For the last two days I've sported an airbrush tattoo of a puppet on my forearm. It's stupid but I strangely feel a lot cooler. I look down and there it is. Shining in its badassery. A puppet face in matte black. The color of our guest bathroom hardware. 

Getting a tattoo was never something I felt strongly about. Except during that one phase in college when my high school boyfriend and I had just broken up and I thought it was the perfect time to get some sort of latin phrase scripted on my wrist. Luckily I was too poor and chicken to go through with it. 

But now that I have this puppet blocking a third of my forearm I think I'm ready to take the plunge. Josh suggested I get the face of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard because she's my role model (rich and cranky). Unfortunately her taut, angled face frightens me and I don't need to be spooked for the rest of my life.

The security guard at the speakeasy said tattoos should be meaningful but I shouldn't think too hard about it. He had a fleur de lis on his neck. Maybe he's from New Orleans. Or maybe he thought it was pretty. How hard did he think about it? 

Are tattoos like dreams? You find your own interesting but for everyone else it's a laborious story that they're forced to listen to because you're friends and it would be rude to say I don't care. Is it worse when it's a hypothetical tattoo?