Rat-a-tat-tat

It seems to me that one of the great injustices in life is that we are given just one freshman year in college.  My only comfort is knowing that I lived my freshman year to the fullest.  I'm reminded of this fact every day when I look at my tattoo.  Actually, my tattoo is on my right foot and I don't get down there that much, but I guess I look at it every time I put on socks.  

I spent several nights of my freshman year sitting in my friend Georgia's SUV, parked in our dorm's lot, with her and our boyfriend.  The three of us would be in there for hours, listening to hippie music and tinkering with herbal remedies.  On one of these nights, we were listening to Widespread Panic's song, The Waker (listen to it here), in which a verse goes:

My name is Treetop

And I'm higher than you'll ever be.

I'm married to my roots here

Still I feel like I am free.

We all looked at each other like, "Man, that's fucking deep.  That's like, uh, poetry."  So off to the tattoo parlor where I wrote this in Sharpie and they traced it onto all of our right feet.  Well, Georgia doesn't come around so much anymore, and our boyfriend moved to China w/o telling us (it's a long story), but since it was my handwriting, I like to think I leave my mark on people.  Anyway, my tat has been gradually fading for the last three years until it looked like this last week:

 

But I recently had it restored to its original glory and I LOVE IT all over again.  My foot looks much cleaner too.  

So here's to freshman years ...