I don’t give a damn about your fashion sense.
3am. I have a horrible habit of being awake at this hour; it’s the magic hour for me, that hovering moment of breathless pause teetering just on the cusp between morning and night, that time when the sky is darkest and that deep, soft blanket of blue threatens to turn so black that you feel as if you can reach right beyond that seething envelope of atmosphere to touch the cold and endless reaches of space. The stars are always brightest at 3am, those nebulous balls of burning gas reaching thousands upon millions of light years through the void so that we, mere mortals, can see their churning and awesome vastness as nothing more than bright, merry dots against a yawning sky, eternal yet ephemeral.
Perhaps such a moment was a little too momentous for something as mundane as a craving for Dilettante’s chocolate-covered espresso beans, but then irreverence is one of my hallmarks - so I suppose it’s not so surprising that when faced with such a tableau of inspiring tranquility, I was hunched inside my jacket and swearing in six different languages about the wind crawling down the collar of my coat to where even the heavy layers of my hair couldn’t protect me, lapping its cold and stinging tongue against my neck and making me shiver for the entire walk across the street to the 24/hour Wal-Mart. It wasn’t an uncommon trip, and among the regular night employees there I’m not an uncommon sight. They know I’m a night owl, an insomniac, and a bit of a kook. They smile when they see me, ask how I’ve been, how the book’s going, man is my hair getting long - while I laugh and ask how are the kids, how is school, tease the night stockers stuck working the register when they’d rather be in the back doing their regular work.
A trip to Wal-Mart is nothing special, so I don’t feel as if I have to get particularly dressed up for it. I wouldn’t be caught dead in public in sweats and a stained t-shirt, but I didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary about what I wore that night: faded and frayed boot-cut jeans, a black System of a Down t-shirt, my heavy black arse-whomping boots, and my new leather jacket (…which I apparently could have gotten on sale if I’d waited a little bit). Hair loose around my shoulders, reading glasses on, no jewelry save for a watch, the two tiny silver hoops piercing my right ear, and my usual black leather cord necklace. I didn’t look strange. I didn’t look bad, or good. I just looked absolutely, perfectly ordinary.
Ordinary is never good enough for Miss Priss.
Who is Miss Priss? Miss Priss is this young man of particularly diva-ish persuasion who works the night shift at Wal-Mart. Miss Priss and I have been circling each other like feral wolves vying for territory since day one, as apparently we set each others’ gaydar pinging and neither of us is particularly fond of the genus of Homosexualus Bitchinus that the other represents. I’m a scruffy, laid-back writer with a sharp tongue and oft-used deadpan look; he’s a fashion whore with a pissily-twisted mouth and a superiority complex (or an inferiority complex that he’s trying desperately to mask).
We don’t speak to each other, save for the frigid-but-required “Thank you, and have a nice day” when he’s stuck on the register and ringing up my groceries. We avoid eye contact. If I pass a group of people on the night crew that I’m familiar with and either stop to chat or just wave in passing, he gives me an evil look and will actually stalk off until I’m gone. In the same vein, if he’s working to stock an aisle that has something I need, I will detour around that aisle and come back later when he’s no longer in it. The virulent loathing seething in the air between us is so apparent that one of the greeters at the front door actually asked if Miss Priss and I had gotten into a fight at some point.
We don’t even know each others’ names.
It’s ridiculous, honestly. We have no reason to be so hostile towards one another beyond assumptions made about each other based on appearances, demeanor, and interpretation of the intent behind those quick, veiled little glances we keep shooting each other. We have no reason to dislike each other.
Or, should I say…we didn’t.
That night I snagged my espresso beans and a few other things I’d just remembered I was running low on (because foaming hand soap by the bathroom sink is such a necessity), and headed up to the only register open so late at night. #19 - all night, every night, never changes. Usually it’s covered by the sweet-faced girl who just gave birth to an adorable daughter and really should be on maternity leave, or the slender old woman with the eyeglasses too large for her face who would keep me there telling her about my novels all night, if she could. Sometimes it’s the girl with the unnaturally red hair who pegged me as an atheist on first glance and has made it her personal mission to convert me, down to humming gospel music when she sees me coming and just smiling the brightest, most engaging smile when I catch on to her and crack up laughing before asking how her day was. Miss Priss only works the register if all of them are off, or on break, or my luck is just particularly bad.
