Thursday I went to my friend Erin's place for tattoo work. She rocks the free tats for me and I love her to death for it and trust her work with all my heart..... the set up seemed simple. Two dogs both ready to lunge for a bone was to be put forever more on my belly. WAS TO BE..... not what went down.
It had been a while that we hadn't seen one another so we hung and talked for a while while I smoked some pot. After an hour or so I laid down on the table with my belly exposed. She did one small line and as soon as the needle touched my skin everything in the room turned red and I felt myself lurch.
"Stay still, babe." I heard Erin say.
I tried to relax and she started again. No good. The pain was white hot. I couldn't take it. I felt myself shake and tense up. After about 5, maybe 10 minutes I asked for a break. I got up and smoked and shook it off, hopeful that I just needed to get into the pain and not fight it. We started again, this time with a cd of buddhist munks chanting. I listened to the music and let myself get into the voices...... that lasted another 10 minutes.
Finally I just had to quit.
"Finish this dog and then I need to stop!" I heard myself say. There was an edge to my voice that could not be mistaken. I was done.l
It's healing ok. Looks like shit because I was so jittery. She's going to work on it again Thursday for a while. Both of us agree that the whole design must be finished but it may take 4-5 sittings. For some reason I just can't get over the pain...... this is not like me. This is my 6th tat and never, NEVER have I been so freaked.