If you had to get a tattoo right now, what would it be and why?

If I had to get a tattoo right now, it would probably require an artist willing to tolerate one very strange design meeting.

I would want Keith Haring, Eartha Kitt, and a platypus somehow brought together into one piece.

Haring would bring the movement, rebellion, sexuality, activism, and unapologetic humanity. His art could say more with a few black lines than many people manage with several thousand words. There would have to be something unmistakably Haring-inspired in the design: figures moving, reaching, refusing to stand quietly where somebody else put them.

Then there is Eartha Kitt. She represented something I have increasingly come to value: the absolute refusal to apologize for occupying space. She could be sensual, funny, political, difficult, elegant, angry, vulnerable, and completely herself. She did not spend her life making herself smaller so other people could feel bigger.

And then, naturally, there would be a platypus.

The wonderfully ridiculous animal that looks like nature emptied the spare-parts drawer and said, “Yep. That works.” A mammal with a duck bill that lays eggs, has webbed feet, and refuses to fit neatly into anybody’s category.

Actually, now that I think about it, those three belong together remarkably well.

Haring: refuse silence.
Kitt: refuse apology.
Platypus: refuse categories.

Put that on me.

That is a tattoo I could live with.