My luck was particularly bad that night.
I took my place in line behind a few others, glanced up to see who was working the register, and caught his eye just as he caught mine. Our expressions were likely identical: oh, no, not him. We both looked away sharply; he went back to ringing up the people in front of me, and I affixed a stony look on the rack of tabloids and ignored him. Even when my turn came, we cold-shouldered each other - not even the ritual greeting mandated by Wal-Mart customer service standards. He rang up my purchases, I swiped my debit card, and almost walked out without mishap. Almost.
As I snagged my bag from the little turntable (he’ll never take it off and hand it to me, and practically throws my receipt at me) and turned to leave, I heard, “…what are you supposed to be, some throwback to the eighties?”
Pause.
Blink.
Wait, what?
Excuse the @#!$ out of me?
That’s right, he went there. That silent hostility had just taken a lovely leap into the vocal, and I turned around and just looked at him, one brow practically vanishing into my hairline. I’m not normally particularly vituperative with strangers; it’s friends that I save the barbs for, as that’s my odd way of showing affection. I told myself not to say anything; I told myself to turn the other cheek and walk away. Instead I threw back flatly, “Mn. And how’s that blue vest working for you? Let me know when that look hits the runway.”
He snarled at me.
Feral wolves, indeed. I bared my teeth in a hiss, growl building in my throat; we might have gone at it right there in the store if the woman next in line hadn’t snapped her fingers impatiently and barked at him, “If you’re done flirting, a little help over here?” He glared at me, then turned back to work. I flicked my fingers at him dismissively and turned to walk out, absolutely seething.
I shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t worth it, and now any time we see each other there’ll likely be another verbal altercation - but I wasn’t about to take shit for wearing casual attire to Wal-Mart, especially not from an uptight little bitch sporting a cheap blue vest whose yellow smiley face constantly exhorted me to check out their Rollback prices. The fact that he came perfectly groomed to work every night, with a $100 fade in his hair and jeans and T-shirts that rather obviously came from The GAP and Banana Republic, probably contributed to the reasons why I loathed him on sight - but they sure as hell didn’t give him just cause to judge me on my fashion choices because I didn’t feel like digging my sexy International Male European suit out of the closet just to go pick up some frickin’ chocolate espresso beans.
I will never understand this fashion-obsessed culture we’ve fostered among the gay community, in which your clothing and the body you wear them on is more important than the person inside that clothing and underneath flawlessly waxed and tanned skin sheathing tight-packed muscles. There’s more to a person than that. There’s more to me than that. I am scruffy, I am scarred, I am flawed, I am utterly and unrepentantly wild and Bohemian - both inside and out. I dream in slowtime, speak in molasses and brown sugar, destroy worlds with the click of a key and rebuild them again in a myriad tumble of words like glissandos of falling glass. I love the feel of sandpaper and wood varnish under my fingers, I long to be a revolutionary, I crochet, I breathe to the deep-throbbing pulse of music, I sing atrociously, I love the sound of a V8 engine and can spend hours telling you how they work, I’m a stellar cook who still manages to nearly set the kitchen on fire any time he tries to bake something, and I melt like a purring kitten when someone touches my hair.
You can’t look at my clothing and tell that. You can’t judge the cut of my hair and know the breathless, obsessive-compulsive high that drives me to go days without sleeping while wrestling with a knotty bit of code on a new web design; you can’t look for ironed-in creases in my jeans to know that sometimes, even at age twenty-seven, I still wake up in the middle of the night terrified and sweating from the horrors that my sleeping imagination concocts. You can’t know that I love theoretical astrophysics and I’m frightened to death of spiders. You can’t know me, just because I don’t wear the brands you approve.
And you can’t define yourself by them, either.
I don’t give a damn what brand of clothing you wear. I don’t give a damn if you dare to have three hairs on your chest; I don’t give a damn if you have perfect teeth, if you drive a hot car, how often you work out, what trendy upscale restaurants you eat at. I don’t give a damn about your fashion sense. I don’t give a damn about you, if you can’t show me who you are without using your clothing and accouterments of a materialistic life to define yourself.
And I sure as hell don’t give a damn what you think of me.
#@!$ your tags right in the ear.
