"Did You Just See That Coach Flaming Across The Mall Parking Lot?"

Once, during the brief time between parking my car and walking into a Cincinnati mall, my purse caught on fire. I smelled smoke, looked around me assuming someone’s car was overheating in the humid summer weather and instead noticed a black plume of smoke coming out of my usually calm brown Coach bag. I have to admit my shock as I stopped, dropped the expensive handbag, and attempted to roll it across the parking lot. I found that an overly dramatic and attention-seeking book of matches had miraculously lit themselves to start my most unusual purse fire.

Wardrobe Division

A designer posed a question about color asking “why designers stick to wearing black and designing in color?” The answer on wearing black came quickly to me.

I didn’t feel I was given a choice to wear color. In my mother’s mind color (especially on the bottom) was reserved for the very smallest of frames. The same thinking went for print (especially on the bottom).

Bright color and look-at-me-prints were for the starving-blond-elite who have lived in old homes for as long as their families have been in this country (which is a long time), who have hair that won’t curl no matter how stormy the day, whose bottom won’t stand out in the brightest Lily Pulitzer fuchsia and green-frog-printed-capri-pant right after a Memorial Day picnic at their cottage up north or in the Hampton’s or the shore or wherever the thin and hairless go for the summer.

Wherever on the map, these clothes I was told plainly were not for me, not for us. And I have abided with a closet full of black pants, black capris, black yoga pants, dark denim jeans, one daring pair of guilt-ridden navy.

I went with a friend to a local Jewish temple picnic when I was looking for a place to join shortly after we moved here. She told me they were very open to couples of mixed religions. I guess I hadn’t prepared my self for what this could mean visually. I walk in to find a perfect-looking blond mother in her electric-Lily Pulitzer-shift dress with her two matching daughters at her side. “I have to leave” I told my friend. “This is clearly no place for me.” I walked away in my matching black top, capris, and black sandals catching no attention. Able to slip in and out like a burglar in the night.

Finally Fashionable

This is from, http://iwantigot.geekigirl.com/2008/09/25/crazy-lady-is-now-a-trend/Crazy Lady is now a trend.

I can't believe the fashion elite started following my crazy lady looks. I have long since been wearing two different shoes, two different earrings, and the daily two different socks.

Bring on the multiple necklaces of elephants and plastic beads paired with aluminum cowboy and bumble bee pins. I secretly feared I would have to wait until I was elderly to die my hair blue and accessorize with plastic fruit. My day has come and I am ready.