paul for helping me update this post with additional shots!

Vade Mecum

I have begun Latin lessons today!

Yes, just when I had successfully presented the illusion of being a Latin expert (thanks to my trusty Collins Compact Latin Dictionary and some advice and assistance from femina) here I am bursting it with admissions of banal humanity.

It was a mere introduction - a potted version of Roman history with Latin phrases thrown in for relevance. For example the title of this post actually means (or so I am told) "come with me" and was used when referring to a diary or information guide or even a notebook! Feeling suddenly very smart, I wrote "VADE MECUM" proudly in the front of my newest notebook.

Very odd to be back in a classroom (of sorts) again. I wonder if I will be one of the cool kids or with the uber-nerds as usual.

I am feeling greatly improved in spirits, thank you in no small part of the encouragements left last post. To those of you who reached out and gave a little, I am so very grateful.

Book 3 proves to be a different road again to the last two books, but a common problem haunts me - I think I am getting bogged in minute details at the expense of character and - more importantly - relationships.
(Don't tell anyone I admitted this or some might think I am human after all and not some word-smithing demi-god whose every turn of phrase is pure uneditable poetry...)

Flat Stanley

Feeling pretty low at the moment - no good reason to, just been on a peak with Book 3 for the last few weeks and the inevitable trough has arrived. I don't know why books just can't write themselves then give their "authors" the glory...

Sorry to be a downer for you all. May be it has something to do with the fact I have not had breakfast yet today?

Happy note: Benjamin Lacombe has posted the finished illustration and design of the French cover for Terres des Monstres: L'enfant Trouvé (Monster-Blood Tattoo: Foundling and actually meaning "land of monsters: the found child"). The site is, unsurprisingly, in French, but the images speak in every language and they are tre magnifique!

It is a beautiful thing to share.

Also, just in case it was not noticed, I have refreshed the character profile - now Citizens of the Hlf-Continent - with a new personage of the H-c. I hope it is edifying.

Cathy's Cat-toos

I ran into Cathy at our local Rite Aid store where she was working replenishing the greeting cards stock.

Her short sleeves allowed her to more than adequately show off two tattoos on her upper arms. The first I saw was this astrological depiction of her birth sign:


That was, in fact, her first tattoo, inked back in 1993 at a shop in Philadelphia. No real explanation necessary. She is a Leo and wanted her sign depicted on her biceps. Leo was on the left.

Cathy has 8 tattoos in all. She has two on the upper part of her chest, 3 on her lower back and behind, and 1 below her navel along the waistline.

The tattoos on her chest were inked in London, and the one on her waistline was the only New York City tattoo.

The three on her lower back and the one on her right biceps were done at the same shop in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. She cannot recall the names of any of the shops or artists who tattooed her.

The one on her right biceps she's not completely happy with:


"It was supposed to be a female lion," she said, to go with the Leo, but it didn't come out quite right. She loves lions and other big cats.

She laughed and said, now that she thinks about it, she got the lioness on her right arm "the same time as I got my husband's name on my butt."

I did not ask about all of the tattoos that were completely covered. The tattoos on her chest are florals. She did say she would try to send me photos of the others.

Thanks again to Cathy again for sharing her lions here on Tattoosday!

Whole Lotta Rosary

So it was another Saturday night in Bay Ridge and we had just got home from a friend's house. The kids were getting ready for bed. My youngest, Shayna, was having a birthday party the next day. We were pretty much set on the party planning, but needed gift bags for party favors.

I headed off to the 24-hour Duane Reade, six blocks away. By the time I arrived, there were already a half-dozen things added to my list. I grabbed a cart (although in Brooklyn they refer to it as a wagon) and was somewhere in the haircare section (shampoo for kids) when two young ladies walked by.

I had brought, as always, my Tattoosday folder with fliers in it, along with my camera, despite the fact that it was cold and in the thirties. But one can never be too prepared. These women were dressed for the clubs, coatless, bare-armed, and high-heeled. I spotted a tattoo on one of the women's feet.

I thought about asking her then and there about it, but I balked. These were two attractive young women in a drugstore late at night and I wasn't up for the challenge of being scrutinized as a creep.

Besides, I reasoned, it's only a rosary tattoo. Nothing extraordinary about that. Let me just leave them alone, I thought, they're obviously headed to some club.

But I ran into them/passed them a couple more times and, each time, I cursed myself more for being too cowardly to ask. So what if its just a rosary? Here at Tattoosday, it's not just about the ink, but about the story behind the ink.

I was at the front part of the store, trying to decide which individually-wrapped candies would be the least damaging to my children's teeth (for the party bags), when they headed my way, on their way out of the store. I figured, "what the heck?" and asked the young lady about her tattoo.


This was not the first tattoo I took a picture of. Before I knew it, woman said "Wanna see a sick tattoo?" And she turned around and lifted the back of her shirt up to reveal, indeed, this very sick tattoo:


Wow. Sweet. Which just goes to show, Tattoosday Rule #1: Don't dismiss the "ordinary" tattoo. There may be extraordinary ones just out of sight!

Her name is Layla and she was very cool. I snapped the above shot and then asked if I could take the rosary one as well, since that's what caused me to stop and talk to her.

Both were inked by her friend Vito at King's County Tattoo Co.. She got the rosary modeled after Nicole Richie's tattoo. The awesome lower back piece she inked when she was 19. She was young and rebelling against her parents, she said, and she didn't want a small lower back tattoo like everyone else had, she wanted something big and bold. Check out this detail:


It's beautiful work.

I noticed that she also had a cross on her left forearm and I gave my standard Tattoosday patter: check out the blog in a few days, and feel free, if you like what you see, to email me if she wants to share more of her ink with the world.

I turned to her friend, , and said, naively, and when you get a tattoo, let me know, and I'll put yours on too. She proudly replied, "I have seven already." Silly me, and then I noticed the rosary on her right foot.



Like Layla, Lisa's rosary tattoo is inspired by Nicole Richie's. In fact, Lisa said, hers is an exact replica of Nicole Richie's (below):


I extended the same offer: if you like what you see on the blog, let me know, we can always have you come back as a recurring tattoo feature.

I thanked both ladies and they headed out while I went back to searching for the elusive gift bags.

Thanks to Layla and Lisa for their willingness to put their night on hold, and sharing their tattoos!