JPEG GHOST

I survived the convention! It was a low turn out this year but I made almost 1k so I'll take it lol

Luckily the shop bully was fussy and didn't do much other than complain and bitch about everyone around him, so I generally ignored him and he fucked off. He left the convention early which was great for me because I didn't want to deal with him. Unfortunately he didn't help set up or break down, which was a pain in my ass but whatever.

I only have today off before i have to go back to work so I'm trying to relax as much as I can. EVERYTHING IS SORE. I made a fair amount of friends tho and it was delightful. I enjoyed tattooing and advertising to people, I just hope that people will like me enough to want a tattoo by me.

I got Minecraft and I fully intend to just blob today and play it. 

So the HEALTH INSPECTOR is making rounds lately. For reference I got nothing to hide, I'm not worried. But another tattoo artist pulled up on the shop popping the curb and came in, telling us the city health inspector was making their rounds to shops. CUE PANIC. Most of the younger generation artists aren't freaked out, but some of the older generation artists were locking up their stuff. I have all my paperwork and I do all my forms so I'm fine lol

I got texted by a friend at another shop that some shops local to her were getting hella fined because they were forgetting to put down the lot number for their inks -- which has never been necessary before. Weird! I'm going to unfortunately start doing that, which is just more paperwork for me to do. At least I won't get fined.

This weekend I'm going to a benefit for a friend and his dog who were attacked by an offleash dog, an unfortunate problem of our city. It's also May Day! I'm making oat cakes and I'm gonna repot some plants. It's pretty boring honestly but that's fine, I'm lazy after moving and just want to sleep all the time. I'm also planning out my birthday trip, which will be to Chicago. I'm so excited.

 My life has been kind of playing The Sims lately, woops. (No, I didn't get Cottage Living, but I WANT TO). I like the drama of it -- I had a skanky homewrecker grandma sleeping with everyone and dressing like a teenager. She's a hot slut living her best life! Hashtag Girlboss or whatever! Then she died after having two kids from some rando she met at the club. Rather than let the kids get taken by the state (the Sim State?), I made a teenage "niece" who now is failing school because she has to take care of two children and work to keep the lights on. Oh, the drama! I love how stupid it is.

Friday the 13th at the shop happened. Tattoo shops are always doing a deal for Friday the 13ths, they're usually pretty crazy around that time. I've even seen people do tattoos for 13 dollars (with free Hepatitis C!) but we tend to charge a little more since we have some good quality artists. I didn't tattoo anyone the 13th since I don't consider myself good enough to do a whole bunch of people at once, but I hung out and worked on designs. It was pretty quiet, so we all got to shoot the shit. Later, one of the shop "managers" came back from Vegas. (He's not really a manager, more so a second in command)
He went to Vegas with my mentor for her birthday, and the city was apparently on lock down from Covid. She's probably going to be in a foul mood when she comes back and I'm not excited -- Apparently her on again off again boyfriend invited a bunch of people she didn't know over, they did cocaine, and he disappeared. If the "manager" wasn't there, she would have been stranded in Vegas. I feel bad for her, but the deadbeat has done this so often I wonder why she lets it happen.

ANYWAYS I'm going to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit and try to have a pleasant Saturday at the shop. I hope it's drama free.

A week later from my last post and I've OFFICIALLY survived the Great Texas Freeze. I have a lot of very strong political opinions about how this is handled, and how AOC is a saint and Ted Cruz needs to be bludgeoned with a club until he stops being a pussy ass bitch leaving for Cancun when the rest of us are struggling. BUT I WON'T GO INTO THAT.

I read my last post and we continued to have spotty internet, power, and no water until late Thursday. Our water was not clean nor drinkable until late Saturday due to a water boil notice. Other places may not have water boil notices as frequently as Texas, but it's because we get brain eating amoebas in the water and you have to vigorously boil any water that goes into any orifice or NEAR any orifice, if the water filtration / power fails. So cut to me doing dishes with scalding, boiling water and waiting 2 hours for a pot to cool so I could wash my face for the night and brush my teeth. Baths were had by standing in a bathtub and pouring cold boiled water over us. Extremely unsexy. BUT IT'S OVER.

I also read that some liberals from other states are saying we deserve this for voting red. Um, what? My gay ass says otherwise. There are a huge amount of blue voters here, but I guess that narrative doesn't help their misguided anger.

I went in for work on Saturday since my tattoo mentor was back from Colorado. As the tattoo apprentice, I'm like the assistant that hands the surgeon the scalpels and tools. I'm around for tattoos and give aide; But I'm not always standing by, when I'm not immediately needed in a tattoo I clean and do my own practice tattoos. I took some photos of my setup so you guys could see!



There's my ol' girl! Alex and the tattoo team were kind enough to rally together and get me a machine to practice with for Christmas. Originally the intense vibration of a coil machine was really hard to work with, but I'm getting better slowly. The power brick on the right side powers the machine, which is connected through that heavily wrapped up clipcord. The ink cap and water (for cleaning the needle in case it's gunked up by human skin) are on the left.



Here's a closeup <3 That brass-looking thing at the top hits the bar below it, which controls the needle. It's the equivalent of a hammer hitting a nail, many times a second. I'm not going to go into the science because it's A LOT. 

I have today off and I plan on cleaning up our apartment the best I can before I go to the tattoo shop the rest of the week. I also plan on playing a little Katamari, which Alex and I got drunk on Saturday and played and it was SO FUN UGH. He had never played Katamari Damacy before, which is crazy to me ... I gotta teach him how to roll.