Number 3 & 4
Tuesday, May 22 : 1:18 AM : 0 comments :
Virgo[ December 29, 2003 ] - Right Wrist
If there are two tattoos I sort of regret getting, it's numbers three and four. I don't regret the actual tattoos, just the impatience involved in not waiting for the regular shop I go to to do them. I had convinced George that we needed to get a twins tattoo and she was all-in but the winter holiday had messed with Avalon Tattoo's hours. Plus, we had Greg, Caroline, and Louis with us and it would've been a real shame to drag them down to Pacfic Beach with no action.
That's how we ended up across the street, getting a good deal on three tattoos but then realizing afterwards that you pay for what you get. The tattoos aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they're not as clean as I'd like either. Actually, George's tattoo has streak marks near the bottom of it, which would bug me to no end but she's okay with it.The lesson to be learned here? Don't be impatient, pay for someone good, even if it costs a few extra dollars. The difference between a sixty dollar tattoo and an eighty dollar one can be huge. Go with the high, just like an auction -- unless you know and trust the guy already. Plus, some people aren't good at certain things, find a tattooer's specialty and just have them stick with that. No need to get fancy here.
Out of all my tattoos, the one most people ask about or recognize is the Virgo sign I share with George. If part of getting tattoos is to use them as a conversation starter, then that's the one I talk about the most (possibly since it's the most visable?). Questions about the Virgo tattoo lead directly into my "I have a twin sister, her name is George" speech -- it's less inspiring than MLK's "I have a dream," but it's almost as famous. This revelation of twin-ship leads neatly into the small talk I prefer most.
See, from "Oh, you have a twin sister!" I can easily segueway into "Do you have siblings?" if I want to get them talking, or they can follow-up with "Where does she live? Are you guys close?" etc they want me to keep talking. I'm armed with a whole battalion of George-related small talk. Very safe and comfortable territory for me. Ten minutes of small talk, instantly taken care of.
So while the excecution on the Virgo tattoo may not have been the best, it's been the best bang for the buck -- taken from a socializing perspective. Plus, Virgos recognize me as a fellow Virgo immediately. How else do you think I meet fellow anal and weirdly organized people?
"Through meditation I program my heart
to beat breakbeats and hum basslines on excellation
'Ohm'
I burn seven day candles that melt
into twelve inch circles on my mantle
and spin funk like myrrh
'Ohm'
and I can fade worlds in and out with my mixing patterns
letting the Earth spin as I blend in Saturn"
-Saul Williams, Ohm [audio] -
Ohm- Right Elbow
The other tattoo I got at the same time is the Sanskrit for "Ohm," or as I always define it, "the sound of god" or maybe "the sound believed to be spoken to create the universe and life." Which is sort of accurate but not really. That's the easy explanation. Research the long one(s) if you want to. Ohm or Aum is basically a meditation word/symbol used in Buddhism, Hinduism, and a few other Eastern religions. Plus yoga. People often recognize the Ohm symbol but don't associate it with anything outside of yoga. I've never done yoga.
It's the hardest tattoo to explain to people. Part of it is that I don't fully understand it -- nor do I particularly want to. I just know it's right for me. The other thing is that I don't really want to get into the whole bit of it (religion, etc) unless I feel like it'll be worth my time. I don't even have a good one-line answer to what this tattoo means, or why I got it (like I do with all my other tattoos). So, on the same night, I got the best and worst tattoos for small talking. All for a cheap price and with George, who has only that one tattoo but with luck and some convincing from me, she'll soon have another.My problem with the tattoos are that the lines aren't sharp. Especially on the Ohm one, there's not good spacing between the top part of the tattoo and the bottom. Kills me. This was, surprisingly, the tattoo that hurt the most, as he carved near the elbow. Now that I've decided to live with less then perfect tattoos, it seems like all the ones that are a little bit off and bother me are on the right side of my body. Which leads me to believe that it's just fate. The right side of me is irregular anyway so maybe that's what the tattoos are signifying. When I got the Virgo, the tattoer thought it was odd that I wanted the symbol facing towards me, facing in, on my wrist. He said that most people want it the right side up when their arms are down and facing the world. Not me, in a sign that I'm obviously stuck on myself, I wanted my tattoo facing in so that it would be right side up when I looked at it. If there's any cosmic significance to which way my yin-yang faces (in or out), as two friends once wondered, I guess the answer is that the black side it away from me and the white's toward me.
Labels: Tattoos
