Today, I did something I’d never done. First, let me preface this by saying that I bite my nails… a lot—all my life, practically. It’s a habit I can’t get rid of and one I’m actually kind of comforted by. It’s just there.

Today, I bit a piece of my fingernail off and did something new. I started twirling it in my fingers and turned it into a little minute nail ball. A ball made of dead hardened skin cells. It may seem gross, but felt kind of revolutionary—twirling around, forming like play-doh in my hand.

The fun does not end there. And you might think I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not. It was a simple, perfect new experience.

As I was twirling the nail piece in my fingers, getting an unexpected yet thorough pleasure, it started getting tangled up in my hair. Before I knew it, I had created a hair and nail ball that I couldn’t separate for a full 10 seconds. These were 10 seconds of persistent trying, mind you.

…A hair and nail ball—two different manifestations of dead skin cells that constantly grow, melding together to become one. Two appearance components that girls typically alter to their creative liking. That’s not incredibly relevant, but I figure it’s not so outlandishly tangential and a point I’d be unlikely to make elsewhere. So, there you go.