Tattoing

After music practice today, I was about to start my research project (the second out of three) when my friend Mandi called and told me that she was getting a tattoo. She asked me to go with her (for emotional support) and, being the doormat I am, I said yes. We drove to Anderson and she got a tattoo at a place called the Painted Pony.

The inside of the tattoo parlor was actually very bright (they had fluorescent lights hung everywhere). It was stereotypical, but I had always thought tattoo parlors were dimly lit and full of haze. The people were friendly and polite too. And tattooed, of course. Something I've always noticed about people in their professions--they always are the prime example of their craft. Hairstylists always have the most modern, highlighted hair. Tattoo artists are usually tattooed just about everywhere. Well, except the female tattoo artists I saw today. There were two and only one woman had a tattoo. The man who drew Mandi's tattoo, Greg, had tattoos from his neck down to his arms. I wouldn't be surprised if he had full-bodied tattoos. Like I told Mandi later, I have high respect for anyone who has a full body tattoo. That MUST hurt. Greg even told us that tattoos on the side of your body or on your stomach would really, really hurt. "It depends on how bad you want it," he warned.

As for Mandi's tattoo, she got the number 11 with all these swirls and twists around it. I thought it looked cool. Eleven is her lucky number, she told me, and it also connected her to her father. They used to be close when she was younger but not so much anymore. "This is tribute to him," she said proudly.

Mandi also played with the idea of getting a fairy tattoo as a tribute to her mom. She tried to persuade me to get a tattoo but I brushed it off. "I'm kind of against the idea of having permanent markings on my body. I'm pain-aversive too," I told her. That's why I was fairly impressed by the pain she endured for her tattoo--I saw blood coming out of the needle as Greg was grafting it onto her skin.

More pain than I can handle, my friend. At least...more pain than I'm willing to handle. To all those people who bear tattooing...I tip my hat to you.

My Own Images

I love foggy mornings. Well, except when I'm driving. Then, foggy mornings are just dangerous. I was walking to school today and there was so much fog that I could only see fifty meters in front of me. I felt like I was on Skull Island with the green treetops floating disembodied in the fog. Cars driving by disappeared into this thick mist...and looked like they were never going to be seen again. It felt like some mysterious fantasy world. Like some exotic island meets a dream realm.

Anyway, a voice called from behind me and it turned out to be this Chinese graduate student that came to Java City once. She struck up a conversation with me and we ended up talking the entire 15 minute walk to campus. She was speaking to me in a foreign language at first because she thought I was Chinese. I had to explain to her that sadly, I did not know how to speak her native language. We continued the conversation anyway and she managed in slightly broken English. Needless to say, I did not have time to wax poetic about the fog anymore, but it had lifted by the time I reached campus anyway.

The second image happened when I was walking to my apartment. There was a maintenance man on the roof of the apartment complex who was using a leaf blower to clear the leaves out of the gutters. (I don't know how he does that! I'd be so afraid of falling.) When the leaves came out of the gutters, they fluttered in glittering splendor to the ground. It was amazing to watch the air sparkle around them, like the space they inhabited was teeming with magic and the secrets of life.

The last image is not really an image but something that made Craig laugh. It began with this list. You see, I made a list of my personality flaws because I'm on a quest to correct them. Well, I showed Craig the list today and he cracked up when he read a few of them. For example, I wrote "forgetfulness" as one of my personality flaws and for the fix, I wrote: "(Get a Remembrall?)" However, the thing that made Craig crack up was the fact that I had written "worrier" as one of my flaws. He had misread it as "warrior" so he immediately thought of Xena: Warriior Princess. Possessing the creative mind he does, he made up the nickname "Worrier Princess" for me. And then proceeded to laugh about it for the next ten minutes.

I think I'll use that as my alias from now on.

Signing out,

Jumira the Worrier Princess

Baking

I have an urge to bake something. Maybe I should squash it like I keep saying I would. Maybe I should just go ahead and bake something. I have one of two options if I do: Cheese danishes or New York style cheesecake. Lots of dairy, but then again, my roommate and I like it that way. Well, my roommate probably gets enough cheese danishes at work so I'll try the cheesecake for now. We'll see. I'll go to the grocery store sometime this week and shop around for ingredients.

I just spoke to my roommate. He voted cheesecake. "It'll probably be easier, too," he points out. That guy is so smart.

To cheesecake baking!

Wedding day

I looked up Asian kimono dresses today after I did homework. Or rather, after I stopped doing homework. I was reading about sociology of marriage and intimacy and it made me think of weddings.

Here's what I want my wedding to be like:

Very few people. My husband can invite whomever he wants (the only exception being my parents). I'm inviting only my brother because he'd be fun and he could "give me away."

I want a simple, short ceremony, possibly not done by a Catholic priest because Catholic ceremonies take a long time and always turn in a mass. I might opt for a secular person to marry us, but I'll see how I feel about that in the future.

I don't want a reception. The most I want after the ceremony is my husband and I to dance together as a married couple for the first time. I would like to dance to Merry-Go-Round of Life...or A Little Less Conversation (if I feel more exciting that day), but I'm flexible.

