Ink Battles

So The Ex called me shortly before the holidays, frantic, asking if I had talked to my son lately. One part of me was expecting some catastrophic news that he'd lost his scholarship, or that he wasn't coming home for Christmas, or that It-That-Must-Not-Be-Named occurred with some girl, but the more rational part of me knew that it was going to be some irrelevant bullshit.  This man called urgently interrupting my work day to tell me......

My son is planning on getting a tattoo.

Now, this isn't new news to me, as my son has been begging me to get him a tattoo since he was 16.  He had also "threatened" to go off to Boston and get himself a potentially questionable tat if I didn't get one for him before he left for school.  However, The Ex called me as if I could somehow stop this from happening.... from 1,000 miles away.

The last thing I want to see is my son mar his lovely golden brown skin with some ugly ink.  As a mother and an ink lover, that would hurt my feelings.  Badly.  Do I want him to go to my tattoo artist where I know he will get some quality work?  Yes.  Do I want him to spend a minimum of $250 to get a decent piece of artwork?  Yes.  Have I told him all of these things?  Since he was old enough to notice my ink.  

However, the reality is that he is a newly minted adult, and as we have all experienced, sometimes new adults want to exercise their blossoming adulthood by doing questionable things that totally piss their parents off.  And part of the appeal of a tattoo is the rebellion aspect of it.  Normally, the tattoo itself is enough to shock the conscience of the average parent.  But considering I, as his mother, have about $1,800 worth of ink myself, the idea of a tattoo is incredibly blase to me.  So perhaps this is just something he wants to do on his own without our assistance or intervention, just because he can.  I can admit that there is something less than appealing about your mommy taking you to the tattoo parlor. Not very independent.  Or manly. Or whatever sense of whatever that young men seek.  

Am I worried that he will choose a hack artist who will have his lion design looking more like a monchichi?  Of course.  Too many of us have been there, and are still here living with regrettable tattoos, or tattoos that we had to spend 10 times as much to cover up.  It's just a part of life and the maturing process.  Ultimately, HE has to live with whatever ink decisions he makes.  And he's a smart boy who has grown up seeing great tattoos, so he has seen and knows what is involved in a good tattoo.  While he may not end up with the best design in the world, I'm certain it will be a far cry from the atrocities I see on Tattoo Nightmares.

I guess I ought not be surprised that The Ex wants to control this decision in my son's life, just as he tried to control his decision about where to go to college.  But like the college experience, The Ex has never had the tattoo experience, and thus comes from a position of very little credibility on this issue.  And like the college decision, I just have to accept that this decision impacts HIS life, not mine, and that ultimately I need to let it go. Who knows, he may make another good decision, find a great artist in Boston, find a thirsty rich girl to fund the endeavor, and come home at Christmas with a piece better than mine, in which case I've wasted my worry.  Or he could come home with some crap, get the "I told you so" side eye from me, and I've still wasted my worry because at that point there's nothing I can do.  

My response to all of this was just to send my son a text letting him know I'd prefer for him to go to a good artist and spend a decent amount of money on a tattoo, reiterated my offer to get him a tat with my artist as a Christmas gift, but ultimately I understand he's going to do what he wants to do.  

I must accept my revised job description as a mother.  My heavy lifting is over.  It's his life. I've got to let him live it.

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UPDATE

So, after calling Son on his bluff, he called back and agreed to my offer of giving him money for a tattoo in lieu of, or as, a Christmas gift.  I tried to schedule him an appointment with my tattoo artist, but he was all booked up and couldn't get him in before he goes back to school.  So Son did his own research found an artist, and this is the final result:

I'm actually glad it worked out the way it did.  He found his own artist and went to his appointment by himself and I only served in an advisory capacity when he had questions.  I'm glad he did it on his own an ended up with exactly what HE wanted.  He's happy, so I'm happy, and it all worked out the way it was supposed to.

If you like it then you shoulda put some ink on it

Don't let this happen to you.

Commitment issues.....probably the most rampant mental disorder of men everywhere (and many women as well). Commitment, and marriage specifically, is seen as The Enemy; the sign that you have given up, surrendered, foreclosed all other options.

I can somewhat understand commitment phobia.....to an extent. The trust and faith hurdle can be a big one to overcome (yet not insurmountable). What I will never, EVER understand is this: name tattoos.

Specifically I'm talking about the folks you see with "Tammy" or "Trina" tattooed across their neck/arm/wrist/chest without nary a piece of jewelry on the left hand. And yes, I am zeroing in on the guys because let's be real: At the end of the day, men are the ones who control when a marriage is to occur. Women are usually on board first, waiting for their guy to finally propose. It seems like getting a guy to commit to marriage is a major feat. Yet, despite the proclivity of men to avoid saying "I do" for as long as possible, I still see guys with their lady's name tattooed on their bodies while declaring that they aren't ready for the commitment of marriage.

In case you weren't aware of this patently obvious fact, let me break it down so that it is forever broken and put things into perspective: Marriage, despite best efforts and intentions, is not guaranteed to be permanent. A tattoo, however, is with you for the rest of your natural born LIFE.

How is it that you are scared to make the commitment to make a life with someone, yet you will go have her name permanently implanted in your dermis?? Am I missing something here?? If you intend to be with this woman's name for the rest of your life, have given yourself a 25/8/366 reminder of her existence, have committed to this "artwork" (that term is used very loosely), why is the commitment to marriage so difficult? The whole concept seems very ass backward to me.

And ladies, I'm not letting you off the hook, either. Why would you permanently tattoo "Jon Jon" across your ass when Jon Jon doesn't think enough of you to make you his wife? Is it really wise to forever mark yourself with the name of a man who can up and leave tomorrow on a whim?  And if it doesn't work out, do you really think your new beau will want to look at that every day?