Listen to DR Streaming Radio
January 31st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Absolutely, unequivocally beautifully written. You are the true master of weaving words I am forced to look up in the dictionary. I love you for that. And I love your unbridled honesty. Even if you do shop at Wal-Mart. (Wink)
January 31st, 2008 at 10:08 am
Personally I think the Vaguely Rebellious In Black look is wonderful- as do a fair few male mates of mine, of varying orientations. But this is a goth amongst goths speaking, a group which may have watched Lost Boys one time too many.
People will always judge on appearance, they cannot help it. I, for one, will always get nervous when I see a group of youths wearing hoodies and nasty cheap bling, as they make me think of the kids who’ve committed quite a few vicious assaults this year. But worrying for personal safety and deciding to take a complete strunt over the issue of being high fashion *enough* are rather different things, and people who assume they know you well enough to judge you and find you lacking just from a glance at your casual wardrobe are… well, they’re barely even worth the effort of typing ‘malicious and shallow little twits’.
If he’s insulting customers like that, perhaps a quiet word with other staff or management might alleviate the issue?
January 31st, 2008 at 10:44 am
I won’t waste time sharing my personal views on this matter. You’ve already expressed them more eloquently than I ever could. I just wanted to say how refreshing it is to see there’s still people out there who can get past what they see and take the time to give a damn about what’s deeper.
To hell with the prissy b*tch and his materialistic bullsh*t. He ain’t worth your time.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:21 am
I’m with Lyndsey!
And thats exactly why I prefer meeting and hanging out with people online via the written word. They get to know me, and all my idiosyncrasies that make me utterly insane yet lovable, and make their decisions on like/dislike of my person all before they see the size of my ass, or my tattered sweatshirt that I wear every time I leave the house because it’s WARM. And baby, it’s COLD outside!
January 31st, 2008 at 11:22 am
ps - I read all that and was all in awe and stuff? Then your tags that made me snort water at my screen in amusement afterwards. hahah!
January 31st, 2008 at 11:35 am
Adri,
Do you happen to know of a female version of yourself? If I were to meet a woman who was such a master of words, with such a blissfully wry and sardonic sense of humor (just as easily directed at herself as at others) and the ability to both utterly amuse me and inspire me in the same breath…why - I’d likely throw myself at her feet and beg her to carry me off into the sunset.
As it is, I’m a gay woman, you’re a gay man - and it just ain’t gonna work.
Unfortunate, that.
j.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
First of all: AWESOME JACKET. *coughs*
There was this girl in my class, in first year of secundary education. We were 12. My dressing style was all over the map then (still is now) but all my clothes came from this store C&A. She dressed according to fashion, and didn’t pass up any occasion to tell people how her clothes came from Tiffanies and other brand stores. And she particularly loved putting me down because my clothes were cheap and I didn’t follow fashion.
I was/am very helpful and rather smart. She was a know-it-all. Most girls in my class took my side, and during gym class inspected the labels in her clothes. They were all C&A and H&M and stores like that. Same as mine.
They made fun of her as she had made fun of me.
I went up to her and offered to help her with her French.
We were never very close, but at least we smile with fond memories when we pass each other on the street today. I just hope one day you and Miss Prissy will find reason to stop snarling at each other.
Also; try wearing a scarf?
January 31st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
That’s kind of sad that you both (emphasis on both) went there, though. Still. I wear my pamjamas to Wal-Mart, when I’m desperate and there isn’t anywhere else to go. As I despise Wal-Mart and it’s one open lane and eighty thousand customers in line behind it. I wonder what Miss Priss would say about my pajamas? ~plots~
January 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I’m a terrible hypocrite, as I agree about clothes not defining a person and then pick my clothes specifically to influence how people view me. Ah well. It seems that even when people get to know the me I’m still not right for them, so I may as well stick with the clothing image (which is that of some freaky gothy rave lunatic. I have most of the people at my school regarding me as an alien).
January 31st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Haha! I think he likes you… =P
I like people like you xD It’s too bad there aren’t many. =/
*sigh* I used to be a cheery colourful girl at school until I found out the other girls thought I was a fashion terrorist ¬¬’. So, I got angry and threw everything into the black dye. xD Now, people think I’m an immature goth. Well, I do wear black laces and ribbons every now and then… ¬¬
Damn fashion victms.
Oh, one question: how can anyone like theoretical astrophysics?! I dropped out before reaching that subject. I don’t understand what’s so interesting about it. And, it’s not like I haven’t done some researching on my own. =/
January 31st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Your writing makes me fall over in jealousy, I’d just like to say.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I am impressed. This was a long post, much longer than I usually have the attention span to read. I read the entire thing and stayed completely engaged.
