eye to eye and face to face....

I was in the changing rooms at work this evening, just changing into my cycling gear for the ride home when an old colleague came in.  Robert is one of those old-school guys in his mid-50s who has cycled to work as long as I can remember, but his only concession to cycling clothing is a pair of bicycle clips, which he uses to carefully secure his smart trousers before serenely cycling home on a bike that must weigh about a tonne and basically has a basket on the front.

He's a lovely guy and I've known him for some years, so we had a bit of polite chit-chat about the weather. Him as he arranged his briefcase and secured it with elasticated straps to make sure it was safe for his ride home, me as I got changed.  As I peeled off my shirt, I noticed that Robert's attention was drawn away to my left arm, and from that point onwards until I put on my t-shirt, he was unable to look me in the eye without being distracted by the tattoo on my arm (this one).

I've had it for a while now, so I don't really think anything of it, but I suppose if you've not seen it before, you're bound to want to have a look.  Some people ask me about it, but Robert clearly decided that not mentioning it at all was probably be the best policy.  He did seem surprised though.

We were talking about tattoos the other day as we waited for the last person to arrive before we kicked off a meeting.  The youngest member of our team, our graduate who is about 23, has quite a few tattoos and was off that day getting a new one and also getting an older one touched up.  The guys I was meeting with seemed fascinated by this, and were basically astonished when I mentioned that I also had a tattoo... well, four tattoos actually.

I don't look the type, apparently.

The Guardian made me laugh today: they published an article yesterday afternoon saying that tea was a national disgrace and that the British should let it go as an unwelcome colonial hangover.  For this blatant piece of trolling, they have so far received 38 pages of comments and are presumably delighted at the number of page impressions they've generated.  That's more comments than I've ever seen on an article on their website before.  Usually, their go-to subject when they want to stimulate debate is tattoos: it doesn't matter if it's a thoughtful piece, a silly piece or just a set of pictures from a convention, sure as eggs is eggs, there will be thousands of comments by people expressing their shock and astonishment about someone else's choices about their own body and saying how, if they had the money, they'd be investing in laser tattoo removal, because mark their words... etc. etc.  These are then followed by lots of other (presumably tattooed) people telling them to mind their own damn business.  Cue much hilarious informed discussion as the Guardian gleefully rubs it's hands and watches the page impressions take off.

It's all very predictable, but it just serves to highlight how, even though they are relatively commonplace, tattoos are still quite divisive and people hold strong pre-conceptions about the kind of people who get them.

But that's okay, because I don't seem like one of those types of people.  So that's okay, yeah?

(Last time we spoke about this, Artog shared his theory about tattoos: "In my view these others fall into the following categories: soldiers, sailors (especially pirates) and Hells Angels. You I'd place in the sailor category, on account of all your travelling."  I'd rather be a Hells Angel, I think... but you can't go far wrong with pirate, eh?  Or Argggh, I should probably say.)

look into the eyes.  Not around the eyes....

Speaking of people not making eye contact, my wife was telling me today about a senior manager who came to speak to her today and couldn't stop staring at her chest.  He was subtle about it, she told me.
"How subtle can he be, if you're still noticing?
"Well, he only looked at them when I looked away"
"How do you know that?"
"Because I started looking away deliberately and turning back quickly to catch him. I did it a few times during our conversation."

He might be a very senior manager, but I know who bossed that particular conversation. Always with the power games......

steam...

I asked this question on my Facebook feed after my swim on Sunday afternoon, but it's too good not to share here too:

So, if a guy in the sauna keeps commenting on how thin I am and what great shape I'm in, asking my age and height and then guessing my weight and asking what I'm doing later, he's just being nice and making polite conversation, right?

He sounds like he's either Canadian or American, so although it isn't very English to behave like this, maybe it's more normal where he comes from; perhaps locker room etiquette is different in Saskatoon or wherever he's from.  He's about my height and build, around about the same age and says that he's just getting back into exercise to work on his pot belly, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that he might just be genuinely curious about my exercise regime.  At this point, I'm still prepared to believe that he's just being friendly.

I begin to change my mind when he follows me out of the sauna to continue our conversation, and touches me gently on the shoulder, asking about the tattoo there and then about my plans for the rest of the day.

To be honest, I don't really care if he was chatting me up (which seems to be the general consensus, and apparently my gym is a notorious pick-up joint.  Well, according to my wife.....and I'm not sure I want to know how she knows that).

You can't blame a guy for trying, I suppose.  I'm flattered.

If gaunt, bearded older guys are his thing, then who am I to judge? ...à chacun son goût, and all that.

ink....

I was explaining to someone at work today how I spent my weekend, when it hit me: I'm suddenly quite tattooed now.  They'd wanted to see pictures, of course, and their reaction to the orca was one at shock that it was so large.  I've got four tattoos in all now, starting with a little tribal swirl on my right arm in Amsterdam in 2003, then the bear paw on my left shoulder in Banff in 2010 and now these two.  The orca is comfortably the biggest, to be fair, but maybe I just don't look the sort.

Actually, this is quite an intricate design, and the tattoo has to be that large in order to get all of the detail in without risking any blurring of lines that are too close together.  I will admit that it looked dauntingly big on Saturday morning when Giselle, my tattooist, showed me the tracing... but actually it sits around my arm quite nicely, and that beautiful fluked tail doesn't even dip below my normal t-shirt line.  I was much encouraged too by the reaction of my wife, who absolutely loves this one, and she did from the moment that the tracing was put onto my arm to be inked in.  Giselle did a fantastic job with this one, I think.  It's still healing, obviously, but I think it looks really good.

