My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Oops...

So, I keep tweeting about Tattoo Crisis 2010, which in turn ends up on my Facebook page, and since I haven’t explained Tattoo Crisis 2010, a lot of people are confused.

Two Thursdays ago I decided I wanted my thirty-ninth tattoo. I have this list in my head of the tattoos I want, and I just knock them out whenever I feel like it. Things usually go absolutely fine, thirty-eight times everything went fine. This time, though, this time I did something astonishingly stupid. There’s this PJ Harvey song, The Devil, the last three lines of the song are beautiful, and I’ve wanted them as a tattoo for awhile. So, before I went out I listened to the song a bunch, and I looked up the lyrics at Metrolyrics.com, just to make sure I didn’t mis-hear anything. I always check, but this particular evening I only bothered to check the one site. I was all, “Yep, that looks the way I hear it, let’s go!” I didn’t check other sites, and in another BRILLIANT move I didn’t check PJ Harvey’s site, not until the next day anyway. Apparently, I fucked up a word, “finally” should read “formerly,” which is really more perfect than I thought. I was stupid, thoughtless, needlessly impulsive. This is hands down one of the dumbest things I’ve done in a very long time.

So, I can’t just leave it, I can’t have a typo on my chest for the rest of my life. I’m going to fix it, it’s not going to be the most elegant fix, but the mess of it will be a constant reminder to slow down sometimes, to think before I do. I’ll post again when things read as they should.

I know, I’m an idiot.

Tattoo by John, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, I’ve been admittedly kind of lost for awhile. Just look at my general lack of writing, I clearly don’t know what the fuck I’m doing much of the time. A year ago, the road felt so much clearer. I wanted this, and this, and this, and then I’d be happy. It’s difficult when you have this plan, this map of your life, and that plan doesn’t work, and that map catches fire, and you pour vodka on it trying to put out the blaze. You end up lost because you only had one answer to the question, “Well, what would make you happy?”

This all sort of hit me one day when my favorite Indigo Girls song, Closer to Fine, came up in my shuffle. Life doesn’t have just one answer for every question, and the sooner you figure that out, the sooner you open yourself up to everything if something else isn’t working, the closer you are to fine. Hence my thirty-eighth tattoo.

Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

This, my thirty-seventh tattoo, is from one of my favorite Aimee Mann songs, Susan, which is from her album, Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo).

Susan is a song about a relationship. This woman, she meets a fellow, and he makes her really happy, keeps the storm clouds away. Going in, she knows it’s not going to last, that she’ll be lonely again and he won’t be able to drag her out, but none of that matters. She goes anyway. Happiness “may be pure illusion, but it’s beautiful while it’s here…”

It’s a very melancholy, but often very true idea. It’s an idea that’s true of absolutely anything, any human experience. Nothing good in life is guaranteed to last until one drops dead. There’s always the risk of lost love, or rejection, or failure, or returning loneliness, or any bad thing imaginable, but the risks are worth taking. Everything good that we feel is potentially temporary, potentially an illusion, but that illusion can feel pretty fuckin’ awesome when you’re smack in the middle of it. Illusions always have the possibility of turning out to be real. Illusions and possibilities are reasons enough to keep breathing, reasons enough for me anyway.

Sometimes, I just think too far ahead, I think about endings more than the beauty of right now. I’m always trying to remember to enjoy the good things right in front of me. Tattoos are good reminders of things that shouldn’t be tossed away and forgotten, they’re reminders you carry wherever you go.

Tattoo etched at Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, my thirty-sixth tattoo is a small one from an Alanis Morissette song, UR, which is off of her second album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.

I find it weird that I can be so many things, so many people, all at once. I can be brave, scared, introverted, outgoing, dark, optimistic, so many traits. So many mes, all at the same time. I try to figure out which me is the real me. I think maybe they’re all me, but I don’t know. Though, if they’re not me, then who the fuck are they?  Whenever I listen to UR, I think about these things.

Tattoo by Fish, Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, my thirty-fifth tattoo is from an Alanis Morissette song, Can’t Not, which is on my favorite Alanis album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.

