The Two Tattoos

We are a few months away from the 3 year anniversary of the car accident and I love leaving it further and further behind. We all have physical scars, but I took some of mine to the very next level and today I'm going to tell the story and truths behind those scars.

Our wonderful lawyer kept us out of the courtroom for our whole car accident litigation. It was a rough learning experience for me and really overwhelming on top of my kid in a wheelchair and busted up husband in pain. I had head staples and bruises, but no other physical injuries that were extensive enough to claim much of anything, and when we had the mediation, I'll never forget the other lawyer, condescendingly coming to tell me the worst of the news.

My husband and daughter were well taken care of. Besides the head staples and bruises, I walked away with an epic case of PTSD that to this day still comes at me sometimes, but that's not much cause for any part in litigation. When they started talking about the division of funds and hospital bills coverage the other lawyer said, "Well, you didn't really have extensive enough injuries, nor did you have a real hospital stay for you to be awarded much for the case."

I had to hold my tongue until he left the room and then whispered to my husband, "I'm sorry, you're not damaged enough? Is that what he just said?" My husband just did his calm down quelling and sighed at me. My anger and anxieties flared into a momentary frenzy of, "Yeah she was left with a kid in a wheelchair and a husband in constant pain needing shoulder surgery and all the stress of everything else, having to re-potty train her kid, cleaning, getting her daughter in and out of the wheelchair, getting up to give her more tylenol for her broken legs because her husband's broken ribs wouldn't allow him to physically help, and I almost got out in the middle of highway 19 a week after the car accident in a traumatic panic attack being near the scene, I have nightmares, but sure it's all fine right!?? YOU'RE NOT DAMAGED ENOUGH!???"

I sighed feeling defeated but signed away all the things just wanting to be done with everything. We later had a one on one with a judge after my daughter's second surgery, the drama having spanned almost 8 months, and I just wanted it to be over and done.

It was in the midst of all of this and all the mayhem that I reconnected with my music. As ridiculous as this may sound, it was Hanson that completely saved me when I revisited their album, "Underneath." I've found that, especially since the car accident, too many of my favorite bands and artists songs, have completely new, and relevant meaning in current time frames and I've intensely embraced them. We'll come back to this part later.

Still being angry that I was somehow made to be inferior in comparison and unscathed from the accident, I decided, "Oh, I'll show you some pain from the accident alright. I can take the pain."

I'm not sure what about me sends the message of "Wuss," but I can physically handle more than most people think I can. In fact the only time I think I deserve "wuss" status is anywhere near a snake, not joking, I am insanely, panic-attack-worthy, terrified of snakes. Anything non-snakey, I am a boss.

I actually have a higher tolerance for pain, it's a redhead thing I guess. I pushed out my child with no drugs, yes, a completely natural birth. I've hurt myself often and power through, although have never had a broken bone, just sprains. My back tattoo hurt a lot when I was 18, but I didn't cry or complain. With this in mind, that's where I went, back to the tattoo parlor to get a dose of pain.

The first tattoo I got was kind of a 3-fer. In the wake of the accident I'd really begun to embrace and discuss my depression and anxiety. Mental health stuff was becoming more "normalized" and I was on board with all of that. I think most people were waiting for me to have a meltdown anyway. During this time also, the semicolon movement was gaining traction:

When I found this, it touched me and I felt really connected to it from every walk of my life. I'd struggled with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts in my youth and now PTSD so many reasons why I would relate. I started looking at tattoo designs. For Project Semicolon or the semicolon movement the hook was "My story isn't over yet." So yeah, I could claim I was a writer, but if you know me, you know I could never survive this life without my music.

Ironically, I failed at all of my lessons besides voice lessons, so I never played music successfully, only sang. But I am the most music-obsessed, avid concert-goer, you will ever meet. The closest to a pure spiritual experience I have every had, would be in the presence of live music.

So a friend of a friend had a friend of a friend who's dad owned a tattoo studio super close by with great prices and she helped me come up with this:

Behind my ear, this was my treble clef semi-colon design to say, "My song wasn't over yet." As a 3-fer it was, music related, trauma related, and supported mental health awareness. It was cute, simple and affordable. All of my tattoos embody one rule: make sure it very much cover-up-able. When I was still working at the dealership, this was a very important rule. Getting this tattoo was the first of three that I would get in the next year, but the first in my important music-themed healing process.

