Faking it

Not that.

So I’m back from the land of the free- and it turns out of the fake- fake tans, nails, teeth, I suspect rather more fake faces than I’m used to and just an astonishing amount of fake boobs.

I’m afraid the fakery leaves me cold and in the numerous cases of what must have been barely eighteen year olds with new, large and frankly just silly looking boobs actually quite upset. Boobs are just boobs though, the idea of near children having surgery to change their faces is always something I’ve been uncomfortable with- although I accept that if I had the nose of a Roman general I might feel differently. I am far, far away from perfect and I’m sure if I walked into any cosmetic (not plastic as they do do some remarkable work) surgeon they would like to improve me in many ways- but where does that end?

Nevertheless I am vain and easily led and thus found myself in a salon having my nails done while on holiday. I don’t think is anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately the nails I got given were very wrong, for me. They are gloriously plastic, wide and with those white tips that are sartorial suicide. Great- I paid for this. See I fail every time at being honest when hairdressers, beauticians et al ask if I like something- I always say yes when the answer is no. So when I said something natural looking and started getting anything but I didn’t have the courage to say on what planet is this natural? I actually said yes those are really lovely (it was like an out of body experience).

Now the point of this is not to share my pain with you all- but to say how funny-peculiar the fakery is making me feel. I literally have fake plastic stuck to me with super glue, I cannot get it off with my own hands. It’s not actually how they look it’s how they feel- there is more of me there than there should be and when I touch things, hit the keys, hold the pen, my hand doesn’t feel my own. I can’t open cans properly and when I touch someone, something it’s not quite right; the flesh of the apricots in the shop last night was find under my palms but when my fake hands got the side it felt like nails screeching up a blackboard.

These are just nails. How must it feel to have alien collagen inside you, or indeed have some of your bone cut away, or bits of tissue moved around? Perhaps I am just funny and it feels wonderful to some, most people. It’s not for me though if I’m honest. It might be the path to more mass appreciation (and here my nails are a bad example, there are plenty of people who are cool rather than me with my wide scary white nails, who probably aren’t all they seem, from a fake bake here to some subtle work there) but you have to be comfortable in your own skin don’t you. Or I do- and I’ll take the consequences.