Today is my off-day for blogging, but I want to keep the momentum going. So, I thought I’d do something light today–a list of seven things you may not know about me in no particular order.
- I have four tattoos. I’ve been fascinated with tattoos for over twenty years. I thought hard about getting one when I was in my early twenties, then rushed out to get one at midnight with my best friend. Big mistake. The only place open was being manned by the nephew of the owner–who was still in the training process. In addition, I’m keloid, which means I scar twice as badly as most people do. Needless to say, the result was terrible, and I spent a year or two being ashamed of my scarred, puffy, faded yin-yang in a sun tattoo. It was on my left breast, so it wasn’t always easy to hide. The next time I got the urged to get inked, I did my research and ended up with a fantastic tattooist–Ben. He did a small tattoo of Kali (a representation of her, made of flames) right above my belly, and it made me happy every time I saw it. I returned to him to see if he could cover up the mistake on my boob. I wanted a woman in the tree of life, and he drew it, but said it wouldn’t really work. We talked it out, and came up with a lotus blossom engulfed in fire. My first tattoo was a tattoo; this was a piece. It took four hours for him to do, and I was ecstatic once he was done. I had my third tattoo done by someone else while I was living in the East Bay, and it’s a bracelet of flames on my left forearm. My fourth tattoo was done by Ben, and it’s a ring of waves/flames on my upper right arm with a yin-yang pendant in the middle of it. I got all these done before tattoos became a thing,* and I had more than one person asking me if I wasn’t worried that I’d regret them when I got older. It’s been a decade and a half since I got my last one, and I don’t regret it one bit.
- I love ’80s hair metal bands, especially their power ballads. Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Winger, Europe, White Lion, Warrant, Poison, etc., that was my fucking jam. I joke that this is my guilty pleasure, but I don’t feel that guilty about it. I know I have terrible taste in music, and it’s something I long ago decided to embrace. I saw Bon Jovi and Cinderella in concert, which was fucking amazing, and I’d go see them again in a heartbeat if they toured together again.