Tattoo Who’s Who Answers

Your responses were awesome!  As per your requests, here are the tattoos in their full un-cropped glory:

1. “I got this last November, just before starting my first set of grad school finals; I’d planned it for a while, though it was a somewhat spur of the moment hey-I’m-doing-this-tonight thing. There’s a strong possibility I’ll get an ink well on the other wrist before or after this semester’s final period.”  – Languagezombie

2. “A friend of a friend who works at Nickel City Tattoo (http://www.tattoodons.net/) did this for me several years ago. At the time, I was working for the local minor league baseball team, and the logo on our uniform pullover windbreakers was something similar to that. I loved it. I had thought about getting a team logo, but eventually I decided that while teams come and go and get sold and move cities and change names, baseball itself is something that endures. And it’s probably the only thing I love enough that I’d want permanently inked on my skin.”  -BaseballChica03

3.  “…It’s Arabic script that reads–God protect you wherever you travel and a lotus flower.”  -Olivia Marudan

4.  “I got my tattoo on the day after Thanksgiving a few years ago, and it was my first time”¦I decided I would make a tradition of doing something I’d never done before on the day after Thanksgiving.  The next year, I ran 20 miles for the first time.  That was MUCH more painful!”  -SBMom

5.  “This is my most recent tattoo of three cherry blossoms. It hurt really badly, and I love it.”  -Paperispatient

6.  “My lovely blackberry tattoo is an homage to my childhood in the Pacific Northwest. The art is by Jeeyon Shim, the ink is by Brian Hutflies at Scared Tattoo in Oakland, CA.”  -Kate D

7.  “Like many people, I was an angry, disaffected teenager. Music meant a lot to me — I found a lot of solace in the local music scene, in going to shows, in forming an identity inside my subculture. ‘Rubber Ring’ was originally a B-side to ‘The Boy with the Thorn in his Side’. I didn’t discover The Smiths — or rather, I stopped sneering at them and listened — til well into my 20s, but I might as well have been 15 again, listening to this song. It speaks volumes to me, to my connection with music, with musicians. It’s a bittersweet song, but I love it.  [The lyrics] read:

‘Don’t forget the songs that made you cry and the songs that saved your life’

and

‘When you’re dancing and laughing and finally living, hear my voice in your head and think of me fondly’

The nail polish is Opi’s Ogre-the-top, a color they put out to coincide with the release of one of the Shrek movies.”  -Slay

8.  “It’s a rose wrapped in barbed wire on my chest.  The stem is technically in boob territory, but I figure that means the stem will just get longer as I age.”  -Selena MacIntosh

9.  “This is my most recent tattoo.  It was done by my new favorite artist, Jason Chastain.  I was a little skeptical about getting it.  Many of my friends around here have work from his apprentice days, and I was slightly scared by what I saw.  My husband reminded me that he was an apprentice over ten years ago, and I’m glad I listened.  I love my water dragon :).”  -SaraB

10.  Funny story here.  This is one of Mr.B’s tattoos.  He got it as a sweet romantic gesture right before our wedding.  Unfortunately when he went to go get it, he forgot that we had a date to pack and move boxes from our old crappy apartment into our new house.  By the time I saw his sweet gesture, I was hot, tired and pissed off that I had been working for hours while he refused to answer his phone.  It took a while (years) for me to really appreciate the romance.

Bonus  “I accidentally jabbed myself with a 0.13 technical pen during Commercial Art class and — 22 years later — the wee mark is still in my palm. So technically I have a tattoo.”  -OneBigPear

For those of you who missed out, I have good news.  Our fearless leader is working on a way to let you upload your own pictures at will, but so far it is proving more difficult that we had anticipated.  In the mean time, we will start a tattoo gallery page where we can share and discuss.  If you want to share, e-mail me your pictures and screen name at SaraB@Persephonemagazine.com along with whatever text you would like to accompany said pictures.  (I’ll post more details once I have the page up and running and I know what the details are.)