MetaChat - I don't know how you girls function with long fingernails.

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02 March 2007

I don't know how you girls function with long fingernails. If mine get the slightest bit too long, I go nuts. But thanks for making yourselves pretty and all that.

post by: chrismear at: 07:36 | 30 comments

I keep mine really short - years of playing the piano as a kid means I have the same attitude as you towards long nails. Sorry for not being pretty :-(

(I am a girl btw)

posted by altolinguistic 02 March | 07:56

chris probably keeps his short for piano too. It damn well isn't for working on cars or playing football ;)

posted by terrapin 02 March | 08:04

Obviously, long fingernails do not themselves a pretty girl make, so I'm really not in a position to judge your prettiness from that one fact alone. And even if they did, your witty and wise would easily make up for it.

In other words, lol pix pls.

posted by chrismear 02 March | 08:23

Vain means pain, darling. Vain means pain.

It is yet another skill that the females of the species can develop, along with walking in high heels, fitting the world in a handbag, beauty regimes, wearing clothes that are neither comfortable nor practical, accessorizing, make-up application and body waxing.

Well, females and transvestites. God love 'em.

posted by asok 02 March | 08:24

I'm with alto on this, long nails are a pain for me. Besides, I have the lab-hands. Something about latex gloves and chemicals makes ones cuticles and nails do things they shouldn't. Like split and crack.

posted by LunaticFringe 02 March | 08:43

Even if short nails guaranteed me ugliness for the rest of my life, I wouldn't care, because I finally (after 10 years of being peripatetic) have bought a house, and it has room for a piano, and I've bought a piano, and I *love* it. I'm not very good but can spend hours reading through things for fun.

I even went round to the neighbours' to apologise for having bought a piano, and they said 'oh, have you? we hadn't noticed'. (I've only been playing it two hours a day for the past fortnight). Gotta love Victorian brick ~~shit~~houses.

posted by altolinguistic 02 March | 08:47

Oh, altolinguistic, I am just a few steps behind you -- aching to get a piano into this new place. Although I think the neighbours will probably notice, since it's going right on the adjoining wall...

posted by chrismear 02 March | 08:54

I was thinking of making it a Street Piano (I think the main site linked there is no longer working, but you get the idea), but this beast is far too pretty for that.

Well, you did say 'pix pls'...

posted by altolinguistic 02 March | 09:43

Genetics makes my fingernails brittle, so I keep 'em short. Plus I'm not a very girly girl anyway.

posted by matildaben 02 March | 09:54

After having written too many articles about long-nailed staffers spreading infections in hospitals, I've opted for short. And nothing skeeves me out more than cashiers with long nails that scrape my palm when they hand me my change.

Congrats on piano, altolinguistic.

posted by jrossi4r 02 March | 10:07

I keep mine trimmed ultra short, too- no white. I get even a little white and it drives me crazy. I can't imagine having nails past the top of my fingers, though I envy girls that can grow them (I think it might be easier for some girls, based on how their nails are placed on their fingers- mine are really sunk in, so my nails would have to get really really long before sticking out over the top).

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 March | 10:14

Pretty piano!

posted by chrismear 02 March | 10:18

I usually keep my nails pretty long. Not, like, curling over at the tips Guinness Book Of Records long, but a quarter to a third of an inch or so.
But I also have mild OCD, and one of my triggers is lack of symmetry. So if one nail breaks I have to cut them all to match.
They're all about 3mm long at the moment.

posted by kellydamnit 02 March | 10:35

I've always kept mine short. Long nails do not work with my life.

posted by LoriFLA 02 March | 10:38

I try to keep mine with about a mm of white showing, because that means I haven't been biting them.

I've never ever had my nails done, and I'm thinking of trying that as another means of preventing the biteyness.

posted by gaspode 02 March | 10:53

My one concession to girliness is manicures. I get them at least every other week to stop myself from biting. My nails aren't especially long, but having them look nice makes me feel much more together.

posted by YouCanCallMeAl 02 March | 11:00

Just trimmed mine this morning. Clippers only. Can't stand an emory board.

