PERSONAL GROOMING FOR SPACE ALIENS.

Living with a Cantonese American female can be educational. My apartment-mate, Savage Kitten, is of that type. The great advantage of Cantonese American females is that they take up less space than large Nordic women, or even Dutch American types.

They are also a little weirder.

Okay, a lot.


Often, on weekend days when she plans to see her boyfriend, she will be in the teevee room watching the Real Housewives of Somewhere, revelling in white-woman vulgarity, with her pants rolled up to her knees, plucking leg hairs. Yes, people of Cantonese extraction do have hair there. Though if you're dating one, you might not know it.
They're black hairs, starkly visible.
Not pale shades of brown.
Pluckity pluckity.


Over two years ago when she first started seeing Wheelie Boy, she went through a period where she was also doing her nails and discovering all the femmy things that she had overlooked during her adolescence and first two decades of adult-hood. She's slim and youthful enough looking that this was no haggard pretence at a second spring, but polished augmentation of a fruit still perfect.
She no longer does the nails -- I think the crimson lacquer repines lonesome in her room wondering what happened to its faded popularity -- but she still yanks the hairs on her calves.

Jeans rolled up, sneaker-shod foot on the table, tweezers at ready.


A man of similar age will seldom do such things.
Men are not inclined toward a physical aesthetic.

Heck, most men are rather disgusting slobs, who will happily ignore any amount of personal hygiene till the Human Resources department comes bellyaching that the interns are green and fainting.
"Oh really", they will say, "I had NO idea that they huddled in fear behind the file cabinets".
And they promise they'll do something about the robust smell.
Stale cigars, bourbon whiskey, and pepperoni.
Three-month old blue jeans.
Soggy paper.


Years ago I regularly visited an ancient gentleman in the evening to discuss literature. He was ill, and consequently padded around his apartment in his pajamas, with his feet showing. 
I could not help noticing that his toenails were too long.
Thick, yellowed, and sort of ridgy.
Beast-like.

Most men past middle age will neglect at least a few elements of personal hygiene on a daily basis.  Some have crumbs from yesterday in their beard, others have a luxuriant growth of fine white hairs flourishing in their ears, and a few even cultivate belly button lint factories unbeknownst.
Wheresoever they go, they leave a relic.

It struck me that my elderly friend had absolutely no intention of making himself attractive to the opposite gender. Despite his lonesomeness and excellent social skills.


Gentlemen,

Trim your damned toenails! If those crackled yellow claws look like deadly weapons, no one will want to handle your feet! And for heavens' sake, deal with the ear-hair too. If you EVER want a sweet young thing (say, someone between twenty and fifty-three) to nibble on your lobes with sincere affection, those horrid tendrils have to go. And please disinfect your belly button while you're at it. I know you're fascinated by the tendency of lint to collect there, because every motion mechanically carries the fuz forward to the pit of the navel along the curves of your stomach hairs, eventually aggragating in an enormous furry octopus of cotton fibres and discarded trash, but damn!

Other people are NOT interested in your octopus!

Essential behavioural adjuncts for any man past thirty that must be stressed: foot powder, razor blades, nail clippers, tooth brush, tweezers.

And get a haircut!



I still clip, tweeze and otherwise groom myself, despite my complete faith that there will be NO sweet young things wandering into my life.

[Lets face it; perky cheerleaders with codger fetishes ONLY exist in literature. The pom-pom macoute prefer freshly showered football jocks who reek of testosterone and Old-Spice, over rather nice middle-aged pipesmokers. That's just the way it is.]

Here it is, Saturday night, and I'm washed, wearing clean clothes, and quite presentable. I look and feel civilized. But that's just a matter of self-respect. Instead of meeting someone of the female persuasion for a late dinner, and perhaps some discrete hand-holding, I shall head down to a place where I can smoke a few bowls and day-dream by myself, spending time in the company of tactful people who are somewhat similarly engaged.

My hair was recently cut, it is currently combed. My fingernails and toenails are clean and trimmed. Except for my freshly brushed beard, my chin skin is smooth. A veritable baby's bum.
Even the nasty purple tentacles growing out of my back that I use to kidnap little kids for the Trans-Galactic Slave Trade are washed and out of sight.
I look passably human.



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