It is summer time. In the summer is when I paint my nails. It has something to do, I suppose, with the reappearance of sandals and various open toed shoes into my wardrobe. My toenails must be painted in the summer time, even if my fingernails remain bare of color. It is an unspoken rule in my life that developed over the course of growing up. I'm not sure when it happened, but now it's embedded into my rituals and become one of those things that just is about me.
Summer begins for me on the day I grab a bottle of nail polish and sit out on the porch, carefully painting each toenail until they look like brightly colored candies when I squint at them. Skittles, perhaps.
I hate it when I buy nail polish that is the perfect color in the bottle but not on my nails. The current pale pink polish that is seen peeking out from my espadrilles took about 6 coats to achieve non-transparent status. It's buckling and peeling and refusing to stay put, interrupting my need for order. I want whisper pink nail polish on my toes like the color in the photo. I don't know why I can't be happy with the 4.2 billion other colors that are lined up in little glass bottles under the bathroom counter. This summer I want the perfect pink nail polish. Citrus orange and ruby red will not do.
There are many more issues in my life than not being able to get my nail polish just right, but nail polish should be something that I can control. So it irks me that I can not.
