My Love Affair With Tattoos - 5/24/2010

There are some groups of people that my writing has not yet offended. Don't worry, I will get around to you.

For my generation, tattoos were something that a drunken sailor on shore leave in the Philippines woke up with the morning after a weekend of binge drinking and whoring. Sometimes the tattoo would include the name of a woman that he had no recollection of knowing and the only evidence is the tattoo and painful urination. A really industrious Olongapo City bar girl could have her name adorning several sailors while the fleet was in port. Luckily the treatment for the gonorrhea she gave him would also cure the infection from the back alley tattoo. As this guy has aged, the ravages of time have rendered the woman’s name no longer legible, and the tattoo just looks like dirt on his arm. Though he had spent much of his life back home in Des Moines, unsuccessfully, trying to find another girl named Fatima to marry.

In today’s world, much to my dismay, tattoos are en vogue. Up until 2004, it was against the law in South Carolina to ink people. Now, one of the seedier areas of Myrtle Beach is lousy with tattoo and piercing parlors. I do not think that it should be illegal to tattoo, but I think a five day cooling off period, similar to that for buying a handgun, would be appropriate. While tattoos are a booming business here at the beach, tattoo removal is also very lucrative. I am conjecturing that buyer’s remorse for tattoo acquisition rivals that of owners of really ugly cars. And if you are intent on getting a tattoo, put some thought into it. Many of the tattoos I see around town look like the refrigerator art from my preschool grandchildren.

This article is not directed at men. I have no real opinion about male tattooing, though I am very happy that neither of my sons has ever succumbed to the urge to defile himself in this manner. I am addressing tattoos on women. Not the woman who has a delicate, little, butterfly or flower adorning her goody box. I am talking about real tattoos that sag and fade with age, and become unidentifiable blotches. Tattoos that detract from the natural beauty of a woman.

I walk the beach every day and part of the enjoyment, particularly now that the sun has made its appearance, is admiring the women on the beach. The truly beautiful, head-turning, spectacular women of all ages generally have one feature in common: few, if any, visible tattoos. I am guessing they don’t want to tarnish perfection. And rightly so.

Conversely, toothless, shapeless, hags that look like they either fell off the back of a Harley or the porch of a trailer house are often covered head to foot. Is it a lack of self-esteem that drives women to this extreme? For these women I encourage, “drill baby drill”. I have heard it said that many people get tattoos to be free, rebellious, and independent. That is the same rallying cry I hear from bikers, yet they all end up dressing and looking exactly alike. Nothing independent there. The day is coming soon when my lack of tattoos will be viewed as avant-garde.

Along with the tattoos, it has become fashionable to have intimate body parts pierced and adorned with jewelry. Though I do find a belly button ring on a woman weighing less than three bills kind of sexy, I think there are certain areas that need to be left au naturel. One of the least understandable to me is the tongue. Merely biting one’s tongue is such a painful experience that I can’t imagine intentionally causing trauma by drilling a hole and talking with a lisp for the rest of your life. I have heard reasons for doing so are mainly sexual. I can’t Grok that. I have never thought while receiving oral sex, “wow, this is pretty good, but you know what would make it even better is a sharp piece of steel or a gemstone rubbing against me.”

I know that many people who read this have tattoos and think they are an art form. That is the great thing about America. We are all entitled to our opinions. After all, 80% of the U.S. prison population has tattoos. I am guessing that same percentage holds true for crack whores and welfare moms. If you look at middle management and above in any of the Fortune 500 companies, you will be hard pressed to find any managers that have tattoos, hidden or otherwise. If they are so attractive and stylish, why do you suppose they airbrush them out in nearly every movie role Angelina Jolie has ever had?

Filthy Water Cannot Be Washed - My long association with water - 2/20/10

There is no predicting where inspirations to write will come from. To be honest, they come often, but I am basically too lazy to transliterate from a thought to the written word. Today, I had a fusillade of motivation, possibly drug induced.

My weight-loss program includes consuming copious amounts of water. As I was retrieving a bottle of Kirkland (Costco) “Spring” Water from the refrigerator this morning, words from a Kipling poem echoed in my mind. The synapses of my aging mind are puzzling. I usually can’t recall what I ate for lunch yesterday, but I can rote recite a poem I memorized nearly fifty years ago:

“It was crawlin’ and it stunk, but of all the drinks I’ve drunk, I’m thankful for that one from Gunga Din.”

While walking squirrel patrol with Skooter this morning, some anecdotes about my association with water came to life:

When I was growing up in northern Idaho, I didn’t know much about water and I don’t think my dad did either. Whether our water was hard or soft was not an issue to my dad. All that mattered to him was that the water was wet and mostly translucent. I can remember television commercials for a water softener, “Hey Culligan Man,” but I had no idea what they were yelling about.

Dad had more important issues than the PH of our water. Ours came out of our faucet ice cold, even in summer, and that was all that mattered. I had never heard of keeping water in the refrigerator until I ventured south. In the winter, we often had to leave the water running in the faucets to keep the pipes from freezing. In spite of that, I can remember dad crawling under the house during particularly extreme winters with a propane torch, thawing frozen pipes. I know that water was never a particularly important issue during my upbringing. It was taken for granted.

Dad died before bottled water became widely available in the 90s, but I know he would have laughed at the concept of buying water. What emitted from the sink would have always been sufficient for him. I found out later that the water of my childhood contained more heavy metals than a Monsters of Rock Concert.

When we lived in the Philippines, we lived on “the economy”. This means that our house was in the local village and not within the perimeter of Clark AB. Because the water that emitted from our spigot was roughly the same content as that of a bedpan, we lugged water in huge jugs (heh heh, I said huge jugs. Obscure Beavis and Butthead reference) from the supply at the base. We actually didn’t know for sure if base water was potable, but at least light passed through it. We did not have a water heater, so showering was a dodgy process, though the water coming out of the shower head was at a minimum, lukewarm. We heated it on the stove to bathe the kids. Again, whether the water was alkaline or acidic was of no consequence.

My first experience with really soft water was in Scotland. I got into the shower and poured my usual dollop of shampoo into my hand. When I applied it to my hair, it literally exploded into lather. It seemed there was no end to the foam. Had I been an 80s hair band, and assuming they actually washed their hair, there would have been sufficient suds for band, groupies, and roadies. But the major problem was during the rinsing process. I could not rinse the shampoo from my hair. Since Scottish water heaters have roughly the capacity of a Mr. Coffee (do those still exist?), I was soon both soapy and freezing. I quickly learned that in Scotland, a bottle of shampoo can age like single malt scotch.

Shortly after my Air Force retirement I worked for the Wyoming State Engineer. That office controlled the rights for all usage of both ground and surface water. Water is a precious commodity in the semi-desert climate of the high plains. Range wars have been fought over it and there has been an ongoing lawsuit for decades between Wyoming and Nebraska over usage of the Platte River, which flows through both states. Permits were required for any water consumption. One of my responsibilities was the processing of well permit applications. One of the requests that came across my desk was from a resident of Jackson Hole who wished to drill a well on his property. The name on the form was Harrison Ford. I think everyone in the office ended up with a copy of that signed document.

My sister’s family lives in rural southeastern Georgia. They get their water from a well and it has extremely high sulfur content and emits a fragrance somewhat like rotten eggs, and sometimes comes out of the tap opaque. It causes you to come out of a bath more offensive smelling than you went in. Sulphur water is therapeutic at a spa, but makes crappy sweet tea.

I have had to learn to like water. Until December 1, 2009, when my efforts at weight-loss began, when I was "swinging on the refrigerator door" (mom's words), water would not have been one of my druthers.