30 days of babble, dec 9 - least favorite travel destination, and dec 10 - tattoos!
it's 11-12-13 for those of you who write the date with the day first. nifty!
i'm behind two days for the 30 days of babble meme. *sigh* first, dec 9, for tesserae_, is my least favorite travel destination, and why? (or, if i've liked every place i've been, which one do i feel i never need to go back to.) i generally like the places i visit, mostly because i've chosen to go there. altho i didn't choose to go to phoenix last year - my uncle turned eighty and had a birthday party - and now that i've been there, i don't feel a burning need to go back. altho i did like the desert. and my aunt and uncle and a cousin are there, and i got to see buhfly and that was fun. but phoenix for the sake of phoenix? eh. i've seen the zoo (and it was a nice zoo), i've been to the botanical gardens (full of cactus! and i love me some cactus), i bought a soleri bell at cosanti, i had yummy tamales for lunch - ok, maybe it isn't my least favorite travel destination. but all the same, i don't need to go back. likewise i don't think i'll ever go back to southern florida - miami and environs - it's hot, it's humid, it's full of old people. well, it's full of the memory of old people - my mom's parents lived in fort lauderdale and my dad's mom lived in coconut creek, all of them in retirement communities full of other old folks. so that's what southern florida is to me. i didn't mind visiting my grandparents when i was wee, but i was never too enthused about having to go to florida to do it. i admit that part of me wants to see the art deco buildings in miami beach, but that's kind of it.
and then for dec 10, wesleysgirl wanted tattoos. since i don't know if she means mine or other people's, i'll say i love other people's and i love hearing the stories behind them - i can be very superficial and admire the art, or i can go deeper and let someone explain why their tats are significant and meaningful and personal for them - and then i can leave you with a quote:
Two hours later I get up and I look at myself in the mirror. And there, on that chest that was just a chest, on those shoulders that were just shoulders, is a beautiful, undulant black labyrinth of slender, hooked lines. It's incredibly crisp, the way new tattoos are, and the antibiotic ointment makes it shiny. This is my body, and it's been transfigured.... I'm lithe and I'm powerful and I'm wild. This tattoo has turned me into a jungle thing, into a head-hunting Dayak motherfucker.... Four hours under a tattooist's needle and for the first time in my life I can look in the mirror and actually like what I see.
--Peter Trachtenberg, Seven Tattoos
it's a way of being able to carry art and memory around with you, and it's a way to make your body yours, to turn it into something you like looking at.
i'm behind two days for the 30 days of babble meme. *sigh* first, dec 9, for tesserae_, is my least favorite travel destination, and why? (or, if i've liked every place i've been, which one do i feel i never need to go back to.) i generally like the places i visit, mostly because i've chosen to go there. altho i didn't choose to go to phoenix last year - my uncle turned eighty and had a birthday party - and now that i've been there, i don't feel a burning need to go back. altho i did like the desert. and my aunt and uncle and a cousin are there, and i got to see buhfly and that was fun. but phoenix for the sake of phoenix? eh. i've seen the zoo (and it was a nice zoo), i've been to the botanical gardens (full of cactus! and i love me some cactus), i bought a soleri bell at cosanti, i had yummy tamales for lunch - ok, maybe it isn't my least favorite travel destination. but all the same, i don't need to go back. likewise i don't think i'll ever go back to southern florida - miami and environs - it's hot, it's humid, it's full of old people. well, it's full of the memory of old people - my mom's parents lived in fort lauderdale and my dad's mom lived in coconut creek, all of them in retirement communities full of other old folks. so that's what southern florida is to me. i didn't mind visiting my grandparents when i was wee, but i was never too enthused about having to go to florida to do it. i admit that part of me wants to see the art deco buildings in miami beach, but that's kind of it.
and then for dec 10, wesleysgirl wanted tattoos. since i don't know if she means mine or other people's, i'll say i love other people's and i love hearing the stories behind them - i can be very superficial and admire the art, or i can go deeper and let someone explain why their tats are significant and meaningful and personal for them - and then i can leave you with a quote:
Two hours later I get up and I look at myself in the mirror. And there, on that chest that was just a chest, on those shoulders that were just shoulders, is a beautiful, undulant black labyrinth of slender, hooked lines. It's incredibly crisp, the way new tattoos are, and the antibiotic ointment makes it shiny. This is my body, and it's been transfigured.... I'm lithe and I'm powerful and I'm wild. This tattoo has turned me into a jungle thing, into a head-hunting Dayak motherfucker.... Four hours under a tattooist's needle and for the first time in my life I can look in the mirror and actually like what I see.
--Peter Trachtenberg, Seven Tattoos
it's a way of being able to carry art and memory around with you, and it's a way to make your body yours, to turn it into something you like looking at.