Fingernails

I'm sitting under an airconditioner in a multi-storied office building linked up to a little something something called the world wide web. Am I still in village? Hmm, because I'm in a good mood I'll give you two good guesses. I'll even give you the answer before I give you the two guesses: no. I'm in a city, where I'll catch my plane to Niger, then to Paris, and then to Rome in a couple of days. Until then, it's real showers, real beds, and food like you wouldn't imagine - unless you live in America, where you can eat everything imaginable, even if you do have to pay a pretty penny at Whole Foods to do it. I actually think Central Market is a better deal, by the way, but that's neither ici nor la. With regards to fingernails, two nights ago I was watching basketball - what? basketball? Oh, haven't I relayed this little epistle? No? Well the other day I was talking with the girl that tends bar in my village, and she told me that her dad has a satellite tv. We went over there. It turns out this TV pulls in about 250 channels. One of them is TNT, in English. We started watching some highlights and I started biting my nails. I bring this up because until then I'd actually stopped biting my fingernails. It's gross, especially in Africa. Plus, and yes, I'm comfortable enough to admit it, I wanted to impress my mom in Europe. I'm in my mid-twenties and this is one of the things I mark on my calendar: DON'T BITE NAILS. But, progress is progress. So I started biting them, and instead of stopping I just thought, you know, you can't really cut them, you don't know how and you don't even have the tools, just go for a little trim. Well, I wasn't exactly surgical and I didn't give them the precision they deserved. Now I'm back to square one. But other than that, I'm ready to go to Italy. I'll write an entry in the next couple of days, right now I'm going to track down an ice cream cart that owes me fifty francs. Ice cream cart? Oh yeah, didn't I tell you the story...