I def. love and hate how surprising my life tends to get and the silence during the last few weeks was caused by me living on an island called Sylt, a narrow stripe of land on the North Sea.

I was working in gastronomy there and was told to keep my tattoos covered. Given that most of the customers were old-ish and quite conversative, it def. made sense and I didn’t make any fuss about it. No one had anything to say about my ear jewelry, so I wore my Kaos eyelets all the time (as a matter of fact, one old guy commented on them, said that he never saw anything like this and asked if it hurt – why do ppl always ask about that is beyond me – it’s pierced, stretched, healed, taken a proper care of, end of story!). I do strongly believe (despite some very unpleasant experiences in the past) that I’m nice, good and smart enough to make ppl see past my appearance and come to respect me for my integrity, life and work attitude and generally trying to be a nice person.

As it happened, I got to work side by side with a woman whose son was a piercer in the only tattoo studio on the island. She actually promised to take me to the studio, so I could check it out, maybe talk to the piercer and so on but it didn’t happen. From what she told me, tho, looks like this island isn’t very tattoo-friendly (altho it isn’t openly hostile, either). The piercer works two jobs to make both ends meet (at the studio and as a security guy at a local snobbish night club – Sylt is famous for its nightlife full of local celebs and wannabes) as – let’s face it – well-off pensioners living on or visiting the island aren’t going to get tattooed or pierced very often, are they?

I got to see some tattoos on ppl – monochromatic bad work from scratchers, colorful better done tattoos on younger ppl, some old school small pieces. There were also some heavier pierced individuals – a few ppl with stretched lobes, septum and other facial piercings. No one tho seemed to be knowledgeable about body modifications and my microdermals kept stunning ppl and they asked me all the time how the micros work. As it often happens, ppl with some small tattoos showed me their tattoos when they saw mine – kind of “kindred spirits us” thing! 😉

Overall, a good thing is that most Germans seem not to care about the way other ppl look. If they do, they don’t say that aloud and don’t show they don’t like or appprove of such things. And – as Shannon Larratt always cared to point out – work hard, do your job as best as you can, try to make a difference and show others that “modified” doesn’t mean “bad.” 😉