feeling unprepared

Tuesday is the big day. The day of my next tattoo. The one that I’ve been planning in my head for a bit over a year, and planning on “paper” for the last week or so. I had asked two different pros for help with the artwork; but both flaked on me, leaving me to create it on my own. I am now breaking two of my own tattoo rules: nothing on my back where I have to contort to see it, and nothing I’ve drawn myself.

I expect that the final design, as applied, will be imperfect. Tattoos are done by hand, after all. As is the hot-rod pinstriping that this tattoo is based on, so the imperfection is something I can live with. But… I want the art to be as perfect as possible going in, so that the tattoo artist has a good foundation from which to deviate. And I’m obsessing. It will be permanent, after all. I am so glad that I’m putting it on my back, so that I can’t easily see it and be haunted by changes I would make were I to look at it every day. Because every day, I have been moving the lines around. Every. Single. Day. While I’m writing this, in fact. Tuesday evening, the madness has to stop.

I might be on Vicodin during the tattoo after all, because I horked my neck Sunday morning. I’m starting to think that this is some old teenage headbanging injury that I keep aggravating. I few times a year, I am nearly immobilized by making some minor move that winds up royally jacking me up. Sunday, I stretched. Yep, that’s right. I stretched. Your average, everyday, just-got-out-of-bed stretch. PING! Can’t move my head. I spent most of the day on the couch with my microwave heating pad, alternating between Advil and Vicodin. Monday was an improvement, but I still feel pretty beat up. I don’t know if I’ll be able to run over to my massage therapy office on Tuesday, but I hope to get this worked out a bit before I have to sit in the tattoo artist’s chair for an hour. I’ll be tense enough during that, thankyouverymuch, without the additional muscle spasms.

The evil morning stretch preceded a wonderful breakfast prepared by Joe for those of us who spent the night after Nova‘s birthday/Paris party. French toast, of course, and granola and yogurt and berries. Oh my! I would have posted the photos sooner, but really, I was that laid out. Besides, the photos coming from Phoenix are much more interesting! MARS, people. Fekkin’ Mars.