tatTO-DO

i've been completely obsessed with tattoos lately. if you've read my previous posts, you'd know i currently have 5. all of mine so far are solid black, simple, and script (in some form or another).

"pure" in chinese - done at yonge street tattoos, toronto

"horse, dragon, monkey, love, forever" in chinese - done at yonge street tattoos, toronto

weezer's "flying w" - done at love/hate tattoos in miami

song lyrics - done at zink tattoos in hong kong

book/movie tribute and symbol of friendship - done at art addictions in brampton

but i have high aspirations. there are many more i want to get. among those are still the lotus idea i mentioned before i've had for years. if dreams come true, i would love for chris garver to do that for me. i don't know how likely it would be for us to go back to miami again. *fingers crossed* if not, whoever the tattoo artist ends up being, he or she has got to be good! the symbolism of it really strikes a chord with me. the idea of growing up through shit to become strong and beautiful. it's a nice idea. something i'd like to achieve. i've held off on getting it because i don't feel i'm "there" yet. and also, i'm really picky. i have a million ideas about how i want it to look. 

i'd also like something to take up my upper arm and shoulder, curling onto my back. i was thinking a phoenix. that is also highly symbolic. i don't deserve it yet. so it's still just an idea.

i do have something with more of a solid plan that i'm ready for. i won't go into detail about it now because i'm sure once i do it, i'll write something about it. i want a few soot sprites from my neighbor totoro behind my ear.

you may or may not realize that i'm in love with cupcakes. i think it would be fun to have a tattoo that is colourful and cute without having much depth to the meaning. not everything has to be so serious.

just an idea

tattoo #5

i'm sure you realize by now i'm a bit of a twilight fan. 
okay... "bit" might be downplaying it a little. a lot. whatever.
yeah. completely obsessed? fine. whatever you say.
so, it's only natural i should get ink to proclaim my love, right? (just agree. twihards can't be argued with.)

as with all my tattoos, i thought about what i wanted for a long time. and, like how most of the other ones happened, the timing on finally getting it was completely on a whim.

the original plan was to get it done with my twilight buddies when we were visiting "the holy land" (forks, wa) this past september. it would have been PERFECT. alas, there was no time.
but, like all my others, the timing and situation of actually placing ink to body is just as important as the tattoo itself.

last year sometime, a few school friends and i started planning this epic twilight marathon during which i was to initiate a twi-virgin into my world. (he heard me speak of my love day after day and thought maybe he should check them out to see what is so great about them.) this day was finally nailed down to wednesday. it was all arranged. the four of us who spent all our time in school together were going to sit down and watch as much of the 5 movies as they could handle in one sitting. the problem? he, twi-virgin boy, was sick and missed the whole day. (the other 2 girls still came over though.) so instead of watching the movies allllll day, we went out to get food. while out, one of them thought that should be the day she finally got her tragis pierced after chickening out 5 times already.

 

to bolster her resolve, i said i'd do mine too. or, if she preferred, i'd get a tattoo. they both LOVED that idea. so off we went to art addictions in the brampton mall. (then we went back to my house and watched the first two movies before they crapped out on me. J)

as for the meaning behind the actual tattoo, it's the very last word in the last book of the twilight series. (the font is actually taken directly from a screenshot of my ebook.) it's also the tag line of the last movie. the words from the book actually make an on-screen appearance and start off a (very touching) farewell montage. subsequently, forever (with a period) became iconic for the fandom.

apart from my twilight fixation, it is also serving as a reminder for me to not be so cynical. some things can last. or so i really want to believe.




forever. on my inner right wrist.

edward's bd2 forever promo poster

newest tattoo

while i was in hong kong, i got another tattoo. this makes 4 (which will have to be remedied soon!). i was if-y about sharing it with anyone because, as most tattoos generally are, it's personal, and i don't think that comes across without explanation. and who wants to be explaining all the time ~ if anyone even bothers to ask without judging first.
but, whatever, i did it for me. no one else. if you are wondering though, here is as much as i feel like sharing with you:

