"Even Ugliness Looks Beautiful Next To You." ~Mickey Knox

An ex-boyfriend once told me there are only two types of people: those who "get" Bob Dylan, and those who don't. There are infinite dichotomies like this. You either "get" Michel Gondry or you don't. You're a Mac or a PC. You either rooted for Mickey and Mallory or you didn't. (My cat's name is Mickey, by the way.)

And then there's the one character-defining either/or I could never choose between: was I the type of girl who gets a tattoo, or the type who doesn't "get" one? Last week, I joined Team Tattoo. Bored by childish notions like hearts or initials, I wanted words; a phrase that summed me up, that no one would understand. I considered quotes from Gaitskill, McInerney, Waugh, Wilde...but then, for whatever reason, I remembered an obscure review I'd read of a Gwendoline Riley novel. The critic said Riley's books are drenched in "love and dysfunction." As a chaos theorist who insists the point of living is to fall in love, I knew these two words would become my tattoo. Serendipitously (and without telling me first), my tattoo artist decided to draw a red heart in front of the phrase. Lovely, since sufficiently summing me up includes the fact that I am, and always will be, in a slightly dysfunctional sort of love with childish notions.

"Give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life. You don't know me from the wind, you never will, you never did."
~Leonard Cohen