Soup Is Not A Finger Food

Brown

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I was shopping in one of those big cosmetic stores. I looooove makeup and nail polish and beauty supplies. Depending on the day, I love them slightly more than, or just a tad less than, office supplies. (Don't judge.) If I had unlimited money, I would buy a lot more of this stuff. But I don't, so I often end up buying my stuff in hasty dashes to CVS.

That's why a trip to my local Ulta (or Sephora, oh how I love Sephora!) can be a dangerous thing for me. But in Ulta I was, with 20 minutes to spare, and so I was talking myself out of buying everything filling my basket with a few items I'd rationalized really, reeeeally needing. Including some new nail polish for Fall! You see, I'm either a nail-biter, or obsessed with achieving the perfect manicure. Right now, I'm the latter. And it's Autumn, so the bright, light colors of spring and summer are no longer appropriate, right?

Are you with me?

I wear a lot of brown. I tell myself this is okay not because I'm a harried working mother, but because it's oh-so... of-the-day. Brown is the new black. Or maybe gray is; I can never remember. The point is, I was in Ulta and I picked up this collection of four miniature bottles of OPI nail lacquer. It's their Touring America collection, and it features some nice autumnal shades of gray, a deep merlot, a medium pinkish tone, and... "A-taupe the Space Needle" - a deep taupe shade with a name that could only come from OPI:

(That's not me. My nails aren't that long. I got the photo from Amazon.)

I applied it to my nails, and I liked it. It was trendy. It matched all of my clothes! And I loved it right up until the moment when it occurred to me where I've seen that shade before:

It is the exact color of baby poo.

Not the very first poo - the meconium - it's a lighter shade than that. And not newborn breastfed infant poo, which is more of a puce tone than a brown. No, A-Taupe the Space Needle is more the shade of several-month-old baby poo, the kind they start having right after you start them on rice cereal.

Once I had that little epiphany, I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I couldn't wear it anymore. I came straight home and removed it from my fingernails.  And that's fine; I should be able to find another trendy taupe that doesn't remind me of baby poo, right?

Or maybe not. My fear is that now, all shades of brown are ruined for me forever, just because of this one little notion. And that's gonna be a problem, because I LIVE in neutrals. What about my eye shadow? Do my eyelids look as if I've swiped the feces of a wee human? And does it have to stop at human poo? Maybe I have slacks the shade of, say, deer poo. What about the paint on my bathroom walls? It's a medium brown shade... whose poo does THAT resemble?

Really, where does it END??

I really must figure out a way to overcome this. 

Or maybe I shouldn't think so much.

A close shave

I SHAVE MY LEGS ALMOST EVERY DAY in the summer. But now it's October and I'm wearing pants and, well, let's just say I'm lazy not shaving daily is a timesaver.  Plus, we turned on our furnace last night and it's no match for my drafty bathroom window, which

(Got this photo on Flickr)

means the bathroom features a brisk breeze isn't always ideally warm and conducive for close shaving.

(Um, hey guys? I hereby grant you permission to quietly excuse yourselves now. Head on over to the buffet - I think there's some ham left and some of that tangy honey-mustart - make yourself a sandwich on one of those nice crusty rolls and talk about football or something. Really, it's OK. You're welcome.)

ANYWAY, girls, where were we? You know how you go to shave your legs in the shower and you try to make sure the water is really warm and you kinda wait and do some other stuff first, waiting for the goosebumps on your legs to subside so you don't end up with instant stubble, or remove a layer of your epidermis during the shaving process?

Or is it just ME?

There was a girl on my freshman floor who had a thing about leg shaving and the whole goosebump phenomenon. Problem was, her roommate found out and used to torture her by throwing a bucket of cold  water over the top of the shower stall when she was in there shaving. The rest of us would hear her yell, "DAMMIT, LISA! NOW I HAVE TO START OVER!"

I was thinking of that girl this morning afternoon when I turned on the shower to "preheat" my bathroom. It had been a week couple of days since I last bothered made the effort to shave, and I was hirsute overdue. I waited till my shower stall was nice and steamy and stepped in. I shampooed, rinsed, conditioned. While the conditioner was on my hair, I loaded a body puff with shower gel and scrubbed everywhere, including a brisk few moments on my legs. Then I rinsed everything and allowed the hot water to focus on the back of my neck for a few minutes. Because I find that sometimes helps with the leg-goosebump issue.

Only, it didn't. So, I attacked my calves with a grainy scrub. One more rinse, some more time under the hot water, and I was ready to scrape them with a sharp blade, as is the custom of most modern Amercan women.

Then I towel-dried off, applied lotion, and put on jeans and socks and no one would even know the lengths I went to to achieve smooth legs. THE END.

If you have a sure-fire trick to eliminate this problem from which I've been suffering for, oh, the last 30+ years, would you kindly leave it in the comments?