sTORI Telling
PROLOGUE
When you're a kid, you don't worry what anyone thinks. You go around saying whatever pops into your head or picking your teeth, and it never occurs to you that someone might think you're gross, awkward, or ridiculous. That was me -- picking my nose, snorting when I laughed, wearing white after Labor Day -- I just was who I was. That all changed one day at the tender age of twelve when I was getting ready for a family photo. We were having a formal family portrait taken with our dogs (doesn't everyone do that?), and I was getting frustrated with my bangs. I couldn't get them to do whatever a twelve-year-old in 1985 wanted bangs to do. So I went into my parents' bathroom, all dressed up, with my hair done as best I could manage, and asked my mother, "Am I pretty?"
She looked at me and said, "You will be when we get your nose done."
I was stunned. My nose, as noses tend to be, was right in the middle of my face, and I had just been told that it was ugly. So long, innocence.
To be fair, let the record show that my mother has absolutely no recollection of making this comment. I know this because in high sch ... read full excerpt from Stori Telling ebook
