Legs 37

Yay me.

I got let off the IFA.

This is great.

Jason has finally realised that there is no point in me being present during discussions of things like fixed rate mortgages and base rates and premiums because I listen very intently for the first two minutes, and then my internal alarm system goes mental, all the shutters clang down and I sit happily dreaming about shoes until everything to do with sums is over.  It is not helpful and I am not particularly ornamental any more, so it is best to draw a veil.

I was allowed to go and have my bath instead, and now I feel slightly less like a truffle hound with flu. This is good.

I have allowed myself to get depressed about my legs though.

I am not looking at my stomach. Therefore it does not exist.  Therefore I do not have to get depressed about it.

I did however, have to do some serious leg maintenance because this sort of weather demands it.

I have pruned them and sanded them and slapped cream all over them.  I have had to get up close and personal with them and it is not good. 

Usually they are encased in denim, or tights, or socks or all three.  This is good.  It means I do not have to examine them.

Today though I wore a skirt.

It was all a bit worrying and I decided that I needed to address the leg/feet thing foot on tonight.

My friend bought me one of those ‘new, improved’ ped egg things.  For those of you who are far too busy having a life to care about such things I will explain.  They are kind of the pumice stone of the jet age.  They are basically a small, egg shaped cheese grater with which you can plane all the dead skin off your feet, leaving them as smooth as the proverbial baby’s bum.  All well and good.  My feet make Hobbit’s feet look like Claudia Schiffer’s pearly toes.  I have a disastrous foot beauty routine. Why I say foot beauty, like I have any other kind of beauty routine, is a bit beyond me really.  Sorry.

If anyone needed a ped egg it was me. Now I have one.  I decided to experiment with it.  I have to say that I think a Black and Decker Orbital Sander would be a better, kinder option for me.  The ped egg is just not hard core enough. It has met its match.  My feet now resemble a piece of aged parmesan which have been attacked by starving rats.  They still look like shit, but it is lumpy, wood chip style shit.  I can’t say it is an improvement.

I also have scars on my feet where my flip flops viciously attacked me last week, and which will probably never heal, especially now they have been rotivated by the Ped Egg. 

I painted my toe nails yesterday. I don’t think it has helped.  I am a total retard when it comes to painting anything, and I specialise in shaky hands when it comes to anything requiring, skill, dexterity and patience. I paint toenails like a hardened alky with the DT’s who thinks a lizard is going to shoot out of his trouser leg at any moment and kill him.  It is not soothing.

After the ped egg disaster I decided to move further up the leg and shave them.  It turns out that I am pretty sure I’ve got the beginnings of varicose veins in my calves, thanks to me sitting like an idiot at the computer for fourteen hours a day with my feet folded under me in the manner of a pretzel.  As my legs are naturally lard white anyway, these veins now shine through the darkness like a homing beacon for the aristocracy and all other blue blooded creatures.

I moved on.  I now have fat knees.  Get this. My legs are not bad in terms of fatness. I mean they’re not skinny, and I already know about the stretch marks on the thighs thanks, but they’ve always been reasonably shapely beasts when suitably reined in under enough man made fibre.  Now I have fat knees.  Just the knees.  I have dimples on my knee caps.  Maybe I’m turning back into a baby.  Maybe I need fat knees again for when I start to crawl round poking jam sandwiches into the DVD player. I don’t know. I do know that it’s very distressing.

I soldiered on bravely, and when I got out of the bath I decided that what might help in this situation was some fake tan.  Some fake tan specifically for my lardy white legs.  Some fake tan which would artificially infuse them with health and life and a sense of joyousness not shared by the rest of my ailing body. 

The fake tan I purchased some months ago in order to be prepared for the summer, has now officially been christened.  It is a new type, well new to me.  You spray it into your hands and then lather it firmly all over your legs making sure it is even and smooth.  Remember this.  Remember also that it takes one minute from the time of the spraying to the time when it is ‘set’.  There is not a lot of margin for error here.

Now picture me with my fat, dimpled knees, endless acres of stretch marks that look like a particularly violent weather map indicating a very low front with possible hurricanes to come, and my grated, bleeding feet.  Add to this me hopping about like a loon, spraying virulent orange goo everywhere except where it is supposed to go, swearing a lot and resigning myself to the fact that it has set solid before I’ve even done half an ankle and you will see the whole sorry tale mapped out before you.

It did not go well.  I am a sort of mottled satsuma colour with small, dark circles of tan colour where the aerosoling became a bit violent.  I look like I have a particularly horrible disease.  I feel like I ought to hang a yellow flag outside the front door and do the school run carrying a bell, and shouting ‘diseased’.

I thought beautifying oneself was supposed to be relaxing and soothing to the nerves.  I’d be more relaxed panel beating a Morris Minor after an altercation with an articulated lorry.

No matter what the weather is doing tomorrow it’s going to have to be jeans and socks for me. 

No need to pray for rain. I’ve read the thighs and it’s a sure thing.