what's in a name. once, when we were in middle school-ish, my dad asked us if we wanted to change our last name to "young." properly translated, our last name should have been"young" and not "yang." of course, after going through many years with "yang," we didn't want to undergo the change. most of the other people with our same last names are "young's." even my aunt in new york, when she came to the united states, she adopted "young."



so you kind of grow an attachment to your name and keep an eye out for anything with your name on it. which has amounted to one thing: yang snowboarding clothes. but the other that springs to mind is obviously the yin and the yang. the representation of duality and the union of opposites has always held a special appeal to me and i wonder if a name can shape a person. the yang is supposed to be spring and summer, wood and fire, human-heartedness and righteousness. the yang is the white sun to the yin's black moon. yang means "floating standard in the sunshine."



but then it occured to me that my name isn't even yang. it's technically young. and the yang of the yin yang is written differently than my last name yang. so the conclusion is that i've pretty much been on crack all these years and grew an attachment to something based on faulty chinese-english translations. sucks doesn't it? but that's okay, because i've decided to adopt the yin yang anyway and put it on my body in the form of a tattoo. hopefully soon because if not now then it may not happen anytime later. i was gonna go all different and get some sort of stylized killer whale yin yang but upon further reflection i've decided that simple is best. and simple would look something like this.



and this is a good idea, the tattoo, because leslie happened to send me something that i got yesterday and it was exactly what i wanted. a yin yang with a big circle around it. so i'm gonna bring in the present and say "i want this." see, if god hadn't wanted me to get a tattoo then he wouldn't have made leslie's gift appear on the exact same day i was thinking so hard about it. that's seeing signs baby.



also, i'm thinking maybe i can get one half of a yin yang and george can get the other half. but that would require her being down with getting a tattoo.