Crazy Thoughts, Part II

Today's crazy thoughts have to do with "ethnic heritage." I read from time to time that some people get the business from their relatives for tinkering with their ethnicity as expressed in their noses. Fortunately for me, my relatives are all in favor of subjugating our ethnicity except when it comes to food. Christmastime rolls around and we're all babcis rolling out pierogi dough.

The beauty part is that no one really knows, entirely, what we are, and it's a secret that died with my grandmother. My grandmother met her biological father once and never spoke about him. We're Polish as far as we know (I'm Slovak and Welsh on Dad's side), but people ask me, my mom, and my aunts all the time if we're Italian, Greek, Jewish, Syrian, or Lebanese.

I have this little romantic fantasy that one day, I'll be in the Cinque Terre and I'll happen across "my people." Yes, they'll say, everyone from this village has that nose, or those eyes. Maybe they'll know who my great-grandfather was (left for America at 14 to seek his fortune, they'll say; he became a very rich and powerful man who built the first hospital in this provincia after the war). And one of the town's venerable families will invite me to their lovely villa, and roast a wild boar in onore di their long-lost American cousin, and perhaps they have a dashing single neighbor who lives in the neighboring villa and has a fondness for Americans and we'll live happily ever after, eating risotto and overlooking the Ligurian Sea.

But back here in reality, I wonder what I'm going to look like after the surgery. Doc didn't do any of the computer imaging stuff you've heard about, which is just as well since you don't really know which way your nose is going to heal, I guess. But will people still think I look Italian, Greek, or whatever? What if Helen of Troy and I have the same nose? I'm giving the heave-ho to an ethnic heritage I never knew I had. Alternately, I suppose my nose could have nothing to do with it and I could end up looking very exotic, who knows?

My last few crazy thoughts, which probably aren't crazy enough to not ask Doc about, is that I'm wondering if I'll be able to flare my nostrils or scrunch my nose any more? Also, what if I'm one of those people who can no longer smell anything (yes, I've read this happens to some people)? Hmmm...maybe that's a good thing for dieting.