Buzz off about my tattoo, idiots

Tattoos are deeply personal. A crusty old sailor dude told me that they’re stories we tell ourselves to stay afloat while we’re lost at sea. That's real. That's heavy shit. Asking a guy what their tattoo means is like asking which Warped Tour is their favorite, or if they drive drunk. It’s no one’s business!

Fine, I’ll spill. Yes, this is a symbol from a different language. It's Asian. That, or Hebrew or Inuit. I think. No, I don’t know what it means. No, I don’t know which language. No, I don’t speak any languages other than English. No, I don’t have any direct personal or cultural relationship to this symbol. I thought the shapes of the lines looked bad ass.

You know what, pal, I don’t think it matters what it means in whichever language. When I eat some Thai food, it doesn’t become Thai calories, it becomes MY calories. Same thing with this. Once the ink hits my skin, it’s up to me what it means to me.

The jaggedy spots? Well, I printed it to bring to the tattoo shop, and the image was kinda low resolution. So it came out blurry, with pixelated edges. That’s awesome. It’s cool like that. It’s not the tattoo guy’s fault he thought it was part of the picture. He probably doesn’t know that language either.

So what DOES it mean to me? It means “no regrets.” I got this thing, it looks way blurrier and uglier than I thought it would, I don’t know what it means, and it’s still good with me. I’m fine with that. It’s good. “No regrets.”

This tattoo and I have been through some shit. I've lost jobs for this tattoo. Three different women have left my apartment after seeing it. A guy in a bar fought me over it, and now we're best friends. It's been a wild two weeks. “No regrets.”

Yeah, smart guy. The Tweety Bird on the BMX bike on my other arm also means “no regrets” to me. It turned out I sucked at BMX so I sold my bike to get an XBOX. Still good. “No regrets.” You know how Eskimos or whoever have all those ways to say “snow”? In the My Tattoo language, we have three ways to say “no regrets”: blurry symbol I don’t understand, Tweety on a bike, and “Sharon Forever” in a heart. Those all mean no regrets.

And the alien with the huge blunt I’m going to get next week? That might mean “no regrets” too. Gotta wait until the ink hits the skin to know for sure.