twenty-four
Nov. 27th, 2015 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieI put out bread and milk for the brownies before bed, and am surprised as hell when it's still there in the morning. If they haven't eaten it - and sometimes they don't because they just don't like what I've put out for them, as I discover when my car won't start or all my tomato stakes have been pushed over - raccoons or chipmunks or the cat who lives down the street usually do. I don't know the last time there was still bread in the bowl in the morning. I don't know what it means, but my car starts and I don't notice any problems with anything in the house or anything missing, so I put it out of my mind.
I don't think Kay needs to be at the studio today and he wants to be left alone anyway, so I leave him to his own devices and go off to run errands and surprise Maggie at work and, on a whim, drop by the art store I like to see if they have any new and exciting watercolors. I should get back into painting more. I don't feel as if I've had time lately, when in fact if I added up the random free hours in a day I probably do. I just need to schedule myself better. I need to maybe take a day off.
Art supply stores are always tempting, and even when I was just out of college and had to support myself with practically nothing, I never walked in one without walking out with something. I wonder briefly if Kay has any interesting drawing or painting, if it's just tattoos he doesn't want to do or art in general. I realize I have enough pens and paints at home that if he wants to start painting, he can just use what I already own until he knows it's something he wants to do.
On the other hand, if I buy him some brushes and acrylic paints and a few little canvases, and he decides it's not his thing, I can always use them myself. I'm more interested in watercolors these days, but acrylic paints are going to be useful for someone. I could give them to Maya or Kona, probably.
I walk out of the art supply with just a pad of watercolor paper and a handful of markers for the studio, and congratulate myself on my restraint. I even have exact change in my wallet, which never happens.
I get some doughnuts for the studio, fill my car with gas, and cruise through town towards work. When I get there, there's already a message from me – Kay, telling me we're almost out of kitty litter.
“I don't think Diego wants to learn to go outside,” he says.
I make a mental note to buy more on the way home, and get down to business.
My first client is already half covered in charms and sigils and wards against the evil eye – and when I comment on it, he just says that you can never be too careful and he's a technician for the electric company, meaning he climbs up and down utility poles and deals with electric cables all day and needs all the help he can get – but what he wants from me is a comparatively straightforward tattoo commemorating his daughter's communion. So I ink a small, pretty Virgin Mary on his bicep, with his daughter's name – Marita – and the date of her communion underneath it. I've seen a lot of blonde or light-brown-haired Marys, but the fact is that she was probably more semitic-looking, and she would've had darker skin and dark hair. So the Marys I tattoo, if I don't have any other direction, tend to be on the Middle Eastern side. The client is Latino and gave me a picture of his daughter for guidance, so I tried to make the Mary on his arm look like an older version of her. He's pleased with the design when it's just a stencil, and even more pleased when I explain why I made the choices I did, and asks if the filmy veil over her head can be blue, rather than the pink I've chosen.
(I don't believe that pink is a girl's color and blue is a boy's color. I don't buy into that kind of gender essentialism. Pink just happened to look really good with the color scheme of this particular tattoo when I was drawing it up.)
“Blue is the Virgin's color,” the client explains. “And my wife hates pink.”
“How does your daughter feel about it?” I ask, mostly out of curiosity, but if his daughter has strong feelings, and if the tattoo is to commemorate one of her milestones, I want to accede to her wishes.
“She likes purple. I like the blue.”
So I make it light blue. Kona comes by while his client is doing a quick grounding in the little meditation space, and tells both me and my client that the design is really pretty.
“I'm not a religious guy,” my client admits. “I was raised to believe in god but I don't go to church. But my wife does, and she wants to raise our kids like that, and I can't say no to her. I got my own protection.”
“I can tell,” Kona says, sounding impressed. And I have to agree, because the sheer variety of symbols and words decorating the client's skin really is impressive.
“Someday I'll be totally covered. I just don't want anything to negate anything else. I don't want a culture clash on my skin.”
“I get it.” Then his client emerges from the meditation space and he goes off to take care of her.
“Are these all protection charms?” I ask, gesturing to my client's arm with my free hand.
“Some of 'em. Some are for luck, or caution, or coolheadedness. Some are for money. Some are to help me be a better husband and father and son. There are a bunch to keep me from being electrocuted on the job. Those are really specific.”
They're all black, and while I know that the color of a magical charm can be just as important as the charm itself, color magic is a delicate thing, and most people go for black. Black is very straightforward and as neutral a color as you can get in inked or drawn or written magic. People sometimes think black ink = black magic, but for whatever reason, that isn't the case. Red is the second most common color for tattooed charms and sigils but even then, you sometimes have to be careful that the particular charm you're inking isn't going to be adversely affected by the color of the ink.
