This past Friday I had an appointment to get a tattoo.  I went with my aunt and cousin.  We got to the place and started looking through the tattoo books.  I already had my design and showed the guy and I asked him if he could customize it for me.  My design is a rosary and I wanted him to change the cross on the original that I brought.  He took a picture of the cross that I have on my chain and he said he would have to work on the design during the week.  I was bummed.  My blood was pumping vigorously through me because I thought it was finally going to happen...so I sulked in the chair as my aunt and cousin picked out their designs and the location where they wanted it to be placed.  My cousin chose a butterfly, in black and grey, with a star in the middle.  She placed it on her inner wrist.  The tattoo guy modified the drawing so that it fit on her wrist and placed the outline on it.  While he prepared his tattoo equipment she started mentioning that her hand was cold...it was freezing cold.  A few minutes later we looked at her hand and it had turned purple!  That was just amazing to me...I guess it was the anticipation of getting it done.  She sat at the chair and decided to look away while he was tattooing the image on her.  I thought, "Must be like when I go to the doctor to get blood drawn.  I can never look at the needle."  So while we waited we were joking around about crying from the pain and just laughing about it all.  She was making this face like it hurt so my aunt asked, "Does it hurt?"  And my cousin's like, "I'm not going to lie and say that it doesn't hurt.  It does hurt but it could be a completely different pain then where you're going to get yours."  So he finished in about half an hour and by then her tattoo had swollen considerably.  Next was my aunt's turn.  She looked through the books and decided on a heart, three bleeding drops below it, two letters (DA in honor of her deceased baby) which were placed in the heart and a halo on top of the heart.  She decided to get it in black and grey as well.  She had said from the beginning that she didn't want color.  So she got on the chair and the guy started and she was also making this face.  I'm like, "Tia, you've already gone through one live birth.  That pain has got to be worse than this tattoo."  So she toughened up and in the end was very pleased with the design that she put on the side of her leg next to her ankle.  Originally, she had wanted a heart with angel wings (to signify the death of her baby) but all the wings that she saw in the books she thought were too wide.  Also, thanfully, she decided to change the location of where she was going to get the tattoo.  She had originally thought about putting it on her left boobie, near the bra strap, so that it could be near her heart but I'm glad that we changed her mind.  It would have been very visible there and, I bet, tons more painful that on her ankle.  During that half-hour that it took the tattoo guy to put the tattoo on her, my cousin's tattoo doubled in size (upwardly!)  It had swollen really badly and it was starting to bleed, lightly, where the shading was added.  My aunt's tatt just got a little red but it didn't swell.  So we have to go back in two weeks to do some re-touching and maybe by then I'll be able to get mine but there's no promises.  I'm beginning to believe that someone out there doesn't want me to get a tattoo but it's not going to be anything bad...infact, it's the opposit.

When I got home after taking the ladies to get their tattoos, I was recieved at home by a pissed off mom.  Apparently, someone had blabbed where we had gone (I still hadn't told her what I was up to).  She's like, "I know where you went.  Let me see what you got."  And I smiled and said, "Who told you?"  She's like, "It doesn't matter.  I told you before that I didn't want you to get a tattoo.  If you do then you're not going to be able to donate blood.  Let me see your tattoo."  And I said, "Honestly, mom, I can tell you that I didn't get one.  You can go ahead and search me."  Immediatley you could see her whole mood change.  On Sunday, I told her to ask my aunt to let her see her tattoo and she smiled and said, "I don't want you to get one."  I'm like, "Mom, I'm not going to get anything bad.  It's not going to be a devil or anything bad like that."  And I left it at that...I didn't want her to know what design I was going to get.  I wanted her to see it for the first time when I showed it to her on me.  This morning, as I was leaving for work I asked my grandma what she thought about the tattoo that my cousin had gotten.  She smiled and said, "It doesn't look bad.  I was going to tell your mom that she should just let you do what you want.  You already know what's good and bad."  I smiled and went to work.  I couldn't believe that my grandma was way more advanced than my mom was in what's the cultural norm.  I hope she does talk to my mom maybe that way she can change her mind about the idea of tattoos just being for troublemakers, gangsters, drug addicts, etc, etc, etc.