Current Configuration

After many months of delaying and designing and deliberating, I experienced three firsts today, most important of which was getting a tattoo. And I’m quite happy with it. (If you want to skip my blathering and just see the tattoo, you’ll have to wait until it heals. However, click ‘Continue reading’ to see the design.)

I went to Olde City Tattoo, only a few blocks from where we used to live in Old City near Penn’s Landing in Philly, with Alisa and went under the gun. Getting a tattoo is something I’ve wanted for quite some time, and the experience was not very different from what I expected. Alisa asked me if I saw this as some kind of rite of passage. Perhaps. I’m not sure what it represents for me, if anything, but I have a feeling of invigoration and satisfaction, and a sense of… I’m not sure… ‘acheivement’ doesn’t feel quite right. I suppose it’s just the idea of doing something a bit scary, a bit painful, and a bit unknown that appealed to me. There is also something very liberating about marking one’s self permanently, which I didn’t expect (though that could’ve been the endorphins after the session was over).

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Hurricane Jeanne decided to visit Philadelphia today. I guess all of the tourism advertising really paid off. It even attracts the attention of major meteorological events. Well, I hope it drops a lot of cash at the Liberty Bell gift shop, ’cause I’m sick of it. This evening Jeanne intruded into my life and became more than a news story for me. Feh. Fortunately, no one around me was hurt.

My drive home typically takes about 30—40 minutes. Tonight, it took two hours and fifteen minutes. Now, at face value, that may not seem like much. However, there were a few extenuating circumstances: 1) It was raining like crazy. 2) It was dark out. 3) All major arteries running from the NW Philly suburbs (where I work) to the Philly limits were flooded and/or blocked.* 4) I don’t really know my way around that area very well. 5) Apparently, neither does anyone else, and there are, oh, just a few people who live and work in and around Philly.

Go home, Jeanne! One Philly cheesesteak is enough! They don’t get any better, so go to New York now. I know you’ve been meaning to see the Statue of Liberty and now it’s open, so just get out there and have yourself a good time in someone else’s state. There’s a lot of coastline left for you to see.

*For those of you familiar with the area, the Schulkyll Expressway (76) was closed in both directions. That’s just WRONG, people. WRONG.

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This past weekend I learned a little about myself as a child. However, I didn’t gain this wisdom through reflection or reading, but through the bane of The Home Movie. The unforgiving eye of the Camcorder magnetically inscribed my youthful eccentricity on video, in the hands of my father. And, in spite of what my brother claims, I was by far the weirdest person on tape. However, it wasn’t because I said anything particularly odd for a young child, or because I hit my dad in the crotch with a wiffle ball bat in a Funniest Home Videos kind of way (I never have). No, it’s because I, apparently, was incapable of being still.

I’m not sure whether it was the camera, a glandular issue (Alisa would probably claim the latter), or both, but my main tenet of childhood seemed to be:

Always have one or fewer limbs on the ground at any given moment. More is bad. If at all possible, perform any action with the maximum percentage of one’s body, preferably with as much leaping and acrobatic contortion as possible.

I showed more promise of being a dancer than anyone in my family, and at the same time showed that I couldn’t possibly have handled the constraints of what is formally known as ’dancing’. I almost certainly had/have some form of. . . whatever it is that makes you run around like a tweaker.

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