Images, Tattoos

At this moment, I have eleven tattoos.  Most of them are small, and in little bunches.  They were getting bigger until I ran out of money.  I still have plans for a few more, but who knows when this might happen.

The first one I ever got was this one.    The photo is a little fuzzy, but it's tough to take pics of oneself.  It's supposedly the symbol for chaos from the I Ching.  I saw it in a catalogue someplace--actually, several by now--and I don't actually know anything else about the I Ching.  But chaos and me seem to be well acquainted, and figured it wouldn't be found on everyone and his sister.  This one is found on the front of my right shoulder.  The character was originally all filled in, but I was less than expert at caring for the new tattoo, so it scabbed a bit and healed this way.  Afterwards, I decided I liked the ragged look, so I kept it.

Now, I'm a little fuzzy about what order the next several came in, those these are just best guesses.

Another early one I got was this image of a rose. 

This image was originally that of a dead rose, with brown petals and dark green stem/thorns, but I had the artist shade them all in black.  He thought it looked more tribal, but I was still thinking about colour.  Why this one?  Well, there are lots of connotations of black roses that I like, but also the thorns are probably best symbolic of my tongue.  This one is on my back, at the waistline, on my right side.

Another one I got the same day as the rose is this one in Greek.  This is a terrible picture, but the word is  ̉αδμήτη.  It means untamed in Ancient Greek, each part of the word is completely cognate with untamed in English.  In the masculine it often refers to wild animals, but in the feminine, it usually refers to unmarried women.  It seems pretty clear to me that I'm probably not going to get married, but even if I did, it's a symbol of freedom, and the fact that I don't need a traditional marriage.  This one is on the back of my neck, just below the collar line.

There is a small dragon on my left arm.    It's a symbol of my first novel.  The picture is a little crooked, but the dragon is actually upright/vertical on my left bicep.  Again, taking pictures of oneself...

I got two more done that day that are also shown here.  These are symbols of two planets.  I was looking for something astronomical, and in order to decide, I ended up resorting to astrological reasons, even though I don't really believe in such things.  The one on the left is the symbol for the planet Uranus.  Since I am supposedly Aquarius, this is (supposedly) my ruling planet.  It's said to represent independence, intelligence and creativity.  Who can argue with that?  It's also on my left bicep next to the dragon above.  The other symbol is the symbol for the planet Mercury.  The adjective mercurial represents the alleged meaning of this planet well.  It was rising at the time I was born.  It is sometimes also used used as a symbol for hermaphroditism... Hermaphroditos was the son of Hermes (Mercury) and Aphrodite (Venus) who was both man and woman.  I use it to mean my tomboy side, but also my bisexuality.  It's right next to and below the  ̉αδμήτη on my back, to bring a little bit of extra meaning to that one as well.

This image is that of a moebius strip, and it's on the middle of my back.  The moebius is a typologically interesting mathematical surface.  I hang on to it to represent that geeky mathematical side of my personality.  This is the least personal tattoo I have, though.  If anything every gets reworked or something, this one will be it.

Let's see... what's next?  I guess that would be the hand.  The hand is one of my favourites.  This is part of a larger image which is not yet complete.  The colour on this photo didn't come out too well, because it actually looks more brown that grey.  At least, I think so.  Since it's next to the rose, you can see that it's also on my back, but just above the waist.  My goal eventually is to put an image of Mars--not the symbol, but taken from a real photo--floating above the hand, as if it were somehow hovering above it.  This one took quite a while.  This was originally part of one of their standards from the wall, but I had certain parts of the original image removed.  This was the first one I'd done with any colour other than black.

Next, there is one of my favourites, my dragon's eye tattoo.  I had this one specially designed just for me.  It's meant to me the image of a dragons' eye crying blood tears.  I wasn't a terribly happy person at that time, and really, it's a symbol of my battle with depression.  The green and yellow eyes, while somewhat brighter in colour than my own, are actually modeled after the way my real eyes are shaded.  This one is on the back of my left shoulder.  I had it done in two stages.  The colour of the eyes was added later.

When I had the eyes shaded, I added two more.  They are right next to each other on the outside of my right knee.  The star is just another astronomical element that I plucked out of another standard image.  The letter beta was the nickname of my favourite Hellenistic Greek character, Eratosthenes.  He was head of the Library of Alexandria when it was at its peak, and he was said to be the second best at everything.   He was a mathematician, philosopher, geographer, and more.  One of the original polymaths of history.  Personally, I think being the second best at everything is a compliment, but some people don't take it that way.  When I was in Indiana, I was told I 'lacked focus'.  I thought I was doing interdisciplinary research, but obviously, that was frowned upon.  I got the beta done as a way of thumbing my nose at them a bit.  I've got my pride, too.  I'll probably have to do something else soon along these lines, after my advisor at Pitt told me I was too stupid to do math... maybe I'll just tattoo on my GRE scores...  #$%~!  I do have to say, though, one of the few nice things about having really pale skin is the colours you can get on your tattoos.  Just look at the blue on that star!

I've been craving another one lately...

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