You write very well. At least, when you’re pissed off you do.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:04 pm
That was a very nicely written post, and I agree with many of the statements in it. I get a lot of people expecting me to be different than I am because of my clothes. And my best friend and roommate at college and I confuse people. Her wardrobe is an array of pinks and she wears long skirts most days. Whereas I am almost always found in black. Typically T-shirt and jeans… Personality wise we are a lot a like though. And people look at us and think that we are “weird roommates”. Just goes to show that people look at the surface and not the person a lot of the time.
I know the feeling of meeting someone who you almost immediately just have this general impression of dislike. The feral wolves analogy is a good one. Though I tend to have the problem with straight guys more often than anyone else. My aforementioned best friend describes it as 2 alpha males struggling over territory. Granted some of these guys have eventually become my friends, but there still is that tension between us when we are moody…
I’m rambling… I’ll stop now.
Adri S.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:16 am
Yes, yes, I know how you make fun of me for my penchant for sweater vests and the occasional turtle neck (what, they’re warm!), so I can hardly be one to comment on matters of style. Lord knows you ride me for dressing so “white” at work, too. Still, what a little bitch! I probably would have been a little more cutting than you were, though, so I will give you points for the relatively polite response.
And Lux, I am interested by theoretical astrophysics, too. *spent the ages of 8 to 12 wanting to be an astrophysicist*
February 1st, 2008 at 1:45 am
Hikaru, sweetie, I’d make fun of you no matter what you wore. You just make it too enjoyable.
Adri S.: The people I tend to have the most violent knee-jerk reaction to are straight white males, so you’re not alone there. Many of them just seem to exemplify the traits I dislike most in people. I’m always glad to be proven wrong, though.
Cole: …thanks…? I…think…
Anni: Trust me, nothing to be jealous of. Be jealous if I manage to sell a novel. Right now I’m just a hack spitting words.
Lux: To each their own. I love theoretical astrophysics, but I’m sure to me, many of the things you’re interested in would be terribly dull.
Shirvona: I went through my goth phase in school. Even living across the lake from New Orleans, practically a tattered-smoky-goth haven, I got odd looks and at times could clear a path in a crowded hallway if enough of my similarly-attired friends were with me.
Amanda: There’s actually a great deal of hypocrisy in the fact that I judged him in the same way that he judged me, just on different standards. Doesn’t change that I gave him shit for his appearance, and it only makes it marginally better that he started in on me first and I was just retaliating. I was just too pissed to be fair or self-deprecating when I responded to him and when I wrote the post. Miss Priss would probably think your pajamas were a couture fashion statement, though.
Sihaya: A scarf would imply common sense. I have none. Also, it takes a very generous person to extend a hand to someone who previously mocked and tormented them. Somehow I’m not surprised that you would do that.
Jen: I have a sister who looks a great deal like me, at least. She is, however, a tiny little twatwaffle whose inferiority complex caused by being short has turned her into a raging control freak. I don’t think you’d like her much.
Lessa: Happy to please. I’m with you on meeting people online, though. People who meet me in real life either stereotype me based on my mixed ethnicity/how I look with the big eyes, tanned skin, and long hair, or assume certain things about me based on how I dress and the odd hours I keep (unemployed, stoner, lazy student, hoodlum, who knows what else). I don’t exactly demand recognition from everyone I meet, but I admit it does amuse me to shock people when they find out that I’m a degreed professional who manages to make a decent living writing and who basically works for himself/runs his own business with various enterprises on the side. I guess I don’t give off that “self-sufficient” vibe, if only because people are too quick to jump to conclusions. People who meet me online first tend to get to know me through my writing, so they have a better idea of the person behind whatever assumptions they make regarding my physical appearance, both good and bad.
Del: I’m not that petty; Wal-Mart’s been laying people off left and right lately and all it would take is one bad word for him to lose his job. I’d like to smack him upside the head; I don’t want to send him to the unemployment line.
Lyndsey: Ha. Ha. Hey, Wal-Mart is cheap and convenient. (I know, I know, labor in third-world countries, etc…but it’s right there across the street! And open 24/7!)
…okay, I think I’ve gone up through the comments in reverse order, and now I need to stop stalling and get my butt back to work on my projects for New!Job. (Sleep? HA! I laugh in the face of your steenking sleep!)