Technomancers sometimes write their code charms in silver ink, when they write them on paper, but I think that's part affectation. The silver is supposed to represent electric wires and circuits or some such thing. It might have had a purpose in the early days of the discipline, but at this point it's partly traditional and partly pretentious. I've never been asked to tattoo anyone in silver, so for me it's a moot point.
I have done some UV tattoos, though, and those are always an experience.
The client tells me about his daughter while I ink his arm, and he says he has a younger son who should be confirmed in a couple of years, so he'll probably be back for a Christ on his other arm. He's saving some space there, just in case.
I don't offer the suggestion that he maybe consider not give the tattoo artist a photo of his son for guidance, because looking at a tattoo of Jesus Christ on your father's arm and knowing that it looks like you seems like a lot of responsibility for a kid. Having a Virgin Mary tattooed off a picture of you is hard enough. She's a tough role model to have.
My personal theory about Mary is that she wasn't impregnated by god, but rather by a Roman soldier. She just didn't want to tell anyone, especially her husband, so she lied and said it was god's kid. I came up with this theory when I was in middle school and starting to test the boundaries of what rebellions I could and couldn't get away with, and what rebellions I actually wanted to commit, but it made enough sense to me out of that context that I've stuck with it. I never had much of a religious upbringing anyway, and the only people who were really scandalized were Grandma Dolly and my father's father, Grandpa Lee. Grandpa Lee had almost no sense of humor. He was a quiet person who liked dogs and roses, who managed to run the business his father and grandfather had left him without ever pissing off the board of directors, and who also managed to make it known that he loved his wife and children without ever having to really show it. Grandpa Lee was not a demonstrative man, so neither is my father.
I don't think Grandma Dolly was really that scandalized by my ideas about Jesus' mother. I think she knew I wanted to upset someone, so she was doing me a favor by letting that person be her. Grandma Dolly has a history of obliging me that way, and getting annoyed when my mother completely refused to put up with it. My mother seems to have somehow inherited her father-in-law's lack of humor.
As I'm finishing up the client's tattoo, I ask if he'd mind if I added a tiny sigil to attract the favor of one's god, as a way to symbolize what I assume is his and his wife's wish that his daughter be blessed by god.
“I'm almost done,” I add. “I'll show you the one I mean when I'm finished.”
“I might have something similar,” he says, “for myself. Get me a piece of paper and I can draw it for you.”
“Maya!” I call, because she doesn't look busy. “Can you bring me some scratch paper and a pencil?”
She does. I pause long enough for my client to draw the symbol he means. It's not quite the one I had in mind, but there are as many favored-of-god charms as there are gods. More, even.
“Can you work it into the design?” the client asks. “Put it on her robe or something. No, no – hide it in her hair. Make it a secret. I don't want to force this kind of thing on her. I want her to make up her own mind about my magic and where it fits into her mommy's religion.”
“Do you have any magic yourself?” I ask.
He snaps his fingers and they spark. “It's why I became an electrician. It's harmless. I can't hurt anybody. I don't know that it won't turn on me, though, so I got all these.” He gestures down his body, indicating the various charms and symbols inked into his skin.
I snap my fingers in return, so he can hear the chimes. He smiles. “My son would like that. Ever since he learned that Daddy could make sparks, he's been snapping his fingers trying to do something similar. He got so excited when he made static electricity off the dog.” He chuckles. “The dog wasn't as happy with it.”
“I bet not. Ok, I can do this.” I point to the little charm he's drawn on the paper. “I'll see if I can work it into her hair somehow. I might have to hide it in a fold of her robe, is that ok?”
“As long as it's not obvious. I know it's there, but she doesn't have to.”
I use black ink and wind the symbol around a wave of Mary's tattooed hair. Now the client has a tattoo for his daughter with a little bit of protection woven in that only he knows about. As far as I know, the number of people who know about a protection charm doesn't affect the power of the charm, and they don't have to be visible to be helpful. I've done a few white ink tattoos for fair-skinned people who wanted some kind of charm on their skin, but who for various reasons were not supposed to be tattooed. A white tattoo is harder to spot, and they didn't want to risk getting a black ink tattoo in a hidden spot, only to have it be found by a doctor or a partner or even someone in the communal showers at the gym.
This guy doesn't seem to have that problem, though. He just doesn't need for his daughter – or, I'd guess, his wife – to know he got this particular tattoo for her.
I wonder what she'll choose to believe in in the future, if she'll take what sounds like her mother's faith road and send her prayers to an organized religion, or if she'll put her faith in magic and its protective signs. She might choose both. People do. The crucifix can be as powerful a magical symbol as a triskele, or a hamsa, or something the ancient Egyptians or the Vikings used, or a string of technomancer code.
