I have started to call my left forearm my depression forearm because when I decided that I had to have the word breathe tattooed onto that arm, that not only would I tattoo it there but I became excited dreaming ahead to all the places that part of my arm will take me and what else I will feel the need to put on that section of my body along the road, down the paths my depression takes me.

This was not one of my already planned tattoos. This one just popped into my head and given what the last almost year presented to me I knew it had to go on now.

For anyone who has ever wondered or hasn’t had me explain it to them, the gerbera with the petals falling off of it through a fan of blue to embody the water represents my struggle with depression - through my favourite flower, our wedding flowers and the only flowers that people who know me buy me because Gus has anti inflammatory bowel disease and can’t eat nothing but cat food or she barfs and she has a penchant for plants and leaves, little brat, and gerberas don’t have leaves YAY! - it symbolizes a storm of sorts the flower is being torn apart likely through the tempest that is my temper.

I have added breathe as a reminder that I have to breathe through every storm. Breathing exercises really do work however cheesy they seem and are sometimes all I have to get me through a moment alone when I am freaking out heading towards the destruction of something and most likely something I really did not want to destroy in the first place. I have gone with the typewriter font because I love old typewriters, we have one, it is Adam’s, we use it, it was built between 1941 and 1943, although it needs a new ribbon we are just lazy about ordering it, and it is a font and style that begs to sit where it is typed with little symmetry.

I have cereal mouth from eating bad for you cereal. Adam was getting food and I asked for bad for me cereal and he got Reese Puffs and now we have Fruit Loops and we don’t normally get bad for you cereal. I thought I could out smart the tearing the roof of my mouth skin by using a small spoon instead of a big spoon but it only helped till half way through bowl one and then it hurt just as bad again. I’m trying to keep eating it in hopes of breaking my mouth in like new shoes. Only problem I have a really really bad headache that nothing is helping and WHAT IF it is a sugar headache? Because I have a headache all the time to different degrees when they get bad sometimes I can’t pin point exactly where it is coming from. Whole right side, most painful at the top right side.

The skin from my new tattoo is falling off all over the place it isn’t sexy but I love picking up the pieces of skin and examining them but I don’t keep the skin, I’m not sick. It is incredibly hard to concentrate long with this stupid headache and my itchy arm. I promise a better post when one or both are better.

I took in a gerbera daisy a couple of months ago when I went for my consult and said I wanted a stormy gerbera, wet, blowing in the wind, broken, left forearm, I told him it was not a happy tattoo it was to represent my depression, it is also my favorite flower, our wedding flowers that were royally fucked up by our wedding people and it is the only flower people can give me that I can keep because Gus eats the leaves and barfs up all other plant life. She even tries to eat the fake Christmas tree and I yell at her. Gerberas have no leaves. HAHAAHA on you GUS.

It is kind of strange because I never thought I�d do my lower arms at all but as any who has them knows they are addictive little fuckers.

For our wedding we got gift certificates for tattoos. I love it. Totally kickass gift.

I am going to confess that this tattoo hurt really really ummm really bad. If I didn�t have a massive right arm tattoo I�d probably not admit this but that was a two seater and it hurt way less. I got to lie down because I was tired I didn�t sleep well the night before and was up sick and shit, during I just thought holy shit if I weren�t lying down I�d be sitting up acting the pussy but lying down helped for sure. My arm is really swollen at present so it is really hard to get a decent photo of it. And they really don�t do it justice anyway. These blurry in the shop photos will have to do for now. Adam has been working crazy ass hours so I haven�t been able to get a better one and now it is starting to dry out and will look gross for a few days.

I was in a funk– not a serious one just a couldn’t get up before 11am for a couple of weeks.
Normally February is such a hard month for me anyway that with the added surgery and over a full month of pain killers when I came down off all that shit I crashed a little mentally.

I did some strange shit but I did not commit any crimes or hurt anyone accept maybe some feelings and I was rude to some jerks. But really I was a big cry baby and stopped answering my phone [again or as usual??] didn’t sign into msn, played hours of Tiger Woods 2006 and just in general felt sorry for myself for the majority of March until Sunday the 19th.

