Ink-a-dink-a-doo

My name is Beth and I have tattoos.

There. I said it. I’m also gainfully employed, pay my taxes, do not ride a motorcycle and am pretty sure I’m not in a circus.

I’m a far cry from the plaid, pleated uniformed 9 year old with pig tails that Sr. St. Elizabeth asked about having a vocation to become a nun. For the record, at the age of 9, the celibacy thing meant nothing to me, it was more having short hair, no nail polish and no make-up that influenced my decision. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that black is a really good color, and that wearing a veil wasn’t necessarily a bad thing when having a bad hair day. I’m still not willing to part with my mascara and fake nails.

I got my first tattoo shortly before I turned 20. I had flirted with the idea of ink before. My mother babysat a little boy whose mother had a rose tattooed on her breast. She strongly discouraged me from getting one in that specific location, but otherwise didn’t shy from the topic.

I went to the shore with my friend Geri in the summer of 1994 where we purchased temporary tattoos. I came home from that weekend to my grumpy father, ticked off about a bad golf game and seeing the sticker, angrily asked me when I had gotten the tattoo. I quickly calmed him down, assuring him that it was fake. A few months later, Geri and I went to a local tattoo parlor, made our appointments for the next Friday and paid our deposits.

I had told my mother I was thinking about getting a tattoo. She vacillated between indifference and fear that I would be scarring my body. When I left the night of the appointment, she begged me, with tears in her eyes, not to do it. I told her I’d think about it.

I lied.

Geri and I came back to my house; mom took one look at both of us, laughed and asked us to show her our tattoos. I lifted up the hem of my jeans – nervously showing her the tiny rose on my right ankle. She also told me that it would be a good idea to not tell my father. One night she came home from a dinner out with him, telling me how she almost choked on her glass of wine when he told her about the shocking (shocking!!!) news that the daughter of one of his colleagues got a tattoo! Of a rose! On her ankle!

I spent the next 12 years hiding my tattoos from my dad. With one it was easy. Angle my body in certain way, sit with my leg crossed and my hand casually resting over the offending body art. Over the years I’ve added 7 more designs to my body. Some are easier to hide than others. Lower back? No sweat. Left hip? Piece of cake. Upper back? A little more difficult.

Eventually I convinced my brother-in-law, then my sister, and to the astonishment of many, my mother to get inked. None of them have taken it to the extreme I have, but none of them have stopped at one. My father was another story.

One night I went out to dinner with my parents. While reaching for a piece of bread, my father clocked the rose on my right wrist. “How long have you had that one?” he asked. “Kelly has one too!” I spluttered. I then cheekily asked him how he had failed to notice the first tattoo, that I had since had re-inked, almost 12 years earlier. He told me that he had noticed it, just hadn’t said anything. Sure.

About a year later, again out to dinner, my father admitted that he had thought about getting a tattoo, but when he entered the Marine Corps, he had promised his father he wouldn’t. I pointed out that Pop-Pop had been deceased since 1989, so what was his excuse now? He then said that, given the right circumstances, he would get one. I whipped out my phone and made an appointment for him. Dad is now the proud owner of the Marine Corps insignia on his right bicep. I doubt he’ll get another, but I felt like I had won my case in a strange way.

I work in a corporate office and have had to get creative when it comes to dressing for work. Only shirts with collars, a chunky bracelet if I’m not wearing long sleeves, no skirts without tights. Despite the extra thought that goes into dressing, I love my tattoos. They are something that will always be a part of me – and each one has a story. I got one as a tongue in cheek tribute to a beloved boss who died too soon - he was decidedly anti-tattoo, but I know he'd get the joke. Another one to commemorate my 21st birthday.

My current boss knows I have tattoos and I know she doesn’t approve. Despite this, she and I have had a successful working relationship, better than most relationships I’ve had. When I sit across from her, I make sure my right hand is palm down, not flaunting the offending rose. I wear a clear retainer in the place where my diamond nose ring resides when I’m “off-duty”.

Despite the grief and the hassle, my tattoos are a part of me – nobody can take them away. I’m not naïve enough to believe I’m going to change the world. Tattoos will never be acceptable work décor, but I hope that people can see through the ink and see me.

Me Against the Pack

I feel like my past few entries have been way too deep. Here’s something that I hope is a bit lighthearted.

I’m a single parent this weekend. I haven’t suddenly given birth or inherited the tow-headed moppets of a long lost relative.

I have two dogs.

I usually have backup – I live with my parents and they are a big part of why I can have two dogs and work full time outside of the house. While I know that raising a dog will never be the same as having a child, there are some similarities. Like a baby or toddler, they depend on you for everything – food, biological needs, stimulation, keeping them from getting into trouble where you least expect it and they can’t tell you what’s wrong when they are sick or afraid. Unlike a child, I know that my dogs will always depend on me for these needs. The only difference is I can leave them alone for a few hours without fear of being investigated by Children and Youth.

I’ve often looked at my friends with more than two children with a special kind of awe. “You do know you’re going from a man-to-man to a zone defense, don’t you?” I’ve asked more than one glowing friend expecting her third child. “Oh, we’ll be fine” they’ve confidently told me. I guess they have since I still get Christmas cards with three, sometimes four, smiling cherubs on them. All I can say is “wow!”.

So this weekend, it’s two against one. Mom and dad are down the shore, and for the first time since adopting Candie, it’s just me and dogs. When I started scheming to get another dog, I thought it would make things easier. They’ll play with each other, they’ll keep each other entertained. Reality? So not the case.

