My Friend Inspired Me To Get Some Ink

I have this buddy from childhood who turns out is a really cool guy. We’re becoming better friends in our adulthood than we were as kids. I knew him when he was thirteen and he had of course no tattoos at that time. Now he is covered. He lives thousands of miles away, so we hang out only a couple times a year. Luckily he seems to often travel to Los Angeles from Chicago where I live. 

Anyway, pretty much every time I see him he has a new piece, and every time I think I make some sort of comment about how I didn’t think it was possible for him to get more. But, yet, he does. As someone with no tattoos, I enjoy talking to him about it, he has a very casual, nonchalant attitude about it. He obviously doesn’t sweat it so much, since he’s probably got about thirty some odd tattoos. He said he usually goes to the same shop near his house, but also goes to new shops when he’s in new towns and also has dabble in the art of self-tattoo. That was what caught my intrigue. He said he bought tattoo machines and began practicing to see if he could actually do it. He said the hardest part was committing to putting the needles, that he got in the tattoo kits for sale, to his skin the first time, but once he did it, it became almost addictive. I mean, he is clearly already obsessive  to tattooing, but I can see how it might be appealing in a controlled self-mutilation kind of way. It’s pretty cool. His work is really great. He said he gets his supplies at http://www.thelashop.com/ and though I’m not going to actually get some myself, I do find myself tempted and intrigued. Who knows, maybe next time he comes out to visit I’ll go with him and we’ll get a tattoo done together. It’s probably time I entered this world.