Joshua and I have been together for over 20 years. Twelve years ago or so I made him a ring from silver, but it has worn so much that it is easily half the thickness it once was. He has mentioned once or twice (or possibly, ahem, more) that I should carve a squid ring.

It’s about 8mm wide and made from 18K gold.

More photos + story after the click:

Here is the original sketch. I often find that once I begin scratching my design onto the three-dimensional ring, I need some adjustments to scale and whatnot. Here I ended up adding some wave/water design between the feeding tentacles and the fins.

Once upon a time Joshua had a good friend named Jim. Jim was a wild child, very much the polar opposite of the tremendously reserved Joshua.

Joshua tells a story about how one of their friends got a hold of a tattoo gun and brought it to a party. He declared that he would (for free!) give a tattoo to anyone who wanted one. Naturally, many party-goers expressed a keen interest but then they stalled out, saying they couldn’t decide what to get or some nonsense. All evening Jim shouted out tattoo ideas to whomever came close and at one point a girl said to him, “Jim, you keep coming up with so many great ideas, why don’t you get one of them for yourself?” Seizing this sudden opportunity (to get laid, that is; I think he couldn’t give a damn about any tattoo), Jim pointed to his back and said, “SQUID! Right there.”

The guy sketched out what ended up being an epic though extremely phallic-looking squid, maybe 10 inches tall; then he made it permanent with the tattoo gun.

Jim was killed in a rafting accident soon after. I never got to meet him. I’m sorry for that because even though his personality has grown to legendary proportions over the years, I think that his actual-sized personality would have been something wonderful to behold.

There might still be a squid tattoo in Joshua’s future.