I cover his tattoo with ointment and plastic wrap, give him the sheet of aftercare instructions although I'm sure he knows what to do, take his payment, congratulate him on his daughter's accomplishment (I don't necessarily think communion is that big a deal, but clearly he does), and send him on his way.
words: 2175
total words: 47,699
I don't think Kay needs to be at the studio today and he wants to be left alone anyway, so I leave him to his own devices and go off to run errands and surprise Maggie at work and, on a whim, drop by the art store I like to see if they have any new and exciting watercolors. I should get back into painting more. I don't feel as if I've had time lately, when in fact if I added up the random free hours in a day I probably do. I just need to schedule myself better. I need to maybe take a day off.
Art supply stores are always tempting, and even when I was just out of college and had to support myself with practically nothing, I never walked in one without walking out with something. I wonder briefly if Kay has any interesting drawing or painting, if it's just tattoos he doesn't want to do or art in general. I realize I have enough pens and paints at home that if he wants to start painting, he can just use what I already own until he knows it's something he wants to do.
On the other hand, if I buy him some brushes and acrylic paints and a few little canvases, and he decides it's not his thing, I can always use them myself. I'm more interested in watercolors these days, but acrylic paints are going to be useful for someone. I could give them to Maya or Kona, probably.
I walk out of the art supply with just a pad of watercolor paper and a handful of markers for the studio, and congratulate myself on my restraint. I even have exact change in my wallet, which never happens.
I get some doughnuts for the studio, fill my car with gas, and cruise through town towards work. When I get there, there's already a message from me – Kay, telling me we're almost out of kitty litter.
“I don't think Diego wants to learn to go outside,” he says.
I make a mental note to buy more on the way home, and get down to business.
My first client is already half covered in charms and sigils and wards against the evil eye – and when I comment on it, he just says that you can never be too careful and he's a technician for the electric company, meaning he climbs up and down utility poles and deals with electric cables all day and needs all the help he can get – but what he wants from me is a comparatively straightforward tattoo commemorating his daughter's communion. So I ink a small, pretty Virgin Mary on his bicep, with his daughter's name – Marita – and the date of her communion underneath it. I've seen a lot of blonde or light-brown-haired Marys, but the fact is that she was probably more semitic-looking, and she would've had darker skin and dark hair. So the Marys I tattoo, if I don't have any other direction, tend to be on the Middle Eastern side. The client is Latino and gave me a picture of his daughter for guidance, so I tried to make the Mary on his arm look like an older version of her. He's pleased with the design when it's just a stencil, and even more pleased when I explain why I made the choices I did, and asks if the filmy veil over her head can be blue, rather than the pink I've chosen.
(I don't believe that pink is a girl's color and blue is a boy's color. I don't buy into that kind of gender essentialism. Pink just happened to look really good with the color scheme of this particular tattoo when I was drawing it up.)
“Blue is the Virgin's color,” the client explains. “And my wife hates pink.”
“How does your daughter feel about it?” I ask, mostly out of curiosity, but if his daughter has strong feelings, and if the tattoo is to commemorate one of her milestones, I want to accede to her wishes.
“She likes purple. I like the blue.”
So I make it light blue. Kona comes by while his client is doing a quick grounding in the little meditation space, and tells both me and my client that the design is really pretty.
“I'm not a religious guy,” my client admits. “I was raised to believe in god but I don't go to church. But my wife does, and she wants to raise our kids like that, and I can't say no to her. I got my own protection.”
“I can tell,” Kona says, sounding impressed. And I have to agree, because the sheer variety of symbols and words decorating the client's skin really is impressive.
“Someday I'll be totally covered. I just don't want anything to negate anything else. I don't want a culture clash on my skin.”
“I get it.” Then his client emerges from the meditation space and he goes off to take care of her.
“Are these all protection charms?” I ask, gesturing to my client's arm with my free hand.
“Some of 'em. Some are for luck, or caution, or coolheadedness. Some are for money. Some are to help me be a better husband and father and son. There are a bunch to keep me from being electrocuted on the job. Those are really specific.”
They're all black, and while I know that the color of a magical charm can be just as important as the charm itself, color magic is a delicate thing, and most people go for black. Black is very straightforward and as neutral a color as you can get in inked or drawn or written magic. People sometimes think black ink = black magic, but for whatever reason, that isn't the case. Red is the second most common color for tattooed charms and sigils but even then, you sometimes have to be careful that the particular charm you're inking isn't going to be adversely affected by the color of the ink.
Technomancers sometimes write their code charms in silver ink, when they write them on paper, but I think that's part affectation. The silver is supposed to represent electric wires and circuits or some such thing. It might have had a purpose in the early days of the discipline, but at this point it's partly traditional and partly pretentious. I've never been asked to tattoo anyone in silver, so for me it's a moot point.
