Monday, July 18, 2011

My Dirty Little Secret




Every so often I think painting my nails is a fun idea, but 30 min later I am just reminded of my anxiety disorder.
I get so excited picking out the color, my family is one hoarding spectacular but it works to my benefit. Whenever I get
bored I go what I term "Treasure Hunting" I find amazing things, over forty dollars in change, a onesie pajama, old 90's
clothes that I just pair up with a sweater and a belt and it is good as new, enough lotion and shampoo to last a lifetime.
Surprisingly it is impossible to find conditioner, my parents must not believe in moisturizing their hair.
But i also find nail polish, bright fun neon colors, classy nuetral colors, and shiny dark sexy colors.

I bring my sister's in for help. They help me choose a color, then since I am terrible at painting my own nails,
I still have yet to discover the secret behind not getting the polish all over my fingers, they paint them for me. one base
coat, 2 layers of color and finally a top coat. I am always proud of myself at this point, my sexy dark red finger nails are
a sign of triumph, I have long enough fingernails to paint, and the color really brings out my tan.

Then trouble begins, inevitably there is still polish that gets on my fingers, even if it is just a little, and I just can't
walk around with messy fingers. So i find a sharp object, tweezers usually do the trick, and I start picking the paint off
of my fingers.

This is succesful for about 10 seconds. Until I find that I can actually peel off my 4 layers of polish off of my nail all at once if I
do it just right. It is fun to peel things off, especially paint. I peel loose paint off of anything. When I went door to door
on my mission in Idaho, so many people had untreated doors and door frames, they were lucky I had come and was willing to help peel off all the horrible loose paint. I was constantly being scolded by my companions
to leave the loose paint alone. I was doing them a favor, the paint NEEDED to come off, and I helped it along by peeling it off.

This summer I helped my parents by peeling off old paint from their fence. I would sit there for hours just picking at it.
My mother told me it was easier and faster if I just sanded it, but where would be the joy in that? Not only did I have an activity to
keep me busy while unemployed, I also started my awesome summer tan.

There is something euphoric about peeling things, whether it is paint, skin, glue, paper, wood, fabric, anything that wants
to be peeled. I see an end that is no longer stable, just sitting unattached from what somebody thought would be a grand
idea to stick it onto, and i pick at it, I free it from conventional beauty, the original wood is free to breathe, the dead
skin no longer clings onto the body that is tyring anyways to rid itself of it, tacky wall paper removed, dead wood broken
off, I release the layer to unearth the original and to help it heal. Sometimes my peels are small and seemingly insignificant,
other times though, I hit the jackpot and I am able to peel a huge piece off. Those are the best moments.

2 minutes after I start picking at my nails I get to the point where I need to start thinking creativly if I want to get
the rest of the polish off of my nails, the polish that is more stubborn than the rest. So I bring out the nail clippers,
and I clip the difficult nails hoping that if the starting point is disrupted it will peel. It works for one or two nails, the
rest are just ugly, short and red until I can find nail polish remover the next day.

1 comment:

  1. I want my $40 in change, my 'old 90's' clothes, and my soap and lotion back. I would put a smiley face or some sort of thing here now but you think those are dumb. So I won't put one. I still want my stuff back.

    ReplyDelete