The killing moon: The Richard kelly tattoo

At one point I went from tattoo shop to tattoo shop on Hollywood blvd with a laptop asking for a price estimate on a tattoo idea. I had my Donnie darko DVD frozen to a scene where the titular character had written a countdown to the end of the world on his arm with marker...

nobody got it...one guy told me I "should print it out and bring it in." finally I found one guy who did my tattoo freehand. It was an important tattoo for me because it was specific to a time in my life. The first time I attempted cohabitation with someone I loved was in my early twenties. I fell head over heels for one guy. He was a projectionist in a cinema who once took me to the projection booth...which for a film geek is amazing. He loved French new wave and geeky cinema. We dated for a few moths and ultimately timing worked and when I moved to my north Hollywood apartment with my roommate I brought him a long. We had our own room with it's own restroom...we went to Ikea and bought furnishings. Above the bed he put a framed photo of frank the bunny.  kid loved the movie.
we loved that movie...in theory we should have worker as a couple but we didn't because I wasn't ready for it.
whereas he related to Donnie darko based on feeling he was smarter than the life he was dealt...more self aware..i related to the direness of it all. The world is ending and I know this...it's coming soon and I can't help it. Altruism...self sacrifice...there are ways to read the ending (Christ metaphor? ) but at the time if you were to ask me I what it meant to me I would say "peace" the end is peace.
some time after I and the projectionist broke up due to me pushing him away I met someone who shared a similar wish for the end and also carried a heavy burden that comes with having lived too hard too long. We walked around downtown Los Angeles...i with my left forearm with cryptic numbers counting down the end.
we walked around downtown and I found bits and piece of my own psyche and realized the desperation one probably encounters with me.
years later my downtown companion would also get the numbers tattooed. While never admitting it I'd like to think he saw something in me too that night.
"and filmmaker Richard Kelly will be signing before the movie...."
damn it
by 08/02/13 I already had a frank the bunny costume and a tattoo based on his second underrated film "southland tales" and here he was at an outdoor cinema screening of Donnie Darko at Santa Monica high and I didn't have my costume or anything with me since I didn't even know he was going to be there.
luckily I brought my frank the bunny deluxe figure just for decoration purposes so I took that. I went with this guy named Wade (someone I did a lot of outdoor screenings with last year but never was involved with,)
and I was broke and didn't have money for a tattoo...but Richard Kelly was a signature I always knew I wanted.
"and it's so awesome that you're all here for a movie I made and someday maybe I'll make another movie that will be shown here too." Richard Kelly said as he introduced the movie.
he went off to sign and random fans showed up. I went up and explained my signature tattoo idea and asked him to sign my figure ( didn't come out right) and asked him if he could sign a paper I got from wade.
"I am very humbled by your request" he said as he took it to a nearby table so he could have a better backing.
 l got it inked at a later date (more on that later). sometimes the world isn't as dire and sometimes 28 days later it and you are still here. And it's good.