Monday, January 19, 2009

Mom was right, don't get any tattoos

Because while you're in the Navy, and busy masking your femininity with manly naval tattoos, you'll eventually decide you're tired of your boy parts and start working toward getting girl parts instead.
Sadly I didn't have a charged battery to speak of to use in my camera, thanks to the kids and their gameboy usage. Equally sad is that my cellphone battery was dead, thanks to the EXTENSIVE amount of phone use. Then dh called me before I could get the picture, thereby completely depleting the battery. So, for a change, Crazy Lady has no photographic evidence of such cross-gendering seen at work today. I'll do my best to describe the scene.

Home improvement store, near the plumbing aisle. Two ladies talking to someone. That someone would be a human of male origin, seemingly in the process of transition to female end result. For the sake of humanity, we'll call the changling "Pat". Pat was wearing a light turquoise dress, carrying a dark brown handbag, and wearing ... I forget what shoes, probably Crocs, since that's what the whole world seems to wear these days. I honestly didn't LOOK at the shoes, I was busy looking at the tattoos on the right arm. An anchor, most notably caught my eye. The others were aged, blurred, and I couldn't make them out really. Old tattoos turned green on a weathered arm...next to a turquoise dress. THAT is what caught my attention first and foremost. My first sight was the arm and fabric. My first thought was wow, that's a ballsy broad for getting such tattoos back then. (This thought is associated with what I know of Post WW2 culture through at least Woodstock, in which women generally were coiffed and having milky skin with nary a blemish. Hell would freeze over before a woman with her senses intact got a tattoo on any part, much less an exposed one. And even during the hellraiser times of women's liberation, sex drugs and rock & roll, women didn't generally get a large ANCHOR permanantly inked on an arm.)
Then I looked up. Woops, ballsy indeed. I then realized I was looking at a person that was probably in their 50s or older, overweight with a large midsection and the associated thick neck, masculine facial features and mammary formations. Pat's voice was losing its gruff edge, but still noticably not femininely soft either. I tried not to eavesdrop, because I have a tendency to channel part of Gladys Kravits sometimes. From reading the body language, and hints of intonation, I think the other two women were simply intrigued by Pat's state of being and Pat was indulging them a public conversation about it. The other two women seemed very kind and non-judgmental toward Pat, and I probably would have entertained a conversation with this person, had I the time to spare.
But in all this, the one moral of the story I come away with (besides that one about making assumptions), is that when you get a tattoo, you reallllllly need to consider any possibilities that could arise later, like say a gender change, before committing to a large rendering on an exposed part of your body.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah...all my tattoos would work for a gay man. Which is what I would be if I happened to wake up with a penis. Well...actually I would be a bi man. Cause there are just all kind of reasons there (cough-drewbarrymore/sandrabullock/hughgrant/anthonystewarthead-ahem)for me not to discriminate.

    But tattoos? So totally would work either way.

    I think we should reserve the right to add pictures to posts at any time as we find them if they apply. Basically, if you see "Pat" again, snap that pic for us.

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  2. so glad my tats wont ever really get in he way....

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  3. I didn't get my tattoo until about 2 months before I got out the Marines. After 8 years, I finally got over my aversion to needles and I wasn't afraid of my mama anymore! And I really couldn't decide where to get it. So I put USMC on the inside of my bicep and have really liked it there. When I'm 80 tho, I may feel differently...

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  4. If people don't think they're "cool" enough or "sexy" enough the way they are, why don't they try therapy instead of tattoos?

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