reaching for the stars

well, the knuckles are done…

…and i thought i’d talked about ’em, but maybe not?

i came up with an idea almost a year and a half ago – to “fill a half sleeve” with seven pairs of knuckles, each representing my near and dear friends. the qualifications?

1. i gotta know you
2. have to have been around for a decade or more
3. no major bullshit or backstabbing for the friendship

there were some asterisks here – for example, in many ways my friend leia or andrew (who i went to dinner with the other night should qualify, having been around for over a decade with minimal bullshit. same for chuckles the restauranteur or randy the radio personality, both leftover buds from college. but as all of the above have gone years if not decades with no contact before the miracle reconnections that the facebooks gives us, and to be honest none (save for andrew a couple years when i was little) were really that close to me…

…but then there’s the seven. seven folks that have been around, through thick and thin, with no bullshit during the course of our friendship. they all got knuckles. the difference? the hand hole…the finger holes were all the typical, but the hand hole? that was custom per person…

light bulb – JAB
fleur de lis – bret
guinness harp – shane
blank – lance
tattoo machine – harold
cali – ME
star – kramer

if you know them, it makes sense – JAB’s been an electrician for over twenty-five years. bret never seemed as happy as he does living in NOLA. shane loves him some guinness, lance wasn’t around (not of his own doing) when the plans were made, harold is the consummate tattooer, ME’s a lil’ cali girl, and k-man’s the fishing guide to what? exactly…

but the last three were still just outlines – no brassy fill. which kinda sucks since all three are supposedly at my wedding in less than two weeks (seeing as how kramer’s performing the ceremony, he’s pretty much guaranteed). had to get it done this week so i’m all healed up for the big day, so we FINALLY got them finished out on thursday morning. the thing i didn’t consider? back when we did the outlines (which was over a year ago at this point) i had a real problem reaching the top one on the back of my arm (kramer)…and now i’m trying to heal a whole lotta yellow in that same spot? “reaching for the stars” (see above knuckle description) is now a LOT harder than i expected!

and now i’m down to only ONE unfinished tattoo – can’t wait to get that done up this winter, along with my feet cover-ups we’ve been planning forever and a year…