Hello, 2009!

As always, sorry for not posting in timely fashion, and I also apologize for a general lack of posting in 2008. 2008 is a year I'll never forget, and, quite honestly, it can kiss my ass goodbye.

The Wedding, getting married, being married, are all great things about 2008. So was seeing a lot of friends who live elsewhere because of (sometimes multiple) wedding festivities. Honey Bunny got his industry award, which was very awesome. Barack Obama was elected; that is off the charts wonderful. And... work didn't suck as badly? "Mamma Mia!" saved my Christmas and "Yes Man" saved my state of mind? YES, I'm reaching.

Unfortunately, for the majority of the year I dealt with panic attacks, insomnia and anxiety, and narrowly avoided a slew of anxiety-associated health problems. Most profoundly of all, I/we had to say goodbye to my best feline friend of 12 years just after Thanksgiving. We had had a major health scare with her in June but she emerged kitten-like. Shortly after my last post, she was diagnosed with the most fatal of liver cancers. It was one of the most devastating things I've ever had to endure, to witness her life come to an end and to say goodbye.

2008 was the year I should have made official Zaftig Chick t-shirts with the slogan, "What I could never have predicted was..." As in:

...that I'd develop major anxiety over planning a wedding.
...that I'd become mostly ready to become a parent.
...that I'd partially come to terms with spirituality.
...that I'd put my beautiful kitty to rest and be holding her as she exited this lifetime.

There are, of course, numerous other things I could add, mostly comprised of the daily minutia of life ("...that I'd become an instant messaging fanatic").

Anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a better attitude about 2009. I have a close friend who is in a 12-step program who routinely challenges me when I start feeling shitty about myself and life. She always asks me what my part in it is (whatever "it" may be), and then she talks to me about gratitude. I'm a cynical person, and it's not easy to take. But, she's right. If there is anything Kitty's passing taught me loud and clear, it's that life is fleeting. The old cliche comes to mind that you can either choose to see every moment in life/with someone you love/etc as a gift, or you can choose to watch it go by and be victimized by your losses. Believe me, when the grieving has more or less passed, I'm going to renew my effort to choose the former more than choosing the latter.

On that note, here's a good thing that has happened in the few short days since 2009 started. I got a tattoo today! Getting one has been a goal for about 15 years but I was always crippled by fear and stalemated by indecision about image and location on the body. When Kitty passed away, I knew immediately what my tattoo would be. A heart shape constructed of fur - in her coat colors and texture - with her first initial in cursive font located on the inside of the heart.

Of course it hurt... but nowhere near as badly as losing a best friend. I reminded myself of that many times in the couple hours it took.

For anyone who is considering a tattoo but is scared of it, I'll tell you this. I have gotten feedback from many tattooed friends over the years and the general consensus was absolutely correct: it feels like someone dragging their long-ass fingernails over your fresh, lobster-red, swollen sunburn. The thing I didn't capture from friends was that the pain spectrum is really wide.

For instance, when my artist put down the first line I was expecting it to feel so ouchy that I would howl in pain. I was gripping the table in anticipation. What it actually felt like was someone writing on me really hard with a Bic pen. Uncomfortable but nowhere near unbearable. I let go of the table and yelled out, "Oh my god, that hurts so much less than I thought it would!"

That lasted until she started doing long, curving, arching lines. Quite honestly, on certain portions of the design it felt like she was using a scalpel to draw. That was more on the unbearable end of the spectrum. Thank goodness she had to keep stopping to dip the needle into ink. The micro-breaks make it tolerable.

She also mentioned before doing the tattoo, and was quite right, that the location I'd chosen - my lower back/upper butt, north of the butt crack and off to one side - is known for discomfort. The right side of the heart shape was quite painful, whereas the left side was almost nothing. Seriously. Like, it felt like she was lightly drawing on me with a dull pencil. Why this is, I don't know. She said that that's just how it is with the body. For another person, the left could be painful while the right was nothing, or the whole thing could have been nothing, and so on and so forth.

The most common thing I'd heard about tattooing is that the outline, which uses only one needle, hurts quite a bit more than shading, in which my artist used a nine-needle machine. I would say that's partially true. The outline can be really intense but chances are the artist is only going over the area once or twice with the needle. It's intense for short bursts of time and when it's done, it's done.

When my artist started shading, it was a welcome change from the outline. It does hurt a lot less for awhile. However, at least on my design, she went over various areas several times and it started to really feel like I had a shitty sunburn that someone kept taunting over and over again... if "taunting" is having a cat knead your seriously inflamed skin with her freshly sharpened nails. Ouch! I had to take a break about 3/4 into shading. Breaks are good. There's no way I could have finished without it.

Long story short, it's over before you know it and you have art on your body and that's really awesome. I'm so glad that in 2009 I am able to mark off one of my life goals, and that it's not just a design that was arbitrarily chosen. No, it ain't the Egyptian symbol of death or anything like that, but it's deep to me. Here's hoping that I can make strides to mark another thing, or things, off my life goals list.

Happy new year!