The next day I attended my first after-school rehearsal., Directing the production was Ms. Manishevitz, the school's drama teacher. I didn't know how old she was - young enough for pigtails; old enough for pigtails to emphasize a bald spot - and I didn't care. I couldn't invest the time in trying to figure it out because I was too frequently distracted by her nostrils. A half-inch long and a millimeter wide, they looked like mail slots and were, by far, the most compelling set I'd ever seen. You could forget what day it was looking at those things, and until you got used to them, until they ceased to surprise you, it was easy to ignore the other offsetting facets of their owner. You could ignore the fact that judging by the rest of her appearance, Ms. Manishevitz thought she was heading out not for a day teaching drama to children ages eleven to fourteen, but rather to Burning Man or back a few decades to Woodstock. Someeplace for hippies to gather and swap rain stick and chlamydia. Her accessories featured an impressive amount of hemp and highlighted the obvious absence of a brassiere. A tie-died bandanna she felt naked without, an array of floor-length peasant skirts that turned transparent in fluorescent light. Underarms like lint collectors. How she got away with these sorts of fashion antics surrounded on all sides by tweens chomping at the bit for someone to humiliate? Faculty who knew enough to wear brassieres? I can only think it's because we were all too taken with her nose to notice.
- Sara Barron, People Are Unappealing * Even Me, pp.20-21
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