How stuck must a writer be before heading to the internet to search for writing prompts? I must not be the only one who needs an external kick-start sometimes, because otherwise there wouldn’t be so many sites. My first click brought me to a long numerical list, numbers in bold, set in rows; when the cursor hovers over each number, a different prompt is revealed.
Little gems emerge, such as “write about 10 things you do when you procrastinate” and “list 8 good reasons that men should lie.” Others offer up words to include, phrases and clichés, scenarios to imagine, objects to observe, but many are lists. Lists of what not to say to someone who just got dumped, reasons to eat your mother-in-law’s cooking, reasons to learn another language, 20 rules you’ve broken.
I’m stymied by the last row of the page, which ends at 346.
What’s the meaning of this? Why not 365, one prompt for every day? Perhaps it is meant to convey that no human, certainly no self-identified “writer,” can actually produce every day; there will be no diary of 365 full-filled pages, so why not admit up front to the 19 days this year you will walk away from the blank screen. Perhaps it is meant to suggest that any decent writer ought to come up with at least 19 independent ideas, even if the other 346 days of written output are cajoled and nudged out of a reluctant mind by an unseen, unknown, uninspiring muse.
I’ve lost 23 minutes to this site so far, and have yet to find something to write about better than what I had intended for this piece, so here goes. I read an article in People Magazine about the spelling, grammar and foreign language mistakes on the tattoos of the rich and famous. I was in a waiting room, the one place I allow myself to flip through the pitfalls and glories of celebrities. I should have resisted the magazine. And even if I couldn’t, I should have passed right by the article about tattoo mistakes and the meaning the tattoo-wearers were adding to their lives from the slip-ups which they didn’t necessarily realize when the tattoo was fresh. I didn’t pass up the article – couldn’t is a more apt word, I suppose – and now it’s with me forever. The idea that celebrity tattoos are “news” is enough to make me shudder, but now we’ve elevated to newsworthy the mistakes made by a needle-person (I refrain from using tattoo artist on purpose, as even though I’m not elitist enough to assume I can define what is and isn’t art, I’m willing to toss my hat in on the side that says pumping dye into flesh through small needle pricks isn’t. And I’ll take whatever flack I get from this neoclassical, stodgy stance, as there is no possible post-liberal deconstructionist argument that will convince me otherwise).
If I were bone-headed enough to get a misspelled tattoo, or to sport the wrong translation of “tranquility,” no one would know about it. It would not end up in my alumni newsletter, on my business card, nor on this or any year’s annual Christmas letter. My ink disaster would be a private affair, unworthy of publishing in any venue. It would not sell anything that I spend my day selling – the priority of my family and friends, the value of education, my endeavors to help others become slightly better people more at peace with themselves at the end of the day.
Perhaps it’s obvious, but I’m not a big fan of ink. I know way too much about just how long humans live these days, and what happens to old people’s bodies and skin. That ivy arm band will stretch and bob over late-life wattles that form on the upper arm. The cute butterfly-above-the-butt-cheek will morph into an unidentified flightless creature when the cheek sags and flattens. Even the aesthetic permanent eye liner seems risky – there is likely to come a day when a woman no longer wants her eyes perpetually emphasized in indigo. Maybe the only tatts that will look the same over a lifetime are teardrops, three dots and barbed wire, even though it’s the shortened lifespan of gang members and prisoners that will preserve the image.
I also know how beliefs change. My favorite animal used to be the unicorn, and if I had one permanently on my ankle now, I’m not sure it would express the same thing I hoped it did back in the day when mythic animals meant something to me. And what name would I have risked on my bicep for a lifetime? Freddie? Lee (my closest outlaw fantasy, despite the fact that his most fugitive behavior was to smoke menthol cigarettes)? I outgrew these loves/lusts as fast as I fell into them. Should I have used a generic term? Big Guy? That would have covered several, but not the thin, lanky, shorter ones who shared my life for a brief time. Would I have to wear long sleeves for the duration of those romances?
Ah, here, perhaps, is the one permanent name I could emblazon: my child’s. Yet what child wants to be immortalized on their mother’s bicep (or chest) – it’d be creepy to be 30 years old and show up with a date to meet your mother, only to have your own name peeking out from under her cardigan.
No. Let the ideas and beliefs and crazes come and go; let love last longer. My wedding ring is as close to a tattoo as I ever want. There are no letters to be misspelled, no translation, just the universal message that I belong to another. I can get it resized if I retain water weight when I get old. I can clean it as often as I want. And it fits just perfectly on my left hand, where previous rings used to sit. The very first turned my finger green – who knows what cheap bits of alloy were in that token of love. Later there was a big, bulky, sapphire school ring, a placeholder until the real one would take its place. And still later, others. I hadn’t intended to live a life that would require more than one ring. Perhaps I should make a list of all the unintended experiences that are now firmly woven in to my life story. And here I’ve done it – come up with my own list to prompt another day’s writing. One down, 18 independent ideas to go.