New Love

Before I get down to it here, I should note that my mom reads my blog. So far, knowing that she is reading has not caused me to censor anything. It is not like we have all this mother – daughter tension that hangs over everything, but gets forced out of my writing for expediency. In fact, our squabbles usually go something like this:

“That hurt my feelings / gets on my nerves.”
“I’m sorry, I won’t do it again / will probably do it again and you’re pretty much stuck with it.”

We have a great relationship, and the worst thing I have to worry about is the socially deemed ick at my MOM reading my crappy fiction about seduction, which personally, doesn’t really bother me because she is a very cool mom, and always has been.

All this to say that I am getting ready to address something for which my mom should be sitting down. She probably is, but, just in case, Fred, please have a seat, because listen, you may have seen this coming: I got another tattoo, and it is not so small. Before you pick up the phone, let me address your concerns, and then I’ll get on with the story of it.

1. Because I love it. It is on my back, visible by invitation only, and will not keep me from getting a job.
2. Yes, the place is clean and licensed.
3. Really! I saw the certificate from the health department!
4. Yes, I thought this through. I have wanted a second since I got the first. It took me twelve years to decide what I wanted and where, then another month to have it done once I found an artist I liked.
5. I am aware that tattoos may end up looking horrible on wrinkled old skin. If it gets that bad, I’ll use my inheritance to have it zapped off (although I really don’t think I’ll be doing that).
6. Oh stop, I’m sure there will be at least enough inheritance left to zap a tattoo. The economy will come back.
7. No, I don’t think I am going to get any more, at least not any time soon. If my pattern holds true, it is going to be another twenty-four years before I come up with another idea. Not to mention, this time I am going to have a written record of how damn much it hurt.
8. Yeah, it hurt like a son of a thing.
9. Expensive, that’s all I’m saying.
10. Jill also has two tattoos, you know.
11. And, I think I may have mentioned this before, but it turns out that burial in a Jewish cemetery is not strictly prohibited for tattooed Jews.
12. So settle down.

Ok, fine, now you can call me.

With that out of the way, hey internet, I got another tattoo yesterday! Look!

It turns out that no matter one's size, it is impossible to pull one's jeans down low enough to fully reveal a lower back tattoo without inadvertently creating a muffintop. Also, I needed natural light for the colors to show up properly in the picture, so this morning I spent several minutes contorting myself in front of an open window, taking pictures of my butt. Hi, lucky neighbors!

A few months ago I decided that the location of the next tattoo had to be around the spot on my back that has given me trouble for the past eleven years. One night I was thinking about the design as I fell asleep and saw scales and feathers. I knew right away that meant a phoenix. I love that it is a fairly universal symbol. It shows up in Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Christian, Jewish, and Native American mythology (and of course, factors prominently in Harry Potter). All have a slightly different slant, but in all of those, it is a symbol of rebirth, fortune, wisdom, and long or eternal life. The one that really got me, though, is the Chinese mythology, in which the phoenix is the symbol of the integration of yin and yang. It is the natural progression from my first tattoo.

I adore it. A new tattoo is like having a new lover; I keep checking it out, and when I’m not, some sensation in my back will remind me that he is there. We are still getting used to each other, settling in to how things are going be, watching the colors develop. He doesn’t look the way I expected him to look, but now that he is there, I want to keep looking.

I took a leap of faith with the artist -he was sort of vague about the plans for the color- but I knew I was in the right place, or I wouldn’t be there. I am so glad that I did. Dave did a wonderful job, and at the end said the very thing that everyone wants to hear after getting a tattoo: “I want you to come back in a couple of weeks so I can get a picture of it.” As much as I love it myself, it means something to me that the person who created it likes it, too. (Also, Dave is completely adorable [his picture on the Baltimore Tattoo Museum site does not do him justice], which has nothing to do with why I chose him, but if a guy is going to have his hand on my ass for ninety minutes, cute is good.)

On that note, he has a sixteen year old daughter, which is weird to me because increasingly it has become the case that that people who I think are very cool and attractive and interesting are the parents of teenagers, which means they inherently are NOT cool and attractive and interesting. My world has been turned upside down.

As for the aforementioned pain, yeah, lower back tattoos freaking HURT, so says the gal who has had several root canals and hole drilled in my jaw. It was actually a little embarrassing when Dave had to tell me to slow down my breathing. As a yoga teacher, I should probably be a little better at that.