had
something applied.
And I love it. Now. The morning after the modification fest my spouse and
I looked at each other, looked at our ankles and said, "Holy _____. Do
you believe this?"
But of course, buyer’s remorse is moot. No three-day rescission clause
on this baby. It’s a keeper.
And I’m still trying to piece together the events that led to my foray
into body art. Me, who pales at dental anesthetic and freaks when the pups
get kennel cough boosters. How did this happen?
It started with our son the actor Eric, whose corporate career in
diversity work once took him to a classroom discussion of Native American
dream interpretation. One of his recent dreams had featured a giant turtle
and he and the instructor decided that his good luck totem would, forever
more, be a turtle.
What followed was pretty natural. Eric installed turtle lawn art at his
Capital Hill townhouse, decorated the coffee table with gift turtles from
friends and relatives, and pretty much had a cool little collection going.
Until Memorial Day weekend when he started to, as Emeril Lagasse says,
notch it up a little. Bam! He wanted a big old turtle tattoo.
"Okay, lesbian moms, are you going to get tattoos, too?"
Oddly enough, this was not a question out of the blue. Over the past few
years, we’ve flirted with the idea. Much like we’ve flirted with
Cadillac Escalade ownership or the cutie cashier at the hardware store. But
it didn’t mean we planned on actually taking either of them home with us.
We’d often thought about getting a little seahorse stenciled on a
shoulder blade or other circumspect site. Why this design? According to
Bonnie, all of Baltimore’s old-time lesbian bars (and there were
surprisingly many) had a seahorse symbol by the door. The seahorse
represented a species where boy seahorses birth and nurture babies, while
mommy seahorses play softball or something. The symbol has completely fallen
off contemporary gaydar, but it’s still a cute tattoo image.
Fast forward to Route One, May 29, Ancient Art Tattoo. Now if any son of
mine is going under the needle, the operatory better be sparkling clean and
sanitized. Peggi Hurley, an award-winning tattoo artist and a woman who
knows a thing or two about body art runs a clean as a whistle shop and takes
her craft seriously. In fact, she worked with the state government and the
health department on tattoo parlor regulations. So it was Peggi we went to
see.
Despite sunny weather, the place was packed. While Eric searched through
patterns for his turtle of choice, Bonnie and I flipped through pages and
pages of massively inappropriate and ugly, if not frightening, selections.
Vipers, Harleys, naked ladies, barbed wire. I think not.
One young girl eyed a sweet little puppy template for her rump. I didn’t
want to be the one to tell her that it was destined to become a Shar-Pei.
Likewise, the chippy who wanted Snoopy on her ultra flat stomach—when this
young woman is nine months pregnant Snoopy could quite possibly explode. At
any rate, he’d have jowls by 2034.
And these gals were giving us advice. I’ll admit, it was disconcerting
hearing body art counsel from sweet young tattoo candidates with pierced
eyebrows, tongues and goodness knows what else. One Valley Girl could have
strained linguini through her ears. When I couldn’t quite understand what
one girl was saying I realized she was trying to orate with a brand new
tongue stud. I think she told uth getting a tattoo doethn’t hurt. Hell, it
already hurt feeling like Grandma Moseses.
Finally, we located a viable seahorse design. Incredibly, we didn’t go
screaming out the door.
Okay, we’d had the advice, next came the consent. Naturally, Eric knew
he had to go first if there was any chance we’d follow. For forty-five
minutes he sat in that chair, smiling and chatting as Peggi engraved a
Native American turtle totem on his upper arm.
When it was my turn, I showed Peggi the seahorse I wanted and told her I
was wavering between shoulder blade, lower back or the flight or fight
response. She was so nice and reassuring, and so quick to suggest that I’d
really rather have a tattoo where I could show it off, I immediately agreed
to the ankle site.
Well. Only after she started buzzing me with the black ink outline did I
realize just how good an actor our boy Eric really is. Getting tattooed hurt
like hell. Although, I was somewhat distracted by Bonnie, who had turned
ghostly pale and seemed to be panicking. At that moment I realized she
thought I’d never go through with it and therefore she’d be spared.
"Fooled her!" I thought, although that was little consolation.
Fortunately my seahorse tattoo was just a 15-minute job, and pretty soon I
was out of the chair and pain-free, watching Bonnie cave to peer pressure
and get her very own seahorse appliqué.
Truthfully, the whole thing was pretty shocking. I hadn’t felt like
this much of an outlaw since 1970 when I accidentally wandered into a campus
Vietnam War protest and got tear gassed.
Even then, all I had to do was be hosed down. Jeesh. Now I’m seahorsed
for life.
"Okay," said Peggy, as our trio stood stupefied, staring at our
body art. "Go home and wash with mild soap and water, keep it clean and
have fun."
Our seahorses hurt like a mild sunburn for a week and then they were
fine. We are both delighted with our pathetic little middle-aged rebellion.
If this is a mid-life crisis, we can only hope that the nursing home folks
will be admiring Peggi’s handiwork when I’m 112.
Of course, as we drove to New York to visit my parents last week, I
wondered if I was the only AARP member in history worried about telling an
octogenarian dad about a tattoo.
Got ink?
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