Manicure

As part of what seems to be an ongoing reinvention of myself, I got myself a manicure. This wasn't really planned - there just happens to be a manicurist who sets up appointments in our office twice a month and she had some space free, so I went to investigate what she could do for me.

I booked a "Men's clip and clean" but was really interested in "disaster recovery" - I have always had horrific eldritch nails because I bite them a lot out of habit, and Whitney had painted the ones on my right hand blue in a moment of boredom before declaring them a lost cause. But knowing that the paint was on them actually did wonders in deterring me from biting them - I know there's nail polish that's designed to taste bad for this purpose, but personally I don't really bite my nails for the taste.

So she had a look at them, cleaned them up and then filed them down into something approaching round shapes, then did something that looked like ramming the skin on my cuticles back with an ice cream spoon before applying a clear shine to them. After a couple of days of growth and remembering not to interfere with them, I now have the nicest nails I remember having in my life - I'm not entirely sure of the practical purpose of this, but perhaps I will be able to use them to open shrink-wrapped packaging. And I'm able to forget about the urge to bite them as long as I try to put them out of my mind, so frankly continuing to write this post isn't helping.