so many words, so little skin

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single tattoo in possession of open space is in want of some company. Which is to say that my intermittent compulsion to get inked seems to come not from my conscious but rather arises from my flesh itself. This feeling is, of course, imaginary. I realize the limitations of my skin; its cognizance is limited to expressions that feel metaphorically onomatopoetic. “Ow!”, “mmmm!” and “eesh!” are about as articulate as my soft tissue gets. The time has come to get tattooed, for my usually dumb dermis has started to scream.

My first bundle of tattoos will turn twenty this summer. They were three bees—one on my ribcage under my left breast and two hovering in the general vicinity of the waistband of my jeans on my lower abdomen and hip. I got them in Derby, CT, a town that is if not the armpit of Connecticut is at least its nostril. My first three tattoos cost me $100 and they were inked by Spider Webb, something of a legend in the tat world. As he was tattooing me, Spider told me a story about a man who had himself covered with accurate illustrations of butterflies from around the world. By chance, he walked into a bar and met a beautiful lepidopterist. They fell in love. It ended tragically. My time at Spider Webb’s was an experience that supports the adage that your first is always your best. I got tattoos, a story told to me, a story I could tell, and a t-shirt.

Eight or so years later, I was stripping and living a life of pompous edginess. I strutted and preened for a living. My days were hamburger-raw and hazy, and my nights stuffed with loud music, flashing lights and plastic shoes. Caught on the lintel between my strip life and my academic life, I was a creature neither of one world nor the other, and I was struck dumb about it. So I got more tattoos. My bees had grown faint, what with the rubbing of jeans and g-strings. They cried out for color, so I went to Rising Dragon located at the foot of the Chelsea Hotel. Darren, the owner, colored my bees appropriately yellow and added two more—an African bush bee on the back of my neck and a digger bee on my right sacroiliac crest.

My right ankle twitched and signaled my next tattoo, also by Darren, that of a lugubrious Victorian illustration of a moth with skulls on its wings. And when I realized that I had to remove my tongue ring because it was damaging my gums, I got this corresponding visceral kick to transform the two feminine bees on my abdomen into big, dark, flapping bats. They’re all about that raw and metallic urge to flip the world a collective bird.

When I had to put down my dog, the Legendary Spencer, I felt it all over my body, but I marked it with a print of his paw on my right shoulder. It’s an ugly tattoo, or at least the lettering around the paw is ugly, but its ugliness embodies the pain I felt about his loss. I knew before the day I walked Spencer to vet’s for the last time that I’d mark my dog’s death on my body. I put his paw where he once reached when he jumped up on me in exuberance and in love. Some Brazilian boy did the tat, inexpertly and deeply.

My most recent tattoo is a quote from James Joyce, the last seven words in Ulysses, “and yes I said yes I will yes.” It’s a faint, nearly illegible tattoo, but it’s a thing of beauty. This one was done by a woman, Stephanie Tamez, the person I now refer to “my tattoo artist.” This tattoo is in a book. The black-and-white photograph shows the tattoo and my wrist in all its glory, including the white slug of my suicide attempt that crawls inexorably toward my thumb.

Today I’m pondering a new tattoo. Two patches of skin call out, each in a different place, each with a different cry. My right shoulder wants a frame for the keening black that is my Spencer tattoo. It’s too naked and too emotionally bloody. It needs some soft, protective coating. Something with levity, perhaps, coiling around it like cultural cotton. Therefore, I’m considering making a semi-sleeve out of words; two quotes jump like puppies. One is "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc,” which are, as Morticia Addams says, not just pretty words. I cleave to the concept that my innate defiance gives me strength. Why not put it on my arm, in Latin, and be cheeky with it. The other is, naturally, a quote from Buffy, the ineffable force that kept me alive this past year: “I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.” Pop culture is as much a part of my life as Joyce, and it seems to form a slender logic that my right shoulder wants to announce it.

