/ And I Saw a Show!

I have a tattoo. It is tinytiny. I barely remember getting it. It is worse than not having one at all. It is not worse than taking a trip to Las Vegas and becoming a stereotype, cementing your place among god knows how much mediocrity. It is even worse than that because it is a Chinese character. I would never admit to getting a tattoo, but I have this feeling that if I don't say anything, I might do it again. I wanted something inauspicious, like the Chinese character for unlucky or devious. I would have settled for the Chinese character for cliche, but their internet connection was down. I gave peace a chance. Oh, I know, don't tell me.

He kept talking to me before I took my shirt off, trying to explain that it wasn't really that bad, that you got used to it, that once it got started, it wasn't any big deal, and in the state I was in, I didn't even realize at first that he was trying to tell me that tattoos hurt. Honestly, I had forgotten about this, and even then, you don't feel anything, other than the dread of trying to live up to what you are doing. Nothing hurts worse than a mistake. Except making the other person feel like she MADE you make the mistake. Oh, and then seeing the bill.

I hate dreams about going back home to see old friends. I hate that feeling that the world has moved on without you. More than anything, I hate the replacement. The replacement who is just like you, who fills the gap you left. For me, he is someone who always wears glasses. He is supposed to be funny, although I never find him so. He walks around with this air of confidence that borders on cocky. That would be the unfenced border between cocky and douchebag. I don't know where they find these people, but my god, there is always someone there ready with your caricature.

The entire weekend I kept trying to see an interesting story behind every haggard hotel face, every one-armed gambler, every cocktail waitress pure like the mascara-driven snow, every foreign cab driver with a profound grasp of television sitcom history, every arm-float armed kid jumping into the pool fingers clamped tightly over tiny pink noses. But I suppose I have moved entirely too much in my life to find much if any interest in the vacation diaspora. It would be too much like when you were kids and one of you would throw a dirt clod or a handful of pea gravel up into the air directly above you and then cover your head and hope it hit the other. Mostly it would land somewhere in between.