My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, I got this tattoo some months back, while I was in Cincinnati. I got it my first few hours in town, we arrived and by nightfall I was having these lyrics etched into my leg. The lines are from an Alanis Morissette song, Flinch, off her record, Under Rug Swept. The song is really a story, six minutes of flash writing about this connection between two people, this consuming, unrelenting connection. These two lines, they’re my favorite, I’ve thought similar thoughts so many times.

These lines always remind me of someone, this person who’s always with me, even when she’s not. I was thinking about her that dusk in Cincinnati, thinking about how she has this deep affect on me. It’s like she has a key to everything in me, and I couldn’t change the locks even if I wanted to. The affect is beyond reason, and even when it hurts I cannot make it stop. It’s so like the way breathing affects me, the way a lack of air feels miserable, terrifying, and there’s not a Goddamn fuckin’ thing I can do to quell that lack, or change the way it makes me feel. I missed her so much when I woke up that morning, I missed her before I even left Tampa, and it hit me, it really hit me when Flinch popped up on my iPod just as we crossed that line into Cincinnati, it hit me that this one person means everything to me, that no one else holds so much sway to render me so completely happy, and so perfectly lost and melancholy. It amazes me how lyrics can pull so much out of a person, like some sort of magic spell that make the world clear as a pane of glass.

That’s all I care to say about tattoo #41.

(Oh, the grammatical error in the tattoo was done to match the way the lyrics are written on Alanis.com.)

Tattoo by Clare, Las Vega Tattoo, Ybor City

Elliott Smith – Placeholder

So, there’s this Elliott Smith song, Placeholder, off his second posthumously released album, New Moon. To me, the song is basically Elliott saying that his work, all the stuff he writes, it’s all just temporary. He’s just a placeholder until something else comes along. Though, he’s talking about himself as a person too, he’s just a placeholder for the people in his life.

I’ve thought about myself the same way many times, the song can remind me so much of me. So, when I was really very dark a few months ago, this tattoo felt very appropriate.

I don’t get the sad tattoos and regret them later. They’re not constant reminders of darkness, but rather, they show me the entire road I had to take to feel something good again. It’s odd, but it’s really kind of spectacular to look back on this lonely place and that empty place from someplace beautiful, seeing times that I could have broken, but didn’t. Then again, they could all add up to failure at the end of everything, but I won’t really know until I got there.

Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this is how I ended Tattoo Crisis 2010, this is how I fixed what was quite possibly the stupidest typo of all time. This is the finished version of my thirty-ninth tattoo. I mostly think of this tattoo as a reminder to think things out before I go and do something dumb. I was really pretty down when I got the idea for it, thinking about how people who seemed so important to each other end up apart, never talking to each other again. Like I said, I was really pretty down.

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.

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.)

So, I’m not a big fan of Christmas much anymore. It’s just gotten to be very lonely, and stressful, and full of unmet expectations. I suppose I’m getting old and bitter, or perhaps I just don’t carry around the right people in my backpack. I don’t know.

Aside from not liking the season in general, I don’t tend to like Christmas music. It’s all either saccharine sweet, or just plain weird. Like, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. How fuckin’ creepy is that? I do, however, love Aimee Mann, so I had to have her Christmas CD, One More Drifter in the Snow. She sings a bunch of the more low-key traditional Christmas songs, but then there’s one song on the CD that really stands out, Calling On Mary. I’d never heard it before, it’s very sad, and beautifully written. It’s about taking happiness for granted, and ending up fucked up and alone at Christmas. It’s so real, and so beautiful. This is because it’s an original song, co-written by Aimee herself. Which explains why it’s so gorgeous, and dark, and perfect. There’s one line in particular, kind of a warning against guaranteed misery, that really caught me.

‘Cause comfort’s not possible when you look past the joy to the end…

Tattoo by Colt, hardcore badass at Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

That really is true, it’s impossible to feel any sort of peace, or contentment, or happiness, when you’re thinking fifteen steps into the future, never living right now. Lying in bed with someone you love, only thinking about the fact that they’ll be gone far too soon, that you probably won’t see them for awhile, all that thinking ruins the beauty of right now. Still, it’s very difficult, at least for me, not to think that way. It’s difficult when absolutely beautiful moments are drowned out by so much loneliness, and uneasiness, and melancholy. It’s hard to focus on the beauty of right now knowing that everything for miles ahead is just fucking bad. It’s hard not to look past the joy to the end, I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I try. I do try.