But I LOST February and was alone through the majority of my recovery so is this not FAIR??? A friend of mine killed himself a few Februarys a go and I haven’t written about it because it sucked and it sucks every year to remember and go through because then I also have to go through my failed attempt over AGAIN and seeing it and knowing it from both sides is really fucking hard.

Maybe I’m never really THERE for the month of February.

You know the butterfly/scull part of my tattoo it is for him and me. The scull represents him because he is DEAD and we went to see Crossroads together STARING Britney Spears so I didn’t think he’d mind if it was PINK and he loved GUS and he was FRENCH from FRANCE but loved Lance Armstrong?? He is why I LOVE Lance Armstrong. His full name was Pierre-Henri Cade. February 4th 2003. Gone. He used to ride his bike next to me on the trails in Stanley Park during my runs so I wouldn’t get abducted and bought me books all the time and brought me coffee to my work, he believed in me so much and in my writing and I haven’t met too many people as fucking awesome as he was. The scull also represents my botched attempt and how I fight suicidal thoughts daily. It reminds me that HE didn’t make it– the butterfly is ME because I FUCKING DID. The eyes are because I KNOW he is watching me and because after he killed himself I went through a MAJOR selfish period where all I could think about was how I COULD NOT KILL MYSELF NOW because he did and it would be like the fucking Virgin Suicides or something except we are older and not related but then WHO WOULD BE NEXT??? Fucked I know but grieving is fucked.

He never left a note, not even for his girlfriend or family. We got a translated– beyond touching letter from his parents and that is it they know no more than we do.

I have my theories but they are mine.

Tattooing my CAT on my arm has nothing to do with PH it is simply a representation of the ONE steady and constant thing I have had since her arrival in 1994 [other than the almost three years with Adam] who has never judged me and loves me and will still sit with me when I haven’t showered or changed my underwear in five + days. The early days in 1996 when I moved out here where some of the loneliest, cold and near homeless [considering what I was living in] times ever. My cat fucking rules and if she could talk I bet she’d say I’m the BEST MOM EVER.

WOW good thing I’m out of my ‘funk’.

i am so fucking itchy right now it is turning me into the biggest bitchiest cunt on earth, with fangs a poison tongue and PMS to boot!
yesterday i put vaseline on it so you jerks can actually see it because it is getting SUPER scaly. and scanning it really didn�t turn out so good.
today i am being a tough ass bitch and not putting the vaseline on and TRYING to handle the itchiness so i won’t rub off any scabs or scales with the vaseline. the PMS just makes the experience so much more fun. WOO HOO PMS I LOVE YOU.

these photos are courtesy of my girl friend spockette. she knows who she is. you guys don’t. HAHA she’s hot too.

i just can’t wait to get it finished and go through all this FANTASTIC feeling itchiness again.

my arm looked like this last night after the first 2 hours.

yesterday was way more interesting than i could of imagined.

the door to the apartment flew open at about 10am. in rushed an excited adam. he�d cut his finger and would get to come to my tattoo sitting with me. im like what are you excited about you HURT yourself tough guy.
the first thing he did yesterday when he got to work was slice his finger open. he went down to first aid, they bandaged it, he went back up to work but it split back open. he had it bandaged up again and they sent him home.
i sent him to the clinic.
lucky guy got 3 freezing needles a tetanus shot and 5 stitches.

talk about an incredible man, no wonder i love him so much he slices open his finger and is excited because he gets to sit and watch me be a tough guy.

this drawing although rad, obviously does not do the tattoo justice. the colors in the butterfly will be completely different than shown here. they are going to be much darker to set off the cat even more and the eyes will of course be blue. the skull will still be a shade of pink. also there are no �rays�.

obviously this is incredibly hard to scan. i hope to get a photo for you soon. the butterfly comes up to the top of my shoulder and onto the back of my arm the rest of the cat is also on the arm back. the butterfly (you can sort of see the wings coming off the scull), some back ground, some shading and some more color is going into the cat. there is likely about an hour and a half left on it. (the lines on the tattoo are all perfectly straight the scanner distorts them)

this tattoo has a story that i would love to share with you all but it will have to wait for another post! i hope this does for now!