After all these years!

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.

Really nothing to report at all.  The inflammation has gone altogether, it’s still slightly dampish at the very thickest parts of the ends of the cross, but dry everywhere else.  No scabbing, no itching, no nothing.  Thankfully the micropore tape does not give me the allergic reaction the zinc-oxide tape did, so I’m on course for keeping the clingfilm on for the full four days.  But tomorrow will be the fourth day, and surely it should have started scabbing/itching if it was going to?

Today I went for my first ever tattoo.  It was a big deal for me, made bigger by the fact that I’m the sort of person who worries about every single thing that could go wrong as if all of them could happen at once.  But it was also a big deal because I’d wanted one for so long and had begun to think I’d die before I ever got my nerve up.

So, I hit my interim target on the diet and used that as an excuse to book myself in at the studio I’d had recommended.  I chose a design of a small black cross, thinking I would test out my reaction on something small and work my way up.  Very appropriately, I got the appointment on Ash Wednesday, which felt right – to be marked with a painful black cross on a day of penance.