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

[shitgun.livejournal.com]

Basically, I have some feels about ya fiction, specifically Sarah Dessen novels and one of them features the line "disco is for healing." I've been wanting a Sarah Dessen tattoo for ages and I was retreading that book over break and it struck me how accurate this line has been to my life and especially this year (music keeps me sane and wonderful anonyminity in crowds etc) buuut I am really conscious of how it makes me sound like an insipid stupid party girl, which I would generally like to avoid being typecast as. Sincethis is something you're into: thoughts? Opinions on fonts or placement or idk stuff?