I Got A Tattoo

I’ve never thought much of tattoos. They haven’t interested me much over my life, but I never had a problem with them. I took issue with ugly ones, of course. Why are there so many? Why would somebody ever want a poorly shaded fetus etched into their pasty, cellulite-ridden calf? It’s beyond my understanding. Then again, I usually have trouble understanding the poor and ugly. We live in different worlds. If it makes them happy to eat Cheetos, watch something called the Nascar, and have Confederate flags emblazoned on their flabby biceps — more power to them. I applaud them. No, I won’t join them, thank you kindly. I was once taken on a four-wheeler ride through a forest to look at places where deer were shot. Not my cup of tea. Speaking of that, a cup of tea sounds lovely — excuse me.

For reasons that are no longer in my mind — seriously, that thing is like a sieve, thank God I took up journaling — Jessica and I decided to get tattoos of the Eiffel Tower when we were living in Paris years ago. (See what I said about not understanding the poor?) We never did it, even though I knew of several tattoo parlors from the time I lived there a few years before that. (Again, do the poor even know that there is a Paris outside of Illinois?) My first apartment in that marvelous city was right on top of a tattoo parlor, but I don’t think I saw it open but once. That’s Paris for you. Everything’s always closed. Especially bakeries that you need to make a trip for. I can’t even remember how many times I walked from the Marais to the other side of the Bastille to stop by Blé Sucre for a lemon madeleine and discovering that they were closed due to a “Fermeture Exceptionnelle” or were sold out. Each time, I’d grumble and then shrug in a Parisian fashion. It takes some practice, here’s a cheat sheet:

I’m truly a native of that perfect place. It is a constant plague that I live so far away from my  homeland.

I’ve gotten off track again. We never did get those tattoos. We meant to and meant to but we’re master procrastinators. It’s a gift. You can’t just develop that skill, it’s genetic.

We started talking about them again earlier this year, but neither of us could come up with anything that we wanted. Eiffel Towers are always good, but I wasn’t sold on any designs, so I put that one off. She wanted something then from Harry Potter, but I tried to persuade her away from that. Nothing against those books, I adore them, I was on television adoring them, but I really didn’t want her to get “I SHALL NOT TELL LIES” engraved in her flesh.

I saw this picture somewhere…probably Tumblr. You can find anything on there. Anyway, it inspired me:

I freaking love ancient Egypt, remember? I love everything about this tattoo…but I’m also far too scrawny for it. I have every intention of one day developing a muscle — perhaps two, three if I’m lucky — so I didn’t want to get this one and have it warped by a theoretical bicep. The Egyptian theme though was perfect for me and I decided that my tattoo would be a phrase in hieroglyphs.

I was ecstatic when I found a digital copy of this book:

Wallis Budge was a very important Egyptologist back in the Victorian era and this dictionary was one of the very first published on the subject. I was charmed at the onset and soon read the thing from cover to cover, saving several phrases for future tattooing. This book was a heavenly discovery for me because in my head, I’m a beloved Egyptologist riding my camel around Luxor and being interviewed for insane shows on the History Channel. (One of my dreams is to be a regular on Ancient Aliens. It would complete me.)

I saved the ones that I liked as I read through the book, so let’s take a look at those that I at one point considered.

I went to school to become a pastry chef, so I thought the first one might be good. Never fell in love with it thought. I also liked the one about kneading dough since bread is my specialty.

I am kind of crazy about astrology and I think it’s frightening how Leo-like I am. I loved the little lion symbol, but the rest of the phrase didn’t catch my fancy.

I absolutely adore this one, and if I get another ancient Egyptian tattoo, this will probably be it. I’m a vegetarian so my body is kind of a vegetable garden, more of a living compost heap, but metaphorically it sounds lovely.

Someday I’ll be ridiculously wealthy, so I thought one of these lower two might be fitting as a kind of foretelling. But, I wasn’t crazy about the design again. I liked the one for king, but that seemed awfully pompous.

If “king” was too pompous, this one certainly was. I do like it, though!

I love all of these ones! Salt water, yes please! One of my favorite quotes is to your left on the sidebar:

“I know of a cure for everything: salt water — sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”

I love it still, perhaps I’ll get this one if I ever buy my beach cottage. I also love to travel, so any of those about traveling would be fitting. I’d rather be going someplace new every day. I don’t like sitting home and just existing here. My life is meant to be spread thin around the planet.