i got four words (actually five... but... who cares). they are song lyrics. the words are "distant, disconnected, far away, unaffected". the lyrics are by sam bradley from his song "the man you need". the reason they are personally significant to me don't really have too much to do with the actual meaning of the song. well, a bit...
the song is from the point of view of someone in a relationship who feels he will never be what the other person needs but they are together because they love each other anyway. so... there's that, which does fit.
but i chose these exact words as a reminder to myself. you may or may not know the struggles i've had with depression and related crap in my life. i lived for at least a decade with my head in a fog and just coasting through everything. existing, not living. i was behaving as though those words were my mantra. more recently, i've decided that's no way to be. i've been trying to make changes. be more present, be a better friend, wife, sister, and person in general.
the font is important too. i got the most important people in my life to each write a word. they each represent the side of me i want to change. "distant" was written by hubby. that he was first was no mistake. he is the most important person to me. my most important person. also, i had distanced myself from him for too long. i almost lost him. things are not yet perfect but we're working on it.
"disconnected" was written by my sister. i love my sister more than anything but there has always been a disconnect between us that i hate and want to work towards being closer.
"far away" was written by nephie (and helped by my niece). they represent family as a whole (as well as children in general ~ the children i may teach and the children i don't yet have). i live very far from my extended family. and i haven't taken the time to keep them in my life as i should. we all know how important family is ~ no need to go over that. i've taken my family for granted. that should never happen.
the final word, "unaffected" was written by my longtime, very good friend. she has always been there for me, even though i've never deserved it. over the years, i've been a terrible friend. i lost most of the friends i used to have due to my behaviour. i've acted like my friends meant nothing to me and losing them or missing out on important things in their lives didn't affect me. it's easier sometimes to pretend that you don't care rather than face reality, admit mistakes, and ask for forgiveness. i always want to be the kind of friend that she has been to me.

maybe having this inked permanently on my ribs where i will see it everyday will help me be the person i want to be.

oh, and i did it in hong kong to serve as a commemoration of my trip and to act as a turning point in my life. also, sam bradley lived in hong kong for three years as a young child ~ like the age of the ones i was just there teaching, which is kinda cool.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it was done by zac at zink tattoos in tsim sha tsui, hong kong.

here's the song. it's my favourite. sam is awesome.

my NEXT next tattoo

i thought i should update my previous post about my tattoos. i did actually get that tattoo i mentioned and in the exact manner i described.
                                
i did it again spontaneously. it happened almost the same way the first one did. at the same place too. yonge street tattoos in toronto. it was just over a year ago. i was downtown with a friend (different friend this time though) and we walked past and i said i wanted to go in to ask how much it would cost for that approximate tat. turned out i would just get it done right then and there. it was kind of dumb that i did it that way though because i obviously didn't have a reference material with me. so it's in my own writing. but, in a way, that's kind of cool. it has a few "glitches" in it which i meant to go get touched up but as i said, it's been over a year now.
even though i really thought out the placement and everything, i still think this one ended up a little lower than i'd like. oh well~ it's still pretty cool, i think!

i already have my next planned out! if you know anything about me, you know i'm a huge weezer fan ~ so what better than the flying w?!


if not just the =w=, then i would combine it somehow with this little guy from the pinkerton cover (and famous woodblock print "kambara yoru no yuki" by hiroshige) to add a little originality. or maybe the 2 separately? who knows. i do know i want the =w= on my inner wrist but i was thinking the guy could go on my ankle or something. more planning neccessary.


another idea i had was getting the torii on my ankle. just a small one, only like an inch square. every tattoo means something or marks some milestone, right? so this would be my reward for finally going to japan~



hubby actually took this picture.
it's before the entrance to fushimi inari taisha.

i mentioned in the other post that i was thinking about getting the kanji for loyalty as a tramp stamp. i think i've got enough kanji for now! i used to be a big fan of miami ink and chris garver's work. i thought it would be awesome if jay and i could take a trip down there and get him to do an artful piece for me. i like the symbolism of the lotus. you know~ beauty growing out of crap. i thought i would like a realistic style lotus with a stem with a greenish black quagmire (i mean cess pool... idk if quagmire is the right word... i just thought it would be my only opportunity to use it in a sentence!) swirling around the stem. but, i promised myself i would rise above my shortcomings before doing it. or else the symbolism is lost. it'll be my reward. i'm almost there~

                                            

tech savy-less

Apparently something is wrong with my website so I can't put up the picture of the loyalty character but when it's working, I will. (it used to be that a picture had to be online in order for you to embed it within a blogger posting but they changed that quite some time ago so that you can just upload it from your pc ~ good thing too now that geocities is gone and i no longer have a website!)

                                            
p.s. The reason I want "loyalty" tattooed to my body is that it is a very important virtue to me. I consider myself to be a very loyal friend/girlfriend/sibling, etc. It's something I expect and require of all the people I consider to be my best-whatevers.

bored

Oh, God, I love tea! Although, the date on the milk was the 12th. I should be okay, right? Well, we'll soon find out. I hate cankers! I've discovered that the only way for me to combat a canker is with hot tea. Voila!