But I had this bathmate in college (i.e., we had single rooms with a bathroom in between) who wore super long fake nails, and every now and then, I'd find an empty contraceptive sponge box/wrapper in the trash, and I'd wonder how the hell she put it in with those nails. Never had the nerve to ask, though. (Maybe her partner assisted?)

posted by Pips 02 March | 11:05

Pianos are cool, but checkout this custom-made beast that's in my parents' house - it was a (very expensive) retirement present to my dad from himself. The photo was taken in the builders' workshop before the organ was dismantled, taken to my parents' place, and (after the floor was reinforced to cope with the massive extra weight), was installed.

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by TheDonF 02 March | 12:38

*wonders if any of DonF's past relatives has worn a mask and lived below an opera house*

posted by LunaticFringe 02 March | 12:45

Insert innuendo-laden "TheDonF just posted a picture of his dad's organ" joke here.

posted by greycap 02 March | 12:55

Mine are kept short, too. Just a wee bit of white showing. I chewed my finger nails up until sometime in high school. Because of that they would look funny if I kept them long. Another reason to keep them short is that I have fairly large, not-exactly-feminine looking hands.

posted by deborah 02 March | 13:29

Pretty organ. (I can only wince at the thought of the cost.)

posted by chrismear 02 March | 13:37

I'm another in the obsessively trimming, "short nails plsthx" camp. I did play instruments that required shorter nails, but I think I've just always liked my nails short. It's more comfortable, and I don't accidentally scratch myself. Win!

I don't like long fingernails clicking on things. Or serving my food. Guh!

posted by wimpdork 02 March | 14:25

Yeah, chrismear - I've never asked about the cost. I really don't want to. *thinks about inheritance, shudders* Eeew, thanks greycap!

posted by TheDonF 02 March | 15:18

I was born with the perfect nails, according my rather envious aunts (fathers sisters) who exclaimed "My god, look, she's got those perfect nails" the day I was born. They are that shape that nailmodels have, if they grow long they make that perfect curve that nail models have. But see, there's that if. If they grow. They never make it, I'm always ripping them apart on tools and computers and doors and whatnot. They just break every day. The longest nails I ever had was when I took all those pregnancy vitamins and my nails were suddenly made of steel. I think that was just a biological trick to kep my mind off my butt being made of lard though.

posted by dabitch 02 March | 15:33

I keep mine super short for typing reasons, but they grow like crazy and are super strong. I've grown them out super long a few times (usually when I'm unemployed and don't have to draft in AutoCAD eight hours a day) and they're gorgeous, but a super pain in the ass.

TPS, if you allow just a little bit of white when you trim your nails, your nailbed will eventually get longer/deeper. If that's what you want, that is.

posted by Specklet 02 March | 17:23

My middle and ring fingernails are shaped funny because I chewed on them as a kid, and they look terrible if I cut them too short, but letting the white bits grow looks ridiculous too. Plus my fingertips are squared off and short from lots of piano playing. I think I'll be trying Specklet's method, I could use more nailbed.

posted by casarkos 02 March | 18:31

≡ Click to see image ≡

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by essexjan 02 March | 19:34

Oh, ewwwww, essexjan. I've heard of this woman before. You've got to be kidding me. Seriously, how do you live with nails like this? Just think about all the normal things in life - showers, dressing, bathroom necessities!!!!!
By the way, mine are, tops, half an inch long at the most. Usually not even that long, a quarter of an inch. Too long, and I can't write to you all!

posted by redvixen 02 March | 20:24

That's horrifying, jan. It seems to me to be a bit similar to foot binding - handicapping oneself for no damn good reason. Not that girls who were footbound as children had any choice, but that's what comes to mind.

Also, my nail beds have never grown since I quit biting my nails. It could very well be be that mine are naturally short.

posted by deborah 03 March | 18:51

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