I have done some UV tattoos, though, and those are always an experience.
The client tells me about his daughter while I ink his arm, and he says he has a younger son who should be confirmed in a couple of years, so he'll probably be back for a Christ on his other arm. He's saving some space there, just in case.
I don't offer the suggestion that he maybe consider not give the tattoo artist a photo of his son for guidance, because looking at a tattoo of Jesus Christ on your father's arm and knowing that it looks like you seems like a lot of responsibility for a kid. Having a Virgin Mary tattooed off a picture of you is hard enough. She's a tough role model to have.
My personal theory about Mary is that she wasn't impregnated by god, but rather by a Roman soldier. She just didn't want to tell anyone, especially her husband, so she lied and said it was god's kid. I came up with this theory when I was in middle school and starting to test the boundaries of what rebellions I could and couldn't get away with, and what rebellions I actually wanted to commit, but it made enough sense to me out of that context that I've stuck with it. I never had much of a religious upbringing anyway, and the only people who were really scandalized were Grandma Dolly and my father's father, Grandpa Lee. Grandpa Lee had almost no sense of humor. He was a quiet person who liked dogs and roses, who managed to run the business his father and grandfather had left him without ever pissing off the board of directors, and who also managed to make it known that he loved his wife and children without ever having to really show it. Grandpa Lee was not a demonstrative man, so neither is my father.
I don't think Grandma Dolly was really that scandalized by my ideas about Jesus' mother. I think she knew I wanted to upset someone, so she was doing me a favor by letting that person be her. Grandma Dolly has a history of obliging me that way, and getting annoyed when my mother completely refused to put up with it. My mother seems to have somehow inherited her father-in-law's lack of humor.
As I'm finishing up the client's tattoo, I ask if he'd mind if I added a tiny sigil to attract the favor of one's god, as a way to symbolize what I assume is his and his wife's wish that his daughter be blessed by god.
“I'm almost done,” I add. “I'll show you the one I mean when I'm finished.”
“I might have something similar,” he says, “for myself. Get me a piece of paper and I can draw it for you.”
“Maya!” I call, because she doesn't look busy. “Can you bring me some scratch paper and a pencil?”
She does. I pause long enough for my client to draw the symbol he means. It's not quite the one I had in mind, but there are as many favored-of-god charms as there are gods. More, even.
“Can you work it into the design?” the client asks. “Put it on her robe or something. No, no – hide it in her hair. Make it a secret. I don't want to force this kind of thing on her. I want her to make up her own mind about my magic and where it fits into her mommy's religion.”
“Do you have any magic yourself?” I ask.
He snaps his fingers and they spark. “It's why I became an electrician. It's harmless. I can't hurt anybody. I don't know that it won't turn on me, though, so I got all these.” He gestures down his body, indicating the various charms and symbols inked into his skin.
I snap my fingers in return, so he can hear the chimes. He smiles. “My son would like that. Ever since he learned that Daddy could make sparks, he's been snapping his fingers trying to do something similar. He got so excited when he made static electricity off the dog.” He chuckles. “The dog wasn't as happy with it.”
“I bet not. Ok, I can do this.” I point to the little charm he's drawn on the paper. “I'll see if I can work it into her hair somehow. I might have to hide it in a fold of her robe, is that ok?”
“As long as it's not obvious. I know it's there, but she doesn't have to.”
I use black ink and wind the symbol around a wave of Mary's tattooed hair. Now the client has a tattoo for his daughter with a little bit of protection woven in that only he knows about. As far as I know, the number of people who know about a protection charm doesn't affect the power of the charm, and they don't have to be visible to be helpful. I've done a few white ink tattoos for fair-skinned people who wanted some kind of charm on their skin, but who for various reasons were not supposed to be tattooed. A white tattoo is harder to spot, and they didn't want to risk getting a black ink tattoo in a hidden spot, only to have it be found by a doctor or a partner or even someone in the communal showers at the gym.
This guy doesn't seem to have that problem, though. He just doesn't need for his daughter – or, I'd guess, his wife – to know he got this particular tattoo for her.
I wonder what she'll choose to believe in in the future, if she'll take what sounds like her mother's faith road and send her prayers to an organized religion, or if she'll put her faith in magic and its protective signs. She might choose both. People do. The crucifix can be as powerful a magical symbol as a triskele, or a hamsa, or something the ancient Egyptians or the Vikings used, or a string of technomancer code.
I cover his tattoo with ointment and plastic wrap, give him the sheet of aftercare instructions although I'm sure he knows what to do, take his payment, congratulate him on his daughter's accomplishment (I don't necessarily think communion is that big a deal, but clearly he does), and send him on his way.
words: 2175
total words: 47,699
