Skin

Nothing says “real person” more than bad habits.

See, I don’t subscribe to the view that people should be perfect or beyond all reproach. Stars and celebrities who project an air of excessive personal hygiene to the point of godliness are damned liars and fakers. I actually think such media projected sterility makes them less lovable. I mean, could you really love someone who never ever hooks a bit of earwax out of their inner ear with a fingernail?

Think carefully before you give that question a kneejerk response.

If we were all to be honest about it, picking one’s nose makes one more human, more fallible, more real and more accessible and, therefore, more deserving of other people’s love and more able to be loved.

To that end then, to court your adoration and earn the love I know that you are all yearning to give me, I have decided to share a few of my bad habits with you.

Nose and ear picking can be assumed as standard. We all do those. Some of us use cotton buds on sticks. Some of us fashion the corner of a hankie into a surgeon’s scoop. Some of us even buy those little mini Henry desktop Hoovers in an attempt to automate the process but we all – all of us – at some point in our lives introduce various hooking devices into the small recesses of our faces to remove redundant matter. I’m not going to bore you with the wherewithal of this or cut and paste data from my mucus log-book to give you an example of my longest bogey or most scallop like clump of earwax... just assume that I do it like the rest of you (though possibly with a little more class).

No, peculiar to me (not necessarily peculiar to you) my worst habit is probably picking my actual face.

Spots, mini scabs, tiny blemishes, dried and dead skin, anything that feels out of odds and disrupts the smooth texture of my skin when caressed with a sensitive fingertip is up for immediate removal in my book. Even better are those tiny scales of dead white skin that become trapped within the follicle forest of my beard or moustache. Because they have to be teased out through the barrier of possessive bristles that tend to want to keep them embedded where they are. I think that it’s this obstacle course of hair that makes the process all the more enjoyable. You can’t just have a quick scratch and flick and be done with it.

You have to dig. You have to wheedle. You have to be subtle and tactical. Especially if you want to get the skin out all in one piece replete with visible follicle holes.

I find I go into an almost meditative state when I engage in this activity. It’s, like, totally Zen. I bliss out. I enter an altered state of consciousness. It is deeply therapeutic. I suspect it is a shamanistic activity though Google doesn’t appear to want to back me up on that one at the moment.

Ha! What does Google know? Does Google have a face to pick?

No.

Sod Google.

So.

There we go.

I pick my face. I am totally deserving of your love and adoration and devotion. And if anybody doubts the veracity of that claim you can now prove it beyond all reason.

Now pucker up and kiss me like a good 'un.

Still Think I’m A Sex God?

Now I’m well aware of the high esteem in which most of you hold me. Well aware that sexually most of you have placed me on a pedestal so high I can look down and see where the Grecian 2000 has slightly dried out Brad Pitt’s scalp. And I’m flattered. I really am. It’s nice to be appreciated. Nice to be lauded. Nice to have to beat off all you devoted fans with a shitty stick each time I leave the house to go to work or carry out a simple errand.

But part of my charm is honesty. Hence I feel that I cannot lie to you any longer.

You see, I too have imperfections. Blemishes. Physical flaws that, whilst they don’t altogether mar my sex god-hood, they do at least render me as mortal as the rest of you ungodly people.

Take for instance my thumbs. They are as opposable as any minor deity could wish. Long and slender. I’m able to grip all manner of objects and implements (steady ladies). But the very tips of them are defaced with cuts and nicks. This condition seems to worsen when the weather turns colder. It’s like the skin splits and before I know it I have a tiny but deep cut that thrusts itself well under my nail. It hurts like hell and getting my hands wet (steady again ladies) only makes it worse. These cuts take an age to heal and the slightest pressure opens them up again. Whilst infected with these unwanted incisions I have to wear marigolds to do the washing up.

Yes, ladies, gentlemen. I do the washing up. Every day. Please try and swoon yourselves onto some soft furnishings.

And then there is... and it pains me to say this... my ugly toenail.

Just as Achilles had his weak ankles I have my beauty slightly lessened by a deformed toenail. It has got steadily worse over the last year. Discoloured. Rucked up. Folded under almost upon itself. Occasionally it seems to bleed. Regularly it plagues my walking hours with a quiet heat that by the end of the day has built up into noticeable pain. My doctor, you will recall, has already sent off a sample to the lab to be tested for fungal infection (after she had swooned into her NHS soft furnishings at the sight of my naked and lithely posable foot).The results, naturally, were negative. I mean, as if my body could produce something as commonly unwholesome as fungus!

How I laughed.

But the toenail is – and I know you will all gasp as one when I say this (and not for the first time, eh ladies?) – unsightly.

So there you have it. Even someone as perfect as myself has body issues. Little segments of me that I feel are less than perfect. That don’t quite match up with the quality and excellence of the rest of me.

I hope that in bearing my beauteous soul here today I have given some of you ordinary folk comfort. The sense that, for all you may be craning your necks to look up at me, I in turn am able to bend down and give you an understanding smile.

Because I do understand. Truly I do.

*Sigh* What burdens you all bear.

Er. We. What burdens we all bear.

Ahem.