Oh the pain? I asked — and paid — for it

For my birthday in June I told Bill wanted to get a tattoo.

I knew what I wanted and knew who I wanted to do it. Unfortunately, it seems everyone else in town wants to get tattooed by Erik at The Raw Canvas because I had to wait two months to get an appointment.

Well, if I had wanted a kanji or a Smurf or something, I probably could have gotten in sooner. But I had bigger plans.

And those plans now seem completely idiotic.

Why?

Because there is one thing about tattoos ... they hurt. Like hell. A lot. Imeanreally!

I decided to get a rather large back piece that would require more than one 4-5 hour sitting. No problem, I thought. It's all good. I'm a good sitter.

Then Tuesday came and we started my giant tattoo. After the first 10 minutes I wanted to be all, "Yeah, I was just joking. Hey, Bill, let's go to Bed, Bath and Beyond instead of staying here while this guy carves me with inky needles."

But I didn't. I sat (actually laid on my belly) like a champ for over four hours. Yes, people, I was tattooed for more than four hours. That was twice as long as my labor when I had Margaret.

And the glorious part?

We're not even close to being done.

But what is done is so awesome, it makes me want to cry a little.

So without further ado, here's a brief photo essay of of this first sitting:

The stencil showing my existing tattoos. In the end, there will be flower work that will integrate my existing tattoos with my new one.
Getting inked:
Making progress:

Here it is with the line work completed:
Then we started on the color:
And this is where we stopped more than four hours after starting:
The only way I'd be more pleased was if it was all done.

Ah tattoos, they are so much fun.