Just look at these gorgeous nails. They are my dream nails, the perfect shape: Almost pointy but not so pointy that the tips keep breaking off.

They belong to George, a great guy who works at Nordstrom, and he was pleased by how much I loved them. They’re his real nails, obviously, and he gets them done at a place on Melrose called Pamper or Pamper Something.

We discussed my own nails, which are kind of oval. As everyone knows, I do my own nails, because I find it relaxing. I admit that it’s hard to make them all the same shape. I like to blame the nail-files but I guess it’s due to handedness and a less than optimal angle.

Here, look, from last winter:

Anyway, I’ve been irrationally proud to say that I’ve NEVER HAD A MANICURE, ever. I will be 65 in a couple of weeks, so that’s more than fifty years of doing my nails. It’s a long streak, and one I didn’t plan to end. I could have it on my gravestone or in my obituary. “She did her own nails.”

BUT! Why not just go get someone to make my nails look more like George’s???

This is my dilemma. If I give in and do it, can I see it as a refutation of stupid, reflexive stubbornness and personal “policies” that have outlived their usefulness? Can I turn it into a triumph somehow? I want to have my cake and eat it too, an expression I hate because it doesn’t even make sense to me.

Or, I can stick to my guns, because I don’t like the idea of paying an immigrant a pittance to service me while working in a toxic atmosphere. It seems so colonialist and fucked up.

Okay, so let’s not vote on how dumb I am, it’s a given. I want you to vote yes or no on getting a manicure.

Hurry up though, I could get a stroke or break my neck trying to tie my shoes (which you can just see in the left-hand corner of George’s beautiful nails.)