My tutoring assignment ended yesterday, and I just went and got tattooed to celebrate. Two nautical stars--one on the back of each arm (red and black,right above the elbow). Its been over a year since I got anything done, and I was not used to the pain at all. It still felt good, but the back of the arm is definitely more sensitive. I still almost fell asleep. Everytime I get a tattoo I almost fall asleep. One day I am going to go fully out. I went to a different artist than usual, his name is Josh Brown, and he works out of Absolute Art here in Richmond. A great guy and an excellent artist who specializes in 'Old School' designs. I am planning on getting a bunch of old school stuff so I tipped him big to help our relationship along. It will all come back to me. His price was a bit on the high side, but definitely worth it. It was $160 for both, excluding tip, which is high only because it only took an hour to do both. However he works really fast and the work is excellent, so he probably did 1 1/2 hours of high quality work in 1 hour's time. What I'm saying is it is totally worth it. When something is forever, cost becomes less of an issue. I probably shouldn't have spent the money, but I have had a really bad year, and not only do I feel I deserve it but it is sort of my Christmas present to myself. For those of you keeping track, I am now up to 11 tattoos for a total of approximately 9 hours of work. I am planning on getting something else sometime early next year. I already can't wait. When people used to tell me that tattoos were addictive, I thought they were crazy. Now I realize that they were 100% correct.

I also got a new, sweet Absolute Art t-shirt. They sold me the one off the wall because that was the only one left in a size small, now I get to wear something that was formerly decoration in my favorite tattoo shop. That is friggin' awesome.