I have two things, well, three, about myself that I particularly dislike and thus obsess over. My nose, my smile and my body. I am too fat, too impish looking, and I have a complete and utter button-nose.

Button noses are cute. When you’re five. When you’re 25? 30? I just look like a really tall elf. I mean, I’ve had that “elf” comparison thing said to me my whole life. I remember being 17 and learning Photoshop. I would up the contrast on my photos until my nose just dissolved completely. I felt so powerful. I could just MAKE IT DISAPPEAR. I could not smile, and blank out my nose, and only take a picture of my head, floating in space and perfectly angled.

AND THEN I WOULD BE OKAY. That’s an awful lot of focus and ridiculousness over something as small as a button nose and a fat ass. Like, really, does anyone really give a shit? No. But I sure have!

One year I photoshopped my dad a christmas card or birthday card, I can’t remember. But I put myself in it, all contrasted and angled. HE ACTUALLY SAID, “Who is that?”

I said, “ME!”

And he said, “OH!”

Yeah, that was a little wakeup call for me to step away from the insecurity for a little bit.

After getting more “You don’t LOOK fat” comments from OKcupid, I decided to do this photo set. I allowed myself to get hippy-art-fag about it. Taking pictures through the glass so I’d be “ghost like” and like, represent my real self blurred by the camera’s lens, and pressing my nose into the glass to shove it into an even more pig-like look.. WHATEVER, I WAS HIGH, JUST GO WITH ME ON THIS. And I tried to get my NOSE in the forefront. SHOW THAT SUCKER. In all it’s ski-shoot shaped glory! Freckles and all. I also got a nice big shot of my belly and thighs lookin’ especially rotund. See, I carry all my weight in my boobs, my thighs and ass. I’m built like a fat cartoon lady character. I’m pretty sure I’d get mistaken for a character in a Bug’s Bunny cartoon if I ever decided to start wearing bright red with white polka dots 1940′s style dresses.

Anyway, here’s me, trying to be artsy, and finding beauty in myself despite those things I am insecure about:

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