caption: This was my first tattoo. I got it when I was 19, fresh out of my first year of college. The artist was my brother, who tattooed me in his buddies bedroom. I hadn't wanted this tattoo before that weekend, it was on a whim, as tattoos shouldn't be. It's from my favourite book Franny and Zooey by <PERSON>. It has lots of retroactively assigned meaning, about what it means to be an artist and have a bad childhood. It's also the tattoo I forget about the most, because I can't see it unless I'm looking in the mirror. My mom (who was with me at the time despite her aversion to tattoos), asked why I wanted it on my shoulder, and not in a more discreet place. And I said it was because I wanted to have to look at myself when I look at it, to remind me of everything I was, and everything I am.