Tattoo memories
Tattoos I've seen:
My Uncle Jim used to have a naked lady on his forearm. When I was a small kid and started inquiring about it, my grandmother asked him to cover it up. I just thought it was neat; it wasn't even a sexual image to me then. He didn't bother to have clothes put on her, though; he had a large eagle done to obscure her completely. He has a pachuco cross tattooed above the webbing of flesh between thumb and forefinger (probably on his right hand). I think his brother, my Uncle Joe, might also have the cross on his hand. I know Uncle Joe has a word on his knuckles but I forget what it is. (I feel remiss; I must ask.)
My favorite tattoo story comes from when I was a young teen, about 14. My friend's cousin's mom was one of those women that everyone calls "Mom." (I never was entirely sure how my friend and Mom were actually related; they just said "cousins" and left it at that.) One day we were hanging out with Mom when I noticed the tattoo of a man's name on her wrist, right where a watchband would fit over it. So, being me, I asked, "Hey Mom, who was that?" and pointed to his name. Blowing out smoke, and right on cue, she turned to me and said, "You know, honey, it was the 70's, and I honestly don't remember." That made me really cautious about tattoos - well, up to the present day.
I'll never forget the strange sense of dislocation (perhaps deja vu) that swept over me when I met a man with my name tattooed on his arm. He'd heard about me beforehand so he introduced himself by saying "Hello...Patricia!" and rolling up his sleeve. It turned out that it was also the name is his ex-wife. Perhaps that should have been a sign. Perhaps it was a sign.
I remember the episode of the X-Files in which Scully goes off on her own, without Mulder and rather disgruntled with her life. She meets a man who has just gotten a tattoo done on his arm after a nasty divorce; what should he ask for but a woman's face, with the legend "Never Again." They end up drunk together, both of them lost in their own way. Scully ends up getting a tattoo of an ouroboros on the small of her back and though it seems to be a mark of a darker time in her life, it was never said that she got it removed.
Angelina Jolie's tattoos are suited to her, both in shape and in what they mean. On her arm, the coordinates of her children's birthplaces. Utterly personal, that one. The only one that has resonated with me is "quod me nutrit me destruit," in script over her belly. What nourishes me destroys me. Oh, the resonance that has in me! But I wish it didn't.
My Uncle Jim used to have a naked lady on his forearm. When I was a small kid and started inquiring about it, my grandmother asked him to cover it up. I just thought it was neat; it wasn't even a sexual image to me then. He didn't bother to have clothes put on her, though; he had a large eagle done to obscure her completely. He has a pachuco cross tattooed above the webbing of flesh between thumb and forefinger (probably on his right hand). I think his brother, my Uncle Joe, might also have the cross on his hand. I know Uncle Joe has a word on his knuckles but I forget what it is. (I feel remiss; I must ask.)
My favorite tattoo story comes from when I was a young teen, about 14. My friend's cousin's mom was one of those women that everyone calls "Mom." (I never was entirely sure how my friend and Mom were actually related; they just said "cousins" and left it at that.) One day we were hanging out with Mom when I noticed the tattoo of a man's name on her wrist, right where a watchband would fit over it. So, being me, I asked, "Hey Mom, who was that?" and pointed to his name. Blowing out smoke, and right on cue, she turned to me and said, "You know, honey, it was the 70's, and I honestly don't remember." That made me really cautious about tattoos - well, up to the present day.
I'll never forget the strange sense of dislocation (perhaps deja vu) that swept over me when I met a man with my name tattooed on his arm. He'd heard about me beforehand so he introduced himself by saying "Hello...Patricia!" and rolling up his sleeve. It turned out that it was also the name is his ex-wife. Perhaps that should have been a sign. Perhaps it was a sign.
I remember the episode of the X-Files in which Scully goes off on her own, without Mulder and rather disgruntled with her life. She meets a man who has just gotten a tattoo done on his arm after a nasty divorce; what should he ask for but a woman's face, with the legend "Never Again." They end up drunk together, both of them lost in their own way. Scully ends up getting a tattoo of an ouroboros on the small of her back and though it seems to be a mark of a darker time in her life, it was never said that she got it removed.
Angelina Jolie's tattoos are suited to her, both in shape and in what they mean. On her arm, the coordinates of her children's birthplaces. Utterly personal, that one. The only one that has resonated with me is "quod me nutrit me destruit," in script over her belly. What nourishes me destroys me. Oh, the resonance that has in me! But I wish it didn't.