LAST MINUTES

yeah, man.
i like to leave a little time, just in case.
i did two tattoos  on one person, then i did a little lip-tatt on a russian,
then i did allllll the cancer ribbons on some fingers,
and some fancy patterned lines and dots on the same hand...
then, my client who missed her appointment last thursday showed up
for her appointment seven whole days late.
is that lame? it's for sure bad calendar operation, and also a little hilarious
when somebody shows up with their tie-dyed friends to have a fun time,
and the artist is like, 'oh, you're here a week late for your appointment,
AND you're five minutes late for it, too?'
hahahaha.
meanwhile, there's spoiled diaper babies around town talking noise
about how there's just no time for the next century or so to do any tattoos.
but not at AMPERSAND TATTOO, bro.
nope.
and like a true life real-deal tattooin' expert-
i blasted out five F*ing butterflies on her chest.
hmm?
well, yeah, she lucked out, sorta because i finished the hand tattoo early;
and i had a half a second to maybe eat something or eff around on my phone,
or stretch out, or do whatever.....except that ain't me, neighbors.
ugh.
i'm only good at working, honestly.
that's regrettably true.
and i'm pretty much straight up garbage-bagged dogsh!t at just about everything else.
and then i drew up a thing for a leg,
and i watched a righteous summer storm fire off a billion joules of electric energy
across the street in the form of a sprank-flingin' ferocious crooked finger of lightning.
yup.
i would've been alright if it hit me through the window, if i'm telling the truth.
alas,
instead i found myself fighting my way through a leg-liftin' squirmy thigh tatt,
full of what might've been fine lines and perfect arcs.

there you go.
faces and dingle-dangles and a little bit of blue, too.
if i can fit in one more tattoo, i usually will.
that said, when three bestie-friendy ladies came in at six fifteen,
and said they pulled in out of the raging storm after talking about tattoos all day,
and figured that being in the parking lot of tattoo studio they didn't know about
was probably a sign.....
i asked if it was a *closed* sign, because that's what we were.
yeah.
you can't do every tattoo.
heck, i got called a F***ing A**hole by a very horizontally large man,
in front of my very lovely clients,
for not having time to do a tattoo and for not responding to his email,
(which incidentally i had already done, but it seems he didn't check)
and for which it turns out was a wraparound ring finger tattoo,
and i would NOT have done that anyway.....
...which i apologized for in the email he didn't get.
the thing is:
he was telling his young son that because i woudln't stop what i was doing to tattoo him,
THAT was why i'm an effin' ayy-hole.
so that's what yesterday was like, overall.
a lot of everything, a large lightning strike, sun, rain, joy, pain, ink, sweat
and instantaneous fall-asleepiness as soon as i sat down on the couch.
glamorous?
hardly.
hard?
somewhat.
when the best part of the day is that it's over,
you can bet the next day will just be more of the same.
august is a hard style, every single year.
but come september, i'll almost certainly miss these movie checks
more than i dread the workload on the schedule;
never quiet, never soft.....