It's Gettin' Real, Y'all...

I haven't done any type of writeup on my trip to Chicago at the beginning of November for WFTDA Championships. Yes, I'm remiss. Yes, it would be impossible to describe the fun that was the weekend, including but certainly not limited to getting to draw on half of the winning team, the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls.

But here is a typical Tara placing for the weekend: doing textcasting for Derby News Network. Here I am with Roxy Horror from COMO Derby Dames (Columbia, MO) and Ivanna Clobber from Rat City Rollergirls(Seattle, WA). You can instantly see who is representing the various geographical locations from around the US in cold, chilly, 40 degree F Chicago. Roxy in the tank top is obviously the midwestern soul. Clobber in her light track jacket is PNW all the way. And then there's me: jacket, hoodie, hat and scarf being Very Californian.

photo by the amazing Axle Adams




Roxy and I have been friends on Facebook for awhile, but I had never met her before. A few weeks before Chicago, Roxy had made a status update comment about boxed wine. I commented on it, and we were joking about bringing boxed wine to Chicago for Champs. She then emailed me privately saying that she wanted to get a tattoo of one of my Sharpie tatts. A REAL tattoo.

Now, this has happened before...I've gotten several emails over the past few years from people who claim they're going to get a real tattoo of one of my drawings, with little to no follow-through. As far as I know, only one person has ever gotten a Tara Tatt done. So with light skepticism I replied to Roxy that of course we can meet in Chicago and I'll draw on her and then she'd take plenty of photos and get the tattoo done when she gets back home. Our negotiated terms included...a box of wine. I'm so easily bought.

I instantly liked her when I met her in person. We got along instantly as we textcasted, and found we had very similiar, very sick sense of humor. She said, I brought the wine! and I then figured out that she was SERIOUS about the tattoo.

So I drew this on her:

Not too shabby. It was the first Tara tatt I did in Chicago, and arguably the best I did all weekend. Which is a damned good thing, because last week Roxy followed through and got the tattoo done for realz. Check it out!

The 75 on her arm is her skate number. I think the artist who did the tattoo did an amazing job of following my drawing while making it work as a real tattoo. I'm excited that Roxy did this!


I've also been on the Derby Deeds Done Dirt Cheap podcast a couple of times in the past month or so. Megatron, Pitchit and Sheeza Brickhouse are the hosts and bring a well-rounded and intelligent voice to derby. You can listen to me babble on like a doofus in last week's episode here. One of the best aspects of the podcast is that new episodes usually come out on Fridays, just when the workday is draaaaaaagging by soooooooooo slooowwwwwwwwwwww. Perfect timing.