January 12, 2009

As of this morning, I am officially dead in my mid-to-late thirties.

I am wondering whether to use this occasion as the impetus to get a tattoo, as I have been threatening to do for, depressingly, years.

For a while my plan was to get the Doubtful Guest tattooed on part of my body easily visible to men performing a certain action upon me. (I generally prefer to perform the action in question upon others rather than to have it performed upon me; this description will more than suffice, however, for the theoretical purpose of elucidation.)

However, now that I am dead in my mid-to-late thirties I figure I really don’t have time to be coy, so I’m considering something more extensive, along the lines of the following images, in a location that is, if sadly less louche, at least more generally visible.

I remember that when I was nineteen, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, I decided that it would be within the bounds of propriety for a man to wear earrings until he was thirty but not afterward.

I’m glad I don’t know me when I was nineteen, because I would hate me. By which I mean I would feel incredibly insecure and self-loathing in my presence.

Then again, I’m having trouble thinking of anybody in whose presence I’m not incredibly insecure and self-loathing, so maybe I should just go and get the damn tattoo.