Author Archives: Dennis

I want a tattoo. I’ve wanted to have one done for about a year now. I know which one I want too. I want my social security number tattooed somewhere on my body in barcode form. “Somewhere” is not defined yet, I can’t decide.

I want the barcode to be “streetlegal”. It has to be able to be read by a scanner. Personally I’m very fond of the UPC-A, which is the UCC american retail standard, but that doesn’t incorporate an international country code like the EAN-13 standard does. Also, the EAN-13 standard is the world-wide retail standard, while the UPC-A is United States only. The only problem with EAN-13 is that it has several checksums to which my social security number will never hold up. And then there’s always the Code 39 and Code 128 standards if you want to incorporate alpha numeric as well as numeric digits.

There’s only one problem…

…there’s always a problem, isn’t there? Yes, there is, and this is it :: The ink of tattoo’s will slowly fade and spread over the years, the capilary veins in your skin will make the ink slowly spread and a straight, fine line will slowly blur. If you would simply tattoo a barcode on your skin, you’ll have one big black ugly mass a few years later as the thin lines will merge together. Also, the thinnest lines of a standard barcode can’t be reproduced with normal tattoo’s.

The solution :: Make the barcode bigger. But in making it bigger, it will become humonguous and therefor ugly. Also, I could opt for removing some of the lines from the barcode, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a real barcode on your body. I might as well just think up something that likes kinda cool.

I’m contemplating finding a permanent make-up visagist in order to see if they have special tools that will be able to create the lines I desire.

Also, I should wait a little while since it will look totally tacky if I, in the wake of the computer game Hitman – Codename and the television series Dark Angel, get a tattoo of a barcode now.

And yes, I have considered it well. I’ve considered the social implications and the reactions of everyone from my mother on to jewish holocaust victims that were locked up in concentration camps during WWII.

Well, yesterday around this time the last of my guest flew back home. Again I’m overcome with ambivalent thoughts; on one hand this has been a truly awesome couple of weeks, where I’ve had an incredible amount of fun, made many interesting aquaintances and friends and saw old friends again.

On the other hand, my house is left in ruin – literally – it’s fucking disgusting. There’s junk everywhere and stains in my carpet I really don’t even want to philosophize about how they got there. I’m behind on my administration so in that area there’s a ton of phonecalls to make and things to arrange and next to that, I am left entirely broke. I’ve cannibalized my credit cards and I’m wondering if I have enough money to cover it all. If I don’t, I’m fucked…because this time I simply don’t have a safety-net like I did before. Luckily I’ve charged a bunch to my Visa card, which I can pay-off inch by inch.

So I’m left alone again. Left behind to clean up the mess. Left with a bit of an empty feeling inside of me as they leave. The cleaner that comes by once a week will fumigate my house tomorrow afternoon, so it should be bearable as soon as the weekend starts.

By that time, however, my cousin Kim will move in. She’s a little younger than myself – 2 months younger – and is studying “advanced nursery”. She’s supposedly really good at what she does, especially psychiatric work, as she gets recommendations and job offers wherever she passes. She’s trying to finish college first and she’s gotten in a little bit of a jam since her family situation isn’t all that optimal. Seeing as how I love her to death – we used to play all the time when we were kids and have always been pretty close – I don’t want to see her family situation fuck up her chances for a good shot at a career.

You know what else? She’s depressingly beautiful. She’s been asked to pose for Playboy and everything. There’s a Dutch saying that says :: “You are contaminated by those people you associate with.” Which means that if I hang around her, perhaps I’ll become more depressingly beautiful than I already am! :)

Ever since I came back from the United States several weeks ago, I’ve had very little chance to properly work out. Because of that, I’ve gained a shiteload of fatty-tissue. I would say about 5 or 6 kilograms worth. That’s a lot. That’s a whole lot. Now some of you might think that the lack of time is just an excuse, and on one hand it is, but on another hand it isn’t.

You see, when I came back from the US, I was already heavier than when I went there. It seems that everytime I go there, this happens. I don’t want to draw any conclusions without having all the information, but it seems to me that the diet there, and the lack of excercising on my part combined result in added weight.

After me return I fell ill. Really ill. No excercising for me. Then I had a fuckload of guests come over from the United States and Denmark, which resulted in less time to excercise and living a bit of a hectic lifestyle which leads to imporper diet.

You see, I don’t eat very healthily. I eat in restaurants often and though the food in restaurants is good, it’s not very healthy at all. I compensate my terrible diet by excercising regularly. My regular schedule is as followed;

– Two times a week I practice Classical Kung Fu [Choy Lee Fat] for an hour and a half per session.
– Once a week I practice Modern Kung Fu [Wu Shu] for two hours, but this is on saturday evening and I often slack greatly around that time.
– Two times a week I do aerobics [Tae Bo, Body Shaping, Spinning, etc] and power fitness for about an hour to an hour-and-a-half at a time. This is to compliment my Kung Fu excercises more than anything else…also, it’s necessary to keep my tummy flat and my health up.

That’s not too shabby if you ask me. But still, I’ve turned grotesquely fat [relatively speaking] and I need to start watching my health since the cough that I had when I came back from the US still hasn’t subsided. So I was talking to VDL about this, and he recommended a better diet; check. Also, I’m going to go back to my regular fitness schedule. I hope that within a few weeks I’ll be back to my normal level.

My love is growing and I can hear the ice crack beneath my feet. One of these days I’ll overstep the boundaries that have been set up. But what do you do when you cry with every smile?

Insecurity is what keeps me in check. The terror of breaking something valuable in order to gain something of even more value is what keeps me docile.

So much wasted time if I can have what I want. So foolish if I can’t.

Is it wrong when I am starting to feel a kinship to L.J. Washington?