First person: Kate Nielsen: tattooing for her.

There are certain things that should be left to the foolhardy, such as spending more than one makes, mixing sake and vodka, and tattooing your girlfriend's name on your body. It's not a judgment. I speak from experience, for I am foolhardy.

What can I say? I really felt like a martini--who cares that I happened to order it after a sushi dinner, avec mucho sake. It's not like you plan these things, like an outfit: I am wearing plaid; therefore, I should not wear polka dots. A night out with friends just unfolds organically. The next thing you know, you've ingested sake and martinis and wake up with a hangover, coupled with a tattoo and an orange safety cone stuck to your car's radiator.

Also, I loved her and was willing to spend the phone bill money to prove it ... in ink ... on my wrist, for the world to see. Now, I know you're saying, "Boy, she'll live to regret that." Even my semifoolhardy friends uttered that advice while sipping martinis at Musso and Frank after I suggested a visit to L.A. Tattoo across Hollywood Boulevard. But I brushed their cautionary words aside like a plate of cold eggs.

Passion is a powerful thing. It makes us do things that are anything but rational. While attending college in Greeley, Colo., I once drove over 60 miles to Denver during the snowstorm of '84--in a 10-year-old Chevy Chevette--because the girl I was dating begged me to spend the weekend with her. After sliding off the road several times, getting stuck in a ditch, and scraping the ice off my windshield a hundred times so I could see 10 feet in front of me--the defroster was on the blink--I finally made it to her place in Capitol Hill, whereupon she greeted me with a hit of microdot acid. We danced to the B-52's and Devo for two days on the rooftop of her building--after a double bill of Caligula and Polyester at a nearby theater. Controlled substance abuse + controlled irrationality = true love. So, yes, I do irrational things in order to please my special lady friends.

Certainly, there are worse crimes. Like not paying one's taxes. Come on, tell me it isn't bloody annoying having to pay for President Bush's war in Iraq (not to mention Karl Rove's salary) with your hard-earned money. Again, my own irrational rationality for what I perceive as a completely irrational "rational" war. But that's another story for another time.

Back to the matter at hand ... I know what you're thinking: What happens if the person whose name you have on your wrist breaks up with you? I know, I know. I can hear you as loud as a type A talking on her cell phone while sipping a Red Bull and vodka in a crowded restaurant. And so I've come up with a solution: Lesbian Scrabble. That's right: Scrabble made flesh. That is to say, if your last love was, say, Fran, and your current love is Amy, you can take the A in FRAN and create AMY in a perpendicular fashion. Or if you're really lucky, there's actually a lesbian out there somewhere named Frances ... and so on and so forth.

And that is the true story of how the ANC on my wrist (I thought initials were a subtle approach my first time around) became FANCY. And I got lucky, because my girl's nickname is indeed "Fancy." So for a mere $65 plus $15 tip, everyone's happy.