Harder, Faster, Stronger, Pointier: The Story of a Girl and Her Stiletto Nails.

If you've been following me on Instagram and Twitter or are a really bored stalker you know that my summer revolved around three things: iced chai lattes, Wendy Davis, and growing my talons of terror.  

Those first two things need no explanation but behold, Inspiration A:

here

Pretty much what I want to feel like and look like about 90% of the time.  The other 10% is pajama zombie.  Pajombie.  [MS sidebar: I have access to a similar wig so this gif isn't that far from actual real life Vine movies for your consumption]

But I had to have those nails.   I needed to have those nails.   In the face of an increasingly shitty summer I needed one thing that felt fabulous and that one things was stiletto nails.  It's good to have goals in your life and I have very low standards.  

Lana Del Rey for Vogue UK here

The best part about this whole undertaking is that these bad girls are free.  These are going to be 100% homegrown, organic, cornfed nails.  My body is amazing and does all kinds of miraculous things like digest pound after pound of Sour Patch Kids, breathe all day every day and can grow nails even when I'm sleeping.  I'm like the Jesus of keratin - instead of water to wine, I turn Sour Patch Kids into finger weapons.  

A lot of people pay for their nails but I knew I could grow mine because the women in my family are blessed with a special kind of alloy in their extremities.  This is my mom:

Please call me Lady Deathstrike from now on.

If she tries to pick at something on my face (which she still does at 33 THANKS MOM I'M AN ADULT PLEASE BACK AWAY) I'm in danger of permanent scarring.  "Would you like me to get that eyelash and also give you Glasgow grin?"  I'll use a Kleenex, thanks.

So I started small:

And after about two months we got to something like this:

Unicorn bangle, y'all.

Ok obviously I'm having a jewelry party on my arms too BUT the nails were starting to make my wishes comes true.  It also took a large amount of time and experimentation to get the correct shape and it was constantly in flux.  You think you have a point - a true stiletto tip - but you are wrong, my friend.  You are wrong.

Go pointier.

The fangbanger mani.

This is the only professional manicure I had done.  Nothing crazy for me.  Remember, freeeee.

But we can get pointier.

Until finally, we were so pointy that I heard my lady ancestors weeping with pride.

When you grow stiletto nails it's required you make the claw grip for intimidation.  Also, you can't hold your hand any other way.

It's best to have them wrapped around some Prada sunglasses or a Starbucks cup (iced chai latte?!) but even I won't stoop that low.  Besides, the only sunglasses I have are from TJ Maxx and at the time I couldn't remember which purse I left them in. Instead you get Empty Claw Grip.  Coincidentally the name of my Kung Fu crying pose.

If you're thinking of growing out your nails or getting the fake ones there ARE some things I think you should know and I've graciously outlined them below. You're welcome.


The Bad

Great things do not come without great sacrifice. So here are some problematic things or things you will have to completely abandon unless you have very, very good friends.

1. Typing with any sense of speed or accuracy. I started typing this posst i n Augu3st...

2. Your G spot.

3. Casually scratching your ear or your eyes or... you should really just abandon all hope of contact with your bodily orifices. See #2.

4. Putting on tights.

5. Making meatballs.

6. Many cooking activities can be dangerous. Not paying attention while dicing some peppers one day almost resulted in slicing off a tip which would have made me very upset as well as my guests who were going to have to eat my food. But mostly me.

7. Devoting a large amount of your free time thinking of new ways of doing things that won't break a nail. You're surprisingly creative when necessity calls.

8. It's hard to resist the siren song of Instagraming your own manicure and talking about your nails. You'll probably lose some followers and friends. You won't care, you've got ten new friends at your fingertips and they always make time for you.


The So-Good-It-Sometimes-Hurts-But-You-Don't-Care

But it ain't all sadness about meatballs and masturbation! Here are some things that are fuckawesome about your new, fancy fingertips:

1. YOUR HANDS ARE SO FUCKING FEROCIOUS PEOPLE WILL LITERALLY WEEP WHEN YOU HAND THEM A PEN.

Person: "Can you hand me tha..."

Me: "YAAAASSSSSSS......!!!!!!!"

Person: "Oh dear gawd it's so beautiful I can hardly look directly at it..." *weeping*

2. Eating a Doritos Locos taco is almost like amateur porn because it's so gawddamned sessy.

3. You will become a Beastmaster because no one - I repeat, NO ONE - can scratch an animal in that special leg-thumping place like you can. This also works on men. Or probably your girlfriend but I haven't tested this out but I'm pretty sure it's the same principle.

4. You know that great, dainty feeling in your hands you get right after you get a manicure where you can't really touch anything and your pinkies are out even when you're zipping your pants? That's how you feel all the damn time.

Me.  In a business meeting.

5.  No one will ask you to pick up heavy things or move furniture.  If they ask you to ever do anything you don't want to just make do what Rihanna does above and you'll get out of it.

6. Your fingers will look incredibly long and sexy. I saw an old picture of my short nails and vomited on sight at my corndog fingers. I wasn't sure if I could ever go back. Sorry, G spot. (Now accepting applications for generous and dexterous friends...)

7. Your jazz hands and spirit fingers are at a whole new level of intergalactic awesomeness. 

8. If you're an animated talker like me, all of your stories and conversations will increase their magic by 100 fold. This is science. You will gain at least 20 new friends because watching you talk is a pure joy to witness.

9. Even if you lost Instagram followers it won't matter. You will make tons of new friends anyway because everywhere you go people will be so amazed by your fingernails that they'll stop and ask you about them and bask in your glow. It's great for introverts. True story.

10. It's a quick way to judge a person. All cashiers - from Taco Bell to Macy's - have great taste in nails and are your new best friends. The people that are grossed out need to be dumped from your life because they obviously don't appreciate the finer, pointier things in life. Most gay men will fawn over you but straight men will probably be scared. If a straight man actually does compliment your nails, methink he's secretly asking you to put on latex or something. Your manicure is a whole new insight into a person. Use this power wisely, ladies.

11. Consider your nails a permanent accessory - it makes even the trashiest pajombie outfits fancy.  

12. If you're a jewelry lover like me, it's basically required that you accessorize your wrists and fingers at the same level of fabulosity as your nails so stack that shit on. Getting to wear more jewelry was probably my other subconscious reason for wanting to grow my nails.

13. Your new hobby is admiring your own nails. It never gets old.

It's kinda like cleavage.  You want to look away but can't.  My preference was always black polish because they became like actual goth claws that grew that way from my body.  This must be what a cat feels like all the time.  

But one day my worst nightmare came to be:

NOOOOOOOO!  I soon broke another nail on the same hand.  I actually lived with this trashy look for quite a while because now I could put on eye cream without fear of blinding myself.  I just flashed people the good hand when they wanted to see my nails up close.

But then I broke another... and another...  Apparently I didn't inherit the full Adamantium nail gene.  Soon it looked like I got into a fight and my hands lost.  I had to cut them all off.

I was despondent as I looked down at my newly squarish nails of shame.  However, my typing improved exponentially within a matter of minutes.  Charlemagne was rather sad but my ear canal was quite happy.  It was over four months of sweet stiletto bliss and it was all worth it.  

I feel castrated now!  I think I snipped away much of power with them.  I might never get back to the super longest length above but I'm definitely doing a shorter version.  A "kitten" version of the stiletto, if you will. 

And I also must play with manicures more.  I WILL have a gradient nail if it kills me!  Or blinds me.

here

So dream big, ladies.  Big and sharp and pointy and oh so pretty.  Your pets and mens will thank me.