Word to the wise: Leave the name tattoos alone unless you're talking about your child, parent, or anyone else who, by default, ain't going anywhere. Even for married folks, don't do it. At one point I considered getting my ex-husband's name tatted on me (though he also shares a first name with my son) and I thank my lucky stars I had sense enough to get an Adinkra symbol instead, because I probably would have clawed the damn thing off myself (eff a laser). I have a friend who had the name of her husband, with which she has 5 kids, tattooed in HUGE letters across her back; I recently saw her in Facebook pictures with her new fiancé. Yes, there is the option of laser removal, but why put yourself through that unnecessarily? Go get a tiger or a butterfly instead.

There's also the matter of the superstition that when you get a tattoo of your lover's name, your relationship is cursed and you are doomed to split up. I'm not sure how true this is, but judging by the amount of cover up work tattoo artists do, I'd say it's best not to test the theory.

If you absolutely MUST express your love via the pulse of an ink covered needle piercing your skin 100 times per second, just do like my sister and brother-in-law and get matching non-name tattoos. Yes, if you break up it will be a reminder, but at least your new boo won't have to be subject to "Property of Booski" every time you undress.

But for real..... just get her a ring instead, m'kay??

The Art of Seduction: a botany lesson

In an attempt to better arm myself out in the new scary dating world, I decided to read the book "The Art of Seduction" by Robert Greene (also the author of "48 Laws of Power"). I started reading it not so much to get tips and pointers to learn how to seduce others, but more so to be able to spot attempts to seduce me, particularly those attempts of a more nefarious nature. The first part of the book describes different "seduction styles" to help you identify what variety of seducer that you are. I was so taken by what I feel is my particular seduction style that I went so far as to tattoo its symbol on my body and have started incorporating it in many other aspects of my life (I use it in my business, too). My particular seduction style, according to Robert Greene, is The Dandy (in particular, the Masculine Dandy) and its symbol is the Orchid.



Here's what Greene has to say about my particular seduction style:


Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are—those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they cannot be categorized, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. They play with masculinity and femininity; they fashion their own physical image, which is always startling; they are mysterious and elusive. They also appeal to the narcissism of each sex: to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man they are male. Dandies fascinate and seduce in large numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires.

The two emotions that almost every male felt in the presence of Lou Andreas-Salomé were confusion and excitement—the two prerequisite feelings for any successful seduction. People were intoxicated by her strange mix of the masculine and the feminine; she was beautiful, with a radiant smile and a graceful, flirtatious manner, but her independence and her intensely analytical nature made her seem oddly male. This ambiguity was expressed in her eyes, which were both coquettish and probing. It was confusion that kept men interested and curious: no other woman was like this. They wanted to know more. The excitement stemmed from her ability to stir up repressed desires. She was a complete nonconformist, and to be involved with her was to break all kinds of taboos. Her masculinity made the relationship seem vaguely homosexual; her slightly cruel, slightly domineering streak could stir up masochistic yearnings, as it did in Nietzsche. Salomé radiated a forbidden sexuality. Her powerful effect on men—the lifelong infatuations, the suicides (there were several), the periods of intense creativity, the descriptions of her as a vampire or a devil—attest to the obscure depths of the psyche that she was able to reach and disturb.

The Masculine Dandy succeeds by reversing the normal pattern of male superiority in matters of love and seduction. A man's apparent independence, his capacity for detachment, often seems to give him the upper hand in the dynamic between men and women. A purely feminine woman will arouse desire, but is always vulnerable to the man's capricious loss of interest; a purely masculine woman, on the other hand, will not arouse that interest at all. Follow the path of the Masculine Dandy, however, and you neutralize all a man's powers. Never give completely of yourself; while you are passionate and sexual, always retain an air of independence and self-possession. You might move on to the next man, or so he will think. You have other, more important matters to concern yourself with, such as your work. Men do not know how to fight women who use their own weapons against them; they are intrigued, aroused, and disarmed. Few men can resist the taboo pleasures offered up to them by the Masculine Dandy.

Symbol: The Orchid.

Its shape and color oddly suggest both sexes, its odor is sweet and decadent—it is a tropical flower of evil. Delicate and highly cultivated, it is prized for its rarity; it is unlike any other flower.

(Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction)

After reading this, I was quite intrigued and did a little more research into the meaning behind orchids:

Orchids are a long-lasting and particularly elegant type of flower. Their graceful appearance draws immediate attention, and their reputation as an exotic and unusual flower evokes a sense of refinement and innocence. Despite their versatility, there is something distinctly exotic about orchids. They are intricately beautiful to the everyday flower lover and are considered to be some of the world's most evolved flowers to flower specialists.

The orchid has several deep and long-standing meanings. Ironically, some of those meanings are overtly masculine in nature, while others are overtly feminine. On the masculine side, the name "orchis" itself stems from the Greek word meaning testicle, and is associated with the flower because of the shape of the tuberoids which grow on the roots. Among multiple meanings, one meaning the Chinese associate with the orchid is the "Perfect Man."

On the feminine side, the orchid is also a symbol of beauty, charm, and refinement. In Greek mythology, Satyrion - for whom a family of orchids is named- was a nymph who gave birth to a child fathered by Poseidon. Due to its beauty and its fragrance, the orchid is often referred to as the Flower of Magnificence.

Perhaps it is those meanings which combine the masculine and feminine that best represent the orchid flower. In Confucian teachings, the orchid was the symbol for numerous progeny. It was considered a love potion and aphrodisiac in many countries, including Egypt, Germany, China, and Africa.

But as against its external looks, orchids also symbolize strength.

Thus, this is what lead me to the design of Le Divorce Tattoo:

If that isn't seductive, I don't know what is.