my mid-life--or perhaps i should say my mid-section--crisis continues unabated . . . in June last year, i started this blog and had my navel pierced . . . last week i got inked . . . can u put this on my hip where it will be covered by my briefs or bathing suit? i asked Erik, the 20something tattoo artist at Triple XXX Tattoo, as i handed him my Aladdin Sane CD, the David Bowie recording with the cover art that shows a lightning bolt on his forehead . . . sure, no problem, take a seat while i finish my lunch he said pointing to a couple of couches in an anteroom . . . i eavesdropped on another customer, dithering over the perfect horse for his chest, and thumbed through a couple of trade magazines featuring tats that were far more elaborate and visible than what i wanted . . . a few minutes later, Erik sat down across from me and smoked a cigarette . . . it's always better after eating, he said, taking a deep drag . . . tattoo parlors must be the only business in America where employees can smoke on the job . . . a complex, multicolored design crawled up one of his calves like a creeping fig . . . he seemed to be staring at me through his narrow eyewear . . . were we supposed to bond? . . . so, how did u train for this job? i finally asked . . . i served as an apprentice for a year, practicing on honeydews and pigskin . . . well, the latter is certainly a more relevant medium for this particular job i thought . . . ten minutes later he brought back a sketch for my approval . . . as soon as i signed a hold harmless document, Erik called me into the parlor proper where he had transferred the design to a stencil . . . i dropped my pants and pulled down my shorts halfway and lay on my side on a table, awaiting my second initiation into the sensual world of body art . . . Erik started by transferring the stencil to my left hip and then showing it to me in a handheld mirror . . . then he sliced the four-inch long and one-inch wide outline into my skin, dabbing at it with a paper towel to draw off the excess ink . . . are u ok? he asked . . . fine, i answered, surprised that it didn't hurt more but glad i didn't have to watch what he was doing either . . . at one point he rested his arm on top on my upper leg so he could work on filling it in, a prickly process . . . the warmth of Erik's body was erotic and intimate and distracted me from what became a kind of cumulative discomfort . . . less than 20 minutes later he completed the coverage and applied a large self-adhesive bandage to his handiwork . . . leave it on for a couple of hours and follow these instructions he said handing me a piece of paper . . . i hoped he might congratulate me on my high threshhold of pain but he didn't so i paid him $120 and left . . . by the time i got home the bleeding ink stained a pair of underwear . . . i ripped off all my clothes and stood in front of my full-length mirror . . . i could hardly believe that it was my body with the red and blue thunderbolt thrown into vivid contrast by smooth, pale white skin that has rarely seen sunlight . . . finally, my own private tattoo! . . . it took me right back to the feeling i had when i brought the Aladdin Sane album home from college to my childhood bedroom in El Paso one summer . . . normally i played records as loudly as i could but this music was different . . . although i was always trying to turn my parents on to rock 'n roll, i didn't allow them to see the cover or the even more outrageous inside spread which opened up vertically to reveal a neutered but preening Bowie standing with one hand on his hip, mocking the butch conventionality of most rock stars . . . and before the needle could slide into "Cracked Actor" the last cut on the first side, i always put on my headphones because the lyrics were the most risque that i ever had heard . . . suck, baby, suck give me your head, before you start professing that you're knocking me dead . . . at the time, i didn't quite know how to decipher these words--what, exactly, did he mean by head?--but i knew they were nasty and not what any of the guys i went to high school with were memorizing . . . how FAR i have come i think as i see my new reflection . . . this tattoo, a thing almost as revolting as my homosexuality if i look at it through my long-gone parents' eyes, fills me with pride, not fear . . . of course that quickly fades and the little voice in the back of my mind, to which i give far too much credence, screeches there's no fool like an old fool.