A serious souvenir

This was a special trip for me. Sarah has bugged me for years to come over, but I always seem to have some sort of excuse. The primary reason? It just seemed like such a huge commitment to book a trip six to nine months in advance and to dedicate most of my year's vacation days to one trip. Then it was the fear that my journalist job could just spontaneously evaporate that meant I couldn't possibly schedule a trip to Australia. It was last summer that I heard something about cheap airfare on NPR, and it just seemed like it was now or never. I got online and booked a ticket. Apparently $1,300 is cheap. (Ultimately it ended up being about $1,550 because of my "economy plus" upgrades, but those were deemed necessary for survival on a 14-hour plane flight.)

So at 42, I finally took my first real trip involving a passport to see my friend of 36 years who is living in another hemisphere. This was important. So what do you do when the usual touristy souvenirs just seem a little silly and insubstantial? Forget jewelry. Get a tattoo!

On a local's recommendation, I went to Free Spirt Tattoos in Surfside last Thursday to check out the options. Apparently Jason and David are well sought after in the area and I was lucky I knew a local, because David basically made room for me on his schedule by staying late Tuesday. This left me a long weekend to become completely obsessive about what to get permanently inked on my body. After my initial look through at the tattoo shop, I was pretty sure I wanted a dolphin. Not a cutsy cartoon dolphin, or some weird dolphin jumping through a heart with a dagger (yes, they had that), but a "meaningful" dolphin. What that was? I wasn't sure. I was becoming my own worst art directing customer.

Thank god for the Internet. I spent several days going to tattoo sites looking for just the right dolphin. I e-mailed a few designs to friends. Two different times I thought I had "the one," but when I thought about it on my leg for the next 40 years, neither seemed quite right. (Why does this sound like my dating life?) One friend suggested I try to find a cool piece of Australian aboriginal art, though he thought a lizard would be cool. I told him he could get his own damn lizard, but the aboriginal idea was a good one.

I eventually found a print online that had a bunch of different aboriginal design animals, including a really cool dolphin. I stuck with the dolphin idea because they symbolize intelligence, friendship and new beginnings, which all seemed like cool things. I also saw dolphins twice on my morning visits to the beach (once FREAKING because I thought they were sharks at first). I also like the aboriginal design because of the tribal feel without being too manly and the design could be colorful without having a dumb sunset in the background.

I had thought about having it put on my hip or some other "hidden" place, but then I realized: forget other people, I wanted to see it all the time. I decided the inside of my right ankle was a good spot.


Last night Sarah dropped me off at 6, but she had to get back to feed the kids. Belinda (a local friend) met me there just for fun. Apparently it's "fun" for tattoo veterans to come watch a newbie get one. Hey, it was nice to have the company. David was able to translate my design into something tattoo friendly. The actual tattoo process probably only took about 45 minutes. He did the black outline first and then filled in the color. Did it hurt? Yeah. Horribly? Not so much, but I was glad it wasn't bigger and happy it wasn't in a more tender spot.



For those of you not familiar with tattoos (hi mom), once it's officially healed in a week or two, it won't be quite so bright and the yellow parts will look more yellow. In this photo, they look a little orange because... well... the blood was seeping through and making the yellow look orange. (I don't know why my leg looks so spotty in this photo. weird!)