Huh?

Maybe I shouldn't post this. I'll probably get some hate-mail. But this post has been brewing in my head all week.

Maybe I am just too old-fashioned, or intolerant, or hate-filled. But there are just some things that really I don't understand or appreciate as much as apparently I should. I consider myself a very loving, accepting, friendly person. I love having friends from all different places, opinions and walks of life. I do not mean to offend anyone reading this who may fall into one of the following descriptions--it's just something that is way beyond what I think is cool. But I like Leave It To Beaver, baking cookies, and running in the wee hours of the morning--maybe it is ME who is not cool.

Anyway.....

There was a time when I was little that Scott and I would raid the National Geographic issues at my grandma's house to see crazy pictures of Africans with stretched out necks, facial piercings, big hoops inside their earlobes and nothing on their bodies. It was a little disturbing, but our curiosity always got the best of us. We would stare at the pictures and laugh and be very grateful for our normal lives. And then we would go steal some jello powder from grandma's kitchen drawer and eat it. Life was good.

I could have never imagined that when I was a mom I would be able to see these same sorts of disturbing sights at my local grocery store or school. The piercings all over are just not something I can anyhow appreciate. However, I should be grateful to people who pierce their tongues. We have made plenty of money from people who cracked a tooth on their tongue piercing--crown anyone? Gaged ears? Are you kidding me? Do people really think that makes them more attractive? It's just sad to me. Somehow, when it was the Africans in National Geographic with gaged earlobes, it was OK, and I figured that it was some important cultural display of power of beauty. But here? Today? What is it proving? I just don't get it.

Now, I admit, I was a little slow on the piercing bandwagon. I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 27, and even now I think the biggest earrings I wear are about 1/2 inch in diameter. But my earlobes are my one perfect feature, and I like to show them off. I understand the ear piercing--just not the mutilation of gaging.

When I was in 9th grade, Ms. Daniels/Dustman/Star/Star-Hart/Now just Star again, had us read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. It is a collection of freaky/sci-fi/futurish/thought-provoking short stories. The Illustrated Man of said book is covered head to toe in tattoos of stories that come to life, and he wanders around sharing these moving tattoos. The cover of this book gave me nightmares. It still does. Only at the time, I thought it was just an artist's rendering of something that could never be. I could never have imagined that I would actually someday see an illustrated man.

Tattoos don't bother me. I would never get one myself, but I know that people do, and that a tattoo can be a work of art. Our neighbor has the cutest one on his arm with his wife's name on it that he got when he was in the army 50 years ago. Other people I know get them to signify certain events or places they have been. I can get that. Go for it. Sleeves--whatever. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking extreme.

What I'm talking about is the full-face tattoo. I have seen a few of these--and not just on commercials on TLC. One man I saw had a checkerboard tattooed all over his face and bald head and neck. Seriously--all over. I saw someone else with tiger stripes all over his head and face.

Please don't hate me. I totally understand that each of us is just doing what we can to get through life. I have just been thinking this week about how crazy it is that these sights I used to see only in pictures as a child are now just part of what is considered normal.

I'll get back to watching Leave It To Beaver now.