So Sallie Says

“Wow, you would look so good with a nose ring” is not something anyone has ever said to me,  but they should have because it’s the truth. If you thought my greatest asset was my hilarious writing or my emotional resilience in the face of minor inconvenience, you’re wrong. It’s my nose.

Every three years or so, I flirt with the idea of piercing it. Picture me and my perfect nose with a stud or maybe a double hoop, radiating the energy of a cool mom who just might leave the corporate rat race behind and start a wildly successful blog while traveling cross-country in a Volkswagen Westfalia. Anyway, back here in reality, I’ve aged into the decade where public reaction would be more sympathetic than supportive.  Like, “Oh… she must be going through something.” And while normally I love any sort of attention, including people pitying me, I think I have to save face in this instance, literally. 

It’s not like I’ve always been cool but got boring with time. My stance on body adornment has always been as reserved as someone’s nonna’s. Actually, moreso: I don’t even have my ears pierced. I wasn’t allowed to get them done until a certain age, and by then I could think too critically about how weird it is to just stick something through your flesh on a regular basis. Also, I was just kind of lazy. So the ears stayed as God intended them. (Utter apathy, rather than a feminist rebuke against gender norms, is also the reason I didn’t change my maiden name, if we really want to cut to the core of who I am.)

The only time I came close to doing something permanent to my body was when I was 20 and nearly got a tattoo. I understand how lame that sounds, but for context I’m also someone who says I “lived in Italy” because I studied abroad there for two months in college. Honestly though, I think it would have been even lamer if I had gone through with it. I wanted a mountain range, because at the time I thought mountains meant more to me than they do to other people. The only thing that stopped me was that the tattoo shop had an up-charge of $150 for anything below the ankles or wrists and I couldn’t afford it. So just like that, the dream died.

I found other ways to safely experiment with self-expression, but with a strong return policy. And while most of these half-sends — like a short-lived cartilage piercing and a boxed dye phase — were terrible looks and choices, they ring true to who I still am: impulsive but indecisive. 

And let me be clear. I love bold choices and beautiful tattoos and haircuts that require commitment. I love them on *you*. I’m the kind of person who will hype you up and tell you whatever you have looks amazing — and I’ll mean it. We are constantly evolving, complex, multifaceted souls that are temporarily trapped within a physical body, so who really cares what we do with it? 

Anyway, how do you guys think I would look with bangs?