To me, the song is about how artists practice their craft in spite of criticism, scrutiny, and the pain one feels from being struck by such weapons. People who are passionate about their craft, whether it’s visual art, or music, or writing, they feel a drive to share what they create, to put it out there for anyone to take in. Sharing such creation opens one up to not only praise, but also harsh words and deep criticism. It can be painful for one to have what they create knocked and dismissed, spoken badly of, but that drive to create and share outweighs any feelings of pain that come from practicing one’s craft with absolute honesty. Creation for the sake of creation, whether anyone likes it or not. Alanis writes songs that make people uncomfortable, some just flat out don’t like her, and that dislike hurts, but she simply can’t not write those songs. She can’t not be herself and create with complete honesty.

Whenever I write about depression, or suicide, or sex, or derision toward God, fictionally or otherwise, it is likely to upset someone (especially people close to me). Honesty in writing, particularly when it comes to personal subjects, isn’t always welcome, but this is what I do and I can’t not do it. No matter how much I hate any personal fallout the things I write can cause, this is my craft and I can’t not practice it.

Really, I have something deep inside me, something that pushes me to do things no matter what. I can’t not do things like, tell a woman how completely I love her, even though she might not love me back, or look into her eyes and tell her how much I want to kiss her, to take off all her clothes for the first time. I can’t not travel and experience things, even though something could go astonishingly wrong with the machines, and hoses, and tubes that keep me breathing. I almost died going to a movie last December, but I can’t not go, and do, and be. I do things because I can’t not.

I’ve never had this much trouble writing, at least, not since I started writing this blog. It’s a bad feeling, not being able to create, it’s frustrating. I know I can fix it, I know I can dig my way out if I try hard enough. I mean, ultimately, writing is the only thing I have that’s truly mine, I can’t quit. Whatever I write is what will be around when I go wherever I go after I quit breathing, it’ll be all that’s left. I want something left. So, this not being able to write nonsense has to stop.

I need to pull myself together. I need to write with complete abandon. My writing is about absolute honesty, I need to get back to that place. I need to write like Kurt, and Elliott, and Alanis, writing without safety nets. Otherwise, the writing is empty and meaningless.

Tomorrow will be better, I’ll get my 500 words down. I stumbled today, but we’ll chalk it up to a warm up day. I think I psyched myself out with clocks, and deadlines, and word counts. I’ll get myself together tomorrow.

So, apparently I can’t manage 500 words per-day. Nothing in my head seems even remotely compelling. I’m bored, and lonely, and sick of me.

I need a muse.

The book I reviewed yesterday kind of inspired me toward something. Cesar Torres challenged himself to write a story a day at a thousand words each, for twelve days. When it was all over, he ended up with a book. I’m not quite so ambitious, not yet anyway, I don’t think I have that much fiction in me. I can, however, blog. I can always blog. So, I’m going to blog at least five hundred words per day during May. Maybe I’ll fail miserably, we’ll see…

Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City.

I’ll be honest, this tattoo isn’t the easiest to explain, or maybe it’s actually really simple. I mean, as I think about it, writing this just before dawn, it’s really not a very elaborate story…

I’m in the hospital, weekend number one, not really doing much of anything but listening to music, and thinking about someone. She’s nowhere, and I’m thinking about her, and this Nirvana song comes up in my shuffle. It’s a song from Bleach, Big Cheese. So, I’m listening, feeding pretty melancholy about everything, and Kurt sings, “She is glue… How are you?” The line strikes me as one of the truest things I ever heard, about her being glue. People do stick, sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes not, but they’re stuck in your head, and in your heart, and that’s that, they’re with you. I decide that when I get out of that room, when I don’t have a needle in my neck, I’ll get my thirty-fourth tattoo.

(I got this tattoo from a fellow by the name of Fish. Colt, who I really thought would do the rest of my tattoos, isn’t around just now, and it isn’t certain when that might change. So, I thought about it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to drop dead with unfinished tattoo ideas.)