The whole process took about 3 hours.  If you've never been tattooed before, then I guess you wouldn't know what that feels like.  I compare it to a feeling a little like sunburn, never really going above 2 /10 on the pain scale, except when the needle hits a more sensitive piece of skin - in this case on the softer parts of the back of my arm or near my armpit - even then, it's never over a 3 / 10.  Watching a good tattooist at work is a real pleasure anyway, and I had a front row seat for this one.

The other tattoo I had done on Saturday seemed to take no time at all and was all over in less than 45 minutes.  Unlike the intricate work required on the orca, this was relatively simple.  The story of both these tattoos can be found here, but this one is actually from a tracing that C. did of an old, hand drawn French star map showing the constellation Ursa Major..  The fact that she's had such a big role in the design of this one is really important to me, and I hope she's happy with the results.  If you look closely, you'll see that Giselle actually missed a greek letter designating the star Megrez off, which I noticed when applying some ointment on Sunday evening and I'll have to go back in a couple of weeks when I'm all healed for the 30 seconds that will be needed to add that tiny detail in.  No drama.  I'm really very pleased with this one already, anyway: it's a good size for my shoulder blade and I think it's worked really well from concept in my head to ink on my body with the fair hand of my wife involved in between.

I realise that tattoos are not to everyone's taste, but I'm comfortable with the ones that I have on my body.  They tell a story, don't they?  They tell my story.  I don't have anyone else's tattoos, I have mine.

Tell me about your tattoos - I want to hear the stories.  If you don't have one, what would you get?  Why haven't you?

solitary brother....

I went to go and watch "Blackfish" the other night.  It's a very powerful documentary by Gabriella Cowperthwaite about orca being held in captivity (it's notable in the film that all the people from the theme parks call them "Killer Whale", and all of the scientists call them "Orca").

Here's the blurb.

"Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the multi-billion dollar sea-park industry.  This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals".

The film is perhaps a little one-sided (there's no contribution from Sea World, for example), and I can't help but think that a few of the interviewees are being a little disingenuous about how powerless they were to make a difference, but there's no denying that this is a very powerful film.

We saw some orca in the wild off the coast of Vancouver Island in July 2010, and they are magnificent animals.  They live in matriarchal pods and they travel up to one hundred miles a day and may range across thousands of kilometers of ocean.  They are clearly intelligent, social animals and it just seems wilfully cruel to shut them up in tiny tanks and to make them perform tricks just for our gratification.  Is it really any wonder that these animals occasionally snap and lunge out at their trainers?  There have been absolutely zero reported attacks by orca on humans in the wild, but these sorts of attacks are relatively common in captivity and people have died.

This is a photo of one of the orca we saw in Canada.  That dorsal fin is about 2m tall.  It's a very impressive animal, and watching this film having seen these creatures in the wild really drove the message home for me.  We're better than this.  More importantly, the orca deserve better from us.  It's not an easy film to watch, but I'd highly recommend it.

I've been toying with the idea of getting another tattoo, and watching this film has reminded me of one of the designs I've been thinking about since our visit to Canada in 2010 (when I got my bear paw tattoo).  Sarah won't thank me for this, as she's been toying with the idea of getting one done in this sort of design for some time, but I'm really drawn to a haida representation of an orca.  Something like this:

For the haida, the orca is an animal of tremendous spiritual significance. Within the Haida society, the killer whales were viewed as members of a race of people who operate in the underwater realm much as human society does on land. The killer whales could capture a canoe and take it underwater to transform the occupants into whales. Thus, whales seen swimming near the shore were really transformed humans trying to get in touch with their families. Haida also used the killer whale as a popular symbol of family, for the whales stay with their families and travel in large pods.  Tlingit stories tell of how the killer whale was created: a man named Natcitlaneh was abandoned on an island by his jealous brothers-in-law. He was rescued by sea otters and taken to their village in a cave where he healed their chief. In return, the sea otters granted him magical powers. Natcitlaneh carved killer whales out of different types of trees. Finally, when he carved the whale out of yellow cedar, it came to life when placed in the sea. Natcitlaneh held onto the dorsal fin of the whale and went out to sea with it. There, he saw his brothers-in-law in their canoes. Natcitlaneh’s whale avenged him by smashing the canoes and killing his wicked brothers-in-law. Natcitlaneh told the whale that it must never again hurt humans. That is why killer whales, to this day, do not eat people.

Anyway.  It's a lovely design, and I was toying with the idea of getting it across the top of my left arm, with the tail dipping down towards the t-shirt line and the head facing towards my chest.

Another idea I've been toying with - perhaps for my right shoulder - is some sort of star map of Ursa Major.  I'd like something like this, perhaps with a bit less text, although I haven't really worked out how to make it work.

One to keep thinking about anyway.  There's certainly no rush.  I might explore the orca idea a bit further though.  The bear paw on my back represents an animal that is strong but gentle, lord and protector of the forests.  An orca represents something similar for the oceans, and I really like that.  I also really like the design (which, as it happens, is similar in colour to the bear paw on my left shoulder, which is a Navajo indian design).   I'm not especially looking to coordinate, but I suppose that's a happy bonus.

I've been chewing on both ideas since my last tattoo in 2010, but there's no rush.  No need to be hasty inking something permanently into your skin, eh?