Pugilist

The great Stephanie Tamez. @Graeme and I feel that bleeding right next to each other for hours really strengthens our marriage.

I just had almost five hours done on my back today and I am SPENT. So tired. One session left. In the meantime, I am just waiting around for @Graeme to finish with Thomas. They are on hour six, I believe. Poor guy. I asked him how he was doing before I left and he said he was managing but that he was definitely in that "why the fuck do I do this to myself?" part of the session. A feeling I know well.

Ooh I am going to have to go look it up! Cool! We are headed down to Brooklyn again tomorrow. Looking forward to it! It has become such a ritual.

I looooove that, @Androosh!

OMG I love the turn this thread just took.

it is a great idea do it (ETA: Hahaha I wrote the above in all-caps but this smarter than me software was like "no, that's too much" and toned it down.)

I have been getting a lot of acupuncture lately, and my acupuncturist always asks about tattoo stuff, and those needles vs. these needles. I told her acupuncture is like, a freaking treat compared to getting tattooed. Interestingly, she was saying that she imagined the places that she finds acupuncture needle insertion hurt the most are also the places where getting tattooed sucks the most, but it doesn't seem to correspond at all. Like she says forearms are generally a rough spot (although I have not found that to be the case, with the exception of my wrists). And like, she sticks needles right into my forehead and stomach and I don't feel a thing. So all that to say: duh, different needles feel different. Also, I have a sick fascination with getting my blood drawn--its kind of cool to watch!--but last week I went for a routine blood test and they took EIGHT VIALS and it kind of freaked me out when the damn process would not end. I have no idea why. I suspect vampire nurses.

Be still my heart...

I agree with this 100%, and just so you know, I just refer to y'all as nerds. Myself included.

I feel like "collector" is a term used to differentiate "serious" tattoo clients from regular ones. I get why it's used, but it always sounds really snooty to me!

I agree! I would love to see a "global picture" of your recent acquisitions!

OMG those cats!!!!!!!!!!

We have friends who have trilingual kids, because most kids here are raised speaking English and French, and their mom is Brazilian, so they also speak Portuguese. They are amazing because most of their social circle is the same way (speaking at least English, French and a third language due to an immigrant parent or two) so they think this is the norm. When I was visiting here once while I was living in the UK, one of the kids asked me what the weather in England was like and what languages they spoke there. I said it was cold and that they spoke English. The kid exclaimed, "Oh, just like Brazil!" and I was baffled, until he explained, "They only speak one language there, too!" like it was the most curious thing in the world. <3

Don't worry, I'm going to make you learn Polish soon. Then you'll be able to understand my mom and grandmother when they plot to feed you more. Also the getting drunk thing works for real.

The best advice I ever got was from my 10th-11th grade French teacher who told me that the greatest thing keeping me from speaking French comfortable was my own self-consciousness about my accent. No one else actually cares. I think about her words constantly, because she was right. The more you just let yourself talk, and don't worry about your accent, the better you will get! I'd also definitely recommend doing some kind of immersion program in a francophone place - nothing will improve your conversational skills better than that! - - - Updated - - - Also, I constantly mix up Polish and Hebrew in my head. Go figure.

I totally had a mid grad school slump!

Tu parles bien, @Delicious!

Hahaha @semele - I would say that "only" having mastered ancient Greek and Latin is pretty impressive... :)

I knew you people were my people. My undergrad was in Linguistics, and along the way I've learned French, Polish (ok this was actually my first language), Serbo-Croat, Spanish, Hebrew and Yiddish, but I've really all-but-forgotten the last three. I dabbled with dead languages in my undergrad but now wish I had pursued them more! I am jealous of your Russian knowledge, @hogg - I am still very bitter that it's my mom's first language, my grandmother was a freaking Russian professor, and I never spoke it growing up. If I were to take up another language, that would be it.

I just had the worst heal of my life (which I think probably happened for various reasons not to do with the tattooer)--like today is more than two weeks since I got tattooed and it's the first day that the damn thing looks good again--and have therefore been whining to the mister a LOT lately, you know, the old "why do we do this to ourselves???" stuff. I thought that this can't be worth it. And yet today, looking at how damn cool the tattoo is, and it finally not making me miserable anymore, I started getting the itch again! Already! Messed up. Good thing I have a session on my back coming up in 3 weeks. PS @TrixieFaux - totally bittersweet! I am psyched to finish my back and see what the whole thing will look like, but bummed about the experience itself ending, as it's been pretty great. So I feel you! Enjoy it!

Um, I love language nerdiness that just went down in this thread. As a reformed linguist, I just needed to give props to @else and @semele on this one!

What... did they do to @ChrisvK?

Ah, somehow I missed this comment. Yes, of course it is going to happen.

@Tim Burke - already ogled that on IG! You must be so stoked! It's fantastic.

It sounds like you guys are in a similar place to us - we need to get the place in shape after FOUR students lived there for several years. We literally had to like, climb over stuff just to take basic measurements yesterday! Yikes. Good luck - moving in with your partner is the best!