in an ink of time

About four months ago I finally started getting a half-sleeve tattoo on my left arm (pictured) to go with the right half-sleeve that I've had for a long time now (a koi fish surrounded by black water and cherry blossoms). It's always been my plan to get two complementary Yakuza-style half-sleeves, but after the bloody 12-hour-plus process of getting the first arm done, I'd been putting off the pain and expense of tackling the second. Then I saw pictures from Maya's and my last big trip (to Mexico): Standing in front of pyramids of Chichen Itza in a cut-off-sleeve Meshuggah tee, I just looked completely out of balance and incomplete with only one shoulder and bicep covered in ink and the other arm naked. SoI thought, Alright, gotta do it.

Problem is that once I kicked off the process of getting my left arm inked, my tattoo artist, Kazuhisa Matsumoto a.k.a. Kaz, is so in demand right now, that for a while I was worried I wouldn't be able to schedule in enough sessions to finish the work before Maya and I left on our trip (the dude gets booked months in advance). I ended up having to get on his cancellation list, and fortunately someone bailed on an appointment and I was able to sneak in that one session I really needed to finish the thing (just two and a half weeks ago) and heal before our flight to Japan (in just three days!).

Random strangers have been asking me about the tattoo throughout the whole process, but probably the most unexpected of these interactions was with Dyan, the nurse practitioner that Maya and I consulted with at Traveler's Medical Service. She saw my tattoos when she was giving me the first of my Japanese enchephalitis vaccination shots, and got very excited. Turns out, she had actually gotten her own work done at the same shop as me (New York Adorned), but she didn't know Kaz, and she had been thinking of getting her boyfriend a Japanese-style tatoo for his birthday but was having a hard time finding the right artist - until now. And sure enough, when we came in again early this week for our second shots, she told us that she'd set up a session with Kaz for her boyfriend. (So Kaz, you owe me, man. I'll take a complimentary Oni demon tat in exchange for hooking you up with that work.)

My second most unexpected new-tattoo-related interaction was with the big black woman at my doctor's office who took my blood a few days ago so I could be tested to confirm that I'm immune to the measles (of which there is, oddly, an outbreak in Japan right now): She complimented me on my ink ("You like reptiles, huh?"), pointed out her own (a butterfly, I think, on her shoulder), then joked, "So I guess this [getting my blood taken] isn't gonna be anything to you." Maya, who was waiting to get her own blood taken, added, "Nope, he loves getting poked with needles." Funny stuff; only problem is, I think the woman interpreted this all as a challenge or something, because she then proceeded to jab my vein with such brutality I swear it felt like getting a corkskrew jammed into my arm. In fact, I'll gladly go through the experience of getting this tattoo all over again sooner than submit to another blood-taking like that!

So the question I keep getting asked: Why a snake? Well, I'm not one of these people who picks their tattoo designs for specific philosophical or memorial or whatever reasons; basically I just think this shit looks cool. I've always gravitated toward the Japanese shit - maybe I just want to be a samurai. Or Yakuza or something. But in hindsight, if I had to psychoanalyze the snake on my arm, I'd have to admit that I've always been kinda skeeved out by snakes, and so maybe the serpent on my arm represents facing my fear. And according to traditional Japanese iconography, the snake represents change (you know, shedding skin and all that), so maybe, more specifically, it represents facing the fear of change - which is just what I have to do right now.