In Which I Push the Boundaries of What Could Be Considered a Reasonable Segue

So if you've been following along (or if you're Elly), you may have noticed that our own darlin' BugginWord has been leaving me random topics to write about. This saved my NaBloPoMoAs for many an entry already, I can tell you. But I haven't used her prompts the last couple of times, because I had (gasp) actual things already in mind to write about.

Part of why I'm doing the whole NaBloPoMo is to just force myself to write something every day. Not something long or great or worthy of future readings, but just something, for God's sake. I'm just trying to get back in the habit. Now, if you've read this for any length of time, you might have picked up on the fact that I'm the teeeeeensiest bit perfectionist, and that I must have everyone else's approval about all things (kinda makes you wish I were single, doesn't it?). So blogging is a challenge for me in general, because EEP WHAT IF SOMEONE OUT THERE READS THIS AND...DOESN'T LIKE IT? AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And to write daily, without the option of spending a day or two tweaking or editing, well, that's just crazy talk. And, I know from crazy.

So that's why I want to give a shout-out/big ups/props/other street lingo for recognition and thanks to Elly from the Block. I might sit here thinking, well, I kinda wanted to talk about x, but then funny thing y happened, but what if I can't tell it right and FUCK IT, I WILL WRITE ABOUT PACKING TAPE.

In that vein, I present to you a little melange I call FUCK IT, I WILL WRITE ABOUT ACRYLIC NAILS, SANDWICH BOARDS, AND TOPAZ:

(Ahem.)

Acrylic nails were always both a mystery and somehow the height of sophistication to me in my impressionable teenage years. I have been lucky enough to have good, strong nails of...German peasant stock, I guess, and I generally don't have trouble growing them out. In fact, as I got into my 20s and 30s and my life was about guitar lessons and puppet-building and kid-wrangling, I mostly had trouble keeping them short and practical. But I was a young girl during the age of Lee Press-On Nails.* As you can see from the commercial, these were nothing sort of genius. A bit of adhesive and you had talons to rival any of those Dynasty bitches. You could buy them at Walgreens and apply them at home, and for the next 24 hours, you could walk the halls of your junior high with your head held high, your nails blood-red (or frosted pink!) and a sudden inability to spin your locker's combination lock. I wonder what our teachers thought, when they saw nails that begged for Vanna White sequined dresses or shoulder-padded power blazers on the hands of young teens wearing pegged jeans and rocking the baggy-sweatshirt-over-turtleneck look (with your necklace charm dripping up and out of the turtleneck, if you please). Like the big crispy bangs of yore ("yore" meaning circa 1989), my own laziness, cheapness, and unsophistication mostly saved me from this particular craze. I'd like to say it was foresight, independence, and taste, but I'd be lying.

Speaking of things that have changed since the 80s (Nice segue, Falling! Thank you, Falling!) I don't know the last time I saw someone wearing a sandwich board in person. It's certainly a cartoon/comic staple, and you'll occasionally get people wearing them as part of a protest or rally, but in terms of human-as-advertisment, now you get those people who hang out at intersections with a plain old non-sandwich sign, dressed as food or the Statue of Liberty (MOTH and I have a friend, Tall Matt, who is 6'8" who occasionally does this gig. So every once in a while, you drive past the tax service and get to see a nearly seven-foot-tall Lady Liberty).

Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was officially finished on October 28th, 1886? Only a couple of days later, and her birthstone would have been topaz (Ooh, that was a rough one. Judges?). Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine...with, um, orthorhombic crystals and....

DAMN YOU, ELLY....I AM BESTED.


*When I Googled LP-ON, I came across this piece of brilliance on wiki.answers.com:
Q: Who invented the nail?
A: It was Thomis Edeson.

Just...sigh.