Tough Tufted Tat

Beloved members of the Addiverse, I am so excited to tell you about the new tattoo plastered onto my ever-aging skin.  I am all aglow because this new tattoo ROCKS! It's so well done that it actually looks fake, as if someone drew this on my body, not permanently inked it into my skin. Lest you think I exaggerate, here is a photo of my new tufted titmouse tattoo:

(Hold the thought about this being a tufted titmouse.  I'll get to that in a second.)

I mean, come on! That tattoo looks like someone painted a bird on my chest.  It looks even better in person.  Can you believe that's a tattoo? MJagger thought I was kidding and that I had put a decal on as a joke.  This is a tattoo, truly a work of art by an artist.  

Oh, if only I had found this tattoo artist a few decades earlier.  I'd be a work of art instead of an explosion of tacky scratchings and covered-up-cover-ups.

....well, he would be under age ten if I found him 20 years ago, but that's beside the point. 

This tattoo was  done by a friend's son.  Weedeater and I had gone to high school together and, like everyone my age, reunited via Book de la Face.  She mentioned that her son was a tattoo artist and had gone to school at the Art Institute of Chicago.  I took a gander at some of the photos posted on her page and couldn't believe it....

I had found the man of my dreams.  I started saving my pennies and thinking about the next tattoo. 

Oh, the poor wife.

This time, I wanted a tattoo visible to me on a daily basis.  The majority of my tattoos are on my back.  They are there because these "people" have my back--it was conscious process but it really didn't work out because I can't really see them except for in the mirror when I remember to look.  (Unfortunately, the wife has to see them every day and she hates tattoos.  Lose-lose.)  The "50th-birthday-present-to-myself-nautical-star-tattoo" on my chest is fabulous--I see it every day, it has many meanings to me and I have all sorts of happy thoughts when taking a gander. I love it and what it represents. So, I figured I still had half a chest to go and that this would be my canvas. (At my age and at my size, it is safe to put tattoos on my chest. I do not suggest this for other women.  Just keep that in mind when planning your chesty tats.)  I thought sticking with the old school, traditional tattoo might match best with the nautical star, so I started there.  My love of birds (a bird nerd I am) lead me to looking at traditional-worn-by-sailors sparrows.  The tiny bird fit the theme and style, would fit where I needed it to fit, would have meaning.  I scoured the web and tattoo magazines in search of the perfect sparrow and came up with several ideas.    

Since some of you might not know what this kind of bird looks like, I've put an example here.

During my search for the perfect bird design, I found a photo of a tattoo featuring a realistic-looking bird, as opposed to the old school traditional bird.  This got me thinking--why not get a real bird instead of a stylized one?  I love birds.  I adore birds.  The wife and I have been known to go bird watching.  We have a bird book and binoculars in the kitchen, just in case something fun new bird visits our back yard.  A bird....a real bird....I dunno, I dunno...

I gathered up my sailor birds and included one photo of a "real bird" in the pile.  I took the ideas to the tattoo artist of choice (Billy Raike of Roselle Tattoo Company) and gave him carte blanche.  He set up an appointment, many weeks into the future (he's that good, people!) and indicated he'd draw something up for me by the time I returned.

Fast forward to this week. My tattoo time had come! I went to the appointment as scheduled.  He hadn't drawn anything yet, as he needed more information--you know, important things like where I wanted this tattoo placed on my body.  So, we got in a discussion about sailor birds.  He studied the designs I had provided, asked a bunch of questions, took a gander at my chest (the area for the tattoo, sillies--not my actual chest).  He then pointed to the realistic-looking bird I had included and indicated he could do something like that.  That did it.  Screw the sparrows, let's go with a real bird!

I had him googling all sorts of birds, explaining that I am a bird nerd and that this "real bird" design was actually a much better idea.  I gave him names of birds to google (which reinforced my nerdiness to the nth degree) and bantered back and forth about the merits of each winged friend.  Neither of us were really satisfied with what we were seeing when it hit me.....

I burst out laughing and told him to type in "tufted titmouse."  I.am.a.genius!  What could be more hilarious and more fitting than putting a tufted titmouse on your chest??!!  This is bird humor--"tit" means "small" in some Scandinavian language and "mouse" means "bird"--so, we're talking small bird...which is going to go on my small chest....

....an itty bird bird for an itty bitty titty.

I'm 99% sure he thought I was kidding.  I mean, who the hell has ever been told to google a tufted titmouse? Who the hell besides bird nerds has even heard of a tufted titmouse? I don't think he believed his eyes when he typed "tufted ti" and up popped tufted titmouse in the image search box. Wa-la! There it was, one of my favorite birds (again, I kid you not).  Both of us knew it when we saw the photo. There was no question.  There was no further thought about a nautical sparrow.  There was no discussion. This was THE bird. 

The rest was history.  He drew the bird and two hours later, I was the proud owner of an incredibly gorgeous tufted titmouse.  

This was by far the best tattoo experience I've ever had.  If you don't have any tattoos, you might be scratching your head about that, wondering what does and doesn't make for a good tattoo experience.  Well, EVERYTHING was perfect about this tufted titmouse experience--the artist, the design, the shop, the cost, the music, the result.  Everything.  It was so perfect that I can't stopping about my titmouse and won't be shutting up for many months to come.

I have gotten overwhelming rave reviews from everyone except for MJagger--not because of the actual tattoo (she agrees that it is amazing), but because of the subject matter.  She can't believe I didn't get a hawk or an eagle or a raven or something like predatory like that.  She's still laughing and shaking her head. "A tufted titmouse? Are you kidding me? THAT'S your tattoo?!!"  

I hope a tufted titmouse poops on her.  I'm not going to point out birds anymore when we walk.  I'm going to savor them myself.  She would never have noticed those adorable nuthatches without my keen birding prowess.

My tattoo is so perfect that it makes me want to get a whole sleeve of birds....perhaps a rose-breasted gross beak befriending a chickadee and nuthatch?  A cedar waxwing keeping a watchful eye on an American Oriole (why they no longer call them Baltimore Orioles, I do not know)? A soaring Cooper's Hawk across the shoulder with an Eastern Towhee perched above my "what the hell is that blob" wrist tattoo?  We'd no longer have to carry a bird book--we could just look at my arm and know what bird we were watching.

For now, I will adore my tufted titmouse in the here and now and carry a bird book.   One can always dream of birds to come.....