Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aging, cleavage, grammar, Kant, meta, philosophers, reference materials, self-hatred, semicolon, tattoos, wrinkles
My friend Kristina wants to get a tattoo. We decided the most pretentious one for her to get would be a detailed portrait of a prominent philosopher, like Immanuel Kant. Then we realized that an even better (more pretentious) option would be to have two philosophers in profile facing each other, with opposing or maybe complementary quotes below them (swirling around them?). Finally, we thought it would make the most sense to take biographical sketches of two imaginary philosophers to a tattoo artist, who would then take that biographical information to draw portraits of each on our forearms/ankles/cleavage. (Just kidding, I don’t have cleavage.)
Another option would be to use this opportunity to get a tattoo that you can use for reference, like “i before e, except after c.” Or maybe just words that are hard to spell, or math equations you need for class. I often confuse the backslash with the forward slash, for example, so I could get one that says, “Backslash /” and below it “Forward slash \” (unless it is the other way around). Another good one is one that could show the appropriate use of the semicolon; for example, a tattoo could read “;however” as a reminder to use a semicolon instead of a comma when “however” is in the middle of a sentence. Or maybe you can’t remember whether single or double quotation marks should be used when you have a quote within a quote within a quote. In that case, you could have a tattoo that looks like this “”‘”"‘”" and you would always remember.
Other good choices are tattoos that make you look old, like forehead wrinkles or nasolabial folds, or a drawn-on receding hairline on a guy who’s shaved his head. That way, a stranger can not only feel a pleasant sense of relief upon finding out that you are not actually old/balding, but will also not experience any alarm once he/she has known you a long time and you actually do start aging. It’s kind of like the same function powdered wigs served in eighteenth-century Europe, only much, much more permanent (better).
Finally, you could tattoo every word you write on the internet on your body. That way, you might write more thoughtful, well-crafted sentences. Alternatively, you could just have “meta” tattooed on your body and resign yourself to a life of self-hatred.
