Rat a Tat Tat

Well well well.

Walking and looking around my new city, I'm realizing I conspicuously lack something. It's...a baby bump!!

Ew. Fuckno, homos, today we're talking about tattoos, because I appear to be the last person in my 20's who doesn't have one. I am a traitor to my generation.
I don't know ONE SINGLE PERSON in my peer group (that includes everyone I've ever met ages 21-55 and your mom) who is clean-skinned. With no ink. It's kind of weird.

Even grandpas usually have a faded blue anchor somewhere.

Almost everybody has let their best friend from 8th grade do the tiny-design-hot-needle-ink-it'll-be-really-cool-I-promise thing in their basement.

Everybody but me.

Not only that, but I don't know anything about tattoos.

Once, when I worked at the cheese counter at Whole Foods (yes), I saw this big guy with two tattooed tears trickling down his cheeks. I had never seen that before (people, I was twenty-three fucking years old, keep in mind here), and I excitedly burst out with, "Omigod, I LOVE your little tears! That's SO COOL. You look like a sad little clown, way to add drama to your life! Aggh! That's too cute!"

The man looked at me oddly.

My co-worker, Gabe, kicked me sharply behind the counter. Undaunted, I continued.
"That's rad. Tattooed tears?? Rad. How did you ever think of that??"

The big man stared at me, then said quietly, "I killed two guys. A tear for each one."

Oh.

He picked out his cheese (a questionable Spanish brie) and left.People, this is not my fault. I was raised Mormon, I don't know about this stuff, I'm basically running a race to catch up all the time.

Did I ever tell you lezzies that? I was born a Mormon. S'truth. I stayed Mormon till I was about 20, at which point I went on a year-long study abroad to Italy and ended up, um, really studying broads.
Ha! I kill me.

Seriously, though, I slept with the entire country. And some of France.

After I came back, there was no question about being Mormon anymore. I bought a bikini. I started drinking coffee. I started relishing the way the word "Goddamn" felt in my mouth. It was beautiful.
But I still never got a tattoo. It just felt wrong. Every time I set foot in a tattoo-shop, I heard the phrase "Putting graffiti on your temple walls" in echo-chamber voice.
Old habits are hard to break. I couldn't conquer the nagging fear that, on top of being sinful, I might have really bad taste, and live to regret a tattoo.

But now, here, in 2009...

I want one.

I wanna be different like everybody else.

I want strangers to touch me and ask what my tattoos mean while I roll my eyes at my friends.

I want anybody I do sexytimes with to think I'm really deep and have hidden pain and a side of me that I don't show to anybody else.

It will all be a lie, perpetuated by my fanciful ink. I'm not deep - I'm really a shallow asshole who likes to watch America's Next Top Model in her underpants.
I've never met a dyke who didn't have tattoos. Why is that? Is it because dykes pair up at the drop of a hat? Are we, as a people, so pro-commitment that we can take a design we think is kinda neat and commit to having that design on our bodies for all time and eternity?? What if you hate it later? As a personal favor to me, I think all girls who are even sliiiiiightly toeing the line on the Kinsey scale should immediately go out and get the same tattoo. Then I would know who was gay with no problems.

That might, however, eliminate the need for a certain someone's blog, however.