Got ink?

{Digression #1: This is the most self-indulgent, and also probably the longest, post I have crafted to date. You've been warned. End of digression #1.}

There's this new show coming out on A&E that I'm really excited about. It's called Inked, and apparently during parts of it, people explain the meaning behind their tattoos.

I should probably first disclose that I can be somewhat... I'll say nosy rather than of a voyeur. I'm always looking into peoples' houses when I drive by them on the street, just to see how they've arranged their living room or what they're watching on TV. I don't know why this fascinates me so (other than discovering new ways to decorate), but it does. And ever since I got my first tattoo, I've wondered what the stories were behind others' ink. Kinda timely, since I'm on the verge of going under the needle for the fourth* time, I'll share my stories for anyone who's ever wondered.

Max was my first. I was eighteen, just done with freshman year of college where I'd undergone a remarkable transformation from mediator-doormat to free-thinking-confident-self-sufficient-new-me. I'd also been exposed to quite a bit of new music I'd avoided in the past because of the stereotypes that came along with it... Some band called the Grateful Dead, this cool new grunge deal named Pearl Jam, and the Doors, featuring vocals by a guy named Jim Morrison.

It didn't take long, in my new shell, to become absolutely obsessed with Jim. I listened to CDs, I watched concert videos, I read books, I bought t-shirts. I loved his fuck-it-all attitude, his words, his moves, everything. And when a few of us at the dorm started bantering about getting tattoos before we went home for the summer, only one image came to mind: the lizard at the bottom of his (ohsofineshirtless) An American Poet poster.

I felt like a dork walking into the tattoo studio with a rolled up poster of a semi-naked dead guy under my arm, but the guy was really cool about it, and said it would have to be about five times the size of the one on the poster to come out well... Which was much larger than I planned... And I freaked out... And then I said okay. And Max was born.** (I dunno where Max came from. Had to call him something.)

The daisies around my ankle came about during my first cross-country road trip. I was with Crazy Psycho Boyfriend (CPB), who was really into the Dead and Dylan and all that hippie shit. We had been driving for about two weeks, and were on our way to San Francisco to see what Haight/Ashbury was all about. Turned out that we had crossed the Golden Gate Bridge the same day Jerry Garcia died, and the whole city appeared to be in a weird funk.

{Digression #2: That was my first exposure to Dave Morey on KFOG, who was usually the morning DJ but who came on that night to play songs and let listeners call in with their stories. Sometime over the next 24 hours I knew I needed to live here. End of digression #2.}

So CPB and I hung out in The City for a few days and then headed down to Ventura Beach, where we both went under the needle and I got my "flower power" tattoo in memory of Jerry Garcia. I'd never been to a Dead show but I loved the music, and I loved what he did for so many people (well, okay him and the drugs, but he played a big part there), and I loved the happiness he brought me just from the music that I never got to hear live in concert.

My upcoming adventure is still in the development stage, but will involve some sort of water symbol placed in a location where it will either not be visible to most, ever, or will nicely offset the balance of the other two. (Not sure where that would be exactly, but that's the plan.) Why water? Well, the obvious reason is due to my zodiac sign, but the deciding factor was that I can't imagine not living near the water in my life, and according to my "past lives" psychic I have never not lived near the water in my other lives either. So it seems fitting.

Any cool water symbols out there for consideration?

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* I only have two at the moment, but have done this three times so far. On his tenth birthday I got Max's color re-done, and added some eyes and red spots just to give him a little more personality. Or something.

** I will save my father's reactions to both tattoos for a later time. Suffice to say, they weren't pretty.