Ink Think: New Tattoo?

I've been craving the ink and needle again. It's not like I'm an addict or that I have my whole life history inked all over my body, but I can see how people get that way.

It's been five years since I had my last tattoo, and it's not that I'm above getting another one, it's just that I didn't know what to get. It has to have meaning of course, much like ankh that reminds me to live.

Toward the end of school year, I saw a colleague of mine had a new tattoo on her shoulder. It's much larger than I would do on a visible part of my body, as the ink can sometimes draw unwanted attention. "Yes, that's a tattoo. I was young and foolish. (A lie. I was old and foolish.) Please focus on the lesson." Nonetheless, it was a beautiful piece that started up my craving for another one myself.

(If you are wondering about the number of teachers who have tattoos...most of the teachers under the age of 45 that I know have at least one. Interesting to know how universal that is.)

A few days later I noticed a sign just up the street from my house announcing the grand opening of a new tattoo parlor. How handy! And then strangely enough, a few weeks later I got into another colleague's car and found all these mini flyers announcing the opening of a new tattoo parlor--the one in my neighborhood. So then we showed off our ink to each other. FYI, I probably would not go to a new parlor. I'd go to the scarier part of town where the parlors are established.

So the seeds are there. And what do I go off and stumble across? Two things:

• Miami Ink, which is a TLC series featuring a tattoo parlor
• Shelley Jackson's Skin, which is a story published word by word on the skin of 2095 volunteers

I'm really thinking about a textual tattoo now and even have a word picked out. It has something to do with the writer side of me. I'm not sure where I'd put it though, so obviously I'm not quite ready.

Who knows if I'll go out and get some new ink. A male friend of mine shared a bit of slang with me. Apparently a tattoo on a woman's lower back is called a TRAMP STAMP. Am I thinking about getting a tattoo there? Not so much. I already have one there and it hurt like hell. (Most people never see this ink of mine because I don't wear my pants low or my shirts high.) But you know just hearing THAT term for something I have makes me queasy. It's one thing to be a little edgy, but it's quite another to be associated with something nasty and trashy like something called a TRAMP STAMP. Ew, gross!

It curbs the craving.