I have recently been chatting to a tattoo artist about some work I’m keen about, a cover-up of a less than wonderful piece I had done as an even less than scrupulous youth. I’ll cut what could be a very long, BME-esque, 5000 word essay, somewhat short, to this: In order to do the cover up and do it well, the piece will need to be big.
[tattooist] Mmm . . . about eighteen hours, umm . . . three sessions should do it.
Time froze and my limited mathematical capabilities seemed to freeze with it, might as well have asked me to work out the period of a sine curve at 420 hertz, then commit it to an algebraic formula while spinning plates crossing a high wire. But back to the point; When I had stood there with a puzzled look, far longer than dignity allowed, the kindly tattooist put me out of my misery.
[tattooist] That’s three, six hour sessions.
Now this isn’t a way of patting myself on the back for how ‘fuckin hardcore, yeah!!!’ I am. I am absolutely terrified. I am neither as gung-ho, nor as bloody minded as I used to be about how much pain I am happy to cause myself. I no longer need pain to feel alive, I have my basil plant for that. So when I turn up for the dreaded ‘afternoon session’ do I flap on in, full tilt, “ohmygodohmygod”. Or do I step back, look at it logically, and decide that panicking won’t make it hurt any less, jumping up and down won’t make it go any quicker and that countless people have been in this same chair, doing the same thing and are all out there now, still very much alive and happy. Oh, and I have paid money to be here!
So do I feel pain less than my customers? Are their piercings more painful than any I have ever had? Am I shooting myself in the foot if I say no? I am not unsympathetic, I just try and approach things as logically as I can. Seems to have worked well so far . . .
[tattooist] Mmm . . . about eighteen hours, umm . . . three sessions should do it.
Time froze and my limited mathematical capabilities seemed to freeze with it, might as well have asked me to work out the period of a sine curve at 420 hertz, then commit it to an algebraic formula while spinning plates crossing a high wire. But back to the point; When I had stood there with a puzzled look, far longer than dignity allowed, the kindly tattooist put me out of my misery.
[tattooist] That’s three, six hour sessions.
Now this isn’t a way of patting myself on the back for how ‘fuckin hardcore, yeah!!!’ I am. I am absolutely terrified. I am neither as gung-ho, nor as bloody minded as I used to be about how much pain I am happy to cause myself. I no longer need pain to feel alive, I have my basil plant for that. So when I turn up for the dreaded ‘afternoon session’ do I flap on in, full tilt, “ohmygodohmygod”. Or do I step back, look at it logically, and decide that panicking won’t make it hurt any less, jumping up and down won’t make it go any quicker and that countless people have been in this same chair, doing the same thing and are all out there now, still very much alive and happy. Oh, and I have paid money to be here!
So do I feel pain less than my customers? Are their piercings more painful than any I have ever had? Am I shooting myself in the foot if I say no? I am not unsympathetic, I just try and approach things as logically as I can. Seems to have worked well so far . . .
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