o I didn´t. I´ve been wanting a tat for years, actually since I was eleven. Only my environment wasn´t too supportive, and the ideas on WHAT and WHERE changed over the years. In the early days I wanted exactly the same tat as Billy Idol, on my upper left arm, because I was madly in love with him. Only it had had to be much smaller, as I am very skinny and don´t have much space on my tiny body. Later on I became the biggest Danzig fan on earth and still am, so I wanted some of the Danzig or Misfits artwork forever under my skin. Since that would look way to martial for a girl, I considered getting a small Giger thingy. To cut a long story short, I decided on the tribal ankh from Vampire, slightly customized by myself. Don´t laugh at me, I know it sounds confused, but it was a process over the years. It has a lot of symbolic and even personal meaning to me and it felt just perfect. Ankh is the hieroglyph both for life and fate (I think there is still debating on the original meaning, but I am into Ancient Egypt so it´s ok). I had lived through hard times of depression and the ankh shows I chose life in the end. I never considered that there might be any pain involved in tattooing, I always thought it would be pretty bearable. Just until someone told me about a girl who cried and fainted when getting a tat done on her lower back - which was the place I´d also go for as it can be concealed easily and it also looks quite sexy. That scared me off a bit, but not completely, as I thought psychic pain is always much worse than physical. I mean, if you chop off your arm, I´m pretty sure it DOES hurt, but I couldn´t imagine tattooing to do so. Anyway she insisted it felt like a knife repeatedly stabbed into her back.

So when I got here, I took a look at the yellow pages and found a few studios. Walking the streets of a strange city, I found two, one was a real hell-hole, the other one looked like the often heard-of dentists surgery.

I was invited to have a talk with the tattooist whose name I unfortunately forgot. After some time of asking all I wanted to know, I handed him my self-drawn Ankh. He put the stencil on my lower back right below my scars and I agreed! It honestly didn´t hurt at all, although it is directly on my spine, but I found the feeling rather addictive and am now already thinking of extending it. Some say I´m odd, most people around here can´t even imagine to get one. But I am pretty masochistic anyways so maybe that´s why!? It´s been a week now and the scabs come off. My tat is just plain black, in the middle of my lower back under a bunch of scars. It´s pretty small, approx. 2 on 5cm. I also have scarred my arms in a geometric way (self-inflicted ;-))and my ears pierced, but generally I´m more into tattooing than piercing.
Okay so it says I have to write more words. Maybe I should say something about what tattooing and especially getting this very design means to me. Before having it done, I always felt like it was something I´d HAVE to do some time in my life - be it now or later. I thought about it a lot, and although the occasion when I got it was a quite spontaneous one, getting it done wasn´t at all. I often tried to imagine what it would feel like to have it done, and I said to me I don´t want to die without knowing. Though that was not the reason to get a tattoo, it felt pretty much like I imagined it in the end. The reason is maybe even the best thing about it: I got it for ME, myself and I. I don´t want to please anyone, I don´t want to rebel against anything (although I know my mother will hate me for it), I just wanted to have it. There. Under my skin forever! And it´s a beautiful design to have. I feel even closer to Ancient Egypt and the Gothic Dark Wave Scene now, and I still like my decision for life. I am glad that I didn´t kill myself when I drew that into serious consideration. The day I got it I couldn´t get rid of that stupid smile on my face. Seems like I really have experienced this endorphine rush some of you talked about. It lasted for a couple of days. Now I am still very happy with it, no regrets yet. But I think I will get the Giger-bird around it some day. That would look even better... Any questions feel free to email!