I just have one tattoo, it was my turning-18-rite-of-passage. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it, because I didn't understand what the tattooist was asking when he suggested an alteration. The centre is a celtic knot, and he asked if he could change the "over-under" pattern. I thought he meant the whole thing, all of them, so I said yes. Turns out he meant over-over-under-over-under-under etc. And one of my pet peeves is when celtic art doesn't do it "properly" by following an alternating pattern. So I pretty much flipped out at him when it was done. He offered to change it, but I was too pissed at him and didn't trust him not to screw it up even worse.
I still get plenty of compliments on my tattoo, and it is otherwise very well done. But it was a valuable lesson about always making sure you understand what someone is asking you!!
Fortunately it's on my lower-back so I can't even see it with my naked eyes, and I don't frequently look at my back in the mirror. That was one of the reasons I got it there, so I would never get sick of it...
Piercings that I still have:
- stretched lobes x3 on each side... bottom is 5/8", middle is 2ga, top is 4ga... all done myself. Bottom took about 10 years to get up to that size. Had reached 7/8" and was on my way to 1" but my ears wouldn't accept the 1", kept getting way too painful, and then I was getting married so I didn't want them to be too extreme for the wedding. Then I bought some gorgeous 5/8 stylised eyelets and decided to just stay at that size foreva'
- tragus.
Piercings that I've let go (and the reasons):
- vertical industrial (got reeeally infected... ended up in the hospital for a week on 9 different kinds of antibiotics, 5 of which were intravenous... note to self: no Bactine for piercings. Anti-bacterial, EXCEPT for this one strain which apparently thrives in it, and was really hard to kill)
- eyebrow twice (grew out both times)
- septum stretched to 8ga (always made my nose stuffed up and got me sick a lot)
- vertical centre lip (was sinking in and hurt)
- labret (got caught on my teeth a lot)
- tongue stretched to 2ga [was pretty sweet] (always wacked my teeth and figured it was a matter of time before they chipped... didn't like how it made it too hard to lick the icing out of an Oreo!!)
- navel [I was the first kid in my high school to get one, in 1996!] (never healed properly even after 18 months)
- clit hood (made me too sensitive and was more annoying and distracting during sex than actually fun)
- upper ears x 2 (were pierced crooked by the hairdresser, finally just got sick of it)
- left nipple, vertical (barbell was too short, didn't realize that was the reason it was sore all the time until hindsight)
- left ear, mid-way between upper and lobes (lol, all my friends were doing it... omg, worst reason! was a band trip, we were all at this mall, someone found a shop that would pierce ears without parental consent... figured since I had a navel ring and eyebrow ring, it would just be WRONG if I didn't jump on the piercing-bandwagon!! I took it out after 4 hours because I realized that was stupid)
- I also had a failed lobe-piercing attempt when I was about 8. The jerk owner of this hair salon didn't know what he was doing and attempted 4 times but couldn't get it to work, kept taking out the earring. I was wailing by the time my mom forced him to stop. Created scar tissue that took about 10 years to work out, and eventually came out in this big disgusting lump during one of my stretching sessions.
.... I think that's it. So current piercing count: 7. Total piercing count: 21
I probably won't get any more. My piercer passed away a few years ago (
Jason Berezuk of Winnipeg), and when I tried getting a piercing at another place, I realized I hadn't coped with his suicide and it was really traumatic and emotional. Now I just have no real desire for any others. I would like another tattoo, but considering I keep changing my mind on what I want, I'm in no rush to go ahead with it...