Tattoo you

I've been thinking a lot about tattoos lately. It seems like it's time to get something done (it's been a year since I had Sweeney put on my arm). I've got a rough design in mind but need to work on it some to get it to a refined enough state so that my tattoo artist can sketch it out for me.

I'm not sure what it is about tattoos and being tattooed. I like the artistic side of tattooing so I enjoy seeing the artists interpretation of an idea. I like the idea of wearing a piece of art on your body. I enjoy the process of being tattooed, it sort of becomes this zen moment. The buzz of the machine combined with the rhythm of the needle against skin puts me in some sort of a meditative state.

There's still a lot of stigma that goes along with being heavily tatooed. But as Marisa DiMattia explains, tattoos are becoming more high brow.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I've still got a few images of dogs I want done. Those will probably be realistic with little creative (beyond the photos Dan took ). So what I'm looking for now will be a little more creative and allow for more artistic interpretation.

On another subject, my good friend Beth Alley is in the hospital right now recovering from brain surgery. She was having some strange symptoms for a while and finally went in to the doctor and had an MRI. They found a tumor in her forehead about the size of a golf ball. She was immediately sent to the hospital for further tests and diagnoses. A neurologist did some more tests and looked at the MRI and decided that the tumor needed to come out immediately. So she had surgery yesterday morning to remove what turned out to be a grapefruit size tumor from her brain. The surgeon is confident he got the entire tumor and that she'll recover well. Please keep Beth in your thoughts and prayers. She's still in ICU so won't be able to receive visitors for a while and can't have gifts at the hospital. I hope and pray that she bounces back from this in typical Alley fashion.