is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Evany.
I really love Evany's rules to live by, and especially I love the latest additions, rules 14 and 15. It's easy to dress like a shlump when you feel like one, but wearing good clothes sometimes has the magical ability to disengage you from your own rut. And yes, saving everything for special occasions is like waiting for life to happen later. We're too old for that.
I also got to thinking about my tattoos after Evany wrote about hers. I think tattooing just is attached to a certain amount of regret, though of course the level and the kind of regret can vary wildly... this, and all the stories about why people get tattoos in the first place, are reasons why I loved watching L.A. Ink when it was on. L.A. Ink was much better than Miami Ink because L.A. Ink featured Hot Lady Tattooists. But I digress.
I have three tattoos. I don't really regret any of them. But sometimes, when someone asks me what the symbol on my right arm means, and I hear myself saying that it is a Carthaginian goddess symbol, I want to shoot myself in the head. I wish I didn't have to say that. Not because I hate the symbol, but because of how the description sounds. Sometimes I wish I could just tell people to mind their own beeswax but, really, it's a tattoo on a body part that shows. The question is fair. And so I answer.
I knew even when I got that tattoo that over time I would feel differently about it, and that's part of why I chose a symbol that also has a long history and means many different things. I even thought, at the time, that it would be good, when I got older, to be reminded of what the younger Jill was like, and why she chose certain things rather than other things.
The arm tattoo is a good looking tattoo. Still. I have to answer that question about it fairly often. And I never enjoy answering the question.
Then there's the one at the base of my spine, the one about which, when it shows, people love to say, "[self-congratulating laugh] you DO know what people call those, don't you?" Yes. I know that a tattoo in that location is called a tramp stamp. At that point I'm not sure which road to take. Do I tell self-congratulating-laugher that I was getting tattooed long before tattoos were "normal," long before a tattoo in that location had a nickname, and long before her trampy mom conceived her in the backseat of a car? (No.) Or do I say, "that is the alchemical symbol for vitriol, which was supposed by medieval alchemists to turn lead into gold, which is an allegory of the search for knowledge. If you think that it's a tramp stamp, it makes no difference to me." (Maybe. But then we're in "Carthaginian goddess symbol" territory.)
That one is still my favorite tattoo, and I wouldn't have it placed anywhere else.
That tattoo shows less often, because I tend to wear dresses and, thus, it usually remains shielded from the eyes of anyone who doesn't get to see me naked.
And then there's the tattoo at the top of my spine/base of my neck. That one is visible fairly often. People ask me what it means, and I say it's just for decoration, and it's true. It means nothing more than that I once paid someone to ink it. That tattoo hasn't aged well, because it has spent too much time in the sun. I keep meaning to get it re-done or done-over. I even considered trying to get my way on to L.A. Ink! But so far I've never had time and money at the same time that I had the desire to deal with it all, and so it remains, a sun-damaged tattoo at the top of my spine.
In other news, in one of my classes the other day one of my students was giving a presentation and her voice was so quiet that it was RIDICULOUS. When that happens, I intervene and try to offer tips on projection, and so on. But sometimes it's all just a failure (I'm talking about the exercise, not her grade). Sure, she's shy. But she also had a cold, so her throat was affected, and English is her second language. And then, as if to put us all into a comedy together, the students and me, while she was speaking there was so much more street noise than usual, including sirens and construction workers yelling obscenities, that even I had to work really really hard not to start giggling. Oh well. Normally things go much better.
Then, on the way home, I was on a subway train on which the conductor had figured out how to say "stand clear of the closing doors" in two syllables. It was pretty amazing. I spent a long time trying to figure out how I could spell it so that I could convey it to you, but there was something magical about it, and so I find myself unable to reproduce it, in speech or spelling.
1:30 p.m. - May 03, 2008
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