On writing this post, I have five tatoos. I believe at least one is visible in my Author Photo on the about me page. Two, the black and grey blackberries on my left outer forearm, and the coloured lady Slipper and Rhododendron on my left ankle, are matching tattoos; with my closest cousin and dear friend/Social Media Manager respectively. I got both within the past two years and both have symbolic and sentimental significance. Both were done at my home tattoo shop, Strange Magic Tattoo in Lynnwood WA, by Rhiannon and Alicia respectively.
My other three tattoos are all on my right wrist. A red-haloed Sab symbol for The Other Option along my inner ulna, a smaller version of the tattoo Sab themselves has in story; a trio of brown paper parcels to represent The Herbalist horizontally along my radius, and a stylized black wolf with a gold eye, representing Avery for Scent of her Tormented Mind, wrapping around from my inner to outer wrist, crossing my radius. The Avery tattoo was designed by a lesbian visual artist friend of mine, Ari Carlson, who was one of the first fans of SohTM when I was still working on the first draft in 2022. All three were at least touched-up by Alicia at Strange Magic Tattoo, with Avery originally tattooed by an artist at a different non-wheelchair accessible shop. These three are the start of a patchwork sleeve I plan to build using vidual identifiers from my work. Every time I finish a manuscript to the point that I have at least a first draft of the whole book, I get a new tattoo. So if you see a new tat on my right arm that doesn’t match anything I’ve already published, look out, because there’s probably something in the works.
That’s all for now, but stay tuned, as I’m sure I’ll collect others over the years.
To me, body modifications are a great way to feel some control over a body that feels continually determined to undermine anything I set my mind to do. And yes, they hurt, but not nearly as much as neuropathy or a migraine. I sometimes twitch while I’m getting a tattoo but that’s got more to do with my chronic illnesses than anything else. Anyone who’s sat next to me for a good chunk of time will tell you I ttwitch all the time. I just twitch more when I’m getting poked with needles.
I look forward to the next four! I may or may not already have most of my forearm sleeve worked out in my head…