Your Epidermis is Showing

Well. Hello, hello. It's been a while, hasn't it? I admit I've been remiss in my duties as a blogger and half-assed entertainer. I have only my inherited procrastination and laziness to blame. Plus, I've never really been to the type to do something regularly for any length of time, my activities tend to be sporadic and frenzied, at best. Have I mentioned how hard it's been for me to get back into a regular writing pattern since I quit smoking three and a half years ago? I didn't? Well, quitting really fucked me up in the writing department. I never crave cigarettes anymore, but sometimes when I'm writing and hit a wall, wondering how best to organize my thoughts onto a page, I think of how wonderful it would be to just go outside and have a cigarette while I reorganize my scattered brain and try to make sense of my ramblings. Yes, writing may just drive me to smoking. But I doubt it because the last time I tried to have a cigarette (a mere three days after quitting cold turkey), it made me extremely lightheaded and nauseous....

For anyone who doesn't know, I'm emetophobic. Look it up.

Now that you're scared of me, let's talk about what's going on in my life. I originally intended this blog to be a place for me to vent about the awful books I subject myself to, but honestly, it won't contain much if that's all I write about. I love reading, but sometimes go months without reading even a single short story. As I stated earlier, my habits are manic. So I've decided this blog will be about whatever the fuck I want it to be about at the time, and you can just deal with it. Or not. I'm not holding a gun to your head.

My most recent adventures included a three week stint housesitting for my in-laws. The lucky bastards went to Hawaii for three weeks, managing to avoid the worst of what old man winter has thrown at Michigan this year. My husband and I live in a house with our son, my parents, two of my brothers, a cat, and four dogs. It's packed. So while I call my in-laws lucky bastards, I felt pretty lucky myself to get a three week vacation from the claustrophobia-incuding clusterfuck in which I live. Granted, I was taking care of two dogs and two cats, but it was just my husband and me, and we had a huge stone shower to clean ourselves in.

If I accomplish only one thing in my life, it will be to have a stone shower of my own one day.

Now let's talk about my latest adventure; my first tattoo. I've wanted a tattoo since I was probably 15 or so, but life happened. I got pregnant at 17, the anxiety really kicked in, and I spent the first two years of adulthood and most of my twenties in a state of perpetual anxiety. I barely left the house, much less town, so you can imagine that driving to another city to have my skin carved up with ink was something I was not pulling at the bit to get done. But I've been through a lot the last few years. My anxiety has lessened, I've learned how to better cope with the anxiety that's still there, and I've undergone things that I wouldn't have been able to do even three years ago. At least, not without ending up in a straight jacket. I even went to the dentist this last Halloween, had two teeth pulled, and took a round of antibiotics for a week and a half afterwards. Yes, I'm terrified of the dentist and antibiotics. Well, not so much anymore....in regards to antibiotics, anyway. I still fucking hate dentists. I mean, who the hell decides that their life's passion is to stick their fingers in other people's mouths all day long? It's not natural. Now I know that a lot of people don't necessarily have the most positive views regarding tattoo artists. I think they often get a bad rep, what with people thinking they all walk around like this:

But really, they're just artists. Artists like me, only with way more talent with drawing and dealing with blood and people who hyperventilate. If you think about it, being a tattoo artist is like several jobs in one; therapist, nurse, artist....hell, I can't imagine trying to go out and take picture while someone's bleeding and crying all over me. That would be ridiculous. So props to the tattoo artists of the world.

What am I going to have tattooed, you ask? Something that means a lot to me.

Given all that I've been through, a tattoo only seems natural. I'm taking control of my life, learning to refuse to live in fear, and showing the world that I have brass labia. I'm hoping I can get my husband to document the entire thing via my cell phone so I can share my experience with anyone who wishes to witness it. Tomorrow I will be Superwoman!







Help me, I'm scared.