I have a tattoo. Some people would say it’s two tattoos, but they make one piece. (If you haven’t seen my whole tattoo, there’s a picture here.) I like having a tattoo, even if it’s somewhere I see only once in a great while. Sometimes I even forget it’s there, but I do like having it! I got my tattoo in December 1999, and I was supposed to return to the studio six months later to have it touched up. The entire tattoo is black work in rather large sections, and on this type of tattoo (anything with lots of black) it is not perfect the first time - there are shades of gray. Hence, going back for a touch-up; I’m told returning for further touch-ups over the years is also recommended. But I never went back for my first one - the memory of the terrible pain was too fresh in my mind. And as with all things that get dropped at the wayside, I never did make it back for the touch-up.

A friend of mine suggested getting it fixed up this weekend, but I doubt I’ll be goaded into it. That got me thinking about tattoos, though, and I looked up how tattoos work. That article is primarily about artwork tattoos, the “normal” kind, but it makes a passing mention of permanent makeup. I learned that this is also called micropigmentation or dermagraphics. Permanent makeup is commonly seen as eyeliner, eyelashes, and eyebrows (the last one is an approved reconstructive treatment for alopecia patients), but it can also be done on the lips, as cheek blush, or elsewhere on the body. Getting tattoos on one’s lips isn’t unheard of - BMEzine has more than 200 pictures in the lip tattoo gallery, and there are even a dozen tongue tattoos, plus a guy who tattooed his entire tongue blue himself. But I suspect that even the most hardcore body mod fan would shy away from having a tattoo gun only millimeters from their eyeball. There are a couple of process pictures on this page (and the next), and there’s some eyebrow tattoos, but for the most part I believe the only people insane enough to put a tattoo gun anywhere near their eyes are the micropigmentation customers who are getting permanent eyeliner because they don’t have time to put on the real thing in the morning.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe lots of people go for having the brim of their eyelid tattooed. Maybe it’s not as painful (they do use topical anesthetic) or as nervewracking as it seems. But fucking hell, it sure sounds crazy to me.