The First Shave is the Deepest
Intro
Hi! Welcome to I shaved my legs for THIS?! The newsletter where I, comedian Prue Blake, review every day I shave my legs to find out if the effort was really worth it.
Throughout my life, I’ve transitioned from a daily shaver to only shaving when I want an excuse to sit down in the shower. I’ve been a firm believer in the power of a shit, a shower and a shave when you are feeling a bit off. But I’ve also seen the way that shaving your legs can absolutely ruin your chances of getting laid by broadcasting to the universe you might be down for some action.
I have a sneaking suspicion that shaving your legs or putting in that bit of extra effort (whatever that is for you) might translate to a better day on average. But with this newsletter, I am putting these days to the test by critically reviewing each shave day and rating them out of 100. Any day that scores higher than a 75 - it was worth the shave.
The Shave (4/10)
Let’s start with the shave, not just because I hope Dollar Shave Club (DSC) will sponsor me one day. Anyway, I used my executive razor from DSC which has the interchangeable head situation. It was a bit old and verging on rusty but we still went with it because - not made of money are we. I am sure with more confidence I might even provide a photo of the final product, but that day is not today because I missed the entire back half of my left leg. This when only shaving from the knee down is a pretty poor effort. Anyway, the effort I put in was low and so was the final score.
The Content (22/30)
Content this shave day was GOOD. I must confess I am a night showerer and so post-shave it was straight into bed with the laptop to finish the last two eps of I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel. I think this has been labelled a ‘consent dramady’ which in my opinion is an agonising-ly niche description for a show equal parts funny and heartbreaking that deals with consent among issues of friendship, productivity and mental health (+ more). It is like calling every other comedian show ‘a relationship drama’ or a ‘family life comedy’. The sprawling nature of the episodes meant there were some clear favourites and others I didn’t click with. But to have a satisfying ending was a true feat of genius for which I will forever be jealous. Just watch it.
I also played plenty of two dots while not sleeping/procrastinating and read about the rise of the ‘social justice slideshow’ and rich millennial landlords who refuse to rent at mates rates. Also listening to every bit of material I can get my hands on about the dramas at Bon Appetit and the way they are destroying their profitable video empire rather than actually just paying people for their work. You can catch up by listening to The Sporkful eps (here and here) and through Joe Rosenthal’s stories here. Bonus points if you stay for the mouldy sqirl jam stories.
The Food (20/30)
Okay so this is my favourite part of any day. I have been indoctrinated into the cult of intermittent fasting (skipping breakfast) so we only have two meals to work with.
The first was brunch and the meal was sardines on pan con tomate with parsley and lemon. I feel like sardines is still a gross sounding meal but it was fucking yum, and lets face it, I need any fucking brainfood I can get. This entire experience was ruined by my housemate taking a photo of me in the ‘nice light’. I correct for being unphotogenic by aggressively not posing in photos. This is not a strategy I recommend. It ends with you having 280 degrees of your body compressed flat on the page as if it was just your front. Total recipe for extreme body dysmorphia and a bad day. Anyway, I’ve included the photo here for you to see exactly why 10 points have been taken off this section.
Anyway, for dinner I really wanted uber eats but obviously wouldn’t allow myself because of the aforementioned body dysmorphia kicking in. So I made a pita bread pizza which is my goto junk food craving fix. It was fine verging on good.
In between all this, I probably snacked on about 10 mini kitkats even though I know Nestle is pure evil they are just so damn addictive and I couldn’t stop myself.
The Social Stuff (15/30)
No sex, but had a nice masked walk with my friend despite the weather being miserable and cold. Talked to my mum on the phone while walking home while she was in the car home from work (Queenslander). Reminded me of this math problem:
“If a parent is driving south towards Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast at 110km an hour and talking to her daughter on the phone travelling east on foot at a speed of 5km an hour, how long until they piss each other off?
Not fucking long.”
Final Rating (61/100)
Overall a slightly above average day but I was definitely grading on a curve. Still not enough to deem the effort of shaving worth it. A formidably average first data point on this experiment.