the pain of being tattooed becomes almost meditative after the first few minutes, and I ended up kind of enjoying being forced to just exist and count breaths for three and a half hours

that said, when the artist did the bit of the tattoo that encroached on an area with lots of nerve endings, I had to focus all my mental energy on recalling the words to the Major General’s Song from Pirates of Penzance so I didn’t do something horribly embarrassing, like start crying or beg her to stop

I got literal, rather than figurative, whiplash for the first time today

not due to a car accident, but due to falling off the very top of the wall at the bouldering gym, and hitting the mat hard enough to bounce