Once I had this little one, I wanted more and bigger! I'd done that thing that 18 year old people do and gotten my first tattoo on my lower hip-tummy area at age 18, maybe even the day of. It was a super nerdy Lord of the Rings related tattoo; yeah I know. I can feel the laughs and eye rolls. Anywho, it was pretty silly so I decided I wanted to get it covered by my next one.

Back to my Hanson re-kindling of a love affair; I've outed myself as a legit Hanson fan before. I have NO shame about this. Listen to their entire catalog because they are amazing musicians and songwriters, and you can't argue that, I'll win, trust me. When I am in my darkest places, I always go back to Hanson, and they always clear the clouds above me and remind me of what I need to push through. 

I'd been repeating the same few songs with them post-accident including many off of their 2004 release, "Underneath." Somehow I kept revisiting mostly just tracks from this one and I remembered the awesome album pamphlet containing this:

The first song on the album is called "Strong Enough to Break," and the lyrics are: 

It soon became my theme song. Over and over, "I start feeling strong enough to break! Things keep coming and I keep stumbling..." Over and over. Then I would turn on the title track, "Underneath," over and over:

It was like they were singing to just me, about just me, but not in the romanticized way from my childhood. It was as if they were saying, "Hey, you've been through a lot and you're still going. You got this!" Lastly from Hanson's 2007 album, The Walk, came the final inspiration from, "Been There Before."

This song is about their experiences with other songs and their familiarity. The chorus sings: 

Tell me does it move you

Does it soothe you

Does it fill your heart and soul with the

Roots of rock and roll

Does it move you

Does it soothe you

Does it fill your heart and soul with the

Roots of rock and roll

Na na na na na na, I've been there before

Na na na na na na, I've been there before

Na na na na na na, I've been there before

Na na na na na na, I've been there before

When you can't get through it

You can listen to it

With a na na na na

Well I've been there before

So finally I had all the pieces of the puzzle for my next tattoo and I had the artist working on all my ideas. When she finally got it together it came out like this:

This tattoo is now over my old one and right on my tummy-hip area and it hurt, badly. Somehow after the accident I just thought that I need to prove that I really was hurt too, even if it wasn't on medical records. I'm sure that's some text book psychology shit right there, but one Thursday evening, with a new YouTube-uploaded Hanson song repeating over and over, I got inked.

 

I kept singing internally and playing this song on my phone, repeatedly when it hurt. Even my tattoo artist was like, "You are a brave lady, this spot really really hurts." The next morning working out and at work was ouchie, to say the least but I love this tattoo so much. 

It's not in a spot people really get to see, which is kind of another reason why I like it. It's just for me, and something to keep my healing process real. From time to time when people see it they are like..."Do I know that song?" And I'm always like, "Uh, maybe?" 

For my best friend when I got this she was so in love with it and proud of me because I put myself through some pain to inevitably heal the pain from the whole experience. But also, we love Hanson together so, she was pretty impressed I think, haha. When I can't get through it I DO listen to it. When I'm at my worst, I am making playlists and over-playing songs that help me make sense of things.

Music has always been my rock. Every era of my life has a distinct soundtrack and these two tattoos are the reminders I literally carry with me as a whole part of me that I chose. I know some people are like, "Hanson, seriously?" But I could share my whole Hanson fan-ship story and blow you all away because, if you know me, the Hanson tattoo wouldn't be surprising or weird, in fact it was overdue.

I love these two tattoos because I think they are almost kinds of war wounds from everything but they are also so awesomely Alison, which is something I struggle with. I very much struggle with embracing everything about myself, and these "inkings" are visible reminders of all that is me. Do yourself a favor and get at least one tattoo in your life, if you can stop there, that is, and listen to Hanson immediately. For some of you, one may be more painful than the other!

Hal Versus Walter: You Cannot Possibly Appreciate Breaking Bad If You've Never Watched Malcolm In The Middle

Today we are going to introduce something a little different. As many of you have gathered, much of my childhood was spent as a "vidiot," a term my dad used to tease me with if I watched too much TV. There was no such thing as too much TV. I completely agree with all aspects of Jim Gaffigan's opinion on television, which you must YouTube immediately. 

I was raised to watch many different, wonderful series. The more sarcastic and witty, the more we watched. My dad and I laughed endlessly at shows like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, Frasier, That 70's Show and the extremely well-written, completely under-rated sitcom, Malcolm In The Middle.

