Blather on Bad Habits

I don’t really feel like writing today, but I’m trying to make myself. So I’ll be brief. I spent $92 at the used bookstore on Saturday and all I want to do is read. Today I finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and lord, let me tell you, there is nothing better than fiction for reluctant young adult readers. I’m eager to move on to The Count of Monte Cristo (which is, I think, 1844’s answer to fiction for reluctant young adult readers—people didn’t live to be much older than 30 anyway, right?), so I’ll be brief with the following:

A Meditation on The Number One Activity I Do When I Sit Down to Write: Nail Biting

It’s amazing how satisfying biting my nails is. And time-consuming. And complicated. Nails that did not previously need shortening suddenly begin SCREAMING for the knife…or the tooth…when I sit down to write. I know it’s kind of gross. I don’t bite them to the quick or anything, just the tiny half-moons that are ready, well-clear of the skin. I started biting my nails as a conscious decision. Precocious 8-year-old that I was, I knew that all interesting people had bad habits, and I didn’t have one. I guess I didn’t consider reading too much or preferring the company of adults to that of children a bad habit. This meant only one thing: If I didn’t have a bad habit, I needed to adopt one. But what were my options? Nose-picking was just nasty—at times, a practical necessity, I’ll admit, but definitely not a cool bad habit or one you could do in front of others and get the fascinating-points I was hoping for. And of course all the adult bad habits—drinking, smoking, passive-aggression, serial monogamy, soap operas—were still a bit beyond the pale.

The characters in books who bit their nails always had exciting lives. They bit their nails from nervousness, yes, but this meant they were the kind of people who had things to be nervous about! Which meant their lives were exciting! Full of passion and scandal! Which meant people were fascinated with them. And that they were well-rounded. If I started biting my nails, I would be all of these things too.

It was a little weird at first, and harmless enough. I suppose it still is. I don’t like having my nails long anyway because I feel like my hands are unusable—like Edward Scissorhands or something (Katherine Nailhands…hmm. Not the same ring to it…). Or too delicate, like the porcelain hands they use to display rings. So if it’s a matter of having short nails, it doesn’t make TOO much difference whether they’re short from cutting or from biting. Although duh, they look worse when you bite them. And I never wear nail polish on my fingernails either, partly because I hate how it feels (it makes my fingertips feel like they’re wearing a mouthguard) but also, admittedly, because as dubious as the health and hygiene of biting one’s nails is, it is grosser to bite painted nails than non-painted nails. But I totally don’t understand how people keep fingernail polish pristine. I only know one person personally who does this as a matter of course, and that’s Cari. That means it must be a myth that such things are possible for ordinary people.

Speaking of nail polish, an interesting tangent: long before I ever used it for its intended purposes on a regular basis (toes only, of course), as far as I was concerned its primary uses were medicinal (curing chigger bites) and practical (nipping runs in your stockings in the bud). It seems like half the world (or rather, half the people who even know what the heck chiggers are) firmly believes that chiggers burrow inside your skin and stay there till you suffocate them—with nail polish, of course—and the other half believes this is hogwash and they just bite you like normal beasts. What is the truth? Mythbusters should do a show on this. While the former does sound a bit alarmist and like something that only happens in the southern hemisphere, I am here to tell you that nail polish works. Maybe it just keeps you from scratching, or maybe it actually suffocates the microscopic parasitic invaders. But it works. And then, of course, the pantyhose use = brilliance. Just be sure to use clear if the run is in a visible place, or else you risk looking slightly mutilated.

Another tangent: hangnails. And why the bejesus do they hurt so much? How can something this big: , hurt SO MUCH? And where do they come from, and what purpose do they serve? Rarely do I experience such satisfaction followed immediately by deep regret as I do when I just yank one out. ‘Cause you know, when you don’t have nail clippers with you, and it’s just hangin’ there, hangin’ out it true hangnail fashion, whispering like the devil on your shoulder, “You know you want to. You want to so bad. Just pull me. Forget the week of inflammation you will suffer. Forget the blood on your hands that will make perfect strangers think you forgot to wash your hands after changing your tampon. Just yank. Like you’ve never yanked before.”

So…wow. Gross. Three pages on nailbiting, hangnails, and chiggers. These seem like things that only an overly-talkative teenager could blather for so much time on. Perhaps I do have a future in young-adult fiction, after all…