Am I a CLOWN to You?

As I was walking to class tonight (only to find out the class has been moved to Monday nights, which means I trekked all the way out to the SFSU campus for NOTHING!) a woman stopped me and said, "Wow! You've really put yourself together well. I LOVE the look!"

At first, after the "You've really put yourself together well" comment, I thought she might have mistaken me for a former classmate. A classmate that had, perhaps, had an obvious drinking problem, and this woman was impressed in seeing her in clean clothes. Or, perhaps she was just surprised to see someone like me (whatever THAT might mean) in a something besides sweats. But it was the "love the look" comment, and the way she said it, that made me realize she wasn't mistaking me for someone else, and she was just commenting on my choice of dress and shoes.

Obviously, what she said didn't make me feel good. It made me feel self-conscious, and it made me start to think that perhaps my choice of clothing looks more like a costume than...clothing. And if that's the case, is that just the fashion equivalent of walking around in, say, a shiny, polka dot jumper and clown shoes?

And then I saw a fellow student with Cosmo Kramer hair, wearing Swifty Lazar sunglasses, a pale blue polyester shirt, huge green bell-bottom cords, and pointy brown Beatle boots, and I decided, as far as costumes go, at least mine MATCHES!