Tit for Tats.

Look. I know what you are probably thinking: girls with tattoos are in the same league as girls who wear their thong above the waist of their low-slung skinny jeans. The same league as those girls who own patent white stilettos, but not in an appropriate, ironic, Like A Virgin way. The same league as that chick in the second year of university who gives hand-jobs to the graduating class in the same way that 'nice girls' hand out signed memory books with pictures of that lovely picnic they took by the river when OHMYGOD they all sooooo totally went swimming IN THEIR UNDERWEAR. It was wild! Don't tell anyone though! Girls with tattoos have ruined the perfection of their female form, grafittied God's work, tried too hard to be noticed.

Well. Sod that for a tuna sandwich. I got one.

I'd thought about it for a really long time. And for a really long time I thought to myself how I won't just wake up one day and be 80 and wrinkled and full of tattooed regrets. Well. Maybe there'll be the one tattooed regret whose name I don't remember but whom I DEFINITELY mustn't forget to avoid if I am ever in Newcastle again. I thought how my life is a journey, and my body it's map, and that if 80 is my destination I don't think I'll mind a few reminders of places visited and sights seen and thoughts had. Maybe. Hopefully.

But I won't lie. It did hurt a little. A teeny, tiny little bit. It sort of felt like a big hot needle was piercing my skin over and over again. Yeah. About that. But I've had more painful dentist appointments, and more painful doctor's appointments too. And there was the pain I once suffered after a tanning session, let's not forget. And the man with the gun was really very accommodating.

"But what about job interviews and stuff?" my friend asked me. When I told Mama that only one person had raised that as an issue issue, she laughed. "By the time you get a job," she told me, "I should think it will have faded." THANKS MAMA. Not long after she also mentioned how she had pretty much written me and responsibility off until I was 30. I love being back in the bosom of my supportive family.

If you turn your head ninety degrees anti-clockwise you'll see that it says 'si'- 'yes' in Italian. It is to remind me to say yes to life, because often, when you do that, life says yes right back to you. Good things can happen. And if they don't. Well. You might get a blog post about the time you thought buffalo burgers were made from chicken, or how you wore a see-through dress out in public and showed the world you cellulite-ridden arse. WHAT FUN. 

And it is written in Italian because I found out so much about myself out there, last summer, when, on leaving my pride and dignity in my suitcase, amongst the snotty noses and linguistic misunderstandings and many, MANY glasses of Prosecco I learned that actually, trying to be perfect is a lot less fun than being wild and taking chances and keeping an open heart and an open mind even when your heart might be in a million pieces. Saying yes to life landed me in the States for a little while (did I mentioned that...?), and I wanted to punctuate my time there. I don't know whether the tattoo is an exclamation point or a semi-colon or simply a comma on my journey but it is there for me to see everyday. My heart is in about six pieces right now. So I will keep saying yes even beyond it being whole. See that cute Brunette in the striped shirt over by the bar? I'LL START BY SAYING YES TO THAT.

There is one no, though. No, I hadn't noticed how cute the tattoo artist was. Never even crossed my mind. No, no, most certainly not. No.