it sort of hurt, but now it feels pretty good

check it outtttt! i ended up going with the bamboo tattoo, not the machine tattoo. maddy got hers first (i'm sure she'll put a picture here soon) by this little guy appropriately named mr. noy ("little" in thai). after she was done, i asked him if he did machine tattoos (yes) and showed him my design, penned by a girl in one of my favorite 11th grade classes.

"oh, i can do that in bamboo."
"really? no way. i don't believe you."

i quizzed him endlessly on bamboo tattoos (would he be able to do all the detail? the shading? how would it fade over time? with this last question, i proceeded to look at/question all the tattoos on half his body, and the whole group of us pointed to pictures of flower tattoos around the room to ask if they were bamboo or machine.) noy was ultra confident in the bamboo. it wouldn't fade--if it did, he would fly to california and re-do it for me. he could easily do the shading and detail--in fact, it might even be easier because you can go slower with bamboo, so you can get all the nitty gritty nookes  and crannies.

i slept on it and decided YES bamboo tattoo, that's it. we all went in on saturday (tattooing is a social affair) and the place was popping. two adorable children were mobbing around, everyone was hanging out in the tiny tattoo place, pets were running around outside--in short, it was loud and semi-crazy and an excellent distraction for a person getting a tattoo. he put the outline on my body and i laid down and noy got to work.

re: the pain--hurty. you know those hooks they use for fishing? the ones shaped sort of like arrows that go in really easily but are really hard to pull out? that's sort of what it felt like, except on a really small scale. i got used to it after a while, but it's bizarre how hyper aware i was of that one little spot on my body. i could tell exactly when he was on a rib--ow ow ow--and when he moved more toward my fatty boob--pain, not so bad.

as he had promised on friday, it only took half an hour of poking and then i was done. the neat thing about bamboo tattoos is that they affect the skin differently (hence the reason i think they fade differently) and you don't get any bleeding/scarring that you get with a machine tattoo. just a couple hours after, i could go swimming and kick it in the sun and basically do everything i could ever want, no bandage on the tat or anything.

i'm so incredibly happy with the tat. tattoo virginity: lost with no regrets.