Important – Dress Like An Explosion

‘Dress like an explosion.” My own precept that I often think of in the morning. The body as canvas for the day’s art. An explosion of colour, texture, print. Clothing that reminds you, echoes something. My son wears outfits as disguise and a goodly number of folks wear whatever was on the floor and smelled clean but I take seriously what I put on the body. Even in the 3 or 4 layers of winter, I try to incorporate some plan.
Nearly 7AM but the morning sky looks like 7pm. Dark with all its warnings fully displayed. “I will rain and thunder on you wearing your first spring dress” (albeit with a sweater beneath). This is a long black button up the front, with mathematically-placed surrealistic white daisies. On top of it is a Daliesque demented poncho that does pscyadelic things with the daisies – they contort, swirl & go off into dream sequences. There are small shiny beads sprinkled into what looks like a time warp. Fits the dress perfectly, proclaiming me either a mad woman for wearing or someone at the height of fashion. Cries out for a big black hat or a swirl of a cloche which seem to be back again.
I take outfits out for a test run at the pool before I wear them nonchalantly in public. So many artists swim early in the morning, (though most have their eyes scrunched up, sleepwalk and only seem to awake when they hit the water, if then – “I dreamed I was swimming and when I awoke, I was…’)
At any rate, they will bluntly say what they think of it. I will know by then how I feel in it. Already it is apparent there should be pockets but if I drop it by Quick Sew to get some installed, it will be another month. (”NEXT Tuesday. Did you think I meant, THIS Tuesday?’ gales of laughter. The following Tuesday. “Oh, not TODAY! Next Tuesday…’).
But they do good work of the sort I cannot do plus they have a sewing machine. Maybe I will tire of it soon and take it to them for a little time out. They are only a block away, very good people and seem to regard me as a stand-up comedian on the level of George Carlin. They tempt me to learn at least one Asian dialect besides my few words of Korean which cause much hilarity in the sauna.
Having written all this, I must get someone to take a picture of me in said outfit and post it here which I still cannot do at all despite the PhD quality instructions written in some English-speak I have heretoforth not been aware telling me how simple it all is.
Look outside. Almost ready to head to pool with swim bag containing shampoo, conditioner, backup shampoo, conditioner, hairdryer in case someone is hogging the single one in the locker room which is actually a hand dryer but it works, red nearly threadbare suit & orange & red rubber pool shoes, small cloth catbag for hairbrush, camera & credit cards which I wear around my waist except for swimming, extra pens and small pad which always gets wet, usually a book or two for someone to whom I’ve mentioned a title, extra bobby pins (do they even call them that, anymore? And why ‘bobby?’ I’m sure there’s a blog somewhere dying to answer that.
Also a bag of library books (overdue) and a big bag of bags which I leave home so that I can buy yet another 30 from whatever shop I’m at, while telling them yes of COURSE I have bags just not with me, as though my sole intent is to corner the market on mostly ugly but reuseable bags with even uglier ads on their shiny surfaces. I’d be interested in seeing a dump full of these things and measuring just how quick they biodegrade. Actually, put all mine together and I’ve got the dump part..
So hard to know what to wear on days like these that start cold and then suddenly shoots up to boiling by 10AM leaving you downtown in your winter coat. Probably my lined pink jacket is the thing, modified to fit me by Quck Sew in just under 2 months.
This piece turned out to be a fashion blog coupled with a little What I’m Up To, which surprises me as much as the reader and shows just how nervous I am about what I’m REALLY up to at the moment which is startling, less than a week after Easter.
Maybe read like an explosion too. Nothing safe. I am still immersed in Vampire and working on a piece about how to slide over to the Paranormal genre from the mundane world of the standard suburban mystery. How do you come to understand what it is you are looking for in a good novel, other than, of course, a story that hauls you into the plot right away and doesn’t let you go till the last page. Instead of a regular old body and a tidy little murder, you get a shiftable body that might be furry or existential, fanged and winged of a variety of sizes and all the laws of physics suspended for the count. For anyone with a fundamentally good childhood education, it shouldn’t be too big a stretch. Remember when you wondered about fairies or wished your cat or dog could talk or longed for something furry to rock you in its arms (well someone of us did!) It’s all there for you in the paranormal genre, though you do have to pick your way rather carefully among all the authors throwing themselves on the bandwagon and dropping into their stories every creature ever conjured up in past attempts at horror.
Because the new mystery counterparts are NOT horrible, unless you go seek them out. Vampires go to church and buy their mothers a nice condo, zombies have more to them than death, communities of the undead have their pecking orders, demons are excellent investigators (if a little too inclined to strongarm.
Creature rules are still getting sorted out. Some vampires are just fine with the sun, others distintegrate immediately. I checked and you could start reading vampire stuff with picture books and grow all the way up reading nothing but vampire fiction. I wouldn’t recommend it. Paranormal writing has nowhere near peaked so it is impossible to give a blanket acceptance. Watch the romance writers, especially, they think the whole thing is just an excuse for steamier plots with a little fur. More on who I’ve enjoyed so far, coming soon, especially the woman who accidentally turns her boyfriend into a cat, only to have him laborousily booting up her computer and trying to get her to help change him back – while her original cat adores him & wants him to stay as he is. (Nothing funny going on there, tho, just a normal boyfriend-as-cat and regular cat-as-cat sort of thing). As I said, an odd post.