Well, today I spent a little time talking to my tattoo artist and working out my next appointment. In April, I'll add my little northern banded water snake to my moth/yarrow/chicory sleeve, then maybe next year, if I don't like... die in a bar shooting when some idiot has a loaded no-safety concealed carry in his pocket and it goes off randomly (something that literally happened in a place I go last Friday night)... I'll start on a shoulder piece. If I still feel like I want to add stuff.

I really do like my artist though. She's so bright and shiny, she's just nice and happy to talk to. It's strange to me now that my previous tattoo experiences were so stressful and unpleasant despite the fact that I was paying not an insignificant amount of money to get them done. Her being in Virginia Beach also means trying out staying First Landing State Park for the first time that weekend, something I've always wanted to do.

I hope the snake will level out my sleeve a bit. I love my flowers, but they're just a little soft and pretty, and I need something hard to level the whole thing out. Besides, I love those snakes, and I've swam naked with them on more than a few occasions, feeling them brush my bare legs. I like their common names: brown water snake, black water adder, water pilot. I also like how nasty and fierce they seem, even if they're nonvenomous. I like that they look like cottonmouths or copperheads, except for their cute little eyes. And I love that they bite repeatedly.