Weird Can Be Beautiful - Right

Had a short talk with a good friend this morning in which "dress up" was talked about. Nothing in depth. Just kind of 'mentioned in passing'.

I like playing dress up. Or, I should say, I like the idea of it. Don't actually do it. Don't have many clothes, and those I do have kind of all look the same. Not much fun dressing up to look the same.

If you scroll down a bit you'll see three pictures of me in various forms of dress which are unremarkably similar. That's pretty much how I dress all the time, although none of those particular articles of clothing remain. Pity about the top outfit. That was my favorite. It got washed so many times that it tore when I scratched an itch. But I generally wear sweat pants, or perhaps oversized tennis shorts (I'm still overweight), with a t-shirt and a polo shirt (sometimes) on top. My feet are usually bare.

I envy women, being able to walk into a store and see such a variety of things to wear. The variety in guy stuff seems to be more in color than style. What a pity we gave up the days when men got to wear frills, puffy sleaves, exotic hats, and things. Of course, I don't know that I want to shave my head and wear a puffy wig just to keep the lice away, either. But when men dressed like that they had to feel elegant and grand. Somewhere along the line somone decreed that men had to give up the cool outfits and dress boring.

When I was still in kindergarten my Aunt Cile (Lucille) stored her costume jewlery in a huge dresser my parents kept in our garage. My sisters and I were allowed to go into the garage and play dress up. At first I wasn't allowed to join in. Just wasn't done, you know. But I cried and Daddy said it didn't matter. He was probably embarassed to see me running around with giant earings on my ears, beaded necklaces around my neck, and some of Aunt Cile's blouses and gloves draping off my body, but he didn't seem worried about me. (Perhaps he should have been.) Now that I think of it, Daddy was quite progressive in his thinking.

I miss being able to dress up and look fine, and grand, and beautiful. Supposedly, (when I was much, much younger), I was something to see when I was "dressed to the hilts". I bought a three-piece suit back in the days when you were supposed to have to be important to wear one. Spent all my money to get it. Every once in a while I would wear it. Just because. I was in my early twenties. Still thin. Reasonably muscular. Wasn't married then, but I got Spouse's attention.

If I dressed like that now I'd probably look like another fat Wall-Street pig.

Can't really do dress up anymore, for a variety of reasons. Not for real. Not the way I would like. So I do it with imagination and stories. I create hero and villain characters with some on-line software and write stories about them. (See Legion of On-Line Super Heroes blog.) I use computer characters as alter egos and dress them up to be pretty, scary, sexy, monstrous, or whatever suits me. It's a different kind of theatre. (I need to start a community theatre. When I know what community I'll be living in perhaps I will.) I save the images to my hard drive to use in subsequent stories I will write.

I guess I'm kind of weird, aren't I? But you know what? I don't mind anymore. I'm finding I like me better when I admit the truth to myself.

I am weird! Hear me roar!

Now. Whatever did we do with those earrinngs and beaded necklaces?