I am mostly pondering this here so I can come back and look at it and make sure I am not going insane :)

I have been thinking for ages about getting a tattoo. There's part of me that thinks my body is a temple and I shouldn't fuck with it, but I also think that a) tattoos are really neat and can be very artistic and b) if I did do it it I'd want something that was a reminder of my values or something that's important to me - to have it around you all the time physically is rather lovely.

I'd want something quick subtle and small, and not somewhere prominent on my body.


I have thought about this for ages to make sure I didn't pick something on the spur of the moment that was a fad (so I didn't y'know get Nathan Fillions face tattooed across my chest or something...) or something that was embarassing. I also wouldn't want something that represented something too political or specific about my values in case that changed.

I thought for ages about something that represented how I feel about the world, that's also fun, and pretty and I kept coming back to the auryn from The Neverending Story. This has been my favourite book since I was about 6, so it's safe to say it's not a fad. As I've become older I seen more and more the layers in that book, how it explores human selfishness and desire and imagination and destruction, and I will never be able to read it too many times. The auryn is almost like a ying yang, but I guess I find the ying yang too (literally!) back and white, and even misogynistic. There's a line in NES that respresents the dark side of auryn that really resonantes with me:


Things just repeat. Day and night, summer and winter. The world is empty and aimless. Everything circles arond. Whatever starts up must pass away, whatever is born must die. It all cancels out, good and bad, beautiful and ugly.

If you take out the really depressing notion that the world is empty, then I find this idea quite philosophical and uplifting. Almost buddhist.

Anyway, I saw a beautiful version of auryn done with dragons instead of snakes. And I love dragons... but I love the original. Anyway this is all still speculative.

The second one I thought of recently was the line Man is born free from Rousseaus Social Contract, which is a really important quote to me. I think text tattoos look better than huge ornate designs. Along these lines, I also thought about a line from Blakes Auguries of Innocence - To see a world in a grain of sand.

This is really speculative now, but I thought the face of the cheshire cat by John Tenniel would be cute, but it would require a very ecent tattoist to emulate the exact drawing, or it'd look bad. I thought for ages about getting the kanji neko (cat in japanese) but kanji tattoos are kind of lame. I'd love a gormenghast tattoo of some description, but I don't know how that would work....

This has all been in my head for ages and I wouldn't want to rush into it. I'm gonna talk with some friends and do more thinking. Maybe try and design a tattoo myself because that would be nice and I used to be ok at art :) I feel like I really want a tattoo, I just need to find the right design, and until I do I wouldn't get anything done... I feel like the right tattoo is just slightly eluding my imagination! I mean maybe I'm overcomplicating this and I should just get a cat or a heart or a star, something cute like that :)

If I did get one while I'm on London this place in Soho looks good.


Ona completely different note, I can't wait to see Dollhouse!