champagne_rising: This is one crazy bird:

I'm not going to take the judgemental road in this case: that would be too obvious. At the risk of sounding like I'm being contrary for contrary's sake, the truth is I find Macaroni-For-Brains Heidi Montag so transparently, unabashedly self-conscious it's hard to fault her for going under the knife again. The peroxide has just gone to her head. If it's Nicolette Sheridan she wants to become, then by all means, let her at it (is that just me? Doesn't she look a little Nicolette-esque in the After photo?).

I dished on Heidi before when she actually admitted that she'd rather die in plastic surgery than continue suffering through a small-breasted, dramatic-nosed life spent hating every other bikini babe God gifted with better cleavage. At that point, I took the judgemental road. The "you'd actually DIE for those life preservers?" road. Nose job, boob job, those were predictable "welcome to Hollywood" procedures; show me a made-for-MTV starlet that hasn't done the same. I was mostly just surprised by the cavalier attitude with which she faced Death-By-Nosejob. And I can't stand that strange Sponge-Bob-Headed "husband" of hers for happily pushing princess off onto the scalpel in the name of another corny, staged post-op photo-op on the beach.

But now noodle-brain has done it again: Spencer Pratt's more preternatural half racked up a laundry list of 10 more procedures

- and (we're led to believe) nearly died. Her face was immobile. She was over-medicated. Her respiration was cryo-chamber-slow. Close call. But ask her why she took the risk and you get this justification:

"I was made fun of when I was younger, and so I had insecurities, especially
after I moved to L.A. People said I had a "Jay Leno chin"; they'd circle it on
blogs and say nasty things. It bothered me. And when I watched myself on The
Hills, my ears would be sticking out likle Dumbo! I just wanted to feel more
confident and look in the mirror and be like, "Whoa! That's me!" I was an ugly
duckling before."

Here's why I can't help feeling this strange, misplaced sort of endearment toward this head case: she takes the inevitable insecurities that most girls THINK, but she actually speaks them.

And then gets surgery to correct them...ten times over.

Of course "women" (whom no article ever specifically finds, quotes, or credits, by the way, with the predictable exception of her equally attention-whorish Hills co-stars) are screaming that she's sending the wrong message to young girls, that she's a billboard for everything wrong with Barbie-doll pop culture.

I'm not so sure that's true.

Show me the young girl that actually wants to Be Like Heidi. Kids are savvy these days: they can smell desperation a mile away - they cruise D-Listed, they know she's a laughing stock (see above quote. Funny how the surgeries haven't made anyone any LESS likely to make fun of her...hmmmm).

I'd be hard pressed to find an impressionable 15 year-old who models any part of her life after the Heidi. Heidi's more like Octo-mom: an obviously maladjusted girl living in an entirely different universe than the rest of us who simply doesn't know when to stop. An agonizingly insecure perfectionist that thinks a brow lift will make everything better (much like Octo-Mom who seems to think having a varsity squad to love her means she'll eventually love herself).

She's a girl who's dad probably didn't tell her she was beautiful nearly enough. A girl without the social filters to know it's best to lay low after procedures like these, not meet Billy Bush for happy hour as soon as the band-aids come off. A girl slowly erasing what makes her distinct and becoming less recognizeable, hoping that one day she'll wake up and deem the stranger's face in the mirror finally as good as everyone else's. The trick: she won't even recognize herself.

Here's the thing: I can't honestly say that, given the money, the opportunity and the public over-exposure that I wouldn't get lipo'd....or maybe have my "buttocks augmented." I'm probably a similarly dangerous combination of vain and self-conscious that makes me particularly likely to compare myself against everyone else and decide I need improvement.

Sure, I was made fun of.

My ears stuck out like a mouse.

My arms were "hairy as a monkey."

My bottom lip was too much bigger than my top lip, my hair looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket, my Inspired-by-the-Baby-Sitters-Club fashion choices meant that people went to halloween parties dressed up like me (ooooh, that one stuck with me for years).