IMMOLATION SONG

Mood: Good
Music: If I Didn't Love You; by Squeeze

A few days after getting my tattoo, I am filled with regret. Just kidding. It still feels like a sunburn, and the top layer of dead skin has started to come off, which is to be expected.

Last night I dyed my hair black, which I am known to do from time to time. I used a brand I've never used before, and I'm pleased to discover that it's got a deep blue/purple tinge. It's always been my dream to have bright blue hair, but I've never been able to, due to not having jobs that allow that sort of thing. While looking over the hair dyes, I saw one called 'luscious raspberry' that was pretty tempting. Maybe next time. The only rule Walgreens has about hair color is that it has to be within the bounds of nature. I think luscious raspberry counts.

And now I'm going to rant about jeans: I like the bootcut jeans. They're comfortable, hang over the shoe properly, and are loose, but without being as ridiculously baggy is as popular these days. I've always gone to Old Navy for my jeans. Not because I like the brand, heaven forbid, but just because they were relatively inexpensive, and well made. Not so anymore. I went looking for new pants on Monday. All of Old Navy's bootcut jeans now have little holes in them, which is stupid enough, but now all of them are unseamed at the bottom. Actually, they're not really unseamed, it just appears that they were seamed, but then it was taken out. Why the hell anyone would want jeans that were, for all intents and purposes, incomplete, is beyond me. Fuck you, Old Navy. So I went to Ross and found some good jeans that people had taken the trouble to... you know... finish. I also got some groovy pinstripes, which are now my favorite work clothes. Walgreens doesn't allow people to wear jeans, and normal slacks are very uncomfortable for me. The cut is just all wrong.

Of course, who really gives a crap about any of this?

Ending Music: Gone For Good; by the Shins

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  posted by Tristan @ 1:02 AM

 
PIECE OF DUCT TAPE DOWN MY BACK

Mood: Good
Music: I Like Birds; by Eels

Okay. The tattoo is done. For some time I've wanted a tattoo based on an illustration by Edward Gorey. However, his stuff is way to complex. In the future, I may do something based on it, but for now, I did something else:



These are the Chinese characters that mean creator; one who makes, invents, or grows things. It is pronounced shwang tzao jer. I'm betting most people with chinese or japanese tattoos don't know how to say what they've got. Anyway, what's getting a tattoo like? Hard to say. It's really not that bad, in that once they take the needle out, it stops hurting. It does hurt, but it's not blinding pain or anything. It's kind of like getting a vaccination, only a little worse, and repeatedly. I'm sure part of why it hurt as it did was the location: the spine is just full of bundles of nerve endings, which is whay it's so great to be massaged, or get acupuncture of acupressure there. I spent most of the actual process talking a bit to the guy doing it, or running through the Fibbinacci Sequence in my head, which I have probably not spelled correctly. I also repeated these mantras in my head a few times: 1. "I am Vulcan, there is no pain" and 2. "I shall not fear. Fear is the mind killer." etc. I'm such a geek. I didn't repeat these things because I really thought it would have some affect, it just amused me to do so. For the record, it really didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I built it up to be pretty bad in my head. Getting this done took just over an hour, by the way. Right now I can barely feel it. I've got a vague feeling on my spine like a really light sunburn.

Originally I was going to get a red border around it, for a little contrast, but the tattoo artists and I decided that, hell, I'm so pale, it's really not necessary. I still may get it done, just not now.

After getting the tattoo, I went and had dinner in Seattle, then went and saw the Seattle Symphony perfroming a suite based on the Lord of the Rings score. It was arranged and conducted by Howard Shore himself. There was also a very talented singer who did the verison's of Gollum's Song and A Distant Shore. I've always disliked A Distant Shore. It just rubbed me the wrong way as the last song for the movies. However, after listening to it tonight, I realize it's not that the song is bad, it's just that Annie Lennox is not the right person to be singing it. Don't get me wrong, I think Annie Lennox is a great singer, I just don't think her voice fits the piece.

Ending Music: For The Wars; by Clinic

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  posted by Tristan @ 12:16 AM