where the wild things are

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him "WILD THING!" and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" so he was sent to bed without eating anything.
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ahhhh, the tattoo convention....

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And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.

if you are a people-watcher, this was definitely the place for you. there were skaters and bike riders on half-pipes, defying gravity and landing on their heads, shaking the dust off while laughing...women on roller skates also defying gravity, the most notable gal dressed all in black (which was the color du-jour), complete with fishnet stockings and a shirt bearing her name "peppermint splatty"...women who did some fake oil wrestling (do their mothers know where they are and how they eke out a living? i'm just wonderin'...) too many different people to mention, actually. all of them seeking something, all of them really beautiful because they bore things in ink on their bodies that represented who they were/were becoming.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

quite easily the most conservatively dressed person there, i probably stood out like a sore thumb. however, ben found his tattoo artist (his method of finding the *right* person? looking through their images, not seeing anything bloody or disturbingly graphic, religious images a plus, approachability a must) almost right away for what he wanted done; i wandered around on my own, seemingly aimlessly because i was finding the same type of art, self-repeating.

then i happened upon this one guy who was actually from our area. his art was different, unique - the first picture i saw was from Les Miserables - incredible detail. really striking, really unlike anything i had ever seen before, until i happened upon his representations of work done by salvadore dali. i stood there in awe....thumbing through pages of more of the same, i finally happened upon the tattoo i will get when i head out to this guy's shop when my max turns 18: an entire picture taken from maurice sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" that was incredible; really defying description, honestly.

finally, i spoke: "you did this?" slightly incredulous then, still am now.

"yeah," he replied. "there's more of it in the back - that was just the beginning stages..." it was when max was made king of all wild things and the wild things where dancing in the forest with max on their backs.

"this is flipped. out."

"thank you." (modest guy was blushing through all the ink he had on himself...)

at the end of the book was the balance of the picture where the forest was filled in...it was all in grey work and the guy whose back this was on was supposed to get the color filled in but moved to texas, so it was unfinished by this artist's standpoint, but an amazing sight to behold to this viewer. we chatted about how long it took, where he was from, cool that he was a local guy.

i got brave: "do you have time to do something for me i found online?"

"actually, i have an appointment coming - i've been booked since last june."

"i am sad."

"i am in hammonton," he said, smiling, knowing i was from the area and only a few miles up the road from my restaurant. "when you are ready, come see me."

1.5 years from now, i will have a little max on my back. but this day was for ben and me, so i went back to find where he was and decided after watching "herb" do his tattoo and how professional he was, i would have him do mine. we had fun talking to him and the artist next to him doing another girl's tattoos (plural intentional) - married men with children, values, loyalty. an interesting day, to say the least.

when ben and i were finished, jimbo met us out at the local tavern for drinks and dinner. it was just another spontaneous day in the life of me (yesterday makes three days in a row, i almost cannot bear it!) today, however, we are back to reality...only the new tattoo i have on my wrist will serve as a reminder of all that has happened to me these past few weeks, reconnecting to the person i have missed, have desired to return to: relaxed, happy, and could almost say *joyful*......Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him...and it was still hot.