The most enjoyable thing that I have been indulging in lately is something that I feel like I can’t even talk about right now. I feel like I have a gag around my mouth. I fear talking about it, but I learned long ago that if I do what I fear, I achieve more than I could have hoped for.

Every weekend, I have been getting a pedicure and a manicure. I found a lovely nail shop within walking distance of my home. It is family-owned and I love going there every week. The technicians don’t talk my ear off while they work on me, so I am able to relax and truly enjoy the pampering.

The reason why I have been reluctant to write about this weekly delicious pleasure is because of an entry I wrote long ago (Todd Oldham Update). In that post, I mentioned my pampered feet. Back then, I pampered my own feet, but I have to tell you that it’s much better to have someone else take care of me. That post is the cause of at least one email a month from someone wanting to get a picture of my feet.

They are polite emails, but they scare the bejeezus out of me. They scare me so much that I haven’t talked about my favorite weekly reward for months now. I never respond to the emails. I file them, hoping that the police won’t need them for evidence in the future.

The funny thing is that allowing that one gag into my writing makes the act of writing about other things harder, and I have many of those gags. I don’t write about my feet. I don’t write about sneezing anymore because one entry (Sneezing) attracted another group of scary emails. I don’t write about my full time job because I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I started there. I don’t write about my relationship with Mike. There are things that I don’t write about that I’m not even willing to mention the existence of.

With so many things gagging me, it’s a wonder I am able to write at all. Sadly, everything I write when I feel gagged feels like it’s not the full truth. For weeks I have enjoyed a happy ritual every Saturday morning, but I felt like I couldn’t tell you.

The truth of the matter is: no matter what I talk about, there are people who are going to get weird about it. There is no way to escape small groups of the strangely obsessed on the Internet. The world is so large that I can’t hide without removing myself from the blogging world and I’m not about to do that.

So, today I take off the foot gag. Today, I take off the sneezing gag (though I really have nothing else to say about sneezing, but if I wanted to, I could). Two less muffles stifling me. The other gags fill most of my day so I refuse to collect any more.