For one, she's legal and two, she's not living with her parents anymore (hallelujah~!). She's got her best friend at her side and the symbols in her mind. It'll be small and going on her back (thankfully not a tramp stamp otherwise I don't think I'd let her live it down), easily hide-able by long, black hair that I can't remember being any shorter than half-way down her back in the nearly 20 years we've known each other.
"I've always believed in doing everything in life with passion," She explains, "But I wanted to get something to link being Filipino to it..."
And so, the word is in Alibata, otherwise known as Baybayin, an ancient Filipino writing system from pre-colonization times comprised of abugidas to form words. I'm actually pretty impressed that she knew about the system at all, since most Filipino-American kids grow up without even learning how to speak Tagalog, let alone write it in the old way. Personally, I love how she used the heart as a diacritical mark, but her tattoo artist, a scruffy guy who likely owns a Harley and far too many extra pounds on his midsection, thinks it's a guy's name. It takes only 20 minutes and she doesn't freak out in the least at the needle digging dangerously close to her spine.
ME: Didja get a blowpop?
LIJOAN: LoL. No I didn't. You did after your piercing?
ME: Oh yeah. It was like visiting the Doctor: lots of needles, a little pain, a little blood and a bill and lollipop when you walk out...
I ask her if she wants to get another one, to which she replies, "Naw. First and last."
