next year i’ll work out and eat better too

For the last few years, I haven’t made multiple New Year’s resolutions. I try to keep it to one resolution per year, and I usually keep it simple and secret until the year’s over. But this year I hadn’t really even come up with one resolution. It’s not really that big of a deal, the not having a resolution. Sometimes I’d think about something I need to do and think hey, maybe I’ll make that my resolution, but these so-called resolutions are things like “buy toilet paper,” or “bring in that file box from the trunk of my car,” and I guess they just don’t seem very, well, resolute. Or something. I’m probably not even using that right. I don’t know. And, in any case, I did buy toilet paper but that file box is still in the trunk of the car. And I bet it’ll still be there in May.

Anyway. Would it be setting the bar way too low if I decided to have my resolution be that I’m going to shave my legs a little more often this year? Because I was thinking I’d make that my resolution. But then I thought damn, that’s pretty lame. That’s like resolving to go to the bathroom once a day or something.

I heard a rumor that normal girls shave their legs regularly and apply lotion every single day and, like, do their nails and stuff. I am not like this. I’m not a dirty hippie or anything. I shower regularly, and I’m pretty sure I’m generally clean-looking and nice-smelling. I’m not making any kind of a feminist stand by not shaving my legs. Really, I’m lazy and I just don’t take the time. I shower in the morning before work and it seems like I’m always running late, so I rush through it all, because in the allocation of morning time I need to leave enough time to dry and style my hair – a step that absolutely cannot be skipped. I rarely wear skirts and I’m not seeing anyone, so until I made the decision today to blab about this all over the internet, no one would have known that prior to last Thursday I had gone for approximately ten weeks without shaving my legs once. In fact, I can tell you exactly when the last time I shaved my legs was before Thursday. It was Saturday, November 11th.

God, I am such a loser.

So, the legs. They were really getting out of hand, and on Thursday I decided to just suck it up and take a bath and shave them. So I did. And then I did the whole “exfoliate and apply lotion” thing that I’ve heard so much about, and after many hours of work, I was rewarded with nice, smooth legs. And I remembered that I actually really like the feeling of freshly-shaven legs. And I thought, hey, maybe my skin wouldn’t be so mad and dry and itchy all the time if I actually TOOK CARE OF IT and kept it moisturized and stuff, especially since hello, it’s winter. So I’ve been trying to make a concerted effort to at least run the razor over my legs quickly while in the shower, and do the whole lotion thing afterward. It might not matter to anyone but me, but I seem to feel better, so I thought I’d make that my resolution.

I bet it’ll last as long as most people’s New Year’s resolutions do.

12 Replies to “next year i’ll work out and eat better too”

  1. I don’t make resolutions. This isn’t a too cool for school thing, I just forget to. I’d like to, but I know I’d fail.

    Me? Nah. I fill the year with resolutions. They happen on January 24 and March 3 and October 12, etc. And, like anything resolved as the calendar flips, they tend to lose steam power as time turns forever uphill.

    I love that you know the date you last had shaved your legs. Was that for the Messiah performances?
    -cK

  2. Yeah, I started the shaving lotion thing. And if it makes you feel better, I have a boyfriend and I am not a frequent leg-shaver.

  3. “Holy crap! How did my legs get so hairy?” is my cue to shave my legs. That, or my guy mumbles, “Sharkskin…” when I rub my shins on his in bed.

  4. I don’t think that leg shaving alone qualifies as a resolution, but I feel that it’s a good first tier of a larger “take better care of myself this year” resolution.

    Like i’m one to talk though.

  5. Okay, I had to weigh in on this one because the memories just flooded in. I’ve probably told you girls a 100 times, so here’s goes 101. When I was a teenager living in the South Pacific, my girlfriend and I (the only blondes on a 3 mile by 5 mile island) decided to have a contest on who could go the longest without shaving our legs. I can remember sitting on her mothers bed watching her mom get ready to go out and there we were using combs to part the long blonde hair on our legs. I was 13 and she was 15 and from California, so cool……… Her mother noticed for the first time what we were or more accurately “weren’t doing” and about had a stroke. Needless to say that was the end of the contest. Here’s a fact you may not know; the longer the hair gets the softer it gets. :) As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I heard something this year and decided to adopt it for my own. I will not make resolutions about what I will or will not do in the coming year, I will give thanks for the year past and all the memories it gave me.

  6. Momma reminded me that in my dancing days, my girlfriends Kenny (Kendra) Stevie (Stephanie) and I (I was Larry back then) used to stop shaving and grow our leg hair during the Nutcracker season. It was a contest to see whose hair could stay turned up the longest from being plied in an upward fashion from our tights. Kenny was delicate and fairly hairless, so she was always the loser. Stevie gave me a run for her money, but she is black and it would start to curl before she could get a good upward swing. Me? The Victor. I’m fair, but I’m a hairy bitch. And the post-Nutz shave was delightful. Drain-clogging, but delightful.

  7. I have made one joint resolution this year, with Mike: For me not to get knocked up all throughout 2007. Good one, huh?

  8. I shave about once a week and even then inevitably miss a huge spot; even when I go swimming at the pool – I figure I won’t see anyone I know. My old roommate is a med student and told me she was shocked at how many women “groomed” for their pelvic exams – she had never done so. This gave us both pause for thought, but that razor’s not getting anymore use!

  9. i’m fair haired, so i can go a long time without shaving my legs without it being too noticeable. in the winter, i definitely go months without shaving my legs. i also am not seeing anyone, but whatever. who cares. i still need to remember to put lotion on, though, cause i can get so dry that sometimes when i come home, i scratch my legs so badly that i get nasty marks on them. bad.

    anyway, there have even been times in the summer where i’ve seen how long i can go before i feel self-conscious or uncomfortable. it can go awhile. but it’s always funny that when i do shave my legs, how wonderful that makes me feel. unfortunately, i do have long legs, and a total leg shave takes a long time. and sometimes, i don’t feel right about giving the once over. it’s like do it right, or don’t do it at all.

    and when i was a little girl (12-13? is that little? a teenager? 11? 12?), my mom didn’t want me to shave my legs … the ‘excuse’ (which i know is actually true) that if i shaved, the hair would get darker and coarser and stuff. so, at some point, i started stealing her razor and doing it because everyone else was and i had super hairy legs. granted, it was really fine and blonde, but it was still hairy compared to girls with no hair.

    and thus the shaving began. i recently shaved (recently, my hair’s already pretty long again, so i guess it wasn’t that long ago… maybe a month ago?) full on for the first time in a LONG time. i will probably keep up this habit of once every two or three months for awhile. we’ll see.

    fun topic.

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