Blogging From A to Z Challenge: Tattoos

Edited 7/14/12: I somehow managed to lose the pictures for this post and will have to take more pictures of my tattoos. Until then, just use your imagination.

Today's Blogging From A to Z Challenge post is brought to you by the letter T, for tattoos! Yay!

My pictures aren't great quality but nearly all my tattoos are in kinda awkward places to photograph. Like my shoulder blades, so I had to use my webcam to get those. And my right wrist. Do you know how hard it is to take hold the camera and take a picture with just your left hand? Anyways.

So my tattoos mean something to me. They aren't fashionable or hardcore. No tribal bands or tramp stamps for me. I don't get tattoos to fit in or stand out. I get them for me. So in chronological order here they are...

I got this one a week after my 18th birthday (2001). A fluffy little panda hiding behind a rock on my right shoulder blade. Originally I picked it because it was a cute panda photo; I never realized that the hiding panda could also symbolically be me. Hm. Maybe there was some deep unconscious meaning there.

Awww. Another panda tattoo; this time on my left shoulder blade. Got this when I was 20 (2003). I knew I wanted more tattoos and found this picture. Sweet little fluffy pandas.

Then I went several years without a new tattoo. I couldn't decide what I wanted. I have this policy. I find the picture I want and put it in a place that I see every day. Then after 6 months, if I still want that tattoo, I allow myself to get it. So it took me a long time to find one. I got this in the fall of 2007. This wraps all the way around my left calf. It's the inscription from the Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in mirrored script. You would have to hold a mirror up to my leg to read it. If you're not familiar it says "I show not your face but your heart's desire." Actually, there's a mistake in my tattoo. One of the yours is written yourr. It was an honest accident and I didn't even realize it until several weeks after I had gotten it so it doesn't bother me. This was always meant to have vines and scrolls around it making it even harder to see the words, but I never got around to it. Maybe someday.

I got this one in the spring of 2008. It's a golden snitch on the inside of my right wrist. I was going through sort of an identity crisis, not sure where I fit in, who I was, who I wanted to be, and the snitch was (and still is) very symbolic for me. A friend drew this for me and her husband did the tattoo (he also did the leg tattoo). I put this where it is because I wanted to see it often and even though this is the most visible of all my tattoos it's the least noticed by other people. Usually, they don't realize it's there. And when they do, every single person asks the exact same thing "Is that real?" A friend told me once that it's because the color just fades into my skin. I usually have some degree of a tan and the yellow, orange and red don't stand out like a dark colored ink does.

Well there you have it. My tattoos. I have ideas for more, but right now, they aren't a priority and I'm not sure where I'd put them. Will I get them someday? Don't know. We'll see. I'm happy with the ink I have.