My back, however, has a different idea. It flows all cold and high-brow in its somatic response to my shoulder’s snuggling up to pop. It wants the Beaudelaire poem “Enivrez-Vous,” in French, naturellement. My back, at least the strip on my left side from shoulder blade to waist, feels Gallic, pretentious and bohemian, apparently. And yet it’s a poem I love, love with an extra-flamey, white-hot burning passion, and it espouses an idea that I strive to embody, even as I recognize the adolescence of its charm. Who doesn’t want to stay drunk on wine, poetry, virtue or whatever? No one I want to have lunch with.

My tattoos, my shrieking flesh, and my inevitable choice currently are stuck in the bureaucratic wicket. I have some time to see which part of me, shoulder or back, no-brow or high-brow, screams the most stridently. In the meantime, I will sit quietly and listen to that inexpressible prickle signaling the time to get buzzed.

(My new tattoo is being generously underwritten by my close, personal friend Karl Elvis. Yes, that is his real name. Yes, you should be jealous.)

Comments

[Karl Elvis]

I think there are few things more wonderful than word tattoos. And for writers and poets, words etched into flesh have a special power.

I also LOVE Stephanie's work. She's amazing. If I had access, I'd absolutely be getting tattooed by her (wrong coast though).

[SarahHeartburn]

I decided long ago not to get a tattoo because I like my freckles so much.

[Susan]

I wonder how many Buffy "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it" tattoos there are?

[Paul Davis]

I would never, ever get a tattoo. But if I did, it would say "How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life" (Wittgenstein, by way of Reich). CG, its really great to find you writing again, a nice suprise to find on returning from Berlin after 6 months.

[Roxy]

De-lurking to announce that I own that tattoo book, and I admired yours long before I knew whose it was.

[Frank Montana]

Tats are only fleetingly beautiful...most of them just are a faded reminder of a bad phase in our life and days gone by...plus you can never get an MRI

[chelsea g.]

Thank you for your opinion, Frank. You sound so very much like my mother.

As to tattoos being only fleetingly beautiful, I must answer with a rhetorical question: what isn't? And then I must answer with a cliché: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I love my old tattoos. I have no issue with remembering any phase in my life--good or bad--and what is more, I firmly believe in remembering and writing down those memories. Hence this blog.

As to tattoos' rendering MRIs useless, you're wrong. Feel free to Google "tattoos and MRIs" and witness the exact dimensions of your wrongheadedness. It's a nice, large, sound monolith.

kissykiss,
chelsea g.

[Karl Elvis]

Frank-

The MRI and tattoo myth has been thoroughly debunked. Mythbusters tested in really well, and I personally have had three MRIs, and I'm pretty much covered with tattoos. As CG says, just a little tiny bit of googling will tell you that. It's an urban legend, though in fact still widely believed (including by some MRI clinics).

As to the rest - while you're welcome to your opinion, it's both artistically and factually ignorant. Enjoy it though.

[Unnur María]

My oldest tattoo is now eleven years old and still holds it's own. I am moderately covered, moderately as in most of my tattoos are easily hidden under clothes if I choose so. I've wanted tattoos since i was a little girl and I know that I will keep on getting them.

But what I wanted to say is that I've also got a tattoo in the memory of a beloved pet. Her name was Lux (named after Lux Interior). I got her from a shelter when she was a malnourished and sick little thing and she grew up to be the most sweetest little white cat there has ever been. When she died from an accident I had her name engraved on my chest, right on top of my heart. It hurt like hell but everytime I look at it I feel the love I felt for her and remember the joy she gave to me.

(This is a video of Lux being happy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nROjTvkk8TA This is her memorial tattoo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ominous/2758407299/in/set-72157605432204365/)

[Sabina]

Frank, what about a reminder of a good phase in life? And what's fleeting about permanence?
I just have one small tattoo, but lately my skin has been begging me to get the lines of a poem etched in, too.