The power of the polish

I’m looking down at the keyboard and thinking, "grape jellybeans." I’m getting hungry. Yesterday it was gold dust. Last week, green bean.

I’m talking nails. Not the fake ones, though they’re fine too. Just your regular, standard, action-length-or-shorter, garden-variety fingernails. I never thought too much about them before last year, probably because I always bit mine. I know it’s a nasty habit, but it took me until I was 28 to break it. (And you know how I finally did it? I got addicted to email . . . then I was using the keyboard and mouse constantly, which didn’t leave my hands free for biting the nails.)

Anyway, I was never a polisher, for a lot of reasons. First, because I bit, and polish would draw attention to that. Second, because I was a grad student in English. I don’t know how to explain what that means, exactly, except that polished fingernails wouldn’t have matched my grad student uniform. I didn’t really want to stand out from anyone else, "the girl with the fingernails." Third, I just thought it was sooooo not me, just like makeup was sooooo not me.

Then I hit this rebellious stage. Even now, I don’t know exactly what I was rebelling against. But I think it was somehow motivated by my involvement in slash, my secret identity as Jan. I got a private thrill out of riding the bus onto campus, thinking about how nobody would ever guess the wild woman who was living inside the nondescript graduate student in the back seat. I’d look around at the world and compare the outside with the inside, what I saw with what I thought, and I’d grin all the way to school. Little did I know what was coming up next.

It started with the toes. One day about a year and a half ago I looked down at my toenails and thought, "Hey! I wonder how I’d look with some really tacky dark polish on my toenails?" Now this was a very unusual thing for me to think. For one thing, I’ve always hated my feet. Particularly my toes. And most especially my toenails. But suddenly this seemed like fun. I was curious, so I went out to the drugstore and got some deep red nail polish, a color that on my fingernails would make me feel trashy and cheap. It was just what I wanted.

That night, I painted my toenails red. Blood red. I was amazed at how different my feet looked. The dark nail polish made my winter-white toes look even paler. I’d always thought my toes looked like fat little piggies, but the polish somehow made them look longer. Hmmm. It was particularly strange when I took a shower that night -- I kept catching sight of my feet against the white enamel of the tub and getting distracted.

So I wore that tacky red nail polish to school, under my wool socks and my green docs. (March. Pennsylvania. ‘Nuff said.) I figured I’d take it off before anyone had a chance to see it. But soon I found myself strolling through the cosmetics department at WalMart again and again, checking to see what new colors were in. I bought some more nail polish -- hot pink, bright red. Always those tacky colors. I got bolder, too. I started taking off my shoes in front of people who visited me at home.   Mostly, they were surprised.  I guess I didn't seem like that kind of girl.

Incidentally, around this same time I started telling people about slash. I explained it to friends I’d been scared to mention it to, and was surprised and pleased when they seemed interested and not appalled. (I do have very cool friends, I have to admit.) I told my sister, who said it sounded cool. I talked about it with other academics (after all, it’s a valid topic of cultural research). And I also started wearing my sandals in public, with my toenails painted in bright happy colors.

It does something for me. It makes me confident, and that’s something I need.

Katynka was intrigued. She’d never polished, either. The next thing I knew, she was wearing gold polish on her toes. Gold!  I had never thought of those other colors, the golds and the purples and the oranges. It opened a whole new world to me.

Now I never wear the reds and pinks -- my collection is dominated by the unconventional colors. Blue and purple are heavily represented. Green has always been a favorite color, and my polish reflects that. I love the gold, and I have a really awesome gold by Nat Robbins that lasts for weeks and weeks. Now, if I’m between colors and catch sight of my naked toenails in the shower, I’m shocked at the lack of color.

Sometime along the way, I started painting my fingernails, too. First it was pale purples, then light blues. Now I go all the way to green bean, periwinkle pearl, berry blue. And I think I like the nontraditional colors because they are nontraditional. Standard pinks and reds on my fingernails somehow make me feel out of place, almost like I’m in drag. Joanne says those colors make her feel like a hooker. I wear makeup so infrequently that I do feel something like an imposter in those cosmetically "attractive" colors. But the others feel different, not so much like being made up as they are just being me. I’m not sure what other people think, but I like it. When I went to Michigan recently, all my friends ended up wearing X-Files green on their fingers and/or toes. Even the most adamant anti-polish advocates can be won over when they see how much fun it is.

And the toe thing has progressed to wearing a toe ring, which has somehow become the sexiest piece of jewelry I own. Katynka and I even have matching ones.

The true power of the polish? It can change your life. Check out the testimonial of a frequent user:

I figured out what it is! Last night as I was touching up my toenails, I realized that when I'm feeling blue, I paint my toes to cheer myself up. Then the confidence and sexuality I exude because I know I have gold toenails under my tights and boots apparently triggers the libido of any man within nailpolish range.

Now I am off to paint my fingernails for the holiday . . . maybe gold.  Maybe blue with sparkly glitter over the top. Something festive and patriotic and happy.

Note (added April 29, 2004): If you're a guy who found this entry through a search, and you're thinking of writing to me to tell me how much you really, really like painted toenails, and how you think I should post some pictures of my feet, please don't. I'm happy if you enjoyed the entry, but I've had so many of these messages that every new one just creeps me out now. I considered taking this entry down completely, but I thought instead I'd just ask you to please keep it to yourself. Thanks.

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