Maria's tattoo

Maria finally let me have a picture of her tattoo.  She did not let me take the picture though. It is a butterfly.  As with all things the tattoo has me pondering, what does this mean to me?  Should I go out and buy wife beater shirts, grease up my hair and stick a cigarrette behind my ear?  All guys who have girlfriends with tattoos follow that prototype.  I don't look good in wife-beaters (is wifebeaters one word, two words or hyphenated?).  Wifebeaters look good on thin guys with a little bit of muscle.  I am too stocky.  Maybe if I smoked, I could trim down and look good in tank tops.  Then the cigarette behind my ear would make sense.  Why am I so conscious of what other people are doing?  Why do I feel a need to match or counter their actions?  Is that just human nature?  I like Maria's tattoo.  It adds a quality to her she didn't have before and it is not just limitted to a physical nature.  It made her happy and that is what matters.  There are those of you who might remember me when I got an earing on the left ear, then the right ear.  A couple of you might remember the time we were on a parking shuttle in Westwood and someone called me Boy George cause my accessorizing had gotten out of control.  It is embarassing to think about it now.  In a way though, it warms my heart to think of myself when I was young and trying to define myself.  For a while that earing worked.  One thing I have come to terms with is that we should all explore our options.  In the words of a great man, "Shyness is nice, but Shyness can stop you from doing all those things in life you'd like to."  Don't expect to see myself in a wife-beater anytime soon.