Depending on how charitable you’re feeling, I’m either expressing myself or in the throes of a raging midlife crisis. In the past six months, I’ve gotten four new tattoos and a piercing. If you consult my Pinterest board, you’ll see I’m also contemplating getting an outline of my late dog’s head and a tiny UFO, as well as a nose stud.
The spree began around my 40th birthday and first anniversary without alcohol, when I visited a tattoo artist named Frank — better known as the Mad Tatter — to get a delicate, fine-line snake inked on my right wrist. I’d been through the wringer the previous year. I’d sold my PR agency, had an emotional breakdown, quit drinking, explored psychedelic healing, written my first novel, and started building a more flexible professional life.
I’d successfully kept my two children alive (thriving, even) and rebooted my marriage after a rough patch. It was also the end of the Year of the Snake, a symbol of shedding, rebirth, and emerging from something changed. Crucially, I also thought the tattoo would look pretty badass.
That combination of meaning and aesthetics is generally how my tattoo decisions work. I consider an idea, pull a few references, and sit with it briefly. Then something clicks: Yep, that’s it.
I don’t belabor the decisions, which is part of the appeal. After the snake, I convinced my husband, Ethan, to get matching “So Long” tattoos — a reference to “So Long You Pretty Thing” by Spiritualized, a song he introduced me to that gradually became ours. During the same appointment, I added a solar system to my left forearm.
My daughter now treats it as a party trick, asking to see "Saturn, your favorite planet, Mom," when we're in a room with someone new. Not long afterward, we returned for Joshua Tree tattoos. Then we dragged our kids to a piercing studio on a Sunday afternoon, where I added a third hole to my left ear and Ethan got his first earring.
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