Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Even now, as I jab this into the keyboard, I’m looking at my fingernails and imagining how best to bite them. This is problematic because the plan, set into motion after Fat Tuesday, is to never chew them again. The means to do this? I’d ride on the coattails of the fervor surrounding Lent.

I’m not Catholic, so these 40 days and nights resonate differently for me, but what’s appealing–and almost convenient, in a way–is the mass exercise of self-control. It’s like there’s a quivering body of anguish and willpower, onto which you can easily toss your baggage. The baggage I chose, it occurred to me, needs to stay stowed even after mid-April. I mean, in my mind it’d be a crying shame to herald Easter by celebrating a resurrection of nail-biting, though this may simply be my antiquated leanings.

It’s going to be tough, let me tell you. I started the habit when I was five or six, such was the angst of suburbia, and any attempts to stop have been thwarted. Mum and dad, when I was in second grade, applied a kind of glorified hot sauce to dissuade eating my own hands, but unbeknownst to them I secretly enjoyed spicy foods. A college crush suggested I stop, one day during class, and that lasted until I got over her and hopped right back on the horse. Perhaps it’s time I began looking into support groups or, as a good alternative to sitting and talking in circles, dipping my fingertips in dog shit.