I am an easy addict. I pick up new obsessions extremely quickly. It is a curse that I grow out of them at an equally hasty rate, as it makes me a jack of all trades and master at none, but fortunately for you, it means there is a great chance I will finally stop raving about nail polish after this third post on the subject.
I do not even know where to begin with the wonders of my new preoccupation. For starters, I have not been this academically diligent since my medicine rotation in year 3, because I have found that there is truly no better complement to a manicure than a textbook. It's not that there's nothing better you can do in between applying your second and third layers (in fact, typing/txting on iPhone is one of the few things I can do effortlessly without smudging my polish - whoever invented the touchscreen must've been a woman who enjoyed painting her nails), but the fact that it is such a waste of time - you are literally watching paint dry - the sheer decadency of those 5-10 minutes of otherwise idle waiting evokes a stronger feeling of guilt than any other useless interest I have ever pursued. And with guilt comes motivation, so at the end of the day you have nice fingertips and knowledge of lamotrigine's side effects. Talk about an undecuple win. By the way, that's an elevenfold win - one win for each freshly manicured nail.
On top of all that...is the top coat. Just kidding. On top of that, nail-painting is also a highly effective cure to any bad habits. Most of my polishes claim to be free of the three big toxins (that's toulene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate - I hereby quote the ultra-flamboyant liver specialist: 'no knowledge is useless'), but if something smells the way lacquer does, it's probably not meant to be ingested/inhaled, so nose-picking is completely out of the question. Not that I would, being the well-bred lady that I am, ever do anything as garish as picking my nose. It is obviously also against my principles to fart and, god forbid, take shits. Duh.
But I digress. Nail-painting is, of course, not without drawbacks. For one, no drawing backwards because it will cause your polish to streak. My new obsession has brought with it various challenges for me to overcome, namely chipping, cracking and messy paint jobs. Words cannot describe how frustratingly easy it is to forget your're in the middle of airing your nails and only realise after smudging your index finger yet again while tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. Ah fuck, might as well also redo the rest for OCD purposes. It's the definition of a love-hate relationship, but I try to justify the latter and call it dexterity training in the unlikely event that I develop an interest in the art of scraping bladders with robotics.
One of the things I'm going to miss about psychiatry is being able to get away with wearing polish in class. My newest incentive to become a high-ranking member of the medical system is so I can go to work with bright pink nails...maybe I'll even be influential enough to bitch out at medical students with unkempt cuticles. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?
just make sure, you're not painting with dark colors (especially red) too often and removing them with nail polish remover too frequently. it'll make your natural nails discolored like the teeth of a coffee drinker.
ReplyDeletethat's what a base coat is for - I just broke my first glass of that stuff though boohoo
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