To Ink or not to Ink...

Since I was about 18 or so I have pondered getting a tattoo. A few things held me make, including not wanting to do everything my sister did (and she got a tattoo on her ankle for her 18th birthday). But mostly, it has always been a commitment issue. Will I like the image all my life, even when it goes out of style, even when my skin loosens and sags and flaps as i move as though it were an extra layer of clothing?


But the sex appeal and general cool-ness still lure me. So I have spoken with a tattoo artist and am waiting for his stetches. I assolate between two images: a lion and a tree. Right now I think the whole Tree of Life essense is more what I'm interested in. (The picture to the right is from an artist in Colorado who I know. I'm having the Vancouver artist use this as a template for his sketches.)



Whether I get it tonight or in Colorado or at all, is still to be determined. But the question still looms: to ink, or not to ink?

even though I'm not an optimist...

...I can still write about what I call Historical optimism. I wrote a little article on the use of the genre of Utopia in the Enlightenment era, and argue that the Enlightenment was a unique time of historical optimism in which there was a flurishing of literature of the utopian genre.

Feel free to have a glance: http://colloquy.monash.edu.au/issue017

a poem

Purgatory

If it’s about not knowing
your destination or how long you’ll
stay put, then I’ve been here quite a while.

Surely even Dante would let a sigh
pass his lips before going mute at the
sight of Beatrice, the vision of grace and holiness.

The bus stop where I currently
sit is the perfect example, because
it’s Vancouver and no one really knows

whether the bus is coming or
if they missed it all together. And now
I’m late for church.

My pacing gets me no
further, nor does circular reasoning
pushing me forward on my way through

the thicket of indecision and
anxiety. The bus has still not come.
I fear I will be here quite a while still.

Lift off

So, a few friends of mine have convinced me to create a blog. I'm not quite sure how long this will last...but I thought I'd give it a go.

As you may know, I am in the middle of transition. I have completed a degree at Regent College and am about to begin a program at St. Andrews. This year has been my "year off." i have been working full time as well as reading and watching a lot of crime drama TV. I like to think of it as Purgatory - the time/place between my academic spheres of activity. It has been strange and restful, lonely and full.

As I approach my final week in Vancouver, BC, I cannot help but imagine myself as a hot air balloon, full of fire, beginning to hover, with just a few ties holding to the ground. Each time I say good-bye to a friend or a place of significance, I untie one more rope, let loose one more tether. And I lift further from the ground, leaving much strain on the few threads remaining.

And so I start this blog to say good-bye, to keep in tough, and to let myself lift off.