No giant wedding cake either. Don't get me wrong. I like cake and there should be SOME there at least, but I'm not going all-out, seven tier, floral frosting wedding cake. A one or two layer cake would be nice (depending on how many people we have attending).

I'm still undecided about the vows. At first I wanted us to write our own, but then reciting traditional vows would be less stressful and besides...I might not like what I end up writing. Plus, if my husband isn't good at writing (or doesn't like it), it would be unfair to make him write wedding vows.

And lastly...the dress. This is by no means the most important part to me, but I do need to pay special attention to my wedding dress because...I'm flat-chested. No regular wedding dress is going to fit me because I don't have "ample endowment" to hold it up. Besides, it's just going to sag and accentuate the fact that I have nothing in that department. So. This leads to one of two options--either I look long and hard for a wedding dress designed for flat-chested people or...I tailor my own. I'm actually leaning towards the second option. I've always wanted to pick out the design of my own wedding dress (I used to draw dress designs all the time when I was young) and this would be the best opportunity. Most of all, I would like it to be simple. I also would like to wear either white sneakers with my wedding dress or a pair of flats. No high heels. Those things are killer and if I have to go to the (allegedly) happiest day of life in high heels, I'm going to hate it. Plus, I'm clumsy so tripping down the aisle is not an attractive scene.

I'm leaning towards making a dress I saw from this anime show. The dress itself is simple--short-sleeved, long skirt, no frills. And the girl was wearing the cutest flats, too. It wasn't too revealing and it wasn't too conservative. The best part was that the girl in the anime was flat-chested too so the dress suited her. I should show a picture of the girl to a wedding dressmaker and say, "I want that dress and those shoes." I don't know though. Dresses in animes don't always translate well in real life. At least the flats might be a reality. Well, white sneakers would be awesome, too. I got that idea from watching the remake of The Father of the Bride. In the movie, the titular father owned a shoe manufacturing factory and for his daughter's wedding, he had someone make her "wedding sneakers". These were basically white sneakers, classic style, with ribbon and tiny flowers attached to it. I thought it was adorable AND practical. I want to wear sneakers on my wedding day, I thought. Good thing I remembered.

Herbal Essences Orgasm?

Have you ever seen those shampoo commercials where someone, usually a woman, is washing her hair and she's moaning and groaning like she's having an orgasm in the shower? Well, I was washing my hair today and I thought I would try it...just for funsies. I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and pretended like the shampoo was instant-orgasm-in-a-bottle. I only got through three seconds before I started laughing at myself and thereby ruining the whole effect. It was still fun though. Try it sometime. It will either make for a good laugh or good practice in case anyone decides to go into the shampoo commercial industry some day.

Do the Windshield Wiper!

Today I was driving home and while stopped at a red light, I noticed something humourous going on behind me. The two girls in the car behind mine were dancing to some music. Or at least I assume they had music; they could just be going through some choreography in the car. They were more or less synchronized as they waved their arms about (I call this move the "windshield wiper" because that's what it looks like--windshield wipers.) They were both holding their forearms stiff and waving them back and forth in parallel motion. They ALMOST had it in rhythm. I laughed out loud as I saw this and smiled the rest of the way home.

Little things like that make life worthwhile.

Con Sentimento

I went to the Brooks Center today after work and, on a whim, decided to check if the recital hall was open. It was. Andrew was in it.

Andrew is this guy who's taking applied piano lessons. I've heard him play a song from the famous French composer Debussy before and I instantly liked it. With this in mind, I immediately sat down on the steps of the audience chamber and asked Andrew if I could listen to him play. He said yes. Tentatively. He probably thought I was weird...And he would be correct.

Anyway, so I sat and listened to him for forty minutes. He started with a pensive, sad song that I initially thought was from the soundtrack of the French movie Amelie. It wasn't. Apparently, the entire time he was playing, he was just "messing around." He told me that the music he was performing was something he wrote himself and a little bit of what his dad wrote.

Let me tell ya, the guy plays like a genius. He says that he plays by ear so he's not very good at reading music. Nonetheless, he plays spectacularly. I would give up all my music reading ability to play like that. He's so expressive with the piano. It's like the instrument is his old friend and he's taking it by the hand and saying, "Let's go on an adventure."

Aside from the Yann Tiersen music, his performance reminded me of a lot of things. Sad, spiritual songs. The Trail of Tears. Savagery and dehumanization. I closed my eyes for most of the performance and images flashed through my mind: people riding bikes down rain-slicked streets, old friends meeting each other again after years apart, best friends who suddenly look at each other and realize they've found someone they want to spend the rest of their life with...Then he stopped and asked the audience (me) what kind of music they played. The audience (me again) said that they were assigned to play a song called Sonatina. What I should have said was that I liked to play waltzes...romantic pieces...slow, pensive music. But I wanted to hear him play more so I just said "sonatina" and then shut up. He stopped after a while and he seemed to be struggling to think of something to play. I knew this instinctually so I rose, gathered my stuff, and thanked him before I left.

What a night! What a musician. What I wouldn't give to play like him. With feeling. Or, as the Italians say, "con sentimento."