Tattoo You, Tattoo Me, Da Plane Da Plane

I was for a while complete unaltered. Unmodified. Unadorned. [...] I had my tonsils, my appendix, no piercings, no tatoos, UC, and what not. I began to feel, I was kind of the anti-radical radical. Because of the vast numbers of tattooed and pierced individuals in my social group, I was clearly the outsider. Was I square?

I came real close to getting a below the waist piercing back with Bob Andrews has Retail Hell down the block from the Parsley Peapod. But closer inspection of the procedure proved to make me de-select that option. For a while I worked at the latter, and became quite familiar with body jewelry and the different options available. I find it aesthetically pleasing to look at on others. But I do not have a compelling need to add it to myself. Even external, non pierced jewelry is rare for me. I don’t even wear a watch. I’ll buy rings, only to take them off for a shower, and forget I ever owned them.

Holes close, but tattoos are much closer to forever. The thing I always said, was, I knew of no design I would want to be forced to live with the rest of my life. Yes, I know, they can be painfully removed now. But still.

Almost 5 years ago now, I underwent the knife. My breast bone was split open, my rib cage was spread apart, and my blood was pumped through an external pumping device, while doctors, grafted new arteries to my five clogged ones. I had a quintuple bypass. This left me with a 8 inch scar down the center of my chest. My chest hair parts like a boy’s on school picture day. But as scars go, it is quite smooth. In fact, I have heard scars referred to as angry. If that is the norm, mine is downright friendly. In fact a local artist, and well a newspaper columnist described it as sexy. When I wear deep V shirts, I will once in a while field the casual inquisitor about it. It is then, I realize I do not even realize it is there.

This reminds me of the previous caveat I had about a tattoo. I did not realize, I may forget it is there. Especially if it is not where I see it regularly.

My dad was in a horrific cycle accident when I was an infant, and split his chin and jaw open, leaving an angry scar. I stopped seeing it, and was puzzled when people asked me about it. Then I remembered.

Now, for a design, I would want something culturally relevant to me. I have considered the Chinese characters, native American lore, as well as the cartoon and tattoo standards out there, but wanted it to be personal.

For me that means Norse or Teutonic. Cool. I would not have to ape someone foreign culture for a cool design. But was I? I have several European friends. They get frustrated by our obsessive clinging to our ancestral homelands. “I am Irish!” or whatever. Which kind of turned me to what is quintessentially American, or Minnesotan.

I have also considered religious iconography. Since my heart surgery, I have began purchasing Sacred Heart stuff. But very recently I recalled something I remembered from a long ago trip to the Black Hills.

Two Aces, and Two Eights, all black. Wild Bill Hickock’s “Dead Man’s Hand”. It fits me for many reasons. While I am very much alive, many consider this life to be my second coming. Before my surgery, most of my friends considered my hospital to be my death bed.

Statistically, a person that survives 5 years after my surgery, survives another 20 or so. I am surviving my 5th year. March 2009, is my five year anniversary. I wonder how this tattoo idea would be like laughing at death.

Not sure. But here I have committed my thoughts to the written word.