Going Gray

I could blame The Exotic Neurotic for my current fixation with gray. It was, after all, the fashion magazine she loaned me—pure fluff, for an obsession-free half-hour's reading, or so I thought!—that started it all. But I don't need her to point out that I'm plenty obsessive all on my own, so I don't think I really want to go there.

She'll tell me what she thinks. I must be prepared if I want to invoke the dreaded honesty!

Anyway, so The Exotic Neurotic loaned me last month's issue of this magazine, and it was fun to laugh at pair after pair of impossible shoes, each set of which cost more than my whole working wardrobe, and butt-ugly dresses, some of which cost more than my car. Hey, if you can't laugh at the foibles of people who are rich enough to look Damn Good but just end up looking Damned, who can you laugh at?

Right. There's always Rat and Pig. The Apocalyptic Refrigerator series? Best. Comic. EVER.

But I digress. Which means I'm doing a reasonable impersonation of my "normal self," which I guess is good. So. About that magazine!

Things were going along blissfully fine until I got to the page that had the giant-ass bottle of spilled-out nail-polish in what looked to be a deep shade of gray, which I had never before seen in a nail polish. Light gray, sure! Verrrry, very light, which is pretty much not gray at all, but more of a special shade of white. Which hardly seems daring at all, much less worth featuring in the same issue that includes shoes that have a heel designed to look like it's on sideways.

But a deeper gray, a really GRAY gray—now THAT was unusual. And I thought, Wow. That's stupid. What kind of ninny would wear something like that? And yet, I couldn't get it out of my head, and much later in the night, I found myself looking for this odd shade of gray online. Which was where I found out it wasn't actually a deep gray at all, but more of a shallow, light gray, the likes of which the world had seen many times before—or at least once or twice.

See?

The problem was, you see, that I'd been reading the magazine while wearing sunglasses. Therefore, the light gray had appeared darker—substantially darker, in fact—than it actually was. Which was all rather funny, but of course, not being able to get the shade I thought I wanted (nevermind that it was going to cost $18 to get it, because OH YES, I was really, seriously considering GOING THERE, and nevermind that it had originally struck me as just plain dumb) made me want it more.

Why? Because I need a hobby, obviously. It's a distraction, people. A distraction from the winter blahs, the doldrum of gray skies, and ... wait. Okay, so maybe I was just trying to blend in. Reason has OBVIOUSLY been long-since surpassed by obsession here, WHAT'S YOUR POINT?

My point was that I was going to get the gray I thought I saw, and that was that. After establishing that such a shade did not exist in unnature (aka, the local mall), I found myself in the local Walgreens, which OH MY GOD, is a story unto itself, but it's pretty gross, so let's stick to the bit where I found Sinful Colors—a great name all by itself—"Black on Black" polish sitting right next to "Snow Me White" polish, at which point a little night-light went off over my head and I thought, Aha! I WILL MAKE MY OWN GRAY NAIL POLISH! And it will be good!

Or something.

In the process of researching the gray I sought—a matte-gray, mind you, NOT a glittery one, for I am not four years old, despite all mental appearances to the contrary—I had happened upon a delicious description of a shade someone else possessed (at only $8 a bottle, it was a relative steal, but by this time, I was not about to WAIT for it to be shipped to me from who-knows-where), and it was this: "gun-metal gray."

Due to my now compoundly-fractured brain, I had taken this as my cause ... my new quest ... MY HOLY GRAIL OF FINGER-NAIL POLISH, if you will, and what a stupid expression, because even if you won't, I will, so who cares if you won't? Well, you do, but I digress again.

Naturally, once fully committed—yes, I really should have been—I did, in fact, succeed marvelously at creating a shade of gray that very much did match my good old .12-gauge shotgun's metal barrel ... after I dusted it off, that is. The problem this time was was that this shade is virtually indistinguishable from BLACK, once applied to one's nails and seen under normal lighting. Even though if you put your hand next to something that's really, truly black and squint, you can totally tell that it's actually gray.

Being far too lazy to remove ye olde "Too Gray" polish, I waited a week before dumping a strategic quantity out and pouring a similar amount of white into the formerly "Black on Black" bottle. Much mixing ensued, leading me to conclude that if I ever do have my dream "Build a Nail-Polish Workshop" kiosk in the local mall, it eally will have to include one of those AWESOMELY VIGOROUS paint-shaker things—scaled down to size, of course, because nobody needs THAT much nail polish (well, maybe elephants do, but I don't think they'd be looking for shades of gray anyway).

But then. Oh, then! My quest hath ended, and I am now sporting a nice, deep, really-GRAY-but-also-definitely-not-black nail polish, the likes of which THE WORLD HAS NEVER KNOWN BEFORE! Unless somebody else had this idea first, which kind of pisses me off, so let's pretend I'm special, shall we? Great; thanks.

In conclusion, I will admit that the irony of the fact that I put so much time and effort into getting gray ON my fingernails while I have been known to put similar time and effort into getting gray OFF of my hair follicles does not escape me. Just so you know.

And my gray? I will name him "George." Because, while I cannot HUG him and SQUEEZE him and PET him and PAT him, he has amused and entertained me, and that's good enough for now.