Tattoo catchemups, body piercing reunion

Last month I visited Nick at Unknown Tattoo in Snohomish for a little gap filler tattoo in the space left between the Garfield phone and clear '90s phone he previously did for me. I'm not sure if it's the exact model of pager I had in the late '90s, but if not, it's very close to it.



I think I got the pager in 1998 while I was working at the relay for the speech and hearing impaired. It was a call center type of job and we worked at terminals, which meant that those of us without pagers were basically impossible to reach all day. So a pager seemed like a good thing to have, but it was often pretty frustrating because I couldn't get my partner on the same "page" about how I wanted it to be used. I paid extra for voice mail and most people understood that if you used voice mail on someone's pager, it should be for a reason, because often people used a pay phone to check the message. So if I spent my last 35 cents just to listen to a message that said, "Hi honey, call me back," it was pretty frustrating, because I couldn't.

And of course if, like Stevie Wonder, he just called to say "I love you," but I used up the last of my change to hear it, it was as annoying as it was romantic. Most pager people understood the struggle and those who didn't have voice mail were able to force their loved ones into using codes instead, with 143 being the one for "I love you." It's the number of letters in each word, and the code was also commonly used by TTY users like the ones I served at my job at the time. But of course when I'd ask my partner to use a code instead of leaving a message he'd of course say, "I just thought you'd like to hear my voice."

Pagers aren't romantic.

Funnily enough, when I posted that image on Facebook, one of my college friends who I knew from working in the computer labs couldn't believe her eyes. Just two hours earlier, she found her old pager in a box that was the same model, only grey. And then our mutual friend who also worked with us showed us the one he still uses.

Something similar in size but from the '80s instead is one of my all-time favorite toys, Laserbeak from the Transformers. He was one of several cassettes that could fit inside Soundwave, who turned into a boombox. I've wanted a tattoo of him for years, and always planned a shoulder placement, much like the swallow or dove tattoos people get. But only on one side because my sleeve tattoo takes up a good portion of my left shoulder.

As with all of the Transformers, the cartoon lacked detail, so I took Nick my own photo of the amazing toy to use as a reference.



I'm not fond of the red color, so I decided that since cassettes are obsolete, Laserbeak is now one of the Constructicons and has their color scheme.



I had a different angle in mind but Nick's suggestion worked perfectly.



As I mentioned, I had to take a break from the YMCA for this tattoo, and I think it'll be a while before I get more because I'd like to be in the pool as much as possible. I might have gone back this week already, but due to another jump into '90s nostalgia, I'm not quite ready yet.

A few weeks ago I asked Ben the piercer to re-do the old piercings in my right ear, and it turned out they hadn't even closed! It was still a long, painful, tricky insertion getting the barbell in, but we did it. This is his photo that I snatched from Instagram, you can tell my ear's a little sore.



That got me wondering if my old guiche piercing was also still open. You've probably never heard of that piercing, which is through the perineum, and if you've never heard that word either, well, it's more commonly known as the "taint." The space between your genitals and anus. I hadn't had jewelry in mine for 25 years and was shocked to find I could slide an 8ga taper right in! I ordered some jewelry and put that in, then realized the diameter wasn't very comfortable, so I ordered some more. It's pretty sore, which isn't surprising, but I'm ready for that part to be done. Garrett picked me up an inflatable donut pillow while he was running errands, but it wasn't even on my office chair 2 hours before Tuvix chewed holes in it I couldn't repair. I got a nicer one that I'm sitting on right now. I'm glad I got it, because I'm supposed to drive to Bellingham on Friday assuming the blanket of snow we just got is gone. Please be gone.

Tattoo catchemups, body piercing reunion

Last month I visited Nick at Unknown Tattoo in Snohomish for a little gap filler tattoo in the space left between the Garfield phone and clear '90s phone he previously did for me. I'm not sure if it's the exact model of pager I had in the late '90s, but if not, it's very close to it.



I think I got the pager in 1998 while I was working at the relay for the speech and hearing impaired. It was a call center type of job and we worked at terminals, which meant that those of us without pagers were basically impossible to reach all day. So a pager seemed like a good thing to have, but it was often pretty frustrating because I couldn't get my partner on the same "page" about how I wanted it to be used. I paid extra for voice mail and most people understood that if you used voice mail on someone's pager, it should be for a reason, because often people used a pay phone to check the message. So if I spent my last 35 cents just to listen to a message that said, "Hi honey, call me back," it was pretty frustrating, because I couldn't.

And of course if, like Stevie Wonder, he just called to say "I love you," but I used up the last of my change to hear it, it was as annoying as it was romantic. Most pager people understood the struggle and those who didn't have voice mail were able to force their loved ones into using codes instead, with 143 being the one for "I love you." It's the number of letters in each word, and the code was also commonly used by TTY users like the ones I served at my job at the time. But of course when I'd ask my partner to use a code instead of leaving a message he'd of course say, "I just thought you'd like to hear my voice."

Pagers aren't romantic.

Funnily enough, when I posted that image on Facebook, one of my college friends who I knew from working in the computer labs couldn't believe her eyes. Just two hours earlier, she found her old pager in a box that was the same model, only grey. And then our mutual friend who also worked with us showed us the one he still uses.

Something similar in size but from the '80s instead is one of my all-time favorite toys, Laserbeak from the Transformers. He was one of several cassettes that could fit inside Soundwave, who turned into a boombox. I've wanted a tattoo of him for years, and always planned a shoulder placement, much like the swallow or dove tattoos people get. But only on one side because my sleeve tattoo takes up a good portion of my left shoulder.

As with all of the Transformers, the cartoon lacked detail, so I took Nick my own photo of the amazing toy to use as a reference.



I'm not fond of the red color, so I decided that since cassettes are obsolete, Laserbeak is now one of the Constructicons and has their color scheme.



I had a different angle in mind but Nick's suggestion worked perfectly.



As I mentioned, I had to take a break from the YMCA for this tattoo, and I think it'll be a while before I get more because I'd like to be in the pool as much as possible. I might have gone back this week already, but due to another jump into '90s nostalgia, I'm not quite ready yet.

A few weeks ago I asked Ben the piercer to re-do the old piercings in my right ear, and it turned out they hadn't even closed! It was still a long, painful, tricky insertion getting the barbell in, but we did it. This is his photo that I snatched from Instagram, you can tell my ear's a little sore.



That got me wondering if my old guiche piercing was also still open. You've probably never heard of that piercing, which is through the perineum, and if you've never heard that word either, well, it's more commonly known as the "taint." The space between your genitals and anus. I hadn't had jewelry in mine for 25 years and was shocked to find I could slide an 8ga taper right in! I ordered some jewelry and put that in, then realized the diameter wasn't very comfortable, so I ordered some more. It's pretty sore, which isn't surprising, but I'm ready for that part to be done. Garrett picked me up an inflatable donut pillow while he was running errands, but it wasn't even on my office chair 2 hours before Tuvix chewed holes in it I couldn't repair. I got a nicer one that I'm sitting on right now. I'm glad I got it, because I'm supposed to drive to Bellingham on Friday assuming the blanket of snow we just got is gone. Please be gone.