My Massive Nose and Me

Before I hit my teens, I never really noticed the size of my nose. This is surprising, since those who have personally met me will know that it is somewhat easy to notice.

I have a very big nose.

I'll paint you a picture. If noses had personalities, mine would be brash, probably pretty cruel and determined to steal the spotlight. If people were noses, my nose would be Ann Widdecombe: large, would be very out of place in a televised dancing competition, potentially lovable for all its imperfections but let's face it - nobody would go out of their way to catch a glimpse of it.

Then I hit my teens, and I knew I couldn't ignore this uselessly large vessel plonked rather inconveniently on my face any longer. After careful consideration, I noted two options. The first was to simply cry and wait - wait for a nose job whilst being in a permanent fit of tears between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. The other was to just...ignore it. Focus on other things such as education and growing a nice bum, like Beyoncé. Develop a talent, preferably sporting so boys would think I was fitter. Become funny, so people would too busy laughing at my pithy one liners to notice that my nose was a good 7cm in front of the rest of my body.

As you can see, thirteen year old logic didn't leave me with many choices. It did not take long to suss out that crying makes you look even more of a wretched hag and highly unapproachable, so the first option was ruled out immediately. The second was also somewhat ambitious; nine years have passed and I still have the bum of a pre-pubescent boy, I gave up on sporting because P.E. kits just weren't very "me" and I suppose my sense of humour was never universally appreciated (and shockingly still isn't).

But it didn't matter, in the end, because I found a figure that made me feel very much alright about having a big nose. A figure that made me feel as though it didn't matter that my nose made me look pretty unspectacular. My real breakthrough came in the shape of my crooked nose queen, my big snozzled soul sister: Ashlee Simpson.

For those of you who don't know who that is and had perfectly content teenage years because I suppose you've always looked like a fucking goddess, Ashlee Simpson is Jessica's sister of the Daisy Duke fame. She had a short lived and rather tame musical career in "pop punk" with singles such as "Boyfriend" and erm...not too sure, don't remember, which says it all really. But anyway, Ashlee was on the scene when my pre-teen self was on a total downer over her looks and struggling to find herself - and just like me, Ashlee had a generously sized nose. She was successful and looked so beautiful. I found this to have a profoundly hopeful impact on me.

That did not last. I still remember the day when I discovered that Ashlee - the supposed cure to my insecurity - paid to get her nose broken and reshaped into something a bit daintier. I was a bit older at this point but no less gutted. Like me, she did not have the perfect nose I so desperately desired. She did not look as conventionally beautiful as other pop stars, yet still made her own mark. But she still got rid of the flaw that we shared instead of embracing it and that almost symbolised the end of hope for me.

I got over it, though. The one consolation that brings me joy to this day is how downhill it all went for old Ashlee post-nose job. She hasn't had one hit single since "Boyfriend". She's married then divorced Fall Out Boy bassist and Total Hot Dude Pete Wentz.



You take away the nose and what's left? WHAT'S LEFT, ASHLEE?!

And the trend stands for other celebrities who may once have been previously looked up to and admired, just like I did with Ashlee. Even in my wildest dreams, it makes me feel as though #KeepTheBigBeak is a campaign that could actually take off. Take Ashley Tisdale - does anybody actually know what she's done career wise since High School Musical? Not to mention Joan Rivers - maybe at some point in her life she was likeable, but it was never post-rhinoplasty, and now she says terrible things about other celebrities to make a living. Plus, let me tell you one thing about that Rebecca Adlington -

Oh okay, she won an Olympic medal for Great Britain. Whatever.

In Defence of Selfies: It's YOUR Face

My friend has a theory. It might not be backed up by scientific evidence, nor has she phrased it very articulately, but judging by the pained expression she's pulling, she's pretty serious about it anyway.

"Selfies.." she begins a tone that warns there is no room for debate. "Selfies are for losers. Like, I don't understand. Why would you want to have a picture of yourself clearly not having a life? It's just so 'Year 9'"

As a self confessed selfie fan, her theory unhinges me somewhat. Sitting meekly with a head full of counter arguments but no guts to voice them aloud, I ponder my own current Facebook profile picture - a selfie. The self conscious pre-teen voice that lay dormant within me suddenly jerks back to life with a fretting monologue; is that...a universal thought? I worry. Or is it just her? Oh god, I don't know. But the thing is, my hair is pink and my lashes look long and my lips are the good shade of red and for a change - for a really pleasant, welcome change - I quite like how I look in that picture.

This is said selfie. I was a nerdy Nicki Minaj. Now I'm just nerdy again..

Looking back now - hundreds upon hundreds of selfies later - I realise that's actually the whole point; you should like how you look in pictures. You should at least try to. Whether that picture was taken with your webcam at home because your hair looked alright or when you were riding that elephant in a bikini with your mate in Thailand, if that's the little snapshot of you that you wish to present to the world then crack on. It's your face.

But you might not have the most straightforward of relationships with that face. It could be a tumultuous one; a love affair one day, then hitting a rocky patch the next and wanting to cover it up with a balaclava, for the rest of your natural life if possible. You might not have the kind of face that cameras love, and your goddamn friends always seems to capture you at your worst angles - double chin and all.

