On being fat and modified.

So you might have noticed in my bio post that I am tattooed. I have two tattoos, one on my left bicep and the other a pair of hearts on the inside of each wrist with a little text. I also have several piercings, and am in the process of stretching my earlobes.

I was self-conscious at first about getting the first of my tattoos, the one on my bicep. I chose this placement for a few reasons; the bicep is probably the least painful place for a tattoo, an easy place to hide, and it was a fairly large piece, not well suited to less-chubby areas. I have pretty good-sized upper arms, and I was worried that tattooing this area would only draw attention to my fat.

I don't want to be Zune Guy! (Okay, Zune Guy's problem is not fat, it's being the owner of the lamest tattoo ever. EVER. My tattoo is nowhere near as lame as Zune guy's)

The internet, of course, is absolutely no help. If you Google "fat girls shouldn't get tattoos," you are rewarded with an astounding 28,700,000 results. Try "fat girls shouldn't get piercings." 21,700,000 results.

If we're honest, these results are all really saying the same thing: "fat girls shouldn't draw attention to themselves." You see the same thing if you go into the plus size section of most department stores; dark, drab, shapeless clothes. Sometimes there are violent, noisy florals intended to take attention away from rolls and bulges. The bras are all beige, white, black, and if you're lucky, a sort of vomitous pink. The panties look like enormous taupe ass-tents.

Upside - your innards will be well insulated against cold, and they double as a shelter in case you're lost in the Himalayas. Downside - enjoy trying to wear skinny jeans.

If you go to a specialty store like Torrid (good god do I love Torrid), you can find some pretty amazing stuff, but it's a little pricey for me. Consequently, when I hit the sales, the good stuff is already taken! I need to either make more money, or spend less of it on the jewelry for my aforementioned piercings.

I want this outfit pretty badly, but not for $152.50

But back to the main point of "fat girls shouldn't draw attention to themselves." Screw that noise. My artist and I blew that tattoo up as big as it could get and plastered it on my fat arm. As she worked, I noticed that my artist had a fresh TARDIS tattoo on her own bicep, which is about the size of my wrist. I mentioned it, and she said:

"Yeah, I just got into Doctor Who and I'm in love! I'm running out of room on my arms, though..." she trailed off, and we both looked down at her arms, which are both a rainbow of color.

"I guess that's the beauty of having big arms - I can fit a lot on them," I replied, and we both laughed.

As it turns out, the beautiful tattoo on my arm has made me love my arms, both of them. All that skin is just an extra-large canvas for art.

ART!