Home Sweet...Dorm: March 2011

Okay...so this post is going to be a little weird and off-topic from my usual (not that I follow any type of pattern--a.k.a I literally talk about whatever is on my mind and this is hard evidence of that). SO, while standing on the Q train (my cart reeked of alcohol, reminding me.."OH, it's St. Patty's day!"), completely squished, I looked at my hands wrapped around a grossly warm spot on the pole at the center of the cart (collecting germs by the second), and notice my unpolished nails with cuticles popping out in, like, twelve places. I subconsciously said to myself, "Oh Eileen, you need a manicure." Now when you're eleven, thirteen, maybe even at your current age, you enjoy manicures. The hot towel, cucumber spa-smelling lotion, the ten second hand massage, and getting to choose a new (maybe even funky) color to flaunt all week...for me it used to be that exciting. I loved going to get a manicure Friday afternoons with my friends after school. Nowadays, it's something I dread. I opt for the faster and cheaper "change of polish," not because I am being cheap but really because I want to get out of there ASAP! Whenever I do get a manicure, the manicurist usually tells me how horrible my cuticles are, and that goes in one ear and out the next...hopefully I'm awesome in other ways that people won't be judging me on my cuticles!
So why is it that when I chip a nail, or actually see my nails clean (which by the way is kind of pretty and refreshing), I suddenly NEED a manicure? Having another person paint and play with your nails isn't something anyone NEEDS, it is something you WANT. After some simple computation in my genius-math-y brain (meaning I did everything on my calculator--even the easier ones), I found that a ten-dollar manicure (average, because some are twelve and some are eight, depending on where you live), once a week will cost you $520 a year! If your manicure is twelve dollars...$624 a year! In ten years, that's $6240 dollars you spent on something so temporary, paint on nails. Let's say you've been getting mani's since you were sixteen and live until your ninety-five. You would have spent $49, 296 on your fingernails, and in the end will have nothing to show for it! (that's a twelve dollar manicure, assuming you tip anyways). This post is starting to make me think that I have a future in writing fourth grade textbooks. (Oh and by the way, this is forgetting about the uber-expensive pedi!).
Now, I'm not saying ditch the manicurist and never ever go back. (Not like you'd listen to me anyways, or at least I hope you wouldn't listen to me). What I am saying is, let's start a new trend--THE BARE NAIL TREND--save up on average $524 per year, and in a few years...LET'S GO SHOPPING!
I got to thinking, who came up with this costly idea that many are obsessed with? As a matter of fact, the famous manicure started five-thousand years ago! Arabs used to henna for manicures. The French manicure was a result of Parisian women wanting their nails to look like the perfect natural nail, nude with a white tip. In the 1920s and 1930s women were "ooh-la-la-ing" to the French manicure, while nowadays some look at it as a check-in at a senior center. Some 3,000 years ago in China and Egypt, nail color was used to represent social status. In China, red and blank fingernails were used for royalty, and in Egypt red was seen as the royal color for Cleopatra! This may be part of the reason why red seems to be a very popular nail color...we don't see many girls walking around with yellow nails, do we? Nail salons seem to be extremely popular in the United States, and had some sort of boom in the last 10 years. In 2000, fifty-thousand nail salons were recorded, whereas in 2010 a whopping hundred-thousand were, DOUBLE!

Proof that manicures and pedicures were done in Ancient Egypt, this was found on Pharaoh's tomb!

Thank you to my sources (I did not know the random facts above all my myself!):

http://www.uspedicurespa.com/blog/12-history-of-pedicures.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicure (I trust Wikipedia)

Love,

Eileen!

Brainstorming blog ideas is making me realize how much I miss it! I cannot believe it has been almost two months...I am so sorry, and if you don't forgive me...I understand (not.....just kidding, it's a free country and if you don't want to waste your time on my site...fine! Do it somewhere else why dont-cha?) Anywho, it's been a while, but I am BACK IN BUSINESS (but don't worry I am not getting paid to do this...maybe that's sad that I call this fun, I dont know)! You have Glee (specific episode on March 15th where New Directions debuts original songs--if you do not watch Glee tune--no pun intended, okay yes intended-- that out completely and consider un-bookmarking my blog and don't come back...kidding gosh!) to thank for me reuniting with Home Sweet Dorm. That was probably the most confusing group of nonsense I ever put in parenthesis together! Okay, so Glee really inspired me to blog (and of course y'all--could you tell I'm in a Southern mood too!), and that will show through my body movements and perhaps outfits in the pictures below (the Glee part not the Southern part...I don't think). My little clothing-trying-on extravaganza led me to a few very important realizations: I AM A TERRIBLE MODEL. Years back, trust me, years (YEARS) back I sent in a photo of my seventh grade self to Barbizon thinking they would sweep me out of my Hebrew class and whip me into high fashion photoshoots and if I was lucky enough, I might even end up in Delia's (which by the way, was the only place I looked for back-to-school shopping). Boy was I wrong...never got a call and I'm still kind of sour about it. Next realization: Photobooth on Apple computers is God's gift to self-bloggers and freaky constant self-portrait takers everywhere! So here's a shout-out to you...Love, Eileen. Next: If I had a tripod to hold my Macbook up and face it wherever I want, my pictures would be in various, and more interesting places rather than alternating between the three spaces in my room where I try to balance my computer on dangerous wobbly things. So here are some pictures to hold you over until the next time I decide to blog about something illegitimate and unfocused! Ba bye!