February 1st, 2008 at 2:25 am
Gah, you’re so abusive. *pout*
February 1st, 2008 at 2:47 am
…you have no idea.
Wait, no…yes you do.
February 1st, 2008 at 3:31 am
Eek. You got that at Wal-Mart? Frayed jeans and a baggy T-shirt are what I usually wear to school. I don’t even have boots and an awesome jacket to go along with it xD Usually it’s a giant ski jacket and two or three scarves (because California isn’t warm enough for me) and MAYBE my AIDS dogtags if I can find them at the time. Granted, I tend to have my head buried too deep in a book for anyone to notice my clothes, and clay and paper mache are horrible with nice clothes..
I think the only time anyone ever actually commented on my clothes, other than my boyfriend’s obligatory compliments, was when I actually bothered dressing a nice shirt that happened to reveal part of my hip/side and a kid I never liked at school said something along the lines of, “Hey, Mari, your fat is showing.”
… Though that’s not as interesting as a beautifully written and engaging Wal-Mart story xD
February 1st, 2008 at 5:18 am
Don’t make promises unless you intend to keep them, Adri. xD
February 1st, 2008 at 6:37 am
~raises a brow~ You make it sound like I haven’t already kept quite a few of my promises. How’s the end of the week finding you, by the way?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:38 am
*head shake* you boys, I swear. And so far, no one else at Wal-Mart has thought my pajamas were couture fashion. King Soopers either. Odd. I’ll have to start telling the people there that they are. And now it’s not double posting, so yay for the word vituperative!
It’s not weird, is it? That I like to learn new words?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:44 am
How do you think it finds me? *looks for a new pair of pants*
February 1st, 2008 at 7:39 am
Utterly and unrepentantly, brother. Hi5. You know we can’t avoid a good verbal altercation if we have the response SITTING ON OUR TONGUE.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:31 am
…
~groans and facepalms~ He went there. I hoped he wouldn’t go there, but he went there. Someone remind me why I put up with that wretched man?
Kate: I’ve learned a bit more restraint over the years, darlin’, but underneath unfortunately I’m still the same bitchy Adrizen you’ve come to commiserate with.
Amanda: No, it’s not weird. I love learning new words. Remember how squealy I got when my hardcover edition of Merriam-Webster’s 11th Edition Collegiate Dictionary arrived? Not to mention the 15th Edition Chicago Manual of Style…I spent the weekend curled up with both, nose pressed into the pages. In my pajamas. Which are couture. If by “couture” you mean “so old no one makes or sells them anymore.”
February 1st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Can I just say that homeboy works at Wal-Mart and is therefore on the very bottom of the Totem Pole O’ Judgment?
Going to Wal-Mart dressed in any outfit that is not completely comfortable is like going to the gym wearing every bit of jewelry you own. It’s freaking unnecessary. Sadly, I do get those stares from women at the gym - you know the type, heavy make-up and perfect hairdos at 9 in the morning on a Saturday. Well, excuse me, fashion mavens; I didn’t know there was a law against going to the gym with last night’s hair and fraying track pants and busted Vans.
And I’m always up at 3:00 AM. I don’t think I get a pass, though, because I work night shift.
As for my own style of clothes - I’m either in pajamas, my work uniform, or gym clothes most of the time. If I actually do deign to bother putting on people clothes, it’s jeans and a cute shirt that shows off my, ahem, assets. As long as what I’m wearing is clean and free of stains/holes/rips/etc., I don’t really care. I tend to put more effort into hair and makeup. Hilariously, my friends always tell me they love my style. I’m like, “…uh…you love that I’m slutty and wear too much eyeliner?”
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Adri,
The fact that she looks like you means nothing to me, since I have not got the slightest idea what you look like….it’s your mind I’m after man, your mind
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
…then you definitely wouldn’t like her. We’re so different in terms of personality and outlook that I wouldn’t be surprised if she voted Huckabee in the New Hampshire primaries.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
You used the word twatwaffle to describe her and she might have voted Huckabee? I don’t care if she’s your blood…I’m feeling an instant sense of dislike.
Tell you what, you come across a female version of you and you let me know. Till then, I’ll just remain in love with you from afar
May 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Good post. I enjoyed reading your blog. I’ve added you to my bookmarks and will be back soon.