Dreading the Banal Finale

The first blossoms of spring!

So, never mind about devastating earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, let me tell you about my fingernail. Fair warning, this is frivolous and silly.

From the Department of Banal Details About My Life, here is Exhibit A:

Okay, it’s the only exhibit. But see how my social finger has that big white mark? It’s harder to see the bruise around it. Hey – it’s really hard to take a photograph of your own right hand when you’re right-handed. Anyhoo, that white stuff is my fingernail splintering apart due to the damaged nail bed around it.

Back around Christmas I injured that finger. I thought about making up a story here, about how I was snatching an orphan, or perhaps a kitten, from the path of an oncoming train. But I couldn’t tweak the plot enough where I ended up with only a pinched finger instead of a severed limb.

So, okay, maybe I was luxuriating on my mom and Dave’s fab patio in Tucson and reached back to adjust my lounge chair and caught my finger in the mechanism. I didn’t spill my drink, but it *really* hurt.

Look – I told you this wasn’t on the scale of 88,000 people missing in Japan.

The blood blister and bruising at the base of the nail healed in a few days, but I’ve watched this fault in my nail move bit by bit towards the tip of my finger over the last two months. I know when it reaches near where the nail bed ends, my nail will break, probably well below the quick.

I’ve been keeping nail polish on it, to fortify the strength of the nail. Now, I am not the kind of gal who keeps her nails polished. Special occasions, sure. In college, I used to go around saying “Show me a woman with a perfect manicure and I’ll show you a woman with a lot of time on her hands.”

Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of friends.

I put polish on again last night, after I took this pic – which is why I didn’t retake it for better focus. All you’d see is pink. But I can feel the instability on that side of the nail.

It’s like this slow-motion mini-disaster. The tension builds over two months, reaching back to the moment of that initial injury, foreshadowing the ultimate breakdown. Now, finally, after following this story for weeks, I’m reaching the end and I’m dreading the finale. The blood, the shredded nail. How I’ll have to walk around with my social finger sticking out so that it won’t catch on things.

Maybe that part will be kind of fun.