The Farting Heart

Ugh, look at my dopey face.

I got my first tattoo in 1997. I was 18 and obviously put zero thought into it, but, you know, OMG I’m 18 and can get a tattoo now! I was still in a relationship with Psycho Mike at the time and we decided that we would get our first tattoos together so that we could have yet another terrible memory to put in our stupid scrapbook.

(YES WE KEPT A SCRAPBOOK TOGETHER. It was awful. One page was an actual list of all the times we were approached by cops while banging in the park at night. Keeping it classy, always.)

In 1997, tattoos were entirely too affordable for asshole teenagers. And even if I didn’t have an American Express card that my mommy paid the bill on, I made enough at my crappy telemarketing job at Olan Mills to be able to waltz into some tattoo shop and pick the dumbest piece of flash out of the binder and think to myself, “Yes, this is what I want to carry around with me, deep within my flesh, everyday for the rest of my life.” Some stupid heart getting shot in the asshole with an arrow, it can be yours for $65.

I was drunk in this picture, but I sadly can’t use ‘inebriation’ as the reason I got such a dumb tattoo. And then once I got older and it started to blur, that’s when it really looked fantastic. Most people thought it was a farting heart. Because that’s what shitty tattoos turn into you guys. Farts.

But even worse for me, it wasn’t what it looked like, but what it represented. Anytime I would catch a glimpse of it in the mirror, especially these last few years, I would be reminded of a shitty relationship. It just made me so sad, but the idea of trying to get it covered up seemed so daunting. After 15 years, it was basically just this oblong red blob on my arm and I couldn’t imagine someone trying to cover it up.

During the summer of 2012, Andrea was here visiting and she decided she wanted to get a tattoo. She has like a million of them and I was so worried about taking her to a crappy place, but I knew that my friend Stacey’s brother was really good, so we went to his place. Of course he wasn’t there (turns out, he had left that place), but Andrea was like, “Fuck it I want teeth on my wrists” and asked one of the available artists—Josh—if he had time to bow to her whims. He did, and he turned out to be really awesome, so thank you for not giving my friend a shitty Pittsburgh souvenir.

I showed him my dumb heart and he said he could cover it up easily, but of course I had zero dollars and told him I would get back to him once I found a lucrative corner to stand at.

A year passed by and I randomly found Josh on Instagram and totally fell in love with his style. Finally saved up some money and made a consultation appointment in January. Basically, I was like, “I’m obsessed apples, and the quote ‘the sweeter the apple, the blacker the core’ applies to me.” Two sittings later, and now I have apples on my arm and there’s no trace of a farting heart! (Alhough, Josh saved that for the very last part, so every time I looked over, I could still see those stupid cartoon eyes staring up at me. But man, when he was done, I had to fight back tears because I was so happy it was gone.)

Sorry this is such a shitty picture (blame Henry), but this was taken right after and now it’s in the lepresy-stage, so I won’t be taking a new picture for awhile.

And that’s the relatively uninteresting story of how I literally let someone color over a shitty memory. Thank you Josh from Artisan! I usually have a black cloud over my head when it comes to tattoos, but this was a really good experience.