it was the friday the 13th special at three king’s ($13 tattoo’s) and they were doing a special fundraiser for japan.  they were sending all of the money they made over to japan for support to the earthquake/tsunami victims.  the tattoos ended up being japanese themed this time around, and i was worried that i wasn’t going to like any of them.  (you can click and zoom in to see the entire sheet with more detail).  but i was figured the creative minds over there at three kings would come up with a great sheet, and that they did.

i ended up being stuck between the paper lantern, the fan and the origami crane.  i didn’t want another tattoo that was primarily yellow so i went against the fan and i thought that the crane was cuter than the lantern…  i thought it was going to be smaller than what it is, but i love the size of it.  and the placement as well.  my super handsome artist that did it, made it look beautiful.  it’s so much cleaner/less playful than my other tattoos.  i really like that.

i refer to it as my “mature looking tattoo”, lol.

jes got the hello kitty tattoo, super cute.

jes and i waited last friday the 13th for like 5.5 hours and never got tattoos because of how crowded it gets over there at three kings… it sucked.  so this year we went “early” to ensure that we got some new ink. can’t wait for the next one, in stinking january, lol.

saturday: i hung out with bro-bro all day since he was scheduled to leave on sunday for florida, and then i went with greek steve to see tommy play in a band he joined recently in ridgewood… but it felt like bushwick. i dunno. either way, good shit. they’re called ritz riot. saw mike tucci there. weird. we were whatever’ing so man years ago so it seems… didn’t really talk to him much, it was more like a “hey what are you doing here?” #zzz it was a horrible hipster scene… i just wanted out. i got some free graff art out of the deal, go go gadget dark cloud!

sunday: i went to get nerdy with AV at his studio about his website, and went to see mary poppins on broadway with jes… it was okay, it was a little slow in the beginning…  although it had a lot of the movie (mainly the music – but even the songs we all know were a bit different…) i think it followed a lot of the book, but i can’t say 100% because i’m still only about a quarter through it. they had great sets. i bought myself a mary poppins umbrella with the sick ass bird handle…  got jes a matching, over-sized ornament for her christmas tree next year.

#otherthingsivebeendoing

among the wonderful things i got this year, these are my two favorite things.<3  my sister bought me seasons 1-4 of tales from the crypt and jes bought me the empress of the underworld by frank kozik and kidrobot.  go figure, i get two brutal/evil things for christmas and they’re my favorites, lol…

when i met her,  from day one, we just clicked.  ideas flowed, we wanted to do things… this was before this cat was even in the picture. we sat there for hours chit chatting away and even though we had a website that was “coming soon” for a straight year… we launched it.

when i met jes five years ago, the whole situation was via my ex who did graff…  or at least the way that i found her, he didn’t know her personally…  anyhow, seeing and hearing about nyc writers that he liked got me into graff…  he really liked writers that used characters, like a one icon deal, like jes’s j-heart.  long story short, jes was confused with someone else that we knew with (almost) the same name and i started checking out her shit on myspace (RIP).  i was looking at all of her fills and i fell in love.  i remember one of the first pictures i ever used for a contact table – which is still one of my favorites – is why i started talking to her – it was adorable (below).  it was a collabo between her and bob will reign.

i was instantly hooked.

since moving to ridgewood and living closer to her, we’ve become closer this year than we’ve ever been before…  this year she’s had to deal with a bunch of personal (dude) bullshit that’s been annoying me.

i’m good friends with jes and i think it would be weird if i didn’t get sparked up and pissed by things she’s dealing with…  i really don’t want to sit here acting like a three year old talking shit about him online, but i’m kinda pissed off at the entire situation with her former bf in general. especially when he tries to take all the credit for her company and/or building it up. (yes, he did actually whine about this.)

getting off that path for a second, because it isn’t the worlds business… i believe a good, general life practice is not talking shit about your ex’s (well okay, maybe just their inadequate body parts,  hehehehehe).  but what i mean by “talk shit” especially, is bashing what you supported and loved about that person while you were with them.  you can’t erase history, especially by verbally bashing the shit out of it.  we all learn from our own mistakes… just take it, and keep it moving…

more specifically, the point of this post wasn’t to talk shit about him… but to really just state that jes shines on her own, and she has since the day i met her.  i have had so much faith in her and her brand since it even rolled off of our lips  (pre-him days)…  she’s doing just fine, and not riding on the coat tails of any other artists, especially someone she devoted three years of (recently-proved pointless) love to.  i’m super proud of her and everywhere we go – events, parties, etc. all dig her…  not because of some dude who thinks he built toughlove (he may have been a big help in certain aspects, but he was never the foundation), but because she’s the person still rolling with it – and still overflowing with ideas.

we haven’t fallen apart without you yet, and i assure you that we won’t.

we’ll be toughlovin’ it, will you be thurr??

FINISH YO XMAS SHOPPING AND ROLL THROUGH!

um. going to shows, hanging out with lauren and wilma, hanging out with jes, getting aggravated by a dude, being pleasantly surprised by another, meeting a new one, freelancing, going on a date?, going upstate a couple of times, hanging out at my moms, decorating for xmas, drinking too much coffee and booze, getting crazy on the ex, xmas shopping, crafting, cleaning, staying warm, etc.

the confusing bore that is my life… hopefully all changing soon.

also, i pictured oscar getting bored and somehow maneuvering himself into the larger one, so this’ll do until i eventually move into a larger place.

i haven’t enjoyed christmas in a long time… not because of anything jess-dramatic or bad associations with anything like the rest of my wretched life… christmas eve a few years ago was when my first aunt that died was really sick with lung cancer, emphysema and a lung infection. it was also around the same time that my other aunt had to get triple-bypass surgery… traumatic stuff, man.

when i was a kid, my aunt necie (the bypass surgery aunt) always hosted christmas eve… she had the biggest tree and a big house and everyone used to come over. she is my mothers sister, one of 7 sisters and 1 brother, so you can only imagine how packed the house was with each of them there and having at least two children there with them…

anyways, the year that aunt necie had the surgery she stopped hosting christmas eve. and it was really hard for my mother, my sister and i because that’s what we did ever since i was born. now we just feel kind of lost. and it’s sad that we all still don’t gather over there, but she just doesn’t want us to. and even though aunt carol didn’t die on christmas eve or day that year, i think we all associate that with this time of year.

on friday, jes and i are going to pick up a small christmas tree for my apartment. i wasn’t moved in last year in time for one, i wasn’t actually living/sleeping here until new years day… so it’ll be my first holiday here.

she bought me my first ornament for my tree, and friday we’ll be picking up a few more. i want to put together a fun christmas play list for us to get snookered to while we eat soft baked cookies, decorate my tree and hang lights. i have been searching everywhere on the internet for that madness “our house” and jingle bells mix from the new verizon commercial – it sounds awesome! and it got me all pumped for christmas…

i’ll have to put a play list together tomorrow because on thursday… rangers vs. the islanders. and i will be there.

…another hobby bites the dust.