Snoqualmie

From zero to itchy in 172800 seconds.

I was told on Friday, for the second time in my life, that I have good skin for tattooing. Since I've spent several years speculating on what that might actually mean, I had to ask for an explanation. Apparently it means that while some people have rubbery skin that pulls at the needle and makes lines come out looking wiggly, I have -- here antonyms eluded everyone present -- something different. Non-wiggly lines means not having to go back over them to even them out, which makes things go faster and turn out neater. This is joy for everyone, right? You betcha. Less pain, less time, less money, less annoyance. Less scabbing, less scarring, fewer days of hurty showers. My new outlines are feeling almost like normal skin already except for one thing.

My back itches like crazy and I can't scratch it. Some of it's new-tattoo itch: the tiny tiny light scabs are already drying up and they feel prickly. Some of it's just the usual sort of tickly-shirt general random itching. The rest of it is a bloody-minded rebellion by five square feet of my skin only because I know I can't fucking scratch it! Yesterday I told myself I could still scratch the right side of my back, since there weren't any lines there. When a spot above my right hip itched I scratched it... then a little further up... then a little to the left... and discovered, to my utter astonishment, my fingernails poised directly over the (itchy) outline of one of my tomatoes. Fuckity fuckity fuck. So I've outlawed all scratching and am considering revoking my fingernail privileges entirely.

I just needed to relieve my feelings about this. I'm maliciously hoping that after reading the words "itch" and "scratch" so many times in two paragraphs you'll all be feeling as desperately prickly as I am. Tickle tickle. Tickle. I should buy stock in the company that makes those little wooden scratchy arms.