do it now before you die

(from Chronos #6, August 1998; by John Francis Moore, Paul Guinan, & Steve Leialoha)
As is the usual way of things, the wife has gone off to actually do something while I remain comfortably ensconced in our humble home to write about it. It might seem rather sad to outside observers, but we're quite happy with the arrangement.

Besides, any scenario that doesn't involve me having my flesh perforated with an electric needle is tops in my book. After much contemplation and consideration, Maura has finally gone off to get the tattoo she has wanted to have done for years: a stylized rabbit in the moon, with an inset of the Southern Cross constellation, on her upper arm. It's an image with multiple levels of personal significance and the fact that Maura is willing to overcome her fear of needles -- she considered the Commonwealth's prerequisite blood test for obtaining a marriage license strong grounds for eloping -- to have it done is nothing short of remarkable.

I'd never get one, though. That's partly because I can't think of anything so significant that I'd want to have it indelibly etched upon my person. The only thing that even comes close in a talk-but-never-do kind of way would be an image of Freckle Face Strawberry with "DOI!" underneath it, tattooed on my right forearm. (No, I won't explain my reasons.) It will never happen, though.

The whole body art/b-mod/piercings scene is one of those things I've long since filed into the "not for me" folder. Sure, I used to wear multiple safety pins in my ear, but that was the extent of my dabbling in such matters, and all that remains today are two small scars and a gold hoop I fixed into place twelve years ago and don't even think about until it catches on something. I don't (usually) fault other people for indulging in tats and nose piercings and whatnot, as we must determine our own individual drafts and ballast loads when it comes to appearance and self-image.

That said, whenever I see a young'un who has gotten into the scene in a major way, I can't help but think of two telling memories. The first is of a conservatively dressed businesswoman I saw on the subway a few years back. She was around my age, and had a small scarified indentation on the side of her nose, a permanent artifact of a time before she swapped the mosh pit for an investment manager's portfolio. The other is of a high school English teacher who, after much prodding, rolled back the sleeve of his sweater to show our class the USMC tattoo he'd gotten during the Korean War. At one time, it must have been a gorgeous work of art, but time and cellular breakdown had transformed it into an indistinct gray-blue smear.

Permanence has a flip side to consider, too.

Carter USM - Let's Get Tattoos (from Worry Bomb, 1995) - They make it sound so tempting, but my answer's still "no."

As much as I loved Carter's first three albums, I lost interest in the band's material following 1993 single release of "Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over." I recall feeling that they'd lost their edge. That technically might have been true, as nothing from that point on managed to reach the lofty pop heights of "Sheriff Fatman" or "After the Watershed," but upon revisting their later material recently, I realized that there were quite a few gems, like today's featured track, that my younger self failed to appreciate.