Not So Innocent Anymore!

Most people look at me and think ooooh what an innocent fellow, he's so kind, and his smile melts my heart and he has beautiful eyes and has such a hot body and...

Okay, maybe not all of that, but for real there is this air of innocence that I bring around with me wherever I go. It definitely gets me out of trouble a lot so I love it for that reason, but I surprise people a lot with things that I think are very much a part of me. One of these things being tattoos.

Now, I am not covered head to toe in tattoos (yet), but I have three smallish tattoos on my arms that are quite visible to the public. They are all black and grey-scale tattoos that contrast quite boldly against my pale skin, and they are mostly obscure images that require people to ask me the meaning. Ugh. It's not a pet peeve, really, it just gets to be kind of a nuisance to answer the question on a regular basis. Criticizing eyes bore into me as they ask me "well... what does it even mean?" You want to know, do you?

This one means family (my siblings and I all got the same one -- mine is the one on top):

This one also means family:

And this one pretty much means nothing:

This tattoo is actually my favorite one right now (although I love them all) because I love trees and I love the art of the tattoo. I let the tattoo artist kind of take hold of my idea and do whatever he felt would work best and it turned out beautiful. I get the most compliments on this tattoo, but in turn, I get the most questions about this tattoo. I feel like a phony, because I have kind of made up this story about how it took place of a memorial tattoo for my grandpa. I feel horrible about that. The reason I made up a story is because everyone kept asking me what it meant and it doesn't mean anything and people can't grasp that I would put something permanent on my body without meaning. But the thing is that I just really like it and it makes me happy so I got it. And now that I've broken down that boundary on my body where I reserve it only for things with so much meaning, I have started to want a bunch of random and meaningless tattoos everywhere. I have quite the line-up coming, and one of them is a real memorial tattoo for my grandpa. Also, these tattoos show a bad-ass side of me to the students that I teach so that they know I'm nice, but that it appears that I have a mean streak with all of this visible ink. *snaps meter stick* *pushes up glasses*

Also, one time I had a soup burn that was so bad that it left this large red splotch on my arm that someone had mistaken for a fresh tattoo. I laughed in their face as I explained to them that it was merely a mark for my never-ending vengeance against cream of broccoli. Curse it.

Until next time,

Dillon