A School Boy's Dream, You Act So Shy

My latest attempt at distraction: Honeymoon Red nail polish. It's not the 1980s anymore. No one wants to see a cigarette dangling between the long, red nails of a lady. Which I am. A lady. Stop laughing. We've come a long way, baby.

As someone who works outside and with my hands all day, painting my nails makes little to no sense. Then again, it doesn't make any sense for me to have long nails at all, and here I am with talons.

What they don't tell you about painting your nails is that the lines are actually arbitrary: the polish comes right off of your skin when you wash with soap and warm water. Knowing this makes me unreasonably happy. I just slop it all over my hands, essentially, and hope I end up with enough on my nails to look intentional. This time, it was a success.

The one drawback: I am too impatient to wait for nail polish to dry completely and always end up going to sleep with tacky nails, so I wake up with the pattern of my sheets or pillowcases imprinted into the polish. I like to think of it as texture, adding depth to my palette.

A little aside brought on by my Honeymoon Red nails: the other day, I was collecting lilacs for a flower arrangement. I had them bundled up in my arms and one of the women here said, "You look like a beautiful bride!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, this is a first and a last, then," and she frowned a little, grew weirdly tender. "Oh, honey," she said. "Someone will want to marry you." I think she might have felt a little awkward when I told her I don't want to get married and anyway, it's illegal. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.