I'm sitting here at the computer, wearing my insanely comfortable pucca slippers and a ratty old chixdiggit sweatshirt that USED to be black but is now a dingy charcoal with bleach stains on it (not from me), on my first day off in what seems like months (due to the drama surrounding the situation with a coworker who shall remain nameless to protect her privacy and little sanity left to her), but in actuality is only a week. Whilst perusing through my very long list of "links to check out thorougly before deleting" - otherwise known as "favourites", I thought to myself "why am I wasting my time reading through people's blogs that I don't know and aren't very interesting anyway when I haven't added a THING to my own blog in ages?". So, here I am. I don't really have anything to do on this glorious day off. I'm just doing some laundry and intend on cleaning the apartment.

What's new? Hmmmm.... I bought my wedding dress. Ssshhh! Don't tell Jay! It's actually what I plan to wear if we don't happen to have the big budget ceremony of my dreams with my custom wedding dress that I designed myself. This one I bought was on $79 (plus tax) and would work quite nicely if we do the simple civil service and if I lose 10 pounds or several inches off my waist. It's a white chinese dress. I didn't think they actually existed without the black or silver or gold through the embroidery! It's nice too. It has the simple cherry blossom embroidery pattern on it. Geena and I came across another one but the pattern was very heavy and it had pink piping all around it. Uck.

Anywho, I had seen this dress, like, a year ago and had been thinking about it ever since. It was at a store on Yonge Street that I frequent (because they have lots of cool asian gifties and "things" - incidentally the name of the store). I hadn't been back for awhile - obviously. Geena and I were downtown and we were heading up Yonge for bubble tea. It was SO freaking humid that I had to stop at least once a block to go into an air-conditioned space. It was on the way so I thought I'd stop in just to see if they still had it. YAY! Crazy asian sizing though. I can JUST squeeze into the large. As I said I'll have to lose quite a bit before it fits properly which I should do anyway. I would've bought the extra-large but I think it would've been too loose in the shoulders. The problem areas at the moment are the tummy (duh) and the chest. Ten years ago, if you had told me that I wouldn't fit into a large size dress because my boobs would be too big, I'd have laughed in your face! And so would everyone who knew me...

I'm really into the idea of getting another (or more) tattoos latley. Partly because my sister brought up the idea of us getting matching tattoos and partly because I watched an episode of Miami Ink and now it's my new favourite show. I've been thinking about several different things I'd like. There is of course my marriage tattoo which I have to wait until Jay and I get married to get. But it's not in the running for now cause who knows when (or if) we'll even get married. I think that if Katie wants matching tattoos, she should get the one I already have (cause Katie means "pure" too) and I could get another one. We could do it together for the 'bonding' experience. I'd like for her to come here around the time of her birthday but she has school. Maybe one day.

I've looked up quite a few things I'd like. Mostly more Chinese characters and I'm leaning most towards loyalty. I'd like it not just to be the basic black tattoo on white skin though. I want to design it a little more. Here's what it looks like.


I think for that one, I'd like to get it on my lower back just above my pant line. My current tattoo isn't visible - it's too low. And I'd like it to be bigger than my existing. (My marriage tattoo has a reserved spot. I want it running vertically from the middle of my neck on my right side to however far down it goes. I don't want it big though.)

A few other things I've thought about are a koi fish in the traditional intricate japanese design, two monkeys (twins-gemini and year of the monkey), and - just last night on an episode of Miami Ink, a girl was getting a lotus and said the symbolism behind a lotus is that it grows up from the murkiest of ponds and stuff - I thought that would be cool - kind of like a flower that grows up to be beautiful after going through a really hard time and being trapped in a dark, murky place. The only problem with that is that I don't feel I've overcome enough for it to hold true for me yet. It's an idea that I'll hold onto for when I feel like I have triumphed.

Jay's in Edmonton and has been since last Wednesday. I miss him a lot. He's home tomorrow night though. YAY! If I keep up with my blogging, I'll be able to post some pictures too. (He has the camera with him right now so I have nothing to post.)

11.08.13 note~ i forgot about this post and said almost the exact same thing about the lotus tattoo in a post today. oops.
i did end up getting a real wedding dress and i cut up the one i bought that day (!!!) and used it along with a black and red mandarin shirt i had to make my guest book and ring bearer pillow.
i'm also sad to say the store "things" closed down a few years ago. boo~

handmade guestbook for my wedding

ring bearer pillow - made from that dress and another shirt

My NEXT tattoo

My first, and only, tattoo is pictured on the left. It's "pure" in Chinese. Karen means pure so I thought it would be appropriate.
Eventually, I'm going to get another one. After Jay and I get married though.
                           
It says "dragon" (Jay's sign) "monkey" (my sign) "horse" (Jay's last name - which once we're married - mine) "love" and "forever". I don't know where I want it yet. Probably on my shoulder closer to my neck and running vertically instead.

I also want to get "loyalty" on my lower back (where Geena has her tattoo - good spot).

                                           

My first one was done spontaneously and I didn't think about the placement carefully enough. It's too low.

Okay. NOW I'm going to bed!