For the most part, JJ Vincent strives to be invisible. But then there are those toes!
I look forward to flip-flop season. In Alabama, this is roughly April to November. I have casual flips, dress flips, thick squishy lavender flips I can wear for days. Why do I look forward to this season?
My toes. More specifically, decorating them.
This is one of my not-so-secret secrets. I love having sparkly toenails. I have at least 30 bottles of polish, mostly colored glitter. I’ll wear a base color with 1-3 colors of glitter over it. Green and silver. Black and Red. Orange and Silver and Purple. Yellow and orange. Pink and pinker and pinker. No team colors, because they last thing I want to do is take my accidentally-Auburn toes into Alabama territory.
In most other ways, I blend in. Cargo shorts or jeans. T-shirts or short sleeve buttondowns. Short hair. Black geek glasses. A handful of tattoos, none that can be seen when I wear work clothes. Pierced ears. Somewhat androgynous, but otherwise pretty normal, if much younger than my years.
But I cannot resist the siren song of the sparkly.
I know this is a contradiction. Most of the time, I try to be invisible. My size and stature don’t make me stand out in a crowd. I like this. I can count on less than two hands the number of people who have flirted with me in the last 8 years. I move through holiday stores without being offered a splash of this or a smell of this. I’m rarely accosted by people asking for money or a cigarettes. I don’t read things that will draw undo attention (ok, I dance in public, but that is another post). I try to avoid confrontation, my own or anyone else’s.
But when the weather’s good enough for flips, it’s good enough for polish.
I used to make up excuses when people would ask me about it. “My friend’s little girl wanted to play Beauty Shop,”, I would say. Or, “I lost a bet.” Or, “I was hanging out with some girlfriends and they were painting nails, so I let them do mine.” After doing this for years, I finally stopped. I came out (as my partner calls me) as, “Glitter Boy”.
The only person decorating my toes is me.
Believe me, people notice. Especially kids. They look at your toes, look at you, look at your toes, look away. The adults who notice it don’t usually ask. Occasionally I can see a kid screw up their courage and blurt out, “Why are your toes sparkly?” I answer honestly. “Because I like them that way.”
I do. I like them that way.
This is not a political statement. There is no attempt to subvert the stereotypical male stereotype. I am not trying to get people to question anything about their assumptions. I don’t care if people think I should or should not paint me toes. If they see my toes in the men’s room, well, let me just say you would not go in there unless you had to.
Occasionally, I’ll even go plain. Just color, no flash.
Two Saturdays ago, a cashier I know in a retail shop told me she wanted to see teal, no glitter or glitz, just teal. I went back the next day and showed her teal. I had it on hand, so why not? It made her happy in the midst of back-to-school shopping madness. It made the morning a mad dash, because I was running late for a volleyball game. But what’s a little frantic scrubbing with acetone to make a woman smile?
Before the teal, it was ruby slipper red. As in Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
One weekend, I even matched my gauged earrings (6g) to my toenails. Ruby red glitter arches. Normal for a 39-year-old guy? Nope. Did I care?
Nope. Because I liked it. Did anyone notice. Don’t know. Wasn’t paying attention.
I recently made a friend, a guy named C. We bonded over our toenails. He is purple and black. I am glitter and shine.
You never know how you’ll meet a kindred spirit.
—
photo by shannonkringen / flickr
Have always pedicured and take care of my feet. I wear toe rings and use a buffing stick to make my nails shine like glass. Yesterday, I went to the salon and got glitter toes for the first time ever. All the salon girls thought it was really cool. But I’m wearing sox at home because I’m too chicken of what my family would say. I’m always in bare feet at home and no one has questioned me as to why I’m wearing socks all of a sudden. I’m DYING to take my socks off!
Dan, congratulations on your glitter toes! If you choose to share them, I hope they are appreciated. If you don’t, then enjoy secretly knowing that you have AMAZING toes!
JJ what’s your number? I’ll send you a pic
My 8-year-old son loves toenail polish. He looks and acts “all boy” except for the polish thing. He was always asking if he could paint his toes too when I painted mine when he was smaller. So, I bought him blue polish and started painting his nails. I warned him that kids might make fun of him and he just shrugged his shoulders. I expected he would stop as he got older, but no way. He just asks to buy more colors. Kids (both boys and girls) ask him about it all the time: “Why are your nails painted?”. He… Read more »
Good kid. Good mom. Good thing there are infinite color possibilities (see above comment from woman who mixes her own colors…..).
8 yrs old wow, your son has a strong spirit jill. 8 yrs old, thats amazing. such inner strength, rare to see. while the brain is compartmentalised and bravery in one sphere does not automatically translate to bravery in another sphere. his indifference suggests either a higher than average threshold before he feels shame, and fear. or, a greater than average ability to dampen down, control, or subdue of feelings of emotional discomfort. this will stand him in good stead as boy and man against predatory males and predatory females. and it is likely that he will be one of… Read more »
I saw a kid who had each fingernail painted a different color by her dad— now that’s love!
What a fun post!
Isn’t this what PUAs (Mystery) calls “peacocking”? (Although I think Mystery tends to wear black!)
That IS love….I don’t even have the patience to do that to myself!
hi, I love glitter toes too, especially in some shades of purple and iridescent type colors (i like to mix my own, it’s hard to find the shades i like) – and I’m a 55 year old lesbian hippie from far northern california who hasn’t shaved her legs in 30 + years and has NEVER done my fingernails – it feels too weird. but love toenail polish and letting my toes out in the spring and summertime and I love men who love doing their toes too. my son used to – when he was young – and his god… Read more »
Ohhhhhh, mixing colors…I feel a creative moment coming on….thanks for posting about your son and his god dad…I think this is more common than we expect…
I might be in a similar boat. I gave up shaving my legs about four years ago. While we were dating, my husband asked my, multiple times, “Why shave if you hate it?” The first thing he’d said on the matter was, “You don’t need to do it for me.” I thought it was adorable that he thought I was doing it for him. He asked me about it again, soon after we were married, when I was griping about a blunt blade and how much they cost. That time, it clicked. Why WAS I shaving if I didn’t like… Read more »
Hurray on doing what you like with your body. Me, I’ve never cared if a woman shaved herself (yes, I like girls, too). It makes me crazy that genders are so self-policing.
This post makes me happy! Sparkley toes are magic.
What colors should I do next?
I’m a blue/purple/green gal. Tootsies are purple right now. Usually sparkly, too, but not at the moment. I say go for a pastel. Maybe a mint green? 🙂
Haven’t done pastel in a long time. I can do that. Will report back.