I like the lantern fish! I'm sure that there are other people out there who like you, still get meaning from tattoos they've gotten at different points in their lives, even after those circumstances have changed for whatever reason. What's interesting to me about tattoos is that they're part of this class of objects that are totemic for personal reasons but that they make certain people so very uncomfortable. I suppose that the object is in the skin of the bearer, makes it more intimate in an obvious way that some might feel uncomfortable with seeing. And yet, people have similar objects in their bedrooms or homes or wherever and no one really gives it much thought. For example, for years I had a stethoscope hanging on a peg in my room, which my then-girlfriend asked about. She'd expected that I had it since I might have wanted to be a doctor at some point or other and so was curious about it. When I told her I had it because it was the stethoscope that had been used to pronounce my grandmother dead with, she became a bit uncomfortable with it.
Yes, my first though was that it was a hanklerfish (Hank Green likes anglerfishes too and has a funny song about them) I spend too much time on youtube...
I find this a little hilarious. On the serious side, I'm surprised you were able to wrangle that out of the doctor. It's also a nice (in my mind) piece of memorabilia. I was talking to someone about tattoos once and he said "I think we only live once and I should be able to have as much fun decorating my body as I want." I like that viewpoint. I love tattoos. Pretty fond of some piercings as well. I think they are a great way to personalize your skin. Some of my tattoos I thought about for years before I got them; the ohm, the impossible four-bar, the mandelbrot. There have been times in my life I have thought I wouldn't get any more. But now I realize, I do truly love them both on myself and on others and if I want more, I will. Thank you. I love the anglerfish. I don't believe in spirit animals but if I did, it would be mine. I have a big weakness for what mainstream folks might consider "ugly" - or grotesque. Recently I have also been fascinated by cuttlefish. I don't think I'll get one tattooed on me, though :)When I told her I had it because it was the stethoscope that had been used to pronounce my grandmother dead with, she became a bit uncomfortable with it.
I thought it funny too, but some cultures have deep seated beliefs in ghosts, the supernatural and power that can be imbued or remain in an object. <shrug> Oh, my grandmother didn't die in a hospital and I'm not even sure it was a doctor who pronounced her dead. Whoever it was, left the stethoscope in her room. I agree that decorating and modifying the way it looks, is a great pleasure in life. Personally, I don't care to do anything to my body that I can't easily undo. Plus I scar really easily, so if I do decide to get a tattoo, I would make certain that it's something I can at least live with until I don't. I guess if I got a bad enough scar I'd consider covering it up with something. It's funny you mention cuttlefish. I've seen more and more squid/octopus/Cthulhu tattoos lately.
You know the male anglerfish attaches onto the skin of the female (pictured in tattoo) with its teeth, and then over time their vasculature fuses together, and the two are no longer separable, all the male's nourishment coming directly from the female, the male reduced to an unautonomous sperm donor and nothing more? If that's your spirit, then yikes! I'm afraid. It is one of the coolest creatures in the whole animal kingdom, from its weird mating to the glowing lure on its forehead. It's one of those things that if it were made up in some fantasy story we'd role our eyes and say, "C'mon, be reasonable. Even for fantasy this is a but outlandish." The cuttlefish is another awesome creature with weird behavior. I hope you slowly cover yourself in tats of the world's most remarkable animals. That would be an amazing collection. May I suggest the whiptail lizard, all females who reproduce asexually, but only after simulating sex with another female.I love the anglerfish. I don't believe in spirit animals but if I did, it would be mine.
You really think I'd get a tattoo without researching it? shakes fist at you Yes of course I know this! You know that they find each other - well the males find the females - because they have absurdly advanced olfactory organs, and they literally smell their way to the female? I think what I find most cool about their mating process is that they fuse together on a - I think it is - molecullar level and share bloodstreams. It seems very Platonian to me. People have pointed out that it's also possible to interpret that I see males as parasites, but it's more like - man, that's something real and true. Whoever talks about penguins mating for life don't have SHIT on the anglerfish. Ah-ha! I shall read about the whiptail! There are so many things i find cool about cuttlefish. I wrote a poem about them recently (kind of about them). They start seeing before they hatch out of the egg. How weird would that be? Moreover, they - like the octopus - can camoflague themselves to their surroundings, but they are colorblind. So whatever they use to camoflague is some other sense that scientists haven't been able to figure out yet. The sea is full of fascinating, awesome, weird creatures. And again, part of what attracts me to the anglerfish is the fact that they are so conventionally "ugly." In a world where we often judge everything based off their appearance I am drawn to ugly things. Perhaps my tattoo is a warning to the predatory male :) Perhaps it is a symbol of how I feel inside. (Perhaps these are reading deep.) I agree that the bioluminscense is yet another fascinating factor about anglerfish. I also like to read about the honeybadger.
Last year I met a writer named Sy Montgomery on a flight to Chicago. She was on her way to Washington to do research on octopus mating behaviors. She's a great conversationalist and we talked about all kinds of things, particularly animals (which she primarily writes about). Anyway, she told me a bit about octopus intelligence and how they've been observed using tools and even building rudimentary structures, like entryways to crevices and little caves to protect themselves from predators. They're pretty damn cool. Here's something she wrote about octopuses (it's not cuttlefish, but same family)
I was just thinking that. But then, I've eaten dogs and I've eaten pigs and I've had both as pets. I wouldn't willingly eat my dog (or dog in general, again) or my pig (and I abstained from pork for a whole month, just to be on the safe side) or I guess my octopus (if I ever own one, unlikely as that may be). But yeah, eating intelligent animals is uncool, though not as uncool as a lot of other "acceptable" human behaviors.
Haha. Sorry. I should know better. You just strike me as the fiercely independent type. But I suppose everyone wants someone to stand by them for life. Anglerfish are a great example of how in the majority of species it's the female that is the strong, large, aggressive sex. We have a misconception of what it is to be a female, because among mammals (whose total species aren't very many--5,500 or so--while there are some 200,000 varieties of beetles, for example) males are so dominant. I wish this (well, biology and science, generally, for that matter) were taught more in school :/You really think I'd get a tattoo without researching it?
I cannot deny fiercely independent :) not in any way. But I would stop short of calling males parasites, which is where many go with that metaphor. I love many members of the fairer sex. Haha. Sometimes I feel like KB but the opposite, when he talked about how he realized he just loved women, as a gender/personality/whatever, and wanted to surround himself with beautiful, intelligent, clever women for his whole life. I don't love all men but there are some I greatly, greatly value. So really all I shy away from in the anglerfish parallels/metaphor is demoting men to mere parasites or leeches. I am not so radfemmy as all that.