"Take Me To Astro's Grave."

Oh Man!

What a great night.

Tonight was my appointment with Tattoo Artist Extraordinaire, Joe Rose. We went from my upper thigh to just above my hip, pretty much to where my belt falls. Joe had sort of a sour stomach and wanted to get out of there early. (That did not prevent him from getting absorbed in his work and very excited about the design and it's execution, I'm happy to report.)

As I was driving down to New Hope for the appointment, I had some butterflies in the stomach. Nothing serious. Just a little bit of "eeeeEEEEeeeeee..." thinking about the pain to come.

Fer nuthin'! We were doing a pretty meaty part of me, my thighs, so it wasn't much of a problem. I didn't wince or whine or say 'fuckfuckfuckFUCK!' the entire time.

Quite the reverse.

We got onto the subject of Funny Stuff We've Seen On Comedy Central. Reno 911 figured prominently in our conversation. "when Trudy was dating the serial killer, and she's like, 'Curiosity killed the cat, but here goes! why do you have a human size bird cage?' and when they made the little kid ride his bike off the roof of the super market! And so on.

I was laughing. A lot.

But the absolute best was Joe describing to me an episode of the Family Guy, which I have never seen. The theme of the show was 'child stars,' although because the Family Guy is animated, it was animated child stars they were discussing. At one point, a character remarks, "Well, Elroy Jetson seems to have done alright." Cut the scene to an older, broken down Elroy Jetson, getting thrown out of a bar. They load him into a car, and Bamm-Bamm Rubble (older, broken down) is the driver.

"Bamm. Bamm. Where to, Mac?" asks Bamm-Bamm.

"Just take me to Astro's grave," says Elroy Jetson.

I was howling. And not from pain! And every couple of minutes, that would come to me again, and I'd start giggling. The whole night long, I was giggling away.

Pain?

Ha!

I laugh at pain!

Y'know what's weird? Joe and I really like each other. At least, I like him a lot. And I'm pretty sure he likes me. And then there's the whole thing with the crowd at Starbucks. Irish Guy and Handsome Guy and all the rest of 'em. And then there's the guys at work. It's like, all the cool guys I know are straight! I don't know any cool gay guys. (Well, I guess Farmer Guy would count as a Cool Gay Guy. Yeah, definitely he would. But it's the middle of growing season, he has zucchini and kolrabi and bok choi to harvest, so I'm not seeing much of him lately. For the better part of my adult life, I barely knew any straight guys. And now, I barely know any gay guys. Pretty odd. Never thought I was so ambidextrous.

And the ink, by the way, looks really great.

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