.24.

So Saturday, I did another run on my endless octopus transformation.

Right now, it's in the itchy stage of beginning to scab and me wanting to slap it a hundred times over. Except then it'll still be sore. And itchy.

To be honest, this was round three in getting me used to the tattooing process. I must say, I envy people who say that they can fall asleep while being tattooed. Whatever is with me, it does NOT involve endorphins.

The first round, where we laid down four blue rings and some "skin" in between, I had Joy, my artist, use "blue gel," an anesthetic to numb the area. Mind you, this isn't an easy anesthetic to use by any means. The gel has to go onto broken skin, which meant that she had to essentially tear up the area with her tattoo machine, sans numbing agent, then rub it in and wait five minutes for it to kick in. Then she could tattoo in peace. It was agonizing when she did the first run, but I laid still when it came down to the important detail work.

Unfortunately, because of the gel and my doing terrible aftercare that resulted in several hundred small pimples rising along it, most of the color fell out. So for round two, Joy had to retattoo most of the work again. Without anesthetic. "Ouch," is an understatement. I kept stopping her every few minutes to try and breathe through the whole thing. One of the biggest problems I found was that when my friend, in trying to be helpful, kept talking to me and didn't let me fall into a sort of pain-numbed-fucked state meditation. I hear that being able to do that is really helpful.

Round three involved consuming half a vicodin at first, then after the first needle blasts inhaling the remainder. I don't like taking more than half because one time I did that on an empty stomach and couldn't get into an upright position or move without it feeling like I'm in a vat of honey. This happened when I was taking them for wisdom teeth removal, so I also hadn't eaten solid foods or eaten often in several days.

With the aid of the pill, it wasn't so bad. I let her do her work with fewer stops and they let me do my meditational thing. But I got cranky real quick and, in my opinion, annoying to tattoo. So I don't know what's going to happen for round three. But leaving my waist area, things are starting to feel better. She's hitting more spots that don't hurt quite so bad and it's funny to feel the vibrations of the machine rattle through my pelvic area. I stand by my need to gain more weight, because she is too close to my organs for comfort in any way.

But so far, I have a lovely piece going on that should hopefully wrap up in 3-5 sessions, depending on how much further we get the next couple of rounds. I don't know if I'll keep taking pills or just grin and bear it either, since coming down from that stuff really did a number on my head and functional abilities.

As it goes, I have most of my mental problems under relative control. Throw in drugs or alcohol and it's like Wheel of Fortune for insanity. There were times when I closed my eyes and had visions flashing through my head, like a field of sunflowers or general colors. That happens when I take pills generally, as I'm still on prescription pain killers for my cramps. Visions flash through that I have no control over.

It's still nicer that it exists behind closed eyelids so long as I'm on something, rather than being real to tangible and when my eyes are wide open and I'm quite awake.