I remember the first time I ever quoted a song lyric. Not the first time I had ever repeated a line from a song, but the first time I repeated a line from a song because it seemed to pertain to my life at the moment. I was in 5th grade. I was using my lame middle school fashion sense to try to spiff up my lame middle school uniform. This resulted in me spending an entire school day (and probably a good few hours of after school activities) wearing a white polo and navy blue, fingertip rule approved skirt. Fine. But I chose to top it off with a light blue sweater with belled sleeves and a strange crocheted bit that went from where a normal sweater should stop (that is, at the waist) down to round about my knees. I remember it clearly because I loved that weird sweater thing. If I hadn't snagged the fancy crocheted loops on every screw and nail in Denver and I was still a girl's size 14 I would probably still love it. It was borderline ugly in that special way that I find charming.
Anyway, coolness of that particular article of clothing aside, the outfit as a whole was off kilter, owing in large part to the solid 4 inches of weird crocheted sweater tail that was hanging below the hem of my skirt. I guess I knew that there was something about my ensemble that the other kids found strange but I was hell bent on sticking with the notion that it was funky and unique (I really haven't changed at all). So, at some point in the day I found my self saying to some kid or another, "I thought I'd take my look from that one song, you know? With the short skirt and the long jacket?" The band was Cake, (though I didn't know that at the time) and I got some strange kind of satisfaction out of the whatever weirdo look that kid gave me before walking away.
Looking back on it that must have been about the time when I discovered that magical ability of rock music to take anything, even a poorly proportioned outfit, and make it seem really cool. And somewhere, subconsciously, I felt that coolness and came to the conclusion that if I could work it into my life I too would be cool. And when the other kids didn't think I was cool because they didn't know what song or band I was talking about... well, that just made me even cooler.
I haven't changed a bit
....
Though, I am a touch more subtle these days.
