The Phoenix is finished!!

This part hurt so very very much!  But in the end it was worth it.

I want to thank Jodi at Accent Tattoo in Ukiah!  Jodi got to put up with my whining, crying, postponing, poking, and prodding.  This odyssey started months ago and now we are done and he did an AWESOME job.  He hugged me at the end of this session, I like to think it was because we entertained him so very much whenever we were there, but I am sure it was a "Thank God this bitch is done" sort of hug.  The kind of hug you give a kidnapper who was nice to you, but was still a kidnapper. 

People have asked me why I do this since I hate it so very much.  The response is, I love the end result.  Its art that means something to me and I get to carry it everywhere and show it to the world.  I absolutely HATE being tattooed, but when you get something this beautiful from it, well, in the end its worth it to me.

The phoenix holds so much meaning for me and this phoenix in particular, will live on in my heart and now on my body forever.  For those who don't know I will give you the reason for this phoenix. 

His name is A'lar, he is a boss inside of Tempest Keep in the World of Warcraft.  Now if the story stopped there I would expect to be called a super nerd for the rest of my life, but, it does not.  Let me explain.  In 2006 I was holding on to the last shreds of my marriage trying desperately to think of something that could save it.  In the end I realized that I just didn't love him any more and nothing I could do was going to change that.  At the same time I had been really wanting to get another tattoo and decided that I would get a phoenix.  The idea of the life you had burning to so much ash only for you to reappear stronger and more beautiful from it, really hit the nail on the head for me.  I started looking for phoenix art.  Later that year I started playing World of Warcraft.  In the following year, yep I was a slow leveller back then, I met so many wonderful people who helped me gain the strength I needed to light the fire to burn my old life to cinders and the strength to believe I could emerge from it more beautiful and stronger than ever.  In June of 2007, I was finally ready to raid with the big boys, and a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to come with his guild to raid Karazhan.  Off I went in all my face melting glory to raid for the first time.  Being the fantastic, wonderful, generous person I am, I asked if anyone needed anything from the city before they summoned me to the dungeon.  A player named Idaslapter asked me for some arcane powder.  No problem, I said and I skipped of to get it before requesting the summon.

When I got to the dungeon, there was Idaslapter, a female human mage with awful hair.  I traded with her and went into the dungeon.  Little did I know that I had just met D.  The man I was destined to be with.  The future father of my children and my reason for getting up every day no matter how shitty I feel.  Through typical MMO guild/clan drama I ended up in another guild a few months later and that guild was way more advanced than the one I came from.  A week after joining them they took me to Tempest Keep.  It was there that I saw A'lar for the first time and it was after I saw that you could get him as a mount (which I NEVER did see drop, freaking .0001% drop rate) that I decided that was the one for me.  In the last 2 years so much had been going on that there never seemed to be time or money to get it done.  It seemed appropriate to me that D gave me this as my Valentine's Day gift.  I love them both so very much.

So there it is, there is my story about my awesome A'lar tattoo!  Enjoy!