nasal revelations

yesterday i visited a clinic to see about some recurring, extreme nosebleeds i'd been having, and i learned a few things.

1. it is a surreal experience to have two strangers looking up and inserting objects into my nose.
2. getting one's nostril cauterized without anesthetic is freaking painful.
3. i have a crooked nose.

it is item #3 that this post is concerned about.

i had no idea! my partner tells me that it's always been crooked and he just assumed that i knew. the doctor told me that my deviated septum (as a crooked nose is called in the medical community) is caused by a serious blow to the face, resulting in a broken nose. but i've never broken my nose. have i? could i have broken it and not noticed?

i called my dad. he was as surprised as i to hear that my nose is crooked and was once broken. we reviewed my youthful facial injuries together, and came up with nothing. the only serious blow my face has ever sustained was to my eyebrow.

how the hell does a person break her nose without noticing? wikipedia says it could have happened as i descended the birth canal, but how does a person go through life with a noticeably crooked nose without noticing? here, take a look.

head-on. notice how the nose points to your left?
with my head turned, so my nose is symmetrical. you can see from my glasses frame that my head is turned quite a bit.

ok, so i'm not owen wilson, but the fact that i survived my self-obsessed adolescence without noticing a crooked nose is astounding. am i utterly deluded and have no idea how i actually look? am i so utterly unselfconscious that i never bothered to look? i don't think that's it. i spent as much time obsessing into the mirror as any other teenager.

i'm making up for it now. brushing my teeth last night was bizarre. this huge, crooked schnoz stared me down. i had to go finish cleaning my teeth in the kitchen. it's become overwhelmingly obvious, taking over my whole face. i prefer not to look up when i'm washing my hands.

what next, do i have some tattoos on my hands that i've never noticed and don't remember getting? will additional kids i've birthed and raised without realizing it start popping up?