Drawn On

I knew there was something else I wanted to mention in my "what's new" post: I got more tattoos! Two, to be exact, for this Mother's Day and last (do I have the coolest kids husband ever or what?). This one



is a coverup of a tattoo that I got in Vegas years ago just because I wanted to get tattooed in Vegas. So I picked some flash off the wall and got tattooed in Vegas. Mistake. Kids, learn from me: if you're going to permanently mark your body, it should mean something besides "I got tattooed in Vegas." It wasn't really me, it didn't really mean anything, and I've been wanting to get it covered with something else for years, but I could never really settle on anything and (not wanting to make the same mistake twice) I didn't want to get something I wasn't absolutely sure about. Finally, earlier this year, it came to me: I love Darth Vader. DV was my first crush. Seriously. I was four. The other little girls were all gaga over Luke and Han, but I wanted everything Vader. I saw the movie 8 times in the theater* -- my parents were trying to get me to stop sucking my thumb and the doctor recommended that they reward me for every week I didn't suck my thumb by taking me to a movie. After two solid months of Star Wars, they figured they'd rather have a buck-toothed daughter than see that movie again (yes, I did finally stop sucking my thumb. I was 7.). So, Darth it is. And I love it. A lot. So does Becky, incidentally. "Mommy, you got Darth Vader!"

The second tat is also Star Wars: a Deathstar tramp stamp.



Aside from having to explain to my boss what a "tramp stamp" was (AWK-ward), I really, really love it. This evolved from me thinking that the DV silouhette on the PSP would make a cool tramp stamp, and at 35 I feel like I'm old enough to get a tramp stamp and not regret it in ten years, but I didn't want two DV tattoos, because really, that's just overkill. But then I was stuck on the idea of wanting a tramp stamp and it just came to me: the perfect, unique, not-at-all-trampy-except-maybe-in-a-nerdy-kind-of-way tramp stamp: the Deathstar. After much mulling over images and consulting with my fellow geeks, I decided on the fully completed and operational model from the original film (as opposed to the partially complete model from Jedi). One, I just like it better, and two, I'm really a fan of the first film, and while I enjoy the other two, I don't love them the way I do the original. So, that's my new artwork. I do expect to get at least one more tat in the next few years, probably knitting related. Oh, and I got them done by the fabulously light-handed Adam Hays at Red Rocket Tattoo, who does amazing SW stuff (check out #7), and some pretty awesome other stuff, too. Highly recommended.

*I cried from happiness and nostalgia when the original was re-released, and then from despair and horror when I saw how Lucas had mangled it. I'm a Han Shot First-er all the way, baby. We do not discuss the most recent "Star Wars" films in my house, as they are pure sacrilege. I expect Kit will have some nonsense to say about them being "canon" but that doesn't make them not sacriligious.

posted by Laura Y. @ 12:53 PM