In Which I Say "Embrace Your Quirks!"

OK, I just saw online where Jewel (the singer) had her teeth "fixed."  This infuriates me, and I'll tell you why.  I LOVE QUIRKINESS.  I love uniqueness, variety, however you wanna say it.  I think sameness is boring and highly unoriginal. 
Now, if you've got, say, a serious jaw problem that makes it difficult to eat, or, for instance, teeth like my nieces cousin Masamichi, who had teeth the size of the state of Texas (I can say this because he lives in Japan and will never see this.) In cases like those, you should get your teeth fixed.  If there's something so wrong with your teeth or your nose or whatever that it makes it difficult for health reasons or because it's so hideous, you can't take the emotional scarring...then get it fixed.  But if you've got something cute and different and a little bit odd about you, it makes you YOU, so leave it alone!
My husband and my daughter Brenna both have the same crooked tooth in exactly the same spot.  I think it's adorable!  My mother and most of the members of my family on her side have slightly crisscrossed front teeth.  One of my cousins has them and I think it makes her even more beautiful than she already is!  I got braces when I was a teen, supposedly to keep my teeth perfectly straight.  It didn't work, they moved back to pretty much where they were.  My bottom middle two lean in towards each-other, my top middles have made an attempt at crossing like my mom's, but not quite made it.  And on one of my bottom middle teeth, there's a little yellow/orangey spot, something about a high fever when I was little or something.  For my entire life, people have thought it was a little piece of Dorito.  I used to freak out about it.  Now, I don't give a rat's hiney.  And I know if they ever found me dead, they wouldn't even need dental records.  Just open my mouth and look for the "Dorito."  It's MY tiny Dorito-looking thing on my tooth, and therefore, I love it.  SO THERE!
My first boyfriend ever had a big ol nose.  It wasn't so much that it was huge, exactly, but more that it had one of those hook-looking things at the bridge.  He HATED it.  I loved it.  A gazillion years later, I got to see his baby girl, and she has the same nose.  It's adorable even on a little girl!
My sister had a mole taken off her nose when she was a teen. To this day, I miss it!  It was just tiny, and it didn't take over her face or anything.  Just a tiny little place that made her HER.  It's supposed to be there, and it still mildly bothers me that it isn't.
I have a friend who's got a very small gap between his two front teeth.  It's cute, it makes his smile unique.  We argue over whether or not this is an "imperfection" (his words) or a special thing that makes him unique (my words.)  If anybody doubts that a gap in one's front teeth can be absolutely adorable, they need to see my cousin Claire.  She's 6, she has a gap, and she's perfect in every way. 
It just seems like these days, people get everything "fixed" till everyone looks the same.  If you read entertainment magazines (which we all know I do, see entry number 2!)  you will notice that almost all young starlets look alike.  It's very hard to tell who is who.  I hate the overprocessed, bleached hair, braces (or caps) tiny noses, perfect skin, boob-job, botoxed looking  pictures of all these people who look exactly the same. 
What I love are celebrities who have something a little weird and quirky about them that they keep.  I love Meghan Fox's weird fingers, Lilly Collin's huge eyebrows, Padma Lakshmi's arm scar, Anna Paquin's tooth gap, Owen Wilson's nose that's been broken a zillion times, and I USED to love Jewel Kilcher's crooked teeth.  Now, she looks like everybody else.  In MY mind, she just lost about 50 cool points.