alwaystheocean

I'm new!

Wait, no.

As per previous entry, I've been meaning to get back on here, I miss that there's like, a decade of my life not recorded here. Not quite as long as I was using it for prior to that, I don't think, but getting there. It was a good habit, Brent, and I'd like it back.

I'm not even going to attempt to summarise my life to date, though I will be taking questions at this time, and now here I am staring at this text box devoid of ideas of what to talk about.

Well, OK, here's something I've been enjoying considering: rewatching films.

I feel like any film that's come out since I went to uni struggles to compete with films I watched as a kid/teenager because a) I had a lot more free time then and I spent a fair chunk of it rewatching films (mostly musicals) (mostly Evita lbr) b) any new films added to the "will endlessly rewatch" list have to compete with what's already on the list, and those films have a head start, see a).

So I was surprised the other day by how many times I've seen Frozen and Frozen II, despite usuallyhats pointing out that a) I have a lot of friends who are children and I've watched it multiple times with many of them b) I watch it without children too. Which does make sense but good work Frozen and Frozen II for competing with the likes of Evita and The Secret Garden. (Ooh, DW doesn't have emojis, this is weird, it's like a whole other language. I guess it would if I typed this on my phone but no thanks.)

It's also fully wild to consider that none of my kiddo friends were born when Frozen came out and only a couple of them when Frozen II came out. We were chatting at D&D the other day about how Frozen really has honed the Disney crack witchcraft, the fact it reigns supreme with jakera.livejournal.com and H's twin girls (who are 2) ever since their first week at nursery is kind of wild really. It's also apparently the only film my friends A&P's kids, M&S will sit through.

Which obv makes the stealth aro agenda of Frozen II even better. :D

This is a post, right? This is how that works?

Ok, fine, some news.

Last time I updated here I had one (1) tattoo, the raven for prysmicdork.

This year I got, um, six (6) new ones. One of them in NZ in January, five in one day in March in London, and my biggest one to date on Monday, again, in London, same artist as the other five but at their new studio. (Which I like better than their old studio.)

I got a bunch of flowers on my left shoulder for my mum (she died November last year of the cancer diagnosis I mentioned in January last year. Last year sucked; this year wasn't much of an improvement, being the first one without my mother in it.), a picture of best beloved pup Missy, of late lamented blessed memory, curled up asleep on my left calf, where she used to sleep in life, a rainbow hummingbird and some Leonard Cohen lyrics for purplefringe, and some koi fish on my left inner arm between wrist and elbow. Those are partly for Phoebe too, partly for my aunt Ana (who also died last year, see previous statement on last year), and partly just for me as a kind of self soothing practice written on my body.

The tattoo this week is the first one just for me, and it's also the biggest (and consequently most expensive) one. I've been through a full range of emotions about spending that money on just me but ultimately I'm glad I've done it. It's a fat selkie across my right thigh. It's huge, I love it so much. I was originally considering a mermaid, but tattoo artist suggested selkie when I said I didn't feel as connected to mermaids cuz of all the connotations with conventional beauty (and I know there's a lot of excellent work being done to reclaim that, but it still feels like challenging something in a way that wasn't working for me for this tattoo) and something in my brain was just like yes. I love referring to my fat as my blubber, particularly since discovering it genuinely helps with cold water swimming!

The thing I learned at this tattoo session is I'm good at being tattooed? Which seems like a ludicrous thing to claim to be good at, but here we are! I'm good at sitting still when uncomfortable, I don't find it particularly painful (ok except by hour 6, then I get a bit "UNHAND ME" when we're going over what feels like the same spot repeatedly), I'm happy to just zone out and entertain myself, I take direction well (do with that what you will).

There's also something there about being ace and kinky I think, like how can you explore kink without sex, and I wonder if the answer isn't things like, oh, I don't know, tattoos, aerial, pointe.

And on that thought, I'm out.