I feel like it’s important to talk about hygiene. Or the lack thereof. And I ask myself questions about it. You know that philosophical question, ‘if a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a noise’? I wonder the same thing about body odor. Like, ‘If I don’t shower and there’s no one around to smell me, do I still stink’? Should I care?
I’m not motivated to be hygienic by human proximity. You know what does motivate me to change my underwear? The irrational fear that today might be the day I have to go to the hospital in an ambulance and they’ll cut my clothes off and be like, “When was the last time this woman changed her underwear!?” So I’ve got that going for me.
Showering is a different story. I know that hygiene is a good benchmark for determining how depressed I might be. But even when I’m feeling level, showering is such a chore. And there’s no way it’s happening if my fingernails aren’t short or if my hair is “long”. I buzz my head so that means if my hair is touching my ears or forehead I turn into a cat that refuses to get wet.
Right now it’s almost as if I’m playing some kind of game of chicken or a having staring contest. How many layers of body soil can I let build up until I bust out the loofah? I know I showered on a Tuesday. But I know it wasn’t last Tuesday. Or the one before that. I wish I could tell you that I gross myself out. I don’t.