Personal Maintenance
One recent morning, fog on the mountain, fog in my head, compressed and tangled up under the covers, I reached for something that turned out to be me and gashed myself on a knuckle with a fingernail not long enough to be lethal, but hurtful just the same. Later that day orchestrating a symphony of awkward movements I sliced a line across my chin with the same weapon. A man working for me said how did you cut your chin? I know you didn't do it shaving, he went on to say. I had run out of shaving cream awhile back and was for days pondering what to do about it, while my lazy beard pretended to have purpose. Self conscious about too much laziness surrounding my scheme I purchased some shaving cream, and, certainly no more than a day later smeared it about my faced and scraped over it with a triple or perhaps quadruple bladed razor, and cut my lip in the process, which bled profusely and reminded me of all the school yard fights I avoided, except for the one where the kid spit in my ear. After shaving, and compressing my wound, risking no more, I trimmed my fingernails.
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