Now here, here is where the true beauty of the selfie lies.

With a selfie, you are in control. You can actually determine if your Facebook friends can see that double chin or not! Your hair can be perfectly coiffed; makeup tastefully applied; skin glowing; your best angle captured and projected for the world to see. Surely, this is empowering. I know when I take a successful selfie where my double chin is artfully concealed and my generously sized nose is less obvious, I get a little self confidence boost. They don't come around very often, so why should I be made to feel bad for them?

Plus, consider your surroundings. In day to day life, images of supposed "perfection" are thrust at you from all angles regardless of if you've got the strength to shrug them off or not. Achingly beautiful women and men with looks that could stop traffic modelling clothes on shop windows; club promoters so effortlessly stunning it feels as though the effort you've made for the night wasn't worth much, after all; actors and actresses on movie posters outside of the cinema - again, with head turning, heart racing looks that are difficult to ignore. Why shouldn't you try and do what you can to fit that bill sometimes if it gives your self esteem the little raise it needs?

Today, Glasgow - my current "home" - was ranked 37th for cities in the whole world with the most selfies taken. After initial concern that I accounted for at least half of them, I realised just how strangely brilliant this news was. Perhaps the beauty of trying to find your own beauty via a selfie is not just passed off as exclusively for "losers" after all. I'm so glad of it. Because in that smile or pout towards your phone camera is an attempt to love yourself, and as somebody who continues to fight in an eternal struggle to do exactly that, I could not encourage selfies any more.

 

 

I Am A Chubby, Irritable Seal

Every four weeks or so, I become a bit furious. As my skin gains a few more spots, foundation stops being a "once-in-a-while" thing and becomes an "absolute necessity or you'll frighten the infants of Glasgow". I pack make up wipes in my hand bag, in case I see something vaguely poignant and burst into bitter, inexplicable tears. Showering twice a day is acceptable, to get rid of the floods of grease woven through my hair. I make open, frequent noises of exasperation to the general public - tuts and sighs, mostly. My jeans become a bit tighter. I frown a lot.

Have you figured it out yet?

Yes, these are all signifiers of mother nature's monthly "gift", though answers on a postcard as to who came up with that metaphor - "gift" infers something pleasant and unexpected, but a period is highly unpleasant and anticipated with nothing but contempt. Sure, I'm not pregnant and I'm pretty pleased about it, but I do now deserve these five days of hell?!

How I currently look and feel.

Now, I'm not usually one to moan about being a girl. Regrettably, I can only empty my bladder sitting down and do occasionally wonder what the magical peeing mobility men have is like...but aside from that, the "being female" experience gets a big thumbs UP from me. I love to perpetuate what is my own personal definition of femininity and I love to celebrate other women's, too; but dude, I really, really don't love periods.

For a start, I don't love unreasonably intensified emotions; I'm impartial to a good weep every now and then, but crying at the mere sight of baby's smile, a particularly unforgiving hangover or a friend's mildly inspiring story of buying a top she quite liked in Topshop is just a waste of precious mascara. Not to mention the anger; suddenly when your hormones are heightened, so is your ability to rage at absolutely anything. Even the most mild mannered and pleasant of women can experience these tinges of wild, unjustified wrath. I would say I've been properly, fist-shaking angry at least three times today. Why? I don't want to tell you. Because my reasons are absurd.

When asked how a period physically feels, my friend Becca sombrely replied with "death". Since I've never, y'know, died, I can't confirm if that's a fair judgement, but I can admit that the pain is pretty dire. Period pain is not just the occasional twinge in your stomach. It is not something that can be easily cured with your mother's old remedy of "rubbing your tummy and having a poo"; it is a sharp, constant ache in your abdomen that can make any movement painful. That said, some women claim to never experience period pain as they "exercise regularly" - you should wave your fist at those women on their healthy high horse, all the way from your sweaty pit of a bed.

Furthermore, periods do not make your hair shine, nails stronger and skin glow like a lighthouse. They do the complete opposite. Obviously I can't speak on the science behind it all, but around this time of the month is when your skin becomes prone to spots the size of Ben Nevis popping up all over your face. As mentioned before, grease also appears in your hair. For me though, the worst part is becoming bloated around the face and belly due to water retention (or something?? Not sure?), which makes it incredibly hard to have any kind of body confidence - already quite a hard thing to achieve even in the slimmer times of the month. Currently, if you lightly slap my belly, it will jiggle around a bit for around a good second and a half, which does not ordinarily happen. I'm quite pissed off about it.

Fortunately, there's a major catch in what I've just described for the menfolk of the universe: you are gleefully free from it all! As well as being able to pee where ever you like (amazing! AMAZING!!) you are more or less consistently of the same mind frame, which must make it difficult to understand life with oestrogen, extraordinarily priced tampons and walking around with a towel between your legs.

Sere are some wise tips from me - a mere, incredibly hormonal woman; boys, tread carefully, even when she's being irrational. Love patiently, even though she's pretty hard to love when she's throwing the TV remote at you. Compliment generously, though actually, her bum does look a bit big in that. She might not be great right now, but it's a biological thing; and like Marilyn said, if you can't handle her at her worst, then you don't deserve her when she's back at her bloody fabulous best when this month's episode is all over.