fourteen.

today marks fourteen years since i started tattooing.
yeah.
fourteen hand-cramping, back-bending, interminable years.
in a row.
tattooing has been good to me,
and tattooing has been bad to me.
really.
i'm just sayin'.
almost every lasting interaction in these last long
hard, cold, lonely fourteen F*ing years
has originated through the tattoo shop.
or, at least, one tattoo shop or another.
i mean,
i don't really go anywhere else,
so meeting people is confined to the studio hours.
ugh.
tattooing.
after all this time,
it is arguably the worst thing that ever happened to me,
and also, inarguably, the very best thing too.
would i have made the friends i have without it?
one or two, maybe;
but,
would i have met my (x)wife without it?
....no.
would she have been able to meet someone else,
and then be able to afford leave me without it?
.....also no.
then again,
if we're being fair and honest-
i kinda had that one coming.
at least, if getting even is what we're getting at.
F* tattooing.
it provides with one hand,
and it takes with the other.
hell,
i haven't spoken to my first client,
my old friend, mitch, in years.
damn.
it's bitter, and it's sweet,
it's salty, as in: harboring a grudge.
and it's salty, as in: dripping sweat, and dripping tears.
there's a balance to all of it, neighbors.
for the first time in fourteen years,
i almost forgot that today is the day.
it was at once a relief and a quick burst of panic.
did i miss it? did i care?
no, and yes, it turns out.
tattooing is not the love of my life,
that's just the truth of it.
however,
it IS my bottom b!tch,
and i'm gonna always hit that.
***********
how'd i celebrate?
yard work.
i blew leaves into the neighbors' yards;
i burned leaves in piles;
i raked leaves across the grounds of this Folk Life & Liberty Fortress;
i used a dull maul to battle-bash wood to bits;
i stacked the bashed bits;
i fertilized plants;
i acidified the soil around my blueberry bushes.....
basically,
i labored along in the woodsly goodness like a serf,
nowhere within sight nor sound of a tattoo.
and it was pure bliss.
when it was all over,
i activated twenty-two dumps on my face.
teleport:

word up, friends.
a fat faceful of filthy sesame-oiled diapers,
filled to the tippity-tops with all the delicious i could handle.
it went to eleven, twice,
and i let it.
packing up and folding over those dumplings is relaxing.
there's something to show for it,
until you eat them.
like those leaves,
the piles were high until they burnt to a blackened ashy dust heap.
that's the way it goes.
it all just seems so damned amazing...
...until it isn't.
ugh.
-
dear tattooing,
     somehow,
     you win again.
                  xoxo
                      love,
                         albie
-
it's all really happening,
all of it, all the time.
and as much as i complain about the way it's unfolding,
i'm still grateful to be a part of it.
the other options just don't seem as appealing;
never quiet, never soft.....