In case you were wondering, I didn't have sex with Raoul. Oh, I may have wanted to lunge at him right then and there, his ripped "I'm a handyman and don't you forget it" t-shirt, the indecipherable longitude and latitude tattoo, the chest (really muscle-y, by the way) that was pressed up against mine, all of it—but as the owner of a house in the process of the most important re-model of its forty-plus-year-old, mid-century life (kind of like forty-plus-year-old, almost mid-century, in need of some minor remodeling, me) I managed, somehow, to exercise some self control.

That doesn't mean I didn't think about it. A lot. After Raoul took off (the dining room, still not painted, I might add. What's up with that?) I consumed most of what was left of a velvet heart-shaped box of chocolates (a misplaced gift from an apoplectic Jeffrey after the Sonya incident - could he be any more of a loser?? I mean really, how could chocolate, even twenty dollar a pound, gold flecked Brazilian cacao, ever make up for walking in on my half-naked ex-husband and a hooker), downed a half-bottle of Muscato D'Asti (that sweet, sparkling Italian stuff that makes you believe that a bike-riding vacation in Tuscany may still be in your Liposuctioned future), whipped out my new, bedazzled iPhone (yeah, I got one) and called Annabelle to tell her to get the hell out of bed pronto because I was getting inked.

Now, it is important to note here that the tattoo thing had nothing to do with Raoul. I want to make it perfectly clear that I don't do things just because I may or may not be lusting after some dude, who happens to have a kick-ass tattoo of his own. (At least, not usually. There was the "buying fifty heads of lettuce incident" which just possibly might have had something to do with that adorable Whole Foods produce boy...)

But not this time. This was about marking the middle of my life and making that mark, dare I say it—with honor. It was about grabbing a moment from the rush of play dates and carpool and take out dinners (I'll admit, I'm still working out the home cooked meal thing.) It was about taking pause, as it were. It was about acknowledging that I may be single, and confused, I may be a little sex-starved and horny and lonely—I may be all of those things and then some but shit, I am also ready for more. (Well, at least of some stuff. I may not be ready for more of Roo's unwillingness to eat nothing but french fries, or of Mr. Handsome's unhealthy obsession with Zac Efron from High School Musical, but thinking positively here, more of some things means less of others.)

They say that in cultures where there is no marking of life's important changes, that's when the real shit happens. That rituals like the bar mitzvah, the Native American walk-about—that these are transformative events that mark the passage of time in an honorable and significant way. So I ask you, what is more honorable and significant than radical body art? What could possibly be more kick ass than that?

To Annabelle's credit, she is always up for adventure. Especially if it involves racing down Sunset Boulevard in her convertible Beemer in the middle of the night. (With no kids, and hence, no carbon emission-counting mommies breathing down her back, Annabelle drives whatever the fuck she pleases.) We were speeding (I assure you, the clubs hadn't let out yet and there was barely any traffic on the road) and it wasn't long before we got to that place that girl named Kat has on La Brea, the one that's on TV.

Now, I should point out, I've never done this kind of thing before. In my old life, tattoos were perceived as scary, demented and God forbid "trashy," involving things like blood and pain and henceforth, possibly even crying. But hey—I'm a divorced, single, menopausal chick and as has been made perfectly clear in the last couple of months—I can handle all of those things and then some. (Like, for instance, super-fan prostitutes fucking my ex-husband.)

So we go in (it's one of those moments that if I didn't think cigarettes were gross, skanky death-sticks that I wish I'd never put in my once beautiful, virgin body I'd light up immediately) and the first thing I'm struck by is all the people working there who, even though they're covered head-to-toe in elaborate drawings of stuff like Jesus and the Virgin Mary and Vincent Price, seem really nice and like they know what the hell they're doing. Which is good ‘cause suddenly, I'm not sure that I do.

But lest we forget, I'm with La Annabelle, who in her best imitation of a club crawling night owl, glides up to this really cute young guy who is lounging behind a counter. There isn't much room in there because they have what appears to be a skate boarding half pipe which takes up most of the room and I'm wondering, is that part of the ritual? Do I have to hop on a board and start flying into the air in order to embrace the new tattoo chick that is me? Or at least, could be me if I manage to go through with what suddenly seems to be a very scary, scream-inducing, epidermis-defacing proposition. (And seriously, do tattooed skate chicks have more sex than I do? That's what I really want to know.)

The cute guy opens his sleepy eyes and looks over at me. "Can I help you?" (And see, here's the thing. I immediately think, "Yes, you can help me. You really really can.") and I tell him I want a tattoo and Annabelle kind of leans in, her boobs dripping onto the counter and purrs, "It's her first time" (I may have neglected to mention that Annabelle has a dolphin on her ankle and a dagger just above her heart, which is a long and complicated story involving the boy she dated in college) and the young tattoo guy shrugs and says, "That's cool. What do you want?"

And of course, I want a lot of things. I want a ring back on my finger (not all the time, just for those moments when the scary moms look at me with what appears to be sacrosanct pity.) I want my old body with its non-jiggly thighs (petty but true.) I want a husband who didn't fuck my good friend, kids who listen to me more than they do and (I know it sounds weird) I want to be braver than I am. But mostly, I want to point out that I am totally not having a mid-life crisis here but instead, am being (for lack of a better, less mushy phrase) re-born. Or perhaps even "remodeled."

"Dunno," I shrug. "Something not too big. Like, a coupla shooting stars or a peace sign." The guy wrinkles his forehead (it's got snakes crisscrossing it that drop down and wrap around his neck like they're kissing him. Or maybe they're choking him, I'm not sure...) "Really? That's all you want? ‘Cause we can do anything here."

And I'm looking around at this point and I'm thinking about what he's saying, "We can do anything" and then I see her out of the corner of my eye. It's a picture of Venus on the half shell—you know, the naked chick who looks like she's levitating out of a scallop and I realize then and there—that's my girl. I poke Annabelle. "Look, the Venus," and Annabelle's eyes light up like she totally gets it, ("Radical," she says) and well, there you go.

The dude (his name is Rat, or something like that, I'm not really sure, I just remember thinking that if it was Rat that would be really weird because there was also that girl Kat who worked there and rats and cats aren't supposed to get along...) Anyway, the Rat said he would draw it for me and in the meantime I needed to decide where I wanted the tattoo to go. "She wants it on her cute ass" said Annabelle, but she was joking (kinda) because she knows I hate my ass and why would I want to draw attention to it plus, if I was going to really go through with this I wanted everyone to be able to see what I had done, not just the scary massage women who beat me with a stick when Annabelle makes me take a periodic jaunt with her to the cheap Korean Spa downtown.

"This is a good place," I say, and point to my upper back, which is still skinny, for starters (like your clavicle, it's one of those areas that stylists always tell women over forty to "emphasize," although how the hell one is supposed to do that I had no idea, until now) and plus, because I am a sunscreen whore my skin is pretty good. "Right on," says the dude and by now he has this Venus picture done and he puts it on my upper back and rubs it in and tells me to look in the mirror and check it out.

Well, shit, it looks good. Sexy and gentle and powerful all at the same time. "That's a statement piece, E" says Annabelle, and I know what she means, because clearly, it says something about me. "Right on," I say (when was the last time those words came out of my mouth?!) and then I lean over and the guy has his gloves on (I remember to tell him I'm allergic to latex which seems to be something I picked up from wimpy Jeffrey) and he says, "Here we go, Chica" and he starts the job.

Now, I'm expecting it to be all painful and agonizing, but really, it isn't so bad. I took some Advil beforehand like Annabelle told me to, (plus I had that half bottle of Muscato in me, but who's counting?) and Rat the tattoo guy talked to me the whole time. I told him about Jeffrey and the Concubine and my mid-life re-birth, et al (he seemed pretty sympathetic to the whole thing and it made me realize these tattoo artists are as much therapists as anything else) while in the meantime, Annabelle was flirting with this other customer who was drunk and had just come from a Gamblers Anonymous meeting and who wanted all these dice mixed with Chinese characters tattooed on his forearms, something about love and betrayal. But I wasn't really paying attention to him because my hands were clenched so tight my fingernails were drawing blood and then, before I knew it, the tattoo was done.

"That's hot, E" said Annabelle and she was right. It really was. "You don't think I look like a lesbian biker chick?" I ask, but truthfully, I already know the answer. "No, you look fierce," said Annabelle and I'm thinking, "Wow. I look like me." There was Venus, coming out of her shell and she looked proud and brave and Rat had done it with just these subtle greys and whites which he said reflected wisdom and then he looked at me and smiled and said, "Well, is it honorable enough for you?" (Even though I was a little embarrassed I had told him that whole thing about symbolically marking my new life) and I sort of caught my breath (I mean, it was kind of a scary and beautiful moment) and I told him it was.

And this is what I learned on La Brea Avenue at midnight. (Besides the fact that, as I suspected, I can handle a hell of a lot of pain whether it comes from my shit-head of an ex-husband or the tip of a really sharp needle.) Life goes in a spiral. At some point, it all comes back around and you end up where you were before. That's when you have a chance to do it all again. Like Venus rising out of the half shell, like a menopausal mom who passes on a screw with her really hot handyman, like a miracle really (courtesy of some pretty hot shit body art), anyone can be re-born.