So, seriously now. What am I going to do about the thirtieth-birthday tattoo thing? I know I have mentioned it here before but now I have no idea where or when in the archives so please trust me. Anyway, it was all fine and good when I was just a twenty-eight year old slip of a lass to think about what I was going to get as a tattoo for my extremely-far-away thirtieth birthday because probably by the time I was thirty I’d have a book deal and a lovely Craftsman-style home and my very own octopus that I could play with whenever I wanted. And when you have those things, well, who cares what kind of ink you’re sporting, right?
But now thirty is just a couple of months away and this heretofore dormant issue has all of a sudden come to the forefront, you know, that part of the forefront that isn’t subsumed by concerns about crazy talk as well as delicate issues of a personal nature. And so I find myself researching local tattoo places and wondering anew how much it might hurt and where exactly on my body I should get it and what happens if all of a sudden I’m like “No! No! I WANT SNOOP DOGG’S HEAD IN PROFILE, NOT A UNICORN WITH A STAR ON ITS HORN!” And is it extremely awesome to be an old lady with a tattoo or is it extremely weird? And should I let the future old lady I’ll become dictate my decisions to have someone stick needles into me or what? Also, and this is just out of curiosity, when they do a tattoo, do they do the equivalent of tracing it on your skin with a pencil or is it freestyle?
Okay, let’s do an impromptu poll, here. Clearly, anyone who is impromptu enough to do a poll right in the middle of her online journal is also impromptu enough to maybe one day get a tattoo for her birthday which is coming right up.
In your highly esteemed opinion, getting a tattoo for my thirtieth birthday is:
a) extremely awesome
b) extremely ridiculous
c) a pretty even mix of awesome and ridiculous
d) wiggity-wack. Those HURT, or haven’t you heard?
Oh, and, what sort of tattoo ought I to get?
a) Snoop Dogg’s head, in ? profile.
b) a biologically accurate octopus, but a small one, because I don’t want it to be all over my back because I think that would hurt really really bad and I don’t like pain, although, oddly enough needles don’t bother me too much, like I’m pretty good about getting shots and giving blood and stuff like that. Except if it’s going to be really biologically accurate then maybe having it small wouldn’t show up all the detail of the suckers and the tentacles, you know?
c) skull and crossbones. Arrrrrrr.
d)a little flower or something.
And is there anything else I should be doing in preparation for my rapidly-approaching thirtieth birthday, while I’m thinking about it?
a) get OVER myself, for heaven’s sake.
b) go to a quiet mountain retreat for my birthday weekend, wearing undyed natural fibers and absorb the earth’s energy through the pristine beauty of the crystalline lake.
c) sit in some Starbuck’s somewhere, staring out the window and contemplating all the failures and disappointments of the past ten years.
d) go to Vegas.
I just keep feeling like I have to do something dramatic to turn thirty. My twenties have been, seriously, so boring. All I’ve done in my twenties is go to school and go to work and pay my bills and occasionally go to bellydance or Stupid Burning Man or something and be in bad relationships. I think I have this idea that getting a tattoo when I turn thirty will be the harbinger of some new exciting era in my life, and then I have this competing idea that that is probably really dumb.