Anyways.

I went to Hall of Tattoos to have my work done by Ken. I adore Ken, he is such an incredible tattoo artist. I'm going to miss him so much when I leave for Alabama. He's one of those truly kind and good people. You know what I mean, the kind of person that you want to be friends with; the kind that this world needs more of. The word "spectacular" comes to mind.

Ken has done two tattoos for me. The one that is currently in progress and also a very large phoenix that is on my back. The two experiences are like night and day. While my birdie took 14+ hours to complete and a majority of that experience I was gripping the chair unable to talk from the pain, the tattooing at had today was easy.

I was talking through 90% of my tattoo and in sections it didn't even hurt. It felt uncomfortable and like a very annoying and aggressive tickle. I watched Stranger Than Fiction, talked with the other guys in the shop, texted people... I kept telling Ken that it was so WEIRD to not have so much pain. Only a small section really hurt, and that was near the spine so I'm not very surprised.

He sketched out the design for me. Have I mentioned that Ken is awesome? I told him I wanted "a vine of morning glories" and this is what he comes up with. Ken, if you are reading this YOU ARE AWESOME, MISTER!

The outline went by quickly. Ken is really fast but still has so much detail in his work. The entire outline took maybe 25 minutes. The area near my trapezius muscle was so bizzare. It didn't hurt. I knew he was tattooing but I only felt it in my forearm and neck/jaw. I didn't feel it at ALL in my shoulder. Weeeeird.

I heard from several sources that cover ups tend to be more painful than normal tattoos, so I was a little nervous. I found that tattooing over the older ink didn't really hurt more than other areas. It was more like Ken was tattooing over scar tissue. The pain felt more in my muscle than in my skin and was more pin-point that the other areas, but it didn't actually hurt more.

We stopped after we got these flowers finished. Including the outline this took about 2.5 hours. The tiny flowers on the bottom hurt a lot. They hurt like the phoenix hurt, just super intense focused pain. Like someone was taking a molten hot drill bit to my skin, ouch. Ken kept joking, "It's just a tiny flower!" Yeah well, that tiny flower &*@%&^ hurt, Ken.

I can't wait until our next session and to have this piece finished. I promised Ken that whenever I come back to visit that I'll get some work done. I think he might miss me already. D'aw.

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