alright, body art is fine. i wouldn’t get a tattoo, i wouldn’t get a piercing, but that’s me. i also don’t like tomato juice, so what? i don’t mind if you like it, that’s your thing.

however, there’s this girl. this, politely put, “girl’s girl”, if you know what i mean, only of the manly side of the equation. she’s in my philosophy class. again, that is a matter of taste. i have absolutely no problem with lifestyle choices other people make. i mean, i like kissing girls, so i can even see where they’re coming from.

the point i’m wandering toward though doesn’t concern what i like. it concerns getting something etched on your skin forever, and it being an image which means basically nothing. i was blessed with the sight of her leaning over to grab a backpack, and a rainbow-colored female sign about as long as one of my fingers (the cross with the circle…i think it’s called an ‘onc’?…) on her very-much-lower back. honestly though, what does that mean? “i’m a girl. hooray!”? “i’m a girl and i like girls…see the ugly inkstain on my back!”?

i just don’t understand. people get cool designs that symbolize something, they get initials, they get words, they get pictures — these all mean something to make them want to it emblazoned on their own flesh. it’s a statement. a lot of tattoos are really cool, even beautiful; but gawdy icons in rainbow colors seem like such a waste to me. and she paid good money for that too.

not that she’s the only one that seems to have made this mistake. i see girls all the time with suns or butterflies on their lower back, which to me seems like some weird attempt to be feminine and edgy at the same time. “it’s a sun, and suns are like, pretty, you know?” sure darling, i’m convinced. you’re quite daring and so interesting because no boring girl would ever think to have that done to her.

guys are also guilty of this, i know. i just don’t get people like that in general. it frustrates me that that’s the extent of people’s originality in expressing themselves, is all. i mean, i knew that girl was a girl before i saw that. having seen it, i haven’t learned anything, and no message has been transmitted through it. if there’s no meaning behind it, i guess i just don’t see why you’d have it drawn on your skin forever.

of course maybe i’m just missing something. i’ve been known to do that.