I think I’m going to get another tattoo. I got my current one (SFW, NSFW) in December 1999 and I screamed bloody murder the whole time, so I never got it touched up. I have been considering another tattoo for a while now, but I promised I would get the original touched up before getting anything additional. I just called Dragon Moon to see if my original artist could do the touch up, but they require $100 cash before they will even make an appointment. (Because I live more than an hour away, they’d accept a $100 money order in the mail.) Also, the black they use is different now, so she would probably have to go over the whole thing to make it look even.

So I think I’m going to get my other tattoo first, because that will be small and will help prepare me for the larger project of my original tattoo getting touched up. I had originally wanted a Hello Kitty tattoo, but I discarded that idea a little while ago. Now, I know what I’m getting: a memorial tattoo for Wu. I’ve been reading an “Over the Rainbow” [Bridge] group at Catster, and I’ve been thinking about a memorial for her. Someone suggested a scrapbook, but I realized…I could really go for a tattoo. It would be like keeping her with me always - and probably about the same price as any of the cremation jewelry I looked at.

I’m planning to get a paw print, but I want a realistic one rather than a stylized silhouette, probably not more than an inch square. I’m going to get it on the outside of my thigh, up close to my hip. As my other cats cross the Rainbow Bridge, I will want to get a new paw for each of them, until there is a trail of them down my thigh. A couple of people have suggested an initial in each, or a name with them, but I don’t think I’m going to do that - I want to memorialize in the abstract. I know it’s a memorial tattoo, but nobody else has to.

I have to decide where to go. Dragon Moon is too far away, so it should be somewhere in the DC area. There are apparently a couple of places in Fairfax, and of course there are several in the city itself. Jinx Proof is reportedly very clean and reasonably good, but everyone agrees they are expensive and some people say the artists have poor “bedside” manners. Fatty’s Custom Tattooz is also supposed to be good but pricey, but I don’t think I want to tell people “Fatty’s” when they ask where I got the ink. There’s also Tattoo Paradise, and I’m curious about AX Tattoo because she’s on the LiveJournal friends lists of both preppyperv and redwaterlilly, and I could swear I recognize her. So I have to figure out where to go, and I should probably visit a few places. But I’m pretty damn sure I want this tattoo.