I’m still in a reflective mood, so thought I’d review some of the non-goal issues in my life. Starting at the bottom, my toenails are growing in nicely. They show no discoloration or other signs of fungus, so if that’s what it was, it went away without treatment. They’re still raggedy where I got rid of the yucky parts, but at least they mostly cover my nail bed now. I wish they’d grow faster, though. At the rate they’re going, I’m not sure I’ll feel comfortable exposing them to the world at all this summer. That’s a sad thing, since I really like polishing my toenails. Seeing the color cheers me up, and it’s much easier to pick a shade for my toes than for my fingers, since I always have the option of wearing closed-toe shoes. With my fingernails, I have to think about what I’ll want to wear for the week and where I’ll be going and who’ll I’ll be seeing before I pick a polish, since wearing gloves to cover up an inappropriate or clashing color is not a good alternative. I suppose I could just choose to stop worrying about what people think of the color on my fingernails. Nah, not anytime soon. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t sweat at least some of the small stuff.

I may not be able to bare my toes right now, but I can bare my legs and underarms, as I am now fully into shaving season, as anticipated. When de-furring for this summer, I tried waxing for the first time, doing it myself because I’m an independent, intimidated by salons type of gal. Being responsible, I did a small test strip above my ankle first, and it went well. Yeah, it hurt to yank the hair out, but that was just for an instant, and the perfectly smooth skin left behind distracted me nicely from remembering the pain. When no strange bumps or rashes appeared overnight in the test site, I felt no qualms about doing the rest of my leg. I covered an area next to my shin with the wax, spreading it thinly with the special spatula, then smoothed on a full-size paper strip and ripped it off. Ow, ow, ow. That hurt a lot, much more than the test strip had. And not all the hair came off, either. Thinking I maybe just needed to get a little more skilled, I tried another few strips. Again with the big ow, but I did better with getting all the hair off the first try. Then I noticed the marks under my skin. Not the overall surface redness I’d seen before, which had subsidized quickly, but little round marks that looked like I’d been jabbed with a pen or a pointed stick. It didn’t look good, so I decided I’d had enough for one session. Over the next few hours, I watched as the little marks turned into bruises. Bruises. I’d never gotten bruised from the inside before, hadn’t even considered that was a potential danger, even though I do bruise pretty easily from the outside. That was enough for me—waxing was out. Yes, my skin was nice and smooth, but the purple polka dot pattern really distracted from the overall look.

Off I went with my speckled limbs to get the highly recommended Venus shaver, figuring my legs deserved a treat after being subjected to the waxing. Looking at it and touching it was a sensual experience, especially in comparison to my old black Atra; the Venus is all swoopy lines and frosty colors and soft rubber grippy bits. And it shaves like a dream, too, very cushiony and easy to maneuver. I liked it so much I went and bought another one to keep in my travel toiletries kit. If it weren’t so wonderful to use, I’d be put off by the over packaging—I have never left a shower dripping wet to get a new blade, so the “shower safe” setup is wasted on me (and now I have two bulky shower safe containers that I can’t think of any way to reuse). I’ve been less delighted by my other recent body hair related purchase, the Jergens Shave Minimizing Lotion. I’m going to give it a few weeks and see if it seems to be working on my legs (using my underarms as the control site); if not, it’s out of my routine, as it’s very thick and gloppy compared to my usual body lotion, and the color and scent aren’t very pleasing to me, either.

So that’s the news on the outside of my body. On the inside, it continues to be much less caffeinated than it used to be. It’s been a month now since I addressed my bad diet Coke habit by cutting back to about one can a day, and I’ve managed to maintain it at that level. Just not having daily heart palpitations is reinforcement enough, but it’s also cool that I don’t even seem to need the one can anymore in order to be an alert and civil person before lunch. I got busy one morning last week and it was several hours before I realized I hadn’t had my caramel-colored fizzy drink for the day. There was no headache, no need to bite down on my tongue to keep myself awake, no crankiness, no poking people’s eyes out because they were annoying me. It was quite amazing. I sure wish my weight loss process were going as well.