It really is, isn't it, Cashmere? I don't have the ink oost for myself, but I do love to look at it on other people.

The first character of your tattoo is the first character of my wife's name!

Cool! The top one or the bottom one? (The bottom is the oldest, but I know things are generally read top to bottom.)

And again, thanks to all y'all for the compliments. I had a moment of panic yesterday, thinking of the fact that I'm taking another step away from not being able to camouflage myself. And then it all went away. (the Perc no doubt helped, but whee!)

Cool! The top one or the bottom one? (The bottom is the oldest, but I know things are generally read top to bottom.)

The top one, 必. Or Bì, if you prefer. What made you choose it?

I just had the most fun night out with thessally and the friend that set me up with TCG. I didn't realize how much I was missing girls night out in my life since T moved. We ate too much food, I had a cosmopolitan, and we had a fun bitch session. Now it's time to buckle down and do my schoolwork, I suppose.

Course that could be cause you aren't wearing a bra and he's 12.

Well, she does have an incredibly lush and womanly body. Muy sexy!

Gorgeous tattoo. Really fine work.

Well, she does have an incredibly lush and womanly body. Muy sexy!

Am dyeing right now. Since I accidentally od'd my account $700, I figured I might as well use the box of hair dye I bought a week ago. Jesus. And I have been doing so well, and then...POW! Fiscal stupidity, right in the kisser.

Juliana, love the tat. Is it going to be all blackwork? All my back tats are blackwork; I like the contrast, since I have good, pale skin.

Also, when did I develop huge undereye circles, and these giant puffy line under my eyes? It crazy. I got some undereye concealer (Revlon) but despite my considerable makeup experience, it looks like crepey ass. Ugh. Any suggestions that don't involve $$? Or hey, that DO, since there's my fucking 35th bday in August to bring more lines, and possibly conpensatory cosmetics.

juliana , it looks lovely.

yay for grandpa, P-C

and just ask for what make sense. How close have you come to line? once, twice - just boost it by a few hundred dollars. Honestly, If you are that close to the line - call the CC and pay the money over the phone - 12 to 24 hours. or do it on line. If yo are coming close more frequently , ask for a greater boost. If they won't - switch to another credit card You have a good enough handle on money that you aren't going to rack up a lot of debt. When we got our mortgage - amount of trouble we could have gotten ourselves in did not seem to count that much . how we handled what we had was more important.

and umm... hi... it is time for me to think about bed. First I had a month of limited sleep. Now, I am falling asleep around ten, not moving 'til morning and feeling tired. This is stupid. I want to get back to going to bed at 11- sleeping well most nights until 'fuck, it is morning', but more or less be awake through out the day.

Damn. I seem to have colored my hair tonight. To the exact same color as my hair actually is. That was a wasted demi.

Plei, can I do another tomorrow? My hair tends to be in ridiculously good shape but I don't relish the idea of frying it just because I am annoyed.

I mean, I don't even know how different I wanted my hair but the *same* color? Why?

eta: In better hair news? I bumped my appointment to get it cut up a couple of hours because race cars will be zooming in a practice way next week and so I can go see them with shiny new hair. Cars appreciate good hair, I think.

If it weren't so terribly shaggy right now, I would have rescheduled entirely but I am kinda craving the scissors. Just so long as I still can go see vroomy cars.

Man, Juliana, that's gorgeous. I mean, it sounded nice from the description - cool theme - but it's WAY more lovely than the picture I'd vaguely conjured up.

I've been perusing the Tattoo magazines and, by George, there are a lot of ugly tattoos in the world. And some really stunningly gorgeous ones. I'm hoping my own will fall into the latter category - Juliana's most certainly does. Lovely.

So last night I bought a sketch pad and a gazillion coloured pencils and went looking for photos of peacock feathers on Google. Then I copied one. Then I fiddled with it a bit. Then today I went to the Tattoo Parlour, talked to the nice lady, showed her my design and made an appointment to get it rendered in ink. I'm going for all colour, no outline, as naturalistic and non-stylised as possible. I'd braced myself for paying up to 300 quid, with it being a great big picture in a gazillion colours, and I can just about afford this, and that's what she quoted me - 15,000 - 18,000 baht, which is about 270-300 quid. She says we should be able to get it all done in one day, over two sessions. She also says, with me never having had any tattoos before and deciding to pop my cherry with a honking great back piece that goes from my right shoulder to my left hip, that I should go out and buy a local anaesthetic cream, to minimize the screaming. This is good, as I'd been kind of expecting to have to bite on a bit of wood, or my knuckles, or something. The chap she was working on at the time had been using this stuff, and he wasn't screaming. ('Course, he may have been wincing in manly pain, but I couldn't see 'cause he was in the next room.)

I am a total pussy when it comes to pain tolerance. Wuss wuss wuss. So this isn't my cleverest idea ever, and I am MOST IMPRESSED by Juliana's cojones. But yay for pain reducing cream stuff. (I'll still likely be screaming and biting things, but a bit less so than otherwise.)

Holy cow! 12 noon on May 12th I'll be getting my body permanently changed. Blimey.

I think that this is a good thing, because mostly I just really don't like my body and try to ignore it. But prettifying it in a way I find thoroughly cool and meaningful may just encourage me to get my wobbly arse back down to the gym, in a 'hey, I like my body after all!' kinda way - and the nature of the design is such that I think it will be fairly forgiving of any shifts in body shape.

VERY EXCITED!!!!

(I am not getting a tattoo in the supposition it will make me suddenly go back to the gym, obviously. But it does mark a bit of a paradigm shift for me.)

ion, my Mum will be horrified. As and when she eventually finds out about it, I hope that maybe she likes the design, though.