Malcolm In The Middle is about a family of 4 boys in middle America, with one wunderkind in their midst, struggling to find their way in the working class. It stars Bryan Cranston, best known for his award winning performances on the now infamous AMC series, Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad is about a high school Chemistry teacher that gets a cancer diagnosis and, genius that he is, underpaid and struggling as their family is, decides to start cooking meth to make enough money to pay for his treatment and set up his family for when he dies.

Malcolm in the Middle debuted in 2000 and ran through 2006. Breaking Bad started in 2008 running through 2013. Like all great series of the past decade, I am always late to the party. I wait for the hype to die down before I'm completely invested and am usually so involved that by the last season I'm caught up, engulfed and then immediately depressed it all ends so fast.

When Breaking Bad began, I had only known Cranston's work from Malcolm in the Middle and bit parts in movies like "Little Miss Sunshine." I always liked him, but had no idea about his talent and it's range until Breaking Bad took off. When I finally watched Breaking Bad I was just completely amazed by his portrayal of the iconic, Walter White.

With all of this said it is my belief as a writer, reviewer, television and film enthusiast and even a fan, that you cannot possibly nor truly appreciate Cranston's performance in Breaking Bad, without first watching Malcolm in the Middle. Why? Well, here we go:

Malcolm in the Middle was wonderfully written, with amazing cynical and sarcastic humor and witty remarks and retorts. What Malcolm achieves that most sitcoms lack was a complete relate-ability to normal, American working class woes and problems. As a Friends super-fan, the lifestyles of the characters were a dream world, there was nothing relate-able about maxing out credit cards at Bloomingdales for me, ever.

In Malcolm, the mother and father, Lois and Hal, own a boring, normal and crappy two bedroom house with four ill-mannered boys and they never pretend to be anything but a family doing what they have to to make ends meet. Hal is some kind of office executive type and Lois works at a local drug store. The boys attend public schoo,l even though Malcolm tests a genius levels, and they don't break the bank to give him every chance, they make him succeed where he is. The boys have jobs when they come of age and are always a part of home life routines and chores, much to audience enjoyment and laughter.

There are episodes that talk about super normal things like "Pizza night" being a luxury and fighting over the last piece of bacon. There are forgotten mom-birthdays and arguing about pets, fighting over who gets new and who gets hand-me-downs. They have mom and dad struggling to buy new appliances and repair their crappy cars. They have two queen beds in a room with 3 boys and another kid in Military School, for which they scrape by to pay for only to have him emancipate at 17, ditch out, join the working world and hate it. He comes back in later seasons to help the family during their ongoing struggles. Put all of this together with great acting, hilarious jokes and coming of age stories and it's a hit, although seriously not appreciated in it's time.

My six year old and I have been watching a lot of Malcolm, and although it slips in some swear words like "ass" and is rife with "shut up" and "stupid" being thrown around, we laugh at what those silly, bad boys do and how wonderfully the parents discipline and reprimand them when they continue to act badly. It also portrays real marriage problems, like the strain finances cause between husband and wife, and not making real time for each other, health concerns and being overwhelmed. Again, ultimate, relate-ability.

For six years I watched Bryan Cranston as this lovable, goof ball dad, Hal and that was how I knew him best. When I saw Breaking Bad, his ability to portray that dark character and develop him was of course, award-worthy and nothing short of epic.

When an actor displays that kind of range in terms of ability to evolve such a character as the great Heisenberg, it is riveting, in my humble opinion. The evolution of Walter White is binge-worthy, to say the least, but watching him morph from this character you love and feel for, this underdog you root for, to this very subtle but terrorizing force to be reckoned with over 5 seasons of Breaking Bad is just an emotional cinematic journey.

There will be no major spoilers for those of you that have never watched, but for those of us who started off with simple intrigues like the series Weeds and were invested in "good people gone bad" story lines, Breaking Bad took the cake. It blew everything else out of the water.

Not only did Breaking Bad pay homage to Malcolm in the Middle on some late night comedy show flashback thing that was all the rage upon it's finale, but it really shows that Cranston appreciated his journey on his own, even more than we appreciated watching it on TV. He has since gone on to be in many more fantastic films but for me, he will always be Hal before Walter and not the other way around.

If you have watched neither of these, Malcolm is now available on Hulu and Breaking Bad is still available on Netflix. I highly recommend watching Malcolm first but if you first knew Cranston on Breaking Bad, definitely visit him pre-Heisenberg. Anyway, if Bryan Cranston ever comes across this, I'm not so much fan-girling as just appreciating the artistic abilities and craft when it comes to the acting. Perhaps I will start writing more of these perspectives, however under-rated or unappreciated in our time.