Cut Offs

       Fashion. At once completely superficial and shallow, and at the same time, a window into something about who we are and how we relate to each other. Fashion is at once a statement of our own humanity and of our own individuality. Its fascinating to me.
       So I’m hanging at one of my favorite local watering holes and start talking to a woman who I’m guessing is about fifteen years or so younger than I am. She notices what I’m wearing, and says to me, “Are those cut off jean shorts?” It seemed like a completely rhetorical question. Part of me wanted to reply in a total wise ass way. “No. They’re actually made of human skin, sewn from the hides of my most recent hostage victims. Like in The Silence of The Lambs…..”. But I refrained from that retort. What’s great about having so many creative voices inside you is that at any one moment you have a tremendous range of options from which to chose. In this moment, I went with something a little closer to home as opposed to a voice somewhere out in the stratosphere of my own imagination. But let me say, I’m grateful for those voices out on my cosmic imaginative fringe.
       Anyway, when she asked the redundantly rhetorically rhetoric query that had drippings of contempt, I said “Yes they are.” There was a pause, as if she was somehow surprised by my response. “Those……(longer pause)…..aren’t in” she said, her voice now laced with contempt. I immediately responded, “In What?”. Again, I think she expected some sort of pause after her probing question, because the rapidity of my retort caught her by surprise, as she stammered a bit and eventually came back with “Ah….in style” This time, she practically sneered when she spoke, and her voice was now completely overdosed with contempt .
       Ah yes. Style. How silly of me. Once again, it didn’t take me long to respond, which again surprised her. I’m not sure if she was used to dealing with men far less intelligent and articulate than myself, or if she expected me to be apologetic, or if she believed her questions about fashion and style so daunting to a man that it would render him tongue tied. No matter, but the pace of our conversation clearly flummoxed her. Without skipping a beat, I said “Who’s style? Yours? Madison Avenue’s? Silicon Valley’s? The World At Large?” Like a deer in a set of ten thousand watt halogen headlights, she gazed back at me without any clue how to keep the conversation moving along. So I didn’t wait for her, and provided something else for her to potentially latch onto.
       “Style comes from within. Style has nothing whatsoever to do with what other people think works. Style has absolutely everything to do with what you think works. With what you feels works. For yourself. You rock it form the inside out. Not the other way around. Can you dig it?”
       Another slight pause. “No. Not at all.”, she said. I then thought of my dad, who would abruptly walk away from a conversation (without so much as a good bye or any excuse whatsoever for his departure) from someone who was boorish. Dad would just vamoose from anyone who talked only about themselves, about how much money they made, who effectively carried on a monologue about how great they were without any interest in what he had to say, without any interest in having a true conversation. This woman didn’t qualify as that, but I could tell this was not going to qualify as stimulating conversation. So I said “Have a nice night”, and took off.
       Sometimes life feels like a pleasant long cruise down a straight highway. Sometimes it feels like an exciting formula one race through a thousand curves. And sometimes it feels like a hit and run accident.


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