Sorry Roger, You Tiger Now

Okay, since we were talking about my youth yesterday, let's cover something else of amusement. When I turned eighteen, I had determined that I was going to do three things that I was not able to do before then - buy cigarettes, go to the local strip club, and get a tattoo. Two of the three things turned out to be a terrible mistake (smoking for obvious reasons and the strip club because I was horrible uncomfortable the whole time, and now know to avoid those places as best as I can). The tattoos, on the other hand, I have absolutely no regrets about.

The first tattoo I got was the traditional shoulder tattoo, a small tiger with a Chinese pictograph below it. At the time I was under the impression that it was a letter 'E'. It was for "enigma" for various reasons - I'm a puzzle fanatic, I was at the time obsessed with unexplained occurrences (miracles, ghosts, UFOs, etc). Even worse was that when asked, I wouldn't say what it was for. (Get it? It's an enigma itself. Man, things seem a lot more clever when you're eighteen.) Apparently, this led to speculation that it was meant for someone, but alas, it was not so.

So anyway, years later I'm sitting at my desk working, when it strikes me that the Chinese don't actually have an alphabet like ours. Instead their written language is made up of pictographs, symbols that represent objects or ideas. These symbols are combined to make complex objects, and then strung together to make sentences. This may seem unwieldy, but apparently only around 6000 of these things are required for everyday use. How they get keyboards to work there frightens me to the point that I have never looked it up, but anyway, that's how it works.

With this realization came a second one - I have some sort of mysterious symbol on my arm, and I have no idea what it means. Have I been labeled in some way? Would Chinese people see my arm and wonder why I would advertise the fact that I was born as a woman? Even stranger than this though was the idea that it was something completely incoherent - for the last several years, I've been going around with "table lamp" permanently etched into my arm in purple.

I was fortunate that Management was working on a Master's Degree. (No I don't have to call her master. I'm not saying that I don't, I'm saying that I don't have to.) As discreetly as possible, I hunted down one of her fellow cell mates in the carrels (that's what they call cubicles for graduate students for some reason) who hailed from the land in question here. It was with great relief I discovered that the symbol on my arm is "kung" as in kung fu. He said it means the power you have, and said that with it positioned under the tiger, he took it to mean I have the power of a tiger. Not what I intended, but I suppose it could come in handy if I ever find myself in a situation where I have to kill and eat an elk.

I'm sure there are those of you who might wonder if any of this has ever led me to consider removing these things. Absolutely not. I view my tattoos the way I view my scarred hands, or the stretch marks on my upper arms. They are part of my history, a physical reminder of something I've been through, something that in one way or another, for better or worse, made me what I am today. Besides, I stand behind anything that makes for an amusing anecdote, and this qualifies.

There is also occasionally the question of more. To be honest, while Management has thus far put the kibosh on any further decorative mutilation (don't cringe too hard - I view ear piercings the same way), I still cling to the idea of wanting a power band around my left bicep with my children's name weaved into it. I have no idea if it will ever happen, but I cling to it anyway. Sometimes we have to have something that is totally our decision, even if it's about something stupid, just to maintain some measure of independence. On the other hand, I really like sleeping in a bed, so I guess we'll see what the future holds.