Shaving and Not Shaving

How long can I go without actually shaving my legs? I've never really had to think about that one before. I wondered about that this past month when I had a Staph infection and my doctor told me not to shave if I didn't have to because it could actually spread the Staph when I sat in the bathtub "easing" the area. She said if I shaved I could cut myself, open up an area of invitation to the staph. Wow, since that's true, it goes without saying that Staph gets invited to places no one else does! (a little celibate humor that's all, I'm over it.)

I am actually of the mind set that women shouldn't have to shave, but we do shave, and we usually shave for other women. I think it's a habit really. We do it because we were told to do it. We fought our moms to be allowed to, now it's just a habit. We don't really want to. We don't shave for men. We only do that when we're dating; and/or on the occasion that we may decide to spontaneously strip down in public and jump into a fountain or something. Women shave for other women so we can show off how great we look, or how stylish, perhaps how sleek - or to catch a man I suppose, that would be another reason to shave for a while. We shave for the doctors don't we? Oh yeah, if we think we're dressing down in one of those little backward gowns, you can bet we'll visit the waxer at the salons too. We'll do anything and everything not to appear nasty and all manly for the one person we may see one time in five years.

My Greek friend is hilarious. We'll be sitting around her house and I'll catch her rubbing her leg under the table. I don't even pretend I've lost something, I just duck my head down under the top of the table to see what she's doing. She's carrying on a conversation, but she'll switch off her hands left for a while, then right, back to the left, all the while the other hand is clearly moving around. I notice most often that she's petting her hairy leg! What are you doing? I asked her while laughing...Oh, she said, "I love to pet something, I don't know, the dog is over there and my leg was right here!" I fell off the chair. I'm almost Greek at this point, I haven't quite got the volume, but I'm going for the length I think.

Staph can change a person's outlook on life. Good. Bad. I don't know. Maybe I'll become what CSI Grissom called a naturalist...they collect pine cones too don't they? I don't have any really tall trees near by. I'll have to be an urban naturalist.