I worked from home yesterday, which my oldest (Bogey) decided that I was home solely to entertain him and allow him leisurely potty breaks. The youngest decided she was going to wait until her alpha-male came home to do anything outside. Yes, I did stand outside at one point begging, “C’mon Candie, sh*t for mommy”. As expected, sometime around 4:00, Bogey stood in front of me barking for a half an hour. One of my friends suggested he was trying to tell me that Timmy fell down the well.

We got through dinner time with flying colors. I was settling in with my glass of pinot, when the phone rang. “Mike and I want to go to the Wings game, do you think you could watch Tara?”. From experience, I know Tara and Bogey are a handful, Lord only knows what adding Candie to the mix was going to do, and since I had already had the better part of my glass, they had to bring her to me. “Sure Kel, bring her over”.

Candie, as usual, alerted me to the home invasion by howling loudly. Bogey got excited by his human plaything. Tara, dressed in bright pink footie pajamas, ran around the dining room table trying to avoid Bogey’s sloppy kisses. I poured another glass of wine.

Around 9:00, I convinced Tara that we should start taking it down a notch and we settled in to watch the movie she brought. I was hoping for something along the lines of Kung-Fu Panda, WALL-E or that children’s classic, Apocalypse Now. My hopes were dashed – a four episode omnibus of The Backyardigans.

There we were – me and Tara snuggled on my dad’s recliner, Candie curled up on the couch, and Bogey mauling a dog toy as an after-dinner snack. Not wanting to go to the emergency vet for surgery to remove Lord-knows what from Bogey’s digestive system, I managed to distract the him long enough to get the toy away from him and shoved it behind me away from view.

Tara fell asleep, Bogey and Candie followed suit. I sat pinned under Tara’s weight wondering why my lower back was throbbing, forgetting about the toy I shoved behind me, watching four disturbingly colored and shaped creatures singing repetitive songs about things like chichen-itza pizza and singing telegrams. Yeah, I watched.

Yes, I did think about turning it off once I realized Tara was asleep; I didn’t because I was afraid of her waking up. I was also horrified/fascinated as I often am by children’s television. Somewhere around 10:00 I figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and dozed off as well.

Around 11:00 Candie again alerted me to an intruder, howing loudly as my I tried to figure out where the hell I was, why I couldn’t move and why I had a dream about a pink singing Uniqua. Tara’s parents arrived to retrieve their child; I tried to convince them to take one of the dogs with them. They declined and ran with the one child they brought.

I’m down to two “kids” again, counting down the hours until reinforcements arrive. I’m still in awe of large families, and I have a renewed sympathy for the moms and dads who are subjected to endless hours of children’s television.

So, while they’ll always be toddlers, I’ll take my dogs. They might try to steal my dinner, they need me to get up early when I’d rather sleep, and while they’ll never buy me a summer home in France, I don’t have to negotiate for the TV.

I adore my niece, but I think I’ll continue to rent. Dogs Rule.

P.S. On a serious note, please keep my friend Joe in your prayers. He's fighting - hard, but he can't do it alone. Choose Hope!

Choice

I know that what I am writing may upset some people. Let me start off by saying that my intent is not to offend, it is not to insult. These are my feelings, and mine alone. They were not made overnight, nor were they made in a vacuum. I have a niece who by definition could have been legally aborted in some states at the time of her birth. I can’t imagine my sister having made that decision, and I am glad that she didn’t have to.

I spent 13 years in Catholic school, and I heard the official teaching – Abortion is Murder. Some may be surprised to hear that I don’t disagree with that, particularly in the case of late term abortion. That said, I still consider myself Pro-Choice. It’s the grey area that bothers me – rape, incest, saving the life of the mother. Understand, I am not Pro-Abortion, I am Pro-Choice, that is a distinction I hasten to make. I identify myself in that way because I feel that what decisions I make about my medical care is between me, my doctor and God. Not the Supreme Court, not Congress, not the Pope – they don’t get a say. I may listen to their counsel, I may consider their opinions, but at the end of my life, which hopefully will not come for some time, I will need to answer to God, and God alone, for my actions.

I am blessed to never have been faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I woud hope that if I was, I would carry the pregnancy to term, and give the child up for adoption if I was not in a place to care for a child. I have also been lucky enough to access to health care, to have a mother who understood the times that we live in, and who listened, at times I am sure horrified, about the decisions that I have had to make.

Tomorrow, January 22, marks the 36th anniversary of the passing of Roe vs. Wade by the Supreme Court. Unlike my sister, I have grown up with the knowledge that being the result of an unplanned pregnancy, my parents could have made the decision to terminate. Yes, they were married, yes, they had a roof over their heads, but in all reality, they had a two year old child, were just making ends meet and my father had just embarked on a new, lower-paying, career path. My timing was not ideal to say the least. Yet my parents never considered terminating my mother’s pregnancy. Like many other families they adjusted, they sacrificed and made room for another child. For that I am thankful. I grew up in a home knowing that while I may have been a surprise, I was nevertheless wanted, I was loved, and I always knew I was safe. Many children do not have this security.

So, why am I Pro-Choice? For the simple reason that I want to live in a world where every pregnancy is wanted. Where every child has a home, will be safe and will be loved. I also want to live in world where I (and my health care providers) can be the sole decision maker for my health care. I don’t want to have to get a Court Order to get a medical procedure that may save my life, regardless of what that procedure may be.

I read an interesting quote today: Abortion is a Personal Decision, Not a Legal Debate. That is what it boils down to for me – not right and wrong, not life versus murder. I can’t put myself into the shoes of a woman who feels that terminating her pregnancy is her only option, and I don’t have the audacity to think that I know what is right for her. I hope and pray that I never have to make that decision, but at the end of the day, I know that I don’t want anyone making that decision for me.