It's true. Questions about ideas for what to get for a tattoo always fall second to the inevitable "does it hurt?" Yes, tattooing hurts.

Now, how do you choose what to get tattooed? This is a much more interesting question as every single person will take their own path and methods for picking what design to have etched into their skin. In the almost 20 years that I've been a tattooed person now, the best answer I've found for that is "whatever the answer is, it's best when it comes from something inside you, not something outside of you."

I believe if you think carefully about what you are really commemorating and think about yourself as a person, you can successfully pick a tattoo design that you can live with happily the rest of your life.

One of the keys to this is, if you have any doubts about any part of the tattooing process or your tattoo design at all, wait and don't do it yet.

If you have any doubts about if you'll still like it years from now, if a certain person might see it and freak out or get angry, what it might make co-workers or friends think about you, if you have ANY of those doubts, I really suggest you wait for a while and then think about if you're ready to get a tattoo later.

Many people choose to make their tattoo be about themselves or their immediate family. This is a pretty good choice, as having something that will remain significant or relevant to you for your entire life is often a good element of a tattoo design.

The one tattoo "taboo" is to get the name of a partner or lover. I mean, sure people do it all the time. However from all the people I've talked to in the last 20 years, and everything I've read about the subject of "name tattoos," that is the one area where tattoos very quickly go wrong. Names of parents, children, grandchildren, family surnames, and even your own name all seem to be things people can live with. But a person who is not related by blood whom you fall in love with seems to be the one name or image which is doomed to become hated or removed. So just don't go there...

Think about:

• Family crests or emblems

• Favorite flowers, animals

• Prayers or blessings of personal significance

• Images of pets or children

• Symbols of religious faith

• Sports logs or colors

• Emblems of ethnic heritage or ancestry

It's true. Once-upon-a-time in the summer of 1989 at writing workshop in the Midwest called Clarion, a young college graduate from CA fell in love with an intense writer from NY, and they got tattooed together.

We got tattooed on what also happened to be Bastille Day that year. It was his first tattoo... and my third. In fact, it was exactly five months to the day after my second tattoo... which also happened to take place five months to the day after my first one.

We got a Mayan phonetic glyph. We wanted something that encapsulated the writing workshop experience as well as our relationship without necessarily being specific to one or the other. Our glyph came from Mayan blood ritual carvings, and means "to know, feel and remember."

In case you were wondering, that man and I are long-since broken-up. In fact, it's now been twenty years since I got that tattoo. And I'm still very happy with what it represents and means to me.