To Polish....

I don’t think guys realize how much time it takes to look like a put-together girl. Seriously. My fellah has something of a nail fetish, deeply enjoying perfectly painted finger and toe nails. I, personally, have found nail polish to be a temporary pain in the ass. It takes upwards of an hour to apply correctly, and never lasts as long as you like. Example? Last night I spent my evening sitting on the couch, painstakingly applying the correct coats in the correct order with drying time in between, after carefully filing them all. This morning, in the shower, three of my ten finger nails were already chipped. Granted, I am usually afflicted with chipped nails sooner than the average girl, but that’s just because I actually use my hands to do things. You know, like wash my hair, wash dishes, move things, open and close things.
My sweet fellah, seeing my ongoing frustration and noticing that I now carry three bottles of nail polish with my everywhere for touch ups, suggested I just go get me nails professionally done. Sweet of him, and the pedicure does tend to last a little longer, but I have never been able to make a manicure last more than a day or two, and then I’m shelling out $30-$50 bucks to sit still for an hour in my busy day when I could be at work, at school, doing homework, or catching up on the thousand things I never have time for because I work full time and go to grad school part time.
I know, bitch bitch bitch.
But seriously. If I cut out of my daily schedule make-up time, all nail painting time, smelly lotions and creams to keep all my parts soft and sweet smelling, the shaving, plucking, trimming, coloring, and bronzing, I could save hours every week. Literally hours. And, let the record show, I am a pretty lazy girl. I don’t do a lot of the things considered de rigueur in modern (Los Angeles) society. Frankly, I don’t see how I could fit them into my week. But everyone knows there are tons of fringe benefits to being more attractive, and many of these things are cultural indicators of success. Which I guess makes sense, because you’d have to be successful to have the time to do all this shit. But what about the woman who pursues her career forcefully? Without time spent on creams and getting an appropriate amount of beauty sleep, with out the time to maintain a strict mani/pedi waxing schedule, or even the time to make it to her bi-weekly Pilates class, because she’s busy creating an empire, conducting research, or writing journal articles. Stress and time and regular daily abuse wear down her appearance, and she unwittingly chooses between beauty and success?

Just a thought.