Tattoos

Many years ago, when my son was still a toddler (he's now in his late 20s), he found a pen and drew all over his hands and arms. When asked what he was doing he told me he had given himself "daddoos." And this was before tattoos became the fashion statement it is today. The boy was ahead of his time.

For my upcoming birthday, my daughter wants us to get tattoos. I'll pass since I'm not crazy about paying to have someone cause me pain, but I do like the tattoo she has picked out for us.

Tattoos have found their way into a number of contemporary fiction titles, the most notable being John Irving's Until I Find You [F IRV]. Here's the publisher's description of the story:

Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents.

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or "scratcher."

For those of you who like true stories, we have a memoir of a woman tattoo artist, Karol Griffin called Skin Deep: Tattoos, the Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, and My Deep Love for Them All [B GRI].

TV viewers can get their fill of true tattoo stories by tuning into Miami Ink.