100 Things I Really Really Like (Plus Stories): Literary Tattoos

[ishyface]

I like books most than most people. It's taken me a while to realize that, but it's true. When given a choice between talking to people and reading a book I will usually choose the latter. That is maybe a little sad and antisocial because when you talk to people you can make new friends and, like, soul-bond and shit.

But when you read books you get to read books. Which has always been more appealing to me.

I do not like tattoos more than most people, but I do like them a lot.* I'm not sure when that started- I nknow when I was a teenager I couldn't imagine ever having anything on my body permanently- but it did. When I get sad, one of the ways I bring myself out of it is by thinking about what tattoos I ant next, planning them, sketching them, occasionally calling people out of the blue and asking them to design crap for me. Tattoos are my happy place.**

When I first started getting tattoos at the tender age of nineteen (initially as a misplaced attempt to get my then-girlfriend to stay with me), I figured out pretty quickly that most of the ones I was planning involved books. The second one I got was a Sandman tattoo; the third was a perks reference; the last was the VFD eye. I also have A Wind In The Door, The Homeward-Bounders, and House Of Leaves tattoos planned. There are other things I want tattoos for, like songs and films and family members and relationships, but the book tattoos I want are usually floating somewhere up there in my brain.

I love books. I love tattoos. I love it when they smush together and make beautiful things on people's skin.

Related: Contrariwise.

* I always feel the need to specify this- when I say "tattoos" I mean "well done, well placed, well cared for tattoos," not "look, I got Tweety Bird on my ass!"

** Sometimes thinking about stretching my ears is also my happy place, but that ones gets a little less mileage, as there isn't much variation to "the hole gets bigger."***

*** That's what she said.

Comments

[ishyface.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of a very simple anchor, possibly with one of those old-school banners that says "you wouldn't believe how lonely you get." The Homeward-Bounders was a big deal for me as a kid and is a bigger deal to me as an adult who wants to write non-awful children's books.

[gair.livejournal.com]

Oh, perfect! The Homeward Bounders is probably DWJ's best book, I think, which pretty much means it is THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD.

[ishyface.livejournal.com]

Pretty much! I first read it on my birthday in eighth grade and it is an unofficial tradition of mine that I reread it around the same time every